British-Pakistani boxer Amir Khan and Faryal Makhdoom have got their own Kardashian-style show: a BBC Three documentary titled Meet The Khans: Big In Bolton, in which the couple gave fans a sneak peek into their lives and relationship.
During the show, Faryal reportedly said that Amir no longer cheats on her because he’s an “old man” now.
“We’ve been through hell and back,” said Faryal, while talking about the various scandals over the year. It is pertinent to mention here that Amir has been accused of cheating more than nine times.
“He was never able to enjoy his youth because of all his hard work, so he never really got it out of his system. He’d get caught in the wrong places,” said Faryal while explaining the reasons behind her husband’s infidelity.
“We’ve moved on. The past is the past, we were young, we grew up together – the bad and the good,” she said further, adding: “Amir was so famous and so young when I first started dating him and married him, and now it’s like… he’s an old man!”
The social media influencer further said that labels like “gold-digger” and “doormat” deeply upset her.
Agreeing with Faryal, Amir said: “It changes with time. When you have three kids, it changes your responsibilities. I’ve had that crazy life before, now I’m a changed man.”
Meanwhile, during an in-camera therapy session, Faryal, in between tears, tells her therapist: “My relationship still gets judged for what I’ve been through. A lot of people have ups and downs – the only difference is my marriage is quite public. I married a celebrity.”
Faryal and Amir’s real life has been nothing short of a reality series marked with a long feud with the in-laws followed by an emotional reunion, cheating allegations, extramarital affairs and public scandals. The couple has three kids, Lamaisah aged 6, Alayna aged 2 and Muhammad Zaviyar aged 8 months.
Amir is also no stranger to reality tv – he has also taken part in I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, Countdown, Beat the Star, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and Celebrity Juice.
Speaking to Ahsan Khan on his show Time Out with Ahsan Khan, Minal said: “What I learnt from Nisha was [that] it is just confidence. Aap main itna confidence hona chaheeye keh agar aap koi sahi faisla kar rahe toh uskay liye bhi confidence bohat zaruri hai. Agar ghalat hai toh uskay liye bhi aapko confident hona chaheeye.”
Minal further said that playing a negative character like Nisha helped her explore her own personality which in turn gave her more confidence.
Meanwhile, talking about social media, Minal said: “I think social media is important. It is important to know peoples point of view and what they expect from you.”
“But that doesn’t mean you let their expectations take over your life,” continued the actor. “That cannot happen. We have our own life also. Some people really need to learn not to be judgmental every single time. Learn to ignore if you don’t like something instead of making the other person feel bad through your harsh words.”
Minal added that she doesn’t let mean comments hurt her though they do get under her skin sometimes. To this, Saboor Aly, who was also on the show, said that she doesn’t like it when people raise fingers at her character or drag in her late mother.
Khan and Aly also talked about having famous sisters [Aiman Khan, Sajal Aly], saying that they are very proud to be associated with them and they are their biggest inspirations.
A meeting of the federal cabinet chaired by Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan has rejected the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) approval to import cotton yarn and white sugar from India, reports quoted sources as saying.
A day earlier, the ECC had approved two summaries of the commerce and textile ministry to lift ban on import of cotton and white sugar from India.
According to reports, there were 21 items on the agenda of the ECC meeting to be chaired by newly appointed Finance Minister Hammad Azhar. Commerce and Textile divisions had submitted five crucial summaries for approval besides others.
At the agenda no. 16, the Textile Division summary sought permission from the ECC to lift ban on import of cotton and cotton yarn from India in a bid to bridge raw material shortfall for the value-added textile sector.
In addition to this, another summary of the commerce ministry at agenda no. 20 also sought permission to allow import of white sugar from India through the Trading Corporation of Pakistan and commercial importers.
The resumption of import of these goods was expected to lead to partial revival of trade relations. On Aug 9, 2019 Pakistan downgraded trade relations with India in reaction to the latter’s decision to revoke Article 370 of its Constitution that granted occupied Kashmir a special status.
