VENTURE CAPITAL POST

A fire raging for almost a week at Libya's biggest oil port of Es Sider has destroyed up to 1.8 million barrels of crude and damaged seven storage tanks, causing total damage of $213 million, a top oil official said on Tuesday.

A big oil price slide will hurt Iran's attempts to rescue battered living standards, but economic pain is unlikely to soften its stance in nuclear talks or end aid to allies such as Syria, matters seen by its ruling clerics as strategic priorities.

Saudi Arabia's finance minister said there was no need for the kingdom to create a sovereign wealth fund to manage its oil wealth, rebuffing suggestions by prominent officials and businessmen.

Arab OPEC producers expect global oil prices to rebound to between $70 and $80 a barrel by the end of next year as a global economic recovery revives demand, OPEC delegates said this week in the first indication of where the group expects oil markets to ‎stabilize in the medium term.

Saudi Arabia said on Sunday it would not cut output to prop up oil markets even if non-OPEC nations did so, in one of the toughest signals yet that the world's top petroleum exporter plans to ride out the market's biggest slump in years.

Saudi Arabia's oil minister said on Sunday non-cooperation by producers outside of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and the actions of speculators had led to the oil price fall, but he was confident the market would improve.

Israel is proud to call itself a "Start-up Nation", with more tech firms listed on Nasdaq than any other country outside the United States and China. But two elements are often missing from that success story: women and Arabs.

Oil producers group OPEC can ride out a slump in oil prices and keep output unchanged, its head said on Sunday, arguing market weakness did not reflect supply and demand fundamentals and could have been driven by speculators.

Afghanistan does not have enough money to pay salaries this month and has asked aid donors for a bailout before the end of the year, the treasury chief told Reuters on Thursday.

Dow Chemical Co (DOW.N) Chief Executive Andrew Liveris, speaking at a conference in Dubai, said on Monday he did not mind low oil prices because his company makes money in other businesses.

Dubai-based Souq.com, one of the Middle East's largest e-commerce businesses, aims for high double-digit revenue growth as it introduces "Black Friday"-type discount events to help lure shoppers from the city's retail malls.

Behzad Omrani grew up in Tehran, in a house ringing to the sounds of his father's record collection - mostly the twangs and twirls of American Country & Western.

Market expectations that U.S. interest rates will start to lift off sometime in mid-2015 are reasonable, New York Federal Reserve President William Dudley said on Thursday.

A contemporary art gallery in central Tehran is giving Iranians a chance to let out their frustrations by screaming into clay pots sculpted by a Vancouver-based artist, exhibiting in the country of his ancestors for the first time.

An oil field in southwest Libya has closed down, officials said on Sunday, becoming the third oil facility in the chaotic country to shut within a week.