US expands sales of arms: report

WASHINGTON — The United States expanded its role as the world?s leading weapons supplier, increasing its share to more than two-thirds of all foreign armaments deals, The New York Times reported.
Citing a new congressional study, the newspaper said the United States signed weapons agreements valued at 37.8 billion dollars last year, or 68.4 percent of all business in the global arms bazaar.
The figure marked a significant increase from US arms sales of 25.4 billion dollars the year before, the paper noted.
Italy was a distant second, with 3.7 billion dollars in worldwide weapons sales in 2008, while Russia was third with 3.5 billion dollars in arms sales last year -- down considerably from the 10.8 billion in weapons deals signed by Moscow in 2007, the report pointed out.
The growth in weapons sales by the United States last year was particularly noticeable against worldwide trends, The Times said.
The value of global arms sales in 2008 was 55.2 billion dollars, a drop of 7.6 percent from 2007 and the lowest total for international weapons agreements since 2005, according to the report.
The increase in American weapons sales around the world "was attributable not only to major new orders from clients in the Near East and in Asia, but also to the continuation of significant equipment and support services contracts with a broad-based number of US clients globally," the paper quotes the study produced by the Congressional Research Service.

Abu Dhabi eyes Kuwaiti telco Zain stake: reports

Shareholders to sell stakes at two dinars
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KUWAIT: Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) is part of a group that is in talks to buy a 46 percent stake in Kuwaiti telecom firm Zain, newspaper reports said on Monday.
Zain's Chief Executive Saad al-Barrak confirmed to Reuters on Sunday that shareholders were in talks to sell a stake in the group, declining to give further details.
An Asian group was in the final stages of buying a 46 percent stake in Zain, Al Arabiya television reported on Sunday.
"Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund is a part of the deal with the Asian investors," Kuwaiti daily al-Anbaa said in an unsourced report on Monday.
If the deal goes through it would be worth 15 billion dollars, al-Rai newspaper said in its Monday edition.
Zain's biggest shareholders are Kuwait's sovereign wealth fund the Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA), which owns 24.6 percent, and family-owned conglomerate Kharafi Group, which holds at least a 10.86 percent stake, according to the Kuwaiti bourse website.
Analysts estimate Kharafi owns about 20 percent in Zain through its units.
KIA will be keeping its stake in Zain, and will not be part of the deal, Anbaa reported.
ADIA concluds talks with Kharafi
In another unsourced report on Monday, daily Awan said that ADIA has concluded talks with the Kharafi Group, to sell 51 percent of Zain's shares to the authority.
Kharafi executives could not be reached for comment. A spokesman for ADIA could not be immediately reached for comment.
Al Arabiya television reported that shareholders -- among them the Kharafi Group -- had agreed to sell their stake in Zain at a price of around two dinars ($6.96) a share to an Asian group and that an official announcement was due shortly.
The offer of two dinars per share reported by Al Arabiya represents a 28 percent premium to Sunday's closing price of 1.56 dinars and values the stake at 3.93 billion Kuwaiti dinars ($13.68 billion), according to Reuters calculations.
Zain is the region's second-largest telco by market value and operates in 24 countries, including Nigeria and Saudi Arabia.
Last week, Zain shareholders abolished decades-old restrictions on ownership to enable foreign investors to take up a majority stake in the emirate's oldest mobile operator.
The shareholders agreed at an extraordinary meeting to abolish two articles in the company's statute which prevented any local or foreign investor from owning a stake of more than five percent.
Zain, Kuwait's oldest mobile operator, has more than 65 million clients in 23 countries in the Middle East and Africa.
Zain, in which the state owns a 24.6 percent stake, is one of three mobile operators in Kuwait, along with National Telecommunications Co (Wataniya) and Kuwait Telecommunications Co (VIVA).
Qatar Telecom owns a majority stake in Wataniya while VIVA is run by the Saudi Telecom Co.

UAE Air Force plane bound for China detained at Kolkata airport

KOLKATA: An aircraft belonging to the United Arab Emirates Air Force was found carrying a large cache of arms and ammunition and detained along with its nine crew members here last night.

The plane, bound for Hanyang in China from Abu Dhabi, landed at the NSC Bose International airport here for refueling last night.

Airport sources said that while customary checking of the plane by customs officials it was found that a large cache of arms and ammunition were stockpiled inside the flight.

