The Qatar sovereign fund is “carefully looking at” Versace, the Italian daily said, citing financial sources.

The paper cited market rumours as saying the fund was flanked by FSI, the Italian strategic investment fund owned by state financing company Cassa Depositi e Prestiti.

In November, Qatar Holding signed a joint venture agreement with FSI to invest in Italian companies in sectors including food, fashion and luxury.

Il Sole said that there were some 10 other expressions of interest for Versace besides that of Qatar and FSI.

But the paper added things were at an early stage and that the Versace owners had not decided yet whether to sell a minority stake.

FSI said it did not comment market rumours. Versace was not immediately available for a comment.

In April, Versace Chief Executive Gian Giacomo Ferraris told Reuters the house may consider opening the company to outside investors to help fund expansion in overseas markets such as Asia.

Earlier this month Qatar Holding agreed to buy a 40 percent stake in Milan’s real estate development project Porta Nuova for an undisclosed sum.

F&F, which opened its first franchise store in Saudi Arabia last year, said it would open shops across the Middle East and in Kazakhstan, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Up to six stores will be opened this year, with the first in the Kazakh capital Astana next month.

F&F gave no details on how much the expansion would cost or how it would be funded.

“This announcement builds on the success of the first franchise stores and demonstrates our commitment to growing the brand internationally through this model,” F&F Chief Executive Jason Tarry said in a statement.

The company said it would extend its existing agreement with franchise operator Al Hokair, and would also work with new partner Dubai-based Al Futtaim.

F&F clothing is already sold in 12 countries, including the Czech Republic and Poland.

The new virus, known as novel coronavirus, or nCoV, is from the same family of viruses as those that cause common colds and the one that caused the deadly outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) that emerged in Asia in 2003.

“This is the first time health care workers have been diagnosed with (novel coronavirus) infection after exposure to patients,” the Geneva-based U.N. health agency said in a disease outbreak update late on Wednesday.

The health workers are a 45-year-old man, who became ill on May 2 and is currently in a critical condition, and a 43-year-old woman with a coexisting health condition, who fell ill on May 8 and is in a stable condition, the WHO said.

France has also reported a likely case of transmission within a hospital, but this was from one patient to another patient who shared the same room for two days.

NCoV, like SARS and other similar viruses, can cause coughing, fever and pneumonia.

Scientists are on the alert for any sign that nCoV is mutating to become easily transmissible to multiple recipients, like SARS – a scenario that could trigger a pandemic.

WHO experts visiting Saudi Arabia to consult with the authorities on the outbreak said on Sunday it seemed likely the new virus could be passed between humans, but only after prolonged, close contact.

State-backed Emirates Airline, Etihad Airways and Qatar Airways are stitching deals, while Gulf states race to become regional hubs linking the Asia-Pacific region and Europe.

SIA’s promotional fares on its mainstay long-haul routes have helped it boost traffic, but yields are under pressure. Premium class travel, which makes up about 40 percent of revenue, has been hit by cutbacks in corporate budgets.

“They have competitors who have strong financial backing and are also forming alliances, so it’s getting to be a much tougher space,” said Kristy Fong, investment manager at Aberdeen Asset Management, which holds about a 4 percent stake in SIA.

“So the question is whether they can really keep that premium, which is sliding. I don’t think it’s an easy one.”

Under Chief Executive Goh Choon Phong, who took charge in January 2011, SIA is relying on a multi-brand strategy and stepping up its exposure to the budget airlines segment.

With a market value of $11 billion, Asia’s second biggest airline desperately needs growth. Profit slumped nearly 70 percent in the year to March 2012, while revenue edged up, highlighting the severe pressure on margins.

Emirates and Qatar are fiercely challenging the company, controlled by Singaporean state investor Temasek, for the title of top luxury carrier as they invest millions in upgrading lounges and enhancing services.

Singapore’s best known brand also faces stiffer competition from Southeast Asian rivals such as Malaysian Airline System Bhd and Garuda Indonesia (Persero) Tbk PT, which are introducing newer aircraft and adding more connections in an attempt to win back some of their nationals who have previously flown via SIA andSingapore.

On Thursday, SIA - also known by its code SQ – is expected to report a 22 percent rise in net profit to S$409.6 million ($330 million) for the year ending March, according to an average of Thomson Reuters StarMine SmartEstimates. SmartEstimates places emphasis on timely forecasts by top-rated analysts.

The airline has been cutting costs. It said in January it would release all 76 pilots who were employed on fixed-term contracts. These foreign pilots would be let go by the end of June. SIA employs around 2,300 pilots. It did not provide financial details of the cuts.

The U.S. Treasury Department slapped penalties on Al Hilal Exchange and Al Fida International General Trading, saying they had provided financial services to Iran’s blacklisted Bank Mellat.

Aviation union Hava-Is, which says it represents 14,000 of the airline’s 15,800 workers, is demanding that the company rehires 305 employees dismissed after industrial action that grounded hundreds of flights in May last year.

The prospect of a strike this week comes as Turkish Airlines denied media reports of strife within management over the labour unrest and a move to ban female flight attendants wearing red lipstick and nail polish, which it withdrew this month.

Hava-Is had set a May 15 deadline to resolve the dispute with one of the world’s fastest-growing airlines, and the union’s general secretary, Mustafa Yagci, said on Tuesday that “there looks to be a high probability of a strike”.

Yagci said that the union’s chairman had talks with Turkish Airlines Chairman Hamdi Topcu but without any sign of a deal.

“Management stands where it stood five months ago,” he added.

The union said in a previous statement that a strike would begin at 3am local time on May 15. It was not clear how many employees would take part in strike action, but Yagci suggested on Tuesday that there could be significant disruption.

“Turkish Airlines has about 800 daily flights from Istanbul alone. When you consider this, their loss will be great,” he said.

The workers the union wants reinstated were dismissed after the airline had to cancel 223 flights when staff reported ill in protest at a draft law making it illegal for them to strike. Parliament passed the bill last year but the union says it still has the right to take industrial action.

Turkish Airlines Chairman Topcu told NTV television on Monday that collective bargaining talks with Hava-Is were blocked because of the precondition for the 305 dismissed workers. He said that the union should wait for a court ruling on their fate.

The company, which is 49 percent state-owned, also denied that management itself is in dispute over the airline’s recent troubles.

“The characterisation of the issue by some press outlets as a management crisis does not reflect the truth. There is no disagreement in the Turkish Airlines management,” it said in a statement to the Istanbul stock exchange on Monday.

It added that Chief Executive Temel Kotil had requested leave because his father was unwell but had delayed the leave until next week because of the ongoing talks with the union.

The coronavirus is from the same viral family that triggered the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) that swept the world after starting in Asia in late 2003 and killed 775 people.

WHO Assistant Director-General Keiji Fukuda, speaking after a visit to Saudi Arabia, the site of the largest cluster of infections, told reporters in Riyadh there was no evidence so far that the virus was able to sustain “generalised transmission in communities”.

But he added: “Of most concern … is the fact that the different clusters seen in multiple countries … increasingly support the hypothesis that when there is close contact, this novel coronavirus can transmit from person to person.”

A public health expert, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter, said “close contact” in this context meant being in the same small, enclosed space with an infected person for a prolonged period of time.

“We are talking to Airbus about A330s to fill in the gap that the Dreamliner delays have caused Qatar Airways … Anywhere between 10 and 15 (aircraft),” Chief Executive Akbar al Baker told Reuters on Monday.

“It’s a new order,” he said, adding the deal would be finalised by June’s Paris Air Show.

Qatar is among airlines expecting to receive compensation for delays to the delivery schedule for the 787 caused by a series of production snags, and for the grounding in January of Dreamliners already delivered due to battery faults.

Baker said at a press conference in Dubai on Monday that the airline had to forego $200 million in revenue up until April 2013 because of the grounding. It expects to have all five of its Dreamliners which were delivered before the grounding back in service with modified batteries before the end of May.

“We have already spoken to them. We are done,” he said on the topic of compensation, declining to provide further details.

Airbus is benefiting from a revival in sales of the A330 since the 787 encountered production delays even though Boeing plans to bring out a new 320-seat stretched 787 that it believes will eclipse the A330′s appeal.

“The 787 should be an A330 killer but it is late and the penalty payments (from Boeing to airlines) are coming straight to Airbus in the form of new A330 sales,” said an aerospace analyst at the Teal Group consultancy in a recent interview.

Boeing is looking for a prominent customer like Qatar to launch the stretched Dreamliner, code-named 787-10X, which it believes will appeal to airlines that do not need the range of other new jets but want the lower fuel costs of the 787′s lightweight design.

Analysts say Airbus has breathed new life into the A330 by playing up its availability and reliability, while discounting the price to ensure total ownership costs come in below the 787.

Boeing on Wednesday launched a race against Airbus for sales of the newest long-haul jets by announcing it had begun selling an upgraded aircraft family code-named 777X.

