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PARIS Iraq will go with the consensus reached by OPEC when the oil exporter group meets in Vienna next month to discuss extending production cuts, the country's oil minister said on Thursday.

"Now we're going on the 25th of May to OPEC and we're definitely going to be in line with OPEC's final decision and collective decisions," Jabar al-Luaibi told a conference in Paris.

Iraq, the second-largest producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, was in full compliance with the OPEC-led supply pact reached last year and has achieved about 97 percent of its output reduction target, Luaibi said.

"Iraq is fully committed and Iraq is in full compliance with OPEC members," Luaibi said.

He added that the OPEC-led cuts were gradually leading to a long-awaited rebalancing of the oil market.

OPEC, Russia and other producers originally agreed to cut production by 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) for six months from Jan. 1 to support the market and to bring a supply glut into check.

The producers are expected to prolong the pact for a further six months when they meet in May.

Luaibi said the OPEC decision to cut did not mean countries should stop developing their oil industries.

Earlier this month, Luaibi said Iraq planned to raise its oil output capacity to 5 million bpd before the end of the year.

(Writing by Ahmad Ghaddar; Editing by Dale Hudson and David Goodman)

NEW YORK U.S. refiners have come out of maintenance season betting that big exports to Mexico and South America will help alleviate high product inventories and boost margins as the critical summer driving season nears.

CALGARY, Alberta As global oil majors pull out of Canada's oil sands, domestic companies are buying up assets and betting technology and economies of scale will enable them to turn a profit despite low crude prices.

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Iraq says will go with consensus at next OPEC meeting - Reuters

The hospital opened by Doctors Without Borders/Mdecins Sans Frontires (MSF)in Qayyarah, Iraq, last December is around 35 miles (60 km) south of Mosul. Distant enough not to hear the sounds of airstrikes and rocket fire, but sufficiently close for the wounded to be brought in when medical facilities nearer the front line are no longer able to cope.

On February 18, the Iraqi army launched an offensive with the support of the U.S.-led coalition to retake west Mosul, the part of the city still under control of the so-called Islamic State.

The fighting has claimed many victims, and large numbers of people continue to flee from neighborhoods being gradually recaptured by the army. Some of those displaced by the fighting have ended up in camps in Qayyarah. The MSF team is now caring for patients from west Mosul, displaced persons camps, Qayyarah town, and the region.

The MSF team treats medical and surgical emergencies as the hospital in Qayyarah has an emergency room, operating theater and inpatient departments. The level of activity is intensebetween January and March, more than 3,750 patients were admitted to the emergency room.

A four-bed intensive care unit was recently opened to provide care for burn victims, patients in shock and other critical conditions.

The team in the emergency room sees patients wounded by airstrikes, explosions, mortar fire and land mines. Away from major roads, there are still mines that occasionally injure children, farm workers and shepherds. In west Mosul, whole families sometimes fall victim to the fighting.

Below, MSF emergency doctor Ana Leticiarecalls the story of a family caught in an explosion while trying to escape west Mosul.

The mother was in a state of shock when she arrived. Her 12-year old daughter looked after her younger brothers and sisters while waiting for her mother to be cared for by the MSF psychiatrist and get better.

MSF has set up mental health consultations in Qayyarah for patients from the hospital and displaced persons camps. The teama psychiatrist, two psychologists and a counsellortreat adults and children alike.

Psychiatrist Jolle Vernet set up the provision of mental health care in the hospital."People have endured extremely tough situations," says Vernet. "And they still dont feel at all safe, particularly as the bombing hasnt stopped and there are soldiers and the sound of gunfire everywhere. They live in fear, theyre scared of reprisals. They dont know what they can say or who they can say it to."

Many child patients are suffering from intense distress and displaying behavioral issues as a result, she says. "It was even harder for the parentsin reality mostly mothers, as the fathers were no longer with them. They didnt have the strength to cope with their childrens pain and emotions. So our work was not just treating the child, but also treating the mother too, and child and mother together.

