Singer Aima Baig recently surprised her fan base with a series of stories on her Instagram account, hinting at her leaving Pakistan. Fans were left worried and confused, thinking she was leaving the country for good.
Aima has now clarified that the speculation was not true.
“I’m not actually leaving Pakistan, it’s just an extended trip. As an artist, I have to live out of a suitcase, but my roots are still here,” she said. Aima Baig has calmed her fans’ concerns and informed them that she won’t be leaving Pakistan’s music industry in the near future with her clarification.
In an unusual development, the Foreign Office (FO) Pakistan on July 31st re-issued its press release condemning the assassination of Hamas’s Ismael Haniyeh, expunging the word “Israel”.
Both press releases were issued on the same day; however, in the last paragraph of the initial press release, it was written, “Pakistan views with serious concerns the growing Israeli adventurism in the region.”
First statement:
Later, it was changed to “Pakistan views with serious concerns the growing adventurism in the region,” redacting the word “Israel” from its statement.
Updated statement:
Social media noticed the correction instantly and reacted with suspicion, with most questioning the intent behind FO Pakistan’s move.
Renowned actor Danish Taimoor recently channeled Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan by striking his iconic arm pose in a sunflower field in the UK.
In a reel shared on his Instagram on Tuesday, Taimoor was seen recreating the signature pose, accompanied by SRK’s song ‘Main Yahan Hoon’ from the Bollywood movie ‘Veer Zara.’ He captioned the post, “Good memories are the timeless treasures of the heart.”
The video quickly went viral, amassing over 5 million views and thousands of likes and comments from fans who dubbed Taimoor the “King of Pakistan,” drawing comparisons to Bollywood’s Shah Rukh Khan.
Ayeza Khan also shared a gallery of photos from their trip, captioning it, “Sunflower field vibes, feeling like we’re in a Yash Raj movie song!”
A girl fell in a storm drain in Rawalpindi while travelling to her office on a scooty.
CCTV footage shared by ARY News shows the girl being swept away in the storm drain after slipping from her bike.
A search and rescue operation by the District Emergency Service was launched. Spokesman Rescue 1122 said that a missing girl has been identified as Ammara, 20. She was a resident of Ghauri Town, Rawalpindi. She was going to her office when she got stuck in a heavy water wave.
Initial reports suggest that the victim fell from the scooty and was swept away by the water stream into a nullah.
Till the publishing of this story, Ammara hasn’t been found from the drain by rescue teams.
“The search and rescue operation has been extended to the nullah’s linked spot at Swan river opening”, said the spokesperson to ARY News, adding that the missing girl couldn’t be found in the nullah where she reportedly fell.
However, the operation to find the missing girl is underway.
Former supermodel Iffat Omar has spoken out in defense of controversial playwright Khalilur Rehman Qamar following the scandal involving his leaked videos.
Using X (formerly Twitter), Omar addressed the situation without directly naming Qamar. She pointed out the irony that those Qamar had often criticized might now be the ones defending the misogynistic writer.
“If two consenting adults are together, their privacy is none of my concern. Their body, their choice.” Qamar recently made headlines after falling victim to a honey-trapping scheme, resulting in his release after a ransom was paid. The main suspect in the case claimed to possess two videos, each about an hour and a half long, showing Qamar getting intimate with the woman who had trapped him. The videos leaked online later.
Qamar has alleged that the videos were made under duress at gunpoint. His defence seems in contradiction to the video, where he can be seen smoking while sitting with the woman and chatting with her casually with his feet up.
Iran held funeral processions on Thursday amidst calls for revenge after the killing of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in a strike in Tehran blamed on Israel.
The Islamic Republic’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei led prayers for Haniyeh ahead of his burial in Qatar, having earlier threatened a “harsh punishment” for his killing.
The Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Ali Khameini leads the funeral prayers for Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on August 1. — IRNA
In Tehran’s city centre, thousands of mourning crowds carrying posters of Haniyeh and Palestinian flags gathered for the ceremony at Tehran University before a procession, according to an AFP correspondent.
Haniyeh’s death was announced the day before by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, who said he and his bodyguard were killed in a strike on their accommodation in the Iranian capital at 2:00am on Wednesday.
It came just hours after Israel targeted and killed top Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in a retaliatory strike on the Lebanese capital Beirut, sending fears of a wider regional conflict soaring in the fallout from the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza.
Israel has declined to comment on the Tehran strike.
Iran’s state TV showed the coffins of Haniyeh and his bodyguards covered in Palestinian flags during the ceremony attended by senior Iranian officials. President Masoud Pezeshkian and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps chief, General Hossein Salami, were present.
