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  • Syria’s national airline resumes Saudi flights after 12 years

    Syria's national airline resumed regular services to Saudi Arabia after a 12-year suspension on Wednesday as the first flight arrived in Riyadh. The move, announced by Syrian Airlines and confirmed to AFP by Syria's ambassador to Saudi Arabia, continues a slow rapprochement between the two governments who restored diplomatic relations last year. Ambassador Ayman Soussan said a Syrian Airlines plane carrying 170 passengers touched down in the Saudi capital, marking the resumption of a regular route.

  • Saudi Aramco Sells $6 Billion of Bonds Amid Fierce Demand

    Saudi Aramco pulled in more than $31 billion of orders for its $6 billion bond sale, its first dollar-debt offering in three years. Bids peaked above $11 billion for both the oil giant’s 10- and 30-year notes, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Aramco also sold 40-year bonds in the deal that priced Wednesday.

  • Saudi rig suspensions slow Middle East offshore growth prospects

    Maritime Strategies International (MSI) has scaled back its projection for jackup drilling demand in the Middle East Gulf region, following Saudi Aramco’s decision to suspend contracts for over 20 jackups. The analyst now expects growth in the region of 1%, down from its previous estimate of 4%, mainly supported by activity in Qatar and the UAE to fulfill their respective oil and gas production targets.

  • Bodies trapped in Gaza City under Israeli assault as mediators push for truce

    Residents of Gaza City were trapped in houses and bodies lay uncollected in the streets under an intense new Israeli assault on Thursday, even as Washington pushed for a peace deal at talks in Egypt and Qatar. Hamas militants say a heavy Israeli assault on Gaza City this week could wreck efforts to finally end the war just as negotiations have entered the home stretch. Home to more than a quarter of Gaza's residents before the war, Gaza City was destroyed during the first weeks of fighting last year, but hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have returned to homes in the ruins. They have now once again been ordered out by the Israeli military.

  • Coffee is getting more expensive thanks to climate change

    The price of a standard contract — a 100-piece lot of 60-kilogram bags — topped $300 on Tuesday before settling slightly lower. The commodity is up nearly 28% for the year and 56% compared to a year ago. Like with cocoa, coffee harvests are shrinking because of climate change. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year that soaring global temperatures and fluctuating rainfall patterns are making it harder for traditional exporting nations like Vietnam, Indonesia, and Brazil to maintain harvest levels.

  • Saudi Arabia Continues Airdrop Operations of Quality Food Aid to Gaza in Cooperation with Jordan

    The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, through the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre (KSrelief), has continued airdrop operations of quality food aid for those affected in the Gaza Strip, in cooperation with the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. A food airdrop operation was conducted yesterday in the Al-Mawasi area west of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, in collaboration with the Jordan Armed Forces-Arab Army, aiming to break the blockade imposed by Israeli occupation forces on the land border crossings.

  • Saudi Arabia and Syria resume regular flights as thaw with Assad advances

    A passenger plane operated by Syria’s national airline landed at Saudi Arabia’s King Khalid International Airport on Wednesday, marking the resumption of regular commercial flights between the two countries after a hiatus of more than 10 years. The state-owned Riyadh Airports Company organized a ceremony at the Saudi airport to welcome the Syrian Airlines flight, in the presence of Syria’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Ayman Soussan, and a number of Saudi officials in the air transport sector, Syria's official news agency SANA reported.  

  • Nike’s first campaign in Saudi Arabia: ‘What if you can?’ video goes viral

    Sportswear giant Nike has come out with its first campaign in Saudi Arabia and the online commercial ‘What if you can?’ has created a lot of buzz on social media. The one-minute and 35-second video is aimed at inspiring young girls in conservative Saudi Arabia to back their potential and take up a sport. The online campaign has already amassed more than 37 million views on YouTube. It opens with schoolgirls playing a game of football and the ball stops at a female student sitting on the steps of a school. One of the students asks her in Arabic, ‘Want to play? Let’s go’.

  • SAMA Regulations Enhancing Saudi Islamic Banks’ Transparency, Sharia Governance

    Islamic finance-specific rules issued by the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) over 2020–1H24 are enhancing Islamic banking regulations to some extent, says Fitch Ratings, through better transparency and reporting requirements, standardisation and sharia governance, and increased consumer confidence in the products’ sharia-compliance. While the Saudi Islamic banking market is the largest globally, and we expect the operating environment to be favourable over 2H24–2025, persisting issues include low standardisation, still-developing Islamic-finance regulations, and fragmented disclosures.

  • Middle East crises loom in background as NATO leaders gather in Washington

    While this year's summit is expected to focus largely on the ongoing war in Ukraine, Iran's military support for Russia and Turkey's strategic balancing act with Moscow are expected to weigh on NATO leaders gathered in Washington.
    Read more: https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2024/07/middle-east-crises-loom-background-nato-leaders-gather-washington#ixzz8faCZA4X1