Daily News Pakistan

At least 100 Palestinian children have been killed or injured each day in Gaza since Israel broke the ceasefire on March 18, the head of UNRWA said. Medical director says al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City has no space left to treat casualties as the latest Israeli attacks kill at least 38 Palestinians since dawn on Friday. At least 1,249 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel resumed large-scale strikes on the enclave after breaking a ceasefire on March 18. The number of injured since the Israeli attacks restarted now stands at 3,022, Gaza’s Health Ministry also said. According to the ministry, the figures include 86 people killed in the past 24 hours and 287 wounded. The ministry also reports that the overall death toll in Gaza has reached 50,609 since the war began on October 7, 2023. The number of people injured in Gaza since that date stands at 115,063. Israeli soldiers have carried out raids on the towns of Kafr ad-Dik and Burqin, located west of Salfit, Wafa news agency...

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol was ousted by the Constitutional Court on Friday, which upheld parliament's impeachment motion over his imposition of martial law last year that sparked the country's worst political crisis in decades. The ruling caps months of political turmoil that have overshadowed efforts to deal with the new administration of US President Donald Trump at a time of slowing growth in Asia's fourth-largest economy. With Yoon's ouster, a presidential election is required to take place within 60 days, according to the country's constitution. Prime Minister Han Duck-soo will continue to serve as acting president until the new president is inaugurated. "The Constitutional Court’s unanimous ruling has removed a major source of uncertainty," Professor Leif-Eric Easley of Ewha University in Seoul. "And not a moment too soon, given how the next administration in Seoul must navigate North Korea’s military threats, China’s diplomatic...

As the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) is set to grant final approval to Starlink to commence operations in Pakistan shortly, scepticism and fear of the unknown are visible among the telecom industry. There is a lot of speculation related to Starlink’s arrival, but all four telecom operators in Pakistan agree that it is difficult to predict the outcome right now. Responding to the queries, Jazz, Zong, Telenor, and Ufone express satisfaction that Starlink would be offering premium prices for their satellite-based internet services, and that is less likely to substitute the existing data services at the fibre, especially in the urban areas. “In the short run, there could be clients subscribing to the Starlink services, but these are very expensive, so not everybody will fall into this segment,” said a senior executive of a telco, adding that there was a very little probability that Starlink will heavily subsidise their services to increase its footprint in the market. Wh...

If a company can survive the upheaval caused by the adoption of artificial intelligence, AI will help it thrive in the longer run, a study presented at a European Central Bank conference has found. Its authors, who used data from the US Census Bureau and surveys covering the period between 2017 and 2021, found early adopters of AI in the manufacturing sector saw their productivity drop as they replaced human workers with robots. Their findings go against prevailing narrative suggesting that AI makes work more productive and "augments" jobs in many cases rather than automating them away. "In the short term, we see a lot of pain," Kristina McElheran, one of the authors of the paper, told the conference. She explained the drop in productivity as a side-effect of AI interfering with manufacturers' established practices, such as keeping low inventories. Over time, however, these firms began outperforming on all counts - sales growth, productivity and employmen...

The United Nations Human Rights Council on Wednesday adopted a resolution presented by Pakistan on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), calling for accountability for Israel and justice for Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza. The war in Gaza, which began in October 2023, has persisted despite multiple international efforts to broker a ceasefire. The Palestinian death toll, according to latest figures, has exceeded 50,000, with women and children making up a large share of the casualties. Thousands remain missing under the rubble of buildings destroyed in Israeli airstrikes. In parallel, there have been mounting reports of harassment, arbitrary detentions, and even sexual assaults against Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. “Over the past eighteen months, the Palestinian people under occupation have faced horror upon horror,” Pakistan’s top diplomat at the UN mission in Geneva, Ambassador B...

US President Donald Trump has further escalated the trade war by announcing a baseline 10% tariff on all imports, higher duties on key trading partners of the United States, and a 29% tariff on Pakistan, stressing the country of imposing a 58% tariff on US goods. Trump's decision to slap a 10% tariff on most goods imported to the United States, as well as higher duties on dozens of countries from rivals to allies, has intensified a global trade war that threatens to stoke inflation and stall growth. The sweeping duties announced against the serene backdrop of the White House Rose Garden on Wednesday immediately unleashed turbulence across world markets and drew condemnation from other leaders now faced with the end of decades of trade liberalization that have shaped the global order. As Asia awoke to the news on Thursday, Japan's Nikkei hit an eight-month low while US and European stock futures dropped sharply following weeks of volatile trading. US stocks have erased near...

A Democratic US lawmaker, Senator Cory Booker, shattered a record for the longest speech in Senate history on Tuesday, staying on his feet for more than 25 hours to deliver a fiery protest against President Donald Trump’s “unconstitutional” actions. Booker’s display of endurance — to hold the floor he had to remain standing and could not even go to the bathroom — recalled the famous scene in Frank Capra’s 1939 film classic Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. The longest Senate speech on record before Tuesday was delivered by South Carolina’s Strom Thurmond, who filibustered for 24 hours and 18 minutes against the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Booker, only the fourth Black senator to be popularly elected to the body, blew past that deadline, his voice still strong but emotional as he topped out at 25 hours and five minutes. “Strom Thurmond’s record always… really irked me,” he later told broadcaster MSNBC. “That the longest speech on our great Senate floor was someone who was trying to sto...