Foreign News
Canada’s Carney makes statement by choosing Europe, not US, for first foreign trip
Two European politicians, dressed symbolically in red and white, sent a message last week to Canada on social media declaring “we’ve got your back”.
Also signalling support was King Charles, who planted a red maple tree on the grounds of Buckingham Palace and wore his Canadian medals during a high-profile visit to a naval warship.
Canada’s new Prime Minister Mark Carney has arrived in Paris before heading to London on Monday – a day after his 60th birthday – for his first foreign visit hoping to achieve more than symbolic encouragement. He wants solid support from allies.
Not only is Canada being targeted, like Europe, by a raft of swingeing US tariffs, but Donald Trump is making it clear he wants to take over his northern neighbour.
“We appreciate all the symbolic gestures but we need more public backing,” a Canadian official told me in a voice which underlined the nervous disbelief shared by most Canadians – Trump is not joking when he calls Canada the United States’s “51st state”.
The official messaging from Ottawa about Carney’s trip underlines his priorities – finance and fortifying security – a natural fit for the economist who headed the central banks in both Canada and the UK. A statement from his office said his visit is meant “to strengthen two of our closest and longest-standing economic and security partnerships”.
His itinerary is full of great symbolism too.
Carney revealed it on Friday during his first speech as prime minister when he hearkened back – with a shiny polish – to the origins of this former colony. He hailed “the wonder of a country built on the bedrock of three peoples: indigenous, French and British”.
So there’s a third destination on this whistle-stop tour – Iqaluit, the capital of Canada’s northernmost territory of Nunavut and homeland of its Inuit people. That stop, the statement emphasised, was to “reaffirm Canada’s Arctic security and sovereignty”.
Spectacular Arctic and northern terrain makes up 40% of the land mass of the world’s second largest country. Protecting it is a critical Canadian concern in the midst of intensifying rivalry among world powers in the Arctic region, which has drawn in the US, Russia, China and more; it’s the cold war of all cold wars.
And there’s a personal twist. Carney was born in the small town of Fort Smith in the Northwest Territories, which lies next to Nunavut.
His schedule underlines that he also needs to be a quick study in a new skill – retail politics. A federal election, which has to be held by October, is expected to be called very soon. Carney needs to prove that he can engage with voters, in English and French, as naturally as he does with bankers and finance bosses.
And he needs a proper political mandate. He secured a whopping 86% of the vote when his Liberal Party chose to replace Justin Trudeau, who stepped down as [rime minister amid growing calls to resign from his own party after a decade at the top.
But Carney doesn’t have a seat in parliament; he still doesn’t have the vote of Canadians.
His Liberal party has just experienced a dramatic reversal, a “Trump bump” as well as a Trudeau one. The party which seemed certain to lose, and lose badly, is now tied with its main Conservative rivals in the polls.
Looking like a world leader, and understanding the world of tariffs and trade, is a good look when you are running for high office in the dark shadow of an external threat.
“I think part of the purpose of Mark Carney’s trip to Europe is to show that he can talk internationally to other like-minded powers at this very important moment,” reflects the eminent Canadian historian Margaret MacMillan.
Back home, voters will decide if that is what counts.
Carney is certain to talk Trump tactics, in private, with France’s President Emmanuel Macron and Britain’s Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer. They’ve both taken great pains to flatter the US president in public, and press their case behind closed doors.
Many will be watching to see how Trump addresses Mark Carney – he recently referred to Canada’s former prime minister as “Governor Trudeau”.
Canada’s new top talker has been talking tough.
A week ago, when Carney won his party’s leadership contest, he invoked Canada’s national sport, ice hockey, which has long been locked in rivalry with US teams. “Canadians are always ready when someone else drops the gloves,” Carney declared to rousing applause.
“Make no mistake, Canada will win.”
But everyone knows this is no game. Carney described this escalating trade war as “the greatest crisis of our lifetime”. More than 80% of Canada’s exports cross the border to the US.
And while there have been a few reports of Canadians flying the US flag, a recent poll by the Angus Reid Institute underlined that a thumping 91% of Canadians reject becoming the 51st state.
