Economics
Lebanon’s five listed banks posted an aggregate 2.4 percent growth in profits in 2012 standing at $1.01 billion, compared to $986 million a year earlier.
Iran's foreign minister has welcomed the willingness of the United States to hold direct talks with Tehran in the standoff over its nuclear program.
A Kuwaiti court sentenced a man to five years in prison on Sunday for insulting the emir on Twitter, a rights lawyer and news websites said.
Lebanon's Union Coordination Committee, which groups public and private school teachers, has announced an open-ended strike will begin on February 19 should the government fail to implement the new salary scale.
Companies
A $1.35 billion sale of shares in Iraqi mobile telephone firm Asiacell, the country's first major public offer of equity since the US-led invasion in 2003, was fully subscribed.
Mercedes Benz recorded a 16.7 percent rise in sales in the Middle East and Levant in 2012 compared to 2011 and closed the year with 15 consecutive months of double digit growth, smashing a previous record set in 2008.
Dana Gas, the Abu Dhabi-listed energy firm which defaulted on an Islamic bond, has said its full-year net profit for 2012 rose 20 percent on the back of higher oil prices and lower costs.
British authorities are looking into an allegation Barclays lent Qatar money to invest in it as part of a rescue fundraising at the height of the 2008 financial crisis.
Mashreq, one of the UAE's leading financial institutions, has reported a net profit of Dhs1.3bn for the year ended 31st December 2012, constituting a 60 percent increase on the previous year.
