Infinity Social Updates

Hamas’s armed wing chief Ezzedine Al-Haddad was killed in an Israeli strike in Gaza the previous day, the Israeli military and Hamas confirmed on Saturday. The Israeli military and intelligence services have waged an extensive campaign targeting the group’s senior political leaders and commanders in Gaza and across the region. On Friday, the Israeli military said it had carried out an airstrike in Gaza targeting Haddad and confirmed his death on Saturday. “The IDF and the ISA announce that yesterday, in a precise strike in the area of the City of Gaza, Ezzedine Al-Haddad was eliminated,” the military said, referring to itself and the Shin Bet domestic security agency. Two Hamas officials also told AFP that Haddad had been killed in an Israeli strike. “Senior commander… Ezzedine Al-Haddad was assassinated in an Israeli strike targeting a residential apartment and a civilian vehicle in Gaza yesterday,” one senior Hamas official said. ...

Soaring diesel prices since the onset of the Iran war are draining already tight US school district budgets, making it more expensive to bus students and run generators in a shock officials say they will not be able to afford for long. School districts from Yakima, Washington to Waco, Texas are tapping emergency funding reserves to keep buses running. In remote Alaska, officials are scrambling to secure enough fuel to keep the lights on, according to Reuters interviews. “It’s more than a straw on the camel’s back, it’s like a haystack,” said Yakima Superintendent Trevor Greene. The stress reflects one of many knock-on impacts of the US-Israeli war on Iran, which has disrupted the flow of around a fifth of the world’s oil supplies. Since the war started in late February, fuel prices have posted one of their most rapid climbs on record. The spike has upended economies around the globe. It has caused enough pain in the US to be a political liability for President Donald Trump ahead...

Karachi Additional Inspector General (AIG) Azad Khan shared details on Friday of probe against alleged queenpin Anmol alias Pinky, saying that investigators had come across information regarding the involvement of foreigners in running the drug network. Anmol had been arrested earlier this week from her apartment in Karachi in a joint raid conducted by police and a civilian intelligence agency in connection with two cases pertaining to the possession of narcotics and an unlicenced weapon. On Wednesday, a court in Karachi granted police her three-day physical remand. The Karachi AIG shared details during a press conference on Friday of the investigation conducted against Anmol thus far, saying that the case could turn out to be a transnational one as investigators had come across information about the involvement of foreigners in the drugs networks allegedly run by the suspect. “We have come across information that some foreigners from African countries are involved in this networ...

Indian billionaire industrialist Gautam Adani has agreed to pay a multi-million-dollar settlement in a US civil court case linked to corruption without admitting guilt, his company said on Friday. The November 2024 indictment in New York accused the industrialist and multiple subordinates of deliberately misleading international investors as part of a vast bribery scheme. Adani was accused of having participated in an estimated $250 million scheme to bribe Indian officials for lucrative solar energy supply contracts. Adani, along with his nephew Sagar Adani, agreed to the “payment of a civil penalty” totalling $18 million, while noting that it came “without admitting or denying the allegations made in the civil complaint,” a letter from Adani Green Energy to the Mumbai stock exchange read. The penalty payment comes as US prosecutors are reported to be set to drop charges against Adani, The New York Times reported on Thursday. The Adani letter, which noted that the final judgemen...

The Foreign Office on Thursday said media reports “misrepresented” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s recent remarks to Deputy Prime Minister and FM Ishaq Dar, affirming the call was held with cordiality. The clarification comes after Chinese state media Xinhua reported that during his call with Dar on Tuesday, Wang expressed hope that “Pakistan can step up mediation efforts ” between the United States and Iran. Addressing a weekly press briefing, FO spokesperson Tahir Andrabi said: “Some reports suggested that the Chinese side urged us to enhance the mediation efforts, implying as if Pakistan was being asked to sort in a ‘do more’ paradigm. So news coverage by some of local newspapers conveyed the same impression. “I wish to place on record that such reports somewhat misrepresent the call in both letter and spirit,” he added, asserting that the call was held with “traditional warmth and cordiality”. Andrabi said FM Wang appreciated “Pakistan’s constr...

