The Grocers’ Code of Conduct will come into force on Jan. 1, 2026. Within the agri-food industry, expectations are high. Among consumers, they are more restrained — and rightly so.
For food processors, the adoption of this code marks a pivotal moment. For years, they have warned of a growing imbalance in their commercial relationships with large grocery chains, whose market power has consolidated to the point of weakening the processing sector and limiting the ability of independent grocers to differentiate themselves. A weakened food processing sector means less innovation, fewer choices, and ultimately, less competition for consumers.
Warren Buffett, still full of folksy wisdom and with that ever-present red can of Coca-Cola close at hand, said Saturday he plans to step down later this year from his role leading Berkshire Hathaway, ending a run as an investor that was so stunningly successful for so long that it earned him the nickname Oracle of Omaha.
Buffett, 94, built Berkshire Hathaway from a struggling maker of suit linings in the 1960s into one of the world’s most formidable economic enterprises with a $1 trillion market cap — the first U.S. non-tech company to reach that milestone.
The Irving family businesses dominate Saint John, New Brunswick. They are a major employer, but residents say those jobs have come with a steep cost.
Even in a frequently fogbound port city along the Atlantic Ocean, the billowing clouds of steam rising from Canada’s largest oil refinery over Saint John, New Brunswick, are impossible to miss.
On a ridge overlooking the refinery sit six enormous tanks, each containing one million barrels of crude oil. Letters painted in dark blue spell “Irving,” the family whose businesses dominate not only Saint John, but most of New Brunswick.
The larger of the Irvings’ two local paper mills looms above the Saint John River like a medieval fortress. Irving-owned railway tracks crisscross the city, linking smaller factories owned by the family to ports under Irving control. Irving-owned building-supply stores and gas stations dot the streets in this city of 78,000 people, where park signs honor Irving contributions to their upkeep.
Worth a visit for the pics alone, but note you will have to scroll down a bit for the story which provides a slice of Carney’s support.
The US is increasingly a country ruled by oligarchs who pour cascading levels of funds into the competing parties. In 2024, election spending was two-to-three times what it was two decades ago in real terms.
The problem with California is that the oligarchy that runs it is committed to turning diverse nations and cultures into totally undifferentiated human matter.
The broad definition of the word algorithm is “a step-by-step procedure for solving a problem or accomplishing some end.” This term is a perfect metaphor for the process unfolding around the world wherein, step by step, national identity and individual competence are being erased in a process that is implacable and relentless. In some cases, this algorithmic erasure is literal, expressed in every microtargeted image that hits our ubiquitous screens. But whether it’s literal or a metaphor to describe the culture being imposed upon us, our erasure is happening as if it were driven by an algorithm without a soul.
At the heart of the Right to Repair movement is human agency — the agency to use your property as you see fit.
Irecently built a coffee table. This was my first foray into woodworking, so the table is far from perfect — with slight asymmetries and an uneven finish. A level would tell me it misses the mark of an IKEA table’s engineered flatness. But if you’ve ever built something with your hands as a hobbyist, you would know my reaction looking at this table in satisfactory triumph — “Who cares?”
Two years after the takeover the platform ‘X’ is losing billions, but it’s still setting the political agenda and has had some success in promoting his libertarian views
There was nothing inevitable about this year’s biggest news announcement being posted on X.
When President Biden stood down by sharing a letter on the Elon Musk-owned social platform on July 21, he upended American politics. But Biden also confirmed something else.
Almost two years on from his takeover, Musk’s eye-wateringly expensive $44 billion (£34.2 billion) gamble to transform Twitter into X has not undermined the fundamental relevance of the site. What leads the nightly news and splashes on front pages across the globe still usually appears first on X.
Canadian consumers outraged at food prices may have their voices heard yet.
The CEOs of Canada’s supermarkets may be on the hot seat if asked to testify before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food.
