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Exercise aimed at refining professional skills, harnessing historic military-to-military relations, says ISPR The two-week-long Pakistan-Russia joint exercise Druzhba-VII between the two armies commenced at the National Counter Terrorism Centre, Pabbi. Druzhba-VII is the 7th bilateral joint exercise in the counter-terrorism domain between Pakistan and Russian armies. Light Commando Troops of the Pakistan Army and Russian Military Contingent were participants. The Commandant National Counter Terrorism Centre was the chief guest at the opening ceremony. The exercise is aimed at refining professional skills through joint training besides harnessing the historic military-to-military relations among the friendly countries, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) in a statement said. Participating troops are looking forward to benefiting from mutual expertise and experience.

The name of Kyrgyzstan is appearing on International/national and social media specially in Pakistan, because of the violent attacks by locals on Pakistan and Egyptian medical students there. This country is the poorest and most underdeveloped country in the region except Uzbekistan. Therefore, one-third of its population goes to other countries in search of work. Prostitution is the biggest business in this country. And its people go to other countries for that matter like other Central Asian countries. But surprisingly, in the last decade or two, suddenly thousands of medical students from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Egypt and other developing countries started flocking to this country and there are a large number of medical universities there. And colleges started being built. These universities have five to fifteen campuses. The eminent professionals and professors who visited there in this decade to assess the educational standard of medical universities and colleges  were not fo

  Apple on Monday said it is ramping up privacy and expanding features in new iPhone operating software to be released later this year. The Silicon Valley technology colossus opened its annual developers conference by teasing improvements to security, privacy and interoperability of its devices, even as the company remains under fire for its tight control of its App Store. "All of this incredible software will be available to all of our users this fall," Apple chief executive Tim Cook said during the Worldwide Developers Conference opening presentation. "I am so excited for these new releases and how they will make our products even more powerful and more capable." The next version of iPhone operating software, called iOS 15, will have improved privacy features including overviews of how apps access smartphone cameras or microphones as well as data such as location or contacts. "We don´t think you should have to make a trade-off between great featu

  The pandemic has shaken up the rankings of the world´s most liveable cities, a study released on Wednesday showed, with metropolises in Australia, Japan and New Zealand leaping ahead of those in Europe. Auckland tops The Economist´s annual survey of the world´s most liveable cities in 2021 followed by Osaka and Tokyo in Japan, Adelaide in Australia and Wellington in New Zealand, all of which had a swift response to the Covid pandemic. "Auckland rose to the top of the ranking owing to its successful the approach in containing the Covid-19 pandemic, which allowed its society to remain open and the city to score strongly," the Economist Intelligence Unit said. In contrast, "European cities fared particularly poorly in this year´s edition." "Vienna, previously the world´s most liveable city between 2018-20, fell to 12th. Eight of the top ten biggest falls in the rankings are European cities," according to the study. The biggest fall overall among t

Israel´s centrist opposition leader Yair Lapid delivers a statement to the press at the Knesset (Israeli parliament) in Jerusalem on May 31, 2021. — AFP Israeli Opposition leader Yair Lapid on Monday said many obstacles remain before a diverse coalition can be built to oust veteran Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but voiced hope it will achieve the "greater goal". Lapid, a secular centrist, has been locked in talks with the right-wing nationalist Naftali Bennett on the terms of a "change alliance" that also hinges on an array of other parties ahead of a Wednesday midnight deadline. Former TV anchor Lapid's chances of success rose when tech millionaire Bennett, despite their ideological differences, said Sunday he would join a "national unity government" in which the two men would take turns to serve as premier. Israel's latest political turmoil comes more than two months after Israel's fourth inconclusive election in less than two years, and

Mona El-Kurd and her twin brother Mohammed El-Kurd. — Photos courtesy Middle East Eye & AFP  Israeli police on Sunday detained the prominent activist El-Kurd twins, whose campaign against the threatened expulsion of Palestinian families from homes in the Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah has found a global audience. On Sunday morning police arrested Mona el-Kurd, 23, at her home in Sheikh Jarrah, where a legal battle between Israeli settlers and several Palestinian families has crystallised anger over Israel's settlement movement. They also left a summons for her twin brother, Muhammad, their father told  AFP . Israeli police told  AFP  that Mona was "suspected of having participated in riots and other recent incidents in Sheikh Jarrah". They did not give details on the status of Mohammad, who had handed himself in after the summons, but family lawyer Nasser Odeh indicated that the 23-year-old remained under investigation. Protesters had ga

  Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, co-founder of the UAE-Israel Business Council and deputy mayor of Jerusalem, poses for a photo during an interview with AFP in the Gulf emirate of Dubai on June 3, 2021.Photo: AFP  The violence by Israel in Gaza created "uncomfortable conversations " between business partners from UAE and Israel months after the two countries recognised each other, the deputy mayor of Jerusalem told AFP. But the conversations were "open" and "everybody was very moderate and understanding", Fleur Hassan-Nahoum said. Speaking on the sidelines of a bilateral investment conference in Dubai, Hassan-Nahoum, co-founder of the UAE-Israel Business Council, also expressed hope that trade between the two countries would exceed the billion-dollar mark in the coming year. The UAE in 2020 became only the third Arab country to establish full ties with Israel, under a Washington-backed deal condemned by the Palestinians. The two sides have since announced a string o