Tag: Pakistan

  • French court bans ‘burkinis’ in city’s swimming pools

    French court bans ‘burkinis’ in city’s swimming pools

    Women in France will not be able to wear full-length swimsuits or ‘burkinis’ in public swimming pools. France’s high administrative court ruled on Tuesday that public swimming pools in Grenoble should not allow full-body swimsuits, including burkini, upholding a lower court ruling.

    On May 16, the City Council of Grenoble voted in favour of allowing burkini, prompting protests from conservative and far-right politicians of France who say the move has destroyed France’s principle of secularism in public life.

    What is Burkini:

    Burkini is a full body-covering swimsuit. It only has the face, hands and feet exposed. Muslim women often wear these to maintain their modesty according to their beliefs.

    The debate over burkini in France has been heating up since 2016 when a southern city tried to ban it on public beaches. On that occasion, the Conseil d’Etat declared the ban null and void, saying it violated fundamental freedoms.

    Muslim rights groups in France say that the ban on burkini limits basic human rights and it is discrimination against Muslim women.

    France is known for its Muslim discrimination laws, as it banned full-face niqab and burqa veils in public in 2010.

  • Mohammed Hanif withdraws from Germany conference after Palestinian journalist disinvited

    Mohammed Hanif withdraws from Germany conference after Palestinian journalist disinvited

    Pakistani writer Mohammed Hanif has announced that he would no longer attend a Goethe Institute conference being held in Hamburg, Germany, after Mohammed El-Kurd, a Palestinian writer and poet, was disinvited. The conference is to be held from June 23 to 26.

    “Withdrawing from @goerheinstut’s Hamburg conference where they first invited and then disinvited Palestinian journalist and poet Mohammed El Kurd. Reason is even more offensive. Apparently Kurd is not respectful enough towards Israel. How do you say bugger off in German?,” wrote Hanif.

    “Mohammed El Kurd’s house was taken over by settlers when he was elven. Kurd and his sister Muna have been protesting since they were children. Haven’t read much Goethe but I don’t think he wanted the world to be respectful towards a ruthless apartheid regime,” Hanif wrote in another tweet.

    Hanif was invited to talk about the Dynamics of Right Wing Structures.

    Goeth Institute on June 17 tweeted that El-Kurd was “not an appropriate speaker for this forum: in previous posts on social media, he had made several comments about Israel in a way the Goethe-Institut does not find acceptable”.

    Who is Mohammed El-Kurd?

    Kurd is an internationally acclaimed award-winning writer from Jerusalem-occupied Palestine. His work has been featured in numerous international outlets and he is currently the Palestine correspondent for The Nation. RIFQA, his debut collection of poetry, was published by Haymarket Books.

    Kurd has been quite vocal about Israeli occupation and atrocities in Palestine.

  • Sixth Covid wave expected, warn medical experts

    Sixth Covid wave expected, warn medical experts

    Pakistan is expecting another Covid-19 wave, according to medical experts. Karachi is the most affected city with 340 positive cases, raising Sindh’s positivity rate to 10.69 per cent in seven days.

    Medical experts say a new variant — BA.5 — is fast spreading in other countries and had been reported in Pakistan, including Karachi.

    “While other [old] sub-variants of Omicron are also being reported in Karachi, this one is more contagious since it’s a new one and has been a cause of concern in other parts of the world,” said Dr Saeed Khan, a professor of molecular pathology heading the Sindh Public Health Lab at the Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS), while speaking with Dawn.

    “If we don’t pay heed to medical advice and start implementing the Covid-related preventive measures seriously, the spike in cases might turn into the sixth wave of coronavirus,” he said.

    “They are genetically different, which helps them transmit fast. Other reasons include waning of vaccine immunity after six months, reluctance on part of the general public to get a booster shot and absence of Covid-19 preventive measures at public places,” said Dr Khan.

    According to the National Institute of Health (NIH), 204 cases of Covid-19 with a positivity rate of 1.53 per cent were reported in Pakistan today (June 22).

  • IN PICTURES: Earthquake kills 950 people in Afghanistan

    IN PICTURES: Earthquake kills 950 people in Afghanistan

    At least 950 people have died in Afghanistan as a result of an earthquake. The earthquake was magnitude 6.1 at a depth of 51 km while the epicentre was about 44 km from Khost city in Afghanistan, said the US Geological Survey (USGS). 

    Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has expressed his grief over the loss of innocent lives in the earthquake. “Deeply grieved to learn about the earthquake in Afghanistan, resulting in loss of innocent lives. People in Pakistan share the grief & sorrow of their Afghan brethren. Relevant authorities working to support Afghanistan in this time of need.”

    Disturbing images of the Paktika province near the Pakistani border are being widely shared on social media, including wrecked stone dwellings, people being carried on stretchers, rubble and ruined homes.

    Helicopters are being used by the Afghan authorities in a rescue effort to transport food and medical supplies to the injured.

  • ‘IMF programme will be revived soon’: Miftah Ismail

    ‘IMF programme will be revived soon’: Miftah Ismail

    Pakistan and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) evolved a broader agreement on the budget 2022-23 to revise upward the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) target and slash down the expenditures to achieve a revenue surplus in the next fiscal year.

    Federal Minister for Revenue and Finance Miftah Ismail had already indicated the revival of the agreement with IMF within a day or two.

    “I am very hopeful that the IMF programme will be revived soon,” said the finance minister. “Pakistan and the IMF locked the budget details and achieved substantial progress on finalising budgetary targets for 2022-23.”

    “Now the Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies (MEFP) will be shared by the IMF soon,” the minister said.

    “Discussions between the IMF staff and the authorities on policies to strengthen macroeconomic stability in the coming year continue, and important progress has been made over the FY23 budget,” Esther Perez Ruiz, the IMF’s resident representative in Islamabad, told Reuters.

    Miftah said that the government would target raising 96 billion rupees from privatisation in 2022/23. In the current fiscal year, the government did not raise any funds from privatisation.

  • Australian woman allegedly axed to death by father-in-law

    Australian woman allegedly axed to death by father-in-law

    Trigger warning: Murder/Abuse

    An Australian woman has allegedly been killed by her father-in-law in Sargodha. Sajida Tasneem was allegedly killed in front of her father at a home she shared with her in-laws on June 11.

    Sher Muhammad Khan, Tasneem’s father, claimed that his son-in-law Ayub Ahmed had coerced his daughter into leaving their Perth, Western Australia home and travelling to Pakistan with her three children, reports The Guardian.

    Mukhtar Ahmad, Tasneem’s father-in-law, is accused of taking Tasneem’s passport.

    The girl’s father reported to the police that on June 11, he allegedly saw Mukhtar abusing his daughter. He discovered them in a restroom at around 1:45 pm. After entering the restroom, Sher Muhammad Khan found Tasneem’s mouth was allegedly filled with a piece of cloth by Ahmad.

    The man then allegedly used an axe to strike Tasneem in the head. Mukthar Ahmad has been booked under murder charges.

    Police are still investigating the case.

  • ‘Can be arrested’: Law minister says Nawaz will have to surrender if he fails to secure transit bail

    ‘Can be arrested’: Law minister says Nawaz will have to surrender if he fails to secure transit bail

    Federal Minister for Law Azam Nazeer Tarar said Tuesday that if Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supremo Nawaz Sharif does not secure transit bail while coming back to Pakistan, he can be arrested.

    The law minister said that if Nawaz fails to secure transit bail, then he will have to surrender himself and the “courts should provide [relief] to the people who are handing themselves over to the law voluntarily”.

    Speaking on the issue, Tarar said that former prime minister Benazir Bhutto also secured transit bail when she came back to Pakistan.

    It is pertinent to mention here that the Lahore High Court (LHC) allowed Nawaz to go to London for medical treatment in November 2019.

  • Three arrested in Sidhu Moose Wala murder case

    Three arrested in Sidhu Moose Wala murder case

    In a significant breakthrough in Punjabi Singer Sidhu Moose Wala murder case, Delhi Police on Monday claimed to have arrested two shooters and their one associate in the sensational murder of the Punjabi rapper.

    The detainees have been identified as Priyavrat and Kashish (suspected shooter) and their accomplice Keshu Kumar.

    Rap star Sidhu Moose Wala was shot dead in his car in the Mansa district of northern Punjab in India last month.

    The 28-year-old was a popular musician in India and among Punjabi communities, especially in Canada, Pakistan, and Britain.

    Police recovered hazardous grenades, a grenade launcher, an assault rifle(AK-47), detonators, and some pistols from the suspects. All the suspected convicts were arrested in Gujarat, India.

