Canada applies to join China-backed AIIB, latest US ally to apply

BEIJING: Canada will apply to join the China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, or AIIB, Canadian and bank officials said on Wednesday, making it the latest ally of the United States to join the new international development bank.

The multilateral institution, seen as a rival to the Western-dominated World Bank and Asian Development Bank, was initially opposed by the United States but attracted many U.S. allies including Britain, Germany, Australia and South Korea as founding members.

Why Canada is changing its national anthem

Canada is making lyrical changes to its anthem to promote gender equality. Similar changes were rejected just a few years ago. What’s changed?

Patriotic love for Canada will no longer be in its “sons command” – at least not exclusively – according to a parliamentary vote.

Lawmakers in the House of Commons agreed yesterday to amend the country’s national anthem “O Canada” and replace the gender-specific phrase “in all thy sons command” with “in all of us command” in the English version. Members then stood and sang the anthem in both French and English, Reuters reports.

Speaking to reporters before the vote, Status of Women Minister Patty Hajdu hailed the measure as one that would foster inclusivity.

What Trudeau’s Election Teaches Us About Canada

Canadian Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau speaks in Montreal on October 20, after winning the general elections.

 

 

Three things you can expect now that Canada has elected its own President Obama.

On Monday, Canadians went to the polls to elect their next prime minister. It was the highest turnout in more than two decades. More than 68 percent of potential voters cast a ballot.

The result was emphatic. Charismatic Liberal leader Justin Trudeau—who promised Canada “sunny ways” and “change”—won a stunning victory.

But what does this mean in practical terms for Canada?

Canada officially enters recession

Ottawa (AFP) – Reeling from low oil prices, Canada fell into a recession in the first half of the year, government data confirmed Tuesday, putting Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper on the defensive in the run-up to October elections.

According to Statistics Canada, the economy contracted 0.5 percent in the second quarter after retreating 0.8 percent in the previous three months.

It is Canada’s second recession in seven years and it is the only Group of Seven nation in economic retreat. The figures are the weakest since the 2008 global financial crisis.

New border deal: Canada customs agents could work in U.S., vice versa

Is the North American Union still underway one step at a time? Only time will tell. Some also say the border crisis in America is also related.

 

Canadian customs agents could soon work in the U.S. and carry firearms, and the U.S. border guards could do the same in Canada, as a result of a new border agreement between Canada and the U.S.

Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson have signed a customs pre-clearance agreement for rail, land and sea travel that was years in the making.

Putin a rival who is not welcome back to G7, says Harper as Russia looks to replace Visa with its own credit cards

The BRICs nations are forming an alternative internet with a new undersea cable. Asian nations are talking about militarily banding together to face China because the US is becoming more and more unreliable as a protectorate. China has also in the last three years threatened to use the ‘nuclear option’ on the Dollar as well. Middle East nations talk about replacing the Dollar to break America’s global hegemony. Add this to Russia saying it could reduce itself to zero dependency on America just a couple weeks ago, and now an alternative credit payment system. However, Visa and MasterCard replacement is no longer just talk and is actually underway (like the BRICs cable), which will have a sizeable effect.

Fact is, in the bigger scheme of things, the world is getting fed up with America’s now-corrupt leadership which is abusive and drunken off its own power, is looking to isolate it and send it back into the stone age. The sanctions were not very well thought out as there doesn’t seem to be an exit strategy, as some would argue with Bush’s wars in the Middle East. America is shooting itself in the foot as it playing checkers with Putin — on a Russian rubicon game board. It could’ve also very well been Russia’s long-range strategic plan since the 60’s and earlier to, over the years, integrate itself with the U.S. so much that it could gain economic leverage and destroy the economy overnight if it wished. Much like the CCP in China, the ruling Russian oligarchy doesn’t care about its citizens anyways, which makes it more plausible.

BERLIN — Prime Minister Stephen Harper and German Chancellor Angela Merkel say they are united in their view that Russia has grossly violated Ukrainian sovereignty by annexing the Crimean peninsula.

Following a meeting Thursday between the two G7 leaders, Harper also opined that chances are slim that Russian President Vladimir Putin could ever be welcomed back to the G8.

The G7 nations — the U.S., Canada, Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Japan — effectively booted Russia from the G8 earlier this week over its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula following a pro-Western uprising.

John Ivison: Crimea crisis forcing Harper to rethink NATO, Arctic defence

For many Canadians, the events in Crimea constitute a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom they know nothing, to quote Neville Chamberlain on the 1938 Sudeten crisis.

But Russia is not that far away. It borders our Arctic frontier. It’s a country with which we have conflicting claims over sovereignty of the Arctic sea-bed and, perhaps, its waters. And it’s a country that has shown itself prepared to use military force to satisfy its territorial ambitions.

5 New Countries That Might Exist By 2025

With violence in Xinjiang continuing and tensions in Chechnya and Dagestan back in the public consciousness, it seems almost cliché to say the end of the sprawling, imperial nation-state is here, or at least not far off. Hell, a couple thousand signatures for an independent Texas got the foreign press questioning if even the U.S. wasn’t immune from secessionist conflict.

Now, have the massive, multi-ethnic superpowers of the modern world really reached their breaking point? The answer’s a big, emphatic no. While there’s certainly no shortage of secessionist claims in Russia, China, and the surrounding geopolitical region they dabble in, it’s unlikely we’ll see any new (internationally recognized) countries emerge from the Caucuses or Central Asia. A major precedent — any one secessionist success story — could set off new fervor in any number of independence-minded areas that could radically undermine the neighborhood superpowers’ international standing. For the leaders of Russia and China, maintaining their borders against secessionist challenges is an essential part of maintaining their political legitimacy. Sorry, Tibet.