It is always a delight to spend the summer in Europe but spending the summer in the European countryside is special. Think bright, sunny mornings, long, warm afternoons by the pool and cool nights under the starlit sky.
This summer I had the chance to spend the summer in Provence, a historical province in southeastern France. The culturally rich province extends from the left bank of the lower Rhône to the west to the Italian border to the east and is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the south. To be honest, my family and I couldn’t have picked a better escape to relax and unwind from the hustle-bustle of our daily lives.
What’s so special about Provence?
Where to stay
Chateau de Goult
Getting around
Places to explore
Goult
Provence Market
Bonnieux
Roussillon
Gordes
Learn how to make French Cuisine
Don’t forget to soak in some Vitamin D.
Just writing this piece has given me a serious case of wanderlust and made me want to go back.
The United States (US) President Donald Trump has said that he did not speak to Prime Minister Imran Khan for mediation with Iran, it was Imran who thought it would be a good idea, Voice of America reported.
According to the details and from the tweet of Voice of America Deewa (VoA Deewa), contrary to what PM Imran claims that Trump had asked him to mediate between the US and Iran, Trump has said it was Imran Khan who approached him for mediation.
Contrary to Pakistani PM Imran Khan claim that Pres.Trump asked him to meditate between the US and Iran, Pres.Trump suggested it was Imran Khan who approached him.”But no I haven’t spoken–he actually asked me,he thought it would be a good idea to meet…”Trump said accor. to AFP pic.twitter.com/976ejRYFys
“Well, he’d like to do that, and we have a very good relationship. And there’s a chance that that could happen. But, no, I haven’t spoken. He actually asked me. He thought it would be a good idea to meet, VoA quoted President Trump as saying.
Imran Khan had earlier said that US President Trump had asked him to help defuse tensions with Iran. He also said that prior to arriving in New York he had visited Saudi Arabia and spoken to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman who also asked him to talk to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.
PM added, “I immediately spoke to Rouhani after the meeting with Trump, but I can’t say anything right now more than this except that we’re trying and mediating”.
Tensions run high between Tehran and Washington since May last year when Trump abandoned a 2015 nuclear deal and began reimposing sanctions on Iran in a stated campaign of “maximum pressure”.
With rising costs of basic necessities, other products which are categorized as “not so necessary,” such as expensive clothes, are taking the back seat. But it appears that fashion brands are oblivious to these shifts in the economy. Why? Because they seem to churn out products that are categorized as affordable but are way out of the average Pakistani woman’s league.
On one hand, we have Generation, which has always prided itself for being inclusive and affordable and on the other, we have Elan, a high-street fashion brand which most people love from afar.
Generation, with their latest campaign featuring teachers, has gotten a few things wrong. For starters, people are unhappy with the prices. The joras are priced between Rs 6500 – 9000. Most school teachers in the country, including those who work in private schools, earn up to Rs 40,000 a month. Given the rising costs of basic necessities, it is unlikely that teachers will have any money left over to splurge on such items.
Social media users also thought the same and many of them commented on Generation’s posts, asking them to rethink their prices and offer discounts to teachers.
When we contacted Generation for their response on the social media backlash, they commented, “We kicked off August with our “Back to College” campaign and the shoot in question, was its extension.”
“Inspired by the nostalgia of college and the fact that a huge part of our customer base is from the teaching profession, we shot the campaign with Naveed Anjum, a college professor herself-who is a regular customer of GENERATION and who herself chose the clothes for this shoot. The blackboard, chalk and the old-school feel of the visuals served to evoke memories of good old classroom days with the teachers who shaped our present.”
They added, “Our casual product price ranges from Rs 1,500 to 9,000 and we chose one of the more sober collections featuring three-piece suits which ranges from Rs 6000 to 9000 but perhaps price should have been centre stage in deciding which collection to feature for the teacher segment. We’ll be more mindful of these things in the future.”
A balanced and well-curated response as one would expect, given their up-to-date marketing and PR teams.
Meanwhile, Khadija Shah of Elan came under fire after she took to Twitter to announce that she is introducing an “unstitched wedding season collection” which will be priced between Rs 18,000 and Rs 20,000.
The trolling that Khadija received, after her tweet, had no end. People called her out for being an elitist who lives in her own bubble.
