News roundup, 8 April 2026

- Donald Trump has agreed to defer the annihilation of Iran's infrastructure for two weeks, following negotiations brokered by Pakistan. The Israelis are making it clear that they don't consider this to apply to Lebanon, and have continued to bomb that country, ostensibly in an attempt to root out Hezbollah.

- Some 25% of Pakistan's households now have solar power, meaning that the country has suffered a lot less from the surge in energy prices than most countries.  

- There are warnings that this summer's expected El Niño could be a big one, possibly a "super El Niño". Weather impacts in various parts of the world could be significant; in Canada it could mean a mild winter, but possibly more lake effect snow in southern Ontario if the Great Lakes don't ice up.

- Manitoba PC leader Obby Khan has been scolded by the Speaker of the legislature for a hateful comment made against Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara. Khan had initially denied making the remark as reported but a recording indicated otherwise; he has apologized.

- The Somali community in Minnesota is feeling more than a bit uneasy about living under the Trump regime. Many are seeking asylum in Canada; unfortunately new (and controversial) legislation may limit their ability to do so.

- New legislation in the UK will prohibit "no-fault evictions"; there has been a surge in such evictions in the leadup to the legislation taking effect next month. 

News roundup, 2 June 2025

- The tensions between India and Pakistan continue to seethe, though there at least has been a lull in the shooting. Pakistan is accusing India of violating international law by suspending the Indus Waters Treaty, which governs how much water India can take from the river system. India, for their part, are claiming that Pakistan has already violated the treaty by virtue of the terrorist attacks that India accuses Pakistan of being responsible for. Meanwhile China is threatening to give India a taste of its own medicine by holding back the headwaters of the Brahmaputra River in Tibet. This is all rather disconcerting given that all three countries are nuclear powers.

- Ukraine says that they have destroyed more than 40 Russian military aircraft in a drone attack. Russia is also reporting that two derailments in the border zone near Ukraine, which killed a total of seven people, were the result of sabotage. This is something the Americans should consider before they attempt to annex a country that's right next to them and filled with people who look like them.

- Rightwing historian Karol Nawrocki has won Poland's presidential runoff election by a margin of 50.9 to 49.1% over Warsaw mayor Rafal Trzaskowski. Nawrocki is expected to use the presidential veto power to block the pro-EU policies of prime minister Donald Tusk.

- A coal-fired power plant in Michigan was slated to close this past weekend but a new executive order from Donald Trump forces it to stay open, ostensibly to mitigate the risk of blackouts but no doubt actually to mitigate the risk of coal mining losing its economic relevance.

- A man armed with a makeshift flamethrower as well as several Molotov cocktails attacked a pro-Israel gathering in Boulder, Colorado; eight people were injured in the attack.

- The Manitoba government has rejected the City of Winnipeg's application to use a sulfur-based rodenticide to kill ground squirrels in city parks.

News roundup, 12 May 2025

- India and Pakistan have agreed to a ceasefire, though tensions still remain high and not all conflict ended immediately. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio claims that the two parties have agreed to talks on "a broad set of issues at a neutral site", but India denies agreeing to this.

- A recount in the Quebec riding of Terrebonne has given the riding to the Liberal candidate by a single vote over the Bloc Quebecois. This leaves the Carney government two seats short of a majority.

- When ICE agents attempted to apprehend a woman and her two children in Worcester, Massachusetts on Friday, around 25 angry residents swarmed the officers and asked to see their identification. The officers refused, and they called the local police for backup. The cops behaved as you'd expect them to. Some video can be seen here.

- Waterloo Region's Ion LRT system has been involved in an average of 15 collisions a year since the service rolled out in 2019. The collisions have not cost the region anything, as all of them were the fault of motorists whose insurance covered it, but it suggests that some motorists have a hard time adapting to the service that was rolled out six years ago.

- A team from the University of Manitoba's faculty of agriculture is working with Opaskwayak Cree Nation to set up a vertical farming operation in the community, which will produce fresh vegetables and herbs year-round.

- At the end of April, the city of Pickering, Ontario was debating a motion to do something about the tariffs imposed by Donald Trump, including redirecting the city's purchasing to non-American sources if possible. One councillor, Lisa Robinson, opposed the motion, saying "No to 'Elbows Up'!" Robinson has a long history of bleating about what a patriot she supposedly is while never knowing a far-right cause she didn't like (to the point of coming under criminal investigation for siccing her potentially violent followers on her colleagues).

