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  • UK govt praises Pakistan on 10 Billion Tree Tsunami project

    UK govt praises Pakistan on 10 Billion Tree Tsunami project

    The UK government has appreciated Pakistan for showing global leadership in dealing with climate change with its 10 Billion Tree Tsunami project. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government introduced the Billion Tree Tsunami Afforestation Project in 2014 that was monitored by WWF-Pakistan.

    As per details, about 1.6 million native tree species were planted in different cities of Pakistan by WWF in 2019 and about 1.002 million native plants were planted with the provincial forest department, academic institutions, and civil society in 2020. 

    UK House of Lords member Lord Aamer Sarfraz, during a session of the House of Lords on January 25, said that the project is an effort that all Pakistanis can be proud of. 

    “There is no doubt that 2021 is the year of planet Earth, and by the COP26 due to be held later this year, we hope to celebrate more successes from Pakistan,” said Lord Sarfraz. 

    UK Environment Minister Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park also appreciated the initiative and called it a great achievement, which the world can learn from and emulate. 

    He called it “one of the most ambitious tree planting initiatives in the world”. 

    “I absolutely, enthusiastically, commend and celebrate Pakistan’s 10 Billion Tree Tsunami initiative and the tens of thousands of jobs that have been created due to the project. It goes to show what is possible and what can be achieved,” said Lord Goldsmith.

  • Supreme Court upholds acquittal of prime suspect in Daniel Pearl murder case

    The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed a series of appeals against the acquittal of the British-born militant convicted of masterminding the kidnap and murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl, paving the way for his release.

    “The court has come out to say that there is no offence that he has committed in this case,” Mahmood Sheikh, who represented Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, told AFP.

    The three-judge bench directed authorities to release Sheikh who was sentenced to death for his role in the plot.

    During the hearing, the Sindh advocate general told the court that the prime suspect has links to banned outfits. He added that the Sindh government submitted sensitive information to the top court in a sealed envelope. At this, the court responded that the evidence submitted by the authorities in the case was not enough to convict Sheikh.

    In a dramatic turn of events on Wednesday, Sheik admitted a “minor” role in the death of Washington Post reporter Pearl. That testimony was at odds with 18 years of denial about his involvement in the killing.

    A letter handwritten by the accused in 2019, in which he admits limited involvement in the death, was submitted to Pakistan’s Supreme Court nearly two weeks earlier.

    Last month, the United States government had also issued a statement expressing concerns over the acquittal of Sheikh by the Sindh High Court.

    “We are deeply concerned by the reports of the December 24 ruling of Sindh High Court to release multiple terrorists responsible for the murder of Daniel Pearl. We have been assured that the accused have not been released at this time,” said the State Department in a series of tweets in response to the ruling of the high court.

    Pearl was working on a story about religious extremists in Pakistan in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks, when he was kidnapped in Karachi.

  • VIDEO: Sindh governor’s dog enjoying police protocol in Karachi?

    It seems even pets of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader and Sindh Governor Imran Ismail enjoy police protocol in Karachi.

    According to a video that went viral on social media, a dog can be seen enjoying a ride in a government SUV on the roads of the provincial capital, with its head hanging out of the window.

    A police vehicle is also seen tailing the Prado as a part of its security protocol. No one can be seen accompanying the dog in the video, but the governor says that his family members were travelling in the vehicle when the video was shot.

    The video was posted by Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader Taimoor Talpur. Talpur said that he filmed the video after he came out of the Chief Minister House following a meeting, as per a report in Geo News.

    Subsequently, a clarification was issued by the governor on Twitter. Ismail clarified the police mobile was accompanying the vehicle to protect his family that was also travelling in it. “The police van was not there for protocol but to protect the family,” he said, adding that it is a “frivolous move” to make such videos.

    “The person [Talpur] who made the video is part of a corrupt government,” he alleged.

  • PTI’s Pakistan more corrupt than PML-N’s Pakistan for second consecutive year: Transparency International

    PTI’s Pakistan more corrupt than PML-N’s Pakistan for second consecutive year: Transparency International

    Transparency International (TI) — a Berlin-based international non-governmental organisation combating global corruption — on Thursday released a new report, according to which, the country under the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government, for the second consecutive year, has witnessed more corruption than it did in the outgoing year of the former ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).

    According to TI’s global report on the 2020 Corruption Perception Index (CPI), while Pakistan’s ranking and CPI score in 2019 dropped from 117 to 120 and from 33 to 32, respectively, the ranking has now fallen down to 123 and CPI score to 31 in 2020.

    The report comes at a time when the Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan-led government boasts of the success of its promised accountability drive against opposition lawmakers and government officials. The same has time and again been termed as “political victimisation” by those on the radar of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

    Before the second consecutive drop, Pakistan witnessed a slight improvement in the 2018 CPI, scoring a point higher than in 2017 but remaining unchanged in the rankings. The country scored 33 out of 100 on the index — one point better than its score of 32 in 2017 and 2016. Its ranking, however, remained unchanged at 117 out of 180 countries, in 2018.

