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  • Pakistan to import vegetables from neighbouring countries to overcome shortage

    Pakistan to import vegetables from neighbouring countries to overcome shortage

    After devastating floods ravaged the nation, Pakistani officials made the decision to import onions and tomatoes from Iran and Afghanistan due to the rising prices and imminent food crisis.

    The production and supply of vegetables and other crops has been impacted by the recent torrential rains and flooding.

    At a meeting presided over by Commerce Minister Naveed Qamar, the Ministry of Commerce made the announcement. The minister also examined the country’s supply of tomatoes and onions.

    To address the nationwide demand for these crops, the session voted to facilitate the import of onions and tomatoes from Afghanistan and Iran.

    According to The News, the panellists predicted that there will be a tomato and onion shortage in the nation within the next three months. They also stated that because recent flooding has harmed crops, a shortage and price increase are anticipated.

    The News reports that the importation of tomatoes and onions will help to uplift their availability and maintain their pricing.

    The Ministry of Commerce would collaborate with the FBR and the Ministry of National Food Security, it was decided at the meeting. The session also resolved to request reductions in taxes and charges from the federal cabinet’s Economic Coordination Committee for imported tomatoes and onions.

    Earlier, Qamar had emphasised the importance of taking quick action to make tomatoes and onions available to consumers and to stabilise the skyrocketing costs of these commodities. Due to a lack of supply in the market as a result of recent floods, the price of onions and tomatoes has reached Rs 300 per kg.

  • Last USSR Leader Mikhail Gorbachev dies

    Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, died at the age of 91. He ended the Cold War without bloodshed but failed to prevent the collapse of the Soviet Union.

    “Gorbachev died this evening after a serious and long illness,” the Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow said late on Tuesday. He died after a long illness.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed “deep sympathies” over Gorbachev’s death.

    The official news agency of Russia reported Gorbachev will be buried at Moscow’s Novodevichy Cemetery next to his wife.

    United Nations (UN) chief Antonio Guterres in a statement praised Gorbachev as “a one-of-a-kind statesman who changed the course of history” and “did more than any other individual to bring about the peaceful end of the Cold War”.

    The spokesperson of the Russian government said that Putin had an ambiguous relationship with Gorbachev. Putin had referred to the end of the Soviet Union as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century”.

    Gorbachev led the USSR from 1985 until its collapse in 1991 and is seen as one of the most important figures of 20th century history. However, while he enjoys a positive reputation outside of the country, he is viewed differently inside Russia. 

    In a 2021 poll, more than 70 per cent of Russians said their country had moved in a negative direction during Gorbachev’s rule, while he was previously ranked as the most unpopular Russian leader of the past century, a state-run pollster said.

  • ‘Wasn’t aware it would cause trouble’: Ranveer Singh records statement in nude photoshoot case

    ‘Wasn’t aware it would cause trouble’: Ranveer Singh records statement in nude photoshoot case

    Bollywood actor Ranveer Singh grabbed all the eyeballs when he shared his nude photoshoot for an international magazine on social media. The Bajirao Mastani hero’s pictures went viral, and while many had nice things to say about them, the actor received a lot of trolling and backlash for it too. Ranveer became the center of controversy after he shot nude photographs for Paper Magazine. An FIR was filed by a city-based Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) that said Ranveer had hurt the sentiments of women in general and insulted their modesty by posting nude photographs on social media platforms.

    Recently, Ranveer was summoned to appear before the police on August 22, but he could not appear in front of the Police on the given date due to his professional commitments. On Monday, Ranveer appeared before the Mumbai Police to record his statement in connection with the FIR registered against him between 7 am and 9.30 am. As per ETimes, a source close to Mumbai police revealed that in his statement to the police officers, the actor maintained that he had not uploaded the controversial photos. Furthermore, also said that he didn’t realise that the nude photoshoot would create trouble for him.

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    Meanwhile, on the work front, Ranveer was last seen in Jayeshbhai Jordaar which also starred Shalini Pandey, Boman Irani, and Ratna Pathak Shah. Apart from this, the Dil Dhadakne Do actor will be seen next in Karan Johar’s film, Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani with Alia Bhatt, Dharmendra, Shabana Azmi, and Jaya Bachchan in the lead, which is slated to release in the cinemas on 10 February 2023. Ranveer also has other projects including Rohit Shetty’s Cirkus co-starring Jacqueline Fernandez, Pooja Hegde, and Varun Sharma.

    On being asked recently about her opinion on the naked photoshoot and the FIR against Ranveer Singh, Bollywood star Vidya Balan said, “Arre kya problem hai? Pehli baar koi aadmi aisa kar raha hai, hum logo ko bhi aankhein sekhne dijiye na (What’s the problem. A man is doing it for the first time, let us also please our eyes).”

    Senior actress Nadia Afgan expressed her agreement with Balan’s reaction to Singh’s shoot.

    Taking to her Instagram stories, the Suno Chanda star reshared Vidya’s reaction to the bold shoot and added, “Exactly”.’

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  • Here’s a list of the top 10 richest people of the world

    According to the latest list by Forbes, these are the world’s richest people who have made it to the top 10.

