Pakistan News Club

First 5G Innovation Hackathon launched

ISLAMABAD: Jazz, Pakistan’s largest digital operator, launched Pakistan’s first 5G Innovation Hackathon on Tuesday in collaboration with the National University of Sciences and Technology (Nust), NITB, and Code for Pakistan (CfP).nThe groundbreaking initiative aims to harness the immense potential of 5G technology and other cutting-edge innovations to address critical challenges in Pakistan’s key sectors, including health, education, financial services, disaster management and climate change, agri-tech and industry.nThe 5G Innovation Hackathon underscores the critical importance of fostering innovation and talent in the realm of 5G technology.nBy bringing together bright minds, developers, and entrepreneurs, the hackathon serves as a breeding ground for groundbreaking ideas and solutions that will shape the future of telecommunications in Pakistan.nThe event not only empowers local talent but also ensures that Pakistan remains at the forefront of the digital revolution, paving the way for a more connected and innovative future.n <figure class='media w-full w-full media–stretch media–embed media–uneven'>n <div class='media__item media__item–twitter '>n <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">n <a href="https://twitter.com/CodeforPakistan/status/1706591635487002984"></a>n </blockquote>n</div>n n </figure>nChief Regulatory Affairs Officer, Jazz, Syed Fakhar Ahmed said: “Today, solutions to the longstanding challenges that face developing countries like Pakistan lie in technology.”nHe said the country’s first 5G hackathon will help create viable solutions to key challenges while putting Pakistan on the global map of 5G innovation.nNITB CEOBaber Majid Bhatti said: “NITB sees the 5G Innovation Hackathon as a catalyst for Pakistan’s e-governance evolution. This event unites technology and governance, paving the way for tailored solutions that will enhance citizen services. By harnessing 5G’s potential, we’re nurturing a digitally connected Pakistan, building capacity, and fostering innovation. Together, we’re redefining e-governance for a brighter future.”nThe National Information Technology Board (NITB) is a consulting team of coordinated designers, developers, engineers, research writers, and management experts who bring design-led innovations and solutions to help government departments thrive.nThe NITB develops and delivers sophisticated IT services, technologies, and apps for public departments.nDr Hammad Cheema, Principal and Dean, SINES, Nust, said the event brought together the brightest minds in innovation and technology to ignite creative sparks that would shape the future.nHe lauded Jazz, NITB and CfP for collaborating on this initiative as the country prepares to embark on breakthrough 5G-powered solutions that could reshape lives and livelihoods.nCode for Pakistan’s Chief Executive Officer Shaji Ahmed expressed excitement about the upcoming event, saying, “The 5G Innovation Hackathon represents a significant step towards harnessing technology for the betterment of society. By partnering with Jazz and Nust, we aim to create a platform where innovation can thrive and where solutions to pressing challenges in Pakistan can emerge. We believe this hackathon will serve as a catalyst for innovation, where diverse minds converge to address Pakistan’s most pressing challenges.”nThe 5G Innovation Hackathon invites talented individuals, researchers, students, and professionals from various backgrounds to collaborate, innovate, and address critical challenges specific to Pakistan’s context.nHe added that the project will leverage the power of technology to create real impact and drive positive change.nCode for Pakistan is a civic tech nonprofit leveraging technology and innovation to create accessible and citizen-centred governance solutions that serve all Pakistanis.nPublished in Dawn, September 27th, 2023

September 27, 2023

Britain set to clear biggest-ever gaming deal

LONDON: Microsoft’s restructured $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard “opens the door” to the biggest ever gaming deal being cleared, Britain’s antitrust regulator said on Friday.nnMicrosoft announced the deal early last year, but it was blocked in April by Britain’s competition regulator, which was concerned the US tech giant would gain too much control of the nascent cloud gaming market.nnLast month, Call of Duty maker Activision agreed to sell its streaming rights to Ubisoft Entertainment in a new attempt to win over the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).nnThe CMA said on Friday that the Ubisoft divestment “substantially addresses previous concerns”.nn“While the CMA has identified limited residual concerns with the new deal, Microsoft has put forward remedies which the CMA has provisionally concluded should address these issues,” the regulator said.nn<blockquote>n Microsoft revises plan on Activision acquisition to address regulator’s concernsn</blockquote>nnMicrosoft said it was “encouraged by this positive development in the CMA’s review process”.nn“We presented solutions that we believe fully address the CMA’s remaining concerns related to cloud game streaming, and we will continue to work toward earning approval to close prior to the October 18 deadline,” Microsoft President Brad Smith said.nnActivision, which also makes World of Warcraft, Overwatch and Candy Crush, said the preliminary approval was great news for its future with Microsoft.nnShares in Activision rose 1.6 per cnet and Microsoft inched up 0.3 per cent in US pre-market trading, while Ubisoft gained 3.6 per cent in Paris.nnThe European Union waved the deal through in May after accepting Microsoft’s commitments to license Activision’s games to other platforms, the same remedies that Britain had rejected.nnThe US Federal Trade Commission also opposes the deal, but it has failed in its attempts to stop it.nnLate solution nnThe CMA’s decision to reopen the case after its block was a radical departure from its play book, but it said on Friday it had been consistent and Microsoft had “substantially restructured the deal” to address its concerns.nn“It would have been far better, though, if Microsoft had put forward this restructure during our original investigation,” CMA Chief Executive Sarah Cardell said.nn“This case illustrates the costs, uncertainty and delay that parties can incur if a credible and effective remedy option exists but is not put on the table at the right time.” nnEquity analyst Sophie Lund-Yates at Hargreaves Lansdown said the loss of the cloud gaming rights was not an ideal concession for Microsoft to have to make, but it was necessary collateral if the deal were to be waved through.nn“This looks to be the final bump in the road,” she said.nnThe CMA said there were “residual concerns” around the Ubisoft deal, but Microsoft has offered remedies to ensure the terms of the sale were enforceable by the regulator.nnPublished in Dawn, September 23rd, 2023

