Infinity Social Updates

LAHORE: Several jailed PTI leaders have written to Chief Justice of Pakistan Yahya Afridi, seeking the early hearing of appeals against their convictions in a May 9 riots case, it emerged on Monday. On July 22, 2025, a Lahore Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) sentenced Yasmin Rashid, Omar Sarfraz Cheema, Ejaz Chaudhry, Mian Mahmoodur Rasheed and others to 10 years in prison in a case related to violence on Sherpao Bridge. In the letter — a copy of which is available with Dawn — Rashid, Cheema, Rasheed and Chaudhry contended that despite being “law-abiding citizens of Pakistan”, their constitutional rights had been “trampled” upon as they continued to suffer “political victimisation”. “We have been languishing in jail for the last 34 months,” the letter stated. Recalling the July 2025 sentences, the leaders said they had submitted appeals against their convictions before the Lahore High Court (LHC) since their sentencing. “[However,] for the last eight months, our appeals and suspensions...

On March 2, just a few days into the ongoing war, the United States and Israel carried out attacks on Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment facility. After initially disputing the claims, the IAEA later confirmed damage to the entrance buildings of the underground fuel enrichment plant at Natanz, located on the outskirts of Qom. The attack came several months after the 12-day standoff between Iran and Israel, when a similar attack was carried out on the Natanz uranium enrichment site’s underground structures. These attacks have established a dangerous new precedent in global nuclear politics. The targeting of Iranian nuclear facilities — Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan — operating under the IAEA safeguards renders irrelevant the very system designed to ensure nuclear programmes remain peaceful. “Again, they attacked Iran’s peaceful safeguarded nuclear facilities yesterday. Their justification that Iran wants to develop nuclear weapons is simply a big lie,” said Reza Najafi, Iran’s envoy to ...

An experimental cancer treatment using an mRNA vaccine, which was developed with the help of Artificial Intelligence (AI), is offering hope to humans after a successful run with a dog with cancer in Sydney, The Australian reported on Friday. Rosie — an eight-year-old rescue dog — was adopted by Sydney-based tech entrepreneur Paul Conyngham in 2019. She was diagnosed with a deadly mast cell cancer in 2024. After showing no improvement following the initial treatment, Conyngham turned to a chatbot to brainstorm ideas for her treatment, which led to him partnering with elite medical scientists to find a cure. The vaccine produced in the result, which Rosie was given over the Christmas break in 2025, caused one of her tumours to shrink by half. According to The Australian , “the recovery has astounded researchers at the cutting-edge of human cancer treatments”. Martin Smith, an associate professor of computational biology and director of the Ramaciotti Centre for Genomics at the Uni...

The US and Israel’s war against Iran has led to sporting events being postponed in the region, while competitions elsewhere have been hit by travel disruption, with thousands of flights cancelled in some of the world’s busiest transit hubs. Bahrain and Saudi F1 races set to be cancelled Next month’s Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Formula One Grands Prix are set to be cancelled due to the Middle East conflict. Multiple sources told Reuters an announcement, seen within the sport as just a matter of time, was expected with a March 20 deadline looming for freight that has to be transported to Bahrain for logistical reasons. Trump says inappropriate for Iran to be at World Cup US President Donald Trump said on March 12 that Iran’s soccer team were welcome to take part in this year’s World Cup but that he believed it was not appropriate they be there “for their own life and safety”. Iran have qualified for the 48-team tournament to be held in the US, Canada and Mexico from June 11 and ar...

Employees of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and autonomous institutions under government patronage would see their salaries cut by five to 30 per cent under the government’s austerity measures, which would go towards public relief, it was decided on Saturday. The move adds to a host of austerity measures announced by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Monday in view of the global oil crisis triggered by the US-Israel war on Iran, which has hiked local fuel prices . On Saturday, PM Shehbaz chaired a meeting reviewing the impact of petroleum product prices and the implementation of government austerity measures in view of the ongoing situation in the Middle East, a press release issued by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) said. “It was decided in the meeting that, like government employees, there will be a 5-30pc cut in the salaries of employees of state-owned enterprises and autonomous institutions under government patronage,” the statement said. It added that the funds saved as a ...

