As a child, nothing would elicit more excitement from me than new surroundings — particularly hotels. The possibilities of places to explore, like the bars and restaurants intended for grown-ups’s use, and places to practice my cartwheels (long hotel hallways were the best) meant that within safe surroundings I could pretend that my hotel was …

She’s posed on the red carpet at Cannes in a flowing designer gown, at Deauville in a sleek black bustier and palazzo pants. She exchanges e-mails with Naomi Watts. Sean Penn hung out at her house. Not for nothing have they called Valerie Plame Wilson the Glamorous Spy. And yet for years, she lived a …

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Space is about to get its first humanoid from planet Earth. Robonaut 2 — affectionately known as R2 — is hitching a one-way ride to the International Space Station this week aboard the final flight of space shuttle Discovery. It’s the first humanoid robot ever bound for space, a $2.5 million …

By Mike Householder/ AP “40: A Doonesbury Retrospective” (Andrews McMeel), by G.B. Trudeau: Forty years after the ever-helmeted football hero B.D. first met his dorky Walden College roommate Mike Doonesbury, the creator of those and dozens of other memorable “Doonesbury” denizens is taking a look back at the award-winning, and often controversial, comic strip that made …

By Sergio Duarte and Tibor Tóth NEW YORK: On Nov. 1, a team of over 35 experts will launch an exercise to inspect a simulated nuclear test site near the Dead Sea in Jordan — a step forward in completing the global verification system of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). Then on Nov. 12, the world’s …

HEART: Abdul Khaliq Stanikzai says the tiny mound of red and yellow threads in the palm of his hand could help cure Afghanistan of its opium addiction. With agricultural development now seen as pivotal to weaning Afghanistan off drugs and war, multi-million-dollar programs aimed at offering farmers alternatives to poppy production are cropping up nationwide. …

Despite an abundance of liquidity, smaller firms more often than not left out of the investment loop — “big players” — are not interested in investing in companies worth less than LE 50 million, said Hassan El-Khitab, managing director North Africa for the Carlyle Group. Leaders from the private and development sectors convened on Oct. …

The “dangerously low supply” of financing for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in some parts of the world is hampering the global economy’s ability to rebound, said Colyn Gardner, chief executive of The Management Center at the Bangor Business School of Bangor University. Gardner was speaking on a panel at the fourth annual Egyptian Banking …

  HSBC Egypt, a division of its global parent company HSBC, and the Financial Services Volunteers Corps (FSVC), a not-for-profit financial organization, launched YallaBusiness.com on Oct. 4 as part of a strategy to better serve the needs of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in emerging markets.   The web portal will allow HSBC Egypt to …

Edrak for Edutainment Projects Development Company has acquired the franchise of three international brands in the fields of edutainment and fitness. Kidzania, The Little Gym and Jazzercise, expected to drive total investments of LE 100 million when launched in 2011 and 2012. In a statement to the press, the firm said Kidzania, Edrak’s flagship brand, …

DUBAI: Demand for emerging-market exchange traded funds (ETFs) is set to grow rapidly as investors hit by foreign-ownership regulations in many countries buy the product as an alternative, a managing director at money manager BlackRock said. Investors have been scrambling to get into fast-growing emerging economies in Asia and Latin America, lured by high returns. …

Minister of Trade and Industry Rachid Mohamed Rachid said that the volume of trade exchange between Egypt and Turkey hit $3.2 billion in the end of 2009, and is expected to increase to $4 billion by the end of this year and $5 billion in 2011. The Egyptian-Turkish partnership is a good example of how …

The European Investment Bank (EIB) has extended two loans to Egypt’s Ministry of Electricity and Energy for an aggregate value of E560 million, the local news reported. Around €260 million will be geared towards upgrading Egypt’s national electricity grid. The balance, €300 million, will finance the construction of the planned 1,500 MW North Giza power …

SINGAPORE: The volume of Iranian crude stored at sea has fallen by as much as 4 million barrels because of a spike in Asian demand this month, traders and shipping sources said. Asian refiners have more than offset waning demand from European buyers who have increasingly shunned Iranian crude because of tough international sanctions, which …

Egypt aims to get its economy growing at levels seen before the global financial crisis by the fiscal year 2016/17 and expects the private sector to play a major role in the rebound, a minister said on Saturday. Egypt’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew at 5.1 percent in the fiscal year that ended June 30, …

