INTERNATIONAL

March 14 Facebook and Instagram users lost access to the social network’s applications in parts of the world Wednesday as a result of an outage of undetermined origin. The California giant which has more than two billion users acknowledged the outage after users noted on Twitter they could not access Facebook or had limited functionality. “We’re aware that some people are currently having trouble accessing the Facebook family of apps. We’re working to resolve the issue as soon as possible,” a Facebook statement said on Twitter. ALSO READ: Facebook, Twitter under fire, As They continue Censoring Voices from Kashmir A short time later, Facebook indicated the outage was not related to an attack aimed at overwhelming the network. “We’re focused on working to resolve the issue...

March 13 Around 3,000 members of the militant Islamic State or Daesh group have surrendered from its last holdout in Syria, reports said on Tuesday. A ragged tent encampment in the eastern Syrian village of Baghouz is all that remains of a once-sprawling “caliphate” declared in 2014 across large swathes of Syria and neighbouring Iraq. Kurd fighters have been trying to crush holdout residual Daesh militia for weeks but the mass outpouring of men, women and children from the riverside hamlet has bogged down its advance. SDF renewed its assault on Sunday after warning remaining IS fighters their time was up. Shelling has since pummelled Baghouz three nights in a row, killing scores of daesh members and prompting hundreds to surrender. Thousands handed themselves over on Tues...

March 09 Krishna Kumari Kohli, Pakistan's first female senator from the Hindu Dalit community, on Friday chaired the session of the Upper House of Parliament on occasion of International Women's Day. Krishna, 40, was elected as senator in March 2018 after spending many years working for the rights of bonded labourers in Muslim-majority Pakistan. She is the first Thari Hindu woman to be elected to the Pakistan senate. She belongs to the Kohli community from the remote village of Dhana Gam in Nagarparkar area of Sindh province where a sizeable number of Hindus live. "I consider myself very fortunate today to be sitting on this seat...," she said before starting the session. International Women's Day is observed across the world on March 8.

March 09 The Lahore High Court will on Monday hear a plea seeking disqualification of Prime Minister Imran Khan for not being “honest and righteous” and concealing the alleged parentage of a daughter with a former partner in his nomination papers for the 2018 election. The high court on Saturday accepted for hearing a petition seeking Khan’s disqualification for violating the provisions of Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution, that sets a precondition for a member of parliament to be “sadiq and ameen” (honest and righteous), the Dawn reported. The petition, to be heard on March 11, claims that Khan had concealed the alleged parentage of Tyrian Jade Khan White in his nomination papers for the 2018 general elections. Tyrian White is the daughter of Ana-Luisa (Sita) White, the d...

March 08 The Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday said no militant group would be allowed to operate on Pakistani soil and carry out attacks abroad, Reuters reported. “This government will not allow Pakistan’s land to be used for any kind of outside terrorism,” Khan said on Friday while addressing a public rally in southern Pakistan. “We will not allow any militant group to function in our country now.” Pakistan began a crackdown against militant groups this week amid growing international pressure in the wake of the Pulwama attack by Jaish-e-Mohammad.

March 07 Prime Minister Imran Khan said that tensions between Pakistan and India had reduced and the threat of war was eliminated through timely and wise decisions, but cautioned the party lawmakers that the situation on the borders was still tense. Chairing a Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) parliamentary party meeting, he said a crackdown on the banned outfits was an internal security matter of Pakistan and the government took the decision without any outside pressure. The PTI meeting was held at the Parliament House, where Khan took the party members into confidence regarding the Pakistan-India tensions. According to sources, Khan said that the difficult phase of Pak-India tensions was over and the situation on the Line of Control (LoC) had improved. “It was through mutual sup...

March 06 The Prime minister of Pakistan Imran Khan, while propelling a spring tree ranch battle at Balloki, Nankana Sahib on Saturday, said that Pakistan’s backwoods would be secured no matter what. The head administrator planted a sapling at Balloki, where he was additionally advised about the tree manor drive. While tending to the group, Prime Minister Khan declared that his legislature will likewise make a natural life save under Baba Guru Nanak’s name and that Nankana Sahib will likewise end up home to the Baba Guru Nanak college.

March 06 The United Nations human rights chief Michelle Bachelet has warned India that its “divisive policies” could undermine economic growth. She said that narrow political agendas were marginalising vulnerable people in an already unequal society. “We are receiving reports that indicate increasing harassment and targeting of minorities – in particular Muslims and people from historically disadvantaged and marginalised groups, such as Dalits and Adivasis,” Bachelet said in her annual report to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.

March 06 Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was stopped from attacking Pakistan by the United States and Britain once Pakistan informed them of its clear intention to hit back three times harder if its eastern neighbour violated its territorial integrity. India was also warned by the US that the international powers would not be able to stop the confrontation from progressing into a full-blown nuclear war. Well-placed sources based in Washington and London have shared information with The News that Indian Prime Minister Modi conducted a meeting with his three services chiefs for hours on February 27 in the wake of the suicide attack in Pulwama on February 14 killing at least 40 Central Reserve Police Force personnel. Modi and his generals reportedly “selected to hit at least nine...

March 06 Satellite images have emerged which show that a religious school run by Jaish-e-Mohammad in Pakistan appears to be still standing days after India claimed its warplanes hit the Islamist group's training camp on the site. The images produced by Planet Labs Inc, a San Francisco-based private satellite operator, show at least six buildings on the madrasa site on March 4, six days after the airstrike. ALSO READ: Bollywood to Make Movie on ‘Balakot Air Strikes’ The images cast further doubt on statements made over the last eight days by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the raids had hit all the intended targets at the madrasa site near Jaba village and the town of Balakot in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Pakistan has disputed India's account, saying the...