A French-Syrian man has been detained by French police on suspicion of supplying components for the manufacture of chemical weapons in Syria through his shipping company, sources briefed on the case told AFP Sunday.
The man, who was born in 1962 and lives abroad, was arrested Saturday in the south of France according to one of the sources.
“He returned to France with his family for the holidays,” a source close to the case told AFP.
The Department of the Treasury announced this week that it has reached a settlement with a major American bank after the bank committed violations against America’s sanctions on North Korea.
According to a Treasury release, the settlement was reached between TD Bank and the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), related to the bank’s violations of North Korea Sanctions Regulations and the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Sanctions Regulations.
The search for deceased Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s rumored $100 billion illicit fortune has hit the Big Apple.
An application filed by the Libyan government in Manhattan federal court seeks records from eight major banks related to Gaddafi’s finances “in what could become the largest international asset recovery effort of all time,” according to attorneys involved in the matter.
More than $100 billion was allegedly stolen by Gaddafi during his time as Libya’s ruler from 1969 to 2011, when he was overthrown by U.S.-supported rebels.
Canadian ethics professor Julie Ponesse worked at the University of Western Ontario for two decades. This past September, as the school year was about to begin, she lost her job. Because she opposes medical coercion. Because she declined a medical procedure known as COVID-19 vaccination.
Imagine attending a Christmas or New Year’s party, learning the next day that someone there had COVID, then waking up the day after that with a sore throat, sniffles, and achiness. It wouldn’t take a genius to piece together what happened. But you’d want to be sure, so you’d reach for that rapid test you wisely purchased last month after the news about Omicron first broke, knowing that the new variant would soon be on your doorstep.
Approximately 2,200 people have been shot during 2021 in Mayor Jim Kenney’s (D) troubled Philadelphia.
6 ABC reports “nearly 1,800” people had been shot and wounded and another 473 had been shot and killed as of December 22, 2021.
Overall, Philadelphia witnessed 547 homicides by December 22 as well.
Santa Claus effigies burnt in Agra on Christmas Eve
Effigies of Santa Claus were burnt in Agra on Friday, claiming the mythical figure to be part of a “strategy” by Christian missionaries to convert people.
The incident took place at the intersection of St John’s College on Mahatma Gandhi Marg on Christmas Eve. Members of the Antarrashtriya Hindu Parishad and Rashtriya Bajrang Dal took out a procession carrying effigies of Saint Nicholas, more commonly known as Santa Claus.
These effigies were then set ablaze while activists raised slogans like “Santa Claus Murdabad”
Hindus hate Santa! Murdabad translates as “Death To”
Elsewhere … Jesus statue smashed in spate of attacks on India’s Christian community
Sweden’s new Prime Minister, Social Democrat Magdalena Andersson, who previously served as finance minister, has a formidable task ahead of her: Dealing with the ever-growing gang violence and shootings in Swedish cities. Her predecessor, Stefan Löfven, notably failed even to contain the exponential growth in shootings during his seven-year tenure. Sweden’s parliament narrowly elected Andersson as Löfven’s successor in November, after Löfven announced his resignation in August.
“Sweden is a fantastic country, but we are facing a number of serious problems,” Andersson said. “I plan to lift every stone to break segregation and push back the violent crime which is plaguing Sweden…”
Sweden is facing much more than a “serious problem”. For years, Sweden has been breaking new criminal records, while refusing to talk openly about the link between migration and gang violence. This reticence may result from a combination of political correctness and Sweden’s fear of failing its own declared ambition of being the world’s “humanitarian superpower”. Already in 2019, leader of the opposition party Moderaterna, Ulf Kristersson, called the situation, “extreme for a country that is not at war”.
A lot of people began returning to work in 2021, though there are still many jobs waiting to be filled. That news might lead you to believe that business is booming, and that’s true in some sectors, but not all of them. One area where a slump worsened in 2021 as compared to the previous year was the news business. Traffic and revenue were down pretty much across the board for both newspapers and cable news outlets.
The machine was ‘trained’ using information compiled from more than 17,000 cases from 2015 to 2020 and can correctly file charges for Shanghai’s eight most common crimes, including credit card fraud, theft, and “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” according to research published this month in the domestic peer-reviewed journal Management Review.
The AI prosecutor was developed and tested by the Shanghai Pudong People’s Procuratorate, China’s biggest and busiest district prosecution office, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported. The paper noted that the system could even run on a desktop computer.
China is responsible for every American Covid death. But it’s you’re going to try to parse out blame to a particular president, at least get the simple math right. On Christmas Eve, CNN Newsroom fill-in host Boris Sanchez had some trouble doing that as he definitively claimed it was “fake news” to accurately say that more Americans have been killed by Covid under President Biden than former President Trump.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry confirmed on Monday that an unconfirmed number of American officials have requested Chinese visas to travel to the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics despite President Joe Biden announcing a “diplomatic boycott” of the event this month.
Chilling moment masked man with crossbow threatens to kill Queen in vid sent to pals minutes before cops arrest man, 19
“This is revenge for those who have died in the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
“It is also revenge for those who have been killed, humiliated and discriminated on because of their race.
“I’m an Indian Sikh, a Sith. My name was Jaswant Singh Chail, my name is Darth Jones.”
Suspect Jaswant Singh Chail was sectioned under the Mental Health Act.
🚨🚨🚨 | BREAKING: Chilling footage of the alleged Crosbow man who broke into Windsor threatening to kill the Queen
Via @TheSun pic.twitter.com/d655TIzqPo
— News For All (@NewsForAllUK) December 26, 2021
Canada makes major guarantees, including tax exemptions to host FIFA 2026 games
OTTAWA — The Canadian government has signed onto tax breaks, security costs and eased travel rules in order to have the FIFA World Cup come to Canada in 2026.
Canada won a joint bid with the U.S. and Mexico for the 2026 event, which will see the majority of games played in the U.S., but 10 games will be played in Canada with Toronto and Edmonton the potential host cities. Montreal was a candidate city, but pulled out earlier this year over cost concerns.
All the usual palms will be greased.
Ontario reported more than 9,400 new COVID-19 cases on Monday, as demand for diagnostic testing continues to outstrip available supply.
The seven-day rolling average of new cases now stands at 7,550, up from 2,863 one week ago.
Experts concerned about hospital capacity as Omicron spread continues
OTTAWA — A rise in COVID-19 cases driven by the highly infectious Omicron variant of the virus has renewed concerns among experts about the capacity of Canada’s hospitals and health-care workers to handle another wave of the pandemic.
Paul-Emile Cloutier, president of HealthCareCAN, said the latest wave could make the existing health-care worker shortage worse. HealthCareCAN represents research hospitals and regional health authorities.
Interesting observations by this ER doc
So what are the take-home points?
1. The Omicron wave will not come anywhere near the initially modeled worst case scenario in terms of hospitalization and ICU utilization.
— David Jacobs (@DrJacobsRad) December 26, 2021
