 Here’s what you need to know to get the day started: | | | Why is a man convicted of killing Bangladesh's president in 1975 still living free in Canada? | | |  | A composite image of two photographs of Nur Chowdhury. (Interpol, CBC/Amadeo De Palma/CBC) | | | As the sun pierces the horizon to reveal a distant Toronto skyline, a fit-looking man in his 70s emerges on his third-floor condominium balcony. He’s come out to tend an expansive collection of flowers and plants that crowd his terrace, making it difficult to get a clear view of his face.
This low-rise condo building is unremarkable, one of several fanning out across a leafy west Toronto suburb.
So is the man carefully looking after his plants in the early autumn light. He is wearing a blue button-up shirt and jeans fastened neatly with a belt. His greying hair has receded since he was last photographed publicly nearly three decades ago.
His name is Nur Chowdhury and he has been living quietly in Canada for the last 27 years, avoiding a violent past he denies and claims is part of a political vendetta waged against him by a corrupt home country he left decades ago.
Chowdhury is currently the most wanted criminal in Bangladesh. He was convicted in absentia and sentenced to death for assassinating the country’s president, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, in 1975, and helping to plan the massacre of 21 members of the president’s family and household, including his 10-year-old son.
Despite a deportation order issued by Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board in 2006, Canada has been publicly silent on its reasons for allowing him to stay, driving a wedge between the two long-friendly countries.
“We need to talk. We need dialogue,” a visibly frustrated Khalilur Rahman, the high commissioner of Bangladesh in Canada, said in an interview with The Fifth Estate at his office in Ottawa.
He said Bangladesh has been trying for years to get a meeting with a Canadian minister to discuss the case, without luck.
“Canada has done very little to ensure justice to the victims and the families of the victims.” | | | | | Truce agreement to free some hostages is close, Hamas says, but deal not confirmed by Israel | | |  | (Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images) | | | | The parents and relatives of children kidnapped from Israel on Oct. 7 protest outside the UNICEF headquarters in Tel Aviv in this photo taken Monday. The chief of Hamas told Reuters on Tuesday that the Palestinian militant group was near a truce agreement with Israel, even as the attack on Gaza continued and rockets were being fired into Israel. Read the full story here. | | | | | | | | | In brief | | | Housing Minister Sean Fraser said Monday the federal government is considering a series of measures to curb the number of Airbnb and other short-term rental units on offer to boost the supply of homes available to rent for a longer stretch. Fraser said a crackdown on the proliferation of these units is part of a broader Liberal government plan to help build and finance more housing units to deal with an acute shortage of affordable homes. The fall economic statement, set to be tabled today, is expected to include billions of dollars worth of new measures to help Canada cope with a severe housing crunch, including low-cost loans for home construction. Read the full story here.
Foreign threat actors and foreign terrorist groups are using the social media feeds of Canadians to profile individuals and magnify misinformation, officials from Canada's spy agency warned members of Parliament Monday. Cherie Henderson, an assistant director with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), warned that hostile foreign actors aren't waiting for elections to interfere in Canada. "Foreign interference doesn't just occur during an election," Henderson told members of the House of Commons committee on access to information, privacy and ethics. "Foreign interference occurs all the time, every day." Henderson said she's also very concerned about the threat of foreign terrorist organizations seeking to draw young Canadians to their causes. Read the full story here.
Amherstburg, Ont., resident Jennifer Duguay says she's still in disbelief that she crossed the border to get a biopsy after she was denied care in Windsor due to ongoing hospital delays caused by a ransomware attack. The 52-year-old said that after three weeks of dealing with a large rash on her chest, her family doctor told her she might have inflammatory breast cancer — a rare and aggressive type. She says her doctor told her she would be referred to Windsor Regional Hospital for an urgent biopsy. But days later, on Nov. 8, Duguay said the hospital's Breast Health Centre called and told her it couldn't be done because computer systems were still down from a cyberattack. "[I was in] absolute shock that my doctor's referring me for something that's an emergency and I'm being told no? Absolute shock," she said. "I was very upset ... and I said, 'this is my life, what are you talking about?'" Duguay also says she was told that she couldn't go outside of the region to get the biopsy done in London or Toronto. Feeling like she had no other option, Duguay says she called Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. Read the full story here.