News roundup, 9 May 2025

- Another exchange of fire between India and Pakistan has killed several civilians in the escalating tensions following the terror attack in Indian Kashmir last month. For his part, JD Vance has said that a potential war between the two countries is "none of our business". The problem is, when the two belligerents are nuclear powers, Vance's line of reasoning doesn't wash. Of course, the two countries have had skirmishes before without coming to disaster, but both countries have become more nationalistic and militaristic since then.

- Some of the cases of "freedom freckles" in southern Manitoba have not been connected with another identified case, suggesting that the disease is spreading faster than contact tracers can keep track of it. The province is considering lowering the vaccination age for children in the hope of protecting as many kids as possible - or at least as many kids with sensible parents as possible. Meanwhile Ontario has reported 200 new cases in the last week, mostly in the rural southwestern part of the province. Officially the entire US has had "only" 1,000 cases all year, though given the Trump regime's gutting of the CDC it's hard to know how many cases are flying under the radar. For instance, it's quite likely that they're depending more on data supplied by states than ever - and the states with the highest concentrations of antivaxxers are also the ones that probably don't collect a lot of public health data.

- Recounts are being held in several ridings following the recent Canadian federal election. In two of these ridings, Terrebonne and Milton East-Halton Hills South, the recounts are automatic, because the apparent winner's margin of victory was under 0.1% of votes cast. This has not stopped the Conservatives from claiming the Liberals are trying to "tip the scales" in a fundraising letter; this is alarming to those who don't want to see confidence in democracy further undermined.

- Marjorie Taylor Greene has actually criticized the Trump regime's policies for a mixture of being too crazy (plans to attack Iran) and not crazy enough (not having withdrawn approval of the COVID-19 vaccine yet). Greene no doubt has her eyes on the next primary, which is only a year away.

- WestJet has suspended nine routes to the US, including three out of Winnipeg (Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Orlando). They attribute this to reduced demand, and in the case of the Winnipeg-LA route also to the end of a provincial subsidy that was brought in by the previous government.

- The papal conclave has selected Robert Prevost, an American-born cardinal who served in Latin America for much of his career (he was appointed bishop of a Peruvian diocese, and later a cardinal, by the late Pope Francis). He will be known as Pope Leo XIV. He is the first pope from the US, and only the second from the Americas as a whole. He has been strongly critical of the policies of Donald Trump and JD Vance, which could make things interesting - especially given how rightwing many American Catholics are. And although Trump is putting on a brave face, this is not good news for the "MAGA Catholics" (which is to say, it is good news for almost everyone else).

- Lawyers for two young women who pleaded guilty to manslaughter in a beating death a year and a half ago are calling for leniency from the judge. One particular point stands out:

Keeper has an IQ below 50, has fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, and had a childhood that was “chaotic, unpredictable and full of abuse,” her lawyer Scott Newman told Court of King’s Bench Justice Chris Martin.

The minimum age for someone to be criminally prosecuted in this country is 12. It seems to me that someone with an IQ below 50 is probably less capable of knowing right from wrong than the average 11 year old; is the criminal justice system the right way to deal with such a person?

- Struggling actors who signed contracts allowing their likenesses to be used to train AIs have found, to their horror, that this is facilitating deepfake videos made with said likenesses - often promoting products and causes that they would never have agreed to actually film an ad for.

News roundup, 7 May 2025

- India launched missiles into the Pakistani-controlled part of Kashmir, killing a child and injuring two other people in a major escalation of tensions following terrorist attacks in the Indian-controlled part of the territory last month. Pakistan claims to have shot down two Indian aircraft in retaliation.

- Mark Carney met with Donald Trump yesterday as planned. Carney was diplomatic in discussing how the talks went; he did say they were "wide ranging" and "constructive", and said that the two leaders had "agreed to disagree" on whether Canada should join the US.

- Trump is considering imposing a 100% tariff on all foreign-produced films; exactly what would count as "foreign" for these purposes is a work in progress - the status of co-productions is uncertain. This could, however, be extremely damaging to the Canadian film industry. Myself, I'd be all in favour of slapping hefty reciprocal tariffs on American films if this were to occur - though that might be a hard sell for the masses if it meant that they didn't get to see the latest Marvel superhero flick.

- The Conservatives have chosen Regina-Qu'Appelle MP (and former leader) Andrew Scheer as their interim leader in Parliament until Pierre Poilievre can get elected in the coming byelection in Battle River-Crowfoot. Whether this will spur a new burst in sales of Queen's third album in Canada remains to be seen.

- Friedrich Merz has been elected chancellor of Germany following a second vote in the Bundestag. It's not clear who changed their votes the second time around, as this election is conducted by secret ballot. The resolution of this crisis has not silenced AfD leader Alice Weidel, who is calling for a new election.

