Reuters Importers in Iran have bought at least 250,000 tonnes of Brazilian raw sugar in the first purchases since international sanctions were lifted on Tehran in January, trade sources said. One source said the purchases were between 250,000 and 300,000 tonnes for May to June shipment, while another said the quantity was probably bigger than that. “Buyers in Iran have ...

  Manama / Tribune news service Old and outdated systems running the oil and gas sector in the Gulf are vulnerable to cyber attacks, according to a security expert. Hackers keep exploiting this weakness which is reflected in the sharp rise in the number of attempts reported by a global cyber security watchdog monitoring the situation. “The underlying technology that ...

  WASHINGTON / AP Far from ending the two wars he inherited from the Bush administration, Barack Obama is wrestling with an expanded set of conflicts in the final months of his presidency, from Iraq and Afghanistan to Libya and Syria, with no end in sight. In Afghanistan, where a Taliban resurgence has upset Washington’s “exit strategy,” Obama is giving the ...

  LONDON / AFP A group of 13 Nobel laureates have urged UK voters to remain in the European Union, warning that Britain will lose funding, global influence and access to expertise if the nation votes to leave the 28-nation bloc. The scientists wrote an open letter to the Daily Telegraph newspaper, expressing concern that those arguing that Britain should ...

  Rio de Janeiro / AFP President Dilma Rousseff, suspended from office pending her impeachment trial, has been called as a defense witness for a key figure in the Petrobras corruption scandal, Brazilian media reported. The case reportedly involves Marcelo Odebrecht, the former head of a family-owned construction company who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his role ...

  Paris / AFP After a triumphant start to Euro 2016, France braced for more strike disruptions and hooligan violence as England face Russia in a high-risk match on Saturday. A tense France was finally able to party after winning the opening match against Romania and avoiding major hiccups as ongoing industrial unrest failed to disrupt transport to the Stade de ...

  Puebla / AFP Gunmen marched into a remote mountain village in Mexico and killed 11 members of the same family, including two children, apparently over “personal conflicts,” authorities said. Five women, four men and two girls were killed in the pre-dawn attack in El Mirador, a community in central Puebla state, near Oaxaca. Two other girls were wounded in ...

  Caracas / AFP Facing mounting pressure from food shortages, looting and increasingly violent protests, Venezuelan authorities announced the next stage of a recall referendum against embattled President Nicolas Maduro. But Maduro’s camp said it would go to the Supreme Court to contest the process, accusing the opposition of fraud while gathering the signatures needed to call a referendum. The wranglings ...

  Manila / AFP Philippine president-elect Rodrigo Duterte does not endorse extrajudicial killings, his spokesman said on Saturday after scathing criticism from the UN chief over his plans for thousands of people to die in an unprecedented war on crime. Duterte won last month’s elections by a landslide largely due to an explosive law-and-order platform in which he pledged to ...

  Beirut/ AFP Western powers lashed out at Syria’s government, accusing regime forces of dropping barrel bombs on the town of Daraya hours after it received its first food aid in almost four years. The strikes, using crude unguided explosive devices, came as Arab-Kurdish fighters said they had encircled a stronghold of IS fighters in northern Syria, cutting off a ...