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Author: News Desk

  • Shami outraged at former Pakistani cricketer’s allegation

    Shami outraged at former Pakistani cricketer’s allegation

    The star bowler of the Indian cricket team, Mohammad Shami, has reacted strongly to the accusations of bias against International Cricket Council (ICC) and Board of control for cricket in India (BCCI) by former Pakistani cricketer Hasan Raza.

    On a recent episode of Soch ki Jeet on ABN News, former national cricketer Hasan Raza was asked by host Hasnain Liaqat, “Is ICC giving different balls to Indian bowlers, as the way they are swinging the ball is more than other bowlers.”

    In response, Hassan replied, “The way Siraj and Shami were swinging the ball, it looked like ICC or BCCI were giving them different and suspicious balls in the second innings. The ball needs to be inspected, for swing. The ball may also have an additional layer of coating.”

    Over at Wasim Akram’s show Ask the Pavilion, the legendary fast bowler was asked by a fan if there is any chance of the ICC giving different balls to Indian bowlers.

    “All these assertions are ridiculous. By talking like this, you get yourself and us humiliated in the world. This is a very common thing, the team wins the toss and bowls, then the umpire comes with 12 balls-box from which the bowling team selects two balls. The umpire is accompanied by other people such as refs, etc”.

    Indian fast bowler Muhammad Shami also shared the video of Hasan Raza’s viral clip on his Instagram story and wrote, ‘Shame on you, focus on the game and not on unnecessary nonsense, sometimes enjoy the success of others, this is an ICC tournament. , not your local tournament, you were the player, right?’

    Shami added “Wasim bhai has explained, still, you don’t believe in your player Wasim Akram? You are busy in praising yourself.”

  • ‘IBA ya Pagal khaana’: Asim Azhar shuts down ‘Hania Amir’ chants at literary festival

    ‘IBA ya Pagal khaana’: Asim Azhar shuts down ‘Hania Amir’ chants at literary festival

    Asim Azhar was attending a literary festival held at the Institute of Public and Business Adminstration (IBA) when he was heckled by some members of the crowd while talking to Yasir Hussain. The crowd began taunting the singer by chanting the name of Hania Amir, the actress Asim had previously dated.

    In a viral video clip, Asim can be seen shutting down the misogynist chants by responding “IBA hai ya pagal khaana?”

    Yasir also slammed the hecklers by telling them to act like educated people.

    We have to applaud Asim for refusing to be bullied by hecklers. It’s not so hard to understand that nobody deserves to be taunted in such a demeaning manner about their private lives, let alone at an institute that is recognised as one of the superior universities of Pakistan.

  • Robot mistakes man for box, crushes him to death

    Robot mistakes man for box, crushes him to death

    A South Korean man was misidentified as a box by a robot that crushed him to death, local media has reported.

    The incident took place when the worker, reportedly in his 40s, was inspecting the robot’s sensor at a warehouse for agricultural products.

    Yonhap news agency reports that the robot was lifting boxes of bell peppers when it mistook the man for a receptacle.

    According to police sources, the “Mechanical arm pushed the man’s upper body onto a conveyor belt and crushed his face and chest”.

    The man later died in hospital.

    In an official statement released by the Donggoseong Export Agricultural Complex, the plant owner, called for a “precise and safe” system to be established.

    Sky News reports that in March, another South Korean man in his 50s, endured serious injuries after getting trapped by a robot while working at a vehicle parts manufacturing plant.

  • Renowned Washington Post faced extreme backlash for cartoon dehumanising Palestinian children, deleted later

    Renowned Washington Post faced extreme backlash for cartoon dehumanising Palestinian children, deleted later

    Washington Post was slammed on the internet on Wednesday for a racist cartoon dehumanising the Palestinians. Right now the number of Gazans killed in Israeli airstrikes has reached 10,000. The cartoon has since been deleted, while Post has put out an editorial note.

    The offensive drawing shows a crudely drawn Arabic man labeled Hamas with three children and a woman tied around him with ropes.

    “This is the kind of anti-Palestinian racism that they think is acceptable for publication,” slammed Palestinian poet Remi Kanazi.

    Palestinian journalist Ahmed Eldin re-shared the post to point out how the racism Palestinians are enduring in the Western media is similar to how the Jews were drawn as evil with physical features that compared them to rats or cockroaches.

