All posts tagged: Mideast

Stocks rebound, oil and gold retreat on tempered Mideast fears

Stocks rebound, oil and gold retreat on tempered Mideast fears

Published by Sam

TOKYO/LONDON : World stocks recovered some losses on Monday and bonds, oil and gold dipped as investors reversed some of their more defensive positions taken going into the weekend on fears of a wider Middle East conflict. The week ahead is packed with corporate earnings, with 158 companies in the S&P 500 and 173 companies in the STOXX 600 reporting first quarter results this week according to data from LSEG workspace. These include several big European banks, as well as U.S. tech giants Microsoft and Alphabet, with the latter in particular focus after chip maker Nvidia’s 10 per cent drop on Friday, its biggest percentage fall in four years. Crucial U.S. PCE inflation data, the Federal Reserve’s preferred gauge, due Friday, finishes off the week. After CPI data earlier this month, markets currently see the first Fed rate cut coming in September. Ahead of all that, shares rose on Monday, with the STOXX 600 up 0.25 per cent and S&P 500 futures 0.36 per cent higher after MSCI’s broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside …

France, Germany ask their citizens to quit Iran amid growing risk of military escalation in Mideast – POLITICO

France, Germany ask their citizens to quit Iran amid growing risk of military escalation in Mideast – POLITICO

Published by skeptic

It also restated that French citizens should “absolutely refrain from traveling to Iran, Lebanon, Israel and Palestine.”  Meanwhile, German airline Lufthansa on Sunday announced it won’t be conducting any flights to Amman, Erbil and Tel Aviv until Tuesday and flights to Beirut and Tehran until Thursday at the soonest. The announcement comes after the airline had already suspended flights to Tehran last Wednesday, bracing for the prospect of an Iranian retaliation against Israel following a deadly strike on the Iran’s embassy in Syria. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres asked for “an immediate cessation” of the hostilities, adding that “neither the region nor the world can afford another war.”  Adding to pleas for avoiding an escalation of the conflict, Pope Francis warned against entering “a spiral of violence” that risked exacerbating the Middle East conflict. “Enough war, enough attacks, enough violence. Yes to dialogue, yes to peace,” he told the crowd gathered in Saint Peter’s Square. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said G7 leaders will hold a videoconference Sunday afternoon to coordinate a united response to Tehran’s …

Blinken starts new mideast trip in Saudi Arabia to talk about Gaza

Blinken starts new mideast trip in Saudi Arabia to talk about Gaza

Published by skeptic

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia — Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday began his sixth trip to the Middle East since the eruption of conflict between Israel and Hamas, his latest bid to compel Israel to ease its assault on the battered territory and identify a post-conflict plan that could lead to a Palestinian state. State Department officials do not expect the brief visit — a day in Saudi Arabia, a day in Egypt and just a few hours in Israel — to yield major breakthroughs, but they hope to advance discussions that have consumed much of Blinken’s focus for months. U.S. leaders, including President Biden, have grown sharply critical of the war’s harsh toll on Gazan civilians as the White House faces domestic blowback from its management of the United States’ relationship with Israel. In Saudi Arabia, Blinken met with the country’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to discuss a plan that would normalize relations between Riyadh and Israel as part of a path toward a two-state solution. In Cairo, Blinken will …

Starbucks Mideast stores to lay off 2,000 amid Gaza war boycotts

Starbucks Mideast stores to lay off 2,000 amid Gaza war boycotts

Published by skeptic

A franchise operator that runs Starbucks outlets in the Middle East and North Africa region said Tuesday that it will lay off 2,000 workers amid calls for boycotts of the American coffee giant linked to the ongoing war in Gaza. “As a result of the continually challenging trading conditions over the last six months, we have taken the sad and very difficult decision to reduce the number of colleagues in our Starbucks MENA stores,” the Kuwait-based Alshaya Group said in a statement, using the acronym for the Middle East and North Africa. The news was first reported by Reuters. What’s BDS, the movement to boycott Israel with a new social media following? “Alshaya Group has been the licensed partner for Starbucks in MENA for over 25 years and we are extremely proud of the business we have built, with over 1,300 coffee shops and 11,000 colleagues,” the company said, adding that the affected employees will be provided with support. The American coffee giant became embroiled in boycott calls on TikTok after it sued Workers United, …

