Pakistan

LAHORE: Deputy Speaker Dost Muhammad Mazari has issued a notice to the Punjab Assembly staffers who did not report for duty at the session convened on the orders of the governor at Aiwan-i-Iqbal. The employees of legislation, estate, reporting and security wings of the assembly have been given seven days to submit their replies to the show-cause notice or face …

MANSEHRA: Over a dozen people, including shepherds, got stranded in Khambanar meadow of Balakot tehsil due to heavy snowfall on Thursday. Mohammad Riaz, a relative of stranded shepherds, told reporters that he wasn’t sure if his family members were alive as survival in such an inclement weather and that, too, inside small huts seemed to be a miracle. He said …

KARACHI: Just two days before the first phase of local government elections in four divisions of Sindh, the key contesting parties on Thursday came up with serious concerns, accusing the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party of pre-poll rigging, and also demanded deployment of army fearing violence on the polling day (June 26). Although not all of them want postponement of the …

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has sent medical teams to Khost province of Afghanistan to provide relief to the victims of earthquake in the war-stricken country. Another team formed by Provincial Doctors Association (PDA) is set to go to the earthquake-affected provinces of Khost and Paktika and help the patients there, according to Dr Zubair Zahir, the president of the …

ISLAMABAD: As the government and the opposition held each other responsible for the country’s economic mess and price hike in the Senate on Thur­sday, a minister conceded that the proposed budget for the next year is eventually an IMF budget. “…..yes, this is an IMF budget, but it was the PTI government that signed the deal and then reneged on …

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday said the International Monetary Fund (IMF) did not trust Pakistan as the previous Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government backed out of a “deal” with the Fund by freezing petroleum prices against a promised hike. “The IMF asked us how it can trust the government once the previous (PTI) regime backed out of the agreement,” …

ISLAMABAD: Lawmakers, while taking part in the general debate on the federal budget in the National Assembly on Thursday, stressed the need for the political parties to sign a “charter of economy” to ensure continuity of the economic policies regardless of the regime change as speakers one after the other continued to assail the previous Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government for …

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Friday announced that the government will be imposing a 10 per cent “super tax” on large-scale industries in a bid to shore up revenues for supporting the country’s poor amid rising inflation. Industries to be taxed cement steel sugar oil and gas fertilisers LNG terminals textile banking automobile cigarettes beverages chemicals airlines High net worth …

Finance Minister Miftah Ismail on Friday announced new fixed taxes on retailers to reduce the budget deficit and elaborated on the “super tax” on 13 large industries announced by the prime minister that rattled the stock market. Addressing a National Assembly (NA) session convened to wind up the budget debate, Ismail said the country was no longer on the way to default …

PTI general-secretary Asad Umar on Friday excoriated the coalition government for imposing a “super tax” on large-scale industries, saying that the measure would “rattle the economy”, increase unemployment and inflation, shoot up imports and push Pakistan further into economic crisis. “This is a huge blow to the growing industries,” he said at a press conference in Islamabad. In an address …