ISLAMABAD: The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the cabinet on Tuesday approved 400,000 tonnes of additional wheat procurement by the Centre, allowed the import of 200,000 tonnes of urea, and sanctioned about Rs144 billion in supplementary grants. However, the ECC meeting, presided over by Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb, did not immediately allow the supply of subsidised gas to domestic urea manufacturers. According to relevant ministries, this could have facilitated about 600,000 tonnes of local production — about 445,000 tonnes in Punjab and 165,000 tonnes in Sindh. An official statement said the ECC approved an increase in the wheat procurement target…
Author: Hasnain Abid Khanzada
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday ordered stern action against the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) officials, including its former chairman, allegedly involved in the installation of an ‘ineffective’ track and trace system (TTS) in various industries, causing losses to the tune of billions of rupees through tax evasion and smuggling. The decision to proceed against tax officials was made in light of an inquiry report submitted to the prime minister during a meeting about the FBR. The report was prepared by a five-member committee headed by former finance secretary Tariq Bajwa. “The FBR chairman working during that tenure (when the…
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s trade deficit with the Middle East narrowed 28.18 per cent to $9.521 billion in the first nine months of the current fiscal year from $13.257bn during the corresponding period last year, mainly due to reduced imports of petroleum products from the region. The trade imbalance with the region has shrunk since the start of the current fiscal year due to the lower use of petroleum goods as prices have steadily increased. In absolute terms, Pakistan’s exports to the Middle East rose 32.71pc to $2.276bn during July-March 2023-24, compared to $1.715bn in the corresponding period last year. At the…
QUETTA: As the wheat import scandal refuses to die down, former caretaker prime minister Anwarul Haq Kakar has said he never blamed the provinces for the excessive import of the grain, alleging that the media is circulating false news about him. Speaking at a press conference here on Tuesday, Mr Kakar said the Food Security and Research Department was informed about the expected wheat production in the country for which a procedure was devised. In response to media questions, the former premier, who was accompanied by federal Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi and Balochistan Chief Minister Mir Sarfaraz Bugti, accused the…
COL TOURMALET: Chinese President Xi Jinping showed little sign of being ready to offer big concessions on trade or foreign policy as he wrapped up a two-day visit to France, during which President Emmanuel Macron pressed him on market access and Ukraine. Macron and his wife Brigitte greeted Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan at the airport in France’s southwestern Pyrenees region on Tuesday, and took them to lunch in the mountains after a day of talks and state pomp in Paris on Monday. Advisers to the French president described the Pyrenees trip as breaking with protocol to provide a chance…
NEW YORK: Stormy Daniels, the adult movie star at the heart of Donald Trump’s hush money case, testified in a rapt Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday about a 2006 encounter that precipitated the criminal trial of the former US president. Trump, 77, is charged with falsifying business records to reimburse his lawyer, Michael Cohen, for a $130,000 payment made to Daniels to silence her on the eve of his 2016 election against Hillary Clinton, when the lurid story of marital infidelity could have sunk his campaign. Daniels’ testimony is providing a pivotal moment in the courtroom drama rocking the scandal-plagued Republican’s attempt…
TORONTO: Three provincial lawmakers from Canada’s Ontario province were asked to leave the legislative chamber on Monday for donning keffiyehs. The lawmakers were told to leave the chamber shortly after Ontario speaker Ted Arnott said the keffiyeh can be worn in the assembly building but not in its legislative chamber. As question period started on Monday, independent lawmaker Sarah Jama put on a keffiyeh in defiance of the ban and was asked to leave. After that, New Democratic Party (NDP) lawmakers Joel Harden and Kristyn Wong-Tam also put on keffiyehs and left in solidarity with Jama. Jama, Wong-Tam, and Harden…
LONDON: Scotland got its second leader in as many years on Tuesday, as parliament approved political veteran John Swinney to lead the country as first minister. Swinney, 60, succeeds Humza Yousaf, who formally resigned from the role earlier in the day, following his announcement last week that he would step down after just over a year in charge. Yousaf, 39, announced his resignation last Monday before a confidence vote in the Scottish parliament that he was set to lose, having ditched his junior coalition partners, the Scottish Green Party, in a row over climate policy. Swinney won the backing of 64 members…
MOSCOW: Vladimir Putin has been ‘honoured’, in similar fashion to a ‘Russian tsar’ from the country’s past. During his swearing-in for a fresh six-year term as Russia’s President, Putin had a double-edged message for the West: “the Kremlin is ready to talk but Russia is girding for victory in Ukraine”. Putin, rose to the senior-most position at the Kremlin only eight years after the fall of the Soviet Union. He is now set to overtake Josef Stalin and effectively become Russia’s longest-serving ruler since ‘Empress Catherine the Great’, should he complete the term. The 71-year-old, who is also former KGB…
NEW DELHI: With the third phase of the elections ending on Tuesday, the fate of 52 per cent candidates for the 543-seat parliament stands sealed, and analysts were reading the turbulence at the stock exchanges as a sign of difficulties for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Another sign of trouble for the Bharatiya Janata Party came from Haryana where three independent state MLAs ditched the BJP government to join the Congress party. Hitherto the flow of big and small political defectors had been in the other direction — from opposition groups to the BJP. There were reports of police chasing away…
