Author: Aytan Gul

It was the Nepali New Year and the sun was bright and strong. The fields appeared desolate, except the luxuriantly growing green corn. After fetching water from a nearby hand pump, Prakash Jaisi, 18, walked back to the home he shares with his three siblings in Bardiya district’s Banbir area, more than 500 kilometers (over 300 miles) from Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. As it was a public holiday in the country, all his friends had gone out to have fun. “I’d like to spend time with my friends, but I don’t have the time,” he says. Instead, Jaisi did…

Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan was granted bail Monday by the country’s Supreme Court in a case related to a lawyer’s murder while the nation’s election oversight body demanded his arrest in a separate, contempt case in which he failed to show up for questioning. The developments are the latest in unprecedented legal imbroglios surrounding the former premier, now the country’s top opposition leader. Since his ouster from power in a no-confidence vote in the parliament in April last year, Khan has been slapped with more than 150 legal cases, including several on charges of corruption, “terrorism” and inciting…

Thousands of Muslims in Pakistan gathered on Friday to protest last week’s burning of the Quran, Islam’s holy book, in Stockholm following a call by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to “send a strong message to Sweden.” The biggest anti-Sweden protests were held in the eastern city of Lahore and Karachi, the largest city in the South Asian Islamic country, where thousands of people gathered on main roads before dispersing peacefully. In the capital, Islamabad, lawyers holding copies of the Quran protested in front of the Supreme Court, while smaller groups of worshippers gathered outside mosques, demanding the severing of diplomatic ties with…

The legend of the famous female spy ‘Mata Hari’ who allegedly spied for the Germans may be from a different century, but even today, modern-day spies resort to honey traps for espionage.  Recently a bizarre case involving Pakistani woman Seema Gulam Haider (27), who entered India illegally via Nepal to marry a Greater Noida man, made headlines. Greater Noida is an extended suburb of India’s capital, New Delhi’s region. Apparently, Seema met Sachin (22), her ‘online’ lover, in 2019 on PUBG-Battlegrounds, and they stayed in contact via Instagram and WhatsApp chat and video calls. In a daring act, the 27-year-old…

Hungary advocating for the ceasefire in Ukraine does not mean accepting that Russia would keep the territories it currently occupies, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in an interview with Associated Press published on March 26. According to Szijjártó, “stopping the war and sitting around the table does not mean that you accept the status quo.” “When the war stops and the peace talks start, it’s not necessary that the borders would be where the front lines are. We know this from our own history as well… Ceasefire has to come now.” Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year, Hungary has…

YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan — The U.S. Navy carried out a freedom-of-navigation operation Friday near islands in the South China Sea, a day after denying Chinese claims that its military had driven an American guided-missile destroyer from the area. The USS Milius conducted the FONOP around the Paracels before leaving the area and “continued operations in the South China Sea,” 7th Fleet spokesman Lt. j.g. Luka Bakic told Stars and Stripes in an email Friday. “Unlawful and sweeping maritime claims in the South China Sea pose a serious threat to the freedom of the seas, including the freedoms of navigation…

Capping off a remarkable journey that began with his birth in a refugee camp in Nepal, a man from Louisville, Kentucky, recently emerged as champion of the Nepali version of the singing competition The Voice. Karan Rai’s dramatic rise as the south Asian nation’s latest singing sensation was chronicled Friday in the Louisville Eccentric Observer alternative weekly newspaper, which declared his story “a classic humble-beginnings epic”. According to the alt-weekly, nicknamed Leo, Rai was born in 1994 in the Pathri Morang refugee camp in eastern Nepal. It was one of two camps remaining for people fleeing ethnic cleansing of people…

PESHAWAR, (APP – UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News – 20th Feb, 2023 ) :Newly appointed District Police Officer Karam Mohammad Imran on Monday directed the police department to strengthen the relationship with the public to increase their trust and eradicate crime from society. The DPO issued these instructions soon after assuming charge of his post and in an introductory meeting with DSP HQ, Circle DSPs, SHOs and other responsible police officers at his office in Parachinar. He said no leniency should be shown to criminals and drug peddlers and directed strict action against them. He instructed all the police officers…

Five members of the TTP, including three killed during crossfire, have been nominated in case The Karachi police have registered a case against Karachi Police Office (KPO) attack at the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) which occurred on Friday evening. A first information report (FIR) has been registered under the complaint of Saddar Station House Officer (SHO) Khalid Hussain. The case has been registered under murder and attempted murders sections of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and multiple sections of the Anti-terrorism Act at the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) police station. According to the FIR, a group of terrorists attacked the…

ISLAMABAD: The legal team of PTI Chairman Imran Khan on Friday wrote a letter to Islamabad police to remove terrorism charges against him in the First Information Report (FIR) registered against him and others over a protest outside the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) after the latter disqualified him in the Toshakhana case. The Sangjani police has registered the FIR. The letter stated: “The alleged crime was neither terrorism nor the applicant and others were found to be members of any prescribed organisation.” It said Mr Khan and others did not commit an act which would fall within the ambit…