On Friday, in Ottawa’s icy cold weather, Carney struck a warmer tone, highlighting how he and Trump share a background in business, including real estate.
“The president is a successful businessperson and dealmaker. We are his largest client in so many industries,” he remarked. “Clients expect respect and working together in a proper commercial way.”
Carney says he “looks forward” to speaking with President Trump. But the fact it will be a call, not a visit, is a measure of this moment. Traditionally, the first foreign visit of a Canadian leader is to the US – its closest neighbour and most trusted partner.
[BBC]
Harvard University has announced that it is making tuition free for families who earn less than $200,000 (£154,000) a year.
For families earning less than $100,000, Harvard will also cover expenses like housing and health insurance.
The move is aimed at making Harvard more affordable for middle-income families, and it comes as the Trump administration targets university funding as a part of a crackdown on diversity equity and inclusion (DEI) practices.
“Putting Harvard within financial reach for more individuals widens the array of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives that all of our students encounter, fostering their intellectual and personal growth,” said Harvard President Alan Garber.
The policy – which will begin in the 2025 to 2026 academic year – will help “make a Harvard College education possible for every admitted student”, Garber added.
The Ivy League school said the move will allow roughly 86% of US families to qualify for Harvard’s financial aid.
The median household income in the US was $80,000 in 2023, according to the US Census.
A number of elite universities in the US have taken similar steps in recent years, including the University of Pennsylvania and The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which also have free tuition for families making less than $200,000.
Harvard had previously made all university costs, including housing and medical care, free for families with incomes under $85,000.
The average price of a private university in the US for those living on campus is $58,000 per academic year, according to the Education Data Initiative. The average cost of college has more than doubled since 2001, the research group found.
The financial aid expansions come as the Trump administration has threatened to pull funding from universities over diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, research and coursework that they allege is a form of racial discrimination.
Under Trump, the Department of Education has said it is investigating 52 universities across the country for alleged “racial preferences and stereotypes in education programs and activities” as Trump attempts to get rid of DEI programmes.
The Trump administration has already pulled $400m in grants and contracts from Columbia University, alleging the Ivy League school failed to prevent antisemitism on campus as protests grew over Israel’s war in Gaza.
Last year, the US Supreme Court voted to overturn affirmative action. The practice favoured individuals in disadvantaged groups to help eliminate discrimination against marginalised applicants during the enrollment process and increase diversity among students.
Universities across the US have reported a decline in racial diversity since the court’s decision.
[BBC]
Award-winning Belgian actress Émilie Dequenne has died from cancer at the age of 43.
Dequenne shot to fame when she won the best actress award at the Cannes Film Festival at the age of 18 for the film Rosetta in 1999.
She won another Cannes award for À Perdre la Raison (Our Children) in 2012, and received a Cesar, one of France’s top film honours, for Les Choses Qu’on Dit, les Choses Qu’on Fait (The Things We Say, the Things We Do) in 2021.
She mainly acted in French-language films but also appeared as police officer Laurence Relaud in 2014 BBC TV drama The Missing.
Rosetta, a poignant tale about a teenager’s struggle to overcome a life of misery, was Dequenne’s first screen role.
She had been unemployed after losing her job in a food factory when she was picked for the role.
“The first day she filmed in front of a real camera, she managed to bring the whole team together,” Luc Dardenne, who directed it with his brother Jean-Pierre, said in a tribute to broadcaster RTBF.
“It got better and better as the shoot progressed… She was magnificent and the film owes a lot to her.”
In The Missing, she played Laurence Relaud, which starred James Nesbitt as the father of a boy who disappears during a family holiday.
Her other films included 2009’s La fille du RER (The Girl on the Train), 2014’s Pas Son Genre (Not My Type) and 2022 Cannes nominee Close.
Others paying tribute included French Minister of Culture Rachida Dati, who wrote: “Francophone cinema has lost, too soon, a talented actress who still had so much to offer.”
Dequenne revealed in October 2023 that she was suffering from adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC), a cancer of the adrenal gland.
