Boys sit on the Iraqi-Turkish pipeline in Zakho district of the Dohuk Governorate of the Iraqi Kurdistan province, Iraq, August 28, 2016. REUTERS/Ari Jalal Iraq’s government would consider selling crude through Iran should talks with the autonomous Kurdish reg... More »
A pumpjack drills for oil in the Monterey Shale, California, April 29, 2013. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson Oil prices fell over 1 percent on Monday after the U.S. dollar jumped, with markets pressured as Iraq’s production rose and as Iran said it would only cooperate... More »
At least 15 bodies were transferred to a hospital run by Medicins Sans Frontieres in the southern Yemen city of Aden on Monday, a source at the hospital said, after an attack on a building used by local militias. More »
A man walks past a screen displaying the Nikkei average outside a brokerage in Tokyo, Japan, June 24, 2016. REUTERS/Thomas Peter Most Asian share markets tumbled on Monday while the U.S. dollar added to gains made after Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen indic... More »
Iran has detected and removed malicious software from two of its petrochemical complexes, a senior military official said on Saturday, after announcing last week it was investigating whether recent petrochemical fires were caused by cyber attacks. More »
A cartoon by Ali, an Iranian refugee held at Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island detention centre whose pen name is Eaten Fish, is seen in this image supplied to Reuters on August 27, 2016. Eaten Fish/Handout via REUTERS An Iranian refugee held at an Australian-fu... More »
Asylum seekers look at the media from behind a fence at the Manus Island detention centre, Papua New Guinea in this picture taken March 21, 2014. This is image is supplied from source with faces digitally blurred. AAP/Eoin Blackwell/via REUTERS Australia and P... More »
BERLIN One person was wounded in an attack in Cologne city center in the early hours of Monday, a police spokeswoman said, adding that there were no signs of a terrorist motive. Local newspaper Express described it as a knife and gun attack. The police spokesw... More »
By Libby George | LONDON LONDON Oil prices rose on Monday to their highest in nearly a month, with benchmark Brent crude trading more than 10 percent above the start of August, as speculation intensified about potential producer action to support prices in an ... More »
DUBAI U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned an air strike on a school in northern Yemen that killed 10 children and called for an investigation, while the Saudi-led coalition said the attack had targeted a training facility run by the Houthi group. Aid ... More »
ANKARA Iran’s Oil Minister says the oil market is oversupplied but predicts balance between demand and supply will be restored, Iranian state television reported on Monday. “The oil market is oversupplied now but there are expectations that there will be balan... More »
BERLIN/ANSBACH, Germany A 27-year-old Syrian man denied asylum in Germany a year ago died on Sunday when he set off a bomb outside a crowded music festival in Bavaria, the fourth violent attack in Germany in less than a week, a senior Bavarian state official s... More »
SEATTLE The Boeing Co marked its centennial on Friday with plans to sharpen its focus on innovation, including ambitious projects for supersonic commercial flight and a rocket that could carry humans to other planets. But innovation at Boeing will be “discipli... More »
BEIJING The United States is pleased to see progress has been made with China on information sharing about cyber threats, a senior U.S. official said on Tuesday during the latest round of cyber security talks between the two countries. Cyber security has long ... More »
AMMAN The Syrian army pushed into Raqqa province, home to the de facto capital of Islamic State, after a major Russian-backed offensive against the militants, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Saturday. The offensive is the third big assault on t... More »
MOSCOW Russia and the United States have agreed to extend the “regime of calm” in Syria’s city of Aleppo for another 48 hours starting from May 10, RIA news agency on Tuesday quoted Russia’s Defence Ministry as saying. (Reporting by Lidia Kelly- Editing by Dmi... More »
SINGAPORE Iran has set its June official selling prices (OSPs) for heavier crude grades it sells to Asia at the biggest discounts to Saudi and Iraqi oil since 2007-2008, raising the stakes in its fight to regain market share. This is third time Iran has change... More »
HANOVER, Germany U.S. President Barack Obama said on Sunday he would do whatever he could to advance a controversial trade deal with the European Union in his last eight months in office, but warned that time was running short. Obama has pushed to complete two... More »
HANOVER, Germany German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Sunday that she did not favor classical “safe zones” in Syria which would need to be protected by foreign forces but believed that peace talks in Geneva could agree areas where fleeing Syrians could feel... More »
BEIRUT Syrian rebel groups announced a new battle against government forces on Monday, a sign of escalating violence that has undermined a ceasefire deal and threatens to derail U.N.-led peace talks. The groups, which included factions fighting under the banne... More »
ADEN A shaky truce took hold in Yemen on Monday under a U.N.-backed effort to end a war that has made the country a front in Saudi Arabia’s region wide rivalry with Iran and caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. The war-damaged capital Sanaa spe... More »
HONG KONG Chinese telecom equipment and smartphone maker ZTE Corp will announce a new management team on Tuesday, a spokesman said. ZTE’s board of directors will meet to approve the new team, and a stock exchange filing is expected on Tuesday afternoon, ZTE sp... More »
