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With the end of central bank tightening cycle in sight, gold prices are edging higher and the mid-year outlook for the yellow metal has turned more. Domestic prices in India have already been showing an upward trend. The latest gains are attributed to dollar weakness, making purchase of gold cheaper for holders of other currencies.

Major General Usman Mohammad Mustafa is the Director General of Media and Awareness in the Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs effectively serving as the official spokesperson of Peshmerga forces. The Peshmerga are the military forces of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and one of the most capable forces in the region which pushed back ISIS from its strongholds. In an exclusive interview Maj Gen Mustafa speaks about planned reforms of Peshmerga, the threat of ISIS, and military relations with Baghdad.

Australian business and government have joined the global chorus warning about the risks artificial intelligence (AI) poses to humanity. But despite their fretful tone, the introduction of algorithms into Australian political life has been less apocalyptic and more business-as-usual. Changes to the Australian welfare system are a prime example. Punitive and difficult-to-access by design, the system is now best known for a disastrous algorithmic innovation nicknamed robodebt.

In South Asia, the recent agreement between India and Bangladesh, to use their respective national currencies (rupee and taka) for bilateral trade will help boost Bangladeshi forex savings by at least $2 billion US annually.

Finland’s new government had been in power for less than two weeks before entering into crisis. Vilhelm Junnila, the new minister of economic affairs, from the nationalist Finns Party, turned out to have had a history of far-right signaling, including jokes implying affinity toward Adolf Hitler. In a tight vote of confidence, he didn’t even get the support of all the new government’s ministers and resigned in disgrace a few days later.

WASHINGTON: Trump and his inner circle are not at all shy about saying he will move to assume the role of a dictator should he be elected in 2024.

Increasingly, muzzling political freedoms beyond national borders is part of an autocrat’s toolkit.

LOS ANGELES: With the actors joining the strike by the Writers Guild and the technical people in Hollywood, the strike is now total against the owners of the movie companies and the big streaming channels. After more than four weeks of fruitless talks between SAG-AFTRA and movie, television, Netflix, and streaming video producers forced the union to strike, starting July 13, SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher said. Such a strike marks the first time in 63 years that unions of both those crafts and writers for movies and theatre are simultaneously pressing their demands on the picket lines.

Meta's groundbreaking 'Threads' caused a seismic shift in social media, generating unparalleled excitement. Positioned as the ultimate challenger to Twitter, Mark Zuckerberg disrupted the online networking landscape by introducing Threads which is increasingly perceived as a clone of Twitter. This clash between industry giants has triggered a heated discussion among internet users as they ponder which platform would ultimately prevail and endure.

A recent 27-year, four million-tonne liquefied natural gas (LNG) Qatari export agreement with China, the longest in gas export history, highlights different Gulf state approaches to navigating big power rivalry between the People’s Republic and the United States.