Coming to a university near you.

Canada wants to close a trade deal with Mercosur this year in a bid to diversify away from the United States, its foreign minister said while visiting Brazil on Tuesday.

Mirror

I saw one of the m/disinfo communities on here post this and make generic anti-trans hay about it in lieu of critical thinking ability or useful commentary. Seems like this decision was made strongly based on this individual's history and that everyone's safety was considered. Hardly a referendum on 'trans issues'

A judge has ruled against a transgender inmate with a lengthy record of sex crimes involving women, refusing her request to order the Correctional Service of Canada to move her from the men’s prison system into a women’s institution.

Amanda Cooper, who has been incarcerated as a dangerous offender since 2001 for crimes committed when she identified as a man, underwent full gender surgery two years ago, and argued she feared for her safety in a men’s prison and was in self-imposed isolation.

Correctional authorities, however, refused the 59-year-old’s requests to move to a women’s institution, citing her risk and the safety of other women inmates. Cooper filed for a judicial review, which was heard last month in Federal Court in a virtual hearing out of Halifax.

Canada has reached a ​deal to become an observer to an advanced fighter jet ‌program being pursued by Japan, Britain and Italy, a senior Canadian-based source with direct knowledge of the matter said on Wednesday.

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Canadian defense officials are due to make a ​formal announcement on Tuesday of next week at the ⁠Farnborough International Airshow in Britain, said the source, who requested anonymity ​given the sensitivity of the matter.

The three countries launched the Global ​Combat Air Programme (GCAP) in 2022 to field a next-generation stealth fighter by 2035, led by Britain's BAE Systems, Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and Italy's Leonardo.

Any Canadian ​involvement would mark GCAP's first expansion beyond its three founding ​members.

Although observer status is an initial step that does not entail any financial ‌commitments, ⁠Canada could deepen its cooperation later, depending on how the project turns out.

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[The move] represents another step in Canada's efforts to diversify its defense spending ​away from the United States and forge closer ​European ties.

Last ⁠December, Ottawa said it would join the European Union's Security Action for Europe initiative, which will give Canadian defense companies expanded access to ⁠the European ​market.

GCAP is one of two major ​Western sixth-generation fighter projects, alongside the U.S. Air Force's Next Generation Air Dominance program.

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Archive link

As the rubber boat he was on rocked through choppy waves, fear washed over Chinese dissident Dong Guangping, who had gone without sleep for two days.

The 68-year-old knew he was taking a huge risk trying to flee China by sea, but even then, he had underestimated the challenges of this journey.

He was badly sunburned, his phone was running out of battery, and his portable charger had gone flat. Apart from the sky and the sea, there were no landmarks around him. He could only hope that the digital compass would get him to South Korea before his phone went flat.

"Not being able to navigate would have been terrifying. I could have drifted back towards China," Dong told BBC Chinese nearly two months after his perilous escape.

Forty hours after setting out from China's eastern Shandong province, Dong was rescued by the coast guard and fishermen in Korean waters on the night of 27 May.

He was briefly detained in South Korea but has since resettled in Canada, where his family had been living.

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"I can never survive in China," said Dong, who spoke to BBC Chinese in a video call from Toronto.

"If I didn't leave, I will never be at peace for the rest of my life. I had to show the Chinese Communist Party I was capable of leaving. They cannot stop me, they cannot control me."

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Dong, a police officer-turned-human rights activist, has been jailed in China several times for his activism.

In 1999, Dong was fired from the police force after 13 years because he signed a petition to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the brutal Tiananmen crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.

Then in 2001, he was imprisoned for three years for "inciting subversion of state power". He was jailed again in 2014 for participating in another Tiananmen commemoration event, according to Amnesty International.

Dong had fled China four times previously but was sent back each time. "But I have always held fast to one conviction: I must get out into the free world," he tells BBC Chinese.

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In September 2015, he travelled to Bangkok with his wife and daughter, where they were granted refugee status by the United Nations and approved for resettlement in Canada.

But days before they were scheduled to leave for Canada, Thai authorities deported Dong to China, where he was jailed for "inciting subversion" and "crossing the national border illegally". He was sentenced to three and a half years in jail.

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In May this year, with just a few hours of sailing practice, Dong started his journey in Weihai, Shandong, in a 3.3m long rubber dinghy equipped with an engine.

The poor weather conditions at sea prompted him to reroute and head towards South Korea, which is a closer destination.

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Dong was sent to a refugee centre in Incheon and later granted political asylum in Canada.

He is not the first Chinese dissident to flee across the sea to South Korea.

In 2023, another Chinese activist Kwon Pyong fled to South Korea on a jet ski. He was initially detained on immigration charges but later resettled in the US.

Speaking about the moment when he found out his flight to Toronto was confirmed, Dong said he was "overcome with emotion holding the air ticket".

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Crossposted from https://lemmy.zip/post/67999824