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President Donald Trump has repeatedly mused about making Canada into America's "51st state," which has prompted one expert to conduct a war game mapping how a U.S. invasion of Canada would play out.The Montreal Gazette reported that Aisha Ahmad, a political scientist at the University of Toronto, said that the American military would likely easily defeat Canada were Trump to really give the green light for an invasion.However, he also said that wouldn't be the end of the story as Canadians would not passively accept being conquered.In fact, Ahmad believes that Canadians would wage a bloody, decades-long insurgency against the United States until the Americans left their country.ALSO READ: 'A lot of terror': Conservative claims GOP senator looks secretly horrified by Trump plans“It’s impossible to annex Canada without violence,” said Ahmad, who in the past has advised American officials at the United States Department of Defense about counter-insurgency strategies. “No one is born an insurgent or resistance fighter. This is something that happens to people when their mom is killed, or when their kids are unable to get to a hospital. People fight back because they have to.”He said that the U.S. military would struggle to occupy Canada when hundreds of thousands of Canadians would be engaged in a concerted campaign of sabotage that they would adopt as a "secret, part-time job.""Trump is delusional if he believes that 40 million Canadians will passively accept conquest," he emphasized.In fact, it would only take one percent of the Canadian population working as insurgents to produce a force of 400,000 fighters, which would be ten times the number of Taliban fighters who eventually pushed the American military out of Afghanistan after a 20-year occupation.

A court in the United Arab Emirates has sentenced three people to death for the killing of Israeli-Moldovan Zvi Kogan

World Health Organization issues flash appeal for $8m of emergency support amid frantic search for survivorsAFP has spoken to relatives anxiously waiting at the site of a collapsed building in Bangkok.Daodee Paruay said she had been at the site for two days, hoping for a miracle. Her brother was an electrician working on site, and he is believed to be under the rubble. “We wait, we wait.” she said. Continue reading...

Russia’s Supreme Court says it received a petition from the prosecutor general’s office to lift the ban on Afghanistan’s Taliban, who were outlawed two decades ago as a terrorist group

Myanmar's junta has pressed ahead with its campaign of air strikes despite the country's devastating earthquake, with a rebel group telling AFP Sunday seven of its fighters were killed in an aerial attack soon after the tremors hit.The Myanmar military has increasingly turned to air strikes as it struggles to gain the upper hand against a complex array of anti-coup fighters and ethnic minority armed groups in the civil war.Friday's massive 7.7-magnitude earthquake, which has killed at least 1,700 people and destroyed thousands of homes and buildings, prompted some armed groups to suspend hostilities while the country deals with the crisis.But fighters from the Danu People's Liberation Army, an ethnic minority armed group active in northern Shan state, said they were hit by an air strike soon after the quake struck.Five military aircraft attacked their base in Naungcho township, killing seven fighters, one of their officers told AFP."Our soldiers tried to get into bunkers when they heard the sound of aircraft," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity."But one big bomb hit one bunker where five female soldiers were killed on the spot."There have been reports of other air strikes since the quake, but AFP has not been able to verify them.- Increasing use of air power -The military has suffered major battlefield defeats over the past year and a half, losing control of swathes of territory.But while its ground forces have struggled, it retains air superiority thanks to fighter jets provided by Russia, its longstanding ally and major arms supplier.The number of military air strikes on civilians has risen throughout the four-year civil war, according to non-profit organisation Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED), with nearly 800 in 2024.That figure was more than triple the previous year and ACLED predicted the junta will continue to rely on air strikes because it is "under increasing military pressure on the ground".News of the junta's continued use of air attacks drew criticism from rights groups and the UN special rapporteur for Myanmar."Reports that Myanmar's military has continued with airstrikes after the earthquake tells you everything you need to know about the junta -- obsessed with its brutal repression of civilians and desperately trying to win the war whatever the human cost," Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, wrote on social media platform X.The UN's special rapporteur for Myanmar, Tom Andrews, urged the junta to halt military operations and declare an immediate ceasefire.He told the BBC it was "nothing short of incredible" that the military was dropping bombs on people after a devastating earthquake.An air strike earlier this month hit a village held by anti-coup fighters around 60 kilometres (40 miles) north of the second-biggest city Mandalay, which has been badly affected by the quake.The strike killed at least 12 people, according to a local official who said it targeted civilian areas.

