News Headlines - 24 August 2015

▽Great fall of China sinks world stocks, dollar tumbles | Reuters

Alarm bells rang across world markets on Monday as a 9 percent dive in Chinese shares and a sharp drop in the dollar and major commodities panicked investors.

▽Rival Koreas find a way to avoid disaster, reach deal - Stripes

After 40-plus-hours of talks, North and South Korea on Tuesday pulled back from the brink with an accord that allows both sides to save face and, for the moment, avert the bloodshed they've been threatening each other with for weeks.

▽British hostage freed by UAE forces in Yemen | The Guardian

A British national held hostage in Yemen has been freed by United Arab Emirates forces, Philip Hammond has confirmed.
The United Arab Emirates said its military freed Douglas Robert Semple, 64, who was kidnapped 18 months ago by al-Qaida in Yemen.

▽Israel turns to Kurds for three-quarters of its oil supplies - FT.com

Israel has imported as much as three-quarters of its oil from Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish north in recent months, providing a vital source of funds to the cash-strapped region as it fights militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis).

▽Parisians struggling to get a baguette as holidaying bakers close by the dozen | Daily Mail Online

Bakers in the capital no longer have their summer holiday regulated by the Paris préfet and are now able to take as much leave as they like in July and August.
Until recently, bakers would be told by the city's administrative authority which weeks they could take off.