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Boris Johnson and Liz Truss to vote against Rishi Sunak’s Brexit deal

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 16:51:37 GMT

LONDON — Former prime ministers Boris Johnson and Liz Truss will vote against the U.K.-EU deal on post-Brexit trading rules in Northern Ireland — in a blow to Rishi Sunak’s efforts to unite his Conservative Party behind the agreement.In a statement issued to POLITICO London Playbook ahead of the deal’s first parliamentary vote Wednesday, Johnson said Sunak’s Windsor framework “is not acceptable.”He warned the deal would either leave Northern Ireland “captured by the EU legal order” or mean that “the whole of the U.K. was unable properly to diverge and take advantage of Brexit.”“That is not acceptable,” he said. “Instead, the best course of action is to proceed with Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, and make sure that we take back control.” Johnson was referring to a since-shelved U.K. plan to unilaterally override the contentious Northern Ireland protocol — which kept the region bound to EU standards on goods.A statement from Truss...

South Korea says North Korea test-fires cruise missiles

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 16:51:37 GMT

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea launched multiple cruise missiles toward the sea on Wednesday, South Korea’s military said, three days after the North carried out what it called a simulated nuclear attack on South Korea. The launches are the North’s fourth round of weapons tests since the U.S. and South Korean militaries last week began large-scale military drills that the North views as an invasion rehearsal. The 11-day U.S.-South Korean military drills are to end on Thursday. But North Korea is expected to continue its testing activities as the United States reportedly plans to send an aircraft carrier in coming days for another round of joint drills with South Korea.South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said it detected “several” cruise missile launches made from the North’s northeastern coastal town of Hamhung. It said the missiles flew into the North’s eastern waters and that South Korean and U.S. intelligence authorities were analyzing further details. Coming o...

Japanese beating Americans in baseball is must-see viewing

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 16:51:37 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — Japanese television stuck to its live coverage from Miami for almost two hours after Japan defeated the United States 3-2 to win the World Baseball Classic.This was must see viewing — over and over and over.Shohei Ohtani striking out Los Angeles Angels teammate Mike Trout on a pitch away to end the game was replayed repeatedly between player interviews, beer-sprayed clubhouse interludes, and the traditional “doage” — team members tossing the winning manager and players into the air.The country’s top circulating newspaper Yomiuri rolled out a special Wednesday afternoon edition for commuters, usually reserved for serious matters of state, late-breaking election news, or as it was last year — the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.“Japan, the World’s No. 1,” the headline read in Japanese, with commuters at Shibuya station pushing and shoving to grab the collector’s item.The victory and the focus on Ohtani for the past two weeks provi...

In The News for March 22 : A spring renewal for Canada’s housing market

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 16:51:37 GMT

In The News is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to kickstart your day. Here is what’s on the radar of our editors for the morning of March 22 …What we are watching in Canada …Realtors are expecting Canadians to move off the housing market’s sidelines this spring.They expect potential buyers to start hunting for a home because the Bank of Canada has eased up on interest rate hikes. The quick succession of increases eroded buying power as borrowing costs rose and sent prices falling, discouraging sellers from listing their homes.With Canadian Real Estate Association data showing average prices have dropped 19 per cent from their February peak of $816,578 to $662,437 last month and BMO Capital Markets’ chief economist predicting they will bottom out after falling 20 to 25 per cent, realtors see many edging toward a purchase once more.“We got a flood of buyers in January, in February and we still are getting more and more and we s...

Transportation Safety Board to report on 2020 scallop vessel sinking off Nova Scotia

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 16:51:37 GMT

HALIFAX — The Transportation Board of Canada is to release a report today on its investigation into the sinking of a scallop dragger off Nova Scotia more than two years ago.The Chief William Saulis capsized off Delaps Cove, about 50 kilometres north of Digby, N.S., on Dec. 15, 2020, with the loss of its six-man crew.The bodies of Eugene (Geno) Michael Francis, Aaron Cogswell, Leonard Gabriel, Dan Forbes and captain Charles Roberts were never recovered.The body of crew member Michael Drake was swept up on the rocky shoreline.The safety board report is expected to examine why there was no stability assessment required for the 17-metre vessel, whose operators had added a steel A-frame for trawling and made other structural changes.Transport Canada has said a stability assessment wasn’t required when it conducted an inspection in April 2017 — three months before regulations requiring assessments for vessels with major modifications came into effect.This report by The Canadian Press was ...

