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Category: Lifestyle

  • Fully funded scholarship in Sweden; Here’s how you can apply

    Fully funded scholarship in Sweden; Here’s how you can apply

    Sweden has announced a scholarship opportunity supported by the Swedish Government, aimed at achieving and contributing to the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

    Swedish Institute Scholarships for Global Professionals encompass extraordinary opportunities. Participants become lifelong members of the Future Global Leaders, developing relationships within the Swedish Alumni Networks. This scholarship program is fully funded by the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

    Course Duration:

    Master’s Degree Programs for 1-2 years.

    Fields of study:

    For a comprehensive list of eligible master’s programs for the academic year 2024/2025, the link to the details of the program is https://si.se/app/uploads/2017/10/updated.-sisgp_eligible_master_programmes_2024_2025.pdf

    Eligibility Criteria for the Scholarship

    1. The candidate must have work experience of a minimum of 3000 hours.
    2. The candidate must have demonstrated leadership experience from the employment.
    3. The candidate must be engaged as a leader in civil society engagements.
    4. The candidate must be able to get admission to an SI Scholarship-eligible master’s program.

    How to Apply?


    1. Visit UniversityAdmissions.se and apply for your master’s program(s) by January 15, 2024. After submitting your application, you will receive an eight-digit personal application number. Keep this number for your SI Scholarship application to ensure accuracy and avoid disqualification.
    2. The candidate has to apply for SI scholarships separately after completing the admission application.
    3. You can apply for up to 4 master’s programs for SI Scholarship in Sweden 2024.
    4. Once an applicant submits his or her admission application, he or she will receive a personal application number.
    5. A candidate must save this application number for applying to the Global Professional Program (Swedish Institute Scholarship).

    Benefits of the Scholarship:

    1. The scholarship will cover the full tuition fee.
    2. The living expenses will be covered and a monthly stipend of SEK 12,000 will be given.
    3. Medical insurance will be covered.
    4. A travel grant of SEK 15,000 will be provided for the entire period of study.
    5. The fellows will get membership in the SI Network for Future Global Leaders.



      Required documents for the scholarship:
      1. Motivation letter
      2. CV
      3. Letters of reference
      4. Valid and completed proof of work and leadership experience
      5. Copy of your valid passport


      Deadline:
      Applicants can apply for the Global Professional Scholarship from 10 February to 28 February 2024.
  • Dense fog disrupts Islamabad flight operations

    Dense fog disrupts Islamabad flight operations

    Flight operations out of Islamabad International Airport have been greatly affected due to heavy fog in the federal capital and twin city of Rawalpindi.

    According to Geo News, three flights arriving in Islamabad were diverted to Lahore and Peshawar, while the arrival and departure of dozens of other flights have been affected.

    A private airline’s flight from Karachi to Islamabad landed in Lahore after half an hour of waiting in the air, while the Sharjah-Islamabad flight PK 182 also landed in Peshawar. The flight arriving in Islamabad from Dubai also shifted to Lahore.

    According to the aviation department, a British Airways flight from Islamabad to London and an Emirates flight kept waiting for clearance to depart for Dubai.

    Flights from Islamabad to Gilgit and Bahrain could not depart on time as fog reduced visibility.

    The reports of dense fog have been received from all around the city which is hindering the normal lifestyle.

  • Watch: Man beats child for hitting his car with a football

    Watch: Man beats child for hitting his car with a football

    An adult car driver beat up a child after the youngster’s football hit his car in a residential area of Faisalabad.


    In a viral video of the incident, the driver can be seen getting angry after a football hit his car. He then gets out of the vehicle and kicks the child.

    Footage shows the man slapping the child, causing the boy to fall to the ground and break his tooth.

    The child’s father says that the child was playing in the street when the ball accidentally fell on the car, reports Geo.

    The child’s father has requested the police to register a case against the driver.

  • Japan quake death toll rises to 48: official

    Japan quake death toll rises to 48: official

    At least 48 people are confirmed dead following a major earthquake in Japan, a local official said.

    The official in Ishikawa prefecture, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP the “death toll has reached 48”.

    Japanese rescuers battled against the clock and powerful aftershocks Tuesday to find survivors of a major earthquake that struck on New Year’s Day, killing at least six people and leaving a trail of destruction.

