Bahria Town Chairman and real estate tycoon Malik Riaz on Sunday alleged that he was being immensely pressurised for “political motives” but will not bow down before anyone.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Riaz wrote that there has been a “recurring pattern of victimization against me and my business for introducing state-of-the-art projects in Pakistan.”
It should be noted that Malik Riaz did not name anyone despite complaining he was being pushed to the wall.
Dawn News reported that it reached out to numerous political experts and politicians but “nearly everyone was reluctant to comment on his ‘sad tale’.”
It is, however, widely believed that Riaz was referring to the Al Qadir Trust/University case, which was filed by NAB against PTI founder Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi.
The case alleges that PM Imran Khan and his spouse obtained land spread over hundreds of kanals from Bahria Town Ltd to legalise Rs50 billion, the same amount which was returned to Pakistan by UK authorities.
Reacting to the tycoon’s statement, former president and PTI leader Arif Alvi asserted that the pressure cooker will ‘burst one of these days’.
Pakistan on Sunday demanded that the Taliban government in Afghanistan hand over Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) terrorists involved in the Besham attack on Chinese nationals.
“Whether Afghanistan try the terrorists [in the court of law] or not, it should hand over the militants to Pakistan,” said Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi in a press conference.
Pakistan has recently been urging Afghan authorities to keep a check on TTP infiltration from its side of the borders and relations with the neighbor have also soured in the past two years.
At least six people including five Chinese nationals were killed after a suicide bomber rammed into the bus transporting the staff working on the Dasu hydropower project in Bisham, Shangla district, in March this year.
Pakistani authorities said that the TTP operated the Besham terror attack from inside Afghanistan.
Responding to a question, Naqvi said that Pakistan’s government had contacted the interim authorities in Kabul but “good results are not coming from there.”
Six crew members and six passengers travelling on a Qatar Airways flight from Doha to Dublin suffered injuries during a severe bout of turbulence on Sunday.
However, the flight landed safely and as scheduled, according to officials at the Dublin Airport.
“Upon landing, the aircraft was met by emergency services, including airport police and our fire and rescue department, due to six passengers and six crew [12 total] on board reporting injuries after the aircraft experienced turbulence while airborne over Turkiye,” the airport authorities explained in a statement.
NBC News talked to the passengers arriving at the airport and described the incident as frightening. “Just food all over the plane, on the ceiling, everywhere,” one of the passengers said.
Qatar Airways said in a statement that a “small number” of passengers and crew sustained minor injuries during the flight and were receiving medical attention.
The airline did not directly comment on the turbulence.”The matter is now subject to an internal investigation,” the statement read.
The incident happened nearly a week after a Singapore Airlines flight from Heathrow Airport hit severe turbulence over the Indian Ocean leaving one passenger dead and 20 others injured.
Scientists blame climate change for increased air turbulence incidents.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Vice-Chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi was implicated in eight more cases related to the May 9 riots on Sunday.
Qureshi is currently incarcerated in Adiala Jail on multiple charges while also serving a 10-year sentence under the Official Secrets Act by a special court.
May 9 riots took place when PTI founder Imran Khan was arrested from the premises of Islamabad High Court (IHC). Scores of PTI workers and senior leaders were imprisoned for involvement in violence and attacks on military installations in 2023.
Meher Bano Qureshi, a PTI leader and the daughter of Shah Mahmood Qureshi, took to X to condemn the action taken by Lahore Police saying, “After 281 days in jail l, as a consequence of a sham trial, Lahore Police has arrested Shah Mahmood Qureshi in 8 cases related to 9th May incidents in Lahore. The arrest comes after he was interrogated by Lahore police yesterday. Incidentally, it’s a well-established and documented fact that my father was in Karachi on the 9th.”
Ebrahim Raisi is no more. Newspapers and various other outlets have published countless obituaries both coming from the tainted western lens and that of religiously coloured frame. I, on the other hand, want to present an account of listening to Raisi’s speech once and was inspired by the depth of his words and the resolution in his tone.
“If Israel violates the sovereignty of the Iranian state again, the reaction will be different and who knows the Zionist regime will not exist,” the one who said these words is now buried in a freshly dug grave in Mashhad but certainly not forgotten.
Ebrahim Raisi (1960-2024) said these words in front of the students and teachers at Government College University Lahore, my alma mater. It was surreal, to witness a head-of-state speak in the prestigious Bukhari Auditorium. While the security and arrangements made it all very unapproachable, when he arrived it was warm and almost palpable.
