Despite entering the T20 World Cup in poor form, there was optimism about Pakistan from their passionate fans. Could they do a ‘Pakistan’ and spring a surprise? Perhaps make a run to the final as they did in 2022? Or even win the whole thing? Logic and form said no, but Pakistan are a team known to defy the odds. They can deliver the goods when least expected to. However, therein lies the problem. Pakistan has long been a team of hope rather than expectation. Their abysmal elimination from the group stage of the T20 World Cup — headlined by…
Author: Hasnain Abid Khanzada
ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has notified various penalties for non-compliant taxpayers through Income Tax Circular no.01 of 2024-25 and announced in the budget 2024-25. Serial number 1B has been added to section 182 of the law. It says that if a taxpayer stops doing business and still doesn’t file their returns, even after being asked, they will be fined the higher of 0.1 per cent of their tax due for the year or Rs1,000 per day of default, with a minimum of Rs10,000 or Rs50,000 for individuals or other persons. The punishment for not following section 99B…
ISLAMABAD: A last-minute massive cut in development expenditure and heavy windfalls from petroleum levy and central bank profits helped the government contain fiscal deficit at 6.8 per cent of GDP, according to the Fiscal Operations report for 2023-24 released by the Ministry of Finance on Tuesday. The fiscal deficit, amounting to Rs7.2 trillion in absolute terms, was slightly above the budget target of 6.5pc. Strangely though, the government earlier reported the overall fiscal deficit for FY24 at 7.4pc of GDP when it announced the current year’s budget on June 12. The overall deficit amounted to 7.7pc of GDP or Rs6.5tr…
ISLAMABAD: A day after Fitch’s upgrade, Standard & Poor’s (S&P) on Tuesday kept Pakistan’s rating unchanged with a stable outlook for the current fiscal year, citing heavy dependence on foreign assistance for debt obligations, an elevated rate of inflation, and political risks to the economic situation and structural reforms. “S&P Global Ratings affirmed its ‘CCC+’ long-term sovereign credit rating and ‘C’ short-term rating on Pakistan. The outlook on the long-term rating is stable”, said the New York-based rating agency — one of the top three global rating firms. The S&P expected the political uncertainty to remain high owing to a fractious political environment.…
KARACHI: Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb has said the increased taxes, especially for the salaried class, are a temporary measure, albeit a challenging one, and assured that efforts are ongoing to bring previously untaxed sectors into the tax net. “Taxes are raised for business community and salaried class this year, but we cannot do it again and again as they all are excessively overburdened. Therefore, all other untaxed sectors, including retailers, agriculture, real estate sectors, etc., have to be brought into the tax net to reduce burden on existing taxpayers,” he said while appreciating all the chief ministers for agreeing to…
LONDON: Anjem Choudary, a radical British preacher, has been sentenced by a British court to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 28 years for directing a terrorist propaganda operation. Choudary, 57, from Ilford, East London, was convicted of leading efforts to incite attacks and propagate messages of “hate and division.” He appeared in Woolwich Crown Court where Mr Justice Wall described his views as “entrenched and abhorrent to most right-thinking people.” The judge emphasised that Choudary’s organisation was designed to encourage terrorism and groom young individuals into extremist ideologies. The judge stated, “Organisations such as yours normalise violence in pursuit…
Technology giant Microsoft has apologised after thousands of people across the world reported issues with its products, ranging from email service Outlook to the hit game Minecraft, BBC News reported. Downdetector, which tracks websites, showed thousands had reported problems on Tuesday afternoon. The incident comes less than two weeks after a major global IT outage left over eight million computers using Microsoft systems inaccessible, impacting healthcare and travel, after a flawed software update by the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. Microsoft said it had implemented a fix for the problem which “shows improvement”, and it will monitor the situation “to ensure full recovery”. But it has…
BEIRUT: Israel struck Hezbollah’s stronghold in southern Beirut on Tuesday in retaliation for rocket fire from Lebanon that killed 12 children over the weekend, saying it had targeted the commander responsible for the attack. “The IDF (army) carried out a targeted strike in Beirut on the commander responsible for the murder of the children in Majdal Shams and the killing of numerous additional Israeli civilians,” the military said in a statement, referring to the Druze Arab town in the annexed Golan Heights where the children were killed on Saturday. A source close to the Hezbollah group confirmed that “a leading…
MADRID: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against a judge who summoned him to testify in a probe into alleged influence-peddling by his wife, accusing him of violating the law. The lawsuit filed by Spain’s state legal services argues the judge and others may have committed “criminal acts” in his summons by not allowing Sanchez to testify in writing as requested by the Socialist leader, according to the complaint. The lawsuit “is not a frontal attack on the judiciary”, the document said. “On the contrary, it is an expression of confidence in the judiciary, which alone is capable…
GAZA STRIP: Gaza’s civil defence agency said on Tuesday that an Israeli operation in and around the territory’s second city of Khan Yunis killed about 300 people since it began last week, while the army claimed it had “eliminated 150 terrorists”. “Since the beginning of the Israeli ground invasion of the eastern part of Khan Yunis province, the civil defence and medical teams have recovered approximately 300 bodies of martyrs, many of them decomposed,” agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said. The Israeli military launched the assault on July 22 to halt what it called rocket fire from the area, which already…
