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AFP

  • Saudi Aramco profit drops for 10th straight quarter

    Saudi Aramco profit drops for 10th straight quarter

    RIYADH: Oil giant Saudi Aramco announced its 10th straight drop in quarterly profits on Tuesday as a slump in prices hit revenues, putting more pressure on the key driver of the Saudi economy.

    Second-quarter profits slid 22 percent year-on-year to 85 billion riyals ($22.67 billion), extending a decline that stretches back to late 2022.

    “The decrease in revenue was mainly due to lower crude oil prices and lower refined and chemical products prices,” Aramco said in its quarterly report.

    Aramco’s falling revenues come as Saudi Arabia pursues a costly revamp aimed at reducing its reliance on oil and pivoting towards tourism and business.

    Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 project includes flashy resorts, sprawling entertainment complexes and NEOM, a futuristic $500 billion new city in the desert.

    Aramco was trading at 23.97 riyals on Tuesday, 12 percent below the 27.35 riyals price of its secondary share offering last year.

    Since a high point of nearly $2.4 trillion in 2022, when oil prices soared following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Aramco has lost more than $800 billion in market value.

    Oil prices, currently around $70 a barrel, have remained low despite tensions roiling the Middle East, including the short-lived Israel-Iran war in June.

    However, Aramco president and CEO Amin H. Nasser remained optimistic, predicting higher demand in the rest of the year.

    “Market fundamentals remain strong, and we anticipate oil demand in the second half of 2025 to be more than two million barrels per day higher than the first half,” he said in the report.

    On Sunday, Saudi Arabia, Russia and six other key members of the OPEC+ alliance announced a production hike of 547,000 barrels per day as they unwind cuts of 2.2 million bpd that were designed to prop up prices.

    ‘More downwards than upwards’

    Last month, Saudi Arabia’s Jadwa Investment forecast a widening of the budget deficit to 4.3 percent of GDP this year. Oil revenues provided 62 percent of the budget last year.

    Aramco’s latest drop in profits was widely expected by industry analysts.

    “Oil market forces are more downwards than upwards in the first half of 2025, due to OPEC+ policy shifts and economic uncertainty stemming from the US trade war,” Abu Dhabi-based Ibrahim Abdul Mohsen told AFP.

    “This has impacted the profit margins of oil companies, including Aramco.”

    But he added: “Saudi Arabia has strong reserves capable of defending financial stability and supporting development projects in the short term.”

    Government-owned Aramco listed on the Saudi exchange in the world’s biggest initial public offering in 2019, selling 1.7 percent of its shares at $29.4 billion.

    A secondary offering of 0.64 percent of its issued shares raised a further $11.2 billion in June last year.

    Aramco has also transferred a 16 percent stake to the Public Investment Fund, the Saudi wealth vehicle that is driving much of Vision 2030.

  • Death of a delta: Pakistan’s Indus sinks and shrinks

    Death of a delta: Pakistan’s Indus sinks and shrinks

    KHARO CHHAN: Salt crusts crackle underfoot as Habibullah Khatti walks to his mother’s grave to say a final goodbye before he abandons his parched island village on Pakistan’s Indus delta.

    Seawater intrusion into the delta, where the Indus River meets the Arabian Sea in the south of the country, has triggered the collapse of farming and fishing communities.

    “The saline water has surrounded us from all four sides,” Khatti told AFP from Abdullah Mirbahar village in the town of Kharo Chhan, around 15 kilometres (9 miles) from where the river empties into the sea.

    As fish stocks fell, the 54-year-old turned to tailoring until that too became impossible with only four of the 150 households remaining.

    “In the evening, an eerie silence takes over the area,” he said, as stray dogs wandered through the deserted wooden and bamboo houses.

    Kharo Chan once comprised around 40 villages, but most have disappeared under rising seawater.

    The town’s population fell from 26,000 in 1981 to 11,000 in 2023, according to census data.

    Khatti is preparing to move his family to nearby Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, and one swelling with economic migrants, including from the Indus delta.

    The Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum, which advocates for fishing communities, estimates that tens of thousands of people have been displaced from the delta’s coastal districts.