KARACHI: Petroleum dealers have threatened to stop petrol and diesel sales after Eidul Fitr, in case the government does not revise their profit margins. Addressing a news conference at the Karachi Press Club on Friday, the leadership of Pakistan Petroleum Dealers Association (PPDA) gave the government until March 26 to revise petroleum dealers’ margin from 2.59 per cent to 8pc in the wake of a Rs55 per litre hike in diesel and petrol rates. Currently, the dealers’ margin comes to around Rs8.64 per litre on diesel and petrol. The PPDA leaders, including Abdul Sami Khan, Tariq Hasan and Ameer Khan Masood, said the petroleum levy and hike in petroleum prices have severely affected dealers as well as consumers. They blamed oil-marketing companies (OMCs) for capping oil supplies. As a result, retail outlets are facing problems in obtaining the required quantity of oil products, drying up many pumps. They said the petroleum dealers have been urging the government for the last two year...

“I am worried,” a sailor stuck in the Gulf told AFP on Friday, his vessel unable to pass through the Strait of Hormuz , blocked for nearly two weeks after US-Israeli strikes on Iran. “Every day on the ship, I can see missile launches and hear explosions, making me feel like I was in danger,” said Wang Shang, 32. Wang, a Chinese national from the landlocked central province of Henan, works on a foreign ship used to transport liquefied petroleum gas sourced from the energy-rich region. Since navigation in and out of the Gulf essentially came to a halt, Wang has shared his experiences by posting videos on Douyin, the Chinese domestic version of TikTok. “We cannot leave at present,” he said. “If we wanted to depart now, it would be impossible.” In one video from February 28 — the day that the United States and Israel launched the war — the ship’s receiver is shown as the strait is declared shut by Iranian authorities. “Attention all ships, this is Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Gua...

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Assam on Friday, announcing multi-billion-dollar investments as part of a tour of states heading into elections, including the key political battleground of West Bengal. The Hindu nationalist leader launched infrastructure projects in Assam — including land holdings to tea plantation workers, a dam project and a major train and road corridor — worth over $5 billion. The northeastern state of about 32 million people is controlled by his right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). On Saturday, Modi will visit neighbouring West Bengal, a state of 105 million people led by his political rival Mamata Banerjee, of the All India Trinamool Congress party. During the visit, he is expected to inaugurate “road infrastructure, railways, port and shipping” projects worth roughly $2 billion, which his office says are aimed at “accelerating economic growth”. State elections this year will be held in the southern states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, both ...

PML-N leader Nehal Hashmi will be sworn in as the new governor of Sindh, following his surprise appointment a day earlier, Radio Pakistan reported on Friday. Hashmi will be sworn in as the governor in Karachi today. Sindh High Court Chief Justice Zafar Ahmed Rajput will administer his oath. On Thursday, President Asif Ali Zardari approved Hashmi’s appointment as Sindh governor, hours after it was announced that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif recommended his appointment to the post previously held by MQM’s Kamran Tessori. A brief statement issued by the PM Office said that PM Shehbaz met Hashmi at the PM House and decided to nominate him as the governor of Sindh. Hashmi is a veteran politician who last served as a PML-N senator after his election in March 2015. However, a controversial speech the PML-N senator made in May 2017 landed him in hot water, culminating in his disqualification in February 2018. The surprise move to appoint Hashmi has drawn a strong reaction from ally ...

Higher oil prices due to the Iran war are increasing prices of jet fuel, which accounts for a big portion of airlines’ costs. Brent crude oil rose near $100 per barrel on Thursday on worries about disrupted supply. Spot Northwest European jet fuel prices were at $1,536 per metric tonne on Thursday, trading near an all-time high of $1,633 they reached intra-day on Monday. Some airlines use futures and options to hedge against price increases. They also try to hedge against value changes in the US dollar, in which jet fuel is priced. US airlines, which abandoned the practice of hedging against fuel costs, could be the hardest hit if the war is prolonged. Below is a summary of how some of the world’s largest airlines are hedged: Air France-KLM: The Franco-Dutch group said in February it had adjusted its fuel hedging policy to increase its total exposure over one year consumption to 87 per cent from 68pc. It said it had extended its hedging horizon to eight quarters from six and inc...

