Pak Senate elections on Mar
Islamabad, Feb 11: Pakistan’s election authorities on Thursday announced that the elections for the Senate will be held on March 3, amidst a raging controversy about allowing open ballot papers in the polls to avoid corruption. A total of 52 senators in the 104-member upper house will retire on March 11 on completion of their six-year term. They will also include four of the eight senators from the erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas. (PTI)
Nepal bans three Indian climbers
Kathmandu, Feb 11: Nepal has banned two Indian climbers and their team leader from carrying out any mountaineering expeditions in the country for six years after a probe found that they faked their Mt Everest summit in 2016. Indian mountaineers Narender Singh Yadav and Seema Rani Goswami received expedition certificates from the Tourism Department during the spring season of 2016 without successfully climbing the world’s highest mountain. Both the climbers received the certificates of climbing the mountain by producing fake documents and pictures to claim their summit, according to a press release issued by the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Civil Aviation on Thursday. Their certificates have been revoked, the ministry said. (PTI)
Quake jolts Indonesia
Jakarta, Feb 11: An earthquake measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale jolted Indonesia’s Bengkulu province, authorities said, adding that no casualties or damages were reported. The quake also had no potential to cause a tsunami, Alfath Abubakar, an official at the meteorology and geophysics agency, told Xinhua news agency. The agency earlier reported that the quake was at 6.5-magnitude before revising it down to 6.4, he said. The quake struck at 7.52 pm on Wednesday, with the epicentre at 80 km southwest Enggano Island and a depth at 10 km under seabed, Abubakar said. (IANS)