In the News

Teija Tiilikainen, Director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs since 2010, has been appointed Director of the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats for a five-year term.The agency brings together members of NATO and the EU to provide training on hybrid threats. Tiilikainen’s predecessor,Matti Saarelainen, moves Oct. 1 to the Finnish Security Intelligence.

Pakistan is suspending trade with India in response to the latter’s decision to strip its portion of the mostly Muslim Kashmir region of its long-standing autonomous status. Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said Pakistan also plans to expel India's ambassador while its own newly-appointed ambassador to India had yet to take up his post.

U.S. President Donald Trump says there is a "very strong" political appetite in Congress for bipartisan legislation to require background checks or other restrictions on firearms ownership. for gun users. Leaving Washington to visit Texas and Ohio, where weekend shootings left 31 victims dead and dozens injured, he says he has had “plenty of talks” which suggest growing support among legislators.

Subject to confirmation by autopsy, the bodies of two British Columbia teenage fugitives suspected of three murders have been found in northern Manitoba. RCMP teams, backed by Canadian Armed Forces personnel at one stage, had been searching for Kam McLeod and Bryer Schmegelsky since late July.

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland has thanked Britain for its “strong and public stand” on the two Canadians detained by China. During a joint news conference with her British counterpart, Dominic Raab, she said freeing Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor is a priority as Canada navigates “challenging” circumstances.

Unusually aggressive wildfires in the Arctic are releasing waves of greenhouse gases, lasting longer, reaching deeper and burning at higher latitudes than in previous years, and experts say this is fuelled by climate change.

China’s central bank is rebuffing U.S. claims that it devalued the Yuan in a bid to gain a competitive trade advantage, saying China is “resolutely oppose” to such practices.

A state of emergency has been declared around the Siberian city of Achinsk after a fire at a military depot set off huge explosions. Thousands of residents have been evacuated within a 20-kilomere radius around the depot.

As it launched its fourth in a series of missile launches in less than two weeks, North Korea has lashed out again at the United States and South Korea for continuing military exercises. There are suggestions that North Korea is trying to build leverage ahead of negotiations about its nucler capabilities.

India has revoked a section of its constitution which guarantees significant autonomy in Kashmir, a Muslim-majority border state which has been a flashpoint in relations with Pakistan ever since India’s independence and partition 62 years ago. Both nuclear power claim full control but, in fact, each controls only parts of it.

No active shooter now, but numbers of casualties yet to be confirmed. One suspect is in custody, possible accomplice not being ruled out yet.

At least 11 people died and 63 others rescued when three ferry boats separately capsized in bad weather Saturday between two central Philippine island provinces, the Philippine Coast Guard said.

Five days after U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he would nominate John Ratcliffe to succeed Dan Coats as Director of National Intelligence, the Texas Republican congressman has withdrawn. Democrats excoriated him as a Trump loyalist who would undercut the traditional independence of the intelligence agencies and other Republicans had been unusually silent.

Elliott Abrams, the U.S. administration’s special representative for Venezuela says Canada and the U.S. want the European Union to impose sanctions on the Nicolás Maduro regime in Venezuela.

No sooner had U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressed official optimism about the prospect of satisfactory trade talks with China, set to resume next month, President Donald Trump ramped up the pressure with a statement that he will impose 10 per cent tariffs on the remaining $300 billion in Chinese imports he hasn't already taxed.

Advances in quantum computing evidently pose a threat to levels of encryption currently seen as secure. While a major breakthrough is not considered likely for several years, it is estimated that weaker cybersecurity algorithms will be vulnerable earlier.

Osama bin Laden’s son, Hamza bin Laden, seen as an eventual heir to the Al Qaeda terrorist leadership, has been killed but other than that he died within the first two years of the current U.S. administration, when and where is unclear. His death was disclosed by anonymous U.S. officials.

Canadian Armed Forces personnel helping police to track down two murder suspects in northern Manitoba have been withdrawn at the request of the police as the hunt stretched into its ninth day. “We want to be . . . focused with our own resources and determine where we should go from here," a police spokesperson explained.

