Tag: China

  • Woman discovers son’s bride is her long-lost daughter

    Woman discovers son’s bride is her long-lost daughter

    A woman in China who was attending her son’s wedding realised that the bride-to-be was actually her long-lost daughter.

    As per details, the woman recognised the girl from a birthmark on her hand during the wedding ceremony, which took place in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, China. She then asked the bride’s parents if the girl had been adopted.

    The family, at first, was stunned at the question because they had not told anyone that the bride is not their actual daughter.

    However, they later revealed that they found the girl on the roadside more than 20 years ago and adopted her, saying that they have always regarded her as their own daughter to love and take care of.

    The bride after finding out the truth burst into tears of joy, describing the moment “happier than the wedding day itself”.

    Fortunately, the wedding did not get cancelled as the groom’s mother revealed that she had adopted the boy after giving up all hope of finding her daughter.

  • Pakistan set to export beef to China

    For the first time ever, Pakistan will be exporting beef to China in the near future.

    Organic Meat is a local public listed company that got approval and registration by Chinese customs authorities to export heat-treated beef to the People’s Republic of China.

    According to Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX), the Organic Meat company has new heat machines that kill bacteria and root out the virus from the meat, which is a mandatory process for meat products.

    The export of meat and meat products by Pakistani companies is gradually increasing due to their adoption of new technologies.

    Due to the adoption of new technologies, several Pakistani companies have started exports to different regions, including Gulf countries (GCC) like the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain.

    Last year, two Pakistani companies had received approval from the concerned Malaysian authorities to export meat and meat products to Malaysia.

    According to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), meat exports have maintained a growth of 12 per cent year-on-year. The exports surged to $216 million from July to February during the financial year 2020-21, in comparison to $210 million recorded in the previous financial year.

    The consistent growth of exports to both the traditional and new emerging markets will also attract new investments in the local companies and the area of livestock.

    Organic Meat won an export deal of supplying meat to markets in Saudi Arabia. The company also claims that their new system will enable them to export.

    The company was listed with the PSX last year for raising of funds, which resulted in the expansion of its operations and businesses.

  • COVID-19: Get vaccinated privately for only Rs4,225 per injection

    With the federal cabinet deciding to cap the maximum retail price of Russian and Chinese coronavirus vaccine injections imported by the private sector, the Drug Pricing Committee of Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) had proposed the same for two vaccines.

    Only those of 60 years of age or above are currently being vaccinated free of cost by the government in the absence of a wider state-run vaccination programme.

    However, Sputnik V’s GAM-Covid-Vac solution manufactured by the FSBI NF Gamalaya RCEM of the Russian Health Ministry and Convidecia vaccine manufactured by CanSino Biologics Inc will soon be available for Pakistanis seeking to get privately vaccinated against the deadly virus.

    The government has fixed the maximum sale price of Sputnik V vaccine at Rs8,449 for two doses and China’s Convidecia at Rs4,225 per injection, showed the summary of the National Health Services and Regulations Ministry.

    Further details have not yet been disclosed.

  • Army chief cites unresolved disputes as reasons behind regional debt, poverty

    Army chief cites unresolved disputes as reasons behind regional debt, poverty

    Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa on Thursday said unresolved disputes in South Asia were dragging the entire region into debt and poverty, in a veiled reference to the Kashmir issue.

    Addressing a gathering on the final day of the Islamabad Security Dialogue, COAS Bajwa said the national security encompassed more than just matters and affairs related to strengthening the country’s security forces.

    “It included development and human security as well,” he said.

    “We feel it is time to bury the past and move forward,” he said, adding that the onus for meaningful dialogue rested with India.

    “Our neighbour will have to create a conducive environment, particularly in occupied Kashmir.”

    “The world has seen the ravages of the world wars and the Cold War, wherein polarisation and neglect of virtues blighted the future and brought catastrophic consequences for humanity,” he said.

    “Today the leading drivers of change in the world are demography, economy and technology. However, one issue that remains central to this concept is economic security and cooperation. Frayed relations between various powers centres of the globe and boomeranging of competing alliances can bring nothing but another stint of Cold War.”

    Congratulating the National Security Division on organising the dialogue, Gen Bajwa stated that the contemporary concept of national security was not just about protecting countries from an external and internal threat.

    It is also about providing a conducive environment for ensuring human security, national progress and development, he said.

    The army chief’s comments come a a day after Prime Minister Imran Khan said that India would have to make the first move to normalise ties with Pakistan.

