Iramb Zusha

Daraz is set to join Alibaba’s 11.11 Global Shopping Festival for the first time. The event, which was introduced by parent company and ecommerce giant Alibaba 10 years ago, is now the world’s biggest sale day and is set to drive Pakistan into a new era of online shopping. The GyaraGyara Sale will kick off on the midnight of November 11 and last 24 hours, featuring discounts of up to 91%. It will be a full day of hourly flash sales, mystery boxes, brand vouchers and unbelievable deals. With 3 million products from over 15,000 local and international sellers, Pakistan will now have access to a never seen before assortment of deals. 11.11 is the first mega sale event on the new Daraz App, offering users a truly personal AI driven experience showing the best products and deals. CEO Daraz, Dr Jonathan Doerr, stated, “Over the last few years, we have pioneered ecommerce to accelerate the digital transformation in Pakistan. We are thrilled to see the impressive results achieve...

OTTAWA: Canada’s postal service has issued a plea for the rest of the world to stop sending in mail as its striking workers rejected the latest contract offer. Canada Post, facing a huge delivery backlog as the labor unrest looked set to enter a fifth week, recently sweetened its offer to staff in a last-ditch effort to bring the rotating strikes to an end. This followed a warning from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that his government was prepared to step in to settle the labor dispute ahead of the upcoming holiday season. His government has faced pressure from online retailers including eBay to legislate an end to the strike before the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales events, which start on November 23. But a spokeswoman for the Canadian Union of Postal Workers told AFP the offer, due to expire on Saturday, was “unsatisfactory” and the union “will not be presenting it to members.” Canada Post, meanwhile, said a backlog of deliveries that coincided with the ...

BURUNG ISLAND, Indonesia: A rare Sumatran tiger that was trapped beneath the floor of a shop for three days has been rescued, an Indonesian official said Saturday. The three-year old male was freed from the 75 centimetre (30 inch) crawl space on Burung Island in Riau province, the local conservation agency said. “After the tiger was successfully put to sleep we opened up part of the shop’s foundation to do the evacuation,” Suharyono, head of the Riau conservation agency, told AFP. The 80-kilo (180-pound) animal was treated by veterinarians for minor wounds on its legs and cracked canines, officials said. The big cat became stuck between two buildings in the densely populated market area on Wednesday before freeing himself and then becoming trapped again beneath the building. Video footage showed the tiger lying on its belly between two concrete foundations, unable to move. The tiger has been transported to a rehabilitation centre. Sumatran tigers are co...

SYDNEY: A swimmer died after a rare suspected stingray attack off an Australian beach while another two people were mauled in separate shark encounters this weekend. The 42-year-old’s death came more than a decade after world-renowned “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin was killed when a stingray barb punctured his chest while he was filming on the famed Great Barrier Reef. The man was in waters off Lauderdale Beach some 23 kilometres (14 miles) from Hobart in the southern island state of Tasmania Saturday when he “sustained a puncture wound to his lower abdomen… possibly inflicted by a marine animal”, police said. He was brought onto the beach by friends but suffered a heart attack and was unable to be resuscitated, police added. “It’s consistent with (a stingray injury) but further investigation and examination of the deceased may be able to give a bit more of a concrete fact on that,” Tasmania Police Senior Constable Brett Bowering told the Sunday Tasmanian. “It’...

At 87 years old, Taiwanese glove puppeteer Chen Hsi-huang is the star of a new documentary which reflects his determination to revive the dying traditional craft and a late-life renaissance as a high-profile promoter of the art form. The film, entitled “Father”, tells the story of how Chen pursued the craft in the shadow of his father, the legendary puppeteer Li Tian-lu, who drew huge audiences to his shows in the 1950-1970s and appeared in several movies. Also known as “Budaixi”, glove puppetry spread to Taiwan in the 19th century from the southeastern Chinese province of Fujian and was mainly performed at religious and festive occasions, becoming a popular form of entertainment. Puppeteers manoeuvre small glove dolls on ornate wooden stages to present historical and martial arts stories accompanied by live folk music. Chen said he values the traditional puppetry because it is characterized by subtle movements, with the puppeteer taking on all roles, from a young woman to an old man. ...

NEW YORK:  An iconic 1972 painting by British artist David Hockney soared to $90.3 million at Christie’s on Thursday, smashing the record for the highest price ever paid at auction for a work by a living artist. With Christie’s commission, “Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures),” surpassed the auction house’s pre-sale estimate of about $80 million, following a bidding war between two determined would-be buyers once the work hit $70 million. The previous record for a work by a living artist was held by Jeff Koons’ sculpture “Balloon Dog,” which sold for $58.4 million in 2013. Hockney’s previous auction record was $28.4 million. The 1972 work by the 81-year-old British artist, one of Hockney’s most famous paintings which depicts a man in a pink jacket looking down on another figure swimming underwater in a pool, was reported to have been consigned by British billionaire currency trader Joe Lewis. Christie’s did not identify the seller or the successful bidder, who was bidding...