    However, more than 1.2 million people have been displaced from the overall Indus delta region in the last two decades, according to a study published in March by the Jinnah Institute, a think tank led by a former climate change minister.

    The downstream flow of water into the delta has decreased by 80 percent since the 1950s as a result of irrigation canals, hydropower dams and the impacts of climate change on glacial and snow melt, according to a 2018 study by the US-Pakistan Center for Advanced Studies in Water.

    That has led to devastating seawater intrusion.

    The salinity of the water has risen by around 70 percent since 1990, making it impossible to grow crops and severely affecting the shrimp and crab populations.

    “The delta is both sinking and shrinking,” said Muhammad Ali Anjum, a local WWF conservationist.

    ‘No other choice’

    Beginning in Tibet, the Indus River flows through disputed Kashmir before traversing the entire length of Pakistan.

    The river and its tributaries irrigate about 80 percent of the country’s farmland, supporting millions of livelihoods.

    The delta, formed by rich sediment deposited by the river as it meets the sea, was once ideal for farming, fishing, mangroves and wildlife.

    But more than 16 percent of fertile land has become unproductive due to encroaching seawater, a government water agency study in 2019 found.

    In the town of Keti Bandar, which spreads inland from the water’s edge, a white layer of salt crystals covers the ground.

    Boats carry in drinkable water from miles away and villagers cart it home via donkeys.

    “Who leaves their homeland willingly?” said Haji Karam Jat, whose house was swallowed by the rising water level.

    He rebuilt farther inland, anticipating more families would join him.

    “A person only leaves their motherland when they have no other choice,” he told AFP.

    Way of life

    British colonial rulers were the first to alter the course of the Indus River with canals and dams, followed more recently by dozens of hydropower projects.

    Earlier this year, several canal projects on the Indus River were halted when farmers in the low-lying riverine areas of Sindh province protested.

    To combat the degradation of the Indus River Basin, the government and the United Nations launched the ‘Living Indus Initiative’ in 2021.

    One intervention focuses on restoring the delta by addressing soil salinity and protecting local agriculture and ecosystems.

    The Sindh government is currently running its own mangrove restoration project, aiming to revive forests that serve as a natural barrier against saltwater intrusion.

    Even as mangroves are restored in some parts of the coastline, land grabbing and residential development projects drive clearing in other areas.

    Neighbouring India meanwhile poses a looming threat to the river and its delta, after revoking a 1960 water treaty with Pakistan which divides control over the Indus basin rivers.

    It has threatened to never reinstate the treaty and build dams upstream, squeezing the flow of water to Pakistan, which has called it “an act of war”.

    Alongside their homes, the communities have lost a way of life tightly bound up in the delta, said climate activist Fatima Majeed, who works with the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum.

    Women, in particular, who for generations have stitched nets and packed the day’s catches, struggle to find work when they migrate to cities, said Majeed, whose grandfather relocated the family from Kharo Chhan to the outskirts of Karachi.

    “We haven’t just lost our land, we’ve lost our culture.”

  • Brazil judge puts ex-president Bolsonaro under house arrest

    Brazil judge puts ex-president Bolsonaro under house arrest

    BRASILIA: A Brazilian judge on Monday placed former president Jair Bolsonaro under house arrest for breaking a social media ban, escalating a dramatic standoff between the court and the politician, who is accused of plotting a coup.

    Bolsonaro is on trial at the Supreme Court for allegedly plotting to cling onto power after losing 2022 elections to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

    President Donald Trump has sought to punish Brazil, a longtime US ally, for what he sees as a politically motivated “witch hunt” targeting Bolsonaro by imposing eye-watering tariffs on Latin America’s biggest economy.

    The 70-year-old Bolsonaro is banned from social media for the duration of the proceedings, and third parties are barred from sharing his public remarks.

    But on Sunday, his allies defied the order by sharing footage online of a call between the former army captain and his eldest son Flavio at a solidarity rally in Rio de Janeiro.

    Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes reacted furiously, declaring that the judiciary would not allow a defendant to “treat it like a fool” because of his “political and economic power.”

