SILVER LINING 

Police saw crime dip in first six months of pandemic, Statistics Canada says

OTTAWA — Newly released statistics point to a notable drop in police-recorded crime during the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Statistics Canada says 17 police services across Canada reported that selected criminal incidents were down by 17 per cent compared with the same period a year earlier.

The lone exception was uttering threats by a family member, with police reporting four per cent more incidents during the same period last year.

In addition, the number of calls for service rose eight per cent, particularly wellness checks, mental health calls and calls to attend domestic disturbances.

The statistics agency says when the physical distancing measures introduced in mid-March to control the pandemic started easing in May, the number of crimes and calls for service began to rise.

The 17 police services providing data are some of the largest nationally and serve close to 60 per cent of the population of Canada.

During the early months of the pandemic, the police services reported a 20 per cent decrease in sexual assaults compared with the same period a year earlier, Statistics Canada says. The number of reported assaults also declined.

The agency notes victimization surveys have shown that rates of reporting to the police are lower for sexual assaults and spousal violence than for other types of crimes.

For those experiencing violence, especially within the home, previous releases have shown that accessing services during the pandemic may be more difficult because of restricted contact with sources of support, the agency added.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2020.

The 'bittersweet' legacy of Canada's wartime Jewish and Italian internment camps

MONTREAL — In 1940, a Jewish student in the United Kingdom named Edgar Lion was sent to Canada against his will on a ship that carried both German and Austrian Jews and Nazi prisoners of war.

    

© Provided by The Canadian Press

And when he first arrived at an internment camp in Trois-Rivieres, Que., the Austrian-born Lion quickly realized the local citizens gathered near the camp entrance didn’t know the difference between the two groups.

“People were cursing us and throwing stones at us. We had to cross a gauntlet of citizens who knew some of us were prisoners of war, but (didn’t know) some of us were just ordinary prisoners," he said in a recent interview.

"We were in the wrong place. We weren’t supposed to be interned.”

Lion, now 100, is one of thousands of Italian, Austrian and German citizens who were rounded up by the British government and sent to Canada to be interned as “enemy aliens” in what remains a relatively unknown chapter in Canada’s Second World War history.

The men, who included Jewish refugees, civilians working in the U.K. and students, were scattered in camps across Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick, where they were surrounded by armed guards and barbed wire.

Andrea Shaulis, the curator at the Montreal Holocaust Museum, said Canada was unprepared to receive the internees -- Italian, German and Austrian nationals living in Great Britain who were sent overseas because the British government feared could pose a security threat in the event of invasion.

Canadian authorities had thought they would be receiving prisoners categorized as “dangerous enemy aliens,” and had not realized they would be mixed with ordinary citizens or even refugees fleeing Nazi persecution, she said

The facilities where they were sent were primitive at first, including a garage in Sherbrooke, Que., with auto bays filled with water. One camp in Quebec received a load of blankets but no mattresses; another got the opposite.

In some cases Nazi prisoners of war were interned alongside the Jewish refugees at first, causing tension and even fights.

Eventually, however, conditions improved in many of the camps, and the prisoners settled into a routine.

Raffaello Gonnella, the son of an Italian-born man who was interned in a camp on Montreal's Ile Ste-Helene, says his father described life in the camp as boring but safe.

“The war was raging in Europe and Britain, so their families were more in danger than they were,” he said in a phone interview from Glasgow.

Unlike in Great Britain, there was no rationing in Canada, and "being Italian men, they ate rather well,” thanks to the chefs and other restaurant staff among their number who had been working in restaurants prior to being interned, Gonnella recalled.

Lion recalls that in the camps, the internees with university educations created schools and study groups for their younger counterparts.

“We started a camp school for the youngest people who were interned with us, and they didn't have a chance to go to high school, so we made up for it” Lion said.

That effort would later pay off: after their release, many of the internees would go on to study in universities across Canada and Europe, becoming prominent architects, professors, and even Nobel Prize winners.

To this day, the history of Canada’s Italian and German internment camps remains little-known among the general population, with few plaques to mark the sites where they once stood.

The building housing the internment camp on Montreal's Ile Ste-Helene now offers tours to visitors who are often surprised to hear an internment camp existed right next to a major Canadian city.

Paula Draper, a historian who has written books on Canada's Holocaust experience, said this lack of knowledge may be partly because the situation is generally seen as less egregious than the internment of Canadian-born Japanese citizens.

