Trump Told E.U. Officials 'We Will Never Come to Help You' If Attacked, Commissioner Alleges

Story by David Wetzel •Knewz.com


Former United States President Donald Trump told European officials he would turn his back on Europe if it was attacked, a high-ranking E.U. official said.

Thierry Breton, a French commissioner who handles the E.U.'s internal market, said Trump made the comments to European Union President Ursula von der Leyen during the 2020 World Economic Forum in Davos, Knewz.com has learned.

According to NBC News, Breton, who attended the meeting, shared Trump's alleged comments at a panel discussion in Brussels on Tuesday, January 9.

“You need to understand that if Europe is under attack, we will never come to help you and to support you,” Breton quoted Trump as saying.

“By the way, NATO is dead, and we will leave, we will quit NATO,” Trump also said, according to Breton.



Thierry Breton, the European Union's commissioner for internal market, made the allegations against former President Donald Trump. By: MEGA© Knewz (CA)

“And by the way, you owe me $400 billion, because you didn’t pay, you Germans, what you had to pay for defense,” Breton quoted Trump as saying.

While Trump was in office, he challenged other countries in NATO, saying that the United States should not have to shoulder so much of the funding. He often said that NATO countries needed to pay their fair share in order to have protection from the United States.

When NBC News asked for von der Leyen's recollection of the Trump allegations, a spokesperson for the European Union essentially declined to comment.



Former President Donald Trump allegedly made the comments to European Union President Ursula von der Leyen. By: MEGA© Knewz (CA)

“Out of principle the President NEVER discloses what her interlocutors have told her during closed door meetings. So, we are not going to comment either way,” the spokesperson said in an email.

On Wednesday night, Trump joined Fox News for a town hall discussion. The former president, who has a large lead in the Republican primary, appeared calm.

Trump, who often is highly critical of media, appeared to be pleased with the way the town hall went.


Former United States President Donald Trump enters the courtroom in his civil fraud trial at State Supreme Court on Thursday, January 11, 2023, in New York City. By: MEGA© Knewz (CA)

"The Town Hall last night received wonderful reviews. Thank you to Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum for doing a really professional job," the former president wrote on Truth Social.

Meanwhile, GOP presidential hopefuls Nikki Haley, the former ambassador to the United Nations, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis traded vicious jabs in the final Republican debate before the Iowa Caucuses.

Last week, President Joe Biden gave a speech in connection to the January 6 insurrection that essentially served as the official launch of his campaign to get re-elected in November. He was highly critical of his likely 2024 opponent.



The European Union has 27 members. By: Unsplash/Guillaume Perigees© Knewz (CA)

According to NBC News, a spokesman for Biden's campaign condemned Trump, an America-first boaster, regarding the European Union report.

“The idea that he would abandon our allies if he doesn’t get his way underscores what we already know to be true about Donald Trump: The only person he cares about is himself," the spokesman said.

According to some of the most recent polling, there is not much separation between Trump and Biden.

Polls by YouGov and Ipsos both had the candidates even, according to projectsfivethirtyeight.com. However, a poll by Morning Consult from January 7 had Biden leading by one point.

An earlier poll by TIPP Insights had Trump leading by three points.

Donald Trump claims credit for ‘miracle’ of overturning right to abortion

Story by David Smith in Washington • THE GUARDIAN
Photograph: Carolyn Kaster/AP© Photograph: Carolyn Kaster/AP

Donald Trump, the former US president, boasted about the “miracle” of ending the constitutional right to abortion but warned that Republicans who tout extreme bans are being “decimated” in elections.

Trump was put on the spot on Wednesday during a Fox News town hall in Des Moines, Iowa, his latest attempt at counter-programming a Republican debate that was being shown on CNN at the same time.

A female voter, undecided between Trump and rival Ron DeSantis, raised concerns over the Republican frontrunner’s recent attempts to back away from abortion restrictions unpopular in elections and opinion polls.

She said: “I’ve been vocal in celebrating with you all of your pro-life victories from the past but then in this campaign you’ve also blamed pro-lifers for some of the GOP losses around the country and you’ve called heartbeat laws like Iowa’s terrible.”