    Criticizing Bolsonaro’s “repeated failure” to comply with the court’s restrictions on him during the trial, he placed him under house arrest at his home in the capital Brasilia.

    He also barred the country’s former leader (2019-2022) from receiving visitors, apart from his lawyers, and from using mobile phones, and warned that any new transgression would lead to him being detained.

    Several mobile phones were seized at his home on Monday, the police said.

    Washington condemned the new restrictions on Monday night, with the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs issuing a statement on X.

    “Minister Alexandre de Moraes, already sanctioned by the United States for human rights violations, continues to use Brazilian institutions to silence the opposition and threaten democracy,” the bureau posted. “Let Bolsonaro speak!”

    US officials added that they would “hold accountable all those who collaborate with or facilitate sanctioned conduct.”

    The US post was re-shared by Bolsonaro’s politician son Eduardo Bolsonaro, who had successfully lobbied Washington to take punitive action against Brazil over the case.

    In a separate post, he wrote: “Brazil is no longer a democracy.”

    He called Moraes, who is presiding over Bolsonaro’s trial, an “out-of-control psychopath.”

    Last month, Moraes ordered Bolsonaro to wear an ankle bracelet and instituted the social media ban.

    Trump responded in unprecedented fashion by banning Moraes from the United States and freezing his assets in US banks.

    Trump’s pressure campaign has angered many Brazilians but endeared him to Bolsonaro’s conservative base.

    At rallies in Rio, Brasilia and Sao Paulo on Sunday, some demonstrators waved US flags or held signs reading “Thank you Trump.”

    Bolsonaro himself did not attend the rallies, having been ordered by the Supreme Court to stay home at night and at weekends throughout the trial.

    Prosecutors say he and seven co-accused tried to overturn his 2022 election defeat in a plot that only failed because the military did not get on board.

    He faces a 40-year sentence if convicted at the trial, which is expected to wrap up in the coming weeks.

    Bolsonaro’s supporters stormed Brazil’s congress in January 2023, after Lula was inaugurated, ransacking the chambers and attacking police, in scenes reminiscent of an attack by Trump supporters on the US Capitol two years before.

    Despite being barred from running, Bolsonaro hopes to mount a Trump-style comeback in Brazil’s 2026 presidential election.

    Lula, 79, has said he may seek a fourth term, health permitting. Last year, he was hospitalized for a brain hemorrhage caused by a bathroom fall.

  • Dire water shortages compound hunger and displacement in Gaza

    Dire water shortages compound hunger and displacement in Gaza

    Jerusalem: Atop air strikes, displacement and hunger, an unprecedented water crisis is unfolding across Gaza, heaping further misery on the Palestinian territory’s residents.

    Gaza was already suffering a water crisis before nearly 22 months of war damaged more than 80 percent of the territory’s water infrastructure.

    “Sometimes, I feel like my body is drying from the inside, thirst is stealing all my energy and that of my children,” Um Nidal Abu Nahl, a mother of four living in Gaza City, told AFP.

    Water trucks sometimes reach residents and NGOs install taps in camps for a lucky few, but it is far from sufficient.

    Israel connected some water mains in north Gaza to the Israeli water company Mekorot, after cutting off supplies early in the war, but residents told AFP water still wasn’t flowing.

    Local authorities said this was due to war damage to Gaza’s water distribution network, with many mains pipes destroyed.

    Gaza City spokesman Assem al-Nabih told AFP that the municipality’s part of the network supplied by Mekorot had not functioned in nearly two weeks.

    Wells that supplied some needs before the war have also been damaged, with some contaminated by sewage which goes untreated because of the conflict.

    Many wells in Gaza are simply not accessible, because they are inside active combat zones, too close to Israeli military installations or in areas subject to evacuation orders.

    At any rate, wells usually run on electric pumps and energy has been scarce since Israel turned off Gaza’s power as part of its war effort.

    Generators could power the pumps, but hospitals are prioritised for the limited fuel deliveries.

    Lastly, Gaza’s desalination plants are down, save for a single site reopened last week after Israel restored its electricity supply.

