Author: Steven Sahiounie

oreign and Expatriates Minister, Fayssal Mikdad, met Wednesday Envoy of the Russian Foreign Ministry for the Middle East affairs, Vladimir Safronkov on the sidelines of the preparatory meetings ahead of the Arab Summit due Friday. The two sides reviewed a number of issues related to the Arab region and the latest developments on all levels. Earlier, Mikdad met a number of Arab Ministers on the sidelines of the preparatory meetings. Source: SANA

The XRP price has jumped by 5% in the past 24 hours after the judge presiding over Ripple’s case with the SEC denied the regulator’s motion to seal important documents. At $0.446896, XRP is up by 4% in a week but down by 13% in the last 30 days, with today’s spike going some way towards reversing losses suffered by the altcoin in the past couple of weeks. And given that Ripple and the court will now have access to docs related to the famous William Hinman speech in 2018, the expectation is now that the company is in a…

Brazil’s state-owned oil company announces large price cuts on energy commodities for local markets after ditching USD international pricetag. Brazil announced that it will break away with the US dollar when pricing for the local market, putting an end to pegging domestic prices with the green note, AFP reported on Tuesday. State-owned oil company Petrobras said it will still be using fuel prices in the international market as a benchmark to determine how much individuals would pay at the pump. The decision “puts an end to the mandatory subordination (of prices) to the import parity price” in US dollars, said the energy…

UBS estimates a financial hit of around $17 billion from its emergency takeover of Credit Suisse, according to a regulatory filing, and said the rushed deal may have affected its due diligence. In a new filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) late Tuesday night, the Swiss banking giant flagged a total negative impact of around $13 billion in fair value adjustments of the new combined entity’s assets and liabilities, along with a potential $4 billion hit from litigation and regulatory costs. However, UBS also expects to offset this by booking a one-off $34.8 billion gain from so-called “negative goodwill,”…

Volumes have tripled over the past year, led by pharmaceuticals, the outlet has reported Italian exports to China have tripled over the past year, with shipments in February alone surging by 131% year-on-year, with no evident reason for the jump, according to Bloomberg. Supplies of Italian goods to China rose above €3 billion ($3.3 billion) in February, substantially up from the roughly €1 billion ($1 billion) Italy exported last February, the outlet wrote on Monday. Data provided by Bloomberg shows that the bulk of the exports were pharmaceuticals in the very specific segment of “medicaments consisting of mixed or unmixed products…

Almost 80% of crude has been rerouted from the EU to India and China, the agency reports Russian oil exports reached a 14-month high in April, with the lion’s share going to Asian markets amid Western sanctions, the International Energy Agency (IEA) reported on Tuesday. Crude shipments increased by 50,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 8.3 million bpd last month. The report suggests that a planned Russian oil production cut has not been fully implemented, something Moscow has denied. In February, Russia pledged to voluntarily reduce oil output by 500,000 bpd starting in March. The move came in response…

Debt has already surpassed 89% of GDP and will continue to rise, Russia’s envoy to the UN warns Western financial measures are leading Kiev into a sovereign debt crisis, with the burden expected to exceed Ukraine’s GDP by the end of the year, the Russian ambassador to the UN has warned. “We will hear a lot today about the solidarity of the Western community with Ukraine, the readiness to support it ‘as long as it takes.’ However, it is necessary to understand that this support is taking Ukraine to the brink,” Vassily Nebenzia told the UN Security Council on Monday. “Its foreign…

The move reportedly comes in response to the seizure of Russian property in the EU Russia has frozen the accounts of Finland’s diplomatic missions on its territory, the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper reported on Wednesday, citing the Finnish Foreign Ministry. Accounts belonging to the Finnish Embassy in Moscow and to the Consulate General in St. Petersburg “have been frozen and cannot be used,” Finnish diplomats have confirmed, according to the report. “The situation is serious, and the matter is being investigated,” Helsingin Sanomat quotes from the ministry’s email, adding that Finland has contacted Russian authorities about the matter. In late April President Vladimir Putin…

Oil prices fell, in trading today, Wednesday, amid fears of a global recession and after US data showed an increase in stocks of black gold in the United States. By 09:45 Moscow time, US West Texas Intermediate crude futures were trading at $70.33 a barrel, down by 0.71% from the previous closing price. Brent crude futures were traded at $74.47 a barrel, down by 0.59% from the previous settlement price, according to Bloomberg agency data. The dollar’s rise pressured the black gold prices, as the US currency index, which measures its value against a basket of major currencies, rose 0.13%…

The Israeli occupation government’s insistence on holding the provocative flags march for settlers in the Old City of occupied Jerusalem, planned for tomorrow, Thursday, will only lead to a rise in tension and could lead to an explosion in the situation, the official spokesman for the Palestinian presidency, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, warned today. He said that calls by Jewish extremists to include the Muslim holy site, Al-Aqsa Mosque, in the provocative march will ignite the region and the consequences will be dire, holding the Israeli government fully responsible for this escalation that will lead to an explosion in the situation. He stressed…