Sunday Post

Four boys have been rescued so far from a cave in Thailand:

Rescuers in northern Thailand on Sunday extracted four members of a youth soccer team from the cave where they had been trapped for more than two weeks, part of an ongoing operation to rescue the 12 boys and their coach. The head of the operation said it was going "better than expected."

The operation to rescue the boys, ages 11-16, and their 25-year-old coach by having them dive out of the flooded cave began Sunday morning, with expert divers entering the sprawling complex for the complicated and dangerous mission.

Shortly before 8 p.m., Thai navy SEALs, who are taking part in the rescue operation, reported on their official Facebook page that four had been rescued.

Chiang Rai acting Gov. Narongsak Osatanakorn, who is heading the operation, said the four boys had been taken to a hospital.

"The operation went much better than expected," Narongsak said at a news conference, adding that the healthiest were taken out first. He said the next phase of the operation would start in 10-20 hours.

Oh, dear:

Searches continued Sunday night for victims of heavy rainfall that hammered southern Japan for the third straight day, as the government put the death toll at 48, with 28 others presumed dead.

Japanese government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said the whereabouts of 92 other people were unknown, mostly in the southern area of Hiroshima prefecture. More than 100 reports of casualties had been received, such as cars being swept away, he said. Some 40 helicopters were out on rescue missions.

“Rescue efforts are a battle with time,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters. “The rescue teams are doing their utmost.”

Today in history:

2000: Jo Myong Rok, a senior North Korean military leader, visited Washington to meet President Bill Clinton following positive signs in Pyongyang’s talks with South Korea. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright visited Pyongyang shortly thereafter. She met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to try and expand the Agreed Framework and prepare a potential visit by President Bill Clinton. But the talks ultimately failed.

2002: The Agreed Framework set up under Clinton broke down. President George W. Bush, who took a harder-line stance on Pyongyang than his predecessor, accused North Korea of cheating by secretly pursuing a uranium enrichment program. North Korea accused the United States of backing out of its end of the deal.

2003: Following the collapse of the Agreed Framework and North Korea’s withdrawal from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, China hosted the United States, Japan, South Korea, and Russia for semiregular rounds of talks with North Korea known as the six-party talks. Throughout the talks, Pyongyang insisted it would not give up its nuclear weapons program.

2006: North Korea conducted its first nuclear test, resparking the simmering diplomatic crisis.

2009: The six-party talks collapsed following an impasse over granting international inspectors permission to visit sites in North Korea. Despite the lack of progress on that front, former President Bill Clinton visited North Korea and successfully negotiated the release of two imprisoned American journalists.

To wit:

President Trump arrived here Sunday night ahead of a potentially historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the first meeting between the leaders of two countries that have been sworn enemies for almost seven decades.  

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President Trump on Tuesday said the people of North Korea “love” the country’s leader Kim Jong Un despite previously condemning the country’s human rights abuses.

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New satellite photos show that Kim Jong Un is continuing to develop his nuclear weapons program, and U.S. intelligence sources say they believe North Korea has increased its production of nuclear fuel at multiple sites. This wasn’t supposed to happen after the Donald Trump-Kim summit last month in Singapore.

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NORTH Korean leader Kim Jong-un has appealed to China's Xi Jinping to help end sanctions against Pyongyang following his landmark summit with US President Donald Trump, a Japanese newspaper reported on Sunday, citing multiple unnamed sources in the two countries.

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Just hours after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo departed North Korea after two days of nuclear negotiations, North Korea sharply criticized the U.S. team's attitude as “regrettable,” and accused the U.S. of making unilateral demands of denuclearization.

But Pompeo refuses to surrender:

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo brushed off North Korean charges that he used “gangster-like” diplomacy in negotiations in Pyongyang, saying on Sunday after meeting his Japanese and South Korean counterparts that he would continue to pursue denuclearization talks with North Korea.

As one can see, Trump is not doing anything dissimilar from previous administrations. Unless he is planning on a new tactic, one that involves sanctions and punishments that actually hurt both China and North Korea and  - more importantly - affect regime change, this is bound to drag on.


(Kamasahamnida)





As it has been established that PM Stanley Groper Justin Trudeau did, in fact, grab a female reporter and noted that had she worked for a larger publication he might not have done so (that passes for an apology these days) and then, when all attempts at denial and deflection failed, tried to make the ugly incident a "teachable" moment, the story moves onto a next phase, the one where Justin's water-carriers in the press and in the Cabinet rush to defend where they once tried to deny.

In progress:

Federal Employment Minister Patty Hajdu voiced her support for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Friday over an 18-year-old groping allegation made against him — making her the first member of his cabinet to directly address the controversy publicly.

Hajdu said she stands by Trudeau's response to the alleged incident.

On Friday, Trudeau told CBC Radio's Metro Morning he apologized for making the woman in question feel uncomfortable, but maintained he didn't recall any "negative interactions" himself.

"I'm actually proud of a prime minister that understands that you can believe that you didn't have negative interactions with someone — I think we can think about this in all kinds of different situations — and find out later that someone perceived that interaction in a completely different way, and reflect on how our behaviour and the way that we make our way in the world impacts other people," Hajdu told CBC Radio's The House on Friday.

(Sidebar: this b!#ch right here.)

Way to fall on your sword for this pig, Patty. Did you feel that way when members of your party were accused of sexual harassment? Aren't all women supposed to be believed? When women are repulsed by being groped even by the drunken frat boy son of Pierre, is that just a matter of subjective reasoning?

Justin is not the hero here nor can he teach anyone anything other than liberals (big L or not) will gladly dispense with even their own ground rules when it suits them.




A former Green Party member is on trial in Germany for denying the Holocaust:

Monika Schaefer spent years as a warden at Jasper National Park.

She was an environmental activist, a spokesperson for the Jasper Environmental Association.

She was a musician, a violin and viola teacher who performed all over Jasper and Hinton. She was a perennial candidate for the Green party, running in federal elections in 2006, 2008 and 2011.

But this Monday, Schaefer went on trial in a Munich courtroom. She’s charged with six counts of Volksverhetzung.

The literal translation is sedition. In German law, it’s more accurately defined as incitement of hate. It’s the term German authorities use to prosecute those who deny the Holocaust.

(Sidebar: this Monika Schaefer.)


I would hate to see this woman and her vile ideology elevate her to the level of a free speech hero. There is nothing heroic or honest about her Holocaust denial.

In fact, having her freely promote her nonsense puts that issue and other issues of free expression and the unfortunate prevalence of genocide denigration into the forefront, something that might not have happened had she been silenced.