Daily News Pakistan

The coronavirus cases are on the decline with every passing day as the positivity rate in Pakistan has dropped to its lowest 3.71 per cent during the third wave of the pandemic, reported on Tuesday. According to the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) data, as many as 1,771 new cases of the Covid-19 detected over the previous 24 hours. The overall country’s caseload stands at 922,824. The death toll climbed to 20,850 after 71 more people succumbed to the disease. A total of 47,633 samples were tested, out of which 1,771 turned out to be positive. The positivity rate of infections was recorded at 3.71%, the NCOC said. 3,397 more people recuperated from the disease in the last 24 hours, taking the number of recovered patients to 844,638. The number of Covid-19 patients in critical care has come down to 3,842. Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, Punjab has reported a total of 340,110 cases, Sindh 318,579, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 132,822, Islamabad 81,257, Balochistan 2...

China announced on Monday that married couples may have up to three children, a major policy shift from the existing limit of two after recent data showed a dramatic decline in births in the world’s most populous country. The change was approved during a politburo meeting chaired by President Xi Jinping, the official news agency Xinhua reported. In 2016, China scrapped its decades-old one-child policy – initially imposed to halt a population explosion – with a two-child limit, which failed to result in a sustained surge in births as the high cost of raising children in Chinese cities deterred many couples from starting families. “To further optimise the birth policy, (China) will implement a one-married-couple-can-have-three-children policy,” Xinhua said in a report on the meeting. The policy change will come with “supportive measures, which will be conducive to improving our country’s population structure, fulfilling the country’s strategy of actively coping with an ageing popul...

Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa on Monday visited Command and Staff College (C&SC) in Quetta where he addressed officers and faculty of the college, said Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) in a statement. According to ISPR, COAS address to staff course-2020/21 focused on professional matters, internal & external security situation and matters concerning the regional security environment. Speaking on the occasion, COAS emphasized Pakistan’s resolve and determination to confront the global phenomenon of terrorism by adopting a whole of nation approach. “Future of enduring peace and stability in South Asia hinges on the ability to resolve long pending issues within the region. This can be complemented through meaningful international support and will to take on complex challenges,” he added. Focusing on the COVID-19 pandemic, COAS said that Pakistan Army along with other state institutions will do all to mitigate the challenges faced by the people of...

Sindh Governor Imran Ismail on Monday expressed anger over the "continued unannounced load shedding" in the metropolis and directed the K-Electric CEO Moonis Alvi to immediately resolve the issue. The governor had summoned the chief of KE — the utility company responsible for power supply in the city — following reports of increasing outages in the city. During the meeting, Ismail directed the KE CEO to "personally supervise" matters related to load shedding in Karachi and "immediately resolve the "complaints of citizens, a statement issued by the Governor's House said. During the meeting, Ismail also phoned Federal Minister for Energy Hammad Azhar and stressed the need to improve the load shedding situation in the metropolis and ensure better functioning of the K-Electric. Azhar issued directions to the KE CEO during the call as well, the statement said. Earlier this month, several areas in Karachi faced prolonged power outages after a high-tens...

Sindh Governor Imran Ismail on Monday expressed anger over the "continued unannounced load shedding" in the metropolis and directed the K-Electric CEO Moonis Alvi to immediately resolve the issue. The governor had summoned the chief of KE — the utility company responsible for power supply in the city — following reports of increasing outages in the city. During the meeting, Ismail directed the KE CEO to "personally supervise" matters related to load shedding in Karachi and "immediately resolve the "complaints of citizens, a statement issued by the Governor's House said. During the meeting, Ismail also phoned Federal Minister for Energy Hammad Azhar and stressed the need to improve the load shedding situation in the metropolis and ensure better functioning of the K-Electric. Azhar issued directions to the KE CEO during the call as well, the statement said. Earlier this month, several areas in Karachi faced prolonged power outages after a high-tensi...

The head of the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) Asad Umar said that the government will launch a major campaign to make sure that the coronavirus vaccine reaches the entire population. Umar spoke about the government's plan to launch the campaign while addressing a press conference in Islamabad after attending a meeting of the National Coordination Committee (NCC) chaired by Prime Minister Imran Khan that reviewed the coronavirus situation in the country. The federal minister for planning said that the restrictions introduced by the government before Eid had paid dividends as the positivity rate was declining. He explained that the restrictions were a "defensive action" and affects the livelihood of the people, adding that the only way out of the current situation was to get vaccinated. Umar said that the government is hoping to get enough people vaccinated by Eid-ul-Azha so that there is no need to impose restrictions as they did on Eid-ul-Fitr. To th...

