April 20, 2020 (MLN): World Bank plans to approve 500 million dollars financing for Pakistan by next month. The loan aims to strengthen civil registration and vital statistics i.e. health and education.
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October 28, 2020: Apple has accelerated work to develop its own search engine that would allow the iPhone maker to offer an alternative to Google, a Financial Times report said Wednesday.
The report, citing unnamed sources, said signs of the search engine technology have begun to appeal in its iOS 14 operating system.
The move comes amid increased scrutiny by antitrust enforcers, who sued Google in the United States over its dominance in search technology.
As part of the lawsuit, the Department of Justice noted that Google pays Apple billions of dollars to be the principal search engine on iOS devices.
Apple did not immediately respond to an AFP query. Reports in the past have said Apple had begun some in-house research on creating a search engine.
According to the FT, Apple two years ago hired Google's head of search, John Giannandrea, in a move designed to help build artificial intelligence capabilities and its Siri virtual assistant.
AFP/APP
October 28, 2020: Wall Street stocks tumbled Wednesday, taking cues from European bourses that sank on fears of broad lockdowns in the continent to address rising coronavirus cases.
The bellwether Dow Jones Industrial Average had fallen 3.1 percent, or about 840 points, around 1505 GMT, to 26,622.04.
The broad-based S&P 500 also shed 3.1 percent to 3,287.40, as did the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index, which stood at 11,079.01.
The losses came as worldwide coronavirus cases hit a new high of 500,000 on Tuesday, according to a tally from health authorities.
French President Emmanuel Macron will address the nation this evening to unveil tougher restrictions as doctors warned that many hospitals are just days away from being overrun with patients.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel also is seeking drastic new curbs, including fresh shutdowns hitting leisure, sports and the food and drink sectors as she holds crisis talks with Germany's regional leaders to halt surging Covid-19 infections and save the Christmas holiday season.
Besides the coronavirus, investors are also jittery over the US presidential election. Polls showing a tightening of the race in Florida and some other swing states have increased concerns about a potentially contested outcome, even as Joe Biden's lead over President Donald Trump has widened in some key states.
"There is some renewed election uncertainty and there is an ample basis for buyers to keep to the sidelines, creating lower bids that have the potential to feed even lower prices," said Briefing.com analyst Patrick O'Hare.
AFP/APP
October 28, 2020 (MLN): The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has imposed monetary penalty worth Rs.271.622 million on four banks that violated SBP’s rules and regulations during July-September 2020.
According to a notice issued by SBP, the penalty was imposed mainly on violations in the area of CDD/KYC/CFT/AML/FX, Asset Quality, and general banking operations.
Among the banks, the highest penalty of Rs.116.269 million was imposed on Bank Islami Ltd, followed by Rs.86.119 million on Albaraka Bank (Pakistan) Ltd, Rs.59.234 million on Soneri Bank Ltd and Rs.10 million on the Bank of Punjab.
In the previous quarter, the SBP imposed penalties of Rs.1.684 billion on 15 banks for similar violations of rules and regulations.
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October 28, 2020 (MLN): Foreign companies operating in Pakistan repatriated $169.2 million in profit and dividends on investments in the country during the month of September’20 which was 3.18x higher than the profits repatriated in the previous month and 26% higher than that of repatriated in September’19.
The latest data released by SBP today shows that all major sectors of Pakistan repatriated higher profits compared with previous month. The major sectors that have contributed to the growth in the repatriation of profits include Food, Communication, Chemical and Transport sector, among which Food sector repatriated highest profits of $53.2 million during the month mentioned above, against zero profits in the previous month and $3.8 million in corresponding month of last fiscal year.
The data further revealed that profits outflow from the communication sector increased to $53 million; against an outflow of $4.5 million in the previous month and $0.1 million in Sept’19.
The Chemical sector companies repatriated $30.2 million, while they did not dispatch any profits in Aug’20 and $23.1 million to their respective countries in the same month of FY20.
The transport sector repatriated $20.5 million during the month under review, compared to $5.7 million last year. While in the previous month, the sector dispatched $2.6 million worth of profits.
Meanwhile, other sectors such as Beverages, Pharmaceuticals & OTC products, Power and Oil & Gas Exploration managed to dispatch reasonable profits worth $3 million, $3.9 million, $2.2 million and $2.8 million respectively during the month under review.
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