Harvey Weinstein judge declines to dismiss #MeToo sexual assault case against him

Harvey Weinstein on Thursday failed to convince a New York judge to throw out the criminal sexual assault case against him, leaving the disgraced film producer bitterly disappointed, and bringing him one step closer to trial. Weinstein, 66, refused to respond to shouted questions as he left the courthouse in Manhattan, following the brief hearing….

UK and US accuse Syrian regime of staging chemical attack in Aleppo

Britain and the US have accused the Syrian regime and its Russian allies of staging a chemical weapons attack in Aleppo and blaming it on Syrian rebels.  In coordinated statements, the US and UK said it believed Russia and the Assad regime had carried out the attack against civilians in Aleppo on November 24. The…

Women's Employment Undermined By Systemic Barriers: House Of Commons Standing Committee Report

OTTAWA — A Commons committee that spent over a year looking at economic barriers facing Canadian women has released a sweeping list of recommendations it believes could provide a path toward full equality for women. The standing committee on the status of women tabled its report Thursday following a 15-month study of women’s economic security….

Americans ‘struggle to get Christmas trees’ amid potential shortage created by 2008 crash

Americans are facing a potential Christmas tree shortage this year in a lingering effect from the financial crisis a decade ago. Some tree growers went out of business as the economy buckled in 2008. Because trees take seven to 10 years to reach an acceptable size for buyers the effect is only being felt now. Jane Waterman, of Uptown Christmas Trees which sells festive firs…

Toronto Lawyer Files Complaint Against WestJet For Alleged Racial Profiling

TORONTO — The Canadian Transportation Agency is investigating a complaint from a Toronto lawyer who claims he was racially profiled by WestJet. Selwyn Pieters, who is black, says the incident happened when he was trying to check in for a WestJet flight to Toronto on July 2, at the conclusion of a weeklong trip to…

ELN interview: Colombian Marxist guerrillas ‘will fight’ US troops if they invade Venezuela

A feared hard Left guerrilla group operating in the mountains that border Venezuela and Colombia has vowed to respond to any military intervention by the US to topple Nicolas Maduro. In a rare interview from temporary exile in Cuba, leaders of Colombia’s National Liberation Army (ELN) told the Sunday Telegraph they were drawing up a…

UK and US conduct first joint drills in South China Sea

China’s military is on the leading edge of some of the world’s most advanced weapons systems according to a Pentagon report published this week, as the US and Britain announced they had conducted their first joint naval drills in the disputed South China Sea. The Pentagon found that China, the world’s second-largest economy, is now…

Russia ‘offered North Korea power plant in exchange for nuclear weapons’

Russia reportedly made a secret offer to North Korea last year to dismantle its nuclear weapons programme in exchange for a nuclear power plant. According to the Washington Post, the deal was proposed last autumn as a potential solution to an ongoing diplomatic impasse between the US and North Korea over Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile arsenal….