DUBAI The secretary of the Iranian National Security Council has congratulated Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on regaining the city of Palmyra, Tasnim news agency reported on Monday. “The determination of the Syrian nation, government and army to eliminate t... More »
ISLAMABAD Pakistan and Iran aim to increase annual trade volumes between the two countries to $5 billion by 2021, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said on Saturday. Sharif spoke at a business conference with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who arrived i... More »
NEW YORK A consultant to Iran’s mission to the United Nations has been criminally charged with violating a U.S. law against dealing with that country, according to an indictment made public on Wednesday. Ahmad Sheikhzadeh, 60, faces seven charges including con... More »
WASHINGTON The Obama administration is expected to blame Iranian hackers as soon as Thursday for a coordinated campaign of cyber attacks in 2012 and 2013 on several U.S. banks and a New York dam, sources familiar with the matter have told Reuters. The Justice ... More »
LONDON Iran has managed to sell only modest volumes of oil to Europe since the lifting of sanctions seven weeks ago and several former buyers are staying away, citing legal complications and Tehran’s reluctance to sweeten terms to win back customers. Tehran ha... More »
BEIJING/SINGAPORE Global oil traders have entered into rare barter deals with the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), supplying Iran with much-needed gasoline in exchange for high-quality fuel oil, after most economic sanctions against Tehran were lifted in J... More »
WASHINGTON U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said on Tuesday that lawmakers would continue to press for new sanctions against Tehran “until the regime ends its violent, provocative behavior against the U.S. and our allies.” Ryan, whose Republican... More »
MOSCOW Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry spoke on the phone on Sunday about closer cooperation between their countries’ militaries on the Syria ceasefire plan, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday. The conversati... More »
DUBAI President Hassan Rouhani and his allies won 15 out of the 16 Tehran seats in the Assembly of Experts, final election results published on Monday showed, ousting two prominent hardliners including the speaker of the powerful clerical body. The results, ca... More »
ANKARA Iranian state-run media outlets have added $600,000 to a bounty for the killing of British author Salman Rushdie imposed in 1989 over the publishing of his book “The Satanic Verses”. The leader of Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, the late Ayatollah Ruhol... More »
PARIS Syrian Kurdish officials will not be invited to peace talks in Geneva, where negotiations for the opposition will be led by a Saudi-backed opposition group, France’s foreign minister said on Wednesday. Laurent Fabius said United Nations special envoy Sta... More »
DAVOS, Switzerland Politicians and business leaders gathering in the Swiss Alps this week face an increasingly divided world, with the poor falling further behind the super-rich and political fissures in the United States, Europe and the Middle East running de... More »
SINGAPORE Oil prices rebounded on Tuesday, supported by strong Chinese fuel consumption and at least interrupting a slide to 2003 levels earlier in the week after the return of Iran to markets added to an already huge supply overhang. Traders said prices were ... More »
WASHINGTON Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio praised Iran’s release of five detained Americans on Sunday, but sharply criticized the deal the White House made to win their freedom saying it would lead to more Americans being taken “ho... More »
ANKARA Turkey is unsettled by “anti-Islamic” messages in the U.S. presidential race, in which the Republican front runner called for a ban on foreign Muslims, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Monday. Donald Trump last month advocated banning all forei... More »
DUBAI Iran took steps on Monday to try to limit the diplomatic damage from an attack on Saudi Arabia’s embassy in Tehran by an angry mob, laying blame on a top security official and saying some of those who carried out the attack were being interrogated. Irani... More »
WASHINGTON As Barack Obama prepares to deliver his final State of the Union address on Tuesday night, the U.S. president and his aides have insisted he will not be content simply to run out the clock on foreign policy and is acting decisively to tackle crises ... More »
DUBAI President Hassan Rouhani ordered his defense minister on Thursday to expand Iran’s missile program, in defiance of a U.S. threat to impose sanctions over a ballistic missile test Iran carried out in October. Under a landmark agreement it clinched with wo... More »
DUBAI President Hassan Rouhani ordered his defense minister on Thursday to expand Iran’s missile program, in response to a U.S. threat to impose sanctions over a ballistic missile test Iran carried out in October. “As the U.S. government is clearly still pursu... More »
MOSCOW Russia will consider Afghanistan’s request for arms supply in a careful manner, but that task belongs first of all to the United States, RIA news agency cited Kremlin’s special envoy to Afghanistan as saying on Monday. Zamir Kabulov told the agency that... More »
VIENNA It used to be said of OPEC that it was like a teabag – it only worked in hot water. If that is so, conditions on world oil markets could hardly be more difficult as prices languish at almost seven-year lows near $40 a barrel. Yet, rather than closing ra... More »
ABU DHABI U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was set to hold talks with senior Emirati and Saudi officials in Abu Dhabi on Monday to find ways to bring Syrian opposition groups together at a conference that will be hosted by Saudi Arabia next month. The hastil... More »
