MILAN, Italy (Reuters) -Inter Milan toiled to a 2-0 victory over lowly Como thanks to second-half goals from Carlos Augusto and Marcus Thuram on Monday to remain within touching distance of the Serie A summit. The win lifted third-placed Inter to 37 points, leaving them three points off leaders Atalanta, who beat Empoli 3-2 on Sunday, and one behind second-placed Napoli, after they won 2-1 at Genoa on Saturday. Inter have a game in hand on the top two. Defending champions Inter dominated the first half but squandered a number of chances, with the unmarked Denzel Dumfries firing over from close range and Federico Dimarco shooting straight at Como’s veteran goalkeeper Pepe Reina. Inter finally scored with Augusto’s towering far-post header from a Hakan Calhanoglu corner three minutes after the break. “Happy for the goal, but more important is the victory. We knew it was a tough game but we got three points,” left back Augusto told Sky Italia. “We knew it was a different league last year, this year there are many strong teams. But I have confidence in my team mates who are the best in the world. We’ll see at the end”. The visitors looked more dangerous after going behind, with man of the match Augusto making a crucial interception to deny Edoardo Goldaniga an equaliser and Yann Sommer pulling off a great save to keep out an effort from Nico Paz. Inter kept pushing to extend their lead but captain Lautaro Martinez saw his 68th-minute effort disallowed for offside, extending his goal drought that has lasted more than a month. Thuram sealed the win two minutes into stoppage time with a powerful shot past Reina to reach 12 league goals, level with Atalanta’s Mateo Retegui in the Serie A scoring chart. “Even in matches in which we are not 100% brilliant, it’s important to win,” said Inter centre-back Alessandro Bastoni. “Especially because the others had already played and won, so we had to give a positive response.” (Reporting by Janina Nuno Rios in Mexico City; Editing by Ken Ferris) Disclaimer: This report is auto generated from the Reuters news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content. var ytflag = 0;var myListener = function() {document.removeEventListener('mousemove', myListener, false);lazyloadmyframes();};document.addEventListener('mousemove', myListener, false);window.addEventListener('scroll', function() {if (ytflag == 0) {lazyloadmyframes();ytflag = 1;}});function lazyloadmyframes() {var ytv = document.getElementsByClassName("klazyiframe");for (var i = 0; i < ytv.length; i++) {ytv[i].src = ytv[i].getAttribute('data-src');}} Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Δ document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() );Heating restored at Governmental Center777 slot review 。

, Immigration, perhaps more than any other issue, is what propelled Donald Trump to the White House in both 2016 and 2024. This policy included two major prongs: the first, building a robust, impenetrable wall on the nearly 2,000-mile-long US-Mexico border; the second, mass deportations. While the rhetoric eight years focused primarily on the former, all throughout this year, the rhetorical emphasis shifted to mass deportation. This is partly attributed to the influx of recent illegal migrants under Joe Biden: an estimated 10-25 million illegals, many of which include violent criminals, have crossed over the US-Mexico border and infiltrated the country in the past four years alone, presenting an unmanageable crisis of immediate urgency. The reasons for this catastrophe are twofold: the political class in Washington, DC, colloquially termed "the Uniparty" prefers mass migration. Importing the third world allows them to safeguard their power indefinitely. While the trends shifted slightly this year, with President Trump making inroads among several traditionally Democrat-leading constituencies, including Hispanic Americans and, to a lesser extent, Asian Americans, the general rule still holds: migrants, the children of migrants, and even the grandchildren of migrants overwhelmingly – by margins of two-thirds or more – vote for the Democrat Party. Thus, open borders are an easy way for Democrats to reliably expand their coalition. For this reason, states like Virginia, Colorado, and New Mexico, once Republican strongholds, now, as a result of recent mass migration, consistently and reliably vote Democrat. The gargantuan efforts taken by Republicans in recent years to preserve battleground states like Florida and Pennsylvania, which required registering hundreds of thousands of new voters to keep those states red, merely proves the rule. No such efforts would have been needed had the border always been closed. Moreover, the electoral college distribution reflects... Paul Ingrassia

