Month: April 2019

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Ratings agency S&P Global said governments are continuing to run up huge debt levels and will borrow an equivalent of $7.78 trillion this year, which would be up 3.2 percent on 2018.

That will come as another jump in borrowing to take the global mountain of sovereign debt to $50 trillion in 2019.

“Some 70 percent, or $5.5 trillion, of sovereigns’ gross borrowing will be to refinance maturing long-term debt, resulting in an estimated net borrowing requirement of about $2.3 trillion, or 2.6 percent of the GDP of rated sovereigns,” S&P Global Ratings credit analyst Karen Vartapetov was quoted as saying by Reuters.

The rise in the total debt stock to $50 trillion would be a six percent rise on last year having been partly exacerbated by exchange rate swings.

Another international ratings agency, Fitch, said last month that debt in developed countries has remained fairly steady, around $50 trillion, since 2012.

That’s except for the United States where total public debt for the American government has jumped from $15.2 trillion to $21.9 trillion, or 44 percent, during that period. Total US debt is nearly 10 times the size of France, Germany, Italy and the UK combined, the agency noted.

For more stories on economy & finance visit RT’s business section

OKLAHOMA CITY – USA Softball announced the 2019 USA Softball U-19 Women’s National (U19 WNT) assistant coaches, finalizing the coaching staff for the upcoming year.   With the program led by head coach Heather Tarr (head coach at Washington), Tony Baldwin (associate head coach at Georgia), Cindy Ball-Malone (head coach at UCF) and Tim Walton (head coach at Florida) will bring a wealth of experience to a U.S. roster that will look to become the first, three peat U-19 World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) Women’s World Cup champion.

This will be the first stint with the USA Softball U19 WNT for both Baldwin and Ball-Malone, while Walton previously served as an assistan tcoach for the 2015 roster.

Baldwin is entering his fifth season with Georgia, having served as both a volunteer and assistant coach until his promotion to associate head coach shortly after the 2016 season.  In his tenure, the Bulldogs offense has found successful production, consistently landing in the Top 5 in the country in batting average the past two seasons.

“I am honored to be selected to work with the U19 Women’s National Team this summer,” said Baldwin.  “Like the players, it has always been a dream of mine to be able to represent my country in competition. I am looking forward to spending the summer with Coach Tarr and the rest of the staff to prepare this team to be at its best at the U-19 World Cup. What I am most looking forward to is investing in the players and helping them in their journey through softball.”

Ball-Malone is currently in her first season as head coach at UCF.  Prior to joining the Knights in June of 2018, she had four seasons at the helm of Boise State’s softball program.  At Boise State, she led the team to the program’s first NCAA postseason appearance at the 2017 National Invitational Softball Championship before following up with a 2018 NCAA tournament berth.

“I am truly thankful for this opportunity given to me by USA Softball and coach Tarr,” said Ball-Malone.  “It is a pleasure and an honor to work with the talented athletes that were selected. This will be a remarkable experience working with these young athletes and traveling the world representing the Red, White and Blue.”

Walton helped guide the 2015 U.S. squad to the Gold Medal in dominating fashion, with the team going undefeated and leading the tournament with a .425 batting average while scoring 119 runs in 10 games played.

Collegiately, Walton is entering his 14th season at the helm of Florida.  In his 14 seasons, Walton has established the Gators as a softball powerhouse, capturing back-to-back national titles in 2014 and 2015.

“I am thankful to USA Softball and the selection committee for putting their trust in me as an assistant coach,” said Walton.  “I cannot wait to help prepare and develop this group of young women for another run at the WBSC U-19 Women’s World Cup.  This is a tremendous opportunity as there is no greater honor than being able to represent your country in international competition.”

— Courtesy of USA Softball

Chinese airlines have been ordered to ground their Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes, after the modern jet suffered a second fatal crash in just five months – with its aviation watchdog noting disturbing similarities between the incidents.

