Veteran journalist Imran Aslam breathed his last on Friday morning at the age of 70 after a long battle with cancer. The newsman was also the president of Geo and Jang Group.
In his decades long career, Imran Aslam was a renowned as a scriptwriter, actor, voice actor, and president of a TV network. His son Taimur has said that his father’s funeral prayers will be offered after Asr on Saturday near their house and the burial will take place at a graveyard in DHA, Phase 8, Karachi.
People from all walks of life condoled Aslam’s death.
Prime Minister (PM) Shehbaz Sharif wrote in a tweet, “Saddened by the passing of veteran journalist and president of Geo TV Imran Aslam. He belonged to a breed of journalists who made eminent contribution to the development of Pakistani journalism. I extend my heartfelt condolences to his family, friends & colleagues.”
Saddened by the passing of veteran journalist and president of Geo TV Imran Aslam. He belonged to a breed of journalists who made eminent contribution to the development of Pakistani journalism. I extend my heartfelt condolences to his family, friends & colleagues.
Heartbroken to hear about the passing away of Imran Aslam An outstanding professional , a caring human being and a close friend. May Allah give him a place in Jannat. Ameen pic.twitter.com/nhAPyjyEyw
Deeply saddened to hear about Imran Aslam’s passing in Karachi. Describing what he was or what he excelled in is beyond this space. Tippu as he was known, was a polymath,as well as a dear friend from decades of journalism together. Pakistan’s cultural space lost a big creator.
Woke up to this sad news that #ImranAslam sahib is no more. Many journalists, including myself, owe our careers to him. May Almighty Allah rest his soul in eternal peace. pic.twitter.com/Q2oZx1gIqI
Shocking new. My old colleague and presently Group President GEO and Jang, Imran Aslam has passed away this morning. May Allah give his family strength to bear the loss. He was one of the finest person i came across since the days i first met him in 90s in daily The Star.
Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) leader Moonis Elahi has revealed that former army chief General (retd) Qamar Javed Bajwa had advised his party to back Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) when the no-confidence motion was moved against former Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Elahi further revealed that both PTI and Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) had made offers to PML-Q. However, Gen (retd) Bajwa asked them to support the Imran Khan-led party. “I had an inclination towards PTI, and everyone knows about it. So I discussed it with my father. And then my father said to side with [PTI]. If Bajwa was so bad, why did he ask us to side with PTI at such a crucial junction,” he asked during an interview with Meher Bokhari.
It was General Bajwa who asked us to side with Imran Khan and go against PDM, says Moonis Elahi dealing a blow to PTI’s foreign conspiracy narrative pic.twitter.com/GXG3fdHkcc
Moonis then criticized the social media campaign against General Bajwa, stating that, “Certain elements are busy on social media bashing Bajwa sahib without any reason. This is the same Bajwa who changed the course of rivers for the PTI. Back then he [Bajwa] was right, but now he is not. I have a total disagreement with those who are now talking against him.”
“When he was giving you all-out support, he was right,” the PML-Q leader said, wondering if Bajwa how had the retired military head now become a “traitor” to them.
Moonis said that there was no doubt that the former COAS fully supported PTI, but when he withdrew his support, he had become a bad person. “This is a bad example and I have a disagreement with them on it. He [Bajwa] was never against the PTI.”
“Had he [Bajwa] been against them [PTI] at that juncture, he just had to give a signal, and we would have been sitting with them [PDM],” Moonis said.
The PML-Q leader said when the establishment says that they have nothing to do with politics, he believes that because they have not influenced the Punjab government.
Following the Ministry of Finance’s decision to allow blocked payments to international service providers, including Google, on the advise of IT Minister Aminul Haque, Pakistan averted the suspension of paid Google Play mobile apps on Thursday.
وزارت خزانہ نے وزیر آئی ٹی سید امین الحق کی تجویز مان لی، گوگل کو ادائیگی پر راضی
“پیمنٹس شیڈول کے مطابق کی جاسکیں گی، پیڈ گوگل ایپس بند نہیں ہونگی،” (امین الحق) pic.twitter.com/7rsFIogU5v
A $34 million payment suspension by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to foreign service providers might have prevented inward mobile users from downloading paid Google Play Store services using their cell balance as a source of payment starting on December 1, 2022.
After the SBP stopped using the direct carrier billing (DCB) mechanism, a $34 million payment to foreign service providers like Google, Amazon, and Meta was put on hold.
Using their mobile phone carrier bill as a form of payment, users of the DCB online mobile payment system can make purchases.
According to Geo, customers of telecommunications firms can buy these products using airtime and send money abroad to pay for IT-related services.
However, Tariq Bajwa, the Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Finance, got in touch with Haque and expressed his thoughts on the payments that had been halted.
The Finance Ministry agreed to distribute the payments on schedule, the IT minister later confirmed.
