Canada-Iran Relations

"On January 8, 2020, Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 was shot down minutes after taking off from Tehran by an Iranian surface-to-air missile. Tragically, 55 Canadian citizens and 30 permanent residents were among the 176 people killed in this national tragedy." 

"Canada and the other members of the International Coordination and Response Group for the victims of Flight PS752 have called for accountability for those responsible for the tragedy through an independent criminal investigation followed by transparent and impartial judicial proceedings which conform to international standards of due process and human rights."

"The Prosecutor General of Ukraine has invited Canada and other affected nations to participate in a joint criminal investigation. RCMP Federal Policing National Security representatives are engaged with Ukrainian counterparts to determine the best methods to support any criminal investigation going forward. The RCMP is also undertaking investigative steps to preserve any evidence that may reside in Canada."

Government of Canada, October 27, 2020

"If the Canadian government thinks that it can put pressure on Iran with propaganda and unrealistic statements, it will not work."

"[Canada has been] hampering Tehran's efforts to clarify the truth [relating to the crash of the Ukrainian airliner]."

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mohsen Baharvand

Composite photographs of some of the victims of Ukraine Flight 752

"[The world must take] a decisive stance [against Iran]."

"The kingdom stresses the dangers of Iran's regional project, its interference in other countries, its fostering of terrorism, its fanning the flames of sectarianism and calls for a decisive stance  from the international community against Iran that guarantees a drastic handling of its efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction and develop its ballistic missiles program."

King Salman bin Abdulaziz, Saudi Arabia

Clearly, the Islamic Republic of Iran feels put-upon by ongoing pressure exerted on it for a full explanation of the shooting down of 176 people on Flight PS752 from Tehran to Kyiv in early January. Iran's initial dismissal of the tragedy, denying that it had anything to do with the downing of the passenger jet was soon put to the lie with incriminating evidence presented that could no longer be denied by Tehran. 

Eventually a report was issued by Iran explaining that a miscommunication had taken place, that through inadvertence an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps military officer misidentified the passenger jet for an "invading missile after the IRGC fired ballistic missiles at a U.S. air base in western Iraq, in retaliation for the U.S. assassination of its military commander Qassem Soleimani" a week earlier. A simple enough request by Canada to be given access to the crash site, to receive a full explanation and access to the flight recorder has gone unanswered.

Among the 167 civilians that lost their lives when the Ukraine plane was shot down were 57 Canadian citizens and a large group of Iranian students with visas to study at Canadian universities. At the very time that the Iranian Republic claims nothing prevents Canada from "investigating the incident in accordance with international conventions", its deputy foreign minister states that the "Canadian government does not respect international law" and its harassment of Iran for more access to data is "based on political prejudice".

Political prejudice? Of a country well known for its support of terrorism? Whose al Quds division of the IRGC is helping Syria's President Bashar al-Assad terrorize its own Sunni Syrian population? The very same Iran that is supporting and championing the Houthi Shiite rebels in Yemen? With a staggering combined death toll? Would this be the Iran that is inserting itself into Iraq for a permanent stay of influence in establishing its Shiite axis in the Middle East, roiling the majority Sunni Muslim states by threats both implied and actual?

This is the Islamist theocracy that while denying the Holocaust announces its intention to embark on another one, to destroy the presence of the State of Israel in the Middle East. Tehran's threats and interference in the affairs of its neighbours, its destabilizing sectarian plots and its nuclear ambitions have managed to unite most of the Arab states in the Middle East to defend themselves by proxy, that proxy being the Jewish state known for its ability to fend off threats its existence. The fear and loathing that Shi'ite Iran has instilled in its Sunni Arab neighbours has drawn them into the realization that Israel is not the enemy, after all.

Iran doesn't limit its aggression and threats to the Middle East, however. Its deputy foreign minister also accuses Canada of being a safe haven for Iranians that Tehran claims should be extradited to stand trial in Iran for crimes. The "Iranian government had some money in the embassy and some other diplomatic centres, mostly related to the Iranian Cultural Counsel, which Canada illegally confiscated ... and Canada must repay", he avers, referring to the previous Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper closing down the Canadian Embassy in Tehran, and ushering the Iranian mission out of Canada in 2012.

The money to which  the deputy minister refers was seized in Canada to be apportioned through a successful law suit to victims of terrorist attacks perpetrated by Hamas and Hezbollah, two Iranian militia proxies that threaten and attack Israel and Jews abroad on behalf of the Iranian Republic. Two years earlier the Canadian House of Commons passed a resolution to designate the IRGC as a terrorist entity. A process that has not yet been carried through to completion, but should.

 

Debris is seen from an Ukrainian plane which crashed as authorities work at the scene in Shahedshahr, southwest of the capital Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2020. (Ebrahim Noroozi/Associated Press)

The Middle East Chess Game

"[The meeting with Netanyahu] aimed to highlight that MbS [Mohammed bin Salmon] is more willing than his father to take steps toward normalization without first reaching a two-state solution."

Neil Quilliam, Associate Fellow, Chatham House think tank

"We have supported normalization with Israel for a long time, because we are the authors of the 2002 Arab Peace initiative, which envisioned complete normalization with Israel."

"But there is one very important thing that has to happen first, which is a permanent and full peace deal between the Palestinians and Israelis that delivers a Palestinian state with dignity within the 1967 borders to the Palestinians."

Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud 

"[Iran has exploited a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers] to intensify its expansionist activities, create its terrorist networks, and use terrorism. [This had produced nothing but[ chaos, extremism, and sectarianism."

"A comprehensive solution and a firm international position are required. Our experience with the Iranian regime has taught us that partial solutions and appeasement did not stop its threats to international peace and security."

"We support the efforts of the current US administration to achieve peace in the Middle East by bringing the Palestinians and the Israelis to the negotiation table to reach a fair and comprehensive agreement."

"This terrorist organization must be disarmed."

Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz

King Salman reiterated the need for a Palestinian state [File: Waleed Ali/AP]

"[There have been reports about differences within the royal family, particularly between King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, on whether Saudi Arabia will follow others in the region and normalize ties with Israel.] So this was an opportunity to publicly before the world reiterate Saudi Arabia’s long-standing position … that there needs to be two states – an independent state of Palestine with its capital East Jerusalem."

"That’s a clear re-affirmation of Saudi Arabia’s stand and a real rejection of the current efforts to push Arab states to normalize with Israel. That was critically important."

Hillary Mann Leverett, former US official, CEO, political risk consultancy STRATEGA

The meeting between Israel's prime minister and the crown prince of Saudi Arabia messages both allies and enemies of the deep commitment the two countries have forged for the mutual concerns of containing the Islamic Republic of Iran's ambitions. The covert meeting that took place last Sunday in the Saudi city of Neom, publicly denied by Riyadh perhaps for several reasons, one being that King Salman had no prior notice of the impending meeting, conveyed a message to incoming President-elect Joe Biden. Allies of the U.S. are closing ranks, and they're focusing on future U.S. relations with Iran. 

No other Israeli leader has ever been in the position that Benjamin Netanyahu finds himself within, given current events in the region with softening attitudes evinced by Arab Muslim countries toward their Jewish neighbour whose support they all seek in their commonly-shared caution about the intentions of their Persian neighbour exploiting sectarian divisions, supporting and financing terrorist groups, fomenting regional problems, aspiring toward attaining nuclear weapons.

The covert visit had the effect of emphasizing the depth of concern shared by both Israel and Saudi Arabia about Iran, demonstrating just how serious opposition to Tehran is responsible for arranging a strategic realignment of countries in the Middle East in support of their common interests. "It's very important to create the axis which isolates Iran", explained Israeli cabinet minister Tzachi Hanegbi, commenting on the meeting.

The fear all now share with the clear understanding that the Trump administration is preparing to vacate the White House and President-elect Joe Biden is that is prepared to adopt Iran policies reflecting those practised during the U.S. presidency of Barack Obama which had the effect of straining Washington's connections with its traditional regional allies. Mr. Biden has made clear that he intends to rejoin the international nuclear pact with Iran that the U.S. under President Trump left in 2018.

Mr. Biden visualizes working with allies in strengthening the terms of the agreement should Tehran resume strict compliance. Which is expecting a lot, since it became clear soon after the 2015 agreement was signed by all concerned parties that strict compliance to the terms was never on Tehran's real-time agenda. Iran's network of armed Shi'ite militias across the Arab world, from Iraq to Syria and Lebanon and into the Gulf and Yemen, is alarming to its Sunni Muslim neighbours.

Saudi Arabia is particularly concerned with the Houthi rebels from Yemen, backed by Tehran attacking Saudi oil installations. On Israel's part, a silent war against Iranian forces through air raids in Syria on Lebanese Shi'ite paramilitary Hezbollah, on Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the focus on disrupting supplies of weapons shipped across the country, is ongoing. At the meeting on Sunday U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was present, along with the chief of Israel's Mossad.

Mr. Pompeo's active prompting of Gulf  relations with Israel, helped in formalizing Israel's already warm relations with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and eventually Sudan in normalizing relations with Israel. He has continued his efforts to persuade other Arab nations that it is in their best interests for a variety of reasons to join suit, with the expectation that more will follow. Saudi Arabia's position on normalization hinges on King Salman, adamant that a peace treaty with the Palestinians take place.

"Normalization ... is a carrot to get [Biden's] focus away from other issues, especially [Saudi] human rights", suggested a foreign diplomat in Riyadh. The death on Friday of Iran's chief nuclear scientist may have been planned to put a spanner in the works of Mr. Biden's plans to resume the nuclear deal with Iran, and if so, it will have been worth the condemnation on the part of other nations looking in from the outside, none of whom have to overly concern themselves about the malign, disruptive and violent plans of a near neighbour.

Nuclear Threats and Deterrence

A photo released by the semi-official Fars News Agency shows the scene where Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was killed in Absard, a small city just east of the capital, Tehran, Iran, Friday, Nov. 27, 2020 (Fars News Agency via AP); insert: Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in an undated photo

"[There were] serious indications of [an] Israeli role [in the assassination]."

"Terrorists murdered an eminent Iranian scientist today. This cowardice — with serious indications of Israeli role — shows desperate warmongering of perpetrators."

"[The international community must] end their shameful double standards and condemn this act of state terror."

"[Iran will] respond to the assassination of Martyr Fakhrizadeh in a proper time. The Iranian nation is smarter than falling into the trap of the Zionists. They are thinking to create chaos."

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif

 

"[Fakhrizadeh was] their senior-most nuclear scientist and was believed to be responsible for Iran’s covert nuclear program."

"He was also a senior officer in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and that will magnify Iran’s desire to respond by force."

Former US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East, Patrick Mulroy

 

"In the last days of their gambling ally’s political life, the Zionists seek to intensify and increase pressure on Iran to wage a full-blown war." 

"We will descend like lightning on the killers of this oppressed martyr and we will make them regret their actions!"

Hossein Dehghan, adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stands in front of a picture of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who he named as the head of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, April 30, 2018 (YouTube screenshot)

Iran's top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was not only "the father of Iran’s nuclear weapons program", according to Israel's Channel 12, but the man determined to ensure that "he delivered the bomb" for the Republic's ayatollahs. He had other talents to his credit, as a ballistic missiles expert, who was intimately involved in Iran’s missile development, which despite the signing of the nuclear accord with the West, continued apace, resulting in more sophisticated, longer-range ballistic missiles which would, needless to say, be required once nuclear warhead was achieved.

 

It is now assured that Mohsen Fakhrizadeh will no longer personally be capable of delivering on his long-held aspiration. According to Iranian state television, an old truck with explosives hidden under a load of wood was staged to explode close to where a sedan carrying Fakhrizadeh and his bodyguards passed on the highway. As the sedan came to a halt, five gunmen emerged to begin raking the car with rapid gunfire, according to the semiofficial Tasnim news agency. Israeli TV Friday night filled in the gaps, that the gunmen after fatally wounding Fakhrizadeh and shooting the three bodyguards dead, escaped.

