Bloomberg The International Monetary Fund is stepping up lending in a region where economic reformers haven’t exactly had the most success. Hoping to restore the confidence of foreign investors, Egypt announced an initial agreement on Thursday to borrow $12 billion over three years from the IMF, joining Iraq, Tunisia and Jordan in taking money from the Washington-based fund. Egypt’s ...

  CAIRO/ Reuters Egypt’s public prosecutor has ordered the arrest of 13 people for 15 days pending an investigation into their role in a wheat procurement corruption scandal, judicial sources said. Egypt, the world’s largest wheat importer, has been mired in controversy over its wheat supplies, with industry officials claiming that over 2 million tonnes of the 5 million tonnes ...

  SOROTI / AP In this electricity-starved rural part of Uganda, men ride bicycles several kilometers (miles) to the nearest market town simply to charge their phones. That should change with the construction nearby of one of the largest solar plants in sub-Saharan Africa, where two-thirds of the population is without electricity and countries increasingly explore alternative sources of power. ...

  AFP China’s recent economic stabilization faltered in July as factory output, retail sales and investment all slowed. Industrial production rose 6 percent from a year earlier in July, the National Bureau of Statistics said Friday. Retail sales climbed 10.2 percent last month, while fixed-asset investment increased 8.1 percent in the first seven months of the year. All three readings ...

  Bloomberg Indonesia is considering options for setting up tax-haven jurisdictions as it tries to lure back billions of dollars through its amnesty program to fund infrastructure projects and finance the widening budget deficit, Coordinating Maritime Minister Luhut Panjaitan said on Sunday. News of the haven plan follows an announcement by the government on Aug. 11 that it would allow ...

  Bloomberg The energy collapse continues to rack up victims in Singapore. This time it’s KrisEnergy Ltd., an oil and gas producer that said on Sunday it is exploring equity issuance, refinancing and asset sales to strengthen its capital structure as its debt covenants may come under stress. The announcement came just weeks after oil services firm Swiber Holdings Ltd. ...

  Bloomberg India is targeting a more than sevenfold expansion in its biofuels market over the next six years, stepping up the country’s efforts to cut its reliance on energy imports. Blending five percent of biodiesel with regular diesel and 10 percent ethanol with gasoline could boost the market to 500 billion rupees ($7.5 billion) by 2022, from about 65 ...

  Bloomberg Two cities in China’s eastern Jiangsu province unveiled a package of measures designed to stem a surge in property prices, as more local policy makers are gearing up to cool overheating home markets. Nanjing, Jiangsu’s provincial capital, and Suzhou, a regional manufacturing base that’s a 30-minute train ride from Shanghai, will raise down-payment requirements for some buyers of ...

  Bloomberg Boston University’s announcement that it has agreed to sell the building on which the city’s Citgo sign sits to a local developer is raising hopes among preservationists that the iconic symbol will stay. The university said it had reached a deal with developer Related Beal to sell a package of several properties, including the home of the 3,600-square-foot ...

  Bloomberg Look out Elsa and Anna, there’s a new Disney princess in town. And she’s fast becoming a crowd favourite. Princess Elena of Avalor made her debut at Walt Disney World Resort this week, where the royal family’s newest member will be introduced to visitors through live performances several times a day at Magic Kingdom Park. Inspired by diverse ...