Powers discuss Mosul as troops near outskirts

  Qaraqosh / AFP Iraqi forces were inching to within striking distance of eastern Mosul on Tuesday as defence chiefs from the US-led coalition met in Paris to review the offensive on the extremist bastion. Paramilitary forces were also massing near the battlefield to open a western front they say will aim to retake the town of Tal Afar and ...

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FM: Turkey ‘may launch’ ground operation in Iraq

  Ankara / AFP Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Tuesday Ankara could launch a ground operation in Iraq to remove any threats to Turkey that may arise. “If there is a threat posed to Turkey, we are ready to use all our resources including a ground operation… to eliminate that threat,” Cavusoglu said in an interview with Kanal ...

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SE Asia faces rising threat from IS groups

  Jakarta / AFP Southeast Asia faces a growing risk of extremist violence as IS group supporters increasingly work together, but law enforcement agencies are unprepared for the new threat, a report warned on Tuesday. The main danger lies in the strife-torn southern Philippines, where a handful of extremist groups have sworn allegiance to IS, according to the report from think-tank ...

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Iran nuclear negotiator cleared of spying charges

  Tehran / AFP Iran’s intelligence minister said on Tuesday that a British-Iranian member of its nuclear negotiating team had been cleared of spying allegations, state media reported. Abdolrasoul Dorri Esfahani, part of the team that secured a nuclear accord with world powers last year, was arrested in August and described by a judiciary spokesman as an “infiltrating spy”. But in ...

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Corporate mergers raise prices, not efficiency

Economies need competition to work. Almost all basic economic theories, including supply and demand itself, rely on the assumption that companies lower prices to undercut the competition whenever possible. If sellers can set whatever prices they like, that’s a monopoly. And as any good Econ 101 class will teach you, monopolies hold production below its economically efficient level, in order ...

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Outdated design-patent laws thwart progress

  Change can sneak up on lawmakers and judges, rendering old laws obsolete. Often, that’s harmless. (When was the last time you ran afoul of Reno’s ban on benches in streets or Wyoming’s prohibition on fishing with firearms?) But sometimes, laws that once served a good purpose can get in the way of progress. That’s what’s going on now in ...

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If Time Warner’s Jeff Bewkes wants out, should you?

  He is the least sentimental of the media moguls, known for being a dispassionate judge of a business’s worth. And now he wants to sell Time Warner. Maybe we should be listening to what Jeff Bewkes is telling us. Sure, there are lots of other things one can discuss regarding the AT&T-Time Warner deal: AT&T’s plan for a 5G-wireless ...

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UK govt approves Heathrow expansion despite splits

  London / AFP The British government approved a new third runway at London’s Heathrow airport on Tuesday in a long-awaited decision that comes amid deep divisions and follows decades of debate over the issue. “The government today announced its support for a new runway at Heathrow — the first full length runway in the southeast since the Second World ...

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Southend airport to become London’s sixth hub

  Bloomberg Southend airport, seeking to become London’s sixth hub even though it’s almost an hour away on the North Sea, will operate its own flights in a bid to demonstrate the viability of an expanded timetable to carriers frustrated by capacity curbs at the far bigger Heathrow and Gatwick bases. The services to cities in mainland Europe will employ ...

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Alaska Air fends off JetBlue plea to US for prized Cuba route

  Bloomberg Alaska Air Group Inc. received permission for a five-week delay in starting service on a prized flight between Havana and Los Angeles, as regulators rejected an attempt by JetBlue Airways Corp. to secure the route and move it to Boston. The U.S. Transportation Department agreed Alaska could wait until Jan. 5 to begin the service instead of the ...

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