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  • Saudi citizen’s kidnapping adds new chapter to Lebanon’s chronicle of crime and impunity

    Mashari Al-Mutairi, an employee of Saudi Arabia’s Saudia airlines who lived in the Beirut suburb of Aramoun, was abducted at about 3 a.m. on Sunday. The Lebanese Army’s intelligence directorate found and freed him after a security operation on the border with Syria. He was received at the Saudi Embassy in Beirut by Ambassador Walid Bukhari, who said in a statement: “The released Saudi citizen is in good health, and we thank the army and internal security forces. The security efforts confirm the Lebanese authorities’ keenness to secure tourism security.”

  • BRICS Bank to Expand Membership as Saudi Arabia Looks to Join

    The New Development Bank, the lender created by the BRICS group of nations, will widen its membership as it seeks to boost its capital and counter the influence of Western-dominated multilateral banks. The lender — formed by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — will look at increasing the diversity of its members in terms of geography, development stages and on the size of the countries, Dilma Rousseff, the bank’s president, said at its annual meeting in Shanghai on Tuesday.

  • Qatar prime minister, Taliban chief hold secret Afghan talks

    The Qatari prime minister held secret talks with the supreme leader of the Taliban this month on resolving tension with the international community, a source briefed on the meeting said, signaling a new willingness by Afghanistan's rulers to discuss ways to end their isolation. The May 12 meeting in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar between Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani and Haibatullah Akhunzada is the first the reclusive Taliban chief is known to have held with a foreign leader.

  • Lebanon frees kidnapped Saudi national, arrests nine suspects – officials

    Lebanon's army intelligence freed a Saudi national who was abducted on Sunday in Beirut and also arrested some of those involved, the army announced on Tuesday. An online army statement said that Saudi citizen Mashari al-Mutairi had been freed in an operation along the Lebanese border with Syria. Saudi's state-run Al Ekhbariya television station reported late on Monday that a man working for Saudi Arabian Airlines had been kidnapped in the Lebanese capital on Sunday, and that those responsible had demanded a $400,000 ransom.

  • The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan After the Taliban’s Afghanistan Takeover

    Founded in 2007 as an umbrella movement in Pakistan’s tribal territory uniting the area’s militant Islamist outfits, the TTP later suffered from a government crackdown and an internal fragmentation that critically threatened its survival. As a survival mechanism, the group relocated to Afghanistan, embedding itself into the Taliban’s insurgency, but with the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan, the TTP has obtained new more sophisticated weapons and relocated fighters from Afghanistan to Pakistan and is now turning its focus back to its war against the Pakistani state.

  • Madinah comes 4th in Saudi urban agglomerations

    Madinah has been ranked fourth among Saudi Arabia's regions in terms of urban agglomeration after Riyadh, Jeddah and Makkah, according to the Urban Observatory of the Madinah Development Authority. The local review of Madinah 2023, issued by the Urban Observatory has also shown that Madinah has reached the level of self-growth, to be one of the first eight urban centers supported by the National Urban Strategy as a top priority for comprehensive national development. It is expected that Madinah will witness significant growth during the coming 30 years, bringing its permanent population to about 2.06 million people and approximately 12 million visitors annually by 2040.

  • Bahrain and Lebanon To Restore Relations

    On Saturday, May 20, Bahrain’s Foreign Ministry announced that it would resume full diplomatic relations with Lebanon amid an effort to “strengthen the fraternal relations between the two countries.” Bahrain and other Gulf countries severed relations with Lebanon in 2021 in response to then-Lebanese Information Minister George Kordahi’s statements criticizing the Saudi-led coalition's involvement in Yemen’s civil war.

  • Saudi Arabia’s banking sector set for further gains

    The market assessment by Boston Consulting Group found that banking revenue hit SAR 57 billion last year, up from SAR 50 billion the year previous. While operating expenses did rise as well, they grew at a (much) slower pace than revenue, leading to a profit windfall. Combined, Saudi’s banks recorded a 14% rise in profits compared to the previous 12 months. The researchers note that profits after taxes in the Kingdom have grown at an average of 7.9% CAGR per year since 2016 – although there are huge variations within that time frame due to global events such as the pandemic.

  • Lebanon set to be grey-listed by financial crime watchdog

    Lebanon is likely to be placed on a "grey list" of countries under special scrutiny over unsatisfactory practices to prevent money laundering and terrorism financing, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. Being added to the list would be another major blow to a country in a financial tailspin since 2019 and struggling to secure a deal with the International Monetary Fund.

  • Bahrain to restore diplomatic relations with Lebanon

    Bahrain and Lebanon are to restore diplomatic relations after a year-and-a-half break prompted by a spat over the conflict in Yemen. Bahrain and other Gulf countries followed Saudi Arabia in recalling their diplomats towards the end of 2021 after a Lebanese minister criticised Riyadh's military intervention in the war in Yemen. Manama, a staunch ally of Riyadh, also called on its citizens in Lebanon to leave the country.