Stamp prices rise for the third time in five years amid financial woes for Canada Post
Canada Post is increasing stamp prices for the third time since 2019, a move the Crown corporation says is a "reality" of its sales-based revenue structure.
U.S. President Joe Biden is holding talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Geneva on Wednesday. It remains unclear whether they will do a prisoner exchange deal, though Putin said beforehand he was open to one.
Here are some of the individuals who could be freed if such a swap was agreed.
Paul Whelan, a former U.S. marine who was arrested for alleged spying, listens to the verdict in a courtroom at the Moscow City Court in Moscow, Russia, Monday, June 15, 2020. (Sofia Sandurskaya, Moscow News Agency photo via AP)
Washington has demanded the release of Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine convicted of espionage last June and sentenced to 16 years in jail. Whelan has denied spying and says he was set up in a sting operation.
Moscow said that Whelan, who holds U.S., British, Canadian and Irish passports, had been caught red-handed with classified information in a Moscow hotel room where agents from the Federal Security Service detained him on Dec. 28, 2018.
Whelan said he was in Russia for a wedding and on holiday and set up by a Russian man he thought was a friend.
Whelan, who is being held in a high-security prison eight hours drive from Moscow, denounced the proceedings against him last June as a "sham trial." Russia has sent mixed signals as to whether it would be ready to free him in a deal.
This image shows Trevor Reed in 2015 while fishing in Corpus Christi, Texas. (Paula Reed via AP)
The United States has criticized the trial of Trevor Reed, another former U.S. Marine jailed for nine years last July, as the "theater of the absurd" and lacking serious evidence.
Russia convicted Reed, a student at the University of North Texas, of endangering the lives of two police officers who had detained him in August 2019 when he grabbed an officer who was behind the wheel of a car, causing the vehicle to swerve dangerously.
Reed said he could not remember the events because he was drunk when detained after leaving a party in Moscow, but denied the charge in court after hearing what he said was the flimsy evidence presented during the trial and the investigation's failure to obtain video evidence that could prove his innocence.
In comments which upset his family, Putin, in an NBC interview before the summit, described Reed as "a drunk" and "a troublemaker."
"As they say here, he got himself shitfaced and started a fight. Among other things, he hit a cop," said Putin.
The United States is holding Viktor Bout, a Russian arms trafficker serving a 25-year prison sentence for plotting to sell missiles to people he thought were Colombian rebels. (Drug Enforcement Administration/WikiMedia)
The United States is holding Viktor Bout, a Russian arms trafficker serving a 25-year prison sentence for plotting to sell missiles to people he thought were Colombian rebels.
Bout, subject of a book called “Merchant of Death” and inspiration for a film “Lord of War” starring Nicolas Cage, was arrested in Thailand in 2008.
U.S. authorities said he had agreed to sell arms to U.S. undercover agents posing as Colombian guerrillas planning to attack American soldiers.
Bout, who protested his innocence, was convicted in 2011 and Russia has long sought his release.
He is now in a prison in Marion, Illinois, and only eligible for release in January 2030.
Russia has long urged Washington to release pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, who is serving 20 years in the United States for conspiracy to smuggle cocaine into the country. He was arrested in Liberia in 2010 in a DEA sting operation and flown to the United States.
Moscow has portrayed Yaroshenko, who says he is innocent, as the victim of an illegal kidnapping by Washington.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov in 2019 called for Yaroshenko to be freed in exchange for "an American or Americans who are serving their sentence here."
Putin, in his pre-summit NBC interview, mentioned Yaroshenko.
"Our pilot Yaroshenko has been in prison in the U.S. for ... I don't know how many years, 15, maybe 20 years. And there also the problem seems to be a common crime. If the U.S. side is prepared to discuss it, so are we."
(Editing by Giles Elgood)
Canada Post is increasing stamp prices for the third time since 2019, a move the Crown corporation says is a "reality" of its sales-based revenue structure.
Defence lawyers of Jeremy Skibicki have admitted in court the accused killed four Indigenous women in Winnipeg, but argues he is not criminally responsible for the deaths by way of mental disorder – this latest development has triggered a judge-alone trial rather than a jury trial.
Democratic Institutions Minister Dominic LeBlanc will be tabling legislation on Monday aimed at countering foreign interference in Canada. Federal officials have scheduled a technical briefing on the incoming bill for Monday afternoon.
H5N1 or avian flu is decimating wildlife around the world and is now spreading among cattle in the United States, sparking concerns about 'pandemic potential' for humans. Now a health expert is urging Canada to scale up surveillance north of the border.
Polish prosecutors have discontinued an investigation into human skeletons found at a site where German dictator Adolf Hitler and other Nazi leaders spent time during the Second World War because the advanced state of decay made it impossible to determine the cause of death, a spokesman said Monday.
Italy's mafia rarely dirties its hands with blood these days. Extortion rackets have gone out of fashion and murders are largely frowned upon by the godfathers.
An Ontario MPP was asked again to leave the Ontario legislature on Monday for wearing a keffiyeh, a garment that was banned by the Speaker last month due to its political symbolism.
After his adopted parents died, Dave Rogers set out to learn more about his birth mother. DNA results and a little help from friendly strangers would put him on a path to a small town in England.
The judge presiding over Donald Trump's hush money trial fined him US$1,000 on Monday for violating his gag order once again and sternly warned the former president that additional violations could result in jail time.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.