"For 25 years, there has been a standing incitement to genocide, a stand-alone breach of the Genocide Convention."

"The ongoing missile attacks over the years means Israel is entitled to exercise its right of self-defence because of the standing and imminent threat of genocide."

"[The United Nations has provided] protective cover [for Iran rather than holding it to account for[ genocidal antisemitism."

"The problem has been that those who should have been protecting the rules-based order -- including the U.S. -- have, regrettably, abandoned transnational alliances and upended the rules-based international order."

"But that doesn't mean we have to acquiesce to Iran and its murderous proxies."

Irwin Cotler, former Canadian justice minister, human rights activist

A handout picture provided by the Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's office shows him greeting the crowd before addressing the nation on May 20, 2025 in Tehran.  Photo by -/KHAMENEI.IR/AFP via Getty Images

 

This is a man who was once part of the Government of Canada, and at that time a Liberal cabinet minister, decades ago. He has since fully immersed himself in human rights affairs, as a seasoned lawyer and dedicated human rights defender. Iran is just one egregious purveyor of human rights offences that Mr. Cotler has engaged with. But it is also the only source of an active lethal threat against him, that many might recognize as a fatwa. In 2024, Mr. Cotler was advised that Canadian intelligence services was aware of an active plot to assassination him, from Iran. To this day he remains under police protection.

 

Canada cut off diplomatic relations with Iran under the Conservative-led government of then-prime minister Stephen Harper. When Justin Trudeau became prime minister under the banner of a Liberal government he mused about the need to renew diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Much to the consternation of the large Iranian-Canadian population which had arrived in Canada following the 1979 Islamic Revolution to escape the excesses of the new fundamentalist Islamist government.

 

Despite the lack of diplomatic relations between the two countries, Iranian-Canadian citizens have noted with dismay and fear the increasing presence of Iranian officials linked to the regime, as well as Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps members, residing in Canada, walking its streets, establishing their families in Canada as a safe haven. Among them is the family of the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani. In the chaos of the joint Israeli-U.S. aerial attacks against the Iranian regime to destroy its nuclear facilities and ballistic missile launch sites, agents of the regime live in Canada.

 

Ali Larijani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), holds a press conference in Tehran, Iran. /Courtesy of Yonhap News

 

Many of them are in Canada illegally. Some among them are elite members or family members of the IRGC and the government. Many who are identified are meant to be deported, a process that has succeeded so far in deporting one single individual. In the past few years, Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had elevated Ali Larijani to a powerful authority post that even the current president of Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian must report to. Before his death Khamenei tasked Larijani to take any and all measures to ensure the survival of the Islamic Republic. During the mass protests of January that roiled the country, Larijani oversaw the brutal lethal response that left thousands dead.

 

The Larijani family was second in influence and power only to the late Ali Khamenei. As a surviving member of the Iranian ruling elite, Larijani has control second to none now. While a governing council was struck to decide a successor to Ayatollah Khamenei, not much is done without Ali Larijani's approval and guidance. One of five Larijani brothers, serving top posts in the hierarchy of Iran's Islamic Republic he is now the power behind the throne of Shiite domination in the majority Sunni Middle East.

 

Two of his brothers are very familiar with Canada, having spent considerable time there, alongside their families. "The Larijani family is at the head of the Iranian state", a 2016 CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) analysis stated. Fazel Larijani was a cultural affairs attache at the Iranian embassy in Ottawa prior to diplomatic ties being severed in 2012. According to Iranian-Canadian anti-regime activists, Fazel's family continues to live in Canada. 

Iran's wartime power structure

 

The London-based Iran International outlet wrote of Bagher Ardeshir Larijani being granted permanent residency in Canada in 2016, which was rescinded ultimately on the basis of his having failed to live in Canada for a minimum of 730 days over a five-year period. Bagher's son, however, the report stated, "is now a Canadian citizen". There is much irony here in that Canada's large expatriate Iranian community organized immense demonstrations in celebration of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's death in an Israeli strike on his compound in Tehran.

 

The Iranian diaspora in Canada, one of the largest in the world, has warned for years that regime officials were present in their community, making use of Canada as a vacation destination, or alternately a safe haven where they could deposit their families. Morteza Talaei, a former police chief in Tehran who had been involved in the violent repressive response to Iran's 2003 demonstrations, had been reported by outraged Canadian Iranians having been seen working out at a Toronto gym. 

 

"Larijani is responsible for co-ordinating the response to the (January country-wide) protests on behalf of the Supreme Leader of Iran and has publicly called for Iranian security forces to use force to repress peaceful protesters" a report by the U.S. Department of the Treasury stated, leading to his being sanctioned on January 15. At a time when Larijani's nieces and nephews as well as  his own children lived and worked in the United States.

 

Despite barring entry of senior Iranian officials into Canada since 2022, Canada has been inexcusably tardy in removing Iranian officials from Canada. The Canada Border Services Agency, while tracking down 20 Iranian officials deemed ineligible to remain in Canada, managed to remove only one of those identified.  

"Based on their actions, there are reasonable grounds to believe that the IRGC has knowingly carried out, attempted to carry out, participated in or facilitated a terrorist activity, or has knowingly acted on behalf of, at the direction of, or in association with an entity that has knowingly carried out terrorist activity. Listing the IRGC means that they are a terrorist group."

"The decision to list the IRGC through the Criminal Code listing regime sends a strong message that Canada will use all tools at its disposal to combat the terrorist activity of the IRGC, conducted both unilaterally and in knowing association with listed terrorist entities such as Hizballah and Hamas."

