Alberta is staying in Canada. After a long night of ballot counting, with some polling stations open until 10:30 pm due to long lines and late starts, voters in the oil-rich western Canadian province decisively rejected taking steps toward independence.

Seventy-six percent voted to remain part of Canada, while 24% voted to initiate a secession process. The results mirrored opinion polls taken throughout the campaign and dealt a serious blow to separatists, some of whom had predicted getting as much as 55% of the vote.

Alberta will remain part of Canada — for now. Ballots are still being counted on the province's 10 referendum questions, but as it stands, voters rejected the separatist option by roughly three to one. On the other nine questions, they appear to have given Premier Danielle Smith a slim-to-moderate victory, setting the scene for future showdowns with Ottawa over immigration and health care, while she contends with internal divisions that are sure to fester in the United Conservative Party. In fact, for both Smith and Prime Minister Mark Carney, the fireworks are just beginning.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has built his political reputation on being the adult in the room — and a man at ease in the corridors of power. He’s a former central banker with friends in high places, a guy who understands how the world works, and, supposedly, a leader who can handle U.S. President Donald Trump.

But this weekend, Carney demonstrated that having world leaders on speed dial and knowing how to deal with them are two very different things. On Sunday, he thanked Trump for his leadership in securing an alleged “energy ceasefire” between Russia and Ukraine. The two countries have been relentlessly bombing each other’s energy infrastructure, and with winter approaching, the consequences for people left in the cold could be dire.

The people tasked with safeguarding the world’s financial stability are gathering in Bangkok, Thailand, this week. Central bankers, finance and development ministers, private sector leaders, civil society representatives, and academics from nearly 200 countries are attending the IMF-World Bank’s annual meetings to discuss soaring public debt, the impact of the Iran war, rising oil and food prices, inflation, and the economic impact of AI.

But another issue is also worth watching: the IMF’s relationship with the United States.

Many will associate that line with the classic musical “Les Misérables” set during the French Revolution. But today, it encapsulates the feeling of millions of students across France: miserable – and enraged.

For weeks, students have walked out of classrooms and poured into the streets. What began last month as anger over teacher shortages, crumbling buildings, and a university admissions process students see as unfair has caught like wildfire. Now, protests have reached nearly a third of high schools in the country – and caused headline-making injuries.

The 2026 Quebec election has completely transformed the province’s political landscape. The Coalition Avenir Quebec, in power since 2018, was demolished, going from 90 seats in 2022 to zero. The separatist Parti Quebecois (PQ) took its place in government, rising from the ashes of the three seats to 59, just five shy of a majority. The formerly moribund Liberal party delivered a respectable showing with 40 seats to claim official Opposition status. The socialist Quebec solidaire (QS) garnered the lowest percentage of the vote at 12 per cent and dropped from 11 seats to nine, losing party status altogether, but could hold the balance of power as the only other separatist party in the national assembly.

Quebec and Alberta may have more in common than anyone suspected — at least when it comes to seceding from Canada. In both provinces, over 70 per cent of voters oppose separation, a question that is animating both the Quebec election and the Alberta referendum campaign. The two votes come to a head Oct. 5 and 19, respectively, and their outcome will not only decide if the two provinces proceed with a vote on separation, but whether Prime Minister Mark Carney will be able to put our national unity demons to sleep for the rest of his term.

Four years ago, a peace agreement ended one of the deadliest conflicts of this century, the Tigray War in northern Ethiopia. Fighting between the Ethiopian federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), a political party and armed rebel movement controlling the northern Tigray region, claimed 600,000 lives and displaced over 5 million people. Now that conflict has reignited – and with it, fears that fighting could spread across the Horn of Africa.

Last week, forces belonging to the TPLF seized three airports and attacked the states of Afar and Amhara, located in northeastern Ethiopia. The offensive came days after the TPLF joined six other armed rebel groups in forming the Ethiopian Peoples’ Forces Alliance for Survival (EPFAS), which seeks to overthrow Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government.

“To the victor belong the spoils,” US President Donald Trump declared before the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday. Trump was talking about the massive oil deal the US struck with Venezuela this year following the ouster of strongman Nicolás Maduro. But the message – and the very Trumpian approach to geopolitics behind it – was clear: the winner takes all.

It was a striking message to deliver at the world’s largest multilateral organization. Minutes earlier, UN Secretary-General António Guterres, whose term ends in December, had made the opposite case. “The greatest power is not the power to dominate,” Guterres said. “It is the power to build a future that works for everyone.”

Prime Minister Mark Carney has spent the last year and a half asking Canadians to embrace his “Canada Strong” agenda. We’ve all heard the slogans: Build more. Invest more. Approve projects faster. But while much of his plans depend on state action, they also require attracting private capital - and in some cases, trading on the value of public assets currently sitting on the government’s books

For a movement supposedly wandering the political wilderness, the Canadian left made a lot of noise in downtown Toronto Monday night.

