Frankfurt am Main / AFP Eurozone banks increased uptake of zero-interest loans from the European Central Bank in December, data showed on Thursday, as part of a lending scheme to ease access to credit for households and businesses. Banks borrowed 62.2 billion euros ($65.1 billion) in total, compared with September’s figure of 45.3 billion. Subtracting some 14.2 billion euros ...

Brussels / Reuters Italy’s banking problems can be solved and the EU will do everything to help, European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said, dismissing fears of something akin to the euro crisis. New Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni has said his government was prepared to come to the aid of the country’s third largest bank, Monte dei Paschi di Siena ...

  Jeddah / Emirates Business Deutsche Bank’s 2017 Market Outlook conference, titled ‘Global and Regional Investment Perspectives 2017’, the third event of its kind for Deutsche Bank in Saudi Arabia, opened at the Park Hyatt Hotel in Jeddah-Marina. The conference explored pressing macro issues affecting economies, capital markets, companies, family offices and individual investors around the Middle East & North ...

  Prague / AFP The giant Slav Epic series by Art Nouveau icon Alfons Mucha is caught in a legal tug-of-war between the city of Prague and the Czech painter’s grandson, triggered by plans to send the work on tour to Japan. Though the late artist seduced early 20th century Paris with his floral posters of actress Sarah Bernhardt, Mucha ...

  Yangon / AFP Moshing and sweating, the crowd of headbangers scream their angst into the sultry Yangon night, a rare glimpse of a defiant musical subculture now crashing into the open remain off the song sheet. Half a century of repressive military rule virtually silenced Myanmar’s heavy metal scene and today its musicians are still shunned by most people ...

  London / AFP Europe’s stock markets advanced on Thursday and the dollar soared after the US Federal Reserve hiked interest rates as expected — and signalled three more rises next year. The news sent the dollar spiking to a near 14-year high against the euro, as the hawkish prospect of more rate increases cemented support for the greenback. Shortly ...

  Reuters Most major Middle Eastern stock markets fell on Thursday after the US central bank raised interest rates but buying by local retail investors lifted Saudi Arabia. The central banks of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar followed the Fed with their own 0.25 percentage point rate hikes and Oman, which has been raising its ...

  Bloomberg There’s a transformation happening in global energy markets that’s worth noting as 2016 comes to an end: Solar power, for the first time, is becoming the cheapest form of new electricity. There have been isolated projects in the past where this happened: An especially competitive auction in the Middle East, for example, resulting in record-cheap solar costs. But ...

    Reuters State oil giant Saudi Aramco signed deals with several foreign companies as part of a drive to expand the kingdom’s industrial base and manufacture a bigger share of products domestically. Deals include setting up joint ventures with US-listed firms Rowan Companies and Nabors Industries to own, manage, and operate drilling rigs in Saudi Arabia. Aramco also signed ...

  Kuwait City / AFP Kuwait’s new oil minister said on Thursday he expects crude prices to climb to $60 a barrel as output cuts agreed by OPEC and non-OPEC producers take hold next year. Essam al-Marzouk gave no timeframe for his projection, saying only that he was optimistic producers would comply with the agreed cuts and end a longstanding ...