Pilgrims holding multiple-entry Umrah visas must complete a series of service, digital and travel requirements before each visit to Saudi Arabia, with visa validity alone not exempting them from booking required services, according to the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah.

The ministry said pilgrims must comply with regulations covering service packages provided by licensed Umrah service providers. It clarified through its X account that holding a valid multiple-entry visa does not remove the requirement to arrange other services needed for each visit.

Service package comes first

The multiple-entry Umrah visa, launched by the Ministry of Hajj in July, allows beneficiaries to enter the kingdom multiple times during its 365-day validity period from the date of issuance. The total stay is limited to up to 90 days throughout the visa’s validity.

Read more-Saudi Arabia launches one-year multiple-entry Umrah visa

The move is aimed at providing greater flexibility in planning visits and performing Umrah, a Saudi Gazette report said.

For each visit, pilgrims must purchase a service package from one of the approved service providers through the “Nusk” system. The ministry said the package’s duration must not exceed the remaining period available on the visa.

Pilgrims must also comply with regulations governing the duration of the programs and services provided to them.

Nusk permit required before arrival

The ministry added that pilgrims using the multiple-entry visa must obtain an Umrah permit through the Nusk app before arriving in the kingdom.

The dates on the permit must match those of the approved service package. Pilgrims must also fulfill all applicable travel and entry eligibility requirements before making the journey.

This makes the process a sequence of connected steps: arranging the service package, obtaining the permit and ensuring travel eligibility before departure.

Travel eligibility and entry recording

For the initial visit, the ministry said the process begins with purchasing a service package through one of the available providers on the Nusk platform. The pilgrim then submits a visa application and completes its processing with the relevant authorities.

Before boarding the aircraft, travel eligibility is verified. Once the pilgrim arrives in the Kingdom, entry details are recorded. Those details are then updated upon departure, including calculation of the remaining stay period.

Planning around peak times

Pilgrims are also being encouraged to plan their visits and rituals in advance to help avoid crowded periods.

The General Authority for the Care of the Affairs of the Grand Mosque and the Prophet’s Mosque said crowd density in the Mataf and Masaa varies during the day. It said density is low from 10:00pm to 4:00am and from 9:00am to 4:00pm, moderate from 5 am to 8 am, and high between 5 pm and 9 pm.

The authority urged Umrah pilgrims to use available digital services and monitor live crowd-density indicators when selecting suitable times for their rituals.

For multiple-entry pilgrims, advance preparation therefore remains central to each visit, from arranging the required service package and securing the Nusk permit to meeting travel eligibility requirements and ensuring entry and departure details are properly recorded.

EFG Holding reported a 7 per cent year-on-year rise in second-quarter revenues to EGP 6.5bn, as growth at Bank NXT and EFG Finance helped offset a weaker performance from its investment banking business.

The Egypt-based financial services group said net profit after tax and minority interest reached EGP 776m in the second quarter of 2026, down 3 per cent from the same period a year earlier.

The results came amid continued geopolitical uncertainty, volatile regional markets and macroeconomic pressures, with the group pointing to its diversified business model as a key source of resilience.

Bank NXT recorded revenues of EGP 2.1bn, up 30 per cent year-on-year, supported by growth in its loan book, a larger interest-earning asset base and higher net interest income.

The commercial bank’s net profit after tax increased 33 per cent to EGP 788m, of which EFG Holding’s share amounted to EGP 404m.

EFG Finance, the group’s non-bank financial institutions platform, also delivered strong growth, with revenues rising 15 per cent to EGP 2bn.

Net profit at EFG Finance more than doubled year-on-year to EGP 535m, supported by higher revenues at Finance Holding and fintech platform Valu, including increased securitisation gains.

Operating expenses at the platform remained broadly stable, as lower provisions and expected credit losses helped offset higher employee costs.

EFG Hermes hit by currency volatility

EFG Hermes, the group’s investment banking arm, reported revenues of EGP 2.4bn, with its performance affected by foreign exchange movements and weaker Holding and Treasury Activities.

The company said the appreciation of the Egyptian pound against the US dollar at the end of the quarter resulted in net asset value losses.

Investment Banking revenues were also lower compared with a strong second quarter in 2025, when EFG Hermes recorded realised and unrealised gains on investments and seed capital.

Excluding net losses from Holding and Treasury Activities in both periods, however, EFG Hermes recorded net profit after tax and minority interest of EGP 694m, up 50 per cent year-on-year, driven by growth in Brokerage and Buy-Side activities.

At group level, operating expenses, including provisions and expected credit losses, rose 11 per cent to EGP 4.5bn, reflecting higher employee costs, expansion at Bank NXT and Valu and inflationary pressures in Egypt.