The Sindh government has decided to set up coronavirus vaccine centres in public and private institutions. In line with the decision, a coronavirus vaccine centre was set up by the Sindh Health Department in a shopping mall in the Clifton area of ​​Karachi. Sindh Health Secretary Kazim Jatoi inaugurated the centre. The health secretary said that the shopping mall administration has been provided with a single dose of the PakVac vaccine. Jatoi said that in the first phase, the management will vaccinate its employees, and in the second phase, the families of the employees will be inoculated. Meanwhile, and in the third phase, customers coming to the shopping mall will be vaccinated. According to the health secretary, the Sindh government has also set up a vaccine centre at a shopping mall on Rashid Minhas Road, while vaccinations are being carried out at the Sindh Secretariat, Karachi Press Club, Arts Council, the Bank of Punjab, the Korangi Association of Trade and Industry (KATI)...

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has announced to raise voice for timely election in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) at every forum, reported on Monday. Addressing a press conference in Islamabad,  Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) senior leader Raja Pervaiz Ashraf said the Pakistan Tehreek-Insaf (PTI) government is working against its claims. He claimed that the PTI government after seeing their expected defeat in the elections is trying to delay the polls to temper the voters’ list. There is no provision in the constitution to delay general elections in the AJK, he added. Ashraf vowed to raise the issue at every forum and added that the PPP will ensure timely elections in the region. Amid COVID trend, the National Command Operation Center (NCOC), last week had recommended the federal government to defer polls in Azad Kashmir for two months and continue Covid-led restrictions intact. The times ahead of polls are very eventful and there are political campaignings and rallies which may...

Punjab has set a new record of most vaccinations in a day after 1,8000 people received COVID jabs over the past 24 hours, reported. According to the Primary and Secondary Health Department Punjab, the process of vaccination has been geared up on the directions of the National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC). As many as 1,80000 people received COVID jabs on Sunday, setting a new record of most vaccinations in a day in Punjab. So far 39,00000 people have received COVID jabs, since the start of the drive in the province. The health department said that they will achieve the vaccination target set by the NCOC. On Sunday, Federal Minister for Planning and Development and NCOC head Asad Umar had stated that so far seven million people have been vaccinated in the country, while the number of people getting registered for the vaccination is also increasing day by day. He had said that so far 11.6 million people have registered themselves to receive COVID jabs.

As many as 2,117 new cases of the coronavirus (Covid-19) detected over the previous 24 hours took the country’s caseload to 921,053. According to the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) data, the death toll climbed to 20,779 after 43 more people succumbed to the disease. A total of 52,223 samples were tested, out of which 2,117 turned out to be positive. The positivity rate of infections was recorded at 4.05%, the NCOC said. 1,919 more people recuperated from the disease in the last 24 hours, taking the number of recovered patients to 841,241. The number of Covid-19 patients in critical care has come down to 3,947. Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, Punjab has reported a total of 339,989 infections, Sindh 317,665, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 132,549, Islamabad 81,195, Balochistan 25,148, Azad Jammu and Kashmir 19,232, and Gilgit Baltistan 5,578. On Sunday, Federal Minister for Planning and Development and head of the NCOC Asad Umar said that Pakistan set a new record o...

A Lahore sessions court on Monday has extended the interim bail of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Jahangir Tareen and his son Ali Tareen in money laundering case till June 11, reported. Additional Sessions Judge Hamid Hussain heard the interim bail of Jahangir Tareen and Ali Tareen. At the outset of the hearing, the judge asked about the last 15 days development in the case. The deputy director FIA replied that an official of the department has been transferred, the investigation is still underway. “It’s been long since the case is underway, but yet the investigation has not been completed, is FIA not interested in pursuing the case,” Justice Hamid Hussain asked the FIA official. Later the hearing was adjourned until June 11. Talking to newsmen after getting an extension in interim bail, Jahangir Tareen said, Prime Minister Imran Khan has promised delivery of justice and we are still waiting for it. Commenting on the report finalized by Barrister Ali Zafar, the PTI leader...

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson married his fiancee Carrie Symonds in a small ceremony at Westminster Cathedral on Saturday, his office said. The event was not announced in advance and media reports said guests were invited at the last minute to the Roman Catholic cathedral in central London, adding that even senior members of Johnson’s office were unaware of the wedding plans. “The Prime Minister and Ms Symonds were married yesterday afternoon in a small ceremony at Westminster Cathedral,” Johnson’s office said on Sunday. “The couple will celebrate their wedding with family and friends next summer.” Weddings in England are currently limited to 30 people due to COVID-19 restrictions. Johnson, 56, and Symonds, 33, have been living together in Downing Street since Johnson became prime minister in 2019. On Saturday, the cathedral was suddenly locked down at 1:30 p.m. and Symonds arrived 30 minutes later in a limo, in a long white dress with no veil, media reports said. The co...

