Riyadh, Dec 19: Saudi Arabia said it intercepted a Yemeni rebel missile over Riyadh on Tuesday.
“Ballistic missile intercepted over Riyadh,” the Coalition battling Yemen’s Houthi rebels said in a statement.
It was the second Houthi missile attack on Riyadh in the past two months.
The missile was supplied to Houthis by Iran.
On Thursday, US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley presented what she called “undeniable” evidence that last month’s missile was “made in Iran”
Makkah, Jul 31: Organising this year's scaled-down hajj required "double efforts" by Saudi authorities amid the coronavirus pandemic, King Salman said Friday after being discharged from hospital following gall bladder surgery.
Only up to 10,000 people already residing in the kingdom are participating in this year's pilgrimage, compared with 2019's gathering of some 2.5 million from around the world.
"Holding the ritual in the shadow of this pandemic... required reducing the numbers of pilgrims, but it obliged various official agencies to put in double efforts," 84-year-old King Salman said in a speech read out on state television by acting media minister Majid Al-Qasabi.
"The hajj this year was restricted to a very limited number of people from multiple nationalities, ensuring the ritual was completed despite the difficult circumstances," he said.
The speech came on the occasion of Eid al-Adha, the Muslim festival of sacrifice, a day after the king left hospital following a 10-day stay for surgery to remove his gall bladder.
The hajj, which began on Wednesday, is one of the five pillars of Islam and a must for able-bodied Muslims at least once in their lifetime.
Authorities implemented the "highest health precautions" during the rituals, the king said.
Pilgrims, who were all tested for the virus, are required to wear masks and observe social distancing.
For Friday's "stoning of the devil", the last major ritual of the hajj, Saudi authorities offered the pilgrims pebbles that were sanitised to protect against the pandemic.
In a sign that its strict measures were working, the health ministry reported no coronavirus cases in the holy sites on Wednesday or Thursday.
Jan 21: Indian policymakers may make it easier for companies to tap foreign funding, as a prolonged cash squeeze makes it tough for firms to borrow at home.
Investors are speculating about potential steps Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman could unveil when she presents the nation’s budget on Feb. 1. These measures may include freeing up firms to borrow at higher rates and offering tax breaks to global funds.
“The government will need to relax local rules to make it easier for Indian companies to raise debt overseas and tide over the funding crunch in the onshore market,” said Raj Kothari, London-based head of trading at Jay Capital Ltd. “At the same time, they need to ensure that the borrowers tapping offshore markets abide with stricter corporate governance so as to avoid further defaults.”
A prolonged crisis in India’s shadow bank sector and a pile of bad loans at traditional lenders is making it expensive for Indian companies, other than the best-rated firms, to access funding. The government has tried a series of measures to spur domestic credit, including providing so-called credit enhancement and allowing tiny firms to restructure debt.
Here are some steps Sitharaman may consider to spur foreign borrowing:
• She could raise the cap of 450 basis points above Libor, which limits overall foreign debt costs for Indian companies
• This could help lower-rated firms sell bonds abroad. Indian companies rated BBB currently borrow at more than 10%, about 3.8 percentage points more than their top-rated peers;
• Sitharaman could waive the withholding tax foreign investors need to pay on holdings of rupee-denominated debt sold by Indian companies abroad
• The waiver was offered between September 2018 to March 2019, but wasn’t extended as the highest global interest rates since the financial crisis deterred Indian borrowers. Since then, the three-month Libor has dropped by about 1 percentage point
• She could permit Indian property developers and housing finance lenders to sell overseas bonds for reasons beyond affordable housing projects
• New funding lines to the real estate sector, arguably ground zero of India’s economic slowdown, could help kickstart consumption and investment as the industry is the nation’s biggest job-creator.
Tezpur (Assam), Mar 2: Seven boys, who had appeared for their class 10 board examinations, were apprehended on Sunday for allegedly raping and killing a 12-year-old girl in Assam's Biswanath district, police said.
The girl was hanged from a tree after the crime.
The incident happened on Friday in Chakla village under the jurisdiction of Gohpur police station, they said.
A senior police officer told PTI that the culprits, all of them High School Leaving Certificate (HSLC) examinees, were on the run, but were nabbed by a police team.
The accused after the examination had called the victim to a house on the pretext of organising a party and raped her, the officer said.
It is suspected that the girl was raped on Friday night and then hanged from a tree in a forest near the house, the senior police officer said.
The body was found on Saturday.
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Who knows Missile may b made in America also....!!!!!
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