In one of her last Instagram posts, for World Cancer Day in February, she wrote “What a tough fight! And we don’t choose…”
[BBC]
More than 200 Venezuelans alleged by the White House to be gang members have been deported from the US to a supermax prison in El Salvador, even as a US judge blocked the removals.
El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele wrote on social media that 238 members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua had arrived in the Central American country, along with 23 members of the international MS-13 gang, on Sunday morning.
Neither the US government nor El Salvador has identified the detainees, nor provided details of their alleged criminality or gang membership.
A federal judge’s order prevented the Trump administration from invoking a centuries-old wartime law to justify some of the deportations, but the flights had already departed.
“Oopsie… Too late,” posted Bukele on social media, referring to the judge’s ruling.
A video attached to one of his posts shows lines of people with their hands and feet shackled being escorted by armed officials from the planes.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt denied the court ruling had been violated.
“The administration did not ‘refuse to comply’ with a court order,” she said.
“The order, which had no lawful basis, was issued after terrorist TdA [Tren de Aragua] aliens had already been removed from US territory.”
US President Donald Trump announced on Saturday that he had signed a proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 as he accused Tren de Aragua of “perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion of predatory incursion against the territory of the United States”.
He said members of the gang would be deported for engaging in “irregular warfare” against the US. The Alien Enemies Act was last used during World War Two to intern Japanese-American civilians.
On Saturday evening, US District Judge James Boasberg in Washington DC ordered a 14-day halt to deportations covered by Trump’s proclamation, pending further legal arguments.
After lawyers told him that planes with deportees had already taken off, Judge Boasberg gave a verbal order for the flights to turn back, US media reported, although that directive did not form part of his written ruling.
The written notice appeared in the case docket at 19:25 EDT on Saturday (00:25 GMT on Sunday), the Reuters news agency reports, although it is unclear when the flights carrying the alleged gang members departed from the US.
In a court filing on Sunday, Department of Justice lawyers said the order had not applied because the deportees “had already been removed from United States territory”.
A senior administration official told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, that 261 people were deported on Saturday, 137 of whom were removed under the Alien Enemies Act over alleged gang ties.
The justice department has appealed against the judge’s ruling.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which was involved in the lawsuit against the Trump administration, said the court’s order may have been violated.
The case raises constitutional questions since, under the US system of checks and balances, government agencies are expected to comply with a federal judge’s ruling.
Venezuela criticised Trump invoking the Alien Enemies Act, saying it “unjustly criminalises Venezuelan migration” and “evokes the darkest episodes in the history of humanity, from slavery to the horror of the Nazi concentration camps”.
Rights groups condemned Trump, accusing him of using a 227-year-old law to circumvent due process.
Amnesty International USA wrote on X that the deportations were “yet another example of the Trump administration’s racist targeting” of Venezuelans “based on sweeping claims of gang affiliation”.
President Bukele, a Trump ally, wrote that the detainees were immediately transferred to El Salvador’s notorious mega-jail, the Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot).
The El Salvadoran president said they would be held there “for a period of one year”, and that could be “renewable”.
El Salvador’s Cecot jail is part of Bukele’s effort to crack down on the country’s organised crime.
The newly built maximum-security facility, which can hold up to 40,000 people, has been accused by human rights groups of mistreating inmates.
The arrangement between the US and El Salvador is a sign of strengthening diplomatic ties.
El Salvador was the second country that Rubio visited as the US’s top diplomat.
During that trip, which took place in February, Bukele made an initial offer to take US deportees, saying it would help pay for the massive Cecot facility.
The latest deportations under Trump’s second term are part of the president’s long-running campaign against illegal immigration in the US.
In January, Trump signed an executive order declaring Tren de Aragua and MS-13 foreign terrorist organisations.
He won over voters on the campaign trail, in part, by promising to enact the largest deportation operation in US history.
While illegal border crossings have plummeted to the lowest number in decades since Trump took office, the Republican president has reportedly been frustrated by the relatively slow pace of deportations so far.
[BBC]
Harvard offers free tuition to families earning less than $200,000
Canada’s Carney makes statement by choosing Europe, not US, for first foreign trip
Cannes award-winning actress Dequenne dies at 43
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