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After Friday prayers on 18 February, hundreds of stateless Arabs protested to demand their civil rights. The elite special forces used water cannon, tear gas, batons and smoke bombs to disperse the crowds.

Even if stories of widely detested presidential wife Leila Trabelsi spiriting out 1.5 tonnes of gold as the president departed are apocryphal – and French and other sources give the report some credence – the extended family has huge holdings abroad, including property in Dubai, Europe

Private investment management company Securities Group (SG), which initially opposed a deal to sell 46% of Kuwait telecommunications group Zain to the UAE’s Etisalat, now says it wants to be part of talks.

Leave aside for a moment the football politics, so often an opaque affair, and the disappointment of much larger and more established soccer-playing nations, whose hopes of hosting a World Cup were dashed by the Zurich-based Fédération Internationale de Football Association (Fifa), the sport’s governing body. What does the success of Qatar’s bid to host the 2022 Fifa World Cup say about the nature of polities and geopolitics as the world remakes itself after a decade defined by the West’s unresolved interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, and staggers to an end with European economies and the United States struggling to recover from the credit crunch?

The joint venture between Qatar Telecom (QTel) and Tunisia’s Princesse El-Materi Holding, which is trying to buy Orascom Telecom Holding’s 50% stake in Telecom Tunisie (Tunisiana), reflects Qatar’s skill at making deals with North African ruling elites.

United Arab Emirates investors are again trying to get projects off the ground in Algeria, with Federal National Council president Abdelaziz Abdullah Al-Ghurair meeting President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in Algiers earlier this month to push their case.

Recent financings worth a total $1.3bn for two Omani power projects and a $2.2bn package for Emirates Steel have maintained momentum in the GCC project finance market, according to participants canvassed by GSN

BAHRAIN: BMI Bank appoints new chief executive, OMAN: BankMuscat profits up, but below expectations

Figures raise concerns over group’s management capabilities as well as the emirate’s continuing debt burden

Qatar is lining up a potential bid for a stake in French nuclear world-beater Areva – which will have to confront French resistance to an Arab government buying into a ‘national champion’ but seems to have the support of President Nicolas Sarkozy and French lobbies that have long cultivated relations with Doha and Abu Dhabi

Oman Investment Fund (OIF) has become a foreign strategic partner of PetroVietnam Insurance (PVI). OIF’s Funderburk Lighthouse has acquired shares worth some $42.5m, representing 12.6%

Thousands of investors have been swindled out of OR88m ($220m), the Omani prosecutor’s office said on 27 January. “So far, as many as 3,254 people fell prey to the swindlers and the total amount swindled by the cheats so far stands at OR88.4m,” the prosecutor said in a statement.

Not all the headlines are positive, with wealthy Al-Thanis involved in controversial projects in London and Paris, but domestic indicators are good, business is building in Asia and the mega funds are back in action

In a move to increase pressure on Tehran, the British government has followed US moves by banning all UK-based companies from entering into or continuing any transactions or business relationships with Bank Mellat,

Iraq remains at far from ‘normalisation’, or being regarded as a bankable risk, but the country’s political progress and a gradual improvement in security are helping to alter the perceptions of the trade finance and insurance communities