Author: Steven Sahiounie

Foreign Minister of Iran Hossein Amirabdollahian said he has held frank and productive negotiations with Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud in Jeddah. The top Iranian diplomat arrived in Saudi Arabia on Thursday for an official visit. He held talks and attended a joint press conference with his Saudi counterpart Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud in Riyadh on Thursday evening. Amirabdollahian then traveled to Jeddah for a meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. In a post on his X account on Friday, the Iranian foreign minister said he has held a meeting with the Saudi…

Kuwait Investment Office (KIO), the London branch of Kuwait’s sovereign wealth fund, has hired Abdulmohsin Al Mukhaizeem, investment chief at Kuwait’s Wafra International Investment, as its new CEO, according to sovereign wealth fund tracker Global SWF. Wafra is a subsidiary of Kuwait’s public pension fund and Al Mukhaizeem was previously executive director of NBK Capital Partners, the alternative investments arm of Kuwait’s top bank. Kuwait’s sovereign wealth fund, the Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA), does not disclose information about its subsidiaries but Global SWF said Kuwait Investment Office had been without a permanent CEO since last July after removing the previous incumbent.…

Bitcoin reached an almost two-month low as risk aversion weighs on the cryptocurrency market with global government bond yields climbing to the highest in about 15 years. The largest digital asset by market value fell as much as 2.1 percent to $28,335 before paring its decline. The drop was the biggest on an intraday basis since August 1. Other cryptocurrencies were mixed, with Ether down about 1.2 percent and Cardano and Solana’s tokens both up around 1.5 percent. The rise in global yields comes as resilient economic data challenges the view that central banks rates are peaking. Higher interest rates…

Boris Gryzlov recalled that during World War II the US and Britain participated in the anti-Hitler coalition The West, guided by its old-time anti-Russian ideology, is trying to emasculate the Slavs, first of all Russia, in the course of the conflict in Ukraine, Russia’s ambassador to Belarus, Boris Gryzlov, said in response to a TASS question. “They (the Western countries – TASS) have created a state on the territory of Ukraine that we call Anti-Russia. This is really so. And on that territory, without sparing the Slavs, they have been trying to emasculate Russia and our faithful ally Belarus to…

In a phone call with Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen, Palestinian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Riyad al-Maliki called today for international intervention to press the Israeli occupation authorities to allow Palestinian elections to be held in occupied Jerusalem. During the conversation, al-Malki addressed the Israeli occupation’s confiscation of Palestinian tax funds under various pretexts. He highlighted the recent trilateral summit involving Palestine, Egypt, and Jordan, which was held in the Egyptian city of El-Alamein, which was aimed at pressuring Israel to halt its unilateral actions and comply with international decisions and laws. Al-Malki commended Finland for its unconditional support…

“Washington’s military aid to Ukraine has exceeded $43.7 billion since Joe Biden took office as US president,” Maria Zakharova emphasized The Ukrainian authorities are preying not only on their own people but also on US taxpayers, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement. “The Kiev elite is preying not only on its fellow citizens but also on American taxpayers. Not so long ago, US presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pointed out in an interview that Washington’s spending on Ukraine aid stood at $130 billion, while 15 million Americans did not have medical insurance and 30 million…

Qatar’s North Oil Co (NOC) is on the brink of awarding a series of contracts for the engineering, procurement, construction and installation relating to its $5 billion Ruya offshore project, previously known as Al-Shaheen Phase 3-Batch 1, Upstream reports. According to the report, Ruya, the official name for the latest expansion of NOC’s Al Shaheen oilfield, seeks to reach an oil production plateau of 300,000 barrels per day. “NOC is currently evaluating the price bids and is expected to award contracts as early as next month,” the report stated. Al Shaheen, which is Qatar’s largest offshore oilfield, is responsible for…

Saudi Arabia and China have signed a number of housing and infrastructure agreements amounting to over $1.33 billion, furthering ties and investment between the two countries. At the Saudi-China Business Forum in Beijing, which commenced today, Saudi Arabia’s Minister for Municipal, Rural Affairs and Housing, Majid bin Abdullah Al-Hogail, invited Chinese firms to invest in the Kingdom’s real estate sector. The forum reportedly focused on investment opportunities between Riyadh and Beijing in regard to urban infrastructure, housing, real estate development and financing. According to the state-run Saudi Press Agency (SPA), Saudi and Chinese entities signed 12 agreements at the forum, amounting…

The United States is afraid of the progress being made by China in terms of its arms sales to Middle Eastern countries. The United States is sounding the alarm about the growing number of Chinese arms sales taking place in the Middle East, especially with many of its old allies, although Beijing is not providing any arms that would directly or necessarily replace any of Washington’s weapons, Business Insider reported Friday. China selling weapons in a region that the US seeks to maintain a foothold in and has many key partners in prompted US officials to underline that Beijing could undermine the…

The high-level week of the 78th session of the UN General Assembly will begin in New York on September 19 Russian President Vladimir Putin has approved the makeup of Russia’s delegation to the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). It will be led by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The corresponding order was uploaded to the official portal of legal information. The delegation also includes Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin, Chairman of the Federation Council’s Committee on International Affairs Grigory Karasin, Permanent Representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzya, Chairman of the State Duma’s Committee on International Affairs Leonid…