"As a now-listed entity, the IRGC meets the definition of a “terrorist group” under Canada’s Criminal Code. As an immediate consequence of this listing, Canadian financial institutions, such as banks and brokerages, are required to immediately freeze the property of a listed entity. It is a criminal offence for anyone in Canada and Canadians abroad to knowingly deal with property owned or controlled by a terrorist group."

"Listing can also assist Canadian security, intelligence and law enforcement agencies to combat terrorism, including by helping to facilitate the laying of terrorism charges against perpetrators and supporters of terrorism. The terrorist listings mechanism plays a key role in countering terrorist financing. A listing can also help block sympathizers in Canada from providing assistance to terrorist groups."

Public Safety Canada, June 19, 2024 

"The martyrdom of the Supreme Leader at the  hands of Israel and the criminal America was a great disaster for our country."

"With the power of God, we will continue the path of the Imam, the path of the dear leader, and the path of all those who seek justice in the world with power." 

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian

 

"Irrespective of what the guidelines say and what the politics may have been, it was always going to be improvisational."

"Under the circumstances of an existential conflict, the succession process is going to be very much dictated by the context of the moment."

Suzanne Maloney, vice-president, Brookings Institution

 

"The structure of the Islamic Revolution has been designed in such a way that after the martyrdom of any commander, at any rank or level, qualified and capable individuals immediately replace them."

Fars News Agency

 

"The succession process is not key in the short term because they're going to try and fight on."

"Firing off missiles does not require a supreme leader." 

Alex Vatanka, Iran analyst, Middle East Institute

Plumes of smoke from two simultaneous strikes rise over Tehran on Monday. (Mohsen Ganji/The Associated Press)

 

The first step in a process of succession in the aftermath of confirmation  of the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei resulting from an Israeli aerial attack on his compound containing the Ayatollah's offices, was announced. That a commission of three experts as called for in Iran's constitution, would meet to select the next supreme leader. Unfortunately, while the experts and others around them were in close consultation the building they were in was bombed to smithereens.

 

Evidently, before that happened, the decision was promulgated. Although Ayatollah Khamenei was said to have spurned the idea of  succession, even though rumour had it that he was grooming his oldest son to succeed him, the panel of experts had decided on elevating that son to the now-empty position of Grand Ayatollah. That, despite that the son did not have the required scholarship credentials to obtain that role. 

 

Iran International reports the Assembly of Experts has elected Ali Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, as his father’s successor.

 

According to President Pezeshkian, an interim leadership council was struck to begin the process of overseeing the country locked in war with the  attack of its government institutions by the combined military forces of the United States and Israel. Moreover, it was latterly reported that the building housing the deliberating council was bombed: "Following the decapitation of 88 Members of the Islamic Supreme Council, which was set to choose the Ayatollah regime's next "Supreme Leader"; Mossad announced: "It doesn't matter who is chosen today; his fate has been decreed. Only the Iranian nation will choose their future leader."

 

Following the U.S.-Israeli attack that began on Saturday, Iran retaliated by firing waves of missiles and drones at Israel and targeted U.S. allies in the region. Here, boys watch as a tall smoke plume billows following an explosion in the Fujairah industrial zone in the U.A.E. (Fadel Senna/AFP/Getty Images)

 

With the elimination of many contenders and in the current regime instability various rivals and factions are certain to emerge, each claiming their right to assume wartime power in the face of questionable support from the country'[s military establishment. The solution to which may be a decision to retain the temporary council, but then the fact is the temporary council is now rather unavailable, given that blast that destroyed the building they were meeting in. 

 

Even though Mojtaba Khamenei was widely expected to be favoured as his father's successor, Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei resisted the transfer of the supreme position along hereditary lines. Such a move would smack too greatly of the ruling system of the Pahlavi dynasty, when the Shah was replaced by the Islamic Republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic. 

 

In Iran the supreme leader is a high-placed religious figure considered to be a representative of God, while also being the head of state. During the 37 years that Ali Khamenei served, he expanded his power and the scope of his rule over the civilian government which itself was elected under a quasi-democratic rule. As such the Grand Ayatollah had the power to wield final decision-making on all manner of regime initiatives, even as he also consulted.

 

What the Iranian Shiite regime -- or what is left of it -- has failed to take into account is its future presence in the Middle East where it has succeeded through its violently hostile actions toward its Sunni Arab neighbours by sending endless streams of missiles and deadly drones into their territory, attacking both oil extraction sites and civilian infrastructure and in so doing inciting deadly enmity from those same neighbours, is the future consequences. Saudi Arabia, the UAE and others will never now countenance a continuation of the Islamic Republic. 

 

The U.S. and Israel launched a new wave of attacks on Iran on Tuesday, as the conflict entered its fourth day. Here, plumes of smoke rise following reported explosions in Tehran early Tuesday. (Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images)

 

 

"We had prepared for such moments and have plans in place for all scenarios, even for the time after the martyrdom of revered Imam Khamenei."

"You'll see that after the leadership council is formed, the power and integrity of officials, defensive forces and the people will be beyond imagination."

Mohammad Bagher Galibaf, parliamentary speaker, Iran 

 

"We are ready in our country."

"We are not looking for war, and we won't start the war. But if they force it on us, we will respond."

