It’s the wedding season in the tinsel town as Sultana Siddiqui’s grandson is about to the knot soon, several A-list celebrities gathered at their recent events. Actresses Mahira Khan, Sanam Jung and Momal Sheikh spent some quality time together.
The trio captured their special moments. Sanam posted a special picture of the three leading ladies on her Instagram handle.
Also being seen with them is the morning show host and actress Nida Yasir. The ceremony was held in Karachi.
Ayeza Khan celebrated her eldest daughter Hoorain’s sixth birthday and went big on décor for her celebration party. She took to social media to share her feelings and birthday’s visuals with her fans.
The Mere Paas Tum Ho actress hosted another party for her daughter as per her wish, ” to do a play date with all her friends” at an outdoor location in Karachi. The Laapata diva shared the event’s pictures on her Instagram.
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On the work front, Ayeza will be seen next in Laapata opposite Sarah Khan and Ali Rehman Khan.
The Delta variant of Covid-19 is now the dominant strain worldwide, accompanied by a surge of deaths around the United States (US) almost entirely among unvaccinated people, US officials said on Friday.
US cases of coronavirus are more than 70 per cent over the previous week and deaths are up 26 per cent, with outbreaks happening in parts of the country with low vaccination rates, US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky said during a press briefing.
“This is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” Walensky said, adding that 97 per cent of people entering hospitals in the US with Covid-19 are unvaccinated.
The Delta variant, which is significantly more contagious than the original variant of the virus, has been reported around 100 countries globally and is now the dominant variant worldwide, top US infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci said.
Read More: Study reveals Pakistanis prayed for India during Covid-19 crisis
“We are dealing with a formidable variant” of Covid-19, Fauci said.
Walensky has urged the unvaccinated people to get Covid-19 shots and said Pfizer Inc’s and Moderna Inc’s vaccines have proven to be especially effective against the Delta variant.
She said people should get the second dose of the vaccine even if they have passed the recommended window of time for receiving it.
Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid said that 15 Chinese officials have been included in the ongoing investigation of the Dasu bus tragedy in which 13 people, including nine Chinese nationals, were killed, reports Dawn.
Addressing a press conference, Rasheed said, “The investigation of the event is at its final stages and the highest institutions of Pakistan are investigating it. Fifteen individuals from China have been included [in the investigation] as well.”
“We completely reassure the Chinese government that these culprits, hidden hands and enemies of CPEC (China-Pakistan Economic Corridor) and China-Pakistan friendship will never be forgiven at any cost,” he added.
Nine Chinese nationals and three Pakistanis lost their lives on Wednesday. Chinese workers and accompanying Pakistani staff were proceeding to their workplace for an ongoing project, as per a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA).
China had announced that it was sending a team to Pakistan to deal with the aftermath of the incident. “Today China will send a cross-departmental joint working group to Pakistan to help with relevant work,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian had said at a media briefing in Beijing.
A team comprising of 15 Chinese officials has reached Pakistan to probe into the Dasu bus tragedy.
Chinese ambassador to Pakistan has visited the site of the shuttle bus explosion near the Dasu Hydropower plant to investigate the cause, together with the Pakistani military and a Chinese team.
Minister for Planning, Development, and Special Initiatives Asad Umar on Friday said unvaccinated people were seven times more likely to contract the coronavirus than those inoculated.
After the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) meeting, the minister said vaccination was the only way solution to the virus.
Umar later took to Twitter and said, “The data analytics run by the NCOC team shows that comparative data of Pakistani’s who have been vaccinated versus those who are not vaccinated shows a marked difference in risk. The unvaccinated Pakistani’s are at 7 times higher risk of getting covid. Please get vaccinated.”
Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on National Health Services Dr Faisal Sultan said every day around 2,500 new cases were being reported, warning that the Delta variant was spreading fast.
