Organized crime is spreading ever further into all areas of the European Union, the European police body Europol said in a report on Monday.

Never before has the threat to the EU and its citizens been so great, the European police agency warned on Monday in an analysis of organized crime presented in Lisbon.

There was a great danger that criminals would also exploit the coronavirus pandemic and its long-term economic and social consequences, it said.

These could be “ideal conditions” for criminals to target citizens, businesses and public entities, the report added.

Based on thousands of cases and data from investigators and security services across the EU, Europol experts produced the comprehensive analysis.

Seventy per cent of the gangs and networks are active in at least three EU states, the report says. More than 40 per cent of the gangs are active in drug trafficking, by far the largest criminal business in the EU.

The analysis clearly shows a high degreed of professional organization of the gangs and how closely the underworld is interwoven with legal aspects of life.

They are organized like business enterprises, with different management levels. More than 80 per cent of the networks used legal business structures and more than 60 per cent of the gangs also used corruption as a means to further their business.

Money laundering was professionally organized and a parallel underworld financial system has been established, the report said, adding that gangs would exploit all possibilities to undermine European economies.

DNA

Islamabad, APR 12 (DNA) – Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL), the country’s leading telecom and ICT services provider, has announced its financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2021 at its Board of Directors’ meeting held in Islamabad on April 11, 2021.

The significant growth in revenues was mainly driven by strong performance in Consumer segment and continued growth momentum in Business Services that supported PTCL in posting 7% growth in revenues for the first time since Q1 of 2014. This was achieved despite the negative effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

Speedy deployment of Fiber-To-The-Home (FTTH) network under project ‘Sunrise Pakistan’, aggressive commercial strategy that aimed at improving customer experience and expansion of digital portfolio successfully helped the company get topline growth back on track. This topline growth and efficient cost control program improved bottom line significantly.

PTCL Group Highlights

• PTCL Group’s posted revenue of Rs 33.9Billion in Q 1, 2021 that is 6.7% higher as compared to the same period of last year, which was mainly contributed by PTCL and U Bank.
• U Bank continued its growth momentum and has achieved a 26.5% growth in its quarterly revenue over same period of last year.
• PTML’s (Ufone) revenue remained stable despite stiff competition in the cellular market.
• PTCL Group posted a net profit of Rs1.6Billion as compared to loss of Rs0.4 Billion for the same period of last year.
• The Group also successfully conducted 5G trial in a limited environment showcasing a remote surgery test case for the first time in Pakistan.

PTCL Highlights

• PTCL’s revenue of Rs18.9 Billion for the quarter is7% higher than Q1 2020, mainly driven by Broadband and Corporate & Wholesale business segments.
• The operating profit of the company has increased by Rs1.3 Billion compared to the same period of last year as a result of growth in the topline, coupled with varied management initiatives for cost optimization.
• Net Profit of Rs1.7 Billion has significantly increased by42.6% from last year.

PTCL ConsumerBusiness: Consistent and Exceptional Performance

PTCL Consumer Business reported4^th straightquarter of growth. Fixed Broadband customers crossed 1.48 Million mark, with 30,000 net additions recorded for the quarter. Apart from Voice Business, which is severely impacted by COVID-19, all the business segments reported revenue growth in double-digits. 

• PTCL Fixed Broadband business grew by 12.3% YoY, whereas PTCL IPTV Segment also grew by 11.1% YoY.
• PTCL Flash Fiber, FTTH service offered by PTCL, showed a tremendous growth of 47.1% YoY.
• PTCL Charji /Wireless Broadband Segment grew by 11.1% YoY.

Universal Service Fund (USF) awarded two contracts to PTCL worth Rs 3 Billion for the provision of Optic Fiber Cable in interior Sindh to connect the underserved areas.

Business Services: Continued Positive Growth Trajectory

Corporate and Wholesale businesses continued their growth trajectory proving its market leadership in IP Bandwidth, Cloud, Data Center and other ICT services segments.

• Corporate business grew by 11.9% as compared to the same period last year.
• Carrier business continued its growth momentum and achieved 13.5% overall revenue growth YoY.
• International revenue has declined by7%, as compared to the same period last yearmainly due to lower voice traffic andappreciation of PKR against USD.

PTCL embarked on a journey in developing partnerships to offer software as a service (SaaS) in the banking, education, Cloud and cyber-security verticals. Additionally, PTCL was awarded major digital enablement projects that included Utility stores in the digital transformation of 4,000+ branches, UBL for hosting of the primary infrastructure in a purpose-built Tier-3 site, among other projects.

With the renewal of its integrated services license for the next 25 years, the company has accelerated investments in developing state-of-the-art telecommunication infrastructure in Pakistan, which further strengthened its position as the backbone of connectivity in the country. 

ISLAMABAD, APR 12 (DNA) – The National Academy of Higher Education (NAHE) has awarded 300 eligible Fellows of HEC’s Interim Placement of Fresh PhDs (IPFP) programme, who applied for Start-Up Research Grant Programme (SRGP) from different academic backgrounds ranging from Social Sciences to Life Sciences across all provinces in Pakistan, a grant of up to PKR 1,000,000 each.

SRGP is designed to assist the fresh PhD holders who are IPFP Fellows, to establish research facilities upon joining higher education institutions as faculty members. The programme enables the newly appointed PhD faculty to plan the setup of basic research infrastructure to start research activities without delay. The programme helps to engage both the faculty and students in research through provision of financial assistance and basic lab/experimental facilities.

Given the academic and regional diversity of successful SRGP applicants, NAHE designed and delivered a two-week online capability building programme (15 hours) that served as refresher in fundamentals of project management for IPFP fellows, most of whom will be leading a project for the very first time.

