The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned Saudi Arabia against increasing public spending as oil prices rise.
In a report issued on Friday, the IMF said that a rise in spending would leave the Saudi budget exposed, should there be an unexpected drop in oil prices.
The report emphasised the importance of ensuring that spending remains “at a sustainable level in different oil price environments” and to avoid a fiscal policy that would create undue volatility.
Oil prices have rebounded strongly after major producers decided to cut output in late 2016. In June, they decided to raise production again.
Saudi revenues jumped 67 percent in the second quarter of 2018, mainly due to a sharp rise in oil income, while public spending surged 34 percent, according to government figures.
Riyadh’s budget deficit is expected to continue to narrow from 9.3 percent of GDP last year to 4.6 percent in 2018 and to as low as 1.7 percent next year, the IMF said.
Around half of state spending goes on the public sector wage bill, according to the IMF which suggested “the workforce could be gradually reduced through natural attrition”.
Saudi authorities told the IMF that the civil service system is under revision with the help of the World Bank.
Unemployment among Saudi citizens is at 12.8 percent, and sits at 31 percent among women.
Is Saudi Arabia biting off more than it can chew? | Counting the Cost
High unemployment
The country’s key challenge is to create around 500,000 jobs for its citizens over the next five years, the IMF said while stressing the need for more posts within the private sector.
The Saudi economy contracted by 0.9 percent last year, for the first time since 2009, due to the collapse in oil prices.
Earlier this week, a planned initial public offering in the state’s oil company, Aramco, stalled when it became clear that Riyadh might not achieve the valuation it wanted.
The Venezuelarefugee situation is “building towards a crisis moment”, the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) has warned, with the organisation’s spokesperson likening it to the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean.
Many Venezuelans are choosing to leave their country as a result of the recession which has gone on for almost five years now. According to the UN, 1.6 million Venezuelans have fled the country since 2015, 90 percent of whom went to countries within South America.
“This is building to a crisis moment that we’ve seen in other parts of the world, particularly the Mediterranean,” Joel Millman, IOM spokesperson, said on Friday.
“We have to start lining up priorities and funding and means to manage this as soon as we can.”
This week, Ecuador and Peru said those without valid passports would be denied entry, in a move affecting hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who were previously allowed to cross the border with paper ID cards instead.
Since the announcement of the new passport rules, Colombia’s migration authority said it recorded a decrease in traffic over official border crossings and an increase in the use of irregular crossings.
But only allowing those with a passport might lead to problems, Millman said.
“When we see things like passports only, we point out that there are a lot of migrants, particularly teenagers and unaccompanied children, that may not have access to these documents,” said Millman.
‘Solidarity is key’
Millman’s remarks echoed statements by other UN agencies warning that the new passport requirement will expose people to “further risk of exploitation, trafficking and violence”.
Andrej Mahecic, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, called on other countries to help those fleeing Venezuela.
“We are concerned about these recent events, and the demonstrations against refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in some of the Latin American countries,” said Mahehic.
“Those increase stigmatisation of those who are forced to flee, they put at risk the efforts of integration,” he added. “Solidarity is the key here.”
“We call for respect of refugees and people on the move in Latin America… Solidarity is the key here”- @refugees‘ Andrej Mahecic.
The currency has fallen 99.99 percent against the US dollar on the black market since President Nicolas Maduro came to power in April 2013.
Maduro blames the crisis on an economic war led by opposition leaders with the help of the US, which last year levied several rounds of sanctions against his administration.
Chandra Bozelko and Ryan Lo, Opinion contributors
Published 1:27 a.m. ET Aug. 25, 2018
Work in prison is vital. It gives inmates rare privacy, glimpses of humanity. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t get paid what their labor is worth.
Conditions of modern prisons — tiny, overcrowded cells, lack of sanitation, infestation, lack of ventilation — make people inside so desperate for respite that they’re sometimes willing to accept even unconscionable deals, like working for little to no money.
Paying someone 86 cents per hour to do backbreaking work is such an insult to human dignity that it’s not acceptable anywhere in this country except in prison, places intent on stripping people of their humanity.
As former inmates, we know what it’s like to work for meager pay.
And we did it willingly, almost happily — for the chance to get out of our cells, use a private bathroom, walk freely. That’s the invidious part of prison labor. It makes you so grateful for tiny slices of humanity that you’re willing to do anything to get them.
Work in prison is rarely voluntary. And inmates who are currently striking against near-slave conditions won’t have it easy. Some may be placed solitary confinement. Their disciplinary records will get marred, and that could be used against them during hearings for discretionary release, like parole.