Please enable JavaScript to read this content. Growing insurance penetration remains one of the uphill tasks that players in the sector still face amid a growing population and improved technology. How to crack the code for in the informal sector, who make the majority of the market is also still a major challenge for industry players. And despite attempts to introduce micro-insurance products , catapulted by technology, insurance penetration still stands at 2.3 per cent. The sector, from analysis of figures in the technology sector and employment, has enough tail winds to push penetration yet as the economy expands, penetration almost does not move simultaneously. Conversations with experts in the sector and analysis of the data shows the sector cannot rely on technology alone to increase these numbers. In some instances, as noted by Bancassurance Association of Kenya chairperson and KCB Bancassurance Ltd Managing Director Aggrey Mulumbi, the need for in-person interaction at the point of sale is still important despite growing digital sales. The question is: if smartphone penetration is improving, so is internet access and the industry is witnessing an increase in micro-insurance products distributed using technology, why isn’t penetration increasing as well? Is technology failing to crack this market? “The challenge is not technology,” says Mr Mulumbi. “The challenge is financial literacy.” He poses: “Can you solve financial literacy through technology? Yes, and no. Yes, because you can make that information available on google. But do these people really access? Not necessarily.” The other issue he points out is coverage of internet. “Is the internet available 100 per cent all over the country? There are also various levels of speeds and costs,” he says. The issue of trust also plays a role, especially to the informal economy who live hand to mouth who not only guard their income selfishly but also have competition interest. How to reach these individuals is also an issue, he says, referencing the government stipends to the elderly and how it is distributed and beneficiaries enrolled. “Three things are important for mass enrolment: religious affiliation, provincial administration and banking networks,” he says. He adds: “If the Social Health Authority is onboarding people directly, you and I will be registered via the digital platforms. What about those in the interior part of Turkana? You will need somebody to talk to them. That is why the micro platform must be a blend of the digital and the trusted person who will come to tell them about insurance solutions.” According to Sector Statistics Report for Quarter Four of 2023/24 by the Communication Authority, as at the end of June 2024, the total number of mobile phone devices connected to mobile networks was 66.1 million - a penetration rate of 128.3 per cent. Stay informed. Subscribe to our newsletter “The penetration rate for smartphones and feature phones were 68.3 and 59.9 per cent respectively,” the report says. As at June 2023, the number of smartphones stood at 30.8 million while feature phones were 32.1 million. This is a ratio of one-to-one for smartphones to feature phones. This gives the impression that almost three –quarters of the population have a smartphone hence it should be easier for underwriters to reach them. But that seems not to be the case. CA report shows that of June 2024, total fixed data or internet subscriptions experienced growth driven by increasing reliance on digital platforms for work, education, healthcare and entertainment. It adds that the total fixed internet subscriptions grew by 7.4 per cent to reach 1.5 million while satellite subscriptions recorded a significant growth of 73.1 per cent in quarter four and a 1,995.3 per cent growth in the 2023/24 financial year. “This growth is attributed to licensing and subsequent launch of Starlink Internet Services Kenya earlier in the financial year,” the report says. Yet with these milestones, it is still a challenge to crack the informal sector and lower middle income segments of the market to expand the insurance coverage using technology. Liaison Group General Manager - Risk and Insurance Brian Rop says there are products that are being embraced easily by these segments of the market such as home insurance and last expense. Others are still hard to sell. “There are products that require special underwriting and those whose pricing is risk based. It is therefore difficult to simplify them for uptake at the digital market place,” he says. He adds that with the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its incorporation into businesses, players will soon be able to overcome the challenges of data gathering and processing which will enable accurate risk profiling. Apart from last expense and home insurance, health, motor, and business insurance, eh says are the other products that are gaining traction in the market. “It (last expense) comes with a no surprise that uptake of this product cuts across both the informal and lower middle class individuals. This can easily be attributed to the simplicity of the cover and the competitive cost attached with examples of Mfariji Cover by Laison Group,” he says. Mr Rop discusses how influential technology is in development of products saying such (products) respond to the financial realities of consumers. Combined with the fact that there were 22.71 million internet users in Kenya at the start of 2024, representing a penetration rate of 40.8 per cent, Mr Rop says technology made them open a digital shop, Insurance Online, to cater for