Actor Ahsan Mohsin indulged in a fun Q&A session on his Instagram handle in which he answered multiple fan questions. The young star was asked about his good looks, passion for vintage cars and his relationship with Minal.
The Pyar Ke Sadqay actor also opened up on how his life has evolved post his engagement with the Jalan star.
Last month a video of the duo went viral in which Ahsan is opening a champagne bottle at his engagement’s after party with lady love, Minal Khan.
After popping the drink towards the guests, the actor started drinking directly from the bottle. The video of the post-engagement party went viral on social media and got polarizing response from netizens.
On the work front, Minal is currently starring in ARY Digital’s Ishq Hai opposite Danish Taimoor.
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Vice President Maryam Nawaz has alleged that there was a conspiracy to murder Nawaz Sharif when he was in jail.
“Opponents start to tremble as soon as they hear the name of Nawaz Sharif. He was ousted on the basis of Iqama. His position as a prime Minister was snatched from him,” said the Maryam while addressing a rally in Azad Kashmir.
"There was a conspiracy, a plan to kill Nawaz Sharif while he was still in jail," added Maryam.
“The Cabinet Meeting spends its time planning to stop Nawaz Sharif rather than investing its time for doing the public some good,” said Maryam.
“Nawaz Sharif resides in London and beats [the Opponents through votes] in their house in every election,” added Maryam Nawaz.
Prime Minister Imran Khan Thursday assured the Pakistani business community in Tashkent that his government was working on changing the National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) laws relating to bureaucrats and businessmen.
The prime minister told the entrepreneurs that the present government was committed to removing obstructions in the way of various businesses and industries, including the pharmaceutical industry.
The premier said the government is facing difficulty in finding quality Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) for government institutions as such experts mostly remain unwilling due to fear of NAB.
He said that with a change in the NAB law, the government will get quality people from bureaucrats and the business communities. That is why, he said, the NAB law regarding bureaucracy and businessmen is being changed.
The prime minister’s statement about the amendment in NAB laws comes days after Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin told Geo News in ‘Aaj Shahzeb Khanzada Kay Sath’ that the civil bureaucracy is scared of the anti-graft body and the government is working to change the NAB laws.
“The NAB law will change in a few weeks. The bureaucracy is not working at all because of the NAB,” said Tarin.
NAB rejected the Finance Minister’s claim. In a statement, NAB said that bureaucrats should not fear the anti-graft watchdog if they are carrying out their jobs in line with the Constitution, as it slammed the “constant propaganda” against the accountability bureau.
The aim behind the propaganda is to “discredit NAB and discourage the bureaucracy” from doing its job, the anti-graft body said, adding: “Bureaucracy is the backbone of any country; NAB respects the bureaucracy and values its services.”
“Corruption is the root of all evils. If the bureaucracy acts in accordance with the Constitution, it does not need to be afraid of NAB,” it added.
Pakistan and India will meet in the Super 12s stage of the 2021 men’s T20 World Cup, to be co-hosted by the UAE and Oman between October 17 and November 14. This will make it the first face-off between the two teams in more than two years; their last fixture was in the 2019 50-over World Cup.
On Friday, the International Cricket Council (ICC) announced the make-up of the groups – both for the first round and for the Super 12s stage – for the big-ticket tournament, which will be the first multi-team, global event organised by the ICC since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic early last year. The final of the World Test Championship, featuring India and New Zealand, was hosted in Southampton last month.
The ICC did not unveil the schedule for the 16-team tournament, which is expected to be finalised shortly.
The first-round matches will be split between two groups, with the games to be played in the UAE and Oman. Group A has Sri Lanka, Ireland, Netherlands and Namibia, while Group B has Bangladesh, Scotland, Papua New Guinea and Oman. The top two teams from each group will qualify for the Super 12s, which will be played in the three UAE centres – Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah.
