Reuters A wetland in southeast Iraq, thought to be the biblical Garden of Eden and almost completely drained during Saddam Hussein’s rule, has become a UNESCO world heritage site, Iraqi authorities said on Sunday. Fed by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the marshlands of Mesopotamia are spawning grounds for Gulf fisheries and home to bird species such as the ...

  REUTERS Kuwait’s Zain has communicated to Egypt’s telecommunications regulator its preliminary interest in obtaining a fourth-generation (4G) licence, the operator said in a bourse filing on Monday. Zain “is studying a number of investment opportunities available in the region, one of which is the Egyptian telecommunications market as a strategic market in the Middle East and Africa”, the company ...

REUTERS Commercial Bank of Qatar (CBQ) has obtained a $166 million, three-year loan from international banks for general corporate purposes, it said on Monday. Seven lenders participated in the deal, with Mizuho Bank acting as sole co-ordinator, sole bookrunner and mandated lead arranger. Agricultural Bank of China, State Bank of India and Bank of Taiwan were also mandated lead arrangers; ...

  Riyadh / REUTERS Saudi Binladin Group has asked for an extension on a 817 million riyal ($217.8 million) Islamic loan that matured last week and which was being used to fund construction work on the kingdom’s Grand Mosque site, according to sources aware of the matter. The request to delay the payment, originally due on July 15, was because ...

  Bloomberg Growing demand from oil refiners and the continued filling of strategic crude reserves in the face of domestic production declines will support crude buying by the world’s second-largest consumer, according to analysts from Energy Aspects Ltd. and ICIS China. Coal imports will continue to rise to help fill a supply gap left by a mining slowdown. “Crude buying ...

  AFP The EU’s 28 member states agreed on Monday to launch free trade talks with Indonesia, despite growing public doubts in Europe about two major transatlantic deals. The deal with Indonesia will build on pacts with other Asian powers such as Singapore and Vietnam. “The EU and Indonesia represent a huge market of 750 million consumers. These negotiations are ...

  Bloomberg Malaysia’s second-largest pension fund plans to buy more bonds with maturities of 10 years and above to hedge against another interest-rate cut as it moves further toward becoming a full-fledged Islamic entity. Kumpulan Wang Persaraan (Diperbadankan), which manages about 120 billion ringgit (US$30 billion), is considering lowering its 5 percent minimum return target because of the uncertainty in ...

  Bloomberg Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s plan to begin mobile services at Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd by August has caused incumbent operators led by Bharti Airtel Ltd to cut data tariffs to stem defections. Airtel will offer prepaid customers as much as 67 percent more data for the same fees, according to a statement from India’s largest mobile company Sunday. Idea, ...

  Bloomberg Singapore state investment company Temasek Holdings Pte is considering a buyout offer for SMRT Corp, the city-state’s biggest subway operator, a person with knowledge of the matter said. Temasek is weighing an offer to buy all the shares it doesn’t already own in SMRT, according to the person, who asked not to be identified as the information is ...

  Istanbul / AFP Turkey launched fresh raids and sacked almost 9,000 officials on Monday in a relentless crackdown against suspects behind an attempted coup that left over 300 people dead, as Western allies warned against reinstating the death penalty. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed to wipe out the “virus” of the putschists after facing down the coup bid ...