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  • ‘Israeli PM secretly visited Saudi Arabia, met crown prince’

    Israeli media reported Monday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to Saudi Arabia for a clandestine meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, which would mark the first known encounter between senior Israeli and Saudi officials.

    Hebrew-language media cited an unnamed Israeli official as saying that Netanyahu and Yossi Cohen, head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency, flew to the Saudi city of Neom on Sunday, where they met with the crown prince. The prince was there for talks with visiting US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

    A Gulfstream IV private jet took off just after 1740 GMT from Ben-Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv, according to data from website FlightRadar24.com. The flight traveled south along the eastern edge of the Sinai Peninsula before turning toward Neom and landing just after 1830 GMT, according to the data. The flight took off from Neom around 2150 GMT and followed the same route back to Tel Aviv.

    The Israeli prime minister’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

    Pompeo traveled with an American press pool on his trip throughout the Mideast, but left them at the Neom airport when he went into his visit with the crown prince.

    Meanwhile, the Saudi foreign minister has denied reports of a meeting between MBS and Netanyahu, as per Reuters.

    While Bahrain, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates have reached deals under the Trump administration to normalise ties with Israel, Saudi Arabia so far has remained out of reach.

    King Salman long has supported the Palestinians in their effort to secure an independent state. However, analysts and insiders suggest his 35-year-old son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, likely is more open to the idea of normalising relations without major progress in the moribund peace process.

    The kingdom approved the use of Saudi airspace for Israeli flights to the UAE, a decision announced the day after Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, met with Prince Mohammed in Riyadh. Bahrain normalizing ties also suggest at least a Saudi acquiescence to the idea, as the island kingdom relies on Riyadh.

    Israel has long had clandestine ties to Gulf Arab states that have strengthened in recent years as they have confronted a shared threat in Iran.

  • Nawaz won’t accompany mother’s body to Pakistan

    Nawaz won’t accompany mother’s body to Pakistan

    Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who has been in London for over a year due to health concerns, will not able to accompany his deceased mother to Pakistan owing to poor health and other reasons.

    Shamim Begum, the Sharif family matriarch, breathed her last in London on Sunday due to a chest infection at the age of 89. The death prompted PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz to abandon a joint opposition rally in Peshawar and return to Lahore.

    Maryam, who complained about the government’s apathetic attitude in a tweet, also shared that she would ask her father Nawaz Sharif not to come back to Pakistan.

    “I have requested Mian sahab not to come back [to Pakistan] at all. These are tyrants, these are the people hellbent on exacting revenge, and no humanity is expected from them,” Maryam Nawaz wrote on Twitter.

    Furthermore, a report published in The News also claimed that the former prime minister Nawaz Sharif will not be coming back with the dead body on the advice of his doctors. “Nawaz Sharif has been advised by doctors not to travel because of his ailing health,” the report quoted PML-N leader Ishaq Dar as saying.

    It may be noted here that the PML-N supreme leader was taken to a hospital last week after his condition deteriorated due to kidney pain.

    According to the report, the body will be brought back to Pakistan sometime later this week after the issuance of the death certificate.

    Meanwhile, PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif along with his son Hamza Shehbaz has also applied for parole to attend the funeral of his mother. Subsequently, the Punjab government granted permission to attend the last rites of Shamim Begum. The father-son duo is in jail on suspicion of corruption.

  • Netflix in trouble for kissing scenes in temple in ‘A Suitable Boy’

    Netflix in trouble for kissing scenes in temple in ‘A Suitable Boy’

    An Indian state on Sunday asked police to investigate Netflix series A Suitable Boy after a member of the country’s ruling party objected to scenes in the series, in which a Hindu girl kisses a Muslim boy against the backdrop of a Hindu temple.

    The series, based on an English novel by one of India’s leading writers Vikram Seth, follows a young girl’s quest for a husband in the backdrop of newly independent India (1951). It is directed by celebrated Indian filmmaker Mira Nair.

    “It has extremely objectionable scenes that have hurt the feelings of a particular religion,” Narottam Mishra, the interior minister of the central state of Madhya Pradesh, said on Twitter.

    “I’ve directed police officers to get this controversial content tested” to determine “what legal action can be taken against the producer-director of the film for hurting religious sentiments”.

