| U.S. crude settles at 17-month high after small, pre-holiday gain Posted: 23 Dec 2016 12:25 PM PST  By Scott DiSavino NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. oil prices closed at a 17-month high on Friday in quiet trade ahead of the Christmas and New Year holiday week, even though the gain was small, as the market waits to see how OPEC manages its planned output cuts with Libya expecting to boost production. Brent futures gained 11 cents, or 0.2 percent, to settle at $55.16 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude gained seven cents, or 0.1 percent, to settle at $53.02, its highest close since July 2015. It also put the WTI contract up for a fifth week in six, gaining about 22 percent since mid November, which traders said was mostly related to the OPEC production cut agreement.
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| For Iraq's Christians, Christmas cheer tinged with despair Posted: 23 Dec 2016 11:12 AM PST  The Nativity scene and Christmas tree are in place on the corner of the street. Some of the children proudly wear red Santa Claus hats or show off new toys, mostly plastic guns for small boys. Windows ...
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| U.S. forces embedding more to help Iraqis retake Mosul: commander Posted: 23 Dec 2016 09:20 AM PST  By Stephen Kalin MAKHMOUR, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. forces assisting Iraqi troops to retake Mosul from Islamic State are embedding more extensively, a senior commander said on Friday, a move that could accelerate a two month-old campaign which has slackened after quick initial advances. More than 5,000 American service members are currently deployed in Iraq as part of an international coalition that is advising local forces in a bid to recapture the third of the country the jihadists seized in 2014 when Iraq's army and police dropped their weapons and fled. Now, as Iraqi forces controlling around a quarter of Mosul - Islamic State's last major stronghold in Iraq - proceed deeper into the northern city and encounter fierce counter-attacks that render progress slow and punishing, U.S. troops are stepping up their involvement.
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| Mines Advisory Group (MAG) - Emergency Response, Iraq Posted: 23 Dec 2016 08:07 AM PST WASHINGTON, Dec. 23, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Mines Advisory Group (MAG) spoke to CNN and NBC News, both networks visited Iraq in the past few weeks to provide their viewers with powerful insights into the devastation near Mosul, including videos showing the insides of booby-trapped houses. This was, admittedly, a tour like no other for NBC correspondent Lucy Kafanov. MAG is currently clearing deadly landmines and bobby traps left behind by ISIS as villages surrounding Mosul are liberated. |
| Russian envoy's killer remembered as lonely boy, not angry jihadist Posted: 23 Dec 2016 07:29 AM PST  By Tuvan Gumrukcu SOKE, Turkey (Reuters) - Those in the small Turkish town of Soke who knew Mevlut Altintas, the smartly dressed, clean-shaven young man who shot dead Russia's ambassador this week, recall a lonely taciturn boy twice rejected by university before leaving home and joining the police. Altintas was 22 when he shot Andrei Karlov in the back at an Ankara art gallery before being himself gunned down by police. Few in Soke would have recognized the figure in black suit and tie who stood over the diplomat's body screaming jihadi slogans.
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| Special Report: How a great-grandmother's body ended up in a U.S. Army blast test Posted: 23 Dec 2016 07:22 AM PST  By John Shiffman SURPRISE, Arizona (Reuters) - Jim Stauffer thought he was doing the right thing. At a nurse's suggestion, the family contacted Biological Resource Center, a local company that brokered the donation of human bodies for research. Jim Stauffer signed a form authorizing medical research on his mother's body.
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| IS scored 'opportunistic' wins in Syria as Aleppo fell Posted: 23 Dec 2016 05:37 AM PST  The Syrian regime's all-out offensive to recapture Aleppo enabled the Islamic State group to regain territory elsewhere, including the historic city of Palmyra, and has dimmed prospects of defeating the jihadists, experts say. "The resources deployed (by Damascus and its allies) to retake Aleppo have allowed IS to claim a series of opportunistic victories" in Syria, said Charles Lister of the US think-tank Middle East Institute. During the assault by Syrian, Russian and Iranian forces on rebels in eastern Aleppo, IS jihadists recaptured the historic city of Palmyra on December 11 after losing it in March.
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| Fighting back: How Indonesia's elite police turned the tide on militants Posted: 23 Dec 2016 02:11 AM PST  By Tom Allard and Kanupriya Kapoor JAKARTA (Reuters) - As the world battles a spike in assaults and plots by Islamist militants, Indonesia's anti-terrorism unit is drawing praise for stemming a wave of bloody attacks in the sprawling Muslim-majority nation. Indonesia has foiled at least 14 attacks this year alone and made more than 150 arrests, disrupting plots ranging from suicide attacks in Jakarta to a rocket attack from Indonesia's Batam island targeting Singapore. Going back to 2010, a Reuters analysis of data shows the elite unit, Special Detachment 88 (Densus 88), has prevented at last 54 plots or attacks in the nation of 250 million people, the world's fourth largest.
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| In realist foreign policy, Obama found limits Posted: 23 Dec 2016 12:15 AM PST  WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's foreign policy legacy may be defined as much by what he didn't do as by what he did.
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| OPEC monitoring committee to meet first half of Jan -Kuwaiti oil minister Posted: 23 Dec 2016 12:13 AM PST  By Amina Ismail CAIRO (Reuters) - An OPEC committee responsible for monitoring compliance with a global agreement to reduce oil output will meet in the first half of January, Kuwait's oil minister said on Thursday. "We will meet... in January with OPEC and non-OPEC countries and we will coordinate over the method in which (compliance with) the cut will be implemented," Essam Abdul Mohsen Al-Marzouq told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) in Cairo. "I personally think that the announcements coming from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, and Russia are all encouraging signs that they will abide by the cut and hopefully other countries will follow suit." Marzouq later clarified that the meeting would take place in the "beginning" or "first half" of January.
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| Morocco searching for authors of posts praising Russian ambassador's assassination Posted: 22 Dec 2016 11:56 PM PST  Morocco's government said on Thursday it was working to identify the authors of social media posts praising the assassination of the Russian ambassador to Turkey this week. Ambassador Andrei Karlov was gunned down by an assassin while giving a speech in an art gallery in Ankara on Monday. Morocco has been trying to develop ties with Moscow as it seeks new business partners and builds support on the United Nations Security Council for its proposal to offer the disputed Western Sahara region autonomy under its sovereignty.
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| In realist foreign policy, Obama found limits Posted: 22 Dec 2016 08:46 AM PST WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's foreign policy legacy may be defined as much by what he didn't do as by what he did. |
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