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RCMP Open Investigation into Chinese Police Stations in Canada, Trudeau Backpedaling
The RCMP in Canada has told a press briefing they are investigating reports of undeclared Chinese police stations in the province of Quebec. They stated they are investigating 2 Montreal locations believed to be operating on behalf of the Communist Party of China.
Human rights organizations have accused China of using the stations to threaten and monitor Chinese nationals in other countries. China has denied operating the stations, referring to them as “service centers” for its nationals living abroad.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters Thursday that they are a “very serious concern” for his government.
“We’re in the process of ensuring that the RCMP follows up on this and that our intelligence systems take this seriously,” he said.
According to the Spain-based NGO Safeguard Defenders, which monitors disappearances in China, the stations are among at least 100 in 53 countries worldwide, including the United Kingdom and the United States.
In a report last year, the non-profit said the stations are part of efforts by China’s regime to “harass, threaten, intimidate and force targets to return to China for persecution”.
According to the report, Chinese public security bureaus established “overseas police service stations” across the globe, including two in London and one in Glasgow. It established stations in Toronto, Vancouver, and New York.
The RCMP confirmed in November that they were looking into reports of such service stations operating in the Greater Toronto Area.
The federal force asked Chinese Canadians who may have been targeted by “alleged Chinese police stations” to come forward on Thursday.
“These activities, as well as any other form of intimidation, harassment, or targeting of diaspora communities or individuals in Canada,” RCMP Sgt Charles Poirier said on Thursday.
Federal authorities have previously expressed concern about reports of such stations operating in Canada and the United States.
Attempts by the Communist Party of China to establish a police presence on US soil, according to FBI Director Christopher Wray, “violates the sovereignty and circumvents standard judicial and law enforcement cooperation processes,” he told a US Senate hearing in November.
According to Safeguard Defenders, an alleged Chinese police station has been set up on Broadway in New York City.
According to Chinese embassies in the United States and Canada, the locations are alleged overseas service stations established during the pandemic to assist nationals abroad with driver’s license renewal and other similar matters.
However, Jing-Jie Chen, a Safeguard Defenders researcher, told the BBC that he was skeptical of the Communist Party of China’s explanation.
“If you truly want to support your nationals abroad, you can do so through official channels; you don’t have to do it undercover,” he explained.
The RCMP investigation comes in the wake of allegations that China attempted to meddle in Canada’s two most recent federal elections, reports that have strained relations between the two countries.
Early Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s main line of defense against accusations that he ignored specific CSIS warnings about Chinese government funding of Canadian political candidates began to fray.
It started with the leak of another secret document: an unredacted committee report never publicly released that, according to Global News, explicitly advised Trudeau’s office of covert funding of candidates ahead of the 2019 federal election.
It went on from there, with Trudeau deflecting questions about what he knew and when by referring to the committee whose report had just been leaked.
And it concluded with an Opposition grilling in the Commons that was a more effective and less inflammatory prosecution of the Liberal case by Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.
On Wednesday, Trudeau reiterated that the national security and intelligence committee of parliamentarians (NSICOP), whose members have top-secret security clearance, is the best place to weigh highly sensitive CSIS information on foreign interference.
Despite the latest allegations, the committee was a key component of Trudeau’s announcement of new measures to reassure Canadians that their elections were free and fair.
He had asked NSICOP on Monday to look into foreign interference in the previous two campaigns after his government had been hammered in the House of Commons for days.
That committee of MPs and senators is sworn to protect official secrets and has experience and expertise in the field. It investigated foreign interference and submitted a report to the prime minister’s office in August 2019, just two weeks before a federal election was called.
However, the fact that a version of its classified work was leaked to Global News (essentially re-capping the charge that the Chinese government directed attempts to influence nomination campaigns) raises serious concerns, regardless of where the leak originated.
It calls into question Trudeau’s claim that the appropriate body can be trusted to conduct the study that the prime minister claims will restore trust in the electoral system and its safeguards, as well as whether the Trudeau government should immediately appoint a commission of inquiry.
“The entire system is built on trust,” said Stephanie Carvin, a former CSIS analyst and current professor at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs. “And if that trust is broken,” she says, “people may not want to pass on information from a sensitive source,” or information transfer may be “slowed down.”