Because conditions were comparatively good, she said many former internees may have hesitated to tell their stories.

“However unpleasant the experience had been to be interned in Canada . . . how do you complain about this when, in fact, the internment saved your life?” she said in a phone interview.

Draper maintains the internment was an “injustice” that should never have happened. On the other hand, it also kept the men safe and, eventually, allowed some to immigrate to North America, where many found great success.

“I always looked at is as a bittersweet kind of Holocaust story,” she said.

Gonnella says the biggest hardship the men experienced in the camp was the uncertainty of not knowing what was happening back home. “They were more worried about their families than themselves,” he said.

But while his father told him stories of pranks and good food, as a young teen Gonnella would learn how deeply the experience had affected his father.

One day, while rooting through his father’s closet for something to wear to school, a young Gonnella came across a denim shirt with a large red, white and blue circle on the back that resembled a target. When he asked if he could wear it, his father “flew into a rage I never saw.”

Unknowingly, Gonnella had taken out his father's camp uniform, emblazoned with a target symbol to make internees visible to the armed guards in the event of an escape attempt.

“I still fill with tears when I think about it,” Gonnella said. “He absolutely went crazy, screaming, shouting, bawling in Italian.”

After spending time in camps in Trois-Rivieres, Que, Fredericton and Sherbrooke, Lion was released in 1941. He moved to Montreal to live with friends of his family and went on to complete his university education, raise a family and build a successful career in the building industry.

Now living in a long-term care home in Montreal, he describes himself as a "survivor" whose life was transformed by his time in the camps.

"It certainly changed my life, because, for one thing, I became a Canadian citizen," he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov 9, 2020

Morgan Lowrie, The Canadian Press

McCarrick: What's known about the abusive US ex-cardinal

ROME — The Vatican on Tuesday will release its report into the rise and fall of ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the once-influential American cardinal who was defrocked by Pope Francis in 2019 after a Vatican investigation confirmed decades of rumours that he was a sexual predator.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The McCarrick scandal is different from other cases of clergy abuse, primarily because there is evidence that Vatican and U.S. church leaders knew of his penchant for bedding seminarians but turned a blind eye as McCarrick rose to the top of the U.S. church as an adept fundraiser who advised three popes.

When McCarrick’s crimes were revealed, the scandal sparked such a crisis of confidence in the church's U.S. and Vatican hierarchies that Francis approved new procedures to investigate bishops accused of abuse in a bid to end decades of impunity for Catholic leaders.

But beyond that, the McCarrick case has forced the Vatican to acknowledge that adults can be victims of sexual abuse, too. The Vatican has long tried to paint any sexual relations between priests and adult men or women as consensual, focusing its prevention policies on protecting minors.

But as a bishop, McCarrick held all the power in his relationships with his seminarians: to refuse his sexual advances or report his misconduct could have spelled an end to their priestly vocations and careers in the church. The Vatican's new policies, enacted as a response to the McCarrick scandal, spell out that abuse can happen when anyone is forced “to perform or submit to sexual acts" through abuses of authority by church leaders.

Here is what we know about the McCarrick case ahead of the release of the Vatican report:

___

WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?

The archdiocese of New York announced on June 20, 2018 that it had determined that an allegation that McCarrick sexually molested a minor was “credible and substantiated." The allegation was lodged by a former altar boy who said McCarrick fondled him when he was a teenager during preparations for Christmas Mass in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in 1971 and 1972. The allegation was the first against McCarrick involving a minor, and as such triggered the investigation.

On the same day, McCarrick’s former dioceses of Newark and Metuchen, New Jersey, revealed they had settled two of three allegations of sexual misconduct by McCarrick involving adults in 2005 and 2007. Subsequently, James Grein came forward detailing the abuse he suffered at the hands of McCarrick, a family friend, starting when he was 11. Other former seminarians have since described the harassment and abuse they endured while “Uncle Ted," as McCarrick liked to call himself, was their bishop in New Jersey, forced to sleep in his bed during weekend trips to his beach house.

McCarrick, 90, was defrocked last year after the Vatican determined he sexually abused adults and children, including during confession.

___

MCCARRICK’S RESPONSE

McCarrick has said he was innocent of the fondling accusation but accepted the pope’s sanctions.

