Misinformation plagued the first rollout of a vaccine to protect Pakistani girls against cervical cancer, with parents slamming their doors on healthcare workers and some schools shutting for days over false claims it causes infertility.The country’s first HPV vaccine campaign aimed to administer jabs to 11 million girls — but by the time it ended Saturday only around half the intended doses were administered.A long-standing conspiracy theory that Western-produced vaccines are used to curb the Muslim population has been circulating online in Pakistan.Misinformation has also spread that the vaccine disrupts the hormones of young girls and encourages sexual activity, in a country where sex before marriage is forbidden.”Some people have refused, closed their gates on us, and even hid information about their daughter’s age,” vaccinator Ambreen Zehra told AFP while going door to door in a lower-middle-income neighbourhood in Karachi.Only around half the intended vaccines had been administered, according to a federal health department official who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity.”Many girls we aimed to reach are still unvaccinated, but we are committed to ensuring the vaccine remains available even after the campaign concludes so that more women and girls get vaccinated,” they said on Friday.One teacher told AFP on condition of anonymity that not a single vaccine had been administered in her school on the outskirts of Rawalpindi because parents would not give consent, something she said other rural schools had also experienced.A health official who asked not to be named said some private schools had resorted to closing for several days to snub vaccine workers.”On the first day we reached 29 percent of our target, it was not good, but it was fine,” said Syeda Rashida Batool, Islamabad’s top health official who started the campaign by inoculating her daughter.”The evening of that first day, videos started circulating online and after that it dipped. It all changed.”A video of schoolgirls doubled over in pain after teargas wafted into their classroom during a protest several years ago was re-shared online purporting to show the after-effects of the vaccine.The popular leader of a right-wing religious party, Rashid Mehmood Soomro, said last week the vaccine, which is voluntary, was being forced on girls by the government.”In reality, our daughters are being made infertile,” he told a rally in Karachi.- ‘This will control the population’ -In 95 percent of cases, cervical cancer is caused by persistent infection with Human Papillomavirus (HPV) –- a virus that spreads through sexual activity, including non-penetrative sex, that affects almost everyone in their lifetime.The HPV vaccine, approved by the World Health Organization, is a safe and science-based protection against cervical cancer and has a long history of saving lives more than 150 countries.Cervical cancer is particularly deadly in low and middle income countries such as Pakistan, where UNICEF says around two-thirds of the 5,000 women diagnosed annually will die, although the figure is likely under-reported.This is because of a significant lack of awareness around the disease, cultural taboos around sexual health and poor screening and treatment services.It is underlined by the damaging belief that only women with many sexual partners can contract sexually transmitted infections.In Europe, where the HPV vaccine has been highly effective, there were around 30,000 diagnoses across all 27 EU nations in 2020, of which around one-third of women died, according to the European Commission.”My husband won’t allow it,” said Maryam Bibi, a 30-year-old mother in Karachi who told AFP her three daughters would not be vaccinated.”It is being said that this vaccine will make children infertile. This will control the population.”Humna Saleem, a 42-year-old housewife in Lahore, said she thought the vaccine was “unnecessary”.”All cancers are terrible. Why don’t we tell our boys to be loyal to their wives instead of telling our girls to get more vaccines?” she told AFP.Pakistan –- one of only two countries along with Afghanistan where polio is endemic -– remains stubbornly resistant to vaccines as a result of misinformation and conspiracy theories.After marking one year without polio cases for the first time in 2023, the crippling disease has resurged with 27 cases reported in 2025 so far.In response to overwhelming misinformation about the HPV vaccine, Pakistan’s minister of health, Syed Mustafa Kamal, took the bold move to have his teenage daughter vaccinated in front of television cameras.”In my 30-year political career I have never made my family public,” he told reporters.”But the way my daughter is dear to me, the nation’s daughters are also dear to me, so I brought her in front of the media.”zz-stm-sma-nz-ecl/dhw