    The 7.5-magnitude quake, which hit Ishikawa prefecture on the main island of Honshu, triggered tsunami waves over a metre high, toppled buildings, caused a major port fire and tore apart roads.

    As daylight arrived, the scale of the destruction in Ishikawa emerged with buildings still smouldering, houses flattened and fishing boats sunk or washed ashore.

    “Very extensive damage has been confirmed, including numerous casualties, building collapses and fires,” Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said after a disaster response meeting.

    “We have to race against time to search for and rescue victims of the disaster.”

    Police said six people had been killed although the toll was almost certain to climb. The Kyodo news agency reported that 13 people had died, including seven in the badly hit port of Wajima.

    Aerial news footage showed devastation from a major fire at the port, where a seven-storey building collapsed.

    Almost 45,000 households were without power in the region which saw temperatures touch freezing overnight, the local energy provider said. Many cities were without running water.

    The US Geological Survey (USGS) said the quake had a magnitude of 7.5. Japan’s meteorological agency measured it at 7.6, and said it was one of more than 150 to shake the region through Tuesday morning.

    Several strong jolts were felt early Tuesday, including one measuring 5.6 percent that prompted national broadcaster NHK to switch to a special programme.

    “Please take deep breaths,” the presenter said, reminding viewers to check for fires in their kitchens.

    Tsunami warning lifted

    On Monday waves at least 1.2 metres (four feet) high hit Wajima on Monday, and a series of smaller tsunamis were reported elsewhere.

    But warnings of much larger waves proved unfounded and on Tuesday Japan lifted all tsunami warnings.

    Images on social media showed cars and houses in Ishikawa shaking violently and terrified people cowering in shops and train stations. Houses collapsed and huge cracks appeared in roads.

    A team of firefighters crawled under a collapsed, large commercial building in Wajima, television footage showed.

    “Hang in there! Hang in there,” they shouted as they battled through piles of wooden beams with an electric saw.

    “There were shaking that I have never experienced before, a local elderly man told NHK.

    “Inside my house, it was so terrible… I am still alive. Maybe I have to  be content with that.”

    The fire in Wajima engulfed a row of houses, video footage showed, with people being evacuated in the dark, some with blankets and others carrying babies.

    A duty officer at Wajima Fire Department said they still were being overwhelmed Tuesday by rescue requests and reports of damages.

    A total of 62,000 people had been ordered to evacuate, according to the fire and disaster management agency.

    About 1,000 people were staying at a military base, the defence ministry said.

    Bullet trains suspended

    Defense Minister Minoru Kihara said 1,000 military personnel were preparing to go to the region, while 8,500 others were on standby. Around 20 military aircraft were dispatched to survey the damage.

    Monday’s quake shook apartments in the capital Tokyo some 300 kilometres away, where a public New Year greeting event that was to be attended by Emperor Naruhito and his family members was cancelled.

    Several major highways were closed around the epicentre, Japan’s road operator said, and bullet train services from Tokyo were also suspended.

    Japan experiences hundreds of earthquakes every year and the vast majority cause no damage.

    The country has strict regulations intended to ensure buildings can withstand strong quakes and routinely holds emergency drills.

    But the country is haunted by the memory of a massive 9.0-magnitude undersea quake off northeastern Japan in March 2011, which triggered a tsunami that left around 18,500 people dead or missing.

    The 2011 tsunami also sent three reactors into meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant, causing Japan’s worst post-war disaster and the most serious nuclear accident since Chernobyl.

    Japan’s nuclear authority said there were no abnormalities reported at the Shika atomic power plant in Ishikawa or at other plants after Monday’s quake.

    In Washington, US President Joe Biden was briefed on Monday’s quake and offered Japan “any necessary assistance” to cope with the aftermath.

    French President Emmanuel Macron expressed “solidarity” while Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni offered condolences and assistance.

  • British student finds lost sketches 4,000 miles away in Lahore

    A British student of fashion and arts lost her collection of sketches but miraculously found all her work, thousands of miles away, in Pakistan.

