OTTAWA —
Canada will be supplying Ukraine with anti-tank weapons systems and upgraded ammunition to be used in response to Russia’s ongoing invasion, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Monday, as federal ministers pledge more help is coming in the face of Vladmir Putin’s “brutal assault on Ukraine.”
With plans to make the delivery as soon as possible, Canada will be sending approximately 100 Carl-Gustaf anti-tank weapons system launchers and 2,000 rockets for the Ukrainian army to use, with the federal government saying that they still have no plans to send Canadian troops into combat in Ukraine.
This latest package of weaponry will be coming from the Canadian Armed Forces’ inventory, and is in addition to previous shipments of lethal and non-lethal equipment. Canada is working with NATO allies to ensure the supplies arrive promptly.
Monday’s announcement comes alongside other countries delivering key support and equipment, Trudeau said during a press conference discussing Canada’s latest response efforts alongside several key ministers.
“Canada will continue to deliver support for Ukraine’s heroic defence against the Russian military,” Trudeau said. “It is increasingly clear that President Putin has made a grave miscalculation… Our message is clear: this unnecessary war must stop now. The costs will only grow steeper and those responsible will be held accountable.”
Since the incursion began, almost daily the Canadian government has been making announcements of next steps in responding to the worsening war, from levelling a series of sanctions on key Russian figures and institutions— including prohibiting Canadian financial institutions from engaging in any transaction with the Russian Central Bank—to working on expediting immigration and consular processes for those looking to leave the region.
“While brave Ukrainian civilians gamely learn how to make Molotov cocktails to defend their homes, one of the world’s most brutal war machines is bombarding them,” said Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland on Monday. “Not content to terrorize his own people, President Vladimir Putin is seeking to impose his tyranny on his democratic freedom-loving neighbours.”
In an update to the immigration efforts to-date, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Sean Fraser said Monday that since Jan. 19, Canada has approved 4,000 applications from Ukrainians seeking to come to Canada. Fraser said additional measures are coming soon that will see Canada welcome more of the thousands of Ukrainians who have fled to neighbouring countries, “in the safest and quickest way possible.”
The federal government is also providing Canadian Armed Forces airlift support to NATO and to deliver additional defence equipment like body armour and night-vision tools to Ukraine, while closing off Canadian airspace to Russian planes.
Minister of National Defence Anita Anand said Monday that Canada’s initial $10 million worth of lethal and non-lethal aid made it to the country ahead of the current incursion, and the promised additional equipment and up to 50 personnel accompanying it is arriving in two stages, with one plane leaving for Europe today and the second set to fly out later this week.
“Canada has been there for Ukraine’s military and its people. Over the past few years, our Canadian Armed Forces have trained over 33,000 Ukrainian soldiers, to help them prepare for the very type of attack that they are facing today,” Anand said, noting that Canada’s military stands ready to assist further, should NATO’s posture in the region change.
For now though, Trudeau said “we are not going to be sending troops into Ukraine.”
TARGETING OIL IMPORTS, RUSSIAN TV
Trudeau also announced that the government will be asking the CRTC to review state-owned broadcaster Russia Today’s presence on Canadian airwaves, while some major players have proactively begun to remove RT.
“There is a significant amount of disinformation circulating from Russia, including on social media, and we all need to keep calling it out,” Trudeau said.
And, Canada plans to ban all imports of crude oil from Russia, an industry that is a major source of Russian federal revenues. While Canada has imported limited amounts in recent years, this move is meant as a “powerful message,” the prime minister said.
Trudeau was scheduled to meet with key cabinet Incident Response Group on the situation in Ukraine on Monday, and attend a meeting hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden, alongside leaders of other allied nations and NATO, on Putin’s attack.
Speaking from the United Nations Human Rights Council, Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly told reporters earlier on Monday that “there will be more sanctions coming.”
“Our goal is to put maximum pressure on Russia, and isolate it,” Joly said, applauding those in the cultural, sport and other private sectors who have also gone forward with actions against Russia in recent days.
MPS ALIGN, SUGGEST NEXT STEPS
In the House of Commons—where MPs will be holding a special take-note debate on the pressing situation Monday evening—all parties spoke up in solidarity with Ukraine, pressing the Liberals for more details about Canada’s next steps and offering suggestions.
