Category: Uncategorized

  • Samsung chairman Lee Kun-hee dies after long illness

    Samsung chairman Lee Kun-hee dies after long illness

    Lee Kun-hee, the controversial yet legendary business titan who led Samsung’s rise from a modest South Korean company to a multinational conglomerate, died Sunday at the age of 78.

    “All of us at Samsung will cherish his memory and are grateful for the journey we shared with him,” the company said.

    Chairman Lee had been incapacitated for many years after he suffered a heart attack in 2014, which forced him to withdraw from public life. His son and vice-chairman of the company, Lee Jae-Yong, also known as Jay Y. Lee has been widely expected to take his father’s position.

    However, Lee has been involved in controversies time and time again. In 1995, he was found guilty of bribing President Roh Tae-woo through a slush fund, and in 2008 he was accused of tax evasion and embezzlement of funds. He was formally pardoned for each conviction.

    It’s not clear who will eventually inherit Lee’s shares in the conglomerate. Lee owns more than 4% of Samsung Electronics, more than 20% of Samsung Life Insurance, and nearly 3% of Samsung C&T, a construction and investment entity. His shares are worth billions of dollars.

    Lee’s father, Lee Byung-Chul, created Samsung in the 1930s as a small trading company and steadily expanded into retail, electronics, and other fields.

  • Deepak Perwani sparks outrage for fat-shaming journalist on live chat

    Deepak Perwani sparks outrage for fat-shaming journalist on live chat

    It’s 2020 and Pakistani celebrities are still guilty of fat-shaming. Last week it was Amna Ilyas and this week it’s fashion designer Deepak Perwani.

    In an Instagram live session with Hassan Sheheryar Yasin, Deepak while talking about fashion critics – including journalist Aamna Isani – had said: “Are they critics or the people who take money? They post reviews for money, even on Instagram”.

    On referring to her, he said, “Agar front pay na behtao to moti shor kar rahi hoti hai, motiyan shor kar rahi hoti hain kay free ka bag nahi mila.”

    “80% of the reviews are favourable to the people that they like,” he added.

    Later, when asked to share his thoughts on the Lux Style Awards, Deepak said: ” We don’t allow you to nominate us, who are you to dominate us? Apnay kapray toh dekho. Kya pehan kar ati ho. Humay baatao gi kay kapray kya hotay hain.”

    “You [Hassan] said this to me: ‘That woman, she doesn’t even know how to wear clothes herself and she is going to write a review about my clothes. She doesn’t even know what she is talking about’.”

    “These are your words from five years ago,” Deepak said to Hassan.

    Soon after the video from the live session went viral, social media users lashed out at Deepak for fat-shaming.

    https://twitter.com/zainaconda/status/1320317910900932610?s=20

    https://twitter.com/AliaChughtai/status/1320431377448423430?s=20

    Interestingly, just a few days back, Aamna had lauded Deepak’s new upcoming collection Shalimar.

    Following the backlash, Deepak apologised to Aamna for his comments.

    “I’m not the kind of person who would body shame anyone,” wrote the designer on Twitter. “My sincerest apologies for my choice of words. It just happened and was not meant to hurt anyone’s sentiments.”

    Deepak’s close friend designer Maheen Khan also encouraged everyone criticising to accept the apology and move on from the incident.

  • Police arrest beggar who owns five buildings, has over $190,000 in bank accounts

    Police arrest beggar who owns five buildings, has over $190,000 in bank accounts

    Police in Egypt have arrested a 57-year-old beggar who owns five buildings and has nearly 3 million Egyptian pounds ($191,164) in bank accounts, local media reported.

    The woman had feigned a leg amputation and used a wheelchair while begging in several provinces of the country, private newspaper Al Masry Al Youm reported.

    Police investigations revealed that she had been seen begging, claiming physical paralysis while sitting in a wheelchair. She was later seen walking on foot after finishing her rounds, according to eyewitnesses.

    Police also found that the offender, identified by her first name as Nafisa, does not suffer from any illness, and owns five residential buildings in the governorates of Gharbia and Qaliubia and nearly LE3 million in two banks, the report said.

    She was referred to public prosecution for questioning.

    Two weeks ago, police in Pakistan found Rs85,000 in a beggar’s bag who had lost his consciousness after a vehicle hit him.

    As per reports, the incident happened on Quetta’s Saryab road, where a motorcyclist allegedly hit the beggar, leaving him unconscious.

