MUST-READS

• US-based CarbonCapture raises $80 mln from Saudi Aramco, others

  Los Angeles-based CarbonCapture, which aims to build machines that suck carbon dioxide out of the air to fight climate change, said it had raised $80 million from investors that include Saudi oil giant Saudi Aramco (2223.SE), opens new tab. The money raised in CarbonCapture's latest major funding round represents one of the largest injections of private capital into direct air capture (DAC) – a technology that has yet to be proven at scale - over the last five years, according industry tracker PitchBook. "This is exactly what has to happen - this alignment with large industrial partners who have the capacity, the access to capital, the skills to actually scale DAC to a meaningful level," CarbonCapture CEO Adrian Corless said in an interview with Reuters.

• Ronaldo’s Al-Nassr exit Asian Champions League with shootout loss to Al-Ain

  Cristiano Ronaldo's Al-Nassr crashed out of the Asian Champions League in the quarter-finals after the Saudi Pro League side lost 3-1 on penalties to Al-Ain in a pulsating game on Monday. Al-Nassr overturned a 1-0 first leg deficit to win 4-3 on Monday but with the contest ending 4-4 on aggregate, the players headed into a shootout from which Al-Ain prevailed. Al-Nassr's foreign imports Miroslav Brozovic, Alex Telles and Otavio all failed to score from the spot as the side from the United Arab Emirates advanced to the semi-finals, where they will face either Al-Hilal or Al-Ittihad -- both from Saudi Arabia -- next month.

• US delegation leaves Saudi Arabia early over kippah row

  A US delegation on religious freedom said Monday it cut short its visit to Saudi Arabia after one of its members was asked to remove his Jewish head covering, or kippah. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) said its delegation was near Riyadh visiting Diriyah, a historic town and Unesco world heritage site, when the commission’s chair, the Orthodox rabbi Abraham Cooper, “refused their requests that he remove his religious head covering”. Cooper said in a statement: “No one should be denied access to a heritage site, especially one intended to highlight unity and progress, simply for existing as a Jew.”

• Biden Warns Netanyahu Not to Attack Rafah as Ramadan Begins

  US President Joe Biden warned Israel against attacking the city of Rafah in southern Gaza as cease-fire talks with Hamas remained deadlocked at the beginning of Ramadan. The US hoped for a breakthrough before Islam’s holy month, which began after sundown on Sunday. A deal would probably lead to a six-week pause in fighting, the freeing of dozens of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza and release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Negotiations remain at an impasse, however, with Israel accusing Hamas of stalling in a bid to inflame violence across the region during Ramadan, and Hamas saying more Israeli hostages had died in captivity than earlier believed.

• Netanyahu vows to defy Biden’s ‘red line’ on Rafah

  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he intends to press ahead with an invasion of the city of Rafah on the southern border of the Gaza Strip in defiance of United States President Joe Biden, who has warned such an offensive would be a "red line." Amid signs of increasing frustration with Netanyahu, the U.S. president told MSNBC on Saturday that he opposed an escalation of the conflict into Rafah, and that he could not accept "30,000 more Palestinians dead."

• Saudi Arabia, Muslim world gear up as Ramadan begins

  Joining Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE have also confirmed that Ramadan will begin on Monday, with Oman, Pakistan, Indonesia, Australia, Malaysia, Brunei and Iran to follow a day later. The determination of the starting date relies on both lunar calculations and physical sightings of the new moon, a practice steeped in Islamic tradition. Al-Khudairi said: “Calculation and technology are complementing the sighting process. I say that the astronomical calculations and the naked eye sighting, like the human’s eyes, they need one another.”

• Saudi Arabia rounds up record 23,040 illegals in weekly swoop

  Saudi authorities have arrested 23,040 foreign violators of the kingdom’s residency, labour and border security laws in one week, the highest such weekly arrests in more than two years. The arrests were made across the kingdom during the February 29-March 6 period.

• Opinion – Gaza may be the crucible for new order in the Middle East

  The Middle East is at a hinge moment. The old order is collapsing, and a new one has yet to emerge. While the region’s tectonic shifts predate Hamas’s terror attack on Oct. 7, the ensuing conflict in Gaza and its reverberations across the region are the crucible in which the new contours of the Middle East will take shape.

• Red Sea: US, UK and French destroy dozens of Houthi drones

  US military said at least 28 uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) were downed over the Red Sea early on Saturday. Along with coalition forces, the US said it acted after determining the "large-scale" attack "presented an imminent threat to merchant vessels". The Houthis said they had targeted a commercial ship, Propel Fortune, and a number of US destroyers.

• Opinion – Amid the horror in Gaza, it’s easy to miss that the Middle East has changed

  While it used to be that the large Arab countries were dominant — because of history, size, armies, etc. — today it is the incredibly wealthy gulf states that set the agenda. Countries such as Egypt regularly depend on their wealthy Persian Gulf neighbors for bailouts and handouts. Second, there has been a broad shift of attitude — against Arab terrorism and toward some kind of reconciliation with and recognition of Israel.

• 10 of 61096 results<< 1 … 445 446 447 … 6,110 >>