They come in blister packs of 10 like any normal painkiller and you can buy them easily in roadside kiosks and street pharmacies across west Africa. Millions of tapentadol tablets from India are helping drive a deadly opioid epidemic ravaging the region, with officials and researchers telling AFP that they are also being added to the “zombie drug” kush. The cheap pills are so strong that no regulatory authority in the world has approved them. Yet an AFP investigation found Indian pharmaceutical firms were flooding west Africa with the pills despite New Delhi vowing to crack down on the trade. Some shipments were even labelled “Harmless Medicines for Human Consumption”. Customs records show millions of dollars’ worth of the high-strength synthetic opioid being shipped from India every month to Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Ghana, where even low doses of the drug are not permitted. With opioids now heavily regulated in wealthier nation...

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s gross domestic product (GDP) and per capita income increased in dollar terms at a modest pace, indicating a recovery in the country’s overall output compared to the previous year, the government said on Wednesday. It was revealed that the country’s economy is expected to grow by 3.70 per cent in the current fiscal year, a revision from earlier projections of 4pc, suggesting that Pakistan will fall short of its GDP target. The provisional growth rates in agriculture, industry and services in FY26 are 2.89pc, 3.51pc and 4.09pc, respectively. The 117th meeting of the National Accounts Committee (NAC) was held in the federal capital on Wednesday at the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics Headquarters, Statistics House. The secretary of the Ministry of Planning and Development chaired the meeting. The committee approved the quarterly GDP growth rates for Q1 (revised), Q2 (revised), and Q3 (provisional) during FY 2025-26 and annual growth rates for 2023-24 (final), 2024-2...

Defence Minister Khawaja Asif on Wednesday acknowledged that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government was standing firmly with the Centre in combatting terrorism, hailing that they were on the “same page”. He made the remarks on the floor of the National Assembly while responding to an emotionally charged speech by Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl’s (JUI-F) Noor Alam Khan, who had criticised both the federal and provincial governments for rising terrorism in the province. “We did not have the KP government’s cooperation for a very long time, [but] now we have [it]. They are standing firmly with the Centre and the armed forces against terrorism. There is no doubt,” Asif declared. “It is a good thing that we are all on the same page,” he added. The defence minister said, “I agree with them that a solution to this issue is needed, but it is not the centre’s responsibility; it is partially, but all provinces have to contribute to this with their resources.” Asif also strongly responded to suggestio...

Prime Minister Keir Starmer defied calls to resign on Tuesday, telling ministers he would “get on with governing” despite a “destabilising” 48 hours of growing calls to set out a timetable for his departure after a drubbing in local elections. At a meeting of his cabinet, Starmer, in the top job for less than two years, repeated that, while he took responsibility for one of his Labour Party’s worst election defeats , there had been no official move to trigger a leadership contest. Four ministers expressed their support for him. It was the latest pledge from Starmer to press on with a premiership that has been dogged by scandal and policy U-turns since he won a large majority at a national election in 2024. On Monday, he promised to be bolder in tackling the problems besetting Britain to try to shore up his political future. Borrowing costs rise In a nod to an increase in borrowing costs on the markets over fears of another bout of political instability in Britain, Starmer said ...

The United Nations condemned on Tuesday the toll from “escalating” Israeli military operations and settler attacks in the occupied West Bank on children, with 70 Palestinian children killed since the start of 2025. “Children are paying an intolerable price for escalating military operations and settler attacks across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem,” UN children’s agency spokesman James Elder told reporters. Since the start of 2025, when Israel began a large-scale military operation in the West Bank, “at least one Palestinian child has been killed on average every single week” there, adding that another 850 children had been injured during that period. “Most of those killed or wounded were done by live ammunition,” he said. Israeli forces were responsible for a full 93 per cent of the deaths, Elder said, highlighting that the scaled-up military operations had come amid “historic levels of settler attacks”. According to the UN, March...

World Health Organisation (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Tuesday “our work is not over” to contain hantavirus after evacuations from a cruise ship hit by a deadly outbreak of the illness. The fate of the MV Hondius sparked international alarm after three passengers died in an outbreak of the rare virus, for which no vaccines or specific treatments exist. Yet health officials stressed that the global public health risk was low and rejected comparisons to the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. “There is no sign that we are seeing the start of a larger outbreak,” Tedros told a joint news conference in Madrid with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. “But of course the situation could change, and given the long incubation period of the virus, it’s possible we might see more cases in the coming weeks,” Tedros said. More than 120 passengers and crew on the MV Hondius were flown out from Spain’s Canary Islands on Sunday and ...