    “Before the Holocaust, Jews were portrayed as irrational and evil, with physical features that made them appear akin to cockroaches and rats. These images dehumanized Jews to justify their mass extermination. Now, the Western press is doing the same to Palestinians. The source of this obscene and offensive piece of propaganda masquerading as a “political cartoon” by Michael Pramirez is not a lesser-known publication, but rather the widely recognized

    @washingtonpost. Regardless of the validity of the claims regarding Hamas using human shields, the notion that thousands of children being killed can be justified or deemed acceptable as collateral damage is absolutely unacceptable. The dehumanization of Palestinians, which serves as a pretext to permit and rationalize their mass killing, is a disturbing trend that seems to have no boundaries within American discussions and debates.”

    ‘What’s more troubling than this racist depiction,” Palestinian-American poet Mohammad El-Kurd wrote. “Is that the Washington Post thinks it’s OK to kill civilians if, hypothetically, ‘terrorists’ hid behind them. Even if the “human-shields” myth was true, only those who kill civilians are responsible for the act of killing.”

    Columnist and writer Fatima Bhutto tweeted her outrage:

    “This cartoon is so anti-Muslim, so racist it boggles the mind that any newspaper could print it. Beyond which, Israel has murdered over 4,000 children- do you have absolutely no shame depicting Palestinian children in this manner? What a disgrace.”

    The Washington Post opinion editor David Shipley published an apology for the cartoon on their website and took it down:

    “A cartoon we published by Michael Ramirez on the war in Gaza, a cartoon whose publication I approved, was seen by many readers as racist. This was not my intent. I saw the drawing as a caricature of a specific individual, the Hamas spokesperson who celebrated the attacks on unarmed civilians in Israel. However, the reaction to the image convinced me that I had missed something profound, and divisive, and I regret that. Our section is aimed at finding commonalities, understanding the bonds that hold us together, even in the darkest times.”

  • Imran Khan should receive ‘exemplary punishment’ for May 9 attacks, says Sindh Governor

    Imran Khan should receive ‘exemplary punishment’ for May 9 attacks, says Sindh Governor

    Sindh Governor Kamran Khan Tessori has called for severe punishment for Imran Khan, the Chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, emphasizing that the former Prime Minister should be held accountable for planning and carrying out the attacks that targeted the Pakistan Army in various cities of Pakistan.


    Speaking at a press conference held at the Pakistan High Commission in London, the Governor stated that he believes Khan should have been swiftly punished within a week after the attacks to send a strong message to deter others from trying to harm the country’s armed forces in a similar way.
    “I believe that those involved in the May 9 attacks should not have been processed through the courts, they should have been publicly sentenced. Those put in jail should have been sentenced a long time ago for their attacks on Pakistan army installations, for attacking the corp commander’s house, for attacking the [General Headquarters] GHQ, for attacking the Pakistan Army physically and for the vandalism. What they did were acts of terrorism.


    “Nobody anywhere is allowed to attack even a police station. Protests happen all over the world but terrorism and vandalism are not allowed in the civilised world. It shouldn’t be like this where you get involved in acts of terror and then the cases go on in courts for years without any punishment for anyone. Our patriotism demands it,” he said.


    Tessori emphasized that we shouldn’t forget that the events of May 9 made Pakistan look bad in front of the entire world. The attackers showed no respect for the people who died and their families. Those who were responsible for these actions also showed a great lack of respect for the people who protect our country.

  • Inzamam-ul-Haq’s resignation accepted

    Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has accepted the resignation of former Chief Selector Inzamam-ul-Haq.

    In the past few weeks, the issue of Inzamam-ul-Haq being a shareholder in a company came to light, a matter, it was alleged, that clashed with his position within PCB. Inzamam resigned from the post of chief selector before the formation of a committee to probe the matter.

    The five-member committee will look into the team selection process and conflict of interest. However, Inzamam-ul-Haq’s resignation was not immediately accepted.

    Sources say that now PCB has accepted the resignation.

    In a TV program (Capital Talk) Inzamam-ul-Haq said that the allegations were made during the World Cup but the board is not calling for an inquiry now, nor is it contacting or responding to emails, nor is the board telling him what the inquiry is about. “Even I learned from the TV that the resignation was not accepted,” he remarked.

    PCB has now said that Inzamam-ul-Haq’s email was received yesterday, he will be given a definite reply. The statement confirmed that an investigation is being conducted for conflict of interest and Inzamam knows everything. He will be informed when all the investigations are completed and he will be called.

    PCB said that they did not accept Inzamam-ul-Haq’s resignation due to respect.

    PCB says that Inzamam-ul-Haq spoke against board rules in a TV program, after which, PCB accepted his resignation.

  • OGRA notifies major gas price hike for November

    OGRA notifies major gas price hike for November

    The caretaker government’s decision to implement a gas price increase of over 172 per cent for non-protected domestic consumers has left many shocked and outraged.  