The voter added: “I’d just like some clarity on this because it’s such an important question to me. I’d like for you to reassure me that you can protect all life, every person’s right to life without compromise.”

Trump, sitting with co-hosts Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, sought to shore up his conservative credentials by taking credit for the 2022 overturning of Roe v Wade, the ruling that guaranteed the right to abortion nationwide, by a supreme court with three Trump-appointed justices.



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“You wouldn’t be asking that question, even talking about the issue, because for 54 years they were trying to get Roe v Wade terminated and I did it and I’m proud to have done it,” he said. “Nobody else was going to get that done but me and we did it and we did something that was a miracle.”

But as he has in recent campaign rallies, Trump also struck a note of caution. “Now I happen to be for the exceptions, like Ronald Reagan, with the life of the mother, rape, incest. I just have to be there, I feel. I think probably 78% or so, a poll, about 78%. It was Ronald Reagan. He was for it. I was for it.

“But I will say this: you have to win elections. Otherwise you’re going to be back where you were, and you can’t let that ever happen again. You’ve got to win elections.”

Trump suggested that Florida governor DeSantis’s decision to sign a six-week abortion ban could be one of the reasons for his drop in the polls ahead of Monday’s first presidential nomination contest in Iowa.

“A lot of people say, if you talk five or six weeks, a lot of women don’t know if they’re pregnant in five or six weeks,” he said. “I want to get something where people are happy. You know, this has been tearing our country apart for 50 years. Nobody’s been able to do anything.”

Trump went on to claim that Democrats were “the radicals” and repeated his false claim that they are willing to kill babies in the eighth or ninth month or pregnancy or even after birth.

The exchange illustrated how Trump, who has a long history of veering between “pro-choice” and “pro-life” positions, is attempting to walk a fine line between his conservative base and electoral expediency.

But his embrace of the demise of Roe v Wade handed Democrats more ammunition. Joe Biden’s X account released a video clip of Trump’s answer, commenting: “Just like he said: he did it.”

The 77-year-old also used the town hall to claim that he was “not going to be a dictator” and promise “the largest deportation effort in the history of our country”. He also revealed that he had decided the identity of his running mate.

Asked who he would pick as potential vice-president, Trump replied: “Well, I can’t tell you that, really. I mean, I know who it’s going to be but –”

Baier entreated: “Give us a hint.”

But Trump offered only: “We’ll do another show some time.”

Trump Says We Should Have Negotiated Around the Civil War. Here’s What Would Have Happened.

Composite image. Donald Trump’s official portrait and Abe Lincoln, photo by Alexander Gardner.© provided by RawStory

Former President Donald Trump raised hackles from historians recently when he insisted that he could have negotiated a solution that would have prevented the American Civil War.

This led historian Joshua Zeitz to conduct a thought experiment: What if Trump or someone like him had been president instead of Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War?

In an essay in Politico, Zeitz posited that "in all likelihood, chattel slavery in North America would have persisted, even grown, well into the 20th century" had Trump been president in the 1860s.

According to Zeitz, the notion that slavery would have died out on its own was likely wishful thinking given how much Southern states were dedicated to expanding it out into new territories.

READ MORE: Listen: Trump’s top Senate allies try – and fail – to defend his immunity claim

Additionally, Zeitz points out, Lincoln did try to negotiate a more gradual end to slavery, only to be slapped away by Southern plantation owners.

"The only plausible program for gradual abolition was compensated emancipation, a scheme by which the government would pay slaveowners to emancipate their enslaved workers," he argues. "White Southerners bitterly resisted that option."

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On top of all that, writes Zeitz, the aftermath of the American Civil War resulted in policies that led to industrialization that turned America into an economic powerhouse.

"The world Donald Trump envisioned is both easy and awful to imagine: a world in which Lincoln and his cabinet agreed to the Crittenden compromise, slavery persisted into the 20th century — ending, perhaps, in violent revolution, or under global pressure — and the nation’s economic and political trajectory took a markedly different course," he contends. "The U.S. would have remained an economic powerhouse, most likely, but much of the nation’s industrial development and urbanization would have been delayed by decades."