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Monday ordered an inquiry into an attack in Toba Tek Singh that left PML-N MPA Col (retired) Sardar Ayub Gadhi injured and four of his aides dead. The incident occurred on Sunday night, when Gadhi was sitting with his friends in his outhouse (Dera) in Chak 184-GB. Subsequently, unidentified gunmen opened indiscriminate fire. In a statement on Monday, PM Shehbaz expressed deep concern and strongly condemned the incident. He also directed the relevant authorities to swiftly complete the inquiry so that those responsible could be identified and brought to justice. Calling Gadhi one of the PML-N’s hardworking workers, the prime minister said that the attack on the MPA while he was listening to public grievances was extremely concerning. He offered prayers for those who lost their lives in the incident and for the recovery of the injured. Those killed in the incident on Sunday night were identified as Zaig...

THE Sindh government’s 28-point list of restrictions imposed on Aurat March Karachi is a distressing example of familiar double standards: women are celebrated in speeches and choreographed photo opportunities, only for the state to recoil the moment they demand their rights. The organisers sought permission to march peacefully for women’s rights. What they received, instead, was a document dripping with authoritarian anxiety. The message could not have been clearer: women may gather, but only if they remain politically harmless. Rather than facilitating peaceful assembly, the administration chose to police slogans, speech and even clothing. The vague and sweeping conditions betray insecurity. Why does a march calling attention to gender violence and economic inequality provoke such discomfort in official circles? Why are women demanding bodily autonomy and constitutional rights treated as a threat? Secure governments do not fear placards, nor do t...

Kim Su-jin and her husband have set aside their doubts and embraced parenthood, joining a small but notable wave of South Korean couples having children despite the country’s steep demographic decline. South Korea has one of the world’s lowest birth rates, and the government has spent billions of dollars trying to encourage citizens to have more babies and cushion the worst impacts of a shrinking population . The Asian nation is still nowhere near reversing the trend, but a modest baby bump has come after years of consistently low statistics — even as experts disagree on the underlying causes. Kim, 32, a freelance music industry worker, gave birth to her daughter in January last year despite earlier financial concerns during her four-year marriage. She shook off worries over housing, schooling and work “because we believed that having (a baby) would bring us happiness”, she told AFP . This picture taken on April 30, 2026 shows a man pushing a stroller as he v...

A year ago, Pakistan and India fought a short but intense war — the worst military confrontation between the two nuclear-armed neighbours in decades. During the period of Marka-i-Haq (the battle for truth), Indian fighter jets were shot down, and Pakistan launched Operation Bunyanum Marsoos — a barrage of attacks against Indian military targets — in retaliation for missile strikes by New Delhi. The conflict ended with a US-brokered ceasefire. During the four-day war, Pakistan showcased a wide variety of weaponry and military technology, ranging from advanced missiles to network-linked warfare systems. Let’s take a look at some of them here. ‘Seeing without seeing’ — network-centric warfare One of the deadliest tools in Pakistan’s arsenal was unleashed in the early hours of May 7: the use of network-centric warfare. This doctrine involves sharing real-time data and information across multiple domains, such as between fighter jets, airborne early warning aircraft and ground-based ...

Under the bleachers of a West Bank stadium, a dozen men from Gaza live in a former changing room, blocked from returning home by the war that erupted more than two-and-a-half years ago. Among those stranded is Sameer Abu Salah, 54, who had been working odd jobs in Israel’s commercial hub of Tel Aviv, where wages are far higher than in his home city of Khan Yunis in Gaza. He had then gone to Nablus, in the north of the occupied West Bank, where he is now trapped. “I entered (Israel) only four days before the war,” he said from the little space he had set up under the stands of Nablus city stadium. “I was respected and honoured. Then the war happened,” he added, referring to Israel’s relentless military campaign in the Palestinian enclave following Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack . Abu Salah now makes a living collecting and reselling recyclables, sending money to his family after losing two sons to Israeli airstrikes. A Palestinian man sits inside a damaged bu...