Ali Larijani, 67, head, Iranian Supreme National Security Council 

In this photo released by the official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei leads an Eid al-Fitr prayer marking the end of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan at the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosque in Tehran, Iran, Monday, March 31, 2025. Photo by Uncredited /AP

 

Well, 'they' did proceed to 'force it' on the Islamic Republic of Iran. The United States and Israel in a tandem of determination, after failed nuclear talks and in the wake of massive, prolonged popular protests by Iranians fed up with the economic plight they found themselves in as a result of sanctions imposed on Iran for its intransigence over international demands that it forego its nuclear programs, where the regime's brutal crackdown on protesters led to thousands killed, tens of thousands injured and arrested, the decision was finally made to attack the regime's nuclear development sites, its IRGC weapons depots, ballistic missile launchers and leading government figures.

 

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is dead, as are many of the leading military and security figures of the Islamic Republic. Before his death, the Grand Ayatollah left instructions with trusted aids how they must proceed in a continuation of the Islamic Republic after his death. The Muslim holy month of Ramadan 2026 saw the aerial invasion of Iran by American and Israeli fighter jets targeting the regime's infrastructure, its military, its government figures, after a massive buildup of American military assets at sea and in the air. A joint, well-planned agreement between Israel, whom Iran has repeatedly threatened to destroy and the U.S., whose military assets Iran has repeatedly targeted with its proxy terrorists.

 

Provisional Leadership Council, Sky News

 

 Facing the threat of strikes and dealing with nationwide protests in January, Ayatollah Khamenei assigned Ali Larijani, Iran's foremost national security official, to take the reins of government. He chose Mr. Larijani, and not the current president of the country, Masoud Pezeshkian to be tasked. President Pezeshkian, a former heart surgeon turned politician and considered a moderate, would then report directly to Mr. Larijani. Larijani is a veteran politician, currently head of the Supreme National Security Council, formerly commander of the Revolutionary Guards Corps.

 

Mr. Larijani had been tasked with crushing the January protests throughout the country that demanded the ouster of the regime and the end of Islamic rule. The lethal force that was unleashed under his command was in fact a reflection of the government itself, prepared to kill as many protesters as was deemed necessary to convince Iranians that the government was unmoved by the passion of their protests other than to continue the regime's resolve to crush dissent.

 

It has been Mr. Larijani who has been front and central in liaising with Russia, Qatar and Oman while supervising the nuclear negotiations underway with Washington. He has been at the helm of planning Iran's response to the expected strike by the United States in view of the American forces being amassed in the region. Alongside Larijani, a handful of other close political and military associates of Ayatollah Khamenei were tasked to ensure that the Islamic Republic would survive any assassination attempts on the regime's leadership including that of the Ayatollah himself.

 

Four layers of succession were assigned by Ayatollah Khamenei for each of the military command and government roles of critical importance to the longevity of the regime. All those named to leadership roles were themselves in turn to name up to an additional four replacements with responsibilities delegated to a circle of confidants for decision-making, in the event that communications were disrupted or the death of the Ayatollah. All of the country's armed forces were placed on the highest state of alert in preparation for fierce resistance. 

 

Sky News

 

A three-person temporary leadership council has been formed to govern the country and temporarily assume the duties of supreme leader, in line with Islamic Republic law. Mr. Larijani tops the list to manage the country, followed by Brigadier General Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, a former Guards commander and current speaker of Parliament, designated as the de facto deputy to Khamenei, to command the armed forces during conflict. President Pezeshkian has been sidelined.

 

None of the men in this tight little circle of command and control would be considered with any favour by the angry people of Iran, given their accusations of financial corruption, and complicity in violations of human rights, inclusive of the recent slaughter of thousands of unarmed protesters over a three-day period in early January. 

 

"During the past two years, Iran and Israel have traded missile and air strikes three times, and by now, war between them is old news. War between Iran and the Gulf Arab states of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates, however, is something new. According to reports, Iran fired missiles at all of them this morning. This video appears to show an attack on Juffair, the area of Bahrain that hosts the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet. Similar attacks were reported in the other countries, all of which host American bases or other strategic interests."

"All these countries, with the possible exception of the U.A.E., have been at various times torn about whether to treat Iran like a bad neighbor who must be tolerated, or a bad neighbor whose house needs to be burned down with the neighbor in it."

"These countries once wondered whether Iran could be appeased and contained. Now they do not."

Graeme Wood, The Atlantic 

 

"Everyone is very scared [as the situation continues to deteriorate]."

"There is footage of missile interceptions all over the city."

"I am packing a suitcase just in case … not that we can leave, because airspace is closed."

"It is the thing we have all been frightened about happening, and now it has."

Dubai resident  

Dubai turns into a ghost town as Iranian strikes rattle the city.  Nearly empty highways are seen in Dubai on Sunday.   Caroline Faraj/CNN

 

Iran, as the only non-Arab Muslim state in the Middle East, has long sought to reassert itself in the image of ancient Persia where the Shi'ite theocracy recalls a time when Persia was once the ruling hegemon in the Middle East during the Achaemenid Empire (c. 550–330 BC) when its royal families oversaw a vast influential territory. Today, Iranians still celebrate the empire of Cyrus The Great, a warrior and statesman. In Israel he is remembered as the great king who was instrumental in freeing Israelites from their captive state and allowed them to return to Israel to rebuild the Temple of Solomon destroyed by the Assyrians.

 

The majority Sunni Muslim states in the Middle East have always lived uneasily alongside Iran, since 1979's Islamic Revolution that brought Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to power in Iran with the exile of the former Shah Pahlavi. The revolution that turned Iranians from a proud free people to a people shackled by strictly enforced Sharia law, taking Iranians socially back to the Medieval era, curtailing their liberties as the regime began to export its version of Islam and formed, trained and armed non-state terrorist militias to do its bidding on the international stage and within the Middle East.

