Author: ALJAZEERA

Toronto, Canada: As Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney races to make the country less dependent on the United States, attract billions in new investment and get major projects built faster, his economic overhaul is running into resistance from a group that says it wants many of the same things: organised labour.The latest clash, over the right to strike, comes after months of mounting pressure on Ottawa from Washington, DC.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listUS President Donald Trump, since taking up a second term in office last year, has imposed steep tariffs on Canadian goods and weakened trade agreements…

ICC and Axa terminate agreement amid mounting US criticism and looming financial restrictions on the court, FT reports.Published On 1 Oct 20261 Oct 2026The International Criminal Court (ICC) has ended its contract with the French health and life insurer Axa effective immediately and will be moving to use another insurance provider.The change, which was first reported by the Financial Times on Thursday, comes as United States President Donald Trump ramps up attacks on the Hague-based court.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listLate last month, the Wall Street Journal reported that the White House was preparing sanctions against the ICC…

Exports jump 83.5 percent to top $120bn for the first time amid ferocious semiconductor demand.Published On 1 Oct 20261 Oct 2026South Korea’s exports have surged to a monthly record amid explosive demand for chips used to power artificial intelligence.Exports jumped 83.5 percent year-on-year to $120.9bn in September, eclipsing the previous monthly record of $102.25bn set in June, preliminary customs figures showed on Thursday.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listChip shipments accounted for nearly half of exports, soaring more than 260 percent to $60.3bn, according to data from the Korea Customs Service.Total exports from January through September hit $814.5bn, exceeding…

The real estate firm backs down and restores her old rent after mass protests over Spain’s housing crisis.Published On 29 Sep 202629 Sep 2026Large protests have erupted in Spain over the eviction of an 87-year-old woman who is set to return to her Madrid home, her representatives said.The lawyer representing Maria del Carmen Abascal, known across Spain as Maricarmen, said on Tuesday that the real estate firm offered to reduce her rent back to its pre-dispute rate.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of listUnder the deal, her monthly payments would be capped at about $570 for the next eight years,…

Gold hits seven-week low; silver follows suit and records a nearly 5 percent loss.Published On 28 Sep 202628 Sep 2026Gold prices are falling as concerns of rising fuel prices stoke inflation worries on the back of the war between the United States and Iran.Spot gold prices fell by 3.3 percent to reach a more than seven-week low at $4,146.51 per ounce on Monday.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listRising oil prices, a higher US dollar and Treasury yields stoked inflation concerns, creating further headwinds for the metal.This is the lowest level for gold values since August 5. US gold…

Estimates by the UCA suggest the poverty rate could reach 35 percent this year, reversing a sharp decline in 2025.Published On 25 Sep 202625 Sep 2026Argentina’s poverty rate has risen, hitting 32.3 percent in the first half of 2026 under President Javier Milei, partly erasing the country’s earlier gains.According to figures released by the national statistics agency INDEC on Thursday, the poverty rate rose 4.1 percentage points between January and June compared with the last half of 2025, moving from 28.2 to 32.3 percent.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of listExtreme poverty — where households cannot afford basic food needs…

The two superpowers seek greater dialogue despite differences over issues such as Iran, Taiwan, AI and trade.Published On 25 Sep 202625 Sep 2026United States President Donald Trump has thrown China’s leader Xi Jinping a state dinner featuring a tech-heavy guest list, as well as a number of billionaires, Washington powerbrokers, business leaders and the type of festivities that most excite Trump, who has a reputation for reveling in hosting parties.The dinner on Thursday night wrapped up a day of talks between the two leaders. The summit, Xi’s first visit to Washington in more than a decade, is the second meeting…

Iran says it has put forward a plan to the United States to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days, as Qatar passes messages between the two countries at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.Speaking on the sidelines on Thursday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the timetable could begin as soon as Washington accepted the proposal.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listBoth sides have described the indirect contact facilitated by Qatar in New York positively, but neither has indicated any diplomatic breakthrough as the war approaches its seven-month mark.Analysts have told Al Jazeera a firm…

UN trade body report says consequences of Israeli occupation have ‘skyrocketed’ with 90% unemployed in Gaza.Gaza’s recovery and reconstruction needs have reached an estimated $71.5bn and are likely to increase, according to the latest United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) report.Gaza’s economy has experienced the world’s “most severe crisis on record”, said the report presented at UNCTAD’s 73rd session on Thursday.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of listIt said that 59 years of Israeli occupation have “imposed structural constraints that have systemically stunted the Palestinian economy”, undermining productivity, deepening poverty and forcing dependence on aid.But since Israel launched…

AI giant Anthropic has announced the discovery of a new enzyme system in bacterial DNA that it said could “represent a new gene editing mechanism” similar to the groundbreaking CRISPR tool.Anthropic said on Wednesday that its signature AI model, Claude, had “autonomously” discovered the system at the prompting of researchers working at the company’s recently established biology research lab in San Francisco.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listThe tech giant said the system showed characteristics found in only a handful of other “programmable” structures and displayed a “pattern reminiscent of CRISPR”, a genome-editing mechanism found in bacteria.CRISPR technology has…