First seen in the 1990s, the 777 cornered the market for large twin-engine aircraft able to fly routes previously only possible with four engines, earning it the nickname “mini-jumbo.”

Analysts say the 777 is Boeing’s most profitable plane, thanks largely to the 777-300ER, a 365-seat version that began operations in 2004.

Most of the industry’s attention is now focused on a future 400-seat version known as the 777-9X, which is Boeing Co’s response to a growing challenge from the largest version of Europe’s newest aircraft, the Airbus A350-1000.

But talks between Boeing and potential buyers have also generated interest in a 777-8X that would be a successor to the 777-200LR, the industry’s current distance champion, with a range of more than 9,300 nautical miles (17,200 km), people briefed on the talks said.

The 777-8X, boasting a range of 9,500 nautical miles (17,600 km), would be designed for some of the world’s longest trips such as from the Middle East to South America.

“They are offering an ultra-long range aircraft in the 777-8X,” said an industry source briefed on the plans. “It’ll be the longest range aircraft in the business.”

Boeing declined to comment on specifics, but spokeswoman Karen Crabtree said the company is working with customers to fine tune the details.

Experts say ultra-long range planes deliver mixed benefits to airlines and so far the market for them remains a niche, overshadowed by the juggernauts designed for trunk routes.

That is because when modern aircraft fly the longest 15-hour flights, the first few hours are spent mostly burning the fuel needed to carry even more fuel for the rest of the flight.

These aircraft “carry more fuel to carry more fuel,” said consultant Richard Aboulafia of Virginia-basedTeal Group.

“They need a very big wing with lots of (fuel storage) capacity, which means lots of structure and weight.”

Fuel is not the only source of extra weight. The long journey times also mean loading extra meals and a reserve crew, so that the fuel burned per hour – a measure of efficiency – can end up greater than if the plane simply stopped en route.

Airlines must balance this against any extra revenue they can charge for a direct flight and the ability to eliminate the fuel wasted in climbing and descending twice, as well as en-route landing fees and other costs linked to a stopover.

Grant Cameron, Karl Williams and Suneet Jeerh were arrested in July 2012 during a holiday in the United Arab Emirates. Police said they had found a form of synthetic cannabis in their hire car.

All three had pleaded not guilty to charges of possessing and intending to sell illegal drugs and said police had subjected them to beatings and threatened them with guns – allegations the police deny.

UAE Judge Ali Attiyah Saad sentenced the Britons to four years in jail each at Dubai Criminal Court.

One of the defence lawyers, Issa bin-Haider, said the sentences indicated the court had dropped the charge of intent to sell illegal drugs as that would have carried a more severe punishment.

Abdel-Hamid Mahdi, who represents Grant Cameron, said he planned to appeal the sentence, asking for mercy. It is common for convicts to be pardoned during national and religious holidays in the UAE, particularly first-time offenders.

British Prime Minister David Cameron commented on the case on Sunday, before a visit by UAEPresident Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan who is scheduled to arrive in Britain on Tuesday.

In a letter to Reprieve, a London-based legal charity which campaigns for prisoner rights, he said Britain had repeatedly raised concerns about the torture allegations with the UAE, saying the authorities’ failure to organise a full medical examination of the men was worrisome.

“We continue to press for evidence of a full, impartial and independent investigation,” Cameron wrote.

At a hearing in the case in March, police officer Osman Ali Abdulla, who took part in the Britons’ arrests, denied any of the men were abused or beaten and said they were treated well.

There is zero tolerance for drug-related offences in the UAE, a regional business hub and tourist destination where millions of expatriates live and work. There are severe penalties for drug trafficking and possession.

Reprieve investigator Kate Higham urged Cameron on Monday to push for their release during his talks with the UAE leader.

“The central fact of this case remains that these men were tortured by police, but there has been no proper investigation into their abuse,” she said in a statement.

During his two-day visit to Britain, the UAE leader will be hosted by Queen Elizabeth at Windsor Castle, hold a meeting with Cameron, and have tea with the Prince of Wales. He will be accompanied by a high-level government delegation.

Grant Cameron, Karl Williams and Suneet Jeerh have been held in the UAE since taking a holiday there in July 2012. Police said they had found a form of synthetic cannabis in their hire car. They are due to hear a verdict in their case on Monday.

All three pleaded not guilty to charges of possession of illegal drugs and said police had subjected them to beatings and threatened them with guns, allegations the police deny.

In a letter to Reprieve, a London-based legal charity which campaigns for prisoner rights, Cameron said Britain had repeatedly raised concerns about the torture allegations with the UAE, saying the authorities’ failure to organise a full medical examination of the men was worrisome.

“We continue to press for evidence of a full, impartial and independent investigation,” Cameron wrote.

Cameron’s intervention on the eve of a state visit to Britain by UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan was welcomed by Reprieve, which has been supporting the three men, but is likely to irritate the oil-rich Gulf state.

Britain is hoping the visit will boost trade between the two countries, which has in the past focused on defence contracts.

The UAE leader will arrive on Tuesday and be hosted by Queen Elizabeth at Windsor Castle, hold a meeting with Cameron, and have tea with the Prince of Wales. He will be accompanied by a high-level government delegation during the two-day visit.

Reprieve said the case raised troubling questions.

“The prime minister’s concern is welcome, but it is hard to see how a state visit is appropriate for the president of a country which has tortured our own citizens,” Kate Higham, one of its investigators, said in a statement.

“At the very least, the mistreatment of these three men must be a central issue for discussion during the visit.”

There is zero tolerance for drug-related offences in the United Arab Emirates, a regional business hub and tourist destination where millions of expatriates live and work. There are severe penalties for drug trafficking and possession.

Last year, a British citizen and a Syrian were sentenced to death by a UAE court after they were convicted of selling drugs to an undercover policeman. The sentences were later commuted to four years in prison.

The mother of one of the men told BBC TV her son’s arrest had been a “horror story” and that she hoped the UAE leader would intervene.

“I sincerely hope that he is able to look into the case and show a level of clemency to the boys because, sincerely, that’s what needs to happen in this case and hopefully, once he’s made aware, he can make that happen,” said Tracy Cameron. She said lawyers believed her son was likely to be found guilty of at least one charge and could be jailed for 15 years or longer.

The United Arab Emirates reinstated a visa waiver for Canadian citizens in April which it withdrew amid a dispute over landing rights more than two years ago.

Canada was one of more than 30 countries, mostly Western, that benefited from a visa waiver the UAE offered to their citizens. But Canadians were told in November 2010 they had to obtain a visa in advance at a cost of as much as $1,000.

Etihad and Dubai carrier Emirates had been lobbying the Canadian government to boost thrice-weekly direct flights to Toronto and more Canadian destinations, with support from the UAE government, but failed to gain greater access.

“On the back of UAE normalising the visa rules with Canada, (the codeshare agreement) gives us the opportunity to sell beyond Toronto to the other Canadian cities,” Etihad’s chief executive James Hogan said.

There has been no indication on whether renewed cooperation between the two countries would lead to more landing rights.

“We’ve always been very clear that we want to go there daily,” said Hogan.

The codeshare is part of a series of partnerships for Etihad, as it pursues ambitious global expansion plans.

It sealed a $379 million deal for a 24 percent stake in India’s Jet Airways on Wednesday.

Etihad and Air Canada will offer customers through-checked bags, reciprocal codeshare services and frequent flyer benefits, the airlines said in a statement, adding that the codeshare services would be introduced in the third quarter.

“For the engagement of German companies in Qatar, it is very important that tender procedures are fair and transparent and the legal framework is reliable,” Merkel told a Qatari business and investment conference in Berlin.

Infrastructure spending in Qatar will average over 10 percent of gross domestic product ahead of the World Cup, with activity in the construction sector likely to peak around 2015, its state planning authority has said.

The Qatari government has allocated 40 percent of its budget between now and 2016 to fund a string of mega-projects, including $5.5 billion for a deepwater seaport, $20 billion for roads and a $17.5 billion new airport.

Ibrahim al Ibrahim, economic adviser to the emir of Qatar, said the country hoped to benefit from the know-how of Germany’s industrial sector as it developed its economy.

Merkel said Europe’s largest economy in turn was increasingly getting energy from Qatar, which is the world’s top exporter of liquefied natural gas.

“Renewables are gaining in importance but also gas is obviously low in CO2 emissions and very much a future-oriented source of energy,” Merkel said.

European low-cost carrier Wizz Air and Saudi Arabia’s nasair will begin passenger operations into Dubai World Central, Dubai Airports said in a statement.

Dubai World Central is designed eventually to cater to 160 million passengers, which would make it the world’s largest airport on completion. It is supposed ultimately to replace the emirate’s current international airport, Dubai International - though this will not happen before next decade at the earliest.

Big airlines, including Dubai’s flagship carrier Emirates , have not indicated any plans to move to the new facility, which was originally due to open for passenger traffic in March 2011.

