Barings Bank was a British merchant bank based in London, and one of England's oldest merchant banks after Berenberg Bank, Barings' close collaborator and German representative. It was founded in 1762 by Francis Baring, a British-born member of the German–British Baring family of merchants and bankers.
The Wall Street crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, was a major stock market crash in the United States which began in late October 1929 with a sharp decline in prices on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and ended in mid-November. The crash began a rapid erosion of confidence in the U.S. banking system and marked the beginning of the worldwide Great Depression, which lasted until 1939; it is thus considered the most devastating in the country's history. It is most associated with October 24, 1929, known as "Black Thursday", when a record 12.9 million shares were traded on the NYSE in a single day, and October 29, 1929, known as "Black Tuesday", when about 16.4 million shares were traded.
Nicholas William Leeson is an English former derivatives trader whose fraudulent, unauthorised and speculative trades resulted in the 1995 collapse of Barings Bank, the United Kingdom's second oldest merchant bank. He was convicted of financial crime in a Singapore court and served over four years in Changi Prison.
Saudi Aramco, officially the Saudi Arabian Oil Company or simply Aramco, is a majority state-owned petroleum and natural gas company that is the national oil company of Saudi Arabia. As of 2024, it is the fourth-largest company in the world by revenue and is headquartered in Dhahran. Saudi Aramco has both the world's second-largest proven crude oil reserves, at more than 270 billion barrels, and largest daily oil production of all oil-producing companies.
On 29 May 2004, a Saturday, four men armed with guns and bombs attacked two oil industry installations and a residential compound, in Al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia—the hub of the Saudi oil industry. Over approximately 25 hours, the gunmen, describing themselves as members of "The Jerusalem Squadron" or "Jerusalem Brigade", killed 22 and injured 25, mainly third country national personnel working in Khobar.
Terrorism in Saudi Arabia has mainly been attributed to Islamic extremists. Their targets included foreign civilians—Westerners affiliated with its oil-based economy—as well as Saudi Arabian civilians and security forces. Anti-Western attacks have occurred in Saudi Arabia dating back to 1995. Saudi Arabia itself has been accused of funding terrorism in other countries, including Syria.
Abqaiq is a Saudi Aramco gated community and oil-processing facility located in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, located in the desert 60 km southwest of the Dhahran-Dammam-Khobar metropolitan area, and north of the Rub' al-Khali, the second largest sand desert in the world also known as the "Empty Quarter". The community was built in the 1940s by Aramco. The Abqaiq community had a population of approximately 1,500 in 2012, though the inclusion of the population outside the Saudi Aramco community brings this number closer to 45,000.
Rakesh Saxena is an Indian convicted criminal, financier and trader in the derivatives market. He is accused of embezzlement in the 1990s from his work as treasury adviser to the Bangkok Bank of Commerce (BBC) and is widely reputed to have been engaged in dozens of high risk ventures and deals throughout the world over the previous three decades.
Alrajhi Bank is a Saudi Arabian bank and the world's largest Islamic bank by capital based on 2015 data.
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and the third into the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia. The fourth plane crashed in rural Pennsylvania during a passenger revolt. The September 11 attacks killed 2,977 people, making it the deadliest terrorist attack in history. In response to the attacks, the United States waged the multi-decade global war on terror to eliminate hostile groups deemed terrorist organizations, as well as the foreign governments purported to support them.
The price of oil, or the oil price, generally refers to the spot price of a barrel of benchmark crude oil—a reference price for buyers and sellers of crude oil such as West Texas Intermediate (WTI), Brent Crude, Dubai Crude, OPEC Reference Basket, Tapis crude, Bonny Light, Urals oil, Isthmus, and Western Canadian Select (WCS). Oil prices are determined by global supply and demand, rather than any country's domestic production level.
Crime in Saudi Arabia is low compared to industrialized nations. Criminal activity does not typically target foreigners and is mostly drug-related. Petty crime such as pickpocketing and bag snatching does occur, but is extremely uncommon. During the period of Hajj and Umrah in the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, there have been growing incidents of pickpocketing, especially with women pickpockets becoming an increasing phenomenon. Although incidents of violence are generally considered to be rare, violence has occurred more frequently due to economic pressures on expatriate workers during the last few years. In 2013, the number of crime cases reported by the Ministry of Justice was 22,113, a 102% increase from 2012.
Martin Smith is an American producer, writer, director and correspondent. Smith has produced dozens of nationally broadcast documentaries for CBS News, ABC News and PBS Frontline. His films range in topic from war in the Middle East to the 2008 financial crisis. He is a member of the Overseas Press Club and the Council on Foreign Relations.
The Big Short is a 2015 American biographical comedy-drama film directed by Adam McKay and co-written by McKay and Charles Randolph. The film is based on the 2010 book The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis, and shows how the 2007–2008 financial crisis was triggered by the United States housing bubble. The film stars Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, and Brad Pitt, with John Magaro, Finn Wittrock, Hamish Linklater, Rafe Spall, Jeremy Strong, and Marisa Tomei in supporting roles.
Since 2012, the Islamic State (IS) has produced annual reports giving numerical information on its operations, somewhat in the style of corporate reports, seemingly in a bid to encourage potential donors.
The 2010s oil glut was a significant surplus of crude oil that started in 2014–2015 and accelerated in 2016, with multiple causes. They include general oversupply as unconventional US and Canadian tight oil production reached critical volumes, geopolitical rivalries among oil-producing nations, falling demand across commodities markets due to the deceleration of the Chinese economy, and possible restraint of long-term demand as environmental policy promotes fuel efficiency and steers an increasing share of energy consumption away from fossil fuels.
Terrorism in the United Arab Emirates describes the terrorist attacks in the United Arab Emirates, as well as steps taken by the Emirati government to counter the threat of terrorism. Although terrorist attacks are rare, the UAE has been listed as a place used by investors to raise funds to support militants in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the financing of the September 11 attacks. Businesses based in the UAE have been implicated in the funding of the Taliban and the Haqqani network. In the 72nd session of the UN General assembly in New York, UAE foreign minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan affirmed the United Arab Emirates policy of zero tolerance towards terrorism financing.
On 8 March 2020, Saudi Arabia initiated a price war on oil with Russia, which facilitated a 65% quarterly fall in the price of oil. The price war was triggered by a break-up in dialogue between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and Russia over proposed oil-production cuts in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Russia walked out of the agreement, leading to the fall of the OPEC+ alliance.
Economic turmoil associated with the COVID-19 pandemic has had wide-ranging and severe impacts upon financial markets, including stock, bond, and commodity markets. Major events included a described Russia–Saudi Arabia oil price war, which after failing to reach an OPEC+ agreement resulted in a collapse of crude oil prices and a stock market crash in March 2020. The effects upon markets are part of the COVID-19 recession and are among the many economic impacts of the pandemic.
The COVID-19 recession was a global economic recession caused by COVID-19 lockdowns. The recession began in most countries in February 2020. After a year of global economic slowdown that saw stagnation of economic growth and consumer activity, the COVID-19 lockdowns and other precautions taken in early 2020 drove the global economy into crisis. Within seven months, every advanced economy had fallen to recession.