The rem­ains of 215 children, some as young as three years old, have been found buried on the site of what was once Canada’s largest indigenous residential sch­o­ol, one of the institutions that held children taken from families across the nation. Chief Rosanne Casimir of the Tkemlups te Secw­pemc First Nation said in a news release that the rem­ains were confirmed last weekend with the help of ground-penetrating radar. More bodies may be found because there are more areas to search on the school grounds, Casimir said on Friday. In an earlier release, she called the discovery an unthinkable loss that was spoken about but never documented at the Kamloops Indian Residential School. From the 19th century until the 1970s, more than 150,000 First Nations children were required to attend state-funded Christ­ian schools as part of a programme to assimilate them into Canadian society. They were forced to convert to Christianity and not allow­ed to speak their native languages. Many were ...

Federal interior minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad said Saturday in the wake of an alleged attack on journalist Asad Toor which prompted protests that some people are trying to malign sensitive state institutions in the case. The federal minister said the ministry has collected concrete video evidence of incident and a probe is underway to zero in on the assailants who led the attack on Toor. Islamabad police and Federal Investigation Agency are working in alliance to investigate the collected evidence, he said. Whoever is found guilty of the wrongdoing and assailing the journalist will be taken to task and held accountable for his actions soon, Ahmad said. Separately today on the political front, the head of Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) Maulana Fazlur Rehman said in a press conference following the huddle amongst the opposition alliance a new strategy of protests and marches starting July has been hammered out. The situation of this region is getting worse, JUI-F chief Maulan...

Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry on Sunday held Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) for the country’s economic crisis. In a series of Tweets, Fawad said, Pakistan is facing economic crisis due to ineffective policies of PML-N and PPP governments. پاؤں پرکھڑا کرنےکی اس کوششش میں بھرپورحصہ ڈالا اور1,000ارب روپیہ پاکستان بھیجا، گندم،چاول،گنااور مکئ کی تاریخی پیداوار ہوئ زرعی معیشت میں 1100ارب روپیہ منتقل ہوااس سے کسانوں کی قوت خرید میں بھرپور اضافہ ہوا,ٹریکٹر 64% زیادہ فروخت ہوئے کھاد اور زرعی ادویات کے استعمال میں اضافہ ہوا — Ch Fawad Hussain (@fawadchaudhry) May 30, 2021 Fawad further said that the policies of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) are boosting the economic growth of the country. For the first time, Rs4 billion tax has been gathered, he added. The minister maintained that historical production of wheat, rice, sugarcane and corn has been recorded during PTI tenure.

Prime Minister Imran Khan will interact with the general masses via telephone again today (Sunday) for a fourth time. The prime minister has been taking live calls from the masses and answering their queries for the past couple of months. This is the fourth time he will be interacting with the public. Today, the transmission will begin at 4:00pm. If you wish to speak to PM Khan, call on 051-9224900. The interaction will be broadcast live on television, radio and digital media.

Bashar al-Assad has been re-elected for a fourth term as president of Syria, official results showed on Thursday, despite Western accusations the polls were “neither free nor fair”. The parliamentary speaker announced Thursday that Assad garnered 95.1 percent of the votes cast, trouncing two virtually unknown challengers. Standing against him were former state minister Abdallah Salloum Abdallah and Mahmud Merhi, a member of the so-called “tolerated opposition”, long dismissed by exiled opposition leaders as an extension of the regime. On the eve of the election, the US, Britain, France, Germany and Italy said the poll was “neither free nor fair”, and Syria s fragmented opposition has called it a “farce”. But few doubted that Assad, a 55-year-old ophthalmologist by training, would be re-elected. In the last multi-candidate poll in 2014, Assad won 88 percent of the vote. Huge election posters glorifying Assad had mushroomed across the two-thirds of the country under his control i...

Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday lamented that Pakistan never paid attention to exports, adding that it was very difficult to increase a country's wealth without them. The premier was speaking at the groundbreaking ceremony of the Rashkai Special Economic Zone being developed under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. "If you aren't increasing your exports, then the country's wealth will never increase," he lamented, adding that selling wheat and other products will not make Pakistan wealthy alone. He said Pakistan should learn from the Special Economic Zones (SEZs) set up by China. He labelled the Rashkai Special Economic Zone a "big opportunity", stressing on authorities to create ease of doing business for investors. "The more hurdles you remove for investors, the more investors will arrive here [in Pakistan]," he said, adding that Pakistan had not been an "investor-friendly country". He said investors were always attrac...

