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Dutch news organizations reported that Mr. Rutte had called for limiting the entrance for children of war refugees who were already in the Netherlands and for making families wait at least two years before they could be reunited. Mr. Rutte denied those reports, according to the Dutch broadcaster NOS. But arguments about migration policy continued to split the Dutch government, which already has tougher immigration policies than some other E.U. “One of the values that are important with the proposals is that children grow up with their parents,” a statement by the Christian Union party said. Last year, Dutch aid agencies struggled to help hundreds of asylum seekers who were living in a makeshift camp outside an overcrowded reception center, in what aid workers described as dismal conditions.

Persons: Rutte, ” Organizations: NOS, Christian Union Locations: Netherlands, Dutch

☆ Canadian Wildfires Have Mobilized Firefighters From the U.S., Australia, France and South Africa
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-29 | by ( Meagan Campbell | Dan Bilefsky | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

As a team safety officer in Quebec, Mr. Blackstone said he had so far only needed to respond to minor injuries including cuts, twisted ankles and twisted knees. Mr. Blackstone, 56, began fighting fires during his college years when he worked as a backwoods ranger, often getting called in to help with forest fires. “Because that’s what we did.”The Americans on his team also include firefighters from New York State and New Hampshire. To communicate with the Québécois firefighters who primarily speak French, he said the Americans had to stop using so much slang. “A lot of times, if we have a fire that’s growing fast, we’ll call it a ‘gobbler,’” Mr. Blackstone said.

Persons: Blackstone, ”, ’, Mr Organizations: Baie, Mr, New York Locations: Saint Lawrence, Quebec, New, New York State, New Hampshire

☆ What to Know About Canadian Wildfires and U.S. Air Quality
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-28 | by ( Dan Bilefsky | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

How has the smoke affected air quality in the American Midwest? On Tuesday, Canada’s wildfires were worsening air quality in Chicago, Detroit and Milwaukee, among other places. In Chicago, the Air Quality Index reached 209 by noon on Tuesday, the worst reading of any major city in the world for the day, according to IQAir, a Swiss air-quality technology company. In Green Bay, Wis., the index was 175; in Grand Rapids, Mich., it soared to 255. Any reading above 100 on the index is a warning to people with respiratory conditions to take precautions.

Organizations: NASA Locations: Canada, Quebec, American, Europe, Coast, United States, New York City, Washington, Minnesota, Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, Swiss, Green Bay, Wis, Grand Rapids, Mich

Rey Steve Mabiala and his wife, Liz Gouari, taking refuge at the Roberval emergency center after being ordered to evacuate Chibougamau, Quebec, as a fire approached. Of the more than 400 fires now burning in Canada, more than one-third are in Quebec, which has already registered its worst wildfire season on record. Credit... Carlos Osorio/Reuters“We are facing some unprecedented events, including droughts, accelerated fires and heat waves, and there will be more over time, especially forest fires,” Ms. Mohsin said. But perhaps most surprised were newcomers to Chibougamau, like Mr. Mabiala, from the Republic of Congo, who came to work in logging. “They were asking, “Oh, is there such a thing in Canada?’ ’’ Ms. Cabrera said.

Persons: Rey Steve Mabiala, Liz Gouari, Gouari, Mabiala, Prince Edward Island, ” Mr, “ It’s, ”, Josée Poitras, Tanzina Mohsin, Carlos Osorio, Ms, Mohsin, Poitras, “ I’ve, I’ve, Francis Côté, “, Chibougamau, Renaud Philippe, Côté, Guy Boisvert, Winters, Boisvert, Shirley, Jonathan Mattson, Mr, Mattson, Ruth Cabrera, Anna Huerte, —, Cabrera, Huerte Organizations: Wildfire, University of Toronto, ., Reuters, The New York Times, “, Credit Locations: Chibougamau, Quebec, Africa, Canada, North America, Republic of Congo, Prince, Nunavut, Fort Nelson, British Columbia, Toronto, Val, Montreal, Roberval, East Coast, United States, Philippines

☆ From British Columbia to Nova Scotia, Wildfires Spread Across Canada
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-07 | by ( Dan Bilefsky | Vjosa Isai | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The danger of wildfires, which over the past few weeks have stretched from British Columbia on the west coast to Nova Scotia, nearly 2,900 miles away in the east, was brought home on Tuesday to the political heart of the nation. A thick haze hovered over Parliament Hill and the soaring Gothic Revival building that houses Canada’s Parliament in Ottawa. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada said that hundreds of soldiers were deployed across the country to help with firefighting efforts. Bill Blair, the emergency preparedness minister, told reporters last week that over the month of May an area of roughly 2.7 million hectares, or about 6.7 million acres, of forest in British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario and the Northwest Territories had been scorched. “The equivalent of over 5 million football fields has burned in Canada so far this year,” he wrote on Twitter.

