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Nigeria Loses $1.2 Billion to Oil Thieves in a Month

Nigeria, Africa's largest oil producer, lost about 1.2 billion dollars to oil thieves in a single month of the first quarter of 2013, an official statement said Tuesday.

"At average January-March prices of $121 per barrel, this theft resulted in a loss of $1.2bn to Nigeria in one month alone," President Goodluck Jonathan's special adviser on oil-rich Niger Delta, Kingsley Kuku, said in the statement. Official figures indicate that the trade in stolen oil led to a 17 percent fall in official oil sales in the first quarter of 2013, estimated at 400,000 barrels per day, it said. The International Energy Agency said last month that the theft of oil from pipelines in Nigeria had damaged infrastructure, and was one factor in a fall of output by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) of which Nigeria is a member. Such theft involves thieves tapping pipelines to syphon crude for sale on the lucrative black market. It often leads to explosions, fires and oil pollution. Kuku said that his office would on Thursday organize in Lagos a conference on oil theft and sea piracy in the Niger Delta.

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Syria Central Bank Lifts Dollar Sale Restrictions

The central bank in war-torn Syria has lifted restrictions on the sale of dollars to individuals, state news agency SANA said Wednesday, in a bid to curb black market trade.

"Citizens may purchase foreign currency at banks, for non-commercial purposes, according to the rates fixed by the central bank," the bank's governor Adib Mayaleh said, quoted by SANA.

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White House Touts Economic Gains of Immigration Reform

The White House released a report Tuesday indicating that naturalization of undocumented immigrants would be a boon for the U.S. economy as it pressed the House to approve immigration reform.

The bill, already passed by the Senate, would provide a pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants, an act the White House says would boost U.S. GDP by $1.4 trillion over 10 years, citing outside estimates.

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Air Pollution Takes Toll on China's Tourism

China, one of the most visited countries in the world, has seen sharply fewer tourists this year — with worsening air pollution partly to blame.

Numbers of foreign visitors have declined following January's "Airpocalypse," when already eye-searing levels of smog soared to new highs.

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Germany Sees Highest Inflation Rate of 2013

The rate of inflation in Germany, Europe's biggest economy, continued to climb in July to reach the highest level seen this year, final data showed on Tuesday.

The cost of living rose 1.9 percent this month on a 12-month basis, up from 1.8 percent in June, the federal statistics office Destatis said in a statement.

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China Set to Become World's Biggest Net Oil Importer

China is set to overtake the United States as the world's largest net oil importer from October, according to U.S. figures, due to a combination of rising Chinese demand and increased U.S. production.

Next year, China's net oil imports will exceed those of the United States on an annual basis and the gap between them will continue to widen, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said.

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Minister: Russia Stagnating, Not in Recession

Russia's economy minister said on Monday that dramatically slowing growth indicated the country had entered a period of possibly prolonged stagnation but that an outright recession was avoidable.

Alexei Ulyukayev's comments came after the first initial estimate on Friday showed that second-quarter growth slowed to 1.2 percent in annual terms compared with 1.6 percent over the first three months of 2013.

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Bundesbank Expects More Aid for Greece by 2014

Germany's central bank expects Greece to receive another bail-out loan later this year or by early 2014, the German weekly Der Spiegel reported Sunday, citing an internal Bundesbank document.

The bank's experts however rated the risks of the international loan program as "exceptionally high" and the Greek government's performance as "barely satisfactory", the magazine said.

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S. Korea Facing Power Crisis

South Korea ordered government offices to turn off their air-conditioning as two power plants stopped operations Monday, a day after a minister warned of an imminent national energy crisis.

The Dangjin III plant, with a capacity of 500,000 kilowatts, was taken offline by mechanical issues and will likely remain shut for a week, a spokesman for the state power distributor Korea Power Exchange (KPE) said.

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French Finance Minister Says no Revision in Growth Forecast

French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici said on Sunday that there has been "no change" in the country's 2013 growth forecast, after it appeared the figure had been revised downward.

"There was no change in the growth forecast as I have read it," the minister told journalists in Paris.

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