MSF hospital in Qayyarah is currently the only hospital structure properly set up to receive children in the area of Ninewa. Around half of all patients receiving treatment in the emergency room are under the age of 15.

Of the 192 patients who attended a mental health consultation from the beginning of February to mid-April, 30 were children under the age of 13.

8-year-old Duha and her family lived in west Mosul. Last month, their home was hit in an airstrike. Her mother, father and 16 other people in the house at the time were all killed in the bombing.

Duha was the sole survivor. A neighbor dug her out of the rubble, but her head, hands and one leg were severely burned. She now lives in east Mosul with her uncle who brings her to the hospital regularly to have her dressings changed.

As the Iraqi army advanced into west Mosul, many families were able to escape. The MSF team has been seeing children with acute malnutrition, affected by food shortages in besieged West Mosul.

To treat malnourished children, MSF has set up a 12-bed therapeutic feeding center in Qayyarah hospital. Most of the children are under six months old, explains Ana Leticia, MSF emergency doctor.

Since the start of the military offensive to recapture Mosul in October 2016, MSF teams have increased medical and humanitarian assistance in Ninewa governorate. Across the country, MSF is working alongside Iraqi health staff in 10 governorates to ensure that the population has access to emergency medical care, including mother and child care.

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Iraq: MSF treating emergencies in Qayyarah hospital - Doctors Without Borders

Khartoum - The United Nations envoy to Libya, Martin Kobler, will visit Khartoum on Sunday for talks on the conflict in the North African country, the Sudanese foreign ministry said.

Kobler, on his first visit to Sudan, is expected to meet Sudanese Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour and other senior officials in Khartoum.

"He will discuss efforts made by Arab League and African Union to solve the Libyan crisis," the foreign ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

Ghandour will also attend a May 8 conference in Nigeria drawing Libya's neighbours, it said.

Libya has fallen into crisis since the 2011 killing of longtime strongman Moammar Gadddafi, with dozens of armed factions battling for control of the oil-rich country.

During the rebellion against Gaddafi, Khartoum had acknowledged its support to rebels fighting his forces.

Sudan recognises Libya's unity government headed by Fayez al-Sarraj, which was born of a UN-brokered deal signed in late 2015.

The unity government has, however, struggled to assert its authority nationwide since taking office in Tripoli in March last year.

Libyan military strongman Khalifa Haftar has opposed Sarraj's government and is backing a rival government based in Libya's east.

But for the past two years his main priority has been battling jihadists in second city Benghazi.

Khartoum has tense relations with Haftar, often alleging that many Sudanese rebels from war-torn Darfur have joined him and were fighting for him in Libya.

Sudanese media has also regularly reported deaths of some Sudanese youths in Libya while fighting for the jihadist Islamic State group.

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UN envoy to Libya to visit Sudan for peace talks - News24

Isis fighters parade through Sirte, Libya, where they seized control of the passport office in early 2016. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Italian investigators believe that a number of Islamic State fighters from Libya have slipped into Europe by infiltrating a scheme designed to give hospital treatment to wounded regular Libyan government soldiers.

A Italian intelligence document seen by the Guardian reveals a complex network in which, from 2015, members of Isis and others linked to jihadi movements have infiltrated Europe pretending to be injured, so as to be treated in clinics and then freed to move elsewhere in Europe and the Middle East.

Elements of Isis are involved in the smuggling of the wounded men from Libya and are using this strategy to travel out of Libya with false passports, the document says.

The Italian intelligence document focuses on a western-backed health project for the rehabilitation and care of injured Libyans, saying it is being run in a doubtful and ambiguous way, even though it is overseen by the UN-recognised government of national accord based in Tripoli. It suggests the Libyan government has been unwittingly paying the travel expenses of Isis members, confusing them with legitimate fighters.

Diplomats and health sector managers have been using a scheme called the Comitato Assistenza Feriti Libici (Centre for the Support of Injured Libyans) to apply for special visas to take wounded soldiers for treatment in Europe.