Persons: Hill, Justin Trudeau, Mr, Trudeau, Bill Blair, ” Organizations: Northwest, Twitter Locations: Canada, United States, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, Ottawa, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia , New Brunswick, Ontario, Northwest Territories

☆ A Pacifist Sect From Russia Is Shaken by War, and Modernity
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-04 | by ( Dan Bilefsky | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

When he was growing up among the Doukhobors, a pacifist religious group that emigrated to Canada from Tsarist Russia, J.J. Verigin would sometimes arrive home from school to find naked elderly women trying to burn down his family’s house. One attempt, in 1969, succeeded, lamented Mr. Verigin, 67, who recently recounted the episode. A blaze destroyed precious family artifacts, including correspondence between his great-great-grandfather, a prominent Doukhobor leader, and the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, an early admirer of the Doukhobors’ pacifism and Christian morality. The elderly women, Mr. Verigin explained, were part of a small and radical splinter group within the Doukhobors who periodically stripped naked and lit buildings on fire to protest land ownership and what they viewed as excessive materialism. Some among those charged with arson had another motive, he said: getting deported to Mother Russia.

Persons: Verigin, Leo Tolstoy, Russia Locations: Canada, Tsarist Russia, Russian

☆ More Than 200 Dead and 900 Injured in Train Crash in India
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-02 | by ( Dan Bilefsky | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Video footage of the scene of the crash showed stunned onlookers, and Indian news reports said more than 50 ambulances had arrived to the area, along with teams of doctors to tend to the injured. Ashok Samal, a shopkeeper, told The Hindustan Times that he was ending his day near the railway track in his village of Bahanaga on Friday when he heard a deafening noise, ran to the track on the main line between Kolkata and Chennai, and saw a pile of mangled train cars. “There were loud shrieks and blood all over,” he told the newspaper, adding that he saw people trapped under coaches and people wailing for help. Ashwini Vaishnaw, the minister of railways, said on Twitter that the National Disaster Response Force had been mobilized, along with rescue workers from the air force. Dozens of trains were canceled.

Persons: Ashok Samal, ”, Ashwini Vaishnaw Organizations: Hindustan Times, Twitter, Force Locations: Bahanaga, Kolkata, Chennai

☆ Up to 50 Feared Dead in Train Crash in India
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-02 | by ( Dan Bilefsky | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Two trains derailed in India in the eastern state of Odisha on Friday, Indian news reports said, killing as many as 50 people and injuring hundreds more in an accident that deeply shook the country. Amitabh Sharma, a railroad ministry spokesperson, was quoted by The Times of India as saying that 10 to 12 coaches of one train derailed and that some of the debris then encroached on a nearby track, where it was hit by another train. Video footage of the scene of the crash showed frantic onlookers, and Indian news reports said 50 ambulances had arrived to the area, along with teams of doctors to tend to the injured. The number of dead was not confirmed, but the reports said it was feared to be at least 50 people. “Distressed by the train accident in Odisha,” he wrote.

Persons: Amitabh Sharma, Narendra Modi, ” Organizations: The Times, India, Twitter Locations: India, Odisha

☆ A ‘Canadian Armageddon’ Sets Parts of Western Canada on Fire
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Dan Bilefsky | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

British Columbia was the site in 2021 of one of Canada’s worst wildfires in recent decades, when fires decimated the tiny community of Lytton after temperatures there reached a record 49.6 degrees Celsius, or 121.3 Fahrenheit. Not since the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic buffeted the region has the area been so overcome by apprehension, accompanied by the all-too familiar need to wear masks outside. Only this time, residents say, a silent killer has been replaced by something more visceral and visible. The bulk of the fires are in the far north of the province, home to many Indigenous communities, dealing a heavy blow to people who depend on the land and natural resources. He worried how they would get by.

Victory Day, celebrating the Soviet Union’s vanquishing of Nazi Germany in 1945, is Russia’s most important secular holiday, although it is toned down this year as the war in Ukraine drags on. More than 20 cities, some thousands of miles from the battle lines, said they would forgo military parades, and organizers canceled a popular nationwide march honoring veterans. Here’s a look at the significance the holiday has taken on during President Vladimir V. Putin’s two decades in power. Why does Victory Day matter so much? Mr. Putin has helped transform Victory Day — meant to honor the 27 million Soviets who died in World War II — into one of the most important holidays on the Russian calendar, a nostalgic ritual that buttresses national pride and unifies a sometimes divided society.

☆ Did China Help Vancouver’s Mayor Win Election?
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-07 | by ( Dan Bilefsky | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Every day when he arrives at his office in City Hall, Mayor Ken Sim stares at a prominent black-and-white photograph of Chinese railway workers toiling on the tracks in British Columbia in 1884. Mr. Sim, the son of Hong Kong immigrants, said the workers’ weathered faces are a daily reminder of the symbolic importance of his election as Vancouver’s first Chinese Canadian mayor, and of just how far Chinese Canadians have come. Six months ago, his historic landslide victory was widely lauded, viewed as the triumph of a politically adroit change-maker whose centrist policies had swept him to power. But since February, the Globe and Mail newspaper in Toronto has cited classified intelligence reports in describing an effort by Beijing to manipulate Canadian elections, including those in Vancouver, raising questions about whether China played a role in his win. Across Canada, a political storm is raging over the intelligence reports, which have not been made public by Canada’s national intelligence agency but are said to conclude that the government of China and its diplomats wanted to ensure victory for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party in the two most recent federal elections, while encouraging wins for some candidates of Chinese descent.

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