    – Sewage floods –

    Nabih, from the Gaza City municipality, told AFP the infrastructure situation was bleak.

    More than 75 percent of wells are out of service, 85 percent of public works equipment destroyed, 100,000 metres of water mains damaged and 200,000 metres of sewers unusable.

    Pumping stations are down and 250,000 tons of rubbish is clogging the streets.

    “Sewage floods the areas where people live due to the destruction of infrastructure,” says Mohammed Abu Sukhayla from the northern city of Jabalia.

    In order to find water, hundreds of thousands of people are still trying to extract groundwater directly from wells.

    But coastal Gaza’s aquifer is naturally brackish and far exceeds salinity standards for potable water.

    In 2021, the UN children’s agency UNICEF warned that nearly 100 percent of Gaza’s groundwater was unfit for consumption.

    With clean water nearly impossible to find, some Gazans falsely believe brackish water to be free of bacteria.

    Aid workers in Gaza have had to warn repeatedly that even if residents can get used to the taste, their kidneys will inevitably suffer.

    – Spreading diseases –

    Though Gaza’s water crisis has received less media attention than the ongoing hunger one, its effects are just as deadly.

    “Just like food, water should never be used for political ends,” UNICEF spokeswoman Rosalia Bollen said.

    She told AFP that, while it’s very difficult to quantify the water shortage, “there is a severe lack of drinking water”.

    “It’s extremely hot, diseases are spreading and water is truly the issue we’re not talking about enough,” she added.

    Opportunities to get clean water are as dangerous as they are rare.

    On July 13, as a crowd had gathered around a water distribution point in Nuseirat refugee camp, at least eight people were killed by an Israeli strike, according to Gaza’s civil defence agency.

    A United Arab Emirates-led project authorised by Israel is expected to bring a 6.7-kilometre pipeline from an Egyptian desalination plant to the coastal area of Al-Mawasi, in Gaza’s south.

    The project is controversial within the humanitarian community, because some see it as a way of justifying the concentration of displaced Palestinians in southern Gaza.

    -‘Fear and helplessness’-

    On July 24, a committee representing Gaza’s prominent families issued a cry for help, calling for “the immediate provision of water and humanitarian aid, the rapid repair of infrastructure, and a guarantee for the entry of fuel”.

    Gaza aid workers that AFP spoke to stressed that there was no survival without drinking water, and no disease prevention without sanitation.

    “The lack of access, the general deterioration of the situation in an already fragile environment — at the very least, the challenges are multiplying,” a diplomatic source working on these issues told AFP.

    Mahmoud Deeb, 35, acknowledged that the water he finds in Gaza City is often undrinkable, but his family has no alternative.

    “We know it’s polluted, but what can we do? I used to go to water distribution points carrying heavy jugs on my back, but even those places were bombed,” he added.

    At home, everyone is thirsty — a sensation he associated with “fear and helplessness.”

    “You become unable to think or cope with anything.”

  • Israeli ex-security chiefs urge Trump to help end Gaza war

    Israeli ex-security chiefs urge Trump to help end Gaza war

    Hundreds of retired Israeli security officials including former heads of intelligence agencies have urged US President Donald Trump to pressure their own government to end the war in Gaza.

    “It is our professional judgement that Hamas no longer poses a strategic threat to Israel,” the former officials wrote in an open letter shared with the media on Monday.

    “At first this war was a just war, a defensive war, but when we achieved all military objectives, this war ceased to be a just war,” said Ami Ayalon, former director of the Shin Bet security service.

    The war, nearing its 23rd month, “is leading the State of Israel to lose its security and identity,” Ayalon warned in a video released to accompany the letter.

    Signed by 550 people, including former chiefs of Shin Bet and the Mossad spy agency, the letter called on Trump to “steer” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu towards a ceasefire.

    Israel launched its military operation in the Gaza Strip in response to the deadly October 7, 2023 attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas.

    In recent weeks Israel has come under increasing international pressure to agree a ceasefire that could Israeli hostages released from Gaza and UN agencies distribute humanitarian aid.

