VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Four great crises around Europe's fringes threaten to engulf the European Union, potentially setting the ambitious post-war unification project back by decades.

The World Bank is seeking to finance development projects in areas in Iraq that the government has recaptured from Islamic State militants, its regional vice president said.

Oil rose to $62 a barrel on Tuesday, close to its 2015 high, supported by threats to Middle East supplies and expectations lower prices may prompt a slowdown in U.S. output.

A big oil price slide will hurt Iran's attempts to rescue battered living standards, but economic pain is unlikely to soften its stance in nuclear talks or end aid to allies such as Syria, matters seen by its ruling clerics as strategic priorities.

Saudi Arabia said on Sunday it would not cut output to prop up oil markets even if non-OPEC nations did so, in one of the toughest signals yet that the world's top petroleum exporter plans to ride out the market's biggest slump in years.

Congressional negotiators unveiled a $1.1 trillion U.S. spending bill that aims to avoid a government shutdown at midnight on Thursday and punts an immigration showdown between Republicans and President Barack Obama until February.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Turkey on Monday will have trade and energy issues at its heart, but is not expected to bridge deep differences over Syria and Crimea.

The G20 leaders summit in Australia starting on Saturday is setting up as a showdown between Western leaders and Russian President Vladimir Putin, following fresh reports of Russian troops pouring into eastern Ukraine.

Islamic State is still extracting and selling oil in Syria and has adapted its trading techniques despite a month of strikes by U.S.-led forces aimed at cutting off this major source of income for the group, residents, oil executives and traders say.

In an unprecedented, three-year cyber espionage campaign, Iranian hackers created false social networking accounts and a bogus news website to spy on military and political leaders in the United States, Israel and other countries, a cyber intelligence firm said on Thursday.

US-based video-sharing giant YouTube representative Gonenc Gurkaynak filed a legal complaint to the Turkish Consitutional Court against the ban that prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued against the service.

Just over a week after blocking Twitter, Turkey is now moving to shut down access to YouTube in a bid to stem off the source of corruption scandal and reputation-damaging leaks related to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Photos of the week

Majid Al Futtaim Holding, the Gulf region's exclusive franchisee for Carrefour, is pulling out of Egypt and Syria.

The stock markets of the Middle East breathed a sigh of relief as the US-Russia agreement on Syria's chemical weapons averted a military strike.