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  • Australia police foil alleged terror bomb plot

    Australian Federal Police (AFP) and their Victoria state counterparts raided a home in the north Melbourne suburb of Greenvale on Friday, arresting and charging a 17-year-old male.

    “We’ll allege the teenager was undertaking preparations to undertake a terrorism act as well as possessing things that relate to the commission of a terrorism act,” AFP Deputy Commissioner Mike Phelan said.

    “These are extremely serious offences and they did involve the use of improvised explosive devices.”

    Police said they had seen reports suggesting that an attack was planned for Melbourne on Sunday, which is Mother’s Day in Australia, but that they could not yet say when or where the alleged act was to occur.

    “But let me tell you, something was going to happen,” Phelan told a press conference in Melbourne.

    “As a result of Victoria police and AFP interception yesterday, some Victorians are going to be alive because of it. Had we not intervened, there was a real threat of action being taken.”

    Police said they would not be naming the teenager who had been charged due to his age, but said he was expected to face a closed court on Monday.

    But Phelan said the teenager came from a loving family and it was deeply troubling to police that young people were becoming so disaffected they were considering endangering the lives of many Australians.

    It is the second alleged attack believed to have been foiled in Victoria in recent weeks, after police arrested two men late last month for allegedly planning an Islamic State-inspired attack on Anzac Day commemorations honouring Australian soldiers.

    Police said the two cases were not thought to be related.

    They said they were still investigating the motivations for the latest alleged offence, but said the suspected explosive devices appeared very rudimentary.

    ‘Serious terror threat’

    A string of incidents, including a December siege in a Sydney cafe by a self-styled cleric who attempted to link his actions to Islamic State, have raised awareness about radicalisation among Muslims.

    Australia raised its threat level to high last September and has since carried out a series of counter-terrorism raids, with alarm fuelled by the departure of more than 100 of its nationals to Iraq and Syria to fight with Islamic State jihadists.

    Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced the latest arrest, after raids carried out in Melbourne and Sydney, saying there was “evidence of a bomb plot that was in a reasonably advanced state of preparation”.

    He said while it was important not to underestimate the terror threat, it was also right to keep it in perspective as he urged Australians to live their lives as usual.

    “We know that we face a very serious terror threat, a very serious terror threat,” he said.

    “The tragic truth is that there are people amongst us — not very many, it’s true — but there are some people amongst us who would do us harm and it’s vital that our police and security agencies be given all the support and all the resources they need to do their job,” he said.

    Australia has warned of the threat from “home-grown” Islamic State-inspired extremists and has unveiled new security measures including revoking citizenship for dual-nationals linked to terrorism.

    In February, two men were charged after police thwarted an “imminent” attack in Sydney, seizing an Islamic State flag, a machete and an Arabic-language video detailing the alleged plot. (AFP)

  • Three killed in Lahore accidents

    According to Police, a speeding car rammed into a motorcycle near Kalma Chowk resulting in the death of a woman and a pedestrian while another person was gravely injured.

    The wounded was shifted to a hospital for medical attendance.

    The driver, identified as Zafar, has been arrested. According to initial investigation, he was in a drunken state.

    Another woman was killed on the spot when her car crashed into a pole near Faiz Ahmed Faiz Underpass.

  • All cases against Zulfiqar Mirza ‘fabricated’: Fehmida

    (more…)

  • Mirza’s allegations biggest conspiracy against PPP: Chandio

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  • RAW whipping up terrorism in Pakistan : Asif

    (more…)

  • Nawaz extends condolence to Norwegian PM

    During his telephonic conversation, he said the ambassador would be missed and his remains would be sent to Norway as soon as possible.

    Mr. Sharif said entire Pakistani nation is heartbroken on this incident and share the grief and anguish of Norwegian nation.

    The President of Maldives Abdullah Yameen also telephoned  Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif and  expressed his condolences over Naltar tragedy .

    Under the directives of PM Sharif, Abdul Qadir Baloch will accompany the coffin of Norwegian Ambassador to Norway in a special aircraft, while Minister Ahsan Iqbal and Khurram Dastgir Khan will head to Malaysia and Indonesia with corpses, respectively.

  • Rasheed’s remarks against seminaries are blasphemous: Mufti Naeem

    Mufti Naeem issued the above statement in response to Pervez Rasheed’s derogatory remarks about Madaris (Religious Schools).

    Pervez Rasheed, while addressing a ceremony in Karachi Arts Council, declared Madaris as the ‘Factory of Ignorance’. He was drawing a comparison between the modern and ancient way of providing education. In his ironic speech, Pervez Rasheed also ridiculed the concepts of Islam after death.

    Religious scholars strongly criticized the speech of Pervez Rasheed.

    While talking to ARY News, Mufti Naeem said Pervez Rasheed’s remarks were blasphemous. He demanded government to arrest him and to take action against him.

  • Measles dangers linger for years after infection: study

    It was previously known that measles could suppress the body’s natural defenses for months, but the findings in the journal Science show that the dangers of the vaccine-preventable disease last much longer, by wiping out essential memory cells that protect the body against infections like pneumonia, meningitis and parasitic diseases.