Read the whole essay here.

U$A

DEI efforts are under siege. Here’s what experts say is at stake

Story by By Nicquel Terry Ellis and Catherine Thorbecke, CNN  • 

When the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police set off a wave of racial unrest across the country in 2020, corporate America responded swiftly with renewed and public commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).

Major companies created new DEI positions or expanded teams dedicated to DEI and the phrase became a buzzword across the business landscape. Many corporate leaders pledged to hire more people of color, removed branding perceived to be racist and invested in historically Black colleges

At the time, the efforts were largely met with public support, amid a so-called “racial reckoning” that laid bare a slew of systemic inequities in American society, including the workplace.

But nearly four years later, the very public ousting of Harvard’s first Black woman president earlier this week has led to a new firestorm of debate about DEI efforts in corporate America and beyond.

While Claudine Gay’s resignation from Harvard was linked to a plagiarism scandal and ongoing controversy over a congressional hearing on antisemitism last month, her departure inspired some critics to take aim at what they perceive as a broader failing of DEI efforts.

Among the most vocal of these critics pushing back against DEI is billionaire investor Bill Ackman, who in the wake of Gay’s departure posted a 4,000-word opus on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that blasted DEI as “inherently a racist and illegal movement in its implementation even if it purports to work on behalf of the so-called oppressed.”

Ackman’s lengthy thesis was later retweeted by billionaire Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who now owns the social media platform.

“DEI is just another word for racism. Shame on anyone who uses it,” Musk wrote in his post sharing Ackman’s screed on Wednesday. In a follow-up post, the world’s wealthiest person doubled down, adding, “DEI, because it discriminates on the basis of race, gender and many other factors, is not merely immoral, it is also illegal.”

As some of the most powerful business leaders in America level some of the loudest attacks yet against DEI, experts in the field insist that the term is widely misunderstood and unfairly weaponized by critics. They tell CNN DEI was created to build workplaces that more broadly reflect all of America and to foster safer, more inclusive work environments for people of all races, genders, sexual orientations and religious identities.

And they argue that the people fighting these efforts now risk alienating both employees and customers.

When DEI disappears

DEI initiatives in corporate America have long faced skepticism from both sides of the political aisle – with some voices on the left blasting these efforts as corporate window dressing that focuses more on publicity than enacting real change for people of color in the workplace.

Others on the right, meanwhile, have taken aim at these efforts, which they say unfairly disadvantage White workers.

Daniel Oppong, founder of The Courage Collective, a consultancy that advises companies on DEI, said the backlash toward DEI is unsurprising because other efforts to advance social justice in the US have historically been met with resistance.

What’s getting lost in the conversation, Oppong said, is the reason DEI was introduced to corporate America in the first place – because marginalized communities did not always have equal opportunities for jobs or feel a sense of belonging in corporate settings.

“That is the genesis of why some of these programs exist,” he said. “It was an attempt to try to create workplaces where more or all people can thrive.”

Shaun Harper, a USC professor and founder and executive director of the USC Race and Equity Center, said there are many misconceptions about DEI. It wasn’t, as some critics have claimed, created to exclude White people or White men from the workforce, he said.

Harper said many companies with DEI offices offer training that teaches employees how to unlearn stereotypes against certain groups, respect each other’s differences, and hire people of color without overlooking them because of personal bias.

“It’s not all divisive,” he said. “People can learn the skills that are needed to deliver on diversity and inclusion values.”

A pendulum swing

After a DEI hiring spree that began in late 2020, data suggests some businesses are now in fact reversing course on their efforts.

The most recent data on hiring from the job site Indeed shared with CNN Friday illustrates a pendulum swing in postings for DEI-related roles on the site.

After a more than 29% uptick in job postings with DEI in the title or description between November 2020 and November 2021, the data shows a more than 23% decline in the amount of job postings with “DEI” in the title or description between November 2022 and November 2023.