Dubai is still pressing ahead with a $7.8-billion plan to expand Dubai International and opened a dedicated terminal there for Emirates Airbus A380s in January. Passenger flows through Dubai International jumped 13.2 percent last year to 57.68 million people.

Last month the airport became the world’s second busiest for international passenger traffic, moving ahead of Charles de Gaulle in Paris. London’s Heathrow is the busiest.

“Concerning the timing of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, we have always reiterated that we bid on the parameters that we would host in the summer of 2022,” the Qatar 2022 supreme committee said in a statement.

“Various figures from the world of football have raised preferences for hosting in the winter. We are ready to host the World Cup in summer or winter. Our planning isn’t affected either way…”

FIFA president Sepp Blatter said on Thursday that any request to change the timing of the event to cooler months would have to come from Qatar, where temperatures can exceed 40 degrees celsius in June and July.

“If there is a move, it must come from Qatar,” he said, adding that FIA would otherwise stand by the shock decision they made in December 2010 to award soccer’s biggest event to the tiny Gulf state.

However the world soccer body’s secretary general Jerome Valcke said this month that the tournament could be rescheduled if medical evidence showed that the intense heat could harm players.

UEFA president Michel Platini, a former France international, is a staunch opponent of a summer World Cup in Qatar and has repeatedly called for a switch.

MAJOR HEADACHE

Historically, the World Cup has always been held in June and July and any change could lead to a major scheduling headache with the major European leagues normally playing through the winter.

The qualifying programme for the World Cup would have to start and finish six months earlier – it usually ends in the November of the year preceding the finals – and that would have an impact on soccer in all six of FIFA’s confederations.

It would also affect the 2022 Winter Olympics and many other events.

Qatar’s right to stage the 2022 World Cup if the event is moved to the winter months would also be open to a legal challenge.

The vanquished contenders – the United States, Australia, Japan and South Korea - have let it be known unofficially in FIFA circles that they would consider such action.

Any legal challenge would have to be done through FIFA and not a court of law, because FIFA owns the World Cup and its own statutes govern when it should be played. At the moment the rule states that the World Cup must be staged in June and/or July.

FIFA would also have to decide which of its bodies could rule on the issue.

Until last year, the executive committee decided on the host nation, but that has been rescinded and now the Congress of 206 member nations must decide the hosts for future World Cups.

Organisers plan to host the tournament in air-conditioned stadiums which will be dismantled after the competition and shipped to developing nations.

Friday’s statement said Qatar had committed “considerable resources” during the bidding process to proving that the cooling technology would work in open-air stadiums, training grounds and fan zones and they would press ahead with developing the systems regardless.

“Our commitment to this is grounded in the legacy it will offer for Qatar and countries with similar climates. It will enable sport to be played 12 months of the year,” it added.

“The application of this technology is not limited to stadiums or sports venues. It can be applied in public spaces, so outdoor life can be enjoyed all year round, regardless of climate.”

Qatar 2022 said the technology, powered by renewable energy, had been in use at the Al Sadd stadiumsince 2008.

One new stadium will break ground this year with five more in the planning stages.

Dubai-based GFH Capital purchased the club from majority shareholder Ken Bates at the end of last year after negotiations that lasted for several months.

GFH Capital board member Salem Patel told a news conference at the time that it would not spend “crazy money” to restore the Championship (second division) club to the elite Premier League.

Accounts published last month by GFH Capital’s parent, Bahrain firm Gulf Finance House show that the new owner is preparing a swift exit.

“The Group has an active plan to sell its stake in LUFC Holdings Limited, and accordingly, the asset and liabilities acquired were classified as held-for-sale and presented in the consolidated statement of financial position,” Gulf Finance House said in end-year financial statements dated Feb 21, 2013.

It added that it had begun negotiations related to the sale of its stake since the end of last year.

BARGAIN PURCHASE

The accounts show a net cash payment of $33.226 million to buy the business last year. Reports in December said the cost of the Leeds deal could be up to 52 million pounds ($78.6 million), but that figure was not confirmed.

In its accounts, Gulf Finance House booked a goodwill gain of $10.369 million on the deal, and said “the bargain purchase was due to pressure on the sellers to exit their holdings due to change in their business plans.”

Leeds, which last won the English league title in 1992, are currently in 10th place in the Championship, outside the play-off spots for a lucrative Premier League spot.

Contacted by Reuters, GFH Capital deputy chief executive David Haigh declined to comment, referring queries to the club.

The club declined direct comment but pointed to an article published in the Guardian newspaper last month which said the new owner was seeking investors and would prefer to sell a 30 percent stake. It would consider selling a majority if the buyer had the funds to bring success, the report added.

In a message to fans on Leeds’ website dated Feb. 10, GFH Capital said it had rejected an offer for a majority stake in the club.

“Although we continue to seek strategic investors, we will only bring on board those who we feel can make a positive contribution to the sustainable success of Leeds United.”

Bank Mellat, Iran’s biggest private sector lender, wants the sanctions lifted on the basis that the government has failed to provide evidence of a connection between itself and Tehran’s nuclear activities.

Bank Mellat won a similar legal battle against European Union sanctions in January, raising concerns among diplomats that court rulings could erode the sanctions regime against Iran.

Tehran says its nuclear work has only peaceful purposes but the U.N. Security Council has ordered it to suspend uranium enrichment, concerned that its ultimate goal is to develop the means to build nuclear weapons.

“Sanctions are an important way to enforce international law in a peaceful manner, but they must be subject to the rule of law and require evidence,” said Sarosh Zaiwalla, a London-based lawyer representing Bank Mellat.

The sanctions against Bank Mellat, which came into force in October 2009, prevent anyone in the British financial sector from having any business relationship or conducting any transactions with the bank.

Bank Mellat says it has been unable to defend itself against the government’s allegation that it indirectly facilitated the nuclear programme because some of the evidence, obtained from intelligence sources, was heard in secret in a lower court.

The government wants the Supreme Court to consider the secret material as part of its deliberations onBank Mellat’s appeal. But the bank says that would be unfair as it has not been shown the evidence against it in order to rebut it.

The debate highlights the challenge for Western governments seeking to impose sanctions on Iranian companies, caught between the need to provide sufficient evidence to stand up in court while not compromising intelligence sources.

Civil rights group Liberty has intervened in the case, arguing that it would go against open justice for the Supreme Court to consider secret material, and it would breach Bank Mellat’s right to a fair trial.

But a lawyer acting for the government, Jonathan Swift, told the court it would be “disabled” from understanding the rulings made by the lower courts if it did not see the whole picture.

The issue of how the Supreme Court handles the secret material is considered so important that the case is being heard by nine judges instead of the usual five.

The hearings are scheduled to last three days, with the whole of Tuesday devoted to legal arguments about whether the court should or should not look at the secret material.

Once it has decided what to do about that issue, the Supreme Court will go on to consider the question of whether the sanctions against Bank Mellat were lawful or not. It will give its judgment on that at a later date.

The ‘friendly’ aspect of it, as CNN reports, represents only one factor in the tourism report among other things like safety and security and human resources. The 14 pillars upon which the report sits are below:

1. Policy rules and regulations
2. Environmental sustainability
3. Safety and security
4. Health and hygiene
5. Prioritization of Travel & Tourism
6. Air transport infrastructure
7. Ground transport infrastructure
8. Tourism infrastructure
9. ICT infrastructure
10. Price competitiveness in the T&T industry
11. Human resources
12. Affinity for Travel & Tourism
13. Natural resources
14. Cultural resources

As far as what countries ‘feel’ like the most and least welcoming to visitors, here is the list below:

Attitude of population toward foreign visitors
(1 = very unwelcome; 7 = very welcome)

Friendliest

1. Iceland  6.8
2. New Zealand  6.8
3. Morocco  6.7
4. Macedonia, FYR  6.7
5. Austria  6.7
6. Senegal  6.7
7. Portugal  6.6
8. Bosnia and Herzegovina  6.6
9. Ireland  6.6
10. Burkina Faso  6.6

Unfriendliest

1. Bolivia  4.1
2. Venezuela  4.5
3. Russian Federation  5.0
4. Kuwait  5.2
5. Latvia  5.2
6. Iran  5.2
7. Pakistan  5.3
8. Slovak Republic  5.5
9. Bulgaria  5.5
10. Mongolia  5.5

Marks & Spencer, a FTSE 100 company and a mainstay of British town centres, declined to comment on the article. Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) could not immediately be reached for comment.

QIA has approached several large private equity houses including CVC, the owner of Formula One, about participating in a consortium to bid for the retailer, the Sunday Times said.

Marks & Spencer, in the midst of a costly expansion plan, has been struggling to grow sales and in May slashed a three-year sales growth target.

Clothing and other non-food sales slumped more than expected in the Christmas quarter and a new general merchandise management team has been tasked with turning around non-food sales.

Speculation that a sovereign wealth fund or private equity investors could bid for M&S have been circulating for over six months.