A foreign hacker compromised files relating to the FBI’s investigation of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein during a break-in at the bureau’s New York Field Office three years ago, according to ​a source familiar with the matter and recently published Justice Department documents reviewed by Reuters . The details of who accessed a server at the FBI’s New York Field Office, ‌including the allegation that a foreign hacker was involved, are being reported here for the first time. In a statement, the FBI said what it described as a “cyber incident” was “an isolated one”. “The FBI restricted access to the malicious actor and rectified the network. The investigation remains ongoing, so we do not have further comments to provide at this time.” Although the source said the intrusion appeared to have been carried out by a cybercriminal rather than a foreign government, ​the incident underscores the files’ potential intelligence value, one academic said. The legally mandated publication...

In contemporary international politics, the language of gender equality has increasingly appeared within the moral vocabulary of war over the past few decades. Western governments and political commentators have framed military interventions as necessary not only for security but also for the protection of women and girls in societies portrayed as oppressive or patriarchal. This discourse presents intervention as a form of humanitarian responsibility. Yet when the material consequences of such interventions are examined, a profound contradiction emerges. The recent bombing of a girls’ elementary school in Tehran during the US and Israeli strikes demonstrates this contradiction with stark clarity. When schoolchildren become casualties of imperial wars rhetorically justified through the language of women’s liberation, the ethical foundations of such claims demand serious scrutiny. The politics of “saving” Muslim women The use of women’s rights as a moral justification for military ...

On the 12th day of the US–Israel war against Iran, the maritime domain, particularly the Strait of Hormuz , clearly emerged as the principal flashpoint, shaping both the military trajectory of the war and the strategic calculations of the US as the contest over oil flows and shipping lanes began to define the central logic of the conflict. In the past 24 hours, at least three separate attacks were recorded against commercial vessels operating in or near the Strait of Hormuz, reinforcing the perception that Iran is now enforcing its threat to disrupt maritime traffic through direct kinetic pressure. The incidents occurred in quick succession and involved vessels from three different flag states, which pointed to the widening risks to global shipping. A Thailand-flagged bulk carrier, Mayuree Naree, was struck by an unidentified projectile roughly 11 nautical miles north of Oman inside the strait, triggering a fire that forced most of the crew to evacuate before the blaze was eventually...

China warned the United States on Wednesday that the excessive use of artificial intelligence (AI) in its military could plunge the world into a Terminator like dystopian future. US President Donald Trump’s administration has sought the unconditional use of AI startups in the military. The Pentagon has confirmed Elon Musk’s Grok system is cleared for use in a classified setting, and blacklisted Anthropic after it refused to allow its Claude AI model to be used for mass surveillance and autonomous lethal warfare. “Such choices as the unrestricted application of AI by the military, using AI as a tool to violate the sovereignty of other nations, allowing AI to excessively affect war decisions, and giving algorithms the power to determine life and death, not only erode ethical restraints and accountability in wars, but also risk technological runaway,” a spokesman for China’s defence ministry, Jiang Bin, said on Wednesday. “A dystopia depicted in the American film The Terminator cou...

Iran’s new Supreme Leader Ayatullah Mojtaba Khamenei is injured but “safe and sound”, the son of the president said on Wednesday, offering the first official explanation for why the 56-year-old has not been seen since his appointment at the weekend. “I heard news that Mojtaba Khamenei had been injured. I have asked some friends who had connections,” Yousef Pezeshkian, who is also a government adviser, wrote in a post on his Telegram channel. “They told me that, thank God, he is safe and sound,” added the son of President Masoud Pezeshkian. Mojtaba, until now a low profile if powerful behind-the-scenes figure, was named Iran’s number one following the assassination of his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in an air strike at the start of the US-Israeli war against the Islamic republic. But there had been mounting questions about his whereabouts and physical condition after his appointment by the Assembly of Experts clerical body, with the new supreme leader yet to be seen, let alone sp...