“The situation in Ukraine is heartbreaking and growing more troubling by the hour. We also know it is constantly evolving and although Conservatives support the government’s actions to date, we do believe there are things that could have been done faster,” said interim Conservative Leader Candice Bergen during question period, calling for Canada to expel Russia’s ambassador to Canada and recall Canada’s ambassador from Russia.
Bergen took part this weekend in an anti-war protest outside of the Russian embassy in Ottawa.
The NDP are calling for Canada to drop its visa requirements for Ukrainians, to avoid those seeking refuge from a “bureaucratic nightmare,” as immigration critic and NDP MP Jenny Kwan put it in a statement.
“Canadians are watching in horror, as hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians seek refuge from the unprovoked Russian invasion. People in this country expect their government to act swiftly to help those in danger… The government has to move quickly to cut the red tape – Ukrainians’ lives depend on it,” Kwan said.
NEW YORK (AP) — Teen smoking hit an all-time low in the U.S. this year, part of a big drop in the youth use of tobacco overall, the government reported Thursday.
There was a 20% drop in the estimated number of middle and high school students who recently used at least one tobacco product, including cigarettes, electronic cigarettes, nicotine pouches and hookahs. The number went from 2.8 million last year to 2.25 million this year — the lowest since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s key survey began in 1999.
“Reaching a 25-year low for youth tobacco product use is an extraordinary milestone for public health,” said Deirdre Lawrence Kittner, director of CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health, in a statement. However, “our mission is far from complete.”
A previously reported drop in vaping largely explains the overall decline in tobacco use from 10% to about 8% of students, health officials said.
The youth e-cigarette rate fell to under 6% this year, down from 7.7% last year — the lowest at any point in the last decade. E-cigarettes are the most commonly used tobacco products among teens, followed by nicotine pouches.
Use of other products has been dropping, too.
Twenty-five years ago, nearly 30% of high school students smoked. This year, it was just 1.7%, down from the 1.9%. That one-year decline is so small it is not considered statistically significant, but marks the lowest since the survey began 25 years ago. The middle school rate also is at its lowest mark.
Recent use of hookahs also dropped, from 1.1% to 0.7%.
The results come from an annual CDC survey, which included nearly 30,000 middle and high school students at 283 schools. The response rate this year was about 33%.
Officials attribute the declines to a number of measures, ranging from price increases and public health education campaigns to age restrictions and more aggressive enforcement against retailers and manufacturers selling products to kids.
Among high school students, use of any tobacco product dropped to 10%, from nearly 13% and e-cigarette use dipped under 8%, from 10%. But there was no change reported for middle school students, who less commonly vape or smoke or use other products,
Current use of tobacco fell among girls and Hispanic students, but rose among American Indian or Alaska Native students. And current use of nicotine pouches increased among white kids.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
WASHINGTON (AP) — An Alabama man was arrested Thursday for his alleged role in the January hack of a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission social media account that led the price of bitcoin to spike, the Justice Department said.
Eric Council Jr., 25, of Athens, is accused of helping to break into the SEC’s account on X, formerly known as Twitter, allowing the hackers to prematurely announce the approval of long-awaited bitcoin exchange-traded funds.
The price of bitcoin briefly spiked more than $1,000 after the post claimed “The SEC grants approval for #Bitcoin ETFs for listing on all registered national securities exchanges.”
But soon after the initial post appeared, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler said on his personal account that the SEC’s account was compromised. “The SEC has not approved the listing and trading of spot bitcoin exchange-traded products,” Gensler wrote, calling the post unauthorized without providing further explanation.
Authorities say Council carried out what’s known as a “SIM swap,” using a fake ID to impersonate someone with access to the SEC’s X account and convince a cellphone store to give him a SIM card linked to the person’s phone. Council was able to take over the person’s cellphone number and get access codes to the SEC’s X account, which he shared with others who broke into the account and sent the post, the Justice Department says.
Prosecutors say after Council returned the iPhone he used for the SIM swap, his online searches included: “What are the signs that you are under investigation by law enforcement or the FBI even if you have not been contacted by them.”
