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Britain Hints It May Join U.S. Campaign Against ISIS in Syria

Photo Prime Minister David Cameron, whose spokeswoman said lawmakers should “be thinking” of doing more in Syria. Credit Neil Hall/Reuters LONDON — Jolted by the deaths of 30 British tourists in Tunisia at the hands of a gunman professing allegiance to the Islamic State , Prime Minister David Cameron is considering joining the United States in bombing the group’s forces in Syria . Mr. Cameron’s spokeswoman, Helen Bower, briefing reporters on Thursday, said that the prime minister wanted members of Parliament to “be thinking about” authorizing Britain to do “more in Syria .” Ms. Bower said Mr. Cameron thought that “there has been and continues to be a case for doing more in Syria” against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. Britain is already conducting bombing runs against the group in Iraq. “What has changed is the growing evidence that ISIL poses a threat to people […]

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Signs of a Compromise Over Inspections in Iran Nuclear Talks

Photo Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, at a government meeting in June. He has said repeatedly that foreigners will not be allowed to visit military sites. Credit Supreme Leader Official Website/Handout/European Pressphoto Agency VIENNA — An Iranian official signaled Thursday that Tehran was trying to bridge the gap between Western demands for inspections of any suspected nuclear-related facility and a declaration by Iran ’s supreme leader that foreigners could not enter military sites or interview Iranian scientists. That effort, described by a senior Iranian official to reporters here Thursday afternoon, came as three Western officials said Iran now appeared to concede that it would have to ship more than nine tons of low-enriched nuclear material out of the country as part of a comprehensive deal the parties hope to nail down next week. Just three months ago, in Lausanne, Switzerland, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Abbas Araqchi, […]

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Iran’s Revolutionary Guards wary of threat to business interests

Soldiers of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards march during an annual military parade to mark Iran’s eight-year war with Iraq in the capital Tehran, 22 September 2007. Iran today showed off a longer-range missile in public for the first time and proclaimed a string of anti-Israel slogans in a major military parade amid mounting tensions with the West. AFP PHOTO/ATTA KENARE Alarm bells rang for Iranian businessmen in May when the elite Revolutionary Guards cancelled a conference organised by Iranians linked to the Forum of Young Global Leaders shortly before the gathering was due to take place in Tehran and Isfahan. It was a reminder to the business community that the 120,000 strong military force, known for its loyalty to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, feels increasingly insecure about what a nuclear deal could mean not just for Iran but also for its commercial empire, whose multi-billion dollar interests […]

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Iran’s Giant Super-Tanker Fleet Eyes Western Waters

TEHRAN—Iran’s biggest oil shipping company has amassed the world’s largest fleet of super tankers and is in talks to sail back into western waters should the Islamic Republic strike a nuclear deal , according to senior officials. NITC, the privatized Iranian shipping company, says it has 42 very large crude carriers, known as VLCCs, after buying 20 such China-built vessels in the past 2½ years. It is the first time the company has disclosed the size of its VLCC fleet which it expanded as sanctions cut off access to European-insured vessels, “No other company in the world owns that number of VLCCs,” said Capt. Nasrollah Sardashti, NITC’s commercial director, in an interview in the Iranian capital. VLCCs can carry 2 million barrels of oil each. NITC’s biggest rivals all list fewer ships, and one London-based analyst who tracks oil-tanker fleets, said he also believes NITC has the largest fleet. […]

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Iranian Official Sees ‘Opportunities’ for Better Ties After a Nuclear Deal

VIENNA—A senior Iranian official raised the possibility of improved relations with the U.S. if a nuclear accord is reached between Tehran and world powers this month, amid signs that the negotiations were progressing slowly. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, among several top diplomats who joined the talks on Thursday, said before leaving Vienna that he would return Sunday—indicating little chance of a final agreement before next week. “There is still some work to be done, and I expect to come back to the talks Sunday evening,” he said, adding he hopes then to “be in a situation to advance toward perhaps…a robust deal.” The U.S. and Iran have been foes for almost 40 years, after radical Islamist students and political parties overthrew the pro-American Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1979. But senior Iranian and American diplomats have been locked in intense, face-to-face negotiations on the nuclear issue for nearly […]