But they are willing to risk punishment and surrender the small moments of purpose that unjust work can bring for the larger goal of saving their humanity.
Convict leasing — a legalized form of enslavement that lasted well after the institution was outlawed — once dominated prison labor in America, and today’s combination of low-to-no wages and lack of choice in working conditions smacks of the same treatment.
Prisoners at Louisiana’s Angola facility — which is located on a former plantation — work for as little as four cents an hour.
One of us knows what it’s like to participate in a prison strike.
A 2013 hunger strike that started in California’s Pelican Bay solitary housing unit soon spread to 30,000 prisoners across the state who joined in solidarity.
Like the inmates who are striking now, we were demanding an end to slave-like conditions — not involving pay, but instead indefinite and inhumane isolation.
During our years in prison, we heard staff use every word but slavery to describe our treatment and prison labor practices. Some, laughably, called prison jobs unpaid “internships.” By law, an internship has to benefit the intern more than it does the employer. Inmate labor is the engine of prisons. The menial work that we did benefitted the state more than it did us.
We recognize the argument against the nationwide call for higher wages: If you raise pay, the state might pull back on the work given to inmates in order to cut expenses. Inmates would lose out on the chance to get out of their cells, and all the perks that come with the privilege.
But states also charge inmates for the cost of their incarceration. Not only are prisoners working for next to nothing, they’re also paying for the opportunity to do so. Inmates have been charged for room and board, medical fees, booking, sentencing, DNA tests. Families are sometimes charged for visits.
The road to fair treatment and pay could start by dropping charges for basic care for those who work in the facility. It costs about $33,000 on average per year to imprison an inmate. A decade of full-time labor should offset this, but it doesn’t.
Just compensation takes many forms
There are other ways to be fair about inmate compensation that also benefit the public.
Earlier this month, the Prison Policy Initiative released study showed that former inmates are about 10 times more likely to live on the street than the average American. A day of post-release housing, redeemable by voucher, for every day worked would not only make prison labor a legal business transaction, it could reduce homelessness and help many people who have nowhere to go when they leave custody.
Prison labor is about as uneven an exchange as one could imagine.
It also sends a damaging message to inmates — that they deserve to be desperate. Devaluing your life is a loyal lesson. It follows you home when you leave custody. Unemployment among former inmates is 27%. Many former prisoners agree to work for free to prove themselves. These aren’t internships either. They’re unpaid auditions that other job applicants don’t endure.
The prison strike demands an end to these practices, which is reasonable. All they’re asking is for a fair deal.
Chandra Bozelko is the vice president of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and writes the award-winning blog Prison Diaries. Ryan Lo is a 2016 Soros Senior Justice fellow and the founder of UnLabeled Digital Media. Both are fellows with JustLeadership USA, an organization dedicated to cutting the prison population in half by 2030.
We asked a handful of the NBA’s top rookies some trivia questions about the league and here’s how they did. USA TODAY Sports
Despite the most successful run in franchise history, this decade’s Los Angeles Clippers have been frustrating underachievers.
Now the team finds itself facing something of a transition season. All the cornerstone pieces from six consecutive playoff appearances are gone. Chris Paul, Jamal Crawford and JJ Redick left last offseason. Blake Griffin was traded in January. DeAndre Jordan left this summer.
Those departures left behind a host of questions, namely: How could a team laden with so much talent always fall apart in the playoffs? A number of horribly timed injuries — particularly playoff injuries to Paul and Griffin — certainly played a role.
Redick, however, identifies another culprit: Pettiness. And not just normal pettiness, mind you. What he calls “Donald Trump-level pettiness.”
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“Doc (Rivers) used to always talk about how when one group was together for a long period of time, instead of getting closer together you end up pointing fingers at each other,” Redick said on a recent episode of the Pardon My Take podcast. “It was weird because separately everybody was really cool with each other, off the court everybody sort of got along. And then, there was just so much pettiness, it was just pettiness.
“It’s weird to think what we had the potential to accomplish and what ultimately derailed that was pettiness. Like, Donald Trump-level pettiness.”
Los Angeles made the playoffs six consecutive years from 2011-12 to 2016-17. After going 40-26 in the lockout-shortened 2011-12 season, the Clippers won at least 51 games in each of the next five.
However, they never advanced past the second round. Redick said the team got bogged down in “passive-aggressive bulls—” and didn’t exclude himself.
“I would rather a guy actually blow up at a teammate, whether it ends in a fight or just a verbal shouting match.” Redick said on Pardon My Take. “I think getting stuff out in the open is healthier than sort of holding it in and just whispering things in corners and never really addressing root issues.