An email seeking comment was sent Thursday to an attorney for Council, who is charged in Washington’s federal court with conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft and access device fraud.
The price of bitcoin swung from about $46,730 to just below $48,000 after the unauthorized post hit on Jan. 9 and then dropped to around $45,200 after the SEC’s denial. The SEC officially approved the first exchange-traded funds that hold bitcoin the following day.
Google, Meta and TikTok have removed social media accounts belonging to an industrial plant in Russia’s Tatarstan region aimed at recruiting young foreign women to make drones for Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
Posts on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok were taken down following an investigation by The Associated Press published Oct. 10 that detailed working conditions in the drone factory in the Alabuga Special Economic Zone, which is under U.S. and British sanctions.
Videos and other posts on the social media platforms promised the young women, who are largely from Africa, a free plane ticket to Russia and a salary of more than $500 a month following their recruitment via the program called “Alabuga Start.”
But instead of a work-study program in areas like hospitality and catering, some of them said they learned only arriving in the Tatarstan region that they would be toiling in a factory to make weapons of war, assembling thousands of Iranian-designed attack drones to be launched into Ukraine.
In interviews with AP, some of the women who worked in the complex complained of long hours under constant surveillance, of broken promises about wages and areas of study, and of working with caustic chemicals that left their skin pockmarked and itching. AP did not identify them by name or nationality out of concern for their safety.
The tech companies also removed accounts for Alabuga Polytechnic, a vocational boarding school for Russians aged 16-18 and Central Asians aged 18-22 that bills its graduates as experts in drone production.
The accounts collectively had at least 158,344 followers while one page on TikTok had more than a million likes.
In a statement, YouTube said its parent company Google is committed to sanctions and trade compliance and “after review and consistent with our policies, we terminated channels associated with Alabuga Special Economic Zone.”
Meta said it removed accounts on Facebook and Instagram that “violate our policies.” The company said it was committed to complying with sanctions laws and said it recognized that human exploitation is a serious problem which required a multifaceted approach, including at Meta.
It said it had teams dedicated to anti-trafficking efforts and aimed to remove those seeking to abuse its platforms.
TikTok said it removed videos and accounts which violated its community guidelines, which state it does not allow content that is used for the recruitment of victims, coordination of their transport, and their exploitation using force, fraud, coercion, or deception.
The women aged 18-22 were recruited to fill an urgent labor shortage in wartime Russia. They are from places like Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, South Sudan, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, as well as the South Asian country of Sri Lanka. The drive also is expanding to elsewhere in Asia as well as Latin America.
Accounts affiliated to Alabuga with tens of thousands of followers are still accessible on Telegram, which did not reply to a request for comment. The plant’s management also did not respond to AP.
The Alabuga Start recruiting drive used a robust social media campaign of slickly edited videos with upbeat music that show African women smiling while cleaning floors, wearing hard hats while directing cranes, and donning protective equipment to apply paint or chemicals.
Videos also showed them enjoying Tatarstan’s cultural sites or playing sports. None of the videos made it clear the women would be working in a drone manufacturing complex.
Online, Alabuga promoted visits to the industrial area by foreign dignitaries, including some from Brazil, Sri Lanka and Burkina Faso.
In a since-deleted Instagram post, a Turkish diplomat who visited the plant had compared Alabuga Polytechnic to colleges in Turkey and pronounced it “much more developed and high-tech.”
According to Russian investigative outlets Protokol and Razvorot, some pupils at Alabuga Polytechnic are as young as 15 and have complained of poor working conditions.
Videos previously on the platforms showed the vocational school students in team-building exercises such as “military-patriotic” paintball matches and recreating historic Soviet battles while wearing camouflage.
Last month, Alabuga Start said on Telegram its “audience has grown significantly!”
That could be due to its hiring of influencers, who promoted the site on TikTok and Instagram as an easy way for young women to make money after leaving school.
TikTok removed two videos promoting Alabuga after publication of the AP investigation.
Experts told AP that about 90% of the women recruited via the Alabuga Start program work in drone manufacturing.
