Friday Post

A lot going on ...




Four people, including two police officers, were shot to death in Fredericton:

Gunfire erupted in a quiet residential corner of New Brunswick’s capital city Friday morning, leaving four people dead — including two police officers — and an undisclosed number injured.

Fredericton Police Chief Leanne Fitch says the victims include Const. Robb Costello and Const. Sara Burns, 43, and two civilians — a man and a woman — who remain unidentified. ...

The shooting incident began at about 7 a.m. at an apartment complex on Brookside Drive.

Tim Morehouse, a resident of the neighbourhood, said he was in his apartment when he heard someone shout: “Shut up! Shut up!”

He said he heard two gunshots, and then three more. He said he looked out his window and saw the body of a man on the ground, in the back parking lot of 237 Brookside Drive.

“I hear more shots and looked out and there’s two police officers on the ground. I called 911 and they came and checked on them and they were shot,” he said.

  
More to come.




Canada is back!:

It could be “days or weeks” before Canada is invited back to the NAFTA bargaining table, Mexico’s top trade negotiator said Friday after almost a month of meetings between his country and the United States — with no Canadians in the room.

A source familiar with the negotiations said that Canada will definitely not take part when the talks resume next Wednesday.

And as Canada waits on the sidelines, even some trilateral issues around an updated free-trade agreement are being discussed and potentially decided by the others, said one close observer of the process.

Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said his country and the U.S. have been making a lot of progress, but would be back in Washington next week for a fourth week of two-way talks.

**

Here’s what Bill Morneau said when asked if there would be any response from the Trudeau government to Saudi Arabia’s escalations:

“We’re paying close attention to this situation, of course, because we wanted to understand the impacts. We’re not considering any responses.”

**

I expect it will be a while, alas, before we hear about all of this from those imprisoned. Is it not most likely, now that our government has stirred these waters publicly, on the dubious and flippant medium it chose — Twitter — that both the Badawis and the female activists will suffer a longer, harder stay in the dim cloisters of Saudi prison than they would have without that intervention?

This is the problem with this government’s excessive fondness for public virtue-speak, either in foreign diplomacy or at home (say on abortion rights). It has more of a tendency to inflame than seduce.

**

One week into the Canada-Saudi Arabia spat and there has been very little high-profile public support for the Canadian position.

Spokespeople from countries considered Canada's closest allies offered bluntly neutral comments when pressed on the diplomatic dispute.

One British diplomat is taken aback by his country's public reaction.

"I confess that I'm very disappointed by it," said Anthony Cary, a former British High Commissioner to Canada.

"There was a time when Canada could have rightly expected to receive the core support from the United States and from the United Kingdom, as its closest partners," he said in interview with CBC News from his home in London.

A moral position shouldn't need validation from others.

But Justin isn't looking for moral clarity. The arrogant groping son of a communist sympathiser has proved he has little regard for even the thirty-nine percent who elected him. His cowardice and incompetence in dealing with individuals and countries has embarrassed the nation enough. What Justin is looking for is a gang on which to rely and take up the slack he is too scared and stupid to take up.

Churchill he is most certainly not.




But not a military war:

Russia warned the United States on Friday it would regard any U.S. move to curb the activities of its banks as a “declaration of economic war” and would retaliate, as new sanctions took their toll on the ruble and U.S. lawmakers threatened more. 

Now one can see why South Korea's Moon is keen on better relations with North Korea:

Three South Korean firms imported North Korean coal from Russia by forging customs documents in apparent violation of a U.N. sanctions resolution, authorities here announced Friday.

The findings present the South's government with a diplomatic burden amid the U.S.-led efforts to maintain international unity in enforcing sanctions on the communist nation until its full denuclearization.

The Korea Customs Office (KCS) said the three firms brought in 35,038 tons of North Korean coal and pig iron, worth a combined 6.6 billion won (US$5.86 million), on seven occasions between April and October last year.

They were found to have transshipped the materials at a Russian port and manipulated documents on the country of origin or the type of stuff.

The coal was a sort of commission fee for the firms' role in helping export North Korean goods to other countries via Russia, with a wide web of sanctions against Pyongyang in place, according to the KCS.

The pig iron, obtained in exchange for selling Russian coal to North Korea, was brought into South Korea via a paper company in Hong Kong, it added.

That means the importers knew that the materials originated in North Korea.

But the customs office said it found no evidence that local banks, which issued letters of credit for them, were aware of such illicit trade.

It's called "turning a blind eye", not lack of evidence.