Worst Joke Ever 2024

[webfact]

Trudeau says no 'stomping on table' over Canadians held in China

By David Ljunggren

 

FILE PHOTO: Robert Long holds a sign outside the B.C. Supreme Court bail hearing of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, who was held on an extradition warrant in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada December 11, 2018. REUTERS/Lindsey Wasson/File Photo

 

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urged caution on Wednesday and said he would not be "stomping on a table" after China detained a third Canadian amid a diplomatic dispute over the arrest of a Chinese technology executive.

 

The detentions of the Canadians - including one disclosed on Wednesday - followed the Dec. 1 arrest in Vancouver of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd. [HWT.UL]. The arrest was made at the request of the United States, which is engaged in a trade war with China.

 

Trudeau has been under pressure to take a more robust stand on the detentions, but said at a news conference: "Political posturing or political statements aren’t necessarily going to contribute. They might actually hinder Canadians’ release. We’re going to take every situation carefully and seriously.

 

"Canadians understand that even though political posturing might be satisfactory in the short term to make yourself ... feel like you're stomping on a table and doing something significant, it may not directly contribute to the outcome we all want, which is for these Canadians to come home safely."

 

Trudeau said he was asking China for more information on the detentions. No details have been given on the latest, but Trudeau said it was "a very separate case" from last week when former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor were detained amid the diplomatic quarrel triggered by Meng's arrest.

 

The National Post newspaper said the latest detainee was a Canadian woman who was teaching English in China and was held because of "visa complications."

 

Huawei is the world’s biggest supplier of telecoms network equipment and second-biggest smartphone seller. The United States has been looking since at least 2016 into whether Huawei shipped U.S.-origin products to Iran and other countries in violation of U.S. export and sanctions laws, Reuters reported in April.

 

The Canadian government has said several times it saw no explicit link between the arrest of Meng, the daughter of Huawei’s founder, and the detentions of Kovrig and Spavor. But Beijing-based Western diplomats and former Canadian diplomats have said they believed the detentions were a "tit-for-tat" reprisal by China.

 

Bob Rae, Canada's special envoy to Myanmar and a former Liberal Party leader, tweeted on Wednesday that "there are no coincidences" and said the detentions looked "too much like hostage taking."

 

An official at the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa said the embassy had no information to release on the issue.

 

Meng is accused by the United States of misleading multinational banks about Iran-linked transactions, putting the banks at risk of violating U.S. sanctions. She was released on bail in Vancouver, where she owns two homes, while waiting to learn if she will be extradited to the United States. She is due in court on Feb. 6.

 

U.S. President Donald Trump told Reuters last week he might intervene in the case if it would serve national security interests or help close a trade deal with China.

 

The comments upset Canada, which warned the United States against politicizing extradition cases.

 

Trudeau said a decision on whether to use Huawei equipment in Canada's 5G mobile network should be made by experts and not influenced by politics.

 

BUYING TIME

A source with direct knowledge of the situation said senior officials at the Canadian Foreign Ministry had held many meetings about the detainees but that a formal task force had yet to be created.

 

"At this point, Canada is trying to buy time by stressing it has a rules-based order and an independent judiciary," said the source, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the situation.

 

A second source said Canada was concerned that the detainees were in the hands of the powerful security authorities.

 

"Even if there were voices of reason in the Chinese system saying: 'Are you crazy? The Canadian government cannot order a judge to release Ms. Meng,' the security voices are going to trump them," the source said.

 

Philip Calvert, a former diplomat in China and now a research fellow at the University of Victoria, said at least the first two detentions were indicative of "the way China often engages internationally in situations like this."

 

"The people making the decisions in Beijing really think when push comes to shove, they can put pressure on Canada to override the system," he said.

 

Flavio Volpe, president of Canada's Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association, said on Wednesday he had spoken with a few Chinese automakers that are now delaying a decision to set up production facilities in Canada. The automakers, which Volpe declined to name, had been weighing whether to sell cars built in Canada to the North American market.

 

The last time Canadians were detained in China for security reasons was in 2014 when Kevin and Julia Garratt, who ran a coffee shop in northeastern China, were held near the border with North Korea. She was released and left the country, while her husband was charged with spying and stealing state secrets before being released and deported two years later.

 

The arrest of the Garratts came shortly after a Chinese businessman was picked up on a U.S. warrant in Canada.

 

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard, Philip Wen and Christian Shepherd in Beijing and Allison Martell and Anna Mehler Paperny in Toronto; Writing by Bill Trott; Editing by Alistair Bell, James Dalgleish and Peter Cooney)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-12-20

[Topdoc]

Trudeau is of course well aware that Meng Wanzhou is not a US national, was not on US soil and neither Canada nor China have approved the renewal of the Iran embargo, the renewal being a unilateral decision by the US.

[janclaes47]

4 minutes ago, Topdoc said:

Trudeau is of course well aware that Meng Wanzhou is not a US national, was not on US soil and neither Canada nor China have approved the renewal of the Iran embargo, the renewal being a unilateral decision by the US.