    He was taken Civil Hospital by police. While he was being treated for his wounds, his bag was checked to find out his identity. The beggar had been carrying Rs85,000 and some change. The bills were kept in a very organised manner, sorted by denomination and bound in separate bundles.

    Police said that the amount has been kept “safe” and will be returned to the beggar when he recovers.

  • Pandya takes a knee in IPL to support ‘Black Lives Matter’

    Pandya takes a knee in IPL to support ‘Black Lives Matter’

    Mumbai Indians all-rounder Hardik Pandya has become the first player in the ongoing Indian Premier League to take a knee in support of the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement.

    Pandya’s gesture came during the game against Rajasthan Royals here on Sunday.

    The all-rounder smashed 60 run from just 21 balls. After reaching his half century in the 19th over, he went down on a knee with his right arm raised to show solidarity with the movement against racism.

    West Indies all-rounder and Mumbai’s stand-in skipper Kieron Pollard responded by raising his right fist.

    After the match Pandya even tweeted a picture of himself with the caption “#BlackLivesMatter”.

    Last week, West Indies Test skipper Jason Holder, who plays for the Sunrisers Hyderabad, had expressed his disappointment over none of the IPL teams taking a knee in solidarity with the movement, which, he felt, went unnoticed in the league.

    “To be honest, I haven’t had one conversation up here around it (BLM). Sometimes it seems it has gone unnoticed, which is a sad thing. I guess it’s for us to re-highlight the importance of it, for people to understand what is happening in the world,” Holder had said.

    The “taking a knee” gesture started in the West Indies’ Test series in England this summer in protest against racism after African-American George Floyd was killed by an on-duty white police officer in Minneapolis.

    But the gesture was later discontinued for the subsequent tours of Pakistan and Australia. 

  • 10 streets in Islamabad sealed after surge in COVID-19 cases

    10 streets in Islamabad sealed after surge in COVID-19 cases

    The capital administration has sealed 10 streets in seven residential sectors after coronavirus cases surged in the city.

    Deputy Commissioner Islamabad Hamza Shafqaat took to Twitter to announce the COVID-19 hot spots, adding that “only people with jobs in essential services and negative COVID-19 certificate will be allowed to leave” in those areas.

    Islamabad has reported 19,012 coronavirus cases so far.

  • WhatsApp to charge business customers for ‘some services’

    WhatsApp has decided to charge its business account users for some of the services it provides to help it “build a business of its own”.

    According to a statement issued by the WhatsApp, it will charge “business customers for some of the services we offer, which will help WhatsApp continue building a business of our own while we provide and expand free end-to-end encrypted text, video and voice calling for more than two billion people”.

    “The global pandemic has made clear that businesses need fast and efficient ways to service their customers and make sales,” the messaging platform said in a press release. “Our research shows people prefer to message a business to get help and they’re more likely to make a purchase when they can do so.”

    “We’ve provided the WhatsApp Business app and WhatsApp Business API to help businesses of all sizes manage their chats. We’ve listened to feedback on what’s worked and believe WhatsApp can help make messaging the best way for consumers and businesses to connect,” read the statement.

    “The global pandemic has made clear that businesses need fast and efficient ways to service their customers and make sales. WhatsApp has become a simple and convenient resource in this time. More than 175 million people every day message a WhatsApp Business account. Our research shows people prefer to message a business to get help and they’re more likely to make a purchase when they can do so.”

  • France urges Muslims to stop boycott of French products over blasphemous cartoons

    France has urged Arab countries to stop calls for boycotts of French products, while President Emmanuel Macron vowed the country would never give in to “Islamic radicals”.

    The French Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement released on Sunday that in recent days there had been calls to boycott French products, notably food products, in several Middle Eastern countries as well as calls for demonstrations against France over the publication of satirical cartoons of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

    “These calls for boycott are baseless and should stop immediately, as well as all attacks against our country, which are being pushed by a radical minority,” the statement said.

    On Sunday, Macron tweeted, “We will not give in, ever to Islamic radicals.”

    “We do not accept hate speech and defend reasonable debate,” the French leader added.

    Calls to boycott French goods are already growing in the Arab world and beyond after Macron criticised Islamists and vowed not to “give up cartoons” depicting the Holy Prophet (PBUH).

    Macron’s initial comments, on Wednesday, had come in response to the beheading of a teacher, Samuel Paty, outside his school in a suburb outside Paris earlier this month, after he had shown the blasphemous cartoons during a class he was leading on free speech.

