Darpan News Desk The Canadian Press, 02 Mar, 2022 11:45 AM
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Seven simple words from Joe Biden's state of the union speech have some in Canada breathing a little bit more easily this morning.
The U.S. president renewed his call for tax credits to lower the cost of electric vehicles, but made no mention of preferring American-made cars and trucks.
That is encouraging to some in the Canadian auto sector, considering the strident Buy American sentiment in other parts of Tuesday's hour-long speech.
Biden originally proposed a suite of incentives that prioritized EVs assembled in the U.S. with union labour — a plan that would kneecap Canadian automakers.
The federal government in Ottawa has been pressing the U.S. ever since to drop that condition, or provide an exemption for Canadian-made vehicles.
Still, no one is quite ready to exhale, insisting that they need to know more about the president's plan to know for sure if Canada is out of the woods.
In a statement on Friday, the U.N. health agency said the new scientific group would provide the WHO with an independent analysis of the work done to date to pinpoint the origins of COVID-19 and to advise the agency on necessary next steps. The experts will also provide guidance on critical issues regarding the potential emergence of other viruses capable of triggering outbreaks, such as MERS and Ebola.
During their first press conference on Tuesday the Taliban pressed the right button-backing women's rights. But their promise of protecting women's rights had an important nuance: Women will enjoy freedoms but within the ambit of "Islamic law" .
A contingent of persons from the Hindu and Sikh communities who are stranded in Afghanistan were provided reassurance of safety by the Taliban, media reports said. Over 300 Hindus and Sikhs are reportedly taking shelter at the Karte Parwan Gurudwara in Kabul.
We need humanitarian supplies. The refugee situation we updated you with last week and the week before has only deteriorated. We have 300,000 internal refugees and 80,000 children who are without shelter and food. Where we were short of supplies, now we are out.
Nikita Ishchenko, a spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Kabul, was quoted as saying by RIA: "Four cars were full of money, they tried to stuff another part of the money into a helicopter, but not all of it fit. And some of the money was left lying on the tarmac."
Fully vaccinated U.S. citizens and permanent residents can now enter Canada for non-essential purposes for the first time since March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced the two countries to severely curtail travel.
