Dar hints at 10 percent raise in salaries

 

ISLAMABAD: Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said on Saturday that the government was considering increasing employees’ salaries by ten percent in the upcoming budget.
According to a private news channel, the finance minister said the PML-N government had also decided to continue the BISP and a sufficient amount would be allocated for the programme.

A meeting of the Economic Advisory Council (EAC), held with Ishaq Dar in the chair, discussed all aspects of the national economy. The economic Advisory Council recommended various measures to bring about an improvement to different sectors of the economy.

The sub-group on energy presented its proposals related to the oil and gas sector with the aim of achieving lower cost of energy and to become self-sufficient in national needs.

The sub-group on industry and trade recommended diversification of the export base, moving away from the prime focus on textiles and rice and for promoting a non-agriculture based export industry. The sub-group on food security recommended establishment of a special task force on social safety nets.

The sub-groups on resource mobilisation and expenditure management and the social sector also submitted their recommendations to the council.

Speaking on the occasion, the finance minister said the social safety net was an area of priority for the government.

He said that 50 percent of the country’s population was living below the poverty line.

New satellite images raise hopes in search for missing jet

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  AP Japanese Commander Hidetsugu Iwamasa, centre, speaks to the media after his P-3C Orion from Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force arrived at Royal Australian Air Force Pearce Base in Perth on Sunday, to help with search operations for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.

 
AP A Royal Australian Air Force AP-3C Orion takes off to join the search for the missing Malaysian jet in Perth on Sunday.

A French satellite provided new images of potential debris from a missing Malaysian passenger jet in the southern Indian Ocean as Australian officials on Sunday expressed “increasing hope” that remnants of the plane would be found in the area.

France sent the satellite images on Sunday and they were forwarded to Australia, which is leading the southern Indian Ocean search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, Malaysia’s Transport Ministry said.

The images were of “potential objects,” the Ministry said without being specific.

Although a fourth day of searching in the area yielded no confirmed evidence of the plane, Australian officials expressed optimism that clues would be found in the March 8 disappearance of the Boeing 777.

The French images followed on the heels of two other satellite sightings of potential debris.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott spoke of “very credible leads” and said there was “increasing hope... that we might be on the road to discovering what did happen.” Spirits were buoyed by an image of a large object, 22.5 metres by 13 metres, captured in the area by a Chinese satellite on Tuesday, two days after the initial satellite images were broadcast. The separate sightings were in relatively close proximity.

A search plane on Sunday also spotted “several small objects of interest,” including a wooden pallet and different coloured straps, officials leading the search said.

“It’s a possible lead,” Australian Maritime Safety Authority official Mike Barton said in Canberra. “We’ve gone back to that area today to try and refind it. It’s a possible lead.” Two Chinese aircraft and two from Japan joined the international force of ships and planes searching an area 2,500 kilometres south-west of Perth.

Two patches of ocean are being searched with a combined area of 59,000 sq. km more than two weeks after the plane with 239 people on board vanished from radar while it was on a flight that was to take it from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The search zones have been expanded extensively as no debris has been turned up and the mystery surrounding the plane’s fate has deepened.

The object photographed last week by the Chinese satellite was about 120 kilometres from where the first images of possible debris from Flight MH370 were taken.

Australia’s HMAS Success is already in the search area, and Chinese, British and more Australian naval vessels were en route.

Two merchant ships had also been taking part in the search on requests by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, but one was released as more vessels arrived in the area.

The Hoegh St Petersburg, a Norwegian cargo vessel transporting cars, is now bound for Melbourne, its original destination, its owner, Hoegh Autoliners, said.

Rival Ukraine rallies raise tensions as Crimea crisis deepens

KIEV: Thousands took to the streets for rival pro- and anti-Kremlin rallies across Ukraine on Sunday as the West and Moscow dug in their heels over a deepening crisis in Crimea.
The protests come after a new marathon round of phone calls by US President Barack Obama seeking to defuse the Cold War-style standoff in the ex-Soviet state.
Tensions in Ukraine's Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which has come under de facto control by Russian forces, have resulted in a new face-off between Russia and the West, with each side imposing sanctions or warning of further prohibitive measures to force the other to back down.
Foreign observers have failed to get into Crimea, a majority Russophone region of Ukraine, to get a first-hand look at the situation on the ground and were forced to turn back on Saturday after pro-Kremlin gunmen fired warning shots.
Ukrainian border guards said Saturday that about 60 Russian military lorries had entered the rugged peninsula of two million in the last 24 hours by land and sea, a sign that Moscow was far from pulling back.
They also said "Russian extremists" had attacked a Crimea radar post, in the latest move by pro-Russian forces who have surrounded Ukrainian military bases and taken at least one missile defence unit.
"Armed attackers in military uniform and civil clothes broke the door and entered the building. Radio technic units and telecommunication cables were dissembled and destroyed," the border guards said in a statement in English on their website.
Sunday marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko and patriotic rallies were planned in Kiev and -- in a show of defiance towards Russia -- in Crimea's key cities of Simferopol and Sevastopol.
The rallies are also significant ahead of controversial plans by Crimea's regional pro-Moscow government to hold a referendum on joining Russia on March 16, which could lead to a formal annexation of the territory.
In the eastern city of Donetsk, a former stronghold of Ukraine's ousted president Viktor Yanukovych and the site of regular protests in recent days, there were fears of clashes as pro-Kiev demonstrators planned to celebrate Shevchenko, while pro-Russian protesters were due to hold a counter-rally.
The 19th-century poet has been credited with creating the modern Ukrainian language and the idea of Ukraine as a nation, giving the new Wester-backed government in Kiev a powerful opportunity on Sunday to revive some nationalist fervour in the face of Russia's incursion.

Protesters raise Russian flag in Ukrainian cities

KIEV: Dozens of people were hurt in clashes on Saturday when pro-Russia activists stormed the regional government's headquarters in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv and raised the Russian flag, local media said.
The UNIAN news agency said thousands of people had gathered outside the building during a protest against the country's new leaders who ousted President Viktor Yanukovich a week ago.
The violence signalled that Ukraine's new leaders could face a challenge in mainly Russian-speaking regions that oppose the largely pro-Western course charted by the newly installed government.
The leaders of Crimea, a Black Sea peninsula with an ethnic Russian majority that is home to a Russian naval base, say they have joined forces with Russian servicemen to exert control over key buildings.
Russian parliament has approved a proposal by President Vladimir Putin to deploy troops in Ukraine.
Protests against the new authorities also took place on Saturday in other cities, including Odessa, Dnipro and Donetsk, Yanukovich's home town and power base.
The Russian flag was raised over the regional government building in Donetsk by several thousand pro-Russia activists waving the Russian tricolour and chanting "Russia! Russia!, witnesses said.
Donetsk authorities issued an appeal for a referendum to be called on the future status of the region.