VIENNA / WAM Over $320 million worth of new funding to the benefit of developing countries across the world, has been approved by the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID). This came during OFID’s Governing Board 159th session held in Vienna recently during which OFID Director General Suleiman Jasser Al-Herbish noted that the loans underline the international organisation’s commitment to ...

ABU DHABI / Reuters Telecoms group Etisalat terminated a management agreement with its Nigerian arm and given the business time to phase out the Etisalat brand in Nigeria, the chief executive of Etisalat International said on Monday. Nigerian regulators intervened last week to save Etisalat Nigeria from collapse after talks with its lenders to renegotiate a $1.2 billion loan failed. ...

Bloomberg The European Court of Justice may be able to make rulings that apply to the U.K. for a “limited” interim period after Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union, Prime Minister Theresa May’s spokesman said in yet another sign of the government’s softening of the country’s stance on Brexit. “He said the transition rules could involve the ECJ for a ...

Bloomberg The US is backing Sudan’s bid to join the World Trade Organization, a Sudanese official said, days before Washington is due to decide whether to permanently lift some sanctions imposed on the African country two decades ago. “Our team is very much satisfied with the support of the US for Sudan going into the WTO,” Sudanese State Investment Minister ...

Bloomberg Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will travel to Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia this week to meet with Gulf leaders as the US seeks to help end a standoff that pits US allies against one another. Tillerson will shuttle between Persian Gulf capitals from Monday to Thursday, US State Department spokesman R.C. Hammond said. The diplomacy is part of ...

Bloomberg Soldiers cleared explosives from Mosul’s historic quarter after its liberation all but ended IS presence in Iraq, three years of occupation that left a trail of human misery and devastation that could cost $100 billion to rebuild. Power and water supplies will be restored in the first phase of a 10-year program to rebuild Mosul, much of which was ...

Bloomberg Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta drew criticism from the chief justice and the nation’s top legal body after he questioned the independence of the judiciary over a court ruling in favor of the main opposition. Kenyatta on Sunday said the courts were “increasingly getting entangled” in what he said was the opposition’s attempts to delay elections scheduled for Aug. 8. ...

DUBAI / Emirates Business The improvements in the overall business conditions in Dubai’s non-oil private sector gathered steam in June, with the seasonally adjusted Emirates NBD Dubai Economy Tracker Index – a composite indicator designed to give an accurate overview of operating conditions in the non-oil private sector economy – registering at 56.5, up from May’s seven-month low of 55.0. ...

ABU DHABI / WAM The Masdar Institute of Science and Technology has announced that its CubeSat development programme, MYSAT-1, has completed its critical design review (CDR) marking a key milest- one for the University’s space systems and technology programme. The programme has been designed with support from Al Yah Satellite Communications Company, Yahsat, and global aerospace manufacturer and defense industry ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump’s eldest son met last year with a Russian woman who offered to provide potentially damaging information on Hillary Clinton, his father’s Democratic opponent in the 2016 election. The meeting took place in June 2016, after his father had secured the Republican presidential nomination, according to a statement Sunday from Donald Trump Jr. The younger Trump said ...