Take hard line on Canada’s digital tax, online laws, tech associations urge Biden

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 16:51:37 GMT

WASHINGTON — A high-tech industry coalition in the United States is urging President Joe Biden to take a hard line against Canada’s approach to digital services. The group says the proposed digital services tax unfairly targets U.S. companies and is offside with international efforts to establish a global standard. In a letter to Biden, they also complain about two controversial federal bills: the Online Streaming Act, known as Bill C-11, and the Online News Act, or Bill C-18.They warn C-11, which is meant to protect Canadian content providers, could backfire and ultimately increase costs to consumers. And they fear the Online News Act, which would compensate Canadian news organizations and broadcasters, could violate the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Biden is meeting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau later this week as part of his first visit to Canada since taking over the White House in 2021. “We are concerned that Canada is pursuing a number of problematic proposals and ...

Canadian home sales expected to pick up in spring but inventory still lags

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 16:51:37 GMT

TORONTO — With two kids under the age of six living in a two-bedroom, one-bathroom household, Jacquelin Forsey and her husband have long known it would only be a matter of time before their family outgrew their beloved home.Long hours in the small space while Forsey was pregnant and toiling away from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, along with a visit to a neighbour who was selling their “beautiful” place that was “the perfect size,” convinced the couple to start their new home hunt recently.“If there was any way to make this place bigger, we would never leave,” said Forsey, a PhD student, of the home her family owns in the Leslieville area of Toronto.“We love it. We love the neighbourhood, we love our house, but we just can’t all be in this tiny house forever.”The couple has spent recent months scouring listings and put in at least one failed bid, but Forsey has her fingers crossed that their fortunes will change this spring a...

Canada’s stockpile of ventilators up from 500 to 27,000 after push to procure them

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 16:51:37 GMT

Canada’s race to procure ventilators for COVID-19 patients in the early days of the pandemic had researchers, scientists, industry and a notable astrophysicist working “night and day”to design machines that could be quickly manufactured domestically.Various efforts included a Montreal-based competition that drew global competitors and a group of scientists and engineers involving Queen’s University professor emeritus Art McDonald, co-winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in physics.McDonald said Cristiano Galbiati, a colleague and physics professor at Princeton University and an institute in Italy, contacted him from Milan during lockdowns in early 2020 to say the technology they had developed to detect dark matter could be adapted to produce a low-cost ventilator.At the time, some countries were scrambling to get more ventilators, which pump oxygen through a tube in the windpipe and into the lungs of patients to help them breathe.There were also fears about doctors...

Don’t assume U.S. minds are made up about Safe Third Country treaty: Canada’s envoy

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 16:51:37 GMT

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden’s administration is not dismissing out of hand the idea of renegotiating the bilateral 2004 treaty that governs the flow of asylum seekers across its northern border, says Canada’s ambassador to the U.S.Kirsten Hillman, in Ottawa to prepare for Biden’s impending arrival on Thursday, said the administration understands how the Safe Third Country Agreement impacts the flow of migrants across the Canada-U.S. border.Since those migrants are travelling in both directions, taking steps to discourage would-be refugees from slipping over the border undetected would be in the interest of both countries, she acknowledged. “I think it does benefit both countries, and I actually think they do recognize that,” Hillman said in an interview. “I would say there’s actually a lot of goodwill on the U.S. side to listen to us about this challenge that we’re facing.”The agreement, signed in 2002 and implemented in 200...

Ukraine, IMF agree on $15.6 billion loan package

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 16:51:37 GMT

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Ukraine and the International Monetary Fund have agreed on a $15.6 billion loan package aimed at shoring up government finances severely strained by Russia’s invasion and at leveraging even more support by reassuring allies that Ukraine is pursuing strong economic policies.Ukraine’s finance ministry said Wednesday that the program will “help to mobilize financing from Ukraine’s international partners, as well as to maintain macrofinancial stability and ensure the path to post-war reconstruction after Ukrainian victory in the war against the aggressor.”The loan program will run for four years, with the first 12 to 18 months focusing on helping Ukraine close its massive budget deficit and alleviating pressure to finance spending through printing money at the central bank, the IMF said in a statement Tuesday.The remainder of the program will focus on supporting Ukraine’s bid for European Union membership and post-war reconstruction. The IMF deal is...