The Chinese Embassy in Japan last Thursday tweeted an antisemitic cartoon and then deleted it at the behest of Israel’s Foreign Ministry.
The cartoon featured an image of the Grim Reaper wearing an American flag and carrying a scythe with the Israeli flag as he goes door to door and leaves a bloody trail behind him. The doors are labeled Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Egypt.
Corporate America quickly condemned and chastised Georgia over its recently-passed voting legislation — suggesting the bill “undermin[es]” American democracy, and some going as far as moving business away from the state in response. Additionally, hundreds of corporations, celebrities and executives announced their unified opposition against any “discriminatory legislation” that “prevent[s] any eligible voter from having an equal and fair opportunity to cast a ballot.”
I find this to be a perfect snapshot of the degeneracy of our ruling class.
TORONTO — Activists, experts and policy makers are speaking out on what they describe as an ever-growing “influence” of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Canadian business, academic and political circles.
There has been mounting scrutiny on the CCP’s increased flexing of its intelligence muscles since the ascension of President Xi Jinping in 2013.
Canada’s intelligence agencies have taken the rare step of naming China as a significant threat to the country’s sovereignty, with CSIS director David Vigneault publicly saying in a February 2021 speech that Canadians are being “aggressively” targeted by foreign interests – and Beijing was engaged in “activities that are a direct threat to our national security and sovereignty.”
Ottawa says it only learned in February that Canada’s visa-application centre in Beijing is managed by Chinese police, the same month The Globe and Mail reported the arrangement.
The federal government has trusted its visa centre in Beijing to a police-owned company since 2008, and has been required to conduct due-diligence screenings during renewals of the contract in subsequent years including 2018.
The government acknowledged its lack of awareness in documents tabled in the House of Commons this week in response to written questions from NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan.
Ontario reports 3,871 new COVID-19 cases and 41 more deaths
Ontario reported more than 3,800 new coronavirus cases and 41 more deaths on Thursday, as one epidemiologist says the province is showing “early signs of improvement” amid the third wave of the pandemic.
Provincial health officials logged 3,871 new COVID-19 cases today, up from 3,480 infections recorded on Wednesday.
‘Wuhan pneumonia’: Ontario MPPs urge Chinese-Canadian doctor to remove ‘divisive’ sign
Two Toronto-based politicians are pressing a Chinese-Canadian doctor to remove a sign on his office door – in Chinese – that refers to COVID-19 as the “Wuhan pneumonia,” complaining the wording could incite anti-Asian hatred.
Vincent Ke, a Progressive Conservative member of the provincial legislature with a history of ties to the Chinese government, said Kong may have made an innocent mistake, but it doesn’t matter that the mention of Wuhan was in Chinese.
“No matter the language spoken or written, the term ‘Wuhan pneumonia’ to describe the COVID-19 virus is not just incorrect, it is inflammatory,” a spokesman for the politician said by email.
Lots of CCP fanboys have jumped on this “Asian Hate Crime” bandwagon. They are much too inscrutable for me to discern a possible motive.
Hardly a spot remains on the planet — and off — that China does not consider up for grabs, and that includes the North and South poles.
China’s ambitions in the Arctic include: In 2018, China issued its first Arctic policy paper, “China’s Arctic policy” and with a straight face declared itself, a “near-Arctic state”, wanting a “Polar Silk Road.” In fact, China is some 3,000 kilometers from the Arctic Circle[1]. Its “Polar Silk Road” would create new shipping routes linking Asia and Europe via the Arctic, as part of the Belt and Road Initiative, a gigantic development, infrastructure and investment initiative that seeks dramatically to enhance China’s global influence by making countries worldwide increasingly dependent on China.
Chinese social groups, enterprises and public entities will have increased responsibility to combat foreign espionage under new regulations issued by the country’s ministry of state security.
The regulations, which were released and took effect on Monday, come amid deepening hostilities between China and some western governments, including over the detention of foreigners accused of national security crimes.
According to state media, state security will work with other government departments to “adjust” the list of groups susceptible to foreign espionage and to develop measures to safeguard against it, including Chinese Communist Party and state organs, social groups, enterprises and public institutions.
