Jalalabad / AFP Afghan and Pakistani forces clashed in an escalation of tensions between the neighbouring countries, killing at least three people and forcing the closure of the main border crossing, officials said on Tuesday. The fighting erupted along the Torkham border on Sunday night and continued erratically over the next two days, apparently after Afghan forces objected to ...

WASHINGTON Even by Donald Trump’s standards, his comments about the Orlando shooting have been reckless and self-serving. They are also dangerous for the country. Trump’s response to Sunday morning’s terrorist attack by Omar Mateen was initially an opportunistic tweet; then a boasting statement on his website: “I said this was going to happen”; followed by a renewed call to temporarily ...

  The projections of the International Energy Agency (IEA) that the global oil market will be almost balanced next year as demand continues to rise faster than production, while the current oversupply is much smaller than previously thought, echo the UAE’s position that current prices were not sustainable. The surplus in the first half of this year is about 40 ...

  Mohamed A. El-Erian As central banks in advanced economies — including the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the Swiss National Bank and the U.S. Federal Reserve — hold policy their meetings this week, they will all confront tricky questions about the management of national liquidity and cross-border influences. The most fascinating discussion, however, will take place at ...

Top diplomats from the U.S. State Department and USAID appeared before a congressional subcommittee last week to make the case for the department’s FY 2017 budget, which requests $164.1 million for Central Asia. Speaking before the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats, Daniel Rosenblum of the U.S. State Department detailed the justification behind across-the-board increases ...

Microsoft’s acquisition of the social network LinkedIn is not easy to understand. Both companies’ chief executives, Satya Nadella of Microsoft and Jeff Weiner, have described the $26.2 billion all-cash deal — one of the largest in tech history — in the blandest corporate-speak, with memos that sounded as if they were part of LinkedIn’s megaboring attempt to create a commentary ...

  When he promised a referendum on the U.K.’s membership in the EU, Prime Minister David Cameron was surely not picturing the white-knuckle ride his “remain” campaign is experiencing right now. What was intended as a campaign promise to get his Conservatives elected must seem in retrospect like a reckless gamble. The consequences will be felt long after the ballots ...

Several months behind schedule, the New Zealand Defense White Paper was released last week in Wellington. It has earmarked funding of around NZ$20 billion (US$14 billion) over 15 years for defense, which will be used, among other things, to replace frigates and aircraft and to provide the New Zealand Defense Force with a cyber warfare capability. This investment is the ...

  BLOOMBERG Increasing odds of a U.K. exit from the European Union boosted demand for havens, sending Germany’s 10-year bond yields below zero for the first time. Stocks fell and the pound slumped to a two-month low. Treasuries also jumped and yields fell to records in Australia and Japan after four polls showed the campaign to take the U.K. out ...

  Bloomberg A supply crunch in cocoa that’s boosted prices will last until year-end, when production may rebound in West Africa, according to Sucres et Denrees SA. The worst desert winds in three decades that reduced the quality of cocoa in West Africa means some beans won’t be processed this season, making an expected shortage of 280,000 metric tons appear ...