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]
An elephant foot bone found by archaeologists digging in southern Spain may be evidence that a troop of war elephants stomped through ancient Europe.
It would be the first concrete proof of the legendary Carthaginian General Hannibal’s troop of battle elephants, according to academics.
Drawings of Hannibal’s war against the Romans had long suggested that the beasts were used in fighting, but no hard evidence backed up the theories.
Now the creatures’ skeletal remains appear to have been found in an Iron Age dig near Cordoba.
Beyond ivory, the discovery of elephant remains in European archaeological contexts is exceptionally rare,” says the team of scientists in a paper published in Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.
Often considered one of the most successful commanders of classical times, Hannibal led his army from the powerful imperial city Carthage, in modern day Tunisia, into Europe as he battled to control the Mediterranean.
It is thought he took soldiers and animals from Carthage through Spain and France to invade Italy, crossing the Alps with 37 elephants in 218 BCE during the second of the so-called Punic Wars.
The remains found in Spain are presumed to be from an animal that died before reaching the Alps.
The archaeologists, led by Professor Rafael M. Martínez Sánchez, found the elephant’s bone beneath a collapsed wall on a site called Colina de los Quemados.
They used carbon dating techniques to estimate the age of the 10cm cube-shaped bone.
The result led them to believe it is from the Second Punic War.
They also compared the bone of modern elephants and steppe mammoths to determine which animal it came from.
The team found artillery, coins and ceramics during the excavations in 2020, providing more clues that the place was the site of a battle.
“As non-native species and the largest living terrestrial animals, these imported beasts would have required transportation by ship,” the academics said.
They say that it is very unlikely that dead animals were transported, and the bones are unattractive suggesting they were not decorative or used in craft.
But the scientists say it will be very challenging to work out which species of elephant the creature was.
“While [the bone] would not represent one of the mythical specimens Hannibal took across the Alps, it could potentially embody the first known relic − so sought after by European scholars of the Modern Age − of the animals used in the Punic Roman wars for the control of the Mediterranean,” the scientists conclude in their paper.
[BBC]
Specialist online investigator Greg Squire had hit a dead end in his efforts to rescue an abused girl his team had named Lucy.
Disturbing images of her were being shared on the dark web – an encrypted corner of the internet only accessible using special software designed to make owners digitally untraceable.
But even with that level of subterfuge, the abuser was conscious of “covering their tracks”, cropping or altering any identifying features, says Squire. It was impossible to work out who, or where, Lucy was.
What he was soon to discover was that the clue to the 12-year-old’s location was hidden in plain sight.
Squire works for US Department of Homeland Security Investigations in an elite unit which attempts to identify children appearing in sexual abuse material.
A BBC World Service team has spent five years filming with Squire, and other investigative units in Portugal, Brazil, and Russia – showing them solving cases such as that of a kidnapped and presumed-dead seven-year-old in Russia, and the arrest of a Brazilian man responsible for five of the biggest child-abuse forums on the dark web.
The unprecedented access shows how these cases are often cracked, not through state-of-the-art technology, but by spotting tiny revealing details in images or chat forums.
Squire cites Lucy’s case, which he tackled early in his career, as the inspiration for his long-term dedication.
He found it especially disturbing that Lucy was about the same age as his own daughter, and new photos of her being assaulted, seemingly in her bedroom, were constantly appearing.
Squire and his team could see, from the type of light sockets and electrical outlets visible in the images, that Lucy was in North America. But that was about it.
They contacted Facebook, which at the time dominated the social media landscape, asking for help scouring uploaded family photos – to see if Lucy was in any of them. But Facebook, despite having facial recognition technology, said it “did not have the tools” to help.
So Squire and his colleagues analysed everything they could see in Lucy’s room: the bedspread, her outfits, her stuffed toys. Looking for any element which might help.
And then they had a minor breakthrough. The team discovered that a sofa seen in some of the images was only sold regionally, not nationally, and therefore had a more limited customer base.
But that still amounted to about 40,000 people.
“At that point in the investigation, we’re [still] looking at 29 states here in the US. I mean, you’re talking about tens of thousands of addresses, and that’s a very, very daunting task,” says Squire.
The team looked for more clues. And that is when they realised something as mundane as the exposed brick wall in Lucy’s bedroom could give them a lead.
“So, I started just Googling bricks and it wasn’t too many searches before I found the Brick Industry Association,” says Squire.
“And the woman on the phone was awesome. She was like, ‘how can the brick industry help?'”
She offered to share the photo with brick experts all over the country. The response was almost immediate, he says.
One of the people who got in touch was John Harp, who had been working in brick sales since 1981.
“I noticed that the brick was a very pink-cast brick, and it had a little bit of a charcoal overlay on it. It was a modular eight-inch brick and it was square-edged,” he says. “When I saw that, I knew exactly what the brick was,” he adds.
It was, he told Squire, a “Flaming Alamo”.
“Our company made that brick from the late 60s through about the middle part of the 80s, and I had sold millions of bricks from that plant.”
Initially Squire was ecstatic, expecting they could access a digitised customer list. But Harp broke the news that the sales records were just a “pile of notes” that went back decades.
He did however reveal a key detail about bricks, Squire says.
“He goes: ‘Bricks are heavy.’ And he said: ‘So heavy bricks don’t go very far.'”
This changed everything. The team returned to the sofa customer list and narrowed that down to just those clients who lived within a 100-mile radius of Harp’s brick factory in the US’ south-west.
From that list of 40 or 50 people, it was easy to find and trawl their social media. And that is when they found a photo of Lucy on Facebook with an adult who looked as though she was close to the girl – possibly a relative.
They worked out the woman’s address, and then used that to find out every other address connected with that person, and all the people they had ever lived with.