    BBC reports that 20-year-old Grace Hart was worried that she would not get into the university where she applied for admission when her mother accidentally discarded her portfolio required for her admission. But a year later, she found out that her artwork was being sold in a charity shop in Lahore.

    A photographer who came across her work in the city, found Hart on Instagram and sent it all back.

    The chain of events took place while she was putting together her portfolio for an application for a fashion degree at Manchester Metropolitan University.

    Hart’s artbooks got mixed up with the things her family was donating to a charity shop.

    “I was stressing so much, because those art books were the only thing I had that proved I did work at school,” she told BBC. But fortunately, Hart had pictures of her art which she was able to send to the university and got accepted.

    Fashion photographer Tajwar Munir from Lahore found her work in a thrift store and messaged Hart. Initially, however, she thought that the message was a scam and did not respond.

    Months later, the international delivery arrived and she got back her lost art work.

    “I’ve always taken a lot of pride in my art,” she said. “It was very upsetting when I realised it had gone missing.”

    Her mother recalls that they “had searched everywhere”.

    “I did feel sick. I was absolutely gutted. Grace is really talented and her artwork is amazing. I started to panic and thought, ‘What is she going to do for university?’”

    She asserted that everyone should extensively check bags before discarding them or giving them away.

    “I never expected in a million years that we would get her artwork back, but it does restore your faith in humanity,” she said.

  • Palestinian, 23, Dies In Israeli Jail: Prison Service

    Palestinian, 23, Dies In Israeli Jail: Prison Service

    A 23-year-old Palestinian prisoner has died in an Israeli jail, the prison service said Monday, adding it was looking into the circumstances of the inmate’s death.

    The prison service in a statement said the man from Nablus in the occupied West Bank had died in Meggido prison, in Israel’s north.

    He was arrested in June 2022 and later sentenced to jail time for “security offences”, the statement said without naming the prisoner.

    “As in all such incidents, the circumstances (of his death) will be examined,” it said.

    The Palestinian Authority’s detainees commission confirmed a prisoner had died but was unable to verify further information.

    The prison service said the inmate was affiliated with Fatah, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s movement.

    Last month Israeli police said they have questioned 19 prison guards as part of an investigation into the death of another Palestinian inmate following allegations of torture.

    According to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa, 38-year-old Thaer Abu Assab, from Qalqilya in the West Bank, died in November after being beaten by Israeli prison guards.

    The Public Committee against Torture in Israel said Abu Assab’s death “raises serious suspicion that the IPS (Israel Prison Service) is being transformed from a professional incarceration body to a vindictive and punitive force”.

    “Six prisoners have already died in prison,” the advocacy group said at the time, adding that “all the instances of abuse and death must be investigated immediately”.

    Israel’s prison service announced on October 7 that it had imposed new restrictions on Palestinian detainees.

    Authorities said inmates can no longer leave their cells, there would not be allowed visits, or permitted to buy food from the canteen, nor would they have power in their electrical outlets.

    As of early December, Israeli prisons housed some 7,800 Palestinian detainees, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, an advocacy group that keeps a tally of detainees from annexed east Jerusalem and the West Bank.

  • Gujrat girl kills sister over TikTok video

    Gujrat girl kills sister over TikTok video

    An 18-year-old girl has allegedly shot dead her younger sister, 14, after an argument over a TikTok video at village Kariala in the Sara-i-Alamgir Saddar police area, reports Dawn.


    Reports said Maria Afzal opened fire at her younger sister Saba Afzal after both quarreled while making a TikTok video at home.


    Police reached the scene and shifted the body to the Civil Hospital where doctors conducted the autopsy before handing back the body to the family. The deceased was laid to rest in the local graveyard.


    Police said they have collected the evidence from the scene and launched an investigation.


    A murder case has been registered against Maria on the report of Nabeel Afzal, the brother of both the sisters. The suspect has not been arrested yet.

  • Five men accused of stripping woman found dead in DI Khan

    Five men accused of stripping woman found dead in DI Khan

    Local police have found the bodies of five men accused of stripping and parading a woman in 2017 in district Dera Ismail Khan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.


    “The bodies are of those five persons who were accused of stripping a woman’s clothes off in Garahmat village of Daraban town in Dera Ismail Khan district in October 2017 when she was fetching water from a local pond. It is an honour killing issue,” said the police as reported by The Khorasan Diary.


