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ALGIERS – The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies reduced oil output in August as a drop in Iranian supply due to US sanctions derailed their attempts to raise production to agreed levels, delegates said on Saturday as the energy producers prepared to hold talks in Algiers.

The development further raises pressure on the organisation to boost supply amid calls from US President Donald Trump to lower oil prices.

On Friday, a source familiar with the discussions told Reuters OPEC and its allies led by Russia were considering the possibility of raising crude supplies by a further 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) as US sanctions on OPEC's third-largest producer, Iran, bite into Tehran's exports.

"If an increase in production is proposed, there will be plenty of market counter-argument that it reduces even further the available spare capacity," Olivier Jakob from consultancy Petromatrix said.

"Saudi Arabia has made the mistake of trying to compensate for the loss of Iranian supplies with just-in-time replacement; but the oil market is looking for greater supply security than that. As a result, the strength of oil prices is now putting oil demand growth at risk," he added.

An OPEC and non-OPEC monitoring committee gathering in the Algerian capital this weekend found that oil producers' compliance with a supply-reduction agreement reached 129 per cent in August, two committee delegates said. This compares with a compliance level of 109 per cent for July, indicating that the group over-achieved on its agreed cut.

Seeking to reverse a downturn in oil prices that began in 2014, OPEC, Russia and other allies decided in late 2016 to reduce supply by some 1.8 million bpd. 

In June this year, however, after months of cutting by more than their pact had called for amid involuntary reductions from Venezuela and other producers, they agreed to boost output by returning to 100 per cent compliance. 

That equates to an increase of about 1 million bpd, but the latest figures show they are some way from achieving that target.

Oil reached $80 a barrel this month, prompting Trump to demand again that OPEC bring down prices.

"We protect the countries of the Middle East, they would not be safe for very long without us, and yet they continue to push for higher and higher oil prices! We will remember. The OPEC monopoly must get prices down now!" he wrote on Twitter.

Higher gasoline prices for US consumers could create a political headache for Trump before the November mid-term congressional elections.

OPEC sources said any official action to raise output would require OPEC to hold what it calls an extraordinary meeting — a proposal that is not on the table yet.

But the joint OPEC and non-OPEC ministerial committee known as the JMMC, which meets on Sunday, can still recommend a further increase in output if needed, the sources said. 

BRUSSELS — The EU warned social network Facebook on Thursday to bring its allegedly "misleading" consumer terms of service in line with the bloc's rules by the end of the year or to risk financial penalties.

"My patience has reached its limit," EU Justice and Consumer Affairs Commissioner Vera Jourova said in a statement. "It is now time for action and no more promises."

Jourova said she would call on consumer protection authorities across the 28-country bloc, which requested the changes last year, to act swiftly and sanction the company if Facebook failed to comply.

"While Facebook assured me [it would] finally adapt any remaining misleading terms of services by December, this has been ongoing for too long," she said.

The commission said that proposals made by the Mark Zuckerberg-led company were "very limited", even after the company changed its conditions earlier this year.

These new terms of services "contain a misleading presentation of the main characteristics of Facebook's services", the commission said.

A spokesperson for the social media giant defended the changes and said they were "much clearer on what is and what isn't allowed on Facebook and on the options people have”.

“[Facebook] will continue our close cooperation to understand any further concerns and make appropriate updates."

Under the microscope 

The commission, meanwhile, said that rent-a-room behemoth Airbnb has made the necessary changes to its consumer terms after also being under fire in Brussels.

The bloc's executive arm has been at the forefront of a regulatory crackdown on US tech giants, having also slammed Google with huge anti-trust fines.

The commission has been cracking down on what is sees as risks for European consumers using the services of US internet giants like Facebook, Google, Amazon, Uber and others.

Facebook also came under the microscope after this year's Cambridge Analytica scandal in which the company admitted that up to 87 million users may have had their data hijacked. 

The scandal was the worst public relations disaster Facebook has faced since its launch in 2004.

The European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) firmly backed the commission's stand against Facebook.

"When a company doesn't do what the law says, there should be serious and deterrent sanctions," said the group's Augusta Maciuleviciute.

