Dubai-based Emaar Properties has announced that it will build four projects in Algeria worth a total of $20bn, reported Reuters. The projects include the development of a new town called Sidi Abdellah, a new tourist resort, a new health resort, and redevelopment of the Algiers waterfront. Algeria is trying to lessen its reliance on oil and gas and is ploughing record energy revenues into reconstruction and development programmes.

Jeff Rubin, chief economist at Canadian investment bank CIBC World Markets, said he believes oil prices of at least $100 a barrel will become the norm as early as next year, as supplies dwindle and consumption in the developing world escalates, reported Market Watch. Speaking at an industry conference, Rubin said high oil prices, which may surge up to US$140 a barrel, will spur technological innovations, as well as growth in nuclear power and biofuels.

This week's Texas Open leaderboard will not feature many of the sport's biggest names but birdies should still be easy to find at San Antonio's La Cantera Golf Club.

The third stop on the PGA Tour's seven-tournament Fall Series, the Texas Open has traditionally produced some of the year's lowest scores, including the 72-hole record of 26-under 254 set by Tommy Armour III in 2003.

American Eric Axley collected his maiden PGA Tour title at the Texas Open last year with a sparkling total of 265 but in the last 25 years the winner has gone 262 or lower 10 times.

With Tiger Woods and most of the top players making an early start to their vacations, Canada's Stephen Ames, at number 42, holds the distinction of being the highest-ranked player at the $4.5 million event.

Hunt Oil Co Chief Executive Ray Hunt said his ties to the Bush family and the Republican Party did not help his company cut a deal last month to explore for oil in Iraq's Kurdish region, the Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site on Wednesday, citing an interview with Hunt.

The government of the Kurdish region said last month it had signed a gas and oil production sharing contract with a unit of U.S.-based Hunt and Impulse Energy Corp.

The agreement has been criticized by the Bush administration and Iraqi officials as undermining efforts to strengthen the country's central government, according to the article. Some critics also suggested Hunt was cashing in on his ties to President Bush, the report said.

According to the Journal, Hunt said, contrary to the State Department's assertion, the company received no U.S. government advice before striking a deal.

"The fact is, as a matter of policy, we never have and never will go to the government of the U.S. and ask the government's advice on anything we do from a business point of view," the Journal quoted Hunt as saying.

Hunt said Kurdish oil executives turned to the company because of its oil-development record in Yemen, according to the article.

"It's another example where we're able to move quickly when opportunity presents itself," Hunt told the Journal.

Owners of hacked iPhones have begun posting instructions on how to roll back a recent Apple firmware upgrade that rendered their mobile phones unusable.

The instructions were available Monday on the iPhone Dev Wiki, a Web site devoted to iPhone software hacks and tools.

Since the iPhone's launch, enthusiasts have been developing ways to allow the devices to run unauthorized software and to unlock them so that they can be run on any mobile network. Late last week, however, Apple cracked down on these efforts by releasing a software upgrade that made hacked iPhones unusable.

Since that release, however, hackers have been working on techniques that reverse the effects of this upgrade.

These latest instructions allow users to roll back their firmware upgrades and use some functions like the phone's iPod and Wi-Fi capabilities, but they do not necessarily restore the phone's ability to make calls, according to the iPhone Dev Wiki. That's because hackers have not yet found a way to roll back the firmware used by the iPhone's baseband chip, which is used to make calls.

Panasonic maker Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd (6752.T) said it would launch new Blu-ray optical disc recorders in November that allow more hours of full high-definition recording on a single disc than any others available.
 Matsushita, along with Sony Corp (6758.T), promotes the Blu-ray technology, which competes with the HD DVD format, backed by Toshiba Corp (6502.T) and Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O).

Osaka-based Matsushita, the world's largest consumer electronics maker, also said it plans to offer the world's first DVD recorders that can store full high-definition programs on conventional DVD discs next month.

Smoking may turn on some genes in the body in a permanent and harmful way, scientists said on Thursday in a study that may help explain why the risk of cancer remains high even after smokers quit.

They found many genetic changes that stop when a smoker quits, but found several genes that stay turned on for years, including several not previously linked with tobacco use.

"These irreversible changes may account for the persistent lung cancer risk despite smoking cessation," the researchers wrote in their report, published in BioMed Central journal BMC Genomics.

In any cell, only about one-fifth of the genes are switched on at any given time.