“Given that two accidents both involved newly delivered Boeing 737-8 planes and happened during take-off phase, they have some degree of similarity,” the Civil Aviation Administration of China said Monday, emphasizing its principle of zero-tolerance on any safety hazards.

All Chinese domestic airlines were requested to suspend operation of the 737-8s by 6:00pm local time (10:00am GMT) and, according to local media and flight tracking resources, on most routes the jet has already been replaced with older-generation planes. 

With the first 737 MAX crash in late October still under investigation, the tragedy on Sunday that claimed 157 lives might well have been a coincidence, but security concerns and the potential grounding of the entire MAX fleet would severely impact Boeing’s business. A Boeing spokesman declined Reuters’ request for a comment.

Chinese carriers account for about 20 percent of the plane’s sales, with dozens of Boeing 737 MAX 8 jets already in operation and many more scheduled for delivery. China Southern Airlines Co. has the biggest fleet, with 16 of the aircraft, while Air China Ltd. currently operates 14 jets. China Eastern Airlines Corp. has 13.

‘Some degree of similarity’

While the US manufacturer continues to emphasize the jet’s “unmatched reliability” and to market MAX 8 as the customer’s preferred choice for “comfortable flying experience,” the latest generation Boeing 737 has a gloomy track record since its commercial debut in 2017, having been involved in two fatal crashes in the last five months.

On October 29, 2018, a two-months-old jet belonging to Indonesian low-cost airline Lion Air crashed into the Java Sea, just 13 minutes after takeoff from Jakarta. All 189 on board died. The cause of the crash is still under investigation, but early reports indicate that the pilots struggled to control the climb due to an autopilot system malfunction, which kept on forcing the jet’s nose to dive.

A similar fate was suffered by Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 on Sunday when its 737 MAX 8 crashed some six minutes after takeoff from Addis Ababa en route to Nairobi, Kenya. The aircraft was only four months old. All 149 passengers and eight crew members on board died.

The tragedy of a truly international magnitude on Sunday killed three Russians, eight Americans, four Indians and eight Chinese citizens – in addition to 18 Canadians, 32 Kenyans, eight Italians, nine Ethiopians, six Egyptians, three Australians, four Slovaks and five Dutch persons. Morocco and Poland each lost two of its nationals. Among the passengers were 19 UN Workers representing different nationalities.

While Boeing has sent an investigative team to get to the bottom of the tragedy, Swedish flight-tracking website flightradar24 said the jet displayed an “unstable vertical speed” during its takeoff. Despite worldwide concerns over the aircraft’s safety, Boeing has yet to make a decision on whether to ground the planes globally, pending investigation. Currently 350 units of the 737 MAX have been delivered worldwide. Another 4,661 are planned for delivery.

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau won’t say if his office leaked stories detailing internal disagreement with former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould over a Supreme Court appointment.

“Canadians can have confidence in our government’s respect for the institutions, the Supreme Court,” Trudeau said in Winnipeg Tuesday morning. “Canadians have confidence in the strength of our judiciary in this country. I have no further comment to make on this issue.”

Trudeau was pressed to respond to reports from CTV News and The Canadian Press this week that Wilson-Raybould advocated for Glenn Joyal, chief justice of Manitoba’s Court of Queen’s Bench, to not only be named to the top court in 2017 but also appointed chief justice.

Earlier: Trudeau shares his side of SNC-Lavalin affair

Trudeau ended up promoting Richard Wagner as chief justice of the Supreme Court and naming Sheilah Martin to fill the vacant western Canadian seat.

“Well-placed sources” told CP that Trudeau balked at naming Joyal to the top court because of his past criticism about the court’s activism on Charter of Rights and Freedoms issues. The newswire reported this was a matter of “significant disagreement” between the prime minister and Wilson-Raybould.

Internal discussions about who should be named to the top court are highly confidential and sensitive. Wilson-Raybould said as much in statements to both outlets, warning that reporting on such conversations “could compromise the integrity of the appointments process and potentially sitting justices.”

