Qatar, May 11: A 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck in the Gulf nation of Oman on Saturday near the northern city of Al Khasab, the US Geological Survey said.
The quake had a depth of 21 miles (33 km) and was centered 116 miles (186 km) east of al Khasab, the agency said.
Dubai, July 13: An explosion caused by a gas leak damaged a restaurant, and nearby shops at a residential building in Dubai on Monday morning.
According to Brigadier Abdul Haleem Al Hashemi, Deputy Director of Al Qusais Police Station, the incident took place at 4am when the restaurant was closed.
No injuries were reported, but two nearby shops, a pharmacy, a salon and three cars were severely damaged.
"Dubai Police patrols were immediately dispatched to the scene and worked with Dubai Civil Defense to evacuate residents of the two-storey building as a precautionary measure," Brig Al Hashimi explained.
Preliminary investigations showed that the blast was caused by a gas leak, the officer said. The Crime Scene Department of the General Department of Forensics and Criminology in Dubai is studying the evidence collected from the site and will be preparing the final report on the accident.
Brig Al Hashimi urged restaurant owners to ensure that all safety and security systems at their outlets are in good condition. Regular maintenance checks should also be conducted on all pipes and gas regulators, especially during the summer season.
Riyadh, Jul 1: Saudis braced Wednesday for a tripling in value added tax, another unpopular austerity measure after the twin shocks of coronavirus and an oil price slump triggered the kingdom's worst economic decline in decades.
Retailers in the country reported a sharp uptick in sales this week of everything from gold and electronics to cars and building materials, as shoppers sought to stock up before VAT is raised to 15 percent.
The hike could stir public resentment as it weighs on household incomes, pushing up inflation and depressing consumer spending as the kingdom emerges from a three-month coronavirus lockdown.
"Cuts, cuts, cuts everywhere," a Saudi teacher in Riyadh told AFP, bemoaning vanishing subsidies as salaries remain stagnant.
"Air conditioner, television, electronic items," he said, rattling off a list of items he bought last week ahead of the VAT hike.
"I can't afford these things from Wednesday."
With its vast oil wealth funding the Arab world's biggest economy, the kingdom had for decades been able to fund massive spending with no taxes at all.
It only introduced VAT in 2018, as part of a push to reduce its dependence on crude revenues.
Then, seeking to shore up state finances battered by sliding oil prices and the coronavirus crisis, it announced in May that it would triple VAT and halt a cost-of-living monthly allowance to citizens.
The austerity push underscores how Saudi Arabia's once-lavish spending is becoming a thing of the past, with the erosion of the welfare system leaving a mostly young population to cope with reduced incomes and a lifestyle downgrade.
That could pile strain on a decades-old social contract whereby citizens were given generous subsidies and handouts in exchange for loyalty to the absolute monarchy.
The rising cost of living may prompt many to ask why state funds are being lavished on multi-billion-dollar projects and overseas assets, including the proposed purchase of English football club Newcastle United.
Shopping malls in the kingdom have drawn large crowds in recent days as retailers offered "pre-VAT sales" and discounts before the hike kicks in.
A gold shop in Riyadh told AFP it saw a 70 percent jump in sales in recent weeks, while a car dealership saw them tick up by 15 percent.
Once the new rate is in place, businesses are predicting depressed sales of everything from cars to cosmetics and home appliances.
Capital Economics forecast inflation will jump up to six percent year-on-year in July, from 1.1 percent in May, as a result.
"The government ended the country's lockdown (in June) and there are signs that economic activity has started to recover," Capital Economics said in a report.
"Nonetheless, we expect the recovery to be slow-going as fiscal austerity measures bite."
The kingdom also risks losing its edge against other Gulf states, including its principal ally the United Arab Emirates, which introduced VAT at the same time but has so far refrained from raising it beyond five percent.
"Saudi Arabia is taking massive risks with contractionary fiscal policies," said Tarek Fadlallah, chief executive officer of the Middle East unit of Nomura Asset Management.
But the kingdom has few choices as oil revenue declines.
