ROME — Pope Francis denounced Russia’s “cruel and senseless war” on Ukraine Sunday, praying for Ukrainian victims and refugees.
“May there be peace for war-torn Ukraine, so sorely tried by the violence and destruction of the cruel and senseless war into which it was dragged,” the pontiff prayed in his yearly Easter Urbi et Orbi (to the city and the world) blessing before a crowd of 50,000 in Saint Peter’s Square.
Bjorn Lomborg: Obsession with climate change distorts our priorities
Over the past decade, the global elite’s obsession with climate change has taken away from the many other major problems facing the planet — shown most dramatically by the invasion of Ukraine. Western European leaders should have spent the past decade diversifying energy sources and expanding shale gas, instead of shutting down nuclear plants and becoming scarily reliant on Russia. But the looming war is far from the only thing they have managed to ignore.
Twitter’s attempts to stop entrepreneur Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, from buying the company by adopting a so-called “poison pill” defense may not be enough to stop Musk from succeeding in his quest to take over the company.
As Europe turns from its masochistic energy dependence on Russia, and the potential blackmail that came with it, will it now fall into the open arms of other dictatorships that stand ready to pump gas into its markets, such as such as Algeria? Even more dangerous might be a new partnership formed between Germany and Qatar. They have just agreed on a huge long-term energy partnership to reduce dependence on Russian gas, according to German Economy Minister Robert Habeck, who last month visited the Persian Gulf and met with the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani. Italy was the first to negotiate with Qatar, a country that, according to Freedom House, numbers 25 out of 100 on its the freedom score, only slightly above Russia, at 19.
Qatar is now saying that it stands “in solidarity” with Europe.
Does federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault know what’s in his own plan to reduce Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions?
He’s denying a Toronto Sun column by Kris Sims, B.C. Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, that his government is planning a new surtax on pickup trucks.
Russia is willing to use nuclear weapons to bring a catastrophic end to its invasion of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky warned last night – as he urged the world to ‘prepare’ for the worst by stocking up on anti-radiation medicine and building air raid shelters.
The comedian-turned-war time leader made the doomsday warning during an interview with national media, before sharing the clip via his Telegram channel.
He made a similar announcement on Friday, when he said it could not be ruled out that desperate Russian dictator Vladimir Putin would use tactical nukes, as his war against Ukraine continues to stall.
Unrest broke out in southern Sweden late on Saturday despite police moving a rally by an anti-Islam far-right group, which was planning to burn a Qur’an among other things, to a new location as a preventive measure.
Scuffles and unrest were reported in the southern town of Landskrona after a demonstration scheduled there by the Danish right-wing party Stram Kurs party was moved to the nearby city of Malmo, 27 miles south.
Opponents of Stram Kurs numbering up to 100 mostly young people threw stones, set cars, tires and dustbins on fire, and put up a barrier fence that obstructed traffic, Swedish police said. The situation had calmed down in Landskrona by late Saturday but remains tense, police said, adding no injuries were reported.
Die Aufstände der erzürnten Allahu-Akbar-Kämpfer in #Schweden weiten sich aus:
Nach #Linköping brennen jetzt weitere Städte!#Landskrona #Norrköping #Örebro pic.twitter.com/zB44u2O5g4— Hartes Geld (@Hartes_Geld) April 17, 2022
Des émeut*s ont éclaté pour la troisième soirée consécutive en Suède à Malmö et Landskrona contre le rassemblement du parti d'extrême droite anti-islam "Ligne Dure", qui organise actuellement une tournée dans le pays en brûlant le Coran lors de ses rassemblements. #Suede pic.twitter.com/6SVPZgz5OS
— Anonyme Citoyen (@AnonymeCitoyen) April 17, 2022
A Russian ultimatum for the last remaining Ukrainian troops holding out in the besieged port city of Mariupol to surrender has passed, as Moscow edged closer to full control of the city in what would be its biggest capture since it invaded Ukraine in February.
The city has been facing a humanitarian catastrophe for weeks, as Russian tanks advanced towards the centre, razing neighbourhoods along the way. The number of civilians killed in the siege is unknown. The Ukrainian-controlled council has accused Russian soldiers of collecting bodies and incinerating them in a mobile crematorium.
Ukraine says it will continue to defend Mariupol and officials reject Russian surrender ultimatum
'Ukraine's armed forces are now fighting Russians from many directions,' says Vitalii Rybak from @InternewsUA pic.twitter.com/tEbdQAtrjf
— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) April 17, 2022
Ukraine war: Trucks stuck at Poland-Belarus border as EU sanctions deadline passes
A huge queue of trucks has formed on the Poland-Belarus border as Russian and Belarussian drivers try to leave the EU following a sanctions deadline.
In the run-up to the Saturday deadline, the line extended to 80km (60 miles), with some stuck for up to 33 hours.
The EU has banned lorries from Russia and Belarus – except those carrying medicine, mail or petroleum products – from entering or staying in the bloc.
#Ukraine: Two civilian vehicles, apparently operated by Russian forces, were ambushed by the Ukrainian side, with the weapons inside looted. pic.twitter.com/2wh9aYO0xl
— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) April 16, 2022
Five men were injured early Saturday morning when someone opened fire on a group of men who had just finished