Bloomberg Oil prices edged up slightly on Thursday after being hammered the day before by data showing a sharp rise in US stockpiles, while analysts warned a pick-up in the dollar would add further downward pressure. Both main contracts plunged Wednesday after the US Energy Department said commercial inventories in the world’s top oil consumer edged up last week ...

  Beirut / AFP Demonstrators crowded the streets on Thursday in a test of strength between Venezuela’s government and opponents seeking a referendum to remove President Nicolas Maduro, raising fears of violence. Thousands of protesters dressed in white marched in the east of the capital, waving signs reading “Change now” in what the opposition dubbed “The Taking of Caracas.” A rival ...

  PRAGUE / AP The Czech Republic’s counter-intelligence agency says there’s a threat of a potential attack by radicals on Czech territory. The agency, known as BIS, says in its annual report published on Thursday that such a threat comes from militants linked to the IS group and also from the Nusra Front, Al-Qaida’s affiliate in Syria. The announcement comes ...

  Luxembourg / AFP EU President Donald Tusk insisted on Thursday there would be no talks with Britain before London triggers the divorce process, saying he wants to “protect the interests” of the bloc’s remaining members. Tusk added that in the wake of the Brexit vote, the 27 EU leaders who are meeting without Britain in Slovakia on September 16 ...

  Rawalpindi /AFP Pakistan’s military on Thursday admitted for the first time that the IS group had a presence in the country but said it had apprehended hundreds of its militants and prevented them from carrying out major attacks. The army’s spokesman Lieutenant General Asim Bajwa said forces had foiled planned attacks by IS on foreign embassies and Islamabad airport, ...

  Singapore / AFP Malaysia on Thursday reported its first suspected case of Zika, a 58-year-old woman believed to have contracted it in neighbouring Singapore where more than 100 cases have been confirmed. The Malaysian woman had made a brief trip in late August to visit her daughter, who has already been confirmed as having the Zika virus, Malaysia’s health ...

  Phoenix /AFP White House hopeful Donald Trump issued a stern anti-immigration warning after visiting Mexico, saying people who cross into the United States illegally would never obtain legal status. It was one in a series of stark declarations that framed a sweeping plan to crack down on illegal immigration following his more measured tone earlier in the day, when ...

  Hanoi / AFP Three Russian fraudsters, including one who tried to escape prison using a spoon and a toothbrush to dig a tunnel, have been jailed in Vietnam for using fake ATM cards to steal $13,400. The men, aged between 30 and 43, were detained last October pending trial when one of them made a last-ditch attempt to flee. ...

  Don’t expect a second War on Poverty, regardless of who wins the US election. Picking up where Lyndon Johnson left off in the 1960s would seem a logical response to the campaign’s relentless criticism of economic inequality. But appearances are deceiving. Most proposals to reduce inequality — conspicuously from Hillary Clinton — are aimed at the middle class. Spillovers ...

  One of the surprises of the 2008 global financial crisis is that the “great recession” that followed did not trigger much of a protectionist backlash. Developments this week suggest that, in the absence of more enlightened and coordinated political leadership, this may be changing. As output collapsed after the financial system’s “sudden stop” in the fall of 2008, and ...