News roundup, 30 April 2026

- The price of oil has reached its highest level since 2022 following reports that the US is considering new attacks on Iran and that the country's ports could be blockaded for months.

- The United Arab Emirates has announced that they will be withdrawing from OPEC as of tomorrow. While this will probably not have an immediate impact on oil prices (UAE oil still has to pass through the Strait of Hormuz) it will be perceived as a win for Trump, who has railed against OPEC for a long time.

- Several human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, have issued travel advisories for the US in the leadup to the World Cup.

- Buying a business jet to fly himself around in is far from the worst thing Doug Ford has done in terms of actual impacts on Ontario and its people (just consider all the measures he's taken against sensible urbanist policies by municipal governments, for instance), but it seems to be the one thing that could cause problems for his reelection - his party is now in a statistical tie with the Liberals according to a recent poll. That said, the jet purchase was bad enough, especially given that the aircraft wouldn't have been able to use small airports anyway.

- Bell Canada is opening a data centre in the Centreport complex in Rosser, Manitoba, just outside Winnipeg. While this is in keeping with an announcement last fall from the premier that more data centres would be built to support "sovereign AI", many are questioning whether this is the best use of the 5.5 MW of electricity it requires (enough to power thousands of homes).

- Former Mount Royal University professor Frances Widdowson, who has come under fire for her, er, "alternative" understanding of the residential school system, was escorted off the University of Lethbridge campus and fined $600 for trespassing. Widdowson had been the subject of a trespass notice by the university since February when she attempted to hold an unsanctioned event on campus that drew a large number of protesters.

News roundup, 19 Sept 2025

- Denmark held a large military exercise in Greenland this week, the largest in the territory's history. They invited several NATO allies, but pointedly left the US off the invite list.

- Alberta premier Danielle Smith's approval rating has declined to 46%. Despite this, other polling indicates that Smith and her United Conservative Party would win handily over Naheed Nenshi's NDP if an election were held today.

- The New York Times reports that the Trump regime approved the export of advanced computer technology to the United Arab Emirates only two weeks after the UAE invested $2 billion in World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency startup founded by Trump, his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, and their families.

- Elon Musk spoke at the gigantic anti-immigration rally held in the UK by far-right activist Tommy Robinson over the weekend, and declared that "violence is coming" to the country. This brings to mind the notorious "rivers of blood" speech given by MP Enoch Powell in 1968. Musk also called for a change of government, and it's a safe bet that he will do his utmost to ensure that happens.

- Insiders reporting on the executive meetings following the Jimmy Kimmel episode that got the show cancelled say that multiple executives acknowledged that Kimmel hadn't said anything that crosses a line, but that senior execs feared retaliation from Trump. The fears may not have been unfounded; FCC chair Brendan Carr had hinted in an interview that ABC affiliates might have difficulty renewing their broadcast licenses if something wasn't done to "take action" on Kimmel.

- Two Utah men were arrested after an incendiary device was placed under a vehicle owned by a media outlet in Salt Lake City. The device did not go off. And a Texas man was arrested for making threats against New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. I guess they're all counting on getting a presidential pardon.

News roundup, 29 May 2025

- A provincewide state of emergency has been declared in Manitoba due to the wildfires in the north and east. Around 17,000 people have been evacuated, including the entire city of Flin Flon as well as the First Nations communities of Pimicikamak and Pukatawagan and the Northern Affairs community of Cross Lake. Most of the evacuees are being sent to Winnipeg; a reception centre has been set up at an arena in the northewestern part of the city. The military is being brought in to assist.

- Besides the various other provisions in the omnibus bill that Donald Trump has dubbed the "One, Big, Beautiful Bill" such as the ban on AI regulation, the bill also effectively tears up a Canada-US tax treaty that has been in place since 1942. This is presented as a retaliatory measure against taxes that Trump considers to be unfair, such as the digital services tax introduced in 2024. The bill has yet to clear the Senate but this is expected to occur, and Trump expects to sign it into law in time for the 4th of July. More interesting, though, is the fact that Elon Musk is criticizing the bill for increasing the deficit, saying that it undermines his own work at DOGE, and is now leaving his role with the regime.

- Despite the Trump regime slapping tariffs on countries near and far, some countries are getting sweetheart deals. Among them are Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which Trump presumably likes because they don't do that nasty democracy stuff and buy lots of American ordinance to drop on Yemen.

- Two Calgary lawyers with the so-called "Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms" are facing possible disbarment for dishonourable professional conduct after they hired a private investigator to spy on the judge hearing one of their cases.

- A Hamilton landlord has been fined $100,000 for four illegal "renovictions". Under the law, tenants evicted for renovations are entitled to "right of first refusal" for their old units, but the landlord immediately offered the units to other people at more than double the rents the original tenants were paying. Evidently he hoped the authorities wouldn't do anything about it; surprisingly, they did.

- Two human smugglers convicted after a family of four froze to death attempting to cross the Canada-US border in January of 2022 have received substantial prison sentences in a Minnesota court. The ringleader was given a ten year sentence; the driver sent to pick them up got 6½ years.

