Tag: Million

LOS ANGLES - A ballet psycho-thriller isn't the typical boxoffice juggernaut, but as Darren Aronofsky's "Black Swan" hit the $75 million mark during the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend. Women (big surprise!). About 55 percent of the audience is female (17-34 is the sweet spot), and many bring their boyfriends and husbands along.
Women are giving the film a B+ on CinemaScore; men are a bit less enthusiastic with a B, but that is considered great for a horror/thriller.

ISLAMABAD - The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Tuesday directed the Finance Ministry to present the record of Rs 30 million spent by the Military Intelligence in Dera Bugti for transformers' installation.
According to the Auditor General of Pakistan's Audit Report 2008-09, the Finance Division gave Water and Power Development Authority's Rs 30 million to the Military Intelligence as a reimbursement of the amount already spent on the installation of transformers and provision

KARACHI - The Sindh government would allocate Rs 250 million for minorities in the next budget and presently, many projects are under way for their welfare at a cost of Rs 100 million, Adviser to Sindh Chief Minister on Information and Archives, Sharmila Farooqui said on Monday.
"These funds will be used to renovate minorities' religious and cultural places, give stipends for poor students and provide financial assistance to needy families," she said while talking to a delegation

ISLAMABAD - Italy will provide a soft loan of 40 million euros to Pakistan for poverty reduction by rural development activities in Balochistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
Italian Ambassador Vincenzo Prati and Economic Affairs Secretary Sibtain Fazal Halim signed the loan-agreement on Friday in Islamabad.
The loan is being provided under the pledge made at the Tokyo conference and the financing will be utilised by the Pakistan Poverty

COLOMBO - Flooding in Sri Lanka has forced more than one million people out of their homes, the government said on Thursday as it began distributing emergency food, clothing and bedding. At least 23 people have died during a week of monsoon floods, with the centre and east of the island worst hit by rising water levels and mudslides.
A spokesman for the disaster management centre in Colombo said the eastern district of Batticaloa, which saw bloody fighting in the civil war that

KARACHI - The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) received an overwhelming response from the corporate sector to its companies regularisation (CRS) and companies easy exit (CEES) schemes.
The schemes not only generated huge revenues but also enhanced the corporate compliance rate and have opened new avenues for future revenue generation. During the period from July to September, 1,264 companies regularised their defaults under CRS through filing 6,736 returns,

islamabad - The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) has taken notice of unregistered futures trading at the country's commodity exchange to protect the interest of small investors. In this concern, the apex regulator said, the SECP had issued an order against Ravi Oil Cake Traders, a partnership firm, for operating an illegal commodity exchange. It said the firm had violated Section 3 (1) of the Securities and Exchange Ordinance 1969 by providing unauthorized trading

KARACHI - The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has revised the credit limit for banks and Development Financial Institutions (DFI) under consumer financing at Rs 5.0 million.
The central bank has also allowed commercial banks and DFIs to waive the requirement of 50 percent debt burden in case the borrower's credit card and personal loan happens to be properly secured through liquid assets with a minimum 30 percent margin.
The State Bank introduced the new regulations with

ISLAMABAD - The Punjab government has not been able to recover over Rs 574 million from the officers/officials and contractors of the Punjab Food Directorate, mainly owing to its ineffective and insufficient recovery mechanism, points out an AGPR audit report for the year 2009-10.
The report reveals Rs 574.847 million were recoverable from a number of officers, officials and contractors of the Punjab Food Directorate. The scrutiny of the directorate's monthly recovery statements

LONDON - Two million people have registered an interest for tickets for the London 2012 Olympic Games, despite the prices being higher than initially promised, the head of the organising committee said Saturday.
Paul Deighton expects a further 500,000 to sign up for information updates by the time the 6.6 million tickets for the public go on sale in March. "One of the key things for us in March is to make sure that things go smoothly," said Deighton, the chief executive of the

KARACHI: The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) administration has released more than Rs 20 million to a trade union, Super Peoples Unity, for putting up banners and billboards to welcome President Asif Ali Zardari at the inauguration ceremony of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Housing Scheme today (Saturday).
The union's president, Aamir Shah, who is not a PIA employee, was issued a daily wager card along with other 15 people by the national carrier on Friday and it is likely that he

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Food and Agriculture Nazar Muhammad Gondal informed the National Assembly on Friday that the government will import 0.2 million tonnes of urea fertilizer from Saudi Arabia to offset any shortfall.
Replying to queries during the session, the federal minister said that gas load-shedding has adversely affected urea output which would have to be overcome by imports.
The imported urea will arrive in the country by January 2011, he added. The

FAISALABAD - A fire sparked by short circuit in a weaving factory destroyed the weaving material and machinery worth Rs 5 million. Reportedly, Maqsood Weaving Factory at Faizabad in Ghulam Muhammadabad area caught fire at night due to short circuit.
The fire engulfed the whole factory within no time and destroyed the weaving material and machinery worth Rs 5 million. Rescue 1122 service fire fighters took six hours to bring the fire under control.
ROBBERS INJURE SECURITY

KARACHI - Balochistan Economic Forum President Sardar Shoukat AK Popalzai in an exclusive interview to Pakistan Today highlighted the initiatives and achievements of his young but assertive organisation.
The Balochistan Economic Forum (BEF) is expected to garner an investment of $130.5 million in Balochistan from Australia, Holland, China, and Poland in the fields of agriculture, fruit farming, and coal processing in the course of next year. He added that the forum's

LAHORE: Federal Board of Revenue's (FBR) Directorate of Intelligence and Investigation, Lahore, has detected the huge General Sales Tax (GST) evasion of Rs 613 million by a group of fraudsters.
Sources revealed that Directorate of Intelligence and Investigation (DII) had registered an FIR against 32 tax evaders and apprehended the mastermind of plot, Ejaz Latif, who was implicated in illegal input tax adjustment on the basis of false sales tax invoices.
A senior FBR

LONDON: BP said it had agreed to sell a portfolio of oil and gas assets in Pakistan to Hong Kong-listed United Energy Group for $775 million as it raises cash to pay for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
BP said on Tuesday that the planned disposal of its upstream assets in Pakistan brought to $21.8 billion the amount that the company has raised, or agreed sales on, in recent months. The $775 million value of the disposal was higher than the $690 million analysts estimated the assets

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is expected to harvest a production of 11 million bales of cotton this year despite the biblical floods. This was assessed at a meeting of the Cotton Crop Assessment Committee held under the chairmanship of Minister for Food Nazar Gondal here on Monday.
The minister stated that efforts to boost cotton production for meeting domestic and industrial demand were underway. He added that usage of certified cotton seeds and agreement with Monsanto for the