Current Final

Category: Lifestyle

  • Avoid calling the Hamas’ people ‘terrorists’, Voice of America tells staff

    Avoid calling the Hamas’ people ‘terrorists’, Voice of America tells staff

    One of the editors of the US state run broadcasting agency Voice of America, has sent an email to staff and journalists, asking that they should avoid using the word ‘terrorists’ for Hamas while reporting on the ongoing siege of Gaza by Israel.


    Washington Post has reported that Republicans are criticising the news organization for deviating from the official government narrative, stating that the government-funded news organization should not shy away from using the word ‘terrorist’.

    The mail suggested, “In covering the Israel-Gaza war — or any other conflict — we need to remember VOA’s commitment to fairness, neutrality and balance. We cannot favor one side over another or do anything that feeds even the perception of bias. The October 7 attacks on Israel may be described as terrorist attacks or acts of terror, but avoid calling Hamas and its members terrorists, except in quotes.”

  • 2023 set to be hottest year on record: UN

    2023 set to be hottest year on record: UN

    Geneva (AFP) – This year is set to be the hottest ever recorded, the UN said Thursday, demanding urgent action to rein in global warming and stem the havoc following in its wake.

    The UN’s World Meteorological Organization warned that 2023 had shattered a whole host of climate records, with extreme weather leaving “a trail of devastation and despair”.

    “It’s a deafening cacophony of broken records,” said WMO chief Petteri Taalas.

    “Greenhouse gas levels are record high. Global temperatures are record high. Sea level rise is record high. Antarctic sea ice is record low.”

    The WMO published its provisional 2023 State of the Global Climate report as world leaders gathered in Dubai for the UN COP28 climate conference, amid mounting pressure to curb planet-heating greenhouse gas pollution.

    United Nations chief Antonio Guterres said the record heat findings “should send shivers down the spines of world leaders”.

    The stakes have never been higher, with scientists warning that the ability to limit warming to a manageable level is slipping through humanity’s fingers.

    The 2015 Paris climate accords aimed to limit global warming to well below two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels — and 1.5C if possible.

    But in its report, the WMO said 2023 data to the end of October showed that this year was already around 1.4C above the pre-industrial baseline.

    ‘Not just statistics’

    The agency is due to publish its final State of the Global Climate 2023 report in the first half of 2024.

    But it said the difference between the first 10 months of this year and 2016 and 2020 — which previously topped the charts as the warmest years on record — “is such that the final two months are very unlikely to affect the ranking”.

    The report also showed that the past nine years were the hottest years since modern records began.

    “These are more than just statistics,” Taalas said, warning that “we risk losing the race to save our glaciers and to rein in sea level rise”.

    “We cannot return to the climate of the 20th century, but we must act now to limit the risks of an increasingly inhospitable climate in this and the coming centuries.”

    The WMO warned that the warming El Nino weather phenomenon, which emerged mid-year, was “likely to further fuel the heat in 2024”.

    That is because the naturally-occurring climate pattern, typically associated with increased heat worldwide, usually increases global temperatures in the year after it develops.

    The preliminary report also found that concentrations of the three main heat-trapping greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide — reached record high levels in 2022, with preliminary data indicating that the levels continued to grow this year.

    Carbon dioxide levels were 50 percent higher than the pre-industrial era, the agency said, meaning that “temperatures will continue to rise for many years to come”, even if emissions are drastically cut.

    ‘Climate chaos’

    The rate of sea level rise over the past decade was more than twice the rate of the first decade of satellite records (1993-2002), it said.

    And the maximum level of Antarctic sea ice this year was the lowest on record.

    In fact, it was a million square kilometres less than the previous record low at the end of the southern hemisphere winter, the WMO said — an area larger than France and Germany combined.

    Meanwhile, glaciers in North America and Europe again suffered an extreme melt season, with Swiss glaciers losing 10 percent of their ice volume in the past two years alone, the report showed.

    Dramatic socio-economic impacts accompany such climate records, experts say, including dwindling food security and mass displacement.

    “This year we have seen communities around the world pounded by fires, floods and searing temperatures,” UN chief Guterres said in a video message.

    He called on the leaders gathered in Dubai to commit to dramatic measures to rein in climate change, including phasing out fossil fuels and tripling renewable energy capacity.

    “We have the roadmap to limit the rise in global temperature to 1.5C and avoid the worst of climate chaos,” he said.

