by linkedin.com — American brands may be falling out of fashion with China. For years, companies in the U.S. saw China as the “land of new opportunity,” says The Wall Street Journal, but today Chinese brands are getting stronger and Chinese consumers have grown increasingly turned off by foreign brands because of their conflicts with […]

ahvalnews.com —The Arab League following an emergency meeting on Saturday condemned Turkey’s military offensive in northeast Syria, calling the incursion an “invasion of an Arab state’s land and an aggression on its sovereignty.” The Arab League is considering taking diplomatic, economic, investment and tourism measures against Turkey, Al-Arabiya quoted the Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit Aboul Gheit as saying during the meeting in Cairo. Tens of thousands have fled northeast Syria as Turkish forces advance in the region on day four of an offensive targeting Kurdish forces. Turkey plans to establish a safe zone stretching along its border inside Syria to remove the majority-Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which Turkey sees as a security threat due to its links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), an armed group that has been at war in Turkey for over three decades.

Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil said it was time for Syria to rejoin the Arab League, Al-Arabiya reported, with Aboul Gheit stating that Syria’s return to the league is subject to required measures that the authorities in Damascus will be required to take. Iraq’s Foreign Minister Mohamad Ali al-Hakim said that Baghdad is set to submit a formal request for Syria’s return to the Arab League. Saudi Arabia’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel al-Jubeir on Saturday echoed a previous condemnation by the kingdom, stating that Riyadh condemns the Turkish offensive in northeast Syria. Saudi Arabia demands an immediate halt to the military operations, al-Jubeir said, adding that the incursion is causing the Syrian people further suffering. The UAE’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash also condemned the Turkish incursion, calling on the international community to shoulder its responsibilities to stop the Turkish attacks on Syria. “We call for the exit of Turkey and its forces, as well as all foreign forces that have violated this Arab country – and to push for a successful political solution,” the minister said. Bahrain rejects any aggression by any party against Arab countries, the country’s Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa said on Saturday, further calling on the countries’ to maintain and confront any threats to Arab national security.

by independent.co.uk — Robert Fisk @indyvoices — I sniffed something was wrong in Lebanon when the central bank governor Riad Salame announced to us all that there were plenty of dollars in the system. No shortages. No tightening of the purse strings. I still have the papers with his announcement on page one. Both before, during and after the 1975-1990 civil war, you’ve been able to pay for anything here in Lebanon in US dollars: dinner bills, rent, militias, guns (during the war), cars, airline tickets, groceries. The Lebanese pound fell amid the conflict but settled afterwards – courtesy of the country’s billionaire prime minister Rafiq Hariri – at 1,500 “lebs” to the dollar. And everyone was happy. You knew that the cheerful local currency, splashed with colourful cedar trees, Roman ruins and Phoenician figurines, was interchangeable with the greenback. General Grant’s face was equal to 75,000 lebs. We even combined them in our change.

Until I walked up the road to my local ATM last week, inserted my bank card, demanded $400, was given the usual warning that this would attract an extra $5 from the machine – and was then presented with a terse voice message: “Your transaction has been cancelled.” The accent was American, of course. I tried again, at $200. Same problem. I’ve always been enthralled by the linguistics of banking. A “transaction” has held a certain thrall for me. A transaction should surely be the purchase of a property, the buying of shares, the takeover of a mega company. But by the end of my miserable ATM trip, I put in for 400,000 Lebanese pounds ($266) and was treated to a wad of those beautiful Lebanese notes with their pictures of the Baalbek ruins, museum masterpieces and, indeed, illustrations of Salame’s Lebanese central bank. My “transaction” had been completed. In other words, there were not many dollars in the system. And this is where the Lebanese economic story starts to go downhill.

BEIRUT (Reuters) By Tom Perry, Jonathan Spicer — – Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri said on Tuesday the United Arab Emirates has promised investments and financial aid to his deeply indebted country, though work remains to seal the deal, after two days of high-stakes talks in Abu Dhabi. Hariri, who led a Lebanese delegation to the allied Gulf state, was seeking funds to stem a sharp loss of investor and depositor confidence that has pressured Lebanon’s currency and strained its lenders and central bank. While the UAE had made no announcement about funding by Tuesday evening, any sort of relief could buy Beirut time as it looks to shore up dollar reserves and begin enacting fiscal reforms it has long promised with little progress. “The Emiratis promised investments and financial assistance,” he was quoted as saying in an official transcript of his comments to reporters in Abu Dhabi.