- Germany is offering to host a satellite campus for Harvard University so non-Americans can still attend the institution.

- The Swiss village of Blatten, population around 300, was devastated by a landslide that resulted from the partial collapse of a glacier. One person has been reported missing.

Dubai gets their bailout

Abu Dhabi waited till the last minute, but they've come to Dubai's rescue:

Dubai's government has said it has received $10bn from Abu Dhabi to help it repay an Islamic bond and fund the troubled property developer Dubai World.

The announcement on Monday came as Nakheel, the property development unit of the Dubai World investment fund, was due to settle the $4.1bn bond.

The move by Abu Dhabi follows weeks of uncertainty in Gulf stock markets prompted by Dubai World's request on November 25 for more time to pay $26bn in debt.

From Al Jazeera. Presumably, Dubai is "too big to fail" from Abu Dhabi's point of view, and the rest of the world seems relieved as well, given the reaction of global markets.

UAE aids banks amid Dubai meltdown

Probably there was no good alternative. The question is, will this help?

The United Arab Emirates' central bank said Sunday it has notified domestic and foreign banks with branches in the country that they would have access to "a special additional liquidity facility."

The offer comes after Dubai World, the conglomerate that has long been the chief engine behind Dubai's explosive growth, announced Wednesday it needed at least a six-month reprieve from paying its nearly $60-billion US debt. The news sent global markets tumbling.

Mideast markets were unaffected because of an extended Islamic holiday, but they reopen Monday.

"There is concern," said John Sfakianakis, chief economist at the Riyadh, Saudi Arabia-based Banque Saudi Fransi-Credit Agricole Group. "They're trying to take preventive measures in order to lower the risk of a run on the local banks."

"Depositors could very well panic … and they could decide to take their money out of the banking system," he added.

The UAE has been guaranteeing bank deposits since October 2008, but the pledge for new help at generous terms stems from concern that UAE banks have some of the biggest exposure to Dubai World's debt. Several have been downgraded by international ratings agencies or been placed on review for downgrades.

CBC

An interesting tidbit

Fiat Currency, in this iTulip thread, has pointed out something rather interesting about the stock market turmoil in the wake of Dubai's troubles:

A computer crash at the London Stock Exchange, which by coincidence is 21 per cent owned by the Dubai Government, left dealers unable to trade for three and a half hours.

From the Times of London (UK). Also interesting that their impending default was announced on American Thanksgiving, perhaps in the hope that an across-the-board selloff could be averted. So far, it doesn't seem to be working.

Edited to add: Looks like the timing was indeed deliberate:

Just after 4pm on Wednesday, his Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum wrote on his Facebook page: "I would like to congratulate all UAE citizens and Muslims around the world on the advent of Eid Al Adha."

The flood of replies started instantly: the tech-savvy Ruler of Dubai is a favourite with young Muslims.

But among the well-wishes a few rogue messages started to slip through, tarnishing the illusion that all was well: "Good lucky buddy it looks like you bit more than you can chew. Hopefully Abu Dhabi can bail you out," said one.

Another read: "May the clouds of despair flow away from the country." And another: "I wish you all the power and wisdom to guide your country through this difficult times."

The Sheikh's holiday message had co-incided with the announcement from his government that Dubai World, the key conglomerate behind some of the emirate's most ambitious projects, was seeking to delay the repayment of its debts.

Released after the markets shut, ahead of the 10-day Eid holiday and the Thanksgiving break in America, the notice was designed to have minimum impact. It wasn't the Dubai government's first miscalculation.

From the Telegraph. Still unclear how this will pan out, but it makes the average investor a bit nervous, that's for sure. It probably makes the average Emirates resident downright terrified, for reasons we've already seen.

Another bump in the road to economic recovery

Markets around the world are in turmoil yet again, this time because Dubai's economic development agency has, er, a cash flow problem:

The global stock slump was in response to Wednesday's surprise announcement of an overhaul of Dubai World, the state-run organization that holds almost three-quarters of the Middle Eastern country's total debt. As part of the restructuring, Dubai World's creditors were asked to hold off on requiring debt repayments until at least May 30, 2010.

Funny thing is, the word "default" doesn't even appear in that article, but what else do you call it when they tell their creditors they can't pay for six months?

Dubai is actually a truly strange place, if this story is any indication. The United Arab Emirates, which includes Dubai, has the largest per capita carbon footprint of any nation, owing largely to the energy needed for desalination. And those desalination plants are expensive to run. So what if they can't afford to?

If a recession turns into depression, Dr Raouf believes Dubai could run out of water. "At the moment, we have financial reserves that cover bringing so much water to the middle of the desert. But if we had lower revenues – if, say, the world shifts to a source of energy other than oil..." he shakes his head. "We will have a very big problem. Water is the main source of life. It would be a catastrophe. Dubai only has enough water to last us a week. There's almost no storage. We don't know what will happen if our supplies falter. It would be hard to survive."

Crazy. I wonder if Raouf is right? You'd think the water supply would be kept going above all else, but...

And what would happen if a resident of Dubai were to default on his or her debts the way Dubai World has? Dubai actually still has debtors' prisons. A bit of an irony...