Baghdad / AFP US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter arrived in Baghdad on Saturday to review the six-day-old offensive to retake Mosul, the IS group’s last major stronghold in Iraq. He will meet commanders from the 60-nation coalition which is led by the United States and assists Iraqi forces in their drive against the extremists. Carter is also due to …

  Aden /AFP Fierce gun battles erupted overnight between Yemeni rebels and pro-government forces along the border with Saudi Arabia despite a three-day ceasefire due to end late Saturday, military officials said. Warplanes from the Saudi-led coalition fighting in support of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi also bombed suspected Houthi rebel missile launchers east of the capital Sanaa late Friday, a …

  Jerusalem / AFP The parliamentary chairman of Israel’s ruling coalition has called for a rights group chief who condemned Israeli settlement construction at the United Nations to be stripped of his citizenship. David Bitan, a leading member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, told Israel’s Channel 2 TV late Friday that he was “examining the legal possibility” …

  Bloomberg As Russia gets ready for talks on cooperation with OPEC on Monday, it’s using the playbooks of Iran, Iraq and Venezuela to gain leverage. Just days before Energy Minister Alexander Novak heads to Vienna for discussions that could include output curbs, Russian officials emphasized the nation’s ability to keep increasing record output to even loftier heights. They were …

  Reuters Borrowing a cup of sugar from your neighbour has rarely been so contentious in Egypt. At supermarkets across the country sugar has all but vanished, prompting media talk of a crisis and pushing the state to rapidly increase imports despite an acute dollar shortage and soaring global prices of the sweetener. Egypt consumes around 3 million tonnes of …

  Bloomberg Crude settled above $50 a barrel as investors assessed the likelihood of a deal to reduce supply after Russia’s energy minister said the country’s oil output may rise to a record next year. December futures rose 0.4 percent in New York after swinging between gains and losses during intraday trading. Russia’s Energy Minister Alexander Novak said production could …

  Reuters Western insurers are slowly reaching deals with Iran as they seek to re-enter a multi-billion dollar market although the pace of business is hampered by banking restrictions ten months on from the lifting of international sanctions. Shut out of international financial markets for years, Iran is still trying to reap the benefits of last year’s nuclear deal with …

  Bloomberg Australia just found out the price of blocking foreign investment. The New South Wales state government announced it had sold a 50.4 percent stake in power network Ausgrid to two local funds in a deal valuing the entire company, including debt, at about A$20.8 billion ($16 billion). Two months earlier, the federal government barred New South Wales from …

  Bloomberg The first Japanese utility to restart a nuclear reactor under post-Fukushima rules has restarted a campaign urging users to increase power consumption discontinued after the unprecedented triple meltdown in March 2011. Kyushu Electric Power Co., which expects at least two nuclear reactors to be online next year, aims to start a television advertising campaign to promote the adoption …

  AP The International Monetary Fund has warned of weak growth prospects in Central Asia and the Caucasus and called for active reforms to energize the post-Soviet economies. In a report, the 189-nation IMF forecast economic growth in the region in 2016 at just 1.3 percent, the lowest estimate since 1998. The slowdown is mostly due to low commodity prices …