Taxes declined 36 per cent year-on-year, partly due to deferred tax gains related to unrealised seed capital and foreign exchange losses.

Karim Awad, group CEO of EFG Holding, said the company remained focused on maintaining balance sheet resilience and pursuing selective growth despite an unsettled operating environment.

“Our focus remains on maintaining balance sheet resilience, managing costs prudently, and pursuing selective growth across our core platforms,” Awad said.

He added that EFG Holding expects to introduce new businesses in the near term as it looks to broaden its product offering and build a more scalable group.

EFG Holding operates across Egypt, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain through three core businesses: investment bank EFG Hermes, non-bank financial services platform EFG Finance and commercial lender Bank NXT.

Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz slowed over the weekend, data showed on Monday, following attacks on tankers, while US-Iran talks to resolve the Middle East conflict stalled.

Five commodity vessels transited the strait on Saturday, with none registered for Sunday, shiptracking data from Kpler showed, versus 31 in the prior weekend.

Ships entering the strait on Saturday included an empty Very Large Crude Carrier with its Automatic Identification System switched off and an Indian-flagged Very Large Gas Carrier that used the Iranian route, Kpler data showed.

A small tanker laden with Iranian fuel oil exited, it showed.

Shipping appeared to grind to a near standstill after the UAE said three vessels operated by the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company were attacked in transit last week.

The United States said it could maintain a naval blockade of Iran indefinitely.

Some ships may pass through undetected with transponders off, but the figures are far from the more than 130 ships a day that traversed the Strait of Hormuz before the war launched by the US and Israel on Iran in February.

Washington must meet Iran’s conditions regarding the strait in order for shipping to resume, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said in an interview with local media on Saturday.

The waterway handled a fifth of the world’s shipments of crude oil and liquefied natural gas before the war.

At the Bab el-Mandeb strait, where Yemeni Houthis declared a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia on July 20, Kpler data showed 49 weekend transits by commodity vessels, down from 55 in the prior week.

There were no tracked Saudi oil shipments.

Few energy companies have been tested like DTEK. Since 2022, Ukraine’s largest private power producer has watched its power stations, grids and gas installations being compromised regularly because of the crisis impacting the country — and rebuilt them, repeatedly. As a result, the company has acquired hard operational knowledge: how to protect critical infrastructure, how to recover from strikes in days rather than months, and how to keep a grid standing when parts of it are gone.

That knowledge now travels. As Gulf economies invest at scale in smart grids, renewables and digital infrastructure, and as energy security climbs the agenda worldwide, DTEK‘s CEO Maxim Timchenko speaks to Gulf Business about what most operators still underestimate, and the four priorities every energy leader should be acting on now.

Ukraine’s energy infrastructure has faced sustained disruption over the past few years. What are the biggest operational lessons your company has learned about protecting critical infrastructure under extreme pressure?

The first strikes in 2022 were a shock. Today, an asset can be hit repeatedly and still return to service. We are better prepared with stronger protection, and work closely with government, military and industry partners. We have learned how to keep the lights on.

We have learnt that the key to resilience is not whether you can stop every attack, but how quickly you can recover. We now restore infrastructure as quickly as anyone in the world. This is about planning, understanding your points of vulnerability, having spare parts in place and trained teams ready to go, and having support mechanisms at both national and international levels. We could not do this without the support of our partners abroad.

Many Gulf economies are heavily reliant on uninterrupted energy exports and stable utilities networks. From your experience, where do regional governments and companies tend to underestimate vulnerabilities in their energy systems?

A big part of the challenge is the principles on which energy systems are built. Traditionally, most were designed to maximise efficiency and scale, minimise cost and reduce complexity. Ukraine’s experience, and the questions many operators are now asking themselves, show how vulnerable large and centralised assets can be. A single disruption at a major power station can affect electricity supply across a wide area.

From the first days of the crisis, Ukraine realised it had to decentralise rapidly, spreading generation across smaller assets like gas turbines, wind farms, battery storage and rooftop solar. These are more difficult to disable in a single event, and many can be repaired within days, rather than the months or years needed to restore a large thermal unit.

Operators globally have also increasingly minimised their spare equipment stockpiles in the name of efficiency. But to create a resilient system, these ‘redundancies’ are critical.

It’s a mindset shift that the entire sector must go through: energy security must now be treated as a core priority.

Beyond physical protection, how important are speed of recovery and operational continuity when infrastructure is disrupted? What systems has DTEK put in place to restore operations quickly?

