Will Justin Trudeau unveil a four-day work week in Canada?

Author of the article:Bianca Bharti

1930 IWW.ORG

The idea of the long-desired four-day work week has gained more attention as Canadians near the end of Month 3 in coronavirus lockdown, but don’t expect three-day weekends just yet, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Wednesday.

“Right now we’re very much focused on getting through this particular crisis, and we’ll have plenty of time to talk about particularly creative ideas on moving forward, but I’m not going to speculate on what any of them might be,” he said in a response to a question from a CityNews reporter.

Will Justin Trudeau unveil a four-day work week in Canada?

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern floated the idea of a four-day work week in a Facebook live video a week ago.

Ardern flagged New Zealand’s tourism sector, which employs 15 per cent of the population and contributes about $13.8 billion to the country’s gross domestic product, as being one part of the economy that could benefit from people having long weekends.


Similarly, in Canada tourism plays an important role in the economy, where it’s valued at $102 billion a year. Pre-COVID-19, it was the country’s fifth-largest sector, outpacing telecommunications and mining, and employing 1.8 million Canadians.

“I hear lots of people suggesting we should have a four-day week. Ultimately that really sits between employers and employees, but as I’ve said, there’s lots of things we’ve learned about COVID and just that flexibility of people working from home, the productivity that can be driven out of it,” Ardern said.

“Really encourage people to think about, if they’re an employer and in a position to do so, to think about whether or not that is something that would work for their workplace because it certainly would help tourism all around the country.”

The status quo work week of Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., roughly dates back to the Industrial Revolution and the Ford Motor assembly line of the early 1900s.

In June 2018, nearly 70 per cent of Canadians said they would prefer working 10-hour days for four days a week, rather than eight-hour days, five days a week, according to an Angus Reid poll.

BETTER YET 

1930 IWW.ORG

The House of Commons, in 2016, contemplated a four-day work week for MPs to better manage their workloads, CBC reported, though it never came to fruition.

With files from Sharon Lindores.

HEY ALBERTA 

KENNEY SAYS 

GET YER ASS BACK TO WORK 

Data on the government of Alberta’s website shows the average age of death due to COVID-19 is 83.
https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/covid-19-preschools-allowed-to-re-open-june-1/wcm/f04c51e6-6d27-40f6-b752-a0cee93fef8f/

Braid: Kenney begins to normalize COVID-19 as a risk mainly to the elderly, almost zero danger to the young

Author of the article:Don Braid • Calgary Herald

The UCP isn’t exactly trying to underplay the COVID-19 threat. No government in Canada has worked harder to contain the disease, and no province has been as successful.

But still, there is a powerful urge to get back to regular life, with COVID-19 relegated to a seniors-only corner.

In a legislature debate on the pandemic Wednesday, Premier Jason Kenney stressed that the disease has a low mortality rate among young people, and a high rate for those over 80.

“The average age of death from COVID in Alberta is 83, and I’ll remind the house that the average life expectancy in the province is 82,” he said.

I’m not sure what to make of that, but it suggests that if you make it to 83 before dying of COVID-19 you’ve already beaten the odds, so, congratulations.

Kenney went on about the age split:

“In Canada, 95 per cent of fatalities from COVID are from those over the age of 60, 80 per cent are in care facilities, and the risk of death from COVID for people under 65 is 0.006 per cent.

“What we are learning is that younger people, although not completely immune, have a rate of mortality related to COVID that is no higher than their general mortality rate from other illnesses.

“For most Albertans, the risk of death from other pathogens, accidents and traffic fatalities is actually higher than it is for COVID.”

All this is true, if cold-blooded. The general outline of COVID-19’s impact on age groups is well known.

The question is why Kenney described the age split so vividly in the only legislature debate on the pandemic since April 1.

And here’s why.

Kenney said: “We cannot continue indefinitely to impair the social and economic as well as the mental health and physiological health of the broader population for potentially a year for an influenza that does not generally threaten life apart from the most elderly, the immunocompromised and those with co-morbidities.”

He added that while there will be more outbreaks, hospitalizations and deaths, “I challenge our public health experts and our officials to ensure that our policy response is predicated on protecting the most vulnerable in the strongest and most discrete ways possible.”

Rather surprisingly, that doesn’t appear to include homeless people, despite early fears that they would be devastated.

“One thing I think we’re learning epidemiologically is that that population has a very high level of immune resistance, of immunity, and resilience against an influenza of this nature,” Kenney said.

Here’s the crux — the whole point the premier had been leading up to.

“Perhaps the most important strategy as we move forward is building a wall of defence around the most vulnerable, seniors in particular.”

Watching all this, and then reading the transcripts, you get a sense of a society soon back to something very close to pre-COVID normal, apart from measures in care centres and for older people in general.

Kenney does not propose to drop testing, screening and other protections for the larger population. In fact, he wants them increased.

But NDP Leader Rachel Notley, responding to Kenney, thought the premier glossed over the threat of a second wave of infection that puts the whole population at risk.

Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley in Edmonton Thursday Oct. 24, 2019. DAVID BLOOM/Postmedia

Now is “not the time to rest easy or let our guard down,” she said.

“We must, if we are cautious and prudent, actually see the time we are in as the eye of the hurricane, and we must use this time wisely to prepare for what most scientists tell us will be a second wave in the fall.”

Notley made strong arguments for improving protocols in care centres, meat-packing plants and other places prone to infection.

In seniors residences, she said, “the issue is that when confronted with these challenges, the government didn’t move faster when it mattered most.”
She has a point there, but many other things also matter to Kenney — including the prospect of a monstrous seven per cent drop in Alberta GDP this year.

Increasingly, he refers to the disease as “influenza,” although most health experts put it in a unique category of severity and contagion.

The march is on to normalize COVID-19 as an oldster thing. It was inevitable.

Luckily, Alberta does not have a government that, like some others, would abandon the elderly to miserable death. The promise of help is genuine.

But no government has ever talked like this before, either. Give gramma a hug today.

Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald

SOUNDTRACK FOR TV COVERAGE OF PROTESTS OUTSIDE PRECINCT 3 IN MINNEAPOLIS MINNESOTA



The 7:34’: Coverage Of Riots And Protests In Minneapolis
Fires, riots, looting.. we’re reporting on the chaos and destruction in Minneapolis. Jason DeRusha reports (5:58). WCCO 4 News - May 28, 2020

https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/video/4568300-the-734-coverage-of-riots-and-protests-in-minneapolis/

Rage-filled protests erupt in Minneapolis after video circulates of racially charged killing by police

Protesters are shot with pepper spray as they confront police outside the Third Police Precinct on May 27, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. STEPHEN MATUREN/GETTY 

Protesters clashed with riot police firing tear gas for a second night in Minneapolis on Wednesday in an outpouring of rage over the death of a black man seen in a widely circulated video gasping for breath as a white officer knelt on his neck.

The video, taken by an onlooker to Monday night’s fatal encounter between police and George Floyd, 46, showed him lying face down and handcuffed, groaning for help and repeatedly saying, “please, I can’t breathe,” before growing motionless.

The second day of demonstrations, accompanied by looting and vandalism, began hours after Mayor Jacob Frey urged prosecutors to file criminal charges against the white policeman shown pinning Floyd to the street.

Protesters disperse as they clash with police during a demonstration over the killing of George Floyd by a policeman outside the Third Police Precinct on May 27, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. KEREM YUCEL / AFP

Floyd, who was unarmed and reportedly suspected of trying to pass counterfeit bills at a corner eatery, was taken by ambulance from the scene of his arrest and pronounced dead the same night at a hospital.

The policeman shown kneeling on Floyd’s neck and three fellow officers involved were dismissed from the police department on Tuesday as the FBI opened an investigation.

Hundreds of protesters, many with faces covered, thronged streets around the Third Precinct police station late on Wednesday, about half a mile from where Floyd had been arrested, chanting, “No justice, no peace” and “I can’t breathe.”

The crowd grew to thousands as night fell and the protest turned into a standoff outside the station, where police in riot gear formed barricade lines while protesters taunted them from behind makeshift barricades of their own.

A car burns near the Third Police Precinct on May 27, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. STEPHEN MATUREN/GETTY IMAGES

Police, some taking positions on rooftops, used tear gas, plastic bullets and concussion grenades to keep the crowds at bay. Protesters pelted police with rocks and other projectiles. Some threw tear gas canisters back at the officers.

Television news images from a helicopter over the area showed dozens of people looting a Target store, running out with clothing and shopping carts full of merchandise.

Fires erupted after dark at several businesses, including an auto parts store. Eyewitnesses said the blazes appeared to be the work of arsonists. Media said a smaller, peaceful protest was held outside the home of one of the police officers.

Mayor Jacob Frey requested help from the state’s National Guard as local leaders pleaded for a peaceful resolution.

“Violence only begets violence. More force is only going to lead to more lives lost and more devastation,” Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., tweeted.

Outrage at Floyd’s death also triggered a rally in his name against police brutality by hundreds of people in downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday afternoon.

The murderer of #GeorgeFloyd is Derek Chauvin, who lives at 7517 17th Street North in Oakdale, Minnesota. pic.twitter.com/nO0nLtxKVm— Robert P Helms (@Gpzero57Helms) May 28, 2020

That demonstration turned violent after a crowd marched onto a nearby freeway and blocked traffic, then attacked two California Highway Patrol cruisers, smashing their windows, local media reported. One protester who clung to the hood of a patrol car fell to the pavement as it sped away, and was treated at the scene by paramedics, news footage of the incident showed.

The video of Monday’s deadly confrontation between Minneapolis police and Floyd led Frey to call on Wednesday for Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman “to charge the arresting officer in this case.”

The city identified the four officers as Derek Chauvin, Thomas Lane, Tou Thao and J Alexander Kueng. It did not say who knelt on Floyd’s neck, and gave no further information.

The local police union said the officers were cooperating with investigators and cautioned against a “rush to judgment.”

“We must review all video. We must wait for the medical examiner’s report,” the union statement said.

Protesters demonstrate against the death of George Floyd outside the 3rd Precinct Police Precinct on May 27, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. KEREM YUCEL/AFP

The county attorney’s office said it would decide how to proceed once investigators had concluded their inquiries.

The case was reminiscent of the 2014 killing of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man in New York City who died after being put in a banned police chokehold.

Garner’s dying words, “I can’t breathe,” became a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement calling attention to a wave of killings of African-Americans by police using unjustified lethal force.

Minnesota calls in National Guard to quell unrest over black man's death in police custody

Carlos Barria, Eric Miller

MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) - Minnesota’s governor activated the National Guard on Thursday to help police restore order following two days of violent protests in Minneapolis city over the death of a black man seen in graphic video footage gasping for breath as a white officer knelt on his neck.

Governor Tim Walz ordered Guard troops to assist police as local, state and federal law enforcement officials sought to ease racial tensions sparked by Monday night’s fatal arrest of George Floyd, 46, by vowing to achieve justice in the case.

Four city police officers involved in the incident, including the one shown pressing his knee into Floyd’s neck as he lay on the ground, moaning, “please, I can’t breathe,” were fired from their jobs the next day.

The Floyd case was reminiscent of the 2014 killing of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man in New York City who died after being put in a banned police chokehold as he, too, was heard to mutter, “I can’t breathe.”

His dying words became a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement that formed amid a wave of killings of African-Americans by police.

Protesters thronged Minneapolis streets for a third day on Thursday chanting “I can’t breathe,” as they rallied peacefully at the Hennepin County Government Center and marched through downtown, demanding the four officers be swiftly arrested.

“There is probable cause right now” to make those arrests, civil rights activist the Rev. Al Sharpton said as he addressed the crowd. “We’re not asking for a favor. We’re asking for what is right.”

Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr, said Floyd’s case had renewed the trauma she suffered six years ago. “This is just opening up an old wound, and pouring salt into it,” she said.