“And I don’t think that works for the prime minister,” she added.
It’s unclear whether the unredacted report Global News claimed to have seen came from a parliamentarian, a member of the committee’s secretariat, CSIS, or another agency with access to shared intelligence. It’s unclear whether this was the committee’s final or draft report.
The committee’s MPs and senators have access to secret materials only in a secure environment. They cannot take copies or bring cell phones, tablets, or anything else into the building.
Any unredacted report produced by the committee is sent to the PMO, which forwards it to the national security agencies — CSIS or the foreign electronic intelligence agency, CSE — to screen out information detrimental to national security, harming international relations and defense, or violating solicitor-client privilege, as required by law.
Neither CSIS nor the RCMP responded to questions from the Toronto Star about whether the latest leak is being investigated or whether it undermines their confidence in NSICOP.
The committee’s secretariat said it “is aware of media describing access to a classified version of one of the Committee’s reviews, and cannot confirm or deny the accuracy of that reporting. We are unable to make any further comments at this time.”
House leader Mark Holland, the Liberal cabinet minister in charge of the committee, did not respond to questions sent to his spokesman.
The most recent allegation that Trudeau was aware of Chinese funding and interference as early as 2019 sparked a new round of outrage in the Commons, which Trudeau struggled to refute.
Poilievre dropped the nasty partisan rhetoric from the day before, accusing Trudeau of working against Canadian interests and “covering up” support from Communist rulers in Beijing.
Instead, Poilievre attacked Trudeau like former NDP leader Thomas Mulcair during the Senate expenses scandal, asking basic questions, following non-answers with more “yes or no” questions, and summarizing Trudeau’s precarious position for MPs.
Trudeau refused to say whether anyone in his party, governing caucus or cabinet had received money from a Chinese ruling party-directed influence network.
He only reiterated what he said last fall: “I have no information on federal candidates receiving money from China.”
Poilievre drove home the point that the prime minister “used the tiny technical term ‘candidate,’ which only applies to a limited scenario 30 days before an election. He refuses to answer whether his party or any other received funds directed by Beijing’s communist dictatorship.”
Trudeau stated that Canadians could put their trust in a soon-to-be-named outside expert who would advise on whether or not an inquiry is required.
“To be honest, I know that no matter what I say, Canadians continue to have questions about what we did and didn’t do, which is why an independent special rapporteur will be able to look at the entire landscape and dig deeper into everything anyone knew at any point,” Trudeau told reporters.
According to NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, the latest allegations are “eroding public trust” in Canadian institutions.
“Right now, the prime minister seems like he’s hiding something, and he could just answer those questions by launching a public inquiry. It’s independent, open, and will address Canadians’ concerns,” Singh explained.
However, Singh refuses to make foreign interference a deal-breaker for his party’s support of Trudeau’s minority government, even though he raised the issue with the prime minister in a recent meeting.
Green Party co-leader Elizabeth May believes a public inquiry is required immediately and that Trudeau’s other plan to appoint a “special rapporteur” to study whether an inquiry is required will fail. “That’s not a hunting dog.”
Trudeau is now facing criticism from his caucus over how the government handles the situation.
“In my opinion, this is far larger” than allegations of election interference, said Scarborough-Guildwood MP John McKay, who chairs the Commons national defense committee.
“The Chinese government is an existential threat to the country on multiple levels, and we must confront that.”
McKay stated that it is “not for me to say” whether his government is doing enough or whether a public inquiry into election meddling by China through its consulate offices in Canada is necessary.
“It’s bigger than the election,” McKay explained. “It’s in universities. It can be found at police stations. It can be found at the Confucius Institutes. It is concerned with resource exploitation, etc., etc. I believe it is much larger than that.”
(VOR News) – The social media network Bluesky has seen a spike in the number of new users, with over a million people signing up since the conclusion of the U.S. presidential election.
This rise can be linked to the fact that users left the platform because they were unhappy with the direction that X was taking under the direction of Elon Musk, the company’s billionaire owner.
It was announced on Wednesday that the microblogging site had achieved 15 million subscribers. Compared to the roughly nine million members it had in September, this is a considerable increase.
However, Bluesky subscriptions have grown since September.
Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, founded Bluesky in 2019, and it has become known as a safe haven for left-leaning users who are unhappy with the route that X has taken under Musk’s leadership. On Twitter, Bluesky has established a reputation as a safe haven.
Throughout its history, BlueSky has established a solid reputation as a safe and secure location.
Bluesky users have attributed their decision to transfer to Bluesky to an increase in offensive content on X and Musk’s connection to Donald Trump, the incoming US president. Bluesky is a social networking site that facilitates knowledge sharing and discussion. These two factors have been mentioned as justifications for switching to the new system.
On Tuesday, Mark Cuban, a billionaire who had previously backed Kamala Harris for vice president prior to the election, released a statement titled “Hello, Less Hateful World.” On Tuesday, Cuban’s comments was made public. When it came to several problems, Cuban supported Harris.
Due to the “disturbing content” that was accessible on the “toxic media platform,” The Guardian newspaper said in a statement on Wednesday that it will no longer print any information about X. This decision was made in part due to the “toxic media platform.”
Racist remarks and Bluesky conspiracy ideas were in this text.
The Guardian stated on its website, “The U.S. presidential campaign has underscored our long-held belief that X is a detrimental media platform, and its owner, Elon Musk, has leveraged its influence to shape political discourse.”
“The presidential election campaign in the United States merely underscored our long-held beliefs.” “The presidential election campaign in the United States merely underscored our long-held beliefs.”
Since we feel that there are more disadvantages to being on X right now than advantages, we think that promoting our work elsewhere would make better use of the resources we now have.
The business has helped to strengthen Bluesky’s reputation as a haven for liberals who are unhappy with their experiences.
There has been conjecture about Musk’s potential presence to observe election results alongside Trump. X responded by saying that none of its employees would be “sitting with a presidential candidate tonight and giving them direct access to control what you see online.”
This was done in response to the accusations made on the website. This was a reaction to the rumor that Musk would be there when Trump announced the election results. Musk was supposed to be there to witness the declaration.
Since Musk took over the site in October 2022, X has experienced multiple waves of user departures, although it still has a far larger user base than Bluesky. This is true even though Bluesky’s user base is already much larger. There are far less users using Bluesky.
Similarweb, a company that tracks internet traffic, estimates that on the day following the U.S. election, approximately 115,000 users who live in the country deleted their X accounts.
According to Similarweb, this figure was roughly determined. This falls into the category of the biggest single-day decrease in history, according to Musk’s leadership.
SOURCE: AJ
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(VOR News) – The results of a recent study suggest that telehealth therapy may lower the risk of suicide. In the United States, a study was conducted.
The results of a study that was published in the journal JAMA Network Open on November 12 indicate that cognitive behavior therapy can help lower the number of suicide attempts and thoughts.
US Telehealth researchers conducted the study.
This predicament is still true even when therapy is delivered via telehealth for a little period of time. As a result of the information they discovered during the investigation, the researchers finally reached this conclusion.
According to a study conducted by clinical psychologist Justin Baker, a researcher at Ohio State University, this is information that should be promoted.
According to Baker, this is a result of the fact that, at this specific point in history, therapy is increasingly being delivered via the use of virtual methods.
Baker was said to have stated, “The nearly overnight shift from mostly in-person to mostly virtual therapy appointments following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic was the impetus for this research question.” Ohio State published a press release that contained this message.
In making this claim, Baker was alluding to the fact that the shift occurred very immediately after the outbreak began. Baker was referring to the changes brought about by the pandemic outbreak spreading significantly.
It has long been thought that patients who are deemed to be at high risk are not suitable candidates for virtual healthcare. This is because the use of virtual healthcare is linked to both accountability and the possibility of harm.
We randomly assigned the following telehealth programs to 96 Americans:
They received instruction on how to control and alter the disturbing ideas and bad notions they were experiencing through telehealth cognitive behavioral therapy, with a special emphasis on suicide. They received this instruction while participating in the activity.
A treatment method called present-centered therapy is used to help patients deal with the difficulties they are currently confronting in their life.
The results of the study conducted by the researchers demonstrated that a present-focused approach to treatment is a successful way to reduce depressive symptoms and suicidal thoughts. Research has shown that therapeutic approaches that focus on the present moment are useful.
