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CBC
5 hours ago
- CBC
A Chinese research vessel returns to Arctic waters — and it appears Canada is watching
Social Sharing The Canadian military and possibly the coast guard appear to have been keeping tabs on a Chinese research vessel as it returns to Arctic waters off Alaska for the second year in a row. Data compiled by an independent researcher and ship tracker, Steffan Watkins, shows a Canadian air force CP-140 surveillance plane was flying in the vicinity of the Xue Long (Snow Dragon) 2 as it exited the Bering Strait on Sunday. The aircraft, according to Watkins's research, relocated to Anchorage, Alaska, from its base in Comox, B.C., on July 9. It has conducted four patrols since then, including the most recent one involving the vessel, which is China's first domestically built polar research ship. Despite publicly available flight tracking showing the CP-140's patrol route, the Department of National Defence would not confirm on Monday the presence of the aircraft and said it couldn't immediately answer questions on the deployment. The air force appears to have picked up where the Canadian Coast Guard left off. Coast guard says it's monitoring illegal fishing The Chinese ice ship left Shanghai on July 6 and passed close to Japan a few days later, before heading north into Russian waters. "Shadowing the Xue Long 2 all of the way from Japan was CCGS Sir Wilfrid Laurier, which unmistakably paralleled their transit, staying in international waters," Watkins wrote in his latest post, which included ship-tracking data. The coast guard ship, the data shows, stuck with the Xue Long 2 until it crossed into the Bering Strait, between Alaska and Russia. Asked about the mission of the Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the coast guard at first provided a circumspect response and pointed CBC News to a June 9 media release which said the ship would be conducting high seas patrols in the North Pacific to counter "illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing." Then late Monday, the agency denied it was shadowing the Xue Long 2. The stated mission of the coast guard ship was to focus on "migratory routes for key species like Pacific salmon," it said. However, when ship-tracking data is overlaid with publicly available data on salmon migration routes, only one-third of the recent voyage involved known salmon paths. The ship's helicopter was also slated to conduct patrols with Canadian fishery officers in Japan to "monitor fishing vessels and support partner countries to ensure compliance with international law," according to the statement. Prime Minister Mark Carney pledged to expand the reach, security mandate and abilities of the Canadian Coast Guard as part of the Liberal government's plan to beef up the country's defences. Eventually, the federal government intends to integrate the civilian agency, currently under the Fisheries Department, into Canada's NATO defence capabilities to, as Carney put it last June, "better secure our sovereignty and expand maritime surveillance." Last summer, the Royal Canadian Navy dispatched a frigate to monitor the Xue Long 2 during its voyage to the Arctic — a mission the Department of National Defence took more than a week to acknowledge. Military experts have described the Chinese ice research ship as a dual-use vessel — suggesting it has a military or defence capacity. WATCH | Canada plots military expansion in the North: Canada plans Arctic military expansion as part of sovereignty push 2 months ago University of British Columbia Arctic expert Michael Byers said he believes Canadian officials need to be more forthcoming about the security threat they believe the vessel poses. "One has to actually do a proper threat assessment," Byers told CBC News in an interview. Byers acknowledged the Chinese ship could be collecting data that's militarily relevant, but he questions if the term "dual-use" is relying on assumptions rather than evidence. Relations with China continue to be strained and Byers said statements that are "potentially escalatory" about what the Chinese are — and are not — doing in the Arctic need to be examined carefully. Having said that, he fully supports the military and coast guard's monitoring activities. "We're very concerned as a country about China as a rising military power, and obviously China is very strongly supporting Russia with regards to its invasion of Ukraine," Byers said.
CTV News
12 hours ago
- CTV News
Removing HIV stigma in Manitoba
Winnipeg Watch Researchers in Manitoba are looking to improve treatment and reduce the stigma for those living with HIV.