Iran marks Islamic Revolution’s 45th anniversary amid Mideast tensions

Iran marks Islamic Revolution’s 45th anniversary amid Mideast tensions

Published by Sam

Iran marked Sunday the 45th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution amid tensions gripping the wider Middle East over Israel’s continued war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Issued on: 11/02/2024 – 09:58 2 min Thousands of Iranians marched through major streets and squares decorated with flags, balloons and banners with revolutionary and religious slogans. In Tehran, crowds waved Iranian flags, chanted slogans, and carried placards with the traditional “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” written on them. Some burned U.S. and Israeli flags, a common practice in pro-government rallies. Processions started out from several points, converging at Azadi Square. State TV showed crowds in many cities and towns, claiming that “millions participated in the rallies” across the country. The military displayed a range of its missiles, including the Qassem Soleimani and Sejjil ballistic missiles, and the Simorgh satellite carrier at the square where people took selfies with them. During the celebrations, a paratrooper jumped from a plane while displaying a Palestinian flag. Heavy security presence There was a heavy security presence in the …

Migrants from Africa and Mideast who died in Bosnia get marble headstones and a memorial

Migrants from Africa and Mideast who died in Bosnia get marble headstones and a memorial

Published by skeptic

BIJELJINA, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — In cities along a section of the Drina River, which forms a natural border between Bosnia and Serbia, there are simple, durable gravestones marking the final resting places of dozens of migrants who drowned in recent years trying to reach Western Europe. Their often decomposing bodies were retrieved from the Bosnian side of the river, examined by a forensic pathologist and then buried — unidentified and unclaimed — with no loved ones to mark the passing of their lives. The gravestones recently replaced decaying wooden markers, under which the remains of 41 people from the Middle East, Africa and South Asia seeking a better life in Europe were originally interred. The bodies have all been retrieved from the river since 2017 and buried in local cemeteries in three border towns of eastern Bosnia. The gravestones serve as a visual reminder of a prolonged effort by local volunteers to “preserve the dignity of nameless victims” who met their end in the Balkan country, and hopefully also make them easier to find if …

Blinken Meets Saudi Crown Prince Amid Heightened Mideast Tensions

Blinken Meets Saudi Crown Prince Amid Heightened Mideast Tensions

Published by skeptic

RIYADH (Reuters) -U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Saudi Arabia’s de-facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Monday at the start of a Middle East tour, a U.S. official said, as Washington sought to forge a Saudi normalization deal with Israel. In the Gaza Strip, Palestinians huddling under bombardment said they hoped Blinken’s visit to the region would finally deliver a truce, in time to head off a threatened new Israeli assault on the last refuge at the enclave’s edge. Blinken’s meeting with the Saudi leader lasted about two hours. Blinken did not respond to shouted questions from reporters on how it went as he returned to his hotel, but waved as he walked by. Blinken is also set to visit Egypt, Qatar, Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank this week and push to advance the Egyptian- and Qatari-mediated conversations with Palestinian Hamas militants on a deal to free Israeli hostages held in Gaza. War in Israel and Gaza His Middle East trip, his fifth since a deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel …

Iran says US-British strikes in Yemen are ‘fueling chaos and disorder’ in Mideast – POLITICO

Iran says US-British strikes in Yemen are ‘fueling chaos and disorder’ in Mideast – POLITICO

Published by skeptic

Iran on Sunday denounced U.S. and British air strikes on Yemen as “fueling chaos and disorder” and risking an escalation of the war in the Middle East. Washington and London, with support from partner nations, on Saturday launched a fresh round of air and missile strikes on Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen in retaliation for the group’s continued attacks on international shipping. A day earlier, U.S. long-range aircraft bombarded Iranian military and proxy targets in Iraq and Syria. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Nasser Kanani, claimed that the strikes contradict U.S. and U.K. policy of wanting to avoid an escalation in the conflict. These attacks are “in clear contradiction with the repeated claims of Washington and London that they do not want the expansion of war and conflict in the region,” Kanani said, according to AFP. He added that further attacks on Houthi rebels in Yemen would constitute a “threat to international peace and security.” Source link

Iran issues warning to US over suspected spy ships in the Mideast

Iran issues warning to US over suspected spy ships in the Mideast

Published by skeptic

JERUSALEM (AP) — After a weekend of retaliatory strikes, the United States on Sunday warned Iran and the militias it arms and funds that it will conduct more attacks if American forces in the Mideast continue to be targeted, but that it does not want an “open-ended military campaign” across the region. “We are prepared to deal with anything that any group or any country tries to come at us with,” said Jake Sullivan, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser. Sullivan said Iran should expect “a swift and forceful response” if it — and not one of its proxies — “chose to respond directly” against the U.S. Sullivan delivered the warnings during a series of interviews with TV news shows after the U.S. and Britain on Saturday struck 36 Houthi targets in Yemen. The Iran-backed militants have fired on American and international interests repeatedly in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war. An air assault Friday in Iraq and Syria targeted other Iranian-backed militias and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in retaliation for the drone strike that …