Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks during a press conference after the First Ministers Meeting in Ottawa, Canada on March 21, 2025. (Photo by Dave Chan / AFP)
Canada’s new Prime Minister Mark Carney on Sunday called early elections for April 28, pledging to defeat Donald Trump’s drive to annex the United States’s huge northern neighbor.
Carney, a former central banker, was chosen by Canada’s centrist Liberal Party to replace Justin Trudeau as prime minister, but he has never faced the country’s broader electorate.
That will now change as Carney brought parliamentary elections forward several months from October, and he made it clear that the barrage of trade and sovereignty threats coming from the US president will be the focus of his campaign.
“I’ve just requested that the governor general dissolve parliament and call an election for April 28. She has agreed,” Carney said in a speech to the nation, referring to King Charles III’s representative in Canada, a member of the British Commonwealth.
Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney (C) speaks during the First Ministers Meeting in Ottawa, Canada on March 21, 2025. (Photo by Dave Chan / AFP)
In power for a decade, the Liberal government had slid into deep unpopularity, but Carney will be hoping to ride a wave of Canadian patriotism to a new majority.
“I’m asking Canadians for a strong, positive mandate to deal with President Trump,” Carney said, adding that the Republican “wants to break us, so America can own us. We will not let that happen.”
“We are facing the most significant crisis of our lifetimes because of President Trump’s unjustified trade actions and his threats to our sovereignty,” Carney said.
“Our response must be to build a strong economy and a more secure Canada,” he added, pledging not to meet Trump until the US leader recognizes Canadian sovereignty.
Trump has riled his northern neighbor by repeatedly dismissing its borders as artificial, and urging it to join the United States as the 51st state.
Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks at a news conference at Rideau Hall in Ottawa on March 23, 2025 after asking the Governor General to dissolve Parliament thereby triggering snap elections on April 28. (Photo by Dave Chan / AFP)
The ominous remarks have been accompanied by Trump’s swirling trade war, with the imposition of tariffs on imports from Canada, which could severely damage its economy.
Poll favorites
Domestic issues such as the cost of living and immigration usually dominate Canadian elections, but this time around, one key topic tops the list in this country of 41 million people: who can best handle Trump.
The president’s open hostility toward his northern neighbor — a NATO ally and historically one of his country’s closest partners — has upended the Canadian political landscape.
Trudeau, who had been in power since 2015, was deeply unpopular when he announced he was stepping down, with Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives seen as election favorites just weeks ago.
But the polls have narrowed spectacularly in Carney’s favor since he took over the Liberals, who only hold a minority in parliament, and analysts are now calling the race too close to call.
“Many consider this to be an existential election, unprecedented,” Felix Mathieu, a political scientist at the University of Winnipeg, told AFP.
“It is impossible at this stage to make predictions, but this will be a closely watched election with a voter turnout that should be on the rise.”
Poilievre, 45, is a career politician, first elected when he was only 25. A veteran tough-talking campaigner, he has sometimes been tagged as a libertarian and a populist.
On Sunday, Poilievre — seen by some as too similar to Trump in style and substance — set the tone.
“I want the opposite of what Donald Trump wants,” the Conservative leader said, promising to base his campaign on bread-and-butter economic issues and the worries of “regular people.”
Carney, 60, has spent his career outside of electoral politics. He spent more than a decade at Goldman Sachs and went on to lead Canada’s central bank, and then the Bank of England.
Smaller opposition parties could suffer if Canadians seek to give a large mandate to one of the big two, to strengthen their hand against Trump.
As for the US leader, he professes not to care, while pushing ahead with plans to further strengthen tariffs against Canada and other major trading partners on April 2.
“I don’t care who wins up there,” Trump said this week.
“But just a little while ago, before I got involved and totally changed the election, which I don’t care about […] the Conservative was leading by 35 points.”
Paraguay’s President Santiago Peña has been impeached and placed under house arrest.
Peña was arrested on Friday minutes after lawmakers, including from his own party, voted to remove him from office due to a crisis triggered by the collapse of Ueno Bank earlier this week.
He had offered to step down on Thursday, but the move to impeach him and charge him with misconduct rather than accept his resignation meant he was stripped of his lifetime Senate seat and the immunity granted to ex-presidents.
Peña, who until last year held shares in the company that owned the bank, has denied any wrongdoing.
The demise of the digital bank has left more than half of Paraguay’s population without access to their savings after it was seized by Paraguay’s central bank.
An estimated three million depositors remain unable to access their savings and pensions prompting widespread protests particularly in the capital, Asunción.
The impeachment charges that led to Peña’s removal alleged he had conflicts of interest, manipulated regulatory oversight, diverted pension funds, and participated in an institutional cover-up involving the central bank.
Peña is due to be questioned today (Saturday) over allegations of breach of trust, influence peddling, and misappropriation of funds, prosecutor Silvia Margarita Gonzalez Vester said.
