Foreign News
India may be linked to Canadian Sikh leader’s death – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the Indian government could be behind the fatal shooting of Canadian Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
Nijjar was shot dead outside a Sikh temple on 18 June in British Columbia (BC).
Mr Trudeau said Canadian intelligence has identified a “credible” link between his death and the Indian state. He raised the issue with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the recent G20 summit, he said. “Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty,” Mr Trudeau said on Monday in the House of Commons. “It is contrary to the fundamental rules by which free, open and democratic societies conduct themselves.”
India has previously denied any involvement with Mr Nijjar’s murder.
Canada also expelled an Indian diplomat, Pavan Kumar Rai, on Monday over the case, Foreign Minister Melanie Joly told reporters following Mr Trudeau’s remarks.
The BBC has contacted the Indian embassy in Canada for comment.
Ms Joly said Canadian officials are limited in what they can say in public about the case due to the ongoing homicide investigation into Mr Nijjar’s death.
Investigators have previously categorised the 45-year-old’s death as a “targeted incident”. Hardeep Singh Nijjar was shot dead in his vehicle by two masked gunmen on a mid-June summer evening in the busy car park of the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey, a city about 30km (18 miles) east of Vancouver.
He was a prominent Sikh leader in the western-most province of British Columbia and publicly campaigned for Khalistan – an independent Sikh homeland in the Punjab region of India. His supporters have said that he was a target of threats in the past because of his activism.
India has previously described him as a terrorist who led a militant separatist group – accusations his supporters call “unfounded”.
Mr Trudeau said Canada has expressed its concerns about Mr Nijjar’s death to high-level security and intelligence agencies in India. He also raised it with US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. “I continue to ask with a great deal of firmness that the government of India co-operate with Canada to shed light on this situation,” he said.
Mr Trudeau said that Mr Nijjar’s shooting has angered Canadians, leaving some fearful for their safety.
Some Sikh groups in Canada, including the World Sikh Organisation, welcomed the prime minister’s statement, saying Mr Trudeau confirmed what was already widely believed in the community. There are an estimated 1.4 to 1.8 million Canadians of Indian origin. The country has the largest population of Sikhs outside the state of Punjab in India.
Mr Trudeau’s remarks come after his tense meeting with Mr Modi last week during the G20 summit in India.
During that meeting, according to a statement from the Indian government, Mr Modi accused Canada of not doing enough to quell “anti-India activities of extremist elements”, referring to the Sikh separatist movement in the country.
Canada also recently suspended negotiations for a free trade agreement with India. It gave few details on why, but India cited “certain political developments”.
Mr Nijjar is the third prominent Sikh figure to have died unexpectedly in recent months.
In the UK, Avtar Singh Khanda, who was said to be the head of the Khalistan Liberation Force, died in Birmingham in June under what has been described as “mysterious circumstances”.
Paramjit Singh Panjwar, who was designated a terrorist by India, was shot dead in May in Lahore, the capital of Pakistan’s Punjab province.
(BBC)
Rescuers in Indonesia are searching for 11 people who went missing after a boat capsized in bad weather off the Mentawai Islands in West Sumatra province, according to a local search and rescue agency.
Dozens of rescuers and two boats were at the site of the disaster on Tuesday, and seven of the 18 people on board the boat have been rescued, the agency said in a statement.
The vessel capsized at about 11am on Monday (04:00 GMT) as it sailed around the Mentawai Islands.
It had departed Sikakap, a small town in the Mentawai Islands, and was heading to another small town, Tuapejat. Of 18 people on board, 10 were local government officials.
“Our focus is on combing the area around the estimated accident site to find all victims,” said Rudi, the head of the Mentawai search and rescue agency.
He did not give a cause for the boat capsizing, but marine accidents are a regular occurrence in the Southeast Asian archipelago of approximately 17,000 islands, in part due to lax safety standards or bad weather.
On July 3, a ferry carrying 65 people sank off the popular resort island of Bali, killing at least 18 people.
In March, a boat carrying 16 people capsized in rough waters off Bali, killing an Australian woman and injuring at least one other person.
In 2018, more than 150 people drowned when a ferry sank in one of the world’s deepest volcanic lakes on Sumatra island.
[Aljazeera]
A man in California has been arrested after police say he staged a “macabre teddy bear” made to look as if it were constructed from human flesh at a petrol station.
Hector Corona Villanueva, 23, is accused of planting false evidence and causing an emergency by leaving the bizarre creation at an AMPM service station on Sunday afternoon in the city of Victorville.
The bear’s discovery led to a police investigation and a coroner’s examination of the item, while the petrol station was closed as a sense of unease spread in the community.
On Monday, the sheriff’s office ruled the bear wasn’t made of any human body parts and dubbed the toy a “prank”.
Mr Villanueva was identified and arrested on Monday. It is unclear whether he has hired a lawyer who can speak on his behalf.
The gruesome discovery in Victorville, 80 miles (130km) northeast of Los Angeles, had locals worried about a possible serial killer on the loose.
The item was found around midday on Sunday at the filling station on Bear Valley Road when a witness called police to report that “a teddy bear made of what looked like human flesh was left in front of the business”.
A video posted online shows police responding to the scene as a glove-clad official from the coroner’s office examines the object and places it into an evidence bag.
