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  Bloomberg IS has dug trenches and rigged roads and buildings with explosives ahead of a US-led coalition offensive to dislodge the militants from their stronghold in Mosul in northern Iraq. “We’re certainly well aware that this is going to be a difficult challenge, a difficult operation,” U.S. Defense Department spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis said. He also said that IS ...

  Bujumbura / AFP Burundi’s lower house of parliament on Wednesday overwhelmingly voted to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is carrying out a preliminary probe into atrocities committed during an 18-month political crisis. “The ICC is a tool being used to try and change power” in Burundi, charged Aloys Ntakirutimana, a lawmaker with the ruling CNDD-FDD, during a ...

  Juba / AFP South Sudan’s government was on Wednesday forced to deny President Salva Kiir had died, following days of rumours over his health that have heightened tensions in the capital Juba. “This is a mere lie, there is nothing as such, Salva Kiir has not even been sick,” Information Minister Michael Makuei Lueth told journalists in Juba, slamming “wild ...

  Brussels / AFP EU officials on Wednesday urged nearly a dozen laggard member states to accelerate their preparations to join by 2018 a bloc-wide system to share passenger information to help detect terrorists. Spurred by a wave of extremist attacks in France and Belgium, the European Parliament in April adopted the Passenger Name Record (PNR) system after resolving privacy concerns ...

  Bloomberg The red lines Britain has signalled it will adopt in Brexit talks are “fully incompatible” with its aspiration to keep membership in the single market, and there won’t be any negotiations until the U.K. triggers the process, Slovenia’s prime minister said. Miro Cerar, premier of the former Yugoslav Republic of 2.1 million people, echoed other EU leaders, saying ...

  Edinburgh / AFP Scotland’s ruling nationalists gather for their annual conference on Thursday with the issue of independence back on the table following Britain’s vote to leave the European Union. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, the leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), has vowed to explore “all options” to protect Scotland’s place in the EU after Scots bucked the ...

  Bloomberg The amount of electricity generated by U.S. nuclear reactors hit its lowest seasonal level in a decade as malfunctions and closures tied to Hurricane Matthew combined with routine maintenance to drag down production. The nation’s nuclear output fell on Tuesday to 81,600 megawatts, or about 79 percent of capacity, according to U.S. government data. That’s the lowest level ...

  Bloomberg Spanish bonds dropped, pushing the 10-year yield to the highest in more than three weeks, amid speculation that caretaker Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy could face a confidence vote this month. Spain’s securities led declines among euro-region sovereign debt. The country has been through two inconclusive elections since December and has repeatedly missed European Union targets to cut its ...

  Karlsruhe / AFP Germany’s top court on Wednesday heard complaints from some 200,000 citizens and campaigners who want to stop a planned EU-Canada free trade agreement set to be signed later this month. They are asking the Constitutional Court to prevent the government from endorsing the so-called CETA accord at a gathering of EU ministers next week, arguing that ...

  Bloomberg BMW AG expects sales of its electrified cars to surge in the next decade as the technology hits the mainstream, putting it in a race against Tesla and Mercedes-Benz. Plug-in hybrids and all-electric cars across the BMW and Mini brands could account for between 15 percent and 25 percent of sales in about 10 years, BMW Chief Executive ...