CTV News
14 hours ago
- CTV News
In scathing letter, NASA workers rebuke ‘rapid and wasteful changes' at agency
A NASA logo is displayed at the entrance to the Mary W. Jackson NASA headquarters building in Washington, D.C., on June 2. (via CNN Newsource) A group of 287 scientists and current and former NASA employees has issued a declaration lambasting budget cuts, grant cancellations and a 'culture of organizational silence' that they say could pose a risk to astronauts' safety. The document — titled 'The Voyager Declaration' and dedicated to astronauts who lost their lives in tragic spaceflight incidents of the past — is addressed to acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy, a staunch Trump loyalist who abruptly replaced Janet Petro, a longtime NASA employee, in the agency's top role on July 9. The letter has 156 anonymous signatories and 131 public signatures — including at least 55 current employees. Hours after the letter published, Goddard Space Flight Center Director Makenzie Lystrup, who has led the NASA campus since 2023, abruptly resigned. Lystrup did not give a reason for her departure. 'Major programmatic shifts at NASA must be implemented strategically so that risks are managed carefully,' states the letter to Duffy, a former member of Congress, prosecutor and reality TV personality who also currently serves as Transportation secretary. 'Instead, the last six months have seen rapid and wasteful changes which have undermined our mission and caused catastrophic impacts on NASA's workforce.' The letter raises concerns about suggested changes to NASA's Technical Authority, a system of safety checks and balances at the agency. Established in the wake of the 2003 Columbia shuttle disaster that killed seven astronauts, the Technical Authority aims to ensure mission safety by allowing NASA employees at all levels of the agency to voice safety concerns to leaders outside their direct chain of command. 'If you have a significant disagreement with a technical decision that's being made, (the system) gives someone an alternate avenue that's not their project manager or program manager' to express that concern, a source at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, told CNN. Changes to that system 'should be made only in the interests of improving safety, not in anticipation of future budget cuts,' the declaration reads. The source said that they considered looming changes 'a really scary prospect, especially for my colleagues who work directly on the human spaceflight side of things.' The letter comes as the agency is grappling with the impending loss of thousands of employees and broader restructuring. In a statement, current NASA press secretary Bethany Stevens responded to the Voyager Declaration. 'NASA will never compromise on safety. Any reduction — including our current voluntary reduction — will be designed to protect safety-critical roles,' she said. 'Despite the claims posted on a website that advances radical, discriminatory DEI principles, the reality is that President Trump has proposed billions of dollars for NASA science, demonstrating an ongoing commitment to communicating our scientific achievements,' Stevens added in the statement. 'To ensure NASA delivers for the American people, we are continually evaluating mission lifecycles, not on sustaining outdated or lower-priority missions.' In her resignation email to staff, Lystrup said she was leaving her post at Goddard with confidence in Cynthia Simmons, the current deputy center director who will take over on an interim basis, and 'the center leadership team, and all of you who will help shape the next chapter of this center.' Lystrup did not mention agency leadership. Her last day will be August 1. Spokespeople at NASA headquarters and Goddard Space Flight Center did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Lystrup's resignation. A risky resistance The signed letter is the most recent in a string of declarations rebuking proposed cuts and changes at other federal agencies. Some National Institutes of Health employees led the way in June, publishing a declaration opposing what they called the politicization of research. Another letter, signed by federal workers at the Environmental Protection Agency earlier this month, resulted in about 140 people being placed on administrative leave. At least some of those workers will remain on leave until at least August 1, 'pending the Agency's inquiry,' according to internal email correspondence obtained by CNN. One signatory of the NASA letter who spoke to CNN said they felt that expressing dissent against the Trump administration may pose a risk to their livelihoods, but they believed the stakes were too high to remain silent. Ella Kaplan, a contractor employed by Global Science and Technology Inc. and the website administrator for the NASA Scientific Visualization Studio, said she decided to publicly attach her name to the Voyager Declaration because 'the overall culture at NASA has very much shifted — and it feels a lot less safe for me.' 