Regional News

  Bloomberg For the second time this year, Egypt changed and then quickly reversed its import standards for wheat, leaving traders skeptical about doing business with the world’s largest buyer. Egypt canceled its zero-tolerance policy on a common type of fungus known as ergot on Wednesday, less than a month after reinstating the ban and rejecting cargoes from Romania to ...

  CAIRO / Reuters Egypt’s three established mobile phone operators have declined to buy fourth-generation (4G) service licences, two Egyptian telecoms officials said on Thursday. The companies, Vodafone, Orange and Etisalat, did not respond to repeated requests for comment. The Egyptian officials declined to be named as no official announcement had yet been made. The Egyptian government is selling four ...

  Reuters The Saudi finance ministry has resumed payments to Saudi Binladin Group (SBG), the kingdom’s biggest construction firm, for its work on government projects, Saudi Okaz newspaper reported on Thursday, citing an adviser to the chairman. SBG was hard hit last year as low oil prices forced the government — its chief customer — to cancel or suspend projects ...

  Reuters Saudi Binladin Group (SBG) has requested a second extension on an 817 million riyal ($217.9 million) Islamic loan being used to fund construction at the kingdom’s Grand Mosque, sources aware of the matter said. The talks to delay the loan repayment, originally due to mature on July 15, came after the Saudi government failed to fully reimburse the ...

Bloomberg OurCrowd Ltd., a website that connects investors to a pool of mostly Israeli and U.S. startups, said it raised $72 million to expand its operations and invest in other businesses. Jon Medved, the chief executive officer and co-founder of OurCrowd, said the new funds will be split evenly between the venture arm and the company itself, which plans to ...

  Beja / AFP Activists are warning of a potential “thirst uprising” in Tunisia following protests over severe water shortages after one of the North African nation’s driest summers on record. Residents in the interior are suffering long water supply cuts, reservoirs are running dry and farmers are seeing significant losses, adding to social tensions in a country still struggling ...

  Reuters Egypt’s central bank is expected to raise interest rates on Thursday, a Reuters poll showed, in an attempt to fight inflation and attract foreign investment as the country pushes through with economic reforms. Egypt has been struggling with a shortage of foreign currency since the 2011 uprising drove away tourists and foreign investors — two major sources of ...

  Bloomberg Saudi Telecom Co. is exploring options for its indirect stake in billionaire T. Ananda Krishnan’s Maxis Bhd., the second-largest Malaysian wireless carrier by market value, people with knowledge of the matter said. The Gulf kingdom’s biggest telecommunications operator is gauging interest in its 25 percent holding in Binariang GSM Sdn., which is the controlling shareholder of Maxis, according ...

  Jerusalem / AFP Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday defended a new $38 billion US defence aid package against criticism Israel could have negotiated a larger sum had he not angered the White House. Speaking at the start of a cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said the deal was the “largest assistance agreement that the United States has ever provided to ...

  ISTANBUL/ AP With summer drawing to a close, Turkey is counting the cost of a tough year that saw a string of terrorist bombings and the fallout from a diplomatic spat with Moscow that cut deep into the country’s crucial tourist trade. And then right bang in the middle of summer, the economic backdrop got more precarious after an ...