In the News

As the number of COVID-19 deaths and confirmed cases surge in many parts of the U.S., President Donald Trump’s evidently is undercutting its trusted coronavirus expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci. Among other things, White House staff have posted recordings from earlier this year to suggest that Fauci is an unreliable source of advice but the postings exclude his qualifying remarks about how the pandemic outlook was shifting.

Having already been collecting vehicle data at border entries since 2017, U.S. Customs and Border Protection now is incorporating third-party license plate reader data from local governments, law enforcement and the private sector. A CBP “privacy impact statement” published last week noted that the technology “may also capture . . . drivers and passengers” images.

Global Affairs Canada says giving unredacted Canadian Security Intelligence Service documents to Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou’s lawyers could put Canadian lives at risk and undermine Canada-China relations.

Even as Taliban leaders preparing for formal peace talks with the Afghan government seem to be prepared for conciliation on on democracy, human rights and power-sharing, hard-core militants in the country’s eastern districts are still talking about overthrowing the government. The chief concern is that even if a peace deal is struck, entrenched differences among the militants could mean a return to widespread violence.

An Amnesty International request that an Israeli spyware company be stripped of its export licence has been rejected by an Israeli court. AI says NSO Group’s technology has been used by foreign governments to target dissidents and journalists. Tel Aviv District Court ruled that there is insufficient evidence to prove AI’s claims.

It has been disclosed that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s wife, mother and brother received payments totalling nearly $300,000 over the last four years by WE Charity, a youth-support group the government had awarded a $900-million contract to manage a student funding program. The government subsequently withdrew the contract, which is being investigated by the Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner.

With a U.S.government-wide ban looming on contractors' use of Chinese telecommunications equipment, industry lobbies are pressing the administration for more time to adjust. The National Defense Industrial Association and the Professional Services Council want the 13 August deadline delayed by a year, saying the government should be focusing on recovering from the economic impact of COVID-19.

An investigation into leaks of classified and unclassified material to news media from within his department and others has been ordered by Secretary of Defense Mark Esper during a Thursday hearing. “All those things … hurt our nation’s security,” he told a House of Representatives committee 9 July. “They undermine our troops, their safety; they affect our relations with other countries.; they undermine our national policy.”

Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are suing the U.S. administration over a directive which would strip foreign students of their visas if their coursework has shifted online due to COVID-19. The measure announced 6 June by the White House is seen as an attempt to put pressure on institutions to reopen campuses despite the continued spread of the pandemic in many states.

Espionage and theft of intellectual property by China present the “greatest long-term threat" to the future of the U.S., according to FBI Director Christopher Wray. “The stakes could not be higher,” he says. “China is engaged in a whole-of-state effort to become the world's only superpower by any means necessary.”

The Canada Border Services Agency lost track of 37,400 foreign nationals who had been ordered out of the country up until April 2019, the Office of the Auditor General reports after a coordinated review with the Immigration and Refugee Board and Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Some had been in the CBSA for several years, including failed asylum seekers, criminals, national security risks and visitors who had overstayed their visas.” Public Safety Minister Bill Blair said 8 July that the immediate focus is on the “most concerning” cases.

The third in a planned constellation of 10 U.S. third-general global positioning system satellites has been launched by SpaceX on behalf of Lockheed Martin. It eventually will orbit at some 21,000 kilometres.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a staunch opponent of measures to prevent and contain COVID-19, tested positive 6 July for the virus. His country has the second-highest number of Covid-19 cases and deaths in the world, second only to the U.S. Bolsonaro also said he was taking hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial championed by President Donald Trump despite no supporting evidence of its effectiveness and the risk of serious side-effects.

President Donald Trump has formally moved to withdraw the U.S. from the World Health Organization, as he threatened in May while accusing the WHO of being Chinese-controlled. Actual withdrawal of participation and funding would take effect in July 2021, a move which Robert Menendez, leading Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relation Committee, says “leaves Americans sick and America alone.”

>New York-based Clearview AI, pending the results of federal and provincial privacy investigations, is not making its facial recognition software available in Canada. The company came under scrutiny earlier this year when it reported having collected billions of images from the Internet. Its last client in Canada was the RCMP.

Former military journalist Ivan Safronov, who joined the Russian space agency less than two months ago as an advisor to its director general, has been arrested for treason. Roskosmos says the arrest was not related to his job with the agency. Russian state security has accused Safronov of passing on information to an unspecified NATO member.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s recent condemnation of China’s new security law for Hong Kong has drawn a predictably sharp response from Beijing. A foreign ministry spokesman said 5 July that Canada should “stop interfering in Hong Kong affairs and China’s other internal affairs in any way so as to avoid further damage to China-Canada relations.”

