NEW YORK: Prince Andrew’s lawyers on Tuesday urged a New York judge to dismiss a sexual assault lawsuit brought against the British royal, citing a settlement that his accuser signed in 2009. Lawyer Andrew Brettler said Virginia Giuffre had “waived her rights” to sue other defendants in relation to alleged sex crimes committed by late disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. Oral arguments in the civil action filed by Giuffre — also a longtime accuser of Epstein’s companion, the convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell — were held via video conference with the public able to listen in by telephone. Giuffre alleges that Epstein lent…
Author: Hasnain Abid Khanzada
ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination has dispatched a team of engineers and technicians to Afghanistan for early completion of three new hospitals to provide relief to the people of the war-torn neighbouring country. This was disclosed during a meeting of the Afghanistan Inter-ministerial Coordination Cell (AICC) on Tuesday. According to an official press release, the meeting was apprised that buildings of the three hospitals — namely the Nishtar Hospital, Jalalabad; Jinnah Hospital, Kabul; and Logari Hospital, Logar — have been completed. However, installation and commissioning of medical equipment worth Rs 2 billion is still under…
WASHINGTON: The United States reported more than one million new Covid-19 cases on Monday after the long New Year’s weekend, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, as the Omicron variant spread at a blistering pace. There were 1,080,211 new cases in the country, a global record, although the number of cases reported on a Monday is usually higher than other days because of delays in weekend tallying, especially after such a three-day holiday weekend. Still, the figure is double the number of daily cases compared to the previous Monday. The rolling average over seven days — which experts see…
Hong Kong announced a two-week ban on incoming flights from eight countries, including Pakistan and India, and tightened restrictions on Wednesday as authorities feared a fifth wave of Covid-19 infections. The restrictions were announced as health authorities scoured the city for the contacts of a Covid-19 patient, some of whom had been aboard a Royal Caribbean ship that was ordered to cut short its “cruise to nowhere” and return to port. Incoming flights from Australia, Canada, France, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Britain and the United States, including interchanges, would be banned from Jan 8 to Jan 21, Hong Kong leader…
UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan has successfully completed its first ever smartcard registration of Afghan refugees, a UN agency reported on Tuesday. In another report, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) urged the international community to scale up its support to Iran, which received about half a million Afghan refugees in 2021. The UNHCR report noted that this week Pakistan completed its first ever drive to verify data of around 1.4 million on-the-move refugees. Those registered include more than 200,000 children under five. “UNHCR commends Pakistan for its country-wide campaign to verify and update the data and to issue smart identity cards” to the refugees,…
GWADAR/QUETTA: Over 300 houses were badly damaged, rendering hundreds of people homeless, as heavy winter rains badly affected the coastal areas of Makran division on Tuesday. A new weather system entered Balochistan on Monday night, bringing heavy rains and snowfall to many parts of the province. The heavy rains paralysed life in many areas of Makran division and blocked highways, cutting parts of the region off from each other. The Makran Coastal Highway, which links Gwadar with Karachi, was washed away near Ormara due to heavy flood in Basol River after Gwadar received 100 millimetres of rain in about 20…
ISLAMABAD: Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Gulzar Ahmed has said that the rule of law is a weapon to ensure good governance in the country. The CJP was speaking at a thanksgiving ceremony organised by the outgoing body of the Islamabad Bar Association (IBA) in connection with the proposed construction of Lawyers Complex here on Tuesday. Islamabad Bar Council (IBC), the regulator of the lawyers practicing in the federal capital, ‘boycotted’ the ceremony by terming it a political stunt of the IBA’s elected members whose term is going to end on Jan 8. The number of participants in the ceremony…
ISLAMABAD: Justice Qazi Faez Isa, a member of the Judicial Commission of Pakistan (JCP), has advised Chief Justice of Pakistan (JCP) Justice Gulzar Ahmed to first determine the criteria for nomination of judges for appointment to the top court and then consider elevation of Justice Ayesha A. Malik of the Lahore High Court (LHC) in the commission’s meeting on Jan 6. “Once the nomination and selection criteria are determined, it will help dispel misgivings that arbitrariness in the selection process holds sway,” Justice Isa said in a two-page letter to the CJP, two days before the JCP’s scheduled meeting. On…
The Women in Law Pakistan initiative has issued a statement with respect to the seniority debate on the appointment of Justice Ayesha A. Malik of the Lahore High Court (LHC) to the apex court, saying the idea that seniority is a legal requirement is a myth and “there is no requirement in law and Constitution to appoint the senior most judge to the Supreme Court”. The initiative states that “at least 41 times judges have been appointed to the Supreme Court without them being most senior. There is, therefore, no such custom either. ‘Seniority’, is at best a mere demand…
ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Tuesday clubbed together the case of Arif Gull and the matter concerning the status of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Action in Aid of Civil Powers Ordinance 2019 after the KP government produced before it the person detained at an internment centre in Kohat since 2019. On Monday, a three-judge SC bench, headed by Chief Justice (CJP) Gulzar Ahmed, had warned that it would not hesitate to summon Prime Minister Imran Khan if Arif Gull was not produced before the court. Consequently, 21-year-old Gull, who belongs to Mohmand tribe, was produced on Tuesday before the SC bench…
