KARACHI: Pakistan LNG Ltd (PLL) said on Friday it had disqualified for technical reasons the two bids it received for a tender seeking one spot cargo of liquefied natural gas (LNG) for delivery in early July. PLL had sought the cargo for a July 3-4 delivery in a tender advertised this week. An offer from TotalEnergies was disqualified because it …

KARACHI: The business community on Friday slammed the government’s move of increasing the petrol and diesel prices by a whopping Rs60 a litre in less than a week and the sudden Rs7.9 per unit hike in electricity base tariff will not only push up the cost of production but will also jolt the cost of doing business and ease of …

ISLAMABAD: Inflation measured by the Sensitive Price Index (SPI) increased by two per cent from the previous week, the highest increase in 64 weeks, due to increases in energy and food prices, according to Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) data released on Friday. The year-on-year increase in SPI was 20.04pc during the week under review. Since February 25, 2021, this …

KARACHI: The US dollar bounced back on Friday with an appreciation of 33 paise in the interbank market snapping the rupee’s five-day winning streak. The rupee started gaining against the US dollar on May 27 and kept appreciating during the last five sessions. The dollar was sold as low as Rs197.59 on June 2. However, the market felt a change …

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Friday imposed a 10 per cent regulatory duty on the import of petroleum products from China after a massive 673pc surge in duty-free imports to Rs250 billion this year with a revenue loss of Rs25bn under the garb of the China-Pakistan Free Trade Agreement (CPFTA). A decision to this effect was taken at a meeting of the …

BRUSSELS: EU countries and lawmakers are set to agree on a common charging port for mobile phones, tablets and headphones on June 7 when they meet to discuss a proposal that has been fiercely criticised by Apple, people familiar with the matter said. The proposal for a single mobile charging port was first broached by the EC more than a …

WASHINGTON: Decla­ring “enough, enough!” US President Joe Biden on Thursday urged Congress to ban assault weapons, expand background checks and implement other sensible gun control measures to address a string of mass shootings that have struck the United States. Speaking from the White House, in a speech broadcast live in primetime, Biden asked a country stunned by the recent shootings …

IOWA: A man shot and killed two women in the parking lot of a church in Iowa state on Thursday and then turned the gun on himself, police said, adding three more dead to the toll in a series of recent shootings that have rocked the United States. The Iowa shooting took place shortly after President Joe Biden delivered a …

THE HAGUE: European police said on Friday they had arrested eight human smuggling “kingpins” and dismantled a huge secret network accused of transporting some 10,000, mainly Afghan, Pakistani and Syrian migrants, to the continent. A German-led task force involving Austria, Hungary, Romania, Serbia and the Netherlands also arrested 126 accomplices, mainly in Austria, said the EU’s police agency Europol. Europol, …

LONDON: Cheers greeted Prince Harry and his wife Meghan outside St Paul’s Cathedral on Friday as they made their first public appearance in Britain for two years. But opinions were split among the throng of fans waiting at the London landmark to catch a glimpse of the royals, reflecting a generational divide. The couple’s return for Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum …