Author: i2wtc

The dust of the city coated everything – the flags, the crisp new doboks, the hopeful faces of fathers shepherding their children. After 18 years, this was Karachi’s welcome: not a red carpet, but a gritty testament. The National Games had come home. The city, in its quintessential fashion, demanded a pilgrimage. For the first Games on its soil after 18 years, it offered an obstacle course of its own making – cranes standing like sentinels over diverted roads that formed labyrinths of progress. But through the grit and the detours, they came. A river of colour, athletes from every…

Tourists receive a Spring Festival decoration carrying the Chinese “Fu” character, which symbolizes good fortune, at the immigration area at Terminal 3 of Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 28, 2025. (Xinhua/Chen Zhonghao)BEIJING, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) — More than 20 million exit and entry passenger trips had been recorded via Beijing exit and entry frontier inspection stations so far this year as of early Saturday morning, the highest number since 2020, according to local authorities.This figure, of which foreign passengers accounted for 30 percent, is 1.1 times the level of the whole of 2024, the Beijing…

Roughly 1 in 7 people are leaving unclaimed property on the table, according to the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators. While the recent heavy selling in bitcoin and ether is rightly getting all the short-term attention, this estate planning issue is a longer-term one that’s likely to be exacerbated as crypto adoption and ownership increase. Many people neglect to account for cryptocurrency in their estate plans, or they don’t let their heirs know how to access their crypto holdings. With surveys in recent years from Gallup and Pew Research estimating that 14% to 17% of U.S. adults have owned…

This photo taken on Aug. 12, 2024 shows the Drum Tower seen from the Jingshan Hill on the Beijing Central Axis on a sunny day in Beijing, capital of China. (Xinhua/Li Xin)”We all aspire to a stable international system in which states focus their efforts on development and on raising the living standards of our peoples,” said former Egyptian diplomat Ali El-Hefny.CAIRO, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) — The one-China principle remains fundamental to regional and global stability, and any violation undermines the foundation of the post-World War II international order, said Ali El-Hefny, secretary general of the Egyptian Council for Foreign…

KARACHI: Despite recording a weekly contraction, Pakistan’s broad money supply (M2) marked a cumulative rise of Rs4.385 trillion year-on-year. According to data compiled by Optimus Capital Management, M2 stood at Rs39.715 trillion, down Rs269 billion week-on-week, driven primarily by a reduction in total deposits held with banks, while credit to the private sector and government borrowing patterns reflected mixed movements within the financial system, marking a cumulative rise of Rs4.10 trillion since the beginning of the calendar year and Rs4.385 trillion year-on-year. The weekly decline was led by a drop of Rs201 billion in total deposits with banks, which stood…

Mitchell Starc made a late-career bid for all-rounder status when he scored a half-century and grabbed two wickets under the Gabba floodlights to push Australia to the brink of victory at the close of day three of the second Ashes Test on Saturday. Tailender Starc made 77 in a sparkling 141-ball knock to help Australia to a 177-run lead before working his magic with the pink ball as England staggered to 134 for six at stumps, still 43 runs short of making Australia bat again. Ben Stokes and Will Jacks were both four not out, tasked with restoring a shred…

Jodie Foster, Billie Perkins, and Robert De Niro perform a scene in Taxi Driver directed by Martin Scorsese in 1976 in New York, New York. Michael Ochs Archives | Moviepix | Getty ImagesIn the dwindling days of the California gold rush, the wife of a local miner faced a problem. Her husband’s denim work pants kept ripping, so her tailor, Jacob Davis, had the idea to add copper rivets to key points of strain, like the pocket corners and the base of the button fly, to keep them from tearing. Davis’ “riveted pants” soon became a roaring success and, unbeknownst to him…

A Long March-8A carrier rocket carrying the 14th group of low-orbit internet satellites blasts off from the Hainan commercial spacecraft launch site in south China’s Hainan Province, Dec. 6, 2025. The rocket lifted off at 3:53 p.m. on Saturday. It successfully placed the payloads into preset orbit. (Xinhua/Guo Cheng)WENCHANG, Hainan, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) — China launched a Long March-8A carrier rocket on Saturday in the southern island province of Hainan, sending a group of internet satellites into space.The rocket lifted off at 3:53 p.m. from the Hainan commercial spacecraft launch site. It successfully placed the payloads, the 14th group of…

CM Afridi calls FIRs politically driven; cabinet reopens Radio Pakistan attack probeKhyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi. SCREENGRAB PESHAWAR: The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Cabinet, in its 41st session chaired via video link by Chief Minister Muhammad Sohail Afridi, approved a series of major governance, transparency, and security measures including withdrawal of all ‘politically motivated’ May 9, 10 cases. Another key decision announced by the CM is that all recruitment across government, semi-government, and autonomous institutions will now be conducted exclusively through the Educational Testing and Evaluation Agency (ETEA), eliminating the use of private testing agencies. This move is designed to ensure merit, transparency,…

Minister of State for Crypto, Blockchain and CEO of the Pakistan Crypto Council Bilal Bin Saqib. Photo: X Pakistan is poised to enter the global digital finance arena with the launch of its first stablecoin, a move aimed at integrating virtual assets into the national economy, Bilal bin Saqib, chairman of the Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (PVARA), announced on Friday. Speaking at Binance Blockchain Week, Saqib confirmed that the country will “definitely launch” a stablecoin, while also developing Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). “I think it is a great way to collateralise the government debt,” Saqib said. “We want…