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Japan's ruling and opposition parties agreed Tuesday to work toward abolishing policy activity funds, which are not subject to disclosure even when such income reaches hundreds of millions of yen, during their first meeting on political reforms. But the ruling Liberal Democratic Party has expressed reluctance to eliminate corporate donations, which have benefited the pro-business LDP, lawmakers said, despite criticism that the practice is considered a form of bribery that could distort policy outcomes. The discussions come as Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's LDP seeks to reach policy consensus with the opposition camp, after the party and its junior coalition partner lost their majority in the House of Representatives election on Oct. 27. The LDP aims to enact new revisions to the political funds control law by the end of the year. Party powerbrokers have not been required to report how they spend the money, raising doubts about whether it may have been used inappropriately. The Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan said it intends to map out its own proposals on political funds reforms. It remains uncertain whether the main opposition party and the LDP will make concessions on the issue, lawmakers said. The 24-day extraordinary parliamentary session is scheduled to convene on Thursday, as the LDP faces intense scrutiny over revelations that some of its factions failed to report portions of income from fundraising events and created slush funds. Revisions to the law were previously passed in June, when the LDP, then led by Ishiba's predecessor, former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, attempted to showcase efforts to reform the political funds system to regain public trust in politics. The changes, however, were criticized as insufficient, with opposition parties highlighting the absence of a ban on corporate donations and the lack of clarity on when mandatory disclosures of policy activity funds would be implemented.Turkish Airlines to Begin Operations at The New Terminal One at JFK and Unveil World-Class Lounge
TORONTO — Canada's main stock index fell more than 100 points Friday, led by losses in base metal and telecom stocks, while U.S. stock markets were mixed ahead of next week's interest rate decision from the U.S. Federal Reserve. This week, the Bank of Canada announced another outsized interest rate cut of half a percentage point while also signalling it plans to slow the pace of cuts going forward. Allan Small, senior investment adviser at iA Private Wealth, said the central bank is juggling a lot of balls heading into the new year, including a faltering economy, a housing market that’s poised to heat up, and a U.S. Fed likely to cut much slower next year. “If (the Bank of Canada) continues to cut when the U.S. doesn’t, where does that leave our dollar?” asked Small. “They’re flying by the seat of their pants.” The S&P/TSX composite index closed down 136.41 points at 25,274.30. In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 86.06 points at 43,828.06. The S&P 500 index was down 0.16 points at 6,051.09, while the Nasdaq composite was up 23.88 points at 19,926.72. The Fed has done a better job of tamping down inflation while not harming the economy too much, said Small. The Fed is expected to cut by a quarter-percentage point next week, and its path is clearer than the Bank of Canada’s, said Small. “I don’t think they have much room to cut more,” he said, noting this week saw U.S. inflation data tick up from the month before. “Most people think they’ll go 25 (basis points) and pause for a little while,” said Small. “Would I be surprised to see them not cut at all? No, but I think the market would take that negatively.” Heading into the last few weeks of the year, Small said if there’s a so-called Santa Claus rally, it may be more muted than usual. “It's quite possible we've taken some gains that we normally would have had in December, brought them forward into November, and now December might not be as strong as we normally see,” he said. On Wall St., the Nasdaq did a little better than its U.S. peers as semiconductor company Broadcom saw its stock gain more than 24 per cent after reporting earnings. “I think the commentary on the conference call really caused the stock to shoot up," said Small. The company gave a bright forecast for investors on the back of expected growth in artificial intelligence. This week, Broadcom and Apple also announced a deal to develop a chip for AI. The Canadian dollar traded for 70.27 cents US compared with 70.48 cents US on Thursday. The January crude oil contract was up US$1.27 at US$71.29 per barrel and the January natural gas contract was down 18 cents at US$3.28 per mmBTU. The February gold contract was down US$33.60 at US$2,675.80 an ounce and the March copper contract was down five cents at US$4.15 a pound. — With files from The Associated Press This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 13, 2024. Companies in this story: (TSX:GSPTSE, TSX:CADUSD) Rosa Saba, The Canadian Press
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I was asked to come up with my top 5 Aussie films of 2024. It was a difficult taskTurkish Airlines to Begin Operations at The New Terminal One at JFK and Unveil World-Class Lounge
Hims & Hers New Growth Category Is a Huge SurpriseLegislative leaders announced this week who will chair committees in the next session, appointments that will shape the tenor of debate in the Minnesota House that will almost certainly be evenly divided in a rare tie between DFLers and Republicans. Bills are typically debated and amended in at least one committee before going before the full House for a vote. In a typical year, bills could pass out of committee on a partisan vote. But the two caucus leaders, Rep. Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park and Rep. Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, say committees will consist of 14 representatives, seven from each party. And next year’s rules will require eight votes for a bill to pass out of committee — not just a majority of the representatives present. “So that we’re not playing the ‘who went to the bathroom’ game or, ‘whose car got stuck in the snow’” Hortman said. “That was part of the problem they encountered in 1979,” the last year the House was tied. Instead of trying to find a partisan advantage at any opportunity, Hortman and Demuth said they both want to work on a bipartisan basis. When a bill comes out of committee, Hortman said, it will already have bipartisan support. She compared the process of finding bipartisan agreement on a bill in committee to conference committees during divided government. When the DFL controlled the House and Republicans controlled the Senate from 2019 to 2022, she said, Republicans and Democrats had to come to agreements on bills. She and Demuth are confident that can happen again. Who is leading committees? In a normal year with one party in the majority, the majority party would appoint representatives to run committees. But this year, each committee will have two co-chairs, one from each party. Hortman said the plan is for the Republican and Democratic co-chairs to each lead about half of the committee meetings, setting the agenda for the day. Maybe that will mean a week of DFL-run meetings followed by a week of Republican-run meetings, she said, but more likely the partisan co-chairs will just alternate days. Demuth and Hortman said they worked together to decide how many committees there would be and which subjects they would work on. The caucuses appointed committee co-chairs independent of each other. Demuth said she was focused on seniority and subject-area expertise. One exception to seniority is the Rules and Legislative Administration committee. The Republican co-chair of that committee is Rep. Harry Niska, R-Ramsey, who was just elected to his second term this month. Demuth explained that Niska will chair that committee because the Republican caucus elected him their deputy leader. The Rules committee will be co-chaired by one of the more powerful Democrats in the House. Rep. Jamie Long, DFL-Minneapolis, the Rules DFL co-chair, is one of three representatives on the DFL’s “organizational team” working just under Hortman. What could this mean? With the two parties unlikely to find much common ground on policy legislation, most expect the main action of the 2025 legislative session will be the biennial budget, with a chance to pass a bonding bill to borrow for major one-time spending. Because Minnesota requires a 60% supermajority to pass a bonding bill, the process is typically more bipartisan. Recommendations for bonding go through the Capital Investment Committee, which will be co-chaired by Rep. Mary Franson, R-Alexandria, and Rep. Fue Lee, DFL-Minneapolis. Lee chaired the capital investment committee last session, and Franson was also a member. “The legislative process is all about finding compromise that can work,” Hortman said. “We are ready to get to work,” added Demuth.Here's what the H-1B visa debate with Musk and Ramaswamy is about
US urges push for Syria de-escalation
US urges push for Syria de-escalationBrazil’s federal police last Thursday formally accused Mr Bolsonaro and 36 other people of attempting a coup. They sent their 884-page report to the Supreme Court, which lifted the seal. “The evidence collected throughout the investigation shows unequivocally that then-president Jair Messias Bolsonaro planned, acted and was directly and effectively aware of the actions of the criminal organisation aiming to launch a coup d’etat and eliminate the democratic rule of law, which did not take place due to reasons unrelated to his desire,” the document said. At another point, it says: “Bolsonaro had full awareness and active participation.” Mr Bolsonaro, who had repeatedly alleged without evidence that the country’s electronic voting system was prone to fraud, called a meeting in December 2022, during which he presented a draft decree to the commanders of the three divisions of the armed forces, according to the police report, signed by four investigators. The decree would have launched an investigation into suspicions of fraud and crimes related to the October 2022 vote, and suspended the powers of the nation’s electoral court. The navy’s commander stood ready to comply, but those from the army and air force objected to any plan that prevented Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s inauguration, the report said. Those refusals are why the plan did not go ahead, according to witnesses who spoke to investigators. Mr Bolsonaro never signed the decree to set the final stage of the alleged plan into action. Mr Bolsonaro has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing or awareness of any plot to keep him in power or oust his leftist rival and successor. “No one is going to do a coup with a reserve general and half a dozen other officers. What is being said is absurd. For my part, there has never been any discussion of a coup,” Mr Bolsonaro told journalists in the capital Brasilia on Monday. “If someone came to discuss a coup with me, I’d say, that’s fine, but the day after, how does the world view us?” he added. “The word ‘coup’ has never been in my dictionary.” The top court has passed the report on to prosecutor-general Paulo Gonet. He will decide whether to formally charge Mr Bolsonaro. Rodrigo Rios, a law professor at the PUC university in the city of Curitiba, said Mr Bolsonaro could face up to a minimum of 11 years in prison if convicted on all charges. “A woman involved in the January 8 attack on the Supreme Court received a 17-year prison sentence,” Mr Rios told the Associated Press, noting that the former president is more likely to receive 15 years or more if convicted. “Bolsonaro’s future looks dark.” Ahead of the 2022 election, Mr Bolsonaro repeatedly alleged that the election system, which does not use paper ballots, could be tampered with. The top electoral court later ruled that he had abused his power to cast unfounded doubt on the voting system, and ruled him ineligible for office until 2030. Still, he has maintained that he will stand as a candidate in the 2026 race. Since Mr Bolsonaro left office, he has been targeted by several investigations, all of which he has chalked up to political persecution. Federal police have accused him of smuggling diamond jewellery into Brazil without properly declaring them and directing a subordinate to falsify his and others’ Covid-19 vaccination statuses. Authorities are also investigating whether he incited the riot on January 8 2022 in which his followers ransacked the Supreme Court and presidential palace in Brasilia, seeking to prompt intervention by the army that would oust Mr Lula from power. Mr Bolsonaro had left for the United States days before Mr Lula’s inauguration on January 1 2023 and stayed there for three months, keeping a low profile. The police report unsealed on Tuesday alleges he was seeking to avoid possible imprisonment related to the coup plot, and also await the uprising that took place a week later.
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