With all due respect, i cannot afford to spend 20k on a dress. I would rather buy books in that amount and be contented for life. https://t.co/Xm3xwDD7Iv
At the same time, several people stepped forward to defend Khadija.
People giving @khadijah_shah grief over this. She’s explicitly said this is a WEDDING season collection. These are to be worn at WEDDINGS. WEDDING clothes are expensive generally. Unless you want to wear these for the school run… which is baffling. https://t.co/0f8fd5BZGy
Trollling #Elan for her new unstitched collection is UNJUST. I know it to be true how much cost goes into making of such articles. Frankly the bling COSTS !! If you can’t afford it just don’t buy it ! Nazi proletariat needs to get real ! @khadijah_shah
Khadija also tried to reason and explain the logic behind the high prices. She said that because of the depreciating rupee, the cost of raw materials and production has increased.
Chief Minister (CM) Sardar Usman Buzdar-led Punjab government has softly declined to implement the police reforms package that was approved by Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan ahead of his departure for Saudi Arabia and the United States (US), The News reported.
According to reports, the Punjab government through the Interior Ministry was recently asked to implement the reforms package, however, the provincial administration has expressed reservations over certain measures approved by the premier “without proper consultation with the stakeholders”.
The premier has reportedly given a go-ahead to the home departments to “take over control of the police” in Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Islamabad. Under the new system, the major functions of the police would be performed by the deputy commissioners (DCs) who have been given judicial powers of 22A and 22B besides the authority to inspect police stations.
While the federal government wanted the implementation of these reforms in Punjab through an ordinance by September 30, the provincial government has assigned a high-level committee to review the reforms package for police and return to centre with its recommended changes.
The report further said that the committee will be headed by the Punjab law minister and include three provincial ministers, chief secretary, inspector general of police (IGP), an ex-chief secretary and a retired IGP.
It has been tasked with completing its deliberations within a week.
“Following a presentation from the interior secretary, the reforms package was given a go-ahead by the PM. While the Punjab law minister was present during the presentation, neither the CM nor the IGP was there,” the report quoted sources as saying.
COPS UNHAPPY WITH REFORMS:
Meanwhile, officers of the Police Service of Pakistan as well as Punjab Police are “very upset with the way the reforms package was approved by the premier”.
Reacting to the reforms, senior officers of Punjab Police held a meeting at the Central Police Office on Wednesday night and threatened that they would resign, Dawn reported.
The police officers stated categorically that they “would prefer to leave their services rather than allowing the bureaucracy to take over the police department”. They unanimously rejected the new scheme which, they said, was an attempt of the Pakistan Administrative Services (PAS) to bring police under its control.
Reports quoted an official as saying that the participants of the meeting decided to take up the matter with CM Buzdar and parliamentarians to highlight their reservations.
Senior policemen authorised the IGP to meet the CM and bring to his knowledge their concerns. They also decided to present “factual situation” regarding the “failure” of the DCs on many fronts.
Meanwhile, Law Minister Raja Basharat held a meeting with the IGP and other senior police officers who apprised him of their concerns. The law minister assured the IGP and other senior police officers that he would play his role in addressing their legitimate demands by taking these up with the chief minister.
A student of Bahria University Islamabad passed away after falling from the fourth floor of the university building.
The deceased, 23-year-old Haleema Amin, was a bachelors student in her second semester at Bahria University. According to the police and hospital staff, she fell from the fourth floor of a new university block which is currently under construction.
The hospital staff claimed that the Haleema was conscious when she was brought to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) in the afternoon by university staff, including a doctor.
She had suffered multiple fractures including her backbone and was kept under observation and provided treatment. However, she passed away in the afternoon around 4:30 pm. The staff added that her body was later taken from the hospital by the same people who brought her to Pims.
Meanwhile, the Margalla police said they found out about the incident when the woman was brought to the hospital. They said they were told she fell off the building while taking a selfie.
The police said that the university did not allow them to investigate the scene of the accident and said that they would inform the police later and submit a report in this regard.
The police also shared that the woman’s family has yet to be approached for legal action, and her body is not with the police or the hospital. They said legal action will be taken, including an autopsy, if a complaint is lodged with the police.
Meanwhile, students of Bahria University said that their colleague passed away due to negligence by the university. They said that some of their classes were being held on the fourth floor of a new university block which is currently under construction and Haleem fell because of no proper fencing.