“While I have absolutely no recollection of this reported abuse, and believe in my innocence, I am sorry for the pain the person who brought the charges has gone through, as well as for the scandal such charges cause our people,” he said in a statement June 20, 2018 after the initial fondling allegations were substantiated.

In a 2008 email McCarrick sent to the Vatican, he denied ever having sexual relations with anyone but said he had shown an “unfortunate lack of judgment” for having shared his bed with seminarians.

___

VIGANO’S BOMBSHELL:

The McCarrick scandal took on greater dimensions on Aug. 26, 2018 when the former Vatican ambassador to the U.S., Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, published an 11-page expose accusing two dozen U.S. and Vatican churchmen by name of knowing about McCarrick’s misconduct since at least 2000 and hiding it. Vigano cited the case of one former seminarian who in 1994 wrote a lengthy letter to his bishop detailing McCarrick's sexual abuse of him and others — a document that would have been turned over to the Vatican at the very least in 2004 when the man was defrocked.

Vigano demanded Francis resign, saying he had told the pope in 2013 during one of their first meetings that McCarrick has "corrupted generations of seminarians and priests, and Pope Benedict ordered him to withdraw to a life of prayer and penance.” Vigano claimed that Francis rehabilitated McCarrick from Benedict’s sanctions and turned him into a trusted adviser.

___

VATICAN’S RESPONSE

Francis initially refused to comment, but later authorized a Vatican investigation into its archives to determine who knew what and when about McCarrick, the result of which is being released Tuesday.

In 2019, Francis told Mexican broadcaster Televisa that he didn’t know anything about McCarrick’s past and didn’t remember if Vigano had raised the issue with him when they met in 2013.

In addition, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, head of the Congregation for Bishops, confirmed McCarrick had been subject to disciplinary measures for uncorroborated “rumours” of misconduct but said the Vatican’s decision for him to live a discreet life of prayer stopped short of binding canonical sanctions because the rumours lacked proof. Ouellet accused Vigano of mounting a “blasphemous” political hit job against Francis.

___

FURTHER REVELATIONS

A former McCarrick aide, Monsignor Anthony Figueiredo, in May 2019 released excerpts of correspondence that show McCarrick was placed under written Vatican restrictions in 2008 for sleeping with seminarians, but regularly flouted them with the apparent knowledge of Vatican officials under Benedict and Francis. The correspondence shows McCarrick travelled widely during Benedict's papacy after the restrictions were purportedly imposed, including to regular meetings at the Vatican, to Bosnia, Lebanon, Qatar, Ireland and throughout Asia — travel that continued under Francis, including to China.

After the scandal broke in 2018, photos and videos surfaced of McCarrick appearing at gala benefits — even alongside Vigano, who as the Vatican ambassador in Washington would have been responsible for enforcing any restrictions on McCarrick alongside the then-archbishop, Cardinal Donald Wuerl.

In December 2019, the Washington Post reported that McCarrick gave more than $600,000 in donations from a personal fund he controlled to powerful clerics in the U.S. and Vatican, including those who had a say in whether to investigate him. The payments underscored the common tradition among well-funded bishops and religious superiors to curry favour in the Vatican with checks.

McCarrick also helped funnel millions of dollars to three popes via the U.S. Papal Foundation, which he helped co-found to raise money from wealthy American Catholics for specific works of papal charity.

___

This story has been corrected to show that the last name of the former McCarrick aide is Figueiredo, not Figueriredo.

Nicole Winfield, The Associated Press

Mi’kmaq coalition acquires 50% of Nova Scotia-based seafood giant Clearwater Seafoods

As of Monday, 50 per cent of Clearwater Seafood has been acquired by a coalition, which includes Membertou First Nation, their new business partner Premium Brands, and a number of participating Mi'kmaq communities across Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.  

© Ross Lord / Global News 

Boats from Sipekne’katik First Nation were tied up, after lobster traps were cut in dispute with commercial fishers. Sipekne’katik launched a self-regulated fishery on Sept. 17, in an effort to assert Treaty Rights upheld by the 1999 SCOC Marshall decision.

Founded in 1976, Clearwater Seafood is one of North America’s largest seafood companies and is the largest holder of shellfish licences and quotas in Canada.


This transaction means the Mi’kmaq not only become 50 per cent owners of the company, but expect to hold Clearwater’s Canadian fishing licences within a fully Mi’kmaq-owned partnership.

