Gaziantep / AFP Brazilian steelmaker Usiminas has extended a 120-day credit standstill that was due to expire on Friday, state development bank BNDES said. Usiminas has been granted an additional 60 days to negotiate a deal, BNDES said in an e-mailed statement. Usinas Siderurgicas de Minas Gerais SA, as the Belo Horizonte-based company is formally known, has been in …

  Beirut / AFP Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on Thursday he has never faced pressure from Russia to step aside, as US Secretary of State John Kerry headed to Moscow seeking to revive stalled peace efforts. Speaking to NBC News in Damascus, Assad insisted his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had never raised the issue …

  Kuwait City / AFP Kuwait has set a minimum wage for its hundreds of thousands of mostly Asian domestic workers, in a first for Gulf states which have come under widespread accusations of abuse. A decree issued by Interior Minister Sheikh Mohammad Khaled Al-Sabah set the minimum wage at 60 dinars ($200) a month and also granted domestic staff …