LAHORE: The Pakistan Industrial and Traders Association Front (PIAF) has cautioned that Pakistan’s overdependence on energy-focused foreign investment is holding back broader economic growth, calling on policymakers to expand investment opportunities in mining, manufacturing, IT, and other underdeveloped sectors. PIAF Patron-in-Chief Mian Sohail Nisar said that heavy concentration of foreign capital in a single sector…
KARACHI: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has issued a formal notification after setting up a new system and jurisdiction for the Directorate of Customs Intelligence and Risk Management. According to the notification, the headquarters of this directorate will be in Islamabad, while its regional offices will be located in Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, Quetta, and…
UNITED NATIONS: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas pledged at the United Nations on Thursday to work with US President Donald Trump, Saudi Arabia, France and the United Nations on a peace plan for Gaza overwhelmingly backed by the world body. The 193-member UN General Assembly earlier this month overwhelmingly endorsed a seven-page declaration that aims to…
LONDON: Global debt hit a record high of $337.7 trillion at the end of the second quarter, driven by easing global financial conditions, a softer US dollar and a more accommodative stance from major central banks, a quarterly report showed on Thursday. The Institute of International Finance (IIF), a financial services trade group, said that…
Traders in Gilgit-Baltistan have decided to press on with their sit-in at the Sost Dry Port, rejecting the government’s conditional tax concessions. The announcement came after negotiations in Islamabad between the federal government, G-B authorities, and local trade representatives. Protesters have kept the port shut since July in opposition to new taxation measures and the…
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Thursday hosted Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif for talks at the White House in the latest sign of warming relations between Washington and the South Asian nuclear power. Sharif was among top officials from eight Arab and Muslim countries who met with Trump on the sidelines of the UN General…
ISLAMABAD: Challenging the University of Karachi’s last year decision to revoke his law degree after 32 years, Islamabad High Court (IHC) judge Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri has told the Sindh High Court (SHC) that he faces retribution from powerful members of the executive for exercising judicial autonomy. On August 31, 2024, the University of Karachi’s Syndicate…
ISLAMABAD: Supreme Court judge Athar Minallah has issued a handwritten dissenting note in a case related to initiation of contempt proceedings against the SC Additional Registrar Judicial Nazar Abbas. The judge was part of the six-member larger bench that took up the additional registrar’s intra-court appeal against a show cause notice issued by a division…
ISLAMABAD: The federal government has begun shaping a new National Resilience Plan 2025-26 to better prepare Pakistan for the next monsoon season, aiming to reduce the destruction caused by floods and other natural disasters. “The National Resilience Plan must be outcome-focused, with clear strategies to reduce the losses resulting from such calamities – whether in…
The Red Sea is a 1200-mile narrow strip of water located between northeastern Africa and the Arabian Sea which separates the coast of Suez-Egypt, Sudan and Eritrea from Saudi Arabia and Yemen, connecting the Gulf of Aden with the Arabian Sea through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait. It covers an area of 174,000 miles and is 190…