Read more: Indigenous moderate livelihood lobster fishery expands in Nova Scotia

"This is a transformational opportunity for the Mi’kmaq to become significant participants in the commercial fishery through the investment in existing infrastructure, management expertise, and a global market presence," said Chief Terry Paul of Membertou First Nation in a press release.

"This collective investment by First Nations in Clearwater represents the single largest investment in the seafood industry by any Indigenous group in Canada," he added.

According to Chief Paul, Paqtnkek, Pictou Landing, Potlotek Sipekne’katik, and We’koqma’q have participated with Membertou and Miawpukek in this investment.

Video: Mi’kmaq solidarity group rallies in front of Clearwater Market

Membertou First Nation said in a statement that the collective of communities has financed $250 million over 30 years through working with their partners at First Nations Finance Authority.

"This investment is unique and separate from our current commercial operations and does not financially impact Membertou's ability to continue providing all the services necessary for our growing community in any way," the statement reads.

The statement also notes that all the benefits of the ownership will flow back to the communities.

Read more: Sipekne’katik First Nation re-elects Chief Mike Sack for 3rd term

“I am very pleased to recommend this transaction. It represents great value for shareholders, leverages the expertise within the company while advancing Reconciliation in Canada,” said Colin MacDonald, chair of the board of directors of Clearwater, in a press release.

“I am confident that this transaction will enhance the culture of diversity and sustainable seafood excellence that exists at Clearwater," he added.

In a statement, Membertou First Nation said that this commercial acquisition is separate from both their moderate livelihood fishery and their commercial in-shore fishery operations.

"With this acquisition we are participants in all sectors of the fishery," the statement reads.

Global has reached out to Membertou First Nations' spokesperson and Chief Terry Paul, but did not get an immediate response.

More than 70 Alberta doctors implore for 'sharp' lockdown; province reports another 644 cases

KENNEY IS A TRUMP MINI ME

© Provided by Calgary Herald 

Masked commuters travel in downtown Calgary on Monday, November 9, 2020.

More than 70 of Alberta’s physicians, medical professionals and infectious disease specialists are pleading for a “sharp” two-week lockdown to slow the spread of COVID-19, giving contact tracers time to catch up and easing the pressures on the health-care system.

The short lockdown — referred to as a “circuit breaker” — would allow the government to better formulate targeted regional public health measures that would reduce the spread of infections, the health-care professionals said in a letter addressed to the premier Monday.

A circuit breaker is a temporary lockdown with a set end date, rather than an extended lockdown until cases drop past a certain point. It’s a strategy being used by several European governments to “reset” infection rates so public health authorities have time to plot the best path forward.

“We are deeply concerned over the state of the COVID-19 pandemic in Alberta. Over the last three weeks, we have watched the numbers of cases, hospitalizations and ICU admissions dramatically increase,” the medical professionals wrote in the letter.

While lockdowns and restrictions have a significant impact on people’s ability to earn an income and socialize with friends and family, it is “clear that a minimal impairment approach and requests to the people of Alberta to voluntarily stop holding social gatherings in their homes is unlikely to significantly slow the rate of spread,” the doctors explained.

The 74 people who signed the letter are intensive care physicians, emergency physicians, general internists, pulmonologists, infectious disease specialists and family physicians, primarily located in Edmonton and Calgary.

In their letter, group members critiqued the government’s limit on social gatherings of 15 people which expanded to all regions under COVID-19 watch, and the “strong request” to Calgarians and Edmontonians to stop inviting friends to their homes.

“There have been advances in the care of critically ill COVID-19 patients based on research over the last nine months that have resulted in significant reductions in mortality and time to recovery. However, if the rate of COVID-19 spread continues, the consequences to the people of Alberta will be catastrophic,” they said.

“If this rate of increase continues unabated, our acute care health system will be overrun in the near future.”

Acute care beds and operating rooms will be overtaken by COVID-19 patients sooner than later if the upward trend doesn’t stop, the medical professionals explained. Experience grappling with the pandemic in Europe and the United States shows that mortality rates of COVID-19 and other patients increase “dramatically” if these resources are overwhelmed.

During Monday’s update, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta’s chief medical officer of health, said “all options are on the table for discussion,” which includes a circuit-breaker lockdown.