    “But we need leaders to fire the starting gun at COP28 on a race to keep the 1.5 degree limit alive.”

  • Elon Musk tells advertisers, ‘Go f*** yourself’

    Elon Musk tells advertisers, ‘Go f*** yourself’

    Owner of X (formerly Twitter), and one of the richest men on the planet, Elon Musk, famous for controversial statements, has told big advertisers to not blackmail him with money, and, “go f* yourself.”

    The billionaire tycoon of Tesla was invited to the DealBook Summit in New York on Wednesday where he was asked about recent controversial tweets and if he would like to apologize for remarks widely termed as anti-semitic. To this Musk instantly replied, “If somebody’s gonna try to blackmail me with advertising? Blackmail me with money? Go f*** yourself. Go. F**. Yourself. Is that clear?” Musk singled out Disney CEO Bob Iger in the audience, saying “Hi Bob!”


    He told interviewer Andrew Ross Sorkin, “I have no problem being hated. Hate away.”


    He also implied that his fans would boycott those advertisers in kind. “The whole world will know that those advertisers killed the company and we will document it in great detail,” Musk threatened.


    Musk’s inflammatory posts on the social media platform, among other things, have led large advertisers, including Disney, Apple, and many others, to suspend campaigns there and drove some famous users to abandon the platform.


    The contents of the tweet promoted the conspiracy theory that white people in the West are being “replaced” through immigration from the Global South with the help of progressive Jews – “the actual truth”.


    However, in the recent talk, he called those tweets, “one of the most foolish if not the most foolish thing I’ve ever done on the platform,” he said, adding that he was sorry for the tweet.

    Elon went to Israel and met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Herzog earlier in the week. “It was jarring to see the scene of the massacre,” said Musk later in an X Spaces conversation with Netanyahu, adding Israel has “no choice” but to eliminate Hamas.


    The tour took place after one of his tweets, dubbed anti-semitic by critics, went viral on social media. Musk reached an agreement with Israel “in principle” that internet access to Gaza may be provided through Starlink, but only using units operated by Israel and with the approval of the Israeli Ministry of Communications.

  • Husband-wife fight forces plane to make emergency landing in India

    Husband-wife fight forces plane to make emergency landing in India


    A Lufthansa plane that took off from Germany had to make an emergency landing in New Delhi’s Indra Gandhi’s airport after an intense fight broke out between a husband and wife.


    On November 29, right after the take-off from Munich, a couple started fighting in the plane. Seeing the situation getting worse, pilots informed the control room. It directed the plane to land in Pakistan. On not getting permission, the pilots made an emergency landing in New Delhi and handed over the two passengers to airport security there.


    The wife, a native of Thailand, complained that her German husband was threatening her. Passengers as well as the crew also witnessed him shouting and hurling things at his wife while reportedly being drunk.


    According to Indian media, the German embassy has been contacted to handle the matter. The police is talking to airline staff to ascertain the sequence of events and check if an FIR needs to be registered.


    The wife was travelling on a separate ticket and later asked the airline to continue her journey to Bangkok alone but she too was deboarded.

  • Kyrgyzstan to remove ‘fickle’ sunflower from flag

    Kyrgyzstan to remove ‘fickle’ sunflower from flag

    Kyrgyzstan’s supreme council (Jogorku Kenesh) on November 29 supported a bill on changing the state flag in its first reading in parliament after 66 deputies voted for and eight people’s representatives voted against the document.

    President Sadyr Japarov had recently criticised the design, saying that its central element looked more like a sunflower which in the local culture symbolizes fickleness and servility. Others joined in the criticism and the bill was proposed in the parliament.


    Speaker Nurlanbek Shakiev, one of the authors of the document, said that if the flag is changed, funds will not be lost from the budget, and if the flag is changed in places where it is necessary, sponsors will bear the cost.


    However, critics are opposing the hasty adoption of the draft in the first reading without discussion, calling it rushed. Representative Erulan Kokulov said that the flag is for every citizen. “This issue should have been resolved by a referendum,” he said.


    The goal of the draft law is to “improve the flag, which is one of the main state symbols of the country.”

  • Early-morning rain lessens smog in Lahore, Karachi takes over second spot

    Early-morning rain lessens smog in Lahore, Karachi takes over second spot

    Usually the most polluted city in the Air Quality Index, Lahore has been demoted to number six in the chart after a short spell of rain.

