KARACHI – Thai Airways has started its flight operation from Pakistan after a gap of two years.
According to details, Thai Airways resumed its operation in Pakistan on Tuesday after two years as the foreign airline’s Flight TG349 brought 208 passengers from Bangkok to Islamabad.
The Islamabad airport authorities welcomed the staff and passengers of the flight.
According to sources, the Airways’ Flight GT350 took the passengers to Bangkok from Islamabad.
845 Paris is sacked by Viking raiders, probably under Ragnar Lodbrok, who collects a huge ransom in exchange for leaving
1549 The city of Salvador da Bahia, the first capital of Brazil, is founded
1901 Edmund Barton is elected Prime Minister in Australia’s first parliamentary election
1912 Captain Robert Falcon Scott, storm-bound in a tent near South Pole, makes last entry in his diary “the end cannot be far”
1961 After a 4½ year trial Nelson Mandela is acquitted of treason in Pretoria
1974 Chinese farmers discover the Terracotta Army near Xi’an, 8,000 clay warrior statues buried to guard the tomb of China’s 1st emperor, Qin Shi Huang
1999 The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes at 10006.78 – above the 10,000 mark for the first time ever
HISTORICAL EVENTS TODAY
TODAY IN FILM & TV
1959 “Some Like It Hot”, directed by Billy Wilder and starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, and Jack Lemmon, is released in NYC
TODAY IN MUSIC
1795 Ludwig van Beethoven (24) has his debut performance as a pianist in Vienna
TODAY IN SPORT
1994 Coach Jimmy Johnson quits Dallas Cowboys
DO YOU KNOW THIS FACT ABOUT TODAY?
1945 Movie star Jimmy Stewart is promoted to full colonel, one of the few Americans to rise from private to colonel in four years
WOULD YOU BELIEVE THIS FACT ABOUT TODAY?
1986 Beatle records officially go on sale in Russia
Ukraine will launch an NFT museum “to preserve the statehood and history of Ukraine,” Alex Bornyakov, the country’s Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation, said.
Bornyakov revealed plans for the website, titled “Meta History: Museum of War,” on social media. The site also includes a “warline,” a timeline of events, each of them accompanied by a corresponding NFT.
The NFTs each feature a post regarding a significant moment in the war, along with an illustration by various Ukrainian artists.
So far, only the first three days of the war have been documented. The NFTs will be available for sale on March 30 starting at 0.15 ETH, which is currently valued at about $475. Proceeds from the sales of the NFTs go directly to the Ministry of Digital Transformation.
The NFT-museum is based on a deep intention to keep the memory of real wartime events via blockchain and raise charitable donations to support Ukraine.
Another tweet goes, “Just imagine indefinite chain of information which is visible for everyone, but cannot be changed by anyone. Sounds like a perfect solution to immortalize the real facts!”
Anything can be immortalized using blockchain technology. In the case of Meta History, the Ministry is using posts from international governmental bodies and officials as verified markers of events.
In a bold move to fill up the stands of the Moshood Abiola National Stadium and guarantee high-decibel support for the Super Eagles in today’s FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 playoff final battle against the Black Stars of Ghana, the Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development and the Nigeria Football Federation have jointly purchased 20,000 tickets to give to fans who wish to support the Eagles on the day.
Youth and Sports Development Minister, Hon. Sunday Dare announced this, after a meeting of the organizing committee put in place by the Ministry and which include officials of the NFF.
“We will buy 20,000 of the tickets and give to fans at designated centres. We want to ensure maximum support for the Super Eagles by filling up the stands. “The NFF have done well to secure maximum capacity of the Moshood Abiola National Stadium for the match”.
Birmingham City Council has scrapped free school holiday meal vouchers introduced in the pandemic.
The Council said it was replacing the £15 per week voucher by providing a range of free holiday activities and meals.
The authority is offering free food boxes to 1,600 households which meet certain criteria but one mother, Gemma Folan, said the lack of food choices was a problem.
Folan said the scrapping of the voucher scheme comes at a worse time for low-income families in the city.
Instead of providing supermarket vouchers to parents whose children would usually receive free school meals, the council is offering boxes of set ingredients and hosting Bring It On Brum for 5-16-year-olds across the city.
This is something 39-year-old Folan said was not cost effective for many parents.
Food charities and anti-poverty campaigners, including England and Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford, repeatedly clashed with the government over the issue of food for poor pupils during the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly over school holidays.
The Federal Government has been urged to set up diagnostic Centres for proper medical management of children with Down syndrome
The appeal was made by Mrs. Biboara Yinkere, convener of Engraced Ones Prayer Support and Advocacy Initiative, a non-governmental organisation that advocates for people with Down syndrome.
She noted that the availability of diagnostic centres would limit the rate at which parents guess and become apprehensive when they have children with the condition.
Down-syndrome is a genetic chromosome 21 disorder that causes developmental and intellectual delays.
It is commonly caused by chromosome replication errors, in which there are three copies of chromosome 21 instead of two.
The disease is visible in some children and makes them to have distinct facial appearance, intellectual disability and developmental delays, which may be associated with thyroid or heart disease.
Read Also: Ghana lifts COVID-19 restrictions including mandatory mask-wearing
Some features of the condition include eyes that slant up at the outer corner, small ears, flat nose, protruding tongue, short neck, among others.
Yinkere emphasised the need for down-syndrome testing to be included in antenatal services, to enable pregnant women to know if their unborn child would have the condition.