WASHINGTON — A complaint has been filed with the US government accusing Facebook and 10 other companies of using the platform’s job ad targeting system to discriminate on the basis of gender.

The complaint was announced on Tuesday by the American Civil Liberties Union, a union called the Communications Workers of America and a labour law firm, on behalf of three female job seekers and a group of “thousands” of members represented by the union. 

It charges that job ads on Facebook targeted male users only. It also alleges that most of the listings were for jobs in male-dominated fields, so women and non-binary users were excluded from seeing these ads.

Facebook lets advertisers target ads on the basis of gender and age, which is against the law in America, the complaint reads.

“I shouldn’t be shut out of the chance to hear about a job opportunity just because I am a woman,” said Bobbi Spees, one of the three women named in the complaint.

Facebook spokesman Joe Osborne said in a statement to CNN Money that there is no place for discrimination on Facebook.

“It’s strictly prohibited in our policies, and over the past year we’ve strengthened our systems to further protect against misuse,” Osborne said.

Facebook will defend itself once it has reviewed the complaint, he added.

The ACLU noted that online platforms such as Facebook are generally not liable for content published by others.

“But in this case, Facebook is doing much more than merely publishing content created by others,” the advocacy group argued.

“It has built the architecture for this discriminatory marketing framework, enabled and encouraged advertisers to use it, and delivered the gender-based ads according to employers’ sex-based preferences.”

Last month, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development accused Facebook of breaking the law by letting landlords and home sellers use its ad-targeting system to discriminate against potential buyers or tenants.

Facebook responded by cutting more than 5,000 ad-targeting options to prevent advertisers from discriminating on the basis of traits such as religion or race.

AMMAN- UniHouse, a British company which operates one of the two IELTS test centres in Amman, will soon launch the Occupational English Test (OET) at its location in Jubeiha.

OET is an international English language test for the healthcare sector, which is approved by governments, immigration, universities and colleges for visas, migration, study, registration and work. It covers a wide range of healthcare professions, including: dentistry, dietetics, medicine, nursing, occupational therapy, optometry, pharmacy, physiotherapy, podiatry, radiography, speech pathology, and veterinary science.

This is the first time the exam will be available in Jordan, and it is an invaluable resource for healthcare professionals looking to study or work abroad.

OET is recognised by regulatory healthcare bodies in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, the UK and Ireland. The exam insures professionals are able to communicate effectively with English-speakers while delivering healthcare.

UniHouse expects to begin opening registration for the OET exam as of October 2018. An official announcement will be made on their website, www.unihouse.com.jo.

The United States will spare Apple Inc.'s Watch and other consumer gadgets from the latest round of tariffs on Chinese goods, according to a list of products released by the US Trade Representative (USTR) on Monday.

But parts for the computer servers and networking gear that power "cloud" data centres and Internet-based services now face a levy, as do some of the parts for the machines used to make semiconductors.

US President Donald Trump escalated his trade war with China on Monday, imposing 10 per cent tariffs on about $200 billion worth of Chinese imports and he warned that if China takes retaliatory action against US farmers or industries, "we will immediately pursue phase three, which is tariffs on approximately $267 billion of additional imports".

The administration's proposal drew protest from technology companies earlier this year, but the final list of taxed devices from the USTR avoids many big consumer brand names and products.

The iPhone was not among the “wide range” of products that Apple told regulators would be hit by the $200 billion round of tariffs in a September 5 comment letter to trade officials. Apple feared for its Apple Watch and its wireless AirPods headphones, but both were left off the list announced on Monday.

The new round of tariffs will take effect on September 24 at a 10 per cent level and rise to 25 per cent on January 1, 2019. 

However, if Trump expands the tariffs to an additional $267 billion worth of goods then nearly every Chinese import would be affected, including the iPhone, along with all other smart phones. Apple shares fell 0.7 per cent to $216.29 after hours.

Shares of China and Taiwan-based Apple suppliers slipped on Tuesday morning in Asia. Foxconn, a Taiwan-based manufacturer formally known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co٫, fell 2 per cent, while assembler Pegatron Corp٫ dropped 2.4 per cent. Camera lens-maker Largan Precision Co. Ltd٫ slid nearly 9 per cent.

