Category: Lifestyle

  • Children are being lured by e-cigarettes, World Health Organization warns

    Children are being lured by e-cigarettes, World Health Organization warns

    The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that children around the world are being lured into using e-cigarettes through social media, leading to nicotine addiction.

    With more than 16,000 flavours of e-cigarettes available, WHO asserts urgent action to prevent children from becoming addicted to e-cigarettes.

    E-cigarettes are not helping in quitting smoking, and there is no age limit for the sale of e-cigarettes in 88 countries around the world, it added.

    Additionally, there is no law related to e-cigarettes in 74 countries of the world, WHO has highlighted, stressing that e-cigarettes can also cause cancer, heart, lung and mental diseases.

    The organisation has suggested that stricter legislation and enforcement is needed to stop the sale of e-cigarettes.

    “Urgent action is needed to control e-cigarettes to protect children, as well as non-smokers and minimize health harms to the population,” the WHO wrote in the release.

  • Inquiry report rejected for presenting wrong evidence in Ranipur’s Fatima’s case

    Inquiry report rejected for presenting wrong evidence in Ranipur’s Fatima’s case

    Sindh’s caretaker health minister Dr. Saad Khalid has rejected the report of the inquiry committee in the death of Fatima, the child found dead in Ranipur.

    According to the spokesperson of Sindh Health Department, wrong evidence was presented in the report, stating that the people with whom Fatima’s DNA was matched were not disclosed in the report.

    A meeting was called by the caretaker health minister in which the report of the inquiry committee was rejected, said the spokesperson of the Sindh Health Department.

    Fatima’s case
    A domestic maid, 10-year-old child Fatima Phuriro, was found dead under suspicious circumstances in Ranipur.

    The child had been working as a domestic worker at a haveli owned by an influential local, Pir Asad Shah Jilani.

    Fatima’s mother, Shabana, was informed about the death by the employer who asked her to remove the body from the premises.

    According to DIG Sukkur Javed Jiskani, the parents initially did not share the facts of the case with the police and claimed that the girl was suffering from gastroenteritis.

    While her diagnosis was also confirmed by Dr Abdul Fatah Memon who treated her, the DIG revealed that Fatima was taken to the hospital either by the Pir or his staff and that the SHO was present at the time she was pronounced dead.

    It was not until videos of the child were leaked by an unknown source and circulated on social media that the case caught the media’s eye. By then, the family had buried Fatima on August 15.

    The body was later exhumed and sent for an autopsy which revealed that the girl had been raped both vaginally and anally.

    Fatima’s parents revealed heartbreaking details when we talked to them in September this year.

  • ‘Judge and his family should be beaten the way they beat me’; Rizwana’s demand

    ‘Judge and his family should be beaten the way they beat me’; Rizwana’s demand

    14-year-old Rizwana, who was allegedly beaten up by a civil judge and his wife in Islamabad, has not fully recovered yet. She is neither able to talk much nor walk properly.

    Islamabad Police recorded Rizwana’s statement at the Child Protection Bureau in Lahore where she alleged that the judge himself beat her up, hitting her head against the wall, while his wife and children would also assault her, adding that they should be treated in the same manner.

    Talking to Geo News, Rizwana said that she was beaten with sticks and bats, stabbed with knives, and the judge would shove her head into a wall.

    Child Protection Bureau Punjab Chairperson Sarah Ahmed said that the Islamabad Police has recorded Rizwana’s statement while her legal team was also present at the time.

    She said that before the statement, Rizwana was told to not panic, and to not change her statement on anyone’s advice.

    Case

    Rizwana had been allegedly tortured and abused while working at a civil judge’s home in Islamabad, after she was accused of stealing jewellery. Rizwana’s family revealed that the girl was not paid a single penny by the family for the extensive workload she was doing and was instead subjected to violence.

  • Turkish member of parliament suffers heart attack during speech

    Turkish member of parliament suffers heart attack during speech

    Turkish member of parliament Hasan Bitmez suffered a heart attack while delivering a passionate speech against the government’s policy towards Israel, reports Al-Jazeera.


    Hasan, 54, collapsed in the parliament while addressing the House. He was taken to a hospital in Ankara where he died two days later, on Thursday. He was a member of the Islamist Saadet Partisi or Felicity Party.


    In his speech, Hasan called out President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government for the duplicity of its policies, “You allow ships to go to Israel, and you shamelessly call it trade. … You are Israel’s accomplice.” He criticised Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AK Party) in his speech on Tuesday and raised a poster on the podium that said, “Murderer Israel; collaborator AKP.”


