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  • Karachi at standstill after Safoora Chowrangi incident

    Hundreds of distraught relatives lined the streets around a cemetery in the city’s eastern Safoora Goth area passing the coffins of the men and women who were killed on Wednesday when up to six gunmen stormed a bus and shot them in the head and upper body.

    Chief Minister of Sindh Syed Qaim Ali Shah had announced a day of mourning as all markets, shops and schools were shut and public transport was suspended.

    Schools, colleges and universities also postponed examinations.

    The toll from the attack rose from 43 to 44 after a wounded woman died at the city’s Aga Khan hospital, a spokesman told AFP.

    Karachi police chief Ghulam Qadir Thebo told AFP the police had rounded up several suspects and most of them were the members of banned militant outfits.

    Thebo said: “According to initial investigations, there were six attackers. Three went inside the bus and three remained outside. They fired with 9 mm and Kalashnikov rifles.”

    Wednesday’s attack was the first in the country officially claimed by the Islamic State group, which controls swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria.

    It was also claimed by local militant faction Jundullah, which reportedly pledged its allegiance to the group last year.

    Thebo, the police chief, was cautious about the claims and said the attackers seemed to be locals.

    “The attacker seemed to be local and knew the area well. Maybe their handlers were from outside Pakistan,” he said.

    “In a previous attack on Bohri community mosque the attackers also left a pamphlet, investigators are looking into whether it is the same group which struck yesterday,” he added, referring to another Shiite minority sect.

    Wednesday’s attack was the second-deadliest in Pakistan this year after 62 Shiite Muslims were killed in a suicide bombing in late January.  -AFP

  • Two killed in firing at Quetta’s Saryab Road

    According to details, unknown attackers opened fire at a vehicle at Saryab Road near Degree College, following which two persons were killed.

    The assailants managed a clean getaway from the scene.

    Rescue and police teams reached the spot and the dead bodies of the victims were shifted to hospital.

    However, the identity of the deceased could not be ascertained as yet.

  • FO denies existence of IS in Pakistan – a day after group claimed Karachi attack

    During his weekly press briefing, Foreign Office Spokesperson Qazi Khalil Ullah said security forces of Pakistan were ready to meet any threat regarding the terror outfits.

    Mr. Qazi said Pakistan’s commitment towards eliminating terrorism remains firm. It has rendered enormous sacrifices in the fight against terrorism. He said the ongoing military operation against terrorism is a clear manifestation of our determination to root out terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.

    The FO spokesperson said Pakistan had strongly rejected allegations that its government had prior knowledge of US operation of 2 May 2011 against Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad.

    To a question, he said Pakistan had conveyed concerns to the Afghan side that Indian spy agency RAW should not use their territory to create instability in Pakistan.

  • ‘Where’s Kashmir?’, ask Indians on Twitter — after China’s state-owned TV shows truncated India map

    Whilst Prime Minister Narendra Modi undergoes an important visit to neighbouring China, Indian twitterati seemingly fumed at the China Central Television’s (CCTV) airing of an India map. The map shown by state owned Chinese Central TV or CCTV — shows a truncated India without Kashmir. The map shows India with no India — ironic given that it has fought a war with China over the region and its border dispute with Beijing has historically been a sore point in their bilateral relations. Major Indian media outlets such as India Today and NDTV did separate reports on what they said was a slight since the map was shown by China’s state-owned TV and that it happened on the first day of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s official visit to China.

    Prime Minister Narendra Modi landed in China today to start his three-day visit to the most populated country in the world. Important business deals worth billions of dollars are expected to be reached between the two neighbors, however relations are still strained over a long-running border dispute.

     

  • Modi begins China visit from Jinping’s home province

    Modi visited the World Heritage Site in the ancient Chinese capital of Xian, pictures posted on his official Twitter account showed, after he was greeted on the airport tarmac by a dancing troupe.

    Photographs posted on the social media network showed his comments in the visitors’ book read: “The Terracotta Army is a heritage of the world. It is a testimony to China’s civilizational achievements.”

