Community centers suspected of serving as overseas police stations for the Chinese government are calling on the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) to stop making allegations against them without providing evidence and blaming someone.

• Also read: Chinese “Police Stations”: Illegal acts were actually committed

• Also read: China blasts Canadian ‘slander’ over alleged ‘meddling’

• Also read: Foreign interference: why an independent investigation?

At a press conference in Montreal’s Chinatown, several leaders of Sino-Quebec associations and a British Columbia Senator, Yuen Pau Woo, denounced the disastrous effects they said a public appearance by the RCMP in March had.

“If there’s evidence, show it, stop fooling around,” urged Walter Tom of the progressive Chinese organization in Quebec on Friday.

In a report released by our Bureau of Investigations, the RCMP said it was specifically investigating two suspected community center police stations in Brossard and Montreal.

The federal police said they were aware of the pressure that members of the Chinese community were under. It was about operations aimed at persuading nationals to return to China to face justice.

heavy effect

Funding problems, disruption to the offering of franking courses, fear of some people going to the centers, the consequences of the RCMP’s pronouncements would be numerous and would primarily affect the most vulnerable members of the community, officials said at a press conference.

Walter Tom of Progressive Chinese of Quebec insisted that the centers studied were open to all members of the Chinese community, including those with pro-Taiwanese views.

“We want this investigation to end [de la GRC]’ urged May Chiu, coordinator of the Montreal Chinatown Round Table and former candidate for the Bloc Québécois and Québec Solidaire.

Our Bureau of Investigations reported on Friday testimonies from a source in the office of Federal Public Security Minister Marco Mendicino that unlawful acts were indeed taking place in the alleged “Chinese police stations” and that these had required police intervention by the RCMP. Illegal activities have since ceased, the source said.

A version disputed by May Chiu, who said the RCMP had only questioned officials at the center since March, nothing more.

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Image from Google search engine Don Ryan (AP)

Google, the world’s most used search engine, and other services of the tech giant Alphabet, such as YouTube or Gmail, began having problems with their services from 9:00 p.m. which are connected to the Internet, in good time. From the same hour, users also reported problems with music playback on other online services such as Spotify.

The peak of the problems experienced by users of these platforms, according to the same registry, occurred almost an hour later, and the services have restored their functionality. The most common complaints were the inability to search in different parts of Europe and access the internet in general.

The state of the tech giant’s servers shows that the problems with the cloud and other tools are limited to the European continent. These are storage and maintenance tools and products for the infrastructure that runs Google search engines, Gmail, YouTube and other services. A data center in the Paris region appears to be the epicenter of problems with these products, according to the page with information on the status of services that are part of Google Cloud.

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A religious ceremony with millenary luster but keen to adapt to the current times, followed by two days of celebrations and events meant to be popular, the UK will have a historic weekend for the coronation of Charles III. Experience.

• Also read: British monarchy: what is Charles III for?

• Also read: Scones, tea and royal attire: Americans are ready for Saturday’s coronation

• Also read: Coronation of Charles III: See who will carry the Canadian flag in London on Saturday

Big Ceremony

This memorable day begins with the Procession of Kings, which travels by carriage from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey, a journey of around 1.2 miles.

The ceremony itself is scheduled to begin at 11am local time (1000GMT) and last around two hours, presided over by the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the spiritual leader of the Anglican Church.

Adorned with musical works from the classical repertoire, but also with new compositions, depending on the palace it is intended to “reflect the role of the monarch today and look to the future, while being rooted in historical traditions and pageantry”.

Even if Charles III, 74, wanted a simpler service than that of Queen Elizabeth II before a guest audience limited to 2,300 (foreign leaders, royalty, elected officials, civil society), certain stages are not within reach.

• Over QUB radioPhilippe-Audrey Larrue St-Jacques tells us about Quiche Royale and the monarchical drama celebrating the coronation of Charles III:

Once in the Abbey, the king is introduced and feted by the audience before taking an oath to protect the Protestant religion.

Then the sovereign, seated in King Edward’s chair covering the “Stone of Destiny” specially brought from Scotland, receives the anointing with oil from the archbishop, then the royal attributes: the royal robe, the orb (a golden orb, surmounted by a cross), the scepter and crown of Saint Edward placed on his head.

The King and Queen Camilla, who were also crowned during the ceremony, will set out in a carriage for the ‘coronation procession’ to Buckingham, this time accompanied by a procession of nearly four thousand soldiers in ceremonial dress.

The royal family will appear on the palace balcony to wave to the crowd and watch an air parade.

innovation

The ceremony features some breaks with tradition, some of which have raised eyebrows.

For the first time, the monarch will say a prayer aloud during a coronation, asking God to allow him “to be a blessing to all children of all religions and beliefs.”

Representatives of non-Christian faiths will take an active part in welcoming the King after his coronation, while parts of the service will be spoken in Welsh, Scottish Gaelic and Irish Gaelic.

