Europe and China yesterday signed a Comprehensive Agreement on Investment after seven years of negotiation. Why now? As I report at Asia Times, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron pushed the deal through to pre-empt anything that the new U.S. administration might have to say on the subject.
On a day frequently marked by celebrations involving large amounts of alcohol, Canada’s chief public health officer is again asking Canadians to go easy on the drinking as they turn the page on 2020.
“As the new year approaches, many of us will be looking for ways to celebrate. For some, these festivities will include serving and drinking alcohol, while others may find this season difficult due to distance from friends and family,” Dr. Theresa Tam said in a media statement issued Friday.
Every day Andrea McCoy receives up to five emails from refugees desperate to come to Canada. As the messages flood in, she writes back, “I can’t help you at this time.”
She works for the Anglican diocese on Vancouver Island, which has privately sponsored more than 800 refugees since 2016. But its parishes cannot resettle everyone who writes.
A subversion of sovereignty and democracy dressed up as virtue.
The mayor of a small town in Oregon has had enough. Stan Pulliam, the Republican mayor of Sandy, Oregon, has heard from business owners. He’s heard from citizens. He’s even heard from the governor. He has asked the question, over and over, where’s the evidence that lockdowns and the related economic devastation has worked to slow the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic?
China’s government appears set to launch itself into the post-COVID future committed to a diplomatic approach based on some simple notions: if insults don’t work, try threats. If that fails, go back to insults.
Geng Shuang, Beijing’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, got in an early bit of abuse when he responded to a German envoy’s plea to release Canada’s two Michaels, Spavor and Kovrig, as a Christmas gesture. Noting that the German diplomat’s tenure on the Security Council was about to end, Geng sneered: “Out of the bottom of my heart: good riddance.”
Atlanta, like most major cities this year, is experiencing a surge in violent crime. The city is also playing out the next logical chapter of the “defund the police” movement: private, supplemental police forces for affluent communities.
The calls for a private security force have come from Buckhead, which a coalition of politicians, residents, and businesses claim is called “the Beverly Hills of the East.” A 7-year-old girl in Buckhead was recently killed by a stray bullet while Christmas shopping with her family, as Atlanta has seen homicides rise 61% from last year.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson plans to use the G7 summit that Britain is hosting in 2021 to launch the “D10”, intended as an alliance of democracies to counter China.
His proposal is for the G7 group of leading industrialised nations to be joined by Australia, South Korea and India. The focus would be on developing 5G telecommunications technology to reduce dependence on Huawei and the Chinese Communist Party as well as reliance on essential medical supplies from China.
That will make Justin cry.
Paris police chief, Didier Lallement, has caused a stir after quoting Marxist revolutionary Leon Trotsky in his official New Year greetings cards, sent out to hundreds of elected officials and institutions across the region.
After a tough 2020 and apparently seeking to inspire some camaraderie heading into the new year, Lallement drew on a passage from the founder of the Bolshevik Red Army in which Trotsky attempted to rally his “comrades” against the Russian bourgeoisie.
Sainted Irish Mother is in Hospital.
She was scheduled to be transferred to another facility this week, until Covid broke out in the department she was headed for.
So she was being held in place until an alternate destination could be found.
Today I received a call saying she has been placed in isolation for 14 days after being exposed to a covid positive staffer.
She is fine and covid free – so far but she is 95 with underlying conditions so that is worrisome.
Ugh.
A woman in the UK was arrested by police after she filmed a video inside an almost completely empty hospital and posted it online.
The clip shows the woman walking through virtually empty corridors and filming empty wards at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital.
H/T T
Ontario is reporting 3,328 cases of #COVID19 and nearly 63,900 tests completed. Locally, there are 888 new cases in Toronto, 431 in Peel, 418 in York Region, 257 in Windsor-Essex County and 194 in Ottawa.
— Christine Elliott (@celliottability) December 31, 2020
Province needs to call in the military again to help Ontario’s long-term-care homes, says health coalition head
Measures taken to protect those in Ontario’s long-term-care homes have been a failure and the military should once again be sent into the facilities, says the executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition.
Natalie Mehra said, as the second wave of COVID-19 continues to ravage Ontario, the conditions inside long-term-care homes for the elderly are at an all-time low.
In an attempt to cut down on the spread of COVID-19, B.C. health officials are stopping liquor sales provincewide at 8 p.m. on New Year’s Eve.
The emergency measure includes liquor sales at bars and restaurants.
YAKIMA, Wash. – A coronavirus outbreak at a Costco store in Yakima County has infected 145 employees, and health officials say the rapid increase in cases at the store is similar to a “superspreader event” in which multiple people are infected at the same time.
The findings were released Tuesday by the Yakima County Health District after store-wide testing at the Costco in Union Gap.
All 145 employees that have tested positive are in isolation or quarantine, but the store itself remains open, officials said. The store employs a total of 383 people.
A 24-year-old Vancouver man spent Christmas night in jail after repeatedly hosting parties that violated COVID-19 public health orders.
Vancouver police say they issued multiple warnings and fines to the man before arresting him on Dec. 25 and charging him under Section 99 of the provincial Public Health Act. He was released on Boxing Day.
