Canada, G7 urge 'all parties' to de-escalate in growing Mideast conflict
Canada called for "all parties" to de-escalate rising tensions in the Mideast following an apparent Israeli drone attack against Iran overnight.
There are moments in history that appear as critical to the world as they are terrifying.
Just this century: the 9/11 attacks in 2001; the U.S. "shock-and-awe″ war on Saddam Hussein's Iraq two years later; the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 killed millions and upended life; and most recently the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine by Russia, bringing ruinous war back to Europe.
Friday seemed one of those watershed moments as Russian President Vladimir Putin signed treaties to illegally annex a large swath of eastern and southern Ukraine, like it did with Crimea in 2014.
Coming seven months into the conflict and with near daily nuclear threats by backs-to-the wall Kremlin leaders, Putin chilllingly vowed to protect the newly annexed regions by "all available means." Almost immediately, Ukraine's president countered by applying to join the NATO military alliance, setting Russia up to face off against the West.
Any thought that this kind of harrowing brinkmanship had ended with the 1980s when the last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and then U.S. President Ronald Reagan eased the Cold War and the specter of nuclear Armageddon, is now gone.
Even with the horror of Japan's Hiroshima and Nagasaki burned on humanity's collective consciousness, the world finds itself once again contemplating the possible use of nuclear weapons.
After a series of humiliating setbacks on the battlefield, Putin has made it painfully clear that any attack on the newly annexed regions would be construed as an attack on Russia. He would use any means available in his vast arsenal -- the nod to nuclear weapons was barely veiled -- and wasn't bluffing, he said.
"We're in an escalation phase, and Russia now is faced with a series of more extreme choices than before," said Nigel Gould-Davies, the former U.K. ambassador to Belarus.
Gould-Davies, who is senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said Russia's attempts to win the war by more moderate means have failed, and Putin is now having to increase the "range and severity of the measures" Russia is taking, including annexation and nuclear threats.
Even as Moscow annexed the four Ukrainian regions in a move that will not be recognized by an overwhelming majority of the world, tens of thousands of Russian men called up to fight in the war were fleeing Russia.
Former Kremlin speechwriter turned political analyst Abbas Gallyamov on Friday linked Russia's reversals in the war with the annexation push. "It looks like an attempt to respond somehow, and it looks quite pathetic. Ukrainians are doing something, taking steps in the real material world, while the Kremlin is building some kind of virtual reality, incapable of responding in the real world," he said.
Driving Putin are years of perceived humiliation at the hands of the West after the demise of the Soviet Union. And the fact that previous bloodshed and atrocities committed against Chechnya and Syria escaped severe international intervention seemed to give him the conviction that he had carte blanche to rebuild an Imperial Russia.
That's not the case now.
Billions of dollars in United States and European military aid are helping highly motivated Ukrainian forces liberate territory in the war amid clear signals from Washington that `'catastrophic consequences" will follow any use by Moscow of non-conventional weapons.
On a day like Friday, Sept. 30, as Russia's war in Ukraine enters a flammable, even more dangerous phase, the question remains; Is a wider war looming with devastating results for the world, perhaps not seen since 1939-1945?
Canada called for "all parties" to de-escalate rising tensions in the Mideast following an apparent Israeli drone attack against Iran overnight.
A Manitoba woman thought she found a miracle natural supplement, but said a hidden ingredient wreaked havoc on her health.
Hospital chaplain J.S. Park opens up about death, grief and hearing thousands of last words, and shares his advice for the living.
A woman who recently moved to Canada from India was searching for a job when she got caught in an online job scam and lost $15,000.
More money will land in the pockets of some Canadian families on Friday for the latest Canada Child Benefit installment.
The World Health Organization and around 500 experts have agreed for the first time on what it means for a disease to spread through the air, in a bid to avoid the confusion early in the COVID-19 pandemic that some scientists have said cost lives.
On Friday, the pop star released her 11th album and at 2 a.m. Eastern, she released "The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology," featuring 15 additional songs.
American millionaire Jonathan Lehrer, one of two men charged in the killings of a Canadian couple in Dominica, has been denied bail.
Group of Seven foreign ministers warned of new sanctions against Iran on Friday for its drone and missile attack on Israel, and urged both sides to avoid an escalation of the conflict.
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.
Molly Knight, a grade four student in Nova Scotia, noticed her school library did not have many books on female athletes, so she started her own book drive in hopes of changing that.
Almost 7,000 bars of pure gold were stolen from Pearson International Airport exactly one year ago during an elaborate heist, but so far only a tiny fraction of that stolen loot has been found.
When Les Robertson was walking home from the gym in North Vancouver's Lower Lonsdale neighbourhood three weeks ago, he did a double take. Standing near a burrow it had dug in a vacant lot near East 1st Street and St. Georges Avenue was a yellow-bellied marmot.
A moulting seal who was relocated after drawing daily crowds of onlookers in Greater Victoria has made a surprise return, after what officials described as an 'astonishing' six-day journey.
Just steps from Parliament Hill is a barber shop that for the last 100 years has catered to everyone from prime ministers to tourists.
A high score on a Foo Fighters pinball machine has Edmonton player Dave Formenti on a high.
A compound used to treat sour gas that's been linked to fertility issues in cattle has been found throughout groundwater in the Prairies, according to a new study.