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Egypt, Stunned by Sinai Assault, Vows to Erase ‘Terrorist Dens’

Photo A funeral on Thursday in Ashmoun, in the Nile Delta, for First Lt. Mohamed Ashraf, one of the soldiers killed Wednesday in a militant attack in the Sinai Peninsula. Credit Sameh Abouhasan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images CAIRO — Egypt ’s military killed 23 militants in the northern Sinai Peninsula early Thursday, a senior security official said, as the government sought to reassert control and eradicate what it called the area’s “terrorist dens” after the largest assault there by jihadists affiliated with the Islamic State. That assault, on Wednesday, stunned officials in President Abdel Fattah el-Sisis’s government with its scale and audacity. Militants belonging to a group calling itself Sinai Province launched coordinated attacks on military checkpoints in the northern Sinai before storming a town and occupying it for hours. The military carried out airstrikes with F-16 warplanes on the town, Sheikh Zuwaid, to force a militant retreat. A […]

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Power Outages Dim South Africa’s Prospects

SOWETO, South Africa—Residents of this sprawling township famous for its resistance to white-minority rule are fighting a battle they thought consigned to history: keeping the lights on. National power company Eskom Holdings Ltd. is reeling from years of underinvestment and poor management, surrendering to power outages that frequently plunge Soweto’s 1.3 million residents into darkness. Nonayona Mkeshana and her neighbors have resorted to cooking over open fires and singing and dancing in the street now that television sets have gone dark. “We’ve had to get used to it, to survive,” said Ms. Mkeshana, a 59-year-old grandmother who lives with her son and his children. South Africa’s Treasury on Wednesday said it sold its stake in mobile company Vodacom Group Ltd. VOD -1.87 % to raise $2 billion to keep Eskom solvent. Chief Executive Brian Molefe said blackouts could continue for months as Eskom catches up on years of neglected […]

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China Accelerates Efforts to Stem Selloff

China shares tumbled Friday, even as Beijing moves swiftly to try to plug losses, with the smaller Shenzhen index suffering its worst week since December 1996. The Shanghai Composite, which ended down 5.8%, lost 12.1% this week and more than a quarter of its value since a high on June 12. The Shenzhen Composite fell 5.3% while the ChiNext board, composed of small-cap stocks, lost 1.7%. Both are down more than a third from peaks last month, with weekly losses of 16.2% and 10.8%, respectively. Chinese officials over the past week have dug deep for measures to stop massive stock selloffs. Still, the array of attempts—from lifting restrictions on investing with borrowed funds to cutting interest rates —so far have failed to encourage investors to buy, even though China’s main stock index has nearly doubled since last year. On Friday, China’s securities regulator said it would slow the pace […]

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Asia oil refining margins hit 2015 low, Mideast supply to drag

SINGAPORE Rallying oil refining margins have ground to a halt in Asia. Currently at a 2015 low, they could drop another 20-30 percent this quarter, led by declining profits in diesel as supply from the Middle East adds to a global glut. While softer Asian demand for diesel will be a drag, margins will likely draw some support and stay above last year’s low as the region’s gasoline uptake remains healthy. Asian refining margins enjoyed a stellar run in the first half of this year on weak oil prices and hit a two-year top above $10 per barrel in June. But they have almost halved this week to $5.60 with supply of refined products from traditional importers in the Middle East building up. "We see refining margins weakening on worsening diesel fundamentals, particularly east of Suez, though gasoline should be supportive," said Robert Campbell, head of oil products research […]

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China’s diesel exports may return after going missing in action

LAUNCESTON, Australia One of the little mysteries this year in Asian oil markets has been the drop in China’s diesel exports. Customs data show that China exported 1.303 million tonnes of diesel in the first five months of the year, a drop of 24 percent over the same period in 2014. This equates to about 64,700 barrels per day (bpd), which is a substantial drop on the 82,000 bpd China exported over the whole of 2014. It also means that Chinese refiners have come nowhere close to using their export quotas for diesel in the first half of 2015, even if the June data does show a substantial ramping up of diesel exports. Refiners are able to export as much fuel as they receive government quotas for, and the diesel allowance was 2.62 million tonnes for the first half of 2015, according to an April 27 report from pricing […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple