PATRICK BLOG NEWS

The list of potential pitfalls for Middle East investors next year is long. With oil in a bear market, pressure on energy exporters is mounting. Saudi Arabia’s global standing is being questioned and Washington has turned its back on Iran, opening the way for increased -- and some say destabilizing -- Russian influence. The region has never been for the faint-hearted. Traders who snapped up Saudi assets in the first half of the year, only to see the market turn against them after the murder of columnist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul, are nursing steep losses. Bahrain’s friends only bailed out the nation after its bonds got a battering and Aramco’s postponed share sale has dealt a blow to investor confidence. Then there’s Turkey, whose currency was among the worst performers in the world this year and still relies heavily on foreign inflows. In Pics: How Mideast is buying the world But amid the tumult, Marshall Stocker, a Boston-based money manager at Eaton Vance Corp., pla...

More than a year ago, he vanished into the Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh, along with dozens of Saudi princes and businessmen. Before long, rumors swirled: Was the billionaire Mohammed Al Amoudi even alive? Now, at last, comes the answer. Al Amoudi is "still alive" and will stand trial at some point for corruption and bribery, according to a Saudi official, who asked not to be identified. What’s remarkable about his situation is that despite his prolonged detainment, a result of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s crackdown on graft in the Kingdom, the bulk of Al Amoudi’s global business empire has boomed. In Pics: The world's richest royal families Sales at his Sweden-based oil refiner Preem AB have surged more than 30 percent and his Stockholm office properties have risen in value. Since being seized by security forces in Riyadh last year, his net worth has climbed by about 6 percent to $8.3 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a ranking of the ...

BEIJING (Reuters) - The people of Tibet should not be taken in by the Dalai Lama's lies and clearly understand the importance of Communist Party rule in the region, the Chinese government said ahead of March's sensitive 60th anniversary of him fleeing into exile. Beijing sent troops into Tibet in 1950 in what it officially terms a peaceful liberation and has ruled there with an iron fist even since. The Dalai Lama, the highest figure in Tibetan Buddhism, fled into exile to India in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule. China routinely denounces him as a dangerous separatist, although the Dalai Lama says he merely wants genuine autonomy for his remote and mountainous homeland. The official Tibet Daily said in a lengthy commentary released online late on Thursday the Dalai Lama had never given up promoting Tibetan independence, dismissing his intentions to seek a "middle way" of genuine autonomy. "Whether it's the 'middle way' ...

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan’s military looks to raise spending over the next five years in response to security challenges and to narrow Japan’s trade surplus with the United States by buying U.S. equipment, the Nikkei business daily reported on Saturday. The Ministry of Defence looks to spend at least 27 trillion yen ($240 billion) between April 2019 and March 2024, with the spending rising an average 1.1 percent per year, exceeding the 0.8 percent average during the five years ending next March, the report said without identifying its sources. Currently, payments on equipment and personnel expenses account for 80 percent of defense spending, Nikkei said. Under the plan, funds for new equipment purchases will be separated from these expenses, making it easier to buy equipment from the United States, it added. SPONSORED Japan aims to have cabinet approval for the spending in mid-December, it said. The Ministry of Defence could not be reached immediately for comment. P...

he White House seemingly dismissed the details of two court filings on Friday regarding President Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen and his ex-campaign chairman Paul Manafort, with the former leading Trump to declare himself "totally" cleared. The  sentencing memo  filed by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York pertaining to the criminal investigation and grand jury probe into Cohen’s personal business dealings didn’t contain any new, substantial information, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement. “The government’s filings in Mr. Cohen’s case tell us nothing of value that wasn’t already known,” Sanders said. “Mr. Cohen has repeatedly lied and as the prosecution has pointed out to the court, Mr. Cohen is no hero.” In the memo, prosecutors recommended that Cohen be given a “substantial” prison sentence. They also diminished his cooperation with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, saying that it had...