Federal budgets are fiscal plans. They tell parliamentarians and Canadians how the government plans to manage the nation’s finances given the state of the economy and reasonable assumptions about the outlook and risks. So, how does Budget 2018 measure up? Budget 2018 largely meets expectations shaped by the government in recent weeks. Modest fiscal allocations…
The Indian state of Kerala was on lockdown on Friday after violent protests saw more than 1,000 people arrested after women were admitted to an historic Hindu temple. Fresh demonstrations hit several towns and cities after a 46-year-old Sri Lankan woman became the third female of “menstruating age” to enter the Sabarimala temple complex, late on…
NEW YORK — Facebook plunged to its worst loss in four years Monday and led a rout in technology companies. The social media company’s stock fell following reports that a data mining firm working for the Trump campaign improperly obtained data on 50 million Facebook users. The drop in Facebook stock came after the New…
Beijing will not rule out the use of force to ensure the “unshakable historic task” of its complete reunification with Taiwan, Xi Jinping, the Chinese President, said on Wednesday, warning that independence for the island would bring “profound disaster.” “China must and will be united, which is an inevitable requirement for the historical rejuvenation of the…
House prices in many parts of Canada have been soaring for years. Mortgages are growing larger and the number of households with extreme levels of debt is multiplying rapidly. So you’d think that we would be seeing an increase in the number of households that are having a hard time paying off their mortgages. Not…
Canada’s housing market is getting a big helping hand from house-hungry millennials, but that will come to an end in the next several years, bringing with it an era of stagnation, the Bank of Montreal predicts. In a new affordability analysis, BMO says the country’s burgeoning millennial population will rescue the housing market from its…
Argentina’s former president Cristina Kirchner, who has been accused of receiving tens of millions of dollars in bribes during her term in office, will go on trial for corruption, a federal court confirmed on Thursday. Mrs Kirchner is accused of running a criminal network at the heart of the infamous "corruption notebooks" scandal – bribes paid by businessmen…
LONDON (Reuters) — The U.S. dollar edged down on Tuesday, while the Canadian dollar traded close to an eight-month low on persistent worries about a trade war stemming from U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs on imported steel and aluminum. Against the yen — traditionally seen as a safe haven — the U.S. dollar edged…
Monks have been secluding themselves from the world for more than a millennium in the caves of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, where 120 mummified brothers lie in glass-covered coffins along the low, sloping corridors. Their solitude has been increasingly interrupted, however, since the top patriarch in Istanbul said in October he’d recognise a new Ukrainian church…
TORONTO — Consumers who yearn for more alternatives to Canada’s large wireless carriers will have to wait longer, but in the meantime the CRTC has ordered the Big Three to offer consumers the option of lower-cost, data-only plans. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission said Thursday that it has ordered Rogers, Bell and Telus to…