Author: Taha Sarbani

Fear, anxiety and resignation stalk Nepal’s domestic airports. Norwegian tourist Waldemar Wergeland is relieved to have landed safely at Kathmandu’s domestic terminal. He admits he was worried about flying in Nepal. “We did a lot of research before we made up our minds to travel by air,” he says. At the airport in the southern city of Siddharthanagar (also known as Bhairahawa), Nepali folk singer Alif Khan says he stopped taking flights to his performances after a recent deadly air accident. “I started travelling by bus, but I got frustrated by the long traffic jams and landslides on the way. So…

Nepalese Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal is in the middle of a raging controversy after he claimed that an Indian businessman “once made efforts” to install him as the premier of the Himalayan country.  According to Nepalese media reports, PM Dahal made his off-the-cuff remark on Monday during a function to launch a book titled ‘Roads to the Valley: The Legacy of Sardar Pritam Singh in Nepal’. The book focuses on Sardar Pritam Singh’s life, often regarded as the pioneer trucking entrepreneur in Nepal. However, during the function, Dahal said Singh lobbied for his appointment as prime minister in Delhi and Kathmandu almost eight years…

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The West’s steady criticism of Hungary on democratic and cultural issues makes the small European country’s right-wing government reluctant to offer support on practical matters, specifically NATO’s buildup against Russia, Hungary’s foreign minister said. In an interview with The Associated Press, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó also said Friday that his country has not voted on whether to allow Finland and Sweden to join NATO because Hungarian lawmakers are sick of those countries’ critiques of Hungarian domestic affairs. Lawmakers from the governing party plan to vote Monday in favor of the Finnish request but “serious concerns were raised” about Finland and Sweden in recent…

A man who imported heroin with a potential street value of £22 million into the UK from Pakistan by hiding the drugs in boxes of plastic carrier bags has been jailed for 20 years. After two drugs consignments were intercepted at Heathrow Airport in February 2020, a National Crime Agency investigation found that Arfan Mirza, 42, of Common Lane in Birmingham, was behind the extensive drug smuggling enterprise. The consignments, listed as containing ‘shopping bags’ from Pakistan, were inspected by Border Force officers and found to contain a total of 20 kilos of heroin. NCA officers probed Mirza’s phone data…

PESHAWAR: Former prime minister and leader of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Saturday said that the current political system of Pakistan lacks power to resolve the country’s economic and other issues and called upon the political forces to join hands to steer the country clear of the prevailing crisis. He also stressed the need to respect public opinion. Speaking at a news conference at Peshawar Press Club, Shahid Khaqan said that resolution of the country’s issues was impossible in the present political system. He added that status-quo will never give you a solution to the issues. The…

Human Rights Watch welcomes the opportunity to provide input to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to education ahead of her first report to the Human Rights Council. This submission focusses on question nine in the questionnaire: “What are the crucial issues to address, nationally as well as internationally, to ensure the realization of the right to education?” Right to Immediate Free Education under International Treaty Law Research demonstrates the prodigious value of pre-primary education. However, several international human rights treaties that address the right to education are not explicit on this point. A number of treaty bodies…

RAWALPINDI (Dunya News) – Awami Muslim League (AML) chief Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said on Saturday next 100 days were crucial for Pakistani politics as the country was facing economic and political challenges. In a tweet, the former interior minister lamented that the poor people were struggling to make both ends meet but the “77 ministers” were enjoying their rule on the country. Taking a dig at the government’s efforts to revive the loan programme of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), he said the government was ready to become a slave. “No one can compete with the government in the art…