According to CP, Joyal withdrew from consideration after Trudeau told Wilson-Raybould he did not back her choice. In a statement Monday, Joyal said he took himself out of the running because of his wife’s metastatic breast cancer and raised concerns that the confidential process of naming Supreme Court justices was being politicized.

“I fear that someone is using my previous candidacy to the Supreme Court of Canada to further an agenda unrelated to the appointment process,” Joyal said. “This is wrong.”

A number of lawyers expressed discomfort on social media over the latest twist in the saga.

On Tuesday, Trudeau would not offer any insight as to why Joyal would have been the wrong pick to serve as the top court’s chief justice.

“I think one of the most important things is that Canadians know… they can continue to have confidence in their judicial system, in the way we operate as a government,” he said. “Canadians can know that we have a strong and independent judiciary and as would be proper, I’m not going to comment any further on that question.”

Trudeau kept that message discipline when asked directly if he decided against Joyal or if the application was withdrawn in advance.

“The choice of Supreme Court justices and indeed chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada is always a decision by the prime minister,” he said. “Canadians can know that they can have confidence in our institutions, in our judicial system. And I have no further comment to make on this particular story.”

The reports landed one day before the House of Commons ethics committee met to discuss an opposition motion to have Wilson-Raybould and former Treasury Board president Jane Philpott, who quit Trudeau’s cabinet over the controversy, testify about the SNC-Lavalin affair. Liberal MPs on the committee voted against launching a new probe into the matter.

Wilson-Raybould told the justice committee last month that she faced months of sustained pressure from Trudeau and other officials to help the Quebec engineering giant secure a remediation agreement to avoid a criminal trial on corruption charges.

Wilson-Raybould also told the committee she believed she was shuffled to Veterans Affairs in January, widely seen as a demotion, because she would not help SNC-Lavalin land a deal.

Last week, Liberal MPs on the justice committee ended the group’s investigation into the matter. Wilson-Raybould has since said she will make a written submission to the committee to disclose more “facts and evidence.”

While the prime minister denies Wilson-Raybould’s allegations, these most recent reports offer another potential reason as to why Trudeau might have wanted a new attorney general and justice minister. Still, Wilson-Raybould was not moved during a large summer shuffle in 2018, after the reported strife over the Supreme Court appointment, when five new ministers were named.

Trudeau: Liberals ‘stronger and more united than ever before’

Trudeau has also said Wilson-Raybould would still be attorney general today if Scott Brison had not resigned as Treasury Board president in January. His former principal secretary, Gerald Butts, said the same while testifying before the justice committee about the decisions behind that fateful cabinet shuffle.

Asked by a reporter Monday about what looks like a simmering “civil war” within his party, Trudeau suggested he has no concerns about unity. The prime minister pointed to the 30-hour marathon vote triggered by Conservatives last week as something that ended up building morale.

“Our team has come out stronger and more united than ever before,” he said. “I’m incredibly proud of the Liberal party that is focused on things that really matter to Canadians.”

Both Wilson-Raybould and Philpott did not attend those votes.

With files from The Canadian Press

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The NFCA engaged with approximately 2,000 travel ball coaches during the Triple Crown Sports (TCS) coaches meeting prior to the Sparkler and Fireworks tournament in Aurora, Colo.

“The travel ball community is very special to the NFCA,” said executive director Carol Bruggeman. “Coaches at the grass roots level have a great deal of influence on student-athletes and ultimately the growth of the game.  The NFCA is committed to serving travel ball coaches in their quest for excellence.  A special thank you to NFCA official sponsor Triple Crown for providing us the opportunity to visit with this valued group.”

Grateful for their opportunity to meet and address the travel ball community, the NFCA values its partnership with TCS, whose main initiatives are education-based as shown by its title sponsorship of the NFCA’s Tip Tuesdays featured on YouTube.

Bruggeman challenged the coaches in attendance to educate themselves for the betterment of their student-athletes and ultimately, the game itself, while NFCA Travel Ball liaison Emily Allard emphasized that the association is only as good as the involvement of our members.