    Elon Musk

    Elon Musk, who is in the news because of his battle with Twitter, has a net worth of $263.4 billion.

    SpaceX is valued at almost $100 billion and Tesla is the world’s most important automaker.

    Bernard Arnault and Family

    Europe’s richest man who earned a $100 billion fortune last year, the chairman and CEO of LVMH, Bernard Arnault, is second on the list with a net worth of $167.7 billion. The family owns more than 70 brands.

    Jeff Bezos

    Jeff Bezos is the founder and CEO of Amazon and has a net worth of $162.7 billion. Even though he transferred much of his wealth to his wife after their divorce, the e-commerce giant remains the third richest.

    Gautam Adani and family

    India’s Gautam Adani has diversified Adani Group into multiple sectors, including aerospace, logistics, and energy. At $142.7 billion, he is now the fourth richest person in the world.

    Bill Gates

    Bill Gates has a net worth of $113.4 billion.

    Larry Ellison

    With a net worth of $108.5 billion, Larry Ellison — the founder of software firm Oracle — stands at the sixth position. Ellison has also been on Tesla’s board after he bought three million shares in 2018, reported Business Insider. Almost all of the Hawaiian island Lanai belongs to Ellison.

    Larry Page

    Google’s co-founder Larry Page has a net worth of over $100 billion. Among other interesting projects, he is funding “Flying Car”.

    Sergey Brin

    Sergey Brin is the co-founder and board member of Alphabet. He also co-founded Google. He has a total net worth of $97.0 billion.

    Mukesh Ambani

    Mukesh Ambani with a total net worth of $94.2 billion is at the 10 position in the world. He owns Reliance Industries and has been the richest person in Asia.

  • Netflix cancels Ahad’s Resident Evil’s season 2 due to a lukewarm response to season one

    Netflix cancels Ahad’s Resident Evil’s season 2 due to a lukewarm response to season one

    Netflix premiered the new Resident Evil series featuring Pakistani star Ahad Raza Mir in July this year. The Hum Tum star’s performance and appearance in the show made his Pakistanis and Indians explode on Twitter with joyful tweets, expressing their excitement. His fans were ecstatic to see him in the new sci-fi horror series. Ahad essayed ‘Arjun Batra’, an Indian refugee following the global T-virus pandemic.

    However, Netflix has now opted not to renew Mir’s Resident Evil for a second season. The news comes a month and a half after it debuted on the site on July 14.

    On Friday, Deadline reported that the show did not have a strong enough showing on Netflix’s worldwide top 10 ratings, nor was its cost versus views on the streaming site high enough, a criteria for any show to be renewed.

    Falling behind Stranger Things, which was released at the same time, Resident Evil, which starred Charlie’s Angels actor Ella Balinska, debuted at the second spot on the worldwide trends list with 72.7 million hours viewed on its opening weekend. However, the show did not deliver big for the second week. For the third week, the show dropped, falling out of the top 10 ranking.

    Deadline reported that the latest Resident Evil incarnation also logged an underwhelming 55 percent from critics on Rotten Tomatoes and a total of 26pc audience scores.

    Based on a video game, Resident Evil hails from showrunner Andrew Dabb and is placed in the future in 2036, 14 years after a virus that causes a global apocalypse, and Balinska’s Jade Wesker fights to survive in the new world of blood-thirsty creatures.

    The series also stars Lance Reddick, Tamara Smart, Siena Agudong, Adeline Rudolph Connor Gosatti, and Turlough Convery. Resident Evil was produced and written by Mary Leah Sutton of Time After Time.

    When the series was released, Mir’s fans took to social media to praise his performance and celebrate his appearance as the first Pakistani actor to star in a major Netflix show.

  • Flood-related losses may exceed $10 billion: Ahsan Iqbal

    Flood-related losses may exceed $10 billion: Ahsan Iqbal

    Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal said that the initial economic losses caused by the floods in Pakistan cost at least $10 billion.

    The estimated cost was disclosed by Planning Minister on Monday, saying that Pakistan needed help from the rest of the world to deal with the consequences of climate change.

    Unexpected monsoon rains have caused historic flash floods that have destroyed bridges, crops, infrastructure, and highways, killing over 1,000 people and affecting more than 33 million. “I think it is going to be huge. So far, (a) very early, preliminary estimate is that it is big, it is higher than $10 billion,” Iqbal said.

    The minister estimated that the 200-million-person South Asian country, which will be facing an acute food scarcity, may take five years to reconstruct and recover.

     Along with significant damage to the rice fields, he claimed that 45 per cent of the cotton harvests had been washed away. “I think it is going to be huge. So far, (a) very early, preliminary estimate is that it is big, it is higher than $10 billion,” Iqbal said.

    According to Reuters, the Pakistani military said in a statement on Tuesday that rescue operations were still in progress and that foreign aid, including seven military aircraft from Turkey and three from the United Arab Emirates, was beginning to reach the nation.

    More aid will be sent to Pakistan as a result, which will assist it in overcoming its current condition.

