The cancellation has added to concerns about the poor prospects for the G20 diplomats to reach consensus on many of the most contentious issues they face
Morocco's date production is projected to reach 177,000 tons during the 2026-2027 agricultural campaign, an 11% increase over the previous season. This forecast was highlighted during the 15th International Date Palm Exhibition (SIDATTES) in Erfoud, where Ministry of Agriculture, Maritime Fisheries, and Food Sovereignty officials outlined the sector's role in oasis sustainability.
The Draa-Tafilalet region remains the primary production hub, accounting for 83% of national output. The region manages over 6.49 million palms across 225 varieties on 56,000 hectares. Supporting this concentration, the region exported 1,510 tons of dates in 2026. The remaining production is split equally between the Souss-Massa and Oriental regions (7.5% each).
The sector generates over 3 billion dirhams in value added and provides more than 3.4 million working days annually. For many oasis households, date cultivation accounts for up to 60% of total agricultural income, functioning as a mechanism to reduce rural exodus and combat desertification.
"The persecution began even sooner than I imagined," Mr. Bolsonaro said during an Instagram livestream in which he discussed his decision to flee after his Brazilian passports were cancelled as part of a money laundering investigation
The U.S. Department of Justice said the men had carried out clandestine intelligence activities in the United States that included facilitating "dead drop" cash payments in exchange for information related to the national security of the United States
Doug and Jean Seabridge had been happily married for 53 years when they died within 33 hours of each other, with their family saying Jean simply couldn't bear to be apart from her husband.
• Oman rescues 25 sailors after merchant ship attacked, set ablaze • Iran halts three oil tankers in Hormuz for ‘unauthorised crossing’ • G20 talks overshadowed by deep rifts over conflicts in Iran, Ukraine
TEHRAN: A Qatari delegation arrived in Tehran on Friday for talks with senior Iranian officials, state media reported, as mediators press efforts to revive peace talks with the United States amid rising fears of a return to hostilities in the Middle East war.
The delegation, led by a senior adviser to Qatar’s prime minister, came to discuss “bilateral relations … as well as regional developments”, the state news agency IRNA said.
It is the latest in a string of visits by senior officials from several countries to the Iranian capital in recent days, as fears grow that the war, now in its eighth month, could flare up again.
Qatar and Pakistan have mediated talks since an April ceasefire. The war began on Feb 28, when US-Israeli strikes on Iran killed the former supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iran retaliated with attacks on Israel and US assets, and has since blocked ships from using the Strait of Hormuz, which normally carries about a fifth of global oil consumption.
The tension at sea was underlined on Friday when Oman said it had rescued 25 sailors from a merchant ship that was targeted and set ablaze.
Muscat’s navy carried out an evacuation of the crew of the Panama-flagged RITI after a fire broke out on board, Oman’s Maritime Security Centre said.
Separately, Iran said three oil tankers had been halted as they crossed the blockaded strait. The Revolutionary Guards said two vessels attempting to pass through an unauthorised route “encountered incidents and were brought to a halt” in waters south of the strait after ignoring radio warnings.
A third supertanker, carrying two million barrels of oil, exploded and caught fire after striking a naval mine while on an unauthorised route, the Guards added.
Meanwhile, the fallout from the conflict has reached the diplomatic stage in the United States. Speaking to G20 counterparts in Atlanta, including Russia’s Sergei Lavrov, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said the world faced a critical “moment of choosing” in tackling “interconnected economic and geopolitical crises” as the wars in Ukraine and Iran deepen divisions among members.
The strains were visible before the two-day meeting began. A traditional group photograph was cancelled after European officials objected to appearing alongside Lavrov.
The German foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, said: “There is no normality with Russia.”
Experts and diplomats said the deep rifts over the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East were likely to derail any unified action or joint statement.
The gathering, held just days before the US midterm elections, also comes as global energy prices have soared since the US war on Iran began. It sets the stage for a G20 leaders’ summit in December at Donald Trump’s Doral resort in Miami.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said he is "open" to calls for Britain to formally apologise for its role in the slave trade, but ruled out considering financial reparations
Philippine agriculture authorities plan to authorize the commercial sale of a second vaccine against African swine fever (ASF) by the end of November, according to Deputy Secretary Constante J. Palabrica. The move aims to provide local swine farms with a broader range of prophylactic options. In September, the Department of Agriculture already approved the AVAC vaccine, which is produced in Vietnam.