To state that a pattern has emerged is to state the obvious, given the sequential mysterious deaths of other Iranian nuclear scientists. Clearly, someone, some entity, some group, has reason to believe the world would be better off without the Islamic Republic of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. In early November, the New York Times reported al-Qaeda’s second-in-command had been fatally shot and killed in Tehran by two Israeli operatives on a motorcycle at Washington’s behest.

The senior leader, whose nom de guerre was Abu Muhammad al-Masri, was killed in August as unfortunately was his daughter, Miriam, widow of Osama bin Laden’s son Hamza, according to the Times, citing intelligence sources. Iran "carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device" in a "structured program" through the end of 2003, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency -- the Amad program -- which included work on the carefully timed high explosives needed to detonate a nuclear bomb.

The IAEA also revealed that Iran "conducted computer modeling of a nuclear explosive device" prior to 2005, between 2005 and 2009. The agency concluded on the other hand, that those calculations were "incomplete and fragmented". They had for years attempted to meet with Fakhrizadeh to question him on his activities, only to be rebuffed repeatedly by Tehran. In 2018, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu pointed out that Fakhrizadeh continued to lead Iran’s nuclear weapons efforts, despite the 2015 nuclear deal meant to prevent Tehran from constructing such weapons.

For an important scientist in the nuclear field with the example of previous Iranian scientists taken out of contention in Iran's constantly developing nuclear program Fakhrizadeh was held to be "one of the most closely protected people in Iran", surrounded by bodyguards accompanying him everywhere. Another powerful figure also considered to be inviolable was the head of Iran's Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Qassem Soleiman, yet an American airstrike at Baghdad International Airport in January put an end to his exertions on behalf of Iranian state terrorism. 

That led to the sordid event pf two Iranian missiles stricking a Ukrainian passenger jet leaving from Tehran en route to Ukraine, and then on to Canada. All 175 passengers and crew on board, 63 among them Canadians, and including Iranians bound for Canada on study visas, along with other nationals, being killed outright. This, after Iran fired missiles at a U.S. base in Iraq. The matter of the Ukrainian passenger flight still has not been settled, and likely never will be, Tehran insisting it was an accident, a series of misdirected missiles faulted to an unauthorized, overzealous IRGC officer.

This is yet one more event in an ongoing series of dramatic consequences for Tehran relating to its nuclear ambitions linked to its aspirations of attaining supreme control of the Middle East and beyond, its formation, training and equipping of proxy Islamist militias, its ongoing threats to annihilate the State of Israel, and its Shia axis of evil, aligning Lebanon through Hezbollah, Syria through the Alawite leadership, Yemen through the Houthi rebels against the majority Sunni Muslim states of the Middle East.

Previous manifestations of Israel's refusal to become a victim of the vicious plans set in motion to destroy it by the Iranian ayatollahs include the Stuxnet virus that temporarily set back Iran's uranium centrifuge enrichment project, the killing of Iranian nuclear scientist Majid Shahriari ten years ago, and other, associated targeted assassinations, all of which Tehran identified with Israel. Failing to grasp that as long as they continued to broadcast their intention to wipe Israel from the map of the Middle East, their target would take all necessary actions to set back that ardent plan of Islamofascism.

For the presence, Israel's national security and intelligence arms remain focused on deterrence. In the future, they may be called upon to expand measures to ensure Israel's security that would surely include military conflict. By that time, if matters continue to proceed as they are, other Middle East states that feel similarly threatened by Iran's nuclear ambitions and at the present time supportive of Israel's measures at impeding Iran's nuclear progress may themselves harbour a compelling desire to once and for all put a stop to the threatening posturing of the Islamic Republic.

It is entirely possible that while U.S.Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in Saudi Arabia last week and Prime Minister Netanyahu flew to Saudi in the company of Yossi Cohen, director of Israel's spy agency Mossad, to meet secretly with Pompeo and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a plan was divulged that would remove another threat to the region as collaborationists for whom a successful mission would spell temporary relief. And perhaps serve to nudge MbS a little closer to persuading his father that full diplomatic ties and normalcy with Israel is a project whose time has come.

"Remember that name, Fakhrizadah", Mr. Netanyahu said in 2018 when he gave a presentation to the UN accusing Iran of continuing to seek nuclear weapons on the basis of new information revealed by Israel's secret service. It was known that this man headed a coordinated nuclear weapons program in Iran, the only Iranian scientist named in the International Atomic Energy Agency's 2015 "final assessment" of open questions on Iran's nuclear program where the IAEA's report stated Fakhrizadeh supervised  activities "in support of a possible military dimension to (Iran's) nuclear program."

"The story is not Trump, nor even Israel. The story is Iran -- the growing dread that a new U.S. administration will go back to the nuclear deal which threatens the very existence of the Gulf countries."

"We will know how to handle the issue of the Iranian threat, even if through our own means."

Tzachi Hanebi, member, Israeli security cabinet

Students protesting outside the foreign ministry in Tehran on Saturday.

Ethiopia's Ministry of Peace at a Time of Internecine Military Assault

"[The TPLF may be able to call on more than 200,000 fighters - from militias in villages to special forces in the regional government.] Because of the changed political dynamics over the last two years, there has been significant recruitment and training in Tigray."

"In the west, joint federal and Amhara control may be more established because those forces outnumbered and overpowered local Tigray forces." 

"There are also more flat areas in the west, giving a conventional army more advantage. [This was unlike the terrain in the] core [of Tigray, around cities in the east, like Mekelle, where it was rugged and mountainous, making it more conducive for guerrilla warfare]." 

"Though federal officials claim the opposite, many Tigrayans seem to oppose the intervention because they believe it is to remove a legitimately elected regional government."

"Tigray is blockaded. The TPLF cannot sustain a conventional war."