Qatar has been the most active of the Gulf region’s sovereign investors in recent years, and owns stakes in companies including British supermarket chain J Sainsbury , Credit Suisse, Barclays, and London’s famed Harrods department store.

The European market is increasingly crowded and facing the twin pressures of a fragile economy and fresh central bank liquidity driving up asset prices, Qinvest head Craig Cowie told Reuters. That is encouraging the company to channel its approximately $200 million of available property investment capital elsewhere, he said.

Qatari investors have been big post-financial crisis buyers of prime European real estate, from Harrods department store in London to the Peninsula Hotel in Paris. Qinvest has specific limitations, however, as it is not a deep-pocketed sovereign wealth fund and as it applies Sharia Islamic rules.

With targeted returns of up to 6 percent and over, the bank’s plan is to focus on assets in U.S. retail – such as single-tenant units on New York City’s Fifth Avenue – and in the less liquid and less crowded Qatari market.

“This year we are going to try and do a little bit more in Qatar and the North American market,” Cowie said in an interview on the sidelines of the MIPIM property conference in Cannes. “The European market is just getting very crowded again.”

Qinvest is a unit of Qatar Islamic Bank and is in the process of taking over Egyptian investment bank EFG Hermes , though regulators have yet to approve the deal.

Cowie declined to comment on the situation beyond saying it was up to the regulator to decide. If the deal goes ahead, given that EFG does not have a real estate operation, Cowie said his division would probably continue investing as before.

Qinvest’s European investments, including the Shard and industrial property assets in Paris, were acquired around two years ago at a time when debt was harder to come by and when financially robust investors were in shorter supply, Cowie said.

The bank has since sold its stake in the Shard.

“There’s lots of new equity washing around – Chinese, Malaysian, North American,” he said. “It’s a lot more crowded and harder to do off-market or discreet deals. It’s tougher to compete.”

Cowie, a South African who previously worked for Al Rajhi in Saudi Arabia before joining Qinvest, also said that uncertain growth prospects were pressuring returns in Western Europe and putting the brakes on activity elsewhere.

“The world is still fragile … Some parts of Europe are completely stalled,” he added.

The 39-year-old developed symptoms of the novel corona virus (NCoV) on Feb. 24 and died on March 2, several days after being hospitalised, the WHO said in a disease outbreak update.

NCoV is from the same family of viruses as those that cause common colds and the one that caused the deadly outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) that first emerged in Asia in 2003. The new virus is not the same as SARS, but similar to it and also to other coronaviruses found in bats.

The WHO first issued an international alert in September after the virus infected a Qatari man in Britain who had recently been in Saudi Arabia.

Symptoms of NCoV include severe respiratory illness, fever, coughing and breathing difficulties.

“Preliminary investigation indicated that the (latest Saudi)patient had no contact with previously reported cases of NCoV infection,” the WHO said. “Other potential exposures are under investigation.”

Nine of the 15 people confirmed to have been infected with NCoV have died. Most cases have been in the Middle East or in patients who had recently travelled there.

Research by scientists in Europe has found that NCoV is well adapted to infecting humans and may be treatable with medicines similar to the ones used for SARS, which killed a tenth of the 8,000 people it infected.

The Geneva-based WHO said it was monitoring the situation closely and urged its member states to continue surveillance for severe acute respiratory infections and to carefully review any unusual patterns.

“WHO is currently working with international experts and countries where cases have been reported to assess the situation and review recommendations for surveillance and monitoring,” it said, adding that national authorities should “promptly assess and notify” it of any new NCoV cases.

Hadidi added that any loan agreement would be within the framework of the country’s economic programme.

Egypt is seeking a $4.8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund to stave off a balance of payments crisis, but securing IMF aid would involve committing to austerity measures that are likely to lead to unrest.

“There will not be a fast or emergency loan,” Hadidi told reporters, adding that no timing had been set yet for an IMF mission to visit Egypt.

The IMF said in statements on Monday that Egypt had the option of using the Rapid Financing Instrument, a lending facility designed to provide rapid and limited assistance to member countries, and an Egyptian source at the finance ministry said Cairo was studying the offer.

“There is no agreement yet over the arrival of the mission and we are waiting for them,” Hadidi said.

Earlier, Planning and International Cooperation Minister Ashraf al-Araby said an IMF mission was expected to come to Cairo in coming days.

DP World, one of the more profitable assets of debt-laden Dubai World, has been selling assets globally since last year, exiting markets where it does not have a significant presence and redeploying funds in fast-growing markets.

“We believe Hong Kong will continue to be a very interesting market. However, our presence was small relative to the market,” Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, Chairman of DP World said in a statement to the Nasdaq Dubai bourse.

“This reorganisation, forming a strategic partnership and partially monetising some assets, allows us to realise value and recycle capital into new, fast growing opportunities in other markets.”

DP World will sell 75 percent of its stakes in container terminals CSX World Terminals Hong Kong Limited and ATL Logistics Centre Hong Kong Limited (ATL) to a unit of Australian warehouse operator Goodman Group for $463 million in cash.

DP World is also selling all its 55.2 percent stake in Asia Container Terminal Ltd, which operates Asia Container Terminal 8 West (CT8), to Hutchison Port Holdings Trust, a unit of conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa Ltd for $279 million.

The disposals are expected to result in a net gain of $151 million for DP World and help boost its capital levels, the port operator said.

In a separate statement, Goodman said it plans to fund $300 million of the deal through raising additional equity. The Australian firm’s shares closed at a 4-year high of A$4.93.

DP World sold its quarter stake in a Russian container terminal to Global Ports Investment for $230 million in October last year.

The firm also sold its operations in Belgium in 2012 and also quit its venture in Yemen.

DP World shares were down 0.7 percent on Nasdaq Dubai. They have risen 12 percent year-to-date.

With almost 40 percent of the country’s seven million population aged under 15, youth unemployment is a particular problem and has almost doubled over the past decade.

There are at least 50,000 new entrants to Jordan’s labour market every year.

“This loan will support the creation of much needed employment opportunities for Jordan’s growing population of young people,” the World Bank’s Ferid Belhaj said in a statement, adding that it will also alleviate poverty and boost economic growth.

Arab uprisings in the region have held back economic growth in Jordan, hitting domestic demand and reducing the flow of cash from overseas, particular from expatriates sending money to relatives.

Jordan says its unemployment rate stands at 14 percent, but independent economists estimate that it is considerably higher.

In its 2013 edition – which was published today – the business magazine ranked the Saudi Prince as the world’s 26^th richest individual and estimated his wealth at $20 billion. This number is $2 billion higher than last year but $9.6 billion less than what the prince says he is actually worth. He adds that he is meant to be ranked at number 10.

In response to the list – Kingdom Holding Group, an investment group in which Alwaleed owns a 95 percent stake – has released a statement accusing Forbes’ valuation methods of being flawed “which resulted in the use of incorrect data and seemed designed to disadvantage Middle Eastern investors and institutions.”

In a letter to Steve Forbes (owner), Alwaleed said that he no longer wants to be included in their annual list, will not be providing them with information about his finances and, according to The Guardian, has reportedly instructed his lawyers over the matter.

When several large media publications including The Guardian and Business Insider contacted Forbes for a statement, they said they’d been investigating Alwaleed’s finances for several years and would detail their findings in a feature story.

The story, entitled ‘Why Prince Alwaleed’s Wealth Numbers Don’t Add Up‘, has now been officially published on Forbes online. It begins with a rather bold statement, and is succeeded by many others.

“While public companies are almost always a market-proven determinant of net worth, in light of Kingdom’s opacity, small float and thin, questionable trading, FORBES decided to focus on the underlying assets.”

The article goes on to say that any reporter who has spent any time with the Saudi royal – or shown any amount of interest – can expect to ‘at some point receive little gifts’ and that the prince ‘had charged his CFO with making sure the Forbes list was to his liking; specifically $29.6 billion, which would return him to the top ten position he has craved’.

So far, the relationship between the two seems to be wearing thin. Only time will tell what the future holds, and it really all depends on the nature of the rebuttal- if there is any – that the prince will provide.

Read the full article here.

Photo source

The bid is likely to be mounted in the next few weeks, seeking to buy out the current majority owner, U.S. sports investor Stan Kroenke, the British newspaper said.

The Middle Eastern investors do not want to reveal their identities yet but will be backed by funds from Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, the newspaper reported late on Saturday without naming its sources.

The consortium would make available transfer funds “to transform the club into a major force in European and world football”, the newspaper quoted an unnamed source familiar with the plan as saying.

“The bid team regard Arsenal as one of the great clubs of European football but also one that is no longer punching its weight and is in danger of falling behind,” it said.

The newspaper added that the consortium would pledge to reduce ticket prices at Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium in London, and would aim to recreate there some of the atmosphere of Highbury, Arsenal’s historic former stadium.

The takeover would raise questions over the future of Arsenal’s manager, Arsene Wenger, although the consortium values his football knowledge and want him to remain at the club, The Telegraph said.

