Home The Buzz Morning briefing: 24 Sep 2012


Morning briefing: 24 Sep 2012

The top business stories from across the region

by Executive Staff

Israel will eventually go beyond threats and will attack Iran, the commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards was quoted as saying.

As speculation mounts that Israel could launch air strikes on Iran before US elections in November, Mohammad Ali Jafari told a news conference that the Jewish state would be destroyed if it took such a step.

"Their threats only prove that their enmity with Islam and the revolution is serious, and eventually this enmity will lead to physical conflict," Jafari said when asked about Israeli threats to strike Iran's nuclear facilities.

More from Arabian Business

Google has agreed to block all links to an anti-Islamic film inside Jordan, the country's communications and information technology minister has announced.

Atef Tel said a deal had been reached with the US internet giant – which owns YouTube – to block the video which has led to protests across much of the Muslim world.

"We asked Google to block all links to this film in the kingdom and we have had a favourable response," Tel said.

More from AME Info

Lebanese Finance Minister Mohammad Safadi has said the government is still committed to paying for a public sector wage increase that became effective in February.

The minister added that $400 million would be paid by the end of September on top of $600 million that has been settled in arrears to contractors since the beginning of the month.

Safadi rebuffed reports that his ministry was delaying payments, saying the reports were "utterly incorrect."

But he warned that if suggested tax hikes to fund the salary scale were rejected, the government would not be able to pay for the wage hike.

More from The Daily Star

Iran plans to switch its citizens onto a domestic Internet network in what officials say is a bid to improve cyber security but which many Iranians fear is the latest way to control their access to the web.

The announcement, made by a government deputy minister on Sunday, came as state television announced Google Inc's search engine and its email service would be blocked "within a few hours".

"Google and Gmail will be filtered throughout the country until further notice," an official identified only by his last name, Khoramabadi, said, without giving further details.

More from Reuters

Over 1.3 million unemployed nationals in Saudi Arabia are now receiving the unemployment allowance introduced by the country last year, labor minister Adel Faqeeh has said.

In comments published by the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA), Faqeeh praised the efforts taken by Saudi’s King Abdullah to increase employment in the country.

He also said that the country’s Nitaqat programme has helped in employing more than 300,000 Saudis including 54,000 women in less than a year.

King Abdullah had announced the Hafiz (unemployment allowance) program last year to help the increasing number of unemployed youth in the country. The program, which started in December 2011, pays unemployed Saudis SAR2,000 riyals a month for a maximum of one year. The majority of the recipients, up to 80 per cent, are women.

More from Gulf Business

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