    Hasan delivered a 20-minute-long speech before collapsing where he warned the President by saying, “Even if you escape the torment of history, you will not be able to escape the wrath of God.” He was immediately given first-aid after the coronary episode.

    Hasan, a prominent figure of the opposition, graduated from Cairo’s Al-Azhar University, worked for Islamic nongovernmental groups and was chairman of the Centre for Islamic Union Research.


    His speech accused the government of continuing friendly economic relations with Israel during its assault on Gaza, which has killed nearly 19,000 Gazans.


    As he delivered the speech, he was mocked by AK Party members.

  • Twitter in fits with reporting over jobless people’s attack on Indian parliament

    Twitter in fits with reporting over jobless people’s attack on Indian parliament

    Two unidentified persons were detained after they jumped into the lower house of Indian Parliament chamber, while the winter session of the Parliament was underway.


    The Delhi Police also arrested two other persons – a man and a woman from outside the Parliament, for protesting with coloured smoke.
    The incident took place as the country was commemorating the attack on Indian Parliament in 2001.


    As per Indian media reports, the culprits were seated in the visitors’ gallery and hiding the canisters in their shoes. Parliamentary members told journalists that the protestors raised slogans “Dictatorship will not be accepted”.


    Parliament security staff took the duo — identified as Sagar Sharma, 25, from Lucknow, and Manoranjan D, 35, from Mysore — into custody after they were beaten by MPs, reporters said.


    Two others — Neelam Singh, 42, from Hisar in Haryana and Amol Shinde, 25, from Latur in Maharashtra — were arrested from a spot near Parliament House where they too opened smoke canisters soon after the incident in Lok Sabha.


    The breach has shocked the lawmakers and nation alike.

    But the internet’s meme brigade made the most of it. One user posted the video of parliamentarians beating up the protestor and captioned it with a laughing emoji, “Who says India doesn’t have unity”.


    A user said, “Even my mobile pattern is more secure than the Indian Parliament.”


    Several others used clips from Bollywood and other movies to mock the security of the parliament.


    While Prime Minister Narendra Modi was not in the parliament, critics lambasted his government for the lapse in security of a high-profile place like Lok Sabha.

    Another trolled the BJP parliamentarians shouting space out amid the attack of the intruders saying were they waiting for a “chota bheem” to save their day.


    However, reporting by different media outlets outside the parliament has Twitter in fits.


    Two reporters were seen fighting over the smoke canister while the third one took the benefit and ran away from the spot.


    A user mockingly suggested that these courageous reporters should be deployed on borders and the army should be given the task of reporting.


    Journalist Anil Tiwari commented that “Media students should learn from this video that besides reporting skills, surviving in the media industry may require abilities like snatching, punching, running, etc”.

    Using a Bollywood movie reference a netizen trolled the journalists fighting for a smoke canister.

    Amidst this laughing riot over the reporting, the lady reporter Pallavi Ghosh famous for her swift and aggressive reporting defended herself on Twitter by posting, “End of the day – yes the video looks funny but as a reporter on the ground my Instinct not to let go”

  • Chief Traffic Officer Amara Athar has good news for women

    Chief Traffic Officer Amara Athar has good news for women

    Amara Athar, the first woman chief traffic officer of Lahore, has announced good news for women.

    After taking over the post, she has asserted that the department’s priority will be to get more girls to ride motorcycles and increase the capacity of women drivers.

    Pointing out that traffic jams are a major problem in the city, Athar said that her aim is to improve traffic flow within limited resources.

    Who is Amara Athar?

    Amara Athar was appointed as the Chief Traffic Officer (CTO) of Lahore by Punjab government on December 12.

    The BS-19 police officer is the first woman police officer on central traffic control assignment in the provincial capital and the fourth woman police officer posted in Lahore.

    Dawn reports that according to an official, under Punjab Inspector General of Police (IGP) Dr Usman Anwar’s policy, female officers have been prioritised for field assignments to counter the “decades-old tradition of ‘male dominant’ policing in the province”.

    An official claims that while there were a number of male contenders for the top position of the Lahore traffic police, the IGP preferred a woman officer, especially after the outstanding performance of another female officer, Aysha Butt, who was posted as Gujranwala CTO who has reportedly bring about significant reforms in a short period since her appointment.

    Butt has built Pakistan’s first traffic theme park at Gujranwala with a long walking track that has traffic signs on both sides to create public awareness about traffic rules.