 

Tehran had its ambitions to wrest Mecca from the control of the Saudis, a point of extreme tension between the two countries, both competing as well to be recognized as the ultimate power in the Middle East. Most of the Sunni states had amicable trade linked to oil extraction with the West and particularly the United States, as did the former Shah of Iran. Under the theocratic regime that Tehran ruled, relations from the onset of the revolution were antagonistic to the United States, the Iranian mullahs characterizing the U.S. as the 'great Satan' and Israel which they regarded as a U.S. appendage, the 'little Satan'. Its intention was to destroy them both.

 

Hit-and-run attacks against both accomplished through the medium of Iran's proxy terrorist groups became the regime's mode of conduct toward both Israel and the United States. But it was not until it became apparent that Iran was diligently working on a devoted nuclear program -- all the while promising it would destroy Israel -- that attention was fixed on its actions. In the failure of Western nations to persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions alongside the IRGC's development of ever further-reaching and more powerful ballistic missiles amidst threats they could eventually reach the U.S. seaboard, tensions continued to grow.

Explosions from the interception of an Iranian projectile are seen in the sky over Dubai on March 1, 2026. (Photo by Giuseppe CACACE / AFP via Getty Images)

 

On the last day of February 2026 a second joint action shared by the United States and Israel targeted Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile sites with the intention of completely destroying them, following the mistaken belief that their earlier June 2025 attacks had accomplished that goal. In the wake of mass demonstrations of Iranians against their theocratic leadership stifling life in the country for ordinary people, and the resulting regime response that killed thousands, wounded many more and imprisoned tens of thousands, Israel and the United States, following a massive buildup of military might at sea and in the air, attacked Iran.  

"The regime has not capitulated in the least. At least not yet. They are fighting back and so what we’re watching is this sort of test of wills."

"[The] Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs affirmed the Kingdom’s full solidarity with the countries concerned and its firm support for them, stating that it would mobilize all its capabilities to assist them in any measures they undertake."

"[The UAE emphasized that the country’s security is] indivisible [from its Gulf neighbors] and that any infringement on the sovereignty of any state constitutes a direct threat to the security and stability of the entire region." 

"[It’s interesting to see the countries] banding together with the United States." 

"The Emiratis and the Saudis are now speaking the same language. They have been at odds with one another over the last several weeks, they are issuing statements of support for one another as Iranian missiles and drones are getting shot across the region."

Jonathan Schanzer, executive director, Foundation for Defense of Democracies  

The Islamic Republican Guard Corps at the direction of Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, laid plans to attack their Sunni Arab neighbours whom they accused of collaborating with the United States. Accordingly, even with the death of Khamenei, along with that of the head of the IRGC and many other military leaders, the plan was advanced into kinetic action, with hundreds of missiles and drones attacking not only Israel, but U.S. military assets in countries like Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan, Bahrain and Oman.

 

By the third day of the U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran, four people were killed and 100 wounded in the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Qatar.  Iran has burnt all its bridges. Arab states that would have no hand in attacking the Islamic Republic despite their fears of its aggressive intentions now turn their eye in a well-earned jaundiced direction toward the real and immediate threat Iran now poses to their own security and that of their civilian populations. A situation that could very well end up with a coalition of Arab nations moving their own militaries against Iran. 

 

And  ultimately, Iranians would be freed from the theocratic restraints of a government leadership that destroyed too many Iranian lives to be permitted to live on without penalty itself.

 

Smoke rises after Iran carried out a missile strike on the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain. (Reuters)

"For the first time in history, all the GCC states were targeted by the same actor within 24 hours. Their long-standing nightmare scenario has happened."

"Although in case of a US attack to Iran, this was an expected action from Tehran, but the scope has shocked both the Gulf political elite and public."

"[By hitting civilian infrastructure, whether intentionally or not, in the Gulf Cooperation Council capitals], Iran has crossed a dangerous line. The aim may have been to raise tensions in the Gulf to pressure the US, but this calculus may also backfire. It risks pushing the GCC states closer to the US camp in this war."

Sinem Cengiz, researcher, Qatar University’s Gulf Studies Center/non-resident fellow at Gulf International Forum 

Trump speaks with the CIA chief, John Ratcliffe, left, alongside the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, and Marco Rubio at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday. Photograph: The White House/Reuters

"[Grand Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei, one of the most evil people in History is dead."

"[Khamenei] was unable to avoid our Intelligence and Highly Sophisticated Tracking Systems and, working closely with Israel, there was not a thing he, or the other leaders that have been killed along with him, could do."

"This is the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their country." 

U.S. President Donald J. Trump 

Months in the planning stages, the  joint American/Israeli operation began on Saturday during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan -- following nuclear program negotiations that went nowhere on a circuitous route of circumvention, protestations of innocence of intent alongside declarations of entitlement and stall tactics that the Islamic Republic is known for. Despite the tension building up to the moment, it is doubtful that anyone believed military action would indeed be taken against the Islamic Republic of Iran. 

 

Yet the action, in a seeming repeat of June's combined Israeli-U.S. attacks on Iran's nuclear installations, its military headquarters and weapons-storage units as well as the regime's missile-launch sites, seemed inevitable given its theocratic rulers' frequently repeated intentions to attack Israel to wipe it from the face of the Middle East, and its ongoing characterization of the United States as 'Satan' needing to be confronted. The ever-increasing lethality and reach of Iran's ballistic missiles threatening to reach the U.S. seaboard, as well as its  history of fomenting schemes with its terrorist proxies to attack U.S. forces signed its death warrant.

