HellsBelle

Germany plans to treat the use of date rape drugs like the use of weapons in prosecutions as part of measures to ensure justice for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.

“We classify date rape drugs, which are increasingly used as a widespread tool in crimes, as weapons. This creates the basis for significantly stricter prosecutions,” Alexander Dobrindt, the interior minister, said on Friday. “We are committed to clear consequences and consistent enforcement. Women should feel safe and be able to move freely everywhere.”

Nearly 54,000 women and girls were the victims of sexual offences in Germany in 2024 – an increase of 2.1% on the previous year – of which nearly 36% were victims of rape and sexual assault.

Jim Rondeau, a former Manitoba NDP cabinet minister who is now the major projects director for Norway House, says the project has been rebranded as a critical minerals project, after the discovery of magnesium and other platinum-group metals, such as rhodium, platinum and palladium.

"Instead of a nickel project, we found out that we had a treasure chest of all sorts of critical minerals and very obscure minerals that really makes the project much more valuable, and unbelievably more attractive to produce," Rondeau said.

An assessment of the mining site found 60 metres of dolomite rock that contains what he says is a significant amount of pure magnesium.

A new exhibit recounting personal experiences of Palestinian Canadians who fled or were forced from their homes in 1948 is coming to Winnipeg next year, but one Jewish organization is pulling out of its partnerships with the museum over concerns the programming might not reflect important context.

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) announced a series of upcoming exhibits this week, including "Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present," which will open to visitors in June 2026.

“Kudos to the museum for having the courage to tell the story and not because they're favouring the Palestinians or the Israelis," said Ramsey Zeid, president of the Canadian Palestinian Association of Manitoba.

"This is a human rights story that really needs to be shared."

A former Regina police officer has pleaded guilty to using police databases to pursue intimate and personal relationships with women.

Robert Eric Semenchuck entered the plea in Regina Provincial Court on Friday. He did not speak during the brief appearance and did not answer questions shouted to him by reporters as he left court.

Semenchuck had worked for the Regina Police Service (RPS) for 22 years. Allegations were first brought to the service's attention in early 2023, but it took until March of this year for then-Police Chief Farooq Sheikh to announce Semenchuck was being charged.

Should Canada choose to fly the Swedish-built Gripen-E, the country’s air force could receive the first aircraft as quickly — or perhaps even sooner — than the long-awaited American-manufactured F-35, the CEO of Saab signalled Thursday.

Micael Johansson also said the defence giant is willing to set up not only an assembly factory in Canada, but a full-fledged manufacturing centre and a research and development hub.

He added, however, that the deal, which would include technology and intellectual property transfers, would be predicated on Canada deciding to purchase the fighter.

U.S. Vice-President JD Vance made a series of posts criticizing Canada’s political leadership, public broadcaster and immigration system, saying our living standards are “stagnating” because of all the “foreign-born” people living here.

In posts to his X account Friday, Vance says Canada’s elected leaders have created “immigration insanity” by leaning into diversity.

“While I'm sure the causes are complicated, no nation has leaned more into ‘diversity is our strength, we don't need a melting pot, we have a salad bowl’ immigration insanity than Canada,” he said.

Industry Minister Mélanie Joly pitted two giant defence companies against one another on Tuesday for the future of Canada's fighter fleet, saying the $27-billion contract to buy 88 U.S.-made F-35 jets doesn’t deliver enough jobs for workers in this country and that the public expects a better deal.

In perhaps her most pointed comments to date, Joly acknowledged publicly that the federal government was talking with Swedish defence contractor Saab, which has promised to bring thousands of aerospace manufacturing jobs to the country in the assembly of its Gripen E fighter jet.

"We think that we can use military procurement to get more,” Joly told reporters. “That is why we're looking, indeed, at the Gripen."

She said Saab is offering 10,000 jobs.

A U.S.-bound cargo ship was damaged and is taking on water near Bella Bella on B.C.'s Central Coast, officials say.

The Canadian Coast Guard said it received a report from the Malolo tugboat around 10:15 a.m. PT Tuesday that the freight barge it was towing was taking on water.

Officials say the boat was going from Alaska to Seattle, Wash., when it was damaged, and there were no reports of pollution as of Tuesday night near Bella Bella, which is around 480 kilometres northwest of Vancouver.

