Japan were beaten up and bundled out of the World Cup on Sunday but whatever happens over the next two weeks will have to be pretty special for the Brave Blossoms to be displaced as the symbol of the ninth edition of rugby’s showpiece tournament.

On a recent Sunday, across the Potomac River from the US capital, two pre-teen girls were dusting off a refurbished dresser near a busy road, stocked with fruit, canned goods, toothpaste, children’s books and more.

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The Libra Association is fragmenting. Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, Stripe, Mercado Pago, and eBay have abandoned the Facebook-led corporate alliance underpinning Libra, the asset-backed cryptocurrency meant to revolutionise international money.

Qatar has gone the extra mile to protect the rights of all categories of workers by approving a number of draft laws last week.

When Donald Trump won the White House, the sprawling aluminium smelter that hugs the Ohio River here was operating at less than half its capacity, and most of its skeleton crew of 270 remaining workers were fearful about their future.

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Qatar reiterated its rejection of any attempt to use policies of dictation and intervention to undermine the sovereignty of other countries, and expressed its keenness on resolving disputes peacefully with the support of the relevant organs of the United Nations.

A new green fund being set up by Indonesia should prioritise protecting its rainforests and creating a carbon trading programme to help the country meet its goals to curb climate change, environmentalists and officials say.

Finance ministers who have gathered in Washington, DC, for the World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s annual meetings, face no shortage of urgent matters to discuss.

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Global bottled water giants are ramping up trials of easily recyclable aluminium cans to replace plastic that pollutes the world’s seas.