    He later said: “For objectionable scenes in the web series A Suitable Boy, an FIR has been lodged against Monika Shergill (Vice President Content, Netflix India) and Ambika Khurana (Director, Public Policy at Netflix) associated with the management under Section 295 A (willfully hurting religious sentiments) in the Civil Lines Police Station of Reeva.”

    Gaurav Tiwari, a leader of the youth wing of India’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which also governs Madhya Pradesh, has filed a separate complaint against Netflix and warned of street protests by Hindus if the series is not taken off the platform. He also accused the show and streaming platform of promoting ‘love jihad’ – a term radical Hindu groups use to accuse Muslim men of converting Hindu women by marriage.

    A Netflix India spokesman declined comment on the police complaint.

    It is pertinent to mention here that the six-part series was officially commissioned by BBC Studios and produced on a budget of £16 million making it one of the most expensive BBC series ever made. Netflix is the exclusive distributor of the series for all global territories, except continental North America and China. It released on the streaming platform on October 23, 2020.

    Social media commentators say the scope for creative freedom is narrowing in India, especially when it involves any depiction of Hindu-Muslim relations.

    Many Indians took to Twitter demanding a boycott of Netflix, which sees India as one of its most promising growth markets, but where its shows have faced legal challenges.

    Last month, a unit of India’s Tata conglomerate withdrew a jewellery advertisement featuring a Hindu-Muslim family celebrating a baby shower, following threats to one of its stores and wide criticism on social media.

    Earlier this month, the Indian government announced rules to regulate content on video streaming platforms including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Walt Disney’s Hotstar.

  • Schools to be closed from Nov 26 as COVID-19 cases increase

    Schools to be closed from Nov 26 as COVID-19 cases increase

    Federal Minister for Education Shafqat Mahmood announced on Monday that all schools across the country will close down from November 26 to January 10, 2021, to control the spread of COVID-19 in the country.

    “All ministers have mutually decided that to keep all educational institutions, including schools, colleges, universities, and tuition centres closed. However, online classes will continue from November 26 to December 24 after which winter break will start. Schools will reopen on January 11, 2021,” he said.

    “When we say all educational institutions will close on Nov 26 and students will home learn, we mean ALL institutions without exception,” clarified the minister later.

    As per reports, the decision was taken during the Inter-Provincial Education Ministers Conference (IPEMC) to discuss school closures, headed by Mahmood.

    He said that all examinations will be postponed, except for a few professional exams which will take place.

    The minister added that a “review session” will be organised during the first week of January to analyse the country’s virus outbreak and that a decision will be taken accordingly.

    As the country witnessed a surge in coronavirus cases, the National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC) had suggested early and extended vacations.

    In recent weeks, the country’s COVID-19 cases and deaths have seen a sharp increase. The country has reported 376,929 coronavirus cases and 7,696 deaths so far.

  • Imran accuses opposition, its anti-govt rallies of ‘destroying people’s lives & livelihoods’

    Imran accuses opposition, its anti-govt rallies of ‘destroying people’s lives & livelihoods’

    Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan has said that the careless actions of the opposition alliance, the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), can result in a second lockdown for the country, and would adversely affect people’s livelihoods.

    “Opposition is callously destroying people’s lives & livelihoods in their desperation to get an NRO. Let me make it clear: they can hold a million jalsas but will not get any NRO,” he tweeted.

    While the premier has been against going into lockdown, he felt that the actions of the PDM and their refusal to stop their rallies would result in faster spread of the novel coronavirus, and this in turn would leave the country with no choice but to go into lockdown.

    “If [coronavirus] cases continue to rise at the rate we are seeing, we will be compelled to go into complete lockdown and the PDM will be responsible for [the] consequences,” he said further.

    PM Imran said that another lockdown would be terrible to the economy, which declared was “showing signs of a robust recovery”. However, he added that should the PDM continue with its actions, the government would have no choice but to impose another lockdown.

    At the moment, there are a number of smart micro-lockdowns taking place across the country, where those streets with more than eight cases reported are shut down. Similarly, wedding halls, large public gatherings, and indoor events have been banned as per the official orders of the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC).

    On Friday, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government had refused to grant permission for a public meeting planned by the PDM due to the rising number of coronavirus cases in the country.

    In response to the notification, the PDM had refused to back down and claimed that this is a ploy by the ruling party to prevent the rallies from taking place.