A Manitoba member of the Canadian Rangers faces 22 criminal charges in relation to an attack on Rideau Hall, the estate housing the Governor General’s residence and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s temporary official residence. Corey Hurren, 46, was arrested after a pickup truck rammed through the estate’s main gate 2 July and the driver proceeded on foot toward the residences until a 90-minute negotiation with RCMP ended quietly. Most of the charges relate to possession and transportation of firearms and Hurren has been remanded in custody.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the focus of an Ethics Commissioner’s inquiry over his decision to have a charity with which he and his wife have personal ties to manage a $900-million student support program, has ended the proposed arrangement.

Zheng Yanxiong, a veteran Communist Party apparatchik perhaps best known for his role in quashing a 2011 land dispute in a Chinese village, has been put in charge of overseeing a new law providing up to life imprisonment for Hong Kong residents accused of “subversion” and “terrorism” activities. Zheng previously was secretary general of the party’s governing committee in the southern province of Guangdong.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's legal battle over access to more than $1 billion in gold stored at the Bank of England has been rebuffed by Britain’s High Court of Justice which explained in its ruling that the U.K. had “unequivocally recognised opposition leader Juan Guaidó as president.” Maduro had said he needed the gold to fund its COVID-19 but Guaidó warned that it would be used for corrupt purposes.

Another attempt by First Nations to block expansion of the TransMountain pipeline between Alberta and a B.C. export terminal has been shut down by the Supreme Court of Canada. Without giving reasons, as usual, the court has refused to hear the challenge by the three appellants which now are considering other unspecified legal options.

A member of the Canadian Armed Forces, identified only as an armed member of the Canadian Rangers, is in RCMP custody after a pickup truck registered in Manitoba was used to ram the gates at Rideau Hall early 02 July. after which the driver proceeded on foot toward the official residences of the Governor General and the Prime Minister, neither of whom was at home. The Department of National Defence confirmed the suspect’s military status but declined further comment “at this time” as it is an RCMP investigation.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Neanyahu’s latest push to annex parts of the occupied West Bank was not implemented July 1 as expected even as his British counterpart urged him to call off the internationally-condemned plan. A member of the Israel cabinet says officials were still working on details with the U.S. administration, a staunch supporter of the annexation despite concerted Palestinian opposition.

Rules barring most foreign travellers from entering Canada have been extended by a month until at least 31 July as the federal government steps up its COVID-19 countermeasures. The restrictions apply to everyone except Canadian citizens and permanent residents, and U.S. citizens entering Canada for “essential” reasons. Closure of the Canada-U.S. border to all but essential workers and trade is covered by a separate order.

The multinational Airbus consortium has announced plans to lay off 11 per cent of its global workforce, mainly in the commercial aircraft division which, like other original equipment manufacturers, has been hit hard by COVID-19’s impact on international travel. The move affect–s 15,000 of its total workforce of some 134,000.

There are growing concerns that anthropogenic climate change is a bigger factor than expected in Antarctica. Newly-published data indicate the region has warmed at three times the global average over the last three decades up through 2018, the which was the continent’s hottest year on record.

Washington-based Human Rights Watch is accusing Canada of flouting its international obligations by failing to repatriate and provide adequate consular assistance to 47 citizens, including 26 children, detained in northeast Syria. The adults, linked to the Islamic State terrorist organization, are being held by Kurdish forces. The Canadian government said it will not put its personnel at risk to gather evidence and repatriate the combatants.

Premier Jason Kenney of Alberta says his government is adding $3 billion to a budgeted $6.9 billion infrastructure fund in a bid to reboot his province’s economy, which has been hit hard by depressed world oil prices and COVID-19. He also has committed to reduced corporate income tax and to more incentives for industry generally.

The U.S. has imposed new export controls on military and some high-technology products destined for Hong Kong. The administration decided several weeks ago that the former British colony no longer had sufficient autonomy as Beijing consolidated its hold.

The U.S., Europe and Japan are pooling satellite data and opened a public web portal which enables users to monitor and chronicle planetary shifts in socioeconomic activities and the environment as the world deals with COVID-19. The goal is to hopefully enable various levels of government to assess and possibly plan for the pandemic’s short- and long-term impacts

The flight data and cockpit voice recorders from Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752, downed by Iranian missiles after takeoff from Tehran nearly six months ago, will be shipped to France for analysis in July, the International Civil Aviation Organization has announced. While French investigators will lead the analysis, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada also will be involved because many Canadians died in the attack.

Democrats in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have tabled a bill which would ban federal agencies’ use of facial recognition technologies without explicit congressional approval.

Off-duty Toronto police officer found guilty of assault, but he and his brother acquitted of aggravated assault and obstruction of justice for chasing down and delivering a brutal beating on Dafonte Miller, a young black man. Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders says he'll stay neutral.