    According to Saeedullah Marwat, reporter Geo News, all bodies were found near the canal area. The killers are unknown as of now. The five men were accused of stripping Sharifan Bibi, and then parading her in town. At the time, complaints were lodged against the men who were arrested. Consequently, a peace agreement was also signed.


    The suspects have gone into hiding post the discovery of the bodies while the corpses have been shifted to a nearby hospital.

  • Nobel winner Yunus convicted in Bangladesh labour law case

    Nobel winner Yunus convicted in Bangladesh labour law case

    Dhaka (AFP) – Nobel peace laureate Muhammad Yunus was convicted on Monday of violating Bangladesh’s labour laws in a case decried by his supporters as politically motivated.

    Yunus, 83, is credited with lifting millions out of poverty with his pioneering microfinance bank but has earned the enmity of longtime Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who has accused him of “sucking blood” from the poor.

    Hasina has made several scathing verbal attacks against the internationally respected 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner, who was once seen as a political rival.

    Yunus and three colleagues from Grameen Telecom, one of the firms he founded, were accused of violating labour laws when they failed to create a workers’ welfare fund in the company.

    A labour court in the capital Dhaka convicted and sentenced them to “six months’ simple imprisonment”, lead prosecutor Khurshid Alam Khan told AFP, adding that all four were immediately granted bail pending appeals.

    All four deny the charges. Dozens of people staged a small demonstration of support outside the court for Yunus, who left without speaking to media.

    “This verdict is unprecedented,” Abdullah Al Mamun, a lawyer for Yunus, told AFP. “We did not get justice.”

    Yunus is facing more than 100 other charges over labour law violations and alleged graft.

    He told reporters after one of the hearings last month that he had not profited from any of the more than 50 social business firms he had set up in Bangladesh.

    “They were not for my personal benefit,” Yunus said.

    Another of his lawyers, Khaja Tanvir, told AFP that the case was “meritless, false and ill-motivated”.

    “The sole aim of the case is to harass and humiliate him in front of the world,” he said.

    ‘Travesty of justice’

    Irene Khan, a former Amnesty chief now working as a UN special rapporteur who was present at Monday’s verdict, told AFP the conviction was “a travesty of justice”.

    “A social activist and Nobel laureate who brought honour and pride to the country is being persecuted on frivolous grounds,” she said.

    In August, 160 global figures, including former US president Barack Obama and ex-UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, published a joint letter denouncing “continuous judicial harassment” of Yunus.

    The signatories, including more than 100 of his fellow Nobel laureates, said they feared for “his safety and freedom”.

    Critics accuse Bangladeshi courts of rubber-stamping decisions made by Hasina’s government, which is all but certain to win another term in power next week at elections boycotted by the opposition.

    Her administration has been increasingly firm in its crackdown on political dissent, and Yunus’s popularity among the Bangladeshi public has for years earmarked him as a potential rival.

    Amnesty International accused the government of “weaponizing labour laws” when Yunus went to trial in September and called for an immediate end to his “harassment”.

    Criminal proceedings against Yunus were “a form of political retaliation for his work and dissent”, it said.

  • 60-year-old woman raped and killed in Bihar, India

    60-year-old woman raped and killed in Bihar, India

    An elderly woman in the Indian state of Bihar was found dead by the police after being raped and murdered.


    According to Indian media, the woman was killed after being gang-raped in Nawada district of Bihar.


    The report said that the incident came to light when the mutilated body was found by the police on December 26.


    Local police took action and arrested four persons suspected of involvement in the rape and murder.


    The police said that three of the suspects have confessed to raping and killing her by slitting her throat, while one man is still on the run.


    Talking about the incident, a police officer said that the woman and her husband, originally from Gaya, had gone to the city on December 25 to meet their relatives.


    He said that the old couple had to take a rickshaw from the railway station to reach their destination. However, as soon as only the old lady sat in the rickshaw, the driver started the rickshaw and took her away.


    Police apprehended the suspect with the help of CCTV footage.


    According to the police, during the investigation, the blood of the woman was found on the clothes of the suspects, while the weapon used to kill her has also been recovered.