Corporate leaders who dismantle DEI programs risk creating a hostile work environment, Harper said.

“Leaders who are pulling the plug on DEI are doing so without understanding the long-term exposure to harm,” he said. “Doing away with DEI makes companies more – not less – susceptible to lawsuits, to costly levels of turnover among employees, reputational harm not only among employees but also among customers and clients and prospective partners who will refuse to work with a place because it’s such a mess.”

Separate data from the Pew Research Center published last May indicates deep divides in Americans’ attitudes towards DEI at work based on demographic and political lines.

While the Pew data finds that a majority of employed American adults (56%) say focusing on increasing DEI at work is a good thing, it also notes that a relatively small share of workers place a lot of importance on diversity at their workplace. Only about three in 10 respondents say it is extremely or very important to them to work somewhere with a mix of employees of different races and ethnicities or ages, according to Pew.

Moreover, the survey found 78% of Democratic and Democratic-leaning workers say focusing on DEI at work is a good thing, compared with just 30% of Republican and Republican-leaning workers.

The data also shows American workers have disparate views on how much attention their employers are paying to DEI. About half of the workers (54%) surveyed by Pew said their company or organization pays the right amount of attention to increasing DEI, while 14% say their employer pays too much attention and 15% say their employees pay too little attention.

The political and cultural divide was also reflected in the responses to posts from Ackman and Musk. Mark Cuban, billionaire businessman and minority owner of the Dallas Mavericks, pushed back on Musk’s posts in a thread defending DEI as good for businesses and their workers.

“The loss of DEI-Phobic companies is my gain,” Cuban wrote. “Having a workforce that is diverse and representative of your stakeholders is good for business.”

Cuban is far from alone. Hundreds of C-suite executives in the United States said their organizations remained committed or increased diversity, equity and inclusion efforts since 2022, according to a survey published this month by the employment law firm Littler.

More than half of the executives who answered the survey agreed that backlash toward corporate DEI efforts has increased since the Supreme Court overturned affirmative action in June, but 69% said it has not caused their organization to change its approach to DEI efforts.

Still, Harper said the recent backlash against DEI, along with the exodus of people in DEI roles at major companies in the last two years, demonstrates that many diversity commitments in 2020 were short-lived.

“Many companies jumped on the bandwagon at the moment because it was fashionable and en vogue to do so,” Harper said.

Oppong said he feels companies are experiencing “diversity fatigue” because their 2020 initiatives were not sustainable.

“Part of the challenge is that a lot of folks in chief DEI office roles, they were not set up for success in the first place,” he said, adding that colleagues in the field have told him they’ve had to fight for funding for their teams.

“That just shows the surface level investment in the work.”

Still, Oppong said, as the US becomes more diverse, so are the consumers for many major companies.

“The consequence is you’re not going to effectively serve the shifting demographics of the (country) and it reduces your customer base,” he said.

CNN’s Nicole Chavez contributed to this report.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com

Thousands protest in Slovakia against a government plan to amend the penal code

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) — Thousands of people took to the streets of major cities in Slovakia on Thursday to renew their protests against plans by the new government of populist Prime Minister Robert Fico to amend the country’s penal code.

The changes proposed by the three-party coalition government include abolishing the special prosecutors’ office, which handles serious crimes such as graft, organized crime and extremism.

Those cases would be taken over by prosecutors in regional offices, which haven’t dealt with such crimes for 20 years.

About 20,000 protesters condemned the plan at a central square in Bratislava, according to police cited by local media.

Michal Šimečka, head of the liberal Progressive Slovakia, the strongest opposition party, was one of them.

"You're making the same mistake as any other unsuccessful dictator," Šimečka said in a message to Fico.

“You underestimate the desire of people for freedom and justice,” Šimečka said.

“Mafia, mafia,” and “We've had enough of Fico," the crowd repeatedly chanted.

The legislation approved by Fico’s government needs parliamentary and presidential approval. The three-party coalition has a majority to override an expected veto by President Zuzuana Čaputová.