International Crisis Group Ethiopia analyst William Davison 

Tigray's mountainous landscape makes it conducive for guerrilla warfare    Getty Images

"The 72-hour period granted to the criminal TPLF clique to surrender peacefully is now over and our law enforcement campaign has reached its final stage."

Ethiopian Prime Minister Ably Ahmed

"This humanitarian assistance will now be further reinforced with the opening of a humanitarian access route to be managed under the auspices of the Ministry of Peace."

PM Ably's Office

The regional government in Tigray has a powerful force  AFP

 

While the Ethiopian Nobel Laureate honoured for making peace with neighbour Eritrea which had broken away from Ethiopia and a long war had been occasioned between them with Ably finally making peace between the two, a different story emerges with the autonomy of Tigray Province. Tigreans in their majority province of Ethiopia, a country riven by tribal differences, are now under military assault by the Ethiopian army.

The government of Ethiopia refuses to negotiate with the Tigrean leaders because they are 'terrorists', a familiar mantra well known to those who study countries at war over sectarian and tribal divides; those who declare a wish to govern themselves in their heritage, majority landscapes, are automatically prescribed the role of 'terrorists'. Cue the Kurds in Turkey, the Sunni Syrians in Shia-dominated Syria.

Close to 43,000 Ethiopian refugees have fled to Sudan. The humanitarian coordinator in Ethiopia for the United Nations has no idea what and where and how the described humanitarian access route referred to by is; she's never heard of it, seen it, or suspected its existence. Yet the Ministry of Peace in a country that has declared part of its population 'terrorists' and denies bombing civilian areas, has launched a military campaign against that population.

Ethiopian authorities claim to be bearing down on the Tigray capital region. While at the same time Ethiopian army chief Birhanu Jula claimed that WHO head Tetros Adhanon Ghebreyesus has been procuring arms and diplomatic backing for the TPLF whom he once served as a minister when the TPLF led Ethiopia's coalition government. He, according to Ethiopia's government is a 'criminal'. Dr.Tedros responded by denying the accusation, calling on both sides to work for peace.

Hundreds if not thousands have been killed in the three-week-old conflict, along with the tens of thousands of refugees crowding into Sudan. Last week a federal air strike injured university students in the Tigray capital of Mekelle with its half-million population which the Tigray People's Liberation Front rules. "It [the air strike] resulted in heavy casualties of many university students and other civilians", noted a post from the TPLF on Facebook.

"Our defence forces are moving forward and closing in on Mekelle. There are a number of towns that have fallen", stated government spokesperson Redwan Hussein of the war that has pitted the central government against one of the most heavily militarized of ten ethnic states that comprise Ethiopia. Claims by the government are that the TPLF is holding power illegally in Tigray while the TPLF responds that the war is an unconstitutional assault on regional rights.

 

According to UN estimates, 1.1 million Ethiopians will require humanitarian aid resulting from the conflict. It is unable to enter Tigray to deliver aid given the bombing by government forces. Those that have fled to Sudan are also in desperate need of help. Though both sides claim that serious damage has been inflicted on the other side, the Deputy Director of the Africa Program at the International Crisis Group states "...Federal forces appear closer to Mekelle amid reports of heavy combat between the two sides yesterday."

But for some Ethiopians good news comes not too soon as Israel’s Ethiopian-born Minister of Immigrant Absorption is set to return briefly to Ethiopia to bring back to Israel hundreds of Ethiopian Jews. Minister Pnina Tamano-Shata will fly to Ethiopia with representatives of the Jewish Agency, where they're prepared to meet with a group of  prospective immigrants from Addis Ababa and Gondar, and will accompany them back to Israel on two Jewish Agency planes. Called Beta-Israel, thousands have left Ethiopia over the years to become Israeli citizens.

Jewish Agency chairman Isaac Herzog (center) and Minister of Aliyah and Integration Pnina Tamano-Shata welcome 119 Ethiopian immigrants to Israel, May 21, 2020. Photo: Shlomi Amsalem.

 

The Grim COVID Tallies

"All the Thanksgiving travel ensures no one will catch us, either [in terms of outdistancing the U.S. numbers of COVID cases]."

"The U.S. 'each person for himself' mindset is killing hundreds of thousands of us."

"Devastating to watch."

Dr.Tatiana Prowell, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

"I know we can and we will beat this virus."

"Life is going to return to normal. I promise you. This will happen. This [global pandemic] will not last forever."

U.S.President-Elect Joe Biden

 

"We will very likely, and pending authorization by health authorities, start vaccination of the most vulnerable populations, hence the elderly, as soon as the end of December, early January."

French President Emmanuel Macron

 

"We must learn from the summer and not repeat the same mistakes."

"Relaxing too fast and too much is a risk for a third wave after Christmas."

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen

The global coronavirus tally has surpassed 60 million. Source: Angela Weiss/AFP

Around the globe countries are agonizing or stalling over the demonstrated necessity to once again curb peoples' freedoms. And this ahead of the most convivial, traditionally cheerful celebratory holiday in the Christian calendar, Christmas, followed by New Year's, at a time when people are fed up with limitations to their daily, weekly, monthly activities normal times have accustomed them to, not as privileges but as entitlements of a civilizational society.

But necessity is the mother of these curtailments of normalcy, as global infections continue to rise, surpassing 60 million just a day earlier. In this climate of burgeoning cases abroad and even more so in the United States, American officials plead with their public to remain home over Thanksgiving and looking ahead to Christmas, there is no sign that these cautionary health measures will be lifted.

Governments across the U.S. are bracing themselves for the inevitable, as millions of Americans ignore the pleas and get on with their Thanksgiving travel plans as they always have, as they feel they always will, as they are compelled to do both instinctively as free agents and reactively, as Americans free to comport themselves as they will. Little wonder the U.S. leads the world in COVID numbers.

In a single day's count, deaths from COVID have now surpassed 2,000 for the first time since the original May invasionary wave. A record 88,000 hospitalizations have been tallied with the country recording 2.3 million new infections in the space of two weeks. Health authorities continue to urge the public to set aside large family gatherings this year, to wear protective face masks and to maintain social distancing, despite knowing their audience.