As he has done for years, Erik Payan had just opened up his tire repair shop in the small Texas town of Cleveland on February 24 and was getting to work when armed and masked US immigration agents swooped in to arrest him and take him away."They've got me," he told his distraught wife over the phone.While it wasn't an unheard of scene in the United States, such incidents have drawn the glare of scrutiny as President Donald Trump, newly returned to the White House, has lashed out at migrants with particularly violent rhetoric -- raising concerns among many who lack papers that they may be swept up at random for expulsion.- Overstayed visa -Payan, a Mexican, has lived for 20 of his 51 years in the United States. He entered on a work visa, but stayed on after it expired, making a life with his wife and three daughters, the youngest of them US-born. His store is licensed, he pays taxes and a mortgage, and is his family's main breadwinner. One daughter is disabled; a granddaughter has a heart condition.Payan goes to church on Sundays and his neighbors vouch for him. His roots are now in Texas, but he lacks the documents to stay legally. His situation is much like many of the millions of other undocumented people living in the United States -- a group estimated officially at 11 million but possibly closer to 14 million, according to a recent report from the NGO Migration Policy Institute.- No criminal record -Up to now, the undocumented were largely left alone, many working in some of the country's most arduous and lowest-paid jobs. But Trump insists that their numbers include drug dealers, violent criminals and terrorists, and has vowed to deport millions of them.Payan, who has no criminal record, was swept up in one of the hundreds of nationwide raids Trump launched immediately upon his return to the White House. "I cried, but crying wasn't going to help," said his wife, 55-year-old Alejandrina Morales, who described their case on social media. The tears quickly turned to determination. "I'm going to fight, I'm going to defend my husband," she recalls thinking.Payan's attorney Silvia Mintz said that despite Trump's promises of mass deportation, a process must be followed.- 'They have options' -"That's not how really the law works," Mintz said. "Anybody who is in the United States has the right to due process, and... a judge gets to decide" whether they remain in detention or are deported. Most importantly, she added, "They have options."Using documentation to prove Payan had been a law-abiding, tax-paying worker for years, Mintz managed to secure his release on bail after a 27-day detention.Now begins a fight to legalize him.Mintz said undocumented immigrants can fight to stay by demonstrating that they have ties to the country and family members who could be harmed by their absence.There is also a possibility for children born in the United States -- who enjoy "birthright citizenship," though Trump is trying to end that -- to legalize their parents once they turn 21.But in the meantime, the risk of detention and deportation persists.Mintz argues that the country desperately needs immigration reform to open a path to legal residency and citizenship.- Billions in taxes -The first thing Payan did upon his release was to reopen his tire store. "We are not criminals, we're hard-working people," he said. "Yes, we're not from here, but without the support of Hispanic workers, this country is nothing."He went on: "I'm not saying bad people haven't come from our countries, but there are more of us good people. Let them concentrate on finding the criminals."In 2022, undocumented workers paid an estimated $97 billion in taxes, according to the group Americans for Tax Fairness. Deporting millions of them, it said, could spark a devastating contraction, worse than during the 2008 financial crisis."They have to pay taxes... but unfortunately the law prohibits them from getting any incentive or anything back," said Cesar Espinosa, executive director of the NGO FIEL, which works with immigrants.He said it was important to recognize the contributions migrants make, and to push for immigration reform, "so other people can have access to the American dream."During Payan's detention, he said, he sometimes slept in unheated rooms and caught a severe cold.He's still coughing, but now he's home. His customers honk as they drive past his tire store, celebrating his return. His wife Alejandrina celebrates too: "They had taken the captain of my boat," she said, "and I was rowing alone."

