Muscat / Reuters Petroleum Development Oman (PDO), the country’s top oil and gas exploration and production company, has obtained a $4 billion loan from international banks, part of a rush of foreign borrowing by Oman as low oil prices strain state finances. The five-year pre-export facility is the company’s first international loan and was priced at 160 basis points ...

  Riyadh / TNS The new Balanced Nitaqat program will help reduce unemployment, improve market performance, raise the quality of employment and generate good jobs for Saudis, create a safe and attractive work environment, and eliminate the presence of non-product nationalization practices, confirmed Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Development Ahmed Al-Humaidan during a press conference on Sunday. “The labor ...

  TNS Five cities will compete for the title of Jordan’s “distinctive destination” in a competition launched recently by the Tourism Ministry and USAID. “Through the Distinctive Destinations Programme we seek to encourage Jordanian towns to capitalise on their core strengths, unique characteristics and assets to improve their tourism offerings,” Tourism Minister Lina Annab said. Speaking at the launch of ...

MAKKAH / TNS The Council of Ministers during their weekly meeting on Monday thanked Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman for launching a number of new development projects worth over SR4 billion in Madinah, referring to health, education, water and sanitation projects; and for ordering an extra SR1,691 for all the country’s beneficiaries of social aid. The Cabinet ...

  DOHA / Reuters Total has won a 30 percent stake in a new 25-year contract to operate Qatar’s largest offshore oilfield, officials said on Monday, in the second major upstream development deal for the French oil firm in the Gulf region in as many years. State-owned Qatar Petroleum (QP) will keep the remaining 70 percent in the new joint ...

  TNS After King Salman ascended the throne, relations with France have taken center stage in the Kingdom’s foreign policy. The ties got the added fillip following Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s current visit to Paris, beginning Sunday. Jean Pierre Moline, an expert in defense policy for France and Europe, said security cooperation between the two countries is deep-rooted ...

  Brussels / AFP European leaders met on Wednesday without Britain for the first time in 40 years to prepare for life after the Brexit bombshell, as the race began to succeed Prime Minister David Cameron. Highlighting the seismic shock from last week’s referendum, one person who was in Brussels however was Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, “utterly determined” to ...

  Ireland / AP Hugh Maguire can’t believe the British really did it. The Northern Ireland farmer, like many residents along the United Kingdom’s virtually unmarked land border with the Republic of Ireland, faces the risk of financial ruin if Britain proceeds with plans to exit the European Union. EU farm subsidies provide most of his income from highland pastures ...

  Mongolia / AFP Mongolians went to the polls across their sprawling, sparsely-populated country on Wednesday as it struggles to benefit from its vast natural resources amid disputes over foreign investment and slumping demand from neighbouring China. Squeezed between Vladimir Putin’s Russia and Communist China, Mongolia prides itself on its democracy, but voters expressed frustration with the country’s poor governance ...

  Rome / AFP Italy is to begin removing the remains of hundreds of people from a sunken migrant boat after raising it from the Mediterranean seabed and towing it to Sicily, the navy announced Wednesday. The boat’s sinking off Libya in April 2015 left as many as 800 people dead in the worst maritime tragedy in the Mediterranean since ...