Justin Trudeau

Canada, South Korea seek deeper cooperation on critical minerals

>>> Don’t Miss Today’s BEST Amazon Deals!<<<<

OTTAWA, Sept 23 (Reuters) – Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol on Friday agreed to deepen cooperation on critical minerals used in electric vehicles (EVs) batteries as both countries seek to cut emissions to fight climate change.

Yoon visited London for the funeral of Queen Elizabeth, and then New York in his first U.S. trip to attend the U.N. General Assembly, before arriving in Canada on Thursday. On Friday, Yoon met Trudeau in Ottawa, and then they both spoke to reporters.

“Yoon and I discussed ways to collaborate in a variety of areas, including essential minerals, batteries for electric vehicles, and emerging technologies, including AI (artificial intelligence),” Trudeau told reporters.

Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com

Canada has many of the critical minerals – like lithium, cobalt and nickel – that are now used to make batteries for EVs, and the government is in the process of seeking to help producers and processors scale up production.

“Canada, as a global leader in the production of minerals, and Korea, a major semiconductor and battery maker – each play crucial roles in global supply chains,” Yoon said through an interpreter.

“The governments and businesses of our two nations will work together for the mineral resources sector to build a cooperative architecture… to respond to the shocks resulting from the changing world order,” Yoon added.

China is currently by far the dominant global supplier of critical minerals used in EVs. Yoon said it was strategically important for both countries to find an alternative supplier.

Canada and South Korea are already cooperating in the sector, Trudeau pointed out.

In March, Stellantis (STLA.MI), the parent of Jeep and Chrysler, said it would build an EV battery plant in a joint venture with South Korea’s LG Energy Solution (373220.KS) in Windsor, across the border from Detroit. read more

In a joint statement, the two countries said they agreed to deepen their “strategic partnership on supply chain resiliency” and would seek to position themselves as “competitive players in the critical minerals supply chain and battery and EV value chains”.

To that end, both countries agreed to develop a memorandum of understanding in the coming months to “support clean energy transition and energy security, including with respect to critical minerals”.

Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com

Reporting by Steve Scherer; Editing by Sandra Maler

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

View Source

>>> Don’t Miss Today’s BEST Amazon Deals! <<<<

Fiona Sweeps Away Houses, Knocks Out Power In Eastern Canada

Fiona transformed from a hurricane into a post-tropical storm, but meteorologists cautioned that it still could have hurricane-strength winds.

Fiona washed houses into the sea, tore the roofs off others and knocked out power to the vast majority of two Canadian provinces as it made landfall before dawn Saturday as a big, powerful post-tropical cyclone.

Fiona transformed from a hurricane into a post-tropical storm late Friday, but it still had hurricane-strength winds and brought drenching rains and huge waves. There was no confirmation of fatalities or injures.

Ocean waves pounded the town of Channel-Port Aux Basques on the southern coast of Newfoundland, where entire structures were washed into the sea. Mayor Brian Button said Saturday over social media that people were being evacuated to high ground as winds knocked down power lines.

“I’m seeing homes in the ocean. I’m seeing rubble floating all over the place. It’s complete and utter destruction. There’s an apartment that is gone,” said René J. Roy, a resident of Channel-Port Aux Basques and chief editor at Wreckhouse Press, said in a phone interview.

Roy estimated between eight to 12 houses and buildings have washed into the sea. “It’s quite terrifying,” he said.

Jolene Garland, a spokeswoman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Newfoundland and Labrador, said a woman was safe and in “good health” after being “tossed into the water as her home collapsed” in the Channel-Port Aux Basques area. Garland said that an individual who might have been swept away was still reported as missing and that high winds were preventing an aerial search.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said the town of 4,000 people was in a state of emergency as authorities dealt with multiple electrical fires and residential flooding.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau canceled his trip to Japan for the funeral for assassinated former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Trudeau said the federal government would deploy the Canadian Armed Forces to assist.

“We are seeing devastating images coming out of Port aux Basques. PEI (Prince Edward Island) has experienced storm damage like they’ve never seen. Cape Breton is being hit hard, too,” Trudeau said.

“Canadians are thinking of all those affected by Hurricane Fiona, which is having devastating effects in the Atlantic provinces and eastern Quebec, particularly in the Magdalen Islands. There are people who see their houses destroyed, people who are very worried — we will be there for you.”

Halifax Mayor Mike Savage said the roof of an apartment building collapsed and they moved 100 people to a evacuation center. He said no one was seriously hurt or killed. Provincial officials said there are other apartment buildings that are also significantly damaged. Halifax has about 160 people displaced from two apartments, officials said.

More than 415,000 Nova Scotia Power customers — about 80% of the province of almost 1 million — were affected by outages Saturday morning. Over 82,000 customers in the province of Prince Edward Island, about 95%, were also without power, while NB Power in New Brunswick reported 44,329 were without electricity.

The Canadian Hurricane Centre tweeted early Saturday that Fiona had the lowest pressure ever recorded for a storm making landfall in Canada. Forecasters had warned it could be the one of the most powerful storms to hit the country.

“We’re getting more severe storms more frequently,” Trudeau said Saturday.

He said more resilient infrastructure is needed to be able withstand extreme weather events, saying a one in a 100 year storm might start to hit every few years because of climate change.

