Author: Steven Sahiounie

NEW DELHI: Oil prices ticked up in Asian trade on Monday, extending gains from last week when prices rose nearly 4 percent on the view that supply was tightening, with the risks heightened by further attacks on Russian energy infrastructure, according to Reuters.

RIYADH: Banks in Saudi Arabia granted residential mortgage loans worth SR7.54 billion ($2 billion) to individuals in January 2024, marking an 11-month high according to the data issued by the Kingdom’s central bank.

RIYADH: Travelers to Saudi Arabia will be able to enjoy greater flight availability thanks to the Kingdom’s flynas airline increasing its capacity by 25 percent. 

RIYADH: Top Saudi banks demonstrated strong performances in 2023, with operating income growing by 9.5 percent, driven by non-interest revenue, according to professional services firm Alvarez & Marsal.

Kiev has no plans to prolong gas transit to the EU from Russia when the current contract expires this year, Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko said on Sunday.

Romania has started work on rebuilding an airbase that will become the largest NATO facility in Europe, according to Euronews. The base is located near the city of Constanta on the Black Sea, around 130km from the border with Ukraine.

Ransacking homes and assaulting Palestinians, Israeli occupation forces have detained more than two dozen Palestinians overnight. Israeli occupation forces (IOF) detained at least 25 Palestinians from the occupied West Bank, including a woman from the Gaza Strip, a child, and a wounded man, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported on Sunday, citing the Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS) and the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs. The PPS and the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees said in a joint statement that Israeli occupation forces mainly targeted citizens in al-Khalil Governorate, while others were detained in Qalqilya, Beit Lahm, Jenin, Tulkarm, Ramallah, and al-Quds. …

Syria condemned a statement issued on March 15 by governments of United States, United Kingdom, France, and Germany . “Over the past thirteen years, the governments of the US, the United Kingdom, France and Germany have continued their hostile approach against Syria by using all the tools of war against it” Foreign and Expatriates Ministry said in a statement on Sunday. The Ministry added that Syria condemns the statement issued by the governments of the four countries on March 15, and considers it a continuation of their destructive policies against it, and a repetition of what they have persisted to…

Austria does not plan to send troops to Ukraine, citing neutrality, the country’s Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg told the ORF TV channel. “I view such discussions as unnecessary. Clearly, it’s a ‘no’ from Austria. We will stick to our neutrality. There will be neither troop deployment nor supplies of military hardware, weapons and ammunition to Ukraine,” he pointed out. According to Schallenberg, NATO itself is still waffling on the matter. French President Emmanuel Macron said on February 26 that some 20 Western countries taking part in a recent Paris meeting on further assistance for Kiev had touched upon the possibility…

The UN children’s agency said on Sunday over 13,000 children have been killed in Gaza in Israel’s offensive, adding many kids were suffering from severe malnutrition and did not “even have the energy to cry.”“Thousands more have been injured or we can’t even determine where they are. They may be stuck under rubble … We haven’t seen that rate of death among children in almost any other conflict in the world,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” program on Sunday.“I’ve been in wards of children who are suffering from severe anemia malnutrition, the whole ward…