this demographic, majority of whom are below 35 years. He notes that in 2023, the informal sector employed 16.7 million people which is 83.5 per cent of total employed individuals in the economy. These figures correspond to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) 2024 Economic Survey. “The uptake of products in our digital space by the informal market has been slow,” he says. “There is better traction in the lower middle class individuals that can majorly be attributed to better penetration in insurance knowledge, greater insurable interest and the amount of disposable income.” Data from the Association of Kenya Insurers (AKI) shows that insurance penetration stands at 2.3 per cent. This has been the figure since 2019 when it was 2.37 per cent, 2.30 per cent in 2020, 2.29 per cent in 2021, and 2.33 per cent in 2022. The 2024 KNBS Economy shows insurance subsector grew by 12.7 per cent in 2023 compared to 14.4 per cent in 2022. This figure was 26.9 per cent in 2021, 11.7 per cent in 2020 and 9.5 in 2019. KPMG, an audit and tax advisory firm, in an overview of the Kenya’s insurance sector cites the below three per cent penetration as the third lowest rate in Sub-Saharan Africa. South Africa leads with 17 per cent. “This is due to most of Kenya’s population perceiving insurance as ‘nice to have-easy to discard’ product rather than one that is essential,” says KPMG. Fraud cases that affect 25 per cent of claims, is cited as one of the challenges the sector faces in addition to cyber-attacks. “Companies offering insuretech services such as mobile claims and policy payment services and micro-insurance companies offering low cost products such as funeral and livestock insurance are most likely to succeed in the Kenyan market,” says KMPG. It has been asserted by industry players that the low insurance penetration in the country is a s a result of the country’s strong growth of the economy. “It is the economy that is growing much faster than insurance penetration,” said Kenya Re Group Managing Director Dr Hillary Wachinga during an interview on the sidelines of the CEO’s Summit that brought insurance sector players. This is confirmed by AKI who document the same in their 2020 industry report. “This figure(insurance penetration) has been decreasing since 2017 which could be due to GDP growing faster than insurance premiums,” reads the report.Middle East latest: Defense minister acknowledges Israel killed Hamas leader

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By WILL WEISSERT, JUAN ZAMORANO and GARY FIELDS PANAMA CITY (AP) — Teddy Roosevelt once declared the Panama Canal “one of the feats to which the people of this republic will look back with the highest pride.” More than a century later, Donald Trump is threatening to take back the waterway for the same republic. Related Articles National Politics | President-elect Trump wants to again rename North America’s tallest peak National Politics | Inside the Gaetz ethics report, a trove of new details alleging payments for sex and drug use National Politics | An analyst looks ahead to how the US economy might fare under Trump National Politics | Trump again calls to buy Greenland after eyeing Canada and the Panama Canal National Politics | House Ethics Committee accuses Gaetz of ‘regularly’ paying for sex, including with 17-year-old girl The president-elect is decrying increased fees Panama has imposed to use the waterway linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. He says if things don’t change after he takes office next month, “We will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to the United States of America, in full, quickly and without question.” Trump has long threatened allies with punitive action in hopes of winning concessions. But experts in both countries are clear: Unless he goes to war with Panama, Trump can’t reassert control over a canal the U.S. agreed to cede in the 1970s. Here’s a look at how we got here: It is a man-made waterway that uses a series of locks and reservoirs over 51 miles (82 kilometers) to cut through the middle of Panama and connect the Atlantic and Pacific. It spares ships having to go an additional roughly 7,000 miles (more than 11,000 kilometers) to sail around Cape Horn at South America’s southern tip. The U.S. International Trade Administration says the canal saves American business interests “considerable time and fuel costs” and enables faster delivery of goods, which is “particularly significant for time sensitive cargoes, perishable goods, and industries with just-in-time supply chains.” An effort to establish a canal through Panama led by Ferdinand de Lesseps, who built Egypt’s Suez Canal, began in 1880 but progressed little over nine years before going bankrupt. Malaria, yellow fever and other tropical diseases devastated a workforce already struggling with especially dangerous terrain and harsh working conditions in the jungle, eventually costing more than 20,000 lives, by some estimates. Panama was then a province of Colombia, which refused to ratify a subsequent 1901 treaty licensing U.S. interests to build the canal. Roosevelt responded by dispatching U.S. warships to Panama’s Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The U.S. also prewrote a constitution that would be ready after Panamanian independence, giving American forces “the right to intervene in any part of Panama, to re-establish public peace and constitutional order.” In part because Colombian troops were unable to traverse harsh jungles, Panama declared an effectively bloodless independence within hours in November 1903. It soon signed a treaty allowing a U.S.