Apple loses spot as world's most valuable public company to Microsoft

by cnbc -- Microsoft is now the most valuable publicly traded company in the world, surpassing Apple for the title. Microsoft's market cap was above Apple's at the close of trading Friday. Microsoft surpassed Apple periodically throughout the week during intraday trading, but Apple consistently beat out Microsoft in market valuation at market close. At Friday's close, Microsoft held an implied market valuation of $851.2 billion at $110.89 per share, based on an outstanding share count of 7,676,218,736 shares as of Oct. 19, according to the company's most recent SEC filing. Apple's market valuation, based on an outstanding share count of 4,745,398,000 shares as of Oct. 26, lagged just behind at $847.4 billion, at $178.58 per share. If Microsoft ends the year as the most valuable company, it will be the first year it closes out in the top position since 2002

Microsoft stock has tripled in the past four and a half years under the leadership of CEO Satya Nadella. It passed Google parent Alphabet by market cap and is up roughly 7 percent in the last month. Microsoft's closing price reached an all-time high of $115.61 on Oct. 1.

New Saudi ambassador arrives in Lebanon

by Sunniva Rose --thenational.ae --   Walid Bukhari, Saudi's latest ambassador to Lebanon has arrived in Beirut, the Lebanese national news agency reported. “We will strive together to preserve the security, stability and sovereignty of Lebanon”, said Mr Bukhari in a speech at the airport on Wednesdaty afternoon, in front of several top Lebanese officials and foreign ambassadors, including UAE ambassador Hamad Saeed Shamsi, who had come to greet him. Mr Bukhari’s arrival follows a November 18 tweet in which he announced that he had taken an oath in front of Saudi King Salman to serve as “an extraordinary ambassador plenipotentiary of Saudi Arabia to Lebanon.”

Waleed A. Bukhari @bukhariwaleeed { وَإنَّهُ لَقَسَمٌ لَوْ تَعْلَمُونَ عَظِيم } بِفَضْلِ الله سُبحانَه وتَعالى تَشَرَّفْتُ الْيَوْمَ بأَداءِ #القَسَمِ أمامَ سيِّدي #خادمُ_الحرميْنِ_الشّريفين حَفِظَهُ اللهُ #سفيرًا فوقَ العادةِ ومُفوَّضًا لِمَقامِهِ الكريمِ لدى #الجمهوريَّةِ_اللُّبنانيةِ

. A source told Lebanese newspaper the Daily Star that Mr Bukhari will submit his credentials to Lebanese president Michel Aoun in the next few days. Mr Yacoub was appointed ambassador late November during a tense time in Lebanese-Saudi relations, several weeks after Lebanese Prime Minister’s surprise resignation on November 4 in Riyad, which sparked a major crisis between the two countries. He had to wait until January to present his credentials to Mr Aoun, local media reported. A few days after Mr Hariri’s resignation, Mr Aoun had complained to Mr Bukhari that the circumstances surrounding the resignation were unacceptable. Mr Bukhari also ridiculed rumours that Mr Hariri was held against his will, infuriating some Lebanese politicians. Early December, Mr Hariri rescinded his resignation.

Lebanese military receives new batch of French arms

By Wassim Saif al-Din -infosurhoy.com -- BEIRUT--- The Lebanese army on Tuesday received a new batch of weapons from France, according to the French Embassy in Beirut. In a statement, the embassy said the army received ten VAB HOT Mephisto armored vehicles fitted with anti-tank missile launcher turret, 96 HOT powerful anti-tank missiles and 2 simulation systems. The new weapons “will help the Lebanese army to fulfill its counter-terrorism needs”, the statement said. The new batch of weapons is part of a plan of enhanced cooperation between Lebanon and France, according to the embassy. The French Embassy said the Lebanese army will receive ten VAB Hot Mephisto armored vehicles soon. France has provided military equipment worth €45 million in 2017 and 2018 to enhance the military capabilities of the Lebanese army. The U.S. is the largest donor to the Lebanese army, providing it with equipment worth more than $1.5 billion since 2006.

New campaign targets Lebanese and UAE government sites

Written by  Sam Varghese -- itwire.com -- A campaign that targets government domains in Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates, as well as the private Lebanese airline, Middle East Airlines, has been uncovered by Cisco's Talos Intelligence Group, which claims that the attackers appear to have studied their intended victims' networks well enough to remain inconspicuous. Researchers Warren Mercer and Paul Rascagneres said the campaign, which they had named DNSpionage, appeared to be a by a new group unconnected to any previous similar attacks. Two fake malicious websites were used in the campaign to target possible victims using infected Microsoft Office documents which contained embedded macros. Apart from the above attacks, the actors also used the same IP to redirect the DNS of legitimate .gov and private domains, carefully generating certificates for the domains that were redirected.