    Ikhtiar Wali, the spokesperson of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) KP chapter, had insisted that the coalition would go ahead with the rally.

    Speaking to media persons on Friday, the spokesperson had said that the premier had held a rally in Swat a week ago and that the KP chief minister had held a large public gathering two days ago.

    “Who did they ask for permission? And who granted them permission? So if there is no rule for the ruling party, then why is [there one] for us?” he had asked.

    Separately, referring to the government as ‘Covid-18’, PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz had rejected the government’s demands to postpone jalsas and public gatherings as coronavirus cases rise across the country.

    https://twitter.com/MaryamNSharif/status/1329765124916260864

    “While a mask gives you protection from COVID-19, ‘Vote ko izzat do’ narrative & struggle will protect you from ‘Covid-18’ & all such future attempts, Insha’Allah. Protect yourself, protect your vote,” she tweeted.

  • Woman arrested for setting house on fire after father refused to finance TikTok video

    Police arrested a woman in Sukkur on Saturday for allegedly setting her house on fire after her father refused to pay for her TikTok video.

    As per reports, Marvi Khilji was arrested after her father, Abdul Aziz, registered a complaint at a police station that she had set fire to their house when refused to finance a modelling video for her TikTok account.

    Abdul Aziz who is a retired employee of the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA), with Rs25,000 as pension claimed in his complaint that she had demanded for Rs200,000. When he refused, she got angry and set fire to the house that destroyed a fridge and a washing machine.

    Upon the father’s complaint, police arrested Khilji and the court then sent her to Sukkur jail for 14 days.

  • Hamza Ali Abbasi has the sweetest birthday wish for wife Naimal

    Hamza Ali Abbasi has the sweetest birthday wish for wife Naimal

    Hamza Ali Abbasi’s birthday wish for wife Naimal Khawar might have been a few days late, but it sure was worth the wait.

    Sharing a lovely family photo of them dressed in white, Hamza said: “Couldn’t have wasted this wish while travelling, so here goes: I thank Allah every day for his biggest gift to me in this world, I love you Naimal and it’s a blessing from Allah that I get to spend my life with you.”

    He also praised Naimal for being an amazing mother and showered her with lots of love.

    In response to her husband’s wish, Naimal said: “I love you more.”

    Naimal celebrates her birthday on November 17.

    Earlier, Naimal had shared a beautiful picture of the two enjoying Christmas celebrations.

    According to details, Hamza and Naimal are travelling back to Pakistan from the United States, where Hamza is studying religion at the Ghamidi Center of Islamic Learning.

    The couple welcomed their first child on July 30.

  • Shireen Mazari deletes tweet equating French president with Nazis after France strikes back

    Shireen Mazari deletes tweet equating French president with Nazis after France strikes back

    France on Sunday objected to a statement by Minister for Human Rights Shireen Mazari equating President Emmanuel Macron’s new measures to counter “Islamist separatism” in France with the anti-semitic policies of Nazi Germany, however, the issue was later resolved when both sides held dialogue after a false claim in the cited news article came to light.

    Earlier this week, Macron issued a “charter of republican values”, detailing a series of steps aimed at purging France of what he declared as “radical Islam”. One of the measures made it necessary for school-going children to wear an identification number that would be used to ensure they are attending school.

    Mazari, who apparently understood that the identification number would be issued exclusively to Muslim children, censured the move, saying through the new measures, “Macron is doing to Muslims what the Nazis did to the Jews” in Nazi Germany.

    “Muslim children will get ID numbers (other children won’t) just as Jews were forced to wear the yellow star on their clothing for identification,” she added linking to an online article.

    Responding to the tweet, the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs on Sunday issued a statement, calling the minister’s remark “insulting […] blatant lies, loaded with an ideology of hatred and violence.”

    The rather unceremonious statement asked Pakistan to “return to the path of dialogue based on respect.”

    The publication later amended the article and issued a clarification stating that the law mentioned in the article applies to all children in France, not specifically Muslim children.

    The embassy also sent a series of tweets to point out the mistakes in the article.

    In response to the French envoy’s message, Mazari deleted her tweet and issued a clarification on Twitter and admitted her mistake. “The French Envoy to Pak sent me the following message and as the article I had cited has been corrected by the relevant publication, I have also deleted my tweet on the same,” she tweeted.

