Qatar’s emir met the de facto ruler of the United Arab Emirates during an official event at the Beijing Winter Olympics, in the first such interaction between the two Gulf leaders since four Arab states agreed to end a dispute with Doha over a year ago. Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani met Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan on the sidelines of a lunch hosted by China’s president on Saturday, Qatar’s state news agency said. UAE news websites published a video clip of the two leaders speaking. Abu Dhabi has yet to restore diplomatic ties with…
Author: Hasnain Abid Khanzada
The horrific scenes from January 10 are still etched in our collective memory. Thousands stranded on their way to a getaway in Murree. Hundreds of cars buried in snow. At least 23 people, including 10 children, dead in their cars either because of the freezing cold or from carbon monoxide poisoning, with the police and military conducting operations the next day to rescue survivors. Much has been said about the avoidable tragedy and the mismanagement that led to it. The snowfall was not a surprise. In fact, the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) had predicted heavy snowfall in Murree and the…
ISLAMABAD: Another ‘gangster’ involved in numerous robberies was killed and his accomplice arrested in an encounter with the police. However, their two other accomplices escaped, police said on Saturday. The deceased has been identified as Amir Shehzad alias Chooha whereas the detained criminal, Rashid Elahi, was shifted to hospital under tight security for treatment, a police spokesperson said, adding that police also seized a vehicle used by the suspects along with weapons and ammunition. A team of officials from Tarnol police station had established a checkpost in E-16 on Friday night, the spokesman said, adding that a black Honda appeared…
ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Health Dr Faisal Sultan said on Saturday that the spike in the cases of the Omicron-driven fifth wave of Covid-19 has slightly fallen. But at the same time, he made it clear that it cannot be called a declining trend, saying that the graph of cases has just straightened. “After a sudden spike in cases, the graph has straightened, but we cannot say that the wave has declined. It has happened due to five reasons or steps taken by the government from the platform of the National Command and Operation Centre…
ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) set a 10-day deadline for shifting of the makeshift landfill site from a densely populated area in H-18 to a proper place. Justice Babar Sattar issued the order while hearing a petition filed by Naeem Zafar and other residents of Badhana Kalan near the proposed H-18 sector. The petitioners contended that they were aggrieved of waste dumping at Mauza Badhana Kalan, Jhangi Syedan. Counsel for the petitioners, Raja Inam Ameen Minhas, told the court that since there was no proper landfill site in the federal capital the civic agency was dumping waste near the…
LAHORE: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) is looking for a Lahore mayor candidate that has “name recognition” among people so that the party does not need to introduce him/her in the upcoming local government election. “The party wants that the mayor candidate should be decided as early as possible so that the candidate could campaign across the metropolitan district (for the direct election) to get due share of votes from around seven million voters in Lahore alone,” disclosed PTI Punjab President Shafqat Mahmood while speaking to media persons at a meeting organised by newly-appointed PTI Punjab information secretary Musarrat Jamshed Cheema…
ISLAMABAD: Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) Chief Minister Khalid Khurshid has circulated among members of the GB Legislative Assembly and his cabinet a draft bill seeking to amend the Constitution of Pakistan to grant “provisional province status” to the strategically-located region, asking them to submit their “feedback and views”, Dawn has learnt. The chief minister wants the feedback from the GB lawmakers “as early as possible”, according to the covering letter titled “Draft Constitutional Reforms of GB” attached to the draft bill, a copy of which is available with Dawn. The bill has suggested a number of key amendments to the Constitution of 1973 seeking representation…
ISLAMABAD: Rubbishing criticism against the accountability process, Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Umar Ata Bandial has said judges may have been protected from the ordinary processes of law, but they are not subject to a separate or lower legal standards of accountability compared to other public servants. “Indeed it is of vital importance that public office holders, particularly judges of the superior courts, serving the people of Pakistan remain answerable before their relevant forums to safeguard the integrity and credibility of their person as well as of their court,” observed Justice Bandial in a minority judgement he wrote while deciding a set…
LAHORE: Government ministers took exception to a meeting between the PPP and PML-N’s top leadership on Saturday, asserting that the two parties would be held accountable for “looting public money stashed abroad”. The reaction came after former president Asif Ali Zardari and his son PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari met PML-N president Shehbaz Sharif and vice president Maryam Nawaz over lunch in Model Town and discussed options to oust the PTI government. They met after almost a year of strained relations over the issue of en masse resignations from assemblies. The ministers said Mr Bilawal, Mr Zardari and Mr Sharif immediately got closer…
Security forces conducted an intelligence-based operation (IBO) near Dial road in Tank, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and killed a suicide bomber, according to a statement issued by the military’s public affairs wing on Sunday. The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said the security forces conducted the operation on “confirmed intelligence reports of presence of” terrorists belonging to the proscribed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). “During the operation, a suicide bomber has been killed,” the statement added. The ISPR said the operation to eliminate the terrorists’ abettors and accomplices “was continuing”. Meanwhile, in a separate statement on Saturday, the military’s media wing said the security forces…
