Economics
Gold ticked higher on Thursday, after suffering its biggest daily decline in nearly four weeks in the previous session, as the looming deadline for averting a US fiscal crisis kept investors on their toes.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has cut in half oil exports as producing companies grow increasingly worried that Baghdad will not honor the payment terms of an export deal struck in September.
The United Arab Emirates has "effectively closed the country's remaining forum for free speech" with a decree issued earlier this month that tightened the law on online dissent, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday.
Saudi Arabia and Sudan are seeking to start in 2014 deep-water mining of a Red Sea basin believed rich in gold and copper.
Canada wants to return to level terms with the UAE on visa-entry requirements after it was dropped from the Emirates' free-visa system.
Companies
TABCo Emirates, the UAE arm of the Kuwaiti holding company TABCo International Food Catering, plans to invest more than US$80m in expanding branches of US-branded food chain Elevation Burger in the UAE, Oman and Kuwait, its CEO has said.
Zain Saudi extended the maturity of a SAR9 billion ($2.40 billion) Islamic loan for another 21 days on Wednesday, the fifth time the loss-making telecom operator has deferred payment.
Kuwait's Environment Public Authority (EPA) has announced a plan to gradually switch to using shopping bags made of paper or bio-degradable material, as the Gulf country aims at zero plastic use by the year 2020.
Net profits of insurance companies in Lebanon reached $111.4 million in 2011, up by 25.6 percent from a total of $88.7 million recorded in 2010, according to the Association of Insurance Companies in Lebanon.