Teams in the Super 12s have been pooled into two groups as well. India and Pakistan are in Group 2 alongside New Zealand, Afghanistan and two qualifiers – B1 and A2. Group 1 comprises defending champions West Indies along with England, Australia and South Africa and the other two qualifiers – A1 and B2. The groups, the ICC confirmed, were selected on the basis of the team rankings as of March 20, 2021.
In the 2020 edition of the tournament, which was originally scheduled for Australia and was later postponed by the ICC because of the Covid-19 pandemic, India and Pakistan were in different groups because they were number one and number two in the ICC T20I rankings at the time of the deadline. That would have been the first time the two teams would not have contested in the group stage of a global tournament since the 2011 50-over World Cup.
This time, India are second behind England, and ahead of New Zealand, followed by Pakistan, Australia, South Africa, Afghanistan and West Indies.
“There are some great match-ups offered by the groups and it starts to bring the event to life for our fans as our first multi-team event since the onset of the global pandemic draws closer,” Geoff Allardice, the ICC’s acting chief executive, said in a statement on Friday. “Given the disruption caused by Covid-19, we selected the cutoff date as close as possible to the event to ensure we were able to include the maximum amount of cricket in the rankings which determine the groups. There is no doubt we will witness some highly competitive cricket when the event gets underway in just three months.”
The tournament was earlier scheduled to be played in India, but owing to the uncertainty caused by the pandemic in the country, the BCCI decided to move it overseas, even though the Indian board continues to be official hosts for the event.
Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday countered Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s claims about Pakistan’s “negative role” in the Afghan peace process and said, “To blame Pakistan for what is going on in Afghanistan I feel is extremely unfair.” PM Khan was addressing the international conference on “Central and South Asia Regional Connectivity: Challenges and Opportunities” during his two-day visit to Uzbekistan.
“President Ghani, let me just say that the country that will be most affected by turmoil in Afghanistan is Pakistan. Pakistan suffered 70,000 casualties in the last 15 years. The last thing Pakistan wants is more conflict,” the premier said
“To blame Pakistan for what is going on in Afghanistan, I feel, is extremely unfair,” said PM Khan.
“Why would I come to Kabul if I was not interested in peace? The whole idea was that Afghanistan should have looked at Pakistan as a partner in peace. I feel really disappointed that we have been blamed for what is going on in Afghanistan.”
“I repeat, the last thing we want is turbulence in Afghanistan,” said PM Khan.
PM Khan added, “What is happening in Afghanistan is over two decades of conflict, deep divisions, and unfortunately the United States (US) seeking a military solution when there was no one. When there were 150,000 Nato troops in Afghanistan, the greatest military machine, that was the time to ask the Taliban to come on the table. Why were the Taliban to compromise when their existing date was given and with only a few thousand American troops left? Why would they [Taliban] listen to us, when they are sensing victory?”
He said that he had a conversation with Uzbekistan President Shavkat Mirziyoyev about how all the neighbours in the region can help the Afghan peace process.
“All neighbours are interested in a peace settlement in Afghanistan. There are already three million Afghan refugees in Pakistan. We are petrified that will be another flow of refugees coming in. We do not have the capacity or the economic strength to bear another flow of refugees. So I can assure you again, if any country is trying its best of all the countries in the world, it’s Pakistan today.”
Director-General Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Lt Gen Faiz Hameed Friday rejected the allegations of infiltration levelled by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.
Afghan president had levelled unsubstantiated accusations against Pakistan, saying that 10,000 fighters had crossed over into Afghanistan from Pakistan.
“If talks fail, we will fight the Taliban,” said Ghani. “This is the last chance for peace,” he had said.
DG ISI explicitly stated that these accusations against Pakistan are not true. In fact, infiltration is being done from Afghanistan, he added.
“We want peace in the neighbouring country as a peaceful and stable Afghanistan is in the interest of Pakistan and other countries,” DG ISI said.
He said that Pakistan is not supporting any group in Afghanistan. “We are interested in a negotiated settlement among all the Afghan groups,” added DG ISI.