    The late-night and early-morning drizzle in the city has improved the air quality to the extent that the sky seems a bit clearer and the status of air quality has moved from hazardous to unhealthy with 158 particulate matter in the air.


    On the other hand, Karachi has taken over Lahore’s spot, landing at number two on the list, right behind New Delhi with a very unhealthy status of 268 particulate matter.

  • Military takes control over two government colleges in Lakki Marwat

    Military takes control over two government colleges in Lakki Marwat


    A letter written by the principal of a public college in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Lakki Marwat district to the Higher Education Department is doing rounds on social media. In the letter, the principal states that the Pakistan Army is taking control of the college building, and forcing the administration to halt all academic activities. He also states that the army had initially taken control over some part of the building and was now taking it over.

    Geo Fact Check has confirmed that the letter and the story is true after it spoke with three officials, including the principals of the colleges.
    The story first came up when an X user posted on his account, “Building security force bases in educational institutions is equivalent to ending education?”


    The user also posted a supposed letter written by the principal of the Government Degree College Ghazni Khel in Lakki Marwat to the director of the Higher Education Department in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, urging the director to take notice of the army “occupying the whole college building” without permission.


    He urged in his letter that, “Lakki Marwat’s Ghazni Khel Degree College students should not be removed from studies. Security forces should find an alternative place.”


    The ‘letter’


    Geo reveals that the letter dated November 21 was written by the principal of the Government Degree College Ghazni Khel in Lakki Marwat to the Higher Education Department Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Peshawar to bring attention to the fact that Pakistan army had for the last year “occupied” half of the college’s building.


    It also stated that the army had “occupied the whole college building” without prior permission from higher education officials.
    The letter further added that the academic session was in full swing and in “such an ambiguous situation the college administration was compelled to stop the academic sessions due to lack of classroom accommodations”.


    Accounts of witnesses


    Akram Khan, the principal of the Government Degree College Ghazni Khel, told Geo Fact Check over the phone that he had indeed sent a report to the “higher-ups” on November 21.


    “There was a movement of [military’s units] in the area,” Khan said, “So they [the military] told us to shut down the college for a week or so.”


    The principal further explained that the army already had control over half of the college building since last year, while educational activities had continued in the other half. But then this month, the entire college had to be shut down when the control was further extended, he said, adding that the campus of the Government Degree College stretches over 250 canals.


    Khan also said that after a recent round of negotiations with the military, the military agreed to provide the students “some space”.


    Fareedullah Shah, a director at the Higher Education Department in Peshawar, said that in “emergency situations” government buildings had to be assigned to the military.


    “I am not very happy about this [situation] but when they [military] need [a government structure]… listen you cannot call such a thing an ‘occupation’, this is an internal government matter,” he said.


    He added that the Higher Education Department is trying to accommodate the students and the teaching staff by providing an alternative space to continue their studies.


    “This is our army, not a foreign army,” Shah added, refusing to go into detail about how long the building had been in control of the military or how long it planned to stay there.


    Separately, Yasir Nazir, the assistant commissioner in Lakki Marwat, told Geo Fact Check the military “needed” the college building, further confirming that the students of the college had also recently protested against the military presence on their campus.


    Meanwhile, another public college, the Government Post Graduate College, also in Lakki Marwat, was facing a similar incident, where the military had taken control of part of the college premises after which students had voiced their concerns.


    Saleem Khan, the principal of Government Post Graduate College, confirmed the news, adding that the issue had now been resolved with the military without explaining any further.

  • Female officer reportedly harassed by senior faculty members in Bahawalpur University

    Female officer reportedly harassed by senior faculty members in Bahawalpur University

    Incidents detailing the harassment of a female officer in the administration of Islamia University in Bahawalpur have been reported, following on the heels of earlier reports about female students facing the same.

    An application has been submitted to The Woman Ombudsman, Government of Punjab, by the female administrative staff stating clearly that the allegations of harassment against senior faculty members including the Dean of Faculty of Law, Dean of Faculty of Engineering, In-charge faculty of Management Sciences and SLO South Punjab Civil Secretariat.


    The victim is Farkhanda Tehseen, Director of Development and Planning, whose complaint was ignored, leading to her eventually presenting it in front of the woman ombudsman as she is receiving threats from the suspect.


    Dean Law Department Rao Imran Habib has threatened her on the phone about the dire consequences. She registered a complaint against him on June 10, 2023, but no action was taken. Instead of taking action against workplace harassment, another committee has been established which is not taking any active measures.


