Bloomberg After failing with an initial public offering of its infrastructure unit, Telefonica SA is likely to test investors’ appetite again with the sale of its U.K. mobile-phone business, only this time with a possible twist. The Spanish phone carrier is considering whether to set aside part of an initial public offering of U.K. mobile operator O2 for individual ...

  Bloomberg While the world around it frets over ultra-low interest rates, Iceland’s fish export industry is rooting for another rate cut to maintain market share amid a strengthening krona. “The appreciation of the krona is a large factor in the operations of fishing companies and can impact their bottom line,” Heidrun Lind Marteinsdottir, managing director of Fisheries Iceland, an ...

  Washington / AFP Donald Trump declared a loss of nearly $1 billion on his 1995 income tax return, allowing him to legally avoid paying taxes for almost two decades, according to documents obtained by The New York Times. The revelations come after the outspoken Republican presidential candidate repeatedly refused to make his tax filings public, the first candidate to ...

  Aleppo / AFP Syrian regime forces advanced on Sunday in Aleppo after Russia unleashed dozens of strikes, even as condemnation kept pouring in over the bombing of the main hospital in the city’s rebel-held east. The devastating five-year war in Syria has ravaged second city Aleppo, once the country’s economic hub but now torn apart between government troops and ...

  Geneva / AFP Civilians under bombardment in Syria’s rebel-held east Aleppo are facing “a level of savagery that no human should have to endure,” the UN aid chief said on Sunday. Stephen O’Brien, who heads the United Nations humanitarian office (OCHA), issued a fresh plea to ease the suffering of some 250,000 people besieged by a Russian-backed Syrian government ...

  Istanbul / AFP Turkish police on Sunday detained a brother of the US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen who is accused of masterminding the failed July coup aimed at ousting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Kutbettin Gulen was detained by police acting on a tip-off at the home of a relative in the Gaziemir district of the western Izmir province, the state-run ...

  Riyadh / AFP Houthi rebels in Yemen are posing a threat to shipping in the strategic Bab al-Mandab strait, the Saudi-led coalition supporting the government said Sunday after an attack on an Emirati vessel. The coalition said Shiite Houthi militiamen had attacked the vessel “on its usual route to and from (the southern port city of) Aden to transfer relief ...

  New Delhi / AFP India, the world’s third biggest carbon emitter, ratified the Paris agreement on climate change on Sunday on the birthday of the country’s famously ascetic independence leader Mahatma Gandhi. India, with a population of 1.3 billion people, is the latest big polluter to formally sign onto the historic accord which now takes a major step towards becoming ...

  Bishoftu / AFP Several people were killed in a stampede near the Ethiopian capital on Sunday after police fired tear gas at protesters during a religious festival, according reports. Several thousand people had gathered at a sacred lake in the town of Bishoftu to take part in the Irreecha ceremony, in which the Oromo community marks the end of the ...

  BUDAPEST / AFP Hungary’s populist strongman Viktor Orban was banking on voters on Sunday to defy the European Union and reject its troubled refugee quota plan, but low turnout threatened to taint his camp’s expected referendum win. Surveys showed the referendum turnout might not reach the required 50-percent threshold and therefore be deemed invalid. But Orban has already downplayed ...