Pakistani anchor goes on air with daughter to protest minor's brutal rape and murder

Agencies
January 11, 2018

New Delhi, Jan 11: An anchor at a Pakistani news channel delivered a powerful statement when she did a live telecast on Wednesday with her young daughter sitting in her lap.

During a news bulletin, Samaa TV presenter Kiran Naz made a point about how she felt as a mother in the aftermath of the brutal rape and murder of a minor girl in eastern Pakistan's Kasur town.

"Today I'm not your host Kiran Naz. I'm a mother and that is why I'm sitting here with my daughter," a visibly emotional Naz said on national television.

Naz, reportedly one of the most popular female anchors in Pakistan, then voiced an impassioned monologue on the events following the abduction, rape and killing of seven-year-old Zainab Ansari.

"It is said that the smaller the corpse, the heavier it feels. Today, a tiny corpse is lying on the streets of Kasur and the entire Pakistan is crushed under its weight... This day marks the funeral of humanity," she said.

Slamming the rigmarole of police investigation and political wrangling over such cases, Naz asserted that what should take precedence is ensuring justice for Zainab and punishment to the perpetrators.

Zainab Ansari disappeared last week while going to a nearby home for Quranic studies and her body was found in a Kasur waste-yard on Tuesday.

Her murder ignited fury in Kasur, where residents attacked a police station. After failing to disperse the mob, police opened fire. Two people were killed and three others were wounded in the ensuing clashes.

Zainab's parents, who were away on a pilgrimage at the time she went missing, blamed the police for their slow response.

Police in Kasur denied they have been lax in investigating child abductions in the town. Regional police officer Zulfiqar Hameed told Reuters that arrests had been made and the case of Zainab would soon be solved.

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News Network
May 7,2020

Mumbai, May 7: Maharashtra Minister Nawab Malik on Wednesday accused the BJP-led Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka governments of adopting an uncooperative approach in taking back migrant workers hailing from these two states.

Mr Malik said that such a problem has not arisen with other states like Bihar, Rajasthan and another BJP-ruled state, Madhya Pradesh.

"They are creating new hurdles. There are no such problems in case of other states like Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal though.

"The process (of sending back migrants) has been smooth in the case of these states," Mr Malik said.

The NCP leader alleged that the Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka governments either don't want the people hailing from their states to return or are deliberately creating hurdles so that out of job workers do not go back in big numbers.

The Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka government should understand that the migrant workers are not ready mentally to stay back in Maharashtra and want to return to their native states, Mr Malik said.

The NCP minister said the Maharashtra government has been sending the applications received from migrant workers to the nodal officers of their respective native districts.

Once the nodal officers (of the native districts) concerned approve the applications, the workers are sent back either by trains or private vehicles following their medical tests, Mr Malik added.

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News Network
July 14,2020

Washington, Jul 14: Florida on Sunday reported a record 15,300 new coronavirus cases, the most by any state in a single day even as the coronavirus cases in the country have surged to 3,363,056.

The Washington Post reported that the huge number was result of both increased testing and widespread community transmission. The numbers shattered previous highs of 11,694 reported by California last week and 11,571 reported by New York on April 15.

Natalie E. Dean, an assistant professor of biostatistics at the University of Florida wrote that with Florida largely open for business, he doesn't expect this surge to slow.

Nationally, the conversation over reopening has become increasingly fraught amid the newly soaring case numbers, with much of the debate centering on whether schools should open their doors in the fall, reported the Post.

The Health workers in California and Texas too are facing an influx of COVID-19 patients where officials reported seven day averages for new cases - 8,664 and 9060 respectively.

According to the report, Florida has reported nearly 70,000 cases in last week alone, the most of any state.

Even though the COVID-19 cases are surging, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has stuck to an aggressive reopening plan with state officials recently ordering schools to reopen five days a week in the new academic year.

The state is also set to hold the Republican National Convention next month in Jacksonville's VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena, an indoor facility that seats about 15,000, reported Washington Post.

Seven-day averages for new cases -- considered a more reliable indicator of the virus's impact than single-day totals -- hit new highs in Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Puerto Rico.

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News Network
January 7,2020

Jan 7: Body of the senior Iranian military commander, Qasem Soleimani killed in a U.S. drone strike in Iraq last week, has arrived in his home town of Kerman in southeast Iran for burial, the official IRNA news agency said on Tuesday.

State TV broadcast live images of thousands of people in the streets of the town, many of them dressed in black, to mourn Soleimani's death.

Soleimani was widely seen as Iran’s second most powerful figure behind Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 80, who wept in grief along with hundreds of thousands of mourners who thronged the streets of Tehran for Soleimani’s funeral on Monday.

Khamenei led prayers at the funeral in the Iranian capital, pausing as his voice cracked with emotion. Soleimani, 62, was a national hero even to many who do not consider themselves supporters of Iran’s clerical rulers.

He was killed while leaving Baghdad airport last Friday. Mourners packed the streets, chanting: “Death to America!” - a show of national unity after anti-government protests in November in which many demonstrators were killed.

The crowd, which state media said numbered in the millions, recalled the masses gathered in 1989 for the funeral of the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

The killing of Soleimani has prompted fears around the world of a broader regional conflict, as well as calls in the U.S. Congress for legislation to keep President Donald Trump from going to war against Iran.

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