Reuters reports that a major shareholder of Kuwait’s Zain has defended Etisalat’s US$12 billion offer to buy 46 percent of the telecoms carrier, questioning why another big Zain stakeholder pulled out of the deal and criticised it. Reuters notes that, in a dispute playing out in dueling Kuwaiti newspaper advertisements, the Kharafi Group’s Al Khair National for Stocks and Real Estate posted an ad in the al-Jarida daily on Wednesday saying Etisalat was an international company and its offer was beyond doubt. A day earlier on Tuesday, Al Fawares Holding — which is estimated to own less than five percent of Zain — accused Zain’s management of failing to gauge the seriousness of Etisalat and threatened to take the matter to court.