The students took to social media and the streets to protest against the university for being negligent and hiding the facts of the case and are demanding justice for their friend.
A student just told us: “ACs are also not working, and not a single water cooler is in BS(business school) department. They lack all the General facilities”. #BahriaUniversity#Islamabad
Minister for Human Rights Dr Shireen Mazaari also took notice of the incident and asked Education Minister Shafqat Mehmood to institute an inquiry.
Apart from shocking calousness on how we treat our students, why did the Uni not clearly have warning signs in this building? why were students allowed access to a building not fully constructed? Even more disturbing is the way the Uni authorities behaved after accident happened.
at the very least this is a case of criminal negligence – Bahria University must be held responsible. It shd come under federal jurisdiction so HEC & Min of Ed @Shafqat_Mahmood must institute an indep inquiry with a time frame to see where responsibility must be laid
So that criminal negligence proceedings can be instituted according to the law. No one can be above the law and we cannot keep treating our children with such fatal callousness. #JusticeForHaleema
A model court in Multan sentenced Qandeel Baloch’s brother Wasim Azeem to life in prison for murdering his sister. Life imprisonment means 25 years in jail.
The social media star was strangled to death in Multan in July 2016 and her brothers Waseem Azeem and Aslam Shaheen were accused of murdering her. The brothers said that they killed their sister because she brought dishonour to their family and the “Baloch name” with her inappropriate videos and statements. While Waseem was arrested immediately, Aslam, who was accused of urging Azeem to kill Qandeel was arrested in Saudi Arabia this year with the help of Interpol.
Waseem
Waseem had initially admitted to drugging and killing his sister but later changed his statement. The court had been hearing the case for three years. A high court had dismissed his bail applications twice before. The court had reserved its verdict after the defence and prosecution completed their arguments.
Meanwhile, six others accused in the case, including Mufti Abdul Qavi and Qandeel’s other two brothers Aslam and Arif, were not found guilty. Arif was reportedly the one who instigated Waseem to strangle his sister to death. Mufti Qavi was showered with rose petals as he exited the court.
While Qandeel’s father had initially lodged a murder case against his son Waseem and his accomplices in 2016, he later had filed a petition seeking a pardon for his sons but the court turned it down.
The affidavit said that the Anti-Honour Killing Laws (Criminal Amendment Bill) 2015, which prevents killers from walking free after being pardoned by the victim’s family, was passed months after Baloch was murdered and cannot be applied to her case.
Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan has said that Quaide Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah “had cancer and he kept it a secret from everybody”, in a blunder that has left Twitterati wondering if the premier is oblivious to what Jinnah really had — tuberculosis.
Speaking at Asia Society in New York on Thursday, PM Imran said that Jinnah was his role model who had a mission and joined politics for it alone. “He was in it for the mission, not the fame or power. Dreamers change the world, but career politicians never do.”
“He [Jinnah] didn’t tell anyone that he was battling cancer because he had a dream he wanted to fulfill,” the premier added, landing himself in crosshairs of netizens, who criticised the premier for “not knowing that Jinnah did not have cancer”.
Here’s what they had to say:
جب1947 میں زیارت میں ان سے ملنے گیا تو قاہداعظم نے صرف مجھے بتایا تھا کہ مجھے کینسر ہے. عمران نیازی pic.twitter.com/B6kkbdRcKw
This is not the first time PM Imran has said that Jinnah had cancer. A few months ago, he had said that the founder of Pakistan “didn’t disclose that he was suffering from cancer so that the enemy couldn’t create hurdles and delay the process of creation of Pakistan”.
JINNAH’S DEATH:
From the 1930s, Jinnah suffered from tuberculosis; only his sister and a few others close to him were aware of his condition. Jinnah believed public knowledge of his lung ailments would hurt him politically.
Tuberculosis is a disease caused by bacteria called Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The bacteria usually attack the lungs, but they can also damage other parts of the body.
As his health deteriorated over time, Jinnah passed away in Karachi on September 11, 1948, at the age of 71, just over a year after Pakistan’s creation.
A mother-of-four is warning others against kissing their newborns during the flu season after her own son barely survived a severe respiratory infection.
Ariana DiGrigorio’s son Antonio caught the flu when he was still an infant.
For two months, they could not figure out why the symptoms persisted. Antonio was then diagnosed with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).
