In the News

Efforts by the U.S. and Europe to bring Iran back to the nuclear negotiating table have been rebuffed. “Considering the recent actions and statements by the United States and three European powers, Iran does not consider this the time to hold an informal meeting,” an Iranian foreign minister official said Feb. 28.

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been transferred to a penal colony to serve out a sentence the government is for embezzlement after voluntarily returning from Germany where he had undergone major medical help for an allegedly state-sanctioned poisoning. A court said that by having left the country, he had violated the terms of probation arising from the embezzlement charge.

The U.N. says that at least 18 people were killed on the weekend during protests against Myanmar’s Feb. 1 coup. The military’s forceful response signalled a renewed determination to quash unrest which has seen thousand or protestors taking to the streets in major centres.

More than 2,000 staff at the Communications Security Establishment, without a contract for two years, have voted to strike after what the Public Service Alliance of Canada says is management’s insistence on “a deal-breaking concession” and refusal to send the dispute for binding arbitration. The union says the proposed concession would mean lower pay than elsewhere in the government.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization, says wealthier countries should not undermine arrangements for poorer countries to have access to COVID-19 vaccines. He notes that some countries have ordered enough to vaccinate their populations more than once.

Microsoft President Brad Smith says the U.S. must prepare a “robust menu” of responses to cyber attacks. He was commenting on the massive Solarwinds hack, which exposed the vulnerability of civilian government networks and the limitations of efforts to detect threats. “We need to strengthen the nation’s digital infrastructure and digital defenses, and that touches every part of the public sector, and every part of the private sector as well.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Joe Biden used their first bilateral meeting to promise an “ambitious new partnership roadmap, based on shared values and priorities” as their governments address climate change, the post-pandemic world and China’s detention of two Canadians in December 2019. “Job One remains keeping people safe,” the PM said today after the virtual meeting.

A report by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies warns that even if the U.S. manages to keep its allies from using Chinese telecommunications technology, Beijing’s “digital silk road” strategy enables China to burrow into those countries' economies and infrastructure, creating dependencies that may ultimately weaken alliance ties.

An Opposition motion declaring that China is committing genocide against its Uighur population was approved 266-0 in the House of Commons today with only the cabinet abstaining. The non-binding motion by the Conservatives’ foreign affairs critic, Michael Chong, was supported by more than 80 government MPs who were given a free vote.

Effective today, most travellers arriving at Canadian airports are required to be quarantined in a hotel for three days at their own expense. They also must complete multiple COVID-19 tests before their arrival as well as on arrival and during and on completion of the quarantine period.

On the heels of the return to service of its 737Max platform, Boeing is urging airlines to suspend the use of its 777 after one shed engine parts over Denver on the weekend. The Federal Aviation Administration has ordered extra inspections of the 777’s twin Pratt & Whitney engines.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s declaration during an online conference that “the transatlantic alliance is back” signalled a renewed commitment to NATO, but his French counterpart had a different message Feb. 19 for the Munich Security Conference. Emmanuel Macron, who described the alliance in November 2019 as “brain dead,” said he is looking for a new transatlantic “security architecture.”

Code developed by the U.S. National Security Agency evidently has been used by Chinese hackers, according to an Israeli company. Check Point Software Technologies reports that some aspects of “Jian” malware linked to China were so similar they could only have been stolen from National Security Agency software leaked in 2017.

The U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Polar Star is back at its Seattle base after the first winter deployment of a U.S. government surface vessel since 1982. The only U.S. icebreaker rated for “heavy” ice, it transited the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea into the Chukchi Sea.

Fifteen weeks after the former administration withdraw from the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change and the new leadership confirmed its plans, the U.S. has formally rejoined. “A cry for survival comes from the planet itself,” President Joe Biden said in his Jan. 20 inauguration address just before signing an executive order on his first day in office. His administration has said it will present emissions-reduction targets before a global environmental summit in April.

A massive hack that may have revealed government and industry secrets to Russia evidently has U.S. officials scrambling to reinforce cyber defences after acknowledging that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency needs more resources to counter sophisticated attacks. “It's really highlighted the investments we need to make in cybersecurity to have the visibility to block these attacks,” says Anne Neuberger, newly-appointed Deputy National Security Advisor for Cyber and Emergency Technology.

A House of Commons subcommittee’s accusation that China's treatment of its mostly Muslim Uighur population is tantamount to genocide has sparked a strong response from Beijing. “A rumour and a farce fabricated by some anti-Chinese forces,” was a foreign ministry officials’ response to the subcommittee’s report. “This is blatant interference in China's internal affairs and reflects those Canadian individuals' ignorance and prejudice.”

An RCMP investigation has led to Travis Patron, the Saskatchewan-based leader of the Canadian Nationalist Party, being charged for promoting hatred through anti-Semitic postings on social media. “He's promoting some of the most vile and dangerous anti-Semitic tropes in history,” says Jaime Kirzner-Roberts, director of policy with the Toronto-based Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center.