An acquisition would add to a string of investments in European soccer teams by Middle Eastern interests over the last several years.

Manchester City, the current English Premier League champions, were bought by a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family in 2008, while Kuwait’s al-Hasawi family bought twice European Cup winners Nottingham Forest in July last year. France’s Paris St Germain and Spain’s Malaga are owned by Qatari investors.

No reason was given for the cancellation in a statement by the Abu Dhabi Group, which Sheikh Nahayan chairs.

The memorandum of understanding with Pakistani real estate tycoon Malik Riaz Hussain to build residential properties on an island had been touted in Pakistan as the country’s biggest ever foreign investment.

The statement received by Reuters said no financial obligation or commitment had been assumed by the sheikh, the conglomerate, or his privately owned construction firm Dhabi Contracting.

“It is…unfortunate that discussions between the parties could not reach any conclusion and the Memorandum of Understanding has been cancelled,” it said.

Abu Dhabi Group, which invests in emerging markets, has large investments in Pakistan including Bank Alfalah Ltd , Warid Telecom, Al Razi Healthcare and Wateen Telecom.

Mace will manage the development in a joint venture with construction consultant EC Harris, part of Dutch group Arcadis , and the tower will be built by Saudi construction firm Bin Laden Group.

The tower’s height will exceed a kilometre – precisely by how much is a secret but the structure will take over from Dubai’s 828-metre tall Burj Khalifa as the world’s tallest skyscraper.

Plans were unveiled 18 months ago by Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal as the centrepiece to the Kingdom City development in Jeddah, a major Red Sea port.

“One of the reasons we hired them is they are going to use the same team that was on The Shard,” Waleed Abduljaleel Batterjee, chief executive of developer Jeddah Economic Company, told British trade magazine Building.

Oil-rich Saudi Arabia is undertaking multi-billion dollar projects to improve its infrastructure and meet its massive housing needs, spending over $400 billion in the five years to 2013 in addition to more than $130 million in social spending.

Construction will take just over five years and the tower, to include a hotel, serviced apartments and luxury condominiums, will be more than three times taller than the 308-metre tall Shard when complete in 2018.

Sheikh Hamed bin Zayed al-Nahayan, speaking on the sidelines of a defence exhibition in the UAE capital, said officials would meet Indian Trade Minister Anand Sharma to discuss the deal.

Asked if a Jet deal would be signed by March or April, Sheikh Hamed said: “I don’t know … we need to revise it.”

The terms of the possible deal have not been disclosed, but a government source said earlier this month Etihad was in talks to pick up a 24 percent stake in Jet for up to $330 million.

Asked if a Jet deal would be finalised soon, Sheikh Hamed said: “It’s too early to decide.”

Sheikh Hamed, who is also managing director of sovereign wealth fund Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, did not specify why the deal needs to be revised.

“We need to talk with the Indians about other issues … including this,” he said.

Unlisted Etihad’s chief executive said this month the Abu Dhabi carrier was conducting due diligence on making an investment and would present the findings to its board.

The Jet Airways deal would be the first foreign investment in India’s aviation industry since the government relaxed ownership rules last September.

This allows foreign airlines to buy up to 49 percent in the country’s domestic carriers, many of which are facing stiff competition and high operating costs.

Sheikh Hamed also dismissed talk of the carrier’s interest in India’s grounded Kingfisher Airlines as “rumours”.

Kingfisher said in December it was in talks with several investors, including Etihad, for a stake sale but those hopes have faded as the indebted airline remains grounded.

Japan’s Nikkei newspaper said last week that Toshimitsu Motegi would sign an agreement during a visit to Saudi Arabia to allow Tokyo to call for more oil in the event of emergency shortages.

Japan’s reliance on oil imports has intensified since the shutdown of many nuclear power plants after the Fukushima disaster in 2011, but any deal to give Japan priority access to Saudi crude in the event of supply shortages would worry other oil importers.

Motegi met Saudi Deputy Oil Minister Abdul Aziz Bin Salman bin Abdulaziz in Saudi Arabia on Saturday.

“At the moment, there is no concern whatsoever that Japan is under supplied in terms of oil,” Motegi told journalists on Sunday when asked whether he had sought assurances that Riyadh would sellJapan more oil in the event of a supply crisis.

“It was not that we have asked for any specific request for increase of production or supply. It was just the confirmation of the relationship we have,” he said through an interpreter in the United Arab Emirates. He gave no further details.

Crude imports from Saudi Arabia accounted for 31 percent of Japan’s total in 2012, with shipments rising 5 percent from a year earlier to 1.14 million barrels per day, partly offseting a 39.5 percent decline in Iranian crude imports due to sanctions.

State-run Saudi Aramco signed a deal with Japan in 2010 to store 3.8 million barrels of crude in the Asian nation’s Okinawa Oil Base for emergency supplies to the kingdom’s customers in the region.

Saudi Arabia is the only country with enough spare oil production capacity to compensate for any significant global supply disruptions. If Japan were to secure priority access to it, that could concern other buyers.

Oil markets have been on edge because of tensions between the West and Iran over Tehran’s nuclear programme, following disruptions in Libya in 2011 and attacks on oil facilities in Yemen.

OPEC heavyweight Saudi Arabia has repeatedly pledged to supply its customers with all the oil they need. With a stated capacity to produce up to 12.5 million barrels per day (bpd), it could pump nearly 3.5 million bpd more than it did last month.

Under terms of a deal that are still being finalized, US Airways Chief Executive Doug Parker would become CEO, while AMR’s Tom Horton would serve as non-executive chairman of the board until spring of 2014, when the combined company holds its first annual meeting, the sources said.

The deal would come more than 14 months after the parent of American Airlines filed for bankruptcy in November 2011, and would mark the last combination of legacy U.S. carriers, following the Delta-Northwest and United-Continental mergers.

The all-stock merger is expected to value the combined carrier at between $10.5 billion and $11 billion, and would give AMR creditors 72 percent of the ownership in the new company and US Airways shareholders the rest, they said.

The board of each airline is expected to meet in the middle of the coming week to vote on the proposed deal, and an announcement would likely come in the latter part of the week, the sources said, asking not to be named because the matter is not public.

Negotiations are continuing and could still be delayed or fall apart, they cautioned.

The companies had initially tried to schedule board meetings for Monday, the day that AMR’s creditors committee planned to convene, and had aimed to announce a deal as soon as Tuesday, sources told Reuters previously.

But AMR needed more time to finalize details and the boards of the two airlines are now not expected to gather until around Wednesday, the sources said.

The AMR creditors committee is still meeting on Monday in New York, as initially scheduled, and will continue discussions as the airlines finalize negotiations, they added.

A lawyer for the creditors committee declined to comment. Representatives for AMR and US Airwaysdeclined to comment.

A combination with US Airways would create the world’s top airline by passenger traffic and help the two carriers better compete with rivals United Continental Holdings and Delta Air Lines Inc.

A near-$11 billion valuation of the combined American-US Airways compares to some $12.4 billion market capitalization for Delta, and $8.7 billion for United Continental.

The currently planned equity split ratio between AMR creditors and US Airways shareholders implies a roughly $3 billion valuation for US Airways and some $7.5 billion to $8 billion valuation for AMR.

Etihad, which has stakes in Air Berlin and Virgin Australia, earned a net profit of $42 million in 2012, compared with $14 million in the previous year.

Revenue rose 17 percent in 2012 to $4.8 billion from $4.1 billion in 2011, the airline said in a statement.

The eight-year old carrier made its first profit in 2011.

Unlisted Etihad has been on an acquisition drive in recent months, taking minority equity stakes in Virgin Australia and Aer Lingus and raising its shareholding in Air Berlin and Air Seychelles.

A deal with Jet Aiways, which would be the first foreign investment into India’s aviation market, is expected this week, an official at the Indian airline, who declined to be identified, said in January.

The UAE carrier competes with key Gulf rivals like Emirates and Qatar Airways, which are all growing their reach into Europe, Asia and other markets.

Etihad said it carried 10.3 million passengers last year, up 23 percent over 2011. The average seat factor was 78.2 percent, up 2.4 percent over 2011.

Equity and codeshare partners contributed to more than 1.2 million passengers tapping Etihad’s network. The airline hedged 80 percent of fuel costs during the year, the same level as in 2011.

Major food companies like Tesco and Burger King last month found that beef products supplied by an Irish firm contained horse DNA, a scandal that has hit retailers with a wave of bad publicity and left Ireland’s 2 billion euro ($2.7 billion) beef industry reeling.

Results of tests on a Polish meat ingredient at Ireland’s Rangeland Foods, a supplier of frozen burgers to restaurants, caterers and pubs including local fast food chain Supermac’s, contained 75 percent horse DNA, the agriculture department in a statement.

It said Rangeland has suspended production pending the outcome of an investigation and that the company has indicated that none of the products, which were imported through a meat trader based inIreland, had entered the food chain.