The upcoming addition is expected to be a South Korean formulation. The ministry intends to certify a third vaccine, likely supplied from Thailand, by next year. To fund this expanded immunization program, Secretary Francisco P. Tiu Laurel Jr. approved a budget of 1 billion pesos. These funds will subsidize vaccination for livestock, covering both ASF and avian influenza, while the department finalizes distribution protocols.
The urgency of these measures is driven by a widespread epidemic that has impacted the sector's capacity. The Animal Industry Bureau reports that ASF outbreaks have affected 76 of the country's 82 provinces. Since the disease first appeared in the Philippines in 2019, the national swine population has declined from 13 million to approximately 8 million heads due to culling and natural mortality.
It was not immediately clear who had carried out the attack, which added to growing concerns about the impact of Russia's war in Ukraine on commercial shipping in the area.
The U.S. midterm elections on November 3 determine control of Congress, with all 435 House seats, about one-third of the 100 Senate seats, and numerous state governorships up for grabs, in a nationwide vote that weakens or strengthens the President’s agenda depending on which party prevails.
Pike and her boyfriend tortured and stabbed a 19-year-old classmate, Colleen Slemmer, to death in 1995. Pike was 18 at the time, making her one of the youngest women sentenced to death. Slemmer's...
Uzbekistan is attempting to convert its landlocked geography into a functioning logistics system by integrating the Middle Corridor (Trans-Caspian International Transport Route) with the proposed China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway. The objective is to move beyond being a transit territory toward becoming a hub of operational capacity where goods are processed and distributed.
The effectiveness of these routes remains constrained by administrative bottlenecks, including border wait times, documentation costs, and the complexities of multimodal transshipment. To address these physical constraints, the country is focusing on the development of multimodal terminals and the synchronization of tariff policies with neighboring states.
Digital infrastructure is being deployed to increase actual throughput. In April 2024, within the framework of the Organization of Turkic States, a memorandum was signed in Bishkek to implement the e-CMR system for international road transport. This transition to electronic consignment notes is designed to automate data exchange and reduce vehicle idling at border crossings.
Dock workers suspended operations at 113 ports across 22 nations this Friday, blocking an estimated $2.8 billion in cargo as part of a coordinated strike demanding an end to Israel’s offensive in Gaza and a halt to the use of maritime infrastructure for military logistics.
The action was driven by the collective No Harbour for Genocide. Organizers said the 24-hour work stoppage would freeze goods across Mediterranean ports and cut the supply lines that keep the war machine running.
Unions from Türkiye, Morocco, Italy, France, Greece and Spain’s Basque Country issued a joint statement demanding an immediate end to Israel’s military siege, the opening of a humanitarian corridor and recognition of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders. They also rejected any support for military interventions in the Middle East.
“Ports must not be used to transport weapons, ammunition, military equipment or troops,” the unions said, while insisting that infrastructure should not serve as bases for NATO, United States or the European Union.
Dockworkers in 113 ports across 22 countries stopped work today because the governments of Britain, Europe and America still ship weapons to Israel, which a UN report this week says is continuing to commit genocide in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/6yaXhi2PcQ
The intersyndical collective framed the strike as a blockade that governments have refused to impose. “A load rejected in one port continues on to the next. If it is rejected in all ports, the load stops,” they argued.
“Without us nothing moves. Without our hands, containers remain still, and the war machine is blocked,” the statement added.
The mobilization had multiple epicenters. In Italy, the USB and ORSA Porti unions paralyzed the docks of Genoa, Livorno, Trieste and Naples, extending the action into a general strike that disrupted transport and public services. Workers there oppose the rearmament drive led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government and reject austerity budgets.
In Greece, the ENEDEP union called a stoppage at the port of Piraeus and demanded collective agreements guaranteeing safety conditions. In France, the CGT FNPD led blockades in Marseille and Le Havre amid ongoing student protests.
In Spain, the LAB union organized demonstrations in Bilbao and Pasajes. In United States, rallies were announced at the ports of Elizabeth, New Jersey, Oakland and San Francisco.
In Türkiye and Morocco, the LIMAN-İŞ and ODT unions joined with assemblies at the dockside, where they demanded the rupture of treaties that allow logistical supply to Israel. The call echoes the Palestinian trade union movement’s appeal to block military shipments.
“They want our hands to load weapons, to serve their armies.”
The strike unfolded as a recent UN report warned that Israeli authorities and forces continue committing genocidal acts in Gaza despite the October ceasefire agreement. The report details crimes including extermination, persecution and torture in the occupied territories.
Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has left more than 74,555 people dead and 175,727 wounded, according to the figures cited by organizers.
The international action signals a widening labor front against the war. From the Mediterranean to the Pacific coast of the United States, the message from the docks was the same, that no cargo bound for the conflict should sail unchallenged.
