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Belgium ‘cannot’ sign off on EU-Canada deal

  Brussels / AFP Belgium is unable to sign off on a landmark EU-Canada free trade deal after Wallonia and other regional administrations refused to give the federal government the go-ahead, Prime Minister Charles Michel said on Monday. “We are not in a position to sign CETA,” Michel said after brief talks with Belgium’s regional leaders in Brussels broke up ...

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Real estate investors seek shelter for Brexit’s finance refugees

  Bloomberg A property company managed by Schroders Plc is bidding for an office building in Frankfurt, anticipating the banking fallout from Brexit will boost values in the German financial center. The London-based property investor isn’t alone preparing for an exodus from the British capital, with both CBRE Global Investors LLC and Standard Life Plc seeking to purchase office space ...

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IS ‘executes’ 5 Iraqis in western town

  Baghdad / AFP The IS group “executed” five Iraqis, including members of the security forces, during ongoing fighting in the western town of Rutba, army officers said on Monday. Extremist fighters launched an attack on Rutba, a remote but strategic town near the Jordanian border in Anbar province, early on Sunday. They briefly seized the mayor’s office before being ...

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Iraq denies Turkey taking part in Mosul operation

  Baghdad / AFP Iraq’s joint operations command on Monday denied Turkey was participating in military operations to retake the northern city of Mosul from the IS group. “The spokesman of the Joint Operations Command denies Turkish participation of any kind in operations for the liberation of Nineveh,” a statement said, referring to the Iraqi province of which Mosul is ...

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In makeshift camps, Haiti storm victims bemoan aid chaos

  Jérémie / AFP Rickety structures made of sheet metal and scrap wood are clustered along the road to the Haitian city of Jeremie, which still hasn’t seen any aid nearly three weeks after Hurricane Matthew. In a scene that is eerily similar to the devastation in Port-au-Prince after the 2010 earthquake, when hundreds of thousands of survivors had to ...

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Russia govt rules out early renewal of Aleppo ceasefire

  Moscow / AFP Russia, blaming failures by the US-led coalition and meagre hopes for diplomacy, on Monday ruled out early moves to renew its ceasefire in Aleppo after a brief truce ended at the weekend. “The question of renewing the humanitarian pause is not relevant now,” deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov told Interfax news agency, in Moscow’s first official ...

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How to refresh a waning faith in democracy

  Donald Trump and his populist, nationalist counterparts in Europe are often portrayed as a threat to democracy. Their supporters argue that establishment politicians and technocrats are an even bigger threat because they listen only to the special interests that feed them. Could it be, then, that democracy in its current American and European forms is a threat to itself? ...

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Europe’s banks think they’re incredibly safe

  Given the parlous state of Europe’s economy, it’s hard to imagine that the investments of the region’s banks are among the safest in the world. Yet that is precisely what they would have regulators and investors believe. The banks’ safety has come into the spotlight as European officials — including German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and European Commission financial-services ...

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Tobacco taxes work, as long as they’re high enough

  When smoking costs more, more people quit. That’s why higher cigarette taxes are almost always good policy, for smokers and the public health, too. There’s a catch, though — and it’s one that voters in four states should keep in mind as they consider ballot initiatives next month to raise cigarette taxes: Sin taxes work only if they’re high ...

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