Emirates Business Representatives from the Central Asia and North Africa (CANA) branches of the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) have participated at the IBBY International Congress and General Assembly. The event, which concluded on Sunday in Auckland, New Zealand, the delegates were able to attend the influential biennial literary event thanks to sponsorship supplied by the Sharjah …

  AFP Iran released images of its first domestically built long-range missile defence system on Sunday, a project started when the country was under international sanctions. Images on multiple state news agencies showed President Hassan Rouhani and Minister of Defence Hossein Dehghan standing in front of the new Bavar 373 missile defence system. The system was designed to intercept cruise …

  Bloomberg Iraq, OPEC’s second-biggest producer, will increase crude exports by about 5 percent in the next few days after an agreement to resume shipments from three oil fields in Kirkuk. Shipments will increase to about 150,000 barrels a day as exports resume from the Baba Gorgor, Jambour and Khabbaz fields, Fouad Hussein, a member of the oil and energy …

  Bloomberg Israel’s largest money managers are turning to the country’s stock market as they bet a five-month corporate bond rally is coming to an end. Equities have started to erase the steepest discount to MSCI World peers in 18 months, while the Tel-Bond 20 index is on course for its worst month since January, according to data compiled by …

  Bloomberg Tunisia’s prime minister-designate unveiled a new cabinet that keeps holdovers from the old government in key security posts while bringing in new faces to try to revive the economy. Youssef Al-Shahed’s appointments followed more than two weeks of consultations since parliament dismissed his predecessor, Habib Essid, over the country’s weak economic performance. Shahed retained seven key ministers from …

  Bloomberg The crash in crude prices may have nudged Kazakhstan toward its biggest wave of privatization in history, but its wealth fund is now willing to bide its time for a recovery in oil to take hold. Samruk-Kazyna, with assets worth over $64 billion, is in no hurry to kickstart the process, waiting until oil prices recover and Russia …

  Beijing / Bloomberg China’s diesel exports rebounded to a record in July as severe flooding in some parts of the country curbed domestic fuel demand. The world’s largest energy consumer exported 1.53 million tons of diesel last month, a 39 percent jump from June and beating the previous record in May, according to data posted Sunday on the website …

  New Delhi / Bloomberg A surge in internet connectivity in rural India, home to some 870 million people, will lead much of the nation’s e-commerce activity to move into regional areas during the rest of the decade, according to a report by Boston Consulting Group. The number of web-connected rural consumers will more than double to 315 million by …

  Beijing / Bloomberg China Vanke Co., the developer at the center of a battle for control, posted a 10 percent increase in first-half profit as a home-market recovery boosted sales, helping offset uncertainties over the company’s future because of the ownership struggle. Net income at the nation’s largest residential developer climbed to 5.35 billion yuan ($804 million), or 0.48 …

  Manila / AFP President Rodrigo Duterte threatened on Sunday to withdraw the Philippines from the United Nations, as he launched another profanity-laced tirade against the organisation for criticising his bloody war on crime. More than 1,500 people have been killed since Duterte took office and immediately began his law-and-order crackdown, according to police statistics, triggering fierce criticism from the …