Regional News

Bloomberg In Ocean’s Eleven, George Clooney’s gang inserts a recording into a casino security camera system so the guard sees only a video loop from the day before, camouflaging a heist from the safe. In a 2015 cyber attack on a Ukraine power plant, hackers did much the same, playing around for months with the electricity company’s network, disconnecting emergency ...

  Bloomberg Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund is considering selling stakes in local companies to raise funds for international expansion, according to five people with knowledge of the matter. The Public Investment Fund — with about $100 billion worth of shares in listed local companies including Saudi Basic Industries Corp. and Saudi Telecom Co. — is reviewing the stakes as ...

  Bloomberg Saudi Oger Ltd. reached a preliminary agreement to sell its 20 percent stake in Jordan’s Arab Bank Plc to Fawaz Al Hokair Group for about $1.1 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. The two family-owned companies plan to make a formal announcement after receiving regulatory approval, the people said, asking not to be identified as the ...

  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 ...

  AFP Candidates in Kuwait’s parliamentary elections have focused their campaigns on unpopular government austerity measures as the oil-dependent Gulf country faces financial stress due to low crude prices. Kuwait, which sits on around seven percent of the world’s proven crude reserves, has resorted to a series of measures to cut spending and boost non-oil revenues in a bid to ...

  AFP The International Monetary Fund approved a three-year, $12 billion loan for Egypt to help the country recover from its economic crisis amid soaring inflation and deficits. The IMF executive board said it would release $2.75 billion to Egypt immediately, while further disbursements will depend on the country’s economic performance and agreed milestones in implementing the reforms. The program ...

  Reuters Kuwaiti telecoms group Zain expects to sell its mobile transmitter towers in Saudi Arabia for more than $500 million in the first half of 2017, its chief executive said. Zain, which operates in eight countries in the Middle East and Africa, has been exploring the sale of its towers in some of its markets since as early as ...

  Reuters Iraq’s oil ministry is postponing a bidding round for 12 small and medium-sized oil fields across three provinces from Nov. 30 to the middle of next year, the ministry said on its website on Thursday. The ministry’s statement said there are “essential changes” to the previous announcement, including plans for the oil ministry to develop some of the ...

  Reuters Construction giant Saudi Oger has asked banks to agree to a freeze in repayments on at least 13 billion riyals ($3.5 billion) of debt, sources aware of the matter said, as it seeks more time to collect money owed by the kingdom’s government. The request opens the way for the company, owned by the family of Lebanese Prime ...