    “We are trying, but India would have to take the first step and unless it does that we cannot move ahead,” the prime minister had said while inaugurating the Islamabad Security Dialogue.

  • Woman orders Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max, gets apple-flavoured yogurt instead

    Woman orders Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max, gets apple-flavoured yogurt instead

    A woman in China was surprised after she received apple-flavoured yogurt instead of an iPhone 12 Pro Max she had paid for online.

    According to details, the incident happened in China’s Anhui Province as the woman took to Chinese social media app Weibo to share her experience.

    In the video, the woman claims she paid 10,099 yuan for the iPhone 12 Pro Max on Apple’s official website on February 16.

    A box arrived two days later but what she got in that box was not an iPhone but apple-flavoured yogurt.

    The woman said she didn’t directly receive the package from the courier, it was left in a parcel locker inside her residential community.

    As per reports, Express Mail Service has appointed a special team to investigate the matter. Apple has also stated that they are looking into the matter.

    The local police have also been involved in the inquiry and have doubts that it might be a theft case.

  • Man ordered to pay ex-wife $7,700 as compensation for housework

    Man ordered to pay ex-wife $7,700 as compensation for housework

    A Chinese court has ordered a man to pay his former wife 50,000 yuan ($7,700) as compensation for housework she did during their five-year marriage. Under a landmark civil code that seeks to better protect the rights of individuals, spouses can seek compensation from their partners in a divorce if they have shouldered more responsibilities – including housework.

    According to details, the woman, who did not work outside the home during the marriage, sought compensation for housework she had done after her husband filed for divorce at a district court in Beijing last year.

    The judge ruled in her favour, telling the man to pay 50,000 yuan for her labour. Additionally he must also pay 2,000 yuan a month to support their child, with other assets such as property to be divided equally.

    Read more – Groom beaten after first wife ‘crashes’ third marriage

    The award of compensation for housework sparked debate on Chinese social media, with many netizens saying the amount was too little.

    “A nanny’s annual income is already in the tens of thousands of yuan,” said a social media user. “This is too little.”

  • China shares dramatic footage of deadly clash with India troops

    China shares dramatic footage of deadly clash with India troops

    Dramatic footage released by Chinese state media purportedly shows deadly clashes between troops at the Indian border last year — a rare insight into violence at the tense, remote frontier.

    China’s defence ministry on Friday named four soldiers killed in the brawl, in the first confirmation of deaths by Beijing from an incident that had also claimed the lives of at least 20 Indian soldiers.

    Footage later released by state broadcaster CCTV appeared to show Indian troops wading through a river towards Chinese soldiers in the barren and ice-covered Karakoram Mountains, carrying sticks and shields reading “police”.

    A bilateral accord prevents the use of guns by either side, and brutal clashes between the two sides on the ill-defined border often involve sticks, rocks and fist-fights.

    “They have now moved another new tent here,” one soldier says in the video, which claims the Indian side broke the consensus and crossed the line to “provoke” the Chinese soldiers.

    Later footage shows a large melee of troops from both sides and clashes in the dark, before Chinese soldiers are seen treating a man on the floor whose head is covered in blood.

    The high-altitude border battle in the Galwan valley in June was one of the deadliest clashes between the two sides in recent decades.

    Beijing acknowledged that the clash had resulted in casualties but did not confirm if any Chinese soldiers died until this week.

    The CCTV voiceover said the Chinese soldiers were “heroically sacrificed”.

    Battalion commander Chen Hongjun and three other soldiers have been given posthumous awards, the defence ministry said. State media reported that the youngest soldier to die was 19.

    India and China fought a border war in 1962 and have long accused each other of seeking to cross their frontier — which has never been properly agreed — in India’s Ladakh region, just opposite Tibet.

    Beijing and New Delhi later sent tens of thousands of extra troops to the border, but said last week they had agreed to “disengage” along the border area.

  • NASA’s Perseverance rover lands on Mars, China trails behind

    NASA’s Perseverance rover lands on Mars, China trails behind

    NASA successfully landed its fifth robotic rover, Perseverance, on the surface of Mars on Thursday after its six-month journey from Earth.

    “Touchdown confirmed. Perseverance is safely on the surface of Mars,” said Swati Mohan, an engineer on the Perseverance team.

    The rover is the most technologically advanced robot NASA has ever sent to Mars. The agency’s goal is to use it to explore the surface in nearly two years.

