London – Moody’s Investors Service has changed on Tuesday the outlook on Qatar’s banking system from stable to negative due to weak operating conditions and continued funding pressures facing its banks. The agency stated that this also depicts Qatar’s weak ability to support the country’
London – Mercedes-Benz Middle East CEO Mark De Haes announced that the company is now technically capable of producing autonomous cars and has conducted the first autonomous drive in the region between Dubai and Abu Dhabi last November. He told Asharq Al-Awsat that Mercedes-Benz is waiting for
Riyadh – For the second time in ten days, international maritime navigation in the Red Sea came under direct threat from Yemen’s Houthi militias. Official reports stated that the militias launched a ballistic missile towards south of Red Sea near al-Mandeb Strait through which a third of the world’s
French police shot and arrested a man on Wednesday suspected of deliberately ramming his car into a group of soldiers in a Parisian suburb hours earlier, injuring six of them in what the government called a deliberate attack. Armed police from elite units tracked the fugitive for five hours after th
Cairo – Saudi ACWA Power inked on Tuesday contracts worth 190 million dollars to generate solar power in Egypt, announced the company. ACWA Power has secured three solar photovoltaic (PV) power plant contracts in Egypt. Located in Benban’s Aswan province, the PV power plants will boast an aggr
Riyadh – Saudi Arabia’s National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) provided government agencies with information and methods to prevent a new malware that cyber-attackers are using to hack into electronic devices. The center recently discovered the use of unconventional methods by hackers attemptin
London – Iranian President Hassan Rouhani put forward on Tuesday a list including the names of 17 ministers of his new government lineup to parliament, but failed to keep his campaign promises to appoint women and minorities. Rouhani faced increasing pressure from allied political movements be
Amman – Yemeni Foreign Minister Abdul Malik al-Mekhlafi met on Tuesday with the representative of the UN Higher Commissioner for Human Rights, Alobaid Ahmed Alobaid, to discuss the situation in the country, in particular “crimes and violations perpetrated by militias since the coup.” Yemen’s o
Tel-Aviv – Senior Israeli sources expressed their concern over the “serious deterioration” of relations with Egypt in diplomatic channels and the closing of the Israeli embassy in Cairo for the eighth consecutive month. During a meeting recently held by the parliamentary subcommittee in the Fo
Casablanca – Moroccan opposition chief Ilyas El Omari personally announced his decision to resign from the party’s leadership. Speaking at a Tuesday press conference, he told reporters that his resignation from the Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM) was “unilaterally decided.” El Omari cit
Dammam – Saudi Arabia and France agreed to promote efforts to fight terrorism and extremism and counter-terrorist financing. Vice Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz received a telephone call from French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday. The two officials r
Ankara – Turkish counter-terrorism police busted on Tuesday a five-member cell linked with the terrorist ISIS organization during an operation in Istanbul. Security sources said that the detention of the cell’s members was possible thanks to a collaboration between the security agency and the
Ramallah – Palestinian officials said that President Mahmoud Abbas has maintained his decision to stop all forms of communication with Israel, despite the end of the al-Aqsa crisis. In remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat, member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee, Ahmed Majdal
Seattle (United States) – A new study revealed that the cases of suicide, murder and sexual assault have increased rapidly in the Middle East, compared to other parts of the world. These violent acts have resulted in 1.4 million deaths in 2015, without taking into consideration the 144,000 lives cla
Ms. Carla Del Ponte was the head of the UN investigation looking into war crimes in Syria. She began her mission at the beginning of the war and has finally given up and declared her failure. Despite over half a million innocent victims, she was not able to summon one killer to trial. This is [&hell
The Saudi Royal Air Force (RSAF) aircraft have arrived to the United States of America to participate in the Red and Green Flag exercise 2017 comprising selective air and technical crews and a number of air control teams, reported the Saudi Press Agency (SPA). The Saudi Royal Air Force flew thousand
Belgian police fired a shot at a vehicle in the Brussels district of Molenbeek, Belgium’s federal prosecutors said on Tuesday. Police forces later called in a bomb squad after the driver claimed to have explosives on board. Molenbeek, a poor district of the capital, gained notoriety after an I
A rattling 6.5-magnitude earthquake rocked southwest China late Tuesday, the US Geological Survey said, with early reports of collapsed houses and evacuations–number of casualties remains unknown. According to AFP, the quake occurred around 9.20 pm (1320 GMT) in a remote region of Sichuan prov
The new United Nations envoy to Libya Ghassan Salameh voiced his approval of a new effort by Italy to curb the flow of migrants departing North Africa to Europe. Ghassan Salameh described the cooperation between Tripoli and Rome as a “very constructive” way of dealing with an acute probl
Human Rights Watch revealed on Tuesday that Israel has forcefully deported some 15,000 Palestinians since it occupied Jerusalem in 1967, in what could be deemed as a “war crime.” “Residency revocations often effectively force Palestinians from east Jerusalem, who are protected by virtue of Isr