Čaputová said she was also willing to use a constitutional challenge to the legislation. It’s unclear how the Constitutional Court might rule.

Related video: Tensions in Serbia: Students Set Up Blockade in Capital Belgrade Alleging Electoral Fraud | N18V (News18)

Fico returned to power for the fourth time after his scandal-tainted leftist party won Slovakia’s Sept. 30 parliamentary election on a pro-Russia and anti-American platform.

His critics worry that his return could lead Slovakia to abandon its pro-Western course and instead follow the direction of Hungary under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

Since Fico’s government came to power, some elite investigators and police officials who deal with top corruption cases have been dismissed or furloughed. The planned changes in the legal system also include a reduction in punishments for corruption.

Under the previous government, which came to power in 2020 after campaigning on an anti-corruption ticket, dozens of senior officials, police officers, judges, prosecutors, politicians and businesspeople linked to Fico’s party have been charged and convicted of corruption and other crimes.

From the first relatively small protest of several hundred on Dec. 7 in Bratislava, the anti-government rallies have spread to 19 towns and cities.

The Associated Press

UK

'The Post Office Horizon scandal needs making right but this is not the way'

Is the government changing the rules for their own convenience?

 (Credits: Kent Online / SWNS)© Provided by Metro

The prime minister has said new legislation will be introduced so people wrongly convicted in the Post Office Horizon scandal are ‘swiftly exonerated and compensated’.

There’s no denying that readers want to see the victims of the Horizon scandal receive the justice they deserve. But, as one reader in today’s MetroTalk points out, doesn’t clearing their names via an act of parliament go against the separation of powers?

Meanwhile, if young people can be influenced in favour of the EU, were older voters influenced towards voting Brexit?

Read on to see what readers think about this issue, among others.

Is the government interfering with how justice is carried out?

The decision to use an act of parliament to clear the names and restore the reputations of the sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses wrongly convicted in the Horizon scandal is not the way to go (Metro, Thu).

The executive and the judiciary are constitutionally separated for good reason – to ensure there is no political interference in how justice is carried out.

This must not change, especially not for the political convenience of people who previously showed no interest in such a major miscarriage of justice. George, via email


Maybe an independent vetting of cases might be in order (Credits: James Veysey/Shutterstock)© Provided by Metro

The monies paid by the sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses as they tried to make up non-existent losses reported by the faulty Horizon software went somewhere – where? Who benefited? That money needs returning to the people involved when the compensation is paid. 

Paddy Cawkwell, Doncaster

The Post Office used private prosecutions to punish the innocent sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses.

The chief advantage being that control of cases would be virtually 100 per cent in the Post Office’s favour, mainly because opposition to the PO and its almost bottomless budget would be beyond most defendants’ budget. And remember, some of them had already been bankrupted.

Private prosecutions also suited the company’s machinations very well. They could plea bargain, for instance and easily apply so-called ‘gagging orders’.

Those calling for the PO to be denied future private prosecutions don’t seem to realise they are not just a prerogative of big organisations. Anybody with a few quid can do it.

Famously, the parents of racist murder victim Stephen Lawrence launched a private prosecution against Gary Dobson, Luke Knight and Neil Acourt. The rules are different to those conducted by the Crown Prosecution Service, not least because the burden of proof is generally less.


What is actually required is for businesses to be given no more credibility than individuals.

Maybe an independent vetting of cases might be in order. But it has to be borne in mind that ‘weak’ cases can be perfectly right and proper and should get their day in court.

In this case, it seems the juries were unaware that there was an unprecedented increase in such prosecutions and took an attitude of thinking the PO could not be wrong or the Horizon system be faulty.

 Col Blake, Ealing

How to make sure everyone gets the justice they deserve

Former Post Office sub-postmasters outside the High Court (Picture: Peter MacDiarmid/Shutterstock)© Provided by Metro

Nearly all sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses made good on all sorts of discrepancies with their own money.

The only way to get justice for everyone affected is for every Horizon transaction correction that has ever come through and been settled to cash or cheque between 1999 and 2015 to be paid back
to the relevant sub-postmaster and sub-postmistress.