- The municipality of Oak Bay, a suburb of Victoria, has passed a bylaw limiting noise from heat pumps - and only heat pumps (not regular air conditioners, for instance). They are limited to 50 dB, and 45 dB at night; for comparison, an average conversation is 60 dB. This apparently follows a complaint from a NIMBY named Thorsten Hanisch; I haven't been able to locate any social media from the guy, but I'd wager donuts to dollars that if it were unlocked we'd see a lot of pictures of big trucks on his page - trucks that make a heck of a lot more noise than any heat pump.

- Punk band Propagandhi has announced that they are cancelling all US dates of their upcoming tour due to "circumstances beyond our control". I assume this means either they were denied visas, or else a not unreasonable fear that they could end up in El Salvador. 

- A woman in Rochester, Minnesota who was caught on video screaming racial slurs at an autistic five year old child claims to have been doxxed online and that she needs help to relocate somewhere in the hope of avoiding the consequences of her behaviour. She has gone to GiveSendGo (basically GoFundMe for deplorables) to finance her relocation; so far she's raised over $700,000.

News roundup, 25 April 2025

- Gunfire was reported on the India-Pakistan border following escalating tensions over the massacre of tourists in Kashmir. India accuses Pakistan of shooting first; Pakistan has not commented on whether this is the case or not.

- The Hudson Bay Company, having filed for creditor protection last month, will be liquidating all of its merchandise at the six stores that had previously been spared this fate, after concluding that there was little chance of finding a buyer for those stores. More alarming to First Nations, historians, and UNESCO alike is the prospect of valuable historical artifacts being auctioned off. A court has just ruled that they can go up for auction; a lawyer representing the attorney general's office has requested that a catalogue of the artifacts be provided to him as well as to the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs before proceeding with such an auction.

- Russian authorities say a senior military officer, Yaroslav Moskalik, was killed in a car bombing in the city of Balashikha, near Moscow. The bomb was reportedly detonated remotely in a car parked along a route where Moskalik routinely walked. One hopes the Trump regime is paying attention to the kind of thing that happens when you try to take over a country whose citizens can easily pass for your own.

- Pierre Poilievre uses the word "woke" a lot, but he seems unable, or more likely unwilling, to give a clear and concise definition of it. The things that the word gets applied to can range from common decency to some things that actually are annoying, but if he doesn't want to tell you where his use of the word lies on that spectrum, you can guess pretty easily. He's also warning that the country will "face nothing but despair" if the Liberals win. That might well be true, but current polls suggest that most Canadians recognize that it's going to be even worse if the Conservatives win.

- Peel Regional Police officers summoned to the scene of a dispute at Pearson International Airport fatally shot a man, allegedly after he pointed a gun at them.

- As of the first of May, Manitobans will be legally able to do what residents of most other provinces (except Quebec) have been able to do for years - grow their own pot. One activist, however, thinks the change isn't good enough, because you're only allowed to grow it indoors. He argues that keeping it out of sight reinforces the "stigma" around cannabis. The thing is, even if it were allowed I don't think it would be such a great idea to grow pot outside - it's likely to be stolen anyway.

- Winnipeg's partnership with the 529 Garage bike registry has led to a 19% increase in the recovery rate of stolen bicycles.

- A Russian-born scientist at Harvard Medical School was detained by ICE and had her visa cancelled because she had neglected to declare biological specimens (specifically frog embryos) in her luggage as she returned from France. She says that this was an error, though a Homeland Security representative alleges that she had deliberately concealed them. She fears persecution if sent back to Russia due to her opposition to the war in Ukraine.

- Quebec's language watchdog has ordered Montreal's transit system, STM, to stop displaying slogans such as "GO! Canadiens GO!" on its buses - because "go" is an English word. Undaunted, STM has changed the slogan to "Allez! Canadiens Allez!"

News roundup, 24 April 2025

- Donald Trump is accusing Volodymyr Zelenskyy of jeopardizing the peace deal that Trump claims was "right around the corner", due to his unwillingness to surrender territory as part of the deal. Now it has to be admitted that Trump has a point of sorts when he says that Crimea "was lost years ago", but to expect Zelenskyy to just agree to this as part of a deal for which he wasn't even invited to the negotiations seems more than a little suspect.

- Trump is partially backing down on his threats against China, saying the tariffs will be coming down "substantially". He has also said that he no longer plans to fire Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell. Markets have rebounded somewhat in response to these announcements.

