International

Tension as gunshots rock 2 Jewish schools in Canada

Published

1 year ago

November 9, 2023

Tension as gunshots rock 2 Jewish schools in Canada

Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau and Premier François Legault on Thursday condemned two overnight incidents that saw Montreal Jewish schools targeted by gunfire.

Trudeau said he was “horrified” by the news, which has sparked tension in Montreal.

“I want to be very clear: We condemn this antisemitic violence in the strongest possible terms,” Trudeau said at a housing press conference he and Legault attended in Longueuil on Thursday morning.

“This hatred has no place here in Montreal, in Quebec or in Canada,” Trudeau added.

“We have to remember who we are. I know emotions are running high — that people are fearful, they’re in mourning. But to attack one another as Canadians, it’s not what we do.”

The incidents came days after two West Island Jewish institutions were targeted by firebombs. On Monday, incendiary devices were left at the Beth Tikvah synagogue and a nearby Jewish community centre.

Legault also condemned the “terrible, horrible” acts involving Jewish schools, as well as a violent confrontation between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups at Concordia University in Montreal on Wednesday.

“It’s unacceptable, it’s tolerance zero,” Legault said, adding he wants police to keep an eye on the situation.

He appealed for calm and did not rule out banning demonstrations.

“We don’t want hatred and violence in Quebec and we won’t tolerate this. The message must be clear: I understand that we’re seeing horrible scenes on TV, but we have to at a certain point be able to talk to one another calmly.”

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Mayor Valérie Plante also condemned the “disturbing” incidents.

“Antisemitism, like any other demonstration of hatred and violence, has no place in our society,” she said via social media.

‘A form of terrorism’: Drainville
In Quebec City, Education Minister Bernard Drainville said the incidents at the Jewish schools are unacceptable.

“Honestly, I am very worried,” Drainville said. “When people start to shoot at schools, it’s serious. This is not Quebec.

“When you start shooting at schools, it’s a form of terrorism,” he said. “We cannot cave into this.”

Drainville added: “The increase in antisemitism, the increase in hate actions and speech against the Jewish community is something which is very worrisome. It must stop

“We firmly condemn these acts. It is unacceptable. We stand wholeheartedly with the Jewish community. We stand wholeheartedly with these children, the personnel, the parents.”

Drainville noted the schools remain open but with increased security.

Christopher Skeete, the provincial minister responsible for the fight against racism, offered the government’s support to the Jewish community.

Both of the incidents occurred at schools in Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough.

Montreal police said the first incident was brought to the attention of Montreal police around 8:20 a.m. after employees at the Talmud Torah Elementary School on St-Kevin Ave. noticed a bullet impact on the school’s door.

The second event was reported to police at 8:50 a.m., when a bullet impact was found on the door of the Yeshiva Gedola-Merkaz Hatorah school on Deacon Rd.

Police perimeters have been set up at both schools, canine units deployed and police intend to examine local surveillance cameras in an effort to determine how and when the shootings occurred.

No injuries were reported in either event, which occurred as local tensions are high and have occasionally broken into incidents of violence as the Israel-Hamas conflict continues.

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Officials at both schools are expected to issue statements concerning the shootings later on Thursday.

Jewish group urges vigilance
In an email sent to members of the Jewish community, Yair Szlak, the president and CEO of Federation CJA, a Jewish community group, confirmed that a single bullet was fired at the entrance doors of both schools.

No one was in either building at the time of the events, and there was minimal damage, he wrote.

“These facilities are secured and students and staff are all safe,” the email read.

Szlak said he requested increased police presence around all Jewish institutions, and that there will be more private security personnel and increased safety measures around schools, synagogues and daycare centres.

“We recognize this situation presents a significant change to our security situation,” Szlak wrote. “We are working on all fronts to address the matter. We understand that this adds stress and anxiety to our community members. We urge you to continue to take part in Jewish life while remaining vigilant at all times.”

He encouraged anyone seeing anything suspicious to call the police and to send any relevant photos or videos to Federation CJA.

“We are not going to answer all uploads, but as we gather data and information, it is helpful for us to see what you witnessed once you are safe and are able to share,” he wrote.