Insisting that “paid Google Play apps will not be suspended in Pakistan,” he said that the Finance Ministry had instructed the SBP to postpone for one month the implementation of the policy that had blocked payments.
He stated that the payment method must be implemented by telecom companies within a month.
According to the IT minister, the ministry has written to the finance minister, Ishaq Dar, requesting a timeline for the implementation of the telecom operators’ request for help from the government. Haque commended Dar and Bajwa for their prompt judgement.
Pakistan now has the highest rate of Hepatitis C infections, with over 500,000 people getting the disease since 2015, Geo has reported. According to Dr. Homie Razavi, an epidemiologist at the Centre for Disease Analysis (CDA) in the United States, Pakistan has the highest global prevalence of Hepatitis C infections, with an estimated 10 million persons affected.
“Pakistan is now home to the world’s largest population of patients living with Hepatitis C, surpassing even China, India and Nigeria. We have been working for the last two years with various provincial health departments in Pakistan and following detailed research and analysis, we found that around half a million new Hepatitis C infections emerged in Pakistan from 2015 to 2021. The total number of Hepatitis C patients is estimated to be 10 million in Pakistan, the highest in the world,” Dr Razavi told a news briefing in Karachi.
Suggesting that Pakistan should learn from Egypt which has successfully brought down it’s rate of the potentially fatal virus. In 2015, Egypt had the fourth-highest number of Hepatitis C infections; today, it has the seventeenth-highest number. According to Dr. Razavi, Egypt established a national programme to screen its whole population and treated everyone who tested positive.
Bollywood actor Arjun Kapoor took to his Instagram handle to slam Malaika Arora’s fake pregnancy news report by media outlet Pinkvilla. The portal reported that Malaika and Arjun Kapoor are expecting their first child together.
Arjun immediately reacted to the news through their social media handles mentioning Pinkvilla and its journalist Nikita Dalvi, and disregarded the reports.
He said, “This is the lowest that you could have gone and you have done it by being casual, insensitive, and absolutely unethical in carrying garbage news. This journalist has been writing such pieces regularly and getting away with it because we tend to ignore these fake gossip articles while they spread across media and become the truth. This is not done. Don’t dare to play with our personal lives.”
In another post, he wrote, “Karma comes after everyone eventually. You cannot get away with screwing people over your whole life, I don’t care who you are. What goes around, comes around. That’s how it works. Sooner or later the universe will serve you the revenge you deserve.”
They have been dating each other for over three years now. The two made it Instagram official a couple of years back in 2019 and do not shy away from posting about each other. Rumours about their wedding have been doing the rounds for quite sometime now.
Arjun initially dated Malaika’s ex-sister-in-law, Arpita and hence Salman Khan broke all ties with him after he started dating Malaika.
Earlier this year the Ishaqzaade star slammed a media outlet for comparing his wealth with Malaika.
Hitting out at the news report, he wrote, “It’s sad & shameful to read a daft headline like this is 2021. Of course, she earns well & has worked for so many years to be in a place not be compared to anyone let alone me.”
An emotionally charged trailer of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s forthcoming Netflix documentary series has been released, as Buckingham Palace reels from a racism incident and during a key visit to the US by the Prince and Princess of Wales.
In the 1 min 12 sec “teaser”, Harry and Meghan share previously unseen intimate photographs, some showing the duchess apparently crying, with one scene showing Harry with his head tilted back as his wife appears to wipe away her tears with both hands.
Calling the Sussexes ‘unpredictable’, Richard Fitzwilliams said that the trailer’s release was ‘obviously timed to take away from the Wales’ trip to Boston’, adding that Meghan and Harry ‘like control their narrative’.
In the teaser, an unseen interviewer asks: “Why did you want to make this documentary?” a montage of black and white photographs flashes up. One shows Meghan curled up on a chair, head in hands on the phone and seemingly distressed. Harry says: “No one sees what is happening behind closed doors.”
The trailer then cuts to a photograph of a stern-looking Kate, with William sitting beside her, and Meghan behind, taken at the Commonwealth Day service before the Sussexes left the UK.
Further photographs show Meghan sombre in a black hat, taken at the funeral of Queen Elizabeth, and another of a bank of press photographers, as Harry continues: “I had to do everything I could to protect my family.” A picture shows Meghan seated in a car seemingly wiping away tears.
Meghan tells the interviewer: “When the stakes were this high, doesn’t it make more sense to hear our story from us?”
Other, happier, personal photographs show Harry playing guitar for his wife, the couple hiking with him holding picked flowers, wading in a stream with their dogs, a pregnant Meghan in silhouette, dancing at their wedding, and sharing a kiss in their kitchen.
In an accompanying statement, Netflix described “Harry & Meghan” as a “never-before-seen look at one of the most discussed couples in history”.