The good news that Pfizer and Moderna are seeking emergency use permission for their vaccines which have yielded hopeful results in their Third Phase trials have buoyed hopes for an early release from the COVID threat on the world stage. Realistically, an approved vaccine will not be widely available for months to come for the general public. Science continues to impose its rigorous standards for safety alongside effectiveness.

 

The WHO singled out Switzerland’s move to allow skiing. Source: KEYSTONE

 

 

One million new cases have been recorded in just over five days in Europe, totalling over 15 million European cases of COVID, and 365,000 deaths, staggering numbers. Across Europe governments struggle with the need to impose public life restrictions, cavilling over permitting families to celebrate Christmas safely. A national lockdown in Britain is due to complete by next week while Germany, Spain and Italy have announced restrictions over the holiday period.

On Wednesday Germany reported 410 COVID-19 deaths in 24 hours, initial to Chancellor Angela Merkel and her 16 federal state leaders discussing an extension of restrictions through December into Christmas and New Year celebrations. The highest daily toll since March 28 was reported by Italy at 853 deaths, soaring past the 630 it registered the previous day.

An additional 16,282 new cases were announced in France, an increase from the 9,155 new cases recorded the previous day and 4,452 the day before that. Hope-piercing number from every direction, with no end in sight other than fervent wishes for a release from this misery once the first of the vaccines is released for a massive inoculation of the world population. 

 

France's death toll rose to 50,618, with a total of 29,972 patients in hospital, and 4,148 in intensive care units. Including Russia, the European region registered 17.1 million infections with 388,000 deaths. In 52 European countries 1.7 million new cases were documented last week, ten percent fewer than the week before lending hope that the pandemic is stalling. Lithuania and Norway extended their restrictions to mid-December.

 

After Europe, the U.S. and Canada combined logged 13 million cases with 272,183 deaths; Latin America and the Caribbean follow with 12.6 million cases, 438,098 deaths, and finally Asia with 12.1 million cases and 190,108 deaths.

 

Following is the Middle East with 3.2 million cases and 75,700 deaths; Africa with 2.1 million cases and 50,422 deaths, and Oceania totalling over 30,000 cases and 941 deaths. India has logged 9,308,871 cases resulting in 135,752 deaths to date.

More than 135,752 people have died of Covid-19 in India   AFP

Filthy Lucre and Profound Wealth

Jason Kempin/Getty Images

Elon Musk and Grimes at the 2018 Met Gala

The world is stumbling through a global pandemic with nation after nation watching helplessly as their economies crumble, stock market values tumble, businesses fail, great corporations are prostrated, and pharmaceutical companies rush to develop a life-saving vaccine -- and all the while their health-care systems are overwhelmed with mounting cases of a coronavirus that has crushed the lives of millions of people.

Yet, all is not lost. The world's wealthiest billionaires are in fine shape, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index which ranks the world's 500 wealthiest people in order of the riches they have amassed. For the past eight years those rankings have informed a curious world of the wealth that some individuals have been able to accrue to themselves. And this year, which has seen nations stumble to their financial knees, the ultra-wealthy are doing just fine, thanks for asking.

Amazon's Jeff Bezos is now acknowledged as the wealthiest man in the world. Bill Gates has been dumped south, from the second richest man on Earth, to third-place status. And Elon Musk, who in January ranked 35th in wealth among the 500 billionaires the report names, added $100.3 billion to his net worth in the year 2020, for a total of $127.9 billion, the year that spelled disaster to Planet Earth. That princely sum added to his net worth has brought him to the position of second wealthiest man on this blue planet.

Microsoft Corp.'s Bill Gates's net worth of $127.7 while powerfully rich, has been diminished from the heights it might have reached had he not donated considerable portions of his vast wealth to charity, in giving over $27 billion to the Bill Gates Foundation, since 2006. He appears to have been more than willing to surrender the top spot in soaring wealth in favour of funding research in viruses to rescue humanity from dread diseases.

There are notable differences between Gates and Musk, the former believing in vaccine research and putting his money where his mouth is, as opposed to the values of the latter who questions pandemic data, finding comfort in certain conspiracy theories. And just as urban legend often speaks of the peculiar social mores and twisted morals of the very rich, there are examples that reveal the inner value core of such people.

The COVID-19 pandemic has undeniably made for a poorer world for most of Earth's inhabitants. Millions have lost employment, millions have become ill and the lingering effects of the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID will bedevil some people all their lives, those spared the devastation of more immediate life-taking complications. Governments have had to borrow vast sums in funding to financially support their desperate populations.

Widespread layoffs disproportionately affecting the working class and the poor, poverty is increasing exponentially. In marked contrast to the members of the Bloomberg index having collectively profited by gaining 23 percent (roughly $1.3 trillion-worth) since the beginning of the year when a mysterious pneumonia-like illness began to emerge in Wuhan, China and all too soon spread world-wide to wreak havoc everywhere.

•X, the unknown variable

•Æ, my elven spelling of Ai (love &/or Artificial intelligence) •A-12 = precursor to SR-17 (our favorite aircraft). No weapons, no defenses, just speed. Great in battle, but non-violent

+ (A=Archangel, my favorite song) (

metal rat)

The world's second richest man's partner is a Canadian-born entertainer, sufficiently successful in her career to have made a name for herself, and the owner of her own recording company, Crystal Math Music Inc. Her stage name is Grimes, her true name Claire Elise Boucher, born in British Columbia and an alumni of McGill University. The staff she employs at her recording company applied to a granting agency on her  behalf.

This is a woman, while a reportedly gifted musician and entertainer, lives in California with her love partner, Elon Musk, and their young son whom they named XAE A-XII. Factor, a Canadian arts subsidy program partially funded by the Government of Canada, awarded her a $90,000 grant. She evidently under the eligibility criteria of the funding body seems fully qualified, irrespective of the fact that she no longer lives in Canada, though listed as a Quebec artist.

