Infinity Social Updates

Posts

No feasts, no joy: Gazans mark a dark Eid

New clothes for children, sacrificial sheep and Eid biscuits, the hallmarks of the Muslim holiday, are all either unaffordable or unavailable in Gaza, casting a shadow over what is usually a time of celebration and joy. “I go to the market only to look around because I cannot afford to buy anything. Whenever I ask about prices, I return heartbroken,” Nadia Abu Shamala, a Palestinian resident of Gaza, told AFP . “This year, Eid comes with none of the joy we once knew in Gaza because of the effects of the war, the soaring prices, and our inability to provide even the simplest needs for our children,” said the 40-year-old woman from Gaza’s north displaced to the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah for over two years following the Israeli invasion of the besieged enclave. A girl holding a piece of candy stands among Palestinians performing morning prayers marking the start of Eidul Azha, on a heavily damaged street in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on May 27,...

CDF Munir spends Eidul Azha with frontline troops in Zhob, says brutal acts cannot weaken nation’s resolve

Chief of Defence Forces and Chief of the Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir on Wednesday spent Eidul Azha with frontline troops deployed in Balochistan’s Zhob and said “inhumane and brutal” acts cannot weaken the resolve of the armed forces or the nation, according to the military’s media wing. On Sunday, at least 14 people were killed, and 20 others were injured after a blast caused by a vehicle-borne suicide bomb tore through a shuttle train in Quetta. As per a statement released by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), CDF Munir’s visit began with Eid prayers, “along with special supplications for Pakistan’s enduring peace, stability and prosperity and for the Shuhada , who rendered the ultimate sacrifice in defence of the motherland”. During the visit, CDF Munir also interacted with officers and soldiers, appreciating their “exceptional grit, unwavering resolve, operational preparedness and steadfast vigilance amid foreign-sponsored terrorism”. He also paid them tribute...

Ireland to ban goods from Israeli settlements in West Bank by July

Ireland aims to pass a law curbing goods trade with settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank by mid-July, with Israel, some US lawmakers and business groups opposing the move, Foreign Minister Helen McEntee said on Tuesday. Ireland’s government, one of the most outspoken critics of Israel’s war on Gaza, first promised to sanction Israeli settlements in October 2024. The legislation has since been held up by pressure from opposition politicians who aimed to extend the ban also to the services trade, on one side, and international company lobbyists seeking to scrap the bill, on the other. Sources told Reuters last October that the bill was set to be limited to goods. Prime Minister Micheal Martin confirmed that last week and said widening the scope to services was neither “implementable” nor “viable”. Limiting the bill to goods only will impact just a handful of products imported from Israeli-occupied territories, such as fruit that are worth just €200,000 ($234,660) a year, I...

More climate records under threat as spring heatwave bakes western Europe

Western Europe faced another day of record-breaking temperatures on Tuesday as a heatwave pushed the mercury well above normal levels for May. A so-called “ heat dome ” of warm air from northern Africa trapped under a high-pressure system over western Europe is behind the sort of heat not usually seen until high summer. “It’s a bit worrying because it’s not really normal at this time of year, but unfortunately, I think this is going to become the norm in France,” student Chloe Voisin, 22, told AFP while touring the southwestern city of Bordeaux. Britain and France both reported that Monday was the warmest day in the month of May on record — with the French weather agency expecting Tuesday to be even hotter. French authorities on Tuesday also reported at least seven deaths linked to the heatwave — five of which were drownings, as many people sought relief on beaches and other bodies of water. Scientists say human-driven climate change is amplifying such extremes, with weather eve...

Trump, near 80, to have annual physical amid scrutiny of recent ailments

United States President Donald Trump, who turns 80 next month, will undergo his routine annual physical on Tuesday at Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre, following a year of public attention on apparently minor health issues. Trump frequently casts himself as more energetic and fitter than Joe Biden, his Democratic predecessor who left office last year at age 82 after facing questions about his fitness for the job. Still, recent photographs showing a blotchy neck rash have added to questions about Trump’s health, following images in July 2025 of swollen ankles and a bruised hand concealed with makeup. Trump, whose birthday is June 14, became the oldest person to assume the presidency when he began his second term in January 2025. Trump maintains an active golf schedule, but joked about his relative lack of exercise at a recent Oval Office event where his health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr said the president walks 14.5 kilometres every time he goes golfing. “Whe...

Behold, the Qabza Mafia of Karachi skies

We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realised then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes — something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters’ paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view. These are the most moving lines from forester and philosopher Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac , his breakthrough work in ecological preservation which was published in 1949, almost a year after his death and has since become a cornerstone of environmental ethics. At one point in time, wolves were persecuted in the United States to the extent that by 1926, Gray Wolves had completely vanished from Yellowstone National Park and the 2.2 million acres of wilderness was left to elk and de...