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Dutch pro-farmers party wins big in provincial elections

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:08 GMT

The farmer-friendly FarmerCitizenMovement (BBB) landed a major victory in Wednesday’s Dutch provincial elections, which determine the composition of the Senate.The rural party came from nowhere to finish ahead of Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s center-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) party in an election seen as a referendum on the government’s performance.The results call into question the Rutte government’s ability to implement harsh policies aimed at clamping down on nitrogen emissions from farms, which triggered huge farmers’ protests last summer — and confirm BBB’s meteoric rise in Dutch politics.BBB — which had no representative in the Senate before last night’s election — is set to win 15 out of 75 seats, becoming the largest force in the Parliament’s high chamber (tied with a Labor-Green coalition), ahead of VVD’s 10 seats, according to exit polls published by Dutch newswire ANP on Thursd...

Credit Suisse shares soar after announcing central bank aid

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:08 GMT

GENEVA (AP) — Credit Suisse’s shares have soared 30% after it announced it will move to shore up its finances by borrowing up to nearly $54 billion from the Swiss central bank.It’s a massive swing Thursday after its shares plunged 30% on the SIX stock exchange a day earlier after its biggest shareholder said it would not put more money into the Swiss lender.That dragged down other European banks as fears about the banking system expanded overseas following the collapse of some U.S. banks.Credit Suisse, which was beset by problems long before the U.S. bank failures, said Thursday that it would exercise an option to borrow up to 50 billion francs ($53.7 billion) from the central bank. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.GENEVA (AP) — Credit Suisse said it will move to shore up its finances, borrowing up to nearly $54 billion from the Swiss central bank after its shares plunged, dragging down other major European lenders in the wake of bank fail...

Baidu unveils ChatGPT-rival Ernie Bot; 650 companies sign up

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:08 GMT

HONG KONG (AP) — Chinese search giant Baidu unveiled its artificial intelligence chatbot Ernie Bot, presenting its rival to the Microsoft-backed ChatGPT in a pre-recorded video presentation Thursday that appeared to disappoint investors.Baidu CEO Robin Li said Ernie Bot was still not perfected, but the company went ahead with presenting it due to high demand. Shares plunged 10% after Li showed a prerecorded demonstration of the Ernie bot instead of the real-time live demonstration of its capabilities that many had expected. They closed down 6.4%.During the demonstration, Ernie Bot was asked questions about a Chinese science-fiction novel, “The Three-Body Problem,” and was asked to make an image based on prompts.The Ernie in Ernie Bot stands for “Enhanced Representation of Knowledge Integration.”“Baidu has for over a decade persisted in investing in artificial intelligence … Ernie Bot is the result of many years of hard work,” said Li. He said the first version of Ernie Bot was devel...

Russian authorities detain dissident ex-mayor

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:08 GMT

MOSCOW (AP) — A former mayor of Russia’s fourth-largest city was detained on Thursday on charges that could land him behind bars, part of authorities’ efforts to muzzle dissent.Yevgeny Roizman, a sharp critic of the Kremlin, is one of the most visible and charismatic opposition figures in Russia. He enjoyed broad popularity while serving as mayor of Yekaterinburg, a city of 1.5 million people in the Ural Mountains. Last year, Roizman, 60, who was the mayor from 2013 to 2018, faced accusations of discrediting the Russian military and was barred from attending public events, using the internet, telephone or mail and communicating with anyone other than his lawyers and close family.Police arrested Roizman on Thursday on charges of reposting material containing a reference to the organization led by jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny that was banned by authorities. Roizman’s lawyer rejected the accusations, saying that the ex-mayor wasn’t even regist...

Decisive day for Macron’s pension gamble in tense France

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:08 GMT

PARIS (AP) — France’s standoff over a bill raising the retirement age heads toward a climax Thursday, either via a parliamentary vote or through a special presidential move to force it through the legislature.Garbage workers are keeping up their strikes, and students plan to march to the lower house of parliament as opponents of the bill pressure the government to abandon it. Nearly 500,000 people protested around the country Wednesday.Thursday is a crucial day for President Emmanuel Macron, who is seeking to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 so that workers can pay more money into the system. If he can’t get a parliamentary majority in voting, he could risk imposing the unpopular changes unilaterally.Macron has promoted the pension changes as central to his vision for making the French economy more competitive. Unions remained combative late Wednesday, calling on lawmakers to vote against the plan and denouncing the government’s legal shortcuts to move the bill forward a...