    TI’s annual report on CPI is formulated on the basis of input from 13 international agencies. In the case of Pakistan, however, the assessment of eight agencies is taken into account. These include the World Economic Forum Executive Opinion Survey; the World Bank Country Policy and Institutional Assessment; the World Justice Project Rule of Law Index; the Bertelsmann Stiftung Transformation Index; the Economist Intelligence Unit Country Risk Service; the Global Insight Country Risk Ratings; the IMD World Competitiveness Center World Competitiveness Yearbook Executive Opinion Survey; and the Varieties of Democracy project’s findings.

    Pakistan in the last 11 years had improved its index score from 23 in 2010 to 33 in 2018. However, never in the said time period had Pakistan been assessed to have performed negatively when compared to the previous year, which has now happened twice.

  • Baby on the way for Zaid Ali T and Yumnah

    Zaid Ali T and his wife Yumnah Ali T have announced that they are expecting their first child.

    Read more – It’s raining…celebrity babies

    Sharing the good news on social media, Zaid wrote: “We are going to be parents! By the grace of Allah, we have been blessed with a child!”

    “Today is the happiest day of my life,” he added.

    Similarly, Yumnah, while sharing the news said that she cannot “wait to be a mom!”

    Soon after the couple announced the news, wishes poured in from loved ones and followers.

    The Canadian-Pakistani YouTuber and Yumna tied the knot in 2017. Zaid has over 2.9 million followers on his YouTube Channel.

  • ‘It was awful’: Priyanka Chopra regrets endorsing fairness products

    ‘It was awful’: Priyanka Chopra regrets endorsing fairness products

    Priyanka Chopra-Jonas has said that she has expressed her deep remorse for promoting skin-whitening creams in her upcoming memoir Unfinished. The book is scheduled to release on February 9 and will chronicle Priyanka’s childhood, facing racism during her teenage years in the US, winning Miss India and Miss World, and the challenges she faced while navigating a career in Bollywood and Hollywood.

    Speaking to Marie Claire, Chopra-Jonas, said: [Skin lightening] was so normalized in South Asia; it’s such a large industry that everyone was doing it. In fact, doing it is still a check [mark] when you are a female actor, but it’s awful.”

    “And it was awful for me, for a little girl who used to put talcum-powder cream on my face because I believed that dark skin was not pretty,” she said, adding that she hated being described as “dusky” by industry influencers and the media.

    Priyanka further shared that her new sustainable beauty brand, ‘Anomaly’, is a metaphor for the self-acceptance she’s finally found. She is hopeful that men and women today don’t feel like they have to live up to the restrictive beauty standards that she used to.

    “I’m an anomaly, and everyone else is in their own way,” says the actor.

    Meanwhile, talking about her journey and accomplishments, Priyanka said: “For that girl who was so scared, I’m proud of the person that I evolved into. I dealt with a lot, and I came out thriving. I want little girls around the world to think about that. It doesn’t matter where you come from; it doesn’t matter what your circumstances are. Your grit matters, your ambition matters, your perseverance matters.”

    Earlier on 2015, while talking to journalist Barkha Dutt about endorsing fairness creams, Priyanka had said: “I felt really bad about it, that’s why I stopped doing it.”

    “All my cousins are gora-chitta (fair) I was the one who turned out dusky because my dad is dusky. Just for fun, my Punjabi family would call me ‘kaali, kaali, kaali’. At 13, I wanted to put fairness creams and wanted my complexion changed,” she shared further.

    Read more – Priyanka Chopra reportedly defies lockdown rules in London to visit the salon

    Later, sharing a screenshot of Priyanka’s statement on her Instagram story, Iqra Aziz wrote, “When will we [regret endorsing fairness creams]?”

    It is pertinent to add here that Iqra is one of the few female Pakistani actors who has not endorsed a fairness product. Her husband Yasir Hussain had publicly lauded her for rejecting a lucrative offer to represent a fairness cream brand.

  • Fahad Mustafa says ignoring Fawad Alam for a decade was ‘a failure of our system’

    Fahad Mustafa has condemned the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) for ignoring Fawad Alam for a decade.

    “If you want to witness what a failure of our system really is, watch Fawad Alam playing like a champ that he really is. We have wasted 10 years of this incredibly talented athlete,” wrote Fahad on social media.

    Fawad, who was ignored for almost eleven years, has gone on to score a century during the Pakistan vs South Africa series, happening in Karachi. This is the cricketer’s third century. He scored his first in 2009 when he hit 168 on his Test debut against Sri Lanka while opening the innings. Since then Alam has played just six Tests having made a comeback in 2020. He scored his second hundred in New Zealand during the Pakistan vs New Zealand Test series after he got a chance to play when Babar Azam was ruled out due to his thumb injury.

    Meanwhile, Pakistanis including celebrities, politicians and sports analysts cannot stop praising Alam for his brilliant feat and many have called out the previous selectors for ignoring his talent.

    https://twitter.com/hadouken51/status/1354387696471437312?s=20

  • VIDEO: Visibly annoyed info minister stops Shahbaz Gill from speaking to media after PTI meeting

    Federal Information Minister Shibli Faraz was on Wednesday caught visibly annoyed on camera when he expressed displeasure over his colleague and Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan’s special assistant, Dr Shahbaz Gill, having an informal conversation with media persons.

