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UK foreign secretary: Don’t ‘pull the shutters down’ on China

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 13:35:49 GMT

LONDON — The U.K. should not “pull the shutters down” on China, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly warned, amid fierce debate in the governing Conservative Party about ties with Beijing.Speaking to the Guardian newspaper, Cleverly said the U.K. would not be able to get China to “completely redefine themselves” and warned it would be “really, really, really counterproductive” for London not to engage with Beijing.Cleverly’s boss, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, has faced intense pressure from his own backbenchers over his stance on China, with critics citing national security concerns and the treatment of the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang region to urge a harder line. Sunak’s predecessor Liz Truss warned last week that Western leaders must be “much more sceptical about what is said by China and what their promises are.”A recent foreign policy strategy from Sunak’s government stopped short of defining China as a broad “threat,” instead p...

Russia uses civilian boats to spy in the North Sea, joint report says

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 13:35:49 GMT

Russia is using civilian vessels to collect intelligence on military activity and critical infrastructure in the North Sea, a joint investigation by Danish, Finnish, Swedish and Norwegian public broadcasters has found.The investigation tracked dozens of Russian research and fishing vessels whose routes regularly passed through oil and gas fields, near wind farms and power plants, as well as in the vicinity of military training areas — including during NATO training exercises.According to Norwegian public broadcaster NRK, at least 50 civilian ships have been involved in intelligence gathering missions in Nordic waters in the past ten years.The head of Norway’s intelligence service, Nils Andreas Stensønes, quoted by NRK, said the intelligence activities were carried out “on top of the [fishing boats’] usual commercial activity.”The investigation by Finnish public broadcaster Yle shows how an oceanographic research vessel, “Admiral Vladimirsky,” was ...

European public sector seeks multi-cloud approach to services

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 13:35:49 GMT

The notion of sovereignty has definitively crossed the digital border.  Although there had already been a growing call among Europeans for digital sovereignty, the war in Ukraine and its geopolitical impact have accelerated the need for governments to control their technology, operations and data.  Global market intelligence firm IDC states that “over the next four years, 50 percent of organizations in Europe will spend 10 percent of their budgets to comply with digital sovereignty principles adopted across the EU. The extra costs needed here will include investments in local infrastructure and platforms, new tools for data governance and management, and redesign for internal processes and mechanisms to ensure compliance.”1 And according to a recent report by business and technology services company Capgemini, 76 percent of public-sector organizations believe they will adopt cloud sovereignty solutions to ensure compliance moving forward. “Every organ...

Beijing hospital fire deaths rise to 29, mostly patients

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 13:35:49 GMT

BEIJING (AP) — The death toll from a fire at a Beijing hospital rose to 29, including 26 patients, authorities said Wednesday, and a dozen people had been detained including the hospital’s head and her deputy.The fire broke out at the private Changfeng Hospital on Tuesday afternoon and forced dozens of people to evacuate. Some who were trapped had to escape from windows using bedsheets tied together.A nurse, a medical assistant and a family member also died in the incident, said Li Zongrong, deputy head of Fengtai district.The cause of the fire is under investigation but officials say they believe it originated from welding sparks from work being done in the hospital’s inpatient wing. Among the 12 people who were detained was the head of the construction crew. A total of 39 people are being treated for injuries, three of them in critical condition, officials said. Rescue crews and medical staff from around the city were mobilized, with squads plucking some of the 142 people wh...

In The News for April 19: How might a federal workers’ strike impact you?

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 13:35:49 GMT

In The News is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to kickstart your day. Here is what’s on the radar of our editors for the morning of Wednesday, April 19, 2023 …What we are watching in Canada …Negotiations are expected to continue despite thousands of members with Canada’s largest federal public-service union walking off the job this morning at 12:01 a.m. ET.A late Tuesday news release from the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat says the government and the Public Service Alliance of Canada are still at odds when it comes to key contract issues for both sides. The bargaining groups involve some 155,000 federal public servants, including 35,000 Canada Revenue Agency workers.With picket lines expected to be set up this morning at some 250-plus locations, the union is calling the strike action one of the largest in Canadian history. National President Chris Aylward said during a brief news conference in Ottawa on Tuesday night that despite t...