Separately, hundreds of demonstrators milled around a police station and Target discount store that were the center of running clashes Wednesday night between rock-throwing protesters and riot police firing tear gas and rubber bullets.

A car in the Target parking lot was set ablaze, and looters periodically ducked inside the vacant Target store to make off with whatever was left inside.

People gather outside the Hennepin County Government Center to protest the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, arrested by police officers in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S. May 28, 2020. REUTERS/Eric Miller

Both gatherings began with little police presence and no immediate sign of National Guard troops.

At a morning news briefing, Police Chief Medaria Arradondo apologized to Floyd’s family, conceding his department had contributed to a “deficit of hope” in Minnesota’s largest city.

‘GIVE US TIME TO DO THIS RIGHT’

Hours later, officials overseeing investigations from the U.S. Justice Department, FBI, Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and local prosecutors appealed for calm at a joint news conference, as they gathered evidence.

“Give us the time to do this right, and we will bring you justice,” County Attorney Mike Freeman told reporters. He acknowledged the policeman’s conduct depicted in the video was “horrible,” but said, “My job is to prove that he has violated a criminal statute.”

Minnesota’s U.S. attorney, Erica McDonald, pledged a “robust and meticulous investigation into the circumstances surrounding” Floyd’s arrest and death.

The federal investigation, which Attorney General William Barr had designated a “top priority,” will focus on whether the arresting officers used the “color of law” to deprive Floyd of his civil rights, a crime under U.S. law, she said.

Floyd, a Houston native known affectionately to friends as “Big Floyd” and who had worked as a nightclub security staffer, was reportedly suspected of trying to pass counterfeit money when police took him into custody.

Slideshow (20 Images)

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-minneapolis-police-investigation/minnesota-calls-in-national-guard-to-quell-unrest-over-black-mans-death-in-police-custody-idUSKBN23423Q

Wednesday’s disturbances, punctuated by looting, vandalism and arson, began hours after Mayor Jacob Frey urged local prosecutors to file criminal charges in the case.

Most protesters had been peaceful, while a smaller, core contingent engaged in unruly behavior, the police chief said.

Sympathy protests erupted on Wednesday in Los Angeles and Thursday in Denver, with hundreds of demonstrators blocking freeway traffic in both cities.

In a sign the Floyd case had garnered international attention, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet urged U.S. authorities on Thursday to deal with “entrenched and pervasive racial discrimination” in America’s criminal justice system.

The city named the four officers involved in the encounter as Derek Chauvin, Thomas Lane, Tou Thao and J Alexander Kueng. Local news media have identified Chauvin as the officer seen kneeling on Floyd’s neck.

Chauvin’s attorney, Tom Kelly, declined comment in an email to Reuters.

Police department records posted online show 18 internal affairs complaints filed against Chauvin, 16 of which were closed without discipline.

Reporting by Carlos Barria and Eric Miller in Minneapolis; Additional reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Chicago, Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles, Nathan Lane in Wilton, Connecticut and Maria Caspani in New York; Writing and additional reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles. Editing by Rosalba O'Brien, Bill Tarrant and Raju Gopalakrishnan

ANTI ASIAN RACISM AND JINGOISM

U.S. planning to cancel visas of Chinese graduate students: sources

Matt Spetalnick, Humeyra Pamuk

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is planning to cancel the visas of thousands of Chinese graduate students believed by President Donald Trump’s administration to have links with China’s military, two sources with knowledge of the matter said on Thursday.

The move, first reported by the New York Times, could impact 3,000 to 5,000 Chinese students and could be announced as early as this week, according to the sources, including a current U.S. official and another individual who was briefed on the administration’s internal discussions.

The United States and China are at loggerheads over China’s decision to go forward with national security legislation for Hong Kong that democracy activists in the city and Western countries fear could erode its freedoms and jeopardize its role as a global financial hub.


Chinese students who are in the United States will have their visas canceled and will be expelled, the source briefed on the plans said, while those already outside the United States will not be allowed to return.

The main purpose of the action is to clamp down on spying and intellectual property theft that some Chinese nationals are suspected of engaging in on U.S. university and college campuses, the source said, adding that the administration expected significant push back from those institutions because of their financial interests in Chinese student enrollment.

Some 360,000 Chinese nationals who attend U.S. schools annually generate economic activity of about $14 billion, largely from tuitions and other fees.


The decision on the visas is likely to further sour ties between the world’s top two economies - also at odds over the coronavirus pandemic and trade.

Deliberations on the visa move have been in the works for months, the sources said. While not directly related to the tensions over Hong Kong, the timing appears to be part of “an overall pressure campaign” against China that has intensified in recent months, the source familiar with discussions said.

On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Congress China had undermined Hong Kong’s autonomy so fundamentally he could not support recertifying the city’s special pre-1997 trading status established when it was a British colony.

Mexican farmworkers crammed into border tunnel despite contagion risk

Laura Gottesdiener

MEXICALI, Mexico (Reuters) - Every night, hundreds of farm workers in Mexico crowd for hours in a cramped tunnel to a border station to reach day jobs in Imperial Valley, California, with no social distancing enforced despite coronavirus cases saturating hospitals in the region.

Mexican agricultural workers queue early morning at the U.S.-Mexico border to enter Calexico, California from Mexicali, during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Mexicali, Mexico May 26, 2020. Picture taken May 26, 2020. REUTERS/Ariana Drehsler

By 2 a.m. on Tuesday, tense men and women with cloth face masks and bandanas jostled for position in a line hundreds deep through the underpass leading from the city of Mexicali to the U.S. port of entry. Vendors sold tamales. A mariachi player lightened the mood. But the only hand-washing station was broken.

The daily back and forth flow to work in the United States and sleep back in Mexico, essential to both the $2 billion Imperial Valley fruit and vegetable harvests and to thousands of families in Mexico, is a testament to the deeply entwined economies on either side of the border.

But the lack of safety measures and the late night crowds stand in contrast to a curfew imposed in Mexicali this week to try to stem the city’s fast rising contagion, as well as to six-feet (1.83 meter) distancing measures in the border station itself.