    Xian is the capital of Shaanxi, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ancestral home province. Xi was expected to join Modi in Shaanxi later, reciprocating after Modi hosted Xi in his home state of Gujarat last year.

    Modi will then head to Beijing and China’s financial hub Shanghai, seeking to deliver on election promises to attract foreign investment for India’s crumbling rail and other infrastructure.

    Ahead of his trip, Modi said he firmly believed “this visit to China will strengthen the stability, development and prosperity of Asia”.

    “I am confident my visit will lay the foundation for further enhancing economic co-operation with China in a wide range of sectors,” he wrote on Twitter last week.

    China is India’s biggest trading partner with two-way commerce totalling $71 billion in 2014. But India’s trade deficit with China has soared from just $1 billion in 2001-02 to more than $38 billion last year, Indian figures show.

    However, ties between the world’s two most populous countries have long been strained over a Himalayan border dispute that saw the two nations fight a brief, bloody war in 1962.

    Despite Modi’s overtures, tensions remain.

    Earlier this week an op-ed in the Global Times, affiliated with Communist Party mouthpiece the People’s Daily, accused him of “playing little tricks over border disputes and security issues”.

    Writer Hu Zhiyong added that few Indians were able to understand Sino-Indian relations, due to “the inferiority of its ordinary people”.

    Modi led his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party to a crushing electoral victory last May on a promise to revive India’s flagging economic fortunes.

    After China, he will head to Mongolia and South Korea.-AFP

  • Beijing police warn ‘strange outfits’ on subway may cause stampedes

    State news agency Xinhua said law enforcement teams, which started the patrols on May 1, and have encountered 83 cases of “improper behavior”, including hawking, begging and the distribution of advertising flyers.

    Costumes and masks are likely to attract the attention of other passengers, Xinhua quoted Liang Jianwei, vice head of the Beijing municipal traffic administration corps, as saying.

    “When a lot of people stop to watch, the risk of stampedes increases,” Liang said.

    Passengers should avoid forming flash mobs, the article quoted Liang as saying.

    “Although such behavior is not banned by law, passengers should not be too wilful,” Liang said.

    Police will warn against “problematic behavior” when they come across it, Liang said.

    Last October, state media cited Beijing police as saying that people face arrest for wearing Halloween fancy dress on the subway as it may cause crowds to gather and create “trouble”. – Reuters

  • Pakistan rejects US journalist’s claims over Abbottabad operation

    Foreign Office spokesman Qazi Khalilullah in a news briefing in Islamabad, said Pakistan also did not know about the presence of bin Laden in Abbottabad.

    Investigative Journalist Hersh in a story published in London Review of Books liken the official version of the Obama administration about “Operation Neptune Spear” to a fairy-tale.

    The White House also rejected Hersh’s claims as “baseless”. The White House in a statement also rejected the claim that the US agencies had collaborated with the Pakistani military to kill the al-Qaida chief bin Laden.

     

  • Al-Azhar Garden won prestigious architecture award in 2011-2012

    Yesterday’s terrorist attack on the residents of Al-Azhar Garden has left the whole nation in a state of mourning. Passengers were riddled with bullets when six armed militants boarded the bus and opened indiscriminate fire on all who had boarded the bus. At the days end, a total of 44 people had succumbed to their wounds and as many as 13 were critically wounded. Here’s a brief look at the Al-Azhar Garden, whose infrastructure is impressively designed.

    The complex has the capacity to house an astounding 5,000 plus individuals and was an Ismaili-exclusive housing society. The people live in Al-Azhar Garden are mostly involved in the business of selling milk. Residents of the vicinity are mostly Gujrati by ethnicity, with most of them hailing from India’s city of Gujrat. Residents of Al-Azhar Garden are also called by the moniker ‘Momnay’ which is derived from the word ‘Momin’.

    The impressive housing complex has its own marriage hall, clinic, transport system and school as well. Hence, Al-Azhar Garden provides services in most forms for its residents. With almost eight years elapsing since residents have shifted to the complex, no signs of decadence can be witnessed in the Al-Azhar Garden housing complex, specifically due to its stellar upkeep and proper maintenance. Due to its carefully thought out design and well-maintained buildings, Al-Azhar complex won an architecture award in 2011-2012. The project costs around US$ 10 per square foot, inclusive of land and infrastructure.

