KARACHI: Sindh cabinet on Thursday gave nod to close Coronavirus Emergency Fund (CEF), following the control over the pandemic. A six member-body of the Coronavirus Emergency Fund headed by the chief secretary of Sindh was constituted by CM Murad Ali Shah to deal with the pandemic. The cabinet members were told that 17 meetings of the CEF were held between …

Meta Platform’s (META.O) Instagram was down for thousands of users globally on Wednesday, according to outage tracking website Downdetector.com. More than 46,000 users reported issues with accessing the photo-sharing platform in the United States at the peak of the outage, according to Downdetector, which tracks outages by collating status reports from a number of sources including user-submitted errors on its platform. …

LONDON: Chelsea manager Graham Potter breathed a sigh of relief after his side finally delivered some return on a world record one-season spend in the transfer market on Tuesday by reaching the quarter-finals of the Champions League. The Blues overturned a 1-0 first-leg deficit by beating Borussia Dortmund 2-0 at Stamford Bridge thanks to goals either side of half-time from …

LAHORE: Former batting maestro Mohammad Yousuf will be Pakistan’s interim head coach for the T20 International series against Afghanistan being held in Sharjah, UAE from March 25 to 29, Dawn has learnt. Sources say as there is no national team management functioning currently after the recently-held home series against New Zealand and the process to hire the management on a …

LONDON: Michael Vaughan’s “life and livelihood” are at stake in the Yorkshire racism hearing, the former England captain’s lawyer claimed on Tuesday. Vaughan is accused by the England and Wales Cricket Board of making a racist comment to Azeem Rafiq and three other Yorkshire players in 2009. Former Yorkshire batsman Vaughan has lost roles as a television pundit since the …

RAWALPINDI: As one of the world’s most dangerous batters in white-ball cricket, a destructive innings was due on Jason Roy in the HBL Pakistan Super league this season. To the horror of Peshawar Zalmi, when it finally arrived, it was with them at the receiving end. With skipper Babar Azam leading them from the front with his maiden PSL century …

ISLAMABAD: In a surprise, State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Governor Jameel Ahmad told a parliamentary panel that the recent increase of 300 basis points in its policy rate was a decision of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the central bank and not done on the demand of the Intern­ational Monetary Fund (IMF). Testifying before the Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue, the …

The delay in the finalisation of a deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) continued to roil currency markets on Thursday morning, with the Pakistani rupee seeing a Rs3.38 depreciation against the dollar in the interbank market. The rupee was being traded at Rs282.50 at 11:05am today, according to data shared by the Exchange Companies Association of Pakistan (ECAP). Yesterday, …

The US State Department has urged Pakistan to “continue working” with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), especially on reforms that will improve the country’s business environment, highlighting that it would help Pakistan attract “high-quality investment”. State Department spokesperson Ned Price made the remarks in response to a query at a weekly press briefing on Wednesday. “We encourage Pakistan to continue working with …

Finance Minister Ishaq Dar vowed on Thursday that he and his team were “absolutely committed” to completing the current $7bn Extended Fund Facility programme with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), once again stressing that Pakistan was close to signing the staff-level agreement. The government is in a race against time to implement measures to reach an agreement with the IMF …