“Things are only getting worse,” Trudeau said.

A state of local emergency was also declared by the mayor and council of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality.

“There are homes that have been significantly damaged due to downed trees, big old trees falling down and causing significant damage. We’re also seeing houses that their roofs have completely torn off, windows breaking in. There is a huge amount of debris in the roadways,” Amanda McDougall, mayor of Cape Breton Regional Municipality, told The Associated Press

“There is a lot of damage to belongings and structures but no injuries to people as of this point. Again we’re still in the midst of this,” she said. “It’s still terrifying. I’m just sitting here in my living room and it feels like the patio doors are going to break in with those big gusts.”

Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston said roads were washed out, including his own, and said an “incredible” amount of trees were down

“It is pretty devastating. The sad reality is the people who need information are unable to hear it. Their phones are not working, they don’t have power or access to the internet,” Houston said.

Peter Gregg, President and CEO of Nova Scotia Power, said unprecedented peak winds caused severe damage. “In many areas, weather conditions are still too dangerous for our crews to get up in our bucket trucks,” Gregg said. He said about 380,000 customers remain without power as of Saturday afternoon.

Prince Edward Island Premier Dennis King said they had no reports of any significant injures or deaths. But he said few communities were spared damage, with the devastation looking to be beyond anything they had seen previously in the province. He said over 95% of islanders remained without power.

Federal Minister of Emergency Preparedness Bill Blair said there was very extensive damage at the airport in Sydney, Nova Scotia. He said other airports also were hit, but that damage at the Halifax facility, Nova Scotia’s largest airport, was minor.

Fiona had weakened to tropical storm strength late Saturday afternoon as it moved across the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The U.S. hurricane center said Fiona had maximum sustained winds of 70 mph. It was centered about 80 miles northwest of Port aux Basques and moving northeast at 8 mph.

Tropical storm-force winds extended outward up to 550 miles.

Hurricanes in Canada are somewhat rare, in part because once the storms reach colder waters, they lose their main source of energy. But post-tropical cyclones still can have hurricane-strength winds, although they have a cold core and no visible eye. They also often lose their symmetric form and more resemble a comma.

In Sydney, Nova Scotia, the largest city in Cape Breton, about 20 people took refuge at the Centre 200 sports and entertainment facility, said Christina Lamey, a spokeswoman for the region. Lemay said there were hundreds of people displaced in the province.

Arlene and Robert Grafilo fled to Centre 200 with their children, ages 3 and 10, after a huge tree fell on their duplex apartment.

“We were trapped and we couldn’t open the doors and the windows, so that’s when we decided to call 911,” Arlene Grafilo said. She said firefighters eventually rescued them.

Fiona so far has been blamed for at least five deaths — two in Puerto Rico, two in the Dominican Republic and one in the French island of Guadeloupe.

In the Caribbean, Tropical Storm Ian was predicted to rapidly strengthen and hit Cuba early Tuesday as a hurricane and then hit southern Florida on Wednesday or Thursday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Ian was centered about 255 miles south of Kingston, Jamaica, late Saturday afternoon. It had maximum sustained winds of 45 mph and was moving west at 16 mph. A hurricane watch was issued for the Cayman Islands.

Additional reporting by the Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

View Source

>>> Don’t Miss Today’s BEST Amazon Deals! <<<<

Fiona Knocks Out Power With Strong Winds In Atlantic Canada

Fiona transformed from a hurricane into a post-tropical storm, but meteorologists cautioned that it still could have hurricane-strength winds.

Fiona knocked out power to more than 500,000 customers in Atlantic Canada Saturday, damaging homes with strong winds and rain as it made landfall as a big, powerful post-tropical cyclone.

Fiona transformed from a hurricane into a post-tropical storm late Friday, but meteorologists cautioned that it still could have hurricane-strength winds and would bring drenching rains and huge waves.

More than 414,000 Nova Scotia Power customers — about 80% of the province of almost 1 million — were affected by outages Saturday morning. Over 82,000 customers in the province of Prince Edward Island were also without power, while NB Power in New Brunswick reported 44,329 were without electricity.

The fast-moving Fiona made Nova Scotia landfall before dawn Saturday, with its power down from the Category 4 strength it had early Friday when passing by Bermuda, though officials there reported no serious damage.

The Canadian Hurricane Centre tweeted early Saturday that Fiona has the lowest pressure ever recorded for a storm making landfall in Canada. Forecasters had warned it could be the one of the most powerful storms to hit the country.

A state of local emergency has been declared by the mayor and council of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality amid widespread power outages, road closures and damage to homes.

McDougall said the shelter they opened was full overnight and they will look to open more.

The extent of the damage throughout Atlantic Canada was immediately clear at sunrise.

A hurricane watch was issued for coastal expanses of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau decided to delay his trip to Japan for the funeral for assassinated former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

“We of course hope there won’t be much needed, but we feel there probably will be,” Trudeau said. “Listen to the instructions of local authorities and hang in there for the next 24 hours.”

The U.S. hurricane center said Fiona had maximum sustained winds of 90 mph Saturday. It was moving across eastern Canada.

Hurricane-force winds extended outward up to 175 miles from the center and tropical storm-force winds extended outward up to 405 miles.

