Hit hard by the Coronavirus, British luxury carmaker Bentley Motors has decided to shed up to 1,000 jobs, nearly a quarter of its workforce. The company has a total workforce of 4,200 and said it was offering voluntary redundancy terms but could not rule out compulsory redundancies. The firm faces hundreds of millions of pounds of deferred or lost revenue due to the pandemic.
While Prime Minister Imran Khan ruled out chances of another countrywide lockdown, Pakistan on Friday witnessed the highest number of cases in last 24 hours, taking the total number of infections to 91,456. A record 5000 new cases and almost 100 deaths were reported, the highest in the country since the first case emerged on February 27th. Total fatalities have now exceeded 1800.
Pakistan Army on Friday shot down another Indian spy drone that intruded into the country’s airspace along the Line of Control (LoC). The quadcopter had intruded 500 meters in Khanjar Sector along LOC, Director General Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Major General Babar Iftikhar said in a tweet. This is the third Indian spy drone destroyed in almost 10 days period.
A week after PPP moved Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) against Cynthia D. Ritchie for slanderous tweets, the Pakistan-based American blogger has come out with accusations of rape and assault against some top PPP leaders. In a live video on her Facebook page, Cynthia accused former interior minister Senator Rehman Malik of having raped her in Islamabad in 2011.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has asked Pakistan to freeze all major non-development expenditures heads, including salaries and defence, in order to bring down primary deficit. The IMF staff proposed Pakistan to to undertake massive fiscal adjustments of Rs1,150 billion to bring down primary deficit at negative 0.4 percent of GDP for the upcoming budget 2020-21 post COVID-19 pandemic.
Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi, experienced improved air quality and an up to 40 per cent decrease in noise pollution during the lockdown. This was disclosed during a dialogue with environmental experts held in the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency’s (SEPA) complex on the occasion of World Environment Day on Friday. Last year the port city was reported as the 5th filthiest city in the world.
Bollywood starlets, Priyanka Chopra and Sara Ali Khan, irked followers after they spoke out against racism following death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man. On supporting Floyd’s cause, the former Miss World was highly criticized for staying mum on Islamophobia and brutality on Indian Muslims. The young starkid, on the other hand, faced brutal trolling for her ‘All Lives Matter’ Instagram post.
Over 100 shops were sealed in Lahore, Rawalpindi and Islamabad for violating the standard operating procedures (SOPs) issued by the Punjab government. In addition to shops, two commercial centres, 22 industrial units were also sealed in the twin cities. Administration officials state that severity and frequency of raids would increase with each coming day in order to stop the spread of Coronavirus.
Owing to the outbreak of the Corona pandemic, around three million Pakistanis are expected to go jobless. The findings were submitted by the finance ministry to Senate on Friday. Out of the three million jobs, the industrial sector is likely to lose one million and the remaining two million will be lost in the services sector.
In order to educate the general public about Coronavirus, Governor Punjab has joined hands with famous TikTok stars in Pakistan. A number of famous TikTokers were invited to the Governor House, where they were guided about their role during the on-going pandemic. The Governor instructed the influencers to create awareness about the virus and its leading problems among the common people.