It seems impossible for the Post Office to prove what was a glitch and what was not while it used the faulty Horizon system. 

Cllr Alastair Redman, Kintyre And The Islands Ward, Former Sub Postmaster For 12 Years On The Island Of Islay

Are we likely to find out how negligent Lib Dem Leader Ed Davey was in not pursuing the Post Office Scandal when he was postal minister?

I think several people could have made a big difference to the outcome had they bothered to stir things up. The evidence was there for the discovering. Molly Neville, Sheffield

I knew that the Post Office senior management culture was malign but even I didn’t imagine that they had in place a system to pay bonuses to the investigators for every internal conviction. 

Robert Boston, Kingshill

Tons of trash clogs a river in Bosnia. It's a seasonal problem that activists want an end to

 Provided by The Canadian Press

VISEGRAD, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — With predictable seasonality, tons of garbage floats down a river at least twice a year and ends up near the eastern Bosnian town of Visegrad behind a barrier installed by a local hydroelectric plant.

An environmental activist watched as workers removed trash from the river.

“New year, new problems or rather old problems with new garbage floating our way,” Dejan Furtula of the environmental group Eko Centar Visegrad said Wednesday.

Garbage from unauthorized waste dumps dotting the Western Balkans is carried year-round by the Drina River and its tributaries in Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro toward Visegrad, and further on to the Danube River, into which the Drina eventually flows.

But during the wet weather of winter and early spring the waterways in the region swell and sweep up such a huge amount of trash from dozens of illegal landfills along their banks that it can't escape the hold of the river fencing installed by the Bosnian hydroelectric plant a few kilometers upstream from its dam near Visegrad.

As the result, at least twice a year and for a few weeks, the fencing turns into the outer edge of a floating accumulation of plastic bottles, rusty barrels, used tires, household appliances, driftwood, dead animals and other waste, putting into plain sight the failure of regional authorities to adopt and enforce adequate environmental quality standards.

Related video: Floating waste dump in Bosnia threatens health, tourism (Reuters

“Once again (since late December), between five and six thousand cubic meters of mixed waste amassed here and the hydroelectric plant workers have been clearing it away,” Furtula said. “Last year, the clearing activities lasted for 11 months, which is to say that the waste keeps coming throughout the year.”\

The Drina River runs 346 kilometers (215 miles) from the mountains of northwestern Montenegro through Serbia and Bosnia. The Drina and some of its tributaries are known for their emerald color and breathtaking scenery, and a section along the border between Bosnia and Serbia in particular is popular with river rafters.

However, the regular, headline-grabbing reemergence of the floating waste near Visegrad makes marketing the town as an outdoor tourism destination a very difficult job.

“The ghastly sight that greets Visegrad visitors at the entrance to the town is a problem that we cannot solve,” said Olivera Todorovic from the Visegrad Tourism Board.

“Judging by what we hear from tourists, that ugly and sometimes unpleasantly smelling site discourages many visitors from coming to Visegrad,” she added.

Furtula agreed, but argued that problem was much deeper.

Each year, an estimated 10,000 cubic meters of waste is removed from the section of the Drina near Visegrad and taken to the city’s municipal landfill to be burned. The smoke and leachate from the “always burning” landfill are an obvious health hazard, Furtula said.

In March, Eko Centar Visegrad will start taking water samples from the Drina and testing them for pollutants at several locations, including in the vicinity of the city’s municipal landfill.

“Through air, soil and water, all the released toxins (from the landfill) return to the Drina River and I expect its pollution levels to be really, really high,” Furtula said.

Decades after the devastating 1990s wars that accompanied the breakup of Yugoslavia, the Balkans lag behind the rest of Europe both economically and with regard to environmental protection.

In addition to river pollution, many countries in the Western Balkans have other environmental woes. One of the most pressing is the extremely high level of air pollution affecting a number of cities in the region.

