Tag Archives: Canada
8 September 2014
On 5 September, at the conclusion of the NATO summit in Wales, President Obama announced that nine NATO allies have agreed to join the US in order to form a coalition to fight the Islamic State. (more…)
Source: The Guardian | US forms 'core coalition' to fight Isis militants in Iraq
Source: Al Jazeera | US announces coalition to fight Islamic State
Source: New York Times | Obama Enlists 9 Allies to Help in the Battle Against ISIS
2 September 2014
According to the Daily Mail, Britain is to spearhead a 10,000-strong NATO joint expeditionary force, aimed at bolstering the West’s capabilities in response to Russia’s recent actions in Ukraine. Other countries involved at the present time include Denmark, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Norway and the Netherlands. Canada has also expressed an interest in taking part. (more…)
Source: Financial Times | Nato states create new multilateral force
Source: Daily Mail | Britain to spearhead 10,000-strong Nato rapid reaction force with mission to halt Putin's 'Tsarist expansionism'
Source: The Sunday Times | New Nato reaction force aims to deter Russian aggression
15 August 2014
On 8 August, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) declared the current Ebola outbreak in West Africa an international public health emergency, saying: ‘our collective health security’ depends on urgent support for containment in the affected countries. WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan declared ‘the current outbreak of the Ebola a public health emergency of international concern’. Although the disease is only affecting a small part of the African continent, there is ‘a clear call for international solidarity’ to boost the capacity of the countries currently affected. According to the WHO, between 10 and 11 August, 128 new cases of Ebola virus disease, as well as 56 deaths, were reported from Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone, bringing the total number of cases to 1,975 and deaths to 1,069. (more…)
Source: AlJazeera| Canada sends trial Ebola vaccine to W Africa
Source: UN News Centre | UN declares Ebola outbreak global ‘international public health emergency’
Source: UN News Centre | Ebola: UN health agency says more than 1 million people affected by outbreak
Source: UN News Centre | Ebola: WHO-convened ethics panel endorses use of experimental drugs
10 April 2014
The New York Times reports that Britain has increasingly invoked its power to strip citizens of their British citizenship. Furthermore, Prime Minister David Cameron’s government is promoting legislation that would increase this power to revoke citizenship, as a result of concerns that British Muslims traveling to fight in Syria will pose a threat upon their return to Britain. Britain is one of the few countries, including Israel, which can revoke citizenship of dual nationals, if suspected or convicted of terrorist offenses. However, the proposed legislation would expand such practice to naturalised citizens that have no other nationality, resulting in the statelessness of that person. Home Secretary Theresa May stated that citizenship is a ‘privilege, not a right.’ The purpose of this power is to disrupt the terrorist threat and other countries are taking note. For example, in Canada there is a bill before parliament including some deprivation powers. Additionally, Australia and the Netherlands are also considering such legislation. (more…)
Source: The New York Times | Britain Increasingly Invokes Power to Disown Its Citizens
3 February 2014
An US-backed campaign for the past three months to discreetly destroy Libya’s lethal arsenal and chemical weapons successfully ended last week. Hundreds of bombs and artillery rounds filled with mustard agents, which the US feared could fall into terrorists’ hands, were destroyed. The programme took 45 million US dollar from the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction fund and the Pentagon assigned Parsons Corporation to work with Libya to rebuild and safeguard the disposal site. Additionally, Canada donated 6 million US dollar to the site to restore water, sewage and electricity, and to build living quarters, while Germany agreed to send international inspectors to the site.
Paul F. Walker, an arms control expert with Green Cross International, stated ‘[e]ven though Libya’s chemical stockpile was relatively small, the effort to destroy it was very difficult because of weather, geography and because it’s a dangerous area with warring tribes, increasing the risks of theft and diversion.’ The disposal site is located in the desert where Islamist militants are gaining more influence and where the eastern and western provinces struggle over political power and oil revenue.
The programme used a Swedish custom-built device to destroy the chemical weapons. The device is like a giant, high-tech oven in which the weapons are fed into a gas-tight chamber, where the toxic materials are vaporised at temperatures up to 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The easily transportable technology used to destroy Libya’s chemical weapons has become a model for the programme in Syria to destroy their chemical weapons now underway.
Source: The New York Times | Libya’s Cache of Toxic Arms All Destroyed