DUBAI An Iranian court has sentenced Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian to a prison term, the state news agency said on Sunday quoting a judiciary spokesman, a case that is a sensitive issue in contentious U.S.-Iranian relations. The length of the prison t... More »
MOSCOWRussia and Iran have signed a contract for Moscow to supply Tehran with S-300 surface-to-air missile systems, Sergei Chemezov, the chief executive of Russian state-owned defense conglomerate Rostec, was quoted by the RIA news agency as saying on Monday. ... More »
WASHINGTON Republican presidential candidates accused President Barack Obama on Sunday of showing weakness in U.S. policy in Syria, doubting that his small deployment of special operations troops will make much difference without a coherent broader strategy. “... More »
MOSCOW Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will meet the United Nations’ special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, on Tuesday, RIA news agency quoted the ministry’s press department as saying. RIA said the information came in response to a question on wh... More »
WASHINGTON Saudi Arabia is satisfied with assurances from U.S. President Barack Obama about the Iran nuclear deal and believes the agreement will contribute to security and stability in the Middle East, a senior Saudi official said on Friday. Saudi King Salman... More »
WASHINGTON U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, said on Sunday he would support the nuclear deal with Iran, moving President Barack Obama a step closer to having sufficient backing to ensure the deal stands. “I believe the agreement, titled the J... More »
WASHINGTON President Barack Obama, fresh from vacation and nine rounds of golf in Martha’s Vineyard, launched into a busy two weeks promoting renewable energy and his nuclear deal with Iran. With the U.S. presidential election campaign and China’s slumping sto... More »
LONDON World oil demand is expanding at its fastest pace in five years thanks to rebounding economic growth and low prices, but global oversupply will last through 2016, the West’s energy watchdog said on Wednesday. The International Energy Agency said in a mo... More »
BEIRUT Rebels fired dozens of rockets at central Damascus on Wednesday, a monitor and state media said, ahead of an expected visit to the Syrian capital by Iran’s foreign minister. The bombardment killed at least one person and injured more than 20 others, the... More »
BEIRUT A Syrian military source said on Tuesday the army had retreated to new defensive lines in a region of vital strategic importance to President Bashar al-Assad, seeking to avoid losses at the hands of advancing rebels. The insurgent advance into the Sahl ... More »
NEW YORK A U.S. criminal investigation into allegations that China’s ZTE Corp for sold banned U.S. computer products to Iran has spilled into a civil dispute with a New York-based patent licensing firm, as ZTE has refused to make one of its top executives avai... More »
DOHA U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry began talks with Gulf states in Qatar on Monday, seeking to convince them of the merits of last month’s nuclear deal with Iran and to discuss the battle against Islamic State militants and the war in Syria. Most Gulf Ara... More »
CAIRO The United States and Egypt are returning to a “stronger base” in bilateral ties despite tensions and human rights concerns, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday after talks with his Egyptian counterpart. “Egypt remains vital … to engagement... More »
WASHINGTON U.S. backers of the Iran nuclear deal are increasingly confident of enough Democratic support to ensure it survives review by Congress, despite fierce opposition by majority Republicans and a massive lobbying drive. By the time the House of Represen... More »
ADEN, Yemen Yemeni fighters backed by Saudi-led air strikes battled to take back northern suburbs of Aden from Houthi opponents on Tuesday, residents said, a day after completing their capture of the center of the strategic port city. The country’s dominant Ho... More »
WASHINGTON Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, wrote to colleagues on Monday backing the nuclear agreement with Iran, as congressional Republicans railed against a U.N. vote on the deal. “As you may be aware, I believe tha... More »
HUSSEIN LOOKOUT, Israel As U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter walked along an Israeli lookout near the border with Lebanon, Israel’s Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon turned to him and said: “Probably Hezbollah is watching us.” Israel warned during Carter’s visit o... More »
VIENNA A senior Iranian negotiator voiced hope on Monday that a nuclear deal with six major powers would be completed but cautioned that there was work to be done and he could not promise the talks would finish by Tuesday night, Iranian media reported. “I cann... More »
WASHINGTON The top Republican in the U.S. Senate cast doubt on Sunday on whether President Barack Obama would be able to win approval in Congress for any nuclear deal with Iran, and some Democrats also expressed reservations. “I think it’s going to be a very h... More »
VIENNA A dispute over U.N. sanctions on Iran’s ballistic missile program and a broader arms embargo were among issues holding up a nuclear deal between Tehran and six world powers on Monday, the day before their latest self-imposed deadline. “The Iranians want... More »
DUBAI Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, departed Tehran for Vienna with nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi and Hossein Fereydoon, a brother and close aide to President Hassan Rouhani, for nuclear talks, state news agency IRNA reported on Tuesday. Zari... More »