- A substantial number of Canadian snowbirds are selling their winter homes in the US, for reasons that should be increasingly obvious. Florida's housing market is taking a particular hit, given the state's relative proximity to Canada's largest population centres.

- Some unnamed Conservative Party sources suggest that Pierre Poilievre could be at risk of losing his own seat in the riding of Ottawa-Carleton. The party has apparently deployed a lot of campaign workers to that riding and others in the area in recent days. Liberal sources also indicate that their candidate, Bruce Fanjoy, is in a dead heat with Poilievre.

- A Swedish company, Candela, has set a new speed and range record for an electrically powered vessel. The P-12 is a hydrofoil developed for use as a ferry, with a range of 40 nautical miles and a top speed of 25 kt. All this with a battery less than twice the size of the ones in some electric cars. The main downside is that it only has the capacity for 30 passengers.

- Gunmen opened fire on tourists in Indian-controlled Kashmir, killing 26 people and wounding 17. The Indian government is blaming Pakistan for the attack, and has taken a number of measures, the most significant of which may be the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty. Several Pakistani officials warn that the unilateral suspension of the treaty is a violation of international law; an advisor to Pakistani prime minister Shehbaz Sharif went further, calling it an "act of war". This is not the kind of talk you want to hear in a dispute between two nuclear powers.

- A fund created by the Stefanson government in 2023 to subsidize WestJet flights between Winnipeg and two American cities (Los Angeles and Atlanta) has run out. Given the current political climate in the US, the Kinew government has no desire to top it up (myself, I wouldn't be in favour of doing that even under better circumstances). In any case, the demand for flights to the States is tanking; WestJet is reorienting their plans to offer more flights to Europe instead.

News roundup, 18 Jan 2024

- A man in Quebec who had circulated conspiracy theories about the 2023 wildfires having been set by the government in order to "trick" people into believing that climate change is real has pleaded guilty to setting some of the fires himself.

- The Republicans, and especially Donald Trump, are increasingly repellent to young voters. That may not hurt them too much in the short run, since older voters have a higher turnout, but those older voters aren't going to be around forever.

- Another issue for the Republicans - while many of them recognize the utility of advance voting, they're having a hard time getting the MAGA crowd to go along with it, because of Trump's messaging about it making for "crooked elections". At least one of their candidates believes that this contributed to her defeat.

- France has joined the ranks of those opposing South Africa's genocide accusation against Israel, although they are politely asking the Israelis to conduct themselves in a nicer manner, if only for their own sake.

- The "Leahy Law" is a piece of legislation introduced in 1997 which is supposed to prohibit the US State Department and the Department of Defense from providing military assistance to foreign militaries with problematic human rights records. One country in particular seems to enjoy an unofficial exemption, though. Guess which country.

- There has been an exchange of fire between Iran and Pakistan. Just in case you were worried that the Middle East and South Asia were getting boring...

- High-profile lawyer Brian Greenspan is withdrawing from the Nygard case for "ethical reasons". He says this is the first time in his 50 year career that he has made such an application. 

- Lac du Bonnet MLA Wayne Ewasko has been chosen as interim leader of the Manitoba PCs.

- A Republican member of the Kentucky legislature introduced a bill to amend the state's laws concerning incest. Under the proposed legislation it wouldn't be incest if it's just your cousin, although he's since withdrawn the bill following a backlash.

Extremists don't want a good crisis to go to waste

They're organizing in the flood-ravaged areas of Pakistan:

NOWSHERA, Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa province - The coalition government of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, the brainchild of the United States for an anti-Taliban political force that could effectively fight and support the American war in South Asia, has proved itself incompetent in the face of the country's unfolding flood disaster.

Devastating floods over the past month have affected more than 20 million people and laid waste a fifth of the country's land mass. The real fear now is that in the much-anticipated anarchy in the coming weeks, a fiercely anti-American Islamic revolution could break out if correct and timely steps are not taken as the waters recede and lay bare ruined lives.

From the Asia Times. No doubt the Taliban agitators are pointing out the fact that donations from the West are much less than for similar disasters (the Indian Ocean tsunami, the Haiti earthquake, etc), and insinuating that Islamophobia has something to do with it. Heck, Islamophobia probably does have something to do with it (though donor fatigue is probably a factor as well). And if extremists do take control of Pakistan, with its not insignificant nuclear arsenal, things could get very interesting indeed.

Another water war brewing?

