Canada names first anti-Islamophobia adviser

Journalist and activist, Amira Elghawaby (second left) delivers a speech after being appointed as Canada's special representative on combatting Islamophobia in Ottawa, Canada, on January 26, 2023. (Photo courtesy: @OmarAlghabra/Twitter)
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Updated 27 January 2023
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Canada names first anti-Islamophobia adviser

  • Journalist Amira Elghawaby will fill post to help Canadian government fight racism and intolerance 
  • Over the past few years, a series of deadly attacks have targeted Canada’s Muslim community

MONTREAL: Canada on Thursday appointed its first special representative on combatting Islamophobia, a position created following several recent attacks on Muslims in the country.

Journalist and activist Amira Elghawaby will fill the post to “serve as a champion, adviser, expert, and representative to support and enhance the federal government’s efforts in the fight against Islamophobia, systemic racism, racial discrimination, and religious intolerance,” a statement by the prime minister’s office said.

An active human rights campaigner, Elghawaby is the communications head for the Canadian Race Relations Foundation and a columnist for the Toronto Star newspaper, having previously worked for more than a decade at public broadcaster CBC.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau praised Elghawaby’s appointment as “an important step in our fight against Islamophobia and hatred in all its forms.”

“Diversity truly is one of Canada’s greatest strengths, but for many Muslims, Islamophobia is all too familiar,” he added.

Over the past few years, a series of deadly attacks have targeted Canada’s Muslim community.

In June 2021, four members of a Muslim family were killed when a man ran them over with his truck in London, Ontario. 

Four years earlier, six Muslims died and five were injured in an attack on a Quebec City mosque.

In a series of tweets Thursday, Elghawaby listed the names of those killed in the recent attacks, adding: “We must never forget.”

The creation of the new job had been recommended by a national summit on Islamophobia organized by the federal government in June 2021 in response to the attacks.
 


Poland to try suspect in alleged Russian plot to assassinate Zelensky

Updated 1 sec ago
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Poland to try suspect in alleged Russian plot to assassinate Zelensky

The man, identified as Pawel K., was arrested in April 2024
Prosecutors said he had declared his readiness to act for Russia’s military intelligence

WARSAW: Polish authorities have indicted a man charged with planning to help Russian foreign intelligence services prepare a possible attempt to assassinate Ukraine’s president, prosecutors said on Tuesday.

The man, identified as Pawel K., was arrested in April 2024 after cooperation between Polish and Ukrainian prosecutors, and faces up to eight years in prison.

According to prosecutors, he had declared his readiness to act for the military intelligence of the Russian Federation and established contacts with Russians who were directly involved in the war in Ukraine.

“The activities were to help, among other things, in the planning by the Russian special services of a possible assassination attempt on the life of ... the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky,” the prosecution said in a statement.

Pawel K.’s tasks included collecting and providing information on security at the Rzeszow-Jasionka Airport in southeastern Poland, prosecutors said.

Poland, a hub for Western military supplies to Ukraine, says it has become a major target of Russian spies, accusing Moscow and its ally Belarus of trying to destabilize it — accusations which the Kremlin has repeatedly denied.

PKK urges Turkiye to ease leader’s solitary confinement for any peace talks

Updated 36 min 18 sec ago
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PKK urges Turkiye to ease leader’s solitary confinement for any peace talks

  • The disbanding mechanisms are unclear yet
  • Hiwa said the PKK has shown “seriousness regarding peace,” but “till now the Turkish state has not given any guarantees”

SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq: The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has said Türkiye should ease prison conditions for its founder Abdullah Ocalan, declaring him the group’s “chief negotiator” for any future talks after a decision to disband.

The Kurdish group, blacklisted by Ankara and its Western allies, announced on May 12 it had adopted a decision to disarm and disband after a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state that cost more than 40,000 lives.

The group’s historic decision came after an appeal by Ocalan, made in a letter from Istanbul’s Imrali prison island where he has been held since 1999.

Zagros Hiwa, spokesman for the PKK’s political wing, told AFP on Monday that “we expect that the Turkish state makes amendments in the solitary confinement conditions” to allow Ocalan “free and secure work conditions so that he could lead the process.”

“Leader Apo is our chief negotiator” for any talks with Türkiye, Hiwa added in an interview, referring to Ocalan.

“Only Leader Apo can lead the practical implementation of the decision taken by the PKK.”

The disbanding mechanisms are unclear yet, but the Turkish government has said it would carefully monitor the process to ensure full implementation.

Hiwa said the PKK has shown “seriousness regarding peace,” but “till now the Turkish state has not given any guarantees and taken any measure for facilitating the process” and continued its “bombardments and artillery shellings” against the Kurdish group’s positions.

The PKK operates rear bases in Iraq’s autonomous northern Kurdistan region, where Türkiye also maintains military bases and often carries out air and ground operations against the Kurdish militants.

Turkish media reports have suggested that militants who had committed no crime on Turkish soil could return without fear of prosecution, but that PKK leaders might be forced into exile or stay behind in Iraq.