While no infections have been definitively linked to the Calexico West crossing, both the documented day laborers and U.S. border agents worry the lack of social distancing on the Mexican side and the slow processing at the port of entry put them at risk.Jose Salazar, who earns $500 to $600 harvesting melon in California six days a week, said U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) should add agents to cut the time spent in the line.

“‘La migra’ has not taken care to put on more officers, and that makes the pandemic grow,” he said, using slang for border agents.

The stifling underground tunnel, smelling of sweat and the occasional cigarette and lined with pharmacies advertising Viagra, passes underneath the border fence to a flight of crowded stairs ending at the Calexico West port of entry gate.

Eight farmworkers told Reuters they wait two to three hours each night to cross and worry they are more exposed to the virus before the port of entry than in the fields.Fearful of spending so much time in line, some nights Salazar stays with his son in El Centro, California, rather than head home, he said.

On the U.S. side of the port of entry, CBP agents impose social distancing rules. But some officers said the measures were undermined by the conditions in the tunnel.

“It’s kind of pointless for us to be six feet apart if they (the border crossers) are all crowded up first,” said one CBP agent, waiting for a test at a Calexico clinic after relatives contracted coronavirus and his son developed a fever.

The officer, who asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, told Reuters he was worried about on-the-job exposure.Mexico’s National Immigration Institute did not immediately respond to questions about lack of distancing enforcement and other sanitary measures in the tunnel.

A spokeswoman said CBP was “taking every available precaution to minimize the risk of exposure to our workforce and to members of the public.” In California, 84 CBP employees have tested positive for COVID-19, the agency said. It did not give data specifically for Calexico. Employers have asked for Calexico’s second port of entry to open at night to avoid bottlenecks.”We have continued to request that CBP increase the hours of its Calexico East Port of Entry as well so that our agricultural employees can utilize that border crossing,” said Brea Mohamed, executive director of the Imperial County Farm Bureau.

Australian court rules queen’s letters can be made public
By ROD McGUIRK

1 of 2
Historian Jenny Hocking speaks to media in Melbourne, Australia, Friday, May 29, 2020, about Australia's highest court ruling to make public letters between Queen Elizabeth II and her representative that would reveal what knowledge she had, if any, of the dismissal of an Australian government in 1975. The High Court's majority decision in Hocking's appeal overturned lower court rulings that more than 200 letters between the monarch of Britain and Australia and Governor-General Sir John Kerr before he dismissed Prime Minister Gough Whitlam's government were personal and might never be made public. (James Ross/AAP Image via AP)


CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia’s highest court ruled on Friday to make public letters between Queen Elizabeth II and her representative that would reveal what knowledge she had, if any, of the dismissal of an Australian government in 1975.

The High Court’s majority decision in historian Jenny Hocking’s appeal overturned lower court rulings that more than 200 letters between the monarch of Britain and Australia and Governor-General Sir John Kerr before he dismissed Prime Minister Gough Whitlam’s government were personal and might never be made public.

The only-ever dismissal of an elected Australian government on the authority of a British monarch created a crisis that spurred many to call for Australia to sever its constitutional ties with Britain and create a republic with an Australian president.


Kerr dismissed Whitlam’s government and replaced him with opposition leader Malcolm Fraser as prime minister to resolve a month-old deadlock in Parliament. Fraser’s coalition won an election weeks later.

The National Archives of Australia had held the correspondence, known as the Palace Letters, since 1978. As state records they should have been made public 31 years after they were created.

Under an agreement struck between Buckingham Palace and Government House, the governor-general’s official residence, months before Kerr resigned in 1978, the letters covering three tumultuous years of Australian politics were to remain secret until 2027. The private secretaries of both the sovereign and the governor-general in 2027 still could veto their release indefinitely under that agreement.

A Federal Court judge accepted the archives’ argument that the letters were personal and confidential.

An appeals court upheld that ruling in a 2-1 decision.

The archives’ lawyers argued the records were created with the “strong conception” that their character was private, and they were received by the archives under those conditions.

The convention across British Commonwealth nations is that communications between the queen and her representatives are personal, private and not accessible by the executive government, they argued.

The archives did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.

Hocking, a Monash University academic and Whitlam biographer, was to hold a news conference later on Friday in Melbourne.

Buckingham Palace and Government House have previously declined The Associated Press’ requests for comment on the case.

Hocking has been fighting to access the letters since 2016.

Shots fired during Denver protest of Minneapolis man’s death

1 of 7
Protesters walk down the 16th Street mall during a protest over the death of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man who died in police custody in Minneapolis, Thursday, May 28, 2020, in Denver. Protesters walked from the Capitol down the 16th Street pedestrian mall. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)https://apnews.com/4bc4f726dade589fe2b017f5249abc30/gallery/f8f1c68e221b40168285b0bda2cfc209



DENVER (AP) — Shots were fired and protesters blocked traffic and smashed car windows during a demonstration in downtown Denver to protest the death of a handcuffed black man during a confrontation with a white police officer in Minnesota, authorities said. There were no immediate reports of injuries.

Gary Cutler, a spokesman for the Colorado State Patrol, said the shooting happened in a park across the street from the Capitol. Most of the protesters already had left the area and were marching downtown.

Cutler said the Capitol building was locked down, and everyone inside was safe.

State Rep. Leslie Herod, who was at the Capitol, tweeted, “We just got shot at.”



Police said they don’t know if the protesters were being targeted.

“We do believe that the shots were towards the Capitol, but we do not at this point have any correlation to the protest or the protesters,” police spokesman Kurt Barnes told The Denver Post.

He said about six or seven shots were fired, and no one has been arrested.

“I want to plead to everyone, let’s demonstrate but let’s demonstrate peacefully,” Denver Mayor Michael Hancock said in a video posted on Twitter. “Leave the weapons at home.”

Several hundred protesters had gathered to call for justice following the death of George Floyd, who died in police custody in Minneapolis on Monday after an officer knelt on his neck for almost eight minutes. In footage recorded by a bystander, Floyd pleaded that he couldn’t breathe.

