Ahsan Mushtaq

Pakistani celebrities are coming forth to stress on the significance of social distancing and wearing protective gear as the nation battles the third wave of the coronavirus. The Ministry of National Health Services issued a video message by acclaimed stars, Mahira Khan, Adeel Hussain, Bilal Abbas and Iqra Aziz who are pushing fans to build up the safety measures to curtail the spread of the virus. “Let’s defeat corona together,” said the Humsafar actor in the video posted on Twitter. Let us vow to use face masks and sanitize our hands regularly,” Hussain and Abbas tell fans. “Maintain a six feet distance with each other and avoid going to crowded places,” urges Aziz.   In the last 24 hours, the country lost 42 people to the deadly virus, taking the nationwide death tally to 13,799. So far, 579,760 have recovered from the coronavirus after testing positive. The surge in the positivity cases has alarm bells ringing in the country, as a day earlier Pakistan positivity rate stood clo

  Signal and Telegram messaging apps are seeing a sudden increase in demand after larger rival WhatsApp’s updated terms of service raised eyebrows on social media. WhatsApp, which uses Signal’s encryption technology, laid out fresh terms on Wednesday, asking users to agree to let owner Facebook Inc and its subsidiaries collect user data, including their phone number and location. Some privacy activists questioned the “accept our data grab or get out” move on Twitter, and suggested users to switch to apps like Signal and Telegram. Signal’s popularity shot up further on Thursday after it was endorsed by Elon Musk, who has one of the most-followed accounts on Twitter, and by the micro-blogging site’s top boss Jack Dorsey. More than 100,000 users installed Signal across the app stores of Apple and Google in the last two days, while Telegram picked up nearly 2.2 million downloads, according to data analytics firm Sensor Tower. New installs of WhatsApp fell 11 per cent in the first seven day

  On January 1, the multiparty opposition alliance, the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) announced that it would be taking part in the upcoming by-elections and did not rule out taking part in the Senate elections. After completing the first phase of its protest movement with a flurry of large rallies against the Imran Khan government, the PDM is now entering the second phase of its initiative to oust Khan. PDM has been claiming that Khan’s government was installed through a rigged election in 2018 by the military establishment. The alliance sees Khan as a willing marionette of the establishment that, it claims, is pulling his strings. The PDM’s decision to contest the upcoming by-elections and then possibly the Senate elections is being looked at with suspicion by some analysts. Some of them are not very fond of Khan’s regime (and vice versa). Yet, they haven’t held back in explaining the possible move by PDM as an attempt to strike a deal with the establishment to oust Khan without

  BEIJING: China on Saturday introduced new rules to counter “unjustified” laws and measures that other countries might apply to its companies and citizens, as tensions with the United States worsen. The rules aim at “protecting the legitimate rights and interests” of Chinese people and companies, and safeguarding the country’s interests, said the commerce ministry. China’s move comes as its firms face increasing pressure abroad, particularly from the US, which has placed restrictions on telecoms giant Huawei, blocking its access to vital American components. President Donald Trump also issued an order last Novem­ber banning Americans from investing in Chinese firms deemed to be supplying or supporting the Asian country’s military. This month he signed another order to ban transactions involving several apps linked to Chinese companies. The latest Chinese rules call for the setting up of a working mechanism to counteract “unjustified extra-territorial application of foreign legislation

  ISLAMABAD: The government has evolved a comprehensive package for textile and apparel value chain to promote local production and exports from the country. The package will be announced as part of textile policy for specific sectors — cotton, manmade fibres, natural fibres, ginning, spinning, knitting, weaving and processing, apparel and made-ups/home textiles, carpets, and handicrafts. Official documents seen by  Dawn  showed that the sector-specific measures will be implemented in phases to provide uninterrupted supply of raw materials and semi-finished products to local manufacturers of the value-added sectors. As part of the package, the Ministry of Commerce looks to attract international and domestic seed companies to introduce latest seed technology in the country. Increase in yield will also address the issue of profitability in cotton farming. The government is also planning to re-introduce cotton hedge trading to facilitate farmers and value-added exporters. This model has s

  A day after a major power breakdown plunged the entire country into darkness, electricity supply was restored in most cities and towns by Sunday evening. Energy Minister Omar Ayub said in the morning that power was expected to be completely restored soon. The blackout was reported a little before midnight by citizens on social media from across the country, including major urban centres such as Karachi, Islamabad, Lahore and Multan, as well as smaller towns and cities. In a tweet in the evening, the Ministry of Energy said power supply had been fully restored to the grid stations of the Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco) that were impacted by last night's breakdown. It said grid stations operations teams had remained busy in restoration efforts through the night to protect the system from overloading. The ministry further said load-management of limited duration was being carried out on different feeders of Peshawar, Khyber, Mardan, Swabi, Swat and Hazara circles, adding th