No respite in Sudan as truce falls apart, rivals battle

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 13:35:49 GMT

Fighting between forces loyal to rival generals raged in Sudan for a fifth day Wednesday after an internationally brokered truce quickly fell apart. The U.N. said the death toll had risen to at least 270 since the violence erupted over the weekend.Sustained gunfire, artillery attacks and airstrikes rocked the capital Khartoum and the city of Omdurman across the Nile River. Residents reported clashes around the military headquarters and near the international airport.“The battles intensified in the morning after sporadic gunfire over the night,” said Tahani Abass, a prominent rights advocate who lives close to the military headquarters.A 24-hour cease-fire was to have been in effect from sundown Tuesday to sundown Wednesday, with the warring sides pledging publicly to abide by it after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke to both generals. Their failure to pause fighting for even a day, despite high-level diplomatic pressure, suggests they remain bent on pursuing a military v...

Inquest hears Vancouver officer ‘feared for safety” when meeting man killed by police

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 13:35:49 GMT

BURNABY, B.C. — The first officer to interact with a man who died after a beating that involved several Vancouver police officers has told a coroner’s inquest that she wasn’t thinking about mental health and instead believed intoxication was driving the man’s “bizarre” behaviour.Const. Hardeep Sahota testified yesterday that she responded to a 911 call in August 2015 and Myles Gray died within an hour of the beating.Sahota told the inquest in Burnaby, B.C., that she called for backup because she feared for her safety, and it was another officer who used pepper spray on Gray before he punched a third officer in the face.Sahota says they wrestled Gray to the ground and hobbled his legs before she left to get medical attention for her hand, which another officer had accidentally struck with a baton in the struggle.Gray died at the scene with injuries that included a fractured eye socket, a broken nose and rib, a crushed voice box and a ruptured testicle.Se...

No deal at union deadline; federal workers hit the picket lines as talks continue

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 13:35:49 GMT

OTTAWA — Negotiations are expected to continue despite thousands of members with Canada’s largest federal public-service union walking off the job this morning at 12:01 a.m. ET.A late Tuesday news release from the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat says the government and the Public Service Alliance of Canada are still at odds when it comes to key contract issues for both sides. The bargaining groups involve some 155,000 federal public servants, including 35,000 Canada Revenue Agency workers.With picket lines expected to be set up this morning at some 250 plus locations, the union is calling the strike action one of the largest in Canadian history. National President Chris Aylward said during a brief news conference in Ottawa on Tuesday night that despite the move, union officials are still hopeful and the goal is to get a tentative agreement.A handful of federal ministers, including Mona Fortier, president of the Treasury Board, are expected to address the media later today...

‘Slap in the face’: Freeland’s Disney Plus comment made her a villain, records show

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 13:35:49 GMT

OTTAWA — Once upon a time, Chrystia Freeland attempted to relate to Canadians’ cost-of-living concerns with a personal anecdote — and it didn’t produce a fairy-tale ending. “I personally, as a mother and wife, look carefully at my credit card bill once a month, and last Sunday I said to the kids, ‘You’re older now. You don’t watch Disney anymore. Let’s cut that Disney Plus subscription,'” Freeland told Global News in an interview that aired on Nov. 6.She went on to say: “I believe that I need to take exactly the same approach with the federal government’s finances, because that’s the money of Canadians.”Maybe Freeland meant to show that managing a $430-billion budget is not all that different from handling a household one. But as word of the clip spread throughout the land, and was viewed nearly a million times in just a couple of days, so did outrage.Emails sent to her office and obtained by The Canadian Press ...

Competition Ltd.: Why big banks dominate Canada’s financial landscape

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 13:35:49 GMT

TORONTO — Whether you’re catching a flight, opening a new bank account or picking up groceries, a small group of big names takes up most of the market share. Competition Ltd. is a Canadian Press series that explores what this means for products — and prices — in the country.———At the end of last year, Canada’s Big Six held about 93 per cent of all banking assets in the country. It’s the same share they held a decade earlier, and a decade before that. The tight hold on the market of RBC, TD, BMO, CIBC, Scotiabank and National Bank is not from a lack of others trying. “I’ve really defined my career over the last 15 years as sort of putting my foot in doors as they’re being slammed, because it’s really challenging,” said Andrew Moor, chief executive of EQ Bank, whose tag line is “Canada’s Challenger Bank.”EQ is one of the many alternatives in Canada’s financial industry that have been working to diversify the landscape, but while they have made inroads, and there are struct...