"From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" has been a popular refrain in pro-Palestinian protests and online discussion across North America in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war. It has also been the subject of criticism and, in some cases, institutional backlash. Hamilton MPP Sarah Jama was kicked out of the NDP caucus after using the slogan at an Ontario protest and calling for a ceasefire. In the U.S., Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib — the only Palestinian member of Congress — was censured for using the phrase in a video on social media, while in the U.K., senior Labour MP Andy McDonald was suspended from the party after echoing a version of the slogan at a rally. Israel advocacy groups in Canada and the U.S., such as the Anti-Defamation League, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and B'nai Brith, say the slogan is an antisemitic call for the ethnic cleansing of Jewish people. Meanwhile, Palestinians and some Jewish academics say the slogan is not inherently threatening or hateful. Read the full story here.
After several years of persistently low commodity prices driving a wave of corporate insolvencies in the oil and gas sector, bankruptcy professionals in Alberta say it's become increasingly rare to see these companies fail. The financial rebound is providing relief for the province's orphaned-well problem. Fewer companies becoming insolvent means fewer companies abandoning their assets, which can become environmental and safety hazards. When a single company fails, it can result in thousands of oil and gas wells, in addition to hundreds of facilities and pipelines, that no longer have an owner. If those wells and other assets can't be sold, they need to be cleaned up. "If we're not having receiverships, the number of orphans go down dramatically," said Lars DePauw, executive director of the Orphan Well Association, an industry-funded organization. Read the full story here.
Now here's some good news to start your Tuesday: It's turning out to be a memorable holiday season for 15-year-old Auldin Maxwell, whose world-record-breaking towers of Jenga blocks have inspired a new Hallmark Christmas movie. A World Record Christmas, released on the W Network on Nov. 16, is inspired by Maxwell's achievements. The film tells the story of a family coming together to support their autistic child as he aims to break a Guinness World Record. Maxwell, who is from Salmon Arm, B.C., makes a cameo in the movie, where he speaks with the character he inspired, played by actor Aias Dalman. Maxwell's talent for Jenga block stacking first earned him a record title at age 12 for building a tower of 693 tiny bricks — equalling 13 Jenga sets of 54 bricks each — on top of a narrow piece of wood. Today, he has five Guinness World Records, with the most recent one for balancing 1,843 blocks on one vertical Jenga block, recorded on Jan. 23 this year. Read his story here. | | |  | The assassin next door | The man convicted in Bangladesh of assassinating the first president of that country nearly 50 years ago is living freely in a Toronto suburb. Why hasn’t the Canadian government sent him back to Bangladesh to face justice?
Listen to today's episode | | | Today in history: November 21 | | | 1783: The first untethered human flight takes off when scientist Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent, Marquis d’Arlandes, float over Paris in a hot air balloon. They rose to a height of about 1,000 metres and drifted over the city for 25 minutes.
1902: Hockey broadcaster Foster Hewitt is born in Toronto. Hewitt did the play-by-play for Hockey Night in Canada, and coined the phrase "He shoots, he scores."
1959: Alan Freed, at the time the top disc jockey in the U.S., is fired by New York station WABC after he refused to sign an affidavit that he had taken money or gifts for playing records on air. Freed was the prime target in the payola investigations launched by the U.S. Congress.
1981: Tens of thousands of people gather on Parliament Hill in Ottawa to protest high interest rates. The demonstration, initiated by Canadian Labour Congress president Dennis McDermott, was in reaction to mortgage rates that were running at 18 per cent at time. | | | (With files from CBC News, The Canadian Press, The Associated Press and Reuters) | | | | |  | CBC NEWS APP | The most convenient way to get your news
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