Canada's trade deficit narrowed to 4.2 billion Canadian dollars (USD 3.1 billion) in January as commerce with countries other than the United States ramped up, the government statistical agency said Wednesday.
The figure, following a record trade deficit of 4.8 billion Canadian dollars (revised upward) in the previous month, was higher than economists had expected.
"Overall, the data out today continue to provide a mixed picture of the Canadian economy," said CIBC Capital Markets analyst Royce Mendes.
According to Statistics Canada, exports rose 2.9 per cent to 47.6 billion Canadian dollars in January.
Higher exports of refined gold to Britain and gold transfers to Hong Kong within the banking sector, as well as increased transportation equipment sales to Saudi Arabia, were partially offset by lower exports of soybeans to China, it said.
After five consecutive monthly decreases, energy exports rose in January to 7.1 billion Canadian dollars. That was driven by a 36.5 per cent increase 

Canada trade deficit narrows as dependence on US wanes

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US carmaker Ford will close three of the four factories of its Russian joint venture after deciding to stop making passenger cars in a country where car sales have slumped in recent years, the company said Wednesday.
Ford said in a statement that it has signed a preliminary agreement with its local partner Sollers on "a significant restructuring of its... joint venture in Russia, focusing exclusively on growing its commercial vehicle business moving forward."
The joint venture "will discontinue its passenger vehicle portfolio in Russia to help deliver a more competitive and sustainably profitable business going forward," Ford said.
Ford, based in the US state of Michigan, said that by the end of June this year it will close its vehicle assembly plants in the northwestern city of Saint Petersburg and the city of Naberezhnye Chelny in Tatarstan, central Russia.
It will also close an engine plant in Yelabuga in Tatarstan that opened in 2015.
Sollers will have a 51 per cent stake in the ..

Ford to shut three factories, stop making passenger cars in Russia

Ten people were killed along with two suicide bombers in a coordinated attack late Tuesday by Boko Haram jihadists on a town in eastern Niger, the local mayor said.
"Two female suicide bombers blew themselves up and gunmen then attacked civilians," the mayor of the town of N'Guigmi, Abba Kaya Issa, told AFP on Wednesday.
"We have a provisional toll of 10 dead plus the two suicide bombers," along with "seven or eight" wounded, he said, blaming "Boko Haram elements" for the assault.
"One of the suicide bombers blew herself up in the courtyard of a policeman's home, which is located inside the police barracks, and the second triggered her explosives belt between the town hall, the police barracks and the prefecture," he said, referring to the office of the state representative.
A local resident said several houses had been burned and wounded children in the police camp had been taken to the local hospital.
Another inhabitant said "armed Boko Haram" attacked the district of Dileram, ...

Boko Haram attacks in eastern Niger leave 10 dead: mayor

Adultery and gay sex in Brunei will be subject to death by stoning from next week, authorities said, under a strict Sharia law that has been on hold for four years amid heavy criticism.
Rights groups reacted in horror Wednesday to the latest hardline move from the resource-rich nation on Borneo, which practises a stricter brand of Islam than its neighbours Malaysia and Indonesia.
The tiny sultanate will implement the harsh new penal code -- which also prescribes amputation of a hand and foot for theft -- next Wednesday.
Homosexuality is already illegal in Brunei but it will now become a capital offence. The law only applies to Muslims.
The new penalty for theft is amputation of the right hand for a first offence, and the left foot for a second offence.
Amnesty International Wednesday urged Brunei to "immediately halt" implementing the new penalties.
"To legalise such cruel and inhuman penalties is appalling of itself," Brunei researcher Rachel Chhoa-Howard said in a statement.
"Some ..

Brunei to impose death by stoning for gay sex and adultery

Pope Francis is to visit flood-ravaged Mozambique and Indian Ocean nations Madagascar and Mauritius in September, the Vatican announced on Wednesday.
He will travel to their capitals Maputo, Antananarivo and Port Louis during the September 4-10 visit, a statement said, with the precise programme to be decided later.
Mozambique is reeling from a cyclone and floods that this month killed nearly 500 people and sparked cases of cholera.
Senior Mozambican priest Giorgio Ferreti said in February Francis would this year make the first visit by a pope to the southern African nation since 1988.
President Filipe Nyusi invited the pontiff to visit Mozambique during a trip to the Vatican last September, announcing the possible trip to reporters in a breach of Vatican protocol.
The pope reportedly joked: "If I'm still alive."
Mozambique, a former Portuguese colony, has around four million Catholics.
Pope Francis kicked off the year with a historic public mass for an estimated 170,000 Catholics at .

