Author: News Desk

The High criminal Court today sentenced three officials in Iranian-owned Future Bank to five years in jail and to a BD 1 million each in two money-laundering cases. The court also fined Future Bank and three other banks BD14 million and ordered the confiscation of the illegal transfer amounts that reached BD500,000, Chief Prosecutor Mohammed Jamal Sultan said. According to the case documents, the Public Prosecution has discovered an Iranian plot involving several entities, including some sanctioned internationally for funding terrorism, to carry out financial transaction while evading scrutiny. Future Bank, operating under the supervision of Bank Melli Iran and…

Bahrain has announced one more death from coronavirus, a 48-year-old male citizen. The death toll has soared to 121, the lowest in the GCC. It’s the fourth death recorded today from COVID-19. The MOH expressed its condolences to the family of the deceased. ♦ Suspension of prayers in mosques will resume ♦ Bahrain adds $470 million in coronavirus impact spending to 2020 budget ♦ Incoming passengers must shoulder the cost of mandatory COVID-19 testing The total cases have driven to 34,560, which means that over 87 percent of the confirmed cases have recovered from the virus. Currently, there are 4,119 active cases. The active…

Canada added 1,042,900 jobs in June as business reopened after shutdowns related to COVID-19, led by hiring in the trade, transportation and utilities sector, according to a report from payroll services provider ADP released on Thursday. The May data was revised to show 2,951,400 jobs were lost rather than a gain of 208,400. The report is derived from ADP’s payrolls data and measures more than two million workers in Canada.

Saudi Arabia has reported 2,764 new cases and 45 deaths from coronavirus, taking the total cases to 243,238. The death toll raised to 2,370 after reporting the new deaths. Saudi is holding the 14th position for most coronavirus cases worldwide, just below Italy. Meanwhile, 4,574 patients fully recovered from the virus, bringing the total recoveries to 187,622. In line with recent trends, the majority of the new cases are in Jeddah (260), followed by Al Hafouf (213) and Riyadh (208). https://twitter.com/media_ksa/status/1283748536476225536?s=20

Shares of Twitter Inc dropped more than 4% in pre-market trading on Thursday, a day after hackers gained access to the social media company’s internal systems to hijack accounts of several politicians, billionaires, celebrities and companies. Hackers infiltrated the twitter handles of U.S. presidential candidate Joe Biden, reality TV star Kim Kardashian, former U.S. President Barack Obama and billionaire Elon Musk to solicit digital currency – raising major concerns about security on the widely-used platform. The hack “certainly doesn’t help,” Joe Wittine, Edgewater Research analyst, told Reuters in an email. It will pose more of a “reputational risk”, versus “material…

Zindzi Mandela, South Africa’s ambassador to Denmark and daughter of anti-apartheid leaders Nelson and Winnie Mandela, tested positive for COVID-19 on the day she died, her son Zondwa Mandela told South Africa’s public broadcaster, SABC, Wednesday. “This doesn’t mean that she died from COVID complications, but simply that she tested positive for it,” Mandela said during the broadcast. “There were several other tests done and those tests will give us further information as to what could have led to her untimely death.” He went on to say the family is awaiting full autopsy results. Zindzi Mandela, Nelson and Winnie Mandela’s youngest daughter died…

Kuwait has reported 791 new coronavirus cases, taking the total confirmed cases in the country to 57,668, according to the health ministry. 3 patients died of the virus in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of deaths to 402. Kuwait has the world’s 34th highest number of coronavirus infections just over Ukraine. Meanwhile, 648 new recoveries have been reported in the country, raising the total recoveries to 47,545. Kuwait has done 4,341 NP swab tests in the past 24 hours, as the country ramps up its efforts to test more people and detect cases early. So far, the country has…

A $20 billion fund raising spree may take India’s Reliance closer to its dream of becoming a digital giant, further threatening the ambitious plans U.S. companies like Amazon, Walmart and Zoom have for India. Stake sales in Reliance’s digital unit Jio Platforms attracted not just private equity and sovereign wealth funds but also Google and Facebook, a strong endorsement for an enterprise that until a few years ago focussed largely on oil refining. Some industry watchers equate Reliance’s digital plans – which extend from online shopping and cloud computing to telecom and digital payments – to China’s Alibaba and Tencent,…

Billionaires looked after by Swiss bank UBS are looking to move their cash out of equities after profiting from an unprecedented sell-off and rapid rebound from March to May, the world’s largest wealth manager said on Thursday. During the rout in stock markets across the globe in March, UBS’ richest customers took out loans to place billions into crashing stock markets. They are now looking to pull that money from equities and put the profits in illiquid and private assets, UBS’ head of global family offices told Reuters. Their strategy has helped family offices that manage the financial affairs of…

A group of the world’s top oil companies, including Saudi Aramco, China’s CNPC and Exxon Mobil, have for the first time set goals to cut their greenhouse gas emissions as a proportion of output, as pressure on the sector’s climate stance grows. But the target, set by the 12 members of the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI), means absolute emissions can rise as production increases. It is eclipsed by more ambitious plans set individually by the consortium’s European members, including Royal Dutch Shell, BP and Total. “It is a significant milestone, it is not the end of the work,…