Women’s cricket is set to take a giant leap as the World Cup begins Tuesday, with stars from eight nations aiming to break new ground both on and off the field.The tournament opens in Guwahati with co-hosts India and Sri Lanka ushering in what many believe could be a transformative moment for the women’s game. The 13th edition of the tournament will have Pakistan playing all their matches in Colombo as part of a compromise deal that allows both India and Pakistan to play at neutral venues in multi-nation tournaments.The 50-over showcase boasts an unprecedented total prize purse of $13.88 million, surpassing even the $10 million awarded in the men’s World Cup two years earlier.”You do get the feeling this could be a seismic moment for the women’s game,” England captain Nat Sciver-Brunt said on the International Cricket Council website. “I think we’ll all look back on our careers when we’re retired and mark the World Cup in India as a game-changer.”Sciver-Brunt is seeking a fifth title for England who were last winners in 2017 and lost in the final in 2022.Defending champions Australia, who have won a record seven Women’s World Cups, enter as favourites but expect stiff competition, said captain Alyssa Healy.”This is going to be the toughest World Cup we’ve ever been a part of,” said Healy.”Australia has a rich history in this format and in World Cups, but I think every single team is going to be tough to beat.”India, twice runners-up but never champions, are hunting an elusive maiden title in front of a cricket-obsessed home audience in the country of 1.4 billion people. – Gender parity -Victory could bring millions of new fans to the sport, further elevating its prominence.The past decade has seen women’s cricket surge in talent and visibility. Australia’s women’s Big Bash League, launched in 2015, paved the way before a financial windfall arrived with India’s Women’s Premier League (WPL). Staged first in 2023, the WPL delivered the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) roughly $700 million in franchise and media rights alone.India’s cricketing stars, including Harmanpreet Kaur and Smriti Mandhana, have become household names, attracting major sponsorships and wide media coverage. A move toward gender parity was championed by ICC chairman Jay Shah, who introduced equal match fees for women and men — a shift hailed as transformative by BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia.”You cannot make out whether the boys are playing or girls,” Saikia told AFP. “The top class skill and the technique will attract eyeballs on television and get the game more fans. Expect packed stadiums at centres across India,” he added.On the pitch, this World Cup could witness a run-fest. Since 2022, participating teams have breached the 300-run mark 34 times, with Australia and India each surpassing 400 once. Young Indian fast bowler Kranti Goud, New Zealand batter Georgia Plimmer, England quick Lauren Bell and South African all-rounder Annerie Dercksen are tipped as players to watch.India are hosting the Women’s ODI World Cup for the fourth time after 1978, 1997 and 2013.The final will be played on November 2 either in Mumbai or Colombo, depending on whether Pakistan go all the way.

In a modest workshop filled with the fragrance of seasoned wood, 78-year-old Ghulam Mohammad Zaz continues a craft his family has preserved for eight generations — the making of the Kashmiri santoor.Surrounded by tools that have outlived artisans, he works slowly, each strike and polish echoing centuries of tradition crafting the musical instrument.”Seven generations have worked and I am the eighth; I have no guarantee anyone after me will do this work,” Zaz said softly, speaking in Kashmiri.Once, several of his family members shared this craft in the heart of Kashmir’s main city Srinagar, in the Indian-administered part of the Himalayan territory.Today, he is the last in the city to make the instruments by hand.”If I tell anyone to make something, they won’t know what to do or how to make it,” said Zaz, who produces around eight to 10 instruments every year, selling for around 50,000 rupees ($565) each.”It is not as simple as just picking some wood — one needs to find the right kind of wood.”The santoor, a hundred-stringed zither-like instrument played with hammers, has long been central to Kashmir’s musical identity, giving the Muslim-majority region its cultural distinctiveness.The contested Himalayan territory has been divided between India and Pakistan since independence from Britain in 1947.Militants have fought Indian rule, demanding independence or a merger with Pakistan.Tensions remain high between New Delhi and Islamabad.In May, clashes between the nuclear-armed rivals sparked the worst fighting since 1999, killing more than 70 people in missile, drone and artillery exchanges.- Mystical music -Historically, the santoor formed the backbone of “sufiana musiqi”, Kashmir’s mystical music tradition, with its hypnotic and reverberating sound bringing tranquillity.”Musicians used to come from Iran to Kashmir, they used to play santoor and other instruments,” said Muzaffar Bhat, a music professor at a government college in Anantnag.”They used to sing in Persian… we adapted the santoor from them and assimilated it into our music.”The instrument received a new life in the 20th century.In the 1950s, celebrated Indian musician Shivkumar Sharma — born in Jammu and Kashmir in 1938 — used the santoor to play classical music.”Due to that, this became popularised in the classical circles throughout India,” Bhat said.Suddenly, the santoor was no longer confined to Kashmiri sufiana gatherings -— it had become a celebrated voice in Indian classical music.Yet tradition faced challenges as Western instruments and global music trends began to overshadow local sounds.”A lot of our traditional Kashmiri instruments became sidelined,” said Bhat.For craftsmen like Zaz, this meant fewer patrons, fewer students, and the slow decline of a centuries-old family profession.Zaz sells his instruments in Kashmir, but also receives orders from Europe and the Middle East.But there is hope. A revival, however modest, is taking root.”Since the last few years, a new trend has started,” Bhat said. “Our youngsters have started to learn our traditional instruments.”