In May 2020, Pakistan lifted the ban on import of medicines and raw material from India to ensure there is no shortage of essential drugs amid the COVID-19 pandemic. This was the first step of reversing of complete suspension of trade with India.
However, Indian premier’s letter to Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan on Pakistan Day was the first step in the right direction amid reports of UAE Royals brokering peace.
On Tuesday, PM Imran replied to Modi’s letter, saying Pakistan also desired peaceful relations with India.
“The people of Pakistan also desire peaceful, cooperative relations with all neighbours, including India,” he said in his reply.
“I thank you for your letter conveying greetings on Pakistan Day.”
A Scottish woman was shocked when her washing machine exploded mid-cycle, damaging her kitchen.
The woman, Laura Birrell shared pictures of her destroyed kitchen on Facebookto serve as a warning to others. The businesswoman from Glasgow said her washing machine “literally exploded” mid-cycle, filling her kitchen with smoke.
Photos shared by Ms Birrell showed that the kitchen top above the machine was apparently blown apart by the force of the explosion. The machine was also badly damaged.
“I have often heard don’t leave your washing machine on when you leave the house,” she wrote. “Well, today I am glad that I did not go out anywhere as my machine literally exploded.”
“With a glass sink drainer unit I thought I bomb had gone off, glass everywhere,” she added.
She further wrote, “Fortunately I was in as smoke started to appear so I quickly switched it off. I will never leave washing in again when I am out.”
A spokesman of Whirlpool was quoted as saying by Metro: “Our thoughts are with the residents affected by this incident, and we are investigating the situation.
With the FIFA ban looming over the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF), Mahira Khan and Yumna Zaidi have extended their support for Pakistan’s Women football team, requesting the authorities to resolve the women footballers’ issues.
“Sports are essential to a society to remain healthy [and] provide us with the heroes we so desperately need to look up to and represent our country,” said Yumna, sharing her thoughts on the matter.
Urging authorities to listen to the girl’s appeals, Yumna further said: “At present, the current Pakistan women’s football team seems to be going through a host of issues and I want to appeal to whoever is listening, please help them we need this.”
“We need them to shine,” she asserted.
Sharing a video of Hajra Khan on Instagram stories, Mahira wrote: “Respect the game!!! Respect the players!!”
In a step that could be seen as players’ and teams’ vote of no confidence against Ashfaq Shah, the players of Karachi United and Highlanders Football Club have announced their decision to withdraw from the ongoing National Women Football Championship after the Ashfaq-led-group refused to hand over Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) offices back to the normalisation committee.
While Ashfaq group’s act may lead Pakistan to a suspension from FIFA, both clubs say that they do not support the incidents that took place at PFF last weekend and have decided not to play under the Ashfaq-led setup in protest.
Karachi United FC, which was scheduled to play against WAPDA Thursday morning in the semifinal, posted their decision on the club’s social media page, saying that given the prevailing circumstances and based on the decision of players, Karachi United has decided to withdraw its women’s team from the National Championship.
The statement added that while the team had played its quarter final “under protest” and for purely football reasons, it had hoped that the matter would be resolved.
“Since the FIFA deadline has passed and no corrective action has been taken, the team is left with no option but to withdraw from the competition,” the club said.
“Being a football organisation, we feel that footballers and teams should never have to be put in such situations to make such choices as players and teams just want to play,” they added.
Karachi United further appealed to the FIFA, AFC, NC and all stakeholders to urgently resolve this issue to avoid Pakistan from being suspended.
BREAKING: Karachi United have decided to pull out of the National Women’s Football Championship which is now being organised without the PFF Normalisation Committee.
Islamabad-based Highlanders football club said in the statement that following the recent development in PFF, it has decided not to participate in NWFC any further.
“We do not support any act that brings football into disrepute because we believe that no individual is bigger than the game. However, the integrity of game should be maintained at all levels,” the club said in a statement.