Some among the Denver protesters carried signs reading “Black Lives Matter” and chanted, “Hey, hey. Ho, ho. Racist police got to go.”

They marched through downtown Denver, snarling traffic. Aerial footage showed protesters briefly blocking traffic from moving on Interstate 25 in both directions before swarming back through the downtown streets outside the Capitol. Police fired tear gas to get them to move off of the interstate, The Denver Post reported.

Aerial footage showed several protesters smashing the windows out of at least two vehicles parked outside the Capitol, and others spray-painted graffiti on the Capitol steps.

As the protest started, The Denver Police Department tweeted a message from Chief Paul Pazen sending condolences to Floyd’s family and saying the city’s officers do not use the tactics employed by the Minneapolis officers.

He called that type of force “inexcusable.”

Four Minneapolis police officers have been fired, and the mayor has called for the officer who knelt on Floyd’s neck to be criminally charged.

The death has led to violent protests in Minneapolis and demonstrations in other cities, including Los Angeles.

Police, experts condemn knee restraint used on George Floyd
By LISA MARIE PANEyesterday


1 of 3

FILE - In this Monday, May 25, 2020, file frame from video provided by Darnella Frazier, a Minneapolis officer kneels on the neck of George Floyd, a handcuffed man who was pleading that he could not breathe, in Minneapolis. Police around the U.S. and law enforcement experts are broadly condemning the way Floyd, who died in police custody, was restrained by a Minneapolis officer who dug his knee into the man's neck. (Darnella Frazier via AP, File)

Police around the nation and law enforcement experts on Thursday broadly condemned the way George Floyd, who died in Minneapolis police custody this week, was restrained by an officer who dug his knee into the man’s neck, saying no circumstances warrant such a dangerous technique.

Deeply disturbing video shot by a bystander shows Floyd handcuffed, lying on his stomach and seemingly subdued as the officer trying to arrest him pressed his knee down on Floyd’s neck for nearly eight minutes.

Some police officials and experts said equally shocking was something not seen in the video: Other officers on the scene apparently did not try to intervene even as Floyd repeatedly cried out that he couldn’t breathe and moaned in pain.

“Any officer who abuses their power or stands by and allows it to happen does not deserve to wear the badge, period,” Chicago Police Superintendent David O. Brown said.

Floyd, 46, was arrested Monday after an employee at a grocery store called police to accuse him of trying to pass a counterfeit $20 bill. The cellphone video shows Floyd, who is black, face-down on the ground with his hands cuffed behind his back, as officer Derek Chauvin, who is white, uses the knee restraint on his neck.

Floyd’s head is turned to the side and he does not appear to be resisting. As the minutes tick by and Chauvin continues to hold him down, Floyd’s complaints about not being able to breathe stop as he falls silent and motionless. Toward the end of the video, paramedics arrive, lift a limp Floyd onto a stretcher and place him in an ambulance.
“He wasn’t actively resisting, and he was saying he couldn’t breathe,” said Charles P. Stephenson, a former police officer and FBI agent with expertise in use-of-force tactics. “You have to understand that possibility is there (that Floyd couldn’t breathe), and you release any kind of restriction you might have on an airway immediately.”

Chauvin and the three other responding officers have been fired, and the FBI is investigating whether they willfully deprived Floyd of his civil rights. Chauvin has not spoken publicly, and his attorney has not responded to calls seeking comment.

Police recruits learn a variety of use-of-force techniques at the academy, all with the idea that any force employed may equal but not exceed the physical resistance offered by a suspect.

One technique is to restrain someone on the ground face-down, but officers are taught to press a part of the lower leg, such as the shin or top of the ankle, across the shoulders or the back. In some cases officers will “hog-tie” suspects’ legs to prevent flight or violent resistance.

But “no police academy that we know of teaches a police officer to use their knee, to put it on their neck,” said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, which researches and advises on police practices. “That’s just not taught because that can impact their breathing and their carotid artery (a crucial vessel that supplies blood to the brain). So when police look at that video, they are shocked that those tactics were used.”

What’s more, officers are taught to get a suspect up from the ground as soon as possible, either sitting or standing, since lying on one’s stomach can cause breathing problems, especially for larger people.

“If what we saw was a continuing, ongoing fight, I could see how a leg, for example, could slip to the back of the neck. But this is not what I’m seeing,” said John Bostain, a former officer and president of Command Presence, which trains police around the country. “I’m seeing a fight that appears to be over.”

Floyd’s case and the recent shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia have once again laid bare the divide between minority communities and law enforcement that grew to a nationwide uproar following the officer killings of Eric Garner and Michael Brown in 2014 and the death of Freddie Gray in police custody in 2015, among others. Videos from bystanders and police cameras have helped elevate such cases to national scrutiny.

Law enforcement officials often ask that people reserve judgment in such cases until all facts — what transpired before or after what a video shows — are known. But the Floyd case has drawn swift and widespread condemnation.

The Fraternal Order of Police, for example, issued a statement saying in part: “The fact that he was a suspect in custody is immaterial — police officers should at all times render aid to those who need it. Police officers need to treat all of our citizens with respect and understanding and should be held to the very highest standards for their conduct.”

Law enforcement experts say tempers can flare when a suspect resists arrest, but it’s incumbent upon fellow officers with cooler heads to defuse the situation and put a stop to excessive force.

But there’s no sign from the video that any of the officers at the scene with Chauvin tried to intervene. For some that had chilling echoes of the police beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles in 1991 despite the presence of a supervising officer.

“That bothered me greatly,” said Stephenson, the use-of-force expert. “They all have an affirmative duty and obligation to uphold the law and uphold the procedures and to stop any violation of law or excessive use of force that they’re a witness to. ... It didn’t look like those officers were making any effort to go over or say something or do anything.”




AP

Canada's Huawei extradition ruling could unleash more Chinese backlash

OTTAWA (Reuters) - A Canadian court ruling that could permit the extradition of a senior Huawei Technologies Co Ltd [HWT.UL] executive to the United States leaves Canada vulnerable to further retaliation from Beijing, analysts said.

