DUBAI: The UAE’s first IPO of 2010, scheduled for June by lead manager Shuaa Capital, will not take place before the fourth quarter due to the weak market, a banking executive familiar with the matter said. Shuaa said in May it was lead manager for AED1 billion ($272 million) IPO for an unnamed Abu Dhabi …

Anyone who has flown above a large river, watching it twist and turn, shiny and smooth, will recognize the cliche of the snake as metaphor. Perhaps aptly in the case of the Nile, the world’s longest river, the serpent has two heads. One is in the highlands of Ethiopia, the other around Lake Victoria in …

DURBAN: Feel it. It is here. Ke Nako! This was the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s slogan for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Chanted en masse, it defined the hopes of a nation. As the sun rose over South Africa on Monday July 12, it signified the dawning of a new consciousness in South Africans. The …

ABU DHABI: Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Aerospace will start making Airbus parts at its new facility by fourth-quarter, sees a deal with Sikorsky imminent, and expects to conclude up to five financing deals this year. The business, part of government-owned investment company Mubadala, will receive handover of the first phase of Strata, a composites aerostructures manufacturing …

SYDNEY: A judge ordered Australian band Men at Work on Tuesday to hand over a portion of the royalties from their 1980s hit "Down Under," after previously ruling its distinctive flute riff was copied from a children’s campfire song. But the penalty — 5 percent of the song’s royalties — was far less than the …

  Herbie Hancock’s restless creativity won’t allow him to rest. Two months after celebrating his 70th birthday, the jazz piano legend has released the most ambitious recording of his nearly 50-year career — "The Imagine Project" — a globe-trotting, multi-lingual, genre-mixing journey.   "It feels like I turned 30," laughed Hancock. "For me sitting back …

CAIRO: A farmer in northern Egypt says his cow has given birth to a two-headed calf that he calls a "divine miracle." Sobhy El-Ganzoury said Saturday it took two hours and much pulling to deliver the rare calf. He said the difficult birth has weakened the calf’s legs. El-Ganzoury said the veterinarian informed him that …

CAIRO: Egypt’s tourism sector has picked up this fiscal year as the slowdown caused by the global economic crisis eased; however, ongoing trouble in European markets is making forecasts for next year less clear. Egypt’s tourism industry will not be deeply affected this year by the ongoing financial turmoil in Europe, Minister of Tourism Zoheir …

  Barnes & Noble Inc.’s fiscal fourth-quarter loss widened as it invested in electronic book technology, the bookseller said Monday.   The New York company also forecast first-quarter and full-year earnings below expectations as it plots aggressive moves into the small but fast-growing e-book market. The loss for the three months ended May totaled $32 …

CAIRO: Egyptian police beefed up security around a Sinai pipeline that supplies Israel with natural gas after a group of wanted Bedouin threatened to sabotage it, security officials said on Monday. The Bedouin group, which consists of at least a dozen armed fugitives, has clashed with police since its leader Salem Ali Salem, known as …

CAPE TOWN: Despite having scored only once and produced some peripheral performances in the World Cup group phase, Cristiano Ronaldo managed to be named man of the match three times by public vote. For the first time in World Cup history, the man of the match is being selected by Internet users and Ronaldo’s global …

KUWAIT: Kuwait’s consumer prices dipped 0.3 percent month-on-month in February partly on falling food prices in a reversal of course after two months of increases, the Gulf country’s data showed on Sunday. Consumer price growth in the Arab Gulf is expected to pick up again this year as economies in the world’s top oil exporting …

“I love it when a plan comes together.” This iconic phrase was first uttered by Colonel John ‘Hannibal’ Smith when “The A-Team” action series debuted on the NBC network in the US in 1983. But did the scriptwriters, producers and director Joe Carnahan (“Smokin’ Aces”) really have a plan when they signed on to make …

If you weren’t watching the Tonys too carefully, you would have thought they had turned into the Oscars. Sunday’s show was a night for celebrities and for the meaning of celebrity, when Academy Award winners Denzel Washington and Catherine Zeta-Jones took home their first Tonys, and when the most honored play, "Red," was itself a …

CAIRO: Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are expected to sign the Nile Cooperative Framework Agreement that Egypt and Sudan are opposed to and have refused to recognize. DRC and Burundi are the last two countries remaining yet to sign the new treaty after Kenya signed up to the agreement a few weeks …

