Author: News Desk

Sitting in a classroom in the Romanian capital of Bucharest, U.S. first lady Jill Biden met a group of Ukrainian refugee mothers and educators on Saturday, praising the women for their strength and resilience. Svitlana Salamatova and Anna Sushko, both founders of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) focused on women’s issues and education, fled the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv soon after Russia invaded the country on Feb. 24. Another of the women, Anastasiia Konovalova, left her home in Odesa with her toddler son. Svitlana Gollyak and her 8-year-old daughter hid in a basement in the bomb-shelled city of Kharkiv before heading westwards…

Saudi banks are betting big on the digital future. In the first three months of 2022, 13 bank branches and 81 ATMs were closed in a further sign of the growing digitization of the sector. This year’s decline is a continuation of an earlier trend. The statistics from the central bank, show that the number of bank branches declined by 124 — 6 percent of the total — between 2017 and 2021. ATMs saw a ten percent drop over the same period. However, E-commerce sales using Mada cards rose 14 percent in the first quarter of this year.

The General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) has issued an instruction for air carriers regarding the lifting of the travel suspension to the use of the national identity cards from the Kingdom for citizens of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries GACA has called on travelers to check the entry requirements of the countries that they want to travel to before traveling. Lifting the suspension of travel with the national identity does not include the family registry card, as it is not considered a document that can be used for travel.

Ukraine said a new attempt was under way on Friday to evacuate scores of civilians trapped in a heavily bombed steel works in the city of Mariupol, after bloody fighting with Russian forces thwarted efforts to bring them to safety the previous day. Mariupol, a strategic southern port on the Azov Sea, has endured the most destructive siege of the 10-week-old war and the sprawling Soviet-era Azovstal steel plant is the last part of the city still in the hands of holdout Ukrainian fighters. U.N.-brokered evacuations of some of the hundreds of civilians who had taken shelter in the plant’s…

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party lost control of traditional strongholds in London and suffered setbacks elsewhere in local elections, with voters punishing his government over a series of scandals. As early results suggested Johnson, a former London mayor, was losing support in southeastern England, his supporters moved in quickly on Friday to say it was not time to oust a leader they said could still “get things done” to help the economy. Johnson’s party was ousted in Wandsworth, a low-tax Conservative stronghold since 1978, part of a trend in the British capital where voters used the elections to…

Germany will deliver seven self-propelled howitzers to Ukraine, on top of five such artillery systems the Dutch government already pledged, German Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht said on Friday. Germany reversed its long-held policy of not sending heavy weapons to war zones last week following pressure at home and abroad for it to help Ukraine fend off Russian attacks. The heavy weapons will come out of the Bundeswehr inventories and be delivered as soon as they emerge from maintenance over the next weeks, Lambrecht and her chief of defence, general Eberhard Zorn, told reporters in the Slovak town of Sliac. The…

The Russian rouble hit a more than two-year high against the euro before easing on Friday and hovered near 67 versus the dollar, supported by capital controls and weak forex demand, as the spectre of more sanctions against Moscow hung over markets. The European Union’s executive on Wednesday proposed the toughest package of sanctions yet against Russia for its actions in Ukraine, but several countries’ worries about the impact of cutting off Russian oil imports stood in the way of agreement. By 1027 GMT, the rouble had lost 0.8% to trade at 70.73 versus the euro , earlier clipping 69.1250,…

Russian forces in Ukraine’s Mariupol continued their ground assault on the Azovstal steel plant for a second day, British military intelligence said in a tweet on Friday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video address on Thursday that Russian forces were still storming and shelling the Soviet-era Azovstal plant, where civilians and military forces are sheltering.

As a proactive and positive contribution putting the Kingdom of Bahrain on the global map, BRAVE Combat Federation, founded by is Highness Shaikh Khalid bin Hamad Al Khalifa, First Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Council for Youth and Sports, Chairman of the General Sports Authority and President of Bahrain Olympic Committee, has become one of the most successful Bahraini exports in the world. BRAVE CF has been directing the attention of the world to the Kingdom of Bahrain since its inception in 2016 as it toured the globe holding events across Asia, Europe, Africa, North America, and South America…

Manama: It’s that time of year again, when Bahrain’s entire aspiring ‘belle of the ball’ gets set to hit the catwalk in their quest to win the coveted Indian Club May Queen Crown. The Indian Club May Queen Pageant has had pride of place on The Club’s calendar for over thirty years and seems to go from strength to strength as the years pass by – well known for both its beautiful contestants and its innovative and exciting stage decors. The Indian Club May Queen 2022 event will take place on the eve of 27th May 2022 (Friday) and is open…