Another premiere that has met with criticism: the “homage of the peers”, in which representatives of the nobility kneel before the king and swear allegiance to him, is abolished and replaced by a “homage of the people”.

Finally, the Queen will receive the anointing – the most sacred moment of the coronation – in full view and not hidden from the public, as tradition has dictated until now, and as will still be the case for Charles, protected behind a curtain.

• What is the true portrait of King Charles: listen to the interview with Benoît Tanguay, editor of the journal La Riposte sociale, on the Benoit Dutrizac program QUB radio :

Relative

Several members of the royal family will play a role during the ceremony, while some, like Prince Harry, who is present without his wife Meghan, or his uncle Prince Andrew, who is stepping down following a sex scandal, are said to be mere spectators.

Charles therefore chose his four pages from his relatives, including his grandson, Prince George, nine, second in line to the throne.

Has Queen Consort Camilla insisted on including her family from her first marriage to Andrew Parker Bowles? Three of his grandchildren, Gus, Louis and Freddy, will join him along with his great-nephew Arthur.

Long weekend

Alongside the ceremony, the UK is gearing up for a three-day celebration. On Sunday, the population is invited to a “big lunch” together on the occasion of neighborhood festivals and with the “coronation quiche” on the menu, the recipe for which was revealed by the palace in mid-April.

In the evening there will be a concert in front of 20,000 people at Windsor Castle in west London.

Katy Perry, Lionel Richie, the tenor Andrea Bocelli or the pianist Lang Lang will be the heads of a poster marked by the absence of British stars.

Finally, the royal family is calling on Brits to volunteer on Monday May 8, a public holiday.

It was a high-stakes race against time, with top-secret missions across the Atlantic, jet bombers and fighters flying special payloads — and a chimpanzee TV star ruining almost everything.

As royal fans around the world prepare for the coronation of King Charles III on Saturday. prepare, they can rest assured that whatever happens that day, no backstage drama can quite compare to what transpired at his mother’s coronation 70 years ago.

On June 2, 1953, the world turned to London’s Westminster Abbey. Elizabeth II was to be anointed queen by around 2.5 billion people in a moment of the greatest pomp and pomp.

But while the ceremony was steeped in 1,000-year-old traditions, it also reflected the modern post-war world: for the first time, the coronation was to be televised.

This presented us with unprecedented challenges. After all, it was a time before videotape, let alone satellite transmission.

But for a US television industry in its infancy, it was an opportunity too good to pass up.

In fact, it was the first major battle for dominance between networks – then limited to CBS, NBC and a fledgling ABC.

On June 2, 1953, the world turned to London’s Westminster Abbey. Elizabeth II was to be anointed queen by around 2.5 billion people in a moment of the greatest pomp and pomp.

Although the ceremony was shaped by 1000-year-old traditions, it also reflected the modern post-war world: the coronation was broadcast on television for the first time.

Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh wave to the crowds from the balcony of Buckingham Palace on the day of their coronation.

In 1953, about half of Americans had access to a television, and that day about 85 million people tuned in to watch.

In London, only the BBC was allowed into the abbey, with live recordings made available to foreign broadcasters free of charge.

But by the time it was broadcast across the Atlantic, it was impossible to first transfer this live footage to cinematography in the UK – and then physically transport it across the ocean to be broadcast on US networks.

The question then was: Who can do it the fastest?

It was quickly realized that newcomer ABC was too small and cash-strapped to compete, and instead arranged a deal to piggyback the coverage of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (as a member of the Commonwealth, Canada received a special delivery of the film by a Royal Air Force jet). ).

For CBS and NBC, however, it was about hitting each other, and Canada — and executives from both networks secretly traveled to the UK months in advance to make their plans.

Although exact figures are not known, the expenditure must have been enormous.

First, development labs for both networks had to be set up in central London so that the film could be quickly developed and packaged for travel.

Next came the slightly larger issue of flights.

Jet travel was still more in its infancy than television back then. There was only one type of international civil jet aircraft in the world, the de Havilland Comet, all of whose models were operated by British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC), the forerunner of British Airways.

Pilots with the first newsreel of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in June 1953, ready to fly across the Atlantic from London.

An NBC anchor about the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

Secretly, NBC made BOAC an offer that was initially happy to lease them a Comet – but the airline later pulled out after suffering a series of setbacks including a crash in India that killed 43 people.

So the only other option available seemed to be to strike a deal with the RAF’s Canberra jet bomber – which would fly to Goose Bay, Labrador with Canada’s copy of the BBC film – to get them to broadcast the CBS and to Transport NBC Reels.

Now Goose Bay is a long way down Canada’s east coast, so there would still be a rush to bring the reels back to the US.

CBS and NBC were both headquartered in New York City — but since every minute counted, it was obvious they needed to move closer to the Canadian border. And attention turned further north to Boston’s Logan Airport.