The United States will ensure "robust, ready and credible deterrence" across the Taiwan Strait, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Sunday, calling China "aggressive and coercive".Hegseth also stopped short of publicly calling on Tokyo to hike military spending, saying in Japan he trusted the close US ally to "make the correct determination of what capabilities are needed"."America is committed to sustaining robust, ready and credible deterrence in the Indo-Pacific, including across the Taiwan Strait," Hegseth said, using Washington's term for the Asia-Pacific region. Beijing has stepped up military pressure in recent years around Taiwan, including near-daily air incursions, and has not ruled out using force to bring the self-ruled island under its control.US President Donald Trump's "America First" approach could mean weakening the US commitment for security in the region, analysts have warned.But Hegseth said the previous US administration had "created this vacuum, a perception that America was not strong, and wasn't prepared to deter conflicts from starting"."Our job now at this moment, here with our allies, is to say: We are re-establishing deterrence. Peace through strength, with America in the lead, is back," the Pentagon chief told reporters.He said Washington would "build an alliance so robust that both the reality and the perception of deterrence is real and ongoing, so that the Communist Chinese don't take the aggressive actions that some have contemplated they will".- 'Who makes these deals?' -Hegseth, 44, a former infantryman and Fox News personality, hailed the "extraordinary strength of America's alliance with Japan"."President Trump has also made it very clear, and we reiterate, we are going to put America first. But America first does not mean America alone," he said."America and Japan stand firmly together in the face of aggressive and coercive actions by the Communist Chinese."There have also been expectations that, as he has done in Europe, Trump would press its allies in Asia to increase military spending and to do more to ensure their own defence."We have a great relationship with Japan. But we have an interesting deal with Japan that we have to protect them, but they don't have to protect us," Trump said this month."I actually ask, who makes these deals?"Japan's government has also been reeling from Trump's decision to impose a 25 percent tariff on auto imports from April 3.The United States has 54,000 US military personnel stationed in Japan, mostly in Okinawa, east of Taiwan.Hegseth said he "did not talk specific numbers" about defence spending in his talks with Japanese counterpart Gen Nakatani on Sunday."We're confident that Japan will make the correct determination of what capabilities are needed inside our alliance to make sure we are standing shoulder to shoulder," he said."They have been a model ally and we have no doubt that will continue. But we also both recognise everybody needs to do more."Nakatani said he told Hegseth that spending should be "implemented based on Japan's own judgement and responsibility". "I also explained Japan has continuously been working on a drastic strengthening of our defence capability... on which we received understanding from the US side," he said.- Counterstrike -Japan has been shedding its strict pacifist stance, moving to obtain "counterstrike" capabilities and doubling military spending to the NATO standard of two percent of GDP.Former US President Joe Biden and Fumio Kishida, Japan's prime minister at the time, announced a "new era" in cooperation at a summit at the White House last year.This includes the creation of a new Japan-based US headquarters to take over operational oversight of US forces in Japan from US Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii.It will serve as a counterpart to Japan's new Joint Operations Command for all its armed forces, making the two militaries more nimble in the case of a crisis over Taiwan or the Korean peninsula."We will accelerate our efforts to improve inter-operability and conduct effective bilaterally joint activities across the spectrum from peacetime to contingency," Nakatani said on Sunday."Expansion of the Japan-US presence in (Japan's) southwestern region is one of our alliance's top priorities," he said.

Police go door-to-door arresting Afghans as government pledges to send millions back home to Taliban ruleMore than 50 prominent female Afghan women’s rights activists sheltering in Pakistan are facing deportation home, where they fear they will be imprisoned or killed under Taliban rule.Under a draconian policy, the Pakistan government has pledged to deport millions of Afghan nationals, after relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan severely deteriorated and attacks by militants in the border areas surged. Continue reading...