“I’m throwing myself in this, in some ways I’m probably as guilty as other guys. We were just really passive-aggressive with each other.”
The president of the Palestinian Football Association has been banned by FIFA after he urged fans to burn Lionel Messi shirts and pictures earlier this year.
The call by Jibril Rajoub earlier this year was part of a campaign to prevent Argentina playing in Israel in a tie he and many Palestinians complained would be used as a “political tool” by the Israelis.
In a statement published on Friday, world football’s governing body said Rajoub’s call amounted to incitement of “hatred and violence”.
“The 12-month match suspension imposed on Mr Rajoub entails a ban on taking part in any future match or competition taking place during the given period,” said FIFA in a statement.
“Consequently, Mr Rajoub will not be able to attend football matches or competitions in any official capacity, which includes, among others, participating in media activities at stadiums or in their vicinity on matchdays.”
He was also fined $20,000 by FIFA.
Israeli authorities moved the match to Jerusalem from its original venue of Haifa, which further angered Palestinians.
The match was set to be played at Jerusalem’s Teddy Stadium, built on land that once belonged to a Palestinian village that was destroyed in 1948, the year Israel was established.
The change of venue came at a particularly sensitive time, after US President Donald Trump recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, infuriating Palestinians who want the eastern part of the city as the capital of their own future state.
In response to punishment, the Palestinian FA said the sanction was excessive and that it “went beyond the alleged offence”.
“It imposed the maximum punishment for an accusation that wasn’t proven,” said the Palestinian FA.
It also cast doubt on the validity of the complaint lodged by the Israeli FA which it called a “third party that is in active conflict with the Palestinian FA” and said that neither Messi nor the Argentinian FA had acted on the matter.
Speaking in June, Rajoub said: “He [Messi] is a big symbol so we are going to target him personally and we call on all to burn his picture and his shirt and to abandon him”.
“We still hope that Messi will not come.”
The decision by Argentina to play the friendly fixture at the venue sparked an intense campaign, which drew in international and local support.
The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, said there was nothing “friendly” about the game and Palestinian footballers, targeted by the Israeli military, also added to calls for the Argentinian side to cancel its involvement.
“I call on the Argentinian team and especially captain Lionel Messi – because he is very popular in Palestine, particularly in the Gaza Strip – to stand in solidarity with Palestinians and to boycott the scheduled game with Israel, which is occupying our land,” said Palestinian footballer Mohammed Khalil.
An Israeli sniper shot Khalil in both legs during a protest in Gaza on March 30, putting an end to his footballing career.
Dylan Farrow has signed a young adult book deal that seems to draw from the writer/activist’s life and family history.
Farrow’s two-book deal with Wednesday Books is for a YA fantasy duology “where those in control of society can manipulate and silence the truth through magic,” according to a statement.
Evan Agostini/Invision/AP/REX/Shutterstock
The first novel, titled HUSH, is currently slated for a Fall 2020 release. The New York Post reported earlier this week that Farrow previously turned down a $250,000 bid for the proposed book. Wednesday Books acquired the North American rights for both on behalf of Glasstown Entertainment, a 360-media company known for producing screen adaptations of literary works.
“To say Wednesday Books is thrilled to be publishing Dylan Farrow’s astonishing young adult debut is an understatement,” Sara Goodman of Wednesday Books said in a press release. “From the very first sentence of HUSH we knew we had to have it; her sharp, gorgeous writing captured the entire team instantly. We cannot wait to bring her considerable talent to readers everywhere and build a long lasting relationship with this exciting author.”
In 2014, Farrow, the adopted daughter of Mia Farrow and Woody Allen, published an open letter in The New York Times alleging that Woody Allen sexually assaulted her when she was a child. Though a legal case brought against Allen for abusing Farrow was was dropped in 1993, despite the state attorney’s belief that there was “probable cause” to prosecute, Farrow has remained outspoken about his alleged abuse, and published an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times late last year questioning why Allen was spared in the #MeToo movement. Allen has repeatedly denied Dylan Farrow’s claims, as recently as January of this year, saying, in part, that “even though the Farrow family is cynically using the opportunity afforded by the Time’s Up movement to repeat this discredited allegation, that doesn’t make it any more true today than it was in the past. I never molested my daughter – as all investigations concluded a quarter of a century ago.”
Challenge Cup semi-finals: Warrington Wolves 48-12 Leeds Rhinos highlights
Ladbrokes Challenge Cup: Catalans Dragons v Warrington Wolves
Venue: Wembley Stadium Date: Saturday, 25 August Kick-off: 15:00 BST
Coverage: Live on BBC One, radio commentary on BBC Radio 5 live sports extra and BBC local radio, plus live text commentary on the BBC Sport website.