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas was recently caught badmouthing several countries, including the United States and his Arab neighbors, during a profanity-laced rant that raises new concerns about the 85-year-old leader’s deteriorating health.
The Arabic language rant is renewing speculation that Abbas—who is overweight and a heavy cigarette smoker—is in poor mental and physical health as he carries out his 16th year in office. His government is under great strain amid monumental regional shifts that have seen Israel make peace with its traditional Arab foes.
For once I agree with Abbas.
When the former head of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Dr. Robert Redfield, recently said Covid-19 likely leaked from a Chinese research lab, news headlines called it “shocking.”
Dr. Robert Redfield on CNN: “I still think the most likely etiology of this pathogen in Wuhan was from a laboratory— you know, escaped.”
That was followed by a flurry of media reports ridiculing the notion; insisting that Covid-19 probably jumped from bats to people through an unexplained, natural route. But there’s new information that hasn’t been widely reported. A sizable segment of the research community has formed the same opinion as Dr. Redfield: that Covid-19 leaked from experiments at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.
A knifeman went on a stabbing rampage in a kindergarten in the southern Chinese city of Beiliu on Wednesday, injuring 18 people, including young children. The suspect was detained by police.
The attacker broke into a private kindergarten at around 2pm local time, injuring 16 children, two of them seriously, and two teachers, Chinese media reported, citing officials.
突发：今日广西玉林北流新丰幼儿园！暴徒砍伤10余个小朋友！🙏🙏🙏 pic.twitter.com/H9hdMX4vxB
— 沉默的力量The power of reticence (@2mmbPkM00IJwIUV) April 28, 2021
After Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s almost week-long recent tour of the Middle East, there can be little doubt that China is actively seeking to expand its influence in the region, not only economically but also militarily, diplomatically and politically, actively challenging the long-standing role of the United States as a dominant power in the region.
China’s influence in the Middle East has been growing for years, especially through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a gigantic global infrastructure and economic development project that Chinese President Xi Jinping launched in 2013. Its aim is, it appears, to build an economic and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe, Africa and beyond. This mega development and investment initiative seeks dramatically to enhance China’s global influence from East Asia to Europe by making countries worldwide increasingly dependent on China.
OTTAWA — Canada’s international trade minister on Monday would not provide details about whether the federal government has barred the flow of imported goods from China suspected of using forced labour, months after Ottawa introduced measures purportedly to stop the practice.
In a committee testimony, Minister Mary Ng declined to answer questions from a Conservative MP about how much, if any, imports from the Chinese region of Xinjiang Canadian authorities have intercepted since the Liberal government said it would be cracking down on the issue in January.
China is surreptitiously collecting, for use in its domestic social credit system, video from a popular eatery in Canada.
In the Haidilao Hot Pot restaurant in the Kitsilano district of Vancouver, more than 60 surveillance cameras watch 30 tables and send feeds to China. The cameras, manager Ryan Pan explained to Scott McGregor and Ina Mitchell, are there to “people track” and are “part of the social credit system in China.”
This restaurant is corporate-owned, one of two Haidilao locations in that port city in British Columbia. There are more than 935 of the chain’s restaurants worldwide with over 36 million VIP members. The business started in China’s Sichuan province.
Speaking on Monday, Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole says too many people are bringing COVID-19 variants – such as the B.1.617 variant ravaging India – into Canada through land and air borders.
A former student union chief at Hong Kong’s Chinese University who was involved in setting up a now-defunct cross-party platform for political cooperation in the city has revealed he fled to Canada fearing arrest under the national security law.
Ernie Chow Shue-fung was among a number of local activists and politicians – including outspoken church leaders – who recently left the city in the wake of the Beijing-imposed security law.
Watch what you say: Hong Kong civil servants become wary of office snitches jostling to prove loyalty
Alice* was working in a public-facing civilian job in one of Hong Kong’s disciplined services when she was transferred last year to the back office of another government department after her bosses received anonymous complaints about her.
The abrupt move caught her by surprise. She said she had only shared a news article about a police raid following the introduction of the national security law last June, without adding any comments of her own.
