Business

24 July 2023; MEMO: A group of filmmakers, including Oscar winner Jane Campion and Basque filmmaker Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren, have requested their films be withdrawn from Israel's Jerusalem Film Festival.

25 July 2023; MEMO: The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) said on Sunday that it has informed the government in Stockholm that it has suspended Sweden's special envoy status to the organisation after the desecration of copies of the Holy Qur'an by protesters in the North European country.

Tehran, IRNA -- Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran Ali-Akbar Ahmadian has participated in the National Security Advisors (NSA) meeting of the BRICS group of emerging economies in South Africa.

Ahmadian, who arrived in Pretoria in South Africa on Monday is also planned to hold talks with some of his counterparts on the sidelines of the BRICS meeting.

The 13th NSA meeting of BRICS opened in South Africa on Monday for three days.

23 July 2023; AA: Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday postponed his trips to Türkiye and the Greek Cypriot administration of Southern Cyprus due to health concerns following the implantation of a pacemaker, local media reported.

Netanyahu was scheduled to have a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday.

The meeting would have been the first by an Israeli prime minister to Ankara since Ehud Olmert met Erdogan in 2008.

Kathmandu, Jul 23 (PTI) Nepal and China have remained good neighbours since ancient times, President Ramchandra Paudel told a Chinese leader during their meeting here on Sunday.

Yuan Jiajun, a politburo member of the Communist Party of China (CPC), arrived here on Sunday on a three-day visit to Nepal, leading a 26-member delegation.

Yuan called on Paudel at the Office of the President, Sheetal Niwas, and they discussed bilateral relations and mutual interests, the president's office said in a statement.

20 July 2023; MEMO: Iran would retaliate against any oil company unloading Iranian oil from a seized tanker, a senior Commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards' Navy said on Thursday, amid heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington, Reuters reports.

21 July 2023; MEMO: State-owned QatarEnergy's net profit jumped 58 per cent to QAR154.6 billion ($42.47 billion) in 2022, compared to QAR97.9 billion in 2021, Reuters reports.

According to the report, revenue rose to QAR189 billion in 2022, from QAR120.3 billion in 2021.

Net operating income from the profit share of associates jumped to QAR1 billion from QAR645.8 million in 2021, the report added.

21 July 2023; MEMO: Kuwait has prohibited the use, trade, services and mining of cryptocurrencies within the country, imposing a blanket ban on the decentralised monetary systems.

In a directive issued on Monday by Kuwait's financial regulator, the Capital Markets Authority, it announced that it had imposed an "absolute" ban on all digital asset mining, and that it had prohibited cryptocurrencies as recognised decentralised currencies.

21 July 2023; MEMO: Turkiye has imposed advertising bans on Twitter after the social media giant failed to appoint local representatives, the Information and Communication Technologies Authority said in an announcement published in the Official Gazette today.

21 July 2023; MEMO: Some 22 countries have "formally" asked to join the BRICS group, while an equal number has informally expressed interest in joining the bloc, South Africa announced yesterday.

BRICS, a bloc comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, is due to hold a summit from 22-24 August in South Africa and has previously hinted that it was open to expansion.