Read the daily news to learn English

Tumbler Ridge school shooting: teacher and students hid for hours during Canadian attack – latest updates

Tumbler Ridge mayor Darryl Krakowka just told CBC Radio’s The Early Edition that he has been “overwhelmed” by the level of condolences the community has received from other mayors, as well as national and international leaders. His main priority, Krakowka said, is ensuring he can provide the support the community needs at this time. He described Tumbler Ridge “as one big family” and urged residents to offer a hug, a shoulder and support to others. Physicians and nurses from other communities would be coming in to support local health-care workers and mental health counsellors were also on their way to support the students affected, he added. I think that will help the families here. We will get through this.

Iran’s president denies it seeks nuclear weapon and admits ‘shame’ after mass protests

Iran’s president insisted his country was not seeking a nuclear weapon as he acknowledged “great sorrow” after the authorities’ recent crackdown on protesters. Speaking to crowds gathered across Iran to mark the anniversary of the 1979 revolution, Masoud Pezeshkian sought to claim a message of national unity after demonstrations that roiled the country and triggered an unprecedented crisis for the regime. The comments were made against a backdrop of negotiations with the US that hang in the balance, with the prospect of a military confrontation on the table and repeated claims by Iranian military leadership that it is ready to confront and defeat America. On Tuesday, Donald Trump said he was considering sending a second aircraft carrier strike group to the Middle East to prepare for military action if talks with Tehran fail. Pezeshkian said Iran was willing to negotiate over its nuclear programme and was “ready for any kind of verification” in relation to its insistence it is not trying to build nuclear weapons. However, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, has been unable for months to inspect and verify Iran’s nuclear stockpile. Pezeshkian said: “The high wall of mistrust that the United States and Europe have created through their past statements and actions does not allow these talks to reach a conclusion. “At the same time, we are engaging with full determination in dialogue aimed at peace and stability in the region alongside our neighbouring countries.” While he did not directly address the violent bloodshed by authorities in suppressing the protests, Pezeshkian said: “We are ashamed before the people. We are obliged to serve all those who were harmed in this process. We are ready to hear the voice of the people. We are servants of the people and we do not seek to confront the people.” However, Pezeshkian spurned an appeal from leaders of reformist parties to speak out against the mass arrest of their leadership in recent days. In a statement the Reform Front told Pezeshkian that a failure to demand their release would be understood as a betrayal of his campaign promises and a blow to peace. Lawyers acting for the detained reformists said they understood they were being kept in solitary confinement. Media organisations close to the security forces claimed the reforms were guilty of sedition by trying to organise a national conference to call for change. The 1979 commemorations featured state television showing hundreds of thousands of people at pro-government rallies, which included the burning of American flags and cries of “death to America!” Yet the night before, witnesses heard shouts from people’s homes in the Iranian capital, Tehran, of “Death to the dictator!” Alongside the crowds in the streets, pictures circulated of empty school desks adorned with red roses commemorating children killed in the protests. A teachers’ union said it believed on 213 children were killed. Other regime figures used the anniversary of the revolution as an opportunity to reassert their ideological supremacy. Brig gen Aziz Nasirzadeh, the defence minister, hailed the crowds as unique and claimed: “I have never seen such a passionate attendance in any year.” He added: “They have participated in this march with full awareness, and this presence is more powerful than any bomb or missile.” Away from the demonstrations, Iranian diplomats were trying to head off an attempt by Benjamin Netanyahu to toughen Trump’s negotiating stance with Iran before the Israeli leader’s meeting in the White House with Trump on Wednesday. An Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson said the country was ready to discuss a reduction in the enrichment of uranium. Israel wants the talks to include the question of Tehran’s ballistic missile programme, a matter that Iran has so far rejected. Tehran is determined that its stockpile of ballistic missiles, regarded as necessary for Iran’s defence, is excluded from the talks. Ali Shamkhani, a representative of the supreme leader, said the missile issue was not something that the negotiators had authority over. In his latest remarks, Trump suggested Iran’s nuclear missiles would have to be included in any agreement Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran’s supreme national security council, visited Qatar after holding three hours of talks with mediators in Oman on Tuesday. Larijani is trying to craft a response to US demands that will keep within Iran’s red lines but still make the US believe talks are worth continuing. Larijani kept open the possibility of wider talks with US, so long as next week’s talks are confined to guarantees about Iran’s civil nuclear programme. Larijani said: “If the current negotiations with the United States are successful, they can be expanded and extended to other areas as well. However, at the moment, I cannot say definitively whether this path will lead to talks about other disputes with the United States or not.”