Ariana shared a heart-wrenching photo of son in the hospital with all manner of supportive and monitoring tubes and wires coming from his tiny body on Facebook, urging parents to keep their babies away from relatives’ kisses, for the infants’ good.
RSV is a common viral infection but for the elderly, those with compromised immune systems and especially babies, the virus can be dangerous.
Most instances of pneumonia and bronchitis in infants are triggered by RSV.
Antonio pulled through, but it was a terrifying time for the DiGrigorio family. Antonio finally pulled through.
‘Don’t be the reason a baby is hospitalized (or dead) because the baby was “just so cute I had to kiss her!”‘ Ariana wrote in a Facebook post that was shared over 2,500 times.
Former Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) secretary-general, disqualified Jahangir Khan Tareen, has flown a sick British tourist out of Fairy Meadows National Park in his private helicopter.
Fairy Meadows, named by German climbers and locally known as Joot, is a grassland near one of the basecamp sites of Nanga Parbat, located in Diamer district of Gilgit-Baltistan.
According to the details of the incident, a British tourist on Wednesday fell unconscious after her health deteriorated during a camping trip in Fairy Meadows. Tareen, who was also present in the area as part of his trip to Gilgit-Baltistan, brought the sick tourist back to the airport in his helicopter.
The woman was later shifted to a nearby hospital while a video of the rescue has gone viral over the internet.
WATCH VIDEO:
برطانیہ سے آئی سیاح خاتون فیری میڈوز گلگت میں طبیعت خراب ہونے کے باعث بے ہوش ہو گئیں۔ جہانگیر ترین جو آج گلگت کے دورے پر ہیں وہ بھی سیر کی غرض سے فیری میڈوز میں موجود تھے۔ اپنے ہیلی کاپٹر میں خاتون کو فوراً گلگت ایئر پورٹ پہنچا دیا جہاں سے انھیں ہسپتال لے جایا گیا pic.twitter.com/iQgMGSCOf1
Meanwhile, Tareen’s trip to the country’s northernmost territory has been marred by controversy regarding the fuel for his chartered flight from Gilgit City to Skardu.
In a letter addressed to the Skardu deputy commissioner (DC) by the general manager operations of Princely Jets — Pakistan’s first private charter jet operator — three barrels (600 litres) of JP-1 fuel have been requested for Tareen’s helicopter.
Even though the letter does not appear to be in violation of any rules, netizens argue the need for a private company’s general manager “to request acquisition of government fuel from an official for Tareen’s chartered flight”.
Special Assistant to the Prime Minister for Information and Broadcasting Firdous Ashiq Awan has criticised Nobel laureate and education activist Malala Yousafzai as well as Oscar-winning filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy for their “silence over the Kashmir crisis”.
“Our sister Chinoy, who used to speak-up for acid victims in Pakistan and received an Oscar for her documentary, is now lost somewhere. Kashmiri sisters and mothers are calling out Sharmeen Chinoy to speak up for their rights,” PM’s aide said while addressing a press conference Thursday.
“She [Sharmeen] and NGOs [Non-Governmental Organisations] were always ready to project a negative image of Pakistan to the world whenever an incident related to minorities occurred. But now when Kashmiri women are facing tough situations in the occupied valley, these organisations are sleeping.”
Firdous alleged that they “used to receive foreign funds for promoting the negative image and now the rights of Kashmiris were not a part of their financers’ agenda”.
She even criticised Malala for not speaking up for Kashmiris. “Malala used to speak for the rights and education of children in [erstwhile] FATA [Federally Administrated Tribal Areas] and received many awards and appreciation from the United Nations (UN) and the world… I want to hear her voice for Kashmiri children as well”.
SHARMEEN & MALALA:
This is not the first time that Chinoy is being received criticised for her works as her Oscar-winning documentary “Saving Face” on acid attack survivors and their tough battle for justice received much hatred for “projecting Pakistan’s negative image”.
Malala has also been facing severe criticism for not speaking up for Kashmiris, even though she has expressed her concern for the people of the held valley.
In the last week, I’ve spent time speaking with people living and working in #Kashmir – journalists, human rights lawyers and students.
“I am deeply concerned about reports of 4,000 people, including children, arbitrarily arrested & jailed, about students who haven’t been able to attend school for more than 40 days, about girls who are afraid to leave their homes [sic],” she tweeted earlier this month.
