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Obama Urges ‘Creative’ Talks to Bridge Divide With Iran on Sanctions

Continue reading the main story Video Play Video|0:49 Obama on His Concerns About Congress Obama on His Concerns About Congress The president, in an appearance with Prime Minister Matteo Renzi of Italy on Friday, spoke about his concerns that congressional action would derail the nuclear deal with Iran. By AP on Publish Date April 17, 2015. Photo by Stephen Crowley/The New York Times. WASHINGTON — President Obama on Friday directed his diplomats to use “creative negotiations” to bridge a sharp divide with Iran over the fate of sanctions if it agrees to curb its nuclear program , signaling flexibility in hopes of keeping a tentative agreement from unraveling. Iranian leaders have insisted in recent days that the punishing sanctions be lifted as soon as a written accord is signed, a position that the country’s foreign minister reinforced on Friday. Mr. Obama did not repeat past American assertions that sanctions […]

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Humanitarian Crsis Grows as Iraqis Flee Anbar Province and ISIS

Photo A busy road as thousands fled the fighting between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants in Ramadi, Iraq, on Thursday. Credit Associated Press BAGHDAD — In an intensifying humanitarian crisis in Iraq’s embattled Anbar Province, thousands of residents are fleeing a pitched battle between Islamic State militants and pro-government forces around the provincial capital. Checkpoints on the main approach to Baghdad from western Anbar Province are choked with cars, as the Iraqi authorities refuse entry to people who do not have a resident of Baghdad to vouch for them and provide them shelter. In normal times, a drive between the provincial capital, Ramadi, and Baghdad takes little more than an hour. Those lucky enough to reach Baghdad on Friday said they had been traveling for two days. On the edge of Baghdad on Friday, just past a government checkpoint, Saad al-Thiabi, a police officer in Ramadi who has […]

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Thousands of Iraqis flee as Islamic State makes gains in Sunni heartland

SADR AL-YUSUFIYAH — Thousands of families fleeing Iraq’s western city of Ramadi choked checkpoints leading to Baghdad on Friday, after an Islamic State advance spread panic and left security forces clinging to control. A column of traffic several vehicles wide snaked for miles at a checkpoint in Sadr al-Yusufiyah, on the edge of Baghdad province, as minibuses, cars and trucks picked up families who crossed by foot carrying their possessions in bags and wheelbarrows. Suhaib al-Rawi, the governor of Anbar province, of which Ramadi is the capital, described it as a human disaster on a scale the city has never witnessed. U.S. and Iraqi officials have warned that the city is at risk of falling to the Islamic State despite seven months of airstrikes by U.S. planes in Anbar. Such a loss would be a serious blow to Iraq’s government, which recently announced a military campaign for the province […]

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Airstrikes target Islamic State near Iraqi refinery

Coalition airstrikes hit Islamic State targets near oil refinery north of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. File Photo by U.S. Defense Department/UPI WASHINGTON, April 17 (UPI) — Islamic State fighting positions and artillery were destroyed near the Beiji oil refinery in Iraq by coalition airstrikes, the U.S. Defense Department said. The Islamic State at its peak was said to be generating about $2 million per day on pilfered oil. The militant group claimed a brief hold over the Beiji oil refinery north of Baghdad last year and heavy fighting has been reported recently in and around the area. "Near Beiji, nine airstrikes struck two large and six smaller tactical units, destroyed two Islamic State fighting positions and an Islamic State heavy machine gun," the U.S. Department of Defense said Thursday. The strikes come as Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi is in Washington discussing the fight against the terrorist group that […]

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Car bomb kills three outside U.S. consulate in Iraq’s Kurdish capital

ERBIL (Reuters) – A car bombing claimed by the Islamic State killed three people on Friday outside the U.S. consulate in Erbil, in a relatively rare attack in the capital of Iraq’s Kurdistan region. No U.S. personnel were hurt in the blast, according to the U.S. State Department, which said a "vehicle-borne improvised explosive device" exploded right outside the entrance to the heavily fortified compound. Iraq’s Kurdish region is an important partner for the U.S.-led coalition in its campaign to "degrade and destroy" the Islamic State group, which overran large parts of Iraq last summer and threatened to reach Erbil. A Reuters witness heard the blast, which was followed by gunfire and a column of black smoke high above the Ankawa district, a predominantly Christian neighborhood packed with cafes popular with foreigners. "It seems the consulate was the target," Nihad Qoja, the mayor of Erbil’s city center, told Reuters. […]