© Chris Schwarz/Government of Alberta 

Alberta’s chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw.

“I think the circuit-breaker idea is an interesting one; it’s what British Columbia announced this weekend and you’ll note they targeted some of the same kinds of activities that we are targeting here,” said Hinshaw.

Due to a dramatic spike in cases throughout Metro Vancouver, the British Columbia government banned indoor and outdoor social gatherings for two weeks so people cannot visit with others outside of their household.

In Alberta, another 644 cases of COVID-19 were confirmed during Monday’s update — with a positivity rate of about five per cent — bringing the total number of active cases to 7,965.

An additional 1,646 cases and 11 deaths were reported over the weekend, including a record-breaking 919 cases reported Saturday.

Hospitalizations continue to rise, which Hinshaw said is concerning, as 192 Albertans are reportedly in hospital, including 39 in intensive-care units.

Seven people died from COVID-19 on Sunday, bringing the provincial death toll to 369. One previous death was confirmed post-mortem as not linked to the novel coronavirus.

Among the deaths was a woman in her 90s at Extendicare Cedars Villa in Calgary, as well as six Edmontonians.

Hinshaw said the mandatory and voluntary restrictions in place now offer Albertans the opportunity to be part of the solution before stronger restrictions are imposed.

Premier Jason Kenney invoked arguments around civil liberties when he rebuked the idea of a lockdown and downplayed the effects of the coronavirus during a news conference Friday.

He said Alberta can “continue to lead the way as the freest province in the country” if the current restrictions are followed.

Hinshaw said she understands people’s fatigue and frustration right now, but urged them to continue taking public health orders seriously.

“If you have not gotten sick and you don’t know anyone who has either, you must do everything possible to keep it that way,” she said.
Outbreak declared at Calgary Drop-In Centre, Alpha House and transitional housing

An outbreak has been declared at Calgary Drop-In Centre after 11 cases have been identified. As well, outbreaks have been declared after two cases were linked to Alpha House and five to one of its transitional housing units.

Offsite testing is being conducted as staff and clients are screened. This is a reflection of greater community transmission, Hinshaw said.

Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi said it’s imperative for Calgarians to keep themselves and others safe by following public health measures closely, including the request to refrain from hosting others at home.

“If we can do this through the winter, God willing, there will be a vaccine in the spring and this thing will be in our rear-view mirror. But if we overwhelm the hospitals before then, we have created a lifetime of misery for ourselves,” said Nenshi.

— With files from Madeline Smith

Hundreds witness bright fireball blazing across the US Northeast Sunday night
Scott Sutherland 

Bright meteors flash through our skies on a fairly regular basis. However, only a few are as widely seen as the one that blazed over Connecticut and New York State on Sunday night.

Dashboard cam captures bright fireball lighting up the night
Click to expand

At roughly 7:20 p.m. ET, on November 8, 2020, a tiny space rock plunged into Earth's atmosphere. As it passed high above the heads of witnesses, the meteoroid compressed the air in its path to the point of incandescence. In the process, it lit up the night sky between Waterbury, Connecticut and Poughkeepsie, New York, as a bright meteor fireball.

© Provided by The Weather Network

The fireball report map from the American Meteor Society for event #6425-2020. While the witness report locations are shown on the larger map, the inset shows the meteoroid's estimated path. Credit: AMS

As of Monday afternoon, 318 reports had been made to the American Meteor Society's website. Witnesses from as far away as Lincoln, ON, the Montreal area, and Charleston, WV spotted the fireball. Given the clear skies and the region's population, it may have been seen by hundreds more, if not thousands.

According to AMS lead developer Vincent Perlerin, while they are still investigating, reports filed so far have revealed that the meteor appears to have followed a fairly shallow angle as it was passing through the upper atmosphere.

© Provided by The Weather NetworkThe meteoroid trajectory, taken from eyewitness reports. Credit: AMS

WHERE DID IT COME FROM?

Tracing the origin of a fireball meteor isn't easy, but we can look to one potential source for this event.

Based on its east-to-west path and the meteor's timing, the meteoroid that caused it may have been a piece of a comet named 2P/Encke. Comet Encke passes around the Sun once every 3 years and 4 months. It is considered the likely source for the Fall season's twin Taurid meteor showers.

© Provided by The Weather Network

The location of the Taurid meteor shower radiants, just above the horizon, at 7:20 p.m. ET, November 8, 2020. 