“A special thank you to Dave and Keri King, Elliott Finkelstein and Stephanie Klaviter for their generosity and support,” said Allard. “With their help, we were able to sit down with some of TCS’s staff and our members to brainstorm ways to continue educating travel ball coaches.”

Additionally, the NFCA’s presence allowed several coaches to join the association on-site. The association will head to two other major travel ball tournaments this summer as it works to continue growing the grassroots market.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The National Fastpitch Coaches Association has announced that 93 student-athletes from 29 programs have received 2018 NFCA NJCAA DII All-Region accolades.  

The awards honor softball student-athletes from the Association’s three regions with first-team recognition. NFCA member coaches from each respective region voted on the teams, and all the honorees now become eligible for selection to the 2018 NFCA NJCAA DII All-American squads.

NJCAA DII All-Region

Seven programs- County College of Morris (East), 2018 national champions Jones County Junior College (South), Kirkwood Community College (Midwest), Lansing Community College (East), Louisiana State University-Eunice, Northeast Mississippi Community College (South) and Phoenix College (South)- had five student-athletes garner all-region honors.

Four more schools- CCBC-Cantonsville, Des Moines Area Community College (Midwest), Iowa Lakes Community College (Midwest), Itawamba Community College (South) and Pitt Community College (East)- placed four on the two teams.

All five of Kirkwood’s selections earned first-team recognition. JCJC, Phoenix, CCBC-Catonsville and DMACC registered four first-team plaudits.

The 2018 NFCA NJCAA DII All-America teams will be announced on June 6, via NFCA.org.

Universities across Ontario have bolstered student supports in recent years to prevent sexual assault on campus, but behind closed doors they continue to foster a culture of secrecy that’s stifling real change, experts say.

Students who report instances of sexual misconduct by other students or professors are sometimes required to sign non-disclosure agreements — often referred to as gag orders — as part of their settlement, said Susan Vella, a Toronto lawyer who represents sexual misconduct survivors in civil litigation cases. The gag order prevents students from speaking publicly about the abuse.

“Some universities are requesting broad-ranging non-disclosure agreements, and that’s the disturbing thing. It’s another form of coercive control over the survivor,” said Vella. “They’re acting like the church did decades ago,” referring to the systemic coverup of Catholic clergy members sexually abusing vulnerable parishioners.

Non-disclosure agreements and the resulting silence perpetuates a culture of sexual violence, Vella said. “Students don’t come forward because they don’t think anyone else has come forward, which makes it harder to break the silence. When you have a culture of silence, it instills in survivors a fear of coming forward.”

Watch: Are non-disclosure agreements fair? Story continues below

Universities also sign non-disclosure agreements when reaching settlements with accused professors, who then go on to work at other universities that are not made aware of prior accusations or investigations.

“It reminds me of priests moving from one parish to another,” said Lynne Hanson, a Queen’s University law professor. “A university just wants the person to go away.”

It’s been two and a half years since the province passed legislation that requires universities and colleges set up sexual violence policies, and collect information about the prevalence of sexual assault on campus. Post-secondary institutions had come under fire for how they handled sexual assault investigations.

HuffPost Canada spoke to seven experts, including lawyers and professors, who all said that while university culture around sexual assault has improved compared to decades ago, significantly more needs to be done to understand the extent of the problem, protect students and empower survivors.

“I think many of us thought things were better,” said Diana Majury, a law professor at Carleton University for the past 30 years. “But we have now managed to push it behind closed doors. I don’t have any idea of how bad it is here. We’re not talking about it.”

Last year, while on the promotion committee, Majury said she tried to have a discussion with her colleagues about a professor seeking tenure, who she had reason to believe had been secretly disciplined for sexual misconduct. She wanted the committee to decide if this information was relevant and sought out more details, confidentially, from administration. She was voted down.

“It was shocking to me my colleagues weren’t willing to have a discussion about this,” Majury said. “It’s creating a chilly climate. People are afraid to talk about these issues.”

