Month: December 2020

Pakistani project wins award for shielding villages from natural disasters

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A project that combines satellite images, mapping technologies and the local knowledge of villagers to help build climate-proof settlements in disaster-prone areas of Pakistan won an international award on Thursday. More than 1 million people have benefited from the Aga Khan Agency for Habitat (AKAH) Pakistan project, which was a gold prize winner at the World Habitat Awards that are organised with the United Nations housing agency (UN-Habitat). AKAH has trained about 50,000 residents to better protect their villages from disasters in the mountainous northern areas which are vulnerable to…

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ECC defers subsidy for industries

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ISLAMABAD: The cabinet’s economic decision-making body on Thursday did not approve a subsidy of Rs9.5 billion under the prime minister’s industrial package that the Power Division sought to pick the difference between peak and off-peak electricity rates. The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the cabinet was not sure about the base of the Rs9.5 billion subsidy claim for the period November 1, 2020 to April 30, 2021 while some of its members forcefully opposed any subsidy, official sources told The Express Tribune. Electricity will be sold to industrial consumers at…

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Saudi Oil Exports To U.S. Slump To 35-Year Low

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Saudi Arabia’s crude oil exports to the United States fell to the lowest in 35 years in October, averaging less than 100,000 bpd, Bloomberg reported, citing preliminary and historical data from the Energy Information Administration. In the week to November 27 alone, the volume of Saudi oil shipments to the U.S. fell to as little as 73,000 bpd. The average daily volume for October beat another low, recorded for August, at 177,000 bpd, as OPEC’s top producer and exporter tried to tighten crude oil supply amid plummeting prices. To compare,…

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Lithuanians Urged To Stockpile Food Amid Reports Of Nuclear Power Incident

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Days after reports emerged that the newly opened Belarus nuclear power plant suffered an incident, authorities in neighboring Lithuania told the Baltic country’s population on Thursday to stock up on food in case of an incident at the nuclear power facility in Belarus, which is just 30 miles away from Lithuania’s capital city Vilnius. “We recommend that the population create a stock of essential products for three days,” Mindaugas Bayarunas, a representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Lithuania, said on the national radio on Thursday, as carried by…

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Saudi Wealth Fund Looks For $7 Billion Loan For ‘’Opportunistic Investments’’

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The Public Investment Fund, the sovereign wealth fund of the world’s largest oil exporter Saudi Arabia, has contacted international banks for a loan of up to US$7 billion to use for new investments, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing sources with knowledge of the plans. The Public Investment Fund (PIF), as the wealth fund is officially known, aims to be one of the world’s biggest sovereign wealth funds through investments in and outside Saudi Arabia. It is also a key investment vehicle for the Saudi plan to diversify its economy away…

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