If Wembley did loyalty cards, then Warrington Wolves would have racked up a very decent number of points.
Including their 2009 success, the Wire have been to the national stadium four times and won three finals, and this season’s showpiece will make it five appearances in the past 10 years.
Unlike their opponents Catalans Dragons, who have the romantic charm of Gallic underdogs and the popular vote from neutrals, Warrington are the big bad Wolves who are used to the big occasion.
BBC Sport looks at the stories behind the Wire’s Challenge Cup final appearance.
From early starts to leading out the team
Head coach Steve Price has the opportunity to ensure a place in Warrington folklore in his first season at the club.
The 39-year-old arrived at the end of last season to pick up their reins from club legend Tony Smith – who had turned the club from perennial strugglers to a major contender for Grand Final and Challenge Cup prizes.
Like his fellow Australian, Price has enjoyed a cup run in his maiden campaign, and like many from the southern hemisphere, Wembley and the Challenge Cup have a big place in his life.
“It’s one of the biggest honours to play for the Challenge Cup at Wembley,” he told BBC Radio Merseyside.
“I’ve been to Wembley to see Arsenal play Manchester City in the Community Shield, but this will be my first Challenge Cup.
“I’ve watched it on a number of occasions though, getting up early with the old man to watch those great Challenge Cup finals.
“Given the opportunity on Saturday, hopefully we can make it a memorable one.”
Super Bennie Westwood
No quirky headlines are needed for this man, the vastly-experienced veteran Ben Westwood, who will grace the final at the ripe age of 37.
The evergreen back-rower has been a regular fixture this season, racking up his 500th career appearance and scoring two tries in 27 games.
Westwood will feature in his fifth final on Saturday if selected – he has been a Wembley ever-present in his time at the Halliwell Jones.
However, he still has a way to go to surpass the oldest finalist. Gus Risman was 41 when he led Workington Town to victory in the 1952 final.
If pigs could fly…
Well, in this part of the world, they do.
Tom Lineham bursts through to score for Warrington
Enter Tom Lineham. The man known as the ‘Flying Pig’ has scorched his way through Super League and the Challenge Cup, bringing home the bacon for Warrington with 19 tries in 28 games.
Saturday’s game will be a huge occasion for the 25-year-old, who missed the 2013 final while at Hull FC through injury having helped the Airlie Birds through their semi-final and was then dropped by the Wolves before their 2016 final defeat.
His performance in the semi-final win over Leeds included a 90-metre blast downfield to score from his own end, and surely only another cruel injury will deny him a Wembley appearance.
Lineham is not the only extremely prolific winger in the ranks. England international Josh Charnley takes up a spot on the other flank.
The speedy wideman has already scored 22 tries in 20 games since his mid-season move from rugby union club Sale, and has already won two Challenge Cups in his time at Wigan.
It’s a family affair
Wembley isn’t just special for players, it is a huge event for everyone in the family.
Stefan Ratchford has been to Wembley twice, winning once, and is preparing for another trip with the nearest and dearest in tow.
“This is the third trip for my youngest,” Ratchford told BBC Radio Merseyside.
“They understand where we’re going but I don’t know if they understand the occasion – maybe my eldest will have more of a grasp of it this year.
“In game week, they leave me be towards the back end of the week towards game day, but they’re really good.
“It’s a great experience and a great day out for the families but hopefully it will be better with the right result.”
Turning around fortunes
There are 11 Warrington players with Wembley experience – although not everyone has fond memories, as half-back Kevin Brown can testify.
Brown, 33, has been to the national stadium twice before with Wigan and Huddersfield, and is yet to pick up a winner’s medal. Will it be third time lucky?
Daryl Clark, 25, has also been to Wembley twice with Castleford and Warrington – without success – while Jack Hughes and brothers George and Toby King also possess only runners-up medals.
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Watson will be joining Meryl Streep, Timothee Chalamet, Saoirse Ronan, and Laura Dern in the Sony Pictures adaptation of the Louisa May Alcott classic, produced by Amy Pascal. Greta Gerwig, whose Lady Bird was nominated for five Oscars earlier this year, including Best Director, is set to write and direct the film.
Theo Wargo/Getty; Samir Hussein/WireImage; John Shearer/Getty
Watson is coming off of the huge success of last year’s live-action Beauty and the Beast, which grossed over a billion dollars worldwide.
, particularly the Mediterranean”- IOM’s Joel Millman to press today. Read 
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