So a woman with a successful entertaining career who owns her own recording company appealed to a partially publicly-funded arts-grant group for a grant acknowledging her contribution to Canadian entertainment. That she has access to undreamed-of wealth, living with the world's second-most wealthy man appears incidental; she has not hesitated to take the grant and he appears uninvolved with the moral implications.

Among which is the fact that entertainers of all kinds in the world of art are struggling to assert their talents in circumstances where public venues revolving around art and entertainment are now closed off to them, and while continuing to polish their talents in hopes of better days to come, seek gainful employment in the ill-paid services industries in hopes of earning a living to get by current difficulties. 

F.Scott Fitzgerald was right when he penned that throw-away line that "the rich are not like you and me".

The New Day Dawning of Arab/Israeli Rapprochement

"I do not know nor do I ask about the nationality of everyone I take a photo with."

"Anyone can take a photo with me so long as they are human."

"I never ask about his color, religion, or nationality. All of us are human.":

Egyptian actor and rapper Mohamed Ramadan

The picture in question of Omer Adam and Mohamed Ramadan. Photo: Twitter.

"[Pakistan] categorically rejects baseless speculation regarding [the] possibility of recognition of the State of Israel by Pakistan."

"The prime minister [Imran Khan] has made it clear that unless a just settlement of the Palestine issue, satisfactory to the Palestinian people, is found, Pakistan cannot recognize Israel."

"For just and lasting peace, it is imperative to have a two-state solution in accordance with the relevant United Nations and Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) resolutions, with the pre-1967 borders, and Al-Quds Al-Sharif [Jerusalem] as the capital of a viable, independent and contiguous Palestinian State."

Pakistan’s Foreign Office spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri

Where Arab leaders of Muslim-majority countries might wish to finally lay aside their belligerent malice at the presence of a Jewish state returning to its Biblical-era heritage from the diaspora to which it had been exiled only to discover that no place on Earth guaranteed Jews equality, freedom of religion, the right to practise their distinct culture without eventually disowning and turning on them, with blood slanders, expulsion, pogroms, disentitlements, ghettoization, and finally genocide, the opinion 'on the street' will always reflect the campaigns embarked upon to delegitimize the presence of Jews on territory Islam claims for itself.

Arab and Muslim states in the Middle East utterly rejected the United Nations plan for official Partition, apportioning territory to each; Israel and Arab Palestine. Israel accepted the 1948 'permission to proceed' by the world body, while the Palestinians obdurately refused it and the surrounding Middle East states came to their side, swiftly assembling a joint-Arab military invasion to oust the Jews from their fledgling state. And failed. But the sting of failure and the insult to Islam mandated further military assaults, all of them failing. 

Eventually the sting of failure faded at the executive government level for Egypt and Jordan, but the propaganda lessons of Israel=enemy never did. So while both Egypt and Jordan have long since signed peace treaties with the 'enemy' whose presence they could never defeat, all quietened on that front, even as hostility from their populations remained. Turkey, the sole Islamic nation that supported the existence of Israel, did a turnabout with the introduction of an Islamist government.

Gulf nations that never aspired to military victory over Israel, and who unlike Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Egypt did not expel their Jewish populations Arabized over the millennia of living side-by-side with Arabs in near-fraternal order came to the final realization that the failure of the Palestinian cause to found a nation of their own rested with the Palestinian leadership that adamantly refused all offers at the bargaining table with Israel that met Palestinian demands with the exception of two; the 'right of return' and Jerusalem as a Palestinian state capital.

Before the advent of Islam in the 7th Century, the Arabian Peninsula and particularly areas around the now-sacred city of Medina, was the home of Jewish tribes. Tribes that Mohammad battled against for refusing his offer to leave Judaism and accept Islam; exiling those he failed to kill in combat, and restricted residence in what became Saudi Arabia to only Muslims. In the modern era, the House of Saud contested control of Arabia with another powerful tribe, the Hashemites; with British mediation, the Hashemite Kingdom was given TransJordan to rule, and the Sauds took Arabia.

 

Now, the United Arab Emirates, a cosmopolitan, open society of moderate Muslim rule, and Bahrain with similar cultural values have chosen to normalize relations with Israel, once considered a sacrilege. Sudan followed suit. And more Arab states are expected to follow, under the aegis of U.S. diplomacy. Those Islamic states which have over the past decades turned increasingly Islamist like Turkey will continue their distance from Israel, spurning diplomatic overtures. Sadly, there is no depth of 'normalization' between Israel, Jordan and Egypt.

 

The Egyptian actor/singer who embraced Israeli entertainers at a casual entertainment event is being sanctioned by his own Egyptian entertainment union, and lawsuits are being brought against  him for his friendly actions toward fellow entertainers in a comradely environment of relaxation and personal relations. His behaviour, the charges go, insult and degrade Egyptian values. He has apologized and will perform the necessary public penance required to redeem himself in public opinion. Nor do Jordanian citizens bear a warmer relationship to their Israeli counterparts. 

The normalization agreement and the process taking place now between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain are of a different quality altogether. There is a warm reception on either end, mutually respectful and generously appreciative of the qualities each brings to a burgeoning new relationship. And the most difficult of the Arab states of all to pacify in their traditional distance with Israel, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia may now be warming to the concept of 'normalization' with the Jewish State, as  the Saudis turn toward moderation of their stern practice of Islam.

 

  Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, US President Donald Trump and United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed sign agreements as they participate in the signing ceremony of the Abraham Accords at the White House in Washington, D.C., USA, September 15, 2020. © Tom Brenner, REUTERS

These events are taking place under the imprimatur and guidance and diplomacy of the departing U.S. Trump White House administration, a goal and an achievement that no other American administration has ever succeeded with. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu travelled to Saudi Arabia to meet its crown prince to discuss between them an issue of great importance both to Israel and to the Gulf Sunni states; the aggressively hostile ascendance of the Islamic Republic of Iran, threatening stability and the status quo in the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia is officially denying that any such meeting between Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salmon, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu took place. But undoubtedly, it did. A meeting that the Saudis would like to keep under wraps, at least for the present, but which the other two, Messrs. Pompeo and Netanyahu, would prefer to have out in the open as a symptom and symbol that peace is achievable and good relations between neighbours opens the way to peace.

