Month: October 2022

TOKYO -- Japan’s Cabinet approved Friday a hefty economic package including 29 trillion yen ($200 billion) in government spending to counter the blow to household budgets from inflation, signaling that the greater concern of its policymakers is that the economy will stall, not overheat. While central banks around the world are raising interest rates aggressively to try to tame decades-high inflation, with its own inflation rate near 3%, Japan has stuck mainly to using fiscal measures, or government spending, to counter that challenge. The Bank of Japan underscored that when, wrapping up a policy meeting Friday, it stuck to its longstanding policy of keeping its benchmark interest rate at minus 0.1%. The Federal Reserve has been aggressively raising borrowing costs to combat chronic infl...

LONDON -- Northern Ireland's political deadlock deepened Friday when the U.K. government delayed calling an early election for the Belfast-based Assembly after a deadline to restore the mothballed administration expired. The limbo means more uncertainty and delays to government decision-making at a time when many people in Northern Ireland are struggling with soaring food and energy prices. A deadline for the Northern Ireland Assembly to elect a governing executive passed at midnight Thursday amid a dispute over post-Brexit trade rules. Under the rules of Northern Ireland’s power-sharing politics, a new election must be held within 12 weeks. Civil servants will keep essential services running in the meantime. U.K. Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris had been expected to annou...

WINNIPEG, Manitoba -- Canada's government announced Friday it is imposing sanctions on 35 more Russians in response to that country’s invasion of Ukraine and issuing bonds that individuals can purchase to support the Ukrainian government. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the group being sanctioned includes leaders of Russian state-owned energy company Gazprom and six energy sector entities. “As Russia continues its illegal and unjustifiable aggression against Ukraine, Canada will continue to support the Ukrainian government and people,” Trudeau said in a statement. The five-year Ukraine Sovereignty Bonds are to be offered to investors through Canadian banks and the money will be channeled to Ukraine through the International Monetary Fund. Trudeau was in Winnipeg, where the Congress ...

PREDAPPIO, Italy -- About 1,000 anti-fascists celebrated the anniversary of the 1944 liberation of Benito Mussolini’s birthplace Friday, as scattered fascist nostalgics quietly marked the 100th anniversary of the March on Rome that brought the Italian dictator to power in a bloodless coup. An organization representing partisans who fought to free Italy from fascism and Nazi occupiers during World War II organized the march down the main street in Predappio, where Mussolini was born and buried. They were joined by trade unionists and left-wing politicians. “I owe this to my parents and to all those people who gave us freedom, and I mean the partisans,'' Daniela Vicchi, the daughter of a partisan, said during the march. Italy’s uneasy reckoning with its fascist past was under extra scruti...

BERLIN -- The German economy grew in the third quarter, an unexpectedly positive performance powered largely by private spending, official figures showed Friday. But the immediate outlook for Europe's biggest economy remained gloomy, with inflation rising again in October. Gross domestic product expanded by 0.3% in the July-September period compared with the previous quarter, the Federal Statistical Office said. That followed a slight increase of 0.1% in the second quarter. “The German economy managed to hold its ground despite difficult framework conditions of the global economy, with the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain interruptions, rising prices and the war in Ukraine,” the statistics office said. The government said earlier this month that GDP was believed to have shrunk...

MONTREAL -- The United States must work with countries like Canada to solve world problems, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday. Neither Canada nor the United States can alone face challenges such as climate change, global health issues and the impact of new technologies, Blinken told a group of dignitaries and university students. “When I started this role, my boss, President Biden, told me, above all, make an effort to re-energize our partnerships, our alliances,” said Blinken, who spoke in French during the event, which was also attended by Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly. “We’re starting with the closest partner, Canada,” Blinken said. In an interview earlier in the day with a Montreal television station, Blinken called Canada and the U.S. “essential partne...