Senior Hamas figure Khalil al-Hayya, the movement’s foreign relations chief, vowed during the funeral ceremony that “Ismail Haniyeh’s slogan, ‘We will not recognise Israel,’ will remain an immortal slogan” and “we will pursue Israel until it is uprooted from the land of Palestine.”
Iran’s conservative parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said Iran “will certainly carry out the supreme leader’s order (to avenge Haniyeh.)” “It is our duty to respond at the right time and in the right place,” he said in a speech with crowds chanting “Death to Israel, Death to America!”
‘Our duty’
The caskets, with a black-and-white pattern resembling a Palestinian keffiyeh scarf, were borne on a flower-bedecked truck through leafy streets where cooling water mists sprayed the flag-waving crowds.
Khamenei, who has the final say in Iran’s political affairs, said after Haniyeh’s death that it was “our duty to seek revenge for his blood as he was martyred in the territory of the Islamic Republic of Iran”.
The Islamic Republic has not yet officially published any information on the exact location of the strike.
Pezeshkian said on Wednesday that “the Zionists (Israel) will soon see the consequences of their cowardly and terrorist act”.
The international community, however, called for de-escalation and a focus on securing a ceasefire in Gaza — which Haniyeh had, according to a Hamas official previously, accused Israel of obstructing.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the strikes in Tehran and Beirut represented a “dangerous escalation”. All efforts, he said, should be “leading to a ceasefire” in Gaza and the release of hostages taken during Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel which began nearly 10 months of fighting.
The prime minister of key ceasefire broker Qatar said Haniyeh’s killing had thrown the whole mediation process into doubt. “How can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side?” Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said in a post on the social media site X.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday called on “all parties” in the Middle East to “stop escalatory actions.” Earlier he said a ceasefire in Gaza was still the “imperative”, though White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the twin killings of Haniyeh and Shukr “don’t help” regional tensions.
Tensions inflamed
While Iran has blamed the attack on its arch-foe, Israel has declined to comment on Haniyeh’s death. It did, however, claim the killing of Shukr, whom it blamed for a weekend rocket strike that killed 12 youths in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.
The killings come with regional tensions already inflamed by fighting in Gaza, a conflict that has drawn in Iran-backed militant groups in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen.
One of those groups, Yemen’s Houthi rebels, “declared three days of mourning” for Haniyeh, with political leader Mahdi al-Mashat expressing “condolences to the Palestinian people and Hamas” over his killing, according to the group’s Saba news agency.
The United Nations Security Council also convened an emergency meeting Wednesday at Iran’s request to discuss the strike.
Hamas has for months been indirectly negotiating a truce and hostage-prisoner exchange deal with Israel, in talks facilitated by Egypt, Qatar, and the United States, but with Haniyeh killed, the situation is back to square one.
Analysts told AFP that Haniyeh was a moderating influence within the Islamist group, and that while he would be replaced, the dynamics within Hamas could change.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas in retaliation for the October 7 attack that ignited conflict in Gaza.
That attack resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures. Hamas also seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.
Concern grew among Israelis over the fate of those still held in Gaza. Haniyeh’s killing “was a mistake as it threatens the possibility of having a hostage deal,” said Anat Noy, a resident of the coastal city of Haifa.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign against Hamas has killed at least 39,445 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry.
Bella Hadid has broken her silence after sporting giant Adidas dropped her under pressure from pro-Israel groups. The controversy started when Adidas featured Hadid in a campaign about the 1972 Munich Olympics but did not mention the 11 Israelis killed by the Palestinian group Black September at the same event.
Hadid was wearing shoes inspired by Adidas’ SL72 sneakers, first released during the 1972 Munich Olympics. On Instagram, Hadid explained that she did not know about the tragic events linked to the Olympics when she agreed to the campaign. She said she would never knowingly take part in something connected to a tragedy.
In her statement, Hadid said, “I want you to hear directly from me about my recent campaign with Adidas. I would never knowingly engage with any art or work that is linked to a horrific tragedy. Before the campaign was released, I did not know about the connection to the events in 1972. I am shocked, upset, and disappointed by the lack of sensitivity in this campaign.”
Hadid made it clear that she would not have participated if she had known about the attack. She criticized herself, her team, and Adidas for not being aware of the historical context. She emphasized that she always speaks up against what she believes is wrong.