A recent survey done for the Ontario government found that only 22 per cent of university student respondents said they strongly agreed they had knowledge of sexual violence supports, services and reporting procedures.

More than 63 per cent of respondents disclosed they had experienced sexual harassment, 23 per cent had experienced stalking and 23 per cent experienced a non-consenual sexual experience.

University of Windsor professor Julie Macfarlane has refused to stay quiet about a former colleague who she said sexually harassed a student, which allegedly resulted in him leaving his tenured professor position in 2015. She’s told three employers about these allegations, according to court documents.

Now, she’s being sued for defamation by Emir Crowne, who denies any wrongdoing.

Since leaving Windsor, Crowne privately practises sports law in both Canada and his native Trinidad, where he advertises himself as “one of the region’s leading experts in property and sports law.” He’s represented athletes in doping cases and other disputes, and claims to be among “Canada’s most experienced sports lawyers, having appeared in over 40 matters to date.”

He has filed the defamation lawsuit in Trinidad, rather than Ontario. His lawyer Matthew Gayle declined to comment.

“The defendant’s unrelenting campaign against the complainant caused him to suffer damage, psychological injury, distress, pain and suffering,” his statement of claim says. “The defendant’s actions directly affected the ability of the claimant to meaningfully continue in several professional capacities due to irreparable damage to his reputation.”

The allegations surfaced in 2013, when a student approached Macfarlane and other staff about a law professor who’d been sexually harassing her for a year, according to Macfarlane’s defence.

Research co-ordinator Sue Rice told HuffPost Canada that she was one of the people the student confided in. “The culture had been at the school for a while. It didn’t come as a shock,” said Rice, who stopped working at the University of Windsor in 2015 when her contract ended. The student could not be reached for comment.

Macfarlane said in her statement of defence that “it also became clear from other students and graduates that this behaviour had been going on for many years. Shortly thereafter, a delegation of students and faculty, including (Macfarlane) went to the administration and formally requested the administration to act.”

Macfarlane told HuffPost Canada that she believes that the University of Windsor, as part of a settlement with Crowne and likely to avoid expensive arbitration, signed a non-disclosure agreement and has remained silent about the allegations ever since.

The University of Windsor did not comment about its use of non-disclosure agreements or the allegations made about Crowne. But said it is a “leader in the development and implementation of programs to reduce the incidence of sexual violence on campuses and to provide sexual assault resistance education.”

In 2016, a senior lecturer at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad, John Knechtle, contacted Macfarlane through a mutual contact, he told HuffPost Canada. Crowne had applied for a position, and Knechtle was looking for more information about Crowne’s departure from Windsor.

Macfarlane told him what she knew about the allegations, according to her defence.

“I couldn’t possibly not tell them that these are the circumstances,” Macfarlane said in an interview.

Six months later, Knechtle discovered Crowne had been hired at another West Indies campus in Jamaica. Alarmed students would be at risk, he connected a dean there with Macfarlane, according to her defence. The dean said in an email to Macfarlane that he’d contacted the University of Windsor before offering Crowne the job, but hadn’t been told “anything negative.” The email was filed as evidence.

Also in 2017, Macfarlane was contacted by a student who’d originally brought forward some of the complaints against Crowne. The student was concerned about Crowne now working at a Mississauga law firm, Macfarlane’s defence says.

“Again, fearing for both the safety of the female employees and the firm’s reputation, the defendant spoke with partners, expressing the circumstances of (Crowne’s) departure from the University of Windsor,” her statement says.

Watch: What you can do to better help survivors of sexual assault. Story continues below

Crowne had resigned from both positions by mid-2018 due to “distress, embarrassment and damage to his reputation,” according to his statement of claim. He alleges Macfarlane sought out these employers, not the other way around.

Macfarlane has gained support from colleagues and universities across Canada, and launched a Go Fund Me page to pay her legal fees. The University of Windsor said it is working with Macfarlane to “resolve the issues,” but she said it has yet to provide any support.

