LuLu boss Yusuff Ali, who helped Kerala’s housing scheme, gets ED summons after scam crops up

Damascus, Mar 22: An Israeli airstrike early Wednesday targeted the international airport of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, causing material damage in the second attack on the facility this month, state media report.

State news agency SANA, quoting an unnamed military official, did not mention if the strike caused any deaths or injuries. It said warplanes fired the missiles toward Aleppo, Syria's largest city and once commercial centre, while flying over the Mediterranean.

The airport has been one of the main channels for the flow of aid into the country after the February 6 earthquake hit Turkiye and Syria, killing over 50,000 people, including more than 6,000 in Syria.

On March 7, an Israeli airstrike put the airport out of service for several days and flights were rerouted to two other airports in the war-torn country until the damage was fixed.

Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets inside government-controlled parts of Syria in recent years, including attacks on the Damascus and Aleppo airports, but it rarely acknowledges or discusses the operations.

Israel has acknowledged, however, that it targets bases of Iran-allied militant groups, such as Lebanon's Hezbollah, which has sent thousands of fighters to support Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces.

Israel has targeted airports and seaports in the government-held parts of Syria in an apparent attempt to prevent arms shipments from Iran to militant groups backed by Tehran, including Lebanon's Hezbollah.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has favourably received an invitation from Saudi Arabia’s King Salman to visit the kingdom following the reconciliation deal between the two countries, an Iranian official has said.

“In a letter to President Raisi … the King of Saudi Arabia welcomed the deal between the two brotherly countries [and] invited him to Riyadh,” tweeted Mohammad Jamshidi, the Iranian president’s deputy chief of staff for political affairs, adding to this Sunday message that “Raisi welcomed the invitation”.

The two regional heavyweights announced on March 10 a Chinese-brokered deal to restore ties seven years after they were severed.

Riyadh cut relations after Iranian protesters attacked Saudi diplomatic missions in 2016 following the Saudi execution of Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr – just one in a series of flashpoints between the two long-standing regional rivals.

The deal is expected to see Shia-majority Iran and mainly Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia reopen their embassies and missions within two months and implement security and economic cooperation deals signed more than 20 years ago.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told reporters on Sunday that the two countries had agreed to hold a meeting between their top diplomats.

He added that three locations for the talks had been suggested, without specifying where.

Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem, reporting from Tehran, said that Amir-Abdollahian stressed “that both countries are exchanging technical teams to inspect the embassies in Tehran and Riyadh and see whether they’re ready for both missions to be deployed there”.

“The Iranians suggested, according to Amir-Abdollahian, three locations for the meeting. The exchange took place now through the Swiss embassy, and not through the Chinese. This could indicate that there are several channels between the Iranians and Saudis right now,” Hashem said.

The detente between Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, and Iran, strongly at odds with Western governments over its nuclear activities, has the potential to reshape relations across a region characterised by turbulence for decades.

Iran and Saudi Arabia support rival sides in several conflict zones – including Yemen, where the Houthi rebels are aligned with Tehran and where a military coalition supporting the government is led by Riyadh.

The two sides also vie for influence in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq.

A number of Gulf countries followed Riyadh’s action in 2016 and scaled back ties with Tehran, though the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait recently restored ties.

Amir-Abdollahian said Iran also hoped steps would be made to normalise its ties with Bahrain, a close Saudi ally that followed Riyadh in severing diplomatic ties with Iran in 2016.

In the past, Bahrain accused Iran of having trained and backed a Shia-led uprising in the Sunni-ruled kingdom in order to topple the Manama government. Tehran denies this.

“An agreement was reached two months ago for Iranian and Bahraini technical delegations to visit the embassies of the two countries. We hope that some obstacles between Iran and Bahrain will be removed and we will take basic steps to reopen the embassies,” Amir-Abdollahian said.

There was no immediate comment from Manama.

Bahrain, together with other Gulf Arab states, welcomed the agreement between Riyadh and Tehran to restore relations.

In September, Iran welcomed an Emirati ambassador after a six-year absence, and a month earlier it said Kuwait had sent its first ambassador to Tehran since 2016.

Iran’s top security official Ali Shamkhani also held talks with United Arab Emires President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi on Thursday in yet another sign of the shifting relations in the region. 

New Delhi, Mar 22: Despite an erosion of 20 per cent or $21 billion in wealth, Reliance Industries' Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani continues to be at the top 10 wealthiest individuals in the world with a wealth of $82 billion, states the 2023 M3M Hurun Global Rich List.

For the third consecutive year, Ambani retained the wealthiest Asian title.

With a 35 per cent decrease or $28 billion in wealth to $53 billion, Gautam Adani and family, of Adani Group slipped to 23rd rank in the world's wealthiest from the last year's second rank.

Adani also lost the second richest Asian title in 2023.

A report in January by US short-seller Hindenburg led to Adani seeing his wealth down by more than 60 per cent from his peak.

Last year, it was said that Adani topped the list by adding Rs 1,600 crore per day over 2022.

The other Indian billionaires who figure in the world's top 50 richest are: Cyrus Poonawalla (global rank 46, wealth $27 billion), and Shiv Nadar and family (rank 50, $26 billion).

Interestingly, barring Poonawalla whose wealth went up by 4 per cent, the wealth of all other Indian billionaires in the global top 100 wealthiest had seen an erosion.

In stark contrast to the 2022 M3M Hurun Global Rich List, India is at the top of the league table when it comes to wealth depletion.

When countries such as China and the US had 178 and 123 billionaires, respectively, who lost more than $1 billion, India has 41 billionaires who lost more than a billion-dollar YoY in 2023 M3M Hurun Global Rich List.

In terms of number of billionaires who have added $1 billion or more over the last year, India occupies sixth rank in the list.

India added 16 billionaires and occupies the third spot, comfortably ahead of Italy which added 9 billionaires in this year's list.

The richest new entrant from India, Rekha Rakesh Jhunjhunwala and family, tops the list of top 16 new Indian entrants in 2023 M3M Hurun Global Rich List.

Over the last 5 years, Indian billionaires in 2023 M3M Hurun Global Rich List added circa $360 billion to their cumulative wealth - equivalent to Hong Kong's GDP.

"M3M Hurun Global Rich List 2023 tells the story of the current global economy through the eyes of the entrepreneurs," said Anas Rahman Junaid, MD and Chief Researcher, Hurun India.

"At a critical point in history, when India's GDP is poised to double by the end of the decade, we are excited about celebrating and benchmarking wealth creation in India with the rest of the world," said Pankaj Bansal, Director, M3M India.