A couple of months ago I mentioned the dispute between Egypt and its upstream neighbours over the waters of the Nile. Well, that's far from the only place on the planet where trouble is brewing over this essential resource:

The last time water issues pushed India and Pakistan to the brink of armed conflict was half a century ago, when Bashir Ahmad Malik was an engineering student. His government asked him to drop his graduate studies and join a team of experts urgently negotiating a way to share water between the rival countries.

“Both sides were threatening war,” he said. “India was shutting the canals, starving or flooding us.”

The Indus Water Treaty averted disaster when it was signed in 1960. Even when India and Pakistan did eventually go to war over different issues in the following decades, they continued to respect the water treaty.

But the agreement now seems to be unravelling. Dispute-resolution mechanisms, never invoked in the first four decades of the treaty, have been triggered twice in recent years. The latest round of talks broke down earlier this month, as the two sides failed to agree on a neutral umpire to settle a quarrel over India’s plans for the Kishanganga hydroelectric project in northern Kashmir.

Even the veteran water expert who assisted with the original negotiations now feels that the treaty was inadequate.

“At the time, we felt it would be all right,” Mr. Malik said. “But now, I don't think it was a good treaty for Pakistan.”

Loss of faith in the Indus Water Treaty comes at a time when water disputes between the nuclear-armed neighbours have reached unprecedented levels of bombast.

From the Globe. Scary times we live in...

Oil shortage looms in Pakistan

It's been reported that most of their refineries are on the verge of bankruptcy:

ISLAMABAD: The country may plunge into the worst imaginable energy crisis as virtually all refineries are teetering on the verge of financial default and may close down operations by Jan 15.

All the oil refineries of the country, currently working on a negative gross revenue margin, and with their borrowing limits already exhausted, are likely to shut down within the next two weeks following their expected default to retire the existing L/Cs to import crude oil. The shutdown would mean no oil supplies for thermal power generation plants and the picture turns outright dark.

This harrowing scenario of the looming crisis was given to The News by a senior functionary of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Source (h/t Rajiv in this iTulip thread). Of course, claims of this sort can't necessarily be taken at face value, but this seems considerably more credible than some other stories of this nature; Pakistan is dependent on imported fossil fuels for much of its electricity supply, and its government may not have the resources to bail out those refineries. If I was them, I'd be dropping subtle hints with the Americans about the effect on the war effort in Afghanistan in the event that Pakistan falls into crisis. I have a feeling that Uncle Sam would quietly cough up the necessary cash if it came to that.

The future of Pakistan?

It seems likely that the Afghan war would quickly end in utter defeat for NATO if Pakistan's regime collapsed. So what is the likelyhood of that? Canada Guy thinks this issue is worth a closer look (h/t to jblaque in one of the comments to this post):

Recent history in Pakistan seems to bear a similarity to events in Iran during the rule of the Shah. The recent leadership of Pakistan has been similar in several ways to that of the Shah. In both countries the leaders were strongly backed by the United States. Both were involved in repressing or attacking their own people. In Iran, this led the revolution of 1979 which created an Islamic Republic. Could something similar happen in Pakistan?

His conclusions aren't encouraging either:

Pakistan's alignment with the US and US interests appears to be the largest factor causing instability within that country. The majority of Pakistanis do not support this role nor any domestic government that follows it. I will predict that unless there is an election in Pakistan of a government that follows the will of its people more closely, the likelihood of a revolution, coup, or breakup will increase over time. Eventually the situation will become untenable, and one of these outcomes will come to pass.

So why the hell don't we get out of Afghanistan now, before this happens? It'll be a lot harder afterwards. And the consequences of a coup in Pakistan could go well beyond Afghanistan... it could conceivably include stuff like this.

War spills over into Cambodia...

...er, I mean Pakistan:

The war in Afghanistan spilled over on to Pakistani territory for the first time yesterday when heavily armed commandos, believed to be US Special Forces, landed by helicopter and attacked three houses in a village close to a known Taliban and al-Qaida stronghold.

The surprise attack on Jala Khel was launched in early morning darkness and killed between seven and 20 people, according to a range of reports from the remote Angoor Adda region of South Waziristan. The village is situated less than one mile from the Afghan border.

Local residents were quoted as saying that most of the dead were civilians and included women and children. It was not known whether any Taliban or al-Qaida militants or western forces were among the dead.

Furious official Pakistani condemnation of the attack followed swiftly, amid growing concern that the Nato-led war against the Taliban in Afghanistan could spread to Pakistan, sparking a region-wide conflagration.

From the Guardian, via this iTulip thread. So why the hell are we still helping the Yanks on their ill-advised adventure there? Oh well, at least we can win, just like the Soviets did before us, right?

Oh. Right.