Timbits

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China says it’s willing to deepen economic relations with Canada as this country’s trading relationship with the United States hits a rough patch.

The People’s Republic of China is Canada’s second-largest trading partner after the U.S. and, in 2017, Ottawa came close to starting talks with Beijing on a trade agreement.

In 2019, China restricted imports of several Canadian products, including canola seed, in apparent retaliation for Ottawa arresting a Chinese tech executive. The value of the economic fallout – billions in lost sales – pales in comparison to the threat U.S. president-elect Donald Trump has made to Canada, vowing 25-per-cent tariffs on all Canadian goods when he takes office. Canadian exports to the U.S. in 2023 exceeded $592-billion.

The military weaponry to be part of the arms deal included surface-to-air missiles, the indictment alleged.

“As he admitted in federal court today, Takeshi Ebisawa brazenly trafficked nuclear material, including weapons-grade plutonium, out of Burma,” acting US attorney Edward Kim said on Wednesday, using another name for Myanmar.

“At the same time, he worked to send massive quantities of heroin and methamphetamine to the United States in exchange for heavy-duty weaponry such as surface-to-air missiles to be used on battlefields in Burma.”

Ms Altman claims her brother "groomed and manipulated" her and performed sex acts on her over several years, including "rape, sexual assault, molestation, sodomy, and battery", according to a court filing seen by the BBC.

Ms Altman said she sustained "great bodily injury", severe emotional distress and depression.

She added that she had incurred numerous medical bills because of medical and mental health treatment for her injuries.

In the UK, victims or alleged victims of sexual offences have a right to lifelong anonymity. The UK legislation which creates this right does not apply to people in the US.

Immigration has long been a polarising issue in the West but Canada mostly avoided it - until now. With protests and campaign groups springing up in certain quarters, some argue that this - together with housing shortages and rising rents - contributed to Justin Trudeau's resignation. But could Donald Trump's arrival inflame it further?

Jabbar, who died in a shootout with police, had travelled to both Egypt and Canada in 2023 — arriving in Ontario on July 10 and returning to the U.S. on July 13, according to Lyonel Myrthil, FBI special agent in charge of the New Orleans Field Office.

Poland’s minimum hourly wage has, for the first time, surpassed the federal minimum wage in the United States. On 1 January, the minimum wage in Poland rose to 30.50 zloty per hour before tax, which at the average exchange rate so far this year is $7.35

When the international criminal court issued arrest warrants for Israeli officials in November, the response from the country’s government was all too familiar. The prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, rejected outright the warrants for alleged war crimes in Gaza against him and the former defence minister Yoav Gallant, calling them “an antisemitic decision”. The ultranationalist national security adviser, Itamar Ben-Gvir, declared that the court had shown “once again that it is antisemitic through and through”. And the transport minister, Miri Regev, chimed in, claiming: “This is modern antisemitism in the guise of justice.”

His son confirmed the death but did not provide an immediate cause. In a statement in February 2023, the Carter Center said the former president, after a series of hospital stays, would stop further medical treatment and spend his remaining time at home under hospice care. He had been treated in recent years for an aggressive form of melanoma skin cancer, with tumors that spread to his liver and brain.

Mexican security forces have detained about 475,000 irregular migrants since October, authorities said on Friday, as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump threatens Mexico with tariffs unless it stops illegal migrants from arriving at the shared border. Nearly half a million migrants being detained between Oct. 1 and Dec. 26 suggests measures intensified towards the end of the year. Since the start of the year, some 900,000 migrants have been detained, the government said earlier this month.

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Israel is carrying out mass demolitions and erecting military fortifications in residential areas of northern Gaza where tens of thousands of Palestinians have been forced to flee their homes, according to satellite imagery, verified videos and interviews.

​​The Israel Defense Forces said it launched an Oct. 5 air and ground assault in the northernmost parts of Gaza — Jabalya, Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun — to oust Hamas militants who had regrouped there and that the operation would “continue as long as necessary.”

Talks to reach a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas are 90% complete, but key issues remain that need to be bridged, a senior Palestinian official involved in the talks told the BBC.