News

  Dubai / Emirates Business InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), one of the world’s leading hotel companies, and Al-Futtaim, one of the region’s most progressive business houses headquartered in Dubai, have signed an agreement for the management of the largest Holiday Inn hotel in the UAE. The 520-room Holiday Inn Dubai Festival City will operate under a management agreement with Dubai ...

  Bloomberg Egypt made an official trade agency responsible for inspecting imported wheat, a step that could end disruptions in the purchases of world’s biggest wheat buyer by replacing quarantine officials who rejected several shipments this year for containing the ergot fungus. The General Organization for Export and Import Control, or GOEIC, will be the sole state body authorized to ...

  AFP Tehran officials shut schools on Monday as the first of the wint- er’s heavy pollution hit the Iran- ian capital. A blanket of choking brown-white smog descended on the city on Sunday, blocking out the view of the mountains that line its northern edge and leading many of its 14 million residents to retreat indoors or don face ...

  Bloomberg A Vietnamese village has become “a supermarket for illegal wildlife trafficking” raking in millions of dollars, a special hearing was told on Monday. The two-day public hearing in The Hague is laying out the findings of a year-long undercover investigation by the new Wildlife Justice Commission. The probe has provided “clear and irrefutable evidence of an industrial-scale crime ...

  Bloomberg China National Petroleum Corp. plans to spin off most non-energy assets — a portfolio comprising roughly 10 percent of its workforce — as low oil prices force the state-run behemoth to streamline, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Under a plan detailed at an internal meeting in Beijing last month, CNPC would bundle businesses employing about ...

  Bloomberg China’s largest theater operator said a slump in box-office sales nation- wide leaves the company, which has bucked the trend at its own cinemas, in position to buy rivals at cheaper valuations. Wanda Cinema Line Co., the film exhibitor arm of billionaire Wang Jianlin’s Wanda Group, is maintaining its target to use acquisitions and organic growth to add ...

  Bloomberg Japan’s economy grew more than forecast in the three months through September, as a rebound in exports compensated for continued weak spending at home by people and companies. Gross domestic product expanded by an annualized 2.2 percent, according to data released by the Cabinet Office on Monday (median estimate of economists +0.8 percent). Private consumption rose 0.1 percent ...

  Bloomberg UK businesses have delayed or canceled investments worth 65.5 billion pounds ($82 billion) since the vote to leave the European Union, with more than 40 percent of large companies scaling back, according to a new survey. Executives have been reluctant to follow through on spending plans because of a plunge in the pound and a lack of clarity ...

  Bloomberg The European Union promised to cooperate with US President-elect Donald Trump while vowing to stand by international agreements he has questioned including United Nations deals to curb climate change and ease sanctions on Iran. After a dinner in Brussels to discuss future EU-US relations in the wake of Trump’s victory in the Nov. 8 American election, European foreign ...

  Bloomberg Donald Trump may be good for the London housing market. That’s according to property website operator Rightmove, which says Trump’s shock election victory could spur the return of international investors seeking a safe haven. While asking prices in the capital fell for a fifth month, the 0.3 percent drop was much smaller than the 1.5 percent average seen ...