“We, the Highlanders club, believe that this is in best interest of Pakistan football,” the statement posted on club’s social media accounts said.
Highlanders Women Football Club was playing its first national women championship and they proved themselves as one of the contenders to win the Trophy. They were scheduled to play against Masha United in the semi final on Thursday.
“We travelled from Islamabad to Karachi with a dream to do well on football field and to win the national women football championship. We are proud of Highlanders’ performance in the tournament and I believe that we made the statement that we wanted to,” the club said.
BREAKING: Highlanders FC become the second club to pull out of the National Women’s Football Championship which is now being organised without the PFF Normalisation Committee.
Earlier, six footballers from different teams had announced to boycott the championship ahead of the quarter final matches.
Later Masha United, which was one of the semi-finalists, “become the third team to withdraw from the ongoing National Women’s Football Championship which lost its official status after PFF NC was ousted. Only WAPDA left now and probably get declared champion”, announced FPDC on Twitter.
Masha United become the third team to withdraw from the ongoing National Women’s Football Championship which lost its official status after PFF NC was ousted.
Hajra Khan, Khadija Kazmi, Sarah Ali, Mashal Hussain, Maria Khan and Zahra Shah had issued a issued a joint statement on Tuesday, saying “the integrity of game is being challenged by politicised governance, adding that “we, too, are responsible for upholding the integrity of the game.”
The Pakistani footballers say FIFA ban would destroy their careers.
Meanwhile, the Provincial Minister for Sports and Youth Affairs Punjab, Rai Taimoor Khan Bhatti had addressed the issue, saying: “Pakistan Football Federation’s decision to play a role in the dispute, the parties are being contacted. The suspension of Pakistan’s membership by FIFA will bring the country into disrepute in the international arena. A positive solution to the conflict will come out soon.”
پاکستان فٹ بال فیڈریشن کے تنازعہ پر کردار ادا کرنے کا فیصلہ،فریقین سے رابطہ کیا جارہا ہے۔فیفا کی جانب سے پاکستان کی رکنیت معطل ہونے سے عالمی سطح پر ملک کی بدنامی ہوگی۔بحیثیت حکومت ملک میں فٹ بال کے فروغ اور سہولیات کی فراہمی کا کام کررہے ہیں۔جلد تنازعہ کا مثبت حل نکلے گا۔
The Lahore Zoo administration has decided to euthanise a pair of lions because they are suffering from a terminal illness.
According to reports, the administration considering their health conditions has decided to put them to rest, as the pair has reached their maximum age limit.
“Both of them are ill from the past several days and could not be treated or cured,” said an official of the zoo, adding that x-ray and ultrasound reports of the pair present proof of their poor health conditions.
The official further said that “a tiger, brown bear and a zebra are also suffering from a crippling disease and a decision to euthanise them will be taken in the next meeting.”
Earlier, in February, two white tigers cubs aged three months died in Lahore Zoo. They were reportedly suffering from COVID-19.
Meanwhile, this is not the first incident of mistreatment of animals by zoo authorities in Pakistan. In December 2020, Peshawar Zoo lost its fourth giraffe in 2020, just a few days after a black bear’s death.
On the other hand, Islamabad’s Marghazar Zoo — which drew international condemnation for its treatment of lonely elephant Kaavan — shut down in December 2020 after its final occupants Babloo and Suzie were relocated to Jordan.
Pakistan has performed poorly with respect to legal and practical protections for the right to freedom of expression of its citizens during 2020, according to a new assessment report published by Media Matters for Democracy.
The Pakistan Freedom of Expression Report 2020 was launched through a webinar on Wednesday.
Speaking at the report launch, European Union (EU) Ambassador to Pakistan Androulla Kaminara said the report provides a comprehensive analysis of the state of freedom of expression in Pakistan and highlights some concerning trends.
