DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ Canadian Politicians Were Targeted by China in 2021, Report Says
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-03 | by ( Norimitsu Onishi | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A top-secret intelligence report drafted a week before Canada’s 2021 general election warned about ongoing attempts by the Chinese government to meddle in specific races, saying that Beijing had “identified Canadian politicians considered” to be opponents of China. Those politicians had become the targets of a shadowy media campaign, with suspected links to the Chinese government, that spread “false narratives” about them and encouraged Canadians to vote against them. The intelligence about possible interference in Canada’s last general election was included in documents released on Wednesday at a public hearing before a commission investigating foreign interference. Their release followed Canadian news reports over the past year outlining the Chinese government’s actions and raised concerns about the vulnerability of Canada’s democratic institutions. Canadian politicians believed to have been targeted by Beijing also testified at the hearing on Wednesday, saying that they had drawn the ire of the Chinese government by criticizing its record on human rights, among other issues.

Locations: Beijing, China, Canada’s

☆ Canadian Lawmaker Testifies Chinese Students Were Bused In to Elect Him
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-02 | by ( Norimitsu Onishi | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A member of Canada’s Parliament testified on Tuesday that high school students from China were transported by bus to vote for him in a party election that is at the center of a federal inquiry into interference in Canadian elections by China and other foreign countries. Testifying during a public hearing in Ottawa, the Parliament member, Han Dong, a Chinese-Canadian politician formerly from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party, said that he had met and sought the support of the students from a private high school in 2019, but that he did not know who had chartered or paid for the bus on the day of the election. A Canadian intelligence report disclosed during the hearing said there were indications that a “known proxy agent” of the Chinese Consulate had provided the students “with falsified documents to allow them to vote” even though they did not reside in Mr. Dong’s electoral district. Noncitizens over the age of 14 can register and vote in party elections as long as they show proof they live in an electoral district.

Persons: Han Dong, Justin Trudeau’s Organizations: Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party, Consulate Locations: China, Ottawa, Canadian, Dong’s, Noncitizens

☆ How African Immigrants Have Revived a Remote Corner of Quebec
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-30 | by ( Norimitsu Onishi | Nasuna Stuart-Ulin | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Not long ago, the handful of African immigrants in Rouyn-Noranda, a remote city in northern Quebec, all knew one another. There was the Nigerian woman long married to a Québécois man. And, of course, the doyen, a Congolese chemist who first made a name for himself driving a Zamboni at hockey games. A couple from Benin has taken over Chez Morasse, a city institution that introduced a greasy spoon favorite, poutine, to this region. And women from several corners of West and Central Africa were chatting at the city’s new African grocery store, Épicerie Interculturelle.

Persons: Chez, Interculturelle Locations: Rouyn, Noranda, Quebec, Nigerian, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Congolese, Africa, Benin, West, Central Africa

☆ He Won Election to Canada’s Parliament. Did China Help?
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-02 | by ( Norimitsu Onishi | More About Norimitsu Onishi | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

The newcomer landed in a district of northern Toronto and announced his bid for Canada’s Parliament. Though few knew him, an important factor helped offset his lack of name recognition — the backing of prominent local Chinese-Canadians. “I’m very happy that I feel very well supported, surrounded by friends,” the candidate, Han Dong, said at a news conference. But a government-appointed special rapporteur said there was “well-grounded suspicion” Mr. Dong also had help from a hidden source as he vied for the Liberal Party’s nomination: the Chinese Consulate. Mr. Dong’s victory — eventually propelling him to Parliament in 2019 — is one of several Canadian campaigns that have raised fears about Chinese election interference.

Persons: “, ”, Han Dong, Mr, Dong, — Organizations: Canada’s, Liberal Locations: Toronto, Chinese

☆ Alleged Plot in New York Bolsters Canada’s Accusations Against India
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-30 | by ( Norimitsu Onishi | More About Norimitsu Onishi | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada accused the Indian government in September of being behind the killing of a Canadian Sikh activist near Vancouver, there was fierce denial, skepticism and muted support. India vehemently denied the accusations and forced out 41 Canadian diplomats. Canada’s allies, including the United States, said little, concerned about offending an increasingly important counterweight to China and Russia. Even Canada’s opposition leader demanded that Mr. Trudeau “come clean” with the evidence behind the accusations. But Canada’s case against India and Mr. Trudeau’s lonely stand were shored up on Wednesday after federal prosecutors in Manhattan revealed details of what they said was a separate plot in the United States, with links to the killing in Canada.

