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By MATT APUZZO July 27, 2014 WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has gone to court to protect the files of an influential anti-Iran advocacy group, saying they likely contain information the government does not want disclosed. The highly unusual move by the Justice Department raises questions about the connections between the American government and the group, United Against Nuclear Iran, a hard-line voice seeking to prevent Iran from obtaining […]

Large sections of Gaza, including Gaza City’s Shijaiyah neighborhood, have been destroyed in the current 20-day battle with Israel. By JODI RUDOREN and BEN HUBBARD July 27, 2014 JERUSALEM — Hamas, the militant Palestinian faction that dominates the Gaza Strip, has more to boast about in its current 20-day battle against Israel than ever before. Forty-three Israeli soldiers have been killed in fierce fighting. Gunmen infiltrated Israel through tunnels five times. Rockets […]

ogNew Delhi: GAIL (India), under a petroleum ministry directive, has decided to buy a third of the LNG ships it plans to acquire to ferry the fuel from the US to India, from Indian shipbuilders. Considering that the PSU, whose massive LNG imports from the US would start in 2017, has lined up investments to the tune of $7.6 billion for hiring the required specialised vessels, the move would give a big boost to the Indian shipbuilding industry.

 

Domestic players such as L&T and Pipavav are among the obvious beneficiaries of the decision, which is in line with the Modi government’s thrust on the domestic manufacturing sector. Although some analysts are doubtful about the feasibility of Indian ship makers meeting such huge demand g

The United States faces an awkward rival in its first attempts in 40 years to export crude oil – Iran. Iran, whose economy has been throttled by Western sanctions that have halved its crude shipments, is now selling higher quality and cheaper oil to China that leaves little room for the U.S. crude to enter the world’s top energy consumer. While buyers in Japan and South Korea […]

fsNew Delhi: The Union Cabinet on Thursday cleared a Bill to raise the foreign investment ceiling in private insurance companies from 26 per cent to 49 per cent, but inserted a provision that the management and control of these companies must be with Indians. This cap will be composite — both foreign direct investment (FDI) and foreign portfolio investment. Experts said this meant voting rights of foreign investors would not be capped at 26 per cent but they cannot have contractual agreements for control of insurance companies. The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs this morning gave its approval to changes in the Insurance Laws (Amendment) Bill, which will now be taken up in the current session of Parliament. “The Cabinet has cleared raising the for

ogNew Delhi: The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government plans to do away with the limit of one subsidized cooking gas cylinder per household.

 

The move comes before assembly elections in Maharashtra, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi and Jharkhand slated to happen later this year.

 

The issue is expected to be taken up soon by the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs (CCPA).

 

To reduce its subsidy bill and cut the fiscal deficit, the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government had restricted the number of subsidized domestic cylinders per household to six every year in September 2012, revising it to nine the following January. The cap was revised in January 2014 to 12 cylinders pe

The Arab Spring raised awareness of the mobilizing power of Facebook and other social media. Companies and governments have struggled to get to grips with social media over the past few years. Some—notably governments—have treated social media as an existential threat. Others view it essentially as a branding or marketing tool for pushing messages at constituents or customers. Charlene Li, founder of strategy firm Altimeter Group and […]

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ogMUMBAI: The state-run oil marketing companies (OMCs) plan to revive branded petrol such as IndianOil’s XtraPremium and Bharat Petroleum’s Speed, backed by aggressive marketing, to make the most of a significant excise duty cut announced in the budget.

 

Sales of branded petrol, which contain additives that enhance automobile’s performance, had plummeted in recent years as they became Rs 7-10 per litre more expensive than the regular fuel, forcing companies such as Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL), Indian Oil Corporation and Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) to pull out such products from most outlets. But with finance minister Arun Jaitley announcing a cut in central excise duty on branded petrol to Rs

ogNEW DELHI: The government plans to tweak the system of calculating fuel subsidies to make ONGC’s public offer more attractive for investors. It plans to make subsidy sharing more predictable and transparent so that analysts can properly assess the ONGC’s earnings outlook.

 

Currently they are unable to assess the amount and the timing of the huge subsidy payout. This diminishes the interest of top institutions in the stock.

 

The oil ministry may soon approach the Cabinet to overhaul the fuel pricing system to incorporate some of the observations of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, which recently submitted a report on the matter.