While the talks with the Emiratis were positive, Beirut “has to do some things to encourage them” to invest in Lebanon, Hariri added, without providing details. “We are negotiating with them the investments they want to make in various sectors, in addition to financial investments in some banks or in the central bank,” he was quoted as saying in the transcript published by his office. Faced with one of the world’s highest debt burdens, low growth and crumbling infrastructure, Beirut has vowed to implement long-delayed reforms to narrow its budget and current-account deficits, though little has so far been done. The country, which has a debt-to-GDP ratio around 150%, is also seeking to reverse a sharp loss of confidence in the Lebanese pound. Its central bank has been drawing down its foreign exchange reserves to repay the state’s maturing debt, and has promised to do more.

by europe.autonews.com –HANS GREIMEL– TOKYO — Carlos Ghosn, still barred from leaving Japan as he awaits trial on financial misconduct charges, spends his days convening not only with lawyers but also his personal trainer. It is no coincidence the indicted former Nissan chairman is working out, walking and bicycling to regain weight he lost during his 129 days of lockup in Tokyo. To hear his wife, Carole Ghosn, tell it, the fallen auto legend is gearing up for the battle of his life, not unlike a boxer in training for a big fight. “He’s healthy in body and mind. He’s getting weight again, and he’s combative,” Carole said in a phone interview last week. “He’s ready to defend himself and prove his innocence.”

One thing 65-year-old Carlos will not be doing is pleading his case in public anytime soon. Carole says plans for a long-anticipated news conference are on indefinite pause because his advisers fear reprisals from prosecutors. Carlos, she notes, was arrested and jailed in April just a day after he, then free on bail, took to Twitter to say he would hold a presser. “He’s not going to speak out. He’s scared,” Carole said in a wide-ranging talk with Automotive News. “No more press conference. After what happened to him last time, it was a very clear signal that ‘You keep your mouth shut.’ ” Carlos remains on a short leash of stringent bail conditions that restrict everything from his Internet access to his contact with his wife — the couple is barred from direct communication. Running afoul of prosecutors, she said, invites even closer scrutiny. “He’s not going to shoot himself in the foot,” said Carole, adding that she only hears how Carlos is doing through third parties such as lawyers. “He’s not going to do anything when he’s under their control and speak out against them when they can very easily find any excuse to put him in detention,” she said. Carole said she hasn’t seen her husband since April 4 and that five applications to visit him were rejected. The Tokyo prosecutor has opposed a meeting, citing a risk of evidence tampering. Carole counters that barring contact is a warrantless pressure tactic for strong-arming a confession.

by middleeasteye.net —The United Arab Emirates will allow its citizens to travel to Lebanon, lifting a 2016 ban that came in support of Saudi Arabia’s anti-Hezbollah policies. Emirati official news agency WAM announced the decision on Monday during a visit by Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri to Abu Dhabi. Hariri is leading a delegation of officials to the Emirates, seeking aid for Lebanon’s struggling economy at the UAE-Lebanon Investment Forum. The Emirati travel ban came in support of Riyadh in February 2016, a month after Iranian protesters attacked the Saudi embassy in Tehran in response to the execution of Saudi Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr. At the time, Saudi Arabia cancelled aid to the Lebanese army over the growing influence of Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, on the government in Beirut.

by ndtv.com —ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani magazine has claimed that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman was “alienated” with “some dimensions” of Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s actions on the sidelines of the UNGA session in New York last month, that he ordered his “private jet to disembowel the Pakistani delegation” as a consequence. Before attending the 74th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York, Mr Khan had first visited Saudi Arabia. While departing for New York from Jeddah, the Saudi Crown Prince stopped Mr Khan from embarking a commercial flight to the US and asked him to fly onboard his private jet as he could not let his guest travel in a commercial plane, Pakistani media reports had said. But while Mr Khan was returning to Islamabad from New York on September 28, it was reported that the Saudi plane developed a technical glitch following which the Prime Minister and his delegation returned to New York and then took a commercial flight back to Pakistan.

RIYADH By Reuters – Stephen Kalin – Saudi Arabia is allowing foreign men and women to rent hotel rooms together without proving they are related, after the conservative Muslim kingdom launched a new tourist visa regime to attract holidaymakers. Women, including Saudis, are also permitted to rent hotel rooms by themselves, in a break with previous regulations. The moves appear to pave the way for unaccompanied women to travel more easily and for unmarried foreign visitors to stay together in the Gulf state, where sex outside of marriage is banned. The Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage confirmed a report on Friday by Arabic-language newspaper Okaz, adding: “All Saudi nationals are asked to show family ID or proof of relationship on checking into hotels. This is not required of foreign tourists. All women, including Saudis, can book and stay in hotels alone, providing ID on check-in.”

Saudi Arabia threw open its doors last week to foreign tourists from 49 countries as it tries to grow that sector and diversify its economy away from oil exports. As part of the move, it decreed that visitors need not wear all-covering black robes but should dress modestly. Alcohol remains banned. Saudi Arabia has been relatively closed off for decades and until recently unrelated men and women, including foreigners, could be severely punished for mixing in public. Strict social codes have been relaxed in recent years and previously banned entertainment has flourished. But an influx of tourists — the authorities are aiming for 100 million annual visits by 2030 — could push boundaries further and risks conservative backlash. The kingdom ended a heavily criticized ban on women driving last year and in August granted women new rights to travel abroad, chipping away at a guardianship system that assigns each woman a male relative to approve important decisions throughout their lives.

by aawsat.com -Yousef Diab- While three decades have passed since the end of the civil war in Lebanon, the country still suffers major crises resulting from the lack of proper infrastructure for electricity, communications, water, waste, and transport. But the current severe financial and economic deterioration has put Lebanon on the edge of an abyss. As usual, the state resorts to temporary and “patchwork” solutions, which anesthetize the situation for a few months, before a new problem emerges elsewhere. Today, three major crises are menacing the Lebanese people’s living conditions. The fuel, with calls for an open-ended strike by owners of fuel stations as of next week; the possible halt of operation at bakeries, and a very dangerous problem threatening the import of medicine. The crises are all linked to the rise in the value of the US dollar against the national currency, because traders buy the goods in USD and sell them to the consumers in Lebanese pounds, amid the Central Bank’s inability to control the game. The union for fuel distributors and gas stations in Lebanon decided to hold an open-ended strike as of next Monday unless the ongoing communications result in solutions that satisfy the sector.

The Union members met on Friday in Beirut and decided to give the government a deadline of 48 hours, ahead of a warning strike on Monday. In remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat, Sami Brax, the head of the Syndicates of Gas Station Owners, said: “Companies will stop Monday distributing fuel to gas stations, which will deprive them of a single drop of gasoline.” “The union exerted mighty efforts with Prime Minister Saad Hariri to reach a solution, and to convince the distributing companies to pay the price of fuel in Lebanese pounds,” he noted. “We will not accept to continue to buy fuel in dollars and sell it to consumers in Lebanese pounds at the fixed price determined by the Ministry of Energy.”

by Dana Halawi BEIRUT (Xinhua) — Winemakers in Lebanon have become aware about the importance of sending their products to the Chinese market because of its high demand for wine. Around 9 million bottles of wine are produced yearly in Lebanon with 45 percent exported to foreign markets. The annual production of the Lebanese wine industry is equal to the wine sales in one week in China, according to Eliana Ibrahim, president of the China Arab Association for Promoting Cultural and Commercial Exchange.

Although Lebanon’s export of wine to China has not been high so far, Lebanese winemakers have started looking for ways to enter the Chinese market. “Around 3 to 4 percent of our production goes to China every year while we have been working on this market for around 12 years,” Gaston Hochar, co-owner of Lebanese winery Chateau Musar, told Xinhua. Hochar said that the winery’s exports to China have increased since he has started dealing with a new distributor in China. “Ever since then, our exports have started increasing,” he said. Hochar added that exporting to China is not free from challenges. The country requests a lot of information about the company’s products and requires bottles’ labels to be translated into Chinese, he explained. “We are coping with these so far and we travel twice a year to China to promote our products,” he said.