“Still holding strong. But it’s getting very scary,” Amanda McDougall, mayor of Cape Breton Regional Municipality, told The Associated Press in the first hours after it hit.

People in the area rushed to stock up essentials and worked to stormproof their properties Friday.

Bob Robichaud, Warning Preparedness Meteorologist for the Canadian Hurricane Centre, said Fiona was shaping up to be a bigger storm system than Hurricane Juan, which caused extensive damage to the Halifax area in 2003.

He added that Fiona is about the same size as post-tropical storm Dorian in 2019. “But it is stronger than Dorian was,” he said. “It’s certainly going to be an historic, extreme event for eastern Canada.”

Christina Lamey, a spokesperson for the Cape Breton Regional Municipality, said the Centre 200 sports arena in Sydney was being opened Friday night to take in residents who wanted to evacuate from their homes during the storm. Halifax said it would open four evacuation centers.

Officials on Prince Edward Island sent out an emergency alert to phones warning of the potential for severe flooding on the northern shore of the province.

Authorities in Nova Scotia also sent an emergency alert to phones warning of Fiona’s arrival and urging people to say inside, avoid the shore, charge devices and have enough supplies for at least 72 hours.

Fiona so far has been blamed for at least five deaths — two in Puerto Rico, two in the Dominican Republic and one in the French island of Guadeloupe.

Meanwhile, the National Hurricane Center said newly formed Tropical Storm Ian in the Caribbean was expected to keep strengthening and hit Cuba early Tuesday as a hurricane and then hit southern Florida early Wednesday.

It was centered about 315 miles southeast of Kingston, Jamaica. It had maximum sustained winds of 45 mph and was moving west-northwest at 14 mph. A hurricane watch was issued for the Cayman Islands.

Additional reporting by the Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

View Source

>>> Don’t Miss Today’s BEST Amazon Deals! <<<<

Canadian Police: 1 Suspect In Stabbings Has Been Found Dead

The discovery of the body came on the second day of a massive manhunt for the pair, who are suspected of carrying out a series of stabbings.

One of the suspects in the stabbing deaths of 10 people in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan has been found dead, and his injuries are not self inflicted, police said Monday as they continued the search for a second suspect.

Regina Police Chief Evan Bray said Damien Sanderson, 31, has been found dead and that they believe his brother, Myles Sanderson, 30, is injured and on the run. While Damien’s body was found near the stabbing sites they believe Myles is in Regina, the capital of Saskatchewan.

“His body was located outdoors in a heavily grassed area in proximity to a house that was being examined. We can confirm he has visible injuries. These injuries are not believed to be self inflicted at this point,” said RCMP Commanding Officer Assistant Commissioner Rhonda Blackmore.

The discovery of the body came on the second day of a massive manhunt for the pair, who are suspected of carrying out a series of stabbings in an Indigenous community and a nearby town, which also left 18 people injured. It was the deadliest attacks in Canada’s history.

Authorities have said some of the victims were targeted and others appeared to have been chosen at random on the James Smith Cree Nation and in the town of Weldon in Saskatchewan. They have given no motive for the crimes— but a senior Indigenous leader suggested drugs were somehow involved.

While they believe Myles is in Regina, about 210 miles south of where the stabbings happened, authorities have issued alerts in Canada’s three vast prairie provinces — which also include Manitoba and Alberta — and contacted U.S. border officials.

With one suspect still at large, fear gripped communities in the rural, working class area of Saskatchewan surrounded by farmland that were terrorized by the crimes. One witness who said he lost family members described seeing people with bloody wounds scattered throughout the Indigenous reserve.

“No one in this town is ever going to sleep again. They’re going to be terrified to open their door,” said Ruby Works, who also lost someone close to her and is a resident of Weldon, which has a population of about 200 and is home to many retirees.

As the Labor Day holiday weekend drew to a close Monday, police urged Saskatchewan residents who were returning from trips away to look for suspicious activity around their homes before entering.

Arrest warrants have been issued for the pair of suspects and both men had faced at least one count each of murder and attempted murder. More charges were expected.

Police have given few details about the men. Last May, Saskatchewan Crime Stoppers issued a wanted list that included Myles Sanderson, writing that he was “unlawfully at large.”

While the manhunt continued, police also issued a provincewide alert for suspects in a shooting on the Witchekan Lake First Nation. Officials said the shooting was not believed to be connected to the stabbings, but such alerts are unusual and the fact that a second occurred while authorities were already scouring the Saskatchewan for the stabbing suspects was notable.

The stabbing attack was among the deadliest mass killings in Canada, where such crimes are less common than in the United States. The deadliest gun rampage in Canadian history happened in 2020, when a man disguised as a police officer shot people in their homes and set fires across the province of Nova Scotia, killing 22 people. In 2019, a man used a van to kill 10 pedestrians in Toronto.

Deadly mass stabbings are rarer than mass shootings, but have happened around the world. In 2014, 29 people were slashed and stabbed to death at a train station in China’s southwestern city of Kunming. In 2016, a mass stabbing at a facility for the mentally disabled in Sagamihara, Japan, left 19 people dead. A year later, three men killed eight people in a vehicle and stabbing attack at London Bridge.

Canadian police got their first call about a stabbing at 5:40 a.m. on Sunday, and within minutes heard about several more. In all, dead or wounded people were found at 13 different locations on the sparsely populated reserve and in the town, Blackmore said. James Smith Cree Nation is about 20 miles from Weldon.

