Home ›› 06 Mar 2022 ›› Front
Saudi Arabia raised oil prices for all regions after crude surged in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to more than $115 a barrel, reports Bloomberg.
State-controlled Saudi Aramco hiked its Arab Light crude for next month’s shipments to Asia to $4.95 a barrel above the benchmark it uses.
That was an increase of $2.15 a barrel from March and the highest premium for the key grade since Bloomberg started compiling data in 2000. The energy company had been expected to raise pricing by $1.70, according to a survey of traders and refiners.
Oil is trading at its highest levels in nearly a decade as Russia’s attack upends markets from commodities to stocks and bonds.
Many buyers are avoiding crude from Russia because of concerns they could breach sanctions, even though the US and Europe have avoided directly penalizing Moscow’s energy exports.
Russia blocks access to Facebook, Twitter
Russia has completely blocked access to Facebook in retaliation for the platform placing restrictions on state-owned media.
The Russian state communications regulator, Roskomnadzor, later said it had also restricted access to Twitter, reports The Guardian.
Facebook and its sister platform Instagram have removed Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik from their output in the European Union this week and did the same with the UK on Friday, which drew an immediate response from the Russian communications regulator.
The Roskomnadzor watchdog said there had been 26 cases of discrimination against Russian media by Facebook since October 2020, with access restricted to state-backed news services like Russia Today and the RIA news agency.
Last week, the regulator had announced a “partial” block of Facebook, claiming that the social network had violated the “rights and freedoms of Russian nationals”.
Nick Clegg, the president of global affairs at Facebook’s parent, Meta, said blocking the platform would cut off “millions of ordinary Russians” from reliable information, deprive them of communications with friends and family and mean they were “silenced from speaking out”.
