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BAGHDAD – Initial results from Iraq’s national election are likely to be released by today, Iraqi and UN officials said yesterday, as further signs emerged of a strong showing for Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
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KABUL – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and US Defense Secretary Robert Gates traded barbs yesterday during briefly overlapping visits to Afghanistan, where Washington has troops at war but Tehran has growing clout.
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Luke Pachymuthu – Oil major Royal Dutch Shell has stopped gasoline sales to Iran, oil traders said yesterday, the latest addition to a growing list of firms that have halted supplies under threat of future US sanctions.
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RAMALLAH – US Vice President Joe Biden publicly scolded Israel yesterday over a Jewish settlement plan, saying it was undermining peace efforts after Palestinians agreed to US-mediated talks.
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MOSCOW – Russia plans to sign over $10 billion worth of deals with India during the visit of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin later this week, Putin’s deputy, Sergei Sobyanin, told Reuters in an interview.
LAGOS – Uncertainty over Nigeria’s presidential succession, violence along a major ethnic fault line, and the risk of fresh unrest in the oil-producing Niger Delta are clouding an otherwise bright investment outlook.
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WASHINGTON – US Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius ratcheted up the pressure on health insurance companies yesterday, urging them to forego short-term profits and stop fighting President Barack Obama’s health reform plans.
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LONDON – The United States and Europe face growing tensions over restrictions on export deals involving BAE Systems while European politicians protest the collapse of efforts to sell aerial tankers to the United States.
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BEIJING – China’s top climate negotiator said yesterday that the cause of global warming was still not clear but the problems it was creating were so serious that the world must anyway act to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
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RABAT – The crisis in relations between Libya and its Western partners is an expression of Muammar Gaddafi’s inner circle: a family he protects fiercely but which is torn between old habits of isolation and a desire to open up.
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CANBERRA/JAKARTA – A suspected mastermind of the Bali bombings was killed in a police raid in Indonesia in the latest blow to an Islamist militant movement in the world’s most populous Muslim country.
