The company was created in 1988 after Panjdarya and Atlas Autos merged. AHL manufactures and markets Honda motorcycles in collaboration with Honda Motor Company. The company also manufactures various hi-tech components in-house in collaboration with leading parts manufacturers like Showa Atsumitech, Nippon Denso and Toyo Denso.^[4] The company also exports motorcycles to Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.^[5] Atlas Honda has Pakistan's largest in-house manufacturing capability at its Karachi and Sheikhupura plants,^[6] which include an R&D wing and tool making facilities through CAD/CAM. The annual assembly production capacity of AHL is 1.35 million units, with 150,000 units from the Karachi plant and 1.2 million units from the Sheikhupura plant.^[7][

Atlas Honda Limited (PSX: ATLH) wrapped up its third quarter ending December 2016 with a topline of Rs17 billion; which grew by 22 percent year-on-year owing to improved sales numbers this year around. Honda motorbikes sold during the period Oct-Dec 2016 stood at 248,689 units against 204,045 during this period in 2015, according to data retrieved from PAMA. Meanwhile, the average monthly sales since July 2016 were 17 percent higher, which contributed to the growth in the topline.

During the quarter, ATLH earned an after-tax profit of one billion rupees, growing by 33 percent year-on-year. Cumulatively, in the nine-months, revenues stood at Rs45.9 billion against Rs40.5 billion this period last year, while the bottom line for the nine months ending Dec 2016 was Rs2.7 billion; growing by 28 percent year on year.

The company is a market leader in the two-wheeler industry and contributed to about 60 percent of the motorbike demand catered to by the local players. The company also announced large investment plans (to the tune of $100 million) for the capacity enhancement of its plant site in Shaikapura from 0.75 million to 1.35 million units annually at the back of expected demand projections.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: Saeb Erekat, a veteran chief negotiator for the Palestinian cause, died Tuesday of coronavirus complications at the age of 65, in a death mourned as a "great loss" for his people. Erekat was a long-time architect of plans to end the conflict with Israel through the creation of an independent Palestinian state, a goal he would not live to see achieved. Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas called the passing of "a brother and friend .. a great loss for Palestine and our people" and declared three days of mourning for Erekat, the Palestine Liberation Organisation's secretary general. Erekat, a lung transplant recipient who suffered from pulmonary fibrosis, was admitted last month to the intensive care unit of Israel's Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital in west Jerusalem. Given his prior respiratory conditions, his prognosis for recovery had been dim.

"Unfortunately, his condition didn't improve and remained critical, and he passed away amidst multiple system failure," Hadassah said in a statement.

Erekat was born in Jerusalem in 1955, but later lived in Jericho in the occupied West Bank.

He grew up in the shadow of Israel's crushing victory over its Arab neighbours in the Six-Day War of 1967, and dedicated much of his life to seeking a resolution to the conflict.

But he was forced to watch as the prospects for the two-state solution he longed for grew increasingly remote, undermined by Israeli settlement expansion, sporadic violence and Palestinian divisions.