 

The final impetus to carry out a final attack to exterminate the ruling theocracy, its military and policing units came courtesy of the Iranian people themselves whose eruption of mass protests in January against stringent economic conditions resulting from the regime's focus on funding its sponsored, trained and armed terror groups in Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq and the Palestinian Territories while Western sanctions imposed high inflation and medical and food shortages at spiralling prices, drove ordinary Iranians to massive protests. Protests the regime responded to with expected brutality, where thousands among the protest movement were killed, tens of thousands wounded and imprisoned.

 

"Hundreds of Iranian missile and drone attacks" responded in retaliation from Iran to targets in Israel and toward U.S. military bases in Gulf States. Targets in Iran included Revolutionary Guard command facilities, air defence systems, missile and drone launch sites and military airfields. The commander of the Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Iranian defence minister, along with the secretary of the Iranian Security Council had been targeted by Israel and were extinguished.

 

Among the first strikes on Iran, the compound of the Grand Ayatollah Khamenei was shown by satellite photography to have been utterly crushed. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, his wife, and several of their offspring were killed in the strikes that levelled his offices and all the associated buildings in the compound. Although this wasn't entirely predictable, there was an expectation built on the obvious conclusion that the buildup of the largest force of U.S. warships and aircraft in decades in the Middle East presaged just this.

Satellite image showing damage to the compound of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran   Airbus DS 2026 

 

In the earlier June of 2025 aerial assaults carried out jointly by Israel and the U.S. meant to defuse Iran's nuclear capabilities, and to destroy its armouries and ballistic missile launching sites to put an end to the regional threats posed by the regime, it had been generally felt that the mission had accomplished its goal. Since then, however, it became clear that Iran's nuclear program had not after all been obliterated and that the regime was busy rebuilding destroyed infrastructure. Moreover its centrifuges were producing highly enriched weapons-grade uranium. 

"The  hour of  your freedom is at hand. Stay sheltered. Don't leave your home. It's very dangerous outside." 

"Bombs will be dropping everywhere."

"When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take."

"This will be probably your only chance for generations."

U.S. President Donald Trump ... message to the people of Iran 

Smoke rises up after a strike in Tehran on March 1, 2026. (Vahid Salemi/The Associated Press)

"Canada holds 163,108,000,000 barrels of proven oil reserves as of 2025, ranking #4 in the world and accounting for about 9.24% of the world's total oil reserves of 1,765,151,568,000."

"Canada has proven reserves equivalent to 188.6 times its annual consumption levels (based on 2024 data). This means that, without net exports, there would be about 189 years of oil left (at 2024 consumption levels and excluding unproven reserves)."

world0meter  

Visual Capitalist 

"Canada has significant reserves of conventional and unconventional oil and gas resources. Canadian oil production is focused in the west of the country, especially in Alberta. Canada’s proven oil reserves remain among the world’s largest — estimated at around 168 – 170 billion barrels (about 10 % of global reserves), with the majority in oil sands. The largest oil reserves are found in Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, which have around 18.2 % and 16.2 % of the total reserves, respectively."

"Canada also produces natural gas, with reserves and production primarily in provinces such as British Columbia, Alberta, and the Northwest Territories. Producing natural gas involves extracting gas from underground reservoirs and processing it so it is suitable for various uses, such as heating. In 2025, Canada’s natural gas production averaged about 19 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), making it the fifth-largest producer globally and accounting for roughly 5 % of world natural gas supply."

"Canada is currently the fourth-largest oil producer in the world, with production near 6.0 million barrels per day in 2024, including oil sands, conventional, offshore, and liquids."

Olivia Bush, Made in CA   

A large oil refinery along the Athabasca River in Fort McMurray, Alta.  dan_prat/iStock/Getty Images 

 

New Brunswick, an eastern province of Canada was the second place in the world in 1859 to discover oil and gas would bubble to the surface when a hole was drilled in the ground. New Brunswick has a wealth of fossil fuel; an estimated 77.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, according to Natural Resources Canada. New Brunswick held the knowledge of its great natural resources close to its chest, making the choice not to develop its reserves. The province imposed an indefinite moratorium on hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in 2014 judging it to be environmentally unfriendly. 

 

Yet it is precisely that system of extraction that is required to draw up the provincial gas reserves. New Brunswick is not alone among Canadian provinces in the abundance of its energy resources, given the Canadian total of about 1.4 quadrillion cubic feet. And according to an analysis conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy, that plenitude of energy is sufficient for Canada to provide natural gas needs for the entire world for a period of 200 years. 

 

When Japan's prime minister travelled to Canada in 2023 and a year later Germany's chancellor followed, both leaders had a distinct and direct purpose in mind. To persuade the Canadian government of those countries' dire need for a reliable energy source in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, when the U.S. and the EU took punitive steps against Russian aggression by sanctioning Russian gas whose sale helped to fuel the war. Their persuasive efforts fell on deaf ears. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's off-handed response was that there was no business case to be made for Canada to export gas.

 

 

 

Under the new Liberal government headed by Marc Carney that succeeded the Trudeau government, Canada re-elected yet another figure influential in environmental circles dedicated to ensuring that energy resources were kept underground, as a source of carbon dioxide that was adding fuel to global warming, responsible for dramatic weather changes and adding to natural disasters in extreme weather conditions. Resistance to oil pipelines to tidewater for shipping abroad, to continued exploitation of the Alberta heavy crude oil to a world hungry for energy, continues under the current prime minister.

 

A situation where a country's vast natural resources are being left underground, with the full potential of extraction not to be realized on the basis of the harm it would do to the environment already in a situation of degradation from climate change. This despite vast technical advances in the extraction of oilsands for a cleaner product. And in the face of the fact that Canada's contribution to global greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is slightly more than 1-percent of the world total. 

