Pakistan Today

LAHORE: Following the federal cabinet's decision to purchase the Covid-19 vaccine from a Chinese company and regarding its purchase and availability, Punjab Primary and Secondary Healthcare (P&SHC) Secretary Captain (r) Muhammad Usman on Thursday said that work is underway on the purchase and it will be available by March 2021. According to sources, the federal government has started preliminary preparations for...

Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan on Thursday announced that the fixed tax regime for the construction sector that was introduced earlier this year had been extended to Dec 31, 2021. "I want to give good news for the new year. We have extended the fixed tax regime to Dec 31, 2021," the PM said during a live address to...

NEW YORK: Bitcoin vaulted above $29,000 to reach yet another record level on the last day of 2020, showing no signs of slowing down its huge December rally. The largest cryptocurrency by market cap climbed to as high as $29,292 before pulling back slightly to trade at $29,150.49 as of 10:18am Pakistan standard time on Thursday. It has advanced almost...

All businesses and restaurants in the port city are closed down by 8 pm on New Year's Eve, directed Karachi Commissioner Navid Ahmed Shaikh on Thursday. This decision, which was taken during a meeting to outline the security plans, was made to prevent traffic jams. The official notification said that "owing to security reasons and on the request of the police...

LAHORE: Engro Polymer & Chemicals Limited has successfully undertaken the Initial Public Offering of its Preference Shares. The public subscription was held successfully on December 17 and 18. The listing of the said shares will take place on December 31, 2020. The prospectus of the company was published and made available to the public on December 10, 2020. Arif Habib Limited...

SINGAPORE: Pakistan LNG is seeking two liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargoes for delivery in April, a tender document posted on the company website showed. The state-run procurement agency is seeking the cargoes on a delivered ex-ship (DES) basis at Port Qasim, Karachi, for delivery over April 5 to 6 and April 19 to 20, according to the document. The tender closes...

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will purchase 1.2 million Covid-19 vaccine doses from China’s Sinopharm, a minister said on Thursday, the first official confirmation of a vaccine purchase by the South Asian country as it battles the second wave of infections. China approved a Covid-19 vaccine developed by an affiliate of state-backed pharmaceutical giant Sinopharm on Thursday, its first approved shot for general...

Chinese health regulators said on Thursday that they have given conditional approval to a coronavirus vaccine developed by state-owned Sinopharm. The two-dose vaccine is the first approved for general use in China. The go-ahead comes as the country has begun to vaccinate 50 million people before the Lunar New Year holiday in February. "Conditional approval means that research is still ongoing,...

WASHINGTON: The US government on Wednesday said it would raise tariffs on certain European Union products, including aircraft components and wines from France and Germany, the latest twist in a 16-year battle over aircraft subsidies between Washington and Brussels. In a statement, the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) said it was adding tariffs on aircraft manufacturing parts and...

In a rare protest, the families of three people killed in a gunfight in Kashmir have said that they were not militants, adding that two of them had only left their home for some work. Two teenagers and a young man were killed after a firefight with a joint team of police and government forces at Hokersar on the city outskirts...

MONTREAL: When 2020 dawned, the global economy had just notched its 10th straight year of uninterrupted growth, a streak most economists and government finance officials expected to persist for years ahead in a 21st Century version of the “Roaring ‘20s.” But within two months, a mysterious new virus first detected in China in December 2019 - the novel coronavirus -...

MONTREAL: Emergency corporate fundraising and a clamour for tech stock market listings pushed equity capital market volumes to over $1 trillion in 2020 and fees for investment bankers in the sector to a record high, data showed. As the COVID-19 pandemic raged across the world, companies turned to their shareholders in droves to get the funding needed to get through...

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Thursday extended interim bail granted to former Sindh minister Jam Khan Shoro and others till February 4 in a case pertaining to the allegedly illegal allotment of 19 plots of the Karachi Development Authority (KDA) said to be worth Rs1 billion. A two-judge bench of the SHC was hearing the case wherein the...

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Vice President Maryam Nawaz on Wednesday held Prime Minister Imran Khan responsible for for the suffering the citizens of Kashmir. Addressing a gathering of party workers at Kashmir House Islamabad on Wednesday to mark Kashmir’s founding day, the PML-N VP expressed her sympathies with Kashmir, and said: “when your sons are martyred, our souls are hurt." "When...

LAHORE: Silkbank Limited, a dominant player with a substantial market share in the credit cards industry, announced the successful launch of its contactless Visa credit cards in December 2020. Contactless technology enables safer and faster transactions that do not require you to swipe or dip your card at Point of Sale (POS) terminals, making purchase experience more convenient. While commenting on...