BRUSSELS: The global scheme to deliver COVID-19 vaccines to poorer countries faces a “very high” risk of failure, potentially leaving nations home to billions of people with no access to vaccines until as late as 2024, internal documents say. The World Health Organization’s COVAX programme is the main global scheme to vaccinate people in poor and middle-income countries around the …

ISLAMABAD: A major surge in daily death count from COVID-19 was seen during its second wave as 105 people died of coronavirus and 2,731 new infections were reported within 24 hours in Pakistan. In the past 24 hours, 105 more people succumbed to the disease, taking the death toll to 9,010. 2,265 patients have recovered from the virus during the …

Alphabet Inc’s Google said on Tuesday it had resolved a problem with Gmail due to which some of its users had faced issues with the mailing platform, just a day after a global outage affected YouTube, Gmail and Google Drive. Downdetector.com, a website that tracks outages, showed there were more than 13,000 incidents of people reporting issues with Gmail.   …

ISLAMABAD: The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) registered 1,956 new companies in November, indicating year-on-year increase of 41 per cent. Of the new incorporations 71pc were registered as private limited and 26pc as single member companies during the month. While the rest of three per cent were registered as public unlisted companies, not-for-profit associations, trade organisations, foreign companies …

KARACHI: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has decided to refer cases of under-invoicing by the businesses community to the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), the watchdog’s chairman Justice (retired) Javed Iqbal said on Tuesday. Last year, NAB had referred sales tax and income tax cases to the FBR, a press release issued by the bureau quoted the chairman as saying. …

KARACHI: The stock market extended its splendid rally on Tuesday as the KSE-100 index added 443 points to the 796 points it had amassed a day earlier. But that was until the last hour of trading when companies, brokers and insurance firms thought discretion to be better part of valour and launched into heavy profit-selling that saw the index spiral …

KARACHI: A record-breaking 800 hundred young boys and girls turned up on the opening day of the 14-day KHA free winter hockey coaching camp at the KHA Sports Complex on Tuesday. The camp is in accordance with the PHF vision to promote domestic hockey in the country. Legendary Olympians Samiullah and Hanif Khan inaugurated the camp by displaying the old …

ISLAMABAD: The government has extended a tariff increase that was meant for the first quarter of the fiscal year only, rather than letting it expire on Nov 30, essentially denying consumers the rate reduction that was due to them. The financial impact of total adjustment has been worked out by Nepra to be Rs167 billion including Rs73bn of first quarter …

ISLAMABAD: An inquiry report of the Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) finalised on Tuesday has found massive profit-taking due to cartelisation by the cement sector. The inquiry report was finalised for the cement units in the North Zone of All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers Association (APCMA) as the Sindh High Court had restrained the CCP from using material collected from the …

TOKYO: Tokyo 2020 organisers said on Tuesday they will press ahead with a nationwide, socially distanced torch relay — 100 days before the Olympic flame begins its coronavirus (Coviud-19)-delayed journey around Japan. Despite a recent spike in infections, Games officials believe the relay can be held safely — and in front of spectators — with around 10,000 runners carrying the …