Transport Minister Pablo Rodriguez says his department and the RCMP are investigating “recent threats circulating online” against Air India, including a video warning not to fly November 19. The original remarks were made by a U.S. organizer of unofficial referenda on Sikh independence, including recent votes in Surrey, B.C. [node:read-more:link]
Perimeter fences and lighting, surveillance cameras, gate controls and road infrastructure at 11 border crossings have been improved by the Canada Border Services Agency in an attempt prevent a repeat of last year’s “Freedom Convoy” protests which had a widespread economic impact. [node:read-more:link]
After Russia withdrew from a Turkish-brokered deal to ensure Ukrainian grain exports could continue, one of its warships intercepted a Palau-flagged cargo ship bound for a river port in Ukraine’s southern Odessa region August 13. According to the defence ministry, warning shots were fired when the vessel did not respond to an order to stop for inspection for “prohibited goods” but it was subsequently released. [node:read-more:link]
The U.S. is considering putting armed military personnel on commercial ships under constant threat by Iran as they transit the Strait of Hormuz. Officials are offering few details but the planning coincides with the impending arrival of thousands of Marines and Navy personnel in the region. [node:read-more:link]
The union representing 7,400 dockworkers at 30 B.C. ports revoked a strike notice July 19 only hours after it was issued. The workers resumed strike action July 18 after representatives rejected a mediated offer and Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan called the resumption of their strike “illegal” because 72-hours notice had not been given. [node:read-more:link]
Russia today walked away from a Turkish-brokered agreement last summer which enabled Ukrainian grain to be exported from Black Sea ports to markets in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. A Kremlin official said the arrangement would not be reinstated until its own agricultural exports are not subject to sanctions even though it has been shipping record amounts of wheat and fertilizers [node:read-more:link]
A strike by 7,400 dock and warehouse workers at 30 West Coast ports, now in its second week, is sending ripples across the Canadian economy. Employers, pressing the federal government to intervene, said today that an estimated $775-million in daily trade is being disrupted. [node:read-more:link]
Transport Minister Omar Alghabra announced today that the trusted-traveller program at airports in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Montreal is being reworked over two weeks starting June 7. It will relax rules about the content of carry-on baggage and enable children younger than 18 and adults 75 and older to accompany verified travellers on the same reservation to move quickly through security. [node:read-more:link]
The Turkish government said November 1 that it is determined to ensure that Ukrainian food exports will continue despite Russia’s abandonment on the weekend of a deal, brokered by Turkey, which is designed to ensure free movement of shipments out of a key Black Sea port. [node:read-more:link]
Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested today that a deal brokered by the UN and Turkey to lift a naval blockade and permit embattled Ukraine to export grain might need to be reviewed. Saying that other foods and fertilizer were being sent to European Union states and Turkey rather than to poor countries, he also threatened to halt all energy supplies to Europe if the EU caps the price of Russian natural gas. [node:read-more:link]
Three ships laden with corn left Ukrainian ports today, the latest sign that a negotiated deal to export grain trapped since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly six months ago is holding. A first ship left Odesa earlier in the week for Lebanon and the latest are bound for Britain, Ireland and Turkey. [node:read-more:link]
The Canada Border Services Agency has confirmed that officers in Montreal have seized more than a dozen shipments of “dual use goods” destined for Russia but banned under Canada’s sanctions after the invasionof Ukraine. All involved “suspected links to the Russian military.” [node:read-more:link]
For the first time since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a shipment of 26,000 tonnes of Ukrainian grain left the Black Sea port of Odesa today under an internationally brokered deal to unblock agricultural exports. Sixteen loaded ships had been blockaded by Russia since February, prompting a UN warning of a looming international hunger catastrophe. [node:read-more:link]
Russia's state-owned Gazprom is halving natural gas shipments through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany, prompting political panic on both sides of the Atlantic. A U.S. official says the retaliation against western sanctions puts the west in “uncharted territory and has resulted in the administration’s global energy coordinator leaving for Europe today to discuss options. [node:read-more:link]
Lithuania has lifted a ban on rail transport of passengers and European Union-sanctioned freight to and from the Russian Baltic Sea enclave of Kaliningrad which depends on the rail link. The moves comes after the EU clarified that its sanctions applied to road transport. [node:read-more:link]
