By David Morgan, Pete Schroeder and Lindsay Dunsmuir
(Reuters) -The head of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday delayed a vote on President Joe Biden's five nominees to the Federal Reserve, including Chair Jerome Powell, after Republicans staged a boycott over objections to Sarah Bloom Raskin, the White House's pick to be the central bank's Wall Street regulator.
By Steve Scherer and David Ljunggren
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Frustration with the failure of Canadian police to lift blockades at the border and in the capital, along with scenes of protesters lounging in hot tubs near Parliament, ultimately drove Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to seek emergency powers, three sources said on Tuesday.
Trudeau on Monday invoked the little-used Emergencies Act, signaling the federal government was taking control of a situation local and provincial police have struggled to resolve as protests against pandemic restrictions dragged on.
Discussions on invoking the rarely used powers first began on Thursday as the blockade of the Ambassador Bridge, a key U.S.-Canada trade artery between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, entered its third day, two of the sources, who are familiar with the discussions, said.
"The Windsor police kind of let it happen," one of the sources said. All requested anonymity given the sensitivity of the situation. Windsor police asked for more resources, which the province provided.
The bridge blockade led to the temporary shutdown of several car plants before police finally cleared it on Sunday after six days, and after a concerned call from U.S. President Joe Biden to Trudeau.
Meanwhile, protesters who had paralyzed parts of Ottawa since Jan. 28 were getting more entrenched, and there was growing concern about the presence of "nefarious elements" among the protesters. Police in Alberta later seized guns and ammunition from a group linked to a border protest.
"The prime minister was quite mad," said a government source, referring to a Thursday meeting of the federal Incident Response Group, made up of Trudeau's top advisers. "He said we need to get out in front of this."
"He was demanding solutions" at the meeting, a third source familiar with the matter said, adding Trudeau was saying: "Let's put everything on the table and say, what are the good ideas here?"
The third source said the government realized last week that "enforcement wasn't happening" after initially waiting to see how provincial authorities and local police responded.
"He also needed to know fully that ... we have given it enough time for it to work or not work, or partially work, and think about what more we need to do," the source said. "He didn't want to jump ahead of things that were happening."
Ottawa police initially said their objective was to de-escalate. Later they asked both the provincial and federal governments for more resources, saying they were outnumbered.
The addition of chaotic scenes from Ottawa on the weekend, including hundreds of residents turning out to block another convoy from joining the protesters, proved too much, two of the sources said.
Police stood by as protesters bathed in a hot tub and partied into the night directly in front of parliament and below the prime minister's office.
"This past weekend in Ottawa really drove some people over the edge, the hot tub, the stage, and ... the impotence of the police to do something about it," the source said.
Police chief Peter Sloly resigned on Tuesday amid criticism of his force's performance, city officials said on Tuesday.
The Ottawa protest involves some 360 trucks and vehicles, several hundred protesters, and a large cache of funds from donors in the United States and Canada.
"If you're asking for one factor, it was Ottawa ... the Ottawa situation is completely out of control. We just went through a third weekend of no enforcement," said the second source.
Concerns that protesters may re-occupy border crossings and disrupt crucial trade flows with the United States and affect publicly safety also factored into the decision, the sources said.
Another factor was the specter of violence when police in Alberta on Monday arrested 11 people and seized guns and ammunition.
"There are organized nefarious elements that are involved with these things," said the second source, citing the Alberta gun seizure.
"There's an element here that is ... trying to subvert the normal course of our democracy, which has to be protected, regardless of who's the government," the third source said.
"That's really the difference between this and other protests that we've seen."
($1 = 1.2744 Canadian dollars)
(Reporting by David Ljunggren and Steven Scherer; Editing by Amran Abocar and Lisa Shumaker)
Merryman spent 15 months in Afghanistan and eventually became addicted to oxycodone.
While in the VA's Psychiatry & Addiction Recovery Treatment program, Scott "worked to process his war trauma, including a chaotic firefight in which his partner was [killed] and Scott inadvertently killed a young child who had been standing next to a Taliban fighter shooting an AK-47 at the troops."
The legal document notes multiple suicide attempts and his PTSD.
Scott Ryan Merryman legal filing.Screengrab.
Amid US warnings of a possible imminent invasion of his country by Russian troops, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has declared February 16 a day of unity by decree.