Hadid also addressed the issue of antisemitism. “I do not believe in hate in any form, including antisemitism. I stand by this fully,” she said. She criticized linking the “liberation of the Palestinian people” to terrorism, saying it misrepresents Palestinians. Hadid declared her pride in being Palestinian and emphasized that there is more to their culture than recent negative associations.
She stated, “I will forever stand by my people of Palestine while continuing to advocate for a world free of antisemitism. Antisemitism has no place in the liberation of the Palestinian people. I will always stand for peace over violence. Hate has no place here, and I will always advocate for my people and everyone worldwide.”
Earlier in the summer, when the Adidas campaign was launched, the American Jewish Committee called the decision a “massive oversight or intentionally inflammatory.” Adidas pulled the campaign photos and apologized in mid-July for any upset caused, stating that the connections to tragic historical events were unintentional. That did not stop pro-Palestine people from staging a boycott of the brand.
Adidas later apologized to Hadid and other partners involved, saying, “We made an unintentional mistake. We apologize to our partners, Bella Hadid, A$AP Nast, Jules Koundé, and others, for any negative impact and are revising the campaign.”
Military analyst for the Middle East, Elijah J. Magnier, has explained how Israel reached the location of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, invading the tight security of the Revolutionary Guards.
In a Twitter post, he said that Israel tracked Ismail Haniyeh through a spying software similar to the infamous Pegasus.
Israel planted the latest spyware in Ismail Haniyeh’s WhatsApp message, after which the spy software told the Israeli intelligence his location. “Israel reportedly planted sophisticated spyware through a WhatsApp message sent to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. This software allowed Israeli intelligence to localize his exact position within his apartment. Subsequently, Haniyeh was assassinated following a conversation he had with his son, during which his location was pinpointed,” Elijah claimed.
Shedding light on the spy software, Elijah opined that it is the same as Pegasus, which once made headlines for its potential for surveillance. “The spyware in question is believed to be similar to the notorious Pegasus software developed by the Israeli cyber-intelligence firm NSO Group. Pegasus has the capability to infiltrate smartphones, allowing the operator to access messages, photos, and location data, and even control the phone’s camera and microphone without the user’s knowledge.”
In a press conference after the martyrdom of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in the Iranian capital, Tehran, Hamas spokesperson Khalil Haya said that Haniyeh was neither in a secret location in Iran nor isolated from the people. Killing people with such intelligence cannot be called success.
Khalil said that Haniyeh was martyred with the help of a missile. The results of the complete investigation are awaited. However, media reports say that those who were with Haniyeh said that the missile broke the window of the room and hit him directly.
‘Mera Rab Waris,’ a popular Geo TV drama series, is set to air on the Turkish channel Kanal 7.
Originally released on March 7, 2019, ‘Mera Rab Waris’ was written by Jahanzeb Qamar and produced by 7th Sky Entertainment, with Abdullah Kadwani and Asad Qureshi as the producers. The drama stars Danish Taimoor and Madiha Imam in the lead roles.Turkish viewers are eagerly anticipating his latest series.
The drama, replacing ‘Tere Bin’ on Kanal 7, whose final episode aired yesterday, followed by the release of ‘Mera Rab Waris’ teasers in Turkish. The story revolves around a young Muslim girl who practices her faith and marries a modern man, exploring themes of faith and love.
Turkish audiences are excited about the series, appreciating the religious elements in the Pakistani drama. Watch the teasers below and get ready for an engaging story that has captivated viewers in Pakistan.
US Visa applications are expected to break all records this year as the offices in Islamabad and Karachi are processing more than 10,000 applications a month.
Due to the high demand, the waiting time for the appointment has also been reduced by almost half compared to last year.
Dawn’s Kalbe Ali reported that a senior US embassy official stated that the number of visas issued from offices in Islamabad and Karachi reached the highest ever in 2023.
He said the number will exceed in the ongoing US fiscal year that will end in October 2024.
The visa fee for an E-visa is 315 dollars which is almost 88 thousand Pakistani rupees.
Waiting time reduced
The official shared that compared to last year when the appointment waiting time peaked to 440 days, it has now been reduced by the embassy to 237 days.
Additionally, he told Dawn that visas are issued within five days after the interview if the concerned officer approves. However, the delay in the visa applications processing time is only because each application is evaluated on individual basis.
A total of 107,183 non-immigration visas were issued from Pakistan during the fiscal year ending in October 2023, compared to 72,082 visas issued in the previous fiscal year of 2022, according to the figures available on US embassy website.
The official also told Dawn that the US visa section gives priority to students.
However, the data of visa application rejection rate and the total number of applications received have not been made public.