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LAHORE: April 23 – President of the Islamic Republic of Iran Dr. Seyyed Ebrahim Raisi shaking hand with students during his visit the Government College University (GC) Lahore. APP/MTF/MAF/TZD
April 23 was the day I went to the university after a long time, not just to attend an esteemed ceremony but also covering it for The Current. The day was bright and because it was a public holiday in the city, I reached GCU Lahore almost gliding through the air early in the day at 8:30 am.
A crowd of selected people, all ready to bear witness to history in the making could be seen under the gothic lady.
Although no gadget was allowed inside, I managed to grab a pen and paper and took notes of the speech which is a piece of literature in true sense of the word. References of Iqbal’s poetry with the messages of the reawakening of youth made it worth lending an ear to.
The Vice Chancellor started her address paying tribute to the resilient power and the great potential held by the land of Persians. In Allama Iqbal’s words. “Tehran ho gar Alam e Mahriq ka Geneva, Shayed Kurra-e-Arz ki Taqdeer badal jaye.” The verse implies that if Tehran becomes the Geneva of the East, the fate of the world will surely change.
It turned out that Iranian President Raisi was not just fully familiar with the work of our national poet but remembered him as Iqbal Lahori for his work in Persian. He was pleased to be present in the institution where Iqbal studied and taught; and to be in Lahore, the city from where the revolution against oppressive colonial rule started.
While he stressed about the hybridization of knowledge and faith as the key to success in life, he stressed on Iqbal being the best example as someone who combined both excellently. As he moved on, like an expert orator, he felt the pulse of the audience and drew a comparison between the East and West. We believe the people of the East are higher than that of the West because of how they understand the “creation of knowledge”, Raisi quoted the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
He laid out his vision by saying, “The West is somehow trying to have a monopoly in the field of knowledge and Science, but we the people of East can change that.” He emphasised the role of universities in imparting a deeper understanding of the current situation and the pivotal role of faith along with seeking knowledge.
He substantiated his argument by pointing out how the West claims to have championed freedom of speech and human rights but the brutal ways with which University students setting up protests and encampments in Europe and America against Israeli occupation of Gaza are dealt with is a testimony to the innate contradiction between the claim and the practice.
“Today the liberation of Palestine is not just an issue of the Islamic world but of the world as well,” he said in a passionate tone and with this the audience was totally invested and they were applauding him even before the interpreter translated his words. Raisi predicted that hate is brewing in the hearts of people against United States and this Zionist regime in Palestinian territory and this will take revenge from them.
We are usually so used to of seeing leaders just chanting out popular things and hardly something literary Raisi gave the audience a minor jolt as he quoted 12th-century Muslim philosopher Ibn Arabi precisely from the text Fusus ul Hikam where he brought up the killing of children by Pharaoh only to prevent the birth of Prophet Moses. However, Allah was with Moses. Meanwhile, the nation of Moses was being created. He said that the same will be translated with Israel killing Palestinian children relentlessly.
He spoke like a warrior, someone who has stayed resilient in the worst of pressure. “If you stand against our nation, we will stand against yours”, Raisi said affirmatively. As he moved towards the end he put an emphasis on the support of Palestine as the common point of relation between Pakistan and Iran.
Coming full circle, Raisi left his mark with his final words which I quoted in the beginning. There are problems and issues of governance in every state of the world but what stands out is the resilience and the will to face opposition with head held high. With his words, Raisi inspired students to stand tall in the worst of situations and stand on the right side of history. The memory will forever be etched in my mind.
An Israeli official said Saturday the government had an “intention” to renew “this week” talks aimed at reaching a hostage release deal in Gaza, after a meeting in Paris between US and Israeli officials.
“There is an intention to renew the talks this week and there is an agreement,” the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The Israeli official did not elaborate on the agreement, but Israeli media reported that Mossad chief David Barnea had agreed during meetings in Paris with mediators CIA Director Bill Burns and Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani on a new framework for the stalled negotiations.
Top US diplomat Antony Blinken also spoke with Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz about new efforts to achieve a ceasefire and reopen the Rafah border crossing, Washington said.
Talks aimed at reaching a hostage release and truce deal in the Gaza Strip ground to a halt this month after Israel launched a military operation in the territory’s far-southern city of Rafah.
The current war in Gaza has caused the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Meanwhile, Israel has carried out a massacre of 35,903 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to data from Gaza’s health ministry.
Supreme Court’s Justice Mansoor Ali Shah has clarified his position regarding his name in the Dubai Leaks scandal, stating that he didn’t buy the Dubai property due to loss of investment there, The News reported on Saturday.