In an earlier round of tariffs on $50 billion of goods, the Trump administration removed proposals on flat-panel television sets for the final list in June.

The new list would also spare fitness trackers from Fitbit Inc٫, which had said in a comment letter to regulators that the tariffs would compromise its own investment in the United States. Fitbit shares closed down 1 per cent on Monday.

"We welcome this development and we appreciate the administration's time and effort to listen to industry and consumer concerns," a Fitbit spokeswoman told Reuters.

New list

However, some products that help computer networks operate, such as routers, will remain on the new list, the official said. That could affect smaller technology firms such as Eero, a startup company that makes home routers and had asked to be exempted from the tariffs. Altogether about 300 product categories were given reprieves, including some non-tech consumer devices such as bicycle helmets and baby car seats.

Apple did not respond to a Reuters request for comment, and Eero declined to comment. Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook had dinner with US President Donald Trump last month, though neither gave details of discussions.

Apple had said the US tariffs would affect prices for a "wide range" of Apple products, including its Watch, in a letter commenting on administration proposals earlier this month.

"Our concern with these tariffs is that the US will be hardest hit, and that will result in lower US growth and competitiveness and higher prices for US consumers," Apple said earlier in a letter commenting on the proposal.

After Apple's comments, Trump said in a tweet said that there was an "easy solution" for Apple to avoid tariffs. "Make your products in the United States instead of China. Start building new plants now," he Tweeted on September 8.

An array of equipment used to make servers and networking gear for data centres is on the list announced on Monday. 

A group of tech companies including Cisco Systems Inc., Dell Technologies Inc., Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Co. and Juniper Networks had asked that many of those items be dropped, but they remained on the list with only a few exceptions such as a group of networking-related accessories.

In a comment to trade regulators on September 6, the group said that "by raising the cost of networking products, the proposed duties would impede the development and adoption of cloud-based services and infrastructure".

Apple also told regulators earlier that some of the gear in its data centers was likely to be hit by tariffs.

The chip industry was also hit by the new levies. 

Moreover, Lam Research Corp., a company that makes gear for manufacturing chips, said in a September 6 letter to trade regulators that duties on raw silicon, ceramic machinery parts and other items "add costs to our US manufacturing operations and reduce our competitiveness in the global semiconductor manufacturing market". All of the items in Lam's letter were included in the final list. 

Neither Lam nor the group of enterprise technology companies immediately responded to request for comment.

DUBAI — Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) has agreed to invest more than $1 billion in Lucid Motors, adding to the emerging competition facing US electric vehicle maker Tesla.

The funding will enable Silicon Valley-based Lucid to achieve the commercial launch of its Lucid Air electric vehicle in 2020, PIF said as it announced the deal on Monday, joining Daimler-owned Mercedes, BMW, and Volkswagen’s Audi and Porsche divisions in the battle for dominance in the market for premium battery cars.

The deal comes only a few weeks after Tesla founder Elon Musk said the Saudi sovereign wealth fund could help him to take his company private. Shares in Tesla initially dropped 2.2 per cent on Monday’s announcement before recovering to positive territory.

The Lucid investment, which PIF said is more than $1 billion but failed to give an exact figure, is also part of Saudi Arabia’s efforts to build an environmentally friendly economy as it presses ahead with the Vision 2030 plan to diversify the kingdom away from reliance on crude oil. 

“By investing in the rapidly expanding electric vehicle market, PIF is gaining exposure to long-term growth opportunities, supporting innovation and technological development and driving revenue and sectoral diversification for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” a PIF representative said. 

Obtaining cheap capital is a constant challenge for carmakers, which can spend $1 billion or more engineering a single new model.

Based in Newark, California, Lucid Motors was founded in 2007 as Atieva by Bernard Tse, a former Tesla vice president and board member, and Sam Weng, a former executive at Oracle Corp. and Redback Networks. 

The funding, which will be made through a special-purpose vehicle wholly owned by PIF, will be used by Lucid to complete development and testing of the Lucid Air, construct a factory in Arizona and start production of the car.

“The convergence of new technologies is reshaping the automobile, but the benefits have yet to be truly realised,” said Peter Rawlinson, Lucid’s chief technology officer.