    Starting on November 1, the revised prices are set to impose a significant financial burden on households already grappling with financial difficulties. 

    According to the notification released by the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA), the new gas prices represent a substantial hike across various consumption levels.  

    For instance, customers consuming 100 cubic metres of gas per month will now be charged Rs1,000, up from the previous rate of Rs400. Those using 150 cubic metres will see their monthly costs rise from Rs600 to Rs1,200. 

    On the other hand, the price for a monthly consumption of 200 mmbtu has increased to Rs1,600 from the previous Rs800, and for users consuming 300 mmbtu monthly, the cost has risen to Rs3,000 from Rs1,100. 

    Moreover, the charge for consuming 400 mmbtu of gas per month has gone up from Rs2,000 to Rs3,500. For those using more than 400 mmbtu per month, the new rate is Rs4,000, up from the earlier Rs3,100. 

    This significant and unexpected price surge is anticipated to have a severe impact on household budgets, especially for low-income families who heavily depend on natural gas for cooking and heating. 

  • NEPRA announces increase in electricity tariff, impacting November bills 

    NEPRA announces increase in electricity tariff, impacting November bills 

    In yet another unsettling development for power consumers already burdened by rising costs, the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) has announced an increase of Rs0.40 per unit in the electricity tariff.  

    This adjustment, approved by NEPRA in response to the monthly fuel adjustment for September, will result in higher charges on November bills for electricity consumers. 

    It’s important to note that this tariff hike will affect all consumer categories, except for those classified as lifeline consumers and K-Electric users.  

    In October, NEPRA had previously approved a separate increase of Rs1.71 per unit in the electricity tariff, which was attributed to fuel adjustment charges (FAC) for the month of August. This increase was reflected in the bills for October. 

    Additionally, on October 3rd, NEPRA sanctioned a per-unit price increase of Rs 3.28 as part of the quarterly adjustment.  

    This adjustment will entail a recovery of Rs3.28 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) from various consumer categories within power distribution companies (DISCOs) and K-Electric over a six-month period, spanning from October 2023 to March 2024. 

  • Pakistan stock market continues bullish run, nearing 55,000-point mark

    Pakistan stock market continues bullish run, nearing 55,000-point mark

    The Pakistani stock market is expected to surge past 55,000 points, continuing its bullish run at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX). The benchmark KSE-100 Index reached a new historic high of 54,261 points on Wednesday amidst record trading activity.

    Institutional buying drove the index past the 54,000 mark during intraday trading. Maintaining momentum throughout the day, the KSE-100 Index settled at 54,261.42 points, an increase of 525.69 points, or 0.98 per cent.

    Profit-taking erased some gains at the PSX on Tuesday, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index falling by 125 points to settle at 53,735.73 at the end of trading.

    However, buying resumed on Wednesday, particularly among index-heavy sectors such as automobile assemblers,cement, chemicals, commercial banks, oil and gas exploration companies, and OMCs.

    Analysts attribute the bullish trend to expectations of a decline in the policy interest rate in the coming weeks.

    Experts believe that interest rates may come down sooner than expected due to the fall in global oil prices.

    Improved macroeconomic indicators, including a decline in the country’s current account deficit to $8 million in September 2023 (down from $360 million in the same month in 2022) and a drop in CPI-based inflation, have also contributed to the positive sentiment at the bourse.

  • SBP orders bank closures in smog-affected Punjab districts

    SBP orders bank closures in smog-affected Punjab districts

    On Wednesday, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) announced the closure of bank branches in Lahore division and certain districts of Punjab severely affected by smog.

    According to a statement issued by the central bank, all banks and Micro Finance Banks (MFBs) are required to keep their branches closed in Lahore Division, including Lahore, Nankana Sahib, Sheikhupura, and Kasur districts, as well as Gujranwala, Hafizabad, Sialkot, and Narowal districts, on November 10.

    This decision was made in accordance with a notification from the Punjab government dated November 8, 2023. The Punjab government declared an “environmental and health emergency” in Lahore and two other divisions from November 9 to 12 to address the smog’s impact.

    According to the notification, all markets, shopping malls, restaurants, cinemas, gymnasiums, schools, and both public and private offices will remain closed for four days in Lahore, Gujranwala, and Hafizabad divisions. Public and private transport to and from these areas will also be restricted.

    Section-144 and health emergencies have been imposed in the Lahore division to control smog, following deteriorating air quality in the region over the past few days. Section 144 has been imposed in Lahore, Kasur, Sheikhupura, and Nankana Sahib districts.

    During environmental and health emergencies, educational institutions, government and private offices, cinemas, parks, and restaurants will remain closed, and markets will be shut on Saturday, as specified in the notification.