Zilhajj moon has been sighted in Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi Supreme Court has confirmed the sighting of moon.
Hajj will, therefore, begin on Friday 9th of August. Pilgrims will spend the day on the plains of Mount Arafat on Saturday 10th of this month. Eid Al-Adha will be celebrated on Sunday 11th of August in Saudi Arabia.
Meanwhile, the Central Ruet Hilal Committee of Pakistan will meet in Karachi this evening for sighting of Zilhajj moon.
United Nations: Children are being recruited by militant groups such as Hizbul Mujahideen and Lashkar-e-Taiba in Kashmir and by Naxalites in other parts of India, according to a report by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who voiced concern over such recruitment and called on the government to ensure perpetrators are brought to justice.
In the ‘Annual Report of the Secretary-General on Children and Armed Conflict’, released Tuesday, Guterres said children continued to be affected by incidents of violence between armed groups and the government, “particularly in Jammu and Kashmir and in the context of the Naxalite insurgency.”
He welcomed the measures taken by the Indian government to ensure protection to children. “I welcome the Government’s measures to provide protection to children, notably through the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, but remain concerned by the reported child casualties and the recruitment and use of children in some areas of the country,” he said.
The report said the UN received reports of child recruitment and use in Jammu and Kashmir. “Five children, some as young as 14, were reportedly recruited by militant groups, including by Hizbul Mujahideen (two) and Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind (one).”
Two other children joined Lashkar-e-Taiba, the report said. “In addition, reports of the systematic recruitment of children by Naxalites continued to be received,” the report said.
The report also cited the rape and murder of an 8-year-old girl in Kathua district. (PTI)
The girl name is Maysam Yahya Mohamed, she becomes the youngest girl to memorize the Holy Quran in her country with fully tajweed and beautiful recitation.
Maysam’s Mum said, “Maysam began to memorize the holy verses of the Holy Quran when she was just three years old as we take her to the Tahfiz sessions which have been organized by the Sharjah foundation for the Quran and Sunnah in the mosques. Beside this we at our home trained her more to recite the holy verses and learn them by heart, we also ourselves corrects and re-add left verses and wrongly pronounced verses by her.
Her mother also added, “She almost memorized two chapters of the Holy Quran at the age of three and soon after that she won the seventh place in the Sheikh Zayed Holy Quran Competition in Abu Dhabi. She was the youngest participant in the competition even she was not going to the nursery or playschool.
Her mother added, that I get to know her talents when she started talking, whenever he talks she was reciting the holy verses of the Holy Quran as she was always listening to these verses in the radio channels and stations or on televisions.
She was also honored by the Holy Quran Radio of Sharjah in the UAE.
Many Quran competitions are organized by the UAE especially by Dubai and Abu Dhabi, the Dubai International Holy Quran award also given to various children as they flourished the book of Allah by reciting it beautifully.
The Dubai Int Award is one of the biggest award ever in the filed of Quran competition and Quran reciter take it as a scope of going far in these fields, so it is an important award for these children and Maysam is now looking to achieve this award
Jamatud Dawa’s Hafiz Saeed arrested and sent to judicial custody: Pakistan media (ANI)
Flaunting the State of Madina as a modern state of this day and age, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan said that the government should emphasize the need for educating the youth and providing them with better job opportunities.
Pointing out the state’s responsibility of giving equal rights to people. Mr. Khan said, “Pakistan will stand when it adopts the mission, which is to make a welfare Islamic state.” He said the Chinese leadership also followed the guidelines of Holy Prophet (PBUH) and pulled 700 million people from the poverty trap.
Adding to it, he also mentioned that empathy differentiated between humans and animals and that nothing was more important than the empathy inculcated by Prophet (PBUH) in his followers.
“Sixty percent of Pakistan’s population is under the age of 30. This is the future and they will elevate the status of our country. They need education, hospitals and opportunities,” he added.
Talking about the state’s National Poverty Graduation Strategy, under the Ehsas Programme, he added that the state will work towards improving the living standard of the poor and the unprivileged. He reminded that every ministry will have a role to play.
Imran termed justice and equality the building blocks of progress and maintained that the Naya Pakistan will save people from poverty. He said the budget of the program was close to Rs200 billion and the govt will use the funds for giving interest-free loans to 82,000 people.