“It is not, of course, what we think should be happening,” Macfarlane said, who is hoping to receive help from her employer before the first court date in May in Trinidad. Her lawyer’s will argue the case should be heard in Ontario.

University of Ottawa Prof. Martha Jackman, co-chair of the National Association of Women and the Law, sent a strongly worded letter to the University of Windsor to “protest the failure to support (Macfarlane) against the meritless defamation lawsuit.” It’s also signed by 30 other professors from more than a dozen universities.

“I really hope the university is considering the impacts of this beyond its reputation,” Jackman said.

Hanson, from Queen’s, said that while defamation is relatively easy to prove, she thinks Macfarlane has a strong defence of qualified privilege, that when asked for her opinion “she had a moral and social duty to report.” Qualified privilege will only work if she can prove she didn’t seek out his employers to defame him.

If she can prove she attempted to get information from both sides before giving these references, that could also help her case, Hanson said.

Where do NDAs fit in #MeToo?

There’s a growing global movement against NDAs in cases of sexual misconduct allegations.

Sixteen U.S. states have recently introduced formal legislation restricting their use. The U.K. is also in the process of putting similar limitations in place.

The province didn’t comment when asked if it is considering limiting the use of NDAs at universities. It did say it is requiring post-secondary institutions to have a task force devoted to tackling sexual violence and to review their sexual violence policies by this September.

“Our post-secondary institutions have a responsibility to protect students and must do everything possible to ensure campuses are free from sexual violence,” said spokesperson Tanya Blazina, at the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities.

Confidentiality during a university investigation is important so that external pressures do not influence what complainants, respondents or witnesses say, and to protect them from being unfairly ostracized, said Karen Busby, a University of Manitoba law professor.

And then if a university finds the respondent should be dismissed, they likely face a costly arbitration process, including victims having to testify, that can often be avoided altogether by signing a non-disclosure agreement.

“It’s never a slam dunk they’re going to win,” Busby said. “The university has to ask, what’s the best choice for us right now? Do they risk hundreds of thousands of dollars of legal fees, and putting women on the stand, until the whole matter is decided. Or do they say the only thing between us and the settlement is a non-disclosure agreement, which means he’s gone?”

Watch: Former Weinstein assistant lambasts company non-disclosure agreement

The experts HuffPost Canada spoke to agree that something needs to change — whether it’s getting universities to annually report more publicly what types of investigations have taken place, and their outcomes, or changing laws to require they disclose investigations to future employers. Perhaps they hand the matter over to police, who do a more conclusive criminal investigation in the public interest, said Hanson.

Attitudes need to change, too, said Majury, from Carleton.

“I’m not sure what I think about how public these investigations should be, but I’m not sure why we’re so protective of people if they’ve been found to do something wrong. There’s lots of thinking and research and discussion that needs to be done, but there’s even resistance to that.”

Train movement on the railway part of the newly-built Crimean Bridge is scheduled for December. The railroad across the bridge will link the transport systems of Crimea and mainland Russia.

“As of today, the first kilometer of the main line’s rail track has been completed, more than 1.5km of station tracks are ready,” Crimea Inform news agency reported Friday.

According to the statement, a new Kerch-Yuzhnaya station is currently under construction with a fleet of tracks for freight, passenger and suburban trains. The existing station at Bagerovo is being reconstructed.

All construction works are on schedule, according to Arkady Rotenberg, chairman of the board of directors of the construction company Stroygazmontazh.

“Construction works of the access roads and of the railway part of the Crimean Bridge are coordinated. There is no doubt that the entire infrastructure – both the bridge and the approaches – will be operating, as planned, synchronously by December of this year,” he said.

Construction of the railway part of Crimean Bridge © Krymsky Bridge

The preliminary schedule of train traffic for 2020 envisages that 29 pairs of trains per day will initially operate between the Crimean peninsula and mainland Russia. They will include 15 passenger, ten cargo and four shuttle trains.

Last May, Russian President Vladimir Putin officially opened the 19-kilometer Crimean Bridge which has become the longest in Europe. Before the bridge was built, the only connections between Crimea and the other parts of Russia were through ferry services and air traffic.

