|By Arabian Post Staff| Ahmad Hamad Algosaibi & Brothers claimed a historic milestone in the efforts to resolve the largest and most complex financial dispute in the history of the Middle East. AHAB today said it has signed a settlement support agreement with the five Steering Committee members who have been negotiating the terms of settlement since May 2014. This agreement formally commits AHAB and the Steering […]
Solar Impulse 2 has taken off for the final time, but its crossing of the Saudi desert – managing no-fly zones, wind and heat – could make its last flight the most difficult. Swiss pilot Bertrand Piccard, who took off from Cairo on Sunday and is expected to land in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, will be navigating a region riven by tensions and conflicts that prevented him […]
People play the mobile phone game Pokemon GO in a park in Central Jakarta, Indonesia July 21, 2016. Reuters/Iqro Rinaldi JAKARTA Avid players of smash-hit mobile phone game Pokemon GO in Indonesia, home to the world’s largest Muslim population, are not letting religious decrees or security warnings get in the way of their mission to catch their next cartoon creature. Nintendo’s augmented reality app, in which players […]
|By Arabian Post Staff|Saudi Arabia will build a maritime complex on its east coast, with shipbuilding capability, to provide sufficient capacity for exporting oil, Bloomberg reported quoting Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih. The country, the world’s largest oil-producing nation, eventually will have a shipping fleet that will match its oil capabilities, Al-Falih said in Riyadh. Saudi Arabian Oil Co., or Aramco, will need more tankers to meet global […]
JIDDA, Saudi Arabia — For most of his adult life, Ahmed Qassim al-Ghamdi worked among the bearded enforcers of Saudi Arabia. He was a dedicated employee of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice — known abroad as the religious police — serving with the front-line troops protecting the Islamic kingdom from Westernization, secularism and anything but the most conservative Islamic practices. […]
JIDDA, Saudi Arabia — For most of his adult life, Ahmed Qassim al-Ghamdi worked among the bearded enforcers of Saudi Arabia. He was a dedicated employee of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice — known abroad as the religious police — serving with the front-line troops protecting the Islamic kingdom from Westernization, secularism and anything but the most conservative Islamic practices. […]
TEHRAN — Gunmen ambushed a car carrying a lawmaker and a local governor on Sunday in Iran’s restive Kurdish region, state news media reported. Both men were wounded, and the driver and a veterinarian traveling with them were killed. The lawmaker, Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, a member of a key foreign council in Iran’s Parliament, escaped with minor injuries, according to the Mizan news agency. Mr. Falahatpisheh and the […]
|By Matein Khalid| The merger of Abu Dhabi banks First Gulf Bank and NBAD creates the largest bank in the Middle East, a regional colossus with $170 billion in assets, competitive funding cost in the global interbank/capital markets and a market value greater than Credit Suisse, Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) and Deutsche Bank. This is the biggest game changer event in UAE banking and finance since the […]
|By Arabian Post Staff|The coordinated militant attack on the eve of Eid is the biggest challenge yet to Saudi Arabia’s internal security since it crushed an al-Qaeda insurgency a decade ago, according to Bloomberg. With no claims of responsibility, suspicion has fallen on Islamic State, which has vowed to overthrow Gulf rulers they see as betraying Islam. One of the bombings on Monday, near the Prophet’s Mosque […]
|By Matein Khalid| David Cameron, Wall Street’s elite, Mutti Merkel, Obama, the Eurocrats of Brussels, the great and the good of the City and the IMF’s Lady Christine all got it so horribly wrong. I slept Thursday night with sterling at 1.50 on New York and awoke to see it trade at 1.34 on Friday, a 30 year low before the Plaza Accords. Britain has voted to […]
SAUDI ARABIA. Saudi Arabia approved the National Transformation Plan (NTP) on Tuesday June 7, 2016, as part of Saudi Vision 2030 and goal to reduce reliance on oil. The NTP aims to boost non-oil revenue to 530 billion riyals (US$141 billion) by 2020 through more than 500 initiatives including the implementation of new taxes and increasing government fees and taxes on “harmful products”. Minister of State Mr. […]
ABU DHABI // Abu Dhabi and Dubai remain among the most expensive cities in the Middle East and the world, a global cost-of-living survey has revealed. This year, Dubai ranked the 21st most expensive city in the world, up from 23 last year, while the capital came in number 25, up from 33 last year. Hong Kong is the world’s most expensive city for expats, while the […]