Speed of recovery is as critical as protection itself, because no system can prevent every incident. Since 2022, we have lost a large proportion of our generation capacity three times. Each time we have rebuilt it almost completely. Recovery speed, in the end, is what determines whether a system holds.

We coordinate restoration through a dedicated central planning team that works around the clock, monitoring our supply chains, speaking with donors and organising resources and manpower where they are needed most. Behind this is our workforce of 55,000 people. We invest heavily in training our engineers and, if necessary, can move hundreds or thousands of employees at short notice. Having so many people ready and willing to restore power under difficult conditions is extraordinary, and it is what makes recovery possible.

Last winter was the ultimate test. Some of our power stations were out of service in temperatures of -25C, and Ukrainians faced extended power cuts. But the system held thanks to the operational resilience of our sector.

The Gulf is investing heavily in smart grids, renewables and digital infrastructure. Does greater digitalisation improve resilience, or can it also create new vulnerabilities that companies need to prepare for?

There are pros and cons, but overall digitalisation gives defenders an edge by making us faster, smarter and more adaptable, even as the threats evolve.

For example, we use AI to counter cyberattacks, and to speed up response times, connect our teams and identify weaknesses.

Gulf countries’ investment in smart grids is also a wise move. In Ukraine, critical nodes across the grid have been targeted repeatedly, and in 2022 the country came close to a nationwide blackout. Smart grids create firewalls to stop the fallout from a single failure cascading through the system. They also help us harness energy from a wider array of generation sources like wind farms and solar, which has a direct benefit in terms of energy security. The system DTEK is building around Kyiv today can detect problems earlier, isolate faults faster, and reroute power in seconds rather than hours.

For energy leaders in the Middle East watching global conflicts reshape risk planning, what practical steps should they be taking now to build more resilient power systems over the long term?

Any country thinking seriously about energy security needs to invest not only in protection, but in flexibility and readiness. Our experience points to four practical priorities.

First, people. You have to train your workforce – not just to operate assets but to manage crises. That means knowing how to take equipment offline safely, operate through a disruption and restart afterwards. Motivation is just as critical. People must believe recovery is possible, even after assets have been damaged one, two, three times.

Second, planning. Preparation starts with an honest assessment of vulnerabilities. Where are the chokepoints? Which components take the longest to replace? In our case, transformers are the most critical bottleneck, with 9-12 months of production lead times. That means planning and stocking up in advance and diversifying suppliers. At a global level, we have to start addressing the lack of manufacturing capacity to respond to these crises.

Third, protection. Physical protection works when it’s layered, from basic measures like sandbags and reinforced concrete, through to advanced air-defence systems and real-time coordination between plant managers and defence forces.

Fourth, partnership. Ukraine has come through the past four years thanks in large part to the support of our allies. Now it is time for us to pay back – to offer our knowledge, bring our technology and systems. We are already in dialogue with partners in the Gulf, and we are ready to share these practical insights with regional operators to strengthen our energy security together.

A Dubai motorist has been fined Dhs10,000 and had his driving licence suspended for one year after deliberately ramming another vehicle twice and then leaving the scene of the incident.

The Dubai Traffic Court convicted the individual of dangerous driving and endangering the lives of others after hearing evidence that he intentionally struck the other vehicle on two separate occasions.

According to case records, the incident began when the victim stopped at a red traffic light and the defendant, driving an SUV, attempted to force his way into the lane from the left.

The victim told prosecutors that the defendant then deliberately struck the front of his car.

After the traffic light turned green, both vehicles moved a short distance before stopping at another red signal. The defendant then allegedly rammed the vehicle for a second time, this time hitting the driver’s-side door.

The victim asked the motorist to remain at the scene and complete a traffic accident report, but he refused and drove away before police arrived.

Defendant denied charge

The Public Prosecution referred the driver to court on charges of driving dangerously and failing to comply with traffic rules, arguing that his actions had damaged both vehicles and placed other road users at risk.

The defendant denied the allegation during the investigation and again before the court.

However, judges found the prosecution evidence convincing, including testimony from the victim and a female passenger who witnessed the incident.

The court said the witness accounts and other evidence contained in the case file were consistent and sufficiently established that the defendant had intentionally driven in a dangerous manner and struck the other vehicle twice.

It concluded that the conduct had endangered the lives of others, even though no physical injuries were reported.

While finding the driver guilty, the court said the circumstances of the case justified the use of leniency permitted under the law.

It imposed a Dhs10,000 fine and ordered the suspension of his driving licence for one year from the date the sentence is implemented.

The case highlights the potentially serious legal consequences of aggressive driving in Dubai, particularly where a vehicle is deliberately used to intimidate or strike another road user.