Huawei Technologies Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou smiles as she leaves her home to attend a court hearing in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada May 27, 2020. REUTERS/Jennifer Gauthier

Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou on Wednesday lost a challenge to a U.S. bid to extradite her to face bank fraud charges, a decision the Chinese embassy in Ottawa strongly denounced.

For Canada, the stakes are high. After Meng’s arrest in Vancouver in December 2018, China detained two Canadian citizens on state security charges and blocked imports of some canola seed.

This month, China’s CanSino Biologics Inc began working with the country’s National Research Council to “pave the way” for future COVID-19 vaccine trials in Canada. China has been supplying the country with personal protection equipment during the outbreak.

“If China decides to cut us off from those kinds of things, people will die,” said Stephanie Carvin, an assistant professor and security expert at Ottawa’s Carleton University.

“My very strong concern is that cooperation goes away very quickly, and it leaves us in a very bad position,” she added.

Guy Saint-Jacques, a former Canadian ambassador to China, forecast Beijing would announce a trial date for the two Canadian citizens it is holding, as well as taking more punitive trade measures.

Chinese President “Xi Jinping will want to appear strong and will want to be seen as acting against Canada,” Saint-Jacques told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

Asked on Thursday if he feared Chinese backlash, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did not answer. Instead, he noted that Canada’s judiciary system is independent, and renewed his call for immediate release of citizens Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor.

“We will continue to defend our interests and our values,” Trudeau added.

“There are a lot of issues in play,” said Roland Paris, a former foreign policy adviser to Trudeau and professor of international affairs at University of Ottawa.

Managing relations with China is like “walking the razor’s edge,” he said.

“Our approach to China is one that is not naive and... we’re not afraid to take a strong line and a firm line when we need to,” said a government source in Ottawa, requesting anonymity given the sensitivity of the situation.

University of British Columbia professor Paul Evans predicted the two detainees would remain behind bars for some time.

The ruling “isn’t going to make life easier for the two Michaels,” he said.


China brands Canada ‘accomplice’ of US, as Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou loses bid to have extradition case thrown out

Canadian judge rules that the US fraud charges against Meng satisfy the ‘double criminality’ rule, and her extradition case must continue

China’s embassy blasts the ruling, accusing Canada of taking part in a ‘grave political incident’ and saying it should ‘not go further down the wrong path’


Ian Young in Vancouver, 28 May, 2020

VIDEO AT THE END 


Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou leaving court on Wednesday, after hearing the decision on her double-criminality application. Photo: AFP

China has accused Canada of acting as an “accomplice” to the United States in a “grave political incident”, after a judge in Vancouver rejected a bid by Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou to have her US extradition case thrown out.

Justice Heather Holmes of British Columbia’s Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that the US fraud charges against Meng satisfied the Canadian extradition requirement of “double criminality”, which demands that suspects be accused of something that would constitute a crime in Canada as well as in the requesting country.

The extradition case – which has thrown China’s relations with Canada and the US into turmoil – will therefore continue.

“On the question of law posed, I conclude that, as a matter of law, the double criminality requirement for extradition is capable of being met in this case,” Associate Chief Justice Holmes wrote in her judgment.

In a statement on social media, China’s embassy said: “China hereby expresses strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to this decision, and has made serious representations with Canada.”

“The United States and Canada, by abusing their bilateral extradition treaty and arbitrarily taking forceful measures against Ms Meng Wanzhou, gravely violated the lawful rights and interests of the said Chinese citizen,” the statement said.

“The purpose of the United States is to bring down Huawei and other Chinese high-tech companies, and Canada has been acting as an accomplice of the United States. The whole case is entirely a grave political incident.”

The statement urged Canada to “immediately release Ms Meng Wanzhou and allow her to return safely to China, and not go further down the wrong path”.

Canada’s Department of Justice had hailed “the independence of Canada’s extradition process”, in a statement after the ruling. Meng’s lawyers will continue to fight against her extradition on other grounds.

As for the question raised by the media concerning the Canadian court’s ruling on the so-called “double criminality” issue in the case of Chinese citizen Meng Wanzhou, the spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy made remarks as follows:
pic.twitter.com/BkhC6Yji60
— ChineseEmbassyOttawa (@ChinaEmbOttawa)
May 27, 2020

US prosecutors want Meng extradited from Canada to face trial in New York. Canadian police, acting at the request of US authorities, arrested her at Vancouver’s airport on December 1, 2018.

The arrest set off a diplomatic firestorm amid the US-China trade war and sent Beijing’s relations with Ottawa plummeting. Meng is accused of defrauding HSBC bank by deceiving an executive in Hong Kong about Huawei’s alleged business dealings in Iran, a breach of US sanctions.

Meng’s lawyers had tried to have the extradition case dismissed by arguing that the fraud charges were in fact a “dressed up” accusation that Meng had broken US sanctions, which is not a crime in Canada.

But Holmes said that the “essence” of Meng’s alleged wrongful conduct “is the making of intentionally false statements in the banker client relationship that put HSBC at risk”.

“The US sanctions are part of the state of affairs necessary to explain how HSBC was at risk, but they are not themselves an intrinsic part of the conduct,” wrote Holmes.

Although Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has emphasised that Canada’s courts are independent from political considerations, the latest Meng ruling could further strain Ottawa-Beijing relations. Photo: Bloomberg


“For this reason, I cannot agree with Ms Meng that to refer to US sanctions in order to understand the risk to HSBC is to allow the essence of the conduct to be defined by foreign law. Canada’s laws determine whether the alleged conduct, in its essence, amounts to fraud.”

Meng, 48, will remain under partial house arrest in Vancouver, where she lives in a C$13.6 million (US$9.9 million) mansion on C$10 million bail.

Holmes said that the double criminality analysis of Meng’s lawyers “would seriously limit Canada’s ability to fulfil its international obligations in the extradition context” regarding economic crimes, noting that “the offence of fraud has a vast potential scope”.