Putin ‘trying to break the Ukrainian people – they will not be broken,’ says Nato’s Rutte - Europe live

In other news, as Donald Trump redoubled his war of words on the European Union and Nato in recent weeks, a senior state department official, Sarah B Rogers, was publicly attacking policies on hate speech and immigration by ostensible US allies, and promoting far-right parties abroad. Rogers has arguably become the public face of the Trump administration’s growing hostility to European liberal democracies. Since assuming office in October, she has met with far-right European politicians, criticized prosecutions under longstanding hate speech laws, and boasted online of sanctions against critics of hate speech and disinformation on US big tech platforms. Rogers is undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, a top-10 state department role that was created in 1999 to strengthen relationships between the US and foreign publics, as opposed to foreign governments and diplomats. Rogers, however, appears to be concerned with winning over a particular slice of foreign public opinion. Her recent posts on Twitter/X have included a characterization of some migrants in Germany as “barbarian rapist hordes”, a comment on Sweden apparently linking sexual violence to immigration policy (“If your government cared about ‘women’s safety,’ it would have a different migration policy”), and the recitation of the view that “advocates of unlimited third world immigration have long controlled a disproportionate share of official knowledge production”. Expert observers of the European far right said that commentary such as Rogers’s reflected a Trump administration decision to support those movements. Léonie de Jonge, professor of research on far-right extremism at the University of Tübingen who has published extensive research on the European far right, said: “The Trump administration has a vested interest in strengthening anti-democratic movements abroad, as doing so helps advance its own agenda while lending legitimacy to these actors and their activities.” Rogers is in Poland today, meeting with senior representatives of Poland’s conversative president Karol Nawrocki to discuss issues to do with history and remembrance, his spokesperson said, and separately with officials from Poland’s liberal government.