Hiwa said the PKK objects to its members or leaders being forced to leave, saying that “real peace requires integration, not exile.”


Second man in court over arson attacks linked to UK PM Starmer

Updated 46 min ago
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Second man in court over arson attacks linked to UK PM Starmer

  • Neither of the suspects has been charged under terrorism laws or the new National Security Act
  • Police said the first fire involved a Toyota Rav4 car that Starmer used to own

LONDON: A second man to be charged over a series of arson attacks on houses and a car linked to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer appeared in a London court on Tuesday.

Over five days earlier this month, police were called to fires at a house in north London owned by Starmer, another at a property nearby where he used to live, and to a blaze involving a car that also used to belong to the British leader.

Last week, Ukrainian Roman Lavrynovych, 21, was charged in connection with the fires, and on Tuesday Romanian national Stanislav Carpiuc, 26, who was born in Ukraine, appeared in court accused of conspiracy to commit arson with intent to endanger life.

“The alleged offense arises from three fires set at locations linked to the prime minister in the last fortnight,” prosecutor Sarah Przybylska said. “At this stage the alleged offending is unexplained.”

Neither of the suspects has been charged under terrorism laws or the new National Security Act which aims to target hostile state activity.

Police said the first fire involved a Toyota Rav4 car that Starmer used to own. Days later, there was a blaze at a property where Starmer once resided and the following day there was an attack on a house in north London that he still owns.

Starmer, who has lived at his official 10 Downing Street residence in central London since becoming prime minister last July, has called the incidents “an attack on all of us, on our democracy and the values we stand for.”

Wearing a light blue hoodie, Carpiuc, who was arrested on Saturday at London’s Luton Airport, spoke only to confirm his name and address while listening to the proceedings through a translator.

He was remanded in custody until a hearing on June 6 at London’s Old Bailey court when his co-accused Lavrynovych is also due to appear.

The prosecutor said a decision would be taken at this hearing as to whether the case would proceed under the terrorism protocol.

Carpiuc’s lawyer Jay Nutkins said his client had lived in Britain for nine years and had just completed a two-year degree at a university in Canterbury.

“He denies being at the scene of any of these fires,” Nutkins said.


Carpiuc funded himself through construction work, Nutkins said. On a casting website for models and actors, an entry under Carpiuc’s name said he was born in western Ukraine and was seeking work as a model.

On Monday, police arrested a third man in connection with the fires and he remains in police custody.


Russia accuses NATO of ‘aggressive actions’ in Baltic Sea after Estonia tries to seize tanker

Updated 20 May 2025
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Russia accuses NATO of ‘aggressive actions’ in Baltic Sea after Estonia tries to seize tanker

  • Zakharova said Moscow was closely monitoring events in the Baltic

MOSCOW: Russia on Tuesday accused NATO of carrying out what it called aggressive actions in the Baltic Sea that impeded the freedom of shipping after Estonia tried and failed to seize a tanker.

Estonia said on Thursday last week that Moscow had briefly sent a fighter jet into NATO airspace over the Baltic Sea during an attempt to stop a Russian-bound oil tanker thought to be part of a “shadow fleet” defying Western sanctions on Moscow.

Asked about the matter at her weekly news briefing, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Moscow was closely monitoring events in the Baltic and would react to what she called illegal actions by NATO vessels if they caused risks.


A London court sentences an Egyptian man to 25 years for smuggling people from Africa to Italy

Updated 20 May 2025
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A London court sentences an Egyptian man to 25 years for smuggling people from Africa to Italy

  • Ahmed Ebid pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court to conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration
  • Judge Adam Hiddleston said Ebid played a key role in an organized crime group

LONDON: A London court on Tuesday sentenced an Egyptian man to 25 years in prison for smuggling people from North Africa to Italy.

Ahmed Ebid, who arrived in the UK in October 2022 after crossing the English Channel in a small boat, pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court to conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration.

Judge Adam Hiddleston said Ebid played a key role in an organized crime group and that his “primary motivation was to make money” from human trafficking.


Since his arrival in Britain and until June 2023, Ebid, 42, was implicated in at least seven separate boat crossings as part of a 12 million-pound ($16 million) operation that carried 3,781 people, including children, into Italian waters from North Africa.

Britain’s National Crime Agency cited some of those who had entered the UK illegally as saying that Ebid even told an associate to kill and throw into the sea anyone onboard caught with a mobile phone.

Ebid “preyed upon the desperation of migrants to ship them across the Mediterranean in death trap boats,” said Jacque Beer of the agency.

In one crossing, on Oct. 25, 2022, more than 640 people were rescued by the Italian authorities after they attempted to cross the Mediterranean Sea in a wooden boat, the agency said. The boat was taken into port in Sicily and two bodies were recovered.

“Vulnerable people were transported on long sea journeys in ill-equipped fishing vessels completely unsuitable for carrying the large number of passengers,” said Tim Burton, specialist prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service.

“His repeated involvement in helping to facilitate these dangerous crossings showed a complete disregard for the safety of thousands of people, whose lives were put at serious risk,” Burton added about Ebid.