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US apaches strike Daesh positions near Iraq’s Mosul

U.S. helicopter gunships on Wednesday carried out raids on four positions held by the Daesh militant group near Iraq’s northern city of Mosul, a Daesh stronghold, leaving more than 15 militants dead, according to a Kurdish Peshmerga officer. “U.S. apaches carried out a string of raids on Daesh positions on the outskirts of Al-Fadeliya [a town located 17 kilometers northeast of Mosul],” Lieut. Raed Mazouri of the Kurdish Peshmerga forces told Anadolu Agency. Iraq has suffered from a security vacuum since the summer of last year, when Daesh militants overran the northern Mosul province. Massacres perpetrated by the group in the latter half of 2014 – along with the forced deportation of minority populations from areas held by Daesh – led to the establishment of a U.S.-led coalition last September to combat the extremist group. In the ten months since, the coalition has carried out numerous airstrikes against Daesh […]

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Iraq says no alarm at prospect of hiked Iran oil exports

Iraq can offset the impact of the Iran nuclear deal on oil prices and competition for export markets with higher production and improved regional trade, the oil ministry said Wednesday. The deal reached between Tehran and world powers Tuesday could lead to the lifting of economic sanctions on Iran and allow the Islamic republic to increase its oil exports. Experts predict that the return of Iranian oil exports could help keep oil prices low. Cash-strapped Iraq relies on oil exports for the vast majority of its income. "Iraq’s income will be reduced but this has been taken into account," oil ministry spokesman Assem Jihad told AFP. World oil (Other OTC: WOGI – news ) prices collapsed by 60 percent between June 2014 and January, when they hit a low of $45 a barrel. This was due in part to excessive supplies caused by the boom in US shale oil. […]

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Iraq: Isis Bans Civilians from Mosul Hospitals after Taking Heavy Casualties in Anbar Battle

The city of Mosul as shown in an ISIS video The Islamic State (Isis) in Iraq has banned civilians from entering the public hospitals in Mosul, as they are occupied by several of its fighters injured in a recent battle in Anbar province. Since Monday morning, Isis has barred civilian patients from entering the local public hospitals, according to reports . The militants have also banned the patients already admitted to the hospitals from leaving the premises. The report stated that Isis imposed the restrictions over fears that the information on "heavy casualties" would be leaked to the government. A source from Joumhouriya Hospital told Bas News (an Iraqi Kurdish news agency) that Isis has deployed its men in all the five hospitals in the city and that "hundreds of killed and injured Isis fighters" were recently brought there, following an intense clash in Anbar province. The Iraqi troops […]

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Egypt ISIS Affiliate Claims Destruction of Naval Vessel

Photo An Egyptian naval vessel burned off the coast of the northern Sinai Peninsula on Thursday. A militant group and the military gave conflicting accounts of an attack. Credit Hatem Khaled/European Pressphoto Agency CAIRO — A militant group affiliated with the Islamic State said it destroyed an Egyptian naval vessel on Thursday, posting photographs on social media of a missile exploding in a ball of fire as it slammed into the vessel. An Egyptian military spokesman said that the crew of the unnamed ship “exchanged fire” with militants off the coast of the northern Sinai Peninsula, causing a fire on board that did not result in any fatalities. But the militant group, which calls itself Sinai Province, claimed that the missile was guided and had killed everyone on board. It was at least the fourth unusually bold militant assault since late June, when Egypt’s top prosecutor was killed by […]

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ISIL-affiliate sets Egypt navy vessel ablaze off Sinai

[Reuters] An Egyptian naval vessel has caught fire in the eastern Mediterranean during a clash with fighters affiliated with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group in Sinai Peninsula, the military said. Inside Story – Has Sisi’s Egypt failed on security? The patrol boat spotted the fighters from the Sinai Province group on the coast of Rafah on Thursday and engaged them, the military’s spokesman said in a statement. The boat went up in flames during an ensuing firefight. The military said it suffered no casualties, in the attack, which Sinai Province later claimed on Twitter. A series of pictures released by the group, showed a missile approaching and striking the vessel causing a large explosion. A witness in the Palestinian Gaza Strip, just across the border with the Egyptian town of Rafah, said the boat was struck at least three kilometres from the shore. "We […]