Pope to visit Mozambique, Madagascar, Mauritius

Nearly two years after the collapse of the construction giant Saudi Oger rendered thousands jobless, Lebanese worker Mohammed remains stranded in limbo in Riyadh -- and desperate to avoid arrest.
The demise in 2017 of the once-mighty company owned by the family of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri forced thousands of its expatriate workers to exit the kingdom without months of unpaid wages and end-of-service benefits.
But many like 60-year-old Mohammed, who worked for the company for 35 years, are still stuck in Saudi Arabia.
The expiration of Mohammed's residence permit makes his presence in Saudi Arabia illegal, but he is also legally barred from leaving due to an outstanding bank loan taken while he was employed.
So Mohammed is left in a bewildering limbo, barely scraping by on the kindness of strangers and cut off from his family in Lebanon.
"I am a prisoner," he told AFP at the Riyadh apartment of another former Saudi Oger employee from Lebanon in a similar predicament.
"When I 

Desperate and hiding, collapsed Saudi Oger workers left in limbo

Unidentified victims of deadly flash floods and landslides in Indonesia were buried in a mass grave Wednesday, with dozens still missing nearly two weeks after the disaster.
The official death toll stands at 112, but over 90 more people are unaccounted for after torrential rains pounded Indonesia's Papua region, triggering landslides and flash floods.
Some 20 victims who have yet to be identified were placed in numbered coffins and then buried near the hard-hit town of Sentani.
Their DNA samples have been sent to the national police headquarters, authorities said.
"If later on there's a family member who comes to report a missing relative, we will take their DNA and if it matches, the body (will) be exhumed and given to the relatives," Ramon Amiman, head of the medical unit at the Papua police, told AFP.
The March 16 disaster left nearly 1,000 injured while more than 11,000 people were evacuated to temporary shelters, with thousands still living in makeshift tents.
The government ...

Indonesia buries unidentified Papua flood victims in mass grave

A Russian court on Wednesday ruled that a widely-condemned China-backed project to bottle water from Lake Baikal illegally received the go-ahead from authorities.
The plant currently under construction to bottle the waters of the world's largest lake has proved highly controversial, exacerbated by popular fears of a Chinese "land-grab" in Siberia.
A judge at a district court in the Siberian city of Irkutsk ruled that the official permit for the plant's construction was "illegal", TASS state news agency reported from the courtroom.
Judge Natalya Isakova said that the permission was issued on the basis of a positive environmental impact report, which she also ruled was "illegal." The ruling came after a petition against the plant on Change.org gathered more than a million signatures.
The water "will be shipped to China," the petition said, warning that the facility would block local access to the lake and "inflict irreparable damage" to the UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Russian ...

Russia rules China-backed Baikal bottling plant 'illegal'

The EU announced Wednesday it will suspend ship patrols that have rescued tens of thousands of migrants since 2015 in the Mediterranean and brought them to Italy, after deep resistance by populist-led Rome.
European Union diplomats agreed that the operation would be officially extended six months beyond its March 31 expiry date, but no longer deploy ships and instead rely on air missions and coordination with Libya.
"Member States have decided to extend the mandate of Operation Sophia for six months with a temporary suspension of its naval assets while member states continue working on a solution related to disembarkation," an EU official said in a statement.
The EU has credited the mission with having stopped smugglers taking migrants on dangerous sea crossings, but anger in Italy effectively put an end to rescue operations through Sophia a year ago.
The anti-migration government that took power in Rome last year has insisted it should not have to carry the burden of dealing with ...

EU suspends naval patrols in Libya migrant operation

Indonesian authorities said Wednesday they had seized five komodo dragons and dozens of other animals being sold on Facebook, as the country battles to clamp down on the illegal wildlife trade.
The vast Southeast Asian archipelago nation's dense tropical rainforests boast some of the highest levels of biodiversity in the world and it has for years been a key source and transit point for animal trafficking.
Five smugglers, identified only by their initials, were arrested in Semarang and Surabaya on Java island for allegedly trafficking the komodos -- the world's biggest lizard -- along with bearcats, cockatoos and cassowary birds.
"The suspect VS sold the komodos online through Facebook," East Java police spokesman Frans Barung Mangera said in a statement.
The dragons, which can only be found in their natural habitat on a cluster of islands in eastern Indonesia, were sold for between 15 and 20 million rupiah (USD1,000- USD1,400), Mangera said.
In a separate case, three other people ...