 

A situation that has led Canada to export its oil to U.S. refineries at a discount, and where the U.S. sells that refined oil elsewhere at a profit denied to Canada. In turn, Canada continues to import oil from the Middle East for the energy needs of New Brunswick and Quebec, lacking a pipeline that would provide them with Canadian oil from the Western provinces; pipelines are dirty words to environment-dedicated British Columbia, New Brunswick and Quebec. 

 

The Maran Gas Hector

 

And out of this impasse the absurdity of an Australian oil tanker, the Maran Gas Hector, sailing 25,000 kms from Gladstone, Australia, across the Atlantic to New Brunswick's Saint John harbour where it docked and proceeded to unload its cargo to fill the need of the very province sitting atop a wealth of untapped oil reserves.  A decade ago four LNG export terminals were proposed for Canada's Atlantic coast, but the prospect failed to resonate. Leading to the shipping across a vast distance, of Australian natural gas. 

 

Unlike Canada, Australia has exploited its reserves for export since the 1980s as supercooled liquefied natural gas through its 10 LNG export terminals and thousands of kilometres of natural gas pipelines. As opposed to Canada's single LNG export terminal in Kitimat, British Columbia, just a year old, following a lengthy process of environmental reviews and legal confrontations, amidst civil environmental insurrectionists. 

 

The only LNG terminal on the Canadian Atlantic coast, and it's to import LNG, rather than export it. Photo by Twelve O'Clock High Drone Services

 

   

"It is a privilege and an honour for me to stand before this distinguished House. I do so as the Prime Minister of India, and as a representative of one ancient civilization addressing another."

"I bring with me the greetings of 1.4 billion Indians, and a message of friendship, respect, and partnership."

"India has also endured the pain of terrorism. We feel your pain. We share your grief. India stands with Israel, firmly with full conviction, in this moment and beyond."

"Like you, we have a consistent and uncompromising policy of zero tolerance for terrorism, with no double standards."

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi 

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, in Jerusalem on February 25, 2026. (Photo by ilia YEFIMOVICH / AFP via Getty Images)

 

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi just concluded his second visit to Israel. His first took place in 2017, becoming the first prime minister of India to visit Israel. He spoke of the acknowledgement of much in common, historically, culturally and politically between the two nations. In speaking of India's high alert over terrorism, addressing the Knesset, it is clear that Islamist terrorism that has kept Israel on guard since 1948, is the very menace that India too has faced, and from that very same year-before, when Pakistan divided from India and a mass exchange of population took place through partition.

 

The Partition offer made by the United Nations between Israel and those calling themselves Palestinians failed to conclude with two states side-by-side, when Israel gratefully and ebulliently took up the offer and the Arab Palestinians rejected it. That rejection has continued with each offer Israel has made through negotiations where concessions were never enough for the Palestinians demanding the ultimate concession of  Israel's dissolution and the land 'from the river to the sea' turned over to the Palestinians; land historically and ancestrally Judean. 

 

India and Pakistan continue to confront one another over the disputed border of Kashmir. India aspires to live in peace with its combative neighbour, while knowing that there will be eruptions of violence emanating from Pakistan into India. Internally, India hosts the third largest Muslim population globally as citizens, about 14 percent of its population. Distrust between the fractious nature of Muslim vs Hindu can flare at any time. India with its vast population base and huge ethnic/religious/ideological groups must also grapple with threats from its Sikh population that promotes a geographic schism in the Punjab called Kalistan. 

 

But it was a fundamentalist Islamist Pakistani group that launched a massive attack on India's financial hub in south Mumbai that brought home the extremist hatred of religious domination through jihad when a dozen coordinated attacks in 2008 shut the city down for three days while Indian security forces battled with murderous armed terrorists shooting and setting off explosives in a catastrophic scene of pandemonium and bloodshed, where in total 175 civilians, security personnel, and nine attackers, were killed. Bodies of many of the dead hostages showed signs of torture or disfigurement. 

 

Thursday, Nov. 27, 2008, fire engulfs a part of the Taj Hotel in Mumbai, India. Teams of gunmen stormed luxury hotels, a popular restaurant, hospitals and a crowded train station in coordinated attacks across India’s financial capital,taking Westerners hostage and leaving parts of the city under siege. The terror lasted for three day which killed 195 people. (AP Photo/Gautam Singh)

"[India honours the ancient Jewish communities of India]: the Bene Israel of Maharashtra, the Cochini Jews of Keralam, The Baghdadi Jews of Kolkata and Mumbai, and the Bnei Menashe of the North East have enriched India."

"In my home state, Gujarat, there is a school set up by a Bene Israeli family -- Mister and Missus Best. It is an excellent school, and of course, it is called the Best School!"

Prime Minister Modi  

Cochin Jews, c. 1900.

 

India is forced to arm itself in readiness for the prospect of defending itself against further violence from Pakistan. Like Israel, India is also a nuclear power ... as is Pakistan. Pakistan battles its own insurgent Islamists as it happens, as well as preparing itself for conflict with Afghanistan where skirmishes have already taken place between the two through accusations by Pakistan that Afghanistan is giving haven to Pakistan's Taliban that threaten Islamabad. The irony being that Pakistan had sheltered and its Intelligence Services had trained the Afghanistan Taliban.

 

According to the Stockholm International Research Institute, 34 percent of Israel's total arms exports between 2020 and 2024, valued at roughly $20.5 billion have gone to India. Israel supplies India with "missiles, seekers, radars, sensors, electronic warfare suites, UAV technologies, and a host of force multipliers." 