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Woodside Sales Slide 47% as Gas Trades Near Five-Year Low

Woodside Petroleum Ltd.’s sales fell by almost half in the second quarter amid falling energy prices and lower output of liquefied natural gas. Revenue at Australia’s second-biggest oil and gas producer dropped 47 percent to $898 million, the Perth-based company said Thursday. That compares with Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s estimate of $924 million. Woodside is among liquefied natural gas producers grappling with prices in Asia that are trading near the lowest in five years. Prices for the fuel have tumbled in the past year as new supply combined with weakened demand in key markets such as Japan, Korea and China. Production last quarter was lower mainly because of maintenance at the Pluto liquefied natural gas project, the company said. “It’s a tough time to be marketing incremental LNG volumes,” Nik Burns, an analyst at UBS Group AG in Melbourne, said by phone. “There is an oversupply at the moment […]

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Big Oil to Battle for Mexico’s Deep Crude After Auction Snub

Busting When Everyone Else Is Booming Mexico is about to undergo its first subsea land rush. International energy producers that sat out Mexico’s historic oilfield auction this week will be among the fiercest competitors for potentially massive deepwater prospects that go up for sale as soon as next month, said Ivan Cima, Wood Mackenzie Ltd.’s head of Latin American upstream research. Unlike Wednesday’s government auction, which involved 14 close-to-shore fields holding at most a few hundred million barrels of crude each, the tranche of prospects Mexico is expected to offer in August includes more promising geologic structures, Cima said in an interview on Thursday. The blocks are near the line that divides U.S. and Mexican waters of the Gulf of Mexico and close to some of the most significant discoveries of the past 15 years on the U.S. side, Cima said. “Those are capital-intensive projects that are certainly geared […]

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Is it end of the line for South Asia’s ship graveyards?

Workers carry a rope line to fasten a decommissioned ship at the Alang shipyard in Gujarat, India, in this March 27, 2015 file photo. In the world’s biggest ship recycling center of Alang on India’s Arabian Sea coast, workers with blow torches cut segments of steel stripped from the rusting hull of a towering cargo ship, sold for scrap by its Japanese owner. But in this town – located in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat – more than half of the ship-breaking yards have shut in the past two years and the future of the trade in India and neighbors Bangladesh and Pakistan is bleak. The industry has been hit by a flood of cheap Chinese steel and new European Union environmental rules due later this year threaten to push business to more modern yards in places like China and Turkey – in turn devastating local […]

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For Asia’s Oil Consumers, It’s a Buyer’s Market

SINGAPORE—With oil prices at half what they were a year ago and crude flooding into Asia from all directions, buyers from the west coast of India to southern Japan are, for the first time in decades, spoiled for choice. The changing balance of power is already affecting the regional market share of key producers. With a full return of Iranian supplies now looming, following a nuclear accord this past week, competition will likely heat up further. Oil consumers, mainly the refineries that turn crude into products such as gasoline and jet fuel, face a dilemma in this “new normal” era. Do they stick with multiyear contracts with long-established suppliers, primarily from the Middle East, or buy more oil on spot markets, getting cheaper prices but risking security of supply? Asian refiners, located far from major oil-producing regions, previously have tied up as much as 95% of their crude intake […]

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Billionaire Paul Singer: China Crash Is ‘Way Bigger Than Subprime’

American billionaire and hedge fund manager Paul Singer Hedge fund manager Paul Singer said that China’s debt-fueled stock market crash may have larger implications than the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis, echoing warnings from fellow billionaire money managers Bill Ackman and Jeffrey Gundlach. “This is way bigger than subprime,” Singer, founder of hedge fund Elliott Management, said at the CNBC Institutional Investor Delivering Alpha Conference in New York in response to a question about China’s crash potentially affecting other markets. Singer said it may not be big enough to cause a global financial market conflagration. China’s stock market has dropped from a June 12 peak wiping out almost $4 trillion in value in less than a month after investors who borrowed to buy shares had to unwind trades. Markets tumbled even as President Xi Jinping’s government ramped up efforts to stem the rout, including preventing share sales of companies. The […]

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