    Earlier, Canada-based gangster Goldy Brar claimed responsibility for organising the rapper’s murder and was in touch with the shooters on the morning of the crime.

    Shooters were ordered to kill Sidhu with guns and if guns don’t work, they were even ready to kill him in a blast.

    So far, the Special Investigation Team has arrested 10 people, including Lawrence Bishnoi, on charges of alleged involvement in the murder of Sidhu Musa Wala and identified four shooters involved in the incident.

    Moose Wala rose to prominence with catchy songs attacking rival rappers and politicians, presenting himself as a man who can fight for the pride of his community, and justice.

  • Baby’s head cut in womb in Tharparkar

    Baby’s head cut in womb in Tharparkar

    A 32-year-old Hindu woman from a village in Chhachhro, Tharparkar, delivered a dead breech baby girl at a charity hospital on June 16.

    Breech delivery is when a baby’s bottom comes out first during the delivery.

    In Chhachhro the hospital staff tried to deliver the breech baby’s head for half an hour but failed. After failing to deliver the rest of the baby, the hospital staff cut off the head before the mother was sent to Mithi hospital. The procedure was done in the absence of a gynaecologist and female staffers. The woman was then taken to the Mithi district headquarters hospital, where she was advised to rush to Liaquat University of Medical & Health Sciences, Jamshoro (LUH), which was 220 km away from Mithi. Altogether, she had to travel 319 km with the baby’s head inside her womb.

    According to the baby’s father, they had an X-ray taken from a hospital, where the doctor had told him that his wife would have an operation because the baby was upside down in the mother’s womb. According to him, the doctor also told him the date of delivery. He said that as soon as his wife’s condition deteriorated, he took her to a local midwife who said that she was not feeling well, after which he took his wife to the hospital.

    In LUH, an abdomen surgery was performed on her and the baby’s head was taken out after 18 hours of back-to-back delivery pains. This was the woman’s fifth child who died during delivery.

    Prof Dr Raheel Sikandar of LUH said that usually breech babies are delivered and they survive. According to him, the woman had a ruptured uterus.

    “Healthcare providers [in Chhachhro] might have tried to save the baby, but in vain. The baby’s head was entrapped. In such breech baby cases, deaths occur in one minute if they are not fully delivered.”

    “The baby’s buttocks and legs were fully developed, but unfortunately it was a dead breech baby,” Dr Sikandar added. However, the woman’s life has been saved. She is currently admitted to the gynecology unit of LUH.

    The charity hospital in Chhachhro said that while the nurses were cleaning the patient, the dead baby’s torso detached from the neck because the neck had already been broken. They revealed that at the time they didn’t have any gynaecologist, which is why they could not operate. The hospital further claimed that the woman’s family was told to go to Mithi but they insisted on getting the treatment at the charity hospital, reports BBC Urdu.

    Action taken by the authorities:

    A notification issued by the Director-General (DG) Sindh Health on Saturday stated: “The fetus was not in a cephalic position. So the head got stuck after delivering the torso because the delivery was done by inexperienced hands.” DG Sindh Health said that an investigation has been started in which the statements of the staff of the missionary hospital have been recorded. An inquiry was also ordered by the provincial health secretary.

    Pakistan has the highest infant mortality rate in South Asia. According to the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), the country reported 54 infant deaths per 1,000 live births.

    News of infant deaths and the non-availability of doctors in hospitals have been circulating in the media for the last decade in Tharparkar. Several times, this issue was brought up in the Supreme Court (SC), High Court, and the Sindh Assembly but all in vain.

  • England to tour Pakistan after 17 years for T20 series

    England to tour Pakistan after 17 years for T20 series

    The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has confirmed that their national cricket team will arrive in Pakistan on September 15 to play seven T20 International matches, The News reported.

    The guests will stay in Pakistan for 17 days. Matches will take place between September 15-October 2. Then they will leave for Australia to take part in the T20 World Cup, which will take place in Australia.

    England cricket team is visiting Pakistan after 17 years.

    ECB wanted to play all seven matches at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium. However, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) wants to host these matches in Lahore, Karachi, or Multan as the stadiums have the capacity to accommodate more spectators. The dates and venues of all these matches are not yet decided.

    England will also face Pakistan in a three-match Test series.