Current Final

Category: Uncategorized

  • Gen (r) Raheel Sharif says he never wanted an extension

    Gen (r) Raheel Sharif says he never wanted an extension

    Former chief of army staff (COAS) General (r) Raheel Sharif has rubbished reports regarding him seeking an extension in his tenure as the top military commander, denying the claim by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) that the party was being victimised for refusing him the same.

    According to The News, the issue of the very popular former military bigwig recently cropped up again after former PML-N leader Lt Gen (r) Abdul Qadir Baloch said that he was told by then prime minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif that Gen (r) Sharif had repeatedly approached him to get an extension but to no avail.

    Baloch, who was a SAFRON [ministry of states and frontier regions] minister during the PML-N’s tenure, recently parted ways with the party over its supreme leader Nawaz’s aggressive stance towards the military establishment, especially the incumbent army chief.

    “It was a great disappointment for me as I had expected Raheel Sharif to retire gracefully like a true soldier,” he had said as several PML-N leaders also drew links between the reported civil-military tussle from ex-PM Nawaz’s government as well as Dawn Leaks and Panama Papers scandals.

    According to reports, General (r) Sharif was contacted through Lt Gen (r) Amjad Shuaib, who quoted the former as saying that following a meeting with the then premier and other key PML-N leaders, when he was leaving the meeting room of the PM’s Office, he was approached by Shehbaz Sharif and Chaudhry Nisar.

    Gen (r) Sharif told Lt Gen (r) Shuaib that Shehbaz and Nisar had said that they wanted to give him an extension. According to Lt Gen (r) Shoaib, the former army chief replied that he did not want an extension because he had already announced several months ago that he would not continue to stay in office after his three-year term.

    According to Gen (r) Sharif, as narrated by Lt Gen (r) Shuaib, the PML-N leaders insisted that since he had performed well as the COAS, the country was still engaged in its fight against terrorism and there was a need to bring peace to Karachi, the government, therefore, wanted him to continue.

    Lt Gen (r) Shuaib said that according to Gen (r) Sharif, when the army chief again showed his reluctance, he was offered the slot of field marshal, which he again declined as he was not interested in getting a post where he would become a mere figurehead with nothing to do. It is claimed that the PML-N leaders then told Gen (r) Sharif that the government would consider empowering the post of field marshal.

    He told Gen (r) Shuaib that he had never on his own discussed any such issue with anyone.

    The report quoted an informed PML-N leader as saying that Shehbaz and Nisar had even visited Nawaz in London, where he had gone for his open-heart surgery, to press for an extension fearing that otherwise martial law could be imposed. Even then, Nawaz is believed to have refused to give an extension.

  • Fact Check: Did Pakistani lawmakers chant slogans in favor of Modi?

    Claim: Pakistani lawmakers chant “Modi, Modi” in favor of the Indian Prime Minister during the 27th session of the National Assembly

    Fact: Pakistani parliamentarians did not engage in any sloganeering in favor of Modi inside the parliament and were in fact chanting “voting, voting”

    A television news segment in India reporting that slogans favoring Prime Minister Narendra Modi were chanted by lawmakers in Pakistan has been shared extensively on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

    The claim was widely amplified by prominent Indian politicians and other media outlets.

    However, the claim is false; the lawmakers were in fact chanting calls for a vote during a debate in the National Assembly, a fact check by AFP read.

    A one-minute and 45-seconds news clip was published on Facebook here on October 29, 2020.

    The post’s caption says: “Modi Modi slogans in Pakistan’s parliament.”

    The clip shared in the Facebook post is a segment from India TV that reports on and shows footage from a debate in Pakistan’s National Assembly that was held on October 26, 2020.

    The segment was published on India TV’s Twitter account here on October 28, 2020. “Exclusive: Why some MPs in Pakistan parliament shouted ‘Modi, Modi’,” the tweet reads.

    In the broadcast, India TV’s chyron reads “Again MPs raised the slogans of Modi” and “‘Modi-Modi’ slogans chanted in front of Pakistan foreign minister.”

    The claim that the Pakistani lawmakers were chanting “Modi, Modi” in favour of the Indian prime minister was amplified by politicians from Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party on social media here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

    Footage of the parliamentary debate was also shared alongside the claim by Indian media outlets here, here, here, here, here, here and here and by Facebook users here, here, here and here.