Indonesia foils illegal Facebook sale of komodo dragons

Bayern Munich defender Mats Hummels has said he does not bear a grudge over Germany coach Joachim Loew's decision to axe him and teammates Thomas Mueller and Jerome Boateng.
"I myself do things that other people aren't happy with, so I am not resentful about decisions other people make which have an effect on me," Hummels said in an interview with Sport Bild magazine on Wednesday.
Loew's decision to send the experienced Bayern trio into international retirement sent shockwaves through German football three weeks ago.
The Germany coach faced heavy criticism for the way he had communicated the decision, with Mueller saying that Loew had shown a lack of class.
Hummels, though, struck a more conciliatory tone on Wednesday.
"It was impossible for Loew to find the perfect way of informing us," he said.
"It was probably difficult for him to find a way in which we could all leave the discussion feeling like everything had been done in the right way." The 30-year-old admitted that Loew's ...

Hummels 'not resentful' over Loew decision

Thousands of pieces of antique silver that a Russian aristocratic family hid from the Bolsheviks have gone on public display for the first time in the former imperial capital of Saint Petersburg after being found by builders.
More than 2,000 silver items made by Russia's finest jewellers and valued at more than USD 2 million are being shown at the Tsarskoye Selo palace, one of the former residences of the tsars that is now a museum.
The trove of silver -- including a tea set, ornamental figures, trays and cutlery -- once belonged to the aristocratic Narshykin family, one of the country's richest, who were forced to flee abroad after the 1917 Revolution.
For more than a century, the silver lay hidden in a mansion in Saint Petersburg that had once belonged to the family.
"A discovery of this sort is extremely rare: a treasure trove that is complete, that all belonged to the same family and is very well preserved. It's unique," said Olga Taratynova, the head of the Tsarskoye Selo palace .

Long-lost treasure of Russian aristocrats displayed for first time

The US Supreme Court overturned Tuesday a ruling ordering Sudan to pay damages to the families of 17 servicemen killed in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen.
The high court ruled on procedural grounds: under regulations related to the prosecution of foreign states, it said the Sudanese government should have been served the complaint in Khartoum instead of via its embassy in Washington.
"In cases with sensitive diplomatic implications, the rule of law demands adherence to strict rules," the justices said in an 8-1 ruling.
On October 12, 2000, a rubber boat loaded with explosives blew up as it rounded the bow of the guided-missile destroyer, which had just pulled into Aden, Yemen, for a refueling stop.
Seventeen American sailors were killed as well as the two perpetrators of the attack claimed by Al-Qaeda, in an early success for the terror group and its founder Osama bin Laden.
A US court then ruled that Sudan, where the two bombers were trained, was responsible for the attack .

US Supreme Court backs Sudan over USS Cole damages

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa's son Andile admitted on Wednesday he was paid USD 140,000 by a company facing extensive corruption allegations, an admission that could embarrass his father ahead of polls.
President Ramaphosa has sought, ahead of elections on May 8, to de-toxify the ruling African National Congress which has been embroiled in numerous graft scandals since coming to power in 1994.
"It was a severe oversight on our part," Andile told the News24 site of a USD 16,000-a-month deal his company signed with the Bosasa group in December 2017.
Bosasa, which is now African Global Operations, was a conglomerate involved in bidding for and running lucrative government contracts.
Several suspects including the company's former chief operating officer Angelo Agrizzi appeared at the Specialised Commercial Crimes Court Wednesday over the alleged theft of USD120 million from contracts with the prisons service.
The case was postponed to July.
"It is clear now with the benefit of 

S.Africa president's son paid by scandal company: media

China has banned imports from a second Canadian canola firm, its customs administration said Tuesday, the latest escalation of a burgeoning row between the two countries.
Following the detection of harmful organisms in canola shipments from Viterra Inc., China's customs authority has decided to revoke the firm's company registration and suspend imports of its canola seeds, it said in an online statement.
China's customs administration will "continue to strengthen the on-site quarantine and laboratory testing and identification of imported Canadian canola seeds", it added.
At a press briefing Wednesday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang called the latest ban "normal quarantine safety precautions" that were "scientific and reasonable", as well as in line with both Chinese laws and international practice.
The ban comes less than a month after Beijing removed the export permit of major Canadian canola firm Richardson International, which was blocked following the discovery of 

China expands ban on Canadian canola imports to second firm

European Council President Donald Tusk urged EU lawmakers Wednesday to remain open to a long postponement of Brexit while Britain rethinks its position, urging them not to "betray" the UK's pro-Europe voters.
"I said that we should be open to a long extension if the UK wishes to rethink its Brexit strategy, which would of course mean the UK's participation in the European Parliament elections," Tusk said.
"And then there were voices saying that this would be harmful or inconvenient to some of you. Let me be clear, such thinking is unacceptable," he told the Strasbourg assembly.
At last week's European summit, EU leaders agreed to delay the day of Britain's departure from the bloc by three weeks until April 12, while Prime Minister Theresa May struggles to ratify a withdrawal treaty.
But many on the continent -- most vocally France's President Emmanuel Macron -- oppose a longer extension, concerned it would disrupt the European Parliament elections that start on May 23.
If Britain is ..