The timing of the trailer is not the best for Buckingham Palace, which is still dealing with the aftermath of the resignation of Lady Susan Hussey, one of the late Queen’s ladies-in-waiting, after she questioned the charity founder Ngozi Fulani about where she was “really from” at a palace reception. The palace and William, her godson, described the comments as “deeply regrettable” and “unacceptable”.
Pakistani singer-turned-politician Abrar-ul-Haq has sung a song titled “Hai Haq Hamara Azaadi” for his party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).
The song was released by Haq’s YouTube channel on 26 November and has managed to get more than 70,000 views so far.
The party chief Imran Khan also shared the song on his official Twitter account and said “it’s a great Tarana about Haqeeqi Azadi”.
He further wrote that only truly free (Azad) nations “fulfill their immense human potential to rise and become Iqbal’s Shaheen.”
Abrar ul Haque has again come up with a great tarana about Haqeeqi Azadi. Only truly free (Azad) nations fulfill their immense human potential to rise & become Iqbal’s Shaheen.pic.twitter.com/MEifeG5wza
After the release, Twitter couldn’t help but praise the song while some argued that “Kinnay Kinnay jaana PM day ghar would have been a banger”. Here is how people on Twitter are reacting :
Abrar is much better connected with common citizens of Pakistan than majority of vlogger journalists. He is simply great a singer& a messanger for right decision by people. https://t.co/HaWRuTPRH1
Federal Minister for Climate Change, Sherry Rehman, has been included in theFinancial Times list of ’25 most influential women of 2022′.
The first minister of Scotland- Nicola Ferguson Sturgeon—one of the article’s writers—termed Sherry Rehman a “negotiator with grit”.
Describing the climate minister, Ferguson said, “Rehman’s negotiating skills, her pragmatism in navigating the blocks that developed countries put in her way and her campaigning voice were instrumental in the progress on loss and damage at COP27.”
According to her, at the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP27, Sherry Rehman gave a powerful account of the devastating floods in Pakistan
“I have no doubt that Sherry will continue in her campaign for climate justice, for global financial reform and for the vital funds required to secure a future for those parts of Pakistan that will suffer the impact of this year’s floods for a long time to come”, the Scotland minister added.
Apart from Sherry, the list also includes the women of Iran who “have been denied for too long: dignity, personal bodily autonomy, the freedom to live safely in their own country”. Women in Iran are protesting since September when a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, was snatched off the street by the “morality police” for allegedly failing to wear the hijab correctly. She died in police custody.
Tennis player Serena Williams, the world’s youngest elected leader Prime Minister (PM) of Finland Sanna Marin, United States (US) Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and others are also on the list.
Many Iranians celebrated their country’s defeat in the Fifa World Cup against the US on November 30. The celebrations have left a lot of people perplexed. The reason behind the merrymaking dates back to September.
Iran is a country where people are very passionate about football. Now they are out in the streets in the city of Sanandaj & celebrate the loss of their football team against US. They don’t want the government use sport to normalize its murderous regime.pic.twitter.com/EMh8mREsQnpic.twitter.com/MqpxQZqT20
Iran has been rocked by protests since more than two months, after the custodial death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was arrested by the country’s morality police for allegedly violating the Islamic dress code. The people of Iran have refused to support the national football team, as they think the team represents the government.
A man has been also reported to have been killed in Iran by security forces in northern Iran.
Mehran Samak, 27, was shot dead after honking his car horn in Bandar Anzali, a city on the Caspian Sea coast, north-west of Tehran. According to the Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights (IHR) Samak “was targeted directly and shot in the head by security forces … following the defeat of the national team against America.”
Videos shared on Twitter show Iranians dancing on the streets in a rare display of joy after the videos of burning tires and protesting crowds that have emerged from the country in recent months. But the dancing and celebratory honking was also a show of protest as they denounced the football team’s participation in the World Cup at such a tumultuous time.
Singer-actor Farhan Saeed has reacted to a netizen’s demand of ‘Boycotting Tich Button‘ because of his co-star Feroze Khan.
The Mere Hamsafar star took to Twitter and shared his two cents about Feroze Khan’s inclusion in the rom-com.
A Twitter user while addressing Saeed shared, “I would like to request to you all people. Do not watch this movie Tich Button because it features a ‘wife beater’.” She went on to tag Khan in the said tweet as well.
The Suno Chanda star then replied to the tweep and commented, “Well Ayesha, I respect your opinion but before you just put a cross on the hard work of almost 300 people for almost three years, you should know this movie was shot in 2019.” Saeed further shared, “You don’t just cancel the hard work of so many people.”
Actress Mathira shared her two cents on Farhan’s statement.
Feroze has been accused of physically abusing his former wife, Syeda Aliza Sultan.
