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  • NAB seizes luxury cars, gold, weapons in raid on ex DG’s house

    NAB seizes luxury cars, gold, weapons in raid on ex DG’s house

    The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has arrested the former parks and horticulture director-general, Liaquat Ali Qaimkhani of Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) in Bagh Ibne Qasim scam, Dawn reported.

    According to the details, the anti-graft body has seized eight luxury vehicles, weapons, property files, jewellery and official records of the KMC from ex DG’s custody.

    Moreover, ‘original files’ of the KMC were also seized from the held suspect’s home including two lockers, six and four feet high.

    Reports also reveal that the held suspect had granted a “fake contract” of Bagh Ibne Qasim when he was parks DG of the KMC.

    A day prior, ex-DG parks Qaimkhani was arrested but a three-day transit remand was approved for him.

    When asked by a journalist how someone earning Rs1.5 million a year could afford such luxuries and a big house, the former DG parks said that he belonged to a landlord family and that was his ancestral home.

  • Duke and Duchess of Cambridge announce Pakistan visit dates

    The dates of Britain’s Prince William and Kate Middleton’s visit to Pakistan have been announced.

    According to Kensington Palace’s official Twitter handle, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will be visiting Pakistan from October 14-18.

    The announcement also said that before their visit, the royal couple will attend a special event at the Aga Khan Centre in London on October 2, which will be hosted by His Highness The Aga Khan.

    The announcement of William and Kate’s visit to Pakistan was first announced in late June. This is their first trip to Pakistan and the first royal trip to the country in more than a decade.

    Meanwhile, the Foreign Office welcomed the decision and said that they look forward to their visit.

  • Bear cub escapes from Peshawar Zoo

    Bear cub escapes from Peshawar Zoo

    A two-month bear cub is on the loose after it escaped its cage at the Peshawar Zoo.

    According to media reports, the cub was in a cage with its mother when one of the caretakers left the door open and the cub escaped.

    Both the mother and baby had been brought to the zoo from Dir a few days ago. They had been confiscated by the wildlife department at a check post in Upper Dir a few days ago because they were being illegally brought from Afghanistan.

    The zoo administration believes that the cub is still inside the zoo and are examining CCTV footage to locate it. The cub hasn’t been seen in footage of the zoo’s exit points.

    There is currently some renovation work going on at the zoo and a lot of heavy machinery inside. Officials believe the cub could be hiding there somewhere.

    An inquiry has also been ordered and the management of the zoo has been directed to register FIR.

    While the cub doesn’t pose a threat to anyone, the zoo administration made announcements about its disappearance via local mosques.

  • Toyota Indus shuts down plant due to low demand

    Toyota Indus shuts down plant due to low demand

    Due to a continuing fall in demand, Indus Motors Company (IMC), the maker of Toyota vehicles, has decided to shut down all production for the remaining days of September, Dawn reported.

    As a result, reports said, the total number of Non-Production Days (NPDs) this month will reach 15 and quoted an IMC official as saying that the company had already observed eight NPDs in July and 11-12 NPDs in August.

    Claiming that “half of the month was off”, the official said that the federal excise duty (FED) leveled on various engine capacity cars, the skyrocketing prices of the cars owing to the rupee-dollar parity and high-interest rates had made their cars too costly.

    A Toyota vendor was also quoted as saying that IMC’s production would remain shut from September 20-30.

    Toyota Corolla production and sales dropped to 5,308 units and 3,708 units respectively in July-August from 8,804 and 8,770 units in the same period during last fiscal year, representing a fall of 40 per cent and 57 per cent, respectively.

    “Toyota Hilux production and sales have also plunged while that of Toyota Fortuner have come down to 232 units and 162 units from 484 units and 424 units, a drop of 52 per cent and 62 per cent, respectively,” the report said.

  • Guilty – of being a woman

    Guilty – of being a woman

    Likening women to uncovered candy or screaming about the virtues of the hijab or issuing thoughtless circulars regarding schoolgirls and what they should wear — none of these can be solved by a quick-fix order from a government.

    I don’t know about you but I’m not particularly keen on being likened to a lollipop — or any other candy, really. But, judging by social media posts and general attitudes towards harassment and women’s bodies, men in Pakistan seem very (disturbingly) comfortable with being likened to the house fly or the common ant.

    In keeping with the way women are seen (as candy that needs to be covered up, in case you didn’t get the idea), a week or so back schoolgirls in Haripur were instructed to cover up lest something unfortunate were to happen to them.

