While rising domestic production did not address growing dependence on foreign goods and services nor did exports move fast enough to keep the trade deficit from taking an unsustainable path, policymakers are now considering regulatory measures to curb surging imports. According to State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) data, the import bill rose 62.2 per cent to over $13 billion during …

WASHINGTON: Facebook on Sunday dismissed as “ludicrous” suggestions it contributed to the US Capitol riot on January 6, a charge the social media giant expects will be leveled in an upcoming whistleblower interview. Facebook’s vice president of policy and global affairs Nick Clegg also vehemently pushed back at the assertion its platforms are “toxic” for teens, days after a tense recent congressional …

The birthplace of known poets like Faiz Ahmad Faiz and Shiv Kumar Batalvi, writer Afzal Ahsan Randhawa and showbiz personalities Dev Anand and Rajendra Kumar, Narowal is located at the North-East tip of the barani areas in Punjab along Indian borders. It was given the status of a district in 1991. The historic Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartarpur, one of the …

ISLAMABAD: Even though improvements have been introduced in reporting requirements for real estate sector through the Designated Non-Financial Business and Professions (DNFBPs) initiative, a lot of transactions in the sector still take place in the grey area, which may pose serious challenges to the system. “There are many housing societies and market players who are trading open files worth Rs1 …

CHAGAI: Immigration clearance to Iran started on Sunday after Iranian authorities lifted travel ban on Pakistani citizens having business and student visas and allowed several people to enter the country via Taftan. According to official sources, the immigration clearance at Taftan border was closed almost three months ago following restrictions after resurgence of coronavirus cases in Iran. However, Pakistani citizens …

Jordan’s royal court on Monday rejected as “distorted” claims made in the Pandora Papers that King Abdullah II created a network of offshore companies to build a $100 million overseas property empire. It said that the reports “included inaccuracies and distorted and exaggerated the facts”, and that revealing the properties’ addresses was “a flagrant security breach and a threat to …

COX’S BAZAR: Five Rohingya men have been arrested over the killing of a prominent community leader in a refugee camp in Bangladesh, police said on Sunday, adding that they were probing links to a militant group. Mohibullah — a high-profile figurehead for the more than 800,000-strong Muslim minority who fled the Myanmar military in a mass exodus — was killed by gunmen …

JERUSALEM: A plane branded with the logo of national Egyptian carrier Egyptair landed in Israel for the first time on Sunday, a flight described as “historic” by the Israel Airports Authority. Egypt was the first Arab nation to establish ties with Israel in a 1979 peace deal, and direct flights between the countries followed that accord. But the Egyptian flights …

MUSCAT: At least nine people were killed in Oman and Iran on Sunday as tropical Cyclone Shaheen pummelled parts of their coastlines, authorities said. In Oman, two people died in a landslide and a child in flash flooding, officials said. Rescue teams pulled the bodies of two Asian workers from their home hit by a landslide in the Rusayl industrial …

WASHINGTON: More than a dozen heads of state and government, including the king of Jordan and the Czech prime minister, have hidden millions in offshore tax havens, according to an investigation published on Sunday by the ICIJ media consortium. The so-called “Pandora Papers” investigation — involving some 600 journalists from media including The Washington Post, the BBC and The Guardian — is based on the …