Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has nominated its Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari as the party’s candidate for the position of prime minister in the upcoming general election set to take place on February 8, The News reported on Thursday.
The PPP’s top decision-making body took a decision in the meeting of the Central Executive Committee (CEC) on Wednesday at Bilawal House in Lahore.
The former foreign minister is also contesting the election from NA-127 Lahore, where he will be in competition with Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Shaista Pervaiz Malik.
The CEC meeting also discussed the party election manifesto, where it was determined that jobs, health, education, and the empowerment of women and youth will be prioritised.
All party leaders in the CEC meeting showed confidence in the leadership of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and former president Asif Ali Zardari.
PPP leaders, including Secretary General Taj Haider, Syed Khursheed Shah, Rana Farooq Saeed Khan, Qamar Zaman Kaira, Samina Khalid Ghurki, Murad Ali Shah, Chaudhry Aslam Gill and Zulfikar Ali Bader were present at the meeting.
Australia’s batting continues in chase of Pakistan’s 313 runs in the first innings, however, the second day’s play has ended due to rain.
Australia scored 116 runs for the loss of two wickets when the game was stopped due to low light and a break was called before the tea break. Later on, it started raining during the break, causing a further delay, and the wicket was covered with covers.
On the second day of the last Test match, Pakistan got its first success as Australian opener David Warner scored 34 runs and fell victim to Salman Ali Agha while Usman Khawaja was dismissed by Aamir Jamal for 47 runs.
Indian tennis ace Sania Mirza shared a cryptic message on Instagram for the new year. Her posts always resonate with her followers, and this one seems to have sparked curiosity. The enigmatic quote read, “In 2024, I hope you find time to be happy. Not just strong,” leaving room for interpretation as to who it was meant for. The couple routinely get bombarded with breakup rumors. However, they’re still going strong after all this time.
Sania Mirza and Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik’s son Izhaan notched up his first victory in a swimming competition. Shoaib expressed immense pride on Instagram on his son’s first sports competition.
Algerian footballer Youcef Atal has been fined $49,000 in France for sharing a Palestinian cleric’s post about Gaza.
A case was registered against Algerian international footballer Youcef Atal, accusing him of spreading incitement for sharing a post of a Palestinian cleric about Gaza.
Youcef Atal shared a video on Instagram after Hamas’s action against Israel on October 7, in which Palestinian cleric Mehmood al-Hasanat threatened Israel.
Prosecutors say that in the video, Mehmood al-Hasanat prayed to God to “send a black day to the Jews” and to “steady the hands” of Gazans “for throwing stones”.
The 27-year-old French defender immediately deleted the post and apologized for it, but the club canceled his contract.
After that, a prosecutor in France started proceedings against him on suspicion of terrorism, and now he has been fined $49,000 for sharing this post.
In the Test match against South Africa, India’s batting line proved to be a wall of sand, setting a unique record for the most ‘0’ in an inning.
In the Cape Town Test, the South African team was bowled out for 55 runs in the first innings, after which India scored 153 runs for four wickets at one point, but then the South African bowlers turned the tables.
The Protease bowlers created a new history of Test cricket by taking 6 wickets of India without giving any runs, also in this inning India’s seven players returned to the pavilion without scoring a single run in an inning of a Test match.
It took firefighters more than eight hours to extinguish the fire that engulfed a Japan Airlines jet after it struck another plane on landing at Tokyo’s Haneda airport on Tuesday. It took 12 crew members just minutes to usher hundreds of people on board to safety.
All but one of the six people on the smaller aircraft were killed, but all 379 Japan Airlines passengers and crew escaped down emergency slides minutes before the Airbus was engulfed in flames late Tuesday.
The blackened husk of the airliner, still sitting on the tarmac Wednesday, bore witness to just how dangerous their escape had been. Several hundred metres (yards) away lay the remains of the coast guard’s DHC-8 aircraft.
The captain of the coast guard plane — which had been bound for the New Year’s Day earthquake zone in central Japan — was its lone survivor but suffered serious injuries.
Footage on Tuesday showed a ball of fire erupting from underneath the airliner shortly after landing and coming to a halt on its nose after its front landing gear failed.
“It was getting hot inside the plane, and I thought, to be honest, I would not survive,” one female passenger told broadcaster NHK.
“I thought we landed normally. But then I realised I was smelling smoke,” a woman with a small child told NHK.
“I needed to protect my daughter. That was the only thing in my mind,” she added.
Another passenger described surviving the crash as a “miracle”.
“I bounced off my seat from the impact when we landed,” the 28-year-old man told Nikkei Asia.
“We made it just in the nick of time. It’s a miracle we survived.”
Takuya Fujiwara from the Japan Transport Safety Board told reporters that the flight recorder and the voice recorder from the coast guard plane had been found, but those of the passenger jet were still being sought.
“We are surveying the situation. Various parts are scattered on the runway,” Fujiwara said, adding that the authority planned to interview several people involved.
Asked at a briefing whether the Japan Airlines flight had landing permission, officials at the major carrier said: “Our understanding is that it was given.”
Widely shared video footage shows flight attendants at the front of a darkened cabin gesturing for passengers to remain seated and thanking them for their cooperation. At one point, the camera pans across to show a window frame filled with orange light.