“This is inhibiting the pace at which sustainable mobility and energy are adopted. At Lucid, we will demonstrate the full potential of the electric connected vehicle in order to push the industry forward.”

Earlier on Monday, PIF said it had raised an $11 billion international syndicated loan for general corporate purposes.

The fund has already made substantial commitments to other environmentally friendly projects, including renewables and recycling, and to technology companies or investments, including a $45 billion agreement to invest in a giant technology fund led by Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp.

US stocks fell back on Friday after President Donald Trump instructed aides to proceed with tariffs on about $200 billion in Chinese products, despite Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin's attempts to restart talks with Beijing.

A source familiar with the situation confirmed stories initially carried by both Bloomberg and Fox News on the moves by the White House.

Wall Street, which had been trading marginally in positive territory on the back of a rise in US Treasury yields above 3 per cent, reversed. 

"If Trump is willing to go ahead with the tariffs then that is significant enough to sour markets," said Bryan Reilly, managing director at CIBC Private Wealth Management in Boston, Massachusetts.

"Should this trade uncertainty prevail, then sentiment only has one way to go from here and that is down."

At 12:39am ET the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.17 per cent to 26,102.37, the S&P 500 0.15 per cent to 2,899.71 and the Nasdaq Composite 0.26 per cent to 7,992.72.

Financial stocks held on to their gains and were last up 0.52 per cent. Only three of the 11 major S&P sectors were higher.

The real estate index fell 1.11 per cent, while utilities 0.69 per cent and telecoms declined 0.77 per cent.

Also weighing on utilities was NiSource, which tumbled 9.9 per cent after fire investigators said they suspected the company's unit, Columbia Gas, was linked to a series of gas explosions in Boston suburbs on Thursday.

The energy sector was up 0.69 per cent, making it the best performing group on the day.

Walmart dropped 0.5 per cent after Goldman Sachs raised questions around the purchase of a majority stake in India's Flipkart.

L Brands Inc. jumped 4.8 per cent after the owner of Victoria's Secret said it would close all 23 Henri Bendel stores and its website in January.

Adobe Systems rose 2.6 per cent after the company topped quarterly revenue and profit expectations.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers for a 1.18-to-1 ratio on the NYSE, but advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.19-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P index recorded 45 new 52-week highs and no new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 100 new highs and 48 new lows.

MAR DEL PLATA — Trade and investment ministers from G-20 countries meeting in Argentina said there was an "urgent need" to improve the World Trade Organisation (WTO), a joint statement said on Friday. 

With US President Donald Trump readying tariffs on another $200 billion in Chinese goods, the ministers said they were "stepping up the dialogue" on international trade disputes, according to the statement issued at the summit.

It did not provide any details of possible WTO reforms or how dialogue on trade was being increased.

"Obviously the new tariff measures are not positive," Argentina's Production and Labour Minister, Dante Sica, said in a news conference at the end of the one-day meeting. "But we need to see how things evolve."

German Deputy Economy Minister Oliver Wittke said the joint declaration sent a powerful signal about the importance of strengthening WTO "especially in times of 'America first' and increasing global protectionism", with next steps to follow when G-20 leaders meet in Argentina at the end of November.

"We have to use this momentum," Wittke said in a statement released by the ministry after the summit.

Outside the meeting, smoke filled the air in the normally tranquil seaside city of Mar Del Plata where the conference is being held. Protesters burned makeshift American flags and chanted against free trade orthodoxy and Trump's support of Argentina's cash-strapped President Mauricio Macri, whose fiscal belt-tightening has garnered a backlash from the country's working-class.

"We're standing here in solidarity with the workers of Latin America. While those politicians sleep in fancy beds, communities starve because of trade and adjustment policies that hurt the most vulnerable," protester Maralin Cornil, 30, said. 

Argentina holds the G-20's rotating presidency this year, and is re-negotiating a $50 billion stand-by financing deal with the IMF, cutting its fiscal deficit targets and reducing costs to ensure it can continue paying its international debts.
Trump has said he would attend the summit's final meeting with other heads of state, in Buenos Aires on November 30. 