Credit: Stellarium/Scott Sutherland

Neither Taurid shower is considered to be very strong. Each only produces about 5 meteors per hour, on average, even during their peak. Still, both are known for producing bright fireballs, and the peak of the Northern Taurids is coming up on the night of November 11.

Did you see this fireball, or any other one recently? Report what you witnessed to the American Meteor Society.

Thumbnail image screencaptured from video posted by Joe Dawson, who caught the fireball on dashcam as he was driving along the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey

IN DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACY

Hong Kong journalist appears in court amid fears over press freedom

By Jessie Pang 

© Reuters/LAM YIK

 Choy Yuk-Ling arrives at a court in Hong Kong

HONG KONG (Reuters) - A Hong Kong journalist appeared in court on Tuesday on a charge of making a false statement to obtain data for a documentary on the police's handling of a mob attack, in a case that has stoked concern over press freedom in the Chinese-ruled city.

© Reuters/LAM YIK

 Choy Yuk-Ling stands in front of supporters holding placards outside the court in Hong Kong

Bao Choy, 37, a freelance producer with local broadcaster RTHK, was arrested last week in connection with data on vehicle registrations she used for the investigative documentary.

The piece examined the police force's response to the attack in Yuen Long district in July 2019 when more than 100 men in white T-shirts wielding sticks and poles attacked pro-democracy protesters, journalists and bystanders at a train station.

RTHK obtained data on the ownership of some cars that were seen in video footage on the night of the attack in a bid to trace those behind the assault and highlight the police's alleged slow response. According to a chargesheet, Bao made false statements when seeking access to the data

.

© Reuters/LAM YIK 

Choy Yuk-Ling arrives at a court in Hong Kong

The police were severely criticised at the time for what pro-democracy activists and human rights groups described as a slack response, with some accusing the authorities of colluding with triad gangsters.

Police have rejected the claims and said their slow response was due in part to protests elsewhere in the city that drained resources that night.

"I understand this incident is no longer a personal matter but a matter related to public interest and press freedom in Hong Kong," Bao said outside the court. "I truly believe I will not walk alone."

Supporters hugged Bao as she left the court. Her case was adjourned to Jan. 14.

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam has rejected criticism the arrest represents a crackdown on press freedom in the former British colony.

Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997 under a one country, two systems agreement that promised it wide-ranging freedoms unavailable on the Communist Party-ruled mainland.

The protests last year were fuelled by perceptions that Beijing was tightening its grip on those freedoms, which authorities have denied.

(Reporting By Jessie Pang; Writing by Anne Marie Roantree; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

CORRUPTION FIGHTER 

Mexican president orders inquiry into report that aide paid shell firms

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador urged authorities on Monday to look into a report accusing a top aide of financial impropriety, while calling it part of a media campaign aimed at bringing his administration into disrepute.

© Reuters/HENRY ROMERO FILE PHOTO: Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador delivers his second state of the union address at National Palace in Mexico City

Newspaper El Universal said Lopez Obrador's private secretary Alejandro Esquer had hired shell companies in the 2018 presidential election campaign when Esquer was finance secretary of the ruling National Regeneration Movement party (MORENA).


One of the companies the paper said Esquer had paid for campaign-related services was in September included in a list of firms found by federal tax authorities to lack the means to provide the services advertised in its receipts.

The report was the latest question mark about the probity of people close to Lopez Obrador, who has made fighting corruption the cornerstone of his administration. The president's office did not reply to a request for comment from Esquer.

Responding to questions about the report in a regular news conference, Lopez Obrador said he was unaware of the alleged contracts and that the matter should be "looked into".

Calling the report "part of the campaign to discredit our government", Lopez Obrador said authorities would make their findings public in due course.

Separately, the head of the finance ministry's financial intelligence unit, Santiago Nieto, told news network Milenio his office had not found anything to incriminate a brother of the president over revelations that surfaced a few months ago.

In August, videos were leaked of the brother, Pio Lopez Obrador, receiving cash in 2015 from a man during a regional election campaign. The man later won a post in the government when Lopez Obrador took office in December 2018.

The president described the cash as contributions to his political movement but ordered federal prosecutors to investigate. They have yet to declare their findings.