Who would have thought that a country making loads of money selling spy equipment to Iran and other countries in the region, didn't approve the Iran embargo

[Topdoc]

18 minutes ago, janclaes47 said:

Who would have thought that a country making loads of money selling spy equipment to Iran and other countries in the region, didn't approve the Iran embargo

Actually, it was a ruling by the UN’s international court of justice in the Hague.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/03/international-court-of-justice-orders-us-to-lift-new-iran-sanctions

[janclaes47]

4 minutes ago, Topdoc said:

Actually, it was a ruling by the UN’s international court of justice in the Hague.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/03/international-court-of-justice-orders-us-to-lift-new-iran-sanctions

 

Sorry, I didn't realise that spy equipment had anything to do with the terms mentioned in the UN ruling

 

“The court considers that the United States, in accordance with its obligations under the 1955 treaty, must remove, by means of its choosing, any impediments arising from the measures” relating to humanitarian needs, medicines, foodstuff and agricultural commodities and civil aviation, the ruling said.

[Topdoc]

 

1 hour ago, Topdoc said:

making loads of money selling spy equipment to Iran and other countries in the region

There's no proof of any spying equipment. Even Germany's IT watchdog admits there is no proof. Iran wants Huawei because the NSA hasn't figured out a way to break the encryption on Huawei equipment. 

 

Germany's IT watchdog has expressed scepticism about calls for a boycott of Chinese telecoms ... "For such serious decisions like a ban, you need proof," the head of Germany's Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), Arne Schoenbohm, told Spiegel, adding that his agency had no such evidence.

[Emdog]

"U.S. President Donald Trump told Reuters last week he might intervene in the case if it would serve national security interests or help close a trade deal with China."

Now if we could just get China to back Central American refugees..... trump messing with things he has zero knowledge of... hey Mr Law and Order: it is considered bad form to take hostages & you said it would be easy to win a trade war.

[Ulic]

7 hours ago, Topdoc said:

Trudeau is of course well aware that Meng Wanzhou is not a US national, was not on US soil and neither Canada nor China have approved the renewal of the Iran embargo, the renewal being a unilateral decision by the US.

As I understand it that is not the whole issue. Mrs, Meng lied to banks about violating the US embargo and this brings the banks into violation with US law. So Mrs. Meng is accused of fraud for lying to the banks. I am not entirely sure but that is as I understand it. As far a Trudeau involvement, a bigoted silver spoon as far as I am concerned. Thumping his chest regarding the Saudis human rights violations but his tongue is firmly up China's ass and ignoring China's far greater human rights violations.

[janclaes47]

5 hours ago, Topdoc said:

 

There's no proof of any spying equipment. Even Germany's IT watchdog admits there is no proof. Iran wants Huawei because the NSA hasn't figured out a way to break the encryption on Huawei equipment. 

 

Germany's IT watchdog has expressed scepticism about calls for a boycott of Chinese telecoms ... "For such serious decisions like a ban, you need proof," the head of Germany's Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), Arne Schoenbohm, told Spiegel, adding that his agency had no such evidence.

If you say so, then all those countries like there are UK - Canada - US and a few others have it wrong by banning Chines telecoms.

 

Oh wait, even Germany agrees with that.'

 

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Chinas_ZTE_loses_major_German_mobile_contract_999.html

 

Chinese telecoms giant ZTE lost its biggest contract in Germany, network provider Telefonica on Friday told AFP, as resistance mounts across the West to Beijing's infrastructure manufacturers.

ZTE's contract to maintain mobile operator O2's network, which is owned by Spain's Telefonica, "will come to an end as planned at the end of the year," said a spokesman for the German firm, confirming a report from business daily Handelsblatt.

 

<snip>

 

But some observers raised eyebrows at the BSI's apparent dismissal of cyber security risks concerning Huawei.

"I believe it's wrong to suggest that the concerns about Chinese espionage are unfounded and easy to detect," telecom security expert Ronja Kniep told AFP.

"Even if Huawei has no official relationship with the Chinese government, that doesn't mean Chinese services aren't using the company and its technology as vehicles for espionage."

 

[bristolboy]

6 hours ago, Topdoc said:

 

There's no proof of any spying equipment. Even Germany's IT watchdog admits there is no proof. Iran wants Huawei because the NSA hasn't figured out a way to break the encryption on Huawei equipment. 

 

Germany's IT watchdog has expressed scepticism about calls for a boycott of Chinese telecoms ... "For such serious decisions like a ban, you need proof," the head of Germany's Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), Arne Schoenbohm, told Spiegel, adding that his agency had no such evidence.

Well, it's good to know that Iran trusts that the American corporation Qualcomm is not in league with the CIA or the NSA.  Qualcomm processors are the most sophisticated part of the Huawei phone.

[300sd]

11 hours ago, webfact said:

Trudeau said he was asking China for more information on the detentions.

It's a little obvious.