Search Results for: Lebanon

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FERROUS and non-ferrous metal companies paid together millions of dollars in kickbacks to the toppled Saddam Hussein regime, the Independent Inquiry Committee into the UN Iraq Oil for Food programme scandal has claimed. More than 150 suppliers of ferrous metal products ranging from carbon steel plates, steel coil, steel joists, galvanised steel cores, steel bars, steel pipes, fabricated steel and others are named in the report, as are around 50 suppliers of aluminium, copper and lead.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE
IN the Lebanese, Syrian and Jordanian paint markets there is always an extra ingredient that must be thrown into the mix: politics. The political situation, internal or external, can have positive knock-on effects, such as Jordan’s booming construction market due to an influx of Iraqi refugees, or negatively, such as in Lebanon, where the sector is experiencing something of a slump due to political instability.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FOOD companies paid millions of dollars in kickbacks to Iraq’s Saddam regime an Independent Inquiry Committee into the UN Oil for Food programme scandal has claimed. Poultry and related production equipment suppliers were amongst those accused of making illicit payments when securing humanitarian contracts.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE, in Beirut

THE LEBANESE car market experienced its worse summer in decades as a result of the month-long conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, a two-month sea blockade and an economic downturn, with the number of new registered cars dropping 81% in August alone.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
LEBANON has an international reputation far greater than its geographical size and population, much like its national debt. At US$38 billion it is equivalent to over a 100% of the country’s GDP, with a significant chunk of this staggering sum attributed directly to corruption and commercial crime.…

BY DAVID HAWORTH
A CLOSER monitoring of live animal exports within the European Union (EU) is promised by the EU agriculture Commissioner, Mariann Fischer Boel, as the former Danish agriculture minister settles down in her new responsibilities.

She will be working hand-in-glove with colleagues who have a direct responsibility for the issue, the Commissioner told the Meat Trades Journal at her Brussels office.…

BY MARK ROWE AND PAUL COCHRANE

INTRODUCTION

JUST as chocolate sells well in cold countries, so do soft drinks flourish in hot countries, which would suggest that North Africa and the Levant presents an inviting face to the international drinks market.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
WANT to sell cigarettes? Go east, young man. That might be the advice that tobacco companies could glean from the latest set of World Health Organisation (WHO) smoking figures. Using 2003 or latest available data, the WHO has collated percentage rate proportions of smoking adults (18 and over), compared with total populations of all but 56 countries: the overwhelming majority of nations.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE DOMINANCE of fossil fuels in energy production is set to continue for the next 30 years, even growing a little, the European Environment Agency (EEA)’s latest ‘environmental signals’ report has predicted. Despite the European Union’s (EU) efforts to promote renewable energy, it is “not expected to raise its share significantly” of energy production sources, while “nuclear energy is projected to decline”, it predicted.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Monetary Fund (IMF) will establish this year a Middle East Regional Technical Assistance Centre in Beirut, Lebanon, to provide macroeconomic and financial management training to Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Sudan, Syria, West Bank and Gaza, and Yemen.…