September 23, 2023

Indian govt tables bill to reserve 33pc of Lok Sabha seats for women

NEW DELHI: The Indian government on Tuesday moved a bill to reserve a third of seats in the lower house of parliament and state assemblies for women, reviving an old proposal expected to boost the standing of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party among women.nnThe contentious legislative proposal has been hanging for decades due to opposition from some heartland political parties and needs the approval of both houses of parliament and a majority of state legislatures to become law.nnIts revival comes months before general elections are due by May 2024 when Modi seeks a third term. Analysts say the chances of the bill getting passed in parliament have brightened as opposition to it has shrunk over the years.nnIt is the latest in a series of moves by the government that the ruling nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has projected as “pro-women” “We want more and more women to join the development process of the country,” Modi told a special five-day parliamentary session.nnWomen make up almost half of India’s 950 million registered voters but only 15 per ment of parliament and about 10pc of state legislatures, pushing the world’s largest democracy to the bottom of global rankings on gender parity in legislatures.nnThe 33pc reservation for women will not apply to the upper houses of parliament and state legislatures.nnOpposition lawmakers welcomed the revival of the proposal but pointed out that implementing it could take years as it requires boundaries of constituencies to be redrawn, which in turn can only be done after a population census.nnPublished in Dawn, September 20th, 2023

September 20, 2023

UN suggests reparations for Africans over slavery

GENEVA: The United Nations said on Tuesday countries could consider financial reparations among the measures to compensate for the enslavement of people of African descent, though legal claims are complicated by the time passed and the difficulty in identifying perpetrators and victims.nnA report of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said no country had comprehensively accounted for the past and addressed the contemporary legacy of the violent uprooting of an estimated 25 million to 30m people from Africa over more than 400 years.nn“Under international human rights law, compensation for any economically assessable damage, as appropriate and proportional to the gravity of the violation and the circumstances of each case, may also constitute a form of reparations,” the report said.nn“In the context of historical wrongs and harms suffered as a result of colonialism and enslavement, the assessment of the economic damage can be extremely difficult owing to the length of time passed and the difficulty of identifying the perpetrators and victims.” nnThe report stressed, however, that the difficulty in making a legal claim to compensation “cannot be the basis for nullifying the existence of underlying legal obligations”.nnPublished in Dawn, September 20th, 2023

Michael Jackson moonwalk hat up for auction

PARIS: Just before performing his famous moonwalk dance for the first time, Michael Jackson tossed his hat to the side of the stage. Four decades later, it’s up for auction in Paris.nnThe sale at the Hotel Drouot in Paris takes place on September 26. The black fedora is expected to fetch between 60,000 and 100,000 euros ($64,000-$107,000).nnThough it is the star among some 200 items of rock memorabilia, organiser Arthur Perault of the Artpeges gallery admitted that valuations for Jackson items had fallen lately due to “the sale of fakes and the accusations against him”.nnJackson has long been accused of child abuse, which his heirs still contest and which the singer denied up to his death in 2009 at the age of 50.nnThe King of Pop whipped off the hat while breaking into his hit “Billie Jean” during a televised Motown concert in 1983, at the height of his fame.nnMoments later, Jackson showed off what would become his trademark move — the moonwalk — a seemingly effortless backwards glide while appearing to walk forwards.nnA man named Adam Kelly picked up Jackson’s hat, “thinking the singer’s staff would come to collect it but they didn’t”, said Perault.nnHe held on to it for several years but it has since passed through a couple of private collectors on its way to Paris.nnAlso being auctioned are a guitar owned by the legendary bluesman T-Bone Walker that could fetch up to 150,000 euros; a suit worn by Depeche Mode’s Martin Gore; and one of Madonna’s gold records.nnPublished in Dawn, September 20th, 2023