She couldn’t provide a motive, but the chief of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations suggested the stabbings could be drug-related.

“This is the destruction we face when harmful illegal drugs invade our communities, and we demand all authorities to take direction from the chiefs and councils and their membership to create safer and healthier communities for our people,” said Chief Bobby Cameron.

As the manhunt stretched on, Regina Police Chief Evan Bray urged anyone with information to come forward.

Bray said they got a credible tip they were in Regina and he told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that following a “very aggressive investigation” police believe they are still in the city.

The elected leaders of the three communities that make up the James Smith Cree Nation declared a local state of emergency.

Chakastaypasin Chief Calvin Sanderson — who apparently is not related to the suspects — said everyone has been affected by the tragic events.

“They were our relatives, friends,” Sanderson said of the victims. “It’s pretty horrific.”

Among the 10 killed was Lana Head, who is the former partner of Michael Brett Burns and the mother of their two daughters.

“It’s sick how jail time, drugs and alcohol can destroy many lives,” Burns told the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network. “I’m hurt for all this loss.”

Burns later posted on Facebook that there were dead and wounded people everywhere on the reserve, making it look like “a war zone.”

“The look in their eyes couldn’t express the pain and suffering for all those who were assaulted,” he posted.

Weldon residents have identified one of the dead as Wes Petterson, a retired widower who made he coffee every morning at the senior center. He loved gardening, picking berries, canning, and making jam and cakes, recalled William Works, 47, and his mother, Sharon Works, 64.

“He would give you the shirt off his back if he could,” William Works said, describing his neighbor as a “gentle old fellow” and “community first.”

Sharon Works was baffled: “I don’t understand why they would target someone like him anyway, because he was just a poor, helpless little man, 100 pounds soaking wet. And he could hardly breathe because he had asthma and emphysema and everybody cared about him because that’s the way he was. He cared about everybody else. And they cared about him.”

The pair said there is hardly any crime in the rural town, except an occasional speeding ticket. They always left the door unlocked until the night of the slayings.

“Not even when I go to town, I don’t lock my door,” Sharon Works said. “But now I have to find my key to my house. I never used to lock the doors and nobody around here until this happened.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the flag above Canada’s parliament building in Ottawa would be flown at half-staff to honor the victims.

“Sadly, over these past years, tragedies like these have become all too common place. Saskatchewanians and Canadians will do what we always do in times of difficulty and anguish, we will be there for each other,” Trudeau said.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

View Source

>>> Don’t Miss Today’s BEST Amazon Deals! <<<<

Live Updates: Canadian Police Expand Search for 2 Men After Deadly Knife Attacks

Credit…David Stobbe/Reuters

A manhunt stretched into Monday in the province of Saskatchewan for two men suspected of a brutal stabbing spree early Sunday that killed 10 people and injured at least 15 in one of the province’s worst ever cases of mass violence.

Canadian authorities told residents in the James Smith Cree Nation and the nearby village of Weldon to shelter at home as they expanded the search nearly 300 kilometers south to Regina, the capital of the province. Police were investigating 13 crime scenes and believed that the suspects had targeted some victims while others were attacked randomly.

The first stabbing was reported at 5:40 a.m. on Sunday, followed minutes later by calls from nearby locations. At 7:14 a.m. the Royal Canadian Mounted Police sent out a dangerous persons alert for two men who were considered “armed and dangerous” and were later identified as Damien Sanderson and Myles Sanderson.

The men were believed to be traveling in a black Nissan Rogue, according to authorities, who said a driver had spotted the vehicle at 11:45 a.m. in Regina.

A dangerous persons alert was expanded in the afternoon to the provinces of Manitoba and Alberta. But the authorities cautioned that the men may have changed their vehicle, and their direction of travel was unknown.

Evan Bray, the Regina police chief, said in a video posted Sunday night on Twitter that the men “are likely” in the city, without offering details of how the police reached that conclusion.

He reassured residents of Regina, a city of about 226,000 people, that the police had dedicated “a lot of resources” to finding the men and asked residents to provide any relevant information to the police.

“The public is often the key to helping us resolve these situations quickly,” he said.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he was “shocked and devastated by the horrific attacks.”

“As Canadians, we mourn with everyone affected by this tragic violence,” he added.

Rhonda Blackmore, a commander with the Saskatchewan Royal Canadian Mounted Police, said at a news conference on Sunday that it “would be extremely difficult at this point in time” to speak to a motive in the attacks.

“If Damien and Myles are listening or receive this information, I would ask that they turn themselves into police immediately,” she added, addressing the two wanted men directly.

— Austin Ramzy

View Source

>>> Don’t Miss Today’s BEST Amazon Deals! <<<<

Stabbings In Canada Kill 10, Wound 15; Suspects At Large

Police say some of the victims appear to have been targeted by the suspects, but others appear to have been attacked at random.

A series of stabbings at a First Nation community and at another town nearby in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan left 10 people dead and 15 wounded, Canadian police said Sunday as they searched for two suspects.

The stabbings took place in multiple locations on the James Smith Cree Nation and in the village of Weldon, northeast of Saskatoon, police said.