She noted that the educational needs of children with Down syndrome was too expensive and further appealed for government assistance.
Yinkere further appealed for inclusive education to, where children with Down syndrome can be well accommodated, stressing that such had been prioritised in other parts of the world.
“The major challenge that we are having is that of discrimination and this is because most schools don’t want them, while some families also don’t want their children to associate with them.
“Also, in some places of worship, people laugh and jeer at them. They look at them in a way that makes their families to feel isolated, whereas, in some other parts of the world, they are being accommodated.
“We have seen people with Down syndrome model high brand products. We have seen them graduate from the university with degrees due to lots of support. But here, the struggle is still way back,’’ Yinkere added.
she used the opportunity to call on the federal government to come up with a policy that would stop institutions from rejecting children with the condition.
The convener called on the government to emulate the way developed countries manage Down syndrome cases, especially those discovered during pregnancy.
Special educational needs Children in England will receive better help at school from an earlier stage under a new national system.
The Department for Education plans for England includes digitising paperwork to help parents receive extra support for their children more quickly.
It is part of a delayed review into the special educational needs or disabilities (SEND) support system with critics saying too little urgency has been shown to address the broken system.
Last year, 1.4 million pupils in England were identified as having special educational needs with the proportion growing since 2017.
Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi told local media that early intervention was a “focus” of the plans – and would be achieved partly by training 5,000 more early-years teachers to be SEN co-ordinators (Sencos), who monitor and assess SEN children’s progress.
Zahawi said the plans will give confidence to families across the country that from very early on in their child’s journey through education, whatever their level of need, their local school will be equipped to offer a tailored and high-quality level of support.
The Department for Education said new funding of £70m would be used to back the proposals.
Russia is looking to fill in the gap by increasing oil exports to Asia, As European countries the EU, look to wean themselves off of Moscow’s energy.
There is a market “in South East-Asia, in the East,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday and the world market is more diverse than just the European market, he said.
“Although, of course, the European market is premium,” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman said.
Peskov was reacting to the announcement by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz that his government will move “pretty fast” to eliminate Germany’s dependence on Russian energy imports.
Scholz said on Sunday that Germany could do this quickly in the case of coal and oil, although natural gas would take longer.
Economics Minister Robert Habeck said that Germany can probably halve Russian oil imports by the summer.
So far, Russia has continued its gas deliveries to Europe unabated in spite of its war against Ukraine and the sanctions imposed by the West.
Peskov once again made it clear that Russia insists that natural gas deliveries to European countries be paid for in roubles, not euros.
Earlier, Putin had announced that gas deliveries to “unfriendly states” would only be invoiced in roubles.
The Kremlin’s move seemed designed to bolster a national currency pummelled by weeks of sanctions, although economists have questioned whether requiring rouble payments would actually make much of a difference.
Schools in England will be asked to make sure their week is at least 32.5 hours long by September next year, to prevent children missing out on education.
The new rule will be contained in the Schools White Paper, to be published this week, and it is part of a bid to see 90% of pupils leaving primary school having reached expected standards in numeracy and literacy.
While most school weeks in England already cover this length of time, the Department for Education said there are “discrepancies” which could see a pupil who gets 20 minutes’ less teaching time per day losing out on around two weeks of schooling in a year.
Education secretary Nadhim Zahawi said he wanted strong schools with great teachers for every child.
The 32.5 hour school week is equivalent to 08:45 to 15.15, with the government arguing that a child with a school day shorter by 20 minutes a day would lose two weeks of schooling over the course of a year.
But education unions said the new requirement would make little difference, as most schools already met the threshold.
General secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, Geoff Barton, said the Unions are unconvinced by the benefits of introducing a minimum expectation on the length of the school week of 32.5 hours.
He said that the vast majority of schools already met this expectation or came very close to meeting it, and that it was important to understand the reasons that some schools had shorter weeks, such as transport arrangements for rural schools.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called for a ceasefire as Russian and Ukrainian delegations resumed their talks in Istanbul on Tuesday, meeting face to face, on Russia’s invasion of its neighbor last month.
In a speech he delivered at the start of negotiations, Erdogan said progress in the talks could pave the way for a meeting between leaders of the two countries.
“We believe that there will be no losers in a just peace. Prolonging the conflict is not in anyone’s interest,” Erdogan said. “As members of the delegations you have taken on a historic responsibility. The whole world is awaiting the good news that will come from you.”
“The two parties have legitimate concerns, it’s possible to reach a solution acceptable to the international community,” Erdogan said.
“It’s up to the two parties to put an end to this tragedy,” he insisted, adding that the “extension of the conflict is in no one’s interest.” It is the first time that the two countries’ delegations, who arrived in Turkey on Monday, met after several rounds of talks by videoconference.
The delegations are scheduled to hold two days of talks in a government building adjacent to the 19th-century Ottoman palace, Dolmabahce, on the shores of the Bosporus.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was also due to meet the Ukrainian and Russian delegations on Tuesday.
Earlier talks between the sides, held in person in Belarus or by video, failed to make progress on ending the monthlong war that has killed thousands and driven more than 10 million Ukrainians from their homes — including almost 4 million from their country.
Turkey previously hosted on March 10 the first meeting between the Ukrainian and Russian foreign ministers following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24.
Those talks in the southern city of Antalya failed to produce a ceasefire or make any other visible progress.
Turkey, which shares a Black Sea coast with both Russia and Ukraine, is seeking to maintain good relations with both and has offered to mediate since the start of the war.
© 2026 LN247. All Rights Reserved