Its finances have taken another blow as authorities massively scaled back this year's hajj pilgrimage, from 2.5 million pilgrims last year to around a thousand already inside the country, and suspended the lesser umrah because of coronavirus.
Together the rites rake in some $12 billion annually.
The International Monetary Fund warned the kingdom's GDP will shrink by 6.8 percent this year -- its worst performance since the 1980s oil glut.
The austerity drive would boost state coffers by 100 billion riyals ($26.6 billion), according to state media.
But the measures are unlikely to plug the kingdom's huge budget deficit.
The Saudi Jadwa Investment group forecasts the shortfall will rise to a record $112 billion this year.
Dubai, Aug 2: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced on Saturday that it has started operations in the first of four reactors at the Barakah nuclear power station - the first nuclear power plant in the Arab world.
Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC), which is building and operating the plant with Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) said in a press release that its subsidiary Nawah Energy Company "has successfully started up Unit 1 of the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant, located in the Al Dhafrah Region of Abu Dhabi".
That signals that Unit 1, which had fuel rods loaded in March, has achieved "criticality" - a sustained fission chain reaction.
"The start-up of Unit 1 marks the first time that the reactor safely produces heat, which is used to create steam, turning a turbine to generate electricity," said ENEC.
Barakah, which was originally scheduled to open in 2017, has been dogged by delays and is billions of dollars over budget. It has also raised myriad concerns among nuclear energy veterans who are concerned about the potential risks Barakah could visit upon the Arabian Peninsula, from an environmental catastrophe to a nuclear arms race.
Paul Dorfman, an honorary senior research fellow at the Energy Institute, University College London and founder and chair of the Nuclear Consulting Group, has criticised the Barakah reactors' "cheap and cheerful" design that he says cuts corners on safety.
Dorfman authored a report (PDF) last year detailing key safety features Barakah's reactors lack, such as a "core catcher" to literally stop the core of a reactor from breaching the containment building in the event of a meltdown. The reactors are also missing so-called Generation III Defence-In-Depth reinforcements to the containment building to shield against a radiological release resulting from a missile or fighter jet attack.
Both of these engineering features are standard on new reactors built in Europe, says Dorfman.
There have been at least 13 aerial attacks on nuclear facilities in the Middle East - more than any other region on earth.
The vulnerability of critical infrastructure in the Arabian Peninsula was further laid bare last year after Saudi Arabia's oil facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais were attacked by 18 drones and seven cruise missiles - an assault that temporarily knocked out more than half of the kingdom's oil production.
On Saturday, Dorfman reiterated his concern that there is no regional protocol in place to determine liability should an accident or incident at Barakah result in radioactive contamination spreading from the UAE to its neighbours.
"Given Barakah has started up, because of all the well-rehearsed nuclear safety and security problems, it may be critically important that the Gulf states collectively evolve a Nuclear Accident Liability Convention, so that if anything does go wrong, victim states may have some sort of redress," Dorfman told Al Jazeera.
The UAE has substantial oil and gas reserves, but it has made huge investments in developing alternative energy sources, including nuclear and solar.
Experts though have questioned why the UAE - which is bathed in sunlight and wind - has pushed ahead with nuclear energy - a far more expensive and riskier option than renewable energy sources.
When the UAE first announced Barakah in 2009, nuclear power was cheaper than solar and wind. But by 2012 - when the Emirates started breaking ground to build the reactors - solar and wind costs had plummeted dramatically.
Between 2009 and 2019, utility-scale average solar photovoltaic costs fell 89 percent and wind fell 43 percent, while nuclear jumped 26 percent, according to an analysis by the financial advisory and asset manager Lazard.
There are also concerns about the potential for Barakah to foment nuclear proliferation in the Middle East - a region rife with geopolitical fault lines and well-documented history of nuclear secrecy.
The UAE has sought to distance itself from the region's bad behaviour by agreeing not to enrich its own uranium or reprocess spent fuel. It has also signed up to the United Nation's nuclear watchdog's Additional Protocol, significantly enhancing inspection capabilities, and secured a 123 Agreement with the United States that allows bilateral civilian nuclear cooperation.
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