While Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault was in Beijing this week to discuss ways China and Canada can reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, one of China’s major state-run media organizations wrote an editorial headlined “Western concerns about China’s coal power growth unnecessary.”
Author: Blazingcatfur
Ukraine tells critics of slow counteroffensive to ‘shut up’
KYIV, Aug 31 (Reuters) – Ukraine told critics of the pace of its three-month-old counteroffensive to “shut up” on Thursday, the sharpest signal yet of Kyiv’s frustration at leaks from Western officials that say its forces are advancing too slowly.
Nearly three months since launching a much vaunted counteroffensive using hundreds of billions of dollars of Western military equipment, Ukraine has recaptured more than a dozen villages but has yet to penetrate Russia’s main defences.
#Ukraine: Counter-battery fire by GMLRS – a Russian 2S19 Msta-S 152mm self-propelled howitzer was destroyed by the Ukrainian army near Velykyi Vyselok, #Kharkiv Oblast. pic.twitter.com/eHbgtxfDlm
— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) August 29, 2023
Mother of British-born ‘Canadian’ Jihadi Jack Letts detained in Syria says son is ‘barely holding on’
Sally Lane says she is “overjoyed” to hear news of her son Jack – even if he’s barely hanging on in a Syrian prison – after years of silence.
Lane says a civil society delegation messaged her from northeastern Syria to report that members had met with Jack after authorities managed to locate him within the prison system.
London’s revolt against the Ulez scam is set to shatter politics as we know it
When I wrote in April that Sadiq Khan could be ousted because of his persecution of motorists, my suggestion was widely panned as delusional. Didn’t I realise that nobody owns a car in our capital city, that London is a Labour rotten borough and that the Tories are finished?
My argument doesn’t look so silly today. The mayor’s nasty, vindictive Ulez cash grab has triggered a wave of French-style civil disobedience, radicalised an outer suburbia that the snooty inner London elite had long forgotten even existed, lost Labour a parliamentary seat it could otherwise have won, and exposed the exorbitant cost to our pocketbooks and freedom of the rush to net zero.
#ULEZ @MayorofLondon #FUCKOFF 🤣🤣🤣 pic.twitter.com/ScdCtLAWsX
— Right Said Fred (@TheFreds) August 31, 2023
h/t Mauser
Joe Oliver: Shh! Was that the Liberal leadership race getting underway?
Anita Anand and Chrystia Freeland recently drew public attention to their contrasting personas and political positioning. Anand, now President of the Treasury Board, was ousted as Minister of National Defence, supposedly for advocating too strenuously to fund the cash-strapped military and for excessive self-promotion. Clearly undeterred, she was quick out of the gate of her new gig with a letter to cabinet colleagues ordering them to come up with $15.4 billion in expenditure cuts over the next five years. For her part, Freeland used a commencement address at Northeastern University in Boston to ask rhetorically whether capitalist democracy is still effective.
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France mocked for Martin Luther King tribute featuring all white cast
France’s education ministry has withdrawn a video intended to pay tribute to Martin Luther King Junior’s “I have a dream” speech that featured only white children after receiving a deluge of criticism over the clip.
Published to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the civil rights leader’s famous address calling for an end to racism, the one-minute clip features five children speaking in English about their dreams for a greener planet and equal rights.
Conservatives show signs of new life in Quebec, the graveyard of electoral hopes
OTTAWA – Quebecers might be slowly but surely cozying up to Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative party, poll trends suggest, in a province where voting predictions can rapidly crumble with what can prove to be a volatile and emotional electorate.
Conservatives are used to trailing far behind the Bloc Québécois and the Liberals in Quebec and have rarely managed to make it above the 20-per-cent mark in polls of the province in the last decade. On the rare occasion they do, it’s even rarer for them to hold those numbers for an extended period.
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Trump pleads not guilty in Georgia election fraud case
Former US President Donald Trump has pleaded not guilty in his Georgia election fraud case, waiving the right to appear in court next week.
Mr Trump is among 19 people charged with a conspiracy to overturn the US state’s 2020 vote results.
He turned himself in at Fulton County Jail in Atlanta last week, where he had his mugshot taken.
Mr Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, describing the case as politically motivated.
A Scoop by Tehran Times, Disclosing Details of the Robert Malley Affair, Has Washington Abuzz as Congress Is Kept in the Dark
A mouthpiece of the Iranian regime, the Tehran Times, scored what could be a significant scoop by managing to snag a document related to the mystery surrounding the suspension of President Biden’s Iran point man, Robert Malley. Congress, meanwhile, has been kept in the dark on what happened.
The Tehran Times, which has on several recent occasions published exclusive details on the Malley affair, posted on Monday what it claims is an authentic Department of State document. The April 21 memo, yet to be officially authenticated, fleshes out some of the reasons the envoy was suspended and stripped of his security clearance.
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A B.C. study gave 50 homeless people $7,500 each. Here’s what they spent it on.