New COVID-19 variants are believed to be homegrown in the USA. With no naming system in place, and to avoid blaming the regions the variants were first identified, researchers are becoming creative but naming with no relativity poses its own complications. Seven variants carrying the same mutation were recently given avian nomenclature such as Pelican, Quail and Mockingbird. How do you remember the differences between the Kingfisher and Pigeon variants?

Draft gun control legislation introduced Feb. 16 by the federal government as Bill C-21 would permit cities to tighten controls on handguns. However, a knowledgeable critic says that to be truly effective, the measure should be an outright federal ban.

Canada and a coalition of 57 other countries are endorsing an international declaration which denounces state-sponsored arbitrary detention of foreign nationals for political purposes. Spearheaded by former foreign affairs minister Francois-Philippe Champagne, the new initiative, which targets Russia, Iran and North Korea, flows from Canada’s push to have China release Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, detained since December 2019.

Claude Carignan, a Quebec Conservative Senator, has complained to the Commission of Official Languages about the recent report on GovGen Julie Payette’s behaviour having been only in English. “Persons targeted by the investigation and the witnesses who participated in it must . . . be able to consult this report in the official language of their choice,” he said Feb. 15.

The London-based HSBC bank is being sued by Huawei in a British court for access to documents as part of its effort to prevent deportation by Canada of its chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, to the U.S. She was arrested in Vancouver in December 2018 at the request of the U.S., which claims she breached U.S. sanctions against Iran in her dealings with the bank. In apparent retaliation for her arrest, China detained two Canadians, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, on allegations of espionage.

Alberta MP Shannon Stubbs remains the Conservatives’ public safety and emergency preparedness critic in the House of Commons after Opposition Leader Erin O’Toole shuffled his roster of critics today. Ontario MP Michel Chong remains foreign affairs critic. The shadow cabinet shuffle affected about a dozen caucus members, the most significant being O’Toole’s decision to reassign Ottawa-area MP Pierre Poilievre from his role as finance critic to a jobs-and-industry role. Poilievre is succeeded by B.C. MP Ed Fast.

Canadian Security Intelligence Service Director David Vigneault says China is undermining Canada through its efforts to steal valuable technology and silence critics of Beijing's policies. “The government . . . is pursuing a strategy for geopolitical advantage on all fronts” and is “using all events, all elements of state power, to carry out activities that are a direct threat to our national security and sovereignty.”

Nearly 200 British academics at more than 12 universities evidently are being investigated on suspicion of unwittingly helping China to build weapons of mass destruction. They are reported to have unknowingly breached export controls designed to protect intellectual property.

Effective Feb. 15, anyone arriving in Canada must have had a negative COVID-19 test result within the 72 hours prior to their arrival. In announcing the policy, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Feb. 9 that while the government cannot prevent Canadians from returning to the country at a land border, even without a test, they can be fined up to $3,000 for non-compliance.

The federal government is being urged by the Toronto-based Centre for Free Expression to amend whistleblower protection legislation. “Study after study has confirmed that insider tips . . . are the most effective way of detecting misconduct in organizations,” CFE Senior Fellow Ian Bron told the House of Commons Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates Feb. 1.

Virtually all personnel at U.S. military installations now must wear masks indoors and outdoors as well as practising social distancing as the Department of Defense steps up efforts to contain COIVID-19. An earlier directive essentially ignored outdoor activities.

President Joe Biden says the U.S. will not lift economic sanctions against Iran until it complies with a multinational nuclear agreement from which his predecessor withdrew in 2018. However, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, says negotiations will only resume if the U.S. lifts its sanctions.

As several other jurisdictions across Canada consider relaxing COVID-19 controls, British Columbia is extending its lockdown indefinitely. Officials said Feb. 5 that while the province has made “encouraging” progress in reducing the spread of COVID-19, but the situation isn't stable enough to allow people to start getting together again.

Diplomats from Germany, Sweden and Poland have been expelled from Russia for joining protests in support of opposition activist Alexei Navalny, who was jailed earlier this week. The foreign ministry accused them of have participated in the “illegal demonstrations.”

A deadlock over the appointment of a new director general at the Geneva-based World Trade Organization is over. The U.S. has expressed “strong support” for former Nigerian finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who had been the frontrunner until the Trump administration said it preferred South Korean trade minister Yoo Myung-hee.

In a Feb. 4 speech to the U.S. diplomatic community, President Joe Biden announced a policy reset at home and abroad, effectively moving to undo many of his predecessor’s initiatives. “America is back,” he said during a State Department visit, hoping “to begin the habits of cooperation and rebuilding the muscles of democratic alliances that have atrophied from four years of neglect and abuse.” He also announced an end to U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s offensive operations in Yemen.