Saudi Arabia, South Korea to boost ties on energy, defense; deals worth $30bn signed

News Network
November 18, 2022

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Seoul, Nov 18: South Korean and Saudi Arabian leaders pledged stronger ties in the fields of energy, defense industry and building projects, as the Kingdom signed investment agreements worth $30 billion with South Korean companies, according to Reuters.

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol told Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman he hoped the two nations can expand cooperation, calling the Kingdom a key partner for its economy and energy security.

Yoon held talks in Seoul with Prince Mohammed, who arrived on Thursday from Bali, Indonesia, where he had participated in a conference of the Group of 20 major economies.

Yoon hoped to see South Korean companies’ participation in projects such as the NEOM smart city project in Saudi Arabia and further cooperation in defense industry and future energy such as hydrogen, his office said in a statement.

Prince Mohammed noted the role of South Korean businesses over the years in the development of Saudi Arabia’s national infrastructure and wanted to see stronger cooperation with South Korea based on the trust built between the two countries.

“In particular, he said he would like to drastically strengthen cooperation with South Korea in the areas of defense industry, infrastructure and construction,” Yoon’s office said. 

The Saudi-Korean Joint Committee and the Saudi-Korean Vision 2030 includes as many as 40 projects and initiatives across the targeted sectors, according to an economic report issued by the Federation of Saudi Chambers.

The report also indicated steady growth in the volume of trade exchange between both countries which amounted to SR470 billion ($12.5 billion) over the past five years.

In 2021 alone, the volume of trade exchange hit SR100 billion, SR87 billion of which were exports to Korea and SR13 billion were Korean imports to the Kingdom.

Earlier, South Korea’s industry ministry said companies including Samsung C&T Corp. and POSCO Holdings Inc. had signed over 20 agreements with Saudi counterparts in fields such as energy cooperation, railways, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and gaming.

Saudi-based Asharq TV quoted the Kingdom’s investment minister as saying deals signed on Thursday were worth $30 billion. It also quoted the Saudi Venture Capital Company as saying it had agreed to establish seven specialized funds.

Among the agreements, Korea Electric Power Corp. and four other Korean firms signed a memorandum of understanding with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund to build and operate a hydrogen and ammonia production plant in the Kingdom, the company said.

The project will be worth about $6.5 billion, said a source with knowledge of the deal, who was not authorized to speak with media on the matter and declined to be named.

The plant is expected to produce 1.2 million tons of green hydrogen and ammonia annually, KEPCO said. It is to be built over 2025-2029 and operate for 20 years, the Yonhap news agency reported on Thursday, citing industry sources.

Another pact is Hyundai Rotem Co’s memorandum of understanding with Saudi Arabia to cooperate on a railway project for the Middle Eastern country’s $500 billion NEOM economic zone and smart city, the ministry said. It did not disclose the potential dollar amount of this agreement.

“The (South Korean) government will actively support the successful implementation of cooperative projects which apply Korea’s state-of-the-art architecture ... in NEOM,” said South Korea’s trade minister, Lee Chang-yang.

Hyundai Rotem shares rose 8.5 percent, versus a 1.1 percent drop in the wider market. Shares in Lotte Fine Chemical, which signed an agreement for chemical industry cooperation with the Saudi Ministry of Investment, rose 2.1 percent.

Also, S-Oil Corp, whose largest shareholder is Saudi Aramco, said it plans to invest a total of 9.3 trillion won ($7.0 billion) into its Ulsan factory to produce more high-value petrochemical products. 

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News Network
November 10,2024

Bengaluru: The Karnataka government has warned that disciplinary action will be taken against those officials who change the land mutation records and serve eviction notices to farmers under the Waqf Act.

In a letter, the Revenue Department Principal Secretary Rajender Kumar Kataria reminded all regional commissioners and deputy commissioners in the districts that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah recently had a meeting following complaints about certain land properties being made in favour of the Karnataka Board of Waqfs.

In the meeting it was decided that all the directions issued previously by any government office or authority to change the mutation records has been withdrawn, the letter said.

It added that all the notices served in the past have also been withdrawn and no action should be taken against the farmers who are cultivating on the said land.

On the directions of the chief minister, the previous letters and the latest reminders served on November 7 to the farmers and land owners have been withdraw, the letter said.

"The officials who served reminder-2 despite the chief minister's direction will face appropriate disciplinary action," Kataria said in his letter.

He said he has been instructed to strictly implement the chief minister's direction.

The fresh direction was issued in poll-bound Karnataka, where bypolls to three crucial assembly segments are due on November 13.

Some farmers in Honwad village in Vijayapura in north Karnataka had alleged last month that they were served eviction notices as the Waqf Board claimed rights over it.

