The United Arab Emirates has pledged $3 billion in financial assistance to Egypt during a visit to the oil-rich Gulf state by Prime Minister Essam Sharaf, state media said.

UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan "has issued directives to allocate an aid package of $3 billion for Egypt," the official WAM news agency reported late on Monday.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Sunday traveled to the United Arab Emirates upon an official invitation from Emirati officials, state-run National News Agency reported.

Geagea is accompanied by MPs Strida Geagea and Antoine Zahra, LF Foreign Relations Officer Joseph Nehme and LF Gulf area official Fadi Salameh.

Kuwaiti naval forces on Saturday ended a mission to secure Bahrain's maritime border they began in March amid a crackdown on Shiite protesters, the official KUNA news agency reported.

"The Kuwaiti naval task force in the Kingdom of Bahrain ended today (Saturday) its mission to contribute to the protection of the maritime border of Bahrain and securing it in cooperation with the Bahraini navy, which began in March," KUNA said.

For the tattered-clothed young men in this remote community, milking a camel's stubby utters at sunrise is not a novelty, but a daily chore to get milk valued by their tribe for generations.

But camel's milk, long-cherished by the Cushite people of central Kenya, is now enjoying a renaissance in the capital Nairobi and could, some say, become an internationally coveted health food product worth 10 billion dollars a year. "Camels are better than cows because they can survive when there is drought, but the cows cannot, so I can make a profit even during dry season," said Halima Hussein, 45, whose 84-strong flock makes her a local camel-mogul.

Far away from the Caspian Sea, sturgeon is raised in ponds cooled in the heart of the Gulf desert of Abu Dhabi, carrying in their wombs a form of black gold strange to these countries -- caviar.

Production of the desert-grown caviar will begin later this year and by 2012, consumers in the oil-rich Gulf region will begin savoring the "food of the kings".

U.S. authorities Thursday charged firms in France and the United Arab Emirates for conspiring to export components for attack helicopters and fighter jets to Iran without a license.

The Justice Department said that among the individuals and five corporate entities charged were Aerotechnic, based in Pinsaguel, France, its president Philippe Sanchez and sales manager Luc Teuly. They remain fugitives.

She grew up amid the Lebanese civil war and was orphaned at 9. A nursing director who came to admire businesswomen, Andree "Sara" Bejjani moved to New York to foster her new career in her 40s, settling in an apartment in an elegant hotel overlooking Manhattan's Central Park. She felt safe there, she told her sister.

Within months, Bejjani was found strangled on her kitchen floor at the Jumeriah Essex House with a knife sticking out of her neck, police said. She had been murdered by a housekeeping manager who used his employee key card to break into her apartment and attack her as she slept.

British luxury handbag maker Mulberry said Thursday that annual profits more than quadrupled, as the group celebrated its 40th anniversary with stunning sales growth and eyed more global expansion.

Pre-tax earnings rocketed by a staggering 358 percent to £23.3 million ($37.6 million, 26.6 million Euros) in the 12 months to the end of March, Mulberry said in a results statement.

Dubai's government unexpectedly intervened Monday to take over Dubai Bank, a cash-strapped lender jointly owned by the Dubai ruler's investment company and the developer of the world's tallest tower.

The government, in a statement issued by the city-state's media office, vowed to immediately pump an undisclosed amount of fresh funds into the bank. The announcement is a reminder that while Dubai may be recovering from the economic downturn, it is far from being in the clear after its biggest conglomerate was forced to re-negotiate the terms on about $25 billion in debt.

A man whose luggage contained a baby bear, a pair of panthers, two leopards and some monkeys was arrested as he tried to smuggle the live animals out of Thailand, police said Friday.

Noor Mahmoodr, a 36-year-old citizen of the United Arab Emirates, was detained soon after midnight by undercover officers at a Bangkok airport with the animals -- all aged under two months -- in his cases.