Bloomberg Natural gas bears wagering on a no-show US winter may be in for a frosty surprise. Gas for delivery next March traded at the lowest premium on record to the April 2017 contract Friday, signaling that traders see little risk of another Polar Vortex in the months ahead. Autumn warmth has spooked the gas market, pushing prices to ...

  Bloomberg Germany’s environment minister is throwing her support behind an aggressive Chinese plan to boost sales of electric and hybrid vehicles, putting her at odds with her country’s automobile industry and some within the German government. China is considering legislation that would require automakers to sell a specific quota of zero- and low-emission vehicles. The figure would start at ...

  Bartalla / AFP Iraqi special forces threw themselves back into battle on Saturday after a first foray into Mosul was blunted by stiffer than expected resistance from extremists defending the birthplace of their “caliphate”. While the elite Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) fought the IS group in the streets of Mosul, the army and federal police attacked one of the last sizeable ...

  Kabul /AFP US forces conceded on Saturday that its air strikes “very likely” resulted in civilian casualties in Afghanistan’s volatile Kunduz province, pledging a full investigation into the incident which triggered angry protests. The strikes early Thursday killed at least 30 people, many of them children, after a Taliban assault left two American soldiers and three Afghan special forces ...

  Kano / AFP The Nigerian military said on Saturday it had rescued another of the missing Chibok schoolgirls near the border with Cameroon. “Nigerian army troops rescued another Chibok schoolgirl at Pulka” on Friday evening, army spokesman Sani Usman said, adding he would give details of the rescue operation later. Pulka is outside the town of Gwoza in Borno state ...

  Washington / AFP After Iraqi security forces eventually recapture Mosul, the IS group will be left with only Raqa in neighboring Syria as a bastion, and the extremists’ self-proclaimed “caliphate” will be largely gone. The US-led coalition has been striking IS across both countries for more than two years, and has long held Raqa in its sights —an IS ...

Rome / AFP Two Italians and a Canadian who were kidnapped in the south of conflict-torn Libya in September have been released and flown to Italy, the Italian government announced on Saturday. The Italians, Danilo Calonego, 66, and Bruno Cacace, 56, and Canadian Frank Poccia were freed during the night “due to the effective cooperation with local Libyan authorities,” it ...

  Istanbul/ AFP An Istanbul court on Saturday ordered the imprisonment of nine staff from the opposition Cumhuriyet newspaper, in an intensifying crackdown a day after the leaders of the country’s main pro-Kurdish party were also jailed. The arrests added to growing international alarm over the use of a state of emergency implemented in the wake of the failed July 15 ...

  Diyarbakir / AFP A news outlet linked to the IS said its fighters staged a bombing that killed 11 people in southeastern Turkey, according to US-based monitors, after Ankara blamed Kurdish militants for the attack. Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said Friday’s bombing was carried out by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which has regularly targeted security forces since ending ...

  Rissani / AFP On the edge of the southwestern town of Rissani, Abdelrahman Ahmidani sighs as he reflects on the state of the Moroccan oasis, endangered by drought and climate change. “Whoever lives here,” he says, “is condemned to a life of poverty.” In Rissani, the sinuous mountain oasis of Tafilalet gradually disappears into the Sahara desert, after snaking ...