US Set To Relax Cannabis Rules For $47bn Industry
The US Justice Department moved Thursday to loosen federal restrictions on marijuana, announcing it would immediately ease rules on state-regulated medical cannabis products and fast-track a broader reclassification of the drug — the most significant shift in American drug policy in decades, arriving from an administration that few in the cannabis industry had expected to […]
Microsoft Plans Unprecedented Australia Spending Commitment
Microsoft will pour $18 billion into Australia over the next three years in what chief executive Satya Nadella described as the company’s largest-ever investment in the country, channelling the money into AI supercomputing infrastructure and government cybersecurity systems as the technology giant accelerates its global push to dominate artificial intelligence deployment. Nadella announced the commitment […]
Thailand Endorses Myanmar’s ASEAN Normalization Campaign
Thailand has positioned itself as Myanmar’s primary advocate for returning to ASEAN’s good graces, with its foreign minister meeting newly installed President Min Aung Hlaing on Wednesday to discuss the path back to a regional bloc that has kept the military leadership at arm’s length for four years. Thai Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow told reporters […]
Syrian Minority Asylum Seekers Face European Rejection Wave
Armed men came for Mohamad and his father on March 7 last year, forcing them face down on the floor of their apartment in the Syrian city of Jableh while they pleaded for their lives. The gunmen eventually left with cash and belongings. The family left with something harder to shake — the knowledge that […]
Beijing Applauds Countries Blocking Taiwan Leader’s Airspace
Taiwan’s president was grounded before he left — blocked from the sky over three African nations that revoked overflight permission for his aircraft, forcing the cancellation of a trip to Eswatini and delivering Beijing a diplomatic victory it wasted no time celebrating. Lai Ching-te had been scheduled to travel to the small southern African kingdom, […]
Systemic Rot: MTN Faces Seven-Day Ultimatum
MTN Nigeria is under direct pressure to answer for what many subscribers now regard as one of the most persistent and infuriating failures in the country’s telecom space: the steady, unexplained disappearance of paid data and the deepening sense that no one at the top is prepared to account for it. In a formal statement […]
India’s Ceramic Industry Bleeds Jobs As Iran War Escalates
Pradeep Kumar spent seven years loading clay, quartz and sand into ceramic kilns in Morbi, Gujarat, working through summer heat without protective gear, earning enough to keep his wife and three children fed. On March 15, a war he had nothing to do with ended all of it. Two weeks after the United States and […]
Major NYC Storm Could Trigger $100B Insurance Loss — KCC
A single catastrophic hurricane making landfall at the wrong point along New York’s coastline could generate more than $200 billion in insured losses — a figure that would dwarf anything the American insurance industry has absorbed from a single weather event and that reflects the staggering concentration of insured wealth packed into one of the […]
Trump Labor Chief Chavez-DeRemer Leaves White House
Lori Chavez-DeRemer became the third member of Donald Trump‘s Cabinet to lose her position Monday, departing the Labor Department under a cloud of misconduct allegations that had been accumulating since January and that ultimately proved too heavy for an administration whose initial denials had grown progressively quieter as each new report landed. The White House […]
Ex-Algerian Minister Imprisoned In High-Profile Graft Case
Algeria’s former industry minister walked out of a courtroom Monday with a five-year prison sentence and the distinction of being the latest prominent official to discover that Abdelmadjid Tebboune’s anti-corruption campaign has a longer arm than his predecessors ever allowed. Ali Aoun, who held the industry portfolio from 2022 to 2024, was convicted on charges […]
Japan Ends Weapons Export Ban In Historic Policy Reversal
Japan crossed a threshold on Tuesday that its post-war constitution was specifically written to prevent it from crossing — announcing that it would lift the ban on exporting lethal weapons including fighter jets, missiles and warships, in the most significant dismantling of the country’s pacifist defence posture since the Second World War ended eight decades […]
Jonathan Hits Back At Atiku: ‘I Did My Best As President’
Goodluck Jonathan does not appear to be a man who enjoys being described as inexperienced, particularly by someone who has spent three decades trying and failing to become president. The former Nigerian president pushed back Monday at an Abuja awards ceremony, responding without naming Atiku Abubakar directly but with enough precision that nobody in the […]