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Yemen

Boat, Transportation, Vehicle The newly enlarged Jeddah Islamic Port has space for 6.2 million containers

Expansion of Jeddah Islamic Port complete

The Saudi ports authority said this week it had completed a SAR1 billion ($270 million) expansion of Jeddah Islamic Port as tensions in the Red Sea continue.  The project to deepen and expand the northern container terminal in Jeddah, to be operated by the Red Sea Gateway Terminal (RSGT) company, more than doubles capacity from 700,000 […]

A Houthi fighter stands on the Galaxy Leader cargo ship. Attacks on shipping have raised insurance premiums for Red Sea routes

Cost of Red Sea shipping insurance rises 2,700%

The cost of insurance to protect ships against losses incurred from conflict has jumped more than twenty-fold since October, before Houthi rebels began firing on vessels passing through the Red Sea. In late November, the rebels in Yemen began attacking commercial ships in what they claim is a show of support for Palestinians in the […]

Around 76 million tonnes of grains, oilseeds and oilseed products are shipped annually from the EU, the Russian Federation and Ukraine to Asia and Eastern Africa

Wheat shipments through Suez Canal down 40%

Shipments of wheat through the Suez Canal have fallen by 40 percent year-on-year as a result of the continuing crisis in the Red Sea, the World Trade Organisation’s Wheat Dashboard shows. Major shippers are avoiding the waterway, through which 15 percent of maritime commerce passes, causing supply chain disruptions and threatening a new wave of […]

Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser predicted growth in oil demand of around 1.5m bpd in 2024, which is less optimistic than Opec's forecast

Saudi Aramco CEO expects oil markets to tighten 

Saudi Aramco expects tighter oil markets due to growing crude demand and shrinking stockpiles, its CEO Amin Nasser has said. Nasser believes that the disruptions in the Red Sea will not affect global markets in the short term. However, an extension of the crisis would result in a shortage of tankers due to longer travel […]

Sightseers wait for boats to take them back to land after they toured the Galaxy Leader commercial vessel, seized by Yemen's Houthis last month

Red Sea crisis a threat to Saudi giga-project investment

The Red Sea conflict between western powers and Houthi rebels in Yemen could put Saudi Arabia’s mammoth economic development projects at risk, the sovereign wealth fund advisory Global SWF said this week. The US and UK began airstrikes against targets in Houthi-controlled north Yemen on 12 January to stop them firing missiles at Red Sea […]

Porsche Cayenne Dubai sales

Porsche sales up 11% as Red Sea strife threatens deliveries

Porsche “simply couldn’t find the ships” to get its cars from Germany to customers in the Middle East last year, leaving it with “really low inventory”, the company’s regional CEO told a media sales briefing on Friday. Those supply chain issues have been resolved, Manfred Braunl told reporters, but he warned that the ongoing crisis […]

British Royal Navy vessel HMS Diamond launches a missile against Houthi targets in Yemen

Fears of supply disruption push crude prices over $80

Brent prices jumped by more than four percent on Friday after the US and its allies launched airstrikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen in retaliation for attacks by the Iran-backed group on ships in the Red Sea. Global crude oil benchmark Brent traded at $80.74 per barrel, slightly above the estimated break-even mark of GCC […]

Armed men on the shore at al-Salif, Yemen, following the seizure of the commercial vessel Galaxy Leader owned by Japanese company NYK

Suez shipping traffic drops 20% as Houthi attacks continue

Shipping traffic through the Suez Canal has dropped by as much as one-fifth in the last two weeks as Yemeni Houthis continue to target vessels in the Red Sea. Statistics from the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) PortWatch platform revealed a 20 percent drop in ships using the Suez Canal route between December 24 and January […]

People dance on the deck of the Galaxy Leader, seized by Yemen's Houthis last month, off the coast of al-Salif

Jet fuel most exposed to Red Sea closure, analysts say

Trade analysts warned on Monday that jet fuel is the commodity most exposed to an interruption of trade in the Red Sea, as the world’s main shipping companies said that they would avoid the waterway because of missile and drone attacks.  Several container shipping lines, including CMA CGM of France, MSC of Switzerland and A.P. […]

