Infinity Social Updates

Nearly 700 foreigners, including Pakistanis, have fled Myanmar and crossed into Thailand, the Thai army said on Thursday, following a military operation against the Chinese-backed KK Park, a notorious cybercrime compound. Thailand has detained 677 people, including 618 men and 59 women, after they crossed the border into Tak province, it said in a statement. Myanmar’s military has taken control of KK Park and is inspecting the area, driving a large number of people into Thailand, the statement said. The people are now undergoing legal procedures and screening, and Thai authorities have also made additional detention facilities available in case existing spaces become insufficient, the army said. “All actions are in line with legal and humanitarian principles,” it said, adding that it was working closely with local security agencies to maintain order along the Thai-Myanmar border. The group consists primarily of individuals from India and China, with smaller numbers from Vietna...

The Islamabad High Court on Thursday directed the Adiala jail superintendent to implement a March 24 order that reinstated the twice-a-week meeting schedule for former prime minister Imran Khan. The directive came as a larger bench , led by Justice Muhammad Sarfraz Dogar and including Justices Arbab Muhammad Tahir and Muhammad Azam Khan, collectively took up all 11 petitions filed by PTI leaders regarding Imran’s jail visitation. The ex-premier’s family and party have repeatedly accused prison authorities of “ sabotaging ” meetings with him. During the hearing, the IHC directed Adiala Jail Superintendent Abdul Ghafoor Anjum, who was present during the hearing, to allow Imran’s jail meetings, as per the earlier order, while abiding by standard operating procedures (SOPs). It directed the jail official to facilitate the meetings as per the list provided by PTI Secretary General Salman Akram Raja, who also presented arguments before the bench. Petitions taken up by the bench includ...

The Indian government has reduced the number of officials who can order content to be taken down from the internet, a move that follows a bitter legal battle with Elon Musk’s X that centered around a contentious policy. X, Musk’s social media platform, had been in opposition to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 2023 decision to police the internet by allowing thousands of officials to file takedown orders. In August, Reuters reported that police inspectors were issuing takedown orders on cartoons and satirical posts, sparking one of X’s most high-profile legal challenges against a government’s content-removal policy. X lost the lawsuit in Karnataka High Court in September, with a judge ruling that its challenge was without merit and X had to abide by local laws. But late on Wednesday, India’s IT ministry changed its policy by limiting the number of people who can issue such orders to top bureaucrats and police officials. Now only bureaucrats with the rank of joint secretary or h...

The climate crisis in Pakistan over the years has exacerbated to the extent that it has become the new norm, with floods impacting cities, livelihoods and homes of millions of people in the country. In 2025 alone, Pakistan experienced devastating floods, with an estimated 4.2 million people affected in Punjab, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA). As the floodwaters rose, however, a parallel crisis emerged online. In response to the floods, many Pakistanis turned to digital technologies for weather updates, relief efforts and communicating with communities affected by the floods. At the same time, in response to this reliance on updates from digital platforms, there’s also been a rapid surge in climate change disinformation, intended to sensationalise an already tragic environment and garner more views for spreading confusion. More alarmingly, the surge of generative artificial intelligence (AI) on platforms has largely gone...

Anxious to bolster its air power, Turkiye has proposed to European partners and the US ways it could swiftly obtain advanced fighter jets as it seeks to make up ground on regional rivals such as Israel, sources familiar with the talks say. NATO-member Turkiye, which has the alliance’s second-largest military, aims to leverage its best relations with the West in years to add to its ageing fleet 40 Eurofighter Typhoons, for which it inked a preliminary agreement in July, and later also US-made F-35 jets, despite Washington sanctions that currently block any deal. Strikes by Israel — the Middle East’s most advanced military with hundreds of US-supplied F-15, F-16 and F-35 fighters — on Turkiye’s neighbours Iran and Syria , as well as on Lebanon and Qatar , unnerved Ankara in the last year. They laid bare key vulnerabilities, prompting its push for rapid air power reinforcement to counter any potential threats and not be left exposed, officials say. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan h...

Saudi Arabia has banned employers from charging any fees to their domestic workers, including for recruitment and work permits, setting maximum penalties of a fine worth 20,000 riyals and a three-year ban on hiring, according to Saudi Gazette . The Saudi outlet reported on Monday that employers were banned from “charging any fees from their domestic workers”, including those “related to recruitment, change of professions, transfer of services, residency permit (iqama) and work permits”. Saudi Gazette said the provisions were included in the “Guide to the Rights and Obligations of Domestic Workers”, issued by the Saudi human resources ministry. It added that the new regulations “include a package of rights that guarantee the domestic worker a decent life and a stable work environment”. According to the guide, professions permitted by law in the domestic worker sector include “domestic worker, private driver, and specialised professions such as home nurse, cook, tailor, butler, ...

AS temperatures begin to drop, smog makes an unwelcome arrival in many parts of the country, particularly Lahore and urban Punjab. This health and climate crisis has been brewing for some years, while the state — nudged on by civil society and experts — has begun to take steps to combat the smog hazard. South Asian cities have some of the worst air on the planet, and many Pakistani urban centres are included in this unenviable list. For example, on Tuesday, both Lahore and Karachi were amongst the top five most polluted cities globally, as per IQAir monitoring data, with air quality described as “very unhealthy”. And as winter sets in, things will get worse. In Lahore’s case, experts say a combination of local factors and pollutants blowing in from across the border with India are responsible for the dirty air. In particular, pollution caused by firecrackers set off during the Diwali celebrations in India has aggravated matters, as that country’s supreme court relaxed a ban on f...