Abu Dhabi

The government of Abu Dhabi, the main shareholder of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, agreed yesterday to pay up to $2.2 billion to creditors of the collapsed bank rather than face legal claims that might not be resolved for years.The proposed settlement, along with the bank's remaining assets, would give 250,000 BCCI creditors and depositors 30 to 40 cents for each dollar they were owed by the bank.The deal covers claims of about $10 billion in 40 nations. In several other countries, including the United States, regulators have reached their own settlements with the liquidators representing BCCI.

WEDNESDAY'S TELEVISION HIGHLIGHTS Autos FIA GT1 World Champ.: Abu Dhabi (T) SPEEDNoon M. bask. Arizona@Florida ESPN7 Colorado State@Duke ESPN27 Central Connecticut St.@Michigan St. ESPNU7 Loyola@George Washington MASN7 Western Carolina@Purdue BIGTEN7:30 Xavier@Butler ESPN9 ...

The government of Abu Dhabi plans to bring formal charges soon against the former chief executive and other officials of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, a representative of the emirate said yesterday.The former chief executive, Swaleh Naqvi, is a central figure in the multibillion-dollar fraud that prompted bank regulators in several countries to seize the bank July 5.Only after investigators obtained access to Mr. Naqvi's secret files, held in Abu Dhabi since last year, did they see the full dimension of the shadowy bank's illicit conduct.

Those who think the government shouldn't be promoting energy innovation have short memories. The federal government's satellite and ballistic missile program spillovers are what brought us Silicon Valley. The energy program spillovers are going to land someplace else. Bringing about a technological and industrial revolution requires a huge commitment of collective resources as well as private initiative. It requires fundamental research, well ahead of the possibility of commercialization.

Abu Dhabi National Energy Co., the state-controlled power generator and oil producer, has agreed to buy Canada's PrimeWest Energy Trust for about $4 billion in the biggest-ever North American takeover by a United Arab Emirates company. Persian Gulf states, flush with cash from burgeoning oil revenue, are buying overseas assets at a record pace. PrimeWest, based in Calgary, Alberta, would be Abu Dhabi National's sixth overseas acquisition since November. The deal would give Abu Dhabi National, also known as Taqa, daily production of oil and gas equivalent to more than 61,000 barrels of oil in Canada and the United States, the companies said in statement yesterday.

Extending the Hopkins brand, Johns Hopkins Medicine International announced yesterday it would for the first time run a foreign hospital - in this case in Abu Dhabi, part of the United Arab Emirates. Yesterday also marked the opening of a Hopkins International-affiliated hospital in Beirut, Lebanon: the Clemenceau Medical Center. Hopkins International has been working since 2002 to plan and open the new facility. Other Hopkins International programs include continuing medical education in India, an outpatient "health village" in Turkey, a hospital in Panama, medical training in Portugal, and obstetric units in China.

Adnan Obaid Mohamed Al Zaabi thinks his country has a car theft problem. But the United Arab Emirates only has a handful every few months.While Zaabi believes homicide is a troubling issue, his tiny desert nation averages only one a year.So when the 33-year-old police captain from Abu Dhabi went for a ride with Baltimore police this week, he got a lesson in big-city crime.In four hours Wednesday, he accompanied police responding to a mugging and to a family squabble, went on a drug raid and watched an officer fight a bureaucracy that couldn't tell him whether his department had towed a 1986 Toyota.

GEOGRAPHY QUIZ-- The city of Abu Dhabi is located on a small island that is part of what country? (Answer below) Quiz answer (FROM ABOVE) United Arab Emirates. Source: National Geographic Bee

BCCI creditors offered paymentThe government and ruling family of Abu Dhabi, the biggest shareholder in now-collapsed BCCI, yesterday offered a new $1.8 billion proposal to pay creditors of the rogue bank.A previous offer valued at $1.7 billion was approved by a big majority of BCCI shareholders. But a court in Luxembourg killed the deal because the terms seemed too favorable to Abu Dhabi, an oil-rich member of the United Arab Emirates.

LONDON -- The liquidator of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International will seek billions of dollars in damages from the failed bank's auditors, people involved in the case said yesterday.The liquidator is expected to seek the huge damages as part of civil lawsuits filed in March against Price Waterhouse, BCCI's main accounting firm during most of the late 1980s, and Ernst & Young, which also audited portions of the bank's activities, officials of the accounting firms said.The suits accused Price Waterhouse and Ernst & Young of negligence in their audits of the bank in 1985 and 1986.

Back in the day, the thought of watching a little desert golf would bring a smile to the frostbitten PGA Tour fan. Snowbound hacks could flip on the TV and catch Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller and Lee Trevino chasing birdies on the sun-splashed playgrounds at the Bob Hope Classic. Their showbiz playing partners, meanwhile, chased yuks. That was then. These days, "desert golf" points to a different locale — Abu Dhabi. The United Arab Emirates is where you will find four of the top five names in golf's world rankings — all but Tiger Woods.

Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, is sometimes upstaged by its neighbor, the uber glitzy Dubai, but that may be coming to an end as concerns about Dubai's debts grow. Abu Dhabi is expected to provide fiscal stability in the region, perhaps garnering more attention from tourists who prefer not worrying about the economic situation. And it can't hurt that Frommer's has named the city a top destination for 2010. Here are five things to do: Get lost in a mosque Visit Sheikh Zayed Mosque, one of the largest mosques in the world.

Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, is sometimes upstaged by its neighbor, the uber glitzy Dubai, but that may be coming to an end as concerns about Dubai's debts grow. Abu Dhabi is expected to provide fiscal stability in the region, perhaps garnering more attention from tourists who prefer not worrying about the economic situation. And it can't hurt that Frommer's has named the city a top destination for 2010. Here are five things to do: 1 Get lost in a mosque : Visit Sheikh Zayed Mosque, one of the largest mosques in the world.

JANUARY 20: Washington Inauguration Day. Hoopla for Barack Obama, with swearing-in at noon. 22 : St. Paul, Minn. St. Paul Winter Carnival. Everything's on ice, from fishing to softball. Through Feb. 1. 24-31 : Elko, Nev. National Cowboy Poetry Gathering. 25th annual roundup of silver-tongued ranch hands. 25 : Ayrshire, Scotland Homecoming Burns Supper. Poet Robert Burns' 250th birthday party launches return-to-Scotland year. 25 : Hong Kong Chinese New Year Celebrations. Parades and fireworks unyoke the Year of the Ox. Through Feb. 1. FEBRUARY 3 : Lubbock, Texas Not Fade Away: Remembering "The Day the Music Died."

Billionaire financier Wilbur L. Ross Jr., who made his fortune turning around distressed steel and textile companies, plans to seek about $4 billion from investors, including Arab sovereign funds, to buy U.S. depositary banks. Ross, 70, will talk with Persian Gulf investors in Abu Dhabi next week about 100 to 200 so-called thrift banks, he said in a telephone interview from New York yesterday. He said some of the lenders are good investments, even after a mortgage-market slump led to $245 billion of asset write-downs and credit losses at the world's biggest banks.

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates -- President Bush called Iran "the world's leading state sponsor of terror" and sought yesterday to shore up opposition to the government in Tehran throughout the Middle East. But even as he criticized Iranian leaders, saying they were seeking to repress their own citizens and to cow neighboring countries, Bush appealed to U.S. allies in the region to open up their own political and economic systems to greater democracy. Iran, meanwhile, promised the head of the United Nation's nuclear watchdog agency yesterday that it will answer all remaining questions about its past nuclear activities within four weeks, including secret activities the United States suspects were linked to a weapons program.

Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, is sometimes upstaged by its neighbor, the uber glitzy Dubai, but that may be coming to an end as concerns about Dubai's debts grow. Abu Dhabi is expected to provide fiscal stability in the region, perhaps garnering more attention from tourists who prefer not worrying about the economic situation. And it can't hurt that Frommer's has named the city a top destination for 2010. Here are five things to do: Get lost in a mosque Visit Sheikh Zayed Mosque, one of the largest mosques in the world.

Two sailors from the aircraft carrier USS Midway were killed when their tour bus overturned on a liberity excursion in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates, the military's Joint Information Bureau announced yesterday. Five other sailors were injured, two seriously, in the accident.Also, it was announced yesterday that one of five soldiers injured in a training accident last week has died.One of the soldiers, in a coma since the explosion of a howitzer, died Sunday, the military said.

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates -- First lady Laura Bush came to the Middle East this week to raise breast cancer awareness, but her mission has been couched in a gracious plea for mutual understanding and world peace. At each stop along her journey, which by week's end will have included the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Jordan, Mrs. Bush has managed a quiet coup of diplomacy. The topic may be breast cancer, but the message is healing in a broader sense. In a world that at times seems impossibly at odds, what could be more unifying than shared concern about a disease that ravages mothers, sisters and wives?

Abu Dhabi National Energy Co., the state-controlled power generator and oil producer, has agreed to buy Canada's PrimeWest Energy Trust for about $4 billion in the biggest-ever North American takeover by a United Arab Emirates company. Persian Gulf states, flush with cash from burgeoning oil revenue, are buying overseas assets at a record pace. PrimeWest, based in Calgary, Alberta, would be Abu Dhabi National's sixth overseas acquisition since November. The deal would give Abu Dhabi National, also known as Taqa, daily production of oil and gas equivalent to more than 61,000 barrels of oil in Canada and the United States, the companies said in statement yesterday.