Author: Steven Sahiounie

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has denied speculation that he’s fled to Argentina as the saga surrounding his collapsed cryptocurrency exchange continued to unfold in near-real time on Twitter. In a text message to Reuters on Nov. 12, Bankman-Fried, who also goes by SBF, said he was still in The Bahamas. When Reuters asked him specifically whether he had flown to Argentina, as the rumors suggest, he responded: “Nope.” Users took to Twitter over the weekend to speculate whether SBF was on the run after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for FTX Group, which includes a slew of companies such as…

Companies with more than 50 employees must ensure 2 per cent of their employees are Emirati before 2023The Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation has urged private sector firms to meet Emiratisation targets within the next 50 days or face fines of $20k (AED72,000) a year for every Emirati not hired. Companies with more than 50 employees must ensure that 2 percent of employees are Emirati before the deadline of January 1 rolls around in just 50 days’ time. The move is in line with the government’s Nafis initiative.Firms that fail to meet the targets will be fined at a…

Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said on Saturday the Kingdom would host the Middle East and North Africa climate week in 2023. “We have been talking with UNFCC secretariat and we will be hosting in 2023 the MENA climate week,” the Prince said at a panel at the Saudi Green Initiative event taking place on the sidelines of the COP27 climate conference in Egypt. The minister also said Saudi Arabia was working on establishing a regional center to advance emission reductions. The center is set to be launched next year and will be located in Riyadh. “We have…

Economic expert Putu Ngurah Suyatna Yasa speaks with CGTN’s Silkina Ahluwalia about crucial topics for the upcoming Group of 20 (G20) Summit in Indonesia. He emphasized that countries must work together to overcome the economic slump and focus on sustainable development. The 17th G20 Summit will be held in Bali, Indonesia, from November 15 to 16. The theme of this year’s summit is “Recover Together, Recover Stronger.”This article is originally published by cgtn.com

Russia may have no choice but to sell its crude at a price set by the US and its allies if it wants to avoid a shut-in of supplies, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told Bloomberg News on Saturday. “They’re going to be looking for buyers, and we think they’re going to have a hard time selling all of it… Our estimation is there would be some shut-in on December 5 unless they’re willing to accept a price at or below the cap for buyers around the world,” Yellen explained in the interview.December 5 is the date when the EU…

Russia wants its main agricultural lender Rosselkhozbank to be reconnected to the SWIFT financial network, in order to free up grain and fertilizer exports, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin said on Saturday. “This is not the first time we are discussing this because, from my perspective, reconnecting Rosselkhozbank, which provides the majority of agricultural transactions, is a key issue… We have discussed this issue and received assurances again from the UN representatives that they also consider this issue to be vital,”Vershinin told reporters. His comments follow a meeting with senior UN officials on Friday, addressing the deal guaranteeing safe passage…

As many as 130,000 Palestinians, who live in the areas occupied by the Israeli regime following a war in 1948, face the threat of demolition of their homes and other structures, a new report says. The survey was published by the Arab Center for Alternative Planning (ACAP) and the Sikkuy-Aufoq Organization, both of whom are NGOs based in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, the Palestinian Information Center news agency reported on Saturday. The two organizations produced the statistics by counting the number of the Palestinian-owned buildings that lacked what the occupying regime calls “construction permits.” The 130,000 Palestinians reside in about 29,000 buildings that have…

The US military and its Kurdish ‘Syrian Democratic Forces’ allies are sitting on top of 90 percent of Syria’s oil riches and some of the country’s most fertile agricultural lands, systematically starving Damascus of energy and food self-sufficiency. Syrian authorities have vowed to one day restore control over all the country’s territory. US occupation forces and their Syrian Kurdish allies have looted another 94 tankers and trucks loaded with oil and wheat, Syrian media have reported, citing local sources. A convoy of 44 tankers from fields in al-Swaidiya was said to have been driven across the illegal al-Mahmoudiya border crossing point…

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that Moscow does not consider the decision to leave Kherson humiliating. “No, no,” Peskov said, answering a relevant question. The Kherson region is a subject of Russia, and its status cannot be changed, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. “This is a subject of Russia. [The status of] this subject is legislatively fixed, defined. There are no and can be no changes,” Peskov said, when asked whether Russia continued to consider the entire Kherson region as its own territory and whether it would legally define the status of the region’s right-bank part. The Russian…

Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine in February in response to calls by the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics for protection against Ukrainian troops. Moscow launched strikes using precision-guided weapons against Ukraine two days after the terrorist attack on the Crimean Bridge which, Russia believes, was carried out by the Ukrainian special services. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin told the Russian Security Council on 10 October that the country had launched retaliatory strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure, in response to the crimes committed by Kiev against Russian civilian infrastructure. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on 1 November that about 40…