Father of activist Anna Kwok convicted under Hong Kong national security law

A Hong Kong court has found the father of a wanted activist guilty of a national security violation, after he tried to end her insurance policy and withdraw the funds, drawing international criticism for the targeting of relatives of pro-democracy campaigners. Kwok Yin-sang, 68, is the first person to be charged under a homegrown national security law, also known as Article 23, for “attempting to deal with, directly or indirectly, any funds or other financial assets or economic resources” belonging to an absconder. His daughter, Anna Kwok, helps lead the Washington-based advocacy group Hong Kong Democracy Council (HKDC), and is one of 34 overseas activists wanted by Hong Kong national security police. She is accused of colluding with foreign forces and police have offered a bounty of 1m Hong Kong dollars (£93,740) for her arrest. Anna Kwok said the targeting of her father was an attempt by the authorities “to drive distance between me and other Hongkongers”. The regime wanted to “weaponise human emotions against me”, she added. “It has been a journey for me to find out what activism means.” In a separate statement published by the HKDC, she said: “The Hong Kong government’s retaliation does not and will not discourage me from my ongoing advocacy and activism.” Kwok Yin-sang was accused of trying to withdraw funds totalling 88,609 Hong Kong dollars from an education savings insurance policy he bought for her when she was almost two years old. He had pleaded not guilty and did not testify at the trial. The acting principal magistrate Cheng Lim-chi said since Anna Kwok was a fugitive, directly or indirectly handling her insurance policy is illegal. A sentence is expected to be announced within a few weeks. The maximum penalty is seven years in jail. According to the prosecution, when Kwok Yin-sang was arrested, he said under police caution: “I know my daughter is wanted by the security bureau. I was the one paying for her insurance policy. Since she’s no longer in Hong Kong, I just cut it.” He had initially been denied bail but was later granted bail by the high court, with conditions imposed including a travel ban and a ban on communication with his daughter. During the closing submission, his defence lawyer Steven Kwan argued that section 89 and 90 of Article 23 should not apply in a case where a person was simply handling an insurance policy he had bought a long time ago for his children. “This … is a form of prosecution based on family ties,” Kwan said. Anna Kwok’s brother was also arrested for the same crime, and is now on bail. Elaine Pearson, the Asia director for Human Right Watch, said: “The conviction of Kwok Yin-sang is cruel and vindictive, showing just how far Hong Kong authorities are willing to go to silence peaceful activism abroad.” The targeting of relatives of a person wanted by the authorities is common in mainland China, although is a relatively new phenomenon in Hong Kong, a semi-autonomous city that was suppose to maintain an independent identity for at least 50 years after it was returned to Chinese rule in 1997. Legal experts and rights groups say the tactics used to target regime critics in Hong Kong are becoming increasingly similar to those of mainland China. On Monday, Jimmy Lai, a high-profile critic of the Chinese Communist party, was sentenced to 20 years in jail for national security offences. The length of the sentence for the 78-year-old outstrips punishments given to some of China’s most famous dissidents. China imposed a sweeping national security law in 2020. In 2024, the city’s legislature passed Article 23, enacting a provision of Hong Kong’s mini-constitution that had previously faced fierce opposition from Hongkongers. The authorities said that Article 23 was necessary to close “loopholes” in the city’s national security regime.

