Moscow / AFP Russia is close to joining forces with the United States around Syria’s ravaged second city of Aleppo, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said in comments aired on Monday. “Step by step we are getting closer to the situation in which — and I’m only speaking about Aleppo here — we will be able to begin battling together so ...

  Washington / AFP Emergency crews in flood-devastated Louisiana have rescued more than 20,000 people after catastrophic inundations that left at least five dead, news reports said on Monday. As many as 10,000 people are living in shelters after a weekend of torrential rains that has prompted the federal government to declare a disaster, according to Louisiana governor John Bel Edwards. ...

  Goma / AFP Civil society groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Monday said the number of people hacked to death in the restive east this weekend has risen to 51. “Our team on the ground has counted 51 bodies slain with machetes,” said Teddy Kataliko, a member of a local alliance of NGOs and unions working in the ...

  Job insecurity is a central theme of the 2016 campaign, fueling popular anger about trade deals and immigration. But economists warn that much bigger job losses are ahead in America — driven not by foreign competition but by advancing technology. A look at the numbers suggests that America is having the wrong debate this year. Economic security won’t come ...

  The buyout Masters of the Universe are getting creative in Silicon Valley. This year, technology companies have made up about 19 percent of all US private equity buyouts, the industry’s largest share of PE deals since at least 2004, according to Bloomberg data. Some of the eye-catching private equity tech takeovers in 2016 were Thoma Bravo’s $3 billion buyout ...

  The junk-bond bears have been terribly wrong this year. But they’re sticking with their pessimistic calls. Distressed-debt investor Anchorage Capital, for example, which lost 1.48 percent in the first six months of the year, has urged clients to start preparing for a downturn, Bloomberg News reported Thursday. The founders of rival King Street expressed a similar sentiment in a ...

  Data shows that Japan’s economy stalled in the April-June quarter. It has missed the market forecasts and reignited worries about the government’s bid to prop up economy. Tokyo stocks fell after hitting their highest levels for over two months in the previous session. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe recently announced a massive 28 trillion yen ($276 billion) package aimed ...

  How much leeway should Marines have to express their religious beliefs? According to Congress, religious liberty laws apply with full force to the military. But last week the highest court in the armed forces put some limits on claims by active-duty personnel. Those limits cut against recent trends in Supreme Court jurisprudence — but they make a lot of ...

  Albert R. Hunt The lunch group in Monessen, Pennsylvania, is evenly divided between Trump supporters and Trump opponents. But the dark mood across the whole room suggests why this working-class town might end up favouring him in November. Monessen, once a steelmaking hub, has steadily lost plants, jobs and population over the decades. Along Donner Avenue, there are more ...

  Reuters Stock markets in Dubai, Qatar and Egypt climbed to multi-month highs on Monday but Saudi Arabia was dragged lower by banking shares vulnerable to economic pressures due to low oil prices. Dubai’s index rose 1.0 percent to end at 3,602 points, just below technical resistance at its April peak of 3,605 points, as trading volume more than doubled ...