Vacationing in India, engineer Amrutha Tamanam rushed to return to the United States after Donald Trump abruptly announced a $100,000 fee for the visa she holds.As she scrambled to get back to the country she’s called home for a decade, racially motivated far-right trolls launched coordinated efforts to disrupt flight bookings from India, calling their campaign “clog the toilet.”The White House would later clarify that the new H-1B fee was a one-time payment not applicable to current holders. But leading US companies had already advised their employees abroad to swiftly return to avoid the fee or risk being stranded overseas.Tamanam, an Austin-based software engineer, began searching for a flight from the city of Vijayawada, as users on the far-right message board 4chan moved to overwhelm  reservation systems, in a bid to block Indian visa holders from booking tickets.One 4chan thread encouraged users to find India-US flights, “initiate the checkout process” but “don’t checkout,” thereby clogging the system and preventing the visa holders from reaching the United States before the announcement took effect.The campaign may have had a direct impact on Tamanam, who encountered repeated crashes on airline websites. The checkout page, which typically allows users a window of a few minutes, timed out much faster.After multiple attempts, she eventually managed to rebook a one-way ticket to Dallas on Qatar Airways, spending around $2,000 — more than double the cost of her original round-trip fare.”It was hard for me to book a ticket and I paid a huge fare for the panic travel,” Tamanam told AFP.- ‘Keep them in India’ -The 4chan thread –- which also circulated among far-right Trump supporters on Telegram and other fringe forums — read: “Indians are just waking up after the H1B news. Want to keep them in India? Clog the flight reservation system!”Responding posts, many riddled with racist slurs, advised users to hold seats for popular India-US routes on airline websites and booking platforms — without completing the purchase.The stated goal was to block availability on high-demand flights, making it harder to find available seats and inflating prices.Illustrating the scale of the operation, one 4chan user posted a screenshot of their browser and claimed: “I got 100 seats locked.””Currently clogging the last available seat on this Delhi to Newark flight,” another wrote.Several 4chan users also posted about holding up seats on Air India and slowing the airline’s website. However, an Air India spokesperson told AFP the site experienced no disruptions, with systems operating normally.- ‘Shared antipathy’ –Though difficult to measure the campaign’s overall effectiveness, the trolling was an attempt to “cause panic among H-1B visa holders,” Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, told AFP.”The real scary thing about 4chan is its ability to radicalize people into extremist beliefs,” Beirich said, adding that several US mass shooters had published manifestos to the site.H-1B visas allow companies to sponsor foreign workers with specialized skills — such as scientists and computer programmers — to work in the United States, initially for three years but extendable to six.The United States awards 85,000 H-1B visas per year on a lottery system, with India accounting for around three-quarters of the recipients.In an age of information warfare, the troll operation illustrates how bad actors can launch disruptive attacks “with the stroke of a keyboard,” said Brian Levin, founder of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism.”As nationalistic politics takes hold across the world, an informal international association of opponents will use an array of aggressive tools, including the internet,” Levin told AFP.”What I think is so relevant is how rapidly it spread, how diverse the nations represented were, and how shared antipathy across international borders can be mobilized online.”