National flags of Bahrain, UAE, Israel and the US are projected on the walls of Jerusalem's Old City [File: L Ronen Zvulun/Reuters]

 

Death At A Time of Despair

"Decades of studies have confirmed two facts about end-of-life care in Canada. It consumes a vast amount of resources; many people will consume more 'health care' in the last years before death than in the entireity of their lives before that. And most Canadians do not want to spend large parts of that last year in hospital."

"Palliative care, hospice care and home care are what is needed and what is desired. Yet these remain chronically underfunded and delayed while the option for a quick and cheap death is full speed ahead."

Fa.Raymond De Souza, Columnist, National Post

 

"[Under Bill C-7, a mental illness will] not be considered an illness, disease or disability [for the purpose of the assisted-dying law]."

"A provision that applies only to persons with mental illness, without appropriate justification, in discriminatory in nature because it is arbitrary."

"A provision that applies to all persons with mental illness, without appropriate justification, is unconstitutional because it is overbroad."

"Explicitly stating that mental illness is not an illness, disease or disability is inaccurate, stigmatizing, arbitrary and discriminatory."

Canadian Psychiatric Association brief

 

Up to the present in the four years that medically assisted death has been available in Canada, a small number of Canadians with severe irremediable mental health disorders have asked for and received assisted deaths, legally. With Bill C-7, some changes have been made whereby the government now proposes to expressly exclude people suffering from mental illness at the very time it is expanding the law with amendments to make it easier for people with physical failings to apply for assisted death. 

Many doctors are completely averse to the very idea of helping people to end their lives, rather than offering compassionate end-of-life care tailored to the individual. In the first four years of the program, the core measure of suitability for assisted death was an immediately foreseeable death occurring while the individual was suffering from an incurable disease or illness. Now that provision is to be removed. The number of witnesses has been reduced, a requirement that the individual requesting assisted death repeat that request immediately prior to lethal injection has also been erased.

It is easier to die in Canada if you are chronically and irremediably in pain, than if you are a mass murderer being punished for horrific crimes. Canada is fastidious about the death penalty; it simply does not exist in Canada as a civilized democracy; the state does not kill to avenge killing. But it will and does aid people who are suffering from a medical/health calamity to end their lives. This Liberal government led by Prime Minister Trudeau has truly enriched the Canadian experience.

Under this government of progressive democratic liberalism ground-breaking legislation has been passed to enrich the lives of the nation; such as the legalization of drugs, assisted death, and massive, colossal government debt. The three D's that define the government of Justin Trudeau. Included in that group should be gender dysphoria, where it is illegal for parents, doctors, advisers to attempt to change a child's mind when he/she expresses a wish to be regarded as a member of the gender they were not born to.

Shutterstock

Ironically when MAID (medical assistance in dying) was introduced in 2016, the government was quick to assure Canadians that legislation was geared to "safeguard" against abuse; no one would be under pressure to request a lethal injection to end their lives, that the existence of alternatives would be advised to a requester, and offered instead of assisted death where appropriate. That reassurance has degenerated to the point that it now will be possible for lethal injection to be administered the very day it has been requested.

In a country whose medical system is under such strain that it takes months to see a medical specialist upon referral, and months to have available some types of diagnostic imaging, months to a year to have surgeries scheduled, but dying can be readily accomplished. This at a time when surveys regularly show that most people would choose palliative care for  end-of-life situations, not peremptory death. But palliative care is poorly funded and opportunities are rare.

And now the issue of excluding psychiatric patients whose suffering is intense and incurable is deemed a disservice to society, and an offence against human dignity. But the near-death provision under the legislation has been scrapped, widening the opportunity pool for assisted death, while excluding those people with mental illness. Psychiatrists are incensed at the exclusion of those whose weal they are engaged in, considering the amendment a "flagrant violation of Section 15 of the charter"; discriminatory to a class of Canadians.

Canada's Minister of Justice, David Lametti, informed the House of Commons "that the trajectory of mental illness is more difficult to predict than that of most physical illnesses, that spontaneous improvement is possible and that a desire to die and an impaired perception of one's circumstances are symptoms, themselves, of some mental illnesses." At opposite ends of the spectrum, there is push-back from health-impaired Canadians and their physicians that the disabled would welcome death. 

"All the doctor seemed to see, though, was a disabled woman alone, sick, tired and probably tired of living" commented a woman who when she was in her twenties with pneumonia, wheelchair-bound, her attending doctor suggested she might consider euthanasia, rather than wait for recovery. She rejected his suggestion, recovered, and is now an advocate for the disabled who fear euthanasia being forced upon them.They call the program MAD.

Pexels Photo

"China Will Be The Enemy"

Australia's PM Scott Morrison,  Bloomberg

"We won't be compromising on the fact that we'll set what our foreign investment laws are, or how we build our 5G telecommunications networks, or how we run our systems ... that are protecting against any interference."

"We will always set our own laws and our own rules according to our national interests -- not at the behest of any other nation, whether that's the U.S. or China or anyone else."

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison

 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau  CP/Sean Kilpatrick

"Do I regret that Canada followed its laws? Do I regret that Canada lived up to a long-standing extradition treaty with our closest ally? Absolutely not."

"Canada is a country of the rule of law. And obeying those laws can't just be when it's convenient or when it's easy. If you're a country of the rule of law, if you're a country of values, you need to stick up for those. And that's exactly what we're doing."

"In the face of pressure and increasingly coercive moves by one of the world's great powers, I think that really highlights at which point we need to be working together as allies, as neighbours, as friends, as countries."

