Author: Steven Sahiounie

The cost to protect households and businesses from soaring prices keeps growing, analysts at Bruegel say. European nations have splashed out nearly €800 billion ($855 billion) on support measures as the region continues to reel from climbing energy costs, researchers at Brussels-based think tank Bruegel said on Monday. The analysts have urged governments to be more targeted in their spending aimed at subsidizing bills for households and businesses, in the face of wild swings in prices for gas and electricity over the past year. EU member states have so far allocated €681 billion to energy spending since September 2021, according…

Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator The current government of Israel is the most right-wing and extremist in the last 70 years. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, elected for a sixth term, had previous scoffed at the Jewish fanatical parties, but now finds himself allied with them to hold on to power, and stay out of jail for corruption. The West Bank of Palestine is under military occupation of Israel, and there is no international ‘road map for peace’ being pursued. The Occupied Territories of Palestine are demanding their freedom, democracy, and human rights. Groups of resistance fighters are growing in…

Seoul: China’s reopening from Covid restrictions and its economic recovery are expected to help boost South Korea’s economic growth and exports, which are highly related to the neighbouring country, a report showed Sunday. According to the report published by the Korea International Trade Association (KITA), global institutions have predicted that the Chinese economy will expand 5.1 per cent in 2023 from a year earlier, up from a 3 per cent growth in the previous year, Yonhap News Agency reported. Thanks to the reopening from its years long zero-Covid policy and Beijing’s stimulus packages, the world’s second-largest economy will likely post…

The recent set of allegations have raised questions about the tycoon’s meteoric rise and the role of regulators. Mumbai, India – Amid the usual traffic snarls on one of central Mumbai’s busiest overpasses, drivers could hardly help but notice a simple, yet large, hand-painted slogan proclaiming that the rapidly rising wealth of businessmen Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani was a miracle of Narendra Modi’s government. In the city’s stock market, however, Adani’s wealth, which has increased by more than $100bn in less than a decade, was eroding faster than the paint on the slogan could dry. Adani’s self-named conglomerate grew by…

Canada’s economy added a stunning 150,000 jobs last month. It’s the second straight month that jobs numbers blew well past expectations. And it’s yet one more data point that challenges the narrative that Canada needs to shed jobs to bring inflation under control. “We’re seeing a key test of our theories of how labour market tightness translates to wages and from wages to prices,” said Brendon Bernard, chief economist at the job search site Indeed. Economic theory tells us that unemployment and inflation are inextricably linked. As unemployment falls and more people work, inflation increases. And as unemployment increases, inflation drops. But…

Building and business insiders warn the Reserve Bank’s recent hawkish approach risks long-term harm for households and commerce. If the Reserve Bank’s record run of interest rate rises is sapping the heat out of the economy, Shannon Battisson isn’t detecting it. Battisson is national president of the Australian Institute of Architects, representing 14,000 members across the nation, and the director of architecture firm The Mill. It’s an industry that is usually highly sensitive to the rising cost of debt, but Battisson’s Canberra-based practice retains “a huge waitlist” for residential work. Staff were worried clients would abandon potential projects as interest…

Economic cooperation between the two countries has been gaining momentum, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry. Moscow and Tehran intend to further increase the share of their national currencies in mutual settlements, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko said on Friday, adding that the sides have been strengthening cooperation in the banking sector. “We will continue to work with Iran, stimulating trade operations in national currencies. In 2021, the share of settlements in national currencies exceeded 60%. The positive trend continued last year,” Rudenko told Interfax news agency. He noted that interaction with Iran through central banks and credit institutions has…

Companies have remained despite “unprecedented pressure,” the Russian envoy has said. The vast majority of Austrian companies present in Russia continue to operate even in the face of Western sanctions, the Russian ambassador to Vienna, Dmitry Lyubinsky, stated on Friday. Most of the 650 Austrian firms working in the Russian market have stayed, the diplomat said in an interview with RIA Novosti. Lyubinsky noted that entrepreneurs in both countries “are showing great interest in the continuation of mutually beneficial cooperation.” He added that despite facing “unprecedented pressure,” only a “handful” of Austrian companies have opted to leave Russia. The envoy pointed at numbers…

The head of the International Energy Agency called for investment in transition after a bumper 2022. The global energy sector earned nearly $4 trillion last year, the head of the International Energy Agency said on Saturday, stressing that the figure marks a substantial increase from the recent average. “The global oil and gas industry’s income jumped to almost $4 trillion in 2022, a huge rise from its recent average of $1.5 trillion,” Fatih Birol wrote on his Twitter account. According to data provided by agency chief, annual oil and gas revenue has averaged between $1 trillion and $2 trillion worldwide in recent years.…

South America’s largest economy is aiming for more cooperation with Gazprom, according to its ambassador. Brazil is seeking investment in its energy sector from Russian gas major Gazprom, the country’s ambassador to Russia, Rodrigo de Lima Baena Soares, has revealed. “We have a new legal framework for the Brazilian gas sector, we expect investments from Gazprom in Brazil so that we have a serious presence of a large Russian company,” he told RIA Novosti at the Prodexpo exhibition on Thursday. According to Brazil’s National Confederation of Industry, foreign investment in the country could reach about $29 billion by 2030 thanks to…