“Please get me out of here,” one woman shouts in the video. A child is heard asking: “Why don’t you just open the doors?”
The actions of crew and passengers have been credited with averting tragedy. Incredibly, none received serious injuries.
none appeared to have paused to retrieve hand luggage from overhead lockers, ensuring a clear route to the emergency exits. Less than two hours earlier, the passengers had watched a JAL safety video urging them to do exactly that. In the video, a flight attendant warns: “Leave your baggage when you evacuate!”, extending her open palms for emphasis. An animated sequence then shows the damage that bags and high-heeled shoes can cause to the inflatable evacuation slides.
Aviation experts said the unshakeable composure displayed by the flight attendants combined with the high level of cooperation among passengers probably prevented a deeply unsettling experience from becoming a major disaster.
“I can’t speculate on what happened here but human error will probably be found as a contributing cause,” Doug Drury, aviation expert at Central Queensland University, told AFP.
“Airlines are required to be able to empty an airplane of all passengers and crew within 90 seconds. The flight crews train for events quite frequently in simulation and it is a complicated process that as we saw was completed without fail,” he said.
Jail inmates have raped and killed a fellow prisoner in Adiala Jail, Public TV has reported.
https://youtu.be/nT9KVGGU3J4?si=5SyxdaBRUK0mjANM
The victim, Sabil, was first raped and then hanged to death by his fellow prisoners. He was locked in the mill of Adiala Jail Cell 2 where the harrowing incident took place.
The jail administration has registered a complaint against four suspects who have been detained.
According to the FIR, the victim was raped by Waqas, Asif, Naqash, and Bilal by tying his hands and feet and then killed him by putting a cloth noose around his neck.
The Jailer has said that Waqas pressed down on Sabil’s throat and chest with his foot, quoted PNP.
On the morning of January 1, the deceased was found lying unconscious in cell 2. His death was confirmed upon being transferred to the prison hospital. There were marks on the neck of the deceased which made the cause of death suspicious.
Police say that the body of the deceased prisoner has been handed over to his family after an autopsy.
The Peshawar High Court (PHC) has accepted the review petition of Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and restored the ECP’s ruling on the intra-party polls and election symbol of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).
Justice Ejaz Khan announced the reserved verdict today after hearing all parties. The Election Commission’s lawyer, Sikander Bashir Mohmand, and PTI’s lawyers, including Shah Faisal Uthmankhel and Qazi Anwar, were present in court today.
The ECP had submitted a review petition in high court against PHC’s order that suspended the ECP’s decision of declaring PTI’s intra-party elections “illegal” and stripped it of using the ‘bat’ symbol.
In its petition, the ECP requested the court to review the PTI’s intra-party elections and its decision related to the election symbol. However, PTI’s chairman, Barrister Gohar Khan, said that PTI will move to the apex court to get justice in this matter. “The Supreme Court has already stated that revoking a party’s symbol is tantamount to disbanding the entire party,” the PTI leader said, hoping that his party would get relief from the top court.
Jashn-e-Rekhta, the famous Urdu literary festival, is coming to Dubai on 27 and 28 January, 2024. It’s a two-day celebration of the Urdu language with poetry, talk shows, ghazals, and storytelling. The festival starts at Zabeel Park with a panel discussion called ‘Urdu Tehzeeb aur Rishton ki Lazzat’.
(The Delight of Urdu Culture and Relationships), featuring Javed Akhtar and Arfa Sayeda Zehra.The event will also feature a stage play, a Sufi concert by Ustad Shafqat Ali Khan, and a performance about the life of Noor Jehan. Don’t miss the enchanting session of Sufi music called ‘Shab-e Rafta’ from 9 pm to 11 pm.
There’s a talk show with Sameena Peerzada and Usmaan Peerzada, followed by an interactive session with Mahira Khan, Shabana Azmi, and Shekhar Kapur. And let’s not forget about ‘Main Koi Aisa Geet Gaau’n,’ a project combining poetry, songs, narration, and music with Javed Akhtar, Meiyang Chang, and Jahnvi Shrimankar. The grand international mushaira ‘Gehan aur Dhoop’ will showcase amazing poets like Anwar Shaoor, Farhat Ehsad, Zehra Nigah, Shakeel Azmi, and Abbas Tabish. It’s going to be a cultural fusion like no other. And with delicious food at Aiwan-e-Zaiqa Food Bazaar and an Urdu Bazaar with art, handicrafts, and books, it’s going to be a fantastic experience.
Former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s lawyer Intezar Hussain Panjutha has on Wednesday tweeted about the Tafseer of the Holy Quran that Khan is reading in Jail.
The Study Quran is written by a group of writers and the chief editor is Iranian Philosopher Seyyed Hossein Nasr.
— Intazar Hussain Panjutha (@intazarpanjutha) January 3, 2024
It can be ordered online via Readings and Liberty Books in Pakistan.
This is not the first time Imran Khan is either reading a commentary on the Quran or a book during incarceration. In August, his sister Aleema Khan told the media, “He has started finishing the Quran for the second time and has also read Islamic history.”
The same lawyer, Panjutha, is seemingly the most regular supplier of books to Khan as he has posted about sending him books previously as well.