Elon Musk has hit a few bumpy patches on his fake-it-till-you-make-it journey towards becoming Lord of the Universe. His ultimate goal, as we know, is to be the vanguard of a new interplanetary species and conquer Mars. But while he waits for his SpaceX engineers to perfect the necessary rocket technology, he’s had to content himself with more earthly pursuits: dancing an increasingly fraught tango with Twitter and tipping the balance in a major European war.
Don’t forget that the PMO had the press make up feel good stories about Nazi Freeland when this photo went viral.
Western countries considering whether to let Russian oligarchs buy relief from sanctions
Western allies are considering allowing Russian oligarchs to buy their way out of sanctions and using the money to rebuild Ukraine, according to government officials familiar with the matter.
Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland proposed the idea at a G7 finance ministers’ meeting in Germany last week.
Freeland raised the issue after oligarchs spoke to her about it, one official said. The minister knows some Russian oligarchs from her time as a journalist in Moscow.
The official said the Ukrainians were aware of the discussions. The official said it’s also in the West’s interests to have prominent oligarchs disassociate themselves from Russian President Vladimir Putin, while at the same time providing funding for Ukraine.
So Freeland is working a scam to help out her Oligarch pals, lovely, I bet citizenship is on the table.
The “Neutral trade” in oil and gas between alleged adversaries was reason enough but I’ve held my nose till now. However this scam seals it and I will no longer support Canada’s efforts in support of the Ukraine. NATO unity is a sham and Europe is not worth defending, a billion Russia bound Euros a day is all I need to know.
Whatever this “live armaments sales expo” is about it ain’t Ukraine. The whole damn thing is a sham.
Over 70 days into the Ukraine war, no one knows how it’s going to end. But the one thing that we can be sure of is that it’s going to pick up again where it ends this time around.
The war is the latest episode of a nationalist territorial conflict going back centuries. And those don’t go away until the people fighting them do. Progressive theories of history spent the last century predicting that wars were on the way out in a more enlightened age. Then two world wars shattered the civilized world and nearly led to a third even more devastating conflict.
Dark money. The words evoke sinister plots, secret organizations and conspiracies fit for a James Bond villain. We hear about dark money in politics, dark money in the elections and dark money supporting a web of organizations dedicated to undermining the American experiment.
Dark money seems to be everywhere — and it is.
Dark money has become the most important fuel driving the debate on every single public issue. In fact, dark money is being deployed in new and revolutionary ways to affect our elections. Seemingly unlimited streams of philanthropy are pouring into organizations and mechanisms that just three years ago seemed fanciful and beyond the wildest imagination of activist strategies.
Edward Rogers won full control over Canada’s largest wireless carrier on Friday when a B.C. Supreme Court judge ruled that he can replace five of Rogers Communications Inc. independent directors without holding a shareholder meeting.
The ruling means Mr. Rogers is once again chair of the telecom and media giant’s board of directors, after weeks of intense conflict erupted when he attempted to unseat chief executive officer Joe Natale and other senior executives.
Mr. Rogers has been opposed in the family and boardroom drama by his mother, Loretta Rogers, his sisters Martha Rogers and Melinda Rogers-Hixon and five former independent directors.
Prior to two weeks ago, had aliens landed on Earth, they may have assumed Bill Gates was not just our Supreme Leader, but also a modern-day saint. Not only do major newspapers speak his name in the same breath as Mother Teresa, touting him as one of the most generous people on the planet, he controls large portions of the world’s essential energy, education, and healthcare sectors. Had the U.S. withdrawn from the World Health Organization (WHO), the Gateses would’ve become the agency’s top funders.
If you’ve been paying attention to the mayhem happening on the stock market due to some Reddit users targeting a hedge fund, you’ve probably been waiting for Tucker Carlson’s response to it all (see Reddit Trolls Beat the Stock Market, and the Elites are Really, Really Mad). The famously populist host has no love for Wall Street and you just knew he was gonna blow them up after this story broke.