“Freedom of Expression is enshrined in the European Charter of Fundamental Rights. It is also one of the important aspects of Pakistan’s GSP plus commitment to upholding the international Human Rights Conventions and a key priority in the Strategic Engagement Plan between EU and Pakistan.”
“As this report confirms, the situation of journalists and documentation of threats they face through attacks, intimidation and harassment is particularly concerning. Disinformation is another area of concern, and one, which the European Union is working to address both at home and abroad. Misleading or false information can put lives in danger. It is crucial to resolutely counter disinformation with transparent, timely and fact-based communication and thus reinforce the resilience of societies,” she said.
The report documents the situation of freedom of expression in Pakistan with a new index based on six dimensions namely the legal environment, press freedom, digital expression, pluralism, the socioeconomic and political situation.
Pakistan scored low on all six dimensions to provide an overall score of only 30 points out of a total of 100 points on the assessment index. This cumulative score fell in the range of “poor” protections for freedom of expression in the country.
The report found that during the year 2020 Pakistan’s media and Internet regulatory authorities continued to exert arbitrary legal and regulatory restrictions on speech and online content, by ordering bans, suspensions, and advisories against social media apps, entertainment content, and news discussions of social and political issues.
Journalists remained vulnerable to physical, legal, and digital threats in the absence of long-awaited legislation on journalists’ safety, according to the study.
The report found that at least eight individuals connected with the media were killed, at least 36 journalists were attacked in the line of duty, 10 were arrested, and as many as 23 instances of arbitrary detentions in connection with news reporting and online expression were recorded across Pakistan during the year.
Women journalists were especially targeted with coordinated online attacks as they reported on political issues and the government’s pandemic response.
The report noted that the coronavirus pandemic intensified the challenges to freedom of expression and access to information in Pakistan.
Internet users were consistently exposed to disinformation while journalists reporting on the pandemic faced physical safety risks and restrictions on access to information sources, and many young citizens without Internet services found themselves abandoned as education systems shifted online, according to the report.
The archbishop of Canterbury has confirmed that he legally married Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at Windsor Castle in May 2018, despite the couple’s claim that they had another, private, ceremony three days earlier.
During a bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey last month, Meghan had said that “three days before our wedding we got married.”
“We called the archbishop and we just said, look, this thing, this spectacle is for the world, but we want our union between us,” she said. “So the vows that we have framed in our room are just the two of us in our backyard with the archbishop of Canterbury.”
Though Meghan didn’t elaborate on the private service, many people said that it wasn’t legally binding because of the absence of witnesses.
Justin Welby has now contradicted the couple’s claims and said that they legally married at the castle on May 19, 2018, but would not disclose what occurred at private meetings before that.
“I signed the wedding certificate, which is a legal document, and I would have committed a serious criminal offence if I signed it knowing it was false,” said Welby, who is head of the church of England.
Welby told Italian newspaper La Repubblica that “I won’t say what happened at any other meetings,” adding that he’d had “a number of private and pastoral meetings with the duke and duchess before the wedding.”
In the interview with Winfrey, Meghan had claimed that she had experienced racism and callous treatment from the royal household and the press during her time as a working member of the royal family. William rejected Meghan’s claims saying that “We’re not a racist family”, while the Queen said that they will address the couple’s concerns privately.
In early 2020, Meghan and Harry announced they were quitting royal duties and moving to North America, citing what they said were the unbearable intrusions and racist attitudes of the British media.
Chinese phone maker company Xiaomi spent more than three years to develop a new logo and turned its old square design into a squircle in the end.
Xiaomi, the largest smartphone maker after Apple and Samsung, unveiled the new logo on Tuesday, with the only obvious difference being the round-edge frame.
CEO Lei Jun also highlighted the similarity between the two logos.