  • Solar-powered ATMs to deliver clean drinking water in Pakistan

    The two-foot-square prototype machine looks and functions like an ATM, but dispenses water instead of cash. Users are issued a card they can use to claim a daily share of water.

    The project, a collaboration between the Punjab Saaf Pani (Clean Water) Company and the Innovations for Poverty Alleviation Lab (IPAL), a research centre in Lahore, aims to install a water ATM on each of a series of water filtration plants being established in rural and urban fringe areas of Punjab province.

    The machine is designed to help the government cut water waste and ensure people have access to clean water, said Jawad Abbasi, a programme manager at IPAL.

    “The innovative machines will help the government maintain a record of the exact quantity of clean drinking water being dispensed in a day in a specific locality, besides ensuring its quality,” he said.

    The quality and quantity of water being dispensed will be tracked in real time online, through a central server, he said.

    HOW IT WORKS

    The devices play an audio message upon authentication of a scanned card, after which they dispense water for the user. Green and red buttons enable the user to start and stop the flow of water.

    A flow control meter manages how much water is dispensed, and sensors measure the amount of water still available.

    In its first phase, the project will cover three districts of Punjab including Bahawalpur, Rajanpur and Faisalabad, all areas with particularly serious water contamination issues, experts said.

    Each beneficiary family will be entitled to collect a maximum of 30 liters of clean drinking water daily from the filtration plants with their unique identity card, Abbasi said.

    “We are planning to install the machines at 20 filtration plants in the first phase that will benefit some 17,500 families,” he said.

    He said that his organisation was seeking $23,500 in aid from the UK Department of International Development to put the prototype into production and install more of the dispensing machines at existing water filtration plants in Punjab.

    Similar card-based water dispensing systems are already in use in neighbouring India.

    PUSH TO IMPROVE WATER ACCCESS

    According to Punjab Saaf Pani Company, only 13 percent people in rural areas have access to tap water, compared to 43 percent of people in urban areas of Punjab. The province, with 98 million people, is the country’s most populous.

    The government of Punjab aims to provide clean drinking water to over 35 million people by the middle of 2017 and some 20 billion rupees (almost $200 million) is being allocated for the effort in the upcoming budget, said Muhammad Farasat Iqbal, chief executive officer of Punjab Saaf Pani Company.

    “It’s one of the top priorities of the provincial government, to ensure provision of clean drinking water in each locality, as access to clean water is a fundamental human right,” he said.

    Iqbal said the clean water would be provided free of cost but beneficiary communities would pool money each month to pay for maintenance of the ATMs and filtration plants.

    According to Pakistan’s national drinking water policy, 35 percent of Pakistan’s population doesn’t have access to safe drinking water. The policy estimates that diseases related to water, sanitation and hygiene issues cost Pakistan’s economy about 112 billion rupees ($1.1 billion) each year in health costs and lost earnings.

    Nazir Ahmed Wattoo, an environmental expert with the Punjab Anjuman Samaji Behbood (Organisation for Social Welfare) said few water conservation systems are in place in Pakistan, resulting in waste both in daily use and in agriculture.

    By regulating and measuring the water used daily in a specific area, he said, the government can better manage the scarce resource.

    The real test, he said, will be whether the water dispensing centres are maintained and effectively monitored.

    He said the centres also need to be supported by a concerted national effort to build new water reservoirs. Pakistan’s water storage capacity is currently just 30 days, a quarter of what neighbouring India says is needed. – Reuters

     

  • Ayyan’s Intermediate marksheet leaked on social media

    Apparently, if it’s one thing Ayyan isn’t good at, it’s modelling! The Pakistani model, who has endorsed noteworthy brands such as Sunsilk and Ufone, passed her intermediate level with a grade D!

    Another interesting point to note here is the fact that her real name has been stated as Ayyan Hafeez rather than Ayyan Ali.

    The model is currently embroiled in a money laundering case, as she was apprehended by airport officials at Benazir International Airport for stashing more than $500,000 in her luggage.