Text Size:
A+
New Delhi:Â The Pakistani government granted special permission to the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani and 14 other members of his family, to hunt an internationally endangered migratory bird.
According to reports, the prince and his delegation landed in the country Tuesday and will be hunting houbara bustards in the Sindh district.
The houbara bustards, also known as Asian houbara, are listed as a rare and vulnerable species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and have a global population ranging between 50,000 to 1,00,000. The bird’s meat is also considered an aphrodisiac.
This special permission is being viewed as âsoft diplomacyâ between the Arab world and Pakistan.
Pakistani Scientist Wins Prestigious German Award
Pakistani scientist, Asifa Akhtar, will receive the prestigious Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize next year. She is among the ten recipients to win the nomination for outstanding research work in her field. The award ceremony will be a virtual event, scheduled for March 15, 2021.
ALSO READ
Asifa Akhtar serves as VP for The Max Planck Society, Germany’s most successful research institution. Since 1948, 18 Nobel laureates have emerged from the research organization, putting it on par with some of the best research institutions worldwide.
Hailing from Karachi, Asifa Akhtar achieved her doctorate at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund London, U.K, in 1997. Later, she moved to Germany, where she worked as a Postdoctoral fellow at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg and the Adolf-Butenandt Institute in Munich from 1998 to 2001.