    But some in Israel, including ministers in Netanyahu’s coalition government, are instead pushing for Israeli forces to push on and for Gaza to be occupied in whole or in part.

    The letter was signed by three former Mossad heads: Tamir Pardo, Efraim Halevy and Danny Yatom.

    Other signatories include five former heads of Shin Bet — Αyalon as well as Nadav Argaman, Yoram Cohen, Yaakov Peri and Carmi Gilon — and three former military chiefs of staff, including former prime minister Ehud Barak, former defence minister Moshe Yaalon and Dan Halutz.

    The letter argued that the Israeli military “has long accomplished the two objectives that could be achieved by force: dismantling Hamas’s military formations and governance.”

    “The third, and most important, can only be achieved through a deal: bringing all the hostages’ home,” it added.

    “Chasing remaining senior Hamas operatives can be done later,” the letter said.

    In the letter, the former officials tell Trump that he has credibility with the majority of Israelis and can put pressure on Netanyahu to end the war and return the hostages.

    After a ceasefire, the signatories argue, Trump could force a regional coalition to support a reformed Palestinian Authority to take charge of Gaza as an alternative to Hamas rule.

  • At least 68 dead after migrant boat sinks off Yemen

    At least 68 dead after migrant boat sinks off Yemen

    DUBAI: A shipwreck off Yemen has killed at least 68 people, the UN’s migration agency said Monday, with dozens still missing after the boat carrying mostly Ethiopians sank.

    The International Organization for Migration’s country chief of mission, Abdusattor Esoev, told AFP that “as of last night, 68 people aboard the boat were killed, but only 12 out of 157 have been rescued so far. The fate of the missing is still unknown.”

    On Sunday, two security sources in southern Yemen’s Abyan province — a frequent destination for migrant smuggling boats — gave a preliminary toll of 27 killed in the shipwreck.

    Despite the war that has ravaged Yemen since 2014, the impoverished country has remained a key transit point for irregular migration, in particular from Ethiopia which itself has been roiled by ethnic conflict.

    Each year, thousands brave the so-called “Eastern Route” from Djibouti to Yemen across the Red Sea, in the hope of eventually reaching oil-rich Gulf countries.

    The vessel that sank off the coast of Yemen’s Abyan was carrying mostly Ethiopian migrants, according to the province’s security directorate.

    It said on Sunday that security forces were conducting operations to recover a “significant” number of bodies.

    Last month, at least eight people died after smugglers had forced migrants to disembark from a boat in the Red Sea, according to the UN’s migration agency.

    The International Organization for Migration says tens of thousands of migrants have become stranded in Yemen and suffer abuse and exploitation during their journeys.

    Last year, the IOM recorded at least 558 deaths on the Red Sea route, with 462 resulting from shipwrecks.

  • Security Council to meet on Gaza hostages: Israeli ambassador

    Security Council to meet on Gaza hostages: Israeli ambassador

    UNITED NATIONS: The UN Security Council will hold an emergency session on the hostages in Gaza, Israel’s ambassador said Sunday, as outrage built over their fate in the war-torn enclave, where experts say a famine is unfolding.

    Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, posted the announcement on social media amid anger over videos showing two of the hostages held by Palestinian militant group Hamas emaciated.

    Danon said that the Council “will convene this coming Tuesday for a special emergency session on the dire situation of the hostages in Gaza.”

    The videos make references to the calamitous humanitarian conditions in Gaza, where UN-mandated experts have warned a “famine is unfolding.”

    Israel has heavily restricted the entry of aid into Gaza, while UN agencies, humanitarian groups and analysts say that much of what Israel does allow in is looted or diverted in chaotic circumstances.

    Many desperate Palestinians are left to risk their lives seeking what aid is distributed through controlled channels.

    Earlier Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu requested the help of the International Committee of the Red Cross to get food to the hostages.

    In response, Hamas’s armed wing said that it would allow the agency access to the hostages but only if “humanitarian corridors” for food and aid were opened “across all areas of the Gaza Strip.”

    The Al-Qassam Brigades said it did “not intentionally starve” the hostages, but they would not receive any special food privileges “amid the crime of starvation and siege” in Gaza.

