A court blocked Uber's ride-sharing services in Israel on Monday in a victory for the country's traditional taxi operators, saying the U.S. firm's private drivers lacked proper insurance.

Iraq said Monday it will start receiving bids next June for projects to develop nine oil and gas fields in an attempt by the war-ravaged nation to boost energy revenues.

Abdul-Mahdi al-Ameedi, who heads the Oil Ministry's Licensing and Petroleum Contracts Department, said that detailed energy information on the nine areas in question will be disclosed at the end of this month.

The UK Lebanon Tech Hub (UKLTH), a joint initiative by Banque du Liban (Lebanon’s Central Bank) and the British Embassy in Beirut, has announced that inside three years of operation it has boosted Lebanon’s knowledge economy by creating 1,370 direct and indirect jobs. It also contributed more than US $8.5 million worth of deals into the UK and a $26 million increase in company revenues in Lebanon.

The hub, which helps grow tech innovations into global businesses primarily through London, accelerated 78 startups that raised more than $36 million and are currently valued at more than $200 million. The figures presented at the demo day of The Nucleus, the hub’s startup venture building program, were welcomed by Hugo Shorter, the British Ambassador to Lebanon.

Tax optimization is no longer a matter just for the multinationals. A number of market players are now tailoring strategies originally drawn up for the corporate whales to the minnows, or small businesses and independent entrepreneurs.

Powered by Chinese smartphone users splurging billions on mobile games and online shopping, China's tech giants Tencent and Alibaba are racing up the elite league of the world's most valuable companies.

Bitcoin, which this week soared to a new record high of more than $8,000, is the monetary equivalent of Uber, since it bypasses central bank regulation and could be attractive for financially fragile countries, economists say.

Iraq is to build a new pipeline to allow oil exports to resume from the northern province of Kirkuk to neighbouring Turkey, the oil ministry said Sunday.

Retailers worked hard to attract shoppers to stores on Black Friday, offering in-person deals meant to counter the ease of shopping by phone on Amazon.

A better economy and colder weather helped, to be sure. But stores have also tried to improve the store experience and offer better service. They've also made a big push toward offering store pickup for online orders, hoping to get people to pick up more items. But they're fighting a circumstance in which online leader Amazon is the first and only stop for many shoppers.

London's stock market fell on Friday, bucking an upwards trend elsewhere, as 'Black Friday' price-slashing wooed customers but was expected to hurt the bottom line of Britain's biggest retailers.

Asian markets mostly rose but investors moved warily on Friday after a sharp sell-off in Shanghai the previous day fuelled concerns of fresh turmoil in Chinese markets.