Metro Observer Daily

 JEDDAH: The Oversight and Anti-Corruption Authority has put up information on its official Twitter account about 13 corruption cases it has been pursuing. The authority, also known as Nazaha, said the cases included financial and administrative corruption crimes, abuse of power, embezzlement and money laundering. Below are four of the most prominent of the cases. A resident working for a local company has been suspended for bribery, receiving money transfers to his personal accounts outside the Kingdom in Switzerland. Investigations revealed bribery of SR1,296,061 ($346,000) from the manager of a foreign company in exchange for obtaining a subcontract with the resident’s company that is also in contract with a university in Saudi Arabia. The authority also arrested five Ministry of Health employees for exploiting the influence of the public office, embezzlement, and forgery. They were caught taking SR9,263,900 in the form of salaries and entitlements of for...

 RIYADH: Saudi Arabia on Monday condemned the “deliberate” abuse of the Holy Qur'an, as well as provocations and incitement against Muslims by some extremists in Sweden. In a statement, the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs stressed the importance of concerted efforts to spread the values of dialogue, tolerance, and coexistence. The statement also emphasized renouncing hatred, extremism, and exclusion. The Kingdom highlighted the efforts to prevent abuse of all religions and holy sites, the statement said. Three people in the Swedish city of Norrkoping needed medical attention after being hit by police bullets during clashes between police and protesters following Qur'an burnings that caused riots in several Swedish towns over the Easter weekend. In some places counter-protesters attacked police ahead of planned right-wing extremist demonstrations. Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson has condemned the violence. "Three people seem to have been hit by ricochets...

 A spat between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Biden is pushing gas prices ever higher. It started under Obama. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, right, and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G-20 summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 2018 AS RUSSIA ORDERED troops into Ukraine on Monday, gas prices soared to their highest levels in over seven years. While the media focuses on the conflict in Ukraine, a major cause of the gas price spike has gone overlooked: Moscow’s partnership with Saudi Arabia has grown dramatically in recent years, granting the two largest oil producers in the world the unprecedented ability to collude in oil export decisions. The desert kingdom’s relationship with the U.S. has chilled in the meantime, as demonstrated earlier this month, when President Joe Biden pleaded with the Saudis to increase oil production — a move that would not only have helped to alleviate rising inflation and gas prices, but also reduced Russia’s extravagant pr...