SEOUL: South Korean and Chinese leaders agreed on Sunday to start diplomatic and security dialogue and push a trade deal, when they met in Seoul ahead of a key trilateral summit with Japan. There are low expectations of any major announcements or breakthroughs at the trilateral meeting on Monday, but the leaders have expressed hopes it could help revitalise three-way diplomacy and ease regional tensions. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol met Chinese Premier Li Qiang, who is making his first visit to South Korea since taking office in March 2023, and they agreed to establish a diplomatic and security…
Author: Hasnain Abid Khanzada
KATHMANDU: Nepal’s Phunjo Jhangmu Lama, who smashed the record for the fastest ascent of Everest by a woman, said on Sunday she is not chasing records but climbing for her country. Lama on Thursday conquered the world’s highest mountain in just 14 hours and 31 minutes — a feat that usually takes other climbers days to rest and acclimatise. The mountain guide and skilled helicopter long-line rescuer — flying in dangling from a rope to extract injured climbers — chopped more than 11 hours off the previous best that had stood since 2021. Generations of men from Nepal, especially from…
Gaza’s civil defence agency said on Monday that the death toll from Israeli air strikes on a camp housing displaced Palestinians near Rafah had risen to 40. “The massacre committed by the Israeli occupation army in the refugee tents northwest of Rafah city in the southern Gaza Strip has left 40 martyrs and 65 wounded,” Mohammad al-Mughayyir, a senior official at the civil defence agency, told AFP. “We saw charred bodies and dismembered limbs … We also saw cases of amputations, wounded children, women and the elderly.” He said that rescue efforts were facing major challenges. “There is a fuel shortage…
Indian police said on Monday they had arrested a doctor and the owner of an unlicensed hospital where six newborn babies died when a fire erupted in a crowded ward without fire exits. The blaze broke out at the New Born Baby Care hospital in New Delhi’s Vivek Vihar area late Saturday evening. In the crucial first minutes, bystanders spotted the fire and braved the blaze to rescue the newborns inside. “We didn’t even name her […] I never even held her in my arms,” Anjar Khan, whose 11-day-old daughter died in the blaze, was quoted as saying by the Hindustan Times. Vinod…
More than 2,000 people were buried alive by a massive landslide in Papua New Guinea last week, the national disaster centre said on Monday, as treacherous terrain and the difficulty of getting aid to the site raises the risk few survivors will be found. The numbers of those buried around Yambali village in Enga province in the country’s north are based on estimates from local authorities which have been rising steadily since Friday’s landslide. A UN agency put the estimated death toll at more than 670 people on Sunday. The National Disaster Centre raised the toll again to 2,000 in a letter to…
SHANGLA: The police on Sunday arrested a man for assaulting a minor boy in Kekor area of Kana tehsil here. The accused was recently released from jail where he was lodged in a similar case in February. District police officer Imran Khan said the accused, identified as Saeed Ajmal, had picked a minor boy on his bike to a stream, where he allegedly assaulted him. Olandar police station SHO Saeed Mehmood Khan told Dawn by phone that the accused had been arrested, while the victim was sent to the District Headquarters Hospital, Alpuri, for medical examination. He said the accused was…
ISLAMABAD: The Technical Advisory Group (TAG) for polio eradication has shown concerns about the deteriorating situation of the disease in Pakistan. Data shared at a TAG meeting held in Qatar showed that Pakistan’s situation was worse than the war-ridden Afghanistan. TAG is an independent body charged with advising and making recommendations to the ministry of health and partners on polio eradication programme policies, strategies and operations. It held meetings with the health departments of Pakistan and Afghanistan from May 22 to 25 in Doha, the capital of Qatar. An official of the polio programme who attended the meeting, whishing not…
QUETTA: A Levies man was gunned down by unidentified attackers in the Duki area of Balochistan on Sunday, police officials said. The victim, along with his three friends, had gone to the MandayTak area, a tourist point, for a picnic when unknown men opened fire. He was killed on the spot, and his body was shifted to the district hospital by the police. The victim has been identified as Shamsullah. One of the victim’s friends told the police that the three men were praying at the time of the attack. “Shamsullah received one bullet which proved fatal,” senior police officer…
LAHORE: Punjab Governor Sardar Saleem Haider on Sunday pledged further consultation with all stakeholders on the Defamation Bill 2024, assuring a delegation of various journalist bodies that the bill will be signed only after the consultation. “Though the government should have taken onboard all the stakeholders before introducing the new law, I’ll invite all parties to the Defamation Bill for developing a consensus on it before signing the bill into law,” the governor told a delegation of the Joint Action Committee (JAC) comprising different journalist organisations at Governor House. The delegation consisted of Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors president Irshad Ahmed…
QUETTA: Hundreds of people protesting against the closure of a crossing point between Pakistan and Iran in Mashkel area of Rakhshan division in Balochistan, started a long march towards the provincial capital. The protesters, including traders, had been staging a sit-in for the last one month in the border town Mashkel demanding the opening of Pak-Iran Maza Sar border crossing used by local people for buying food items and other essential commodities. Its closure has created shortage of food items and other items of daily use. Besides, locals said the border trade was their livelihood which has also been impacted.…