‘A world in disarray’: Europe’s moment of awakening

Emmanuel Macron put it simply – and starkly. Confronted with “a world in disarray” and a double, potentially existential challenge from the US and China, he said: “Europe must become a power.” The bloc is facing “a Chinese tsunami” on trade, Macron told several European newspapers, as the country most Europeans had for decades seen principally as an infinite export market transforms itself instead into a ferocious, low-price, hi-tech competitor. And on defence, the US – which Europeans had thought “would guarantee our security forever” – was now “openly anti-European”, showed “contempt” for the EU, sought its “dismemberment” (and was “microsecond-level unstable” on trade, too). “We are not moving at the right pace, and we are not operating on the right scale,” Macron said. “This must be the moment of awakening. It is time for Europe to wake up … If we do not decide for ourselves, we will be swept away.” Stirring words, for sure. But this week there is a real sense that what Macron referred to as Europe’s “Greenland moment” – Trump’s attempted grab for the Arctic island, a semi-autonomous part of Denmark – may finally be focusing continental minds. Two key events may give a hint of whether, and how, that focus translates into action. At a 16th-century chateau in rural Belgium on Thursday, Europe’s leaders will discuss urgent measures to reboot the EU’s sluggish economy and make it more competitive. And at the Munich Security Conference (MSC) on Friday and over the weekend, they will join other world leaders, military officials and experts to discuss European security and defence – and the future of the transatlantic relationship. “We have the second largest economy in the world, but we are driving it with the handbrake on,” the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said before the gathering at Belgium’s Alden Biesen castle. Leaders will discuss simplifying, loosening and scrapping regulations to cut red tape, remove barriers and deepen the single market; facilitating the flow of savings and investments; and keeping public money in the EU through a “buy European” rule. The leaders will be addressed by two former Italian prime ministers, Enrico Letta and Mario Draghi – whose recommendations in 2024 reports on, respectively, the EU’s single market and EU competitiveness the bloc has so far struggled to implement. IMF research shows EU internal regulatory barriers equate to a 44% tariff on goods, and 110% on services, and one thinktank found only 15% of Draghi’s 383 proposals – without which he said the bloc risked a “slow and agonising decline” – had been actioned. Thursday’s talks centre on how the EU can hold its own economically in a world that von der Leyen last month described as having “changed permanently”. Friday’s will turn to the bloc’s other critical challenge: defence and security. The MSC’s organisers were blunt in their pre-conference report: Europe had reached the “painful realisation” that it needs to be more assertive and militarily independent of a US administration it said was sliding into “competitive authoritarianism”. Europeans have understood they simply cannot resist unfair trade deals or violations of other countries’ sovereignty, it said, if they are “heavily dependent on the military assistance of the country that is using coercive tactics and slashing existing norms”. Speeches from von der Leyen, Germany’s chancellor Friedrich Merz and Nato chief Mark Rutte – who recently said Europe could “keep on dreaming” if it thought it could cope without US support – should provide at least an outline of the bloc’s response. Europe’s citizens appear to have grasped the threat. A six-country poll by YouGov published this week found that opinion had turned radically against the US since the “Greenland moment”: between 62% and 84% of respondents expressed disapproval. *** A political challenge The most common view was that Europe’s autonomy must now be prioritised over preserving the transatlantic alliance. But how? A report today by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) reveals the political challenge facing leaders. Most European voters now realise the US is no longer a reliable ally, it said. Most also accept the need to increase defence spending. The problem, however, is that the Europeans who think those things are not always in the same camps or countries. The report, based on polling in 13 countries, identifies several distinct groups. The largest (28%) are the Euro-hawks, who no longer see the US as an ally, back increased national defence spending, and take a broadly positive stance towards today’s EU. Euro-doves (21% overall) are equally sober about the US and attached to the EU, but do not support more defence spending. Atlanticists (12%) tend to still consider the US an ally, while Renegades (15%) reject everything: US, EU and more defence spending. Nationalists (12%), meanwhile, do not believe much in the EU or see the US as an ally, but support more military spending, while the smallest group, the Trumpists (5% overall), still see the US as their ally, and are generally not much in favour of the EU. These groups, the authors write, are present in different proportions in different countries and among different political camps: Euro-doves, for example, are most plentiful in Spain and Italy; Renegades among supporters of the populist left; nationalists among the populist far right. The authors suggest Europe’s way forward is a “values coalition” of compromises across the board: more defence spending for the Euro-doves; greater realism on the US for Atlanticists such as Poland; concessions for Euro-hawks such as France and Germany. “Our polling delivers a clear message: a mobilised European majority can be composed out of the continent’s scattered public,” said co-author Paweł Zerka. “But this requires leaders to step up and build bridges across the citizens’ archipelago.” Sound optimistic? National interests, of course, mean Europe’s leaders can rarely agree on everything anyway, and old habits die hard. Macron’s “Greenland moment” will show whether Europe can shed them. Until next week. To receive the complete version of This Is Europe in your inbox every Wednesday, please subscribe here.

