Author: Steven Sahiounie

An EU ban on the sale of new combustion-engine cars has been postponed due to callsfrom luxury automakers Ferrari and Porche for synthetic electric fuel to be given anexemption, Bloomberg reported on Saturday.The ban was set to be adopted earlier this week, but its approval was reportedlythwarted at the last minute by the governments of Italy and Germany, even though theregulation had already been agreed on by EU member states and approved by theEuropean Parliament. According to Bloomberg, this was done under pressure from thetwo automakers, who are considered national icons in their home countries.Italy’s deputy prime minister called the…

Lebanon will adopt a new official exchange rate of 15,000 pounds per US dollar on Feb. 1, centralbank governor Riad Salameh said, marking a 90% devaluation from its current official rate that hasremained unchanged for 25 years.The shift from the old rate of 1,507 to 15,000 is still far off the parallel market, where the pound waschanging hands at around 57,000 per dollar on Tuesday.The change will apply to banks, Salameh said, leading to a decrease in the equity of the institutions at thecenter of the country’s 2019 financial implosion.Analysts expect the shift to have less impact on the wider…

Russian oil exports to India, the world’s third-largest crude importer after Chinaand the US, climbed to a record 1.62 million barrels per day (bpd) in February,The Hindu reported on Sunday, citing cargo tracker Vortexa. The numberssuggest that Russia is India’s largest crude supplier for the fifth straight month.According to the report, Moscow’s oil exports to the country surged 28% month-on-month and surpassed combined deliveries from Iraq and Saudi Arabia, India’smain suppliers for decades. Imports from Saudi Arabia dropped 16% month-on-month to 647,800 bpd, while deliveries from Iraq amounted to some 939,900bpd.Russia now supplies 35% of all India’s oil imports, a…

“We are strongly urging the sides to exercise restraint and take steps to deescalate the situation,” Maria Zakharova said Russia is deeply concerned about escalating tensions in Nagorno-Karabakh and is calling on the sides to exercise restraint, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement on Monday. “We express serious concern about the escalating tensions in the zone of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. There have been repeated ceasefire violations in recent days. An armed incident that took place on March 5 resulted in the loss of life on both the Armenian and Azerbaijani sides,” the diplomat said. “We strongly…

Google’s parent company Alphabet announced Friday it will cut about 12,000 jobs globally, citing a changing economic reality as it became the latest US tech giant to enact large-scale restructuring.The layoffs come a day after Microsoft said it would reduce staff numbers by 10,000 in the coming months,following similar cuts by Facebook owner Meta, Amazon and Twitter as the tech sector girds for economicdownturn.The cuts follow a major hiring spree during the height of the coronavirus pandemic when companiesscrambled to meet demand as people went online for work, school and entertainment.”Over the past two years we’ve seen periods of dramatic…

Iranian Foreign Minister’s Senior Advisor for Special Political Affairs Ali Asghar Khaji discussed during a telephone conversation with the UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pederson means of facilitating the deliver of humanitarian aid to the Syrian people after the recent earthquake and avoiding politicization in this regard. The latest political developments and the humanitarian situation in Syria, especially the consequences and damage of the recent earthquake were among the topics discussed between Khaji and Pederson, Iranian News agency (IRNA) reported. Opposing the sanctions and obstacles in sending humanitarian to the earthquake victims, Khaji called for an increase and acceleration…

More than 1,000 companies quit the Russian market in the past year due to Ukraine-related sanctionsRusso-Chinese economic cooperation has been growing at a rapid pace in recent months and has “good prospects” for further expansion, Igor Morgulov, Russia’s ambassador to Beijing, said in an interview on China Central Television on Saturday.According to the envoy, Chinese companies are actively filling the gaps in the Russian market left after the departure of Western companies, hundreds of which were forced to leave Russia due to Ukraine-related sanctions.“We welcome the surge in Chinese exports to Russia, primarily of machinery and sophisticated types of goods,…

On March 6, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced the destruction of three Ukrainian aircraft over the Donbass front lines over the past day. According to the Russian military officials, the destroyed aircraft of the Ukrainian Air Force include: In total, since the beginning of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine, Russian forces claimed the destruction of 396 aircraft, 217 helicopters, 3,345 unmanned aerial vehicles, 410 anti-aircraft missile systems, 8,192 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 1,054 multiple rocket launchers, 4,284 field artillery and mortar guns, as well as 8,771 units of special military vehicles. Reporting on the ongoing…

On March 6, the Kiev regime attempted to carry out another loud assassination in Russia. The attempt targeted the well-known Russian entrepreneur and public figure Konstantin Malofeev, who is also the head of the Tsargrad group of companies and the founder of the TV channel with the same name. The attack was carried out according to the same scenario as Kiev did in August 2022 to kill Russian journalist and philosopher Daria Dugina. On the morning of March 6, an explosive device was planted in Mr. Malofeev’s car. It was timely discovered and neutralized by the security forces. Two of…

The billionaire mastermind behind some of the world’s biggest K-pop stars is pushing back on accusationsthat he’s trying to monopolize the Korean music industry, just days before a major potential deal is expected.Bang Si-Hyuk, chairman of HYBE, the management agency behind bands including BTS and NewJeans,says “a lot of misinformation” has clouded his company’s bid to raise its stake in SM Entertainment.“It wouldn’t be correct to say that we’re trying to take over the whole industry,” Bang told CNN in anexclusive interview in Seoul.He was responding to a backlash sparked by his firm’s recent proposal to acquire a greater stake…