Abu Dhabi / Emirates Business Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD), the leading national entity for development aid, has approved a $33 million (AED121 million) concessionary loan for the development of a waste-to-energy facility in the emirate of Sharjah. The facility is the flagship project of Emirates Waste to Energy Company, a joint venture between Masdar, a regional leader in ...

Bloomberg The UK charged two Russian nationals over the attempted murder of a former spy and the use of a Novichok nerve agent on British soil, a move that will further sour ties with the Kremlin. Police named Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov as the aliases of the two key suspects in the attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter ...

Bloomberg Syrian troops are readying an offensive against the last remaining opposition bastion, an assault that could draw in the US, displace hundreds of thousands of civilians and cement President Bashar al-Assad’s hold over the country if his forces prevail. The attack on the northwest province of Idlib is expected soon, weeks after government troops—whose march from possible defeat to ...

Bloomberg South Korean envoys met with Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang, as they sought to revive nuclear talks that have stalled since US President Donald Trump’s summit with the North Korean leader. A five-member delegation sent by South Korean President Moon Jae-in were expected to return to Seoul late on Wednesday and brief the media on the talks on Thursday, his ...

Bloomberg South African farmers’ lobby group Agri SA slammed the ruling party’s plans to change the constitution to make it easier to expropriate land without compensation and accused the government of failing to implement existing policies to address racially skewed ownership patterns. Government data shows more than two-thirds of farmland is owned by whites, who constitute 7.8 percent of the ...

Bloomberg An ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel will run for the leadership of the European Commission as the continent’s biggest party seeks to counter a populist revolt. Manfred Weber, German head of the Christian Democrats in the European Parliament, said on Wednesday he would seek to succeed Luxembourg’s Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the Brussels-based commission. Juncker’s term atop ...

Bloomberg The Democratic Republic of Congo’s top court disqualified opposition leader Jean-Pierre Bemba from presidential election because of his International Criminal Court conviction for witness-tampering. The decision confirms the removal of a second key opponent from the race against President Joseph Kabila’s anointed successor and increases the risk of protests by Bemba’s supporters. It also raises questions about the credibility ...

Bloomberg US stocks fell, with FANG shares tumbling as executives of the tech heavyweights face scrutiny on Capitol Hill. The selloff in emerging market currencies deepened, adding to the risk-off tone on global financial markets. Twitter, Facebook and Alphabet sent the Nasdaq Composite Index down by more than 1 percent during Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on social media and foreign ...

Bloomberg A fresh sign that the financial industry’s love affair with cryptocurrencies is cooling pummeled the largest tokens. Ether sank as much as 15 percent and Bitcoin fell almost 7 percent to a three-week low amid a report that Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is pulling back on near-term plans to set up a crypto trading desk. Litecoin and Ripple followed ...

Bloomberg Africa is entering the oil-hunt spotlight as drillers, flush with cash after crude’s recovery, are turning their attention back to the continent’s potentially vast resources. The world’s biggest companies from Exxon Mobil Corp. to Royal Dutch Shell Plc and BP Plc are setting up camp across Africa. Armed with stronger balance sheets and higher crude prices the industry is ...