Rangeland, based in the northern county of Monaghan, exports burgers to Britain, Sweden, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Greece and Cyprus.

The minister of agriculture has also asked the police to join in the investigation, the department added.

The first supplier to be implicated, Silvercrest – a subsidiary of Europe’s largest beef exporter ABP Foods – has lost its contract to supply both Tesco and Burger King with burgers.

Burger King, one of the most popular fast-food chains in Britain and Ireland, said last week that its affected burgers never reached any eateries. Tesco withdrew a number of products from its shelves, including one sample where horse meat accounted for about 29 percent of content.

Smaller retail chains Aldi, Lidl and Iceland have also sold beef products found to contain horse DNA.

Poland’s veterinary authority found no signs of horse meat in samples from five slaughterhouses that were sending beef to Ireland and is awaiting results from the sixth, state news agency PAP reported on Friday.

Food safety experts say horse DNA poses no added health risks to consumers, but the discovery has raised concerns about the food supply chain and the ability to trace meat ingredients.

The new BlackBerry 10 phones will compete with Apple’s iPhone and devices using Google’s Android technology, both of which have soared above the BlackBerry in a competitive market.

They boast fast browsers, new features, smart cameras and, unlike previous BlackBerry models, enter the market primed with a large app library.

BP operates the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (AGC) oil field and Shah Deniz gas field in the Caspian, which lies to the north of Iran, on behalf of the Azeri government with state energy company Socar.

Iranian officials have complained that Azeri oil has washed up on Iranian beaches over the last year, with Iran’s Press TV reporting on Sunday that Iran may sue Azerbaijan.

Mehr news reported on Tuesday that deputy DoE chief Abdolreza Karbasi accused BP of dumping oil waste into the Caspian Sea and that Iran might target BP in court if it continued.

“Last year, southern coasts of the Caspian Sea were covered with oily patches, and in the last such case, four months ago, 25 tons were cleared from Iranian coasts,” Karbasi was quoted by Mehr as saying.

He did not say which court Iran might try to sue BP in.

A spokesman for BP said the company had committed to officially report any leaks in the Caspian and had not had to for years.

“We are a responsible operator in the Caspian and as such we have rigorous HSE (Health, Safety, Environment) processes and procedures in place in line with international standards,” BP said in an emailed statement on Tuesday.

Last October, Azeri president Ilham Aliyev attacked BP - the biggest foreign investor in Azerbaijan - over declining output from the AGC fields in the last few years.

BP’s partners on the AGC project include Exxon Mobil , Chevron and Statoil.

European officials have accused Tehran of stalling on arranging a meeting with the six nations, including Russia, that are trying to prevent Iran developing atomic weapons. Tehran says its nuclear programme is entirely for peaceful purposes.

“Some of our partners in the six powers and the Iranian side cannot come to an agreement about where to meet,” Lavrov told a news conference after talks with Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders.

“We are ready to meet at any location as soon as possible,” Lavrov said. “We believe the essence of our talks is far more important (than the site), and we hope that common sense will prevail and we will stop behaving like little children.”

Three rounds of talks in the first half of last year between Iran and the six powers - Russia, the United States, China, Britain, France and Germany - produced no breakthrough, increasing speculation Israelcould attack Iranian nuclear installations.

Talks had been expected to resume after the U.S. presidential election, possibly as early as this month. An Iranian news agency reported this month that talks might resume on Jan. 28 and 29, but the EU said there was no agreement.

A deal may be announced as early as Friday or by the first week of February, the TV channel said, citing unnamed sources.

The Gulf carrier could pay up to $330 million for a 24 percent stake in Jet, India’s second-biggest carrier, a senior government source said earlier this month.

Etihad and Jet did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Indian government allowed foreign carriers to buy stakes of up to 49 percent in local carriers in September 2012, a move seen as a boon for India’s debt-laden airlines.

Jet has previously said it was in talks with Etihad, but the terms of the deal were not finalised.

Etihad and Jet have a code-sharing agreement, and a tie-up could make Jet a more formidable competitor to state-owned Air India, while strengthening Etihad’s position against Dubai-based Emirates Airline, which carries a big chunk of the traffic between India and the Middle East.

Jet shares, which have gained 180 percent over the past year on hopes of a potential fund raising, were up 2 percent at 617.25 rupees on the National Stock Exchange.

The maker of sports cars, made famous by James Bond spy movies, plans to invest $1 billion in new products and technology after Italian private equity fund Invest industrial bought a 37.5 percent stake last month via a capital increase agreed with majority Kuwaiti owner Investment Dar.

“First of all it brings the money to the company, which we can use for the next generation of products from 2015 to 2025,” Bez told Reuters after a helicopter lifted a red Vanquish to the top of Dubai’s iconic sail-shaped Burj Al Arab hotel in a stunt to celebrate the centenary of the brand.

“And of course I would expect that they also have know-how and feeling for products for five years or 10 years into the future. I expect that the Italians bring a lot of experience.”

The fund, owned by Italy’s Bonomi family, beat Indian tractor maker Mahindra and Mahindra.

The 100-year-old maker of the DB9 and Vanquish sports cars has struggled in recent years. It sold 2,340 cars in January-September 2012, 19 percent down from 2011.

Asked whether investors should be concerned about involvement of the private equity fund in Aston Martin, Bez said: “Look, the private equity has one aim and this is to increase the value of the investment.”

“Aston Martin is not a conglomerate, which you would sell parts off and destroy it. Aston Martin is one entity. I am absolutely confident that the private investment house is very good for Aston Martin,” he said.

Investindustrial has said the group hoped to transform Aston Martin in a similar way it revamped Italian motorcycle maker Ducati by expanding Aston’s model range and strengthening its global dealership network.

Bez also denied the entry of the private equity firm was just a quick fix because Aston Martin could not draw another car manufacturer as some analysts suggested.

“First of all, in our industry there is no quick fix. The car industry is working in five-year periods,” Bez, who has been with the company for 13 years, said.

“This is not something that gives us an additional access to technology we would not have without this.”

4X4 ASTON MARTIN

Aston Martin, perhaps best known for its classic DB5 sports car from early Bond movies, has said the deal would enable it to invest in new products and a technology programme up to 2018.

The British car maker is owned by a consortium of its chairman David Richards, Investment Dar and another Kuwaiti fund, Adeem Investment Co. U.S.-based Ford, which sold Aston Martin to them in 2007, still holds a small stake.

Asked whether Investment Dar was committed to remain a long-term investor in the company, Bez said: “I do not have any other indication or that there is a change.”

Aston Martin sells some 15 percent of its vehicles in Asia but wants to significantly raise its presence in emerging markets like China over time.

“A sports car in China where there is not a huge and long-term culture in driving is not the primary focus. This is not a strategy that depends on what we do but this is how the market develops when you are present,” he told Reuters.

“We have now 15 dealers in China, they have just started. … In the time horizon of five years we will have a very strong hold in China,” he said.

Asked whether the carmaker had a near-term plan for a four-wheel drive Aston Martin, Bez told a news conference: “A car with a higher ground clearance and four- and all-wheel drive would be very helpful (in the Middle East) as we have seen from other companies,” he said.

“So we have plans but I can’t tell you it’s next year or it’s 2017; it’s not yet in this stage.” he added.

Under the draft agreement revealed by Reuters on Wednesday, BP will undertake work to arrest declining production at the Kirkuk oilfield.

Kirkuk’s oil riches are at the centre of a crisis within the national government of Sunni, Shi’ite and Kurdish parties over how to share power amid increasing worries the country may relapse into wide-scale sectarian bloodshed.

At least 25 people died on Wednesday in a Kirkuk suicide bombing.

BP will be working on the Baghdad-administered side of the border on the Baba and Avana geological formations. Kirkuk’s third formation, Khurmala, is controlled by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).

“From a political perspective, this would move BP close to the fault line. But there are also very solid technical reasons for the oil ministry to have BP at Kirkuk,” a western oil executive working in Iraq said on Thursday.

Kirkuk output has slumped to 280,000 bpd from 900,000 bpd in 2001 after years of injecting water and dumping unwanted crude and products into the field. Iraqi officials have said they would like BP to raise production capacity at this 77-year old workhorse to around 600,000 bpd in five years.

BP’s former chief executive Tony Hayward, now heading a new company, and a number of rivals including Exxon Mobil and Chevron have cast their lot with the Kurdish side of the dispute.

In an interview with Reuters in September, Kurdistan Energy Minister Ashti Hawrami said he wanted to deploy oil companies on a project to raise Khurmala’s output to as much as 300,000 barrels a day (bpd) from its current 85,000 bpd.

Hawrami also said the KRG, with autonomy and its own armed forces since 1991, would also be interested in capturing the gas that is now being flared from the Avana dome.

CLOSE RELATIONSHIP

At the start of its project, BP will make a “special allocation” of $100 million to help stop Kirkuk’s decline and carry out surveys to get a clear picture of the field.