Gisèle Pelicot describes shock of seeing herself like ‘a rag doll’ in memoir

Gisèle Pelicot, who became a global symbol of courage during the trial of her ex-husband and the dozens of men who raped her while she was unconscious, has described her shock when police first showed her images of the crimes, likening herself to a “rag doll”. In extracts from her forthcoming memoir, A Hymn to Life, Pelicot, 73, describes her shock when police told her of the actions of her ex-husband Dominique, whom she considered “a great guy” and had shared her life with for 50 years. She tells of her world falling apart on 2 November 2020 when she was first told her then husband had been drugging and raping her and inviting strangers to rape her, in extracts in Le Monde from the French-language version of the book that will be published simultaneously across the world in 22 languages next week. Dominique Pelicot had been summoned by police for questioning after a supermarket security guard caught him secretly filming up women’s skirts. Gisèle Pelicot had accompanied him to the police station and was completely unprepared for the bombshell delivered by the officer, Laurent Perret. He said: “I am going to show you photos and videos that are not going to please you. That’s you in this photo.” Pelicot said she did not believe the inert woman lying on the bed was her. “I didn’t recognise the individuals. Nor this woman. Her cheek was so flabby. Her mouth so limp. She was a rag doll,” she writes in the book. “My brain stopped working in the office of Deputy Police Sergeant Perret.” Pelicot became known internationally last year when she waived her right to anonymity in the trial that shocked the world. Dominique Pelicot had for over almost a decade crushed sleeping tablets and anti-anxiety medication into her mashed potato, coffee or ice-cream and invited dozens of men to rape her in the village of Mazan in south-east France, where the couple had retired. She had been in a state akin to a coma. A total of 51 men were found guilty of rape or sexual assault. In the book extracts, Pelicot describes her decision to make the trial public. She said if she had kept the trial behind closed doors – as usually happened in such cases – it would have protected her abusers and left her alone with them in court, “hostage to their looks, their lies, their cowardice and their scorn”. She wrote: “No one would know what they had done to me. Not a single journalist would be there to write their names next to their crimes … Above all, not a single woman could walk in and sit in the courtroom to feel less alone.” She said if she had been 20 years younger: “I might not have dared to refuse a closed-door hearing. “I would have feared the stares. Those damned stares a woman of my generation has always had to contend with, those damned stares that make you hesitate in the morning between trousers and a dress, that follow you or ignore you, flatter you and embarrass you. Those damned stares that are supposed to tell you who you are, what you’re worth, and then abandon you as you grow older.” The launch of Pelicot’s book, co-written with the French author Judith Perrignon, is considered a major publishing event as it is released simultaneously across the world on 17 February. The British actor Emma Thompson will narrate the audiobook in English. In a social media post, Thompson said the “absolutely extraordinary” story was “difficult to read out loud” but that it inspired “courage and compassion but also crucially demands change”.

Take your relationship to next level with video game, Spanish bishops tell couples

Faced with a steeply declining number of church weddings, Spanish bishops have turned their eye to the virtual realm in the hope that a new video game will help entice more couples to the altar. According to the most recent figures, less than 18% of all weddings in Spain in 2024 – 31,462 out of 175,364 – took place in church. The numbers are dramatically down from 2007 when more than 55% of weddings happened in a Roman Catholic church. The dwindling numbers, coupled with high divorce rates, have led the church to launch a number of initiatives in recent years designed to safeguard and promote the sacrament of marriage. Its latest campaign uses a video game, Level Up! A Two-player Game, to try to explore and explain the qualities on which marriage depends. The retro game, whose slogan is “El amor, la aventura más épica” (Love is the most epic adventure), features a young couple, Fran and Elena, going about their daily tasks and earning prizes as they learn about the importance of patience, generosity, modesty, integrity and empathy. The idea of the game is to provide players with real-life situations “such as problems at work, a stag do at a resort, a relationship with an ex-girlfriend” as they reflect on marriage. It is being rolled out in time for Valentine’s Day. “The campaign is also proactive, aiming to showcase the beauty of Christian marriage,” the Spanish bishops’ conference said in a statement. “It’s not primarily aimed at those already committed, but rather seeks to encourage couples who desire a stable commitment to consider a church wedding.” The idea was suggested by students at the Pontifical University of Salamanca and developed by a professional video game designer. “Presenting it as a game enters into dialogue with the gamified society in which we live and, at the same time, makes it possible and easy to reflect on the profound and essential elements in the giving of human love that are necessary for marriage that satisfies the longing for happiness of the human heart,” the conference said. The church in Spain has also resorted to more traditional methods in its quest to encourage people to get married. Six years ago, the bishops’ conference unveiled a premarital guidance course lasting two to three years that was designed to prepare couples for the long haul. The course was devised after the church decided that the 20 hours of lessons given to those wishing to make their vows before God weren’t nearly enough. Mario Iceta, then the bishop of Bilbao and the president of the conference’s subcommittee for the family and the defence of life, said his own experience of marrying couples had demonstrated the need for more groundwork. “You can’t prepare for marriage in 20 hours,” he said at a press conference in Madrid at the time. “To be a priest, you need to spend seven years in the seminary, so what about being a husband, wife, mother or father? Just 20 hours?” Divided into 12 areas – such as communication, fidelity, “the beauty of sexuality” and conflict resolution – the course was intended to “accompany, prepare and help young couples towards the matrimonial vocation”. That scheme found itself confronting the realities of the online world, counselling against pornography, which it said “commercialises and falsifies the beauty of the conjugal gift” and could become addictive.