However, the results of this study show that when it came to reducing the proportion of patients who attempted suicide while getting telehealth services, cognitive behavioral therapy outperformed present-centered therapy.
Furthermore, the results showed that both treatments were effective in lowering the number of suicidal thoughts that patients thought about taking their own lives. The effectiveness of both therapies served as evidence for this.
Craig Bryan, a researcher and the chairman of telehealth Ohio State University’s Suicide Prevention Program, says, “We have good, tested treatments that will lead to significant symptom reduction and improved quality of life for those who are suffering from suicidal thoughts and behaviors.”
In addition, Bryan is currently the program’s leader. Additionally, Bryan is currently in charge of the program. “We have treatments that have been proven to be effective.”
Bryan said that a considerable percentage of therapists are still maintaining some aspect of their telemedicine practice following the epidemic, even though limitations are being loosened.
This leads to the scenario even when boundaries are being loosened. “The results of this study have the potential to expand access to essential treatments that are supported by evidence for people living in rural and difficult-to-reach areas.”
You should call the telehealth Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 if you or a loved one is experiencing an emotional or suicide crisis if you are experiencing emotional distress. They are available to listen to your issues as well as offer support.
SOURCE: USN
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The Main US Inflation Tracker Increased For The First Time Since March.
(VOR News) – The challenging road to lower levels is demonstrated by the fact that one of the most important measures of inflation in the United States has increased for the first time since March.
The consumer price index (CPI), a metric that gauges price inflation across a variety of goods, at an annual rate of 2.6% as October reached its peak. The CPI has never been higher than it was at this time.
According to reports, the rate was 2.4% last month, the lowest in over three years. This rate is higher than the one that was noted the month before.
Eliminating food and energy, “core” inflation stayed at 3.3%.
This occurred upon completion of the computation. Following this stage, the index underwent a thorough analysis. A reading was considered accurate if it agreed with the estimates provided by economists.
Even though inflation has somewhat decreased since reaching its greatest level in four decades in the summer of 2022, many Americans still face financial hardship as a result of years of rising prices. This can be attributed to the fact that inflation peaked in the summer of 2022.
According to exit poll results, a significant number of Republican voters expressed dissatisfaction with their own financial circumstances as well as the state of the US economy.
Their voiced displeasure was a reflection of their dissatisfaction. A significant factor that contributed to the election was the ire generated by the rising cost of living. This rage was among the most important factors.
Concerns have been expressed regarding the real effects that these reforms would have on the inflation rate. Donald Trump proposed tax cuts and tariffs as workable answers throughout his campaign, but there have been questions raised over the real effects of these measures.
The next president has promised to levy tariffs on all U.S. imports that are at least 10 percent higher than the current rate, according to the results of a research by Yale’s Budget Lab.
The implementation of this strategy, which many industry experts believe would almost surely result in an increase in inflation of up to 5.1%, has already been made public.
It was the first time in four years that the Federal Reserve started lowering interest rates in September, which marked the first time in four years they had done so.
This was the first time they had ever implemented inflation.
The Federal Reserve has reached a significant turning point in its attempts to control inflation at this particular moment. Additional interest rate cuts were implemented Monday, lowering them to their lowest point since February 2023. Since February 2023, they have not been this low.
The Federal Reserve’s chairman, Jerome Powell, said the Fed “has gained confidence that we’re on a sustainable path down to 2%,” the target it has set for its inflation rate.
He hosted a news conference where he made this declaration. Considering the previously mentioned, he added that “the task is incomplete.”
As part of its “dual mandate,” the Fed is working to keep inflation from rising while also keeping the unemployment rate from rising. This is being done from the Federal Reserve’s point of view.
Over the past few months, the labor market has been significantly slowing down; in October, the United States created just 12,000 new jobs.
This suggests that there is a downturn in the labor market. In October 2023, the unemployment rate was 4.1%, which was a low figure that was similar to levels before the sickness started. Since the illness had not yet spread, this was the situation. This occurred following a reduction in the rate, which came to 3.4% in February 2023.
In response to a query concerning the impact of the election on the Federal Reserve’s interest rate decisions, Powell said that officials “do not know the timing or substance of any policy changes.”
Powell was questioned on the significance of the election. As a consequence, we are unable to determine the possible economic impact of this. The current circumstances are to blame for this.
SOURCE: TG
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