    As per the details, PM Imran chaired the parliamentary party meeting of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) following which Gill was seen speaking to journalists before the information minister could hold his scheduled press conference.

    In videos of the episode doing the rounds on social media, Faraz was seen asking Gill as to what he was doing.

    “I was just giving them [journalists] economy-related points,” PM’s aide tells the government spokesperson over which the latter tells him that he was headed for the scheduled post-meeting presser.

    WATCH VIDEO:

    “If you want to talk to journalists, join me for the press conference,” the information minister can be heard as adding after saying that it was his job but Gill had been doing so for quite some time.

    “I won’t join you [for the presser],” Gill says after continuing to explain for a while that he was only updating journalists on facts and figures regarding the country’s debts.

    “Then don’t,” the information minister says and storms out, leaving Gill rather embarrassed in front of media persons.

    It may be noted that Faraz is the third information minister after Fawad Chaudhry and Firdous Ashiq Awan, who discharged her duties as the pemier’s special assistant on information in the absence of a minister.

    Gill, on the other hand, was called to centre after spending some time in Punjab as Chief Minister (CM) Usman Buzdar’s spokesperson.

  • Hadiqa Kiani’s ‘Jaanay Iss Dil’ is Indo-Pak’s first female qawwali

    After a powerful acting debut in Hum TV’s Raqeeb Se, Hadiqa Kiani has enthralled fans with her first qawaali Jaanay Iss Dil.

    In an exclusive interview with The Current, Hadiqa revealed that Jaanay Iss Dil is Indo-Pak’s “first-ever female qawwali“.

    The composition is nothing like anything has Kiani has ever done before. The award-winning singer collaborated with the legendary qawaali icon, late Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s patent Tabla player, Ustad Dildar Hussain for Jaanay Iss Dil.

    “Qawaali is indeed the purest form of music. Having had the opportunity to jump into a genre that is somewhat outside my comfort zone, I have an even greater appreciation for the art that is Qawaali,” said Kiani while talking about her latest venture. “The opportunity to work with Ustad Dildar Hussain, someone who has been an important part of Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s entourage was nothing short of extraordinary.”

    Later, while celebrating the qawwali’s success and the response it got, Hadiqa said that “this was a project of love”, adding that she is grateful that her audiences “were able to connect to our message through the power of pure music.”

    “No auto-tuners, no heavy machines, just the beauty of our regional music, our language, our instruments,” she added.

    Meanwhile, the poetry of the qawwali has been selected by Abrar Hussain and verses of numerous classic poets have been incorporated to enrich it with Girah Bundi.

    The qawwali has been musically arranged and recorded live by one of Pakistan’s leading music producers and Hadiqa’s long-time collaborator and brother, Irfan Kiani, without the use of click track or auto-tuners. Kiani also incorporated the all-elusive Sarangi instrument to add to the beauty of this qawaali. The sound has been mixed and mastered by Eva Kiani.

    Read more – Hadiqa Kiani pays a rich tribute to Ertuğrul with a song in Turkish

    The qawaali has been produced by Mian Yousaf Salahuddin for Sufiscore and has been visually captured by director Abdullah Haris. Mohsin Naveed Ranjha did the wardrobe while Shahama Sajid designed the set.

    Listen to it here:

  • Here’s how you can register for COVID-19 vaccine in Pakistan

    Here’s how you can register for COVID-19 vaccine in Pakistan

    The National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC) has finalized the COVID-19 vaccination strategy as the country expects the first batch of a Chinese vaccine by January 31.

    The government has approved three COVID-19 vaccines including Russia’s Sputnik-V, China’s Sinopharm and UK’s Oxford-AstraZeneca so far.

    Here is a step-by-step guide to get coronavirus vaccine:

    Step 1: Citizens including frontline healthcare workers will send CNIC number to 1166 through SMS or use NIMS website for registration.

    Step 2: After necessary verification, designated AVC (Adult Vaccine Centre) (based on “Present Address” and PIN Code will be sent to the citizen through SMS)

    Step 3: If the designated AVC is outside the current tehsil of the citizen, he/ she can change the designated health facility by visiting NIMS web portal or by calling 1166 helpline within 5 days of receipt of the first SMS.

    Step 4: Upon availability of vaccine at the Designated Vaccination Centre, SMS will be sent to the citizen to intimate appointment date for vaccine administration.

    Step 5: After successful registration, the citizen will visit AVC on date of appointment along with original CNIC and received PIB Code (mandatory).

    Step 6: Vaccination staff will verify the CNIC and PIN code.

    Step 7: After successful verification, the citizen will be vaccinated. Upon vaccine administration, vaccination staff will enter the details in NIMS and confirmation message will be sent to the citizen through SMS. Citizen will stay in AVC for 30 min for the post-inoculation monitoring.

    Step 8: Real-time dashboard for the federal, provincial and district health department will be generated automatically.