Afghan health authorities on Monday launched a five-day polio vaccination drive in some of the country’s most high-risk provinces. “Teams will visit 6.4 million children under the age of five in 27 high-risk provinces, mainly in Kandahar and Nangarhar. This follows several new cases in both regions,” Xinhua news agency[Read More…]
Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has said that despite India’s reluctance, Islamabad would not close doors on its efforts to promote peace in the region. “India is reluctant, we will not close our doors,” the Minister said while addressing a news conference at the Pakistan Embassy here on Sunday.[Read More…]
India on Monday welcomed the result of the presidential election in the Maldives with early reports showing that the joint opposition candidate Ibrahim Mohamed Solih of the Maldivian Democratic Party has beaten incumbent Yameen Abdul Gayoom. “We welcome the successful completion of the third presidential election process in the Maldives[Read More…]
The Bangladesh government on Thursday signed a $50 million grant financing agreement with the World Bank to improve the country’s services to cater to the health, nutrition and family planning needs of the Rohingya refugee population. The agreement was signed by Kazi Shofiqul Azam, Senior Secretary of Bangladesh’s Economic Relations[Read More…]
Cathay Pacific, a Hong-Kong based airline shared a spelling error on social media on Wednesday that showed a misspelling of their name on the side of their Boeing 777-367 aircraft. Eagle-eyed travelers spotted the mistake at Hong Kong International Airport and contacted the airline informing that there was no “F” in[Read More…]
The number of deaths and attacks attributed to terrorism significantly decreased in 2017, according to a new report by the US State Department. “The total number of terrorist attacks worldwide in 2017 decreased by 23 per cent” compared to 2016, while “the total deaths due to terrorist attacks decreased by[Read More…]
Over 300 million children globally between the age of five and 17 years of age were not in school, the Unicef said in a news report. More than one-third of them, or about 104 million, are in countries affected by conflict or disaster, the report titled “A future stolen: young[Read More…]
The Islamabad High Court on Wednesday suspended the prison sentences of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, his daughter Maryam Nawaz and son-in-law Muhammad Safdar in a corruption case. Justice Athar Minallah and Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb gave the ruling on petitions filed by the three challenging the July verdict against[Read More…]
Tuberculosis (TB) remains the world’s deadliest infectious disease although global efforts have averted an estimated 54 million tuberculosis (TB) deaths since 2000, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Tuesday. WHO, in its latest 2018 Global TB Report, says countries are still not doing enough to end TB by 2030[Read More…]
US private space firm SpaceX has announced that the company’s first private passenger to the Moon will be Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa. “The first private passenger to fly around the Moon aboard BFR (Big Falcon Rocket) is fashion innovator and globally recognized art curator Yusaku Maezawa,” SpaceX tweeted on Monday.[Read More…]
Saudi Arabia announced on Monday that foreign Umrah performers can visit any city in the country with their 30-day Umrah visa, Al Arabiya local news reported. However, 15 days must be spent in visiting the two grand mosques in Mecca and Medina during their 30-day Umrah stay, said Abdulaziz Wazzan,[Read More…]
In order to further secure candidates and campaign staff vulnerable to hackers and nation-state actors during the elections, Facebook has introduced additional tools to protect political campaigns in the US and around the world. The social media giant has launched a pilot programme to expand its existing protections for users[Read More…]
New Delhi, Sep 16 (IANS) Singer-actress Selena Gomez is open to singing in a Bollywood film and says it will be a beautiful experience. Asked if she would consider singing for a Bollywood film, she told IANS: “I’ve never been asked that! Why not, I think that would be beautiful.” Gomez[Read More…]
Chennai, Sep 15 (IANS) The Indian space agency expects to fly its first small rocket with a carrying capacity of about 500-700 kg sometime next year, according to a top official. “The developmental work for our small rocket that can carry satellites weighing around 500 kg is on. The first flight[Read More…]
Senior officials of the G-20 nations reached a consensus here on Friday on an initiative to reform the World Trade Organization (WTO). “It is clear that we all share the idea that it is extremely important to draft proposals so the WTO can be more responsive to the current challenges[Read More…]
A gas leak in the Mexican state of Puebla forced the evacuation early on Wednesday of more than 1,300 people across seven neighbourhoods in the like-named capital, officials said. The gas leak was caused by a clandestine tap in Puebla city on a gas pipeline belonging to state-owned oil giant[Read More…]
Begum Kulsoom, wife of former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif breathed her last at a Harley Street Clinic in London, on Tuesday September 11. Kalsoom was 68, and had been battling with lymphoma (throat) cancer since August 2017. Kulsoom was placed on life support earlier today after her health had[Read More…]
A second economist resigned from Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Economic Advisory Council (EAC) on Saturday in protest over the removal of renowned academic Dr Atif Mian from the body due to his Ahmadi faith. “With a heavy heart, I have resigned from the EAC this morning,” Dr Imran Rasul, a professor of economics at University College London, said[Read More…]
Jack Ma, Alibaba’s co-founder and executive chairman, has said that he plans to step down from the Chinese e-commerce giant on Monday to pursue philanthropy in education, a changing of the guard for the $420 billion internet company. In an exclusive New York Times interview, the Chinese billionaire said on Friday that his retirement was not the end of an era[Read More…]
Bangkok: Fourteen female tourists have claimed that they were sexually assaulted by a guru at a yoga retreat in Thailand’s picturesque Koh Phangan island, a media report said on Friday. Agama Yoga embraced ancient tantric teachings under its charismatic leader, the guru Swami Vivekananda Saraswati whose real name is Narcis Tarcau, the Guardian report said. Tarcau, who is[Read More…]
An Indian youth was among the three people who were killed when a gunman opened fire at a bank in the US state of Ohio. Pruthviraj Kandepi 25, who hailed from Andhra Pradesh, and two others, Luis Felipe Calderon, 48, and Richard Newcomer, 64, were shot dead on Thursday by the gunman identified as Omar Perez, 29. Perez was later shot dead by the police.[Read More…]
Burt Reynolds, the moustachioed megastar who first strutted on screen more than half a century ago, has died, according to his agent. He was 82. The Michigan native, whose easy-going charms and handsome looks drew prominent roles in films such as “Smokey and the Bandit” and “Boogie Nights,” suffered a cardiac arrest on Thursday, CNN quoted[Read More…]
A regency in the conservative Indonesian province of Aceh, where Islamic or sharia law is applied, has issued a ban on unmarried couples sharing the same table unless accompanied by family members. The new law adopted in Bireuen also prohibits attending to homosexuals and serving women from 9 p.m, human[Read More…]
Two Reuters reporters were jailed on Monday for seven years for violating a state secrets act during their reporting of the Rohingya crisis, a court said, in the case that has drawn outrage for its attack on media freedom. The two journalists were being tried since 2017 for breaching Myanmar’s[Read More…]
A recent job advertisement by the Pakistan Rangers for their recruitment programme, published in a popular Pakistani daily on August 26, has sparked a raging controversy on social media as the ad specified “non-Muslims only” for the post of sanitation workers. Although the advert had listed vacancies for various posts[Read More…]