-led team to begin construction . Some 5,600 workers died later during the U.S.-led construction project, according to one study. The waterway opened in 1914, but almost immediately some Panamanians began questioning the validity of U.S. control, leading to what became known in the country as the “generational struggle” to take it over. The U.S. abrogated its right to intervene in Panama in the 1930s. By the 1970s, with its administrative costs sharply increasing, Washington spent years negotiating with Panama to cede control of the waterway. The Carter administration worked with the government of Omar Torrijos. The two sides eventually decided that their best chance for ratification was to submit two treaties to the U.S. Senate, the “Permanent Neutrality Treaty” and the “Panama Canal Treaty.” The first, which continues in perpetuity, gives the U.S. the right to act to ensure the canal remains open and secure. The second stated that the U.S. would turn over the canal to Panama on Dec. 31, 1999, and was terminated then. Both were signed in 1977 and ratified the following year. The agreements held even after 1989, when President George H.W. Bush invaded Panama to remove Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega. In the late 1970s, as the handover treaties were being discussed and ratified, polls found that about half of Americans opposed the decision to cede canal control to Panama. However, by the time ownership actually changed in 1999, public opinion had shifted, with about half of Americans in favor. Administration of the canal has been more efficient under Panama than during the U.S. era, with traffic increasing 17% between fiscal years 1999 and 2004 . Panama’s voters approved a 2006 referendum authorizing a major expansion of the canal to accommodate larger modern cargo ships. The expansion took until 2016 and cost more than $5.2 billion. Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino said in a video Sunday that “every square meter of the canal belongs to Panama and will continue to.” He added that, while his country’s people are divided on some key issues, “when it comes to our canal, and our sovereignty, we will all unite under our Panamanian flag.” Shipping prices have increased because of droughts last year affecting the canal locks, forcing Panama to drastically cut shipping traffic through the canal and raise rates to use it. Though the rains have mostly returned, Panama says future fee increases might be necessary as it undertakes improvements to accommodate modern shipping needs. Mulino said fees to use the canal are “not set on a whim.” Jorge Luis Quijano, who served as the waterway’s administrator from 2014 to 2019, said all canal users are subject to the same fees, though they vary by ship size and other factors. “I can accept that the canal’s customers may complain about any price increase,” Quijano said. “But that does not give them reason to consider taking it back.” The president-elect says the U.S. is getting “ripped off” and “I’m not going to stand for it.” “It was given to Panama and to the people of Panama, but it has provisions — you’ve got to treat us fairly. And they haven’t treated us fairly,” Trump said of the 1977 treaty that he said “foolishly” gave the canal away. The neutrality treaty does give the U.S. the right to act if the canal’s operation is threatened due to military conflict — but not to reassert control. “There’s no clause of any kind in the neutrality agreement that allows for the taking back of the canal,” Quijano said. “Legally, there’s no way, under normal circumstances, to recover territory that was used previously.” Trump, meanwhile, hasn’t said how he might make good on his threat. “There’s very little wiggle room, absent a second U.S. invasion of Panama, to retake control of the Panama Canal in practical terms,” said Benjamin Gedan, director of the Latin America Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. Gedan said Trump’s stance is especially baffling given that Mulino is a pro-business conservative who has “made lots of other overtures to show that he would prefer a special relationship with the United States.” He also noted that Panama in recent years has moved closer to China, meaning the U.S. has strategic reasons to keep its relationship with the Central American nation friendly. Panama is also a U.S. partner on stopping illegal immigration from South America — perhaps Trump’s biggest policy priority. “If you’re going to pick a fight with Panama on an issue,” Gedan said, “you could not find a worse one than the canal.” Weissert reported from West Palm Beach, Florida, and Fields from Washington. Amelia Thomson-Deveaux contributed to this report from Washington.