But Italian intelligence believes an unknown number of Isis fighters have infiltrated the scheme using false passports supplied to them by a criminal network, including corrupt officials. It says it discovered in early 2016 that Isis had seized control of the passport office in Sirte and stolen as many as 2,000 blank documents.

The French government has already claimed in public that Isis has developed a sophisticated capacity to manufacture as many as 200 false passports.

The Italianintelligence document states: Since 15 December 2015, an unknown number of wounded fighters of the Islamic State in Libya have been transported out of the country to an Istanbul hospital to undergo medical treatment.

The bulk of the false wounded come from the Libyan area of Fataeh, where elements of the Islamic State would be holed up, the document states.

From there, the fighters are most commonly sent to Turkish hospitals. It claims in one case the fighters showed fake passports to doctors in Misrata and told them they were wounded in Sirte and Benghazi.

The Isis fighters the intelligence document says would present false passports and, posing as members of the Majlis Shura Thuwar Benghazi (MSTB) report to medical personnel in Misrata.

Misrata is in fact the headquarters of the smuggling of these men from Libya to other countries. Misrata is also the place where the trafficking of false passports takes place when a fake identity is needed to cover the real identity of these men.

The allegations underline the difficulties authorities in Libya and Europe face in determining the motives of militiamen fighting in Libya, and the extent to which their Islamist sympathies extend to support for Isis.

The main countries identified in the document are Turkey, Romania, Serbia and Bosnia, but the injured appear to have also stayed in France, Germany and Switzerland.

An Italian doctor named in the report, Rodolfo Bucci, confirmed to the Guardian he had been contacted by an individual identified in it as part of the smuggling network. I was contacted by some men to coordinate these medical treatments because Im a specialist in Europe in pain treatment therapy. But then I dont know what happened. I dont know if the programme was stopped, he said.

The Italian intelligence document describes the position of the government of Tripoli as highly ambivalent because, although it does not pay for medical care for Isis fighters, it officially facilitates the exit from Libyan territory of elements traced to MSTB, a group in which jihadist militiamen, linked to Daesh [Isis], are directly involved.

In some cases, the intelligence report states, the documents apparently prepared by hospitals arranging for Libyans to leave the country give only superficially described details of injuries or are totally bereft of any details.

Petter Nesser, a senior researcher at the FFI terrorism research group in Norway, said European intelligence agencies were increasingly concerned about Isis fighters from Libya.

There was a feeling that we would have seen more combatants coming out from Libya and it has taken a while until this materialised. Most of the plots in Europe were linked to Syria. But quite recently we are starting to see more plots in Europe linked to Libya.

We know that Daesh is coordinating the infiltration of more operatives and combatants from Libya. The Berlin attacker had ties to Libyan operatives and even Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the Paris attacks ringleader, had ties with Isis agents in Libya.

The Italian intelligence documents are largely based on the exchange of information from the Italian civil and military police, as well as the FBI. The investigation has been passed to antiterrorism police in Italy.

The Italian interior ministry has been contacted for comment.

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Italy fears Isis fighters slip into Europe posing as injured Libyans - The Guardian

More than 300 Ghanaians living in Libya have returned to Ghana.

According to them, they have been struggling to cope with the harsh conditions in the war-ravaged North African country.

I have regretted going to Libya. Life there is very difficult. There are robbers who robbed us at a gun point every day. When you report to the authorities, they dont do anything about it, one returnee told journalists.

READ ALSO: America to deport 7000 Ghanaians - US Ambassador

Many of them who travelled to Libya on foot through the Libyan Desert to seek greener pastures said that they were disappointed at the lawlessness in that country.

They have, therefore, pleaded with other Ghanaians not to attempt going there.

They also used the opportunity to call on the government to help other Ghanaians who are still stranded in Libya to return home.

"We paid for the air-ticket months ago but there were no airplanes arriving in the country to bring us back to Ghana. We are pleading with government to save our brothers left behind in Ghana" another returnee said.

About three Ghanaians earlier this month were reported dead in Libya with over 500 people more stranded in that country.

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Back Home: Over 300 Ghanaians living in Libya voluntarily return ... - Pulse.com.gh