Author: Jawaad Kamali

Stocks were seen on the rebound as investors showed relief that a wider conflict in the Middle East might be averted. Gold and the dollar eased back as crude oil prices slipped following Iran’s Friday comments that it is not looking to retaliate after Israel’s reported drone attack. With a majority of European stock markets posting a three-week losing streak, investors will be turning their attention to the manufacturing and services purchasing managers’ indices (PMIs) from major economies. Additionally, SAP and Saab AB are poised to release their first-quarter earnings. Reflecting Wall Street’s trajectory, European stock markets declined for the…

Berlin (29/2 – 30) Ukrainian officials are concerned that Russian advances could gain significant momentum by the summer unless their allies can increase the supply of ammunition, according to a person familiar with their analysis. Internal assessments of the situation on the battlefield from Kyiv are growing increasingly bleak as Ukrainian forces struggle to hold off Russian attacks while rationing the number of shells they can fire. Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said Thursday that mistakes by frontline commanders had compounded the problems facing Ukraine’s defense around Avdiivka, which was captured by Russian forces this month. Syrskyi said he’d sent in more…

The parliaments of Iran and Tajikistan signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on Monday to expand cooperation between the two legislative bodies. The signing ceremony, reported by the Iranian Students’ News Agency, took place in Tehran, with Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf and National Assembly of Tajikistan Chairman Rustam Emomali leading the initiative. The agreement was further endorsed during a meeting between Emomali and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who emphasized the importance of this collaboration as a support for the political and economic partnerships between the two nations. President Raisi also highlighted the role of bilateral cooperation in combating…

A delegation of parliamentarians, including Deputy Speaker of Parliament Elias Bou Saab and MPs Alain Aoun, Neemat Frem, Yassin Yassin, and Assaad Dargham, continued their visit to Washington. They met with Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf during their visit. The emphasis was placed on the necessity for the Lebanese people to work towards electing a president, completing state-building, and working to neutralize the specter of comprehensive war in Lebanon. Leaf affirmed that the Quintet Committee seeks to assist Lebanon in finding a solution to its political crisis, but it cannot replace the Lebanese in reaching…

Almost two million people in Gaza – more than 85% of the population – are reported to have fled their homes in the two months since Israel began its military operation in response to Hamas’s deadly attacks of 7 October. The Strip has been under the control of Hamas since 2007 and Israel says it is trying to destroy the military and governing capabilities of the Islamist group, which is committed to the destruction of Israel. The situation for ordinary people in Gaza – a densely populated enclave 41km (25 miles) long and 10km wide, bounded by the Mediterranean Sea…

British-Palestinian families have urged the government to create a visa scheme for stranded relatives in Gaza. A letter, sent to Foreign Secretary David Cameron on behalf of 80 families, calls for a scheme similar to the Ukraine Family Scheme visa. A petition on Parliament’s website calling for a new visa scheme also has more than 22,700 signatures. The government said it was “working around the clock” to get those “who want to leave” out of Gaza. More than 270 British nationals and their dependants have left Gaza so far, it added in a statement to the BBC. British nationals currently need to…

Israeli Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, hit back at critics of the government’s proposed war time budget on Monday, ahead of a vote that has already created a rift between centrist and far right members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet, Reuters reports. On Sunday, centrist Minister, Benny Gantz, demanded that Netanyahu remove all political payouts from the new budget, saying they will harm the war effort. Those include so-called “coalition funds” intended for settlements in the Occupied West Bank and for the ultra-Orthodox Jewish education system. Smotrich said the funds going there, about 4.9 billion shekels ($1.3 billion) according to the proposal…

Three Israeli hostages mistakenly killed by Israeli soldiers in Gaza were shot dead while holding a white cloth, an Israeli military official says. The official said the case was “against our rules of engagement” and an investigation was happening at the “highest level”. The hostages – Yotam Haim, 28, Samer Talalka, 22, and Alon Shamriz, 26 – were killed in Shejaiya on Friday. Israeli troops have been facing stiff resistance in the area near Gaza City. The case has added pressure on Israeli authorities to reach a deal for the release of the more than 120 captives who remain in…

Frankfurt (3/12 – 12) The relatively rapid cohesion of disparate nations, historically competitive or even at war with one another, into the European Union came about in part because of the ongoing threat from the Soviet Union. The specter of a tank invasion from Warsaw Pact nations, today forgotten, was such a reality that the German government kept a major portion of its gold bullion across the Atlantic. The USSR, an ally in World War II after being double-crossed by Hitler – remember the “Non-Aggression Pact signed in Moscow by von Ribbentrop and Molotov – was soon appraised as a…

The head of Hamas’s Political Bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, on Friday denounced Israel’s targeting of three hospitals in the Gaza Strip, namely the Al-Shifa Medical Complex, the Al-Quds Medical Complex and the Indonesian Hospital, Anadolu Agency reports. In a statement, Haniyeh denounced the organised targeting of hospitals, the latest of which was today’s targeting of the wounded at the entrance to Al-Shifa Hospital. The Health Ministry in Gaza announced, earlier Friday, that 13 Palestinians were killed and 26 others injured in an Israeli bombing that targeted ambulances in front of the Al-Shifa Medical Complex. Haniyeh called on Egypt to “fully open the Rafah…