Dubai Property Newsletter

BAGHDAD – Iraq executed a Tunisian man convicted of the 2006 bombing of a revered Shia shrine that set off the worst of the country’s sectarian violence, a senior Iraqi official said Thursday.

MOSCOW – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday that an attack by Syrian army defectors on an intelligence complex resembled civil war and reiterated Moscow’s call for talks between Syria’s government and its opponents.

Luxury hotels around the Grand Mosque in Mecca are running full for this year’s Haj despite hundreds of new rooms opening, the National has reported. “Makkah Hilton & Towers was a sell-out for the month surrounding Haj,” said Shuja Zaidi, the hotel’s general manager and vice president for Hilton Worldwide’s projects in Saudi Arabia. “We had expected rates to be lower than in 2010 due to the increased supply of hotel rooms in and around the haram.” But demand exceeded supply and rates remained “in line” with last year, he told the daily.

Swiss-listed Egyptian property and hotels group Orascom Development has posted a third-quarter net loss of CHF2.98m ($3.23m), hit by political and economic upheaval in Egypt and other parts of the Arab world, Reuters has reported. The group, which said it made a net profit of CHF29m in the same quarter of 2010, also posted a CHF18.9m-franc net loss for the first nine months of the year, having made a net profit of CHF76m in the same period last year. “The negative impact of the political and economic upheavals in Egypt and the Arab World continued to negatively affect the results of Orascom Development,” the company said.

Bahraini developer Seef Properties has said its net profits for the third quarter of the year climbed 19% to BD1.57m ($4.2m) from BD1.32m in the third quarter of 2010, Gulf Daily News has reported. Net income for the first nine months of the year reached BD3.82m. Total assets increased to BD115.2m from BD114m at the year-end, the firm said.

SIDON, Lebanon, – Three French UN peacekeepers in Lebanon were wounded in a roadside bombing in the southern city of Sidon, and another three suffered hearing problems, French military officials said.

UNITED NATIONS – Israeli and Palestinian envoys squared off on Tuesday over plans to seek UN recognition of a state of Palestine in September, which Israel rejected as an attempt to bypass direct peace talks.

UNITED NATIONS – The Palestinian Authority is ready to govern a nation but deadlock with Israel has made a two-state solution far from certain, the UN special envoy for the Middle East peace process said Tuesday.

CAIRO – Fifteen Egyptian groups called on Wednesday for women’s rights to be guaranteed in the new constitution, after a popular uprising that toppled the regime paved the way for a new charter.

SIDON, Lebanon – Five French soldiers serving with the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon were wounded on Tuesday, one seriously, in a roadside bomb attack in the southern city of Sidon, a UN official told AFP.