A young arab woman with a mobile phone: hackers are targeting WhatsApp users

Arabic speakers targeted by malicious WhatsApp hackers

Arabic-speaking WhatsApp users are being targeted by unidentified hackers who are distributing spying malware through a modified version of the messaging service. The Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky reported that the hackers had launched more than 340,000 attacks in October alone. Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, Yemen, Egypt and Turkey experienced the highest attack rates.  The malware has […]

Restoring Shibam in Yemen is part of the Saudi plan

Saudi Arabia to invest $320m rebuilding Yemen

Saudi Arabia will invest SAR1.2 billion ($320 million) to help rebuild war-battered Yemen, the state-owned Saudi Press Agency announced on Sunday. The kingdom has launched a package of 20 development projects in Yemen’s Hadramawt province, which form part of the kingdom’s “continuous economic and development support for the country,” the Saudi ambassador to Yemen, Mohammed […]

Yemen raises customs duties by 50% on non-essential goods

Yemen’s recognised government has raised the US dollar exchange rate used to calculate customs duties on non-essential goods by 50 percent, effective Tuesday, a document and traders said. The decision applies only to south Yemen, which the government controls, including the port city of Aden. The country’s main entry point for commodities, Hodeidah port, is […]

Flag, Symbol, American Flag

US weighs resumption of offensive arms sales to Saudi Arabia

The Biden administration is discussing the possible lifting of its ban on US sales of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia. But any final decision is expected to hinge on whether Riyadh makes progress towards ending the war in neighboring Yemen, according to four people familiar with the matter. Senior Saudi officials pressed their US counterparts […]

Yemen famine aid

New financing urgently needed to aid famine relief in Yemen

Yemen is searching for new wheat suppliers but will need help to pay for increasingly costly imports, an official and a main importer said, as the World Food Programme (WFP) warned of cuts to food aid for millions already living on the brink of famine. Disruption to global wheat supplies due to the Ukraine war […]

Shelter, Countryside, Rural

Saudi extends deposit for Yemen and pays $2bn instalment

Saudi Arabia has extended a deposit it gave the central bank of Yemen’s internationally recognised government in 2018, and agreed to pay the final instalment of the $2 billion support package it promised. The Saudi finance ministry said the 2018 deposit would be extended to support Yemen’s currency and economic situation. The Yemeni central bank […]

First commercial flight takes off from Yemen

Yemen’s national airline operated its first commercial flight in years from the capital Sanaa today, raising hopes for renewal of a United Nations-brokered truce in the seven-year-old conflict that has pitted a Saudi-led coalition against the Iran-aligned Houthis and put Middle East security in peril. Water canons sprayed Sanaa airport’s runway as an airplane of […]

A worker displays grains of wheat at a mill in Lebanon, where the cost of a loaf of bread rose 70 percent in March

Ukraine war drives Gulf to double down on food security

As the war in Ukraine has pushed up food prices and disrupted supply chains, hard-hit Mena countries explore ways to protect themselves In Abu Dhabi clusters of fresh tomatoes are growing inside rows of climate-controlled greenhouses in the middle of the desert – just one example of the lengths the arid region must go to […]

3 smiling children

‘Zakat can save the world’ … and this is how

International charities hit hard by the pandemic are turning to Zakat, which requires Muslims to donate a percentage of their wealth to help the needy As countries rich and poor reeled from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 and 2021, the work of charities was more important than ever. Yet many of these […]

TotalEnergies says Yemen plant could take six months to restart

TotalEnergies’ plant in Yemen is “preserved”, the head of the French oil major said on Thursday, though it could take some six months to restart operations there. “According to our assumptions, it could take six months to restart the plant,” Chief Executive Patrick Pouyanne said in a call, noting that the energy giant was not part of […]

Person, Human, Plywood

Saudis ‘let down’ by US over Houthi security threats, says royal

Saudi Arabia feels “let down” by the United States in tackling security threats to the kingdom and wider region by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement, a senior member of the Saudi royal family and former intelligence chief said. Traditionally strong ties between Riyadh and Washington have been shaken under U.S. President Joe Biden by the 2018 […]