A $230 million back-tax claim which Algeria imposed on Orascom Telecom’s Djezzy unit was not final, Algerian finance minister Karim Djoudi said on Thursday. "Djezzy has been notified of the first amount but it is not a final amount. We still need verification of the documents presented by the tax administration," Djoudi told reporters on …

DUBAI: Gulf Arab companies see growing opportunities in Iraq that should not be missed, as the war-torn nation struggles to recover from years of bloodshed, but they retain a degree of cautiousness that slows plan execution. Executives speaking at the Reuters Middle East Investment Summit this week said they were keen to invest in the …

  Frontier African financial services group Imara said on Tuesday it had added Egypt and Morocco to its regional stock-broking footprint, its first foray beyond a historical sub-Saharan focus. "Expansion of our trading capability has primarily been driven by client demand for a wider trading capability," said Alun Thomas, chief executive of Imara Africa Securities, …

Egypt’s Electricity Ministry will sign a deal in days with Kuwait’s Kharafi Group to build two power plants in Egypt with a combined capacity of 1,000 megawatts, a spokesman for the ministry said on Tuesday. Egypt, which has about 25,000 MW of installed capacity, suffered repeated outages this year and plans to spend $100-120 billion …

AMMAN: A Palestinian state is coming – it is just not clear whether it will result from the current peace talks. It is easy to be pessimistic, or even apathetic, about the latest round of Palestinian-Israeli peace talks. History is a witness to the lack of Palestinian accomplishments in incremental negotiations. All successful efforts to …

DOHA: Commercial Bank of Qatar (CBQ) reported a 28.9 percent jump in third-quarter net profit on Tuesday, beating analysts’ expectations on average on increased loan activity and deposits. Qatar’s third-largest bank by market value posted a net profit of 508 million Qatari riyals ($139.5 million), up 29 percent from 394 million riyals a year earlier. …

BAGHDAD: Energy companies face tough terms, shaky security and local opposition when they fly to Baghdad this week to take part in a gas bidding round. Iraq’s plan to auction three gas fields on Wednesday has generated little interest from international energy firms eager to tap the country’s vast reserves, compared with Iraq’s two oil …

SINGAPORE: Saudi Aramco sold 50,000 tonnes of A180 naphtha for early-November loading from Ras Tanura to a Western trader at $16.00-$17.00 a tonne above Middle East quotes, free-on-board (FOB) basis, pointing to a strong recovery of export prices to high premiums, traders said on Monday. It was not immediately clear where this cargo is headed, …

JERUSALEM: Israeli President Shimon Peres has cancelled a trip to Morocco after his requests to meet King Mohammed VI were spurned, an Israeli official said on Monday. The Israeli leader was to have attended a gathering of global figures at the World Economic Forum on the Middle East and North Africa in Marrakech from October …

WASHINGTON: The International Monetary Fund on Friday said it will hold a high-level conference of central bank governors in Shanghai next week to discuss ways to address the global financial crisis. The IMF said the conference, scheduled for Monday, would include central bank chiefs and other officials from Asia, Africa, Europe, and North and South …

RIYADH: Saudi International Petrochemical Co (Sipchem) on Sunday posted a 54-percent rise in third-quarter net profit, partly on higher sales volumes and prices. Sipchem’s results, which came mainly on the back of higher butanediol petrochemical product, bode well for larger rival SABIC’s results. Sipchem said third-quarter operating profit stood at 175.8 million riyals, a 456 …

TEHRAN: World powers have no option but to talk with Iran over its nuclear program, hardline Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Sunday in defiant comments ahead of next month’s negotiations. "We said from the start that the best way is to talk to Iran. You don’t have any other option. All other ways are blocked," …

BAGHDAD: Iraq’s investment climate is getting better but foreign investors are awaiting the passage of national industry and consumer protection laws to further improve the environment, the Iraq chief of French cement maker Lafarge said. "I think the investment environment, and generally the business environment, is in an improvement trend," Marcel Cobuz told Reuters in …

CAIRO: Egypt’s Xceed plans to double the size of its operations by 2013, the vice president of the company said. A provider of multilingual business process outsourcing (BPO) services, Xceed currently has two contact centers in Egypt and one in Morocco with 2,000 total employees. And right now, “business is booming,” said Xceed Vice President …

KUWAIT: Kuwaiti mobile telephone firm Zain, the Gulf Arab region’s third-largest operator by market value, posted a 96 percent rise in third-quarter net profit, boosted by a sharp increase in customer numbers. "In this new era of focus on our Middle East operations, we are extremely pleased with the robust 25 percent customer growth and …