News roundup, 21 April 2026

- A Canadian tourist was shot dead at a popular tourist site in Mexico. Another Canadian, as well as three Columbians (one of them a child), a Russian, and a Dutch national were wounded; the shooter, a Mexican citizen, killed himself. The motive for the attack is unknown.

- The continued closure of the Strait of Hormuz threatens to significantly disrupt food production around the world, due to the huge amounts of fertilizer shipped through the strait. In wealthy countries this will primarily mean higher prices, but in poorer countries it could very well lead to famine. 

- Florida's orange industry is undergoing a catastrophic decline, due to a combination of invasive pests, excessive glyphosate use, hurricanes and other weather events, as well as changing public tastes. The state produced 242 million boxes in 2003; this year's harvest is being optimistically projected at 12 million. 

- Doug Ford has abruptly backtracked on a plan to spend nearly $30 million of public money on a business jet to fly him around (dubbed the "gravy plane" by critics), while continuing to spout a torrent of whataboutery and claims of persecution regarding the matter. This includes a claim that Quebec did the same thing, when in fact the jets purchased by that province were for medevac purposes, not for the premier's use.

- Brokenhead Ojibway Nation has purchased a Winnipeg clothing manufacturer. Freed & Freed International Ltd. manufactures jackets for the Canadian Armed Forces as well as the RCMP and Canada Post; the First Nation hopes that this will provide their community with employment opportunities.

- The Rural Municipality of Alexander in eastern Manitoba attempted to ban a disruptive resident from council meetings, but a court has ruled that while they can remove him from a meeting if he actually behaves in a disruptive manner, they do not have the authority to ban him from future meetings, at least without an injunction or similar measure.

- Residents of the Rural Municipality of Sherwood in Saskatchewan are up in arms about the approval of a Bell Canada data centre in the municipality. Adding to residents' frustration is the fact that most of the councillors were appointed by the province to replace councillors who resigned en masse last month, leaving the council without quorum.

- An Israeli soldier took an axe to a statue of Jesus in the predominantly Christian Lebanese village of Debel. This was too much even for Benjamin Netanyahu, who has vowed that the soldier will be punished.

News roundup, 23 June 2025

- The US hit three Iranian nuclear facilities on Sunday; they claim that this is "not about regime change" but merely to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. This sounds kind of odd given that Trump tore up an agreement during his first term that actually seemed to be working in that regard, but I guess we're not supposed to talk about that. They claim that Iran's nuclear weapons capacity has been "totally obliterated"; one hopes that this is a pretext to not get involved any further, but that might be too much to hope for. Iran and Israel continue to bombard each other in any case. 

- Israeli tanks fired into a crowd of people lining up for food aid in Gaza last Tuesday, killing 59 people. The IDF says it "regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals". Wording is key, of course, because people who were harmed by the attack are "involved" by definition. So really they have no regrets whatsoever I guess.

- The US Senate's parliamentarian, an official advisor who is responsible for interpreting the upper house's rules, has ruled that the Trump regime's plans to eliminate two federal agencies (the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Office of Financial Research) cannot be included in the "one big, beautiful bill". This ruling can be ignored if a 60-vote supermajority votes to do so, or if the chair of the Senate really wants to ignore it (or is sufficiently afraid of Trump's brownshirts to do so regardless of their own preferences). Interestingly, though, this isn't the only problem the bill has encountered in the Senate - three hardline fiscal conservatives are threatening to vote against it because it doesn't go far enough for their liking.

- New modeling has concluded that even under a "moderate" emissions scenario, significant declines can be expected in the production of six staple crops - maize (corn), soybean, rice, wheat, cassava, and sorghum. The changes will not be distributed evenly (either by crop or by geography); there will be increases in some crops in some places, for instance. Most alarming though is the fact that there will be significant declines in production in areas that are major global producers. For instance, wheat production in Canada, the US, Europe, and Russia is expected to show modest declines - which will probably be addressed by reduction in exports and an increased hostility to immigration. I'm certainly not seeing any reason to doubt Gwynne Dyer's gloomy prediction that this will end with rich countries shooting migrants at their borders.

- France is considering prohibiting social media access for children under 15. They, along with Spain and Greece, are proposing an EU-wide policy, but say that they will move ahead unilaterally if there is no progress within a few months. This is a good policy if it can be enforced, but that's a big if.

Drought in China may have far-reaching effects

The world's most populous country faces significant food supply problems:

HONG KONG — The United Nations’ food agency issued an alert on Tuesday warning that a severe drought was threatening the wheat crop in China, the world’s largest wheat producer, and resulting in shortages of drinking water for people and livestock.