Persons: Justin Trudeau, Mr, Trudeau Locations: Canada, Vancouver, India, United States, China, Russia, Manhattan

☆ He Warned Canada About Climate Change but Says, ‘We’ve Failed Big Time’
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-20 | by ( Norimitsu Onishi | More About Norimitsu Onishi | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“We’ve failed big time,” Dr. Suzuki said of the environmental movement. “We as environmentalists focused on issues: drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, threats to the caribou herd, stopping a dam in the Amazon. Not only were they pronounced during a summer of catastrophes for Canada’s environment, they came as Dr. Suzuki has slipped — at age 87 — into what he described as the “death zone,” a time, in his view, for assessing one’s life. “The death zone, it’s not being morbid; it’s just reality,” Dr. Suzuki said. Lunch would consist of sweet shrimp, salmon sashimi, clams and oysters, all harvested by the family.

Persons: “ We’ve, ” Dr, Suzuki, Dr, “, ’, Sarika Cullis, —, Cullis, ”, Graeme Wynn Organizations: Wildlife, University of British Locations: Quadra, Canada, University of British Columbia

The Sikh temple leader wanted as a terrorist by India walked toward his pickup truck late one Sunday last June after a long day at his place of worship. He and an associate discussed some upcoming programs while making their way across the large parking lot behind the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara temple near Vancouver. It was Father’s Day and, once inside his gray Dodge Ram, the leader, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, called his family and said he was heading right home. Then, witnesses say, they heard a burst of automatic gunfire and saw two hooded men running away from Mr. Nijjar’s immobilized pickup. Running, Mr. Singh was the first to reach the Dodge Ram, where he found a still-buckled Mr. Nijjar slumped over the center console, his right arm stretched out toward the passenger seat.

Persons: Nanak, Dodge Ram, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, ”, Bhupinder Jit Singh, Singh, Nijjar Locations: India, Vancouver

☆ Rising Separatism, and an Assassination, at a Sikh Temple in Canada
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-21 | by ( Norimitsu Onishi | More About Norimitsu Onishi | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The markers of separatism are everywhere at the temple. Dozens of yellow flags of Khalistan — a homeland that Sikh separatists want to create in the Punjab region of India — flew in and around the grounds of the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara temple near Vancouver. In a ground floor hall, where the faithful were socializing and eating, the walls are lined with scores of framed photographs of slain separatist leaders. Now, a portrait of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, holding the symbolic curved sword of devout men, has been added to a wall with four pushpins, still unframed. Mr. Nijjar was gunned down outside the temple in June, a killing that Canada has accused India of orchestrating, sparking a diplomatic skirmish that has culminated in a war of words between the two countries.

Persons: India —, Nanak, Hardeep Singh, Nijjar Locations: Punjab, India, Vancouver, Canada

☆ In a Storied River, Fish Are Dying in Droves as Climate Change Scorches Canada
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-30 | by ( Norimitsu Onishi | More About Norimitsu Onishi | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The salmon were once so plentiful in the river that old-timers talk about having been able to cross on the backs of fish so thick they were like steppingstones. Such was the renown of the Cowichan River, flowing east on Canada’s Vancouver Island, that its fly-fishing conditions were posted in fishing clubs in London. Local scientists suspect the bigger culprit is climate change, which has contributed to the decline of salmon populations in British Columbia by increasing droughts and heat waves. In a summer of global catastrophes for Canada, climate change has been felt across this vast country — from Cowichan Valley on the Pacific Coast to Halifax on the Atlantic, from the long border with the United States to the remotest towns above the Arctic Circle. But if the world has been consumed with the fires raging across Canada’s forests, turned into tinderboxes from the effects of climate change, the plight of the river has hit close to home in Cowichan Valley.