That narrowed Lucy’s possible address down further – but they didn’t want to go door to door, making enquiries. Get the address wrong, and they could risk the suspect being tipped off that he was on the authorities’ radar.
So Squire and his colleagues began sending photos of these houses to John Harp, the brick expert.
Flaming Alamos were not visible on the outside of any of the homes, because the properties were clad in other materials. But the team asked Harp to assess – by looking at their style and exterior – if these properties were likely to have been built during a period when Flaming Alamos had been on sale.
“We would basically take a screenshot of that house or residence and shoot it over to John and say ‘would this house have these bricks inside?'” says Squire.
Finally they had a breakthrough. They found an address that Harp believed was likely to feature a Flaming Alamo brick wall, and was on the sofa customer-base list.
“So we narrowed it down to this one address… and started the process of confirming who was living there through state records, driver’s licence… information on schools,” says Squire.
The team realised that in the household with Lucy was her mother’s boyfriend – a convicted sex offender.
Within hours, local Homeland Security agents had arrested the offender, who had been raping Lucy for six years. He was subsequently sentenced to more than 70 years in jail.
Brick expert Harp was delighted to hear Lucy was safe, especially given his own experiences as a long-term foster parent.
“We’ve had over 150 different children in our home. We’ve adopted three. So, doing that over those years, we have a lot of children in our home that were previously abused,” he said.
“What Squire’s team do day in and day out, and what they see, is a magnification of hundreds of times of what I’ve seen or had to deal with.”
A few years ago, that pressure on Squire started to take a real toll on his mental health, and he admits that, when he wasn’t working, “alcohol was a bigger part of my life than it should have been”.
“At that point my kids were a bit older… and, you know, that almost enables you to push harder. Like… ‘I bet if I get up at three this morning, I can surprise a perpetrator online.’
“But meanwhile, personally… ‘Who’s Greg? I don’t even know what he likes to do.’ All of your friends… during the day, you know, they’re criminals… All they do is talk about the most horrific things all day long.”
Not long afterwards, his marriage broke down, and he says he began to have suicidal thoughts.
It was his colleague Pete Manning who encouraged him to seek help after noticing his friend seemed to be struggling.
“It’s hard when the thing that brings you so much energy and drive is also the thing that’s slowly destroying you,” Manning says.
Squire says exposing his vulnerabilities to the light was the first step to getting better and continuing to do a job he is proud of.
“I feel honoured to be part of the team that can make a difference instead of watching it on TV or hearing about it… I’d rather be right in there in the fight trying to stop it.”
Last summer Greg met Lucy, now in her 20s, for the first time.
She told him her ability to now discuss what she went through was testament to the support she has around her.
“I have more stability. I’m able to have the energy to talk to people [about the abuse], which I could not have done… even, like, a couple years ago.”
She said at the point Homeland Security ended her abuse she had been “praying actively for it to end”.
“Not to sound cliché, but it was a prayer answered.”
Squire told her he wished he had been able to communicate that help was on its way.
“You wish there was some telepathy and you could reach out and be like, ‘listen, we’re coming’.”
The BBC asked Facebook why it couldn’t use its facial recognition technology to assist the hunt for Lucy. It responded: “To protect user privacy, it’s important that we follow the appropriate legal process, but we work to support law enforcement as much as we can.”
[BBC]
Gunmen on motorcycles have killed dozens of people in dawn raids across three villages in north-western Nigeria.
Armed men shot locals dead, set homes alight and abducted an unknown number of people in Niger State, Musa Saidu, head of the State Emergency Management Agency (Sema), told the BBC.
The attacks on Saturday morning occurred near the site of a suspected jihadist massacre earlier this month, in which more than 100 people were killed in a similar ambush.
Armed criminal gangs, known as bandits, have carried out attacks and kidnappings in Nigeria for years, mainly targeting those in the north-west – but reports of attacks in other parts of the country have risen sharply more recently.
Bandits swooped on the village of Tunga-Makeri early in the morning, before striking the nearby villages of Konkoso and Pissa, local officials said.
Police said six people were killed in one incident, and 20 more in the attacks on Konkoso and Pisa.
Officials confirmed at least 29 people had been killed as of Saturday, but Saidu said that death toll could rise.
The number of people abducted is also unknown because many residents fled their homes and ran into the nearby bush or neighbouring communities, he said.
“People are afraid because you can’t tell which community is going to be next,” he added.
A security report cited by AFP news agency said bandits came on 41 motorcycles, each carrying two or three men.
Abdullahi Rofia, a resident of neighbouring Agwara, told the BBC that many displaced people have taken shelter in his community, which was itself attacked two weeks ago.
“People are so traumatised, they no longer go to farm nor do they go to market,” he said.
“The bandits are not interesting in stealing or looting – they are more interested in killing and terrorising locals.”
Authorities have introduced emergency measures, including a restriction on late-night gatherings and a “partial curfew” that bans motorcycle taxis from operating after 20:00 local time (19:00 GMT).
Police confirmed that security teams have been deployed and rescue efforts are ongoing.
Nigeria’s leaders are under pressure to curb violence, with jihadist groups active in the north-west and separatist insurgents based in the country’s south-east.
The US launched Christmas Day strikes targeting Islamist militants in Nigeria’s northern Sokoto state and President Donald Trump warned of further attacks “if they continue to kill Christians”.
Many of the victims of jihadist violence are Muslim, according to organisations monitoring political violence in Nigeria.
A Nigerian official told BBC last month that 200 suspected bandits had been killed in an operation in the central Kogi state.
It came after more than 250 children and staff were abducted from a Catholic school in Papiri, in one of the largest recent mass-kidnappings. Their release was later secured.
[BBC]
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