    With the French president pledging to fight “Islamist separatism”, which he said was threatening to take control in some Muslim communities around France, hashtags such as the #BoycottFrenchProducts in English and the Arabic #ExceptGodsMessenger trended across countries, including Pakistan, Kuwait, Qatar, Palestine, Egypt, Algeria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

  • Shaan says PTI is the ‘last hope’ for Pakistan

    Shaan says PTI is the ‘last hope’ for Pakistan

    Shaan has once again reiterated his support for Prime Minister Imran Khan and his vision of Naya Pakistan.

    Read more – Shaan asks ‘born-again politician’ Jawad Ahmad to support PM Khan

    In a recent interview with Arab News, Shaan said that though he is not from Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) or any other political party, he believes that Pakistan needs to give the PTI government, which came to power in 2018, more time to govern.

    “The race is not yet finished,” said the actor. “Give him [PM Imran] enough time to prove himself.”

    He continued: “As a Pakistani I feel that this [PTI government] is the last hope for democracy in the country.”

    Meanwhile, while talking about his criticism on the state-owned Pakistan Television (PTV) for airing Turkish series Diriliş: Ertuğrul, Shaan said that while the show was good, programmers at PTV need to “wake up and do their jobs”.

    “You can’t control the content of private channels. They will make what they think is right,” said Shaan. “But… you’ve got a channel that’s beyond satellite and that’s PTV.”

    “If PTV was producing what the Prime Minister thinks should be produced…I want to see that content,” added the actor. “I don’t know who’s doing the programming in PTV, but whoever it is needs to wake up and do his job.”

    Sharing his thoughts on vulgarity and content censorship, the actor said: “Nobody can define what vulgarity is… but there should be a line that none should cross.”

  • Of freedoms and censorship

    Of freedoms and censorship

    Pakistan is all set to launch its own version of Netflix. It was announced by Federal Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry that his ministry is all set to launch Pakistan’s first OTT (over-the-top) platform like Netflix.

    Chaudhry says that the aim is to put Pakistani content on the map and PEMRA has been asked to prepare guidelines keeping in mind the international market. He maintained that with internet freedom, censorship is unlikely. But in a country where PEMRA has started giving guidelines to products on how to make their television advertisements, where dramas are banned due to ‘indecency’, where video-sharing platforms are banned for spreading immortality, it would be interesting to see if international standards will be maintained without any trouble.

    Pakistan cannot get ahead in technology unless and until we get on with the times and stop censoring content.

    On the one hand, we are fighting censorship in the entertainment side and on the other, our mainstream news media is also facing a tough time. Geo News’ reporter Ali Imran Syed went missing for 22 hours on Friday. Mr Imran Syed was the one who had reported on the arrest of PML-N leader Captain (retd) Safdar from a Karachi hotel and whose CCTV footage was broadcast by Geo.

    Thankfully, the missing reporter returned safely the next day. Information Minister Shibli Faraz prayed for his safe return. According to journalist Mubashir Zaidi’s tweet, Ali Imran “was picked up by mistake regarding investigations of the murder of Maulana Adil. He was picked up for being a lookalike of one of the assassins. What’s surprising is that it took 22 hours to realize that he wasn’t the person they’re looking for.”

    Journalists going missing is not something unheard of in Pakistan. One considers it a miracle when missing journalists come back safely. In any civilised country, a journalist cannot be picked up like this. In Pakistan, we breathe a sigh of relief when journalists return alive. Media freedom is guaranteed under our Constitution but it is something that still alludes us.

    Censorship, be it in the media, entertainment industry, or any other sector, is detrimental to a nation’s growth. We hope that when the Pakistani version of Netflix is launched, the content that we see online will be creative and thought-provoking.

  • Sonya Hussyn expresses dissapointment with Lux Style Awards

    Sonya Hussyn expresses dissapointment with Lux Style Awards

    Actor Sonya Hussyn has lashed out at Lux Style Awards for not nominating her drama Saraab in any of the categories.

    “It’s very disappointing to see that a project like Saraab did not bag even a single nominations at LSA 2021,” she penned in an Instagram story.

    “We talk about the need for meaningful content that also educates masses with real issues but when finally created they’re hardly ever recognized/nominated for awards”, the Meri Gudiya star added.

    “Meaningful content or hit projects?” she asked, adding “never really understood the criteria for these award shows”.

    Lekin star Nausheen Shah has extended her support to Sonya for her relevant stance.

    Yesterday, the nominations for the 20th edition of Lux Style Awards (LSA) were announced. This year, the categories for feature films have been omitted due to the Covid-19 pandemic.