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Despite being born on a…
Maine’s wood product manufacturing sales increased by 45% in a five-year period. That’s according to a report published in October from the Maine Forest Products Council on the economic contribution of the state’s forest products sector from 2019 to 2024.
Executive director Krysta West says during that period, Maine saw a lot of investment in sawmills, both in the expansion of existing infrastructure and in new facilities that are able to process lower grade lumber that would have previously gone to pulp and paper.
“Everybody was staying home during the pandemic building things. It was a real boom time for that sector of the industry,” West says. “Since then, interest rates and inflation have caught up, and it’s slowed down significantly in that sector as well.”
During that same time period, the state’s pulp and paper industry continued to contract, with paper manufacturing sales falling by 41%.
West says despite the instability, the overall economic contribution of Maine’s forest product sector is still $8.3 billion, and the industry is actively trying to diversify.
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Another offender was deported to Kabul in mid-December, the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) confirmed on Sunday at the request of the Keystone-SDA news agency in response to a report by Sonntagsblick newpaper.
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Of twenty convicted Afghans nationals in Switzerland, only two have been deported. The Taliban have been in power since 2021 making deportations to Afghanistan difficult as Switzerland has no official relations with the Taliban government.
Just over a year ago, an attempt to deport an Afghan criminal failed. Having already landed in Kabul, the man had to travel back to Switzerland. In August, the SEM therefore invited representatives of the unofficial Taliban government to Geneva airport for negotiations in order to organise future deportations.
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The Taliban representatives identified 13 out of a total of twenty offenders from Afghanistan. Among them was the man who was deported to Afghanistan in December, the SEM told Keystone-SDA. According to the SEM, preparations are underway for further deportations.
Adapted from German by DeepL/ac
We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.
Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.
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By 3pm on 26 December, it appeared there had been a muted reaction to the sales, according to early MRI data with high street visits down 1.5% compared to 2024 and shopping centre visits down 0.6%.
MRI counts footfall in more than 660 retail locations across the UK and retail analyst Jenni Matthews said that as the day progressed, it became clear that shoppers were deciding to head out but just a bit later in the day.
“The boost in activity was driven by a peak in visits across all UK retail destinations from 5pm – 11pm averaging +9.6% versus an average increase of +3.1% from 6am-5pm,” she said.
With many stores not reopening until 28 December, Ms Matthews said it was likely that hospitality and leisure venues would have benefited from the increase in foot traffic.
“This is an early indicator that the retail sector may well end the year on a positive note given the challenging times faced at the beginning of the year,” she said.
Shoppers were also out in force on Saturday, according to the MRI data, with footfall across retail destinations up by 1.6% compared to 27 December last year.
Ms Matthews said that with family gatherings ending and the new year looming, MRI anticipates footfall will continue to rise over the coming days.
“Consumers [will be] likely shopping the sales, making the most of the festive events and attractions within towns and cities, and stocking up on New Year’s Eve essentials, keeping the festive retail period firmly in motion,” she said.