Rhonda Blackmore, the Assistant Commissioner of the RCMP Saskatchewan, said some of the victims appear to have been targeted by the suspects but others appear to have been attacked at random. She couldn’t provide a motive.

“It is horrific what has occurred in our province today,” Blackmore said.

She said there are 13 crime scenes where either deceased or injured people were found. She urged the suspects to turn themselves in.

Blackmore said police began receiving reports before 6 a.m. of stabbings on the First Nation. More reports of attacks quickly followed and by midday police issued a warning that a vehicle reportedly carrying the two suspects had been spotted in Regina.

Police said the last information they had from the public was that the suspects were sighted in Saskatchewan’s capital of Regina around lunchtime. There have been so sightings since.

“If in the Regina area, take precautions & consider sheltering in place. Do not leave a secure location. DO NOT APPROACH suspicious persons. Do not pick up hitch hikers. Report suspicious persons, emergencies or info to 9-1-1. Do not disclose police locations,” the RCMP said in a message on Twitter.

Doreen Lees, an 89-year grandmother from Weldon, said she and her daughter thought they saw one of the suspects when a car came barreling down her street early in the morning as her daughter was having coffee on her deck. Lees said a man approached them and said he was hurt and needed help.

But Lees said the man took off and ran after her daughter said she would call for help.

“He wouldn’t show his face. He had a big jacket over his face. We asked his name and he kind of mumbled his name twice and we still couldn’t get it,” she said. “He said his face was injured so bad he couldn’t show it.”

She said the man was by himself and “kind a little wobbly.”

“I followed him a little ways to see if he was going to be OK. My daughter said ‘Don’t follow him, get back here.'”

Weldon resident Diane Shier said she was in her garden Sunday morning when she noticed emergency crews a couple of blocks away.

Shier said her neighbor was killed. She did not want to identify the victim out of respect for his family.

“I am very upset because I lost a good neighbor,” she said.

The search for suspects was carried out as fans descended in Regina for a sold out annual Labor Day game between the Canadian Football League’s Saskatchewan Roughriders and Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

The Regina Police Service said in a news release that with the help of Mounties, it was working on several fronts to locate and arrest the suspects and had “deployed additional resources for public safety throughout the city, including the football game at Mosaic Stadium.”

The alert first issued by Melfort, Saskatchewan RCMP about 7 a.m. was extended hours later to cover Manitoba and Alberta, as the two suspects remained at large.

Damien Sanderson, 31, was described as five feet seven inches tall and 155 pounds, and Myles Sanderson, 30, as six-foot-one and 200 pounds. Both have black hair and brown eyes and may be driving a black Nissan Rogue.

The Saskatchewan Health Authority said multiple patients were being treated at several sites.

“A call for additional staff was issued to respond to the influx of casualties,” authority spokeswoman Anne Linemann said in an email.

Mark Oddan, a spokesman with STARS Air Ambulance, said two helicopters were dispatched from Saskatoon and another from Regina.

He said two carried patients to the Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon, while the third carried a patient to Royal University from a hospital in Melfort, a short distance southeast of Weldon.

“The attacks in Saskatchewan today are horrific and heartbreaking. I’m thinking of those who have lost a loved one and of those who were injured,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted.

“We are closely monitoring the situation, and urge everyone to follow updates from local authorities. Thank you to all the brave first responders for their efforts on the ground.”

James Smith Cree Nation declared a state of emergency.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

View Source

>>> Don’t Miss Today’s BEST Amazon Deals! <<<<

Pope Lands In Canada, Set For Apologies To Indigenous Groups

On Monday, the pope is meeting with school survivors in Maskwacis, where he is expected to deliver an apology.

Pope Francis began a historic visit to Canada on Sunday to apologize to Indigenous peoples for abuses by missionaries at residential schools, a key step in the Catholic Church’s efforts to reconcile with Native communities and help them heal from generations of trauma.

Francis kissed the hand of a residential school survivor as he was greeted at the Edmonton, Alberta, airport by Indigenous representatives, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mary Simon, an Inuk who is Canada’s first Indigenous governor general.

The gesture set the tone of what Francis has said is a “penitential pilgrimage” to atone for the role of Catholic missionaries in the forced assimilation of generations of Native children — a visit that has stirred mixed emotions across Canada as survivors and their families cope with the trauma of their losses and receive a long-sought papal apology.

Francis had no official events scheduled Sunday, giving him time to rest before his meeting Monday with survivors near the site of a former residential school in Maskwacis, where he is expected to pray at a cemetery and apologize.

Francis exited the back of his plane with the help of an ambulift, given his strained knee ligaments have forced him to use a wheelchair. The simple welcome ceremony took place in airport hangar, where Indigenous drums and chanting broke the silence. As Trudeau and Simon sat beside Francis, a succession of Indigenous leaders and elders greeted the pope and exchanged gifts. At one point, Francis kissed the hand of residential school survivor Elder Alma Desjarlais of the Frog Lake First Nations as she was introduced to him.

“Right now, many of our people are skeptical and they are hurt,” said Grand Chief George Arcand Jr. of the Confederacy of Treaty Six First Nations, who greeted the pope. Yet he expressed hope that with the papal apology, “We could begin our journey of healing .. and change the way things have been for our people for many, many years.”