The course introduced the concept and six core elements of project management, challenges encountered in undertaking project management, concept of the Work Breakdown Structure, and the application of project management and the Work Breakdown Structure techniques to academic research (and other) projects.

This 15-hour course was delivered as a goodwill gesture by an internationally recognized team of instructors from Oxon Global (OxG) who are industry experts in Portfolio, Programme and Project Management, OxG is a USA based consultancy firm with an international reach.  

All instructors hold the MSc Major Programme Management from Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, UK. The team has a combined experience of over 90 projects which they delivered internationally at various client sites.  Oxon Global (OxG) partners joined from different time zones and multiple locations including London, Hawaii and Seattle offices to deliver the course.

To improve and sustain the quality control in this course, NAHE conducted an objective and independent online evaluation of the course that was completed by 257 participants. 90% of the participants ranked the delivery of instructors at 80% and above. Evaluations also measured the effectiveness of course content on delivering all 5 learning outcomes (LO), and results showed that at least 75% of the participants ranked the content of each LO at 80% and above.

The course was completed by 262 participants on April 3, 2021 who were required to develop a project plan and work breakdown structure for their own research projects and successfully complete an assessment test to qualify for micro-credential certification by NAHE.=DNA

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ISLAMABAD, APR 12 (DNA) – Human rights activist and journalist Ibn Abdur Rehman, or commonly known as IA Rehman, has passed away at the age of 90 at his home in Lahore, his family confirmed Monday.

Rehman was a columnist for the daily Dawn and was actively involved with the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP).

Rehman was a distinguished  journalist and was involved with journalism for more than 65 years.He was close friend of Faiz Ahmed Faiz and and written alot on films in his early year. He contributed alot in promotion of Arts & Culture.

During his career, he had served as the editor-in-chief of the Pakistan Times from 1988-1990. During the East Pakistan crisis, he was working as the managing editor of Urdu daily Azad.

He spent the Ziaul Haq period (1978–88) as the executive editor of weekly Viewpoint.

Apart from publishing hundreds of articles and papers, he had authored three books: Jinnah as a Parliamentarian (co-editor), Arts and Crafts of Pakistan, and Pakistan under Siege, a collection of his own columns.

Rehman worked as director of HRCP for two decades and was also the group’s secretary general till 31 December, 2016.

His exception services will be remembered forever.=DNA

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ISLAMABAD, APR 12 (DNA) – The electric vehicles have great future in Pakistan as they would bring multiple benefits to the economy that included reducing environment pollution, promoting healthy climate, making significant cut in oil import bill, saving precious forex reserves and providing cost effective transportation to people, therefore, the government should announce more incentives for electric cars to attract maximum investment in this sector in the country. This was said by Sardar Yasir Ilyas Khan, President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry while inaugurating Pakistan’s high end electric vehicle superfast (EVS) charging station assembled by Tesla Industries Islamabad.

Sardar Yasir Ilyas Khan said that many countries around the world were taking initiatives to reduce the CO2 emissions by introducing electric vehicles. He lauded the initiative of the government for approving Pakistan’s first Electric Vehicle Policy and emphasized that the government should take strong measures for its implementation so that the investors could capitalize on its incentives to manufacture electric vehicles in the country. He said that EV chargers would help in reducing Pakistan’s capacity payments to the IPPs leading to reduction in circular debt as well. He appreciated the initiative of Tesla Industries for launching a “Made in Pakistan” product and starting the assembly of a complete range of EV chargers in Islamabad. He termed it a major breakthrough in the infrastructure development of electric vehicles and hoped that it would facilitate the growth of this mode of transport in the region.

Aamir Hussain, Chief Executive Officer, Tesla Industries Islamabad shared the details of EV chargers’ infrastructure development plan. He said that Tesla would assemble EV chargers of various voltages ranging from 30, 60, 120 and 250KW to meet the needs of customers. He said that 120KW EV Charger would take 25-30 minutes in charging a vehicle. He said that Tesla has always been the pioneer in introducing state of the art and innovative products in the energy sector since 1991. He said that Tesla was the largest CNG dispensers’ manufacturer which were installed almost all over Pakistan and this superfast EV chargers will be rolled out with similar concept.

Waleed Bin Aamir, Director, Tesla Industries elaborated the EV chargers’ technology. He said that the EV chargers of Tesla would be integrated with mobile APP for advance booking of charging time slots at any station that would be a great facilitation for the customers in planning their trips and routes. He said that Tesla has planned to install the new EV chargers at workplaces and shopping malls in near future.=DNA

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ISLAMABAD, APR 12 (DNA) – Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) in collaboration with the Belarusian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BelCCI) organized the 4th Session of Pakistan-Belarus Joint Business Council on Zoom. Around 90 businesspersons and enterprises from both the countries participated in the event.

President FPCCI Mian Nasser Hyatt Magoo, Chairman BelCCI Mr. Vladimir Ulakhovich gave the welcome remarks and encouraged the participants to benefit from the interactive session.

Minister of Energy of the Republic of Belarus H.E. Mr. Viktor Karankevich participated in the event through a video message. Subsequently, Ambassador of Pakistan to Belarus Sajjad Haider Khan and Ambassador of Belarus to Pakistan Andrei Metelitsa briefed the participants on the existing level of bilateral relations, highlighting potential for cooperation. Trade Minister, Embassy of Pakistan, Moscow Mr. Nasir Hamid and Honorary Consul of Belarus to Punjab Mr. Walid Mushtaq also addressed the event.

In the second segment, several other speakers from Pakistan including Director General (TDAP), Director General (BOI), Chairman Pakistan Association of Automobile parts manufacturer while from Belarusian side representatives from Great Stone Industrial Park, OJSC “Belkommunmash” and BelCCI also made presentations on respective areas identifying potential areas for cooperation.

The meeting ended after the question and answer session.=DNA

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