Xiaomi’s brand new logo!It’s designed by the world-renowned designer Kenya HARA and is infused with philosophical thinking. What do you think? To be honest, I didn’t get it at the first sight, but I’ve grown to like it a lot. It’s the best representation of today’s Xiaomi. pic.twitter.com/GDBNcKqHb5
“Is everyone a bit disappointed by this logo, that we just turned it from a square to a circle?” Lei said as he unveiled the new logo on Tuesday. He also announced the company’s entry into electric-vehicle making during the event.
“The designer told me it’s not just about a square becoming a circle. It’s about the brand having a massive change in its inner spirits and personality.”
Lei said the company had been looking for designers to design a new logo since 2017. It finally settled on the work of Japanese designer Kenya Hara, a renowned graphic designer and an author.
Hara explained the concept “alive” behind this new logo and the designing process in a video released by Xiaomi.
He said his team studied and analysed the “circles and squares” thoroughly with the help of a mathematical equation.
They picked at least 24 shapes that sit somewhere between a circle and a square, and selected one that “strikes the perfect balance” and “best represents the core aspect of ‘alive.’”
The curve on the letter M has also been changed a bit so that I can fit the frame.
Besides the logo, Hara also suggested adding black and silver to complement the company’s theme orange color to “convey a sense of energy and mystery.”
The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has booked estranged Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Jahangir Tareen and his son, Ali Tareen, for fraud and money laundering after it was told to do so by someone over WhatsApp, senior journalist and analyst Arif Hameed Bhatti has claimed.
According to Bhatti, he possesses details of who sent the WhatsApp message, at what time and when did the other person respond to that message.
“Even the language used in the draft is not that of the investigation officer,” he said, further saying that the case was registered back on March 22 but the news was leaked over a week later.
Bhatti’s claims came after Tareens, who are rumoured to be at odds with Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan over probe into their alleged involvement in the sugar crisis, were booked by the FIA.
According to the FIRs dated March 22, two separate cases were registered under sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating of public shareholders) and 109 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), read with sections 3/4 of the Anti Money Laundering Act.
Responding to the development, Tareen lashed out at the FIA and said the accusations against him and his family were “totally fabricated”.
FIA’s latest claims against me and my family are totally fabricated. I have already submitted a detailed reply along with concrete evidence in response to FIA notice. Unfortunate to see them go on another smear campaign against me & my family without establishing anything illegal
— Jahangir Khan Tareen (@JahangirKTareen) March 31, 2021
One of the complaints states that Tareen fraudulently misappropriated shareholder’s money after his company — JDW group — transferred Rs3.14 billion to an associated private company identified as Farooqi Pulp Private Limited (FPML). The FIR stated that the private company is owned by his sons and close relatives.
“The transfers, especially after FY 2011-2012, were patently fraudulent investments which ultimately translated into personal gains for the family members of the JDW CEO,” the FIR said.
According to Dawn, it said that during this period, Tareen, his son and other family members purchased cash (US$) from the open market in Lahore in a “structured manner”.
“Subsequently, in 2016, Ali Khan Tareen remitted approximately US$7.4 Million to the United Kingdom for purchasing properties (to be investigated in detail during the course of investigation) which makes them liable for Anti-Money Laundering investigation,” it said.
The FIA stated that Tareen, his son, son-in-law Waleed Akbar Faruki and Shahid Akbar Faruki beneficially controlled FPML and personally benefitted from this scheme.
In the second FIR, the investigation agency said “voluminous withdrawals amounting to at least Rs2.2 billion were fraudulently and dishonestly made through a trusted cash rider.” It noted that Amir Waris, employed as a cashier at JDW’s Corporate Head Office, deposited large amounts into the personal and business accounts of Tareen and his family members.
“This modus operandi of cash-based misappropriation and money laundering was employed to break the onwards money trail of deposits into personal and business accounts of the accused Tareen and family,” it said.
It also stated that Rana Nasim Ahmed, JDW CEO, was also given large amounts from the company’s accounts to the tune of Rs600 million. “He claims these humungous amounts as salary, bonuses and ‘gentlemanly-agreed’ benefits.”
