Tag: Canada

It will be interesting to see if Canada decides to give in to Chinese intimidation and threats:

China warned Canada that it needs to be aware of the consequences of aiding the U.S. in an extradition case involving Chinese tech giant Huawei that is believed to have sparked the detentions of two Canadians in China.
Foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang’s comments came after Vice President Mike Pence and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called for the release of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor.
Both were arrested on Dec. 10 after Canada detained a Huawei executive wanted by the U.S. on fraud charges. While China has denied they were taken in retaliation, it has implied repeatedly that there is a strong connection between the cases.

Associated Press

You can read more at the link.

Meanwhile in the Philippines:

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte wants Canada to come get tons of trash that was wrongly sent to his country — and he’s threatening extreme steps if Canada doesn’t clean up the situation. “We’ll declare war against them,” Duterte said Tuesday.
The president was referring to a large shipment of municipal trash that has sat in Manila since its arrival in 2013 and 2014. The more than 100 shipping containers had been declared to hold recyclable plastic. But when the doors were opened, customs officials found “household trash, plastic bottles and bags, newspapers, and used adult diapers,” according to Filipino news outlet ABS-CBN. 
“I will not allow that kind of s***,” Duterte said at a news conference Tuesday, adding that Canada has attempted to provide educational grant money to the Philippines — on the condition that it also accept the garbage.
Duterte said he wants the trash gone within a week, even if he has to return it by force. (…..)

Duterte said he doesn’t care what Canada does with the garbage: “Eat it if you want to.” He jokingly suggested Canadians should prepare a gala reception to mark the repatriation of the refuse, which dates from the previous Filipino administration headed by President Benigno Aquino III.
“Prepare and celebrate,” Duterte said, “because your garbage is coming home.”

NPR via a reader tip

You can read more at the link, but one obvious question is why is a country as big as Canada exporting garbage to a country as small as the Philippines? Secondly what would a war between the Philippines and Canada look like?

It will be interesting to see if Canada gives into the thug like threats being directed at them by China.  We saw these same type of threats thrown at South Korea when they did not give in over China’s demands to not deploy the THAAD battery.  China responded by stopping tour groups from going to South Korea and putting unofficial sanctions on Korean companies.  They will likely do the same to Canada to try and bully them to release Meng:

China warned Canada on Saturday that there would be severe consequences if it did not immediately release Huawei Technologies Co Ltd’s [HWT.UL] chief financial officer, calling the case “extremely nasty”.
Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s global chief financial officer, was arrested in Canada on Dec. 1 and faces extradition to the United States, which alleges that she covered up her company’s links to a firm that tried to sell equipment to Iran despite sanctions.
The executive is the daughter of the founder of Huawei.
If extradited to the United States, Meng would face charges of conspiracy to defraud multiple financial institutions, a Canadian court heard on Friday, with a maximum sentence of 30 years for each charge.
No decision was reached at the extradition hearing after nearly six hours of arguments and counter-arguments, and the hearing was adjourned until Monday.
In a short statement, China’s Foreign Ministry said that Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng had issued the warning to release Meng to Canada’s ambassador in Beijing, summoning him to lodge a “strong protest”.

Reuters

You can read the rest at the link.

I am willing to bet that Lieutenant General Eyre is saying things that US generals are not allowed to express:

A senior officer in the United Nations Command is urging caution about a declaration to end the Korean War, warning it could be a North Korean ploy to pull the South Korea-U.S. alliance apart.

Canadian Lieutenant-General Wayne Eyre is quoted as calling the prospective declaration a “slippery slope” in terms of the U.S. troop presence in South Korea.

In remarks at a Washington seminar, Eyre described the North Koreans as experts at “divide and conquer.”

Abut 28-thousand-500 U.S. troops are based in South Korea to deter or defeat a repeat of North Korea’s 1950 invasion or other provocations.

He said it needs to be questioned why North Korea is pushing so hard for an end-of-war declaration.

While noting that the recent climate of negotiations offered hope for a lasting peace, he suggested that a war-ending declaration would lead the public to question seriously the need for a continued U.S. troop presence on the peninsula.  [KBS World Radio]

I have said this repeatedly that after a peace treaty is signed the South Korea left will then mobilize to make life difficult for US troops in South Korea.  Every traffic accident, parking ticket, drunken fight, etc. will become a national headline to increase anti-US sentiment.  It will be the 2002-2004 timeframe all over again and this time the Korean left will hope that the US president decides to pull out USFK on his own accord.

South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha (L) shakes hands with Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland as they meet in Vancouver on Jan. 15, 2018, on the sidelines of a two-day gathering of top diplomats from 16 countries. The gathering is for discussing issues related to security and stability on the Korean Peninsula. (Yonhap)

It looks like there is an English teacher job opening at Sahmyook University after one of their professors was fired due to his link to the murder of four people back in Canada:

A former professor at a Seoul-based university is a suspect in a mysterious missing-person case in Canada, according to South Korean broadcaster JTBC.

Canadian Paul Laan taught English at Sahmyook University in Nowon, northern Seoul, from 2014. The university stripped him of his professorship early this month after learning of the accusations in Canada and then terminated his contract.

According to the report, Laan came to Korea in 2006 and earned a living by teaching English at private or public institutes.

According to JTBC and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), he was a suspect in a high-profile missing-person case in Ontario in 1998. A woman in her 70s, known as the “Cat Lady,” was a tenant in his house and disappeared outside Huntsville. Police later found that three other tenants were missing.

Police investigating the case saw Laan as a suspect but they found no evidence, and it became a cold case.

CBC put the case back in the spotlight on its investigative program “The Fifth Estate,” aired in September.

The program said the residents’ disappearance was not reported and that pension checks were stolen from them by the Paul family. The youngest of the family was living in South Korea as a professor, according to the program.

“Paul now teaches English at a university in South Korea and travels with his wife extensively, professing their love for God on their family blog,” CBC reported.  [Korea Times]

You can read the whole CBC report on these murders at this link.  The Paul family are all part of a crime family in the Huntsville area of Canada that have a long criminal history culminating in the murder of four people.

Amid the latest crisis with North Korea the Canadians were able to send in a special envoy and get a Canadian pastor released this week:

North Korea said Wednesday that it has released an imprisoned Canadian pastor for humanitarian reasons amid escalating tensions on the Korean peninsular stemming from the North’s continued provocations.

The Korea Central News Agency, the communist state’s official media outlet, reported that Lim Hyeon-su, a Canadian civilian, was released on sick bail in line with the decision of the Central Court of the North.

Lim, a Korean-Canadian pastor, has been held in captivity in the North since he entered the country via China on a humanitarian mission in January 2015.

In December, the North’s highest court sentenced Lim to life in prison with hard labor, citing his “subversive plots” against the North’s regime.

His release came one day after a special envoy of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrived in the North.

Daniel Jean, national security advisor to the prime minister of Canada, and his party arrived in Pyongyang, the KCNA reported on Tuesday.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.