    However, the claim is false.

    A close analysis of the parliamentary proceedings show that the lawmakers are in fact chanting in Urdu “voting, voting” — not “Modi, Modi”.

    The chanting was coming from opposition politicians that were demanding a vote on a resolution that would call on Muslim countries to boycott French goods in response to remarks made by French President Emmanuel Macron regarding blasphemous sketches of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him).

    The “voting, voting” chants occurred while Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi was speaking during the debate, which can be seen in full on Public TV’s YouTube channel here.

    The chanting can be heard at the video’s 13:28 mark.

    Dawn, a major English newspaper in Pakistan, reported on the “voting, voting” chants here on October 27, 2020.

    Prime Minister Modi was invoked later in the parliamentary proceeding but in a negative sense. 

    At 18:25 mark of the Public TV video, Qureshi taunts an opposition lawmaker, saying “it appears that the spirit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s has been transferred into him”. 

    The quip was followed by chants of “whoever is a friend of Modi is a traitor.”

    The negative comments about Modi were reported on by several news outlets, including Pakistan’s Express Tribune here, Indian news agency IANS here and in the Dawn report here.

    The false claim that Pakistani lawmakers chanted “Modi, Modi” was also debunked by the UK’s BBC here and by Indian fact-checking organizations Boomlive here and Alt News here.

    VERDICT: FALSE

  • Three-year-old girl swallows 51 magnets

    Three-year-old girl swallows 51 magnets

    A medical team at Bahrain Defence Force (BDF) removed 51 magnets from a three-year-old girl’s stomach.

    As per reports, the child is said to have swallowed the magnets while playing. Doctors extracted the magnets in a three-and-half hour-long surgery, repairing multiple tears in her stomach and intestines.

    The child was sent home after seven days of recovery in hospital.

  • Study suggests dengue may provide immunity against COVID-19

    Study suggests dengue may provide immunity against COVID-19

    A new study that analysed the coronavirus outbreak in Brazil has found a link between the spread of the virus and past outbreaks of dengue fever that suggests exposure to the mosquito-transmitted illness may provide some level of immunity against COVID-19.

    The study, which has not yet been published was led by Miguel Nicolelis, a professor at Duke University, compared the geographic distribution of coronavirus cases with the spread of dengue in 2019 and 2020.

    Places with lower coronavirus infection rates and slower case growth were locations that had suffered intense dengue outbreaks this year or last, Nicolelis found.

    “If proven correct, this hypothesis could mean that dengue infection or immunization with an efficacious and safe dengue vaccine could produce some level of immunological protection” against the coronavirus, it added.

    Nicolelis told Reuters that the reveal was interesting because previous studies have shown that people with dengue antibodies in their blood can falsely test positive for COVID-19 antibodies even if they have never been infected by the coronavirus.

     “This indicates that there is an immunological interaction between two viruses that nobody could have expected because the two viruses are from completely different families,” Nicolelis said, adding that further studies are needed to prove the connection.

    Brazil has the third-highest total of COVID-19 infections in the world with more than 4.4 million cases – behind only the United States and India. In states such as Paraná, Santa Catarina, Rio Grande do Sul, Mato Grosso do Sul and Minas Gerais, with a high incidence of dengue last year and early this year, COVID-19 took much longer to reach a level of high community transmission compared to states such as Amapá, Maranhão and Pará that had fewer dengue cases.

    The team found a similar relationship between dengue outbreaks and a slower spread of COVID-19 in other parts of Latin America, as well as Asia and islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

  • VIDEO: Thief arrested after falling asleep in AC room during robbery

    VIDEO: Thief arrested after falling asleep in AC room during robbery

    A thief fell asleep in the comfort of an AC room during a robbery.

    According to details, the 21-year-old man who attempted to rob a house in India’s Andhra Pradesh’s East Godavari district fell asleep under the bed of the owner during a burglary. The police caught him red-handed.

    Suri Babu, after doing a recce of the house, tried to loot a petrol pump’s owner house. He had carefully noted the daily routine of Satti Venkat Reddy, the house’s owner, where he keeps his money, what time he goes to sleep, etc.

    One night Babu entered the unlocked house at 4 am and stepped inside Reddy’s room who was by then fast asleep.

    The owner had kept the cash on his side table that night. Meanwhile, unable to resist the temptation of a cool comfortable room, Babu slept under the owner’s bed.

