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Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Signs $10 Billion Deal On Mega-City During Cairo Visit

Agencies
March 5, 2018

Cairo/Riyadh, Mar 5:  Saudi Arabia and Egypt set up a $10 billion joint fund on Sunday to develop a planned mega-city, committing more than 1,000 square kilometres in the south Sinai, as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo.

The deal came at the start of Prince Mohammed's first public trip abroad since becoming heir apparent last year and purging the kingdom's business and political elite in a crackdown on corruption that saw top princes and businessmen detained.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia have strengthened ties since Sisi took power in 2013 after ousting the Muslim Brotherhood, which both countries have banned and designated as a terrorist organisation.

A Saudi official told Reuters that Riyadh's part of the new joint investment fund will be cash to help develop the Egyptian side of NEOM, which Prince Mohammed unveiled last October as part of plans to wean the world's top crude exporter off oil revenues.

The investment deal underlines the strategic ties between the richest Arab state and the most populous.

Cairo supports Riyadh in its fight against Iran-backed Houthi fighters in Yemen, and last year joined a Saudi-led boycott of Gulf state Qatar and agreed to hand over two Red Sea islands to Saudi despite widespread criticism at home.

The day before Prince Mohammed's visit, Egypt's top court dismissed all outstanding legal challenges to the deal on the Red Sea islands.

The Saudi visit comes three weeks ahead of an election where former general Sisi is seeking a second term. He is guaranteed a win in a vote where, critics say, authorities have locked up opponents or forced them to halt election campaigns.

As Egypt tries to keep a lid on any internal unrest, it has sided firmly with Saudi Arabia on key foreign policy issues including the face-off between the Sunni kingdom and its Shi'ite foe Iran.

Egypt eagerly joined Saudi Arabia and other Gulf allies last June in a trade and diplomatic boycott of Qatar, whose government and media it accuses of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, hundreds of whose members Cairo has imprisoned and sentenced to death. Doha denies the charges.

The Saudi prince will head to Britain on March 7 following his three-day visit to Cairo and then to the United States, Riyadh's closest Western ally, later in the month.

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Agencies
May 25,2020

Abu Dhabi, May 25: Dusty weather to persist in the UAE on Monday as well with a chance of rainfall in parts of the country, the national Met department reported.

According to the NCM, the weather today will be fair to partly cloudy, with a chance of some convective clouds formation by afternoon - eastward and northward - extending to some internal areas that may be associated with some rainfall.

The weather will get humid by night and Tuesday morning over some coastal areas.

NCM predicts a wet Eid break.

Sharjah Police issued a weather warning as heavy rain flooded roads in Sharjah's Kalba among other areas.

Moderate to fresh winds will gain strength during the day causing blowing dust and sand.

The sea will be slight to moderate in the Arabian Gulf and in Oman Sea.

Earlier on Sunday, a weather alert was issued by authorities as moderate to heavy rain - accompanied with hail - lashed parts of the UAE. A rainbow in Dubai skies cheered up residents, celebrating a unique Eid this year amid the coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic - by mostly staying home.

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Agencies
June 29,2020

Protests condemning the Israeli plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank are set to take place in the United States and Europe on the same day prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to begin the process.

The demonstrations will be held on Wednesday in Chicago, San Diego, Brooklyn, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Other Western cities will also witness similar protests, including Toronto, Madrid and Valencia.

Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, and American Muslims for Palestine are among the pro-Palestinian groups organizing the protests.

The Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, one of the organizers, urged "direct actions and popular mobilizations in [Palestinian] refugee camps, cities and villages," and professed "loyalty to the martyrs" on its call for the events.

Another group, Al-Awda or the Palestinian Right to Return Coalition, decried "72 years of genocide, ethnic cleansing and dispossession" of Palestinians.

It also tied their demonstrations to the protests against anti-black racism in the US and beyond.

"We demand the defunding and dismantling of US police alongside the defunding and dismantling of Zionist colonialism and racist Israeli apartheid," Al-Awda said on its website.

Netanyahu has set July 1 as the date for the start of cabinet discussions on the annexation plan.

He has been driven ahead by US President Donald Trump, who unveiled a “peace” plan for the Middle East in January that effectively sidelines the Palestinians altogether.

The plan, which Trump himself has described as the “deal of the century,” envisions Jerusalem al-Quds as “Israel’s undivided capital” and allows the Tel Aviv regime to annex settlements in the occupied West Bank and the Jordan Valley. The plan also denies Palestinian refugees the right of return to their homeland, among other controversial terms.

The Palestinians want the West Bank as part of a future independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem al-Quds as its capital.

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News Network
March 11,2020

Mar 11: Energy giant Saudi Aramco on Wednesday said it plans to raise its crude production capacity by one million barrels per day to 13 million bpd as a price war with Russia intensifies.

"Saudi Aramco announces that it received a directive from the ministry of energy to increase its maximum sustainable capacity from 12 million bpd to 13 million bpd," the company said in a statement to the Saudi Stock Exchange.

The decision comes a day after the world's top exporter, Saudi Arabia, decided to hike production by at least 2.5 million bpd to a record 12.3 million from April.

The Saudi moves come after the collapse of an oil production reduction agreement between OPEC and non-OPEC producers, including Russia.

The deal proposed by Saudi Arabia called for additional output cuts of 1.5 million bpd to cope with the severe economic impact of the coronavirus which has sharply reduced world demand for crude.

Boosting production capacity normally takes a long time and requires billions of dollars of investment.

Several years ago, the kingdom had shelved plans to boost its crude production capacity beyond 12 million bpd after demand for OPEC oil declined in the face of stiff competition from North American shale oil and other sources.

Russia on Tuesday said it was open to renewing cooperation with the OPEC cartel even as its kingpin Saudi Arabia escalated a price war with Moscow by announcing it would flood markets with new supplies.

The oil price war broke out after OPEC and a group of non-member countries dominated by Russia -- the world's second largest producer -- on Friday failed to agree on production cuts.

Saudi Arabia responded by announcing unilateral price cuts. This prompted the oil price to plummet and fuelled huge falls on stock markets around the world on Monday.

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