The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) passenger plane crash on May 22nd in Karachi took place due to human errors, said the preliminary investigation report submitted to the Aviation Division in a high level meeting on Monday. The negligence of both the cockpit crew as well as the air control tower caused the accident and there was apparently no technical fault.
Controversial religious scholar Mufti Abdul Qavi has said that the Islamabad-based US blogger, Cynthia Ritchie requested him ‘a number of times’ for a meeting but he refused all the invitations. According to news report of local Urdu daily, Mufti Qavi said that numerous politicians from Punjab are also closely associated with Cynthia but he will reveal details at the right time.
Widely respected religious scholar and orator Allama Talib Jauhari passed away at a private hospital on Sunday night after a long illness. The well-known Shia scholar had been under treatment at the intensive care unit of the hospital for the past 15 days. Allama Jauhari commanded respect because he was a class fellow of the widely revered scholar Ayatollah Sayyid Ali al-Husayni al-Sistani.
Minister of State for Climate Change Zartaj Gul Wazir has baffled social media after giving a peculiar definition of COVID-19. “COVID-19 means that it has 19 points that can be applied in any country based on respective immunity levels,” she said during a TV show. Gul soon became center of social media user’s content for memes, with Twitterati excessively sharing her video.
Pakistan partially allowed international flights to resume on Sunday, in order to bring back more citizens stranded in other countries because of the coronavirus. Flight operation were suspended almost three months ago in order to curb the spread of the disease. Now the government has reopened 25% of the country’s airspace so that the citizens stuck abroad could return.
Several statistical models, official statements, leaked government documents, and interviews with people in various cities suggest that the number of Coronavirus patients and deaths in Pakistan are grossly under-reported. The actual numbers will be two to three times more than the reported number and health experts worry the lack of accuracy in data collection was misleading people and creating apathy about the disease.
Emirates has announced to start scheduled flights from Sialkot on June 24, which will be the fourth destination from Pakistan after Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad. The UAE’s flag carrier announced that its flights from Sialkot would only carry outbound passengers to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and onward destinations. In contrast, its returning flights from UAE will carry cargo.
Parliamentary Affair Adviser Dr Babar Awan on Friday presented a bill in the Senate seeking parliamentarian’ free air travel privilege extended to their families. The Members of Parliament (Salaries and Allowances) (Amendment) Bill, 2020 aims at “ensuring the utility of 25 air tickets to the parliamentarians for their family members, sans any burden on the exchequer”.
Despite the governments efforts to curb hoarding of essential medicines, otherwise widely available cheap medicine disappears from pharmacies in Islamabad. The Islamabad Capital Territory Administration (ICTA) has decided to launch an action against the drug stores involved in hoarding dexamethasone drug, which is being prescribed to coronavirus patients. On selling of dexamethasone in hiked prices, the pharmacists will face action legal consequences.
Number of coronavirus cases have reduced by 90 per cent in an area of the federal capital which was sealed on March 13, it was revealed by Islamabad Deputy Commissioner Hamza Shafqat. “Around 100 cases were being reported daily from Sector G-9, but after enforcement of smart lockdown the number of cases has reduced to 8-9 per day.” he told the media.