Persons: John Wayne, Bing Crosby Locations: Cowichan, London, Cowichan Bay ., Canada, British Columbia, Cowichan Valley, Halifax, United States, tinderboxes

☆ WM, 51, Separated, Looks to Rekindle Old Bond — With Voters
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-09 | by ( Norimitsu Onishi | More About Norimitsu Onishi | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In 2005, Justin Trudeau, the son of a legendary Canadian prime minister, and Sophie Grégoire, a well-known television journalist, married inside a stone church in Montreal’s wealthy, French-speaking enclave of Outremont. “I’m the luckiest woman in the world,” the bride said to a crowd of onlookers as she entered the church. Under a sunny sky, the couple drove away in a Mercedes roadster that belonged to Mr. Trudeau’s father, Pierre Trudeau, producing an iconic wedding photo. “The wedding was talked about a lot, maybe not as much as Céline Dion’s, but it was talked about,” Geneviève Tellier, a political science professor at the University of Ottawa, said, referring to the singer who is from Quebec. “It was a media event.”Over the next decade, Mr. Trudeau, with his wife and their three children, shrewdly crafted an image that became integral to his rapid ascent — that of a modern husband, father and political figure, who would go on to win votes with a mix of idealism and glamour.

Persons: Justin Trudeau, Sophie Grégoire, “, Trudeau’s, Pierre Trudeau, ” Geneviève Tellier, Trudeau, shrewdly Organizations: Canadian, University of Ottawa Locations: Montreal’s, Outremont, Quebec, “

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada announced on Wednesday that he and his wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, had separated after 18 years of marriage. The Trudeaus, who have three children, have “signed a legal separation agreement,” according to a statement released by the prime minister’s office. For the well-being of our children, we ask that you respect our privacy and their privacy,” Mr. Trudeau said in a post on Instagram. He added that they had decided to separate “after many meaningful and difficult conversations.”Mr. Trudeau’s wife and children have played a prominent role in his political career, often accompanying him on trips overseas after he was elected prime minister in 2015. Their children are Xavier, 15, Ella-Grace, 14, and Hadrien, 9.

Persons: Justin Trudeau of, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, “, Mr, Trudeau, ” Mr, Trudeau’s, Xavier, Ella, Grace Organizations: Justin Trudeau of Canada

☆ Switched at Birth, Two Canadians Discover Their Roots at 67
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-02 | by ( Norimitsu Onishi | More About Norimitsu Onishi | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Richard Beauvais’s identity began unraveling two years ago, after one of his daughters became interested in his ancestry. She wanted to learn more about his Indigenous roots — she was even considering getting an Indigenous tattoo — and urged him to take an at-home DNA test. Mr. Beauvais, then 65, had spent a lifetime describing himself as “half French, half Indian,” or Métis, and he had grown up with his grandparents in a log house in a Métis settlement. Mr. Ambrose had grown up listening to Ukrainian folk songs, attending Mass in Ukrainian and devouring pierogies, but, according to the test, he wasn’t of Ukrainian descent at all. And so, after a first contact through the test’s website, and months of emails, anguished phone calls and sleepless nights in both men’s families, Mr. Beauvais and Mr. Ambrose came to the conclusion two years ago that they had been switched at birth.

Persons: Richard Beauvais’s, Beauvais, Eddy Ambrose’s, Ambrose Locations: British Columbia, Manitoba

☆ How to Fight Canada’s Wildfires in the Era of Climate Change
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-21 | by ( Norimitsu Onishi | More About Norimitsu Onishi | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Wildfires in Canada have so far scorched forests totaling the size of the state of Virginia. The province of Quebec recorded its biggest blaze ever this month as it advanced across an area 13 times as large as New York City. Mega fires, so vast and ferocious that they simply cannot be fought, have erupted across the country. Even as thousands of Canadians and firefighters from abroad continued to battle more than 900 fires, Canada’s record-shattering wildfire season has made it clear that traditional firefighting methods are no longer enough, experts in wildfires and forests say. They include steps like closing forests to people when conditions are ripe for fires and increasing patrols to spot smaller fires earlier, when there is still a chance to contain them.

