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  Bloomberg Oil traded near a seven-month high on speculation that U.S. crude stockpiles declined last week while supply losses in Canada and Nigeria whittled away the global excess. West Texas Intermediate was little changed in New York, while Brent erased gains as it neared $50 a barrel for the first time since November. Inventories probably fell by 3.5 million ...

  Vienna / AFP Senior envoys from world and regional powers gathered once again in Vienna on Tuesday in an effort to salvage stumbling efforts to halt Syria’s civil war. US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov—diplomacy’s odd couple, at loggerheads over much else in the world—are chairing the meeting, which began shortly after 0700 GMT. ...

  Hopkinsville / AFP Presidential primaries in Oregon and Kentucky on Tuesday were likely to avail Hillary Clinton a chance to bolster her almost insurmountable delegate lead over Democratic rival Bernie Sanders, who has vowed to slog on despite long odds. Sanders is gunning for victory in the Bluegrass State, building on his win last week in neighboring West Virginia ...

  Hong Kong / AFP One of China’s most powerful officials said he would listen to political demands from Hongkongers in a conciliatory start to a visit on Tuesday that has stirred anger in a city resentful of Beijing’s tightening grip. The three-day trip by Zhang Dejiang, who chairs China’s communist-controlled legislature, is the first by such a senior official ...

  Alkesh Sharma / Emirates Business Fuelled by a booming construction sector, the GCC region’s interior and fit-out contracting industry is expected to grow by nearly 20 percent and the market expected to cross the whopping mark of $12.5 billion by the end of 2017. UAE is clearly spearheading this market in the region and is expected to add more ...

  Dubai / Emirates Business Mergermarket, the world’s leading news and intelligence service for mergers & acquisitions, has released its Global M&A Heat Chart that indicates potential future M&A activity based on companies that may be targeted for mergers or acquisitions. The Heat Chart suggests that the Middle East’s Telecoms, Media & Technology (TMT) sector could see the strongest levels ...

  Abu Dhabi / WAM ADNOC Distribution and Abu Dhabi Ports have signed a Musataha Agreement (the legal right to build on and retain the building on another person’s land for a fixed term of years), which is aimed to strengthen ADNOC Distribution’s capacity to develop new projects at Khalifa Industrial Zone, Kizad, and provide logistical support to its existing developments. ...

  JEDDAH / WAM Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia and His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, discussed ways to strengthen fraternal ties between the two countries, and the overall regional and international issues of common ...

  Vienna / AFP Major powers, including the United States, met in the Austrian capital on Monday to discuss the expanding presence of the IS extremist group in conflict-ridden Libya, just across the Mediterranean from Europe. IS has taken advantage of the chaos left by the toppling and death of longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011, which led to rival ...

  WASHINGTON / AP President Barack Obama cast Donald Trump’s positions on immigration, trade and Muslims as part of an ignorance-and-isolation philosophy that the president says will lead the US down the path of decline. Obama used his commencement speech Sunday at Rutgers University to tear into the presumptive Republican nominee, without ever mentioning his name. Time and again the ...