BREAKING B.C. serial killer Robert Pickton hospitalized after prison attack
British Columbia serial killer Robert Pickton was attacked in a Quebec prison Sunday in what officials described as a "major assault."
Senior finance and central bank officials from Southeast Asia and major economies met Thursday in the scenic Laotian city of Luang Prabang to discuss ways to help the region build resilience against shocks like the COVID-19 pandemic and natural disasters brought on by climate change.
The need for faster progress was dramatically apparent as the city and surrounding region were engulfed in heavy smoke from fires — some set to clear forests for crops, some ignited by record high temperatures and tinder-dry conditions. The air quality index early Thursday was nearly 300, or “very unhealthy.”
Laos and other countries in Southeast Asia have committed to seeking more sustainable ways to feed their people and power their economies. The question is where the money will come from to do that.
Green finance is among several items on the agenda of the finance meetings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations related to countering the mounting impacts of global warming. The officials also were set for talks on an ASEAN infrastructure fund and disaster risk financing and insurance, according to the agenda provided by hosts of this week’s meetings.
Also on the list, refining a “taxonomy” to help identify and agree on projects that support ASEAN’s sustainability agenda and align with its climate change commitments and other goals.
The 10 member nations of ASEAN — Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam — range from tiny but wealthy Brunei and Singapore to big, fast growing economies like Vietnam and Indonesia. They have pledged to cut carbon emissions to help reduce the impact of climate change but are struggling to find ways to unlock financing needed to make that transition.
ASEAN members are extremely vulnerable to extreme weather, drought and rising sea levels. Investments in clean energy need to increase by five to seven times, to more than US$200 billion a year, according to various estimates. Laos and its neighbors also are contending with a raft of other regional troubles, including human trafficking, a growing illicit drug trade and fast-growing enclaves of online scam centers run by criminal syndicates.
A landlocked country of about 7.5 million people, Laos is rich in hydroelectric power, but its economy has been shrinking in recent years and its national finances are fraught — strained by a heavy load of foreign and domestic debt, a weakening currency and inflation.
Longstanding traditions and a lack of funding to persuade farmers not to rely on crop burning — their most affordable option — mean that progress is slow. The government has set a goal of reducing the number of fires by 35% by the end of 2025. Similar burning in neighboring Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia leaves the region shrouded in heavy smog for weeks at a time during the spring.
Countries in the region have begun to build regional electricity grids as one step toward improving a balance between supply and demand.
A higher priority for Laos, a Communist state where annual incomes average below US$2,000 a person, is weaving itself into the wider regional economy of about 660 million people. Combined, the region is the world’s fifth-largest economy at about US$3.3 trillion.
Like many countries in the region, Laos’ economy has become increasingly entwined with that of China. Those ties have deepened with the building of a $6 billion high-speed railway that links to railways in southwest China’s Yunnan province and eventually will be connected with a line running to Bangkok and the Gulf of Thailand. The downside: debts that are a heavy drain on the country's resources.
Along with regional financial leaders, senior officials of major international financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund and Asian Development Bank, along with delegates from Japan, China, the U.S. and other major economies, are attending the talks in Luang Prabang.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is not attending the talks, but traveling to China this week, where she will meet with American business leaders and Chinese officials in south China’s Guangzhou and in Beijing.
Also in Beijing this week were Indonesia’s President-elect Prabowo Subianto and the foreign ministers of Vietnam, Laos and East-Timor, which is aspiring to become an ASEAN member. The flurry of visits highlights rivalries for influence in the region.
British Columbia serial killer Robert Pickton was attacked in a Quebec prison Sunday in what officials described as a "major assault."
Donald Trump's lawyers rested their defence Tuesday without the former president taking the witness stand in his New York hush money trial.
One passenger was killed and 30 injured after a Singapore Airlines SIAL.SI flight from London hit severe turbulence en route on Tuesday, forcing it to make an emergency landing in Bangkok, officials and the airline said.
Anything is possible this week, as far as Canada's weather is concerned, with forecasts ranging from scorching heat in some parts of the country to rain and snow in others.
Canada's annual inflation rate slowed to a three-year low of 2.7 per cent in April, matching expectations, and core measures continued to ease, data showed on Tuesday, likely boosting chances of a June interest rate cut.
Riley Keough, the granddaughter of Elvis Presley, is fighting plans to publicly auction his Graceland estate in Memphis after a company tried to sell the property based on claims that a loan using the king of rock ’n’ roll's former home as collateral was not repaid.
Donald Trump's reelection campaign called 'The Apprentice,' a film about the former U.S. president in the 1980s, 'pure fiction' and vowed legal action following its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. But director Ali Abbasi is offering to privately screen the film for Trump.
Nestle NESN.S will market a new, US$5 line of frozen pizzas and protein-enriched pastas in the United States which it says it designed specifically for people taking drugs such as Wegovy or Ozempic for weight loss.
Members of a Canadian group representing families of those killed when Iranian officials shot down Flight PS752 in January 2020 say they are not sorry to hear of the death of Iran's president.
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A sanctuary dedicated to animals with disabilities is celebrating the third birthday of one of its most popular residents.
2b Theatre recently moved into the old Video Difference building, seeking to transform it into an artistic hub, meeting space, and temporary housing unit for visiting performers in Halifax.
A B.C. woman says her service dog pulled her from a lake moments before she had a seizure, saving her life.
A Starbucks fan — whose name is Winter — is visiting Canada on a purposeful journey that began with a random idea at one of the coffee chain's stores in Texas.
Members of Piapot First Nation, students from the University of Winnipeg and various other professionals are learning new techniques that will hopefully be used for ground searches of potential unmarked grave sites in the future.
ALS patient Mathew Brown said he’s hopeful for future ALS patients after news this week of research at Western University of a potential cure for ALS.