Picture this: An Egyptian immigrant to the US returns home for the first time in 20 years. Naively believing that his Egyptian stature atomically grants him certain basic rights and privileges, the man embarks on an accidental odyssey where he comes face to face with every social anomaly plaguing this country. Intriguing huh? That’s what …

The fans love Carrie Underwood and they proved it again during the CMT Music Awards. The former "American Idol" champ won Wednesday night’s top honor, video of the year for "Cowboy Casanova," and CMT performance of the year for "Temporary Home" two months after making history by winning her second Academy of Country Music Awards …

CAIRO: The Egyptian pound has been weakening against the US dollar in the past weeks, reaching LE 5.6607 per dollar, following the euro’s continued decline. Instability in European markets triggered by turbulence in Greece’s economy has led to the depreciation of the euro. The Egyptian pound rose against the euro in recent months by 14 …

On June 2, Sotheby’s, the world’s most prestigious auction house and art-related financing company, sold one of the most celebrated Orientalist paintings ever created, “Le Muezzin,” by Jean-Léon Gérôme. The painting, which shows a man calling for prayer, has been in the same private collection for over 30 years and it was put on the …

Forty-six years after the Beatles invaded America, Paul McCartney rocked the White House Wednesday, honored by President Barack Obama at a star-studded concert celebrating his songwriting legend. Though British Petroleum is target number one for the White House over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, British pop, in the form of Sir Paul, was more …

An Egyptian refining project has accumulated $2.3 billion in debt financing from a consortium led by Asian lenders. At a time when the European and US refining industries are struggling, a group of international export credit agencies and commercial lenders will provide Egyptian Refining with $2.3 billion to develop its $3.7 billion plant. The plant, …

CAIRO: Air Arabia, a regional low cost carrier, launched its Egypt operations Tuesday, with its first flight taking off from Alexandria, its third hub, to Khartoum. The UAE-based carrier will also launch flights to Kuwait, Amman and Beirut, as well as to other destinations further afar within Europe, Africa and elsewhere in the Middle East. …

CAIRO: The American University in Cairo and Exxon Mobil Egypt joined forces and launched an initiative to educate and train 20 teachers and administrators from Hadayek El Maadi Experimental School and Kind Fahd Modern Language School. The signing ceremony honoring the cooperation between both parties was held Monday at the Four Seasons Nile Plaza. Samiha …

CAIRO: Zamalek striker Sherif Ashraf decided to move away from the Cairo club because he ‘wasn’t given a chance to prove his worth’ last season. The 23-year-old, who joined the Whites from their arch-rivals Ahly in 2007, failed to establish himself as a regular starter over the past three years. Zamalek coach Hossam Hassan usually …

Egypt has shut down two of Torah Cement’s production lines and filed a case on charges the company damaged the environment, the environment ministry said on Tuesday. Torah, majority owned by Suez Cement, the country’s largest listed company, operates one of the oldest cement plants in the country. "Despite providing the firm with all technical …

GAZA CITY: Dozens of masked gunmen stormed a UN-run Gaza summer camp early on Sunday and burnt it to the ground, threatening "harsh measures" against the Gaza director of the UN refugee agency. The attackers assaulted a guard, tied him up and left a letter with four bullets threatening UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) …

JERUSALEM: Israel on Thursday released a Hamas lawmaker arrested nearly four years ago following the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier by Gaza insurgents in a deadly cross-border raid, prison authorities said. Mohammed Abu Teir, a senior Hamas leader known for his bright orange beard dyed with henna, was welcomed by dozens of family members and …

CAIRO: Ghazl Mahalla manager Mohamed Radwan doesn’t seem convinced by his side’s relegation from the Egyptian Premier League as he implied that rival teams may have won controversially. Mahalla needed a win at Harras Hodoud but could only manage a 1-1 draw, while Arab Contractors stunned Petrojet 3-0 at home. Masri and Gouna, who were …

DOHA: Qatar’s real gross domestic product rose 8.7 percent last year, lower than expected, after 25.4 percent growth in 2008, revised data from the Gulf country’s statistics office showed on Thursday. The 2009 growth figure is lower than 11 percent cited by OPEC member’s deputy prime minister in January. Analysts polled by Reuters have expected …

A film about France’s colonial past in Algeria sparked a row ahead of its Cannes film festival screening, with calls for it to be banned for rewriting history and politicians joining the row on Tuesday. Critics have branded "Outside Of the Law" by Rachid Bouchareb, a filmmaker who was born in France to Algerian parents, …