    Responding to the minister’s tweet, the French Embassy thanked Mazari for the clarification and apology, and wrote that “freedom of expression and debates are essential in democracies, based on verified and accurate facts.”

    READ: ‘Stay out of our domestic affairs,’ French minister tells Pakistan and Turkey

    Macron on Wednesday unveiled the bill and asked Muslim leaders in France to agree to its instructions as part of a broad clampdown on so-called “Islamic extremism”. He gave the French Council of the Muslim Faith 15 days to work with the interior ministry.

    The bill includes measures which include: restrictions on home-schooling and harsher punishments for those who intimidate public officials on religious grounds; giving children an identification number under the law that would be used to ensure they are attending school and a ban on sharing the personal information of a person in a way that allows them to be located by people who want to harm them.

    Parents who break the law could face up to six months in jail as well as large fines, it said.

    The draft law — which Macron said will strengthen a 1905 law separating Church and state in France — will be discussed by the French cabinet on December 9.

    The new bill comes on the heels of three separate instances of terrorism following the publication of blasphemous caricatures by Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical weekly best known for vulgar irreverence, and Macron’s insistence on defending the act in the name of freedom of expression.

    Following the publication of these cartoons and Macron’s defense of it, relations between France and the Muslim world grew sour as tens of thousands of Muslims in several countries joined protests, burned effigies of Macron, chanted anti-French slogans and called for a boycott of French goods.

  • Locally-produced AI software to detect COVID-19 in seconds

    The National Institute of Electronics has developed an artificial intelligence-based software that would detect the coronavirus in the lungs in 60 seconds.

    The AI software was developed by the institute to upgrade the testing process, as currently, it takes several hours for the PCR tests to detect the virus in a patient. The new virus detecting system named ‘Cov-Raid AI Detection’ has already been approved by the Drug Regulatory Authority Pakistan (DRAP).

     DRAP said that the Cov-Raid “shall employ Convolutional Neural Networks to predict [presence of] Covid-19 in suspected individuals” by using X-rays and it has been approved for “secondary detection” of the virus, reported Dawn.

    According to the creators of the software, ‘Cov-Raid’ has been developed by “creating a data repository of Chest X Rays (CXR) for Covid-19 or non-Covid-19 detection”.

    “The Cov-Raid requires a chest X-Ray image as an input for the detection of Covid-19 positive or negative patients in less than one minute,” the description on the website said.

    “The algorithm has been trained on more than 35,000 CXRs (data authentication done through multiple certified radiologists and PCR reports),” the website said, adding that the test can be used to test a large number of patients in a limited time.

    Meanwhile, DRAP Chief Executive Officer Dr Asim Rauf has reportedly said that the new software is registered under the DRAP Act of 2012.

  • PTI’s Shahbaz Gill criticises Bakhtawar Bhutto’s engagement’s invitation

    With the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) insisting that they will go ahead with the Peshawar jalsa as planned on November 22, despite a sharp increase in cases of COVID-19, Special Assistant to PM on Political Communication Dr Shahbaz Gill has accused opposition parties of not caring about the lives of ordinary people.

    Taking a dig at Bakhtawar Bhutto-Zardari’s upcoming engagement, Dr Gill shared a picture of the invitation card and said: “For Bakhtawar’s engagement, you need a mandatory COVID-19 test report or you will not be allowed to enter Bilawal House. But you call ordinary citizens to your jalsas and put them at risk.”

    “These are those people who consider the public to be less than them,” added the SAPM.

    Bakhtawar will be getting engaged to Mahmood Choudhry on November 27 at Bilawal House in Karachi. All guests attending the ceremony have been requested to get tested for COVID-19 and send the results via e-mail.

    “All attendees are requested to please email a scanned copy of their negative COVID-19 PCR test result 24 hours prior to attendance. This is a mandatory requirement for security clearance,” the invitation reads.

    The guests have also been asked not to bring mobile phones with them due to security purposes.

    “Please note — no photography or mobile phones will be permitted inside the venue and photographs will be available for all guests through our official photographer.”

    “We thank you in advance for adhering to our safety protocols to keep you and your loved ones safe, and enable us all to enjoy the occasion,” it added.

    The couple will reportedly tie the knot in January 2021 in Karachi.

    Meanwhile, it is being reported that Bakhtawar is looking to recreate her mother Benazir Bhutto’s Nikkah look for her engagement.