"Very few countries could stand up on its own to a superpower, to a great power. But working together in alignment, we can make sure there is a recognition that the path that China is choosing to take right now is probably not going to be as effective -- even for them -- as they think it will."

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

"[The government must] make a decision on Huawei's involvement in Canada's 5G network within 30 days [and] develop a robust plan, as Australia has done, to combat China's growing foreign operations here in Canada and its increasing intimidation of Canadians living in Canada [within 30 days]."

House of Commons Opposition Conservatives

"We are aware that China is, and will remain, an important commercial partner for Canada."

"China is also a significant source of tourists and students to Canada, and brings economic and enriching social benefits across our nation."

Foreign Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne

Sing4DemocracyHK protest outside the Court of Final Appeal in Hong Kong (Anthony Wallace/AFP/Getty Images)

Australia and Canada have displeased China mightily. China awaits both countries to come to their senses and that would entail sincerely apologizing to Beijing for their intransigent wrong-headed views on China regarding many issues, inclusive of Hong Kong, Uighurs, Huawei, Chinese benevolence, Chinese cyber espionage, copyright infringement, and above all, COVID-19. Beijing's release this week of a list of 14 grievances with Australia put matters out in the open down under when a Chinese official spoke on record to an Australian reporter: "China is angry. If you make China the enemy, China will be the enemy." 

According to Australian sources the list of grievances includes instigating an investigation in the United Nations regarding the spread of COVID-19 at the turn of 2020, cancelling Chinese student visas as a COVID-aversion safety measure, blocking Chinese investments in Australia, leading international focus on violation of human rights by China and the banning of Huawei from contributing to the Australian 5G telecommunications network upgrade. All hostile actions guaranteed to poison relations between China and Australia; the latter the aggressor, the former the victim.

Australia's Prime Minister made it abundantly clear that Australia's sovereign decisions are not up for discussion much less explanation or apology to the world's number one natural resources-hoarder, trade colossus, and cybertheft expert. Australia puts its words into action and lives with the consequences, unwilling to be bullied and coerced into pleasing or pleading with the Chinese Communist Party for concessions and forgiveness. 

 G20 Leaders photo, Riyadh on Friday. Getty Images

Canada's Prime Minister enjoys grabbing the limelight as a victim whose defence of justice and the rule of law has occasioned Beijing's wrath and imprisoned two innocent Canadians for the past two years, charged with threatening China's security, in retaliation for the detention of Meng Wanzhou, CFO of Huawei, on a U.S. extradition request. Canada has appealed to other APEC nations to support Canada in a joint rejection of Chinese bullying in the hopes that Xi Jinping would be confronted at this weekend's G20 Saudi-hosted virtual gathering.

But is Canada prepared to  go it alone, to stand up for its sovereign rights as its Prime Minister boasted? It remains the only Five Eyes intelligence-sharing nation to leave open the question of whether Huawei will be included in Canada's 5G telecommunications upgrade, fearful of Beijing's explosive wrath, whereas Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States have all clearly stated their positions to shut out Huawei citing obvious security reasons.

Canada, on the other hand, saw fit to award a standing offer for conveyor-style X-ray machines to Nuctech, a Beijing based company partially owned by the Chinese government, once operated by the sun of the former General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. Canadian, American and British companies all competed for the standing offer, but it was Nuctech who won the tender including delivery, installation, operator training and software training at Canadian embassies located world-wide.

It was only when a national newspaper broke the news of the contract that the federal government committed to a review once the contract was exposed, and ultimately decided not to buy Xray machines for Canadian embassies from the controversial Chinese firm. But it turns out that the Canadian Border Services Agency had already bought and installed Nuctech X-ray machines: 

"We have a number of mitigating interventions that we put in place around this technology. One of the first ones is obviously to keep it disconnected from our networks and from any Government of Canada networks ... the second is (anyone) affiliated with any of our suppliers would be screened through security processes and would be escorted on site if they were present in our facilities", explained the vice-president of the CBSA;s intelligence and enforcement branch. 

 

Why go through all this rigamarole necessitated by the use of the machines to begin with? To do otherwise, it would seem, would be to offend Beijing. Who could easily retaliate as they have done with holding two Canadians they've charged with espionage as hostages to force the release of the Huawei executive. China also flexed its trade muscles when it refused Canadian pork exports and canola products, both commodities that enjoyed a heavy trade prior to the Huawei affair.

Cong Peiwu, China's ambassador Canada (Justin Tang/CP

All of this in light of Canada's Communications Security Establishment's Canadian Centre for Cyber Security releasing a new report in which Russia, North Korea, Iran and China are listed as cybersecurity threats to Canada. An earlier report by the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians pointed out that China and Russia are using their diaspora, undercover agents and groups based on Canadian campuses as part of "significant and sustained" foreign interference campaigns in Canada, according to a redacted intelligence report.

 

"The committee believes that these states target Canada for a variety of reasons, but all seek to exploit the openness of our society and penetrate our fundamental institutions to meet their objectives."

"They target ethnocultural communities, seek to corrupt the political process, manipulate the media, and attempt to curate debate on post-secondary campuses."

"Each of these activities poses a significant risk to the rights and freedoms of Canadians and to the country's sovereignty: they are a clear threat to the security of Canada."

"[This] so-called genocide [is] a rumour and a farce fabricated by some anti-Chinese forces to slander China." 

"Its groundless statement  [committee report] is full of lies and disinformation. {Parliamentarians would do well to] avoid doing any further damage to China-Canada relations."

"This is blatant interference in China's internal affairs and reflects those Canadian individuals' ignorance and prejudice. China firmly deplores and rejects that."

"[The installations are] vocational training and education centres [where religious] extremists [are educated in the] national common spoken and written language, legal knowledge, vocational skills and de-radicalization."

"The aim is to eliminate the root cause of terrorism and extremism." 

Zhao Lijian, spokesperson, Chinese foreign ministry

In this photo, a guard tower and barbed wire fence surround a detention facility in the Kunshan Industrial Park in Artux in western China's Xinjiang region. (Ng Han Guan/AP Photo)