Author: ALJAZEERA

Israeli army bombs Kola, moving beyond the Lebanese capital’s southern suburbs for the first time in its offensive.

Manila, the Philippines – Veronica Bebero recalls the despair she felt being interrogated by police inside a locked room at the United States Embassy in Manila. National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) investigators wanted to know why she had used fake marriage annulment documents for her US visa application. Tears streaming down her face, the Manila-based acupuncturist remembers saying: “This has to be a nightmare, right?” Bebero had turned to a woman who claimed to be a judicial official to secure an annulment after the COVID-19 pandemic derailed her efforts to go through the usual court process. After she and her…

How tipping beyond the service industry is becoming the norm. Everywhere you go in the US there are services asking for tips that you wouldn’t normally see. Are consumers subsidising people’s salaries?As the US presidential candidates fight for votes, the American culture of tipping has become an election issue. But will the proposals favour service workers, as intended, or create loopholes for dodging taxes?

Kolkata, India: Tapas Pal has been making clay idols of various gods and goddesses for the past two decades at Kumartuli, a traditional potters’ hub in Kolkata in eastern India’s state of West Bengal. The 42-year-old, who makes six-metre (20ft) high idols from unfired clay, told Al Jazeera that he would not normally have any spare time in the two months leading up to Durga Puja, the biggest festival of the state, as he would be on deadline to deliver the idols to the festival organisers. But the situation this year is completely different, he says, with fewer orders and…

China’s central bank says measures will lower borrowing costs and inject more liquidity into market.China has announced a slew of stimulus measures to boost the economy amid signs that Beijing’s growth target for this year is slipping out of reach. China’s central bank said on Tuesday that it would take steps to lower borrowing costs, inject more liquidity into the economy, and ease mortgage repayments for households. Governor of the People’s Bank of China, Pan Gongsheng, told a news conference that the central bank would soon cut the amount of cash banks must hold as reserves – called the reserve…

Donald Trump has pledged not only to stop US businesses from offshoring jobs, but also to take other countries’ jobs and factories in part through huge tariffs that economists say could actually raise domestic prices. Among the ideas the former president pitched in Georgia on Tuesday was cutting the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 15 percent, but only for companies that produce in the United States. His opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, wants to raise the corporate tax rate to 28 percent. It had been 35 percent when Trump became president in 2017, and he later signed a…

The former CEO of Alameda Research served as a key prosecution witness against FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried.Caroline Ellison, the former business partner and girlfriend of cryptocurrency fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried, has been sentenced to two years in prison for her role in one of the biggest financial frauds in history. Ellison, the CEO of Alameda Research and Bankman-Fried’s on-and-off girlfriend, was a key prosecution witness in last year’s trial that saw the founder of ill-fated crypto exchange FTX sentenced to 25 years in prison. Ellison pleaded guilty to seven charges, including fraud, shortly after the collapse of FTX in 2022, crimes…

In his first policy address after taking office in October 2021, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida pledged to “faithfully rebuild” the economy after three decades of stagnation. In a speech to parliament almost exactly two years later, Kishida said the economy was his priority “above all else”. “The Japanese economy is facing a unique and unprecedented opportunity to achieve a transformation not seen in 30 years,” he told lawmakers. “To seize this opportunity, I am determined to undertake bold initiatives never seen before.” As Kishida prepares to step down following a leadership vote by his scandal-tarnished Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)…

The use of pagers and walkie-talkies in back-to-back coordinated explosions in Lebanon has drawn scrutiny to the security of global supply chains and their vulnerability to tampering by governments or other actors. The utilisation of thousands of electronic devices in the apparent attacks, which are widely believed to have been orchestrated by Israel as part of an operation targeting Lebanon’s armed group Hezbollah, has raised the spectre of everyday communications equipment being weaponised in the future. Tech companies are likely to see the attacks as a powerful reminder of the importance of securing their supply chains, while the general public’s…

Ahead of Sri Lanka’s presidential election, no issue is more central than the economy. With the South Asian country still struggling from its worst financial crisis in decades, Saturday’s ballot amounts to a referendum on austerity measures imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) last year. In a crowded field of 38 candidates, all eyes are on three men: incumbent President Ranil Wickremesinghe and his two closest rivals, Anura Kumara Dissanayake and Sajith Premadasa, both of whom want a new deal with the Washington, DC-based lender. A six-time prime minister, Wickremesinghe represents the old guard. His United National Party (UNP)…