The government on Tuesday slashed the price of petrol and high-speed diesel (HSD) for the next fortnight by Rs5.45 and 8.42, respectively. In a notification, the finance ministry said the reduction was due to price variations in the international market because of a decreasing trend in prices of petroleum products during the last fortnight. It said the new petrol price was Rs288.49 per litre and that of HSD was Rs281.96. A fortnight ago, the government had increased the price of petrol and HSD by Rs4.53 and Rs8.14 per litre. The government has already achieved Rs60 per litre petroleum levy — maximum…
Author: Hasnain Abid Khanzada
ISLAMABAD: With the country’s fiscal deficit widening to 3.7 per cent of GDP in the first nine months of FY24, the Ministry of Finance (MoF) on Tuesday warned about the continuously increasing challenge of fiscal pressures driven by a massive 54pc surge in interest payments. “A significant challenge arises from the growing pressure on expenditures, primarily driven by higher markup payments. This has caused the fiscal deficit to widen”, said the ministry in its Monthly Economic Update & Outlook for April. On the same day, fiscal operations for the first three quarters (July-March) of 2023-24 showed that the deficit had…
ISLAMABAD: With payables touching almost Rs550 billion ($1.98bn), the government is contemplating finalising a schedule of payments to Chinese Independent Power Producers (IPPs) before convening the 13th Joint Coordination Committee (JCC) of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. This will be followed by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s visit to Beijing, expected in the first week of June. Informed sources told Dawn that the Chinese side had this time insisted Prime Minister Sharif’s visit should follow the 13th JCC so that outstanding issues are settled and the roadmap for cooperation under CPEC-2 is finalised during the high-profile state-level meeting. While the PM visit is targeted…
ISLAMABAD: Tax collection by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) fell short of the target by almost Rs63 billion in April, mainly due to a drop in domestic taxes and customs duty, provisional figures showed on Tuesday. The revenue collection in April stood at Rs654bn against a projected target of Rs717bn. It increased by 34.56pc compared with Rs486bn in the corresponding month last year. These figures would improve after book adjustments are taken into account. The FBR is expecting a Rs3bn to Rs4bn more. During the first 10 months (July-April) of FY24, the FBR collected Rs7.363 trillion, falling short of…
NEW YORK / WASHINGTON: Demonstrators at Columbia University barricaded themselves inside a campus building on Tuesday, escalating a standoff with officials, but the White House chided them for using “the wrong approach”. Demonstrators vowed to remain at the hall until their demands are met, including that Columbia divest all financial holdings linked to Israel, after administrators began suspending protesting students for failing to comply with an order to disperse. Protests have swept through US higher education institutions, with many erecting tent encampments on campus grounds after around 100 protesters were first arrested at Columbia on April 18. At the University of North…
MANADO: Indonesia’s remote Mount Ruang volcano erupted several times on Tuesday, authorities said, issuing the highest level of alert and ordering thousands of people to evacuate due to the threat of a tsunami from debris sliding into the sea. The country’s volcanology agency had warned the threat from the volcano was not over after it erupted more than half a dozen times this month, sparking the evacuation of more than 6,000 people. Ruang, located in Indonesia’s North Sulawesi province, erupted at around 01:15am local time on Tuesday and then twice more that morning, the volcanology agency said in a statement.…
JERUSALEM: Despite strong concerns raised by its top ally, Washington, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Tuesday to launch a ground offensive on Rafah, “with or without” a truce deal being agreed. “We will enter Rafah and we will eliminate the Hamas battalions there with or without a deal,” the Israeli PM’s office quoted him as saying. The comments come as Hamas is said to be weighing the latest plan for a proposed truce in Cairo talks with US, Egyptian and Qatari mediators. However, United Nations chief Antonio Guterres responded by saying that a military assault on Rafah would be an unbearable…
THE HAGUE: Judges at the International Court of Justice on Tuesday ruled against issuing emergency orders to stop German arms exports to Israel, while expressing deep concern about “catastrophic living conditions in Gaza”. But the court also rejected a German request to throw out the case, so it can now move forward. Nicaragua had asked the ICJ, also known as the World Court, to order Germany to halt military arms exports to Israel and to resume its funding of the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, saying there was a serious risk of genocide in Gaza. The court refused to issue…
ASTRAZENECA, the pharmaceutical giant which virtually became a household name during the Covid-19 pandemic, has admitted that its Covishield vaccine could cause rare side effects, including blood clots and low platelet count. The pharma giant is being sued in a class action over claims that its vaccine, developed with the University of Oxford, caused death and serious injury in dozens of cases. “It is admitted that the AZ vaccine can, in very rare cases, cause TTS (Thrombosis with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome). The causal mechanism is not known,” the company said in court documents, The Telegraph reported. Covishield was developed by the…
A string of senior Australian ministers on Wednesday refused to confirm reports that a “nest” of Indian spies had been uncovered in the country and expelled — allegations that threaten to damage a burgeoning alliance. Australia’s prime minister and foreign, defence and treasury ministers all dodged questions about allegations that Indian spooks tried to steal defence secrets and monitor expatriate communities in 2020. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he would not comment on intelligence matters, after public broadcaster ABC broke the news citing unnamed “national security and government figures”. Intelligence bosses revealed in 2021 that they had rumbled a “nest of spies” sent to Australia to…