Russian crackdown on Telegram app prompts rare criticism from soldiers, pro-war bloggers and officials

A Russian crackdown on the Telegram social media app risks damaging its own army, pro-war bloggers have warned, as the platform’s founder refused to bend to pressure from Moscow. Russia’s communications watchdog said on Wednesday that the app – used by more than 60 million Russians each day – would begin slowing nationwide, accusing it of failing to address earlier regulatory violations. The decision has triggered rare public criticism across Russian society, from frontline troops and hawkish military bloggers to lifestyle influencers and exiled opposition figures. The move fits into the Kremlin’s aim to achieve a “sovereign internet” – an online space cut off from western technology and foreign influence, and more vulnerable to state control. At the same time, officials have been promoting a state-backed “super-app” called Max, modelled on China’s WeChat, as Moscow tightens its grip over foreign messaging platforms. It remains unclear whether Moscow will move to block Telegram outright or initially slow the service in an attempt to pressure the company to work more closely with authorities. Users reported sluggish traffic and delayed video and image downloads throughout Tuesday, though the app continued to work for most functions. The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said officials were “in contact with representatives” of Telegram, adding that if the company failed to respond, Russia’s communications watchdog would take further action “in accordance with our legislation”. The Dubai-based billionaire tech entrepreneur and Telegram founder, Pavel Durov, issued a rare public rebuke of his native Russia, comparing the measures to attempts by Iran to curb the platform. “Restricting citizens’ freedom is never the right answer,” he said in a statement. “Telegram stands for freedom of speech and privacy, no matter the pressure.” The backlash has been particularly sharp within the pro-war blogging community and the army, where Telegram has become an essential communications tool. Several videos circulated online on Tuesday showing Russian soldiers criticising the restrictions. In one video address, a serviceman challenged the regulator directly: “Did you even ask us? Did anyone come and find out whether this would be useful?” Another soldier described Telegram as “the only chain” linking units with various state structures and agencies, urging officials to reconsider: “Before you do this, think about whether it’s really necessary.” Telegram is widely used by Russian troops, especially at the tactical level and in rear positions. Many units maintain group chats to coordinate logistics, share updates and even organise fundraising for equipment and munitions. Some pro-war bloggers close to the defence ministry warned that restrictions on Telegram could hamper Russia’s air defences in responding to drone attacks. “Telegram remains almost the only means of communication in active combat units and helps coordinate inter-agency mobile fire groups,” wrote the pro-Kremlin channel Dva Mayora. Peskov sought to downplay the criticism, saying it was “hard to imagine” frontline communications being conducted through any messenger service, including Telegram. The crackdown comes at a sensitive moment for Russia’s military. Days earlier, Ukraine said Starlink terminals being used by Russian troops had been deactivated after talks between Kyiv and Elon Musk, whose company SpaceX operates the satellite network. One prominent pro-war commentator wrote: “With clear problems around Starlink and horizontal links between units built around Telegram chats, this hardly seems the best moment to slow it down.” Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly four years ago, Moscow has accelerated its efforts to tighten control over the internet, restricting western platforms such as WhatsApp, YouTube and Instagram. Telegram, however, has largely been allowed to operate – in part because of its popularity among ordinary Russians and its usefulness in amplifying pro-Kremlin narratives. Virtually all Russian officials use the app daily for public messaging and private communication. Some regional officials voiced concern that slowing Telegram could hinder the flow of urgent information to residents in border regions. “I worry that slowing Telegram channels could affect the delivery of operational information if the situation worsens,” said Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Belgorod region, which frequently comes under Ukrainian drone attacks. At the same time, the app has emerged as a crucial space for Russians looking beyond state narratives, carrying influential channels tied to Alexei Navalny’s network and other exiled opposition figures.