Regional News

  Bloomberg Middle Eastern TV giant BeIN Media Group, owned by Al Jazeera, has signed a multi-year deal with Warner Bros. International Television Distribution securing content from the Hollywood major. Starting this year, under the deal, BeIN will have access to such hit series as Arrow, Gotham and Originals and will also get the exclusive second pay window rights to …

  CAIRO / Reuters A draft of a new investment law will be sent to the Egyptian cabinet next month, Investment Minister Dalia Khorshid said in a talk show on the local television channel CBC late on Tuesday. The new law will focus on the diversification of incentives and guarantees for investors, Khorshid said. It has been in the works …

  Reuters Egypt is unlikely to see a jump in inflation from measures to ease a foreign-exchange shortage because import prices already reflect the black market rate, a senior International Monetary Fund official said. Egyptian officials are widely expected to devalue the pound and cut energy subsidies to secure a $12 billion IMF loan, needed to fund an economic overhaul …

  Bloomberg Egyptian Finance Minister Amr El Garhy said his country would gather an additional $6 billion in bilateral funding required to secure a $12 billion International Monetary Fund loan within one or two weeks. The IMF in August agreed in principle to grant Egypt a $12 billion, three-year loan facility to support a government reform programme aimed at plugging …

  Reuters Vodafone has agreed a partnership with Iranian internet firm HiWeb to help modernise its network, the companies said on Tuesday, making the British company the latest Western firm to enter Iran after sanctions were lifted. Vodafone, the world’s second-largest mobile phone company, said the agreement to help modernise HiWEB’s network and IT infrastructure would also benefit its multinational …

  Reuters Kuwait National Petroleum Co (KNPC) expects to finalise a loan of well over $5 billion to finance its Clean Fuels project by the end of the first quarter of next year, sources involved in the project said. The state-owned refiner had originally said it planned to complete the fundraising, one of the world’s largest-ever loans backed by export …

  Reuters Saudi Oger has begun talks with potential buyers for its 20.93 percent stake in Arab Bank in a deal that could raise about $1 billion for the embattled construction giant, sources aware of the matter said. Oger was one of two large Saudi contractors charged with implementing the kingdom’s grand infrastructure plans before the fall in oil prices …

CAIRO / AP For two weeks now, the shelf once piled with bags of sugar — for better or worse Egypt’s most loved commodity — has stood empty at this grocery store in bustling downtown Cairo. “This is nothing — they’re missing even more things in my village,” said Mahmoud Sulayman, a former army conscript from the Nile Delta now …

  Reuters Vodafone Egypt and Etisalat Misr have signed licence deals allowing them to operate fourth-generation (4G) mobile services in Egypt, the country’s telecoms regulator said on Sunday. Egypt is selling four 4G licences as part of a long-awaited plan to reform the telecoms sector and to raise money for stretched government finances. The country’s three existing mobile phone operators …

  Reuters Aluminium Bahrain (Alba) said on Sunday it closed a $1.5 billion loan with regional and international banks that will fund its Line 6 expansion project. Alba will become the world’s largest single aluminium smelter complex, boosting its annual output by 540,000 tonnes to 1.5 million tonnes per year by adding a sixth “potline”, used in producing the metal …