    Over recent days, Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad have released three videos showing two hostages seized during the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel that triggered the ongoing war.

    The images of Rom Braslavski and Evyatar David, both of whom appeared weak and malnourished, have fuelled renewed calls in Israel for a truce and hostage release deal.

  • 80 years on, Korean survivors of WWII atomic bombs still suffer

    80 years on, Korean survivors of WWII atomic bombs still suffer

    HAPCHEON, South Korea: Bae Kyung-mi was five years old when the Americans dropped “Little Boy”, the atomic bomb that flattened Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.

    Like thousands of other ethnic Koreans working in the city at the time, her family kept the horror a secret.

    Many feared the stigma from doing menial work for colonial ruler Japan, and false rumours that radiation sickness was contagious.

    Bae recalls hearing planes overhead while she was playing at her home in Hiroshima on that day.

    Within minutes, she was buried in rubble.

    “I told my mom in Japanese, ‘Mom! There are airplanes!’” Bae, now 85, told AFP.

    She passed out shortly after.

    Her home collapsed on top of her, but the debris shielded her from the burns that killed tens of thousands of people — including her aunt and uncle.

    After the family moved back to Korea, they did not speak of their experience.

    “I never told my husband that I was in Hiroshima and a victim of the bombing,” Bae said.

    “Back then, people often said you had married the wrong person if he or she was an atomic bombing survivor.”

    Her two sons only learned she had been in Hiroshima when she registered at a special centre set up in 1996 in Hapcheon in South Korea for victims of the bombings, she said.

    Bae said she feared her children would suffer from radiation-related illnesses that afflicted her, forcing her to have her ovaries and a breast removed because of the high cancer risk.

    A burning city

    She knew why she was getting sick, but did not tell her own family.

    “We all hushed it up,” she said.

    Some 740,000 people were killed or injured in the twin bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    More than 10 percent of the victims were Korean, data suggests, the result of huge flows of people to Japan while it colonised the Korean peninsula.

    Survivors who stayed in Japan found they had to endure discrimination both as “hibakusha”, or atomic bomb survivors, and as Koreans.

    Many Koreans also had to choose between pro-Pyongyang and pro-Seoul groups in Japan, after the peninsula was left divided by the 1950-53 Korean War.

    Kwon Joon-oh’s mother and father both survived the attack on Hiroshima.

    The 76-year-old’s parents, like others of their generation, could only work by taking on “filthy and dangerous jobs” that the Japanese considered beneath them, he said.

    Korean victims were also denied an official memorial for decades, with a cenotaph for them put up in the Hiroshima Peace Park only in the late 1990s.

    Kim Hwa-ja was four on August 6, 1945, and remembers being put on a makeshift horse-drawn trap as her family tried to flee Hiroshima after the bomb.

    Smoke filled the air and the city was burning, she said, recalling how she peeped out from under a blanket covering her, and her mother screaming at her not to look.

    Korean groups estimate that up to 50,000 Koreans may have been in the city that day, including tens of thousands working as forced labourers at military sites.

    Stigma

    But records are sketchy.

    “The city office was devastated so completely that it wasn’t possible to track down clear records,” a Hiroshima official told AFP.

    Japan’s colonial policy banned the use of Korean names, further complicating record-keeping.

    After the attacks, tens of thousands of Korean survivors moved back to their newly-independent country.

    But many have struggled with health issues and stigma ever since.

    “In those days, there were unfounded rumours that radiation exposure could be contagious,” said Jeong Soo-won, director of the country’s Hapcheon Atomic Bomb Victim Center.

    Nationwide, there are believed to be some 1,600 South Korean survivors still alive, Jeong said — with 82 of them in residence at the center.

    Seoul enacted a special law in 2016 to help the survivors — including a monthly stipend of around $72 — but it provides no assistance to their offspring or extended families.

    “There are many second- and third-generation descendants affected by the bombings and suffering from congenital illnesses,” said Jeong.

    A provision to support them “must be included” in future, he said.

