Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
Civic leaders in Liverpool expressed outrage Wednesday after the English port city was stripped of its World Heritage status by the United Nations' culture organization.
UNESCO's World Heritage Committee voted in a secret ballot to remove the designation because of developments in the city center and on its historic River Mersey waterfront. The committee said the projects, including a planned new stadium for soccer team Everton, were "detrimental to the site's authenticity and integrity" and had caused "irreversible loss of attributes."
Liverpool Mayor Joanne Anderson called the decision "incomprehensible."
"I'm hugely disappointed and concerned by this decision to delete Liverpool's World Heritage status, which comes a decade after UNESCO last visited the city to see it with their own eyes," she said.
Anderson said the city would explore whether it could appeal, "but, whatever happens, Liverpool will always be a World Heritage city. We have a stunning waterfront and incredible built heritage that is the envy of other cities."
Liverpool was one of the world's busiest ports in the 18th and 19th centuries, growing prosperous from trade in goods and -- until the trade in humans outlawed by Britain in 1807 -- slaves. The docks declined and became derelict in the 20th century, but have been restored with museums, shops, bars, restaurants and new housing developments, making Liverpool a symbol of urban renewal.
The city that gave birth to The Beatles was added to UNESCO's World Heritage list in 2004, joining sites including India's Taj Mahal, Egypt's pyramids and the Tower of London.
But it was placed on the organization's heritage in danger list in 2012 amid concerns that modern development was marring the docklands' historic character.
The World Heritage Committee, made up of representatives from 21 countries, was asked to decide Liverpool's fate after an experts' report said "inadequate governance processes, mechanisms, and regulations for new developments in and around the World Heritage property" resulted in "serious deterioration and irreversible loss of attributes."
Steve Rotheram, mayor of the wider Liverpool region, said the decision was "a retrograde step that does not reflect the reality of what is happening on the ground."
"Many of the sites cited by UNESCO are in communities sorely in need of investment," he said. "Places like Liverpool should not be faced with the binary choice between maintaining heritage status or regenerating left-behind communities -- and the wealth of jobs and opportunities that come with it."
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S.
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
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.