In the News

Despite personal misgivings, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin has asked incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to forming a new government after a recent election, the country’s fourth in two years, failed to produce a clear winner. Rivlin’s request comes as Netanyahu goes on trial on charges of fraud and breach of trust.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law designed to keep him in power until possibly 2036. Currently 68 and serving his fourth term, Putin could serve two more six-year terms when his current orchestrated mandate expires in 2024.

In an attempt to reduce crime in rural areas and improve law enforcement’s emergency response times, the Alberta government has authorized its fish and wildlife officers and sheriffs to assist with high-priority RCMP situations.

The U.S. has lifted “inappropriate and ineffective” sanctions imposed by the previous administration on International Criminal Court officials investigating alleged war crimes by U.S. forces in Afghanistan. “We maintain our long-standing objection to the court’s efforts to assert jurisdiction over personnel of non-states parties such as the United States and Israel,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said. “We believe, however, that our concerns about these cases would be better addressed through engagement with all stakeholders.”

Christine Schraner Burgener, a Swiss diplomat and UN special envoy on Myanmar, has told the Security Council that “a bloodbath is imminent” in Myanmar as its military intensifies its crackdown on anti-coup protesters. She said March 31 that the UN must consider “potentially significant action” to turn the situation around. At least 521 civilians have been killed in protests against the Feb. 1 overthrow of the elected government.

A new Parliamentary Budget Office report says the government’s COVID-19 response should see the current year’s deficit balloon to $363.4 billion. However, PBO Yves Giroux also says the red ink should sink as emergency spending measures wind down and that financing will eventually become sustainable.

The Philippines wants China to remove a flotilla of militia-operate ships from six islands and reefs claimed by Manila in the South China. The ships and four naval vessels are described as a threat to sovereignty and the marine environment and Manila says that “neither the Philippines nor the international community will ever accept China’s assertion of its so-called ‘indisputable integrated sovereignty’ over almost all of the South China Sea.”

A Federal Court judge has certified a class-action lawsuit against the RCMP over accusations that physicians who routinely screen applicants had sexually abused them. “It's rewarding to be able to move this forward and know that some folks will get resolution,” the lead plaintiff says.

The Polish government is being taken to court by the European Commission, which accuses its member state of undermining judicial independence. “Polish judges . . . apply EU law and contribute to the mutual trust on which Europe is built,” EC Vice-President Věra Jourová, a Czech politician and lawyer, explained today. “National governments are free to reform the judiciary, but while doing so they have to respect the EU treaties.”

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said today that although new analysis points to a wildlife vector for COVID-19, the organization still needs to confirm that the coronavirus did not originate in a Chinese laboratory. China has dismissed the possibility but Tedros, noting that his team had difficulty getting raw data during a recent visit, called for “more timely and comprehensive data sharing.”

Too many Americans are declaring victory in the COVID-19 too early, say President Joe Biden and Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “This is deadly serious,” Biden said, urging state governors to reinstate restrictions shortly after Walenksy admitted that she is “scared” by the prospect of continued waves.

A new law limiting the right of Hong Kong residents to run for local election has been enacted by the China's rubber-stamp parliament. Previously, the former British colony’s legislature was divided between elected officials and representatives of Beijing-oriented trade and industry bodies, theoretically enabling opposition parties to win a majority. Now the elected seats will be filled by government appointees.

Conservative MP Michael Chong, vice-chair of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and its international human rights subcommittee is one of several persons sanctioned by China in a dispute over Beijing’s treatment of its minorities. Chong says he will consider China’s response to Canadian sanctions “a badge of honour.”

Traffic through the Suez Canal resumed today after a salvage company headquartered in The Netherlands coordinated the removal of a 200,000-tonne container ship which had blocked passage for six days. Assisted by a high tide, tugs pulled the Japanese-owned and Panamian-registered Ever Given from the waterway’s banks where it had lodged after being blown off-course.

More than 25 million residents of the Philippines capital of Manila and nearby provinces, nearly a quarter of the mostly Catholic country’s population, face a strict Easter lockdown against COVID-19. It was announced March 27 after the country reported 9,838 new cases, its highest single-day jump.

During Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s weekend visit to Tehran, he and his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, signed a 25-year agreement which is expected to yield large Chinese investment. They also agreed to a 10-fold increase in bilateral trade over the next decade.

A scathing report by the RCMP’s independent watchdog on racial discrimination has prompted Commissioner Brenda Lucki to respond that she is trying to change the force’s evidently entrenched culture. “It's part of my job, and part of my mandate, to ensure that the culture is transformed and that we strengthen our relationships with Indigenous people,” she told a parliamentary committee March 24.

