Author: Steven Sahiounie

The Fed has raised interest rates to a 23-year high of between 5.25 and 5.50 percent as it looks to return inflation firmly to its long-term target of two percent

The money will include 5 billion euros of macro-financial assistance, 1.8 billion euros of investments and 600 million euros in grants, the official said

Non-oil activities in Saudi Arabia have achieved a historic milestone, reaching a 50% share of the country’s real GDP in 2023, the highest level on record, according to an analysis of the General Authority for Statistics data by the Ministry of Economy and Planning.

Massive protests were held today in many capitals and cities around the globe against the backdrop of the ongoing war waged by Israeli occupation forces on the Gaza Strip, demanding an immediate cessation of the bloodbath and the entry of much needed aid into the besieged enclave. In the French capital, Paris, demonstrators called for an immediate halt to the Israeli genocide in Gaza and for Israel to be held accountable for the carnage it is committing against the Palestinian people. Protesters denounced what they described as Western governments’ complicity in the Israeli war crimes and their obstruction of any…

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz arrived Saturday in the southern Jordanian city of Aqaba, where he is scheduled Sunday to meet King Abdullah II, according to the official Jordanian news agency. Earlier Saturday, Scholz told journalists ahead of his trip that he would first engage in talks with Abdullah and noted his plans to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog and other officials in Israel. “It is necessary for aid to reach Gaza on a larger scale now. That will be a topic that I also have to talk about,” said Olaf Scholz. Expressing concerns about potential military developments…

A top Democrat senator in the US has called on President Joe Biden to “use all levers” at his disposal in pressuring Israel to change its war strategy, The Guardian reported. Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen is part of a group of seven senators who this week sent to a letter to Biden urging an end to US weapon deliveries to Tel Aviv. The US must stop providing military aid to Israel until it ends any restrictions on the flow of aid into Gaza, Van Hollen said. In an interview on Friday, the senator urged Biden to “push harder and use…

WHO director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus remarked that it was impractical to go forward with an “evacuation plan” and that the 1.2 million Palestinians in Rafah have nowhere safe to relocate to.  The President of the World Health Organization (WHO) implored the Israeli occupation “in the name of humanity” not to begin an assault on Rafah, where the majority of Gaza’s population is fleeing. “I’m gravely concerned about reports of an Israeli plan to proceed with a ground assault on Rafah,” WHO director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus posted on X. “Further escalation of violence in this densely populated area would lead to many more deaths and…

Online voter turnout in Russia’s presidential election on the federal platform has reached 90%, according to the portal on online vote monitoring. As of 9:27 p.m. Moscow time (6:27 p.m. GMT), as many as 4,268,291 ballots were issued to voters in 28 Russian regions, who had applied for voting online. Thus, voter turnout on the federal platform of electronic voting was 90% Residents of Moscow can vote on Moscow’s own platform and were not required to apply for remote voting beforehand. The Federation Council, the upper house of Russia’s parliament, officially designated March 17, 2024 as the day of the…

Deploying troops of the US-led NATO bloc to battlefields in Ukraine might result in an all-out global conflict, effectively a Third World War, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani has said. He has ruled out any possibility that his country’s forces will somehow end up deployed to support Kiev’s fight. The minister made the remarks on Friday during an interview on the sidelines of the LetExpo show in Verona. Asked about the prospect of NATO troops ending up in such a deployment, Tajani spoke out against the idea. “I think that NATO shouldn’t enter Ukraine. It would be a mistake. We…

Iran’s Defense Minister Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Ashtiani has stated that Iran is prepared to utilize its full capabilities to assist Syria in enhancing its defense and deterrent power against the US and Israel. In a meeting with his Syrian counterpart Ali Mahmoud Abbas in Tehran on Saturday, Ashtiani warned against plots by the United States and Israel to intensify crisis across West Asia. “Any strategic mistake and adventure of the US and the Zionist regime will lead to the worsening of the situation in the region,” he said. He condemned Israel’s airstrikes against Syria and violation of its territorial integrity,…