The US government recently warned that it considered a Russian invasion possible before the end of the Winter Olympics in China on February 20. According to media reports, US intelligence information mentioned February 16 as a possible date for Russian military action.
"We are told that February 16 will be the day of the invasion, we will make it the day of unity," Zelensky said in a video on Monday evening.
Ukrainians are expected to raise flags across the country and sing the anthem at 10 am (0800 GMT). "Let's show the whole world our unity," the 44-year-old leader said.
In his speech, Zelensky again rejected Russian accusations that Ukraine was making preparations for an offensive against the breakaway territories of Luhansk and Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, collectively known as Donbas.
"The Donbas and Crimea will return to Ukraine exclusively through diplomatic channels," the president stressed. Russia had annexed the Crimean peninsula on the Black Sea in 2014 and subsequently also supported the pro-Moscow separatists in eastern Ukraine.
The speech came as the US announced that it was moving its embassy operations from the capital Kiev to the city of Lviv near the border with Poland.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called it a temporary precautionary measure.
"The embassy will remain engaged with the Ukrainian government, coordinating diplomatic engagement in Ukraine," he said.
"We are also continuing our intensive diplomatic efforts to deescalate the crisis," he added. "Our commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity is unwavering."
Zelensky had earlier criticized the recent relocation of some embassy staff during a press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Kiev: "It is a big mistake that some embassies are moving to Western Ukraine, because there is no Western Ukraine, there is Ukraine."
"If, God forbid, something happens, it will be everywhere," Zelensky said.
Large-scale Russian military exercises were being held off the southern coast of Ukraine on Monday, with aircraft, helicopters and more than 30 warships gathering in the Black Sea.
Russia says the training is aimed at locating and destroying submarines. Ukraine calls the drills, which are expected to last through Saturday, a provocation that will severely impede navigation in the Black Sea and the adjacent Sea of Azov.
The Kremlin has rejected accusations that merchant ships would be impacted by the manoeuvres and said they pose no security threat. Nevertheless, Ukraine has advised airlines to avoid airspace over the area.
The naval exercises are overlapping with large-scale military drills under way between Russia and and its close ally Belarus, which shares a border with Ukraine.
The US says there are 130,000 troops amassed on Russian territory near the border, meaning Russian forces are built up on three sides of Ukraine.
The US and its NATO allies charge that Russia is preparing a renewed attack on Ukraine, following the 2014 annexation of the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, an accusation that Russia rejects and calls "scaremongering."
Top US officials said in recent days that intelligence suggests Russia could be planning to invade Ukraine "at any time," including before February 20.
Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko said on Monday that the decision to stage the joint exercises with Russia was made before the current "hysteria" had broken out.
On the question of when Russian troops would leave Belarus again, he said: "We will decide that with Vladimir Putin."
The West fears that troops will not leave Belarus once the 10-day drills, which started late last week, conclude.
According to the Kremlin, Putin is scheduled to talk to Lukashenko sometime this week. Previously, the Kremlin had made statements that Russian troops would be withdrawn.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has advised President Vladimir Putin to continue negotiations with NATO on security guarantees.
"There is always a chance," Lavrov said he told Putin. But they can not drag on indefinitely, he said.
Blinken stressed in comments to France24 Monday that "the path to diplomacy remains open."
"We're doing everything we possibly can to convince Russia that it should take the diplomatic path, the path of dialogue to resolve whatever differences exist peacefully," he said.
Finance ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) nations said on Monday they are prepared to impose "massive" economic sanctions on Russia should it attack Ukraine.
Western leaders have been scrambling to defuse the crisis but their conversations with Putin - including US President Joe Biden's on Saturday - have failed to make progress.
In a show of deterrence and solidarity, NATO allies have been sending more forces and equipment into Eastern Europe and putting other troops on standby.
The first German troops have arrived in Lithuania to reinforce the Bundeswehr-led NATO battalion there.
Lithuania borders the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad and Russia's ally Belarus.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said Monday he was "deeply worried" about the situation while urging diplomatic efforts to be intensified and offering the UN's support.
He said he had spoken with the foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine on Monday morning and reiterated to them that there is no alternative to diplomacy.
"The price in human suffering, destruction and damage to European and global security is too high to contemplate. We simply cannot accept even the possibility of such a disastrous confrontation," he said.
