SC acquits man facing death sentence
The Supreme Court (SC) of Pakistan on Thursday ordered to release a person convicted of death sentence due to insufficient evidence and faulty investigation. A three-member bench of the apex court, headed by Justice Manzoor Malik and comprised of Justice Mazhar Alam Khan Miankhel and Justice Amin-Ud-Din Khan, conducted hearing of an appeal against a high court judgment in a murder case. Earlier, a trial court had awarded capital punishment to Mohammad Ishaq over alleged murder of his wife in 2008 in Layyah before a high court commuted the death sentence into life imprisonment. During the course of proceedings, the counsel for the victim said that the accused stabbed his wife to death. Accused Ishaq and Razia Bibi were married for only two months, he added. The counsel for the accused said that a false murder case was registered against the accused as Razia fell and got injured, and there was no witness to the incident. Justice Manzoor Malik said it seems that the victim's brother and father were made witnesses. False witnesses were made in such cases, he added.
Honda Motor Co Ltd on Thursday unveiled a partially self-driving Legend sedan in Japan, becoming the world’s first carmaker to sell a vehicle equipped with new, certified level 3 automation technology.
The launch gives Japan’s No.2 automaker bragging rights for being the first to market, but lease sales of the level 3 flagship Legend would be limited to a batch of 100 in Japan, at a retail price of 11 million yen ($102,000).
Still, the new automation technology is a big step towards eliminating human error-induced accidents, chief engineer Yoichi Sugimoto told reporters.
The Legend’s “Traffic Jam Pilot” system can control acceleration, braking and steering under certain conditions. Once the system is activated, a driver can also watch movies or use the navigation on the screen, helping to mitigate fatigue and stress when driving in a traffic jam, Honda said in a statement.
It can alert the driver to respond when handing over the control, such as vibration on the driver’s seatbelt, the carmaker said. And if the driver continues to be unresponsive, the system will assist with an emergency stop by decelerating and stopping the vehicle while alerting surrounding cars with hazard lights and the horn, it added. The announcement comes after the Japanese government awarded a safety certification to Honda’s “Traffic Jam Pilot” in November.
Global automakers and tech companies, including Google parent Alphabet Inc’s Waymo and Tesla Inc, have been investing heavily in autonomous driving.
Yet even as the technology advances, regulations on autonomous driving differ from country to country. Audi unveiled an A8 sedan with level 3 technology in 2017 but regulatory hurdles have prevented it from being widely introduced.