“We have made a proposal for short-term assistance, which they appear to like and we’re progressing on from that,” Michael Townshend, president of BP in Iraq, said on Wednesday. “It’s early days.”

BP has arguably the best relationship with Baghdad among the world’s top international oil companies through its contract at the huge Rumaila field in the south of the country, far from the disputed Kurdish north.

The KRG’s oil exports and contracts are at the heart of a wider dispute with Baghdad’s Arab-led government over territory, oilfields and political autonomy.

Iraq’s government insists it alone has the sole authority to export crude oil and sign deals, but Kurdistan says the constitution allows it to agree to contracts and ship oil independently of Baghdad.

Iraq Energy minister Abdul Kareem Luaibi has said Baghdad intends to sue Genel Energy – the first company to export oil directly from Kurdistan – and may slash the government’s allocated budget to the region unless it halts what he rejected as smuggling.

Genel is led and part-owned by Hayward, the former head of BP who quit the company after the U.S. Gulf oil spill of 2010.

BP’s rivals Exxon, Chevron, Total and others have angered and alienated Baghdad by signing lucrative production-sharing contracts with the KRG on better operating conditions than in the south.

Baghdad issued Exxon an us-or-them ultimatum a year ago. The result was the U.S. major opted to sell its 60 percent stake in the West Qurna-1 oilfield in southern Iraq. China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) has emerged as the front-runner to buy it.

The airline said in a statement on Thursday it was following instructions from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and Qatar’s Civil Aviation Authority.

The FAA grounded Boeing’s newest commercial airliner on Wednesday, saying airlines would have to demonstrate that lithium-ion batteries were safe before the planes could resume flying. It gave no details on when that might happen. Other national regulators have followed suit.

Fast-growing Qatar Airways, which is enjoying a civil aviation boom in the Gulf, has an order for up to 60 of the aircraft – 30 firm orders plus an option to acquire 30 more.

“In light of recent events surrounding the Boeing 787 Dreamliner worldwide, we are actively working with Boeing and the regulators to restore full customer confidence in the 787,” Qatar Airways chief executive Akbar al-Baker said in the statement.

He said the airline would resume flying the 787 when it was clear that the plane was safe.

The statement did not say whether Qatar Airways might demand compensation from Boeing. Last month, after one of the airline’s 787s had a problem with a power generator, Baker said he would seek compensation.

Last week, Baker said he had no plans at the moment to cancel any plane orders with Boeing, but added: “When we have to start grounding planes, then it becomes an issue and then they have to get their cheque book out.”

“We think it’s a very good plane … We have said so to our Emirati friends and they don’t disagree,” Hollande told a news conference in Dubai during a day-long visit to the United Arab Emirates. “After that, it’s a question of price.”

A French diplomatic source said last week that France would discuss a long-running possibility for the purchase of 60 Rafale fighters during Hollande’s visit but said no contract would be signed during the trip.

“It’s difficult to find a buyer. We must do everything to find one,” Hollande told reporters after meeting union leaders in Val-De-Reuil, a town about 110 kilometres (70 miles) north-west of Paris.

“The state will do its duty, but it cannot take the plant over, and the workers know that,” he said.

He added the state could at some point provide financing.

Petroplus poses a major test for Hollande’s government after it faced criticism over the tactics it used in a two-month battle over the future of ArcelorMittal’s Florange steel plant, which unnerved investors in the euro zone’s second largest economy and confused France’s unions.

His administration is struggling to stop a haemorrhage of industrial jobs which has helped push unemployment to 15-year highs, while curbing public spending and raising taxes to help slash debt in a stagnant economy.

A French court set a deadline of Feb. 5 for interested parties to submit bids for the Petit-Couronne refinery.

Shell, which had a six-month oil processing deal with the troubled plant running to mid-December, has not extended its contract, making the refinery less attractive for potential buyers because of expensive restart costs.

So far only NetOil, a company led by Middle Eastern businessman Roger Tamraz, has submitted an offer while 7 others have filed letters of intent to buy France’s oldest refinery.

Net Oil’s offer includes an oil supply deal with BP and an agreement with Hyundai to upgrade the plant.

Other candidates are Hong-Kong-based APG, the Libyan Investment Authority, Jabs Gulf Energy Ltd, an Iraqi company owned by Abu Dhabi’s Hanna Al Shaikh Group, Iran’s Tadbir Energy Development Group (TEDG), Swiss consortium Activapro AG, and Terrae International SA, another Swiss company.

Union spokesman Yvon Scornet told reporters after the meeting that Hollande had promised to do everything possible to push the project forward, but had given no guarantees.

“This is a mistake,” Babak Zanjani told Reuters, speaking in his office in a high-rise tower in a financial district of Dubai a day after the sanctions came into force.

Neither his Malaysia-based First Islamic Bank nor his more than 60 other companies had done anything wrong, he said.

In the latest sanctions, agreed by the EU in October and put into effect on Saturday, Zanjani was subjected to “restrictive measures”, forbidding EU companies or individuals doing Iran-related business with him.

The sanctions, aimed at forcing Iran to curb its nuclear activities, include bans on financial transactions, sales to Iran of shipping equipment and steel, and imports of Iranian natural gas. The curbs are in addition to earlier bans, including on the OPEC producer’s oil.

The new EU sanctions describe Zanjani as “a key facilitator for Iranian oil deals and transferring oil related money” and accuses First Islamic Bank of being used to channel Iranian oil-related payments.

Zanjani said the complex nature of his companies’ transactions, involving large sums, might have misled EU authorities.

“I carry an Iranian passport and I send quite a lot of money to my companies all around the world. They must have thought we are up to something,” he said.

Zanjani said there were 64 or 65 companies in his group operating in a range of industries such as cosmetics, food, oil and aviation. The website of his Sorinet Group shows at least a dozen company names, mostly based in the UAE, with some in Turkey.

He denied that his oil company, International Safe Oil, also added to the EU’s list on Saturday, had any business with Iran’s oil industry.

“I’d like them to show me how I work for Iran. For example they say we have ties with Iran’s oil industry. I have an oil company but it has no links with Iran. We do business in Iraq,” Zanjani said.

“I am an Iranian, if they [the Iranian government] had asked for such a help I could have, but they never did, I only do my private business.”

He said that so far he had not received any negative reactions to the listing from his customers.

“We don’t get financial support from the Iranian government. But this is bad for reputation,” he said.

Tehran says its nuclear programme is peaceful but the European Union and the United States suspect it of pursuing weapons capability and hope the sanctions will restrict Iran’s ability to advance the technology and force it to make concessions at negotiations.

The UAE, a major oil exporter and regional business hub, has not seen the unrest that has ousted autocratic Arab rulers elsewhere, but analysts and diplomats say the U.S. ally is anxious to prevent any instability spreading to its turf.

In March, the UAE closed two international think-tanks promoting democracy overseas, Germany’s Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) and the U.S.-funded National Democratic Institute (NDI), citing licensing irregularities.

“We were asked by the authorities in Abu Dhabi to close the office,” Jeffrey Hiday, director at RAND’s office for media relations, told Reuters in an emailed statement.

He declined to comment on the reason for the closure.

No UAE official was available for comment.

RAND has had a small representative office in Abu Dhabi since 2010, Hiday said, which “facilitated evidence-based research and analysis by RAND experts in such areas as education, public safety and environmental health”.

The clients for RAND research were emirate- and federal-level government institutions, he said.

The closures of NDI and KAS caused consternation in Washington and Berlin. NDI is loosely affiliated with the U.S. Democratic Party, while KAS has close links with German Chancellor Angela Merkel’sChristian Democratic Union (CDU).

A spokesman for KAS said in April that the group, which did not have a licence, had been trying to obtain one for the past two years and was in Abu Dhabi at the invitation of the emirate’s crown prince.

Merkel herself told reporters that UAE officials had said they were closing all Western foundations in the Gulf state.

The Abu Dhabi Gallup Center, which was a branch of the U.S. polling and research firm, also closed down earlier this year.

Over the past year the UAE has shown little tolerance of home-grown dissent, detaining more than 60 local Islamists, who the authorities say are members of the Muslim Brotherhood and were plotting to overthrow the government.

In recent days at least another four people have been arrested in what human rights campaigners said might be part of a crackdown on online dissent and a tightening of the Gulf Arab state’s Internet law.

The report by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) adds to a growing chorus of criticism from Western governments and rights groups of the EU candidate’s jailing of journalists, most of whom are kept in pre-trial detention.

Repressive laws, broad and vague legal provisions and a paranoid judiciary were to blame for the high number of arrests, RSF said, and only a complete overhaul of Turkey’s anti-terrorism law and other legal articles could change this.

“Turkey is now the world’s biggest prison for journalists, a sad paradox for a country that portrays itself as a regional democratic model,” France-based RSF said in a statement.