It is the duty of all to work hard with full dedication during shortened working hours Ramadan is a month for Muslims to feel closer to God and look inward into their soul. It is a time to foster bonds with family and loved ones. It is a month of caring, empathising with the needy and doing good deeds. But with this journey of introspection also comes […]
TEHRAN — In comments suggesting that Iran was prepared to support an armed uprising in Bahrain, a senior Iranian commander has threatened the Sunni-led state of Bahrain for revoking the citizenship of a leading Shiite opposition cleric. In a statement on Monday, the commander, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the high-profile leader of the elite Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, denounced the “mistreatment” of the cleric […]
By THOMAS ERDBRINK June 21, 2016 TEHRAN — Threats issued on Monday by a senior Iranian commander to the Sunni-led island state of Bahrain seemed to indicate that Iran was prepared to support an armed uprising there, after the Bahraini authorities revoked the citizenship of a leading Shiite opposition cleric. In a statement, the commander, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the high-profile leader of the elite Quds Force of the Islamic […]
|By Matein Khalid| Sterling sell off in the world currency markets and the sheer populist appeal of Boris Johnson suggests the world should not rule out a geopolitical shock that will unnerve financial markets and lead to the mother of all rate cuts at the Bank of England. If Britain votes to leave the EU, the only currency I want to own is the Swiss franc and gold, […]
|By Arabian Post Staff|Malaysia’s state-owned oil corporation and Saudi Arabian Oil Co. are asking banks for proposals to finance about $7 billion for a planned refinery and a petrochemical complex in the Southeast Asian nation, Bloomberg reported. The lenders would provide financing for the two projects worth a total of $12 billion to be constructed by Petroliam Nasional Bhd. and Saudi Aramco under a memorandum of understanding that […]
Deal Professor By STEVEN DAVIDOFF SOLOMON It’s hard to get one’s head around it: An initial public offering that would value a company in the trillions of dollars. That’s trillions, with a T. Saudi Arabia is considering selling shares in its state oil company. With 261 billion barrels of oil in reserves and a yearly output of over three billion barrels of oil, the company, Saudi Aramco, […]
Los Angeles: A California man was found guilty on Thursday of murdering a Saudi engineering student after responding to the victim’s ad to sell his car. A jury in San Fernando deliberated just 15 minutes before convicting Agustin Rosendo Fernandez, 29, of first-degree murder in the 2014 stabbing death of Abdullah Abdul Latif Al Kadi, a third-year electrical engineering student at […]
Last bastion of financial system pays salaries on both sides of civil war as governor maintains ‘economic traduce’ Yemeni locals and secruity guards are pictured outside the Central Bank of Yemen in the capital Sana’a. Dubai: As civil war engulfs Yemen, the central bank is so committed to staying neutral that it pays salaries of soldiers on both sides. The bank […]
|By Matein Khalid|Dr. Mervyn King broke with tradition by publishing his book “The End of Alchemy: money, banking and the future of the global economy”. After all, retired governors of the Bank of England do not, as a rule, do not write/publish books, let alone write books that lambast the City of London’s culture of greed and hubris. It is no coincidence that Dr. King quotes T.S. […]
SAUDI ARABIA. According to a new report by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), the digital age has ushered in a number of trends that have transformed the media consumption habits of each Saudi generation profoundly – and vastly differently. In parallel, with information and connectivity available at everyone’s fingertips – anywhere, anytime – the Kingdom’s traditional media landscape has, in recent years, been disrupted. The findings presented […]
In the days before rapid sea or air travel, it could take months to travel to Mecca. The spiritual heart of Islam lay far from its great capitals in Istanbul, Delhi and Isfahan. The devout came from distant lands on foot, by camel and in horse-drawn carriages. Bedouin tribes routinely robbed these pilgrims, who were the primary source of revenue for this ancient desert town. Now, the […]
|By Arabian Post Staff|The Saudi Arabia Monetary Agency has written to banks instructing them not to under-report Saudi Interbank Offered Rate they’re actually lending at, Bloomberg reported. The decision came after some banks were seen conducting business at higher rates than were quoted, indicating some submissions were below the real market, according to two of the people. SAMA is exerting greater control over Saudi Arabia’s banking sector as […]