Tusk urges EU not to 'betray' pro-Europe British voters

China can easily meet its Paris climate pledge to peak its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, but sourcing 20 per cent of its energy needs from renewables and nuclear power by that date may be considerably harder, researchers said Tuesday.
Tripling the share of non-fossil fuels will require a major overhaul of China's recalcitrant power sector and the full deployment of a fledgling emissions trading system, they said in the journal Nature Communications.
There is a lot at stake.
If the world's top carbon polluter fails to achieve these and other voluntary targets, the 2015 treaty's cornerstone goal of capping global warming at "well below" two degrees Celsius may remain out of reach.
On current trajectories, the planet is set to warm twice that much by century's end.
China has also pledged to expand carbon-absorbing forests by 4,500 square kilometres before 2030, compared to 2005 levels.
"China is on track to achieve its climate commitments," lead author Kelly Sims, director of The ...

Can China keep its climate promises?

China has expelled former Interpol chief Meng Hongwei from the Communist Party and dismissed him from his official positions, the country's graft watchdog announced Wednesday.
Meng, who served as the vice minister of public security, disappeared last year during a visit to China from France and was later accused of accepting bribes.
"Meng Hongwei has no party principle... does not report personal matters in accordance with regulations... and refuses to implement the decision of the Party Central Committee," the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said in a statement.

China expels ex-Interpol chief Meng from Communist Party

Palestinian militants fired a rocket at Israel late Tuesday prompting further retaliation strikes from the Israeli army, with the late-night exchanges threatening claims of a truce.
It comes hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was prepared for further military action in Gaza, at a highly sensitive time ahead of Israel's April 9 elections.
The latest severe flare-up began early Monday when a rare long-distance rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit a house north of Tel Aviv, wounding seven Israelis.
The Israeli military hit back with a series of air strikes across the enclave and Palestinian militants launched a barrage of new rockets. No casualties have been reported.
Calm prevailed throughout Tuesday, with Hamas claiming Egypt had brokered a ceasefire, but as night fell Israel said a projectile was fired from Gaza around 8:00 pm (1800 GMT).
Hamas, the Islamic Jihad and other groups said "the rocket that hit near Ashkelon was the work of an individual and the factions .

New Gaza rocket threatens truce after Netanyahu warning

The prestigious Yale University has expelled a student whose parents paid more than a million dollars in bribes to get her in, the first such move since a huge admissions scandal erupted earlier this month.
Some 50 people have been indicted so far in a scam to help children of the American elite gain entry into top US colleges.
They include sports coaches who provided bogus recommendations, university administrators who manipulated test scores, and 33 parents accused of paying bribes totalling some USD 6.5 million to guarantee admission for their children.
In a statement published on its website on Tuesday, Yale said it had first learnt about the scheme in mid-November, when it was approached by the Boston US Attorney's Office requesting information about head women's soccer coach Rudy Meredith.
According to the university, Meredith, who left Yale just before it was approached by authorities, provided fraudulent athletic recommendations to "two applicants only."
One of the two was ...

Yale expels student implicated in admissions scam

The head of South Korea's flag carrier Korean Air -- whose family have been embroiled in multiple scandals including one involving a "nut rage" tantrum -- lost his board seat after shareholders voted against extending his term as director, the airline said Wednesday.
Cho Yang-ho, who is currently on trial for corruption, failed to secure a required two-thirds majority, becoming the first controlling shareholder of a South Korean conglomerate to be forced off the board.
The super-wealthy owners of chaebols -- the sprawling conglomerates that dominate the world's 11th-largest economy -- are no strangers to controversy, but a string of high-profile scandals have vaulted the Cho family to notoriety in South Korea, even sparking protests by their employees.
The 70-year-old tycoon is the chairman of the Hanjin Group, which used to own the now-bankrupt Hanjin Shipping line.
Cho controls around 30 per cent of Korean Air through its parent company Hanjin Kal.
But the National Pension Service, .

AFP

AFP

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