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Monday’s CPI Could Decide Your Next Mortgage Payment

  Canada lost 68,000 jobs in September. Inflation is sitting at 3%. The Bank of Canada has to decide on October 28 which of those facts matters more, and on Monday morning one more number lands to help it choose. If you carry a variable-rate mortgage, a HELOC or a renewal this winter, that number has a price tag. Two reports pulling in opposite directions The jobs data came first. Statistics Canada reported on October 9 that employment fell by 68,000 in September, pushing the unemployment rate to 6.5% from 6.4%. It followed a drop of about 42,000 in August, which means more than half of the 181,000 jobs gained between April and July have now been wiped out. Ontario shed 20,000 positions on its own. Markets reacted within hours: the odds of a quarter-point Bank of Canada hike on October 28 dropped to roughly 25% from about 40%, according to LSEG data reported by Reuters. Inflation is telling the opposite story. The consumer price index rose 3.0% year over year in August, matching Ju...
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Iraqi Militias Cross into Syria to Support Government Forces

 

Hundreds of fighters from Iran-backed Iraqi militias crossed into Syria overnight to help the government fight rebels who seized Aleppo last week, Syrian and Iraqi sources said on Monday. At least 300 fighters, primarily from the Badr and Nujabaa groups, crossed late on Sunday using a dirt road to avoid the official border crossing, two Iraqi security sources said.

"These are fresh reinforcements being sent to aid our comrades on the front lines in the north," a senior Syrian military source said, adding the fighters had crossed in small groups to avoid airstrikes. Iran's constellation of allied regional militia groups has long been integral to the success of pro-government forces in subduing rebels who rose up against President Bashar al-Assad in 2011, and they have long maintained bases in Syria.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Monday Syria's military was capable of confronting the rebels but, referring to the regional militia groups Tehran backs, he added that "resistance groups will help and Iran will provide any support needed". Syrian government and Russian warplanes intensified attacks on Monday in areas held by rebels in the northwest, residents and rescue workers said, including a strike on a displaced people's camp that killed seven.

The lightning rebel assault last week caught many in the region unaware, dealing Assad his biggest blow in years and reigniting a conflict that had appeared frozen for years after civil war front lines stabilized in 2020. Although Russia has been focused on the war in Ukraine since 2022, it retains an air base in northern Syria. The main Iran-backed group, Lebanon's Hezbollah, has been focused on its own war with Israel since the Gaza conflict began last year.

The rebels include mainstream groups backed by Turkey, as well as the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham which was formerly affiliated with al-Qaeda. Turkey also has a military presence in a strip of Syrian territory along its border. Kurdish-led forces that Ankara calls terrorists, but which fought Islamic State militants with U.S. help, hold territory in the northeast.

Any prolonged escalation in Syria risks further destabilizing a region already roiled by the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon, with millions of Syrians already displaced and with regional and global powers backing rival forces in the country.




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