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Saudi Arabia Oil Output Rises To Highest In 30 Years As US Output Levels Of

Saudi Arabia Oil Output Rises To Highest In 30 Years As US Output Levels Of thumbnail Saudi Arabian oil production has increased to its highest level in three decades, just as U.S. output is expected to drop from its 30-year high. Fearing a loss of global market share, the oil-rich kingdom has kept its crude oil spigots open despite a U.S. oil boom that’s contributed to a glut driving prices to about half what they were a year ago. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) said Thursday that Saudi Arabia’s March daily crude oil output averaged 10.29 million barrels per day, an increase from the previous month of 658,800 barrels per day. The increase is equivalent to more than half of the oil coming out of the northern Bakken formation that’s at the center of the U.S. oil extraction boom, according to Bloomberg . “Crude oil output increased mostly […]

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Is Saudi Arabia Setting The World Up For Major Oil Price Spike?

Saudi Arabia produced 10.3 million barrels per day in the month of March, a 658,000 barrel-per-day increase over the previous month. That is the highest level of production in three decades for the leading OPEC member. On top of the Saudi increase, Iraq boosted output by 556,000 barrels per day, and Libya succeeded in bringing 183,000 barrels per day back online. OPEC is now collectively producing nearly 31.5 million barrels per day, well above the cartel’s stated quota of just 30 million barrels per day. The enormous increase in production comes into a market that is still dealing with extraordinarily low prices. The move could be interpreted as a stepped up effort on behalf of Saudi Arabia to maintain market share at all costs. More output will prolong the slump in oil prices, which will force even more U.S. shale production out of the market. The signs of success […]

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Oil Search decides on complete exit from Yemen

MELBOURNE, Apr. 17 Sydney and Port Moresby-based Oil Search Ltd. has decided on a complete exit from its acreage in Yemen. The company has sold its 34% interest in the onshore Block 7 Al Barqa permit, which lies in the Shabwa basin about 340 km east of the capital Sana’a, to fellow joint venture partner Petsec Energy Ltd. The terms of the purchase were not disclosed, but Petsec joined the permit group last year by purchasing 21.25% from AWE and 8.5% from Mitsui for a total of about $1.5 million (Aus.). The purchase of Oil Search’s interest means Petsec now has a 63.75% interest in Block 7 and the company will take over as operator. The block contains the Al Meashar oil discovery made in 2010, however the political unrest in Yemen prompted Oil Search to declare a force majeure in 2011 and no work on the find, or […]

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Aid Agencies Increasingly Alarmed by Yemen Crisis

Photo An airstrike hit the presidential palace, also known as the Republican Palace, in the southwestern city of Taiz, Yemen. The United Nations said 18 out of the country’s 22 provinces have been hit by airstrikes. Credit Reuters GENEVA — International aid agencies expressed rising alarm Friday over the humanitarian disaster consuming Yemen , as airstrikes and street fighting have intensified and nearly paralyzed essential services. Air assaults by the Saudi-led coalition struck Sana, Yemen’s capital, on Thursday night and Friday, said Cedric Schweizer, head of delegation for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Sana. According to the United Nations, 18 of Yemen’s 22 provinces now have been hit by airstrikes, in which an American-backed alliance of Arab states led by the Saudis has been bombing the Houthis, a northern Yemen militia organization supported by Iran . The Houthis and their allies in Yemen’s armed forces have […]

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Argentina to sue Falkland Islands oil drillers

Argentina has started legal proceedings against five companies drilling for oil and gas in the disputed Falkland Islands, raising tensions over the islands’ sovereignty in part because three of the companies are based in Britain. The spat is the latest between Britain and Argentina, who fought a short war over the Falklands — or Las Malvinas, as the islands are known in Argentina — in 1982 which Britain won. The war killed more than 600 Argentine and 255 British soldiers. The islands, which lie 300 miles off the Argentine coast and 8,000 miles from Britain,  are claimed by both countries. Daniel Filmus, Argentina’s minister for the Falklands, announced the start of the lawsuit in London on Friday, saying a judge in Rio Grande, Argentina, had agreed to take on the case. The main companies involved in oil drilling in the Falklands are Premier Oil, Falkland Oil and Gas and Rockhopper, which […]

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