China has been essentially self-sufficient in grain for decades, for national security reasons. Any move by China to import large quantities of food in response to the drought could drive international prices even higher than the record levels recently reached.

“China’s grain situation is critical to the rest of the world — if they are forced to go out on the market to procure adequate supplies for their population, it could send huge shock waves through the world’s grain markets,” said Robert S. Zeigler, the director general of the International Rice Research Institute in Los Baños, in the Philippines.

From the New York Times. This is good news, in the short run, for grain farmers in North America who will benefit from the higher prices, but it will be very bad for a lot of the world. Already, many point to food prices as a major contributing factor to the political unrest in the Middle East, and in even poorer parts of the world (such as sub-Saharan Africa) the consequences will be worse still.

Food prices continue to rise

It's happening around the world, and there's no sign of an end to it any time soon:

Food prices have soared to record levels around the world, raising fears that poor countries could face a crisis similar to the one that led to rioting and rationing two years ago.

“We are entering a danger territory,” Abdolreza Abbassian, an economist at the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) told reporters Wednesday.

From the Globe. And what are the main reasons for this?

Prices for many agricultural commodities started rising last fall largely because of poor grain crops in Canada, Russia and Ukraine. They have spiked even higher recently because of dry weather in Argentina, a major soybean producer, and flooding in parts of Australia, which has wiped out many wheat crops. The price of wheat has jumped about 17 per cent in the last month while corn is up 11 per cent. Both are now close to two-year highs. Other food staples have been soaring as well, including canola, up 43 per cent last year, and sugar, which hit 30-year highs.

Now it's premature to say that this is clearly because of climate change; it's always a bit dodgy to attribute any particular weather event to climate change (or, for that matter, to claim it as a counterexample). However, I think it's safe to say that this sort of thing will become more common as the climate suffers further disruption.

Naturally, when countries suffer from poor crops, some of them will impose restrictions on the export of said crops. Governments generally want to ensure that their own people are fed first, after all. Well, some don't think this should be allowed:

The environment minister, Caroline Spelman, today risked incurring the wrath of many major food-growing countries by saying it should be illegal to halt food exports even at times of national crisis.

In a clear reference to Russia and the Ukraine, which temporarily halted exports of wheat and other grains in order to protect supplies for their own people during an unprecedented heatwave last year, she said no country should be allowed to interfere with the global food commodity market.

From the Guardian. Of course, Spelman presumably doesn't think that commodity speculators should be restricted from such interference; that's part of business after all. It's only when sovereign nations do so for the benefit of their own people that it becomes unacceptable.

Incidentally, thanks to NAFTA, Canada faces a similar restriction with regards to energy. If we face a shortage in the future (say a reduction in the flows of the Saskatchewan and Churchill rivers as a result of melting glaciers) and need to reduce our energy exports, any reduction in exports must be proportionate to a reduction in domestic consumption -- even if it means brownouts here. This makes no sense with energy, and it makes no sense with food either.

One of those nasty things they like to slip into trade agreements

You may or may not have heard proposals for free trade with the European Union. On the surface this sounds like it could be okay; at least it would provide another market to lessen our dependence on the US. However, the devil is always in the details with these things. The Star article linked there points out some concerns, including the fact that provisions of Ontario's Green Energy Act that require domestic sourcing may run afoul of this agreement. However, the article fails to mention some of the more unsettling aspects:

Eliminate the Right to Save Seed?

The trade deal would almost entirely eliminate the rights of farmers to save, reuse and sell seed.

Plant varieties can be protected as intellectual property through Plant Breeders Rights as well as patents on genes. The trade deal would give rights holders an unprecedented degree of control over seeds and farming by committing Canada to adopt UPOV'91, the draconian 1991 version of The International Convention for the Protection of New Plant Varieties. The inclusion of UPOV'91 in the deal is completely unnecessary and is excessively harmful to Canadian farmers. Seed breeders would have the right to collect royalties on seed at any point in the food chain!

The draft of the trade deal also says that biotech corporations could seize the crops, equipment, and farms, and freeze the bank accounts of farmers who are deemed patent infringers, like farmers who find unwanted contamination in their fields.

End Supply Management?

The deal would commit Canada to reducing or eliminating agricultural subsidies and other government supports to farmers over time. Supply management systems that have allowed farmers in the dairy, poultry, and egg sectors to earn a decent living are under attack. The Canadian Wheat Board (a farmer controlled grain marketer) is also very likely under threat.

Source (h/t pogge). They've been trying to do this for some time, of course; we'd best be vigilant to ensure they don't succeed. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if the EU is more leery of it than our own government, but we shouldn't count on that to scuttle the deal.