Via social media, Sonny Moroz, the city councillor for Snowdon, said: “I am very concerned about the shooting at Jewish schools in Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. I am immensely relieved that no one was in the buildings. Violence should never be a tool. It is intolerable. Montreal must remain a city of peace.”

Rachel Bendayan, the MP for Outremont riding, where one of the schools is located, said: “People are scared right now. I am appealing for calm in the interest of the safety of our entire community.”

Tension as gunshots rock 2 Jewish schools in Canada

(Montreal Gazette)

International

Canada, Mexico, China respond to Trump tariff threats

Published

2 hours ago

November 27, 2024

Trends Admin

Canada, Mexico, China respond to Trump tariff threats

Officials from Canada, Mexico and China have warned US President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to impose sweeping tariffs on America’s three largest trading partners could upend the economies of all four countries.

“To one tariff will follow another in response and so on, until we put our common businesses at risk,” Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum said.

Trump vowed on Monday night to introduce 25% tariffs on goods coming from Mexico and Canada and an additional 10% on goods coming from China. He said the duties were a bid to clamp down on drugs and illegal immigration.

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he spoke to Trump in the hours after the announcement and planned to hold a meeting with Canada’s provincial leaders on Wednesday to discuss a response.

A spokesman for China’s embassy in Washington DC told the BBC: “No-one will win a trade war or a tariff war.”

The international pushback came a day after Trump announced his plans for his first day in office, on 20 January, in a post on his social media website, Truth Social.

Trudeau said his country was prepared to work with the US in “constructive ways”.

“This is a relationship that we know takes a certain amount of working on, and that’s what we’ll do,” Trudeau told reporters.

In a phone call with Trump, Trudeau said the pair discussed trade and border security, with the prime minister pointing out that the number of migrants crossing the Canadian border was much smaller compared with the US-Mexico border.

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Trump’s team declined to confirm the phone call.

But Trump spokesman Steven Cheung added that world leaders had sought to “develop stronger relationships” with Trump “because he represents global peace and stability”.

Mexico’s President Sheinbaum told reporters on Tuesday that neither threats nor tariffs would solve the “migration phenomenon” or drug consumption in the US.

Reading from a letter that she said she would send to Trump, Sheinbaum also warned that Mexico would retaliate by imposing its own taxes on US imports, which would “put common enterprises at risk”.

She said Mexico had taken steps to tackle illegal migration into the US and that “caravans of migrants no longer reach the border”.

The issue of drugs, she added, “is a problem of public health and consumption in your country’s society”.

Sheinbaum, who took office last month, noted that US car manufacturers produce some of their parts in Mexico and Canada.

“If tariffs go up, who will it hurt? General Motors,” she said.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for China’s embassy in Washington, Liu Pengyu, told the BBC that “China-US economic and trade co-operation is mutually beneficial in nature”.

He denied that China allows chemicals used in the manufacture of illegal drugs – including fentanyl – to be smuggled to the US.

“China has responded to US request for verifying clues on certain cases and taken action,” Liu said.

“All these prove that the idea of China knowingly allowing fentanyl precursors to flow into the United States runs completely counter to facts and reality.”

President Joe Biden has left in place the tariffs on China that Trump introduced in his first term, and added a few more of his own.

Currently, a majority of what the two countries sell to each other is subject to tariffs – 66.4% of US imports from China and 58.3% of Chinese imports from the US.

Speaking in the House of Commons in Ottawa, Trudeau told lawmakers that “the idea of going to war with the United States isn’t what anyone wants”.

He called on them to not “panic”, and to work together.

“That is the work we will do seriously, methodically. But without freaking out,” he said.

The leaders of Canadian provinces suggested that they would impose their own tariffs on the US.

“The things we sell to the United States are the things they really need,” Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said on Tuesday. “We sell them oil, we sell them electricity, we sell them critical minerals and metals.”

America’s northern neighbour accounted for some $437bn (£347bn) of US imports in 2022, and was the largest market for US exports in the same year, according to US data.

Canada sends about 75% of its total exports to the US.

Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, said on Monday the proposed tariff would be “devastating to workers and jobs in both Canada and the US”.

“To compare us to Mexico is the most insulting thing I’ve ever heard,” said Ford.

Ford was echoed by the premiers of Quebec, Saskatchewan and British Columbia, while a post on the X account of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith acknowledged that Trump had “valid concerns related to illegal activities at our shared border”.

The Canadian dollar, the Loonie, has plunged in value since Trump vowed to impose tariffs on Canadian imports come January.

The Canadian dollar dipped below 71 US cents, the lowest level the Loonie has fallen to since May 2020, when Trump threatened to impose tariffs on Canadian goods during his first stint as US president. The Mexican peso fell to its lowest value this year, around 4.8 cents.

Canada, Mexico, China respond to Trump tariff threats

BBC

International

Relief as Israel agrees to ceasefire with Lebanon

Published

3 hours ago

November 27, 2024

Trends Admin

Relief as Israel agrees to ceasefire with Lebanon

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he will bring a US-brokered proposal for a ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon to his government for approval as soon as Tuesday evening.

He said in a televised address that he would put “a ceasefire outline” to ministers “this evening”.

He however did not say how long the truce would last, noting “the length of the ceasefire depends on what happens in Lebanon”.

But it later learnt that the ceasefire would is for 60 days.

During the period, Hezbollah fighters are expected to retreat 40 kilometres from Israel’s border, with Israeli ground forces withdrawing from Lebanese territory.

“If Hezbollah violates the agreement and attempts to rearm, we will strike,” Netanyahu warned.

Key Israel backer the United States has led ceasefire efforts for Lebanon alongside France.

US President Joe Biden is optimistic the deal will lead to a “permanent cessation of hostilities”.

Biden added that the US would lead another push for a ceasefire in Gaza.

“In full coordination with the United States, we are maintaining full military freedom of action,” Netanyahu said, outlining the seven-front war Israel says it faces in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Iran.

Even as Netanyahu spoke about the ceasefire, the Israeli military carried out multiple strikes on heart of Beirut while the army said some 15 projectiles had entered Israeli airspace from Lebanon.

Demonstrators raise placards and Israeli flags during a protest in front of the Israeli Defence Ministry in the coastal city Tel Aviv on November 26, 2024, against a possible ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon. – Israel’s security cabinet has started discussing a proposed ceasefire deal in its war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, an Israeli official confirmed to AFP on November 26. (Photo by Jack GUEZ / AFP)

The war in Lebanon escalated after nearly a year of limited cross-border exchanges of fire begun by Hezbollah, which said it was acting in support of Hamas after its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which sparked the war in Gaza.

The war has killed at least 3,823 people in Lebanon since October 2023, according to the health ministry, most of them since September.

On the Israeli side, the hostilities have killed at least 82 soldiers and 47 civilians, authorities say.

Netanyahu said the ceasefire would allow Israel to focus on “the Iranian threat” and ramp up its fight against Hamas in Gaza.

“With Hezbollah out of the picture, Hamas is left on its own,” he said.

“We will increase our pressure on Hamas and that will help us in our sacred mission of releasing our hostages.”

During last year’s Hamas attack, militants took 251 hostages, of whom 97 are still held in Gaza, including 34 the army has declared dead.

International

Israeli strikes pound central Beirut, suburbs

Published

17 hours ago

November 26, 2024

Trends Admin

Israeli strikes pound central Beirut, suburbs

BEIRUT: Israeli strikes pounded a densely-populated part of the Lebanese capital and its southern suburbs on Tuesday, hours ahead of an anticipated announcement of a ceasefire ending hostilities between Israel and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.

A strike on Beirut hit the Noueiri district with no evacuation warning and killed at least one person, Lebanon’s health ministry said in a preliminary toll.

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Minutes later, at least 10 Israeli strikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs. They began approximately 30 minutes after the Israeli military issued evacuation orders for 20 locations in the area, the largest such warning yet.

As the strikes were under way, Israel’s military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said the air force was conducting a “widespread attack” on Hezbollah targets across the city.