The multinational company MVM Energy (PVT) Ltd. has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Yutong, a renowned bus manufacturer to introduce electric buses in Pakistan. The project will be officially launched in February 2020. A trial run will be initiated in the first stage with the long term aim to revolutionize the Pakistani public transport system keeping in line with PM Imran Khan’s vision of a clean green progressive Pakistan.
Saudi Arabia on Saturday rejected reports that it was involved in Pakistan’s absence from the Kuala Lumpur Summit. The Saudi embassy in Islamabad released its statement a day after Turkish media quoted President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as saying Pakistan had decided to stay away from the recently concluded summit because of Saudi Arabia’s threats of economic sanctions.
US State Department released a statement on Dec 18, designating Pakistan and eight other countries as “Countries of Particular Concern (CPC)”. Under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, countries on the CPC list are classified as “having engaged in or tolerated systematic, ongoing, [and] egregious violations of religious freedom”. The list also includes Myanmar, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.
The northern areas of the country were jolted by a 6.4-magnitude earthquake on Friday, according to the National Seismic Monitoring Centre in Islamabad. The earthquake struck with the epicentre being a sparsely populated , remote mountain area in Badakhshan province in the northeast of Afghanistan with a depth of 210 kilometres. The effected areas include Lahore, Peshawar, Islamabad, Murree, Mansehra, Battagram, Chiniot, and Gilgit-Baltistan.
Pakistan is facing gas outages as demand has exceeded supply following an abrupt drop in temperature in different parts of the country. The situation resulted in long queues outside tandoors due to low gas pressure at residences and prompted Karachi-based Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) to suddenly suspend supplies to CNG fuel stations in Sindh and Balochistan to keep supplies to households normal on Tuesday.
According to a report, titled “Global Gender Gap Report 2020” published by the World Economic Forum examining gender equality around the globe, Pakistan was ranked third-lowest in the world. Pakistan being at 151st position out of 153 countries. The Global Gender Gap Report measures the progress of a country’s gender equality in four areas; economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.
The Buddhist trail will be developed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, and Azad Jammu Kashmir; giving way to the Buddhist pilgrims from all across the world to visit Pakistan. Pakistan will be working towards the preservation and restoration of Buddhist cultural heritage, to further facilitate the Buddhist trail. One of the oldest Buddhist monument lies just 60 kilometres away from Islamabad, on the grassy hill of Haripur.
European group, EU DisinfoLab, has exposed over 200 ‘fake’ news outlets managed by an Indian network to influence the European Union and the United Nations with content critical of Pakistan. During the investigation, the DisinfoLab found that the news outlets were managed by Indian stakeholders, with ties to a large network of think tanks, NGOs, and companies from the Srivastava Group.
A recent report published by the World Economic Forum (WEF) has ranked Pakistan ranked 151 out of 153 countries on the Global Gender Gap Index Report 2020 index. The country has drastically slipped from 112 in 2006 to 151 in 2020 and only managed to surpass Iraq and Yemen. Among the seven South Asian countries included in the index, Pakistan charted at the very bottom.
Switzerland has rejected Pakistan’s request to provide five years old tax information under the Automatic Exchange of Information. The bank accounts’ information that Switzerland will share in September 2021, will pertain to the accounts positions for the calendar year 2020. Since Pakistan’s demand had no legal justification, the Swiss authorities have informed that they cannot provide any information before January 2019 period.