Canada to Allow Extradition of Huawei CFO to US

The Canadian Department of Justice has decided to allow the US to extradite Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Chinese tech giant Huawei. Meng is wanted in the US for alleged financial crimes.

"Today, Department of Justice Canada officials issued an Authority to Proceed, formally commencing an extradition process in the case of Ms. Meng Wanzhou," a Friday press release by the Canadian Department of Justice reads.

The Chinese Embassy in Canada issued a statement in response, saying China is "utterly dissatisfied with and firmly opposes" Ottawa's decision.

Meng was arrested on December 1, 2018, in Vancouver, the US having issued an arrest warrant for her earlier that year. Released on C$10 million bail on December 12, she was given a GPS tracker and 24-hour security detail, to ensure she didn't flee to her native China.

Meng is charged in the US with numerous financial crimes, including bank fraud and conspiracy to defraud the US government. The charges stem from her position on the board of Skycom, a subsidiary of Huawei that the US government alleges the tech giant used to get around trade sanctions against Iran. She has denied these allegations.

Meng's extradition hearing is scheduled for March 6. However, the Canadian Justice Department warned that "An extradition hearing is not a trial nor does it render a verdict of guilt or innocence."

"If a person is ultimately extradited from Canada to face prosecution in another country, the individual will have a trial in that country."

https://sputniknews.com/business/201903011072880304-Canada-Allow-Extradition-Huawei-CFO-US/

Chlorine ‘likely’ used in alleged Douma chemical attack, no nerve agent – OPCW‘s final report

Chlorine was likely used in a chemical attack in Syria’s Douma last April, the OPCW said. The chemical arms watchdog refrained from naming the guilty party in the incident, despite earlier being granted such powers.

There are “reasonable grounds” to believe that “the use of a toxic chemical as a weapon has taken place on 7 April 2018,” the Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) for the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said.

“This toxic chemical contained reactive chlorine. The toxic chemical was likely molecular chlorine,” according to the report.

The FMM also stated that it “did not observe any major key precursors for the synthesis of chemical weapons agents, particularly for nerve agents such as sarin, or vesicants such as sulphur or nitrogen mustard.”

The OPCW experts came to such conclusions after on-site visits to collect environmental samples, interviews with the witnesses and analysis of other data.

The chemical incident in Douma just over a year ago was reported by the infamous Western-backed group, the White Helmets, which had been caught red-handed cooperating with the terrorists on numerous occasions.

The activists blamed the Syrian government for the attack on its own people, as videos emerged online allegedly showing doctors trying to rescue those affected by toxic substances. Moscow had for weeks issued repeated warnings that the militants were preparing provocations with the chemical weapons in the area.

The unverified claims were swiftly picked up by the mainstream media. The US, UK, and France used the claimed attack as a pretext to launch a large-scale missile attack on the Syrian government targets, which they said were involved in the production of toxic agents.

They opted to act days before the OPCW was to arrive in Douma for a fact-finding mission, only a week after the alleged chemical incident.

Chlorine containers from Germany that belonged to militants were later found by the Russian military in the liberated parts of Douma. It was followed by the discovery of laboratory operated by terrorists which contained all the equipment needed to produce deadly chemicals.

https://www.rt.com/news/452800-opcw-douma-chlorine-syria/