A statement from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s office on Monday did not mention a potential motive, and said the “investigation into who left the teddy bear at the business is continuing”.
“Incidents such as this take up valuable emergency resources and put the public at risk, possibly delaying response time to legitimate calls for service,” the statement said.
“We would like to thank those that reported information that was helpful during the investigation of this case.”
South Carolina artist Robert Kelly has taken credit for creating the object, telling US media that he recently sold the figure to a buyer in Victorville.
“Our work is pretty easily recognisable, and people were sending the articles (about the petrol station) left and right. I looked, and sure enough it was the bear I sent out last week,” Mr Kelly told People magazine.
“Every artist wants credit [for] their work, so I said ‘I made that’, and haven’t been able to catch up with messages since.”
In a post to Facebook on Sunday, Mr Kelly denied having any knowledge of what the buyer intended to do with the bear.
“No I did not have any knowledge of the [buyer’s] intentions nor was I involved in a prank on the other side of the nation from me,” he wrote.
Mr Kelly, who sells his work through a shop on the website Etsy, specialises in horror creations for Halloween displays and films.
Other items are also made to resemble construction from human body parts, similar to the bear.
[BBC]
US President Donald Trump has announced the US will send “top-of-the-line weapons” to Ukraine via Nato countries, while also threatening Russia with severe tariffs if a deal to end the war is not reached within 50 days.
“We want to make sure Ukraine can do what it wants to do,” Trump said following a meeting with Nato chief Mark Rutte in Washington.
Rutte confirmed the US had decided to “massively supply Ukraine with what is necessary through Nato” and that the Europeans would foot the bill.
European countries will send Kyiv their own Patriot air defence systems – which Ukraine relies on to repel Russia’s deadly air strikes – and replacements will then be issued by the US, Trump said.
Neither Rutte nor Trump elaborated on the weaponry that will be sent to Kyiv but Rutte said the deal included “missiles and ammunition”.
However, the president did say “top-of-the-line-weapons” worth billions of dollars would be “quickly distributed to the battlefield” in order to support Ukraine.
“If I was Vladimir Putin today… I would reconsider whether I should not take negotiations about Ukraine more seriously,” Rutte said, as Trump nodded.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on X that he spoke with Trump after his meeting with Rutte, and thanked him for his “willingness to support Ukraine and to continue working together to stop the killings and establish a lasting and just peace”.
“We discussed the necessary means and solutions with the President to provide better protection for people from Russian attacks and to strengthen our positions. We are ready to work as productively as possible to achieve peace,” he said.
On the tariffs front, Trump said that the US would impose 100% secondary tariffs targeting Russia’s remaining trade partners if a peace deal with Ukraine was not reached within 50 days.
This would see any country that trades with Russia face the tax if they want to sell their products to the US.
For example, if India keeps buying oil from Russia, US companies that purchase Indian goods would have to pay a 100% import tax, or tariff, when the products reach American shores.
This would make the goods so expensive that US businesses would likely choose to buy them cheaper from elsewhere, resulting in lost revenue for India.
The intention is also to hobble Russia’s economy. Theoretically, if Moscow was unable to generate money by selling oil to other nations it would also have less money to finance its war in Ukraine.
Given that oil and gas account for almost a third of Moscow’s state revenue and more than 60% of its exports, 100% tariffs could make something of a dent Russia’s finances.
Still, the Moscow Stock Exchange Index rose sharply following the announcement, likely as investors were expecting Trump – who last week teased a “major statement” on Russia – to pledge even harsher measures.
Although detail about both the tariffs and the Nato weapons deal was scant, Monday was the first time Trump pledged new military equipment for Ukraine since returning to the White House.
The briefing was also notable for the tone struck by US president, whose rhetoric on Vladimir Putin has become increasingly harsh.
Not for the first time, Trump implied Kyiv bore some responsibility for Russia’s decision to launch its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
But he mostly appeared frustrated at the lack of progress in ending a conflict which he once seemed to believe could be easily solvable.
Asked about his relationship with Putin, Trump said that the two speak “a lot about getting this thing done” but voiced his displeasure at the fact that “very nice phone calls” with the Russian president are often followed by devastating air strikes on Ukraine – which have been growing in intensity and frequency.
“After that happens three or four times you say: the talk doesn’t mean anything,” Trump said.
“I don’t want to call him an assassin but he’s a tough guy. It’s been proven over the years, he fooled a lot of people – Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden,” he added. “He didn’t fool me. At a certain point talk doesn’t talk, it’s got to be action.”
Two rounds of ceasefire talks between Russia and Ukraine took place earlier this year but no other meetings have so far been scheduled – something Moscow has blamed on Kyiv.
Ukraine’s President Zelensky is currently hosting US envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv and earlier on Monday hailed a “productive meeting” – saying he was “grateful” to Trump for his support.
The Kremlin did not immediately comment on the announcement – but commentary trickling in from Moscow appeared to indicate a measure of relief.
Pro-Kremlin pundit and former Putin aide Sergei Markov called the tariffs announcement “a bluff” that indicated Trump had “given up on trying to achieve peace in Ukraine”.
Senator Konstantin Kosachev argued that “if this is all Trump had to say about Ukraine today, then so far it’s been much ado about nothing”.
In 50 days a lot could change “both on the battlefield and in the moods of the powers that be in the US and Nato,” Kosachev wrote.
[BBC]
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