'That's been felt kind of universally by most minority employees at NASA,' Kaplan said. While Kaplan said her job has not yet been directly threatened, in her view, 'I'm a member of the LGBT community … and I'm probably going to be fired for this at some point, so I might as well do as much community organizing as possible before that point.' A changing culture The letter and its signatories implore Duffy to evaluate recent policies they say 'have or threaten to waste public resources, compromise human safety, weaken national security, and undermine the core NASA mission.' The declaration's criticism of changes to NASA's Technical Authority stem from statements made at an agency town hall in June. During that meeting, NASA executives said they planned to attempt to make the Technical Authority more 'efficient.' 'We're looking at: 'How do we do programs and projects more efficiently? And how much should we be spending on oversight?'' said Vanessa Wyche, NASA's acting associate administrator. Garrett Reisman — a former NASA astronaut and engineer who later served as a SpaceX advisor — told CNN that he believes implementing some changes to the Technical Authority may be welcome. He noted that NASA may have become too risk averse in the wake of the Columbia tragedy, and the current structure may be hampering innovation. But, Reisman said, any changes to the space agency's safety backstops need to be made with extreme care. And currently, he said, he does not trust that will happen. 'I have very little confidence that it will be done the right way,' Reisman, who signed the declaration, said. 'So far, this administration has used a very heavy hand with their attempts to remove bureaucracy — and what they've ended up doing is not making things more efficient, but just eliminating things.' Trump's anti-DEIA efforts The signatories who spoke to CNN each expressed opposition to President Donald Trump's directives to shutter Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility — or DEIA — initiatives. At NASA, leadership complied with Trump's executive order by shuttering a DEIA-focused branch, scrubbing pronouns from email signatures, and removing references to a pledge made during the president's previous term to land a woman and person of color on the moon for the first time. The space agency also shuttered employee groups that lent support to minority workers. The source who spoke with CNN anonymously said that DEIA policies not only ensure a welcoming work environment — they're also essential to practicing sound science. 'The concept of inclusivity being a pathway to better science is something that has become really entrenched in the overall academic and scientific community in the last decade or so,' the source said, adding that the changes 'set an immediate tone for the destruction that was going to come.' 'Indiscriminate cuts' Among the other policies that the letter decries is the Trump administration's call for NASA to shutter some projects that have Congressional backing — a move the signatories say is wasteful and 'represents a permanent loss of capability to the United States both in space and on Earth.' The NASA employee told CNN that leadership has already begun shutting down some facilities that the Trump administration put on the chopping block in its budget proposal, despite the fact that Congress appears poised to continue funding some of them. 'We've also been hearing repeatedly passed down from every level of management: No one is coming to save you; Congress is not coming to save you,' the source said. 'But it seems like Congress is moving towards an appropriations that's going to continue to fund our projects at approximately the same level.' The source noted that they have first-hand knowledge of leadership beginning to decommission a clean room — a facility free of dust and debris where sensitive hardware and science instruments must be prepared for spaceflight — despite the fact that there are ongoing tests happening at the facility. The Voyager Declaration also criticizes what it refers to as 'indiscriminate cuts' planned for the agency. The White House's proposal to slash NASA's science budget by as much as half has been met with widespread condemnation from stakeholders who say such cuts threaten to cripple US leadership in the field. Recent agency communication to staff has also noted that at least 3,000 staff members are taking deferred resignation offers, according to an internal memo, the authenticity of which was confirmed to CNN by two sources who had seen the communication. Broader workforce cuts could also be on the horizon. NASA leadership under Petro also worked on an agency restructuring plan, though the details of that initiative have not yet been made public. Other Trump-era changes denounced in the Voyager Declaration include directives to cancel contracts and grants that affect private-sector workers across the country and plans to pull the space agency out of some projects with international partners. The White House budget proposal calls for defunding dozens of projects, including the Lunar Gateway space station that the US would have worked on with space agencies in Canada, Europe, Japan and the United Arab Emirates. The letter and its signatories argue these policies are wasteful, squandering investments that have been years or decades in the making. 'American taxpayers have invested a lot of money in my education and training directly,' the Goddard source said. 'I'm in it for the public service — and I want to return that investment to them.' By Jackie Wattles.