Dubai Unlocked — a six-month investigative project with reporters from 74 media outlets in 58 countries — in which 17,000 Pakistanis were made public who owned properties in the city with a combined value of around $11 billion.
Among the Pakistanis listed in the property leaks are President Asif Ali Zardari’s three children, Hussain Nawaz Sharif, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi’s wife, Sharjeel Memon and family members, Senator Faisal Vawda, Farah Gogi, Sher Afzal Marwat, four MNAs and half a dozen MPAs from the Sindh and Balochistan assemblies.
Justice Mansoor of SC’s name also appeared on the list for owning a property in the Maison Residence Collection in the downtown Jabal Ali area of Dubai.
Justice, in his defence, acknowledged having made the investment as a lawyer in 2009 but it failed to materialise due to the project not being completed and he lost his investments.
“My tax filings are done by AF Ferguson & Co., Lahore and if you desire, I can connect you with them for confirmation of the above,” the judge’s response read.
Bollywood star Rajkummar Rao fasts every Friday, continuing his late mother’s tradition of doing so, the actor has said.
Speaking about diet during a promotion event for his new film ‘Mr & Mrs Mahi’, Rao said, “I observe a fast on Fridays. It is something my mother would do for Santoshi Maa.”
He started the practice at 16 and it’s been a part of his life since then. Despite challenges, he sticks to the routine.
“Sometimes, I do not eat any meals, and sometimes, when I am working and I need to put in a lot of energy that day, I have one meal at night,” he explained.
A 300-year-old stash of gold and silver coins has been discovered by metal detectorists in a Polish mountain range.
The coins belonged to a con-artist who collected them after defrauding people.
A translated Facebook post from the Provincial Office for the Protection of Monuments in Kielce on May 8 claimed that Antoni Jaczewski, a “hermit, adventurer and false profit,” conned people throughout the late 17th and early 18th centuries.
Jaczewski would “convince people of his healing power,” according to Polish folklore. He would then entice them to come to his mountain encampment. Eventually, people gave him gold and silver coins in return for his healing techniques, reports The News.
Veteran Palestinian film director Rashid Masharawi was abroad when the Gaza war broke out last year, so he decided to hand over the camera to other filmmakers still inside the besieged territory.
“They are the story” of Masharawi’s project, which he presented at the Cannes Film Festival in France, more than seven months after the conflict erupted.
“They were fighting to protect their lives, their families, to search for food, for wood to make a fire,” said Masharawi.The result is a collection of short films called Ground Zero recounting the Israeli bombardment of Gaza and ensuing humanitarian disaster from the perspective of civilians on the ground.
In one, a mother displaced by the conflict plops her daughter in a large white bucket and, with a clean Turkish coffee pot, gently pours water over her to bathe her. In another, a man recounts his 24-hour ordeal under rubble after the building he was in collapsed.
Masharawi directed the 20 teams in Gaza from abroad – a process he described as “very, very, very difficult”. “Sometimes we needed to wait one week to 10 days just to be in contact with somebody, or just to have internet to upload material,” said Masharawi, who was born in Gaza.
At other times, teams were busy searching for a tent, finding insulin for a director’s mother, or “an ambulance to go and save some kids”. The films are part of several Palestinian tales screening at the festival, including Mehdi Fleifel’s Athens-set refugee drama To A Land Unknown.
Israel’s military offensive has killed more than 35,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to health ministry figures in the region. Thousands of miles away from the conflict, Israel’s pavilion in Cannes is promoting its filmmaking.
Palestinian cinema does not have its own tent at the event, but Algeria has made space for its filmmakers at the other end of the international market in Cannes.
“Our narrative and storytelling is more important than ever,” Norway-based Palestinian director Mohamed Jabaly said.He finished filming his latest project, Life is Beautiful, just before the war started. A close friend who shot the last scene of the film has not survived the war. “He was killed while waiting for food aid,” said Jabaly.
Munir Atallah, of US-based Watermelon Pictures, is hoping to bring the quirky family portrait to North American audiences, saying Palestinians have “for too long been shut out by the gatekeepers of the industry”.
One Palestinian who has already found viewers in the United States is Cherien Dabis, who made 2009 film Amreeka and co-directed hit Hulu series Ramy. But the shooting of her latest film – a historic epic – was disrupted by the Gaza war.
One of the crew on the ground in the occupied West Bank town of Ramallah, Ala Abu Ghoush, has responded by making a documentary about the stalled project, which they are calling Unmaking Of. “The film is really asking the question: What is the importance of doing films and art in this kind of situation, in this war?” said Abu Ghoush.