Western Balkans countries have made little progress in building effective, environmentally sound trash disposal systems despite seeking membership in the European Union and adopting some of the 27-member bloc's laws and regulations.

The environmental problem facing Visegrad is “long term and solving it will be neither easy nor cheap,” Todorovic said. “But we must work on solving it.”

Furtula agreed that there were no quick and simple solutions, but said some measures could be easily taken to alleviate the problem.

“All the municipalities upstream from Visegrad should install trash barriers like the one here and establish their own waste collection teams in order to expedite garbage removal, make it more efficient and also to prevent garbage from sinking to the bottom of the river,” he said.

Eldar Emric, The Associated Press

Liberal MP, Tory offside with federal stance on Bangladesh election fairness

© Provided by The Canadian Press

OTTAWA — A Liberal MP and a Conservative senator are offside with the Trudeau government's position on Bangladesh's recent election.

As expected, on Jan. 7 Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina won her fifth term to lead the South Asian nation.

Officials in Bangladesh invited Ottawa MP Chandra Arya and Sen. Victor Oh to observe the vote which the main opposition party boycotted, arguing the state would not hold a free election.

Development experts have praised Hasina's 15 years in office for maintaining relative stability and pulling citizens out of poverty. Yet Freedom House, a Washington, D.C.-based calls the country "party free," citing "sustained harassment" of opposition politicians, critical media and civil-society groups.

At a press conference in Dhaka the day of the election, both Arya and Oh said it was a credible vote, while acknowledging the boycott and some acts of violence.

"We would like to congratulate the Bangladesh election commission for conducting a very successful, free and fair election," Arya said, adding that they did not witness state agents preventing people from being able to vote.

Sen. Oh added "I would like to commend the election commission of Bangladesh; they are doing a great job (in holding) a fair and free and successful election."

But the next day Canada's high commission in Bangladesh posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that Ottawa had not sent any official election observers.

"Any individual who identifies as a Canadian observer is acting independently. Their views have not been endorsed by the Government of Canada."

Global Affairs Canada later released its own statement, saying the vote was not fair.

"Canada expresses its disappointment that this electoral process has fallen short of the principles of democracy and freedom upon which Bangladesh was founded, and calls on the relevant authorities to work transparently with all parties to move forward towards democracy, respect of human rights and fundamental freedoms," the statement reads.

"Fair elections with a viable opposition, independent democratic institutions and freedom of the press are critical to ensuring a strong and healthy democracy."

Reached by phone Thursday, Arya insisted he was only speaking to what he saw the day of the vote, such as whether rigging occurred.

"My thing is not to discuss the entire political process of a particular country; that was not my mandate," he said.

Arya said he met with Canada's high commissioner to Bangladesh during his visit. But he would not say whether he agrees with Global Affairs Canada's stance on the entire election leading up to ballots being cast.

"My thing was limited to seeing whether the election was held in a free and fair manner," he said. "They're going much broader."

Arya said the Bangladesh election commission invited him because of his work in the parliamentary friendship group for both countries, and he said the commission paid for his travel and accommodation.

He met with Hasina to personally congratulate her on the re-election.

"The people of Bangladesh have opted for the stability and certainty her regime has provided during the last many years," he wrote on X. 

Arya described Canada's statement as the type of frank criticism that friends would offer to each other. "I think this is small, in the long-term relationship between Canada and Bangladesh," he said.

University of Ottawa professor Nipa Banerjee, who has extensively researched Bangladesh, says the country is not a full democracy, but it would be "a one-sided picture" to ignore the country's success in pulling people out of poverty much faster than the rest of South Asia.

She said the country has avoided the intense armed conflict seen in much of the region, to the praise of religious minorities, the business sector and other Asian countries. Though Banerjee said corruption and street violence still occur. 

"We can't deny that Bangladesh has created a supermodel for economic growth and development," she said. "I would rather not throw away the baby with the bathwater."

Banerjee said voter turnout on Jan. 7, officially pegged at 41.8 per cent, is low for a region where people tend to be politically conscious. She said this shows democracy in Bangladesh has not been progressing as much as its economic growth, though she says this is hard to assess with the opposition's boycott of the vote.