The federal government has further updated its 2016 guidelines on the security challenges presented by foreign investments. “Some of these Canadian companies possess sensitive personal data or develop and manufacture sensitive technologies that form part of critical supply chains,” Innovation Science and Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne explained March 24. The government last updated the guidelines in April 2020.

Four European Union countries called in China’s ambassadors this week amidst a diplomatic row over sanctions by EU as well as Canada, Britain and the U.S. against China over alleged human rights violations against Uighurs. Belgium, Denmark, France and Germany were responding to retaliatory sanctions by Beijing.

The U.S. and China are in a “superpower marathon” as the latter invests hugely in key technologies, according to the director of the Defence Department’s innovation unit. “It's the challenge of our time,” Michael Brown said March. “It's the national security challenge of our generation and it probably is going to last many, many years.”

The first federal budget in more than two years will be tabled in Parliament April 19 by Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland. “We will continue to do whatever it takes to support Canadians and Canadian businesses,” she said today in confirming the date. “And we have a plan for jobs and robust growth.”

Citing “global political turbulence” that has resulted in new western sanctions, Russia and China have called for a UN Security Council meeting. It was issued by their two foreign affairs ministers after talks in Beijing today.

The Alberta government has introduced draft legislation in an unprecedented move to prevent some violent offenders from legally changing their names. The president of the Canadian Prison Law Association said March 21 that Bill 61 “probably” intrudes on federal criminal law jurisdiction and does not consider individuals’ rehabilitation.

As expected, the trial of detained Canadian Michael Kovrig ended today with no verdict after a two-hour closed hearing in Beijing. Fellow detainee Michael Spavor’s March 19 similar trial ended the same way. They were arrested in December 2018 on alleged espionage charges and Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau today said Canada remains “deeply troubled by the total lack of transparency.”

Ten years after a Council of Europe accord designed to protect women was agreed to at a meeting in Istanbul, the Turkish government has abandoned the agreement. It is reacting to conservatives’ arguments that the accord’s principles of gender equality and non-discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation undermine family values and promote homosexuality.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is discounting reports that China had banned his companies automobiles from military facilities due to fears that onboard cameras could be used to gather intelligence. “There's a very strong incentive for us to be very confidential with any information,” he says. “If Tesla used cars to spy in China or anywhere, we will get shut down.”

More than two years after he and another Canadian, Michael Kovrig, were detained in China for alleged espionage, Michael Spavor’s closed-court “trial” today in Dandong lasted only two hours. Spavor and his lawyer appeared for the hearing but other parties, including Canadian consular officials, were not permitted on national security grounds. The court will eventually set a day for issuing a verdict but Chinese courts have a conviction rate of more than 99 per cent. Kovrig’s trial is set for March 21.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's last overseas trip before COVID-19 erupted was to Africa, include a stop in Ethiopia which has been second only to Afghanistan in terms of Canadian aid. At the time, the PM praised President Abiy Ahmed’s “leadership” and reforms but his Foreign Affairs Minister, Marc Garneau, now is expressing “deep concern regarding credible reports of human rights violations and abuses.”

Federal legislation governing eligibility for medically assisted death, eliminating a requirement for final consent before the procedure, has received Royal Assent. Now anyone who is suffering but not facing imminent death, can apply for medical assistance after assessment and counselling.

Pakistan’s army chief, Gen Qamar Javed Bajway, wants his country and India to “bury the past” now that they have a ceasefire agreement in place in a border region the two nuclear powers have squabbled over for decades. However, he says, it was up to India to create a “conducive environment” and said the United States had a role to play in ending regional conflicts.

Power utilities’ increasing reliance on monitoring and control technologies has meant that the U.S. electricity distribution network has become more vulnerable to cyberattacks, according to the Government Accountability Office. It says that although the Department of Energy is working on a cybersecurity strategy, it has focused more on generation and transmission systems.

Responding to U.S. President Joe Biden’s description of him as a “killer” who eventually would “pay a price” for meddling in U.S. elections, Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested March 17 that his counterpart should look in a mirror. Putin also recalled his ambassador from Washington for “consultations.”

The U.S. intelligence community says the country faces a substantial internal threat from a range of domestic extremists who could move forward with plans to carry out attacks against fellow citizens or the government. An unclassified assessment released March 17 says the threat is broad-based, involving individuals and small groups who subscribe to violent ideologies and are “galvanized by recent political and societal events.”

In a long-awaited review of defence, security and foreign policy released March 16, the British government included plans to increase its stockpile of nuclear warheads. The planned increased to no more than 260 would reverse a decision a decade ago to reduce the inventory to 180 from 225 by the mid-2020s.