Business

Lebanon’s new prime minister-desginate Najib Mikati said on Monday he would work to form a government and implement a French plan to save the country from its crippling financial crisis. “I don’t have a magic wand and can’t perform miracles… but I have studied the situation for a while and …

Palestinian groups and supporters have welcomed an announcement by ice cream maker Ben and Jerry’s that it will stop selling its products in the occupied Palestinian territories. The brand announced its decision on Monday, saying: “We believe it is inconsistent with our values for Ben and Jerry’s ice cream to …

US-Palestinian DJ duo Simi and Haze Khadra are set to expand their new beauty line. The twins launched their eponymous cosmetics brand, SimiHaze Beauty, on June 15 with a range of stick-on makeup designs that can be placed on the face within seconds for a bold beauty look.  The sticker …

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen encouraged Jordan’s King Abdullah on Tuesday to continue to implement economic reforms to boost sustainable growth and job creation, the Treasury said in a statement. During a meeting with King Abdullah in Washington, Yellen noted the challenges that Jordan faces, complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic and …

Lebanon’s presidency said parliamentary consultations to choose a new prime minister will begin on July 26, in another attempt to push Lebanon’s fractious political class to form a government to rescue the country from financial meltdown. Lebanon has been run by a caretaker administration for nearly a year, while its …

Kuwait’s finance ministry is working on a law to allow limited withdrawals from its Future Generations Reserve Fund, Al Anba newspaper reported, citing a document from the Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA). The proposed legislation which would allow the government to tap the fund in times of need is one of …

Following the International High-Level Conference “Central and South Asia: Regional Connectivity. Challenges and Opportunities”, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Central and South Asian States adopted a Joint Statement on the Development of Regional Connectivity. Joint Statement by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Central and South Asian …

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on Saturday the main impediment to investment in the country was money stuck in ailing Lebanese banks. In a speech after being sworn in as president for a fourth term, Assad said estimates suggested the frozen funds were worth between $40 billion and $60 billion. …

Ratings agency S&P Global Ratings cut Kuwait’s rating by one notch citing the Gulf state’s lack of a funding strategy to finance its deficit. Hit hard by lower oil prices and the COVID-19 pandemic last year, Kuwait faces liquidity risks largely because parliament has not authorised government borrowing due to …

 Riots left more than two dozen people injured in Tripoli on Friday, including 10 soldiers, as tensions continued to rise in Lebanon. “The situation seems to be getting worse, and things are about to escalate because we are facing a difficult political and social fate,” said Lebanese Armed Forces Commander …

Global digital media investor North Base Media (NBM) has announced its investment in Abu Dhabi-based Majarra, a leading Arabic online content provider in the region. “We’re delighted to have a high-quality and specialized investor like North Base Media as a believer in our vision for a new business model that …

French President Emmanuel Macron will host a new international conference on Lebanon next month on the first anniversary of the Beirut port explosion, after premier-designate Saad Hariri gave up trying to form a government, the foreign ministry announced Friday. Macron will organize the conference on August 4 with the help …

The United States said Thursday’s resignation of Saad Hariri as Lebanon’s prime minister-designate was disappointing.“It is critical that a government committed and able to implement priority reforms be formed now,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said after Hariri abandoned his efforts to form a government nine months after accepting the …

Lebanese politician Saad al-Hariri abandoned his months-long effort to form a new government on Thursday, dimming the chances of a cabinet being agreed any time soon that could start rescuing the country from financial meltdown. Hariri announced his decision after meeting President Michel Aoun, saying it was clear they could not agree, …

Arab visitors attracted by quarantine-free travel and a cheap lira are helping bolster a rebound for Turkey’s tourism industry, as it struggles to plug the gap left by Britons, for whom the country remains off limits. Holidaying with his family in Istanbul, Jordanian Omar Zahra, 48, said flying there from …

The US Senate on Wednesday passed a law banning the import of products from China’s Xinjiang region, the latest effort in Washington to punish Beijing for what US officials say is an ongoing genocide against Uighurs and other Muslim groups. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act would create a “reprehensible …

In early May, the world witnessed an escalation in violence committed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) against Palestinians, prompting a flood of thousands of posts on social media feeds around the globe. Throughout the month, the Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media (7amleh) documented more than 700 …

The European Union said on Monday it wanted to agree by the end of July the legal framework for a sanctions regime targeting Lebanese leaders, but cautioned that the measure would not be immediately implemented. Led by France, the EU is seeking to ramp up pressure on Lebanon’s squabbling politicians …

The latest edition of the World Bank’s Economic Update for the Europe and Central Asia region was released. The report contains the analysis of the situation in 23 economies of the region and forecasts related to their social and economic development in 2021 and 2022. It also covers the recent …

The International Conference “Central and South Asia: Regional Connectivity. Challenges and Opportunities” will take place on 15-16 July 2021 at the initiative of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev. The forum is aimed at strengthening historically close and friendly ties, trust and good-neighborliness between Central and South …

Sorbonne-educated Chryssoula Fayad spent nearly two decades teaching history and geography at Lebanon’s elite French schools, ultimately heading departments. Now she is a substitute teacher in Paris, part of an exodus from an education system on its knees. Fayad left behind her home and life savings in August 2020, at …

Hit by the collapse of Lebanon’s economy, the army has started selling rides on its helicopters to finance their maintenance, a measure of the depth of the financial troubles facing the country. “The war we are in is economic and therefore requires unconventional means … and the idea we had …