    “In other words, if you get measles, three years down the road, you could die from something that you would not die from had you not been infected with measles,” said co-author C. Jessica Metcalf, assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and public affairs at Princeton University.

    Measles is one of the most contagious diseases of all. It typically causes a rash and fever, and can lead to dangerous complications such as lung infections, brain swelling and seizures.

    After the measles vaccine was introduced some 50 years ago, mortality from measles began to fall in Europe and the United States, as did deaths from other infectious disease, the researchers said.

    Looking at deaths among children aged one to nine in Europe, and one and 14 in the United States, in both pre- and post-vaccine eras, researchers found a “very strong correlation between measles incidence and deaths from other diseases, allowing for a ‘lag period’ averaging roughly 28 months after infection with measles,” said the study.

    “Our findings suggest that measles vaccines have benefits that extend beyond just protecting against measles itself,” said lead author Michael Mina, a medical student at Emory University who worked on the study as a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton.

    “It is one of the most cost-effective interventions for global health.” -AFP

  • Zulfiqar Mirza’s convoy reaches Karachi

    The convoy of Mirza had left for Karachi from Mirza Farm House in Badin earlier in a day. On his way to Karachi, the defiant PPP leaders was showered rose petals by his supporters who chanted slogans in his favour on Badin road.

    He has reached his Defence residence in Karachi and will shortly hold a press conference.

    His wife Fehmida Mirza also accompanied him. Speaking on the occasion, Ms Mirza said she was expecting justice from the courts.

  • IS, Taliban pairing up in northern Afghanistan: official

    President Ashraf Ghani has repeatedly raised fears that IS — notorious for their brutal reign of terror in Syria and Iraq — are making steady inroads into Afghanistan, which is already in the grip of a fierce Taliban insurgency.

    But the governor of Kunduz, the scene of intense fighting for two weeks that has displaced thousands, has gone further by claiming that the two groups are joining forces in the northern Afghan province.

    IS fighters are “supporting the Taliban, training the Taliban, trying to build the capacity of the Taliban for a bigger fight”, provincial governor Mohammed Omar Safi told the BBC.

    Local observers have viewed claims of IS’s rise in Afghanistan with caution.

    The Middle Eastern group has never formally acknowledged a presence in Afghanistan and most self-styled IS insurgents in the country are thought to be Taliban turncoats rebranding themselves to appear a more lethal force.

    The two groups, which espouse different ideological strains of Sunni Islam, are believed to be arrayed against each other in Afghanistan’s restive south, with clashes frequently reported.

    But the governor insisted that the fight is different in the once-tranquil north, which has recently seen a huge influx of foreign fighters from countries such as Chechnya, Pakistan and Tajikistan.

    “In the worst affected Imam Sahib district, (IS) fighters are training and supporting local Taliban fighters to raise their capacity… in their fight against the Afghan government,” the governor’s spokesman Abdul Wadood Wahidi told AFP.

    ‘Al-Qaeda: Windows 1, IS: Windows 5’

    Last month hundreds of militants came within six kilometres (3.7 miles) of Kunduz city just hours after the Taliban launched their annual spring offensive, in the most serious threat to any provincial capital since the US-led 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.

    The insurgents have since been pushed back after Afghan reinforcements were brought in from other frontlines, but the fighting still continues to rage on the fringes of the city.

    Tens of thousands of people have been displaced due to the clashes, with aid agencies warning of dire living conditions for those who have fled their homes and moved to the city centre.

    “Around 14,000 families have been displaced in two weeks of ongoing fighting in Kunduz,” Ghulam Sakhi, an administrator in the Kunduz refugees department, told AFP.

    “Our teams have surveyed 600 families and have distributed food items and blankets, mattresses and kitchen kits.”

    Afghan government forces are preparing for a fresh offensive to flush out insurgents from the outlying areas of the city, officials said.

    Ezatullah, 40, a resident of the Gor Tepa region of Kunduz, said the fighting forced him to flee two weeks ago with 15 members of his family, including children.

    “I left my home, my livestock in Gor Tepa. In a few days my wheat and melons will be ready to harvest,” he told AFP. “We left everything behind.”

    President Ghani has said that IS poses a serious threat to regional security, warning that the group was more lethal than Al-Qaeda.

    “With all apologies to Microsoft, if Al-Qaeda was Windows One, Daesh is Windows Five,” he told reporters recently, using the Arabic acronym for IS.

    But some local observers accuse him of grabbing world attention by playing up the IS threat in the face of dwindling foreign aid and as international troops depart.

    The Kunduz governor’s claim meanwhile reflected his desire to attract the attention of the central government to the dire security situation in his province, said Kate Clark, of the Afghan Analysts Network.

    “Just because they are foreign fighters does not mean they are Daesh,” she told AFP.

    “I’m sceptical because I can’t see any reason why the Taliban would want to fight alongside Daesh. We need to see more evidence to support this claim.” -AFP