30 killed, provincial governor wounded in Iraq attacks
RAMADI: Blasts in central and western Iraq killed 30 people and wounded the Anbar provincial governor on Wednesday, the latest in a series of attacks in recent months against government…
More banks eyeing mortgage finance industry
Despite the downturn in the mortgage market in Egypt due to the global financial crisis, many observers believe that the fledgling sector is catching up with the country's growing real…
ONE ON ONE: Ghada El-Bialy: Banking on success
At Citi Egypt, Ghada El-Bialy heads a team tasked with forging and developing relationships with public sector companies and financial institutions, making sure their needs are matched with the different…
Egypt launches industry-focused SME fund
The Industrial Modernization Center (IMC) and the Arab African International Bank (AAIB) announced the creation of a LE 500 million fund for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Minister of Investment…
CIB tailors services for wealthiest clients
Egypt's Commercial International bank announced earlier this month a new service for its wealthiest clients: CIB Wealth, an "integrated financial package offered to customers with LE 500,000 or more in…
Jackson's death, Boyle's song, Tiger's fall transfix in 2009
Reality eclipsed fiction in 2009 as Michael Jackson took on mythic status in death, a dowdy Scottish woman burst into song on the world stage, and the aura of perfection…
Films that marked the past decade
"Fahrenheit 9/11, 2004(Cannes Golden Palm winner)Political documentaries made waves with the likes of Al Gore's eco-cautionary tale An Inconvenient Truth or Spike Lee s account of New Orleans after Hurricane…
South Korea's G-20 Challenge
BERKELEY: On Jan. 1, South Korea takes over the G-20 chairmanship from the United Kingdom. Korea is not the first emerging market to chair the G-20, but it is the…
Will Russia Save the West?
MOSCOW: Rapid changes in the global economy and international politics are raising, once more, an eternal issue in Russia: the country's relations with Europe, and with the Euro-Atlantic region as…
The underlying fault lines of the region
CAIRO: In 1989, the prominent Orientalist Bernard Lewis argued that the Arab world was disintegrating into fragmented ethnic and sectarian enclaves, dissipating any sense of collective solidarity and identity. Looking…