Communications cut to Libya&rsquo;s ruined city

DERNA: Telephone and internet links were severed on Tuesday to Libya’s flood-hit city of Derna, a day after hundreds protested there against local authorities they blamed for the thousands of deaths.nA <a href="https://www.dawn.com/news/1775484">tsunami-sized flash flood</a> broke through two aging river dams upstream from the city on the night of September 10 and razed entire neighbourhoods, sweeping untold thousands into the Mediterranean Sea.nProtesters massed on Monday at the city’s grand mosque, venting their anger at local and regional authorities they blamed for failing to maintain the dams or to provide early warning of the disaster.n“Thieves and traitors must hang,” they shouted, before some protesters torched the house of the town’s unpopular mayor.nOn Tuesday, phone and online links to Derna were severed, an outage the national telecom company LPTIC blamed on “a rupture in the optical fibre” link to Derna, in a statement on its Facebook page.n<blockquote class="blockquote-level-1">nClimate change, conflict made floods more likely, says studyn</blockquote>nThe telecom company said the outage, which also affected other areas in eastern Libya, “could be the result of a deliberate act of sabotage” and pledged that “our teams are working to repair it as quickly as possible”.nRescue workers have kept digging for bodies, with the official death toll at around 3,300 but many thousands more missing since the flood sparked by torrential rains from Mediterranean Storm Daniel.n‘Humanitarian disaster’nClimate change made torrential rains that triggered deadly flooding in Libya up to 50 times more likely, new research said on Tuesday, noting that conflict and poor dam maintenance turned extreme weather into a humanitarian disaster.nScientists from the World Weather Attribution group said a deluge of the magnitude seen in north-eastern Libya was an event that occurred once every 300-600 years. They found that the rains were both more likely and heavier as a result of human-caused global warming, with up to 50 per cent more rain during the period.nIn a report looking at floods linked to Storm Daniel that swept across large parts of the Mediterranean in early September, they found that climate change made the heavy rainfall up to 10 times more likely in Greece, Bulgaria and Turkiye and up to 50 times more likely in Libya.nBut researchers stressed that other factors, including conflict and poor dam maintenance, turned the “extreme weather into a humanitarian disaster”.nTo unpick the potential role of global warming in amplifying extreme events, the WWA scientists use climate data and computer modelling to compare today’s climate — with roughly 1.2 degrees Celsius of heating since pre-industrial times — to that of the past. WWA scientists are normally able to give a more precise estimate of the role climate change has played — or its absence — in a given event.nBut in this case they said the study was limited by a lack of observation weather station data, particularly in Libya, and because the events occurred over small areas.nPublished in Dawn, September 20th, 2023

Pakistan Business Council seeks a strategy to bolster competitiveness

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Business Council (PBC) has called upon the commerce ministry to devise a comprehensive package aimed at streamlining crucial factors such as electricity, gas, and labour to bolster the overall competitiveness of local industries.nnIn a high-level meeting chaired by Caretaker Commerce Minister Gohar Ejaz, the PBC put forth its demands and a comprehensive discussion took place regarding the strategies and initiatives aimed at bolstering international trade, fostering export growth, and enhancing the overall business environment in Pakistan.nnAn official announcement issued after the meeting said that the PBC proposed recommendations to tackle crucial challenges and capitalise on potential opportunities in the country’s economic sphere. The PBC highlighted various measures to address the prevailing issues in Pakistan’s economic landscape.nnThe PBC underscored the significance of streamlining vital factors such as electricity, gas, and labour to boost the overall competitiveness of industries. The PBC emphasised the significance of the IT sector and urged shifting focus from commodities to value addition and branding.nnDuring the meeting, the participants delved into the topic of enhancing international trade and facilitating business operations.nnThe minister Mr Ejaz expressed his unwavering commitment to fostering economic growth and facilitating trade. He assured that regional trade would be facilitated through proper channels to bolster regional economic ties. He called on the members of PBC to come forward and play their due role in formalising the economic activities. Mr Ejaz also reaffirmed the government’s commitment to combating smuggling activities, ensuring a level playing field for legitimate businesses. “I will visit every industrial city and make every industry functional,” he said.nnThe commerce minister also outlined his commitment to opening up new markets, increasing IT exports, and promoting e-commerce to boost Pakistan’s GDP. He also mentioned plans for organizing trade exhibitions and securing concessions from trade partners.nnPublished in Dawn, September 20th, 2023

Scientists warn entire branches of the &lsquo;Tree of Life&rsquo; are going extinct