(c) 2019 The Washington
Source: NDTV
Around the world, an estimated 150 million people are stung by jellyfish each year – hundreds fatally – and jellyfish are appearing beyond their usual habitats.
Millions of jellyfish are headed toward Israel’s coast on their nearly annual pilgrimage, and thousands have clogged the filters of a southern power station. Locals and visitors are already reporting sightings of – and stings by – the creatures, whose presence can spell disappointment for vacationers and trouble for tourism-related businesses. Lifeguards are warning swimmers to take precautions and to follow the latest treatment guidelines to minimize discomfort.
The problem is not restricted to the Israeli coast, which has seen a significant increase in the number and duration of jellyfish swarms. Around the world, an estimated 150 million people are stung by jellyfish each year – hundreds fatally – and jellyfish are appearing beyond their usual habitats (the question of whether their numbers are increasing is up for debate). Yet many tourists still fail to factor potential jellyfish encounters into their travel plans. That can be a recipe for a ruined vacation.
By being proactive and informed (ignore that age-old advice to rinse a sting with urine; it can make things worse), travelers can take steps to minimize jellyfish encounters, and to handle them better if they occur.
Changes in jellyfish behaviour
To understand jellyfish, you must first understand that they are not fish. They are graceful bell-shaped marine invertebrates with tentacles full of stinging cells that help them catch prey and ward off predators (though all jellyfish sting, not all stings are painful to humans). Fossils reveal that they have been around for more than 500 million years. They are closely related to corals and sea anemones, and are found in all the Earth’s oceans and seas.
Although scientists lack the data to prove that the global jellyfish population is skyrocketing, there is general agreement that some places are seeing a dramatic increase in jellyfish numbers and in the frequency of their appearances. Warming seas that allow jellyfish to expand their habitats, overfishing of their predators and agricultural runoff that depletes the oxygen that fish – but not jellies – need are all possible culprits. One study even suggests that jellyfish use structures such as offshore oil platforms and wind farms as incubators.
Another problem is nonnative jellyfish being deposited in other species’ waters by ships or even ocean currents. “The Mediterranean is the most invaded sea in the world, with five invasive jellyfish species,” said Bella Galil of the Israel National Center for Biodiversity Studies at Tel Aviv University’s Steinhardt Museum of Natural History. These particular jellies are making their way from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea via the Suez Canal. Galil said jellyfish outbreaks in parts of the Mediterranean are “much more frequent” than they were 30 years ago, and that the blooms (masses of jellyfish together) are far larger.
Danger to humans
Whether they are local species appearing in greater numbers or nonnative species colonizing new waters, jellyfish can be a threat to vacationers. Jellyfish venom contains cocktails of toxins that help them paralyze and digest prey but also cause pain and tissue destruction in humans.
Thankfully, most jellyfish stings do not lead to systemic reactions and resolve over a few hours, although they can be extremely painful. Some stings result in rashes that can last for weeks. But in a tiny percentage of cases, jellyfish stings are fatal. In fact, “more people die from jellyfish stings than from shark attacks,” said Angel Yanagihara, a biochemist at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu who studies jellyfish venom.
Stings by certain species of box jellyfish, including Irukandji species, have caused deaths in the Indo-Pacific. In the Philippines, an estimated 100 to 500 people, most of them children and residents of remote fishing villages, die of jellyfish stings annually, according to research carried out by Yanagihara and her colleagues. While vast underreporting remains a factor worldwide, 80 fatal stings have been documented in the waters off northern Australia since such record-keeping began in the 1880s. In the Mediterranean, one death in the past decade has been attributed to an allergic reaction.
Stings in U.S. waters are painful but seldom fatal. Scyphozoa jellyfish blooms, or swarms, are seasonally common in the Gulf of Mexico, and in the Chesapeake Bay and other areas along the U.S. East and West coasts, while regions such as the Florida Keys, Puerto Rico and Hawaii have documented serious stings by various box jellyfish species.
Impact on industries
All around the world, jellyfish blooms have damaged the fishing industry by clogging nets or attacking fish farms. They’ve forced temporary closures of power plants in countries including Sweden and Scotland, and desalination plants in countries such as Oman and Israel. They’ve also damaged local tourism.
In June 2017, the largest swarm in memory of Rhopilema nomadica jellyfish plagued Egypt’s Mediterranean coast, keeping social media inundated with photos and disappointed vacationers away from beaches. The Environment Ministry announced the formation of an investigative committee to look into the phenomenon. Similar blooms appeared off Turkey and Tunisia, Galil said.