 

The pricing system has a direct impact on O

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The fevered struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran for regional dominance has for years aggravated nearly every conflict across the Middle East as the two nations armed, funded and encouraged each other’s adversaries. So it has come as a surprise to many here that even with the region still in tumult, there have been signs that both powers are looking to temper their destructive […]

JERUSALEM — An unusual survey of Iranian public opinion indicates that 40 percent of Iranians would be willing to give up any ability to produce nuclear weapons in the future in return for the full removal of sanctions. Nearly 40 percent of those asked agreed that Iran should recognize Israel if Israel reached a peace accord with the Palestinians and withdrew from the contested territories. Such delicate […]

Initial public offers of equity in Gulf Arab countries are set to boom, helped by lighter regulation and legal reforms as governments seek to diversify their oil-dependent economies, according to one of the region’s top IPO lawyers. An exemption from Dubai IPO rules granted by regulators to real estate giant Emaar Properties, which will permit an offer worth up to $2.45 billion, is a sign of the […]

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Robert S. Ford, who was United States ambassador to Syria when the country’s uprising began in 2011 and went on to carry out American policy from abroad on the ensuing civil war, has revealed that he gave up his post in February because he could “no longer defend the policy in public.” Mr. Ford made the remarks on Tuesday night on PBS NewsHour. A […]

Election officials began counting votes in Syria’s presidential election early on Wednesday as polls closed in government-held areas. State-run media reported that voting closed at midnight and that officials began the process of checking the number of votes against lists of registered voters to ensure the numbers matched. Syrians on Tuesday voted in their first election in nearly 50 years, which the incumbent Bashar al-Assad is widely […]

WASHINGTON — As Syrians go to the polls this week amid civil war, the presidential victor is all but assured: Bashar al-Assad. So why bother holding an election at all? Analysts say Assad has more to gain than votes. He is trying to display political solidarity to the world and to ignore the apolitical transition that the West has called for. Watch related video report by VOA’s […]

JERUSALEM — President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority swore in a transitional government on Monday intended to unify the West Bank and Gaza after seven years of division, though the run-up was marred by last-minute disputes over its composition. The move is likely to complicate further the Palestinians’ already fraught relations with Israel and put them under international scrutiny because the new government is supported by […]

Iran’s smart set turned out in force for this year’s Tehran Art Auction, spending a record amount as the country’s modern and contemporary art scene thrives despite economic sanctions. The annual event on Friday was a sell-out, raising $5.1 million from the auction of works by Iranian artists, more than double the amount fetched last year. While Western sanctions since 2010 on Iran’s oil and financial sectors […]

Sassan Soleimani, the director of “Happy in Tehran,” a viral YouTube tribute to Pharrell Williams that offended Iran’s conservative judiciary, was released on bail Thursday, according to the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, a New York-based advocacy group. Evidence of the director’s freedom, after nine days in custody, came in the form of a self-portrait he sent to Kambiz Hosseini, a popular expatriate satirist whose […]

Barack Obama has outlined his vision for the country’s foreign policy for the rest of his presidency, saying that the country will still lead, but will show more restraint before embarking on more military missions abroad. In a speech on Wednesday, the US president insisted that his country’s reliance on diplomacy over military intervention was working to resolve global crises such as Ukraine and Iran, and he […]

CAIRO — The Benghazi militant group Ansar al-Shariah is under attack by a renegade former general trying to rid Libya of political Islam. But in response, the militia has taken aim squarely at Washington. “We remind America of their defeats in Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia,” Mohammed Ali al-Zahawi, the leader of Ansar al-Shariah, declared this week in a videotaped statement, warning that the United States would face […]

DAMASCUS, Syria — For Younes al-Nasr, a lifelong train lover, the Hejaz railway station here in the heart of the Syrian capital is a repository of shelved ambitions. Every day, Mr. Nasr, 68, a Transportation Ministry employee, pads around his offices in the Ottoman-era building, where light filters through red, yellow and blue stained glass. He imagines the past — the few short years a century ago […]

The judicial authorities in Iran appeared to harden their clampdown on expression Friday, moving to block Instagram, imprisoning the director who made the now-famous Iranian version of the Pharrell Williams “Happy” video and warning women to comply with a police campaign on the proper wearing of mandatory headscarves. Taken together, the developments suggested that the country’s Islamic bureaucracy was alarmed over any perception of permissiveness that may […]

What do you do if you are a cheerful 25-year-old college student in Iran tired of your country and its people being portrayed in the world as angry, provocative and depressed? Answer: You make a video of your friends being happy, singing and dancing in the streets of Tehran to Pharrell Williams’ smash hit song “Happy.” “People of Tehran are happy! Watch and share our happiness! … […]

A copy of the video “Happy in Tehran,” originally posted on YouTube in April. Last Updated, 11:00 p.m. | Just days after Iran’s president denounced Internet censorship as “cowardly,” six young Iranians were arrested and forced to repent on state television Tuesday for the grievous offense of proclaiming themselves to be “Happy in Tehran,” in a homemade music video they posted on YouTube last month. An image […]

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