… The study did not include people who are street-entrenched or who have serious addictions or mental health issues, Zhao noted, adding people who fit that criteria do not make up the majority of homeless people.
I think the Doctors estimate of the numbers of homeless affected by mental health, substance and or alcohol abuse issues is a bit on the optimistic side. But the face of the homeless is likely changing due to the housing crisis forcing victims without addictions or mental illness onto the streets.
This advocacy group posts higher incidence rates than he suggests: “Let’s start by looking at how many people who are currently experiencing homelessness actually have a mental illness or a substance use disorder. Based off of the 2019 Point in Time Count that was conducted this past January, only 33 percent of the people who were unsheltered reported substance use disorders, and only 26 percent reported mental health issues.”
This UK site has a study with much higher numbers.
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Ukraine uses cardboard drones to strike Russian military planes
A cardboard drone its makers claim is easier to build than an Ikea flatpack has reportedly destroyed at least four Russian planes.
Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) said a Mig-29 and four Su-30 fighter jets were hit during an attack last weekend on Kursk airfield in western Russia.
Two Pantsir missile launchers and the radar of an S-300 air defence system were also thought to have been damaged in the strike.
Last night, the Kresty AB in Pskov Oblast, #Russia, home to the 334th Military Transport Aviation Regiment, was hit by a Ukrainian suicide drone attack.
According to Russian sources, 4 Il-76 heavy cargo aircraft were “damaged”- one can be seen burning fiercely in this footage. pic.twitter.com/iNRo9xgtNq
— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) August 30, 2023
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Less than one in five federally funded charging stations are operational
OTTAWA — More than 43,000 electric vehicle chargers have been funded over the last seven years under the federal government’s two main EV infrastructure programs.
But data supplied by the Department of Natural Resources shows fewer than one in five are actually operational.
The data comes as Energy Minister Jonathan Wilkinson is in Quebec City today making another funding announcement on EV chargers.
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‘Too Much Narcissism, Not Enough Maturity’: Why Some Employers Are Wary of Hiring People Who List Their ‘Pronouns’ on Resumes
‘The accidental misgendering, the time off work to get your mastectomy, the recovery time from it, the sort of constant name changes’ are taxing, a Bay Area restaurant owner says.
Are employers hesitant to hire people who identify as transgender or nonbinary? As transgender rights issues dominate the headlines, that is a question being hotly debated on social media.
Several large right wing and gender-critical left wing accounts on X posted screenshots this week of answers to a Quora post asking, “Why won’t anybody hire me because I’m a transgender?” In internet fashion, many of the posts to X were intentionally provocative, calling pronouns “the biggest red flag” or saying that they would “never hire” people with pronouns on their resumes.
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Saskatchewan designed an immigration policy that benefits citizens and newcomers, The Star says it’s RACIST!
This Canadian province wants to pick immigrants based on their nation. Is that fair, or a ‘slippery slope’?
In a first-of-its-kind pilot project, Saskatchewan is picking skilled immigrants based on their country of residence, raising eyebrows for deviating from Canada’s selection system that has otherwise been open to all regardless of race and nationality.
In August, the Saskatchewan Immigrant Nominee Program created six draws with the goal of inviting 542 skilled immigrants in dozens of occupational backgrounds to settle in the province as permanent residents.
The catch is only those who are living in one of these eight countries can qualify: Czechia, Germany, India, Ireland, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine.
Because Canada’s current policy inviting incompatible cultures who have little to no desire to integrate has worked out so well.
Just think of the ethno-religious conflicts we’d miss out on if we screened for suitability! Assassinations, riots, honor killings!
Such vibrant diversity makes us stronger.
Canadians love being treated like 2nd class citizens in their own nation and understand that immigration policy must always conform to the needs of the corporate and political class.
You gotta break a few eggs to depress wages, create housing shortages and foment a fearful balkanized society I always say.
But here’s the rub, Trudeau has turned Canada into such a shithole state that the majority of “permanent residents” no longer desire to become citizens:
In 2021, nearly 45.7 per cent of permanent residents who’d been in Canada for less than 10 years became citizens.
That’s down from 60 per cent in 2016, and 75.1 per cent in 2001.
But of course the Star finds an “expert” who argues the old system is working just fine. Fine in the sense that today’s immigrants are not the old immigrants and are more likely to use Canada only as a safe place to park their money before moving on to greener pastures.
Fine in the sense the government is so inept they lost track of a million migrants thus grossly understating the housing and infrastucture crisis.
That’s a great return on investment.
Paedophile who ‘wrestled’ with police changes gender before trial
Sophie Carter, formerly Dominic, attends court in pink T-shirt and shorts after being caught with 11 indecent images of children
A paedophile caught with indecent images of children was prosecuted under a male name but now identifies as a woman, a court was told.
Dominic Carter “wrestled” with police while under arrest to try to stop them from taking away a phone that yielded crucial evidence.