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The big test facing Iraq

Hoshyar Zebari, Iraq’s foreign minister, looks out the cockpit window of a military helicopter at the thin blue waterway below – the site of one of the fiercest battles in modern history. The Russian-made chopper, part of Iraq’s tiny Air Force, winds its way along the Shatt al-Arab waterway, on the border with Iran, which has shaped the two countries’ tumultuous past. Skip to next paragraph At low tide, the carcasses of destroyed oil tankers are half sunk into the ocher mud. They are rusting relics from a devastating eight-year war three decades ago that began over access to the shallow ribbon of water – Iraq’s only lane to the deep-sea waters of the Gulf. "When you see it on the ground, you see how sensitive these issues are … and how stupid decisions destroyed this country," says Mr. Zebari, a onetime Kurdish guerrilla who fought Saddam Hussein’s regime […]

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24 more militants killed in Anbar offensive: Iraq

Iraqi security forces have killed 24 more militants of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) during the ongoing security operation in the restive Anbar province, the joint operations command said. Army and police forces engaged a group of militant in the Halabsa district of Fallujah, killing four and injuring many others, the command said in a press statement. Twenty other militants were killed in separate attacks across the western province, it added. The statement, however, did not indicate when these clashes took place. Since last December, the Iraqi army has waged a major offensive in the Sunni-majority Anbar province with the stated aim of flushing militants – who Baghdad claims are linked to Al-Qaeda – out of the key cities of Ramadi and Fallujah. Many local Sunni tribes opposed to Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government, meanwhile, have continued to voice anger over the […]

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Cuba fed a president’s fears and took over Venezuela

The enormous influence that Cuba has gained in Venezuela is one of the most underreported geopolitical developments of recent times. It is also one of the most improbable . Venezuela is nine times bigger than Cuba, three times more populous, and its economy four times larger. The country boasts the world’s largest oil reserves. Yet critical functions of the Venezuelan state are either overseen or directly controlled by Cuban officials. The FT’s A-List The A-List provides timely, insightful comment on the topics that matter, from globally renowned leaders, policy makers and commentators Venezuela receives Cuban health workers, sports trainers, bureaucrats, security personnel, militias and paramilitary groups. “We have over 30,000 members of Cuba’s Committees for the Defence of the Revolution in Venezuela,” boasted Juan José Rabilero, then head of the CDR, in 2007. The number is likely to have increased further since then. A growing proportion of Venezuela’s imports […]

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China economic growth slows to 18-month low in first quarter

China’s economy grew at its slowest pace in 18 months in the first quarter of 2014, official data showed on Wednesday, with signs of waning momentum already prompting limited government action to steady the world’s second-largest economy. Authorities have ruled out major stimulus to fight short-term dips in growth, and some analysts think the economy will continue to lose momentum into the middle of the year. The economy grew 7.4 percent in the January-March quarter from a year earlier, slightly stronger than the median forecast of 7.3 percent in a Reuters poll but still slowing from 7.7 percent in the final quarter of 2013. It was China’s slowest annual growth since the third quarter of 2012, when growth was also 7.4 percent. Economists were split on the outlook, with some predicting that growth had stabilized and that the government would stand pat on policy. Others, however, […]

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China’s Growth Slows to Six-Quarter Low

China’s expansion moderated to the weakest pace in six quarters and property construction plunged, testing leaders’ commitment to keep reining in credit as risks mount of a deeper slowdown. Gross domestic product rose 7.4 percent in the January-to-March period from a year earlier, the statistics bureau said today in Beijing, compared with the 7.3 percent median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of analysts. Industrial production and fixed-asset investment trailed projections. The weakest first-quarter property-investment growth since 2009 signals credit is tight and demand is faltering, adding to economic and default dangers as Premier Li Keqiang grapples with risks from shadow banking and local-government debt. A deeper slowdown would put pressure on leaders to expand stimulus or limit the pace of changes intended to give market forces a bigger role in the world’s second-largest economy. “The property market is probably the biggest risk this year, because this is not […]

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Alaska welcomes LNG export approval

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski , R-Alaska, welcomed an Energy Department decision to approve exports from a liquefied natural gas plant near Kenai, Alaska. "I’m glad ConocoPhillips will be able to add to Alaska’s 40-year history of supplying natural gas to Japan," she said in a statement Monday. The Energy Department gave Conoco approval to send as much as 40 billion cubic feet of natural gas per year from the Alaskan facility to Asian countries that don’t have a free-trade agreement with the United States. Conoco in December filed an application with the department to resume exports from a plant idled by a shortage of natural gas. Recent discoveries at Cook Inlet fields have eased supply constraints to the extent that seasonal exports are feasible. U.S. Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, said in a separate statement there was "plenty of gas" available for domestic and export […]

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Slowing growth adds to China stimulus pressure

China’s growth slowed sharply in the first quarter of 2014, raising pressure on Beijing to provide a fresh round of government stimulus to prop up faltering growth in the world’s second-largest economy. In the three months to the end of March, China’s gross domestic product expanded 7.4 per cent from the same period a year earlier, a slowdown from 7.7 per cent growth in the fourth quarter of 2013 but faster than the 7.2 per cent pace that some analysts had predicted. The expansion in the first quarter, revealed by China’s National Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday, was the slowest since the third quarter of 2012 when the government loosened monetary policy and accelerated infrastructure investment as growth dropped to 7.4 per cent. China’s slowest quarterly growth in recent years was a trough of 6.2 per cent, in the immediate aftermath of the global financial crisis in 2009. […]

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Desalination Plant to Provide Third of Beijing’s Water

One-third of the tap water used in Beijing in five years will be desalinated from the sea to make it potable and boost clean supplies, according to state media. Beijing Enterprises (371) Water Group, the biggest publicly traded water-treatment company in China, is developing the reverse-osmosis project in the Caofeidian district of Tangshan in Hebei province , the Global Times reported . The city will get about 33 percent of its water daily from the treatment facility. The company said it’s planning to spend 7 billion yuan ($1.1 billion) on the plant and 10 billion yuan more on a pipeline to transport the water. Beijing Enterprises Water started desalinating seawater in 2012. Beijing has been battling drought for 15 years as China works to clean its water and air of pollutants. Xinhua News Agency reported April 12 that investigators traced the source of an oil pipeline leak that contaminated […]

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Appeals Court Upholds EPA Rule on Power-Plant Emissions

A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld the nation’s first-ever national standards requiring power plants to cut emissions of mercury and other hazardous air pollution. The federal rules, scheduled to take effect in April 2015, require the nation’s 600 coal and oil-fired power plants to comply with emissions limits set by the Environmental Protection Agency. The standards are a notable environmental accomplishment for President Barack Obama and a blow to the coal industry, which is the biggest source of mercury emissions in the U.S., according to EPA. A divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in a 61-page ruling rejected several legal attacks raised by challengers. These challengers include more than 20 states with utilities that depend heavily on coal for energy production, and several industry groups and companies, including Peabody Energy Corp. , Corp. , and the National Mining Association. […]

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EPA: US greenhouse gases dropped 3.4% in 2012 from 2011; down 10% from 2005 levels

& The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its 19 th annual report of overall US greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, showing a 3.4% decrease in 2012 from 2011. The Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks , which is submitted annually to the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, presents a national-level overview of annual greenhouse gas emissions since 1990. Total emissions of the six main greenhouse gases in 2012 were equivalent to 6,526 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. These gases include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride. According to the report, GHG emissions in 2012 showed a 10% drop below 2005 levels, and were only […]

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