European foreign ministers increased the pressure yesterday on Syria’s regime to stop its crackdown on opponents, freezing the assets of several Syrian government officials and imposing sanctions on the country’s central bank. They also banned the purchase of gold, precious metals and diamonds from the country, and banned Syrian cargo flights from the European Union. [...]
Iran has refused to give Greece a shipment of 500,000 barrels of crude oil in a retaliatory measure against European Union sanctions on the Islamic state’s lifeblood, oil, the semi-official Fars news agency reported on Sunday. “Oil tankers that had come to transfer 500,000 barrels of Iranian oil to a refinery in Greece had to [...]
Saudi Arabia yesterday emphasized the need to find an immediate and effective solution to the worsening political crisis in Syria and warned parties obstructing international peace efforts that they should take moral responsibility for the carnage in the country. The Council of Ministers, chaired by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, was reviewing [...]
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad endorsed Tuesday the new constitution, which was approved a day earlier by 89 percent of eligible voters, state-run SANA news agency reported. Quoting Assad, SANA said the constitution took legal effect Monday after the announcement of the voting results by Interior Minister Mohammad Chaar. Chaar said Monday that as many as [...]
Israeli forces arrested 10 Palestinians in West Bank raids Monday and four fishermen off the Gaza coast, witnesses and security sources said. The raids were intensive in the cities of Hebron and Tulkarem, where Israeli soldiers broke into Palestinian houses and arrested 10, residents said. Israel provides no immediate charges for the detainees it rounds [...]
Dozens of people were detained on Monday in Turkey for their suspected links to the Kurdish Communities Union (KCK), an alleged urban wing of the outlawed Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), the local newspaper Today’s Zaman reported on its website. In Monday’s operations carried out in nine provinces, Turkish police raided the office premises of several [...]
A spokesman for ex-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says a Tel Aviv courtwill hold its first hearing into a wide-ranging real estate scandal involving the former leader. Olmert’s spokesman Amir Dan says the hearing is taking place Monday. Olmert won’t attend because he’s attending a separate corruption hearing in a Jerusalem court. The Tel Aviv hearing follows Olmert’s indictment for allegedly accepting [...]
The King Fahd Complex for Printing the Holy Qur’an distributed more than 250 million copies of the Holy Qur’an, translations and other religious books until January this year since its establishment 27 years ago, according to its report issued Thursday. King Fahd launched the Holy Qur’an printing complex with the aim of preserving, printing and [...]
Iranian companies doing business in Dubai, a gateway for the Iranian market to international goods, increasingly feel the heat from economic sanctions Western powers have imposed against their country because of Tehran’s controversial nuclear program. Trade between Dubai and Iran, which surged to 10 billion U. S. dollars in 2010, was feared to be squeezed [...]
Bilateral trade ties between Israel and China will significantly increase in the coming years, an Israeli business entrepreneur said Thursday. “There is a real friendship between the two countries, but it’s important not only to continue (what has been accomplished), but also to expand,” Amos Yudan, president and CEO of Comodan Far East Ltd., told [...]