Peña’s impeachment passed with 44 out of 45 senators voting in favour of it. One lawmaker was absent.
Afterwards, senate president Basilio Núñez said Peña was found guilty of “dereliction of duty”.
Paraguay’s Vice-President Pedro Alliana was then sworn in as interim President.
“Compatriots who are now going through a difficult time as a result of the financial collapse will be fully compensated,” said Alliana, who will serve as President until 2028.
Pedro Alliana takes the oath of office as interim President
Senator Rafael Filizzola said: “We are facing the biggest corruption scandal in our democratic history – a tremendous blow to the state, to private citizens, and to the country’s credibility and image.”
Analysts say Peña is likely to now be prosecuted over the bank’s collapse.
His defence lawyer Ricardo Preda described the allegations as a “reckless accusation” that was “irresponsible and opportunistic”.
In an address to the nation on Thursday, Peña said that he was sorry and that “it was never my intention to betray the trust you placed in me”.
A Kenyan court has sentenced the leader of a doomsday cult, Paul Mackenzie, to 200 years in prison for murdering 191 people, all but one of them children.
Alongside 27 others, Mackenzie was found guilty of the murders for instructing members of his cult to starve their children to death so they could “meet Jesus”.
Justice Diana Mochache said Mackenzie bore the “primary criminal culpability” for ordering his followers to fast to death, in one of Kenya’s deadliest episodes of religious extremism.
“The sentence is appropriate and just, to send an unmistakable message that such atrocities warrant the maximum penalties allowed by law,” the judge added.
The self-styled pastor was arrested in 2023 after the discovery of more than 400 bodies in shallow graves in Shakahola forest near the Kenyan coast. The sprawling investigation into the cases shocked Kenya and drew international attention.
Ahead of sentencing, prosecutors in the court in Mombasa had argued for the death penalty for Mackenzie because of the gravity of the crimes. Capital punishment has not been carried out in Kenya since 1987.
The prosecutors also cited what they described as Mackenzie’s lack of remorse for the crimes. They requested life sentences for his co-accused.
Before the hearing began on Friday morning, Francis Wanje, who lost eight relatives in Shakahola forest, including two grandchildren, told the BBC’s Newsday programme that he was “hoping for… a sentence which will match his [Mackenzie’s] deeds in the forest”.
Mackenzie and the co-accused have formally pleaded for mercy and asked for leniency from the court.
Before their conviction on 19 October, they had all pleaded not guilty and repeatedly insisted that nobody was forced to die.
Mackenzie’s followers believed he was “Jesus’s mouthpiece”, Justice Diana Mochache said as she delivered her eight-hour judgement last month.
Those who opposed Mackenzie’s teachings were beaten to death.
One of his co-accused said he had told his followers that anyone who “resisted the directive to fast must be forced to go to heaven through kicks and blows”.
Burials inside the forest where the cult was based were called “weddings” and those who died “were celebrated as having wedded with Jesus” the judge said.
The judge found that the deaths arose from an organised system, including religious teachings and directives that compelled followers to follow the deadly fasting.
Post-mortem results showed the cause of deaths to be starvation for most victims, while others died from suffocation, strangulation or head injuries.
The cause of death could not be determined for some, with their bodies having decomposed, while others died soon after their rescue as they were so emaciated.
Comedian Russell Brand, once one of Britain’s most high-profile broadcasters and star of several Hollywood movies, faces a lengthy jail term after being convicted in a London court on Thursday of raping a woman and sexually assaulting three more.
Prosecutors said Brand, the former husband of US pop singer Katy Perry, was obsessed with sex and used women to satisfy his own desires. One victim said he treated her “like an animal”.
Funny and charming when he wanted to be, but also ruthless, calculating and manipulative, the 51-year-old, who starred in “Get Him to the Greek” and “Arthur”, was interested only in getting what he wanted from women, prosecutors told jurors at Southwark Crown Court.
“The evidence showed Brand to be a calculated sexual predator, using his growing fame and power to create situations in which he could pursue women sexually, regardless of what they wanted,” senior Crown prosecutor David Roberts said outside court.
Brand now faces jail and potentially further action as police said he was still under investigation for two other alleged rapes, one involving a then 16-year-old girl.
BRAND DENIED THE CHARGES
Brand, known for his loquacious manner and flamboyant appearance, had denied all the charges and ever having non-consensual sex, saying the incidents, which dated back more than 20 years, had either been consensual, reinvented or re-imagined.
He acknowledged in evidence he had dedicated a lot of his life to “reckless philandering and idiocy” but said sexual consent was fundamental.
But, following a four-week trial, the jury found him guilty of rape and three sexual assaults committed between 2004 and 2009. He was acquitted of two other rape charges and an attempted indecent assault.
Judge Joel Bennathan said Brand, who was refused bail, would be sentenced on Monday and faced a lengthy prison term.
