Kashmir / AFP Authorities lifted a curfew in Indian-administered Kashmir after 52 days of lockdown amid deadly violence, but street clashes broke out again on Monday between protesters and security forces. Restrictions were lifted throughout most of the tense Kashmir Valley including the main city of Sringar “following improvement in the situation”, police said in a statement late Sunday. …

  Sirte /AFP Libya’s pro-government forces on Monday cornered IS group extremist in their last holdouts in the city of Sirte, after heavy fighting that left dozens dead and wounded. The battle for IS’s North African stronghold was launched more than three months ago by forces loyal to the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord. Those forces have been backed by …

  Dhaka / AFP US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Monday that there was evidence to link the extremists behind a recent series of deadly attacks in Bangladesh to the IS group. “We talked very openly about this and we made it very clear … that there is evidence that ISIL in Iraq and Syria has contacts with …

  Kabul / AFP Afghanistan launched a polio vaccination campaign on Monday aimed at reaching children in areas previously controlled by IS group militants, officials said. Afghanistan and Pakistan are the only two countries in the world where polio remains endemic—a fact blamed on opposition to immunisation by extremist groups, who claim the vaccines are a conspiracy to sterilise Muslims …

  Karbala /AFP Attackers armed with suicide vests, rifles and grenades killed 18 people in the Iraqi oasis town of Ain Al Tamer, many of them guests at a wedding party, local officials said on Monday. “They were carrying Kalashnikovs, hand grenades. One of them blew himself up and the others were killed by the security forces,” said the head …

  Bloomberg Norway’s $890 billion sovereign wealth fund is acknowledging that rising withdrawals by the government could hamper its quest to manage more risk and generate greater returns as it takes on more and more negative yielding securities. The net outflows are “relevant for how we think about the risk-bearing capacity of the fund,” Egil Matsen, the deputy governor at …

  Bloomberg GIC Pte reached a preliminary agreement to pay less than $400 million for a 7.7 percent stake in Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam JSC, the nation’s second-biggest listed company, people with knowledge of the matter said. The Singapore sovereign fund will buy Vietcombank stock at a discount to the current market price, the people said, asking not …

  Bloomberg Mondo, a financial startup vying to crack the dominance of Britain’s biggest lenders, said it changed its name by one letter to Monzo after a legal dispute. The smartphone-based lender started by former GoCardless Ltd. founder Tom Blomfield picked the name after considering 12,560 suggestions from customers over six months, the London-based firm said in a statement. The …

  Bloomberg Maj Invest, a Danish asset manager with $8 billion in assets, is looking to boost acquisitions in the micro finance industry in the Andean region. The Copenhagen-based asset manager is in the process of raising capital to grow the size of its Maj Invest Financial Inclusion Fund II to $100 million by June from $75 million now, according …

  Bloomberg Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen’s speech on Friday was hawkish enough for Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to boost the odds of a September interest-rate increase, while Pacific Investment Management Co. said there was nothing of note in her remarks. Bond traders agree with Goldman Sachs, with the market-implied probability of action next month rising after Yellen said in …