| Factbox: Trump fills top jobs for his administration Posted: 16 Dec 2016 04:21 PM PST (Reuters) - President-elect Donald Trump will nominate Republican U.S. Representative Mick Mulvaney to be director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, a senior transition official said on Friday. A retired Army officer and Harvard Law School graduate, Pompeo supports the U.S. government's sweeping collection of Americans' communications data and wants to scrap the nuclear deal with Iran. |
| The Latest: Lawmakers promise thorough probes into hacking Posted: 16 Dec 2016 04:08 PM PST  The Latest on President Barack Obama's year-end news conference (all times EST): 7 p.m. The Senate intelligence committee says it will conduct a thorough, bipartisan investigation and hold hearings about ...
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| APNewsBreak: Two-star general demoted after affair Posted: 16 Dec 2016 01:53 PM PST WASHINGTON (AP) — An Army major general has been stripped of his stars and forced out of the military after a 30-year military career because of a long extramarital affair and "swinger" lifestyle. |
| Oil rises on Goldman forecast, signs producers complying with cuts Posted: 16 Dec 2016 12:26 PM PST  By Scott DiSavino NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil rose on Friday, edging closer to new 17-month highs, after Goldman Sachs boosted its price forecast for 2017 and producers showed signs of adhering to a global deal to reduce output. "We're up today because Goldman Sachs bumped up its oil estimates and the Russians said their oil companies would reduce output," said Phil Davis, managing partner of venture capital fund PSW Investments in Woodland Park, New Jersey. Russia said on Friday that all of the country's oil companies, including top producer Rosneft, had agreed to reduce output.
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| U.S. offers $25 million reward for information on Islamic State leader Posted: 16 Dec 2016 10:07 AM PST  The United States on Friday more than doubled its previous reward for information on Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, offering $25 million for information that would help locate, arrest or convict the head of the jihadist group. Baghdadi, an Iraqi whose real name is Ibrahim al-Samarrai, declared himself the caliph of a huge swath of Iraq and Syria two years ago. Kurdish officials believe that growing pressure resulting from a coalition military assault on Mosul is causing Baghdadi and his top lieutenants to move around and try to hide themselves.
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| US boosts reward on Islamic State leader to $25 mn Posted: 16 Dec 2016 09:28 AM PST  The United States on Friday more than doubled the bounty on the head of the shadowy leader of the Islamic State group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, to $25 million. The announcement by the State Department "Rewards for Justice Program" came as US-backed local forces close in on the jihadist movement's main urban strongholds in Iraq and Syria, the cities of Mosul and Raqa. The cash will be paid to anyone who can offer "information leading to the location, arrest or conviction" of the elusive militant, known to his followers as "Caliph Ibrahim".
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| Coalition strike destroys IS-captured weapons near Palmyra Posted: 16 Dec 2016 09:09 AM PST  US-led coalition aircraft have destroyed heavy weaponry seized by Islamic State jihadists when they retook the Syrian city of Palmyra from regime forces over the weekend, officials said Friday. The strikes on Thursday destroyed an air defense artillery system, 14 tanks, three artillery systems, two IS-held buildings and two tactical vehicles, the coalition said in a statement. Among the Russian weaponry the IS group captured around Palmyra were thought to be modern surface-to-air missiles, or SAMs, giving jihadists the potential capability to shoot down coalition jets, a coalition official told AFP.
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| Iraq: retaken Mosul towns still battle-stricken, await aid Posted: 16 Dec 2016 08:43 AM PST  MOSUL, Iraq (AP) — The bodies of two dead Islamic State fighters have been lying on the sidewalk in front of Muhammad Jassim's house in eastern Mosul for the past week. Both of the corpses were burned, abused and decapitated, one was partially covered by a pastel floral bed sheet.
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| Jihadists' return from frontline a major threat, US experts warn Posted: 16 Dec 2016 07:36 AM PST  The IS group may be on the defensive in Syria and Iraq, but it now has thousands of foreign volunteer fighters who, once home again, will pose a major threat, experts warn. "The flow of foreign fighters from western countries has fallen from 2,000 to about nothing a month," Albert Ford of the New America think tank told AFP. "But that's only half the issue: What do you do about the 25,000 or 30,000 people that are in Syria or have been there that now want to go back?
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| Books old and new in 2016 got boost from Trump candidacy Posted: 16 Dec 2016 06:52 AM PST  NEW YORK (AP) — Books by such familiar names as J.K. Rowling, Jeff Kinney and Bill O'Reilly were among the top sellers of 2016. But the most unexpected presidential election in memory also led to some unexpected successes.
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| Iraq boosts oil sales to China, U.S., India before OPEC supply cuts bite: sources Posted: 16 Dec 2016 03:09 AM PST  By Florence Tan and Chen Aizhu SINGAPORE/BEIJING (Reuters) - Iraq is selling more crude oil to its biggest customer, China's Unipec, people familiar with the matter say, digging a deeper foothold in the global supply market just before production cuts agreed with OPEC and other producers are scheduled to kick in. Three people with knowledge of the matter said the Unipec contract was signed just before the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), of which Iraq is a member, agreed with other producers led by Russia to cut output by as much as 1.8 million bpd in an effort to reduce a global fuel supply overhang and prop up prices. Speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak to media, the people said Iraq's Oil Marketing Company (SOMO) has boosted Basra crude forward export sales to Unipec by 3 percent to a total of 40 million-60 million barrels each quarter - 435,000-652,000 bpd - for 2017.
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| France prolongs state of emergency despite rights concerns Posted: 16 Dec 2016 02:43 AM PST  PARIS (AP) — Three times a day, at breakfast, lunch and dinner time, Antho Bolamba reports to his local police station in a Paris suburb. He can't leave his house at night or France at all.
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| Immigrant elector who backed Cruz says he'll vote for Trump Posted: 16 Dec 2016 12:49 AM PST  JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Hector Maldonado took one oath to support the U.S. Constitution when he became a citizen, a second when he enlisted in the U.S. Army and another earlier this year when he became an elector and promised to support whichever Republican presidential candidate won Missouri.
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| 2016, the year the IS 'caliphate' buckled Posted: 15 Dec 2016 10:44 PM PST  Multiple ground assaults and a deluge of air strikes shrank the Islamic State group's "caliphate" to a rump and decimated its fighters in 2016 but the organisation remains a potent threat. The jihadists have squandered close to half of the land they controlled in 2014 and many of their losses came this year, which saw major operations by myriad forces and countries. The loss of symbolic bastions such as Fallujah in Iraq or Dabiq in Syria dented IS's aura, revealing it could not defend places it once vowed were impregnable and central to its own mythology.
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| Between guilt and outrage, West looks helpless over Aleppo Posted: 15 Dec 2016 04:03 PM PST  The fall of Aleppo has unleashed a mixture of outrage and impotence in the West, in which fury at the relentless carnage has mingled with guilt over the failure to stop it. The relentless offensive began mid-November, drawing condemnation from Washington to London to Berlin, but nothing else.
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