By Ruiqi Chen, Editor at LinkedIn News — Some Uber customers will soon be able to use the app to book flights. …

By Maha El Dahan DUBAI, (Reuters) - A consortium led by TotalEnergies (TTEF.PA) will start drilling for oil and gas off the coast of Lebanon at the beginning of September, the country's caretaker energy minister Walid Fayyad said on Tuesday. The consortium, which includes Italy's partners ENI (ENI.MI) and QatarEnergy [RIC:RIC:QATPE.UL], has assigned a rig for the offshore southern bloc known as Bloc 9. "The rig will start working in Lebanon in September ... before the end of the year we will know if there is a discovery," Fayyad told reporters on the sidelines of the World Utilities Congress in Abu Dhabi. The minister said he was hopeful that if a discovery was made, it would unlock more investments in Lebanon's offshore oil and gas sector.

Fayyad said a potential discovery could impact whether a deadline for applications to explore in eight additional offshore blocs is extended yet again, past June. "I have been hearing from players in the field that they are keen to see the result of the drilling in Bloc 9 before they make decisions as to further investments or commitments in Lebanon," he told reporters. "In the end if we don't have enough interest and players, we must adapt," Fayyad said. The minister said a World Bank-funded deal to receive electricity from Jordan and gas from Egypt through Syria had yet to progress as the financing body had requested more reforms before committing. But he said Lebanon would aim to boost imports from Iraq by bumping up the volume of an existing swap deal and through new commercial agreements.

by middleeasteye.net -- The embassy is expected to cost $1bn and will occupy 43 acres in a country facing financial collapse. Photographs of the new US embassy compound under construction in Lebanon shared on Twitter on Friday have sparked questions, conspiracies, and some jeers as a result of its massive size. As of Monday, the photographs, posted by the US embassy in Beirut with the caption, “things are progressing at our new compounds", had gotten 2.1 million views by the time of publication. The US announced plans to build the new embassy in 2017 and the compound has been under construction ever since.

Many have questioned why the US needs to build what will be the world’s second-largest embassy in the world after the American embassy in Baghdad, given that the Mediterranean country is home to only six million people and is currently facing a financial crisis. “This is bigger than the Pentagon,” one Twitter user said. “ What’s planned for this compound other than issuing visas???” “Room for hundreds of spies and infiltrators? A weapon factory too? another Twitter user asked. “Any secret bio labs tucked away in that military complex-like building?” asked another. The embassy is expected to cost $1bn and will occupy 43 acres once completed. The price tag has also raised eyebrows because it comes as Lebanon is facing an economic implosion.

By Kaniya Rogers, Editor at LinkedIn News — Airlines, hotels, and automakers are pulling in record profits by selling less and charging …