Ankara / AFP Turkey on Tuesday pounded IS extremists in Syria with new artillery strikes as expectations grew of a major Ankara-backed offensive against the extremists after a deadly suicide bombing on its soil. With tensions flaring on the Turkey-Syria border following the bombing in the nearby city of Gaziantep that left 54 people dead, Turkish howitzers hit extremist and ...

  Lille / AFP One Sudanese migrant was killed and another injured in clashes with Afghan migrants outside the French port of Calais, authorities said on Tuesday. The two migrants were among a group of people from the “Jungle” camp who tried to access a motorway to smuggle onto trucks crossing the Channel to Britain on Monday night, local police ...

  Lagos / AFP Nigeria’s military claimed on Tuesday to have seriously injured Boko Haram’s elusive leader Abubakar Shekau and killed other commanders in an air strike on the extremist group’s forest stronghold. Nigeria has repeatedly claimed to have killed Shekau in previous raids only for him to appear shortly afterwards in videos. Shekau was “fatally wounded in the shoulder” ...

  Kirkuk / AFP Iraqi special forces led an operation on Tuesday aimed at retaking the extremist-held town of Qayyarah, a key staging base for operations to attack Mosul, military sources said. Qayyarah lies on the western bank of the Tigris river, about 60 kilometres (35 miles) south of Mosul, the IS group’s last major urban stronghold in Iraq. With the ...

  Berlin / AFP German Chancellor Angela Merkel called Tuesday on the EU and North African countries to do deals modelled on a controversial agreement with Turkey to stem migrant flows to Europe. Under the EU-Turkey agreement, Ankara agreed to take back one Syrian who made it to Greece in return for being allowed to send one from its massive ...

  Paris / AFP Seven people with links to terrorist networks, at least three of whom were planning attacks, have been arrested in France this month, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said on Tuesday. Cazeneuve said at a press conference that French police had arrested as many people for terror links in the first half of 2016 as for the whole ...

  Bloomberg Bank of Montreal, Canada’s fourth-largest lender, posted earnings that beat analysts’ estimates as US banking and capital markets trading revenue rose. Net income for the period ended July 31 climbed 4.4 percent to C$1.25 billion ($964 million), or C$1.86 a share, from C$1.19 billion, or C$1.80, a year earlier, the Toronto-based bank said in a statement on Tuesday. ...

  Emirates Business Saxo Bank, the online investment and trading specialist, announces on Sunday two senior appointments as it continues to grow and invest in its retail and institutional functions across the Middle East, reflecting the region’s importance as a growth hub for both Saxo’s retail and institutional business. Mario Camara has joined the company as Head of Saxo Dubai. An ...

  Emirates Business RAKBANK on Sunday launched – “Home in One” – a first of its kind Home Loan facility in the GCC that not only offers customers competitive interest rates that start at 3.49% per year, but also helps them pay off their mortgage loan much sooner. Home in One is a Combo product that brings together a customer’s ...

  AFP Turkey’s central bank on Tuesday cut its main interest rate by 25 basis points, defying a sharp jump in inflation following the failed July 15 coup. The central bank said the overnight lending rate was trimmed to 8.5 percent from 8.75 percent and its one-week repurchasing rate remained stable at 7.5 percent. The overnight borrowing rate also remained ...