Organizers described the strike as proof that workers hold direct power over the logistics of war. If the ports refuse the load, they said, the load stops, regardless of what governments decide.
The coordinated shutdown marks one of the broadest labor actions against Israel’s offensive since the genocide began, connecting dockers, students and unions across three continents in a single day of refusal.
Uzbekistan's hydrocarbon sector shifted toward deeper processing during the first nine months of 2026, increasing the output of refined products while raw material extraction remained stable. Production data for the period shows 27 billion cubic meters of natural gas, 729,200 tons of gas condensate, and 482,200 tons of oil.
The growth in refined output occurred despite the plateau in raw extraction. Production of motor gasoline rose by 2.6%, and diesel fuel output increased by 11.7%. This shift reflects an optimization of refinery capacities aimed at increasing domestic value addition and reducing reliance on imported finished petroleum products.
The nonperforming loan (NPL) ratio in the Philippine banking sector fell to 3.27% by the end of September, marking the lowest level since December of the previous year. Preliminary data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) indicates this decline coincided with an expansion of the industry's total loan portfolio to 18.133 trillion pesos, representing a 1.97% month-over-month increase and an 11.42% year-over-year rise.
Loans are classified as nonperforming when payments are overdue by 90 days or more. In absolute terms, the volume of such loans decreased by 0.51% to 593.275 billion pesos compared to August, although the total increased by 10.09% on an annual basis from 538.924 billion pesos. During the same period, the volume of overdue loans rose slightly by 0.24% to 771.748 billion pesos, yet their share of the total portfolio dropped to 4.26% from 4.33% in the prior month.
Banks have strengthened their financial buffers against potential losses. Provisions for credit losses grew to 557.979 billion pesos in September, lifting the NPL coverage ratio-which measures reserves relative to nonperforming loans-to 94.05% from 93.17% in August. The BSP notes that this increase in provisioning reflects standard risk management practices driven by the expansion of consumer lending, rather than signs of a systemic crisis or deteriorating asset quality.
ATLANTA: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s remarks about continuing strikes on Russian targets, saying they undermined preparations for fresh peace talks, while the European Union’s top diplomat accused Moscow of spreading “lies” and showing no genuine readiness to negotiate. The contrasting positions underscored persistent divisions over efforts to end the war in Ukraine, as foreign ministers gathered for a Group of 20 meeting i
In Chile, access to oncological care is increasingly determined by the system's ability to track patients across treatment stages rather than by budget availability alone. Despite a nearly 90% increase in state expenditures for cancer treatment, service coverage has risen by only 32%. This gap reveals a structural failure: increased funding does not automatically translate into accessible treatment if patient data is lost during transitions between institutions.
The primary barrier to realizing the right to healthcare is the absence of a unified national cancer registry. Currently, health data is fragmented, collected by separate services that do not exchange information in real-time. Consequently, patients can effectively disappear from the system when moving between levels of care. For instance, when a primary care physician diagnoses a suspected oncology case and refers the patient to a hospital, information about the hospital's treatment progress often does not return to the primary care network. This loss of continuity undermines the primary sector's ability to monitor the patient's condition and manage ongoing prevention.
The lack of interoperability-the capacity for different information systems to interact-exacerbates these access issues, particularly for geographically mobile patients. If a person waiting for a diagnostic test in Arica relocates to Coyhaique, their medical history does not follow them, causing treatment processes to be reset or significantly delayed.
In the Ananimasina fokontany of Sector 7, located in the Bouéni region of Madagascar, officials have commissioned a new water well to address a supply gap that has persisted for over a decade. The project, executed by the regional DREAH administration with support from the relevant ministry, marks a concrete shift in local capacity, adding physical infrastructure to a region where most of the 26 fokontanys in the Mahajanga district lack stable access to water.
The operational deficit in the Mahajanga area is quantifiable: the utility company Jirama currently produces 27,000 cubic meters of water per day, while local demand stands at 34,000 cubic meters daily. This creates a daily shortfall of 7,000 cubic meters. To close this gap, authorities have activated the Access to Potable Water and Sanitation Program (PAAEP), which is the mechanism driving the new infrastructure build-out.
The absence of centralized supply imposes direct economic costs on households. In the face of climate-induced droughts-characterized by high temperatures and minimal rainfall in October-residents rely on paid water points. The price for two 20-liter jerry cans is 1,000 ariary. For a family of five, this translates to a daily expenditure of approximately 8,000 ariary for basic needs such as hygiene, cooking, and laundry. This recurring cost diverts a significant portion of household budgets away from other goods and services.
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