NEW: Suspended Ontario doctor Patrick Phillips has had his certificate of registration revoked, effective immediately

The decision came during a hearing by the Ontario Physicians and Surgeons Discipline Tribunal -- in which he was reprimanded for his Covid-19 related conduct
🧵 During the hearing today, Phillips was found to have engaged in "disgraceful, dishonourable or unprofessional conduct" & incompetency in his care of patients

He did not speak & was represented by lawyer Michael Alexander

The battle for Hostomel /Antonov Airport changed the course of the Ukraine war. If Russia had taken them as planned, the fall of Kyiv was far more likely

As the war (& the fight for Hostomel) reaches the 1-year mark, we visited to figure out how that battle was won

It’s amazing Firstly, only the military seems to have been prepping for war. Zelenskyy was busy downplaying threats as the military started moving equipment towards Kyiv. But no one noticed, because it was all done at night

They still didn’t want to alarm the public, says Col. Vdovychenko

A Jacinda Ardern anecdote to add to the inevitable deluge:

In 2017, I’d just moved to Dubai & was keen to write about my homeland. So I sent Jacinda, then Labour leader, a DM on Twitter. She kindly replied, offering to chat the next day — the day before the general election 🧵 I said I didn’t want to distract from the election, so would reach out after, and she said she’d be more than happy to chat anytime. Then, obviously Jacinda became the prime minister. And then announced she was pregnant. Chaos ensued.

A big conspiracy theory says the Covid vaccine could have killed 80+ Canadian doctors

I spent months investigating & speaking with the doctor's families. Most died from heart attacks, cancer or suicide

But it won't go away. And those behind it are Canadian doctors themselves🧵 A November iteration of the Canadian doctor conspiracy theory features 80 photographs & names. They're all real people. But none that I could find died from the Covid-19 vaccine

But many people believe it. And now the vaccine abuse is being directed at grieving families

❗️On Sept 4, tragedy struck James Smith Cree Nation. In the weeks since, I’ve worked with the community to put that tragedy into words

This is what happened that night according to the injured, the grieving, the families

Many revelations follow in 🧵

globalnews.ca/news/9148025/s… In her first interview, Skye Sanderson, Damien's wife, says she called 911 to report her husband 24 hours before the Saskatchewan murders

He had stolen her car & was high & drunk, intimidating people with his brother Myles

They were reportedly looking for gang members to attack

This is Wes Petterson, 77, of Weldon

He was murdered at home during the Saskatchewan attacks

While others died at James Smith Cree Nation, where Myles Sanderson lived, Wes seems to be a random target

Myles also went to another house - saying he'd been stabbed & needed help
🧵 Wes was beloved & was heavily involved in the Silvertone Club, Weldon’s community centre

I spent the afternoon with ladies there yday as they played their weekly lawn bowls game & reminisced over the tragedy

This village is only 300 people. It’s had a huge effect on the people

Darryl Burns was an addictions counsellor at James Smith Cree Nation until yesterday, when he quit after his sister’s murder

He & brother Ivor drove to the reserve boundary to speak in defiance of a media ban imposed by the band

“How can we get help if we don’t ask for it?” Darryl & Ivor’s sister Gloria was an addictions counsellor responding to a crisis call when she was murdered along with her friend & a young boy

Darryl says Myles Sanderson was a troubled young man with a violent history & issues with substance abuse. But Darryl was “respectful”

This is Serhii & Tamara. They’re newlyweds.

The couple had just reunited in Kyiv when I met them. This was the first time they’d seen each other in 7 weeks & since they got married on April 20 over a video call - Serhii had been fighting in an ‘elderly volunteer battalion’

🧵 Serhii’s battalion was made up of men aged over 60 & 70, who could have left Ukraine as the presidential decree covers ages 18-60

But Serhii scoffs at this suggestion

“And who will defend the country?”

“The young people should tend to their kids, we will protect the country”

Can we talk about the number of (mostly) men showing up in Ukraine to fight with no experience/ dubious motives

Don't get me wrong, I have such respect for someone who can leave it all behind to fight for another country, but I met some interesting characters this last month

🧵 The first foreign fighter I met in Rzeszów was a man from Texas. His body armour got lost on the flight & he was still considering going in without it.

He had military experience but was medically discharged from army. He was unabashedly pro-Trump, pro-Capitol riot...

Tucked away high above the platforms of Lviv train station, is a hidden room where Ukrainian mothers & children are taking refuge

The room is a cacophony of confusion — babies wailing, children playing, unaware of any danger, and mothers cajoling those who won’t quiet

🧵 This is Valentina Kurushenko. She ran through a field, carrying her six-week-old granddaughter, as Russian shells exploded over her hometown of Kherson

Our house is destroyed. Only the walls are remaining,” Kurushenko says, rocking her sleeping granddaughter in her arms.

