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Increase from 1% to 1.25% follows US Federal Reserve and European Central Bank tightening monetary policyBusiness live – latest updatesJapan’s central bank has increased interest rates to a fresh 31-year high as it attempts to combat global inflation linked to the war in Iran.The Bank of Japan (BoJ) voted to raise its target interest rate from 1% to 1.25%, the highest level since 1995. Continue reading...

Seoul resolves recent speculation over sending military to strait of Hormuz, saying ‘there won’t be deployment that would involve or enter war’South Korea’s president, Lee Jae Myung, has said he will ⁠not deploy the military to the ⁠Middle East in a way ​that could draw the country into conflict, resisting calls from Donald Trump to support his war in Iran.“There won’t be deployment that would involve or enter war. I can tell you that very clearly,” Lee said at a ⁠news conference on Friday. “We won’t deploy military assets in any form to that end.” Continue reading...

Police in Malawi say four suspects were fatally shot in the operation that rescued a British woman who was kidnapped

A shooting at a high school in the southern Philippines has left at least three young people dead and six others injured, including the gunman

A Nobel Peace Prize-winning psychiatrist fears President Donald Trump has become too unstable to be trusted with nuclear codes.Dr. Henry David Abraham, professor of psychiatry emeritus at Tufts University School of Medicine, told The i Paper's Kieron Monks he's troubled, not by the results of Trump's cognitive tests, but by how often he's taking them. Trump announced in May he'd scored a perfect 30 out of 30 on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, or MoCA, for the fourth time — his third such test in just over a year."You give a MoCA for a rapid screen. Is the person functioning in a cognitive sense or not?" Abraham told Monks. "If you are doing two, three, four, you're not doing a rapid screen. You're looking for a trend."Abraham, who shared in the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize as part of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, said Trump's conduct during "recent strikes on Iran and Venezuela" worries him most. "He's certainly our most impulsive president in my lifetime," Abraham said. "He is an unstable individual with absolute control over the American nuclear arsenal.""Some of the President’s threats towards Iran, such as 'a whole civilisation will die tonight', were widely taken as a veiled reference to nuclear weapons," the report notes. "The clinician also pointed to disturbing images Trump has posted on social media, including an AI-generated image of him pressing a red button while surrounded by explosions and mushroom clouds."Citing the Iran war quagmire, Abraham said, "He’s embarrassed every day about it, or at least attacked every day about it. What prevents him one night from saying, ‘Oh, I can solve this Iran problem in 10 seconds’ – which would essentially be the use of nuclear weapons.”Abraham also drew attention to "Trump’s medical records, pointing to a recent check-up that involved a record 22 medical specialists.“Those 22 doctors, they had better figure it out, and they better come forward,” he insisted, while "urging whistleblowers to share details from Trump's medical files, including a recent checkup involving a record 22 specialists."

Mohammad Sharifullah, 28, was convicted of aiding the terrorist group that took credit for the suicide bombing An Islamic State group member was sentenced on Wednesday to 20 years in prison for aiding the terrorist organization that took credit for a suicide bombing that killed 13 US service members and about 160 Afghans at the Kabul airport five years ago during the US military’s chaotic withdrawal from the country.A federal jury in Virginia had convicted Mohammad Sharifullah in April of providing material support to the IS affiliate known as Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP). But jurors could not agree whether he bore some responsibility for the airport bombing on 26 August 2021. Continue reading...

World leaders are not impressed with President Donald Trump's claim that welcoming Canada into partnership constitutes a "hostile act," the Washington Post reported Thursday.Trump made this claim in North Carolina Wednesday in response to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's proposal to make Canada the European Union's first-ever "associate member." "If it's a good intention, that's fine," Trump said. "If it's a bad intention, we'll put very heavy tariffs on Europe."Now leaders from up north and across the pond are saying they don't intend to be influenced by Trump or the United States. Benjamin Haddad, France’s European affairs minister, said on French television Thursday that the U.S. has no veto over decisions made by the 27-nation bloc, according to the Post.“It is not up to a foreign power, not the United States or anyone else, to choose the geopolitical direction of the Europeans,” he said on Public Sénat. “Once again, we have a relationship ⁠with Canada, and we are fully entitled to seek to deepen it.”European Union Commission spokesman Olof Gill said the E.U. leader made clear that “the proposed strengthening of our partnership with Canada is not against anyone else, but for our common strength.”Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, set to address European lawmakers on Thursday, described a partnership between his country and the European Union as "natural."According to the Post, he said both wanted “a deeper partnership that reinforces our mutual sovereignty to create more opportunities and prosperity for our peoples.”

Palestinian-American human rights lawyer and Rutgers University professor Noura Erakat was arrested and charged with trespassing Tuesday night after speaking out against Palm Beach County's billion-dollar investment in Israel Bonds during a public budget hearing.According to The Guardian, Erakat, who teaches Africana studies at Rutgers and sits on the editorial committee of the Journal for Palestine Studies, was detained by deputies in an elevator at the county government building in West Palm Beach. She remained in custody overnight and was released the following morning after paying bond.Dozens of other attendees who'd shown up to oppose the investment were also removed from the meeting, with some carrying signs reading messages like "Fund Housing, Not Genocide."Palm Beach County's stake in Israel Bonds climbed to roughly $1 billion earlier this year, a jump largely attributed to a purchase exceeding $350 million approved by Mike Caruso, the county clerk who has since been suspended from office and is separately facing unrelated sexual abuse allegations. A similar fight just unfolded in Miami-Dade, where county commissioners recently loosened investment rules to allow Israel Bonds to make up as much as 5 percent of the portfolio, up from a prior 3 percent cap, though the change stops short of forcing officials to actually purchase additional bonds.Opponents at that earlier meeting also had their microphones cut off or were escorted out.Erakat, born in California to Palestinian immigrant parents and a Berkeley law graduate, has spent years as a prominent critic of Israel's policies toward Palestinians, including addressing the United Nations directly on the issue. Tensions ran high enough during Tuesday's Palm Beach hearing that one commissioner told a protesting retired Air Force member he was "embarrassing the uniform."Palm Beach County deputies have not yet released an arrest report detailing the specific circumstances of Erakat's detention.