OCTOBER 2009

Unregulated resistance

The long road to Damascus
US-Syrian rapprochement inches forward with miles to go

Lockerbie’s cloak and dagger
Dodgy dealings surround Libyan bomber’s return home

How politicians stymie Lebanon
Leaders trade horses, kill reform and cripple the country

Banks bothered but buoyed
Sovereign floats leave Gulf banks near unsinkable

Five tests of Obama’s mettle
At home & in the Middle East, US president runs the gauntlet

Capitalism’s reckless amnesia
Business as usual returning as financial crisis forgotten

The future of print
The future of print in the Middle East

Campaign innovation in the public’s interest
Innovation to serve the public

Surviving the downturn with intelligent branding
Intelligent brands survive

For your information

Lebanese banks expanding regional reach
Lebanese overseas presence expanding further

A bank that grows from strength to strength
From strength to strength — FFA Bank

The bishops of banking
Mid-sized banks play the same game as the big boys

A defaulting horizon
Wary Dubai banks pinch on mortgages in a high-risk market

Samih Saadeh (Q&A)
An Executive chat with the general manager

Money matters BLOMINVEST Bank

Lebanon’s Cannabis Commerce
From the farms of the Bekaa valley to the streets of Europe

Kicking the habit
Center rehabilitates addicts and spreads awareness about drug abuse

Captain Hook incorporated
East Africa’s piracy business booming

The Mediterranean Madoff
Hundreds of millions of dollars disappear in the Salah Ezzedine scandal

A brutal call
Nokia Siemens “monitoring center” taps phones and tracks protesters

Playing on a shoe string
Sports club revenue limps from the field

Heating wars
Ankara plays on two pipelines

For your information

Arab SWFs slow to return to overseas real estate
Overseas real estate

Cityscape Dubai 2009
Tough times make regional property show a low-key event

Dubai’s slide slows
Market to stabilize in 2010, perhaps even recover in 2011

Small and quaint demand
Housing market in Lebanon underserved at the lower end

Ghassan Youssef (Q&A)
An Executive chat about high-end property developments in Lebanon

Aging potential
Wine industry waits for the right time to ripen

An industry cheers
The Middle East garners a taste for the good drink

A Nuclear Arab World
Atomic energy’s emergence near inevitable

For your information

The Art of doing business in Lebanon
The World Bank’s rankings of country competitiveness

Private equity’s local game
To succeed, private equity needs a local game

Fortifying the home front
Legislation aims to protect and boost capital for national industries

Energy to grow
Electricity infrastructure overhaul to power a charging economy

Financing cedar seedlings
Access to small-business credit could lift thousands of Lebanese out of poverty

Microcredit reaching out
Across the Middle East, microfinance is shifting from a non-profit to a commercial model

“Yahoo!” in Arabic
Internet behemoth buys Maktoob.com to log in to Arab markets

Odeh Shehadeh Zaghmouri
CEO of the Palestinian Company for Distribution and Logistics Services

Company bulletin

Humbled in crisis
US Iran policy reoriented in wake of financial fallout