Just tried to cross into Transnistria, Moldova’s Russian-backed breakaway region

Denied and turned around for being journalists. A car of YouTube vloggers were waved through without a problem Got through initial check but upon an INCREDIBLY detailed rifle through the car — every tiny inch of our stuff was combed through — they said to call government for accreditation

Called the govt — they say accreditation takes 30 days but also “all the info we need is online”

This is Anastasiia Yalanskaya 🇺🇦

She was killed yesterday, just outside Kyiv, delivering supplies to a dog shelter that was without food for 3 days

The car she was in was targeted at close range

Yalanskaya stayed behind in Kyiv to volunteer as everyone fled around her “I asked her to be extra cautious. That nowadays, a mistake costs extremely much,” her husband Yevhen Yalanskyi says.

“But she was helping everyone around. I asked her to think of evacuation but she did not listen.”

Friends and family believe she was targeted at random

🧵

In Daugavpils, a Latvian town near the Russian & Belarusian borders, 1 in 3 residents are ethnic Russians - many having never visited Russia etc, but grew up speaking the language

It's led to a 'huge divide' over the Ukraine war - and some of the views here are fascinating This is a city divided between young and old, Russian and Latvian, on whether Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is justified

The discord is largely due to a wistful nostalgia for older Russian Latvians who remember communism as a golden era in Europe & think favourably on Putin

Russian & Belarusian truckers stuck in a huge logjam at the Russian border want the war in Ukraine to stop

One says he's facing abuse/ death threats just for being Russian. He's scared of being drafted

This is a trucker convoy of a very different variety
globalnews.ca/news/8654836/r… “I am driving through Lithuania and I get the finger.

“The older people are more calm, but the younger ones are aggressive and see us as enemies as soon as they see the Russian plates.

“This isn’t war here, but when you leave home, you don’t know if you’re returning home.”

🚨The UAE’s “largest legal reform in its history”:

The UAE govt says it is changing 40 laws in January. Some are new & some previously reported.

Major changes concern:
- out-of-wedlock relationships
- commercial companies
- online security
- trade
- residency
- narcotics

🧵 Some major changes previously reported (a year ago) that will become law in Jan:

- decriminalising premarital sex
- decriminalising alcohol consumption
- decriminalising suicide
- decriminalising living with a member of the opposite sex
- stronger penalties for "honour killings”

Friend in Dubai recently lost his job due to having mental health issues. A deplorable reason - but this kind of thing happens often because employees have little rights.

I wish this was spoken about. But also, when it happened to me, I was quiet

Want to rectify that now (🧵) I was fired in the middle of the pandemic without warning, without reason, from The National. They were advertising 45 other jobs at the time.

A week or so earlier, I'd tweeted a story a colleague had written on delivery drivers being treated poorly in the UAE. I'd said...

As promised, an #Expo2020 thread on pavilions to visit, food, where to find alcohol etc etc

I barely scraped the surface of this place in my 4 days of exploring but here’s what I found… TIPS:
- Avoid the heat of the day. It's still disgusting outside. Come after 4pm or wait a couple weeks.
- This place is HUGE - 1,083 acres. Pre-plan what you want to see & note it on a map.
- Wear comfy shoes. You'll be getting your steps up.
- Bring a re-fillable water bottle

Breaking: New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern announces Level 3 lockdown for Auckland for 3 days from midnight - the rest of NZ goes to Level 2

Comes after 3 members of an Auckland family tested positive for #Covid19 under unknown circumstances

'We are going hard and early' For Auckland:
- Border will be put in place around Akl
- People should work from home unless it's not possible
- Children should stay at home, schools will open for parents that need to be at work
- Supermarkets and pharmacies will stay open

🚨Law reforms in the UAE 🚨: The Government has just announced a huge raft of legal reforms in the United Arab Emirates.

The biggest takeaways (a thread):

- Alcohol decriminalised
- Suicide decriminalised
- Male relatives no longer get a lighter sentence for assaulting females - Drinking, possessing or selling alcohol in authorised areas without an alcohol licence is no longer illegal
- Unmarried couples can now live together
- Tougher punishments for men who harass women
- BIG changes to divorce/ separation & divisions of assets & wills & inheritance

The economic fallout of #Covid19 means many blue collar workers in Dubai have been left destitute - no job, visa or money for a flight home

Large groups are now sleeping in parks in Satwa as they await repatriation

A thread & my @Telegraph story below:

telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/10/0… Dozens of Sri Lankan expats are the latest to congregate in a Satwa park. Most are on a 3-month visit visa and came to Dubai earlier this year to seek work. Some had jobs but lost them due to the pandemic.

Some have been sleeping in the park for as long as 2 weeks

Good morning from Jebel Jais! Out in the wilderness today for an exclusive first look at the new Bear Grylls Explorers Camp in Ras Al Khaimah

@RAKTourism @BearGrylls #VisitRasAlKhaimah The first of its kind in the region, the camp invites adventurers of any ability to get out and explore the wadis of RAK while learning how to survive in the wild