    “Instruct all students to use gown/abaya or chador to veil/conceal/cover up their-self in order to protect them from any unethical incident.” With these words, District Education Officer (DEO) Samina Altaf put the onus of sexual harassment or anything else that comes under ‘unethical incident’ on young girls. Altaf’s Haripur circular was followed by one for Peshawar. The usual debates ensued on social and traditional media and — as is now pretty much what is expected from this government — the circulars were taken back.

    That the original notification was issued by a woman needs to be unpacked in a whole other article, but let’s just say that the patriarchy and right-wing morality we all grew up with is not confined to one gender and needs to be fought from within.

    Child rights organisation Sahil has said that from January to June in the current year, 1,304 cases of sexual abuse of children have been reported by the media in the country, which means that at least seven children are abused daily in Pakistan. Let the numbers sink in: seven children every single day are either raped or sodomised or otherwise abused — and some are then even murdered. That is not a joke and no number of inane circulars can help correct this without some deeper corrective measures.

    We live in a country where a district in Punjab — Kasur — has almost become synonyms with child abuse, and yet nothing seems to be done about it other than some ineffectual and bizarre reshuffling in the police order. We live in a country where colleges in a big city like Karachi find it perfectly normal to police girls clothing by checking if the kameez/shirt they’re wearing covers their posterior. We live in a country where the only solution to child rape is the death penalty for the rapist (which is not a deterrent) but never a campaign to raise awareness regarding child sexual abuse or sexual harassment generally.

    It is not odd then that in this same country we would have a ‘#HijabIsProtection’ Twitter trend soon after the Hairpur/Peshawar circulars and smack in the middle of three fresh cases of abuse and murder in Kasur. The only thing that reinforces is the absolutely incorrect belief that covering up is the solution to harassment — whether in school, on the street or at home. And it reinforces all the guilt, shame, fear that women here (and in other parts of the world too) grow up with when it comes to their bodies and what harassment is all about (hint: it has nothing to do with what you’re wearing).

    Likening women to uncovered candy or screaming about the virtues of the hijab or issuing thoughtless circulars regarding schoolgirls and what they should wear — none of these can be solved by a quick-fix order from a government. We need a change in attitudes, in the way women are perceived and what little girls are taught about themselves and their ‘virtue’. That requires a change in how society sees ‘safety’. And that then requires a change in how the state perceives issues of security and safety — not of the state but of the people it is meant to serve.

    You will not protect our little girls and boys by asking girls to cover up, or asking parents to employ guards at homes and at school. That’s not deterrence, that’s fear and state’s incompetence. You will not protect our little girls and boys just by hanging one rapist and thinking your work’s done. It’s not. The monsters created by a sick society won’t go away if you just close your eyes. We need your eyes open, your minds working and your people — state representatives — doing much more than issuing ill-thought-out circulars.

  • PML-N leaders mistake own ‘corruption’ for PTI’s

    In a rather embarrassing development, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leaders have shared audit reports highlighting financial irregularities from their own tenure, while mistaking them as “shortcomings of the now ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)”.

    As per the details, Dawn on Friday shared contents of an audit report pointing out irregularities worth over Rs15.67 trillion money in affairs of federal ministries and divisions during the audit year 2018-19.

    PML-N central spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb besides other leaders, including Maiza Hameed and Khurram Dastgir, tweeted the report while criticising the PTI government for its “corruption”.

    They, however, failed to realise that the funds audited were of the fiscal year 2017-18 — a time when the PML-N was in power — which is described as the audit year 2018-19.

    With screenshots of the said tweets starting doing rounds over the internet, Federal Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry and Minister for Economic Affairs Hammad Azhar also took a dig at the PML-N leaders for “exposing their own corruption”.

    The tweets have since been deleted.

  • Hamza Ali Abbasi says his character in ‘Alif’ reflects his own journey

    Hamza Ali Abbasi says his character in ‘Alif’ reflects his own journey

    Hamza Ali Abbasi’s much-awaited project Alif has finally seen the light of the day and is set to air on Geo Entertainment some time this month or early next month.

    Two teasers of the drama have been released and from the look of it, the drama is pretty intriguing. Hamza plays a hotshot director who thinks the world of himself, while Sajal is an aspiring actor.

    The second teaser featured Kubra Khan and Ahsan Khan but it was hard to tell what their characters would be about.

    The drama has been penned by Umera Ahmed and directed by Haseeb Hasan (Mann Mayal, Parwaaz Hai Junoon).

    Meanwhile, Hamza took to Twitter to share that his character in a “lot of ways reflects my own personal ongoing journey.”

    He also said that “this project will set an example of how to use the medium of television to make people reflect on their lives and get back in touch with their Creator.”

    Guess we already know how the drama will end.

    Here’s a look at the teaser featuring Hamza and Sajal.

