TORONTO — The Ontario Public School Boards Association isn’t surprised to see teachers’ unions threatening to escalate job actions when classes resume in September unless new contract agreements are reached. Contracts for all 115,000 Ontario teachers expired last August, and there are no talks scheduled with their unions, said MichaelRead More

OTTAWA – The Bank of Canada is lowering its key lending rate by a quarter point to 0.50 per cent from 0.75 per cent, where it was set in January.

PARIS: France’s foreign minister said today he had accepted an invitation to visit Iran after the historic deal on its nuclear programme but did not give a date for the trip. Laurent Fabius said his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif had ‘reinvited’ him as the deal was clinched on Tuesday.Read More

Jerusalem: Israel`s nuclear affairs minister said his country was like the boy in the fairy tale who pointed out the emperor had no clothes, heaping scorn on the Iran nuclear deal on Wednesday and emphasising Israel`s right to unilateral self-defence. Tuesday`s agreement between six world powers and Iran has leftRead More

Washington DC: Donald Trump, who is once again under fire for his new promo picture featuring Nazi soldiers, has washed off his hands from the issue by blaming an intern for it. The 69-year-old presidential candidate posted an image on twitter on July 14 that contained a photo of Trump,Read More

Baghdad: Iran`s nuclear deal with world powers is a sign of a common will to end conflict in the region and defeat the Islamic State jihadist group, Iraq`s premier said Wednesday. “Daesh seeks to drag our region into perpetual conflict,” Haider al-Abadi said on social media, using an Arabic acronymRead More

Jerusalem: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suffered a major defeat in failing to stop a nuclear deal with Iran but he remains as defiant as ever even at the risk of further isolation. While the world`s major powers welcomed the deal finalised with Iran on Tuesday as a historic momentRead More

TOKYO: Legislation for a dramatic change in Japan’s defence policy that could allow troops to fight abroad for the first time since World War II was approved by a lower house panel today, despite opposition from a majority of ordinary voters. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says a bolder security stance,Read More

THE HAGUE: Dutch flags will fly at half-mast on Friday as families remember those killed when flight MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine a year ago, with all efforts now focused on catching those responsible. Around 2,000 grieving relatives are expected at a private ceremony in the central Netherlands,Read More

ATHENS/BRUSSELS: An International Monetary Fund study published on Tuesday showed that Greece needs far more debt relief than European governments have been willing to contemplate so far, as fractious parties in Athens prepared to vote on a sweeping austerity package demanded by their lenders. The IMF’s stark warning on Greece’sRead More