A 2013 survey by Galil and colleagues found a drop of 3 to 10.5% in seaside visits during jellyfish blooms along Israel’s coast, with an estimated annual cost of several million dollars. The blooms usually hit in July, the height of tourism season.
During a six-week period of Australia’s 2018 to 2019 summer season, authorities in Queensland closed 18 beaches to bathers because of a jellyfish invasion. Tourism-dependent businesses were likely to incur “billions of dollars” in losses, Lisa-ann Gershwin, a government scientist and director of the Australian Marine Stinger Advisory Service, told the Financial Times.
How travelers can prepare
Before booking your next beach vacation, find out if, and when, jellyfish are an issue. In Australia, for example, jellyfish are most common between November and May. In Hawaii, jellyfish often show up on south-facing beaches eight days after a full moon. In the Mediterranean, blooms usually appear in the summer.
Unfortunately for travelers, there is no worldwide database for recent jellyfish sightings, and tourism officials are sometimes reluctant to publicize jellyfish swarms out of fear that such news will scare off visitors. But social media groups run by beachfront communities, and inquiries at seaside restaurants and pubs, can yield valuable real-time information.
In some places, such as Israel, residents share information daily on local websites such as meduzot.co.il. Visitors to Hawaii can access a Jellyfish Arrival Calendar, which can help with planning but does not track actual sightings.
Ultimately “the best approach is prevention,” Yanagihara said. She recommends that swimmers in jellyfish-prone waters wear full-body Lycra suits because the stings of most jellyfish cannot penetrate them.
Do not touch jellyfish that have washed ashore, because they still contain venom, even when dead.
The latest first-aid protocol stipulates two important steps. First, immediately rinse the site with vinegar – take some to the beach with you – which prevents a sting from getting worse because it stops additional venom from entering the skin. Second, soak the site in skin-safe hot water – not scalding – for 20 to 45 minutes. Doing so inhibits the venom already injected into the skin and eases the pain. Applying fresh water, ice or baking soda or urine can exacerbate the problem, according to Yanagihara, who was involved in a study of what works best.
If dousing with vinegar does not fully remove the tentacles, a piece of fabric or tweezers (but never your fingers) can be used to extricate any jellyfish remnants from skin. Scraping or applying any other type of pressure can release more venom.
Immediately seek medical assistance from a lifeguard, or emergency services in case of a severe reaction, including shortness of breath or severe swelling.
While jellyfish are often reviled by swimmers, Yanagihara said, “it is important to remember that man poses a larger threat to the marine ecosystem than jellies pose to man.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by KASHMIR TODAY staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
Friday’s quake was 11 times stronger than the previous day’s ‘foreshock’, seen as part of an ‘earthquake sequence’.
Southern California has been rattled by its largest earthquake in two decades as a 7.1-magnitude tremor shook buildings and cut power supplies in parts of Los Angeles but did not cause major damage or deaths, officials said.
The shallow quake struck near the small city of Ridgecrest on Friday at 8:19pm (3:19 GMT on Saturday), US seismologists said, and following a 6.4-magnitude earthquake that hit the same area the day before.
The latest earthquake was 11 times stronger than the previous day’s “foreshock”, according to the US Geological Survey, and is part of what seismologists are calling an “earthquake sequence”.
The tremor was felt more than 240km away, in Los Angeles, where the fire department deployed vehicles and helicopters to check on damage and residents in need of emergency aid.
The earthquake was the largest in southern California since 1999 when a 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck the Twentynine Palms Marine Corps base, according to The Los Angeles Times.
“We have word of wires down… and localised power outages in several City of Los Angeles neighborhoods… besides a handful of apparently small issues, NO major damage to infrastructure has been identified,” the Los Angeles Fire Department tweeted.
The department later released a statement saying that its ground and air survey had found “no major infrastructure damage”.
“There has been no loss of life or serious injury that we can directly attribute to the widely felt 8:19 PM earthquake,” LAFD spokesman Brian Humphrey said in the statement.
The San Bernardino Fire Department tweeted that officers in the city east of Los Angeles were dealing with 911 calls, including one reported minor injury.
“Homes shifted, foundation cracks, retaining walls down,” it wrote.