(Reporting by Dave Graham; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

ROYHINGA THE LOSERS

Suu Kyi's party claims to have won majority in Myanmar polls

YANGON, Myanmar — Myanmar's ruling National League for Democracy claimed Monday it had won a clear parliamentary majority and would retain power, even though the state election body has named just a few of the winners in Sunday's elections.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The Union Election Commission earlier said full results may take a week. By 8 p.m., it had announced the winners of just nine of Parliament's 642 seats, all nine NLD candidates.

An NLD spokesperson, Monywa Aung Shin, said the party had confirmed it won more than 322 seats — a majority — but the final outcome "would be likely more than" the party's goal of 377 seats.

An NLD victory was widely expected since its leader, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, is immensely popular. Some had speculated its totals might be cut because of deteriorating relations with ethnic minority-based parties, with whom her party had co-operated in 2015 elections.

The United States and other observers have expressed concern about how the election was conducted, especially the disenfranchisement of the Rohingya minority.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Myanmar's second competitive national election since military rule ended was an important step.

“Nevertheless, we are concerned by the large number of unelected seats constitutionally reserved for the military; the disfranchisement of groups including Rohingya; cancellation of voting in parts of several states and regions; and the disqualification of candidates based on arbitrary application of citizenship and residency requirements, which prevent the realization of a more democratic and civilian government,” Pompeo said in a statement released by the State Department.

The Fortify Rights group said it was concerned about the election's conduct as well as arrests of activists and a crackdown on free expression and assembly.

Video: Myanmar election: Aung San Suu Kyi supporters celebrate as ruling party expected to win (Global News) 

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/suu-kyis-party-claims-to-have-won-majority-in-myanmar-polls/ar-BB1aPDBs?ocid=msedgdhp

“A core principle of elections under international law is universal and equal suffrage and that is not what took place yesterday,” Ismail Wolff, regional director of Fortify Rights, said in a statement released Monday. “The international community must unequivocally condemn the disenfranchisement of Rohingya and other ethnic nationalities or risk paving the path for future violations.”

Suu Kyi, 75, has retained the mass appeal built up during her decades of democratic activism while Myanmar was under military rule. Her administration’s record has been mixed at best, with little economic growth and no end to armed strife with ethnic minorities seeking greater autonomy.

Outside of Myanmar, her reputation has been damaged by her failure to defend the rights of the Muslim Rohingya minority, who were targeted in a brutal counterinsurgency campaign by Myanmar’s security forces that sent 740,000 fleeing to neighbouring Bangladesh.

But the issue was of little concern to most voters in Myanmar, where the Buddhist majority holds deep-seated prejudice against the Rohingya, many of whom are denied citizenship and civil rights, including the right to vote.

The coronavirus pandemic was a prominent backdrop to the elections, which were held as scheduled even though some parties had urged a postponement. Traditional campaign events like mass rallies were curbed to control the spread of the virus, while Suu Kyi was able to project a strong image of leadership in state media and social media while conducting official government business.

No reliable official figures were available on voter turnout. More than 90 parties contested the election and 37 million people were eligible to cast ballots, including 5 million first-time voters.

Yway Mal, an independent vote counting service, said the NLD had secured 64 seats and its main opponent, the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party, had won seven so far.

The People’s Alliance for Credible Elections, one of the biggest poll watching organizations in Myanmar, said that in almost one-third of the polling stations it monitored, a small number of people were unable to cast ballots because their names were not on the voting lists.

But the group described election day voting as peaceful and said no major incidents were recorded.

Pyae Sone Win, The Associated Press

Analysis: Saudi Arabia preferred a Trump win. Their fears of a Biden presidency may be well-founded
Analysis by Nic Robertson, CNN 

Of all the pressing foreign policy issues on President-elect Joe Biden's plate, relations with Saudi Arabia will not be top of the pile.

KUWAIT CITY, KUWAIT - DECEMBER 8: King of Saudi Arabia, Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud meets with Emir of Kuwait, Sheikh Sabah IV Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah (not seen) in Kuwait City, Kuwait on December 8, 2016. (Photo by Bandar Algaloud / Saudi Royal Council / Handout/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

China, Iran and perhaps North Korea will dominate, yet Riyadh -- which will host the G20 Leaders' virtual summit later this month -- could soon work its way up the stack.

A senior Saudi diplomat told me a week before the US election that the kingdom was ready to work with whomever won. Yet the impression I was given during this conversation was that, due to some of Biden's comments during the campaign, indicating that he would be tough on Saudi, the Democrat would not be Riyadh's pick.

Another source with knowledge of political discussions in the kingdom told me that the Saudis had found President Donald Trump a good if unpredictable and even potentially dangerous ally.

After Saudi oil facilities were attacked with cruise missiles last September -- and Saudi and US investigators determined "with very high probability" that they were launched from Iran -- the source told me that the Saudis had to ask Trump not to escalate tensions further by retaliating. They genuinely thought he could trigger a war by accident, he said.

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Others within the Kingdom worry that Biden could be a reset to the Obama years, which they believe was soft on Iran, and potentially unreliable for their security.

Their fears may be well-founded.

Biden has pledged to re-engage with Tehran on the multinational nuclear deal Trump pulled out of, and during a Democratic debate last fall threatened to throttle billions of dollars of arms sales to Saudi.

"I would make it very clear we were not going to in fact sell more weapons to them, we were going to in fact make them pay the price and make them in fact the pariah that they are," Biden said last November.

But where Biden may find himself working with with Saudi Arabia is on Middle East peace. This is an ambition that almost every American president strives for, and in the past year Trump has created a momentum of sorts.

The Saudi diplomat said that Trump had "put a lot of pressure" on Riyadh to follow the UAE, Bahrain and Sudan in normalizing relations with Israel, adding that Saudi support was a "prize" Trump has yet been unable to win -- an indication that even at this late stage in his presidency, Trump may still harbor hopes of winning the Saudis over.

Trump and his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, have achieved some movement in the region, but fallen far short of what the outgoing president originally promised -- a long-term peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians.

Kushner ran point on making deals that gave the appearance of quid pro quos -- the UAE would get sophisticated US F-35 fighter jets, and Sudan would be removed from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism -- although all sides deny these transactions were part of the agreements. Congress has yet to sign off on the fighter jets; and Sudan remains on the State Department's terror list.

At the time I met the diplomat, rumors were circulating that Riyadh was holding out on its commitments to Trump in case it needed to barter with Biden, but the diplomat said that wasn't true, and laid out the facts as he saw them.

Saudi Arabia will always "act out of their own national security interests," he said, but it also has an outsized relevance on the very emotive issue of Palestinian statehood as Saudi decisions will "shift other Muslim nations to follow."

Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud is the custodian of Islam's two holiest sites, Mecca and Medina, giving him a legitimacy and clout in the religion that is unrivaled by any other person. The Saudi government believes he is central to winning over the world's 1.8 billion Muslims, but a wrong call by him could be disastrous for the kingdom, leaving it open to accusations of selling out and abandoning the Palestinians.

The diplomat told me he thought it 90% unlikely the King would back Trump's plan. Yet it is clear that when his son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, takes the throne -- which could happen on Biden's watch -- the calculations could change.

Saudi's current position on Palestinian-Israeli peace is a two-state solution based around the 1967 borders. This is what Saudi leaders have been trying to get feuding Palestinian factions to unite around for well over a decade. In 2007 they briefly believed they had succeeded, but agreement fell apart and Saudi frustrations with the Palestinians have been growing steadily ever since, the diplomat told me.

The diplomat said that in a relatively recent meeting with a Palestinian official, he warned him that time was running out, that "in 10 years no one will care" about the Palestinians. The diplomat said he told the Palestinian official they should have engaged with Kushner's so-called "deal of the century" to get beneficial terms.

In late August, King Salman let an Israeli commercial flight carrying Kushner and an Israeli delegation overfly Saudi airspace on the way from Tel Aviv to Abu Dhabi as it inaugurated that new relationship. It was a clear message to the Palestinians the clock is ticking, as was Bahrain normalizing relations with Israel.

But perhaps the most overt message signaling a change in Saudi position came last month. The very highly-respected Saudi diplomat, Prince Bandar bin Sultan al Saud -- a former ambassador to the US and intelligence chief -- told Saudi TV: "The Palestinian cause is a just cause, but its advocates are failures, and the Israel cause is unjust, but its advocates have been proven successful."

He wouldn't have done that without the King's permission. The meaning was obvious: The country is tired of waiting for Palestinians to make peace and is preparing to move on.

The message to foreign capitals, perhaps to Washington in particular, is equally clear: The time is coming when a deal may be done.