William Housty, the director of the Heiltsuk First Nation's integrated resource management department, told CBC News that they received reports that the barge was taking on water in the Fisher Channel, around 15 kilometres east of Bella Bella.

"The dive surveys showed that the hull on one part of the barge was compromised, so they must have hit the ground at some point," he said.

In the underworld of accelerationist neo-Nazis, where talk of attacks against western governments are commonplace, the spread of illegal weapons manuals and tradecraft on drone warfare are proliferating. Experts say, in some cases, that classes are being taught online with the input of leadership from proscribed terrorist groups with links to Russian intelligence.

Authorities have been warning, on both sides of the Atlantic, about the accessibility of drone technologies and military veterans on the far right with the knowhow to use them, presenting a grave national security threat.

Fisher-Birch says a well-connected and dangerous network called the Observations Group has emerged with a following among internationalist neo-Nazis and bills itself as a “paramilitary project to prepare people for modern warfare”.

The leader of the network told the Guardian that “I myself am in Russia” but that his “units are autonomous and located in different countries”. Its posts are in English and Russian, making clear it is not an American-based group, but says it is allied with an accused Kremlin spy and leader of the Base – an internationally designated neo-Nazi terrorist group, originating in the US.

Anthony Joshua and Jake Paul will face each other in a heavyweight fight in Miami on 19 December, it has been confirmed.

Rumours of the fight between Paul, a YouTuber-turned-boxer, and Joshua, the British former heavyweight champion of the world, had been trailed earlier this month and Paul’s company, Most Valuable Promotions, confirmed the news on Monday. The fight will be shown live on Netflix.

“This isn’t an AI simulation. This is Judgment Day,” said Paul. “A professional heavyweight fight against an elite world champion in his prime. When I beat Anthony Joshua, every doubt disappears, and no one can deny me the opportunity to fight for a world title. To all my haters, this is what you wanted. To the people of the United Kingdom, I am sorry. On Friday 19 December, under the lights in Miami, live globally only on Netflix, the torch gets passed and Britain’s Goliath gets put to sleep.”

From a skyscraper in downtown Manila, a sea of white spreads out below, covering the vast green lawns of Rizal Park and expanding down arterial roads and sidestreets. It is formed of more than half a million people, clad in matching white T-shirts, the slogan “transparency for a better democracy” emblazoned on their chests.

The focus of the fury is on company owners, government officials and parliament members accused of pocketing billions in funds for substandard or nonexistent flood protection projects. Since the scandal began, the country’s economic planning minister has said up to 70% of public funds allotted for flood control may have been lost to corruption; some senators have estimated 50%. Government investigators have discovered more than 400 “ghost” flood protection projects that were reported to have been completed but turned out to be nonexistent.

The absence of those protections is felt keenly in the Philippines, where hundreds of people have died in typhoon-related flooding over the past month. More than 20 typhoons have hit the country’s territory this year, and extreme weather increasingly derails daily life. As the rally formed on Sunday, authorities and families were still searching for those missing from Typhoon Kalmaegi, which ripped through the country in early November, killing at least 269. The 100 or so still missing are likely to also have been killed. Days after Kalgaemi blew through, Typhoon Fung-wong arrived, causing more devastating floods, displacing 1.4 million people and killing another 28.

IT’S HARD TO imagine a worse moment for Donald Trump to be caught in the Epstein dragnet than at the tail end of the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, with food benefits rattled, “affordability” on everyone’s minds, and his own voters starting to wonder if the guy in the red tie is actually on their side.

On the same day Trump finally signed a bill to reopen the government after 43 days of chaos, a coalition of House Democrats and Republicans dropped a tranche of Jeffrey Epstein emails that punches holes straight through the president’s carefully curated story about a distant, long-ago acquaintance, with Epstein alleging Trump “knew about the girls” and “spent hours at my house” with one of the victims.

While the messages don’t show criminal conduct by Trump, they landed at a moment when Americans are already furious with his handling of Epstein’s files, the shutdown, and the basic question of whether their government works for the powerful or for everyone else. Together, they form a pincer around a president who keeps promising transparency and law and order, then flinching the second those promises threaten him personally.