    Read more – Gang of ‘half-naked robbers’ spark fear among residents of Khushab

    Waking up to Babu’s snoring, Reddy immediately called the police.

    When the police arrived Babu locked himself inside the room. However, after a lot of persuasions, he finally opened the door and confessed to his crime.

    https://twitter.com/naartthigan/status/1306612613317500928?s=20

    “He told us that he was tired and since the air conditioner was also on, he could not resist going to sleep in the cool room,” narrated a constable from the Gokavaram police station.

    The police revealed that Babu ran a small sweet shop but didn’t make much money out of it. Drowned in debts, he thought a theft would help him come out of his financial problems. Though he failed at committing the crime, he has been arrested for attempting to steal.

  • We invite you The Current’s Top Fans

    It’s time for us to meet! Are you willing to make the commitment to fill out surveys, tell us your opinion and have a chat over some free food? Fill out this form to win a chance to have A FEW free lunches hosted by the interviewer of The Current Life. Offer for Lahore only.

    Fill the form: https://forms.gle/YwJ6afpJkSUMe6MGA

  • VIDEO: Eyewitness account of motorway gang-rape incident by first-responding Dolphin cop

    Eyewitness account by Dolphin Force cop, who was among the first responders at the site of the horrifying Lahore-Sialkot motorway gang-rape.

    Find out all you need to know about the incident here.

  • Indians hack federal govt apps recently launched by PM Imran

    Government smartphone applications for Islamabad Traffic Police (ITP), Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) Police, and Captial Development Authority (CDA) were hacked by Indian groups and they were siphoned for data extraction.

    Upon trying to pay an annual tax for a car, the users pointed out that the apps were not working and only had basic information such as rates of taxes of different cars and the location of offices.

    According to the media reports, The Deputy Commissioner Islamabad Hamza Shafqat revealed that the apps and services had been jammed to stop hackers from collecting data. He said that the relevant authorities are working on dealing with the issue and they will hopefully resolve the technical glitches.

    These apps were recently launched in the company of Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan who personally attended the launch ceremony. He said that “the launch would be proven revolutionary for the people of Islamabad and these apps will soon be replicated for the rest of the country.”

  • KP govt to transform small dams into picnic points

    The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government has decided to transform small dams into picnic points to boost tourism in the country. The government has begun to transform five dams into picnic points for the public. 

    As per details, Kundar Dam in Swabi, Jalozai Dam Nowshera, Thand Dam Kohat, Chattri Dam Haripur and Jhangra Dam Abbottabad are being completed as picnic spots.

    Services like parking, restaurants, open cooking, solar system, spot fishing and others will be available for the visitors on these sites.

    Earlier on August 19, Prime Minister Imran Khan had chaired a meeting on reviving the tourism sector in the country, where it was decided to form a coordination committee under the supervision of his Special Assistant on Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resources Development Zulfiqar Bukhari.

    The committee would meet after every week and would give a briefing to PM Khan over the progress and development of the tourism sector in the country.

  • Woman accused of practicing witchcraft beaten to death by villagers

    Woman accused of practicing witchcraft beaten to death by villagers

    A woman in the Indian state of Bihar was beaten to death for allegedly practicing black magic.

    According to reports, the police said that the deceased, Geeta Devi, had reached at her in-law’s house in Jharkhand on Monday morning. As soon as she reached, a crowd attacked the 30-year-old with sticks and rods.

    Her brother, daughter and mother-in-law were also manhandled when they tried to save her. Geeta was then, allegedly, dragged on the road and beaten up. By the time the police arrived at the scene, Devi was already dead. The police have said that an FIR (First Information Report) has been filed.

    According to the villagers, Geeta’s neighbour and relative Munshio Mahto’s family had accused her of practising witchcraft. They threatened to kill her after Mahto’s son died due to some illness about two weeks ago.

    Geeta had gone to her father’s house after she received the threats. But when she returned Mahto, along with 10 to 15 villagers, allegedly started beating her with sticks and rods killing her in the process.

    The local police station officer-in-charge Parmeswar Singh said Geeta was lynched for allegedly practicing black magic.

    “On the complaint of the deceased’s mother-in-law, an FIR has been lodged against Munshi Mahto and others in this connection. The body has been sent to Giridih Sadar hospital for post-mortem”, he said, according to a news report.