LA Police Chief Michael Moore posted on his official Twitter account that rail and bus services were not damaged, and that services were still working.
The ‘Big One‘
The tremor sent Ridgecrest residents fleeing outside for safety and reporting continued aftershocks, with one woman saying she was “not comfortable” about heading back inside for the night.
The shaking stops “for a minute, and then it starts rolling again … it’s pretty bizarre. But now at the moment, I’m not comfortable inside,” said Jessica Kormelink.
The earthquake revived fears of the “Big One” – a powerful tremor along the San Andreas Fault that could devastate major cities in southern California.
On Thursday, Caltech seismologist Lucy Jones had warned a press conference that there was “about a one-in-20 chance that this location will be having an even bigger earthquake within the next few days, that we have not yet seen the biggest earthquake of the sequence.”
On Friday, Jones tweeted: “You know we say we 1 in 20 chance that an earthquake will be followed by something bigger? This is that 1 in 20 time.”
SOURCE: AFP NEWS AGENCY
Tunisia’s prime minister has banned the full-face veil in all government buildings due to security concerns. It comes after a deadly double suicide bombing in Tunis in late June.
Prime Minister Youssef Chahed has barred women from wearing the full-face veil — or niqab — after the latest suicide attack in the capital, Tunis, at the end of June left two dead and seven wounded.
Chahed signed a government circular “banning access to public administrations and institutions to anyone with their face covered,” his office said. The decision was made for “security reasons.”
On Tuesday, the mastermind of those bombings blew himself up in a Tunis suburb to evade capture, the Interior Ministry said. But it denies that he was wearing a niqab to disguise himself, which witnesses had claimed.
As far back as February 2014, police had been instructed to step up supervision of the wearing of the niqab — which covers the whole head apart from the eyes — as part of anti-terrorism measures, to prevent its use as a disguise or to escape justice.
Niqabs and other forms of Islamic dress had been banned in Tunisia under secular presidents Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Habib Bourguiba until a 2011 coup overthrew Ben Ali. (Agencies)
Top 13 leaders of the banned Jamaatud Dawa (JuD), including its chief Hafiz Saeed and Naib Emir Abdul Rehman Makki, have been booked in nearly two dozen cases for terror financing and money laundering under the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997 in Pakistan.
The Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD), which registered the cases in five cities of Punjab, declared that the JuD was financing terrorism from the massive funds collected through non-profit organisations and trusts including Al-Anfaal Trust, Dawatul Irshad Trust, Muaz Bin Jabal Trust, etc, Dawn reported.
These non-profit organisations were banned in April as the CTD during detailed investigations found that they had links with the JuD and its top leadership, accused of financing terrorism by building huge assets/properties from the collected funds in Pakistan.
Besides the top two JuD leaders, Malik Zafar Iqbal, Ameer Hamza, Mohammad Yahya Aziz, Mohammad Naeem, Mohsin Bilal, Abdul Raqeeb, Dr Ahmad Daud, Dr Muhammad Ayub, Abdullah Ubaid, Mohammad Ali and Abdul Ghaffar were also booked in the cases.
“Formal investigations on a large scale have been launched against the top leadership of the JuD for terror financing after the registration of FIRs against them during the last two days,” said a spokesperson for the CTD, Punjab.
According to the official, substantial and irreversible punitive/ legal action has been taken against them by the state, making these organisations “fully dysfunctional”.
Srinagar, June 24 : At least 10 people were allegedly injured after a “huge” blast rocked a military hospital on Sunday, according to Pakistani Twitter users.
A human rights worker from Quetta, Ahsan Ullah MiaKhail, has alleged that the army has barred the media from covering the incident.
He also claimed that UN-blacklisted terrorist and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief Masood Azhar was admitted at the hospital where the blast occurred.
“Huge #blast at Military Hospital in #Rawalpindi, #Pakistan. 10 injured shifted to emergency. Jaish-E-Mohammad Chief Maulana Masood Azahar is admitted here.
Completely Media blackout by Army. Media asked Strictly not to cover this story,” MiaKhail tweeted.
While the reason behind the “blast” is not known, another of the microblogging site shared a video of smoke billowing out of the building.
An official statement and verification of the incident is awaited.
10 injured in blast at military hospital in Rawalpindi; human rights worker claims JeM chief Masood Azhar was admitted at facility.