Mid-Week Post

So how was your Christmas?

Russia places tighter restrictions on American adoptions for the good of the children:

Family Christmas cards and smiling snapshots of children sent by their adoptive American parents fill Galina Sigayeva's office in Russia's second city St Petersburg.

Many of them were crippled by illness and in desperate need of medical care before her agency helped organise their adoption into U.S. families, she recalls.

Children's rights campaigners say children like these will suffer most if President Vladimir Putin approves a law barring American adoptions that has been rubber-stamped by Russian lawmakers. The act retaliates against a new U.S. law that will punish Russians accused of human rights violations.

Yep. One can truly see the concern.


Dissident groups are apparently more dangerous than Hezbollah:

The Iranian government has fired back at Canada for removing an exiled Iranian opposition group from its terrorist blacklist while simultaneously affixing terrorist status to a branch of the Iranian military, a move the Central Asian regime said was “a dangerous move that can weaken international peace and security.”

Canada is “using the issue of terrorism as a tool and violating its international commitments,” said the Iranian foreign ministry on Monday, according to a report by AFP.

The comments, made to state broadcaster IRIB, are only the latest sign of worsening Iranian-Canadian relations spurred in part by Canada’s decision to sever diplomatic relations with the Central Asian country in September.

When attention-seekers collide:

Like many Canadians, Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence spent a quiet Christmas morning with her family, opening presents with two of her five daughters.

But far from her home on James Bay, Spence entered the third week of a hunger strike Tuesday, an action she says won’t end until Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Gov. Gen. David Johnston agree to sit down and talk about Canada’s treaty relationship with First Nations leadership.

She did have a visitor on Boxing Day, however, Liberal Leadership hopeful Justin Trudeau came by to meet with the First Nations leader.

“It was deeply moving to meet [Theresa Spence] today. She is willing to sacrifice everything for her people. She shouldn’t have to,” Trudeau wrote on twitter.

Why don't these two have an audience with Kim Jong-Un? That way, there would be no danger  of either one breaking a fast or stealing the limelight.


Made in China.


Don't forget to unwrap this present.