"During each DNS compromise, the actor carefully generated Let's Encrypt certificates for the redirected domains. These certificates provide X.509 certificates for TLS free of charge to the user. We don't know at this time if the DNS redirections were successful," Mercer and Rascagneres wrote. The two malicious websites used were hr-wipro[.]com and hr-suncor[.]com which redirected to wipro.com and suncor.com. "At this time, we don't know how the target received these links. The attackers most likely sent the malicious document via email as part of a spear-phishing campaign, but it also could have circulated via social media platforms, such as LinkedIn, in an attempt to legitimise the opportunity for a new job," the researchers said. One of the Lebanese Government domains that was targeted was that belonging to the Ministry of Finance. "We are highly confident that both of these campaigns came from the same actor," Mercer and Rascagneres noted. "However, we do not know much about the location of the actors and their exact motivations. It is clear that this threat actor was able to redirect DNS from government-owned domains in two different countries over the course of two months, as well as a national Lebanese airline. "They were able to work from the system's point of view by using a Windows malware, as well as the network, by using DNS exfiltration and redirection. It is unclear if these DNS redirection attacks were successful, but the attackers have kept up their efforts, launching five attacks so far this year, including one in the past two weeks."

Carlos Ghosn denies Nissan misconduct claims

by bbc.com-- Mr Ghosn, seen as a titan of the car industry, was detained by police and dismissedby Nissan last week. Claims against the businessman, who led the Renault-Nissan alliance, include falsely reporting his earnings. Public broadcaster NHK, which first disclosed Mr Ghosn's arrest, reported he had told investigators there was no intention to under-report his earnings. He has not spoken publicly. Greg Kelly, a former Nissan executive arrested along with Mr Ghosn, was quoted by NHK as defending his boss's compensation, saying it was discussed with other officials and paid out appropriately. Japanese prosecutors claim the two men conspired to understate Mr Ghosn's remuneration by about half the 10 billion yen ($68m) he earned at Nissan over five years from 2010. The company has also made other allegations about use of company money. Nissan reportedly formed a "secret" team earlier this year to look into alleged financial misconduct by Mr Ghosn, who had been hailed a hero in Japan for turning around the ailing Nissan. But there are suspicions about the timing of Mr Ghosn's downfall, which came amid concerns about the future of the Renault-Nissan partnership He is thought to have been planning deeper business ties between the carmakers, something that some Nissan executives feared could see their company reduced to a junior partner.

Civil damages: Brazil-born Mr Ghosn, aged 64, is in custody in a Tokyo detention centre. On Wednesday, prosecutors successfully applied to extend his custody for an additional 10 days. Separately, Nissan is considering filing a civil damages suit against Mr Ghosn over his expenses and alleged use of company money to buy property, Japan's Kyodo News reported. His arrest raises a question mark over the future of the partnership between Renault, Nissan and, since 2016, Mitsubishi. The three companies are bound together by cross-shareholdings that could be complicated to unpick. Renault had not removed Mr Ghosn as chairman and chief executive, but has instead appointed an executive to take charge on a "temporary basis".

On Sunday, France's finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, said the government and Renault had yet to see evidence to support Nissan's allegations. He also told BFM-TV that France was keen to pursue a strengthening of the alliance "that would respect existing cross-shareholding". Executives of the three companies are thought to be planning a meeting this week, their first gathering since Mr Ghosn's arrest. The meeting was due to be held in the Netherlands with a video conference available for executives who cannot attend, Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun reported. Nissan hopes to announce the appointment of a successor by the end of December. But the success of the alliance was put down in large part to Mr Ghosn's drive and charisma, and analysts say he will be a hard act to follow. Mr Ghosn, feted as a corporate superstar in Japan, had licence to make bold moves. He was, for example, an early adopter of electric cars, investing heavily in the technology despite scepticism from much of the motoring world.

Lebanese direct investments in Egypt hit $671.8M by end of June

by egypttoday.com -- CAIRO – 25 November 2018: The total number of Lebanese companies investing in Egypt is about 1,645 companies with foreign direct investment of $ 671.8 millionuntil the end of June 2018, according to Minister of Investment Sahar Nasr. Nasr clarified that Lebanon occupies the 22nd place among the investing countries in Egypt. The minister praised the tangible achievements and positive development witnessed by the Egyptian-Lebanese cooperation in many important areas, the entry into triangular cooperation projects in the African countries and the remarkable increase in mutual and joint investment balances. This came during the meeting of the Egyptian-Lebanese Ministerial Follow-up Committee, chaired by Sahar Nasr, and Lebanese Minister of Economy and Trade RaedKhouryin the Lebanese capital of Beirut.

The meeting was attended by Ambassador of Egypt to Beirut Nazihel-Naggari. The Lebanese minister of economy and trade praised the Egyptian-Lebanese relations, expressing his country's aspiration to strengthen relations with Egypt at the economic level during the coming period and increase the volume of investments between the two countries. The two sides discussed increasing cooperation in the fields of investment, agriculture, industry, health and medicine, culture, information, tourism, aviation, small and medium enterprises, youth, sports and animal production. Furthermore, the two sides agreed to enhance private sector participation in the development of bilateral cooperation through holding an Egyptian-Lebanese Businessmen Council. On Nov. 23, the fourthEgyptian-Lebanese Business Forum kicked off in Beirut under the patronage of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri and in the presence of Nasr and about 300 businessmen from Egypt and Lebanon.