TUNIS / Reuters Tunisia’s parliament approved a 32.7 billion dinar ($14.1 billion) budget for next year, including deficit cutting measures that had been watered down under pressure from unions. From a total of 217 lawmakers in parliament, 122 voted in favour of the finance bill. Earlier this week parliament struck out two key revenue raising measures and the government ...

  DOHA/ Reuters Qatar will merge state-owned liquefied natural gas producers Qatargas and RasGas Co Ltd, the chief executive of Qatar Petroleum (QP) said on Sunday, in the Gulf state’s latest reaction to lower energy prices. While Qatar is more focused on gas than oil, it too has been forced into reorganisations, with QP already going through a process that ...

  Bloomberg Saudi Arabia signaled it’s ready to cut oil production more than expected, a surprise announcement made minutes after Russia and several non-other OPEC countries pledged to curb output next year. Taken together, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’s first deal with its rivals since 2001 and the Saudi comments represent a forceful effort by producers to wrest back ...

  Kuwait City / AFP Kuwait’s Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah opened the new parliament on Sunday by declaring that a reduction in public spending is “inevitable” in the face of weak oil prices. The emir said the sharp drop in oil revenues has resulted in a huge budget deficit and “there is no other option but to take effective ...

  KHOBAR / AFP Sadara Chemical, a $20 billion petrochemical joint venture between national oil giant Saudi Aramco and Dow Chemical, has signed a 20-year agreement with Saudi Rufayah Chemicals Co (RCC), Sadara said on Sunday. Under the deal, RCC, a Saudi downstream firm will use the aromatics concentrate (Pygas) and Pyoil supplied by Sadara for its new chemical complex ...

  Washington / AFP Republicans rejected reports of a secret CIA assessment finding that Russia sought to tip the US presidential election in Donald Trump’s favor, as a Democratic Senate leader called for an investigation. “The intelligence is wrong,” Republican National Committee spokesman Sean Spicer told CNN. “It didn’t happen.” He was referring to a New York Times report saying ...

  Tokyo / AFP Russia has turned down Tokyo’s latest attempt at dog diplomacy ahead of a summit between President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe later this month, an aide said, as the two leaders look to end a decades-old territorial row. Japan had planned to give the Russian president—who is known for being a canine lover—a male Akita ...

  Rome / AFP Italian President Sergio Mattarella summoned Paolo Gentiloni to see him on Sunday in what was seen as a signal the current foreign minister will become the country’s new prime minister. Gentiloni is the favourite to replace outgoing premier Matteo Renzi, who resigned last week after suffering a crushing defeat in a referendum on constitutional reform. “The President ...

  Seoul / AFP South Korea warned Sunday of “fatal” consequences for Pyongyang’s leadership if provoked into conflict, after North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un oversaw a military drill simulating an attack on Seoul’s presidential Blue House. Kim watched with binoculars as North Korea’s special operation forces conducted an exercise aimed at “destroying specified targets of the enemy”, including the Blue House, ...

  Banjul / AFP Gambia’s incumbent head of state Yahya Jammeh will contest in court the election victory handed to opposition candidate Adama Barrow, his party has said. In a shock rejection of his defeat at the polls, Jammeh cited in a speech broadcast late Friday “unacceptable errors” by election authorities. He was referring to a readjustment of the votes ...