Canada's top envoy to US will resign before review of free trade agreement
Toronto (AP): Canada's ambassador to the US for the last six years said Tuesday she's resigning next year as the two major trading partners plan to review the free trade agreement.
Ambassador Kirsten Hillman said in a letter it is the right time to put in place someone who will oversee talks about the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement that is up review in 2026.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Hillman “prepared the foundations for Canada in the upcoming review" of the agreement.
Carney noted she's one of the longest-serving ambassadors to the United States in Canada's history.
Former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sent Hillman to the embassy as deputy ambassador in 2017. She became the first woman to represent Canada as ambassador in the US in 2019.
Hillman helped lead the trade negotiations during US President Donald Trump's first term as deputy and as ambassador worked with US and Chinese officials to win the release of two Canadians detained in China.
Dominic LeBlanc, the minister responsible for Canada-US trade, and Hillman had been leading trade talks with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.
US Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra said on social media that Hillman has been an “awesome and well-respected” contributor to the US-Canada relationship.
“I value your friendship and wish you all the best in your next adventure. You will be missed,” Hoekstra said.
Trump ended trade talks with Carney in October after the Ontario provincial government ran an anti-tariff advertisement in the US, which upset the US president. That followed a spring of acrimony, since abated, over Trump's insistence that Canada should become the 51st US state.
Asked this week when trade talks would resume, Trump said, “we'll see.”
Canada is one of the most trade-dependent countries in the world, and more than 75% of Canada's exports go to the US Most exports to the US are exempted by the USMCA trade agreement but that deal is up for review.
Carney aims to double non-US trade over the next decade.
About 60% of US crude oil imports are from Canada, and 85% of US electricity imports as well.
Canada is also the largest foreign supplier of steel, aluminum and uranium to the US and has 34 critical minerals and metals that the Pentagon is eager for and investing in for national security.
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Missing woman death: Police intensifies probe, boyfriend questioned
Kochi (PTI): The Kerala police have launched a comprehensive probe into the mysterious death of a 19-year-old woman, whose decomposed body was found near her home after she went missing last week in Malayattoor near here.
A college student in Bengaluru, Chithrapriya, went missing from her home on Saturday evening.
Her body was discovered in a deserted field about one kilometre from her residence on Tuesday, police said.
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A senior police officer said several suspected persons, including the boyfriend of the woman, were taken into custody for interrogation.
Inquest procedures have been completed, and the post-mortem will begin soon, he said.
"First and foremost thing is to identify the body and confirm that it was that of the missing woman. The body was in a decomposed state, and we assumed that it might be her based on the dress," a police officer said.
The cause of death has to be ascertained to confirm whether it is a murder, and that would be revealed through the post-mortem, he added.
A case of unnatural death has been registered.
Earlier, an FIR was registered at Kalady police station following a complaint by her parents, and an investigation was launched to trace her.
Local media reported that the investigators are examining CCTV visuals in which Chithrapriya was seen pillion-riding on a motorbike on the day she went missing. But, the police have declined to confirm it.