Locations: Canada, Virginia, The, Quebec, New York City

☆ Canadian Politicians Who Criticize China Become Its Targets
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-15 | by ( Norimitsu Onishi | More About Norimitsu Onishi | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Later, in November, Mr. Lee and his wife, Anne, flew to Shanghai. He asked why and said he was told: “‘You know what you have done. We believe you could endanger our national security.’”He and his wife were put on a plane back to Canada. He was no longer invited to some events because organizers told him that the consul general did not want to attend if Mr. Lee was also present. Mr. Lee said he believed the icy treatment contributed to the loss of his seat in 2017, after 16 years in office.

Persons: Lee, Anne, Tong Xiaoling, Kenny Chiu Organizations: Mr, Longtime, Embassy, The Globe, Conservative Locations: Shanghai, Canada, Burnaby, Ottawa, Vancouver, China

☆ ‘The Fires Here Are Unstoppable’
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-17 | by ( Norimitsu Onishi | Renaud Philippe | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

An out-of-control fire was advancing rapidly toward a logging road on Tuesday afternoon, tearing through Canada’s immense — and highly flammable — boreal forest with a force and intensity bewildering to a team of French firefighters. Surrounded by thick smoke, a handful of them headed into the forest to search for water. A veteran knelt down and used his right finger to sketch a plan on the gravel road, pressing to attack the fire head-on. The fire, he said, was of an immensity unimaginable in France. Trying to douse this tiny patch would be “pointless.”

Locations: France

☆ ‘How Could This Happen?’: Canadian Fires Burning Where They Rarely Have Before
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-09 | by ( Norimitsu Onishi | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

When Liz Gouari was making plans to move from Africa to join her husband in a rural stretch of northern Quebec, he promised her that Canada was a tranquil nation. But on Wednesday, the couple was among dozens of people sitting in stunned disbelief in an evacuation center after the entire city where they lived was forced to flee from a raging wildfire. The blaze tore through the forest and bore down on their city, Chibougamau, one of the countless Canadian communities affected by an extraordinary outbreak of forest fires whose smoke has blotted out skies across swaths of North America and forced millions indoors because of hazardous air quality. Growing up in the Republic of Congo, Ms. Gouari and her husband, Rey Steve Mabiala, said they were familiar with evacuations of all sorts — he had once fled fighting by hiding in a tropical forest — and with how floods and droughts made worse by climate change were causing major displacements on the continent.

Persons: Liz Gouari, Gouari, Rey Steve Mabiala Locations: Africa, Quebec, Canada, Chibougamau, North America, Republic of Congo

☆ Caribou Meat and Moon Signs: Inuit Lessons for Soldiers in the Arctic
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-04 | by ( Norimitsu Onishi | Nasuna Stuart-Ulin | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

A moon dog hung low over the horizon. It showed up on the first day of the Canadian soldiers’ patrol, and the Inuit rangers guiding them in the country’s far north spotted it right away: Ice crystals in the clouds were bending the light, making two illusory moons appear in the sky. The Inuit rangers told the platoon to pitch their tents and hunker down. “If it gets worse, we’re going to be stranded,” said John Ussak, one of the Inuit rangers, recalling how the soldiers wanted to keep going, but backed down. Canada is now on a mission to assert its hold on its Arctic territory, an enormous stretch that was once little more than an afterthought.

Persons: ”, John Ussak Locations: Canada

☆ For the Indigenous, Was This Building a Gesture of Reconciliation? Or an Empty Gift?
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-27 | by ( Norimitsu Onishi | Nasuna Stuart-Ulin | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Near the old perfume counters on the ground floor of the Hudson’s Bay department store in Winnipeg, Canada, a trade dripping with symbolism took place. The 39th “governor” of Hudson’s Bay — North America’s oldest company and one of Canada’s most iconic — accepted from an Indigenous leader two beaver pelts and two elk hides in exchange for the building, the company’s onetime Canadian flagship. The ceremony took place a year ago when Hudson’s Bay, the company once chartered to found the colony that became part of Canada, gave away its shuttered, 600,000-square-foot, six-floor downtown building to a group of First Nations. But what seemed like an act of reconciliation has become a subject of intense debate as the building’s worth and the cost of transforming it have become clearer: Was this a real gift or an empty one? The gift of the building has focused attention on the evolving relationship between Hudson’s Bay and Indigenous people in Canada, as well as their central role in the history of a country founded on the fur trade between them and the company.

Search resuls for: "Norimitsu Onishi"

18 mentions found