Meng’s ‘lies’ to HSBC are a clear case of fraud, Canadian lawyer says
17 Feb 2020

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau this week tried to emphasise that Canada’s courts are independent from political considerations. But the case has deeply strained relations between Ottawa and Beijing.


On Tuesday, China’s foreign ministry said Canada “should immediately correct its mistake, release Meng and ensure her safe return to China at an early date, so as to avoid any continuous harm to China-Canada relations”.


In the wake of Meng’s arrest, China detained two Canadians, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, accusing them of espionage. But their treatment is widely viewed in Canada as hostage-taking, and retaliation for Meng’s arrest.



Holmes’ decision represents a major setback for Meng, who is the daughter of Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei. However, her lawyers are continuing to contest extradition by arguing that her case has been tainted by political interference, such as when US President Donald Trump said in December 2018 that he might intervene in the case if it suited US economic interests.


Meng's lawyers have also said her Canadian rights were violated by her treatment at Vancouver’s airport, when border agents searched her belongings and questioned her in what they allege was a “covert criminal investigation” on behalf of the US FBI.


Holmes’ ruling outlined the US accusation that Meng gave “false assurances” about Huawei’s Iran business to a HSBC banker in the back room of a Hong Kong restaurant in 2013. These assurances allegedly put HSBC at economic and reputational risk by “significantly understating” Huawei’s relationship with Skycom, a company based in Iran.

Meng case embarrasses Canadian court, lawyer says, rejecting fraud claim
17 Feb 2020



Meng allegedly described Skycom as a partner. But although Huawei had sold its shareholdings in Skycom and Meng herself had resigned as a member of its board, “Huawei in reality continued to control Skycom and its banking and business operations in Iran”, wrote Holmes in her summary of the US case.


In her decision, Holmes said that although Canada did not have a sanctions regime against Iran, such US laws were “not fundamentally contrary to Canadian values in the way that slavery laws would be, for example”.


After Holmes’ ruling was released online, Meng appeared at a brief court hearing. Proceedings were adjourned until a case management conference on June 3.

Protesters hold a banner before a court hearing attended by Huawei Technologies Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver, British Columbia, on Wednesday. Photo: Reuters


Further hearings are scheduled until October, but appeals mean the extradition case could last years.


Huawei said in a statement that it was “disappointed” by Wednesday’s ruling.


“We expect that Canada’s judicial system will ultimately prove Ms Meng’s innocence,” the statement said.


However, the Canadian extradition hearings are not to determine Meng’s guilt or innocence, only whether the case meets a test for committal and she should be sent to the US to face trial.


Holmes’ ruling was released in stages: participating lawyers were emailed copies of the decision at 9am; Meng and Canadian and US authorities were allowed to be informed at 10am; then the ruling was finally made public at 11am.


There had been intense speculation about the ruling, heightened on Saturday when Meng was seen posing for photos on the steps of the Supreme Court in downtown Vancouver with about a dozen friends and Huawei colleagues.

Canada border officers subjected Meng to ‘chilling’ misconduct, lawyers say
25 Sep 2019



On Wednesday morning around 8am, four women who were among that group turned up at Meng’s mansion in the exclusive Vancouver neighbourhood of Shaughnessy, bustling past about two dozen waiting reporters.


Nine and 10 o’clock ticked past without the curtains at the house even flickering.


“We’re just waiting for the Navy Seals to come in,” joked a guard from Lion’s Gate Risk Management, pointing a thumb in the direction of the US consul-general’s residence, just a couple of doors from Meng’s house. The Lion’s Gate guards are tasked with preventing Meng from escaping, but also act as her de facto bodyguards. She pays their bills under the terms of her bail.


It would not be until 10.45am that Meng herself emerged from the house, greeting reporters before climbing into a black Chevrolet Suburban SUV and heading to court.



Canadian court rules against Huawei exec fighting extradition

Issued on: 28/05/2020 

Vancouver (AFP)

An executive for Chinese tech giant Huawei suffered a legal setback Wednesday when a Canadian judge ruled that proceedings to extradite her to the United States will go ahead.

The decision on so-called double criminality, a key test for extradition, found that bank fraud accusations against Meng Wanzhou would stand up in Canada.

The interim ruling denying Meng's attempt to gain her freedom means she will continue to live in a Vancouver mansion under strict bail conditions while her case plays out.


It also effectively dashed hopes for a quick mending of Canada-China relations, which soured following her arrest on a US warrant in 2018 during a stopover in Vancouver.

"The double criminality requirement for extradition is capable of being met in this case," British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Heather Holmes said in her 23-page ruling.

"Ms. Meng's application is therefore dismissed," she added.

Prosecutors accused Meng of committing fraud by lying to a bank, in this case an American one. That is a crime in both Canada and the United States.

Outside the courthouse, protestors held placards that read "Extradite Meng Wanzhou," "No Huawei in Canada" and "Canada don't let China bully us."

Inside, Meng was composed as the judge explained her decision, in contrast to a gleeful thumbs up the "Huawei Princess" had given while posing for pictures with family and friends on the steps of the courthouse days earlier.

Huawei said in a statement it was "disappointed" by the ruling, adding that it looked forward to Meng ultimately being exonerated.

- 'Grave political incident' -

China's Embassy in Ottawa, meanwhile, accused the United States of trying "to bring down Huawei" and Canada of being "an accomplice."

"The whole case is entirely a grave political incident," it said in a statement.

"We once again urge Canada to take China's solemn position and concerns seriously, immediately release Ms. Meng Wanzhou to allow her to return safely to China, and not to go further down the wrong path."

Beijing has long signaled that her repatriation was a precondition for improved bilateral ties and its release of two Canadians detained on espionage suspicions.

The arrests of former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor nine days after Meng was taken into custody have been widely decried as retribution.

While the eldest daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei has been out on bail, the two Canadians remain in China's opaque penal system.

China has also blocked billions of dollars' worth of Canadian agricultural exports.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has insisted on leaving it to the courts to decide Meng's fate.

He lamented last week that communist-led China "doesn't seem to understand" the meaning of an independent judiciary.