    A Japanese hibakusha group won the Nobel Peace Prize last year in recognition of their efforts to show the world the horrors of nuclear war.

    But 80 years after the attacks, many survivors in both Japan and Korea say the world has not learned.

    ‘Only talk’

    US President Donald Trump recently compared his strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    “Would he understand the tragedy of what the Hiroshima bombing has caused? Would he understand that of Nagasaki?” survivor Kim Gin-ho said.

    In Korea, the Hapcheon center will hold a commemoration on August 6 — with survivors hoping that this year the event will attract more attention.

    From politicians, “there has been only talk… but no interest”, she said.

  • Athens mayor clashes with Israel ambassador over antisemitic graffiti

    Athens mayor clashes with Israel ambassador over antisemitic graffiti

    Athens: The mayor of Athens became embroiled in a war of words Sunday with the Israeli ambassador to Greece who accused city authorities of not doing enough to clean up antisemitic graffiti.

    Ambassador Noam Katz told the Kathimerini daily in comments published Sunday that Israeli tourists felt “uncomfortable” in Athens because the mayor Haris Doukas does not act against “organised minorities” who put up anti-Jewish graffiti.

    Doukas responded within hours on X: We have proved our strong opposition to violence and racism and we do not take lessons in democracy from those who kill civilians.”

    “Athens, capital of a democratic country, fully respects its visitors and supports the right of free expression of its citizens,” the Socialist PASOK party mayor added.

    “It is revolting that the ambassador concentrates on graffiti (that is clearly wiped off) while an unprecedented genocide is taking place in Gaza,” Doukas added.

    Greece, as well as several other European nations, has seen a number of left-wing led pro-Palestinian demonstrations. A cruise ship carrying Israeli tourists around the Greek islands was greeted by demonstrations in several ports.

    While following a pro-Arab policy for several decades, Greece has since 2010 stepped up links with Israel, notably on security and energy.

    Since the Gaza war started in October 2023, with the Hamas attack on Israel, a growing number of Israelis have visited Greece and started investing in its property market.

    According to the Athens mayor, the number of Israelis who have secured Greek residents permits by buying property increased by 90 percent last year.

  • Eight OPEC+ countries increase oil output in bid to regain market share

    Eight OPEC+ countries increase oil output in bid to regain market share

    Vienna: The eight OPEC+ countries said Sunday they will increase production by 547,000 barrels a day in a move which analysts say aims to regain market share amid resilient crude prices.

    Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria and Oman currently produce about 41-42 million barrels a day, so the increase is about 1.5 percent.

    Analysts said there was unlikely to be a major impact on prices, with the Brent reference oil currently selling at about $70 a barrel.

    “The eight participating countries will implement a production adjustment of 547,000 barrels per day in September 2025 from August 2025 required production level,” said a statement released after a meeting that agreed the hike.

    The eight key oil-producers, who started increasing production in April, affirmed their commitment to market stability on “current healthy oil market fundamentals,” an OPEC statement read.

    “OPEC+ has passed the first test -— unwinding 2.2 million barrels per day (since April) without crashing prices or compromising unity,” said Jorge Leon, analyst at Rystad Energy.

    “But the next task will be even harder: deciding if and when to unwind the remaining 1.66 million barrels, all while navigating geopolitical tension and preserving cohesion,” said Leon.

    The statement said the decision came “in view of a steady global economic outlook and current healthy market fundamentals, as reflected in the low oil inventories.”

    The OPEC+ countries agreed in December to start a gradual return from April 2025 of the 2.2 million barrels per day of previous production cuts.

    The statement said that “the phase-out of the additional voluntary production adjustments may be paused or reversed subject to evolving market conditions.”

    The eight added they will hold monthly meetings for a regular review of market conditions.

    In a bid to boost prices, the wider OPEC+ group — comprising the 12-nation Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies — in recent years had agreed to three different tranches of output cuts that amounted to almost six million bpd in total.

    Prior to the announcement, UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo had suggested the quota increase was “largely priced in” on energy markets with the price of Brent, the global oil benchmark, expected to remain near its current level of around $70 per barrel after Sunday’s decision.