Tehran / AFP Former hardline Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday he will not compete in next year’s presidential vote, following advice from Iran’s supreme leader, media reported. “In following the will of the great leader of the revolution, I have no plans to be present in next year’s presidential competitions,” he wrote in a letter to Ayatollah ...

  Tunis / AFP An appeal from Tunisia’s highest religious authority for workers to end strikes and protests and save the country’s ailing economy stirred outrage on Tuesday. Grand Mufti Othman Battikh on Monday called on Tunisians to “dedicate all their efforts to working and studying” and to “abandon untimely protests and sit-ins hindering work and production”. His remarks came ...

  Bloomberg Deutsche Lufthansa AG is nearing an agreement to operate airplanes now flying under the Air Berlin Plc banner, according to two people with knowledge of the matter, letting Lufthansa bolster its discount flights as Air Berlin cuts back its routes. Lufthansa’s supervisory board on Wednesday will review a plan to let its Eurowings low-cost arm use about 40 ...

  Bloomberg Avianca Brasil, one of the airlines controlled by Jose and German Efromovich, is seeking to sell an ownership stake of as much as 20 percent for more than $150 million, said a person with direct knowledge of the matter. The carrier hired UBS Group AG to advise on the potential transaction and the sale process has started, said ...

  Bloomberg EasyJet Plc appointed Christine Browne, a former executive at tour operator TUI AG’s airline division, as chief operating officer amid efforts to reduce costs and ride out turmoil across the European market that’s eating into the discount carrier’s profit. Browne, 56, will leave a non-executive post on EasyJet’s board to take up her new position as of Oct. ...

  AP Fifteen current and former Air France workers went on trial on Tuesday for alleged violence during a union protest last year at the airline’s headquarters that saw two company executives flee over a fence with their shirts ripped off. The incident, caught on camera, was a high-profile example of the often strained relations between French workers and their ...

  Emirates Business Theluxurycloset.com, the fast growing online marketplace that buys, sells, and consigns personal luxury goods, mostly pre-owned and at a discounted price, announced that it has closed a $7.8 million Series B round of funding. The financing was led by Wamda Capital, a venture capital firm investing in technology-enabled companies in the MENA region, and Middle East Venture ...

  ALGIERS / Reuters Saudi Arabia and Iran on Tuesday dashed hopes that OPEC oil producers could clinch an output-limiting deal in Algeria this week as sources within the exporter group said the differences between the kingdom and Tehran remained too wide. “This is a consultative meeting … We will consult with everyone else, we will hear the views, we ...

  Bloomberg Global oil output will exceed demand until late 2017, the head of the International Energy Agency said before major producing nations gather for talks. “We don’t see the oil market re-balancing until late 2017” provided there’s no “major intervention,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said Tuesday in an interview with Bloomberg Television in Algiers. The Paris-based agency is ...

  Bloomberg Oil extended declines as Iran said it’s unwilling to freeze output at current levels and wants to raise production to 4 million barrels a day, damping expectations for OPEC to reach a deal to stabilize markets when the group meets on Wednesday in Algiers. Futures fell as much as 1.7 percent in New York. Prices rebounded 3.3 percent ...