Indigenous groups are seeking more than just words, though, as they press for access to church archives to learn the fate of children who never returned home from the residential schools. They also want justice for the abusers, financial reparations and the return of Indigenous artifacts held by the Vatican Museums.

Assembly of First Nations National Chief RoseAnne Archibald, one of the country’s most prominent Indigenous leaders, said several members of her family attended residential schools, including a sister who died at one in Ontario. She described it as “an institution of assimilation and genocide.”

During her fight to Alberta, “I was just so overcome with emotion and there were different times on the plane where I really had to stop myself from breaking into a deep sob,” she said. “I realized that I am an intergenerational trauma survivor and there are so many people like me.”

Francis’ week-long trip — which will take him to Edmonton; Quebec City and finally Iqaluit, Nunavut, in the far north — follows meetings he held in the spring at the Vatican with delegations from the First Nations, Metis and Inuit. Those meetings culminated with a historic April 1 apology for the “deplorable” abuses committed by some Catholic missionaries in residential schools.

The Canadian government has admitted that physical and sexual abuse were rampant in the state-funded Christian schools that operated from the 19th century to the 1970s. Some 150,000 Indigenous children were taken from their families and forced to attend in an effort to isolate them from the influence of their homes, Native languages and cultures and assimilate them into Canada’s Christian society.

Then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a formal apology over the residential schools in 2008. As part of a lawsuit settlement involving the government, churches and approximately 90,000 surviving students, Canada paid reparations that amounted to billions of dollars being transferred to Indigenous communities. Canada’s Catholic Church says its dioceses and religious orders have provided more than $50 million in cash and in-kind contributions, and hope to add $30 million more over the next five years.

Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2015 had called for a papal apology to be delivered on Canadian soil, but it was only after the 2021 discovery of the possible remains of around 200 children at the former Kamloops residential school in British Columbia that the Vatican mobilized to comply with the request.

“I honestly believe that if it wasn’t for the discovery … and all the spotlight that was placed on the Oblates or the Catholic Church as well, I don’t think any of this would have happened,” said Raymond Frogner, head archivist at the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.

Frogner just returned from Rome where he spent five days at the headquarters of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, which operated 48 of the 139 Christian-run residential schools, the most of any Catholic order. After the graves were discovered, the Oblates finally offered “complete transparency and accountability” and allowed him into its headquarters to research the names of alleged sex abusers from a single school in the western Canadian province of Saskatchewan, he said.

The Inuit community, for its part, is seeking Vatican assistance to extradite a single Oblate priest, the Rev. Joannes Rivoire, who ministered to Inuit communities until he left in the 1990s and returned to France. Canadian authorities issued an arrest warrant for him in 1998 on accusations of several counts of sexual abuse, but it has never been served.

Inuit leader Natan Obed personally asked Francis for the Vatican’s help in extraditing Rivoire, telling The Associated Press in March that it was one specific thing the Vatican could do to bring healing to his many victims.

Asked about the request, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said last week that he had no information on the case.

At a news conference Saturday in Edmonton, organizers said they will do all they can to enable school survivors to attend the papal events, particularly for the Maskwacis apology and the Tuesday gathering at Lac Ste. Anne, long a popular pilgrimage site for Indigenous Catholics.

Both are in rural areas, and organizers are arranging shuttle transport from various park-and-ride lots. They noted that many survivors are now elderly and frail and may need accessible vehicle transport, diabetic-friendly snacks and other services.

The Rev. Cristino Bouvette, national liturgical coordinator for the papal visit, who is partly of Indigenous heritage, said he hopes the visit is healing for those who “have borne a wound, a cross that they have suffered with, in some cases for generations.”

Bouvette, a priest in the Diocese of Calgary, said the papal liturgical events will have strong Indigenous representation — including prominent roles for Indigenous clergy and the use of Native languages, music and motifs on liturgical vestments.

Bouvette said he’s doing this work in honor of his “kokum,” the Cree word for grandmother, who spent 12 years at a residential school in Edmonton. She “could have probably never imagined those many years later that her grandson would be involved in this work.”

Additional reporting by the Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

View Source

>>> Don’t Miss Today’s BEST Amazon Deals! <<<<

G7 to hike sanctions on Russia, nears oil price cap deal

G7 to announce new Russia sanctions on Tuesday – U.S. official
G7 to work with other countries, private sector on oil price cap
Japan tries to cut zero-emission vehicles goal from G7 statement

SCHLOSS ELMAU, Germany, June 27 (Reuters) – The Group of Seven rich democracies will commit on Tuesday to a new package of coordinated actions meant to raise pressure on Russia over its war in Ukraine, and will finalise plans for a price cap on Russian oil, a senior U.S. official said on Monday.

The announcement came as the White House said Russia had defaulted on its foreign sovereign bonds for the first time in decades – an assertion Moscow rejected – and as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy spoke virtually with G7 leaders meeting at an alpine resort in southern Germany. read more

Zelenskiy asked leaders of the Group of Seven leading industrial democracies for a broad range of military, economic and diplomatic support, according to a European official.

Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com

G7 nations, which generate nearly half the world’s economic output, want to crank up pressure on Russia without stoking already soaring inflation that is causing strains at home and savaging the global south.

The price cap could hit Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war chest while actually lowering energy prices.