 

India represents one of the few geographies where persistent antisemitism has not made its way into the culture; Jews have lived safely in India for centuries; unlike the Jewish experience throughout Europe where diaspora Jews have lived for millennia. In India no pogroms threatened the security of Jews living there, no expulsions took place, nor state-institutionalized persecution. Much less ghettos imposed upon Jewish-Indian enclaves.  

 

Times of Israel

"Israel is often called the 'startup nation'." 

"Our aspirational spirit aligns naturally with Israel's innovation ecosystem. I see a lot of synergies in areas such as quantum technologies, semiconductors, and artificial intelligence."

"We are also working with Israel on creating cross-border financial linkages using our Digital Public Infrastructure." 

Prime Minister Modi 

People visit the graves of their relatives, who were killed during Russia's attack on Ukraine, as a large-scale light installation illuminates the Lychakiv cemetery in Lviv, Ukraine, on Feb. 23, 2026, marking the fourth anniversary of the full-scale Russian invasion. (Roman Baluk/Reuters)

 

"Looking back at the beginning of the invasion and reflecting on today, we have every right to say:We have defended our independence, we have not lost our statehood."

"[Russian President Vladimir Putin has] not achieved his goals."

"He has not broken Ukrainians; he has not won this war."

"I believe that stopping Putin today and preventing him from occupying Ukraine is a victory for the whole world. Because Putin will not stop at Ukraine."

"We'll do it [get our land back]. That is absolutely clear. It is only a matter of time. To do it today would mean losing a huge number of people - millions of people - because the [Russian] army is large, and we understand the cost of such steps. You would not have enough people, you would be losing them. And what is land without people? Honestly, nothing."

"And we also don't have enough weapons. That depends not just on us, but on our partners. So as of now that's not possible but returning to the just borders of 1991 [the year Ukraine declared its independence, precipitating the final collapse of the Soviet Union] without a doubt, is not only a victory, it's justice. Ukraine's victory is the preservation of our independence, and a victory of justice for the whole world is the return of all our lands."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy 

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office, European leaders attending the ceremony at the memorial to the fallen Ukrainian soldiers on Independence Square in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, Feb. 24, 2025. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)

 

Over a dozen senior European officials arrived in Kyiv to help Ukraine mark the anniversary of the conflict imposed upon the country by Moscow. A conflict which has killed tens of thousands, a conflict that has disrupted life for millions of Ukrainians, both the internally displaced forced to find haven elsewhere within Ukraine and the millions more made refugees by the exigencies of war. Four years of conflict where a rabid aggressor has been held back by stout defence that morphed into a counter-offensive keeping the barbarians at bay.

 

Eastern European countries well know that if Ukraine falls, Putin's territory-hungry eye will look further into Russia's near-abroad, and they are on the menu. As it is, beyond well-placed concerns over the scale of Putin's territorial ambitions, the conflict has created instability in Russia's near-abroad target countries, feverishly supplying Ukraine with funding and war materiel, while at the same time modernizing their own conflict-imposed defence resources and strengthening ties with their neighbours.

 

Russia, after initiating its 'special military operation'  managed to gain close to 20 percent of Ukrainian territory which Moscow has declared part of greater Russia, according to the Institute for the Study of War, while the past year of fighting has gained Russia a mere 0.79 percent of additional territory. Rather putting Putin's aims off kilter in his initial confident expectation that this would be a time-limited enterprise, tucking Ukraine back into Russia's pocket in a mere matter of weeks. 

 

Russia's aerial bombardments over the years have targeted Ukraine's cities throughout the country while Moscow keeps insisting it targets only military installations. Ukrainian civilians have been denied power and water time and again as basic civic infrastructure, including hospitals shopping centres and apartment blocks, become deliberate targets time and again in Moscow's efforts to demoralize Ukrainians. 

 

A woman places flowers at the memorial to fallen Ukrainian soldiers in Independence Square to mark the fourth anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Tuesday. (Efrem Lukatsky/The Associated Press)

 

For its part, turning defence into offence, Ukraine has increasingly deployed long-range drones of its own technical design and increasingly more sophisticated and effective manufacture to strike Russian oil refineries, ports, bridges, ships, fuel depots and military logistics hubs well within Russia; over 1,000 kilometres beyond the border, reaching as far as Moscow. Negotiations led by the Trump White House have  yielded no relief as the war of attrition stretches toward its fifth year of combat.

 

Russia's demands of Ukraine feature the Donbas, the industrial heartland of eastern Ukraine mostly occupied by Russian Forces, while Ukraine continues to hold possession of a portion. For Russia to draw back its forces it demands that Ukraine comply with its demand to withdraw from the Donbas allowing 

Russia to annex it entirely as it did with the Crimean Peninsula in 2014. Ukraine must also surrender its weapons and reduce its armed forces, and never again attempt to join NATO; the conditions that Moscow seeks to impose.

 

Thousands of flags and portraits of the fallen in this war appeared at a memorial in Kyiv's central square. The Kremlin celebrated the fourth-year anniversary of its invasion when Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stated that Moscow's resolute plans include the continuation of the invasion until Moscow's goals are accomplished; until Ukraine cedes vast areas of territory to Russia. 

 

 

  

Cultural Human Trafficking in Child-Sex Predation

(Peel Regional Police)

"It's very surprising when you have an adolescent performing this. Whether it is an adult or a child, it's appalling."