RSF said a total of 72 media workers were currently in detention, of whom at least 42 journalists and four media assistants were being held because of their work. RSF was still investigating the cases of the remaining detainees.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s government says most of the detained media workers are being held for serious crimes, such as membership of an armed terrorist organisation, that have nothing to do with journalism.

First elected a decade ago with an overwhelming majority, Erdogan has presided over a period of unprecedented prosperity, winning him admirers among Western nations keen to portray Turkey as an example in a troubled region.

But that narrative has been increasingly undermined by criticism of the authoritarian style of his rule.

Hundreds of politicians and academics are also in jail on charges of plotting against the government, while more than 300 army officers were convicted this year of conspiring against Erdogan almost a decade ago, and handed long jail terms.

GOVERNMENT STANCE SOFTENING?

There are signs the government is beginning to acknowledge the scale of the problem.

Some journalists have been freed on conditional release in recent months and over the weekend Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said Ankara had prepared a draft law to address pre-trial detention for journalists and that a “modern” interpretation of legal articles referring to “propaganda” was needed.

“For us the number is not important, we are greatly saddened by even one journalist being jailed for their writings, drawings, journalism activities,” Turkish state news agency Anatolia reported Arinc as saying.

While tallies by rights groups differ slightly, all agree Turkey has the highest number of jailed journalists, more than some of the most autocratic regimes. According to RSF, China has 30 jailed journalists,Eritrea 28, Iran 26 and Syria 21.

Most of those in jail in Turkey were from the Kurdish media, RSF said.

Turkey, along with the United States and European Union, designates the Kurdistan Workers Party(PKK), which launched an insurgency in 1984 and seeks greater autonomy for the country’s estimated 15 million ethnic Kurds, a terrorist organisation.

More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict between Turkey and the PKK over the past three decades.

While criticism of Turkey’s poor record on press freedom centres mostly on reporters in jail, journalists still working also complain of government pressure to self censor.

Erdogan and other senior government officials have publicly berated news outlets by name and criticised them for questioning the government, or instructed them on how to cover an issue.

Journalists have been openly fired or resigned under pressure from their employers because of their views, many from news outlets owned by conglomerates wary of rocking the boat.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission also set some conditions on routes between Australia and New Zealand, saying full approval could allow the pair to reduce or limit growth in capacity in order to raise airfares for those flights.

The alliance, which includes switching Qantas’ hub to Dubai from Singapore for European flights, will enable Qantas to cut loss-making international routes and focus on its profitable domestic and budget operations.

“It’s a positive outcome for Qantas and it would have been very negative for the future of the international division if this alliance wasn’t going to progress,” said David Liu, Head of Research at ATI Asset Management.

“Having this alliance will alleviate some of the concerns that you would have if the business was still standalone. It will provide some support to the share price,” he said.

Qantas shares rose 0.3 percent to A$1.46 in morning trade. It has climbed from October lows below A$1.20.

The regulator’s final decision is due in March.

VIRGIN ARGUED AGAINST 10 YEARS

Qantas announced the Emirates deal in September, ending its 17-year alliance with British Airways, owned by IAG, which some analysts have suggested could seek a new partner such as Qatar Airways.

The alliance is deeper than a straightforward code-share arrangement — where airlines share some flights — but stops short of a global revenue-sharing deal or equity injection from either side.

The tie-up has been welcomed by the government, airports and tourism organizations. But rival VirginAustralia, which operates its own alliance with Etihad, has argued the deal is too broad and would entrench Qantas’ dominant position in the domestic and corporate market to the detriment of Australian passengers.

Virgin also contended a 10-year alliance was too long and any effects should be tested over a shorter period of time.

Analysts have suggested the alliance could save Qantas A$90-100 million before taxes annually. The airline has yet to reveal its own estimates for cost savings.

Qantas has been stripping costs out of its business after a year troubled by a record fuel bill, rising competition and a labour union that has opposed the carrier’s spending cuts.

Emirates, meanwhile, is looking to increase its business in Australia to counter moves by Etihad andQatar.

Etihad doubled its stake in Qantas rival Virgin Australia to 10 percent last month and Qatar Airwayslaunched its first service to Perth this month, saying that it also wanted to partner with Australian carriers.

Qantas Chief Executive Alan Joyce said on Thursday that the airline would seek to respond to watchdog’s concerns about Australia-New Zealand routes.

Iraq’s government developed the strategy with the World Bank, the private sector, and other stakeholders to focus especially on better management of Iraq’s vast oil wealth and improve its investment climate. The programs will also focus on inclusion of women.

Iraq has the world’s fourth-largest oil reserves, and depends on oil wealth to fund 95 percent of its budget.

But nine years since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein, Iraq remains a state-centric economy and, beyond oil, private businesses have yet to play a significant role in rebuilding the once thriving Middle East nation.

Infrastructure remains dilapidated after years of war and economic sanctions, and investment is needed to reform banking, build houses and roads and fix a chronic electricity shortage.

Even the oil sector is underperforming due to the country’s logistical bottlenecks and weak infrastructure, eroding investor interest.

“Iraq is opening a new chapter in its long and deep history,” Ferid Belhaj, the World Bank’s director forIraq, Syria, Iran, Lebanon and Jordan, said about the country’s strategy with the World Bank.

“This is a chapter (for Iraq) where the people come first and where the immense human potential of the country, its vast natural resources and its strategic location will be central to its socio-economic recovery.”

The decision, confirmed by a ministry press official in Brasilia, follows Egypt’s ban of beef on Monday from Parana state, where a cow that died two years ago had developed atypical bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease. Egypt will continue to import from other states.

Between January and October, Saudi Arabia imported 31,300 tonnes of beef, putting it among the top 10 largest importers from Brazil, the world’s largest beef exporter.

But top buyers Russia, Hong Kong and Egypt - which took more than half of the 896,000 tonnes of beef that Brazil has exported this year through September – continue to import its beef, suggesting the impact could be limited.

Prior to Saudi Arabia, only Japan, China and South Africa had halted imports of all Brazilian beef sinceBrazil announced on Dec. 7 that a 13-year-old cow that died in 2010 in Parana tested positive for the protein linked to the development of BSE.

The countries are all minor importers of Brazilian beef.

The cow, which was kept for breeding purposes, never developed BSE and died of other causes. But it tested positive for the causal agent for BSE, a protein called a prion, which can arise spontaneously in elderly cattle.

A similar case of atypical BSE occurred in the United States in April. Like the Brazilian cow, that animal never entered the food chain and there was no major effect on U.S. beef exports.

Brazilian companies like JBS SA,, the world’s biggest meats producer, as well as rival Minerva SA andfood processor Marfrig Alimentos SA have played down the impact of the case on their operations.

After it confirmed the case of atypical BSE, the World Animal Health Organization issued a statement maintaining Brazil’s status as a low-risk country for mad cow disease.

“This classification has been followed by important countries, blocks and consumers,” Minerva said in a statement on Tuesday, adding that sales to Saudi Arabia accounted for approximately 2.5 percent of gross sales so far this year.

Germany’s No.2 airline after Lufthansa, which has not made an operating profit since 2007, said on Tuesday the deal to carve out the ‘topbonus’ programme would generate revenue of 184.4 million euros ($242.70 million).

The move comes a year after Abu Dhabi-based Etihad bought about 29 percent of Air Berlin and agreed to grant the loss-making German carrier up to $255 million in loans.

Under Tuesday’s agreement, Air Berlin will keep 30 percent of the ‘topbonus’ programme and will have the right to repurchase 10 percent from Etihad later on.

The deal is to be completed by the end of the month and proceeds from it will be included in Air Berlin’s 2012 results.

Air Berlin is struggling to recover after racking up debt in a few years of rapid expansion and is due to announce details of a new savings programme – dubbed Turbine 2013 – by the end of the month.

IBB is majority-owned by Qatar International Islamic Bank , which has been in discussions since June with Qatari lender Masraf Al Rayan to sell a controlling stake in the British bank.

A deadline for Masraf, the biggest Islamic bank in Qatar, to announce a firm intention to make an offer for IBB lapsed on Dec. 10; it has now been extended to Jan. 7.

In a separate statement released last week, IBB also said its lending growth for the first nine months of this year had been driven by two new home financing plans, and that it would look at ways to offer more products.

IBB is trying to revitalise its business after struggling to turn a profit since its inception in 2004; it reported a loss of 8.9 million pounds ($14.3 million) in 2011.

Management will focus on secured financing and targeting young savers, Iain Crawford, financial controller at IBB, told Reuters. “We are pretty optimistic for the UK market. The board is determined to grow the business.”

IBB posted a 63 percent increase in home financing and a 43 percent increase in long-term savings deposits for the first nine months of 2012, the company said without giving monetary totals.

According to its 2011 annual report, income from home purchase plans rose 17.9 percent to 2.3 million pounds that year, while customer deposits of over one year’s maturity jumped to 25.9 million pounds from 3.3 million pounds in 2010.