Palestinian workers in the Israel-occupied West Bank are putting the final touches on a decommissioned Boeing 707 aircraft to ready it for a new kind of takeoff: as a restaurant. Its enterprising owners, 60-year-old twin brothers Ata and Khamis Al-Sairafi, expect to welcome their first customers within weeks at the …

China, Turkey and Russia are the leading partners of Uzbekistan. They have imported goods from Uzbekistan worth $2188.1 million. According to the State Statistics Committee, in January-May, the five countries with a high share of Uzbekistan’s exports include China ($835.4 million), Turkey ($694.1 million), Russia ($658.6 million), Kazakhstan ($442 million), …

Diab, who has been heading a cabinet in a caretaker capacity for more than 10 months, said any government would need the support of “friendly nations to save the country from the predicament it currently finds itself in.” Lebanon has been without a fully functioning government since Diab resigned in …

Egypt’s Suez Canal Authority (SCA) said a final settlement contract would be signed on Wednesday with the company that owns the Ever Given ship, and that participants would be able to watch the ship leaving on the same day. The owners and insurers of the container ship that blocked the …

Norway’s largest pension fund KLP said on Monday it would no longer invest in 16 companies including Alstom ALSO.PA and Motorola MSI.N because of their links to Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Along with a number of other countries, Norway considers the settlements a breach of international law. A 2020 United Nations report …

The recent decline in Saudi Arabia’s foreign reserves, a measure of its ability to support its dollar-pegged currency, was partly due to a lag between import payments and export receipts, the Saudi central bank governor told Reuters. Net foreign assets at the central bank, known as SAMA, dropped monthly by …

On June 30, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) completed the second review of Jordan’s program supported by the Extended Fund Facility (EFF). The completion of the review will make SDR 144.1 million (about US$206 million) immediately available. This brings total IMF disbursements to Jordan since the …

During a meeting with Egyptian Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Khaled El-Anany, officials from the Canadian-English Alliance, tasked since early 2021 with preparing the media strategy for tourism promotion to Egypt, handed over the first draft of their strategy. The draft took about six months to prepare and consists of …

Street protests over worsening living conditions in Lebanon continued on Monday as roadblocks moved from one city to another. Lebanon is in the throes of a deep financial crisis called one of the worst depressions in modern times by the World Bank. The parties in power in Lebanon have been …

Taha Riz has worked just three days in more than a month at his Tripoli bakery, in Lebanon’s neglected north where economic meltdown has hit hardest and plunged thousands like him into precarious poverty. The bakery, like Tripoli itself, survived earlier hardship when sectarian tensions fuelled by the war in …

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi told Israel’s new leader on Monday it was important to follow through on Egypt-backed efforts to rebuild the Gaza Strip following last month’s fighting there, the Egyptian presidency said. In his first phone call with Naftali Bennett since Bennett took office two weeks ago, Sisi …

Spending on infrastructure projects in Egypt has reached more than 1.7 trillion Egyptian pounds ( $100 billion) over the past seven years, said the Egyptian Minister of Planning and Economic Development, Hala Al-Saeed. This helped to achieve economic growth rates of 5 percent before the pandemic and to reduce unemployment, …

Britain’s competition regulator started a formal investigation on Friday into whether Amazon and Google may not have done enough to prevent or remove fake reviews. Along with regulators in the United Sates and the European Union, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has stepped up its scrutiny of big tech …

Gazan fishermen have been preparing their nets after the overnight announcement from the Israeli government on the expansion of the fishing zone off the blockaded Gaza Strip from 6 to 9 nautical miles. During the 11-day war in May between Israel and Gaza’s armed groups, Israel closed the fishing zone …

The Palestinian Monetary Authority (PMA) is considering a possible issuance of a digital currency, as a symbolic blow for monetary independence from Israel, Bloomberg reported. Two studies on cryptocurrencies are underway and no decision has been made yet, but the hope is to eventually use digital currency “for payment systems …

Thousands of workers in Iran’s energy sector have held protests for better wages and working conditions in southern gas fields and some refineries in big cities, according to Iranian news agencies and social media postings. With an economy tanked under the weight of US sanctions and the worst COVID-19 pandemic …

Saudi Arabia plans to establish an industrial zone in Oman, following joint discussions between the two Gulf states, Saudi Press Agency reported. Saudi Arabia will be developing, operating, and managing the industrial zone while setting up logistics routes to transport goods between the two countries. In a recent official visit …

Lebanon’s central bank asked the government on Thursday to provide it with a legal basis to lend it foreign currency from mandatory reserves to fund subsidised fuel imports. The statement by the bank came after a meeting with President Michel Aoun and caretaker energy minister Raymond Ghajar earlier on Thursday …

In a move to assess the scale of the diversity challenge facing the marketing and advertising industry, the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) has launched the first-ever global diversity, equity and inclusion census. The census is a collaboration between the WFA, VoxComm, the European Association of Communication Agencies (EACA), Campaign, …

Iran said on Wednesday the United States had agreed to remove all sanctions on Iran’s oil and shipping but Washington said “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed” in talks to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. The remarks by outgoing President Hassan Rouhani’s chief of staff Mahmoud Vaezi echoed …

Violence has seeped into daily Lebanese life due to the country’s severe economic crisis and a breakdown in official security, with fights and even shootings at gas stations. Lebanon is experiencing an economic crisis that is likely to rank as one of the world’s three worst in more than 150 …

The owners and insurers of the giant container ship that blocked the Suez Canal for nearly a week earlier this year have reached an agreement in principle over their dispute with canal authorities, representatives from both sides said Wednesday. Stann Marine, the lawyers representing the vessel’s owners and insurers, and …