There, both stations spared no expense in order to build complete transmission systems on site individually – CBS converted a hangar and NBC adapted the administration building.

Meanwhile, private P-51 Mustangs, the fastest prop planes of World War II, were chartered to pick up the film in Goose Bay and speed down to Logan.

For added excitement, CBS set up a podium right on the runway so their anchor could be captured as he rushed to the oncoming plane to collect the reels of film live on camera.

This cleared the stage for the big TV coronation race. At least, that’s what CBS thought.

Because over at NBC, deputy news chief Charles Colledge hatched a rather sophisticated plan, codenamed Operation Astro, in a last ditch effort to defeat their rival.

By a stroke of luck, it was revealed that British jet manufacturer English Electric was to deliver one of its long-range Canberra bombers to the Venezuelan Air Force in late May or early June.

An NBC journalist receives a roll of coronation footage from a pilot in Boston.

In 1953, about half of Americans had access to a television, and that day about 85 million people tuned in to watch.

And with the help of a hefty financial inducement of $1,000 (more than $11,000 today), NBC persuaded her to make the voyage across the Atlantic on the day of the coronation, with a copy of the footage on board.

Importantly, the flight was direct to Boston – eliminating the need to transfer at Goose Bay and potentially saving hours.

If NBC could pull it off, they would surely win.

But unfortunately it wasn’t that easy. On the day itself, disaster struck.

Mid-flight, NBC was told that the Canberra bomber had developed problems with its fuel supply and had to return to the UK.

Reluctantly, they had to accept that the race from Canada to Boston was resumed.

Both NBC and CBS had hired some of the best racers around – but in the end it didn’t matter much. The CBS plane, piloted by Joe DeBona, was able to take off from Goose Bay at 2:02 p.m. ET, a full 13 minutes ahead of NBC, whose plane was hampered by “ice problems.”

It was a lead DeBona never lost. And since he radioed CBS regularly throughout the two-and-a-half-hour flight, his employers were sure they were going to win even before he landed in Boston at exactly 4:12 p.m.

While the champagne was put on hold in the CBS hangar and its newscasters — stationed in Logan’s air traffic control tower — gave viewers excited news of DeBona’s progress, NBC’s mood was one of quiet despondency.

But then one of their employees had a brainwave: bribe ABC to use the coronation footage they got from the Canadians.

Pilot Joe De Bonac (right) in a P51 Mustang aircraft in Goose Bay, Labrador, prepares to fly the CBS film of the Coronation to Boston Logan Airport on June 2, 1953.

Queen Elizabeth II on her coronation day.

Of course, ideally, NBS wouldn’t have relied on any other station — certainly not one in Canada’s relative television lag.

In fact, that was the whole reason for participating in this lavish transatlantic race in the first place. But with the battle now all but lost for CBS, it was certainly worth a try.

A rushed phone call and an offer to pay for the same Montreal television lines ABC used to get the footage — and at 3:56 p.m., while the CBS plane was still in flight, ABC and NBC broke the first footage of the coronation out of here .

Despite the odds, they thought they had won.

But then – again – disaster struck for NBC.

The Canadian channel showed the wrong footage – of Canada’s coronation ceremonies instead of events in London.

Meanwhile, the CBS plane was closing in on Boston, and NBC executives sat helplessly waiting for the Canadians to roll the correct BBC footage.

That went to the wire.

But at 4:17 p.m. it was over.

The London footage came out of Canada – and NBC had won by just 13 minutes.

NBC’s commentators included a chimp named J. Fred Muggs, who was the show’s hugely popular mascot.

Muggs enraged politicians in Britain, who denounced it as an “insult to the Queen” and even debated the issue in Parliament.

Life magazine later published a photo of four stunned CBS executives struggling to figure out how their rival was showing coronation footage while the plane carrying their footage was still in the air.

In a final twist to this epic battle, it was also later revealed that CBS actually managed to pull a quick one of its own by starting its coronation coverage not at the beginning (like NBC) but midway, closer to the actual coronation ceremony.

This, they now cheekily claim, meant they were the real winner.

And the US news networks weren’t the only ones playing dirty tricks that day.

Years later, it turned out that the secret Canberra bomber that spawned the NBC film had no fuel problems at all.

Instead, the BBC got wind of NBC’s plan and reported it to the UK Air Ministry. To ensure the Canadians were not hijacked by enterprising Americans, officials ordered the Canberra pilots – both members of the RAF reserve and therefore responsible to the British government – to return home.

Meanwhile, there was also a rather bizarre row over NBC’s use of a chimp during their coronation coverage.

Yes – among the station’s commentators was a chimp named J. Fred Muggs, who was the show’s hugely popular mascot.

This enraged politicians in Britain, who denounced it as “an insult to the Queen” and even debated the issue in Parliament.

It was a bizarre but perhaps fitting end to this insane media battle. If only Saturday’s coronation could be a fraction as exciting.