The bridge begins on the Taman Peninsula, passes over a 5km dam and Tuzla Island, crosses the Kerch Strait and reaches the Crimean coast. More than three million cars have traveled along the Crimean Bridge in both directions, within a 6-month period, since its opening.

For more stories on economy & finance visit RT’s business section

Europe and the US should take care of their own debts to China before advising Italy about the risks of joining Beijing’s ‘Belt and Road Initiative,’ said Michele Geraci, undersecretary of state at the Italian Economy Ministry.

Italy has become the first G7 nation to join China’s ambitious plan to revolutionize global trade, making other eurozone majors “jealous” of the move, according to Geraci.

“In reality, all European countries want to be part of the Belt and Road,” the top official told the South China Morning Post on the sidelines of the ongoing Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) annual conference in China’s southern Hainan province.

According to Geraci, who led Italy’s talks with China on the memorandum of understanding, other European states will follow suit and sign the document in the near future.

His comments came ahead of the EU-China summit in Brussels on April 9, and shortly after German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the EU wants to actively participate in the China-led project. However, nations of the bloc need certain reciprocity from Beijing, according to Merkel, who held a joint news conference after meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The EU had previously warned Rome against unilateral negotiations with China. France called for a more unified approach towards Beijing that “took advantage” of divisions among the European nations.

“When we were criticized – me personally, also – for taking care of all of this over the last few months, it’s because we… want to lead, and leading means doing things first,” Geraci said, stressing that the outside criticism had helped make Rome “even more alert” towards the deal with its Chinese partners.

According to the official, Italy could become the terminal of China’s Silk Road, thus affecting major European port cities like Hamburg, Rotterdam, Marseilles. Joining the project may spur Italian economic growth after last year’s recession.

Moreover, Geraci advised the EU and the US, which also slammed the move over alleged risks of debt overburden for Italy, should worry about their own debts to China.

“The US was not very happy, we did what we think is in the interest of our country,” the official said. “We can be a competitor with China but we also can cooperate because China has the size, and we have the know-how and quality.”

“We’re not Greece, we’re Italy… We are a $1.7-trillion economy. How can we fall into a debt trap? It happens in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, maybe Pakistan… but it cannot happen in Italy.”

For more stories on economy & finance visit RT’s business section

“Your poor little brains still developing. You’re so young,” says a purple, vest-clad oracle named Weedini. “But if you eventually do start using the green, don’t do it too often. Otherwise you just become a burnout, which is not cool, yo.”

Weedini is the star of one of four comics created through a $1.8-million Health Canada initiative to help the Northwest Territories educate its youth about the dangers of cannabis consumption.

Illustrated by Yellowknife-born artist Cody Fennell and featuring augmented reality work by Verge Communications, Weedini and his friends — including Stoney the Inukshuk and Roach the Raven — will live on posters and magazines across the territory. People can use an app on their phone to see them come to life.

In one of the ads, a man and a woman are about to smoke under the Northern Lights when the aurora morphs into an unborn baby.

“Hi, I’m your unborn baby,” the yellow-eyed fetus intones. “And I want talk to you about how marijuana can affect me.”

The comics were revealed last Friday at a Yellowknife public library, according to local station Cabin Radio. Territory officials seemed confident that the messaging will get through to kids.

“They seemed to really like the creepy baby,” Glen Abernethy, the territory’s health minister, told Cabin Radio. “I thought it might be not as popular, because it is a little creepy. But it really resonated well with the kids.”

The comics will also be featured as a magazine, according to the CBC.

Money for the territory’s cannabis education will be spread out over the next three years and across 33 communities. Different ways of delivering the information will be explored, including theatre productions.

“We’re going to provide them with some resources and the information they need,” Abernathy told Cabin Radio. “If we hear they don’t like that, we’ll try something else, we’re open to that.”

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story indicated that the the Northwest Territories spent $1.8-billion on this Health Canada initiative. It was actually $1.8-million.