“The dual objectives of G7 leaders have been to take direct aim at Putin’s revenues, particularly through energy, but also to minimize the spillovers and the impact on the G7 economies and the rest of the world,” the U.S. official said on the sidelines of the annual G7 summit.

G7 leaders would also make an “unprecedented, long-term security commitment to providing Ukraine with financial, humanitarian, military and diplomatic support as long as it takes”, including the timely provision of advanced weapons, the White House said in a fact sheet.

Western sanctions have hit Russia’s economy hard and the new measures are aimed at further depriving the Kremlin of oil revenues. G7 countries would work with others – including India – to limit the revenues that Putin can continue to generate, the U.S. official said.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is one of the five leaders of guest nations joining the G7 for talks on climate change, energy, health, food security and gender equality on the second day of the summit.

“Since it is a mechanism that could benefit third countries more than Europe,” one EU official said. “These countries are asking questions about the feasibility, but in principle to pay less for energy is a very popular theme.”

U.S. President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, European Council President Charles Michel, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson attend a working session with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in virtual attendance, during the G7 leaders summit at Bavaria’s Schloss Elmau castle, near Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany June 27, 2022. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier/Pool

TARGETING RUSSIAN GOLD, DEFENCE SECTOR

A U.S. official said news that Russia defaulted on its foreign sovereign bonds for the first time since the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 showed how effective Western sanctions have been.

“This morning’s news around the finding of Russia’s default, for the first time in more than a century, situates just how strong the actions are that the U.S., along with allies and partners, have taken, as well as how dramatic the impact has been on Russia’s economy,” the official added.

The Kremlin, which has the funds to make payments thanks to rich energy revenues, swiftly rejected the U.S. statement, accusing the West of driving it into an artificial default. read more

New sanctions planned by the G7 countries will target Moscow’s military production, crack down on its gold imports and target Russian-installed officials in contested areas. read more

The G7 leaders would task their governments to work intensively on how to implement the Russian price cap, working with countries around the world and stakeholders including the private sector, the official said.

The United States said it would also implement sanctions on hundreds of individuals and entities adding to the more than 1,000 already sanctioned, target companies in several countries and impose tariffs on hundreds of Russia products. read more

The agencies involved would release details on Tuesday to minimize any flight risk, a second senior administration official said.

The Ukraine crisis has detracted attention from another crisis – that of climate change – originally set to dominate the summit. Activists fear Western nations are watering down their climate ambitions as they scramble to find alternatives to Russian gas imports and rely more heavily on coal, a dirtier fossil fuel, instead.

Japan is also pushing to remove a target for zero-emission vehicles from a G7 communique expected this week, according to a proposed draft seen by Reuters. read more

Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com

Reporting by Andrea Shalal and Sarah Marsh, Additional Reporting by Angelo Amante, Phil Blenkinsop; Editing by Thomas Escritt, Mark Heinrich and Alex Richardson

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

View Source

>>> Don’t Miss Today’s BEST Amazon Deals! <<<<

Canada Live Updates: Crossings at Blockaded Canadian Bridge May Resume Soon as Police Move In

Video player loading — Undaunted by the weather, demonstrators convened on Parliament Hill in Ottawa to protest against vaccines, mask mandates and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.CreditCredit…Brett Gundlock for The New York Times

Under persistent snowfall on Saturday morning, protesters convened on Ottawa’s Parliament Hill — part of the weekend tide of out-of-towners, sympathizers and gawkers who have come to support the truckers camping downtown now for more than 15 days.

By afternoon the snow had let up, but all morning thick flakes covered the Canadian flags that protesters wore as capes, and bled the ink on handmade signs that were pinned to the iron railings of the Gothic-style parliamentary buildings. Undaunted by the weather, the posters rallied against vaccines, mask mandates and the prime minister, Justin Trudeau.

In discussions, many demonstrators have emphasized that their cause is not tied to the nationalistic beliefs associated with similar protests elsewhere, particularly in the United States. But the American Confederate flag, the Gadsden flag (yellow with a snake and the words “Don’t Tread on Me”) and the Canadian Red Ensign, which experts say are symbols of white nationalism, have been spotted in Ottawa in recent weeks.

On Saturday, one of the few Black protesters in the crowd, a woman who gave only her first name, Sharon, because she said she mistrusted journalists, wore a sandwich board that read: “Do I look like a white supremacist?”

Sharon, a clinical social worker, has made the three-hour drive from her hometown to Ottawa to join the protesters over the past three weeks. “Do you know how hurtful it is to have your prime minister say we are a fringe minority with unacceptable beliefs?” she said, referring to Mr. Trudeau’s characterization of the protesters this month.

“That is saying there are acceptable views to have, and unacceptable ones,” she said, adding that she believed such thoughts were the purview of communist systems, not democracies. “It is implying that what should be considered as Canadian is what he is thinking.”

As she stood on an esplanade in front of Parliament, people led the protesters in Christian prayers — “with a maple leaf in one hand and a cross in the other,” one prayer leader said — and called on Canadian saints to support their cause. Beside her two people animatedly discussed how the government might track people with social media, and a woman wore a T-shirt with a QR code (a symbol for the Canadian government’s vaccine pass) crossed out in red.

On Wellington Street, as pop music played, a man knocked on the door of a truck and asked the driver to autograph his Canadian flag, which was covered in signatures.

