Starbucks' franchisee in the Middle East, Alshaya Group, is implementing significant job cuts at its coffee shops.

Oil giant British Petroleum (BP) has temporarily halted all its tanker transits via the Red Sea after attacks on ships by Iranian-backed Houthi militants based in Yemen escalated.

Shipping giants Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd have temporarily suspended their container ship travel through the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in the Middle East, citing security risks.

Saudi Arabia's state-owned oil major Aramco will takeover Port Arthur Texas refinery in the US. Saudi Arabia will refine its oil shipped from Middle East at Port Arthur refinery and also sell it in the huge North American market.

The Gulf establishment, Adeptio LLC has approached Kuwait's fast-food chain, Americana, for buying out the 66.8% controlling stake held by the Al Kharafi family valued at $1.7 billion. Currently, the investor is conducting the due diligence but the final outcome will be based on the approval of the Americana franchisers.

Saudi Arabia has suffered from the oil price collapse, and needs to plan a diversified economic strategy. The country has called $30 per barrel oil price is not rational, and aiming to encourage foreign investment to enter the country.

Oracle has disclosed its expansion program in the Middle East for 2016 which involves setting up a data center and new offices in Abu Dhabi and internet cities in Amman and Riyadh. It also plans to increase its workforce to offer better service for the customers across the Middle East and Africa. The vibrant nature of the cloud market in the Middle East region and the ever growing cloud business therein has led the Californian tech giant to approach with larger investments.

Morocco will build the largest concentrated solar power in the world at Ouarzazate city. The project, alongside with hydro and wind, will help provide nearly half of Morocco's electricity requirement by 2020.

The oil drilling activity in Canada is taking a hit as crude oil price is still hovering at $50 a barrel. The current situation is forcing Canadian oil companies to lower drilling activity in 2016.

The indications are strong such that mighty Middle East (ME) region also may not sustain cheaper oil prices for long. If oil price continues to hover at $50 per barrel, the majority of Gulf nations will run out of cash in the next five years, according to International Monetary Fund (IMF). There's no exception to Saudi Arabia, the leader of Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec), Oman and Bahrain. The oil price drop is expected to pull $350bn out of the ME region this year alone. The current account deficit of Saudi Arabia may touch 20 percent of its GDP this year.