Hundreds of protesters gathered at Nathan Phillips Square before marching to the Art Gallery of Ontario, where Prime Minister Mark Carney was hosting some of the world's wealthiest investors. The demonstration reunited an old-school coalition of labour unions, Indigenous activists, environmentalists, housing advocates and anti-war groups under a new(ish) slogan: "The Many vs. The Money." Memories of Occupy Wall Street and "We are the 99 per cent" wafted through the air, though thankfully no one sought to pitch tents outside city hall — yet.

It’s official: Canada’s counter tariffs kicked in at 12 a.m. Tuesday, slamming an eclectic list of goods that includes dairy products, cosmetics, haircare, softwood, steel rods and window frames. All will cost between 25 and 50 per cent more, in response to U.S. tariffs that show no sign of going away any time soon. To the contrary, U.S. President Donald Trump is just getting started, sending a stream of over 60 posts on Truth Social Monday in which he threatened to ban aerospace giant Bombardier from selling aircraft in the U.S.

“It’s a great time to be a Liberal in Canada.”

Those were the words of a smiling Tanveer Shahnawaz, the Liberal candidate in Beaches—East York, celebrating his victory Monday night. They may also be the political understatement of the year. Shahnawaz was one of three Liberals who swept Monday’s federal by-elections, winning his Toronto riding with 56 per cent of the vote. The party also held North Vancouver—Capilano in B.C. and took Chicoutimi—Le Fjord from the Conservatives in Quebec.

The Nigerian economy is on a hot streak. New data published on Monday showed a 4.4% year-over-year expansion in the second quarter of 2026, up from 3.9% in the first. Oil production rose from 1.6 million to 1.7 million barrels per day, while fuel exports climbed amid higher prices and global demand fueled by the Iran war. But the non-oil economy, which accounts for the majority of Nigeria’s real GDP, also accelerated, led by services, agriculture, information and communication, growing 4.3%, up from 3.9% in the previous quarter. Together, they helped deliver Nigeria’s fastest growth in five years.

Welcome to Trade Wars, the reality show that pits the mighty United States of America against the mouse that roared, aka Canada. How’s everyone feeling today? “Kiss my ass!” yells Ontario Premier Doug Ford. “Flunky! I will rename Lake Ontario Lake America,” claps back U.S. President Donald Trump. Insert laugh track, cut to a commercial for a Ford F-150 pickup, and check out the ratings — 76 per cent of Canadians agree with Prime Minister Mark Carney’s decision to quit the talks. Everyone’s watching — what a hit.

It’s official: the US and Canada are in a trade war, a remarkable rupture in one of the world’s closest alliances. After Canada withdrew from talks last Friday, the US applied a 50% tariff on roughly $20 billion worth of Canadian goods, including wine, furniture, dairy products, cement, clothing, fishing rods and hockey equipment. In response, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said today that Canada will retaliate with its own tariffs, as high as 50%, on $20 billion in American imports starting next month. US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has plans for 50% tariffs on Canadian automobiles, trucks and auto parts starting January 1.

As Canada waits to see whether Prime Minister Mark Carney can strike a trade deal with Donald Trump — or whether the U.S. president will slap 50 per cent tariffs on $20 billion worth of our goods Wednesday — another deadline is looming: When will the Conservative party figure out a path back to power? 

Because right now, it is going nowhere. 

Over the weekend, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi marked his country’s Independence Day by announcing the creation of a “massive” volunteer civil defense force. Calling India’s existing civil defense capacity “outdated,” Modi said the country of 1.4 billion people must protect the new targets of modern warfare, including refineries, the banking sector, or data centers – reflecting a growing view that infrastructure and the internet have become the new front lines of war.

Taiwan is preparing for the same reality. Last week, its government deliberately slowed mobile internet during its annual military exercises, simulating what civilians could face if China attacked communications systems. It marked the first time Taiwan involved civilians in such a drill, taking a page from Ukraine, where Russia has repeatedly targeted communications infrastructure since the full-scale invasion in 2022.

Tick, tick, tick. That’s the sound of the timer counting down to Aug. 19, the date on which U.S. President Donald Trump’s 50 per cent tariffs on Canada will kick in. Or not. Already one former Trump advisor is predicting that Trump will TACO (Trump always chickens out), but in the unpredictable world we live in, there’s no guarantee.

Faced with this deadline, the pressure is on Prime Minister Mark Carney to get a deal with the Americans. Businesses and investors are worried. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is demanding action. Dominic LeBlanc, the minister responsible for Canada-U.S. trade, and Janice Charette, our chief trade negotiator, are spending their summer in Washington boardrooms, but there’s still no sense of progress.

In 2019, GZERO reported on a brewing backlash against AI’s facial recognition and surveillance capabilities. Seven years later, opposition to the technology, which has advanced dramatically since then, is intensifying. A survey of more than 18,000 people in 15 countries found that over one-third ranked AI development among their top concerns over the next five years, ahead of immigration, energy security, and geopolitical rivalry.

But attitudes toward AI vary sharply around the world. Ipsos polling found that people in Asia and Latin America are more likely to believe AI’s benefits outweigh its risks and to express enthusiasm for AI-powered products and services. By contrast, North Americans are far more likely to say AI makes them nervous and are less convinced that its benefits justify its costs.