Asia-News

Millennium Private Equity, a Dubai government-linked investment company with about $5bn in capital, plans to use Islamic financing for venture capital in Europe after buying the first corporate sukuk in the UK, Bloomberg has reported. "We are looking at transactions in Europe and other areas," Vally Khamisani, a director at Millennium told the news service. Millennium, part-owned by Dubai Islamic Bank, had bought $10m of four-year convertible notes in July that were sold by International Innovative Technologies, a clean energy company in Gateshead.

The KSE Market or Price Index finished 0.38% higher at 6,703.2 points due to strong gains in the insurance segment. Gulf Insurance Co. (up 8.16% at KD0.530) posted the largest advance. Real estate and foof companies performed weaker. Over the week the KSE bourse added 0.86%.

After the Tokyo bourse reached a 16-month high, gulf markets posted modest gains, as the QE Index in Doha ended 0.76% higher at 7,305.96 points. Positive market reports from Standard and Poor's and Credit Suisse have helped the QE Index to gain over two percent during the trading week of August/September. Qatar National Bank (QNB) advanced 0.40% too QR143.60. QNB has paved ways to become a shareholder in Bank Kesawan in Indonesia. The rights issue to buy in Bank Kesewan is scheduled to close in the first quarter 2011. EFG Hermes rates QNB 'neutral'.

Since riots between the Han and Uighur groups in 2009, the Chinese authorities have arrested hundreds and tried to soothe frayed nerves. But the push has done little to repair distrust.

The Afghan government scrambled to bolster the nation’s largest bank after depositors mobbed it for a third day.

The explosion, two days after another attack, killed at least 40 people, as militants intensify their campaign to destabilize the Pakistani government.

The cricket-obsessed nation has burst into a collective outcry of anger and frustration after allegations that some players of the national team were involved in illegal match tampering.

Anwar Ibrahim, an opposition leader, filed a complaint after a Web site asserted that the man who accused him of sodomy had an affair with a prosecutor.

A show in which contestants compete for a job offer as an imam has built a following among young Malaysians.

With a jail sentence looming and vigilantes after him, the editor of Indonesia’s now-defunct Playboy magazine says he was never in the pornography business.

Indonesia is trying to avoid taking sides in what could become a second Cold War.

Just getting to work is an ordeal for staff members, who have also had to face chanting protesters in their emergency room.

Some analysts said that compromises needed to push the bill through Parliament undermined its intent to transform relations with the United States.