Daily News Pakistan

China’s population fell for the third consecutive year in 2024, as a demographic crisis continues to loom over the East Asian superpower. The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported on Friday that the Chinese population fell by 1.39 million over the past 12 months to 1.408 billion as deaths continue to outpace births. China’s population has been steadily declining since the 1980s, but the year 2022 marked the first time deaths outpaced births since 1961 when China was in the midst of the disastrous Great Leap Forward plan, which led to a famine in which an estimated 20 million people died of starvation. Recent efforts by Beijing to slow down the falling birthrate have failed to slow what is a long-term trend, and the NBS acknowledged the country was facing several challenges. “We must be aware that the adverse effects brought by the external environment are increasing, the domestic demands are insufficient, some enterprises have difficulties in production and operation, and ...

Pakistan’s Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) launched the country’s first fully indigenous Electro-Optical (EO-1) satellite on Friday. The satellite has been launched from China’s Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre. The launch ceremony was telecasted at SUPARCO’s complex in Karachi, and Pakistanis witnessed the satellite’s journey into space live. The EO-1 satellite will enable Pakistan to monitor environmental changes and track natural disasters. The EO-1 will provide valuable insights into crop health, soil moisture, and weather patterns, helping to boost agricultural productivity. The satellite will also enhance Pakistan’s defense capabilities and provide real-time surveillance. Earlier in May 2024, Pakistan’s first multi-mission satellite, PAKSAT MM1 was launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in China. The PAKSAT-MM1 is placed 36,000 kilometers above the earth’s surface. According to the Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (Suparco)...

As many as 50 migrants attempting to reach Spain by boat from West Africa may have drowned, migrant rights group Walking Borders said on Thursday. Moroccan authorities on Wednesday rescued 36 people from a boat that had departed from Mauritania on January 2, the group based in Madrid and Navarra said, and had carried 86 migrants, including 66 Pakistanis. The rights group said it had alerted authorities from all countries involved six days ago about the missing boat. The boat left for Spain on January 2, relatives of the drowned Pakistani migrants have said. According to them, the human traffickers had anchored the boat in the sea and were demanding more money from them. Alarm Phone, an NGO that provides an emergency phone line for migrants lost at sea, said it had alerted Spain's maritime rescue service on January 12. The service said it did not have any information about the boat. Citing the Walking Borders' post on social media platform X, the Canary Islands' regi...

Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket has blasted off from Florida on its first mission to space, an inaugural step into Earth’s orbit for Jeff Bezos’s space company. Thirty storeys tall, standing at 98 metres (321.5 feet), with a reusable first stage, New Glenn launched at about 2am (07:00 GMT) from Blue Origin’s launchpad at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in its second lift-off attempt this week. The rocket’s first attempt to launch on Monday was scrubbed around because ice had accumulated on a propellant line. On Thursday, the company cited no issues before the launch. The mission – a decade-long multibillion-dollar project – included a first-stage booster landing in the Atlantic Ocean, while the rocket’s second stage continues towards orbit. Until now, Blue Origin had used its rockets only for suborbital space tourism. “The thing we’re most nervous about is the booster landing,” Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who founded Blue Origin in 2000, told Reuters news agency in a pre-l...

Firefighters on Wednesday confronted persistently strong and dry winds fueling two giant wildfires that have terrified Los Angeles for eight days, testing the resolve of a city upended by the worst disaster in its history. Officials urged residents to remain vigilant and be prepared to evacuate at a moment's notice with peak wind gusts forecast to last through Thursday afternoon. Some 6.5 million people remained under a critical fire threat, after the fires consumed an area nearly the size of Washington, DC, resulting in at least 25 deaths so far, authorities said. "We want to reiterate the particularly dangerous situation today. Get ready now and be prepared to leave," County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath told a press conference on Wednesday. Although anticipated winds of up to 70mph (112kph) had yet to materialise, firefighters reported winds of 30 to 40mph (48 to 64kph) combined with low humidity in a region that has failed to receive any appreciable rain in nine mo...

Israel and Hamas agreed to a deal to halt fighting in Gaza and exchange Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners, an official briefed on the deal told Reuters on Wednesday, opening the way to a possible end to a 15-month war that has upended the Middle East. The agreement follows months of on-off negotiations brokered by Egyptian and Qatari mediators, with the backing of the United States, and came just ahead of the Jan. 20 inauguration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 46,000 people, according to Gaza health ministry figures, and left the narrow coastal enclave a wasteland of rubble, with hundreds of thousands surviving the winter cold in tents and makeshift shelters. As his inauguration approached, Trump repeated his demand that a deal be done swiftly, warning repeatedly that there would be “hell to pay” if the hostages were not released. His Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff worked with President Joe Biden’s team to push the de...

Bangladesh’s Supreme Court has acquitted ex-Prime Minister Khaleda Zia in a 2008 corruption case, overturning a previous 10-year prison sentence. In 2018, the country’s High Court had convicted Zia and others of misappropriating funds meant for orphans when she was last prime minister, from 2001 to 2006. But following an appeal, a five-judge panel led by Chief Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed on Wednesday acquitted Zia and all other defendants in the case, including her son and Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) acting chairperson Tarique Rahman. “The case was so vile that both those who appealed and those who couldn’t appeal have all been acquitted,” defence lawyer Zainul Abedin told the press after the verdict. The verdict is the latest judicial victory for 79-year-old Zia and her family from the BNP, one of two main groups that have dominated the country’s politics. Last November, Zia was also acquitted in another corruption case in which she had been accused of misappropriation of ...