Monday Post

Two Canadians were killed in Burkina Faso in an Islamist attack:

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland says two Canadians were among 18 people killed in a suspected extremist attack on a popular restaurant in Burkina Faso.

The incident happened late Sunday when suspected Islamic extremists opened fire at a Turkish restaurant in the country’s capital.

Canada may threaten to walk away from the NAFTA talks but it knows it cannot, so ... :

Canada laid down a tough line ahead of talks on modernizing NAFTA on Monday, suggesting it could walk away if the United States pushed to remove a key dispute-settlement mechanism in the trade deal.

Brad Wall's imminent departure from politics shows a kind of grace foreign in that field:

The politician who sheds power in a timely manner, under the sway of his own judgment, unimpelled by the scorn of weary voters and not shamed into flight from scandals of his own devious devising or careless stewardship, is therefore a phoenix of his kind. Wall belongs in that contracted circle.

 

Subsidising people's phenomenally bad choices is never a good deal. Ever:

The tent went up at ten to four on Sunday — a big tan tarp slung over a metal base in the last ungentrified sliver of Toronto’s downtown.

Around it, tattooed volunteers shifted supplies: black naloxone kits, water bottles, baggies stuffed with sterilized needles and gear.

“Don’t you think this is so cool,” Angie Austin said to a group of friends sitting on the grass nearby.

“What is it?” one replied.

“It is,” she said, “a safe injection site.”

For the second day in a row Sunday, harm reduction advocates in Toronto operated a guerrilla injection site out of a tent in a public park, just behind a hockey arena and not far from a playground.

They did so in full view of the police, who watched on bicycles from a distance and made no move to intervene.

(Sidebar: the police force - another thing that shouldn't be subsidised.)

Perhaps Pastor Lim has spent far too long in North Korea. This is no more a sign of Kim Jong-Un's  generosity than public executions are good for the children:

A 62-year-old Canadian pastor held in a North Korean prison for more than 2 1/2 years said he suspected his life sentence was commuted last week to help reduce pressure on Pyongyang. 

"I believe (North Korean leader) Kim Jung Un let me go as a gesture of goodwill in the face of so much rhetoric," Hyeon Soo Lim told a packed worship hall in a Toronto suburb on Sunday.

Also - when all else fails, pray: 

Guam's Catholic faithful attended Sunday Mass after several days of dramatic rhetoric between the two nuclear-armed nations. President Donald Trump threatened swift and forceful retaliation against North Korea, declaring the U.S. military "locked and loaded."

There hasn't been any widespread anxiety among Guam residents, even after Pyongyang vowed to complete a plan to attack waters near the island by mid-August.

Unless Beijing has been reduced to rubble, China will never abandon North Korea: 

China won’t come to North Korea’s help if it launches missiles threatening U.S. soil and there is retaliation, a state-owned newspaper warned on Friday, but it would intervene if Washington strikes first.

Tags you will never see: 

Chinese textile firms are increasingly using North Korean factories to take advantage of cheaper labor across the border, traders and businesses in the border city of Dandong told Reuters. 

The clothes made in North Korea are labeled "Made in China" and exported across the world, they said. 

Proudly exploiting slave labour. 

But ... but ... I thought Obama had this:

Kenya plunged into a political crisis after the opposition rejected what it said were plans by the electoral commission to declare President Uhuru Kenyatta the victor in Tuesday’s election, calling it a “charade."

Still a failure.

No, Trump didn't kill a young woman by plowing a car into her. Some @$$hole did. It didn't help things when people made vain attempts to erase history instead of confronting it and vowing not to repeat past mistakes nor did it help when the mayor ordered police not to arrest trouble-makers without his express authorisation.

 

Good:

Several senior members of Islamic State's central Asian affiliate were killed in a U.S. air strike in Afghanistan, officials said on Sunday.

 

Breaking the seal of the confessional will get one excommunicated toute suite.

Not that those with a bone to pick with Pell et al care:

Priests who fail to tell police about suspected child sexual abuse should face criminal charges, even when they learn of abuse during a confidential religious confession, Australia’s most powerful investigative authority recommended on Monday.

If the authorities were ever serious about stopping the abuse of children, they wouldn't wait until videos of child exploitation popped up.



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