Legault to visit Quebec town reeling from vehicle attack : In The News for Mar. 16

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:08 GMT

In The News is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to kickstart your day. Here is what’s on the radar of our editors for the morning of Mar. 16 …What we are watching in Canada …Quebec Premier François Legault will today visit the eastern Quebec town where a pickup truck plowed into groups of pedestrians, killing two.Legault will be joined by opposition leaders and other politicians in Amqui, the small community in the lower St-Lawrence region, where he will meet with local residents and hold a news conference.Two men were killed and nine people were injured Monday when a man drove a truck down one of the eastern Quebec town’s main streets, allegedly hitting several different groups of pedestrians in what police have described as an intentional act.Thirty-eight-year-old Steeve Gagnon is facing two counts of dangerous driving causing death, and prosecutors have said more charges will follow.Legault said earlier this week that his visit to the ...

Legault, party leaders to visit Quebec town reeling after pedestrians killed by truck

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:08 GMT

AMQUI, Que. — Quebec Premier François Legault will today visit the eastern Quebec town where a pickup truck plowed into groups of pedestrians, killing two.Legault will be joined by opposition leaders and other politicians in Amqui, the small community in the lower St-Lawrence region, where he will meet with local residents and hold a news conference.Two men were killed and nine people were injured Monday when a man drove a truck down one of the eastern Quebec town’s main streets, allegedly hitting several different groups of pedestrians in what police have described as an intentional act.Thirty-eight-year-old Steeve Gagnon is facing two counts of dangerous driving causing death, and prosecutors have said more charges will follow.Legault said earlier this week that his visit to the shaken community is meant as a comforting gesture.A candlelight vigil is also planned in front of the Saint-Benoît-Joseph-Labre church at 7 p.m.This report by The Canadian Press was first published M...

‘Worse than an animal’: Mother enraged as killer claims Amanda Zhao might be alive

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:08 GMT

In 2002, Yang Baoying flew from China to Vancouver to identify her daughter Amanda Zhao’s body.The 21-year-old English student’s remains had been found stuffed in a suitcase in Mission, B.C., and Yang’s identification of her daughter was also confirmed by a police DNA test.Yang returned to Beijing with Zhao’s ashes. She had been “brought home,” her mother said.More than 20 years later, any sense of closure thatact offered has been torn apart by the claims of Zhao’s convicted killer, Ang Li, that he was framed by China’s government and Zhao might not be dead at all.Li said in an interview with New Zealand’s Herald on Sunday newspaper that Zhao could be “still alive and walking around somewhere,” as he described himself as a “political target.”Li, who served a prison sentence in China for killing Zhao, is now seeking refugee status in New Zealand, and posed for newspaper photographs draped in a Tibetan flag, his hands clasped in prayer.Yang told The Canadian Pr...

The rise and fall of Canada’s domestic PPE market

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:08 GMT

Most Canadian businesses that answered federal and provincial calls during the pandemic to build up a domestic sector for personal protective equipment have collapsed.The association that represents Canadian PPE companies says 90 per cent of those businesses have been forced to close or pivot to other industries because the federal government and Ontario have given contracts to a massive American company and a Quebec operation. “We’ve got an industry that is just running on fumes,” Barry Hunt, the president of the Canadian Association of PPE Manufacturers, said in an interview.“Most of them are out of business and the ones that aren’t out of business are going out of business quickly.”A major issue, Hunt said, is large PPE orders the federal and Ontario governments placed with American company 3M, which has a facility in Brockville, Ont., and Quebec-based Medicom. Hospitals – who buy as larger groups – have also shut out domestic PPE suppliers, he...

Temporary closure of Iqaluit centre highlights need to address food insecurity

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:08 GMT

IQALUIT, Nunavut — The executive director of a Nunavut food charity says there’s a need to address the root causes of food insecurity after 500 people in the territorial capital went without a daily meal for a week. The Qajuqturvik Community Food Centre provides a hot lunch on weekdays in Iqaluit, home to nearly 8,000 people. It was forced to temporarily close after the building ran out of fuel in late February, resulting in burst frozen pipes and other damage. Executive director Rachel Blais said centre staff distributed food hampers twice that week, but the closure prevented them from serving about 2,500 meals.“It goes to show the vulnerabilities of the community when such a significant portion of the population is reliant on one single charity,” she said.“We can’t continue to rely on food banks and food charities like Qajuqturvik to provide something as basic as food for such a significant portion of the population.” Nunavut has some of the hig...