Subsequently, complaints started in pouring in from some other parts of the state.

BJP leader Tejasvi Surya on October 25 alleged that Karnataka Waqf Minister B Z Zameer Ahmed Khan directed the deputy commissioners and revenue officials to register lands in favour of the Waqf Board within 15 days, which resulted in confusion.

On Surya's request, the Chairman of the Joint Committee of Parliament on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, Jagdambika Pal visited Karnataka on November 7 and met farmers in Hubballi, Vijayapura and Belagavi districts who had alleged that their lands were marked as Waqf properties.

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News Network
November 18,2024

Advisors to US President-elect Donald Trump have instructed his allies and associates to refrain from using the inflammatory language they previously employed when discussing issues related to migrants and the deportation of asylum seekers, in a bid to avoid “looking like Nazis.”

US media reports said that Trump’s associates had been asked to stop using the word “camps” to describe potential facilities that would be used to accommodate migrants rounded up in deportation operations across the country.

The reports said the US president-elect’s allies had been ordered to stave off such charged terms as they would bring to mind “Nazis,” and be used against Trump.

“I have received some guidance to avoid terms, like ‘camps,’ that can be twisted and used against the president, yes,” one Trump ally told American monthly magazine Rolling Stone.

“Apparently, some people think it makes us look like Nazis.”

The presidential advisers also cautioned surrogates and allies to keep racist terms, which have dogged Trump’s campaign, out of their remarks.

They said with Trump’s heated rhetoric that used to compare undocumented immigrants to “animals” and his slight that they are “poisoning the blood of our country,” detractors did not need to reach too far to find parallels to Nazi Germany.

Stephen Miller, who Trump tapped to be his deputy chief of staff of policy, specifically used the word “camps” to describe holding facilities that he hoped the military could put together for immigrants.

Tom Homan, who served as the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and is chosen by Trump to be in charge of the US borders, was no stranger to such language.

“It’s not gonna be a mass sweep of neighborhoods,” he said in an interview earlier this week. “It’s not gonna be building concentration camps. I’ve read it all. It’s ridiculous.”

Becoming a little more forthright about the new government’s aggressive deportation plans, Homan likened the early days of the Trump administration to the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003.

“I got three words for them – shock and awe,” he said. “You’re going to see us take this country back.”

Trump made immigration a central element of his 2024 presidential campaign but unlike his first run, which was mainly focused on building a border wall, he has shifted his attention to interior enforcement and the removal of undocumented immigrants already in the United States.

People close to the US president and his aides are laying the groundwork for expanding detention facilities to fulfill his mass deportation campaign promise.

The businessman-turned-politician deported more than 1.5 million people during his first term.

The figure do not include the millions of people turned away at the border under a Covid-era policy enacted by Trump and used during most of Biden’s term.

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News Network
November 21,2024

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Shares of Adani Group companies lost about $28 billion in market value in morning trade on Thursday after US prosecutors charged the billionaire chairman of the Indian conglomerate in an alleged bribery and fraud scheme.

Gautam Adani's flagship company Adani Enterprises tumbled 23 per cent, while Adani Ports, Adani Total Gas, Adani Green, Adani Power, Adani Wilmar and Adani Energy Solutions, ACC , Ambuja Cements and NDTV fell between 20 per cent and 90 per cent.

Adani group's 10 listed stocks had a total market capitalisation of about $141 billion at 0534 GMT, compared to $169.08 billion on Tuesday.

US authorities said Adani and seven other defendants, including his nephew Sagar Adani, agreed to pay about $265 million in bribes to Indian government officials to obtain contracts expected to yield $2 billion of profit over 20 years, and develop India's largest solar power plant project.

Adani Green in a statement on Thursday said the US Justice Department had issued a criminal indictment against board members Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani and the Securities and Exchange Commission had issued a civil complaint against them.

The US Justice Department also included Adani Green board member Vneet Jaain in the criminal indictment, it said.

Adani Green's units had decided not to proceed with the proposed US dollar denominated bond offerings due to developments, it added.

"Investors will shy away from Adani Group stocks ... and that's what this sharp selling is signifying," said Saurabh Jain, assistant vice president of retail equities research at SMC Global Securities.

"This could hurt the credibility of the group and maybe borrowing costs will rise," he said.

The indictment comes nearly two years after US shortseller Hindenburg Research alleged that Adani had improperly used tax havens and was involved in stock manipulation, allegations the conglomerate denied.

Also in early Asian trading on Thursday, Adani dollar bonds slumped, with prices down 3c-5c on bonds for Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone. The falls were the largest since the Adani Group came under a short-seller attack in February 2023.

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