    NASA spent about $2.4 billion to build and launch the Perseverance mission, with another $300 million in costs expected for landing and operating the rover on the Mars surface.

    Perseverance also has a small helicopter named Ingenuity that NASA would use to try the first flight on another planet.

    The rover’s weight is about 1one ton. It is 10 feet long, nine feet wide and seven feet tall. The camera is fixed in a robotic arm that reaches about seven feet. It also has a chemical analyser and a rock drill.

    Perseverance traveled 293 million miles to reach Mars over the course of more than six months after it was launched on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket on July 30.

    Meanwhile, China’s Tianwen-1 spacecraft has also entered into the orbit and might land on the surface later this year.

  • GDP growth in 2021: Pakistan likely at par with Nigeria at 1.5%; India at 11.5%, China at 8.1%

    GDP growth in 2021: Pakistan likely at par with Nigeria at 1.5%; India at 11.5%, China at 8.1%

    The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has raised its forecast for global economic growth in 2021 but warned that there was still “extraordinary uncertainty” about the outlook.

    According to the latest World Economic Outlook forecast, the IMF projects global growth at 5.5%, which is higher than their previous forecast in October. Global growth will moderate to 4.2% growth in 2022, the IMF said.

    As per the forecast, Pakistan’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the ongoing year will stand at 1.5% that it shares with Nigeria, while neighbouring India and China are likely to stand at staggering 11.5% and 8.1%, respectively.

    GDP is the total monetary or market value of all the finished goods and services produced within a country’s borders in a specific time period. As a broad measure of overall domestic production, it functions as a comprehensive scorecard of a given country’s economic health.

    Malaysia’s growth is likely to stand at 7%, Turkey: 6%, Spain: 5.9%, France: 5.5%, the United States (US) 5.1%, Indonesia: 4.8%, the United Kingdom (UK): 4.5%, Mexico: 4.3%, Brazil: 3.6%, Canada: 3.6%, Germany: 3.5%, Japan: 3.1%, Russia: 3%, Italy: 3%, while the GDP growth of Saudi Arabia has been predicted to stand at 2.6%.

    The upgrade for this year reflects the positive effects from the start to vaccinations in some countries, additional fiscal support in the US and Japan, and at least a partial return to business and consumer normality as the health crisis wanes.

    “Much now depends on the outcome of this race between a mutating virus and vaccines to end the pandemic, and on the ability of policies to provide effective support until that happens,” said IMF chief economist Gita Gopinath in a blog post accompanying the updated forecast.

    The global economy contracted by 3.5% in 2020, the worst peacetime contraction since the Great Depression of the 1930s, the agency said.

    Close to 90 million people are expected to enter extreme poverty in 2020 and 2021, reversing the trends of the past two decades, the IMF said.

    Altogether, the COVID-19 pandemic will cost the global economy $22 trillion over 2020-2025 relative to pre-pandemic projected levels.

  • Govt announces free vaccine for all citizens

    Govt announces free vaccine for all citizens

    The federal government has announced free coronavirus vaccine for all Pakistanis, saying the government will inoculate health workers and elderly people in the first phase.

    Dr Faisal Sultan, prime Minister’s aide on health, said that the government is eyeing procurement of at least 20 million vaccine doses in the first stage; however, only 1 million doses will be procured by March this year.

    He further said that the registration process for the vaccination is underway and the government would soon begin the drive once the vaccine doses arrive from China.

    Reports say China will provide 0.5 million vaccines by the end of this month free of cost, while more vaccines from China will arrive in Islamabad next month.

    Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi also talked about the procurement from the United Kingdom. He said the government was in talks with the UK to procure the vaccine developed by the British pharmaceutical company.

    So far, three firms, British firm Oxford-AstraZeneca, Chinese firm Sinopharm and CanSino Biologics, have asked Pakistan to buy their vaccine. Oxford-AstraZeneca and Sinopharm are already registered with Pakistan whereas CanSino is conducting phase-III trials in the country.

    Recently, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) had expressed serious concerns over the government’s decision to ask provinces and the private sector to import the coronavirus vaccine.

    As per the details, with the Cabinet Committee on Procurement of COVID-19 Vaccine briefing Prime Minister Imran Khan on efforts being made to engage more pharmaceutical companies for procurement, HRCP had said that the government’s decision in this regard was not the right step.

    It may be noted that amid reports of a delay in the procurement of vaccine, some journalists claimed that the government was in no hurry to order the coronavirus vaccine as most of the senior government members had already been vaccinated against the deadly disease.