Riyadh, Jeddah ‘most affordable’ for expats

March 5, 2014

Jeddah, Mar 5: Riyadh and Jeddah are two of the least expensive cities in the world when it comes to living costs, says a new report from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).

The Worldwide Cost of Living is a biannual EIU survey that compares more than 400 individual prices across 160 products and services including food, drink, clothing, household supplies, home rents, transport, utility bills, private schools, domestic help and recreational costs.

The EIU study said that Riyadh and Jeddah offer cheap cost of living in a more stable environment, with price controls on staples in Saudi Arabia continuing to guarantee low prices for many goods. Both cities were also rated as being good value for money when it came to buying other items like bread and cigarettes.

The research found that petrol prices — a key component of the index — in Saudi Arabia had actually fallen in both cities from an average $0.24 per liter 10 years ago to just $0.13 now. This compared with an average of $1.73 per liter in Singapore, ranked as the world’s most expensive city.

Singapore outstripped Tokyo as the world’s most expensive city for expatriates, with the EIU citing a strong Singaporean dollar, high price of utilities and cost of car ownership as among the factors contributing to Singapore taking the top spot.

The report said while Asia is home to some of the world’s most expensive cities, it is also home to many of the world’s cheapest cities. The best value for money is in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

Mumbai is the cheapest location in the survey and three of the four cheapest cities surveyed are from Pakistan, India and Nepal.

These cities are only joined by Damascus because of the unfolding crisis in Syria and its impact on exchange rates.

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UN condemns Israeli regime’s ‘organized torture’ against Palestinians

News Network

November 30,2025

The United Nations Committee against Torture (CAT) has condemned the Israeli regime for enforcing a policy of “organized torture” against Palestinians.

In a report published on Friday, CAT stated that the occupying regime enforces a deliberate policy of “organized and widespread torture and ill-treatment” against Palestinian abductees, particularly since October 7, 2023, when Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza.

The committee expressed “deep concern over repeated severe beatings, dog attacks, electrocution, water-boarding, use of prolonged stress positions [and] sexual violence” inflicted on Palestinians.

Palestinian prisoners were degraded by “being made to act like animals or being urinated on,” systematically denied medical care, and subjected to excessive restraints, “in some cases resulting in amputation,” the report added.

CAT also condemned the routine application of “unlawful combatants law” to justify the prolonged detention without trial of thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children.

More than 10,000 Palestinians, including women and children, are currently held in Israeli prisons, according to Palestinian and international human rights groups, with 3,474 Palestinians in “administrative detention,” meaning they are imprisoned without trial for indefinite periods.

The report highlighted the “high proportion of children who are currently detained without charge or on remand,” noting that while Israel sets the age of criminal responsibility at 12, even younger children have been abducted.

Children designated as security prisoners face severe restrictions on family contact, may be subjected to solitary confinement, and are denied access to education, in clear violation of international law.

The committee further suggested that Israel’s policies across the Occupied Territories constitute collective torture against the Palestinian population.

“A range of policies adopted by Israel in the course of its continued unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory amounts to cruel, inhuman or degrading living conditions for the Palestinian population,” the report said.

On Thursday, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas condemned the systematic killing and torture of Palestinian abductees in Israeli prisons, urging international action to halt these abuses.

Citing human rights data, Hamas stated that 94 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli prisons since the start of Tel Aviv’s genocidal war on Gaza.

“This reflects an organized criminal approach that has turned these prisons into direct killing grounds to eliminate our people,” the resistance movement said.

Hamas called on the international community, the UN, and human rights organizations to immediately pressure Israel to end crimes against prisoners and uphold their rights as guaranteed by all international conventions and norms.

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