Politics

The Vatican’s charity voiced outrage Monday at what it called the “reckless” and “unhuman” U.S. plans to gut USAID, with Pope Francis’ point-man on development aid insisting that the Trump administration remember Christian principles about caring for others as it begins governing. Cardinal Michael Czerny, a Czech-born Canadian Jesuit, is one of the cardinals most closely associated with Francis’ pontificate and heads the Vatican office responsible for migrants, the environment, the church’s Caritas Internationalis charity and development.Caritas on Monday warned that millions of people will die as a result of the “ruthless” U.S. decision to “recklessly” stop USAID funding, and hundreds of millions more will be condemned to “dehumanizing poverty.”USAID is the main international humanitarian...

By Anja Karadeglija The Canadian Press Posted February 10, 2025 7:31 am Updated February 10, 2025 7:35 am 1 min read Descrease article font size Increase article font size Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is in Paris Monday for a global summit on artificial intelligence, as U.S. president Donald Trump is expected to announce steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada. Trump said Sunday he will formally announce 25 per cent tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports on Monday, including from Canada.In an interview with Fo...

By Anja Karadeglija The Canadian Press Posted February 10, 2025 7:45 am Updated February 10, 2025 7:46 am 1 min read Source link

U.S. President Donald Trump said he will formally announce 25 per cent tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports on Monday, including for Canada and Mexico. Trump made the comments on a press conference aboard Air Force 1 as he travelled to New Orleans to watch the Super Bowl between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles. U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the press aboard Air Force One enroute to New Orleans, La., on Feb. 9, 2025. Roberto Schmidt / AFP via Getty Images Trump imposed steel and aluminum tariffs at 25 and 10 per cent respectively during his first term in March 2018 using national security as justification. Story continues below advertisement Canada was initially given an exe...

Descrease article font size Increase article font size U.S. President Donald Trump said he expects Elon Musk to find hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud and abuse at the Pentagon during an audit that the billionaire will lead. “I’m going to tell him very soon, like maybe in 24 hours, to go check the Department of Education. … Then I’m going to go, go to the military. Let’s check the military,” Trump said in a Super Bowl interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier, an excerpt of which was aired on Sunday morning.“We’re going to find billions, hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud and abuse,” Trump said of the largest federal department.The Pentagon’s budget is approaching US$1 trillion per year. In December, then-President Joe Biden signed a bi...

Canada’s most important security and intelligence alliance should be able to weather the current political storm engulfing Washington, according to journalist and filmmaker Richard Kerbaj. Kerbaj, the author of The Secret History of the Five Eyes, told The West Block’s Mercedes Stephenson the long-standing spy partnership has survived political disagreements between its member countries in the past.“The Five Eyes [has] been around for a long time now. You know, six decades, seven decades, eight decades, depends on how far back you trace its roots,” Kerbaj said in an interview.“But it’s survived every single administration and government that it served. And I like to think that regardless what it’s hit by, it will continue to do so.”The Five Eyes intelligence alliance comprises Canada, the ...

Descrease article font size Increase article font size The Liberal Party of Canada has announced two leadership debates — one in English and one in French — to be held in Montreal later this month, ahead of the vote to determine their next leader and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s successor. On Saturday, the party announced the French debate will take place on Feb. 24, and the English debate the following day.🗓️ Save the dates! pic.twitter.com/NHIK8amywI— Liberal Party (@liberal_party) February 8, 2025The debates fall less than two weeks before the March 9 vote to secure the Liberal Party’s new leader. Story continues below advertisement “This is a time for Liberals across the country to exchange ideas and engage...

The federal body tasked with monitoring elections for foreign interference says it has briefed Liberal leadership candidate Chrystia Freeland’s campaign about a Chinese-backed operation that has been spreading disparaging articles online about her. The Security and Intelligence Threats to Election Task Force (SITE) said in a statement Friday that the “information operation” was identified by Global Affairs Canada’s Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM Canada) and traced to a popular WeChat news account linked to China.“RRM Canada detected coordinated and malicious activity about Ms. Freeland,” the statement said.It estimated that between two million and three million WeChat users globally saw the campaign, which included articles published to an anonymous blog that were then spread by over 30 oth...

Demonstrators across America have been turning out in droves to protest President Donald Trump’s early actions. Thousands of people have been gathering in cities across the U.S. this week, with a concentrated push on Wednesday, to decry everything from the president’s immigration crackdown to his rollback of transgender rights and a proposal to forcibly transfer Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. People protest outside of the headquarters of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) before Congressional Democrats hold a news conference in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 3, 2025. Mandel Ngan / AFP via Getty Images Protesters in Philadelphia and at state capitol buildings in Minnesota, Michigan, Texas, Wisconsin, India...

The Chinese artificial intelligence chatbot DeepSeek is being banned on some Canadian government mobile devices due to “serious privacy concerns” — and other departments are being urged to do the same. An email from the Treasury Board Secretariat’s chief information officer Dominic Rochon shared with Global News says the concerns stem from DeepSeek’s “inappropriate” collection and retention of sensitive personal information.It says the app has already been restricted from government mobile devices managed by Shared Services Canada (SSC), which delivers digital services to many government departments and teams.“I encourage these organizations to work with SSC to further implement the restriction on all department-managed devices,” Rochon wrote in the email sent Thursday.“Organizations not s...