Home

Former Alberta MP Ron Ambrose has announced that she will not seek the Conservative Party of Canada leadership. She said on Facebook 22 January that she “struggled” with the decision. Ambrose, who held portfolios in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government, including the government's procurement arm, Public Works & Government Services, resigned from the House of Commons in 2017.

The U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff, Gen David Goldfein, has told Boeing that he is dissatisfied with the progress on the KC-46, a new tanker based on the commercial 767 platform which is not mission ready after nearly a decade in development. The USAF has taken delivery of 30 to date but uses them only for crew training.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg says the alliance needs to beef up its training of Iraqis to ensure that its personnel are not drawn back into a combat role. The Canadian-led training program was suspended in early January due to security concerns but Stoltenberg says talks with leaders in the region suggest it could resume in the near future.

A missile attack on a Yemeni military training camp has killed at least 111 personnel who had gathered at a mosque for evening prayers. The government blamed Houthi rebels.

A U.S. Army veteran linked to a neo-Nazi group faces charges of harbouring an illegal alien and transporting weapons as part of a plot to get former Canadian Armed Forces reservist Patrik Mathews to a gun rights rally in Virginia. Mathews, a Winnipeg native who entered the U.S. illegally in August, was arrested in Delaware last week.

Senior Australian naval officers have dismissed reports that they were urged to consider alternatives to buying 12 conventionally-powered submarines from France's Naval Group. They were responding to news media claims in the wake of auditor’s report which suggested that negotiations with Naval Group were going so poorly that the Naval Shipbuilding Advisory Board had earlier recommended drawing up contingency plans.

Some 300 Canadian Armed Forces personnel, supported by four aircraft and ground vehicles, are in eastern Newfoundland to help the region dig from out of last week’s record-breaking winter storm. Taking direction from the province and municipal administrations, CAF personnel, including local Reservists, are givigg priority to residents who cannot get out of their homes.

President Donald Trump says Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei should be careful about what he says after Khamenei called him a “clown” while criticizing the U.S. in a sermon in Tehran 17 January. “The so-called 'Supreme Leader' of Iran, who has not been so Supreme lately, had some nasty things to say about the United States and Europe,” Trump said in a tweet. “Their economy is crashing, and their people are suffering. He should be very careful with his words!”

A bipartisan group in Congress says a possible reduction of the U.S. military presence in Africa, as the Pentagon focuses more on Russian and Chinese aggression would be incompatible with the administration’s National Security Strategy. In a letter to Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, the group calls the idea “shortsighted.”

Eleven U.S. military personnel have been evacuated from al-Asad air base in Iraq for treatment of potentially severe injuries suffered in Iran’s 08 January missile attack. Senior officials had said immediately after the attack that there had been “no casualties” but it was confirmed 16 January that some had suffered severe concussion.

Having received only one response, from General Dynamics, the U.S. Army is backtracking on its Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles replacement project. Army acquisition chief Bruce Jette said 16 January that feedback on the concept of an optionally-manned replacement, coupled with the lack of broad industry response, requires a re-think of this “critical capability.” A Raytheon-Rheinmetall team was disqualified from the competition for having missed a deadline.