  • Govt not responsible for kid’s death by rabies: Bilawal

    Govt not responsible for kid’s death by rabies: Bilawal

    Reacting to the death of the 10-year-old who was bitten by a stray dog in Larkana, Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) chief Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has said that his party-led Sindh government cannot be blamed for it.

    Minor Mir Hasan died of rabies on Tuesday. He was first taken to a hospital in Shikarpur, however, he was not given the treatment because there was no vaccine available there, reports said.

    Hasan’s parents were quoted as saying that they later rushed him to Larkana’s Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Hospital, but it had also run out of the required vaccine.

    A video of the boy, breathing his last in his mother’s arms outside the hospital, was widely shared over the internet as people blamed the PPP-led Sindh government for his death.

    However, Sindh Information Minister Saeed Ghani said it wasn’t because of a shortage of anti-rabies vaccines. “He was bitten by a dog in his village two days before Eidul Azha, which was 40 days before his death.”

    The child was not brought to the hospital immediately after the dog bite and there is no record of him at any hospital in Shikarpur, said an initial investigation report submitted by the district commissioner.

    According to the report, the anti-rabies vaccine was available in stock at the hospitals Hasan was brought to, however, it needs to be administered immediately after a dog bite.

    Once hydrophobia has been developed, the vaccine does not work and is not administered, it said.

    Rubbishing reports regarding the shortage of vaccine, Bilawal, while speaking to reporters on Thursday night said, “The child was brought to the hospital beyond the time. He was bitten on Eid and brought to the hospital now.”

    WATCH VIDEO:

    When questioned about the alleged negligence of the doctors involved, the PPP chief said that investigations were underway and the government had nothing to do with it.

    “The [Sindh] government isn’t responsible for it, but both the selected government and media keep fixating on that,” he said.

  • Here’s how much you have to pay to stay at the ‘Downton Abbey’ castle

    Here’s how much you have to pay to stay at the ‘Downton Abbey’ castle

    We all love Downton Abbey and have always wondered what it would be like to live in that world. Well, here is your chance to do just that.

    The iconic mansion from the hit British show has now been listed on Airbnb and will be open to a select number of people for a one-night stay.

    Highclere Castle, England, is the location used in Downton Abbey. The castle’s owner, the Countess of Carnavon, has listed her home on Airbnb for one night only on November 26. This majestic mansion has 300 rooms and dates back to the 17th Century. You can book it on Airbnb for $159 per night!

    “You will get the opportunity to explore iconic rooms you know so well from Downton Abbey, such as the Drawing Room and the Library,” Lady Carnavon writes in her listing. “For one night, you can follow in the footsteps of kings and queens and enjoy life as a Lord or Lady to celebrate the upcoming motion picture event, Downton Abbey.”

    According to the Guardian, the guests will also join the earl and countess for evening cocktails in the saloon followed by a traditional dinner in the state dining room, waited on by the castle’s own butler.

    After dinner, coffee will be served in the library before the guests retire to one of the principal bedrooms with an en-suite bathroom and views over 400 hectares (1,000 acres) of rolling parkland.

    “Throughout the stay, Lord and Lady Carnarvon will immerse the guests in the rich history and heritage of Highclere Castle with a private tour of the castle, the Highclere estate,” the advert says.

    While the room is listed as coming with a hairdryer and shampoo, it will not have wifi or a TV.

    The listing says that the applicants must be verified Airbnb users with good customer reviews. The application period begins on October 1.

    So if you’re a Downton Abbey fan and are travelling to Britain at the end of November, don’t miss your chance to stay at the beautiful manor.

  • Indian defence minister trolled for posing in IAF uniform

    Indian defence minister trolled for posing in IAF uniform

    Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh is being brutally trolled over Twitter for posing for a photograph in the uniform of the Indian Air Force (IAF).

    The photograph started doing rounds over the internet after Singh flew on board India’s indigenously-built Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas in Bengaluru, becoming the first Indian defence minister to do so.

    “Visit us for tea sometime,” journalist Ajmal Jami wrote while retweeting the image. Other Twitterati, including Indians, also took some time out to troll the defence minister.

    https://twitter.com/AMEYTRIVEDI/status/1174552243955060736

    Earlier in the day, Singh said that the 30-minute sortie was “very smooth and comfortable”, not knowing that the subsequent ride won’t be.

    The IAF has already inducted a batch of Tejas aircraft. The naval version of the LCA is currently in the development stage.

    Recently in Goa, Tejas successfully carried out an “arrested landing”, a key performance demonstrating its ability to land on board an aircraft carrier, making it a major milestone in the development of the naval variant of the fighter jet.