Sunday Post

 
The death toll of a bombing in Egypt stands at three hundred and five people dead:

Gunmen who attacked a mosque on Friday in Egypt's North Sinai brandished an Islamic State flag as they opened fire through doorways and windows, killing more than 300 worshippers, including two dozen children, officials said on Saturday.

The usual suspects are gearing up for Christmas. The usual cowards are thusly prepared.




Burmese cardinals would rather Pope Francis not mention the people who put Hindus in mass graves:

A crackdown by the Myanmar military has driven hundreds of thousands of ethnic Rohingya Muslims into Bangladesh, in what the U.S. described on Wednesday as “ethnic cleansing”—a finding Myanmar said was made “without any proven facts.” Bishops in Myanmar are urging Pope Francis to refrain from expressing support for the group during his visit.

Pope Francis “has to be very careful so that we can still communicate with the new government, with the military, as well as with the people in general,” said Cardinal Charles Bo of Yangon, the country’s most senior Catholic cleric.

Somewhat related:

Myanmar's military elite need to have their wings clipped by targeted United Nations travel sanctions in order to discourage the continued ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims, says former foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy.

"We're talking about targeting specific people, particularly in the military," said Axworthy, the chair of the Canadian-based World Refugee Council, which is working with the UN to reform the global refugee system.

"A lot of these guys like to fly off to Bangkok and get a new suit or something. I'm not being facetious," Axworthy said in an interview. "A restricted-travel sanction would be very effective for a lot of the elites in Myanmar."

A lot of squatters left Canada for Syria so that they could rape and murder Yazidi children and women, very much like the ones found in a mass grave near Mount Sinjar (no parkas, however) and the Liberal government truly thinks it can re-integrate these rapists and murders into voting society.




From the most "transparent" government in the country's history:

This past week the issue garnered renewed attention after multiple back and forth exchanges in the House of Commons over whether we should be treating our own jihadists, freshly returned from the battlefields, with kid gloves via unproven reintegration programs or try our hardest to charge and convict them of serious Criminal Code offences.

Amidst all of this, a new talking point is emerging from the Liberals: It’s all Stephen Harper’s fault.

Last Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited a Toronto-area mall and was surrounded mostly by adoring selfie-seekers. Mostly. One woman was far from happy with Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale’s statement in the House of Commons on Monday that there are around 60 returned jihadists roaming about in Canada.

In a video posted to social media, the woman shouts her concerns at Trudeau. The PM rather surprisingly turns away from his fans and, without breaking a smile and bordering on a wink, tells her: “They came under Harper.”

Is this true? Yes, when it comes to the 60 count. But as I wrote in a recent column, Goodale in his very statement referenced CSIS testimony that he admitted was many months old – over two years old in fact. Goodale’s office insists the numbers remain the same but a 2017 public threat report expected in the coming weeks will be the true test.

That original 60 number comes from the December 2015 year-end numbers. While a handful of these 60 may have possibly come in after November 4 – when Trudeau became PM – most of them surely came in under Harper’s watch. ...

The Conservatives were the government that in 2013, as Rempel reminded Blair, introduced the very legislation that now allows for charging Canadians who go abroad for terror purposes. The Liberal caucus voted for this law back then, so they should strive to make good use of it now. (Although newly minted leader Trudeau was, in fact, absent for the vote that day)

Besides, while no one was charged under those provisions during the Harper years only two have been charged under Trudeau – and one of those is the alleged Canadian Tire attacker whose case, far from being the result of a savvy police investigation, just fell into the lap of the police and prosecution. ...

More importantly, there’s nothing stopping Trudeau from providing security services with the beefed up resources to now go and build a case against these guys, if that indeed is what they think partly explains the holdup – as Blair’s remarks suggest.

**

Locally, such businesses set up under the "100 per cent ownership stream" in the provincial nominee program are known simply as "PNP companies."

It's a system the provincial Liberal government says is diversifying the Island's population and economy, but its critics say has evolved into a side-door route to larger Canadian cities, while filling the province's coffers with forfeited deposits from failed or abandoned ventures.

** 

Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale says the U.S. is doing a better job of informing Canada of immigration changes that may prompt people living in the U.S. on special immigration status to try to cross the border into Canada illegally. 

"The United States needs to be cognizant of the fact that when they take certain steps within their jurisdiction, those steps have consequences elsewhere," Goodale told reporters Thursday. "It would appear from the most recent announcements from Homeland Security that they are factoring that into the decision making." 

(Sidebar: yes, Ralph, let the Americans do the heavy lifting for you, you fat oaf.)