A plan by U.K.-based OneWeb to launch a constellation of satellites to provide global internet coverage has failed in its latest attempt to get approval in Russia. The company has been seeking regulatory permission since 2017 for its proposed use of specific communications frequencies but the State Commission for for Radio has refused permission.

The next federal general election will take place as scheduled, on Monday, Oct. 21, despite a federal court directive. An orthodox Jewish group had pushed for a one-week delay because the original date is a holiday on the group’s calendar but Elections Canada points out there are advance polling options.

Capital One Financial Corp. confirmed July 29 that personal data on some six million Canadian customers – including names, addresses, phone numbers and about one million social insurance numbers – were among those obtained by a hacker. The U.S. Justice Department says a former employee of a Seattle-based technology company has been arrested. Capital One, headquartered in McLean, Va., says it became aware of the hack July 19.

The U.S. Supreme Court has partly cleared the way for President Donald Trump’s administration to divert $2.5 billion from the Department of Defense budget for construction of sections of a wall along the border with Mexico. The ideologically-divided court’s 5-4 ruling overturned a lower court’s decision which had blocked the transfer pending other legal appeals.

People’s Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier says he would prefer to fence-off some sections of the border with the United States to block illegal refugees and that if he became Prime Minister he would declare the entire border an official port of entry “and send back to the U.S. anyone trying to enter illegally.”

European and international warrants have been issued by Austria for the arrest of a Russian military officer it says recruited an Austrian officer who allegedly spied for Russia since the 1990s. Police say Col. Igor Egorovich Zaytsev “is suspected of inducing a retired 70-year-old colonel of the Austrian army to carry out an intelligence operation to the detriment of Austria, to reveal state secrets and to deliberately give up military secrets."

The Government Accountability Officer has put out no fewer than 38 recommendations on how federal agencies can improve their cybersecurity risk management. All but one of the 23 agencies reviewed had already designated an executive responsible for security but none evidently had a risk management strategy in place and there was a general lack of coordination between cybersecurity in particular and agency-wide management functions in general.

The Center for Science and Democracy has mapped 131 U.S. military sites at which a number of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) contamination has been found in drinking water or groundwater. Exposure is associated with a range of health impacts, including various cancers and reproductive and immune system problems.

A judge has ruled that Canada’s chief electoral officer must reconsider the Oct. 21 date for the federal election because it coincides with the Jewish holiday of Shemini Atzeret. Voting and campaigning are forbidden for Orthodox Jews on the holiday.

According to Statistics Canada data for 2018, Hamilton was the worst city in Canada for reported number of hate crimes (17 per 100,000 people). Quebec City is next in terms of haters, with 11 per 100,000, and Ottawa is not far behind (9.8 hate crimes per 100,000 people.

Boris Johnson, who has promised to lead the United Kingdom out of the European Union by Halloween (with or without a deal), will replace Theresa May as prime minister after winning the Conservative Party leadership on Tuesday.

Hundreds of firefighters are battling wildfires in a forested, mountainous area of central Portugal. The Portuguese army has sent soldiers and machinery into the area to open routes for firefighters. The biggest operation – involving 800 firefighters, 245 vehicles including bulldozers, and 13 planes and helicopters – is tackling a fire in the municipality of Vila de Rei.

With levels of cancer-related trihalomethanes in the community's water supply remaining well above Health Canada safety standards, the leader of Eabametoong First Nation in northern Ontario has declared a state of emergency to force the government into finding a solution.

A successful multi-layered operation conducted by York Regional Police over the past week aimed for the top  and punched mobsters right in their assets. Fifteen people have been arrested, one of whom is an alleged Mafia boss. The investigation reportedly stretched to Italy

Carleton University Professor Stephen Saideman has received a $2.5 million Partnership Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council to create an inclusive and innovative defence and security community.

A Calgary pediatrician facing charges of sexual assault and sexual interference of a minor is allowed to resume seeing patients, following a Court ruling that found the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta had overreacted in its effort to protect public safety.