Karl Braeker, 93, sat on an orange wool blanket at the Centennial Fountain under a dusting of snow. Originally from Germany, Mr. Braeker said he had served in the German military as a teenager under the Nazis, and emigrated to Canada in 1951.

“It is very deep what brings me here: I grew up under Hitler in Germany,” he said. He had come in person concerned over reports that the protesters shared white nationalistic or Nazi sentiments. From his vantage point on the fountain, he said, he felt they did not.

Watching the protests, he said, had “brought back all of my P.T.S.D.” from serving in Hitler’s army. He said that he had not slept for days when the protest first began — particularly after hearing that swastikas had been seen on flags. He asked his son to drive him here to see for himself. “I’ve always loved Canada for the freedom,” Mr. Braeker said. “I had to come here to see.”

Mr. Braeker is not vaccinated but is not against others getting vaccinated. He said he opposed mandating that people receive the shot. He found he sympathized with the protesters’ demands. In fact, he said, he felt like the mandates had echoes of the totalitarian regime under which he had grown up.

“My member of Parliament told me that these are just a bunch neo-Nazis and malcontents that are trying to disturb things — but it’s the other way around,” he said. “These are Canadians that I have known since the day I landed in Halifax in 1951, and I love this country.”

— Sarah Maslin Nir

View Source

>>> Don’t Miss Today’s BEST Amazon Deals! <<<<

Canada Live Updates: As Blockade at U.S.-Canada Border Continues, Other Protests Pop Up

Truckers protesting vaccine mandates in downtown Ottawa on Tuesday evening. — Credit…Kadri Mohamed/EPA, via Shutterstock

As Canadians’ impatience and frustration with the occupation of their national capital intensifies, the protests continued to echo globally on Wednesday, this time in France, where dozens of trucks and vehicles left southern France for Paris to vent their anger over their country’s vaccination policies.

The demonstrations in Canada’s capital of Ottawa — by loosely organized groups of truck drivers and protesters opposed to vaccination requirements for truckers crossing into Canada from the United States — have inspired copycat convoys in New Zealand and Australia as well. And there are talks of another in the works in the United States.

Far-right and anti-vaccine groups around the world have amplified the message of the Canadian protesters on social media, raising millions of dollars in online campaigns.

The main Facebook group for the French demonstrators has attracted more than 300,000 followers in just a few days. The movement calls itself “Convoi de la Liberté,” a direct translation of “Freedom Convoy,” the slogan for the Canadian movement.

In Ottawa, life continued to be disrupted by the presence of more than 400 trucks blocking roads. Residents got some relief on Tuesday night when the drivers of the trucks for the second night refrained from blasting their air horns, a form of protest that was enjoined by a court order on Monday afternoon.

At the other end of Ontario, in Windsor, a road blockade continued to prevent trucks from entering Canada across the Ambassador Bridge between the city and Detroit. The bridge is critical to the automobile industry, an important sector of the Canadian economy, which relies on the movement of parts across the border to keep factories in Ontario and the Midwestern United States in business.

Trucks headed to Canada are being directed to another crossing between Port Huron, Mich., and Sarnia, Ontario. But that two-hour detour has created a backlog in Sarnia; late Wednesday morning the Canada Border Services Agency estimated that clearing the bridge at Sarnia will take four and a half hours.

At the Stellantis minivan assembly plant in Windsor, two shifts were cut short Tuesday because of parts supply issues related to the bridge blockade, said LouAnn Gosselin, a spokeswoman for the company. Production resumed Wednesday morning, she said, and the company is working with parts suppliers to to prevent further shutdowns.

On Wednesday, truck protesters were also still interfering with another border crossing between the Western province of Alberta and Montana.

Although most Canadians support the public health measures that Canada has taken to combat the pandemic, the truck protesters have nonetheless tapped into fatigue with pandemic restrictions. On Tuesday, Scott Moe, the conservative premier of Saskatchewan, who has voiced support for the protesters, announced that the province would end vaccination and testing requirements on Feb. 14. Indoor mask requirements will continue until the end of the month.

In Alberta, Premier Jason Kenney announced that the province’s vaccine passport program would end as of Wednesday, and that mask mandates in schools would be lifted next week.

Credit…Carlos Osorio/Reuters

Most Canadian trucking groups have condemned the convoys and blockades, and said that more than 90 percent of drivers were vaccinated. Despite protesters’ claims that the mandatory vaccination of truckers would lead to border disruptions and supply shortages, the Canadian government said that it has not seen any change in truck traffic on its border.

The protesters in Ottawa converged on the city nearly two weeks ago, but a strategy for retaking the city from the truckers — who vow to remain until their demands to, among other things, rescind the vaccine mandate, are met — continues to elude law enforcement. It has also emboldened critics of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his response to the pandemic.

Ottawa’s police chief, who declared a state of emergency on Sunday, has vowed to end the protests but has said the city needs 1,800 more officers to do that. Mr. Trudeau said on Twitter that hundreds of Royal Canadian Mounted Police had been mobilized to support Ottawa police officers, and promised that the Canadian government and city would employ “whatever resources are needed to get the situation under control.”

— Ian Austen and Dan Bilefsky

View Source

>>> Don’t Miss Today’s BEST Amazon Deals! <<<<