WASHINGTON: Humans are driving the loss of entire branches of the “Tree of Life,” according to a new study published on Monday which warns of the threat of a sixth mass extinction.n“The extinction crisis is as bad as the climate change crisis. It is not recognised,” said Gerardo Ceballos, professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and co-author of the study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). “What is at stake is the future of mankind,” he said.nThe study is unique because instead of merely examining the loss of a species, it examines the extinction of entire genera.nIn the classification of living beings, the genus lies between the rank of species and that of family. For example, dogs are a species belonging to the genus canis — itself in the canid family.n<blockquote class="blockquote-level-1">nStudy finds 73 genera have disappeared in five centuriesn</blockquote>n“It is a really significant contribution, I think the first time anyone has attempted to assess modern extinction rates at a level above the species,” Robert Cowie, a biologist at the University of Hawaii who was not involved in the study, said.n“As such it really demonstrates the loss of entire branches of the Tree of Life,” a representation of living things first developed by Charles Darwin. The study shows that “we aren’t just trimming terminal twigs, but rather are taking a chainsaw to get rid of big branches,” agreed Anthony Barnosky, professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley.n<h2><a id="73-extinct-genera" href="#73-extinct-genera" class="heading-permalink" aria-hidden="true" title="Permalink"></a>73 extinct genera</h2>nThe researchers relied largely on species listed as extinct by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). They focused on vertebrate species (excluding fish), for which more data are available.nOf some 5,400 genera (comprising 34,600 species), they concluded that 73 had become extinct in the last 500 years — most of them in the last two centuries.nThe researchers then compared this with the extinction rate estimated from the fossil record over the very long term. “Based on the extinction rate in the previous million years we would have expected to lose two genera. But we lost 73,” explained Ceballos.nThat should have taken 18,000 years, not 500, the study estimated — though such estimates remain uncertain, as not all species are known and the fossil record remains incomplete.nThe cause? Human activities, such as the destruction of habitats for crops or infrastructure, as well as overfishing, hunting and so on. The loss of one genus can have consequences for an entire ecosystem, argued Ceballos. “If you take one brick, the wall won’t collapse, he said. “You take many more, eventually the wall will collapse.n“Our worry is that … we’re losing things so fast, that for us it signals the collapse of civilisation.”nAll experts agree that the current rate of extinction is alarming — but whether this represents the start of a sixth mass extinction (the last being the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago) remains a matter of debate.nScientists broadly define a mass extinction as the loss of 75 per cent of species over a short period of time. Using that “arbitrary” definition, Cowie said, a sixth mass extinction has not yet occurred.nPublished in Dawn, September 20th, 2023

Michael Jackson&rsquo;s moonwalk hat up for auction

PARIS: Just before performing his famous moonwalk dance for the first time, Michael Jackson tossed his hat to the side of the stage. Four decades later, it’s up for auction in Paris.nnThe sale at the Hotel Drouot in Paris takes place on September 26. The black fedora is expected to fetch between 60,000 and 100,000 euros ($64,000-$107,000).nnThough it is the star among some 200 items of rock memorabilia, organiser Arthur Perault of the Artpeges gallery admitted that valuations for Jackson items had fallen lately due to “the sale of fakes and the accusations against him”.nnJackson has long been accused of child abuse, which his heirs still contest and which the singer denied up to his death in 2009 at the age of 50.nnThe King of Pop whipped off the hat while breaking into his hit “Billie Jean” during a televised Motown concert in 1983, at the height of his fame.nnMoments later, Jackson showed off what would become his trademark move — the moonwalk — a seemingly effortless backwards glide while appearing to walk forwards.nnA man named Adam Kelly picked up Jackson’s hat, “thinking the singer’s staff would come to collect it but they didn’t”, said Perault.nnHe held on to it for several years but it has since passed through a couple of private collectors on its way to Paris.nnAlso being auctioned are a guitar owned by the legendary bluesman T-Bone Walker that could fetch up to 150,000 euros; a suit worn by Depeche Mode’s Martin Gore; and one of Madonna’s gold records.nnPublished in Dawn, September 20th, 2023

First 5G Innovation Hackathon launched

Britain set to clear biggest-ever gaming deal

Indian govt tables bill to reserve 33pc of Lok Sabha seats for women

UN suggests reparations for Africans over slavery

Michael Jackson moonwalk hat up for auction

Communications cut to Libya&amp;rsquo;s ruined city

Pakistan Business Council seeks a strategy to bolster competitiveness

Scientists warn entire branches of the &amp;lsquo;Tree of Life&amp;rsquo; are going extinct

Michael Jackson&amp;rsquo;s moonwalk hat up for auction

Communications cut to Libya’s ruined city

Scientists warn entire branches of the ‘Tree of Life’ are going extinct

Michael Jackson’s moonwalk hat up for auction