The airport authority of India was informed and as the plane's crew did not inform the authorities here that the aircraft was carrying arms, its return flight order was cancelled and nine crewmembers were detained.

Late in the night, a meeting was held with the airport authorities, customs officials, senior Air Force officers and the UAE crew about the entire matter.

Finally, permission was granted to the plane to resume its flight this morning, sources said.

US mayor under fire for anti-Muslim email

Calls Eid stamps a "slap in the face" to Americans

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DUBAI : The mayor of an American town came under fire over the weekend for forwarding an anti-Islam email calling on recipients to protest against a U.S. postage stamp recognizing Islamic holidays as it was a "slap in the face" to Americans.
Stereotyping the world's 1.5 billion Muslims, the email cites "Muslim terrorist attacks" and calls on people to "remember the Muslim bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993!" in a bid to call on "Patriotic Americans" to protest against the postage stamps first issued in 2001 to mark the Eid holidays.
Forwarded by Mayor Johnny Piper of Clarksville, Tennessee, who defended his actions, the email was sent to around 22 city council members, city officials and even a local newspaper editor.
The email called the stamps, which were wrongly assumed to have been issued under President Barack Obama's administration, a "slap in the face" to the Americans who "died at the hands of those whom this stamp honors."
Piper said his actions were not anti-Muslim and that he was passing on "information."
Meanwhile, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization, said it would send a copy of the Quran, Islam's holy book, to Piper and other council memebrs.
While president of the Islamic Center of Clarksville, Ahmed Joudah, said: "I laughed when I read it, but at the same time, I felt sorry that we still have people around us that think that way."
Joudah said he was surprised the mayor had forwarded the email and added: "I don't want to say harsh things, because he's a very nice man. I know him personally, and he's a very nice, decent man."

Kuwait keeping Merrill, Citi stakes: minister

Sovereign wealth fund focused on the "long-term"
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DUBAI : Kuwait has no intention of selling its investments in U.S. banking giants Merrill Lynch and Citigroup, in the short term, its sovereign wealth fund said in newspaper reports published on Sunday.
"The Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA) has no intention of selling its investments in Merrill Lynch or Citigroup in the short term, as the authority relies in its investment policies on a long-term view," the finance minister said in comments published Sunday in local newspapers.
Kuwait's sovereign wealth fund, which manages state assets in the world's fourth-biggest oil exporter, has come under fire from some parliamentarians for investing $5 billion in Citigroup and Merrill Lynch. Merrill has since been bought by Bank of America.
Each share bought in Merrill Lynch is now equivalent to 0.8595 share in Bank of America, the daily al-Rai quoted a statement from KIA as saying.
In late 2007, state-owned KIA acquired stakes worth $3 billion in Citigroup and $2 billion in Merrill Lynch, which was acquired by Bank of America last year. It did not disclose the size of the stake at the time.
But Shamali said that by the end of November, 2008, the stake in Citigroup was worth just $2.4 billion and in Bank of America just under $1 billion.
KIA in the meantime received returns worth $318 million from the two investments up to the end of last year, Shamali said in the written reply to a question from lawmaker Waleed al-Tabtabae published in local dailies al-Qabas and al-Rai.
Local media quoted Mustafa al-Shamali as saying that KIA’s investment policy “is based on a long-term vision” but that it can exit the investments if it wants to.
Plunge in values
The value of foreign assets managed by the KIA, fell by about 9 billion dinars ($31.33 billion) in the nine months to December 2008, due to the financial crisis, two lawmakers said in February after a government briefing.
Established in 1982, KIA manages two state reserve funds the value of whose assets reached around $300 billion before the global economic meltdown. KIA managed assets worth about 49 billion dinars ($171 billion) as of Dec. 31, the MPs said.
There are no current official figure on the holdings of the funds, but the government said in February that they lost around $33 billion in value, though independent reports said the losses were much higher
At the time of Kuwait's purchase, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), the sovereign wealth fund run by the government of the UAE capital, also bought a stake worth $7.5 billion in Citigroup to become one of its biggest shareholders.
Since last October, KIA has reduced the exposure of its key Future Generation fund to global equities markets, shifting assets to cash funds, the government said in January.
In May, Shamali told Reuters that the Gulf state was not reducing its dollar assets and was keeping some liquid assets to meet its budget requirements.