News roundup, 18 Nov 2025

- Mark Carney's first budget passed by a margin of 170 to 168, averting an election, after two NDP MPs and two Conservatives abstained.

- The UN Security Council has approved the Trump regime's plan for an international "stabilization force" for Gaza; Russia and China abstained. A lot of the details still have to be worked out, of course, but it almost certainly won't do the Palestinians any good in the long run (it wouldn't have passed otherwise).

- The Palestinian flag was raised at the Manitoba legislature for the first time in history, on the anniversary of Palestine's declaration of independence in 1988. This is consistent with flag-raisings held on national days of more established countries, but of course the rabidly pro-Israel B'nai Brith was not pleased.

- Several former officers in the Canadian air force are urging the government to go ahead with F-35 purchases and not get sidetracked by Sweden's Gripen. I can't help wonder, though, if they're stuck in a past when the US was thought of as a reliable ally. They do argue that the F-35 has better technology, but one has to ask, better for what? Its much-touted stealth capabilities are more important for attack than for defense, for instance; meanwhile its limited range and single engine make it less suited for Arctic operations. Even its communications are ill-suited to the task. Perhaps it's better at attacking people in their own countries than the Gripen, but should that be what we want in a fighter? I guess that has to be weighed against American threats about what will happen if we don't buy it though.

- The Manitoba Municipal Board has given the Granite Curling Club everything they wanted in terms of stopping an affordable housing project if it's going to cost the club even a single parking space. The fact that the club operates out of a building on city-owned land, and that the parking spaces they'd lose are also on city-owned land, seems not to matter. Premier Kinew says he's "open to looking at" the ruling, but is also a bit leery about interfering in a heavy-handed way. 

- Prosecutors in Milan are investigating reports that wealthy Italians paid large amounts of money (around £70,000 each) to participate in "human safaris" run by the Bosnian Serbs in which they would get to shoot at Bosnian civilians from rooftops during the siege of Sarajevo. Not surprisingly, many of these tourists had ties to the far right.

Vigilante hunt for puppy tosser targets wrong person

You've probably heard of the awful story of the girl throwing puppies in the river. Not surprisingly, there's a lot of folks out there who are out for blood. What's really unfortunate is that their wrath targeted the wrong person (translated from the original source):

A bad joke? Or real? An internet video shows a young woman laughing while drowning puppies. Now the users are hunting for the supposed perpetrator - and are threatening a girl from Aying near Munich.

The video is not for tender sensibilities: A blond girl in a red hooded pullover is standing on a bank, next to her a white bucket with fluffy, fidgeting puppies. She graps one after the other and throws them in the water. The controversial animal rights organisation Peta offers a reward for identifying the teenager. "Peta offers a reward of 2000 dollars for information which could lead to arrest and conviction of those persons" responsible for the content of the video.

Since then, a downright hunt for the girl is taking part on the net: "I hope they find you and throw you into jail, you evil, repulsive creature!" writes a user on the Peta site. Consecutively, a girl from the community Aying in the Munich area came to the attention of the riled-up internet community: A user published name and telephone number of the eighteen-year-old student on the web.

Since then, the internet has developed into a nightmare for the girl: She is insulted by phone by callers from all over the world, even her life is threatened. Now, the police must protect the young woman. And all that just because an unknown person on the video platform Youtube claims that she is the girl who in a movie laughs while throwing cute puppies into a river.

"Since then, the girl is being strongly threatened," says police spokesman Peter Reichl. Police met with the family for a counselling conversation, instated various protection procedures and is investigating for insult, threatening, and false accusation. For one thing is certain: The blonde girl from the video certainly does not come from Aying. "The film has apparently been recorded in Bosnia," says Reichl.

Stuff like this is one of the reasons why vigilante justice should not be taken likely. I hope they nail the real perpetrator, but equally I hope that poor German girl's reputation is restored... and that nobody hurts her in the mistaken view that they're doing the world a favour.