  • Shahnawaz given death penalty for murdering Sarah Inam

    Shahnawaz given death penalty for murdering Sarah Inam

    Sarah Inam’s husband Shahnawaz Amir, son of renowned journalist Ayyaz Amir has been sentenced to death for murdering his wife.


    Session Judge Nasir Javed announced the verdict, fining the convict Rs10 lac as well. Shahnawaz’s mother Samina Shah has been acquitted for lack of proof as compliant to the murder, reports Geo.


    Sarah’s lawyer demanded the death penalty during the November 16 hearing.

    Sarah Inam’s father talked to the media after the verdict was announced and expressed his satisfaction with the death penalty but showed his concern over his mother getting off Scott-free.

    The father was accompanied by Shaukat Mukadam, Noor Mukadam’s father and the two appealed to the Supreme Court for a logical conclusion of Noor’s case.


    Shahnawaz was arrested in September last year from his farmhouse in Islamabad. Sarah was reportedly murdered just a day after she arrived in the country from Dubai where she had been working. Her husband was initially remanded to police custody a day after his arrest and the period of his physical remand was extended several times.


    Shahnawaz’s father, Ayyaz Amir was discharged from the case and his mother Samina Shah, nominated as co-accused in the case, was granted post-arrest bail in November last year.


    The postmortem revealed that Sarah had suffered multiple head fractures leading to her death, after having been hit on the head with a dumbbell.

  • Motorways closed due to intense fog in Punjab

    Motorways closed due to intense fog in Punjab

    The season of blinding fog has officially arrived in Punjab, complete with signs of restricted movement.

    M-2 route from Lahore to Kot Momin, M-3 from Faizpur to Darkhana, M-4 from Shamkot to Pindi Bhattian, and M-5 from Sher Shah to Zahir Peer were closed due to low visibility, reports Geo.


    Routes between Lahore and Sialkot is closed due to heavy fog whereas a section between Gojra and Faisalabad is also blocked for the same reason.


    The situation of smog is also an added factor in low visibility all over Punjab where Lahore still stands at number two in the air quality index with very unhealthy levels of air.

  • Pakistani Ambassador at UN lauded for Palestine resolution speech

    Pakistani Ambassador at UN lauded for Palestine resolution speech

    Pakistani Ambassador to the United Nations, Munir Akram, delivered a strong statement on the war that is taking place in Gaza during the 10th Emergency Special Session on December 12.

    https://youtu.be/Rv8CfifXcOo?si=GOBY3v-Vbsp6BVxE


    He expressed Pakistan’s allegiance to the resolution submitted by the Arab and Islamic countries proposing an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and release of all hostages. Ambassador Munir also criticised America, one of the permanent members, for vetoing that resolution. Calling out the friend of Israel, for proposing an amendment that “condemns one side while exonerating the other”. He called it “unfair and inequitable”.


    The Pakistani ambassador reminded the world that Israel has dropped 25,000 tons of explosives on Gaza which is nearly equivalent to the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He stressed that “Israel’s goal is not to erase Hamas, this is a war against the Palestinian people, not just to erase people but to erase the entire idea of Palestine. It is the same as racial slaughter conducted by settler colonial power in the past.”


    Munir Akram ended the speech by calling out the UN that its duty should not be “to justify the genocide that is taking place.”


    Riyad Mansour, Palestinian Ambassador to the UN, especially thanked the Pakistani Ambassador for his stance and the effective speech by calling him a lawyer of the Palestinian cause in the tenth emergency session. He said that Ambassador Munir Akram shredded to pieces the amendments proposed in favour of perpetrators. He praised the Pakistani Ambassador stating that due to his efforts “even one of the opposing countries voted in favour of the resolution today”.


    Member states then adopted a resolution demanding an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire”, the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages and well as “ensuring humanitarian access”.


    It passed with a large majority of 153 in favour and 10 against, with 23 abstentions.

  • Woman finds ring worth more than 22 crore in an unusual place

    Woman finds ring worth more than 22 crore in an unusual place

    A woman lost a diamond ring worth more than $800,000 or Rs 22 crore, 45 lac, 34 thousand and 480 rupees at the Ritz Hotel in Paris, kicking off a large search campaign by hotel and security staff.

    The ring was eventually found in a vacuum cleaner bag.

    The woman was staying at the famed Ritz Hotel when she left her ring on the nightstand in her room.
    When she returned from a morning outing, the ring was gone. Authorities were alerted, but after a search by hotel and security staff, the ring was found in a vacuum cleaner bag.


    The woman is originally from Malaysia and is currently in London where she will receive her ring soon.