    More than 300 stranded persons had been airlifted away, more than 23 metric tonnes of relief supplies had been provided, and more than 50 medical camps had been set up, with more than 33,000 patients receiving treatment, according to the statement.

    Moreover, China will send two aircraft on Tuesday (today) carrying 3,000 tents and Japan will send tarpaulins and shelters, in addition to the announcements of financial support from the UK, Canada, Australia, and Azerbaijan.

    As the cash-strapped nation struggles with political and economic unrest made worse by the historic floods, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) threw it another lifeline on Monday by releasing $1.17 billion in bailout funding.

    “Pakistan is in dire need and the damages are here and we will be in this a very long time,” Iqbal said. “It’s not months but years we are talking about.”

  • Two young sisters kidnapped, raped for four months

    Two young sisters kidnapped, raped for four months

    Two young sisters were kidnapped, kept in confinement and then raped for four months allegedly by a landlord and his employee.

    The horrifying incident took place in the Khaur police station area of Pindigheb town in Attock.

    According to the survivors’ father, who is a labourer, his 16-year-old and 18-year-old daughters were abducted by the local landlord and his personal employee four months ago.

    He said that the suspect kept his daughters in illegal confinement and raped them. Later, the girls escaped from confinement, reached their home and narrated the whole incident.

    After a medical examination by the police, it was confirmed that the teenagers were raped, which led to the registration of a case against the suspects.

    However, no arrest has been made so far.

    In Lahore, another incident took place where a 10-year-old girl was allegedly raped and then murdered. The murdered girl allegedly went swimming at a pool with her brother and five-year-old sister.

    The police are investigating the case.

  • List of things you should donate to flood victims

    Devastating floods in Pakistan have affected more than 33 million people. One-third of Pakistan is underwater right now and hundreds of thousands of people are stranded across the country. We can all make a difference in the lives of flood victims by helping them out.

    Here’s how you can help:
    Donate Nylon Shoes:

    Syed Zafar Abbas Jafri, the founder of Jaferia Disaster Cell (JDC), is actively working to help those in the flood-affected areas. Jafri, in a video, said that the people living in flood-affected areas need nylon shoes.

    He explained that people have to walk miles and miles in flood-affected areas and while walking, their plastic slippers get stuck in the mud and then they have to walk barefoot for the rest of the journey, leading to injuries.

    He advised people to donate nylon shoes for the flood victims.

    Don’t donate cooked food
    Do not donate cooked food to the flood victims as you may not know when it gets delivered.
    Donate dry food
    Donate dry food items such as flour, ghee or cooking oil, salt, tea, sugar, biscuits, bread, and dry milk.
    Don’t think you have to do it on your own

    Try donating to large-scale and reputed organisations.

    Donate water filters and water purification materials

    Donate water filters and water purification materials to flood victims.

  • Toshakhana case: ECP directs Khan to submit reply by Sept 7

    The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) directed Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan on Monday to submit his reply in the Toshakhana case against him by September 7.

    Barrister Gohar Ali Khan, the counsel for the PTI chairman, appeared before an ECP bench headed by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja and appealed for some more time to file a reply.

    He said that Khan’s lead counsel Barrister Ali Zafar is in Lahore, which is why he was unable to consult with him regarding the case. He assured the ECP bench of submitting a reply at the next hearing.

    The CEC observed that since everything was part of the record, it must not take so much time to submit a reply.

    However, the bench granted a week’s time to the PTI chief and the hearing was adjourned till September 7.

    Earlier this month, National Assembly (NA) Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf sent a reference to the ECP seeking Imran Khan’s disqualification. In the reference, it was stated that Khan did not declare the gifts taken from Toshakhana in his assets and the detail of the amount he had received by selling those state gifts.

    In April, an investigation by news organisation Fact Focus revealed that Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi kept all 112 presents worth Rs142.02 million from the Toshakhana of Pakistan.

  • ‘WhatsApp calls are being tapped’: Shaukat Tarin

    ‘WhatsApp calls are being tapped’: Shaukat Tarin

    Former Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin has said that he wants to tell Pakistanis that now their WhatsApp calls are also being tapped.

    “It was a WhatsApp call. I am disappointed that a WhatsApp call was being recorded. We can take up this matter legally,” said Tarin while speaking on a political talk show on Express News.

    His remarks were in relevance to his recent audio leaks where he asked Punjab Finance Minister Mohsin Leghari and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Finance Minister Taimur Jhagra to write letters withdrawing from the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) deal.

    Read more: ‘Yeh ab tai hogaya hai Imran Khan Pakistan aur 22 crore logo se zyada eham hain’: Twitter reacts to leaked audio

    Tarin was questioned that primarily a WhatsApp call cannot be recorded, so is there a possibility that the people he was conversing with leaked the call.

    Read more: Leaked audio: PTI’s Shaukat Tarin allegedly advising finance ministers in Punjab, KP to sabotage IMF deal

    “There is an institution [behind this]. The conversation cannot be leaked from either Leghari, Taimur or myself. So Pakistanis should know that now WhatsApp calls are being tapped,” said Tarin.