"Human trafficking is such a psychologically and physically violent offence. I think it's one of the most harmful offences that's being perpetrated because of the trauma that survivors endure, sometimes for months or years."

"There is a demand. There is an interest in the community for people wanting to have  sex with children. We are doing proactive initiatives to prevent that."

"It takes a lot of guts for victims to come forward. We want them to come forward. They don't necessarily have to come forward to police, but talking to social services and getting themselves out of the place they've found themselves."

"Traffickers are using social media, like Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, to communicate with young people to engage them and then offer opportunities to meet. And once they meet, they groom them."

"They provide them with gifts, they shower them with compliments, make them feel good about themselves and show them the good life."

"Then things change. The trafficker might say 'you owe me, and you have to do this to pay it back', or they might say, 'hey, can you do me this favour because I've been so good to you? And the favour might be to have sex with an older person for money."

"It is very much a psychological offence. They don't understand what they are getting themselves into. they think they're getting into a relationship with someone who loves them, but unfortunately, it is not true."

Det.-Sgt. Bob Hackenbrook, Peel Police Service Vice and Human Trafficking Unit 

 

This is happening. And what is  happening is not a reflection of what could be identified as 'Canadian values' in the sense that this type of social offence is not a common ingredient of the conventional Canadian psyche. It is also not a common occurrence within Canadian society. While predators exist everywhere that psychopaths can be found, the practise of stalking, grooming and trafficking young girls is a fairly recent phenomenon. And it is one that has a definite cultural background with racial dimensions. 

 

The men in northern England were sentenced to jail terms from 12 to 35 years after sexually abusing and raping two girls from the age of 13.  AP Photo

 

Grooming gangs are a common phenomenon in Britain, for example. Their prevalence and their tactics, their countless victims forced into the sex trade by unscrupulous monsters are acknowledged. Yet very little police action has taken place and the reason that this occurs is simple enough; an  unwillingness to confront the traffickers for fear of risk of being called out for racism. And that would be because this is a favoured tactic of 'racialized' people, for some of whom the practise has become business as usual.

 

Mohammed Shahzad, Mushtaq Ahmed and Kasir Bashir denied the offence charges brought against them in Britain   GMP/BBC

 

In the Toronto-area Peel Region, a 15-year-old boy has been accused of operating a child sex trafficking operation in and about the Toronto Metropolitan area, with girls as young as 11 years of age. Also arrested were three customers who Peel Regional Police have taken into custody to face sex charges. The police investigation revealed that girls aged 11 to 14 had been trafficked and sexually exploited. 

 

The suspects made use of coercion, manipulation and physical violence threats to influence and control the victims where violations of their human rights resulted in financial benefits to their exploiters. Peel Police found 32 victims under the age of 15, victimized through sex trafficking since 2022. Interest in child sexual abuse is a real and dangerous problem in Canadian communities, pointed out Det.-Sgt. Bob Hackenbrook, in charge of the Human Trafficking Unit. 

 

In an undercover operation last year dubbed project Juno,Peel police posted an advertisement offering sex with an underage teen that resulted in investigators facing a flood of eager calls amounting to an average of 100 such calls daily for several weeks. Police made 35 arrests on that occasion, on charges of communications for the purpose of having sex with a person under 18, by the time the operation was shut down. 

Peel has the highest percentage of racialized people in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). 

• 69% of people in Peel identify with a racialized group.
• By comparison, just 34% of Ontarians and 27% of Canadians overall identify with a racialized group.
• Since 2006, the racialized population in Peel increased 72%. 

"The demographics were astounding" said Officer Hackenbrook. From several Ontario cities and towns, businessmen, students, construction workers, retirees and a college teacher were among those responding. "It was very alarming. And a lot them were married, so their families got a rude awakening when they went to bail court the next day."  

The 15-year-old male offender in the current arrest, cannot be identified by law due to his age, despite that he is charged with two counts of trafficking in persons under age 18, three counts of procuring a person under age 18, two counts of receiving a benefit from human trafficking, two counts of material benefit from sexual services by a person under age 18, and three counts of exercise control, direction, or influence.

 

Three of his clients, Mohamad Omar Al-Saleh, 21, from Toronto, Mustafa Abdo 22, from Toronto, and Yousif Al-Gburi, 20 from Mississauga, each stand charged with sexual assault of a female under age 16, sexual interference, and obtaining sexual services of a person under the age of 18 for consideration. It is the minor who recruited/induced young girls into the sex trade, profiting from them, while the adult males were clients whose indecent contact violated the young girls' human rights. 

 

Mohamad Omar Al-Saleh, 21, from Toronto; Mustafa Abdo, 22, from Toronto; and Yousif Al-Gburi, 20, from Mississauga have all been arrested and charged in connection with a human trafficking investigation. (Peel Regional Police handouts)

 

Photographs of the three adults were released by police, but the Youth Criminal Justice Act forbids identifying a minor charged with a crime, leaving name and likeness out of the public eye. One of the young victims two years earlier had reached out for help, leading police to open an investigation. That there are additional victims seems likely to investigators who have reached out to anyone with information to contact police. 

 

Part of the modus operandi of these human smuggling operatives is to move their victims frequently to other locales, and to keep them from having any contact with friends and family. The situation of the growing prevalence of sexual predators and their abused victims has impelled Peel Police to host a provincial human trafficking symposium with the expectation that survivors, victim services providers, police, justice and social services officials, and politicians across Ontario will attend to discuss experiences and help to coordinate greater efforts to disrupt human trafficking.

 

There is in fact, a toll-free, around-the-clock Canadian Human Trafficking Hotline: 1-833-900-1010