Rising crude oil prices are expected to lower oil-rich Gulf nations’ need to sell Islamic bonds, according to Moody’s Investors Service. Higher oil prices will lead to lower sukuk issuance in 2022. Sukuk is the name for interst free bonds. That’s driven largely by lower financing needs among Gulf Cooperation Council countries, according to a...
U.S. biotechnology company Moderna plans to invest more than $500 million in a vaccine and drug manufacturing facility in Kenya. Leaders of the African nation signed a memorandum of understanding with Moderna on Monday in the capital Nairobi. The new facility will help address the problem of vaccine inequity experienced across Africa. Kenyan P...
Spain’s Supreme Court on Tuesday backed Twitter’s decision to temporarily block the account of the Vox party for hate speech. The social media platform decided to block the far-right party from tweeting for eight days in early 2021 during its electoral run in Catalonia. As part of its “Stop Islamization” campaign, Vox tweeted inaccurate statis...
Iraq’s National Museum reopened Monday to visitors after being closed for three years due to the COVID-19 pandemic and political unrest. The museum features artifacts dating back 2,500 years to the neo-Assyrian empire alongside 9th century Islamic antiquities. Among the items back on display are two winged bulls from the Nimrud site in t...
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro signed a decree Tuesday providing for free menstrual supplies for low-income women and girls. The far-right leader signed the executive order at a ceremony for International Women’s Day. The new decree will be funded by a budget of $26 million reaching an estimated 3.6 million people, according to the h...
Several hundred feminist activists participated in a “die-in” on International Women’s Day in front of Paris’ Pere Lachaise Cemetery for victims of femicide. In Paris, several thousands marched against gender violence and for equal pay. They began the rally with reading a letter from Russian feminists urging activists to “take a st...
President Joe Biden announced a ban on US imports of Russian oil on Tuesday. “Today I am announcing the United State is targeting the main artery of Russia’s economy. We’re banning all imports of Russian oil and gas and energy.” US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, criticized President Joe Biden over repor...
Poland is welcoming Ukrainians fleeing the war in sharp contrast to its treatment of previous waves of refugees from Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. In 2021, Poland aggressively stopped refugees on the Belarusian border. Now, Polish men and women have been traveling to the border in private cars to offer rides to refugees. Meanwhile, European Un...
Russia has become the world’s most sanctioned country due to its war on Ukraine. The international community has imposed 2,778 new sanctions on Moscow in just under two weeks since Russian troops invaded Ukraine. The total number of sanctions increased to 5,532, according to the global sanctions monitoring database Castellum.ai. By comparison,...
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei last week blamed America for Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. In a televised speech, Khamenei said “The root cause of the Ukraine crisis is the U.S. and the West’s policies.” He added, the U.S. government creates and “feeds on crisis” Iran itself has been criticized for providing vital...