The Trump administration has demanded that China cut its $375 billion trade surplus with the United States, end policies aimed at acquiring US technologies and intellectual property, and roll back high-tech industrial subsidies.

While Trump has threatened to pull the United States from the WTO, China has called for WTO reform to make the global trade system fairer and more effective. 

The 23-year-old trading club is run on the basis of consensus, meaning that every one of its 164 members has an effective veto and it is almost impossible to get agreement on any change to the rules.

Sica also said that talks on a free trade deal between the European Union and the Mercosur trade bloc of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay were wrapping up, with an agreement likely by the end of the year.

"We are in the final stages regarding the most delicate aspects of an EU-Mercosur agreement and we are concluding with the political and technical details," Sica said.

AMMAN — The executive committee of the Arab Air Carriers Organiation (AACO) held its 82nd meeting in Amman on Thursday, hosted by Royal Jordanian (RJ) Airlines, according to an RJ statement.

The attendees, headed by Saleh Bin Nasser Al Jasser, director general of Saudi Arabian Airlines and chairman of AACO executive committee, discussed several strategic issues and the development of some joint projects among AACO members during the meeting.

 The committee also examined internal issues in preparation of AACO’s 51st Annual General Meeting that will be held between November 5 and 7, 2018. 

Participants comprised RJ President/CEO Stefan Pichler, AACO’s Secretary General Abdul Wahab Teffaha, and the CEOs of eight Arab airlines that are members of the executive committee. 

Pichler said RJ is pleased to host the chief executives of the Arab carriers, and underlined the significance of these meetings that gather the Arab airlines under one umbrella to find the best solutions that face the air transport industry in the region. 

Royal Jordanian has been an AACO member since 1965, just two years after the airline was established.    

Teffaha thanked RJ for hosting the event. He said that one of the tasks of the executive committee is to supervise the work of the organisation and discuss the main issues that concern the Arab carriers in various fields. 

Such issues include joint projects, managed by AACO, and aeropolitical matters.  

AACO is made up of 33 Arab airlines that operate over 1,400 aircraft of an average age of seven years, half of the age of other global fleets. 

Apple Inc. unveiled larger iPhones and watches based on the design of current models on Wednesday, confirming Wall Street expectations that the company is making only minor changes to its lineup.

The world's most valuable tech company wants users to upgrade to newer, more expensive devices as a way to boost revenue as global demand for smartphones levels off. The strategy has helped Apple become the first publicly-traded US company to hit a market value of more than $1 trillion earlier this year. 

Its shares were down 1.2 per cent on Nasdaq.

Apple uses the “S” suffix when it upgrades components but leaves the exterior design of a phone the same. Last year's iPhone X — pronounced "ten" — represented a major redesign. 

The new phones are the XS, with a 14.7cm screen, the larger XS Max, with a 16.5cm screen, and a 15.4cm iPhone Xr made of aluminum, with an edge-to-edge liquid retina display. 

Apple, which is looking for ways to lessen reliance on phones for revenue, opened its event by announcing the new Apple Watch Series 4 range with edge-to-edge displays, like its latest phones, which are more than 30 per cent bigger than displays on current models. 

It is positioning the new watch as a more comprehensive health device, able to detect an irregular heartbeat and start an emergency call automatically if it detects a user falling down, potentially appealing to older customers. It said it had approval for the device from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The FDA said it worked with Apple to develop apps for the Apple Watch. The agency said it has been taking steps to ease the regulatory pathway for companies seeking to create digital healthcare products.

Shares of fitness device rival Fitbit Inc fell about 3.7 per cent after the Series 4 announcement. Shares of Garmin Ltd. lost some earlier gains and were flat in midday New York trade.

Executives made the announcement at the Steve Jobs Theater at Apple's new circular headquarters in Cupertino, California, named after the company's co-founder who wowed the world with the first iPhone in 2007.

"There's no real game-changer on the table," said Hal Eddins, chief economist at Apple shareholder Capital Investment Counsel. "It's a matter of getting people to keep moving up."

The company is also expected to unveil a new version of its wireless AirPods earbuds with wireless charging and a wireless mat that will be able to charge several devices at once.