**

Would-be Canadians need more than just a desire for a better economic future if they expect to be granted refugee status in this country, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday.

Trudeau, speaking at an event in Charlottetown, pointed to the case of 6,300 Haitians who have crossed illegally into Canada from the U.S. in recent months to request asylum. Statistics released this week show that of the 298 Haitian cases that had been heard by the end of October, only 29 were granted protection.

"Refugee status means that you have nowhere to go, you can not be protected by your home state," the prime minister said. "It's not just a question of, 'I'm looking for an economic future, so I want to come to Canada.'"

(Sidebar: ... says the pansy who rolled out a welcome mat for Haitians fleeing from expired visas and who thinks that ISIS rapists and murderers can be reformed before 2019.)

Former head of the FCC advises Canada to protect the Internet:

The former head of the Federal Communications Commission in the U.S. has a strong warning for Canada: do what you can to protect the internet.

Yes, about that:

Canadian government departments have quietly blocked nearly 22,000 Facebook and Twitter users, with Global Affairs Canada accounting for nearly 20,000 of the blocked accounts, CBC News has learned.

Moreover, nearly 1,500 posts — a combination of official messages and comments from readers — have been deleted from various government social media accounts since January 2016.

Vaguely related - a publicly funded library shouldn't play favourites:

The screening of an anti-Islam film at the main branch of the Ottawa Public Library has been cancelled after an e-mail campaign by residents who argued it would violate the library's own policies around hate speech.

 
Interesting:

Two Islamic preachers accused of giving anti-Semitic sermons in 2014 won't face charges, a spokesman for Quebec's Crown prosecutor's office said Thursday.

Some people are strangely silent on things like this.




Perhaps people are tired of miniature fascists who squeal whenever their feelings are hurt and leave university with nothing more than a profound hatred of Jews and little else:

In July, a Pew Research Center study found that 58 per cent of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents believe colleges and universities have a negative effect “on the way things are going in the country,” up from 37 per cent two years ago. Among Democrats, by contrast, 72 per cent said they have a positive impact.

A Gallup poll in August found that only about a third of Republicans had confidence in universities, which they viewed as too liberal or political. Other studies show that overwhelming numbers of white working-class men do not believe a college degree is worth the cost.

On the Korean Peninsula:


Oh, yes, I would say a gap exists:

 Despite the much-publicized deal to patch up ties, there still seems to be a “gap in understanding” between South Korea and China over the issue of a US advanced missile defense system deployed here, a Seoul’s senior foreign ministry official said on Friday.

The official, who was present at a Wednesday meeting between South Korea’s Foreign Ministry Kang Kyung-hwa and her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, said Beijing officials seemed to feel that they “gave up too much” to settle the dispute over Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system.  

(Sidebar: this Wang Yi.)

Is a country that arrests Falun Gong members the right one to drive political wedges in South Korea?

**

The North Korean defector, whose hospitals bills (one assumes) would be covered by the South Korean government, is having his story told via loudspeaker:

The South Korean military has carried out a loudspeaker campaign to send a message to North Korea about the recent defection of one of its soldiers.

The military used loudspeakers installed near the heavily armed border to provide details about the defector’s condition and highlight violations of the armistice agreement by the North Korean soldiers who chased the defector and fired shots at him.

Also:

The South Korean government must take on a firmer stance on North Korea, according to Ahn Cheol-soo, the chairman of the minor opposition People’s Party.

Ahn, who ran against President Moon Jae-in in the presidential election in May, also criticizes the Moon administration of “inaction” with regards to North Korea’s recent violation of the armistice agreement of the Korean War.

In an interview with The Korea Herald on Thursday, the party leader said the government should lodge an official complaint to North Korea over the incident.

“The government should make an objection to the North and bring out some kind of a statement from the rogue state,” he said. 

Did you see who was elected, Mr. Ahn?




A loyal party member is now North Korea's new security chief:

North Korea has appointed a senior communist party official as its new state security chief as part of leader Kim Jong-un's reign of terror aimed at preventing potential challenges to his power, a news report said Saturday.

Kim picked Jong Kyong-thaek, a member of the central military committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, to be the minister of state security, according to the Asahi Shimbun, a Japanese newspaper. It cited multiple sources with information on North Korea.

A graying country probably shouldn't be keen on eliminating its offspring:

South Korea's government on Sunday promised to give more active consideration to growing public demand to permit artificial abortion.

The presidential office released its position toward a petition, posted on its homepage, whose signatories exceeded 200,000 in late October.