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| April 21, 2008 | Monday | Rabi-us-Sani 14, 1429 |
Food, fuel and fiscal crises
 The sky-rocketing food prices have emerged as the new crisis not only in Pakistan, but also on the global economic horizon, eclipsing the already looming fuel and financial crises, which had been dominating the headlines....
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Chopping apple tree for firewood
 THE government is considering raising money through exchangeable bonds from the international financial market. An exchangeable bond comes with an embedded option to exchange the bond for the stock of a company at some future date under certain terms and conditions....
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Punjab: unlocking growth potential
 Unlike the new provincial government in Sindh, the coalition of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) in Punjab has yet to put together and articulate its economic development agenda....
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Genomics to improve farming
 Biotechnology is having an increasingly important impact on various sectors and disciplines. Combined with genomics, proteomics and metabolomics, biotechnology can greatly aid our ability to confront the challenges of production, management, and sustainability of agriculture and economic development....
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Inter-cropping barley with legumes
 THE world during the 21st century will be facing shrinkage of land resources, increasing small holdings, pressure of rising population and accumulation of the world resources with the developed nations and consequently more hungry faces in the poor developing nations....
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Water sharing for Kharif crops
After securing a historic unanimous vote of trust from the National Assembly, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani said “the country is now beset with crises, on the top of the list being the crises of electricity and water.”...
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How to improve sugar recovery from cane?
 Dr M. Farooq & Dr Shahzad Basra...
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Tapping wind turbine-making facility
 Pakistan is presently short of 3500 mega watts (MW) of electricity. If fossil fuel is utilised for this purpose, it would be extremely costly as oil recently peaked at $114 per barrel....
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Alternative energy sources for rural areas
 The eradication of poverty, improved environment and a better quality of life for the poor are unachievable without electricity needed for lighting homes/ schools, clinics and for running industry....
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Issues in GCC’s asset management industry
With capital markets becoming active players in the disintermediation process, there is a paradigm shift that is occurring in the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC). Currently, fund raising is largely dominated by commercial bank lending....
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World economies
Middle EastThe IMF has increased its growth forecast for the Middle East in 2008 by 0.2 basis points to 6.1 per cent, despite predicting that world growth would slow due to...
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No strategy in sight to curb steel price surge
 ONE of the most contentious battles in the war against inflation is being fought in the steel sector. Various ministries in the government of India are taking opposing views on measures...
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Making the poor pay for rich farmers
Rich countries are subsidising their rich farmers. The total funding comes to $1 billion a day according to the World Trade Organization which wants the developed states to reduce such heavy subsidy....
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Can desalination boost fresh water security?
 After oil security, water security is now drawing global concern, as a result of looming global water shortages. According to the International Water Management Institute, about a fifth of the world population – more than 1.2...
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Using remittances for development
 REMITTANCES have emerged as a major source of foreign exchange. Global official remittances have increased from $2 billion in 1970 to the present level of over $80 billion....
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The market debacle
 The financial sector in Britian seems to have been caught between the deepening credit crunch and expanding housing slump with the medium to smaller mortgage lenders facing certain collapse....
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Security risks to gas pipelines
 Normally, financial, marketing and technical viability is necessary for a project to succeed. However, in case of huge infrastructure ventures, like gas pipelines passing through a hostile territory, mere technical viability may not always be sufficient....
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Banks eying business on rising trade
Pakistan’s trade with China has nearly doubled to $4 billion in fiscal year 2007 from $2.2 billion in 2005, according to State Bank figures. But the Chinese Customs statistics put the two-way trade at $6.86...
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Biofuel industry at the crossroads
 At a time when food prices are skyrocketing worldwide with no signs of a climb-down in the near future, the rush for bio-fuels that had only recently gained momentum has become too controversial and, in fact, unwanted....
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Unusual trading pushes stocks to new heights
 THE share market maintained its run-up throughout the last week as investors were not inclined to take even a technical breather in a highly overbought market and no one was in a mood to miss the bandwagon at this stage....
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Rupee slides against weakening dollar
 Weak sentiment persisted in the local currency market this week. The rupee further weakened as the dollar forward buying pushed the rupee down in both open and inter-bank market....
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Bank lending shows mixed trends
 On April 17, the State Bank of Pakistan bought back Rs21.80 billion of Treasury Bills at 10 per cent under two-day reverse-repo contracts to inject liquidity into a tight money market....
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Prices of essentials rise on short supply fears
 FLARE-UP in prices of some varieties of rice again dominated the trading on the Karachi commodity markets as reports of short supply continued to trigger panic buying among both the local consumers and the retailers....
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