Situation Report - Headlines

• Oman became the first major oil producer to say it will lower its output, with the hope that other countries will follow suit. • The three U.S. citizens reported missing in Baghdad were kidnapped, two Iraqi parliament members said. • Chinese economic growth in 2015 slowed to 6.9 percent, its weakest annual pace in 25 years, according to official figures. • Macedonia’s parliament accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, voted to dissolve the parliament on Feb. 24, and set elections for April 24. • A suicide bombing at a mosque in northern Cameroon killed four people and injured two others. • Moroccan officials announced yesterday that they have arrested a Belgian man who was tried and convicted in absentia by a Belgian court last year for involvement in a terrorist organization; he is believed to have been an associate of one of the leaders of the Nov. 13 Paris attacks. • Heavy bombing from Saudi coalition airstrikes targeting Sanaa, Yemen, has killed at least 35 people in recent days, including Almigdad Mojalli, a Yemeni journalist who had reported for Voice of America. • Israeli officials are responding to two stabbing attacks targeting women in Israeli settlements; on Sunday, a Palestinian suspect killed a 38-year-old Israeli woman in her home in Otniel, south of Hebron, and on Monday, a pregnant woman was stabbed in the Tekoa settlement near Jerusalem. • Libya’s Unity Presidential Council announced today that it has formed a 32-member cabinet drawn from representatives of both the Tobruk and Tripoli governments; the Council, which is based in Tunisia, is the result of a U.N.-brokered peace plan, but it faces significant opposition from holdouts in both governments. • Formal invitations to Syrian peace talks, scheduled to begin in a week, have yet to be sent and the talks could be postponed pending continuing disputes between Saudi Arabia and Russia over who should represent the Syrian opposition.