Senior US diplomat in Pakistan Angela Aggeler on Friday lauded Islamabad for its "sincere efforts for bringing peace and stability in the region, especially the Afghan peace process". US Chargé d’affaires Aggeler had called on Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa at the General Headquarters in Rawalpindi today. "During the meeting, matters of mutual interest, overall regional security situation including recent developments in Afghan peace process and bilateral cooperation in various fields were discussed" said a statement issued by the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR). This is the US diplomat's second meeting with Gen Bajwa in a month. Earlier this month, she had called on Gen Bajwa to discuss several matters of mutual interest between Pakistan and the United States.

Federal Minister for Planning and Development Asad Umar said Friday Pakistan's gross domestic product (GDP) growth was expected to hit 4.8% in the financial year 2021-2022. Highlighting the achievements of the government during a press conference in Islamabad, Umar said in the nine months of the current fiscal year, IT exports showed growth of 46%. Umar said the country had "witnessed a strong growth" during the fiscal year, and it is expected that the remittances would shoot up from $21.7 billion to $29.1 billion till the year end — an increase of 34% in a year. The federal minister said if we combine the 3.94% GDP growth and the increase in remittances, it will take the gross national product (GNP) growth to 6.5% — the "highest" GNP growth in the last 16 years. Umar said remittances played an important role in helping the country's economy grow, and it is important that we should give overseas Pakistanis the right to vote. Shedding light on why the ...

Trade with Afghanistan through Torkham remained suspended on the third consecutive day on Thursday as Khugakhel tribesmen continued their protest and blockade of the main road leading to the border crossing. Afghan nationals aspiring to return to their country were, however, provided with an alternative route via Charbagh area to reach Torkham as part of a good-well gesture by the protesters as the travellers also included women, children and elderly people. Mufti Ejaz and Mirajuddin Khan, the elders of Khugakhel, told journalists at the protest site that their protest would continue till signing of a mutually agreed accord regarding fulfilment of their four major demands with concrete guarantees from the regional security officials. The Khugakhel tribesmen, being the collective owners of the land leased out for the construction of modern customs terminal at Torkham, had long been pushing for payment of the price of the additional land the National Logistic Cell (NLC) had off late...

Prime Minister Imran Khan will interact with the general public via telephone for the fourth time on May 30. Taking to Twitter, Senator Faisal Javed said that the prime minister will directly interact with the public for the fourth time at 3:00 pm on May 30 in a series of direct discussions via telephone under the banner of ‘Aap ka Wazir-e-Azam Aap kai Sath’ [Your Prime Minister is With You]. He said that the interaction would be broadcasted on television, radio and digital platforms as people could reach out to the prime minister via telephone number 051-9224900. In the previous interaction, the prime minister besides directing to resolve issues raised by the general public said that the COVID cases in the country are witnessing a stabilizing effect and urged the public to adopt COVID SOPs during Eid in order to avoid an India-like situation. “The more we adopt precautionary measures, the sooner we will be able to come out of this situation,” Imran Khan said adding that during h...

Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed said the Centre and Sindh will together fight the menace of bandits in the province. Addressing a press conference here, he said: “I held a meeting with Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah this morning, wherein it was decided that the Cetnre and province will together deal with bandits.” Sheikh Rasheed said the Sindh government can utilize the Rangers’ services wherever it wants in the province. “We are ready to provide the Rangers for the entire province if the Sindh government desires so,” he added. He said bandits involved in kidnapping for ransom and murders will be booked under the terrorism law. “We are ready to provide drones to the police,” the interior minister said in a reference to the chief minister’s demand for provision of air support and sensitive equipment for the anti-bandit operation. “We will not rest until the dacoit rule is eliminated,” he vowed. Though, the Sindh government wants to tackle the Shikarpur situation on its own,...

An anti-terrorism court (ATC) resumed on Thursday hearing nine cases against Lyari gang war kingpin Uzair Baloch. Baloch and nine witnesses, all policemen, appeared before the court as it resumed hearing. During the hearing, the witnesses picked out Uzair Baloch before the court. The accused had attacked the police personnel during the Lyari operation, witnesses testified. Adjourning the case until June 9, the court directed the prosecution side to present more witnesses on next hearing. The nine cases registered at different police stations pertain to an attack on a police team and possession of explosives and illicit arms. On May 20, jail officials failed to produce Uzair Baloch in court in a case pertaining to police encounter and attempt to murder. The court of Additional District and Sessions Judge Karachi South received a letter from the senior superintendent jail over the matter. “There are security concerns with regard to producing Uzair Baloch in the city court,” the j...