On Wednesday his foreign minister, Francois-Philippe Champagne, said Canada would "continue to pursue principled engagement with China to address our bilateral differences and to cooperate in areas of mutual interest."

He also said Ottawa would continue to press for the release of Kovrig and Spavor, "who have been arbitrarily detained for over 500 days," and for clemency for a third Canadian, Robert Schellenberg, facing execution.

- Iran sanctions -

During four days of hearings in January, the court heard that Meng lied to the HSBC bank about Huawei's relationship with its own Iran-based affiliate Skycom in order to secure nearly US$1 billion in loans and credit, putting the bank at risk of violating US sanctions.

Lawyers for Canada's attorney general on behalf of the US Justice Department pointed to a 2013 presentation in Hong Kong in which she told HSBC executives that Huawei no longer owned Skycom and that she had resigned from its board.

The Crown called this a deception, asserting that Huawei controlled the operations of Skycom in Iran and held its purse strings.

"Lying to a bank to obtain financial services is fraud," Crown counsel Robert Frater told the court.

Defense lawyer Eric Gottardi accused the US of abusing its treaty with Canada by asking it to arrest Meng as part of a campaign against China's largest international company and leader in 5G, or fifth-generation wireless technologies.

The court, however, dismissed defense arguments that the case hinged on the US sanctions against Iran that Canada had repudiated.

"The essence of the alleged wrongful conduct in this case is the making of intentionally false statements in the banker client relationship that put HSBC at risk," Holmes wrote.

"The US sanctions are part of the state of affairs necessary to explain how HSBC was at risk, but they are not themselves an intrinsic part of the conduct."

Holmes noted that her ruling in no way makes a determination on whether there is sufficient evidence to justify extradition.

That question will be decided at a later stage in the proceedings.

The case now continues to a second phase, yet to be scheduled, when the defense will challenge the lawfulness of her arrest, followed by more hearings likely in September.

Any appeals could further drag it out for years.

© 2020 AFP

Canada court ruling allows US extradition case of Huawei executive to proceed

Decision says Meng Wanzhou’s alleged actions in the US would be considered a crime in Canada, a key condition for extradition

Leyland Cecco in Toronto THE GUARDIAN Wed 27 May 2020

Following the ruling, Meng Wanzhou will have to continue living under house arrest in Vancouver, where she owns two homes. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

A Canadian judge has dealt a major blow to a senior Huawei executive’s attempts to evade extradition to the United States, ruling that the high-profile case against Meng Wanzhou can proceed.

The British Columbia supreme court justice Heather Holmes ruled on Wednesday that the alleged actions of Meng would be considered a crime in Canada – a key condition for extradition to proceed.

The decision, is likely to be applauded by American officials, but will further strain relations between Canada and China, which have deteriorated significantly since Meng’s arrest in December 2018.

Meng was detained on a US warrant during a flight stopover at Vancouver airport, and the ensuing spat between the United States and China has left Canada taking collateral damage in the form of punitive trade measures and the retaliatory detention of Canadian citizens in China.

US prosecutors argue that Meng committed fraud when she lied about links between Huawei and a shell company used to sell telecommunications equipment to Iran in breach of US sanctions.

At issue in Wednesday’s ruling was the question of “double criminality” – whether Meng’s alleged actions in the United States would be considered a crime in Canada.

Canadian government lawyers argued that Meng lied about her company’s dealings with Iran when speaking to prospective investors at large banks, potentially putting them at risk of breaching the US sanctions. This deception, they said, amounted to fraud.

In her ruling, Justice Holmes concurred, finding that the “essence of the alleged wrongful conduct” lay in the deliberate attempts to misled bankers. She also determined that while the alleged attempt to evade American sanctions on Iran could have harmed the bank, the act was not a central component of the offense.

Meng’s legal team had argued that her behaviour did not amount to fraud, and that Canada did not have the same sanctions against Iran.

US case against Huawei's Meng Wanzhou is 'fiction', say lawyers
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jan/21/us-case-against-huaweis-meng-wanzhou-is-fiction-say-lawyers

Her lawyers are expected to appeal against the ruling, but the case will now probably enter its next stage, in which the defence will argue that US and Canadian authorities conspired against Meng.

The Huawei executive’s lawyers argue that her rights were breached by Canadian border guards who detained her for hours before her arrest by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

By opening multiple legal fronts, Meng’s team has all but ensured the tussle will last for years, with many experts believing the case is inevitably bound for the supreme court of Canada.

Following the ruling, Meng will have to continue living under house arrest in Vancouver, where she owns two homes. While under a curfew and required to wear a GPS tracking device, she is nonetheless able to travel freely around the city. Over the weekend, she was photographed by a CBC News reporter, standing outside the provincial courthouse, smiling and posing for pictures with friends and family.

China’s embassy in Ottawa accused the US and Canada of “abusing their bilateral extradition treaty and arbitrarily taking forceful measures” against Meng. In a statement it said her lawful rights and interests had been “gravely violated”.

“The purpose of the United States is to bring down Huawei and other Chinese high-tech companies, and Canada has been acting in the process as an accomplice of the United States,” it said.

Ahead of the verdict, China’s foreign minister, Zhao Lijan, called the case against Meng a “serious political incident” that had violated her rights.

“The Canadian side should correct its mistake, immediately release Ms Meng and ensure her safe return to China so as to avoid any continuous harm to China-Canada relations,” he said during a press conference on Tuesday.

In a statement posted on Twitter, Huawei said it was “disappointed” in the ruling, adding that it stood with Meng in “her pursuit for justice and freedom”.

“We expect that Canada’s judicial system will ultimately prove Ms Meng’s innocence. Ms Meng’s lawyers will continue to work tirelessly to see justice is served,” the statement said.

Justin Trudeau has warned against Chinese allegations that the case is politically motivated.

“Canada has an independent judicial system that functions without interference or override by politicians,” the prime minister said last week. “China doesn’t work quite the same way and doesn’t seem to understand that.”

Meng’s verdict comes amid growing frustration in Canada over the continued detention of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, two Canadians who were seized in China shortly after Meng’s arrest.