    The victim requested the ombudsman that the accused should be stopped from working so that he could not influence the case further. Ironically, the Dean Faculty of Engineering, who is nominated in the complaint, is also part of the established syndicate and Rao Imran is in cohorts with him.


    Dean Law Department Rao Imran Habib is reportedly notorious for his activities during his tenure in Bahauddin Zakariya University (BZU) and there are reports of him creating hurdles for students here in Islamiya University as well.


    Governor Punjab and the university administration have not taken up the matter yet.

  • After 17 Days Trapped In Tunnel, India Workers Say Hope Kept Them Alive

    After 17 Days Trapped In Tunnel, India Workers Say Hope Kept Them Alive

    After 17 days trapped inside a collapsed Himalayan road tunnel they were building, Indian workers described the horror of their ordeal, and the hopes and prayers that kept them strong.

    “We were really scared, every moment felt that death was standing nearby,” rescued worker Deepak Kumar told AFP on Wednesday. “We were not sure whether our lives would be saved or not.”

    The men were welcomed as heroes after being hauled through 57 metres (187 feet) of steel pipe on stretchers specially fitted with wheels late Tuesday, the culmination of a marathon engineering operation.

    Draped in garlands of orange marigolds, they were greeted with wild cheers.

    “The world is again beautiful for us,” rescued worker Sabah Ahmad told AFP, describing the heartache of hearing his wife’s “worried and hopeless” voice while he was trapped.

    “I know it was a difficult moment for those inside and more difficult for families outside,” said Ahmad, who comes from Bihar, one of India’s poorest states.

    “But at last we have come out, and it is the only thing that matters.”

    His wife Musarrat Jahan, speaking to AFP by phone from Bihar, said that “no words” could explain how happy she felt.

    “Not only my husband got a new life, we also got a new life,” she said. “We will never forget it”.

    Previous hopes of reaching the men were repeatedly dashed by falling debris and the breakdown of multiple drilling machines, and the men spoke of how hard it had been to keep their spirits up.

    “It was not easy,” Kumar said. “After three or four days inside the collapsed tunnel, and the rescue team had failed to reach us, the reality is that our confidence and faith were at a low level.”

    Most of the trapped men are migrant workers who left home to find employment, working on the Silkyara tunnel in northern Uttarakhand state, hundreds of kilometres (miles) from home high up in the bitterly cold Himalayan foothills.

    Rescue teams later set up a telephone exchange to allow families far from the site to call in.

    “I told my family, ‘I am fine and healthy, do not worry, everything will be all right, we will come out soon’”, Kumar said.

    “But while I was saying these words to them, sometimes I felt strongly that I will never be able to see my parents.”

    Guriya Devi, wife of rescued worker Sushil Kumar, told AFP that the family had “passed through horrible times, and sometimes we lost hope”.

    Chamra Oraon, 32, from Jharkhand state, described the horror he felt when he heard a thud and debris began to fall deep inside the mountain road tunnel on November 12 — and the terror as the rock fall blocked the only route out with tonnes of rubble.

    “I ran for my life but got stuck on the wrong side,” he told the Indian Express newspaper. “As it became clear we would be there for a long time, we grew restless, hungry. But we prayed silently for help.”

    Subodh Kumar Verma told AFP how the first 24 hours in the tunnel were the worst, when they feared they could starve to death — if their air did not run out first.

    “We faced problems related to food and air for 24 hours there,” Verma said.

  • Here are all the roads that will be blocked in Karachi during Palestine march

    Here are all the roads that will be blocked in Karachi during Palestine march

    A Palestine solidarity march will take place in Karachi as UN International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People is observed worldwide on Wednesday (today), reports Geo.


    The event is organised by the Palestine Solidarity Committee in Karachi.The rally is taking place during a crucial time of Israel’s illegal invasion of Gaza which has killed over 15,000 people and injured more than 30,000.


    Here is the traffic plan for today’s march which will be held at 3:30pm.


    Once the march starts, roads from Shahrah-e-Quaideen to Tariq Road and Sindhi Muslim Cooperative Housing Society (SMCHS) will be blocked.
    Moreover, Khalid bin Waleed Road and the road leading to PECHS Block 3 will also be blocked. As the march moves forward, the road leading to Kashmir Road from Khudadad signal will also be closed, said the traffic police.


    All the roads will be opened again when the march moves forward, informed the police.