Infinity Social Updates

In May earlier this year, Islamabad and Beijing commemorated the 75th anniversary of their diplomatic ties, with the bilateral discourse predictably gravitating toward familiar flourishes. Bonds “higher than the Himalayas and stronger than steel” once again resurfaced in official handouts and state-level speeches. Yet, beneath the ceremonial surface of this milestone, a more consequential structural transformation is being engineered. Over the course of this 75-year arc, the relationship has gradually evolved from a traditional diplomatic alignment into a highly structured economic partnership. What was once framed in exclusively strategic terms has increasingly been recast as a matrix of economic and technological cooperation. This ongoing evolution has allowed both capitals to systematically convert a long-standing political bond into a more functional, project-driven engine. The bilateral partnership is now attempting to pivot from an early-stage, state-led infrastructure programm...

LAHORE: A judicial magistrate at the Cantonment Courts granted police 14-day judicial remand of four suspects, including one related to a senior political figure , in a case of alleged kidnapping and rape of two foreign women. One of those two women is a national of the Netherlands and the other of Venezuela, and a case of their alleged abduction and sexual assault was registered on July 2. Subsequently, police had arrested four of the suspects and were initially granted their five-day physical remand on July 3. The suspects’ remand was extended twice in the following days, last on July 13 . They were produced before Judicial Magistrate Azhar Mahmood on Friday, following the expiry of their physical remand. The investigating officer (IO) submitted a progress report before the court and requested that the suspects now be sent on judicial remand. The magistrate accepted the request and sent the four suspects on judicial remand for 14 days. During the hearing, the state prosecu...

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on Wednesday mandatory annual testosterone screening for troops 30 years old or above, an initiative he said was aimed at combating testosterone deficiency that can undermine health. Hegseth said the screening could lead to troops being offered testosterone replacement therapy aimed at “ensuring you have the right testosterone levels to operate at your absolute best”. “Because it’s well-established science that as we age, testosterone levels often naturally drop,” he said in a video message. The screening would become part of annual testing for troops aged 30 and above, and troops could voluntarily decide whether to accept any recommended hormone replacement treatment if they were diagnosed with low testosterone levels. Troops below the age of 30 could request to be tested. The move comes as the US Department of Health and Human Services has moved to ease some restrictions on testosterone re...

PESHAWAR: A house fire in the Tehkal Payan area of Peshawar killed a couple and their four children on Thursday, Rescue 1122 said. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Rescue 1122 spokesperson Bilal Ahmed Faizi told Dawn that the rescue service received the report of the fire at around 2:30am. After reaching the site of the incident, it took the rescue team 45 minutes to bring the fire under control. The team recovered the bodies of six people from a room during its search operation. These included a husband, wife and their four children — three girls aged 11, nine, and three years, and a four-year-old boy. The man was a local worker of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Fazl (JUI-F), according to a statement issued by the party about the incident. According to Faizi, the fire apparently started in a storage area, where furniture and mattresses were kept and spread to other parts of the residential house. However, he said that the blaze was so intense that the family was likely unable to leave the single room t...

Pakistan’s recent diplomatic efforts for achieving sustainable peace in the deserve to be assessed not by whether they produced an immediate US-Iran agreement, but by what they strategically accomplished. First, it helped create diplomatic space at a critical moment, reducing the risk of a disastrous regional escalation. Second, it contributed to bringing Washington and Tehran into direct high-level engagement after nearly five decades of estrangement, demonstrating that dialogue remained possible even amid military confrontation. Third, and perhaps most importantly, the process helped identify the real sticking point around which any future negotiations must ultimately be built. Whenever tensions between the United States and Iran dominate international headlines, the debate almost invariably revolves around Iran’s nuclear programme. Yet, this focus often obscures the deeper strategic issue that has repeatedly frustrated diplomatic efforts. The nuclear file is important, but it is n...

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar on Wednesday met with the secretary general of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), Nurlan Yermekbayev, and reaffirmed Pakistan’s commitment to advancing its objectives, the Foreign Office (FO) said. In a post on X, the FO said that Dar received Yermekbayev, with the two holding a “productive exchange” on the SCO priorities and ways to further strengthen cooperation among member states in key areas, including economy, transport, and connectivity. “They also exchanged views on regional and international developments. The secretary general commended Pakistan’s constructive contributions to promoting regional peace, stability, and cooperation,” the FO said. “The secretary general shared his perspective and proposals for further enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of the SCO, and briefed DPM Dar on preparations for the forthcoming SCO Council of Foreign Ministers Meeting i...

Chief of Defence Forces (CDF) and Chief of Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir has met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara, according to a post on the Turkish Presidency’s X account. The presidency’s post on Tuesday, which also had a picture of the two, said Erdogan received Munir at the Ankara airport. Reuters reported that the meeting was held behind closed doors at the Ankara airport. The report said that Turkish Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz, Chief of Turkish General Staff General Selcuk Bayraktaroglu and National Intelligence Organisation (MIT) Director Ibrahim Kalin also attended the meeting. Separately, an X post by the Turkish embassy in Pakistan said CDF Munir was accorded a guard of honour by a tri-services contingent of the Turkish armed forces following his arrival in Ankara. General Bayraktaroglu welcomed him during his official visit, the post said. “Rooted in brotherhood, mutual trust and a shared strateg...