"The breakdown of the democracy is something that is preventable," said Banerjee, who suggested Canada could offer more support in building up the country's civil sector.

Banerjee added that Bangladesh does a poor job displaying its achievements on the world stage. She said Hasina instead focuses interviews and speeches to bemoan the 1975 assassination of her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, while he was president of the country. She has repeatedly asked Canada to extradite a man convicted in absentia for her father's murder.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 11, 2024.

Dylan Robertson, The Canadian Press

Politicians have 'no role' in police decisions: Freeland on Rebel News arrest

© Provided by The Canadian Press

OTTAWA — Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said Thursday she would not weigh in on the recent arrest of a Rebel News personality because politicians have no say in the operational decisions made by police.

David Menzies, a commentator for the online site, was arrested Monday by an RCMP officer providing security for Freeland while Menzies was trying to ask the minister questions outside an event in Richmond Hill, Ont.

A Rebel News video shows Menzies being told he was arrested for assault because he pushed into an officer. In the video, Menzies can be heard saying that the officer was the one who bumped into him.

York Regional Police said Menzies was released unconditionally after it was determined there was no credible security threat. The RCMP said it is "looking into the incident" and the actions of everyone involved.

On Thursday, Freeland told reporters that Canada is a rule of law country and a democracy.

"Operational decisions about law enforcement are taken by the police of jurisdiction," she said at a news conference in Toronto.

"Quite appropriately, political elected officials have no role in the taking of those decisions and that's why I don't have any further comment."

Menzies said in an interview that he believes he was arrested because the Liberals do not like his outlet or its questions.

"It was a very sad state of affairs and it deserves the global and viral coverage that it is getting," he said.

Menzies has been arrested multiple times in interactions with both Liberal and Conservative politicians.

That includes a 2019 arrest in Whitby, Ont., during a campaign stop by former Conservative leader Andrew Scheer, who is now Opposition House leader. Menzies was arrested after multiple members of Scheer's staff repeatedly asked him to leave and told him he was not welcome to attend the event.

At the time, Scheer told reporters that it was the Conservative party's policy to not give interviews to Rebel News, saying his event was for accredited media only. 

In July 2021 in Thornhill, Ont., Menzies was arrested at an event for Melissa Lantsman, who is now deputy leader of the Conservative party. She was the nominated Conservative candidate at the time.

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Lantsman said in a press release following that episode that Menzies was asking her "homophobic" questions that related to her sexual orientation. She ultimately left the event because she felt unsafe, she said.

Rebel News said at the time that Menzies had not made any homophobic remarks and that he was arrested because of the questions he was asking about her work.

In most of those cases, Rebel News crowdfunded following the arrests for money to "save David Menzies."

But Menzies said he did not set out to get arrested.

Menzies said his most recent arrest got the most attention because of social media.

"It was the biggest story in the world for a few hours at least," he said.

Elon Musk, owner of social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, weighed in online, as did English personality Russell Brand who commented on the situation as a man in an "adorable fedora" being "slammed" by police.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre also shared news of the arrest on his X account.

"This is the state of freedom of the press. In Canada. In 2024. After 8 years of Trudeau," he posted above the video. In a followup post, Poilievre claimed Menzies was arrested for questioning a Liberal minister. 

Poilievre did not respond to a request for comment. Neither did Lantsman or Scheer. 

In Canada, journalistic speech is protected under Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms and there are very few exemptions, such a libel and defamation, that limit what journalists can say and write.

Marilyn Gladu, the Conservative critic for civil liberties, pushed to have the arrest studied at the House of Commons heritage committee. It failed to get support from other parties. 

Menzies said he does not think it's hypocritical for the Conservatives to come to his defence despite him being arrested at their past events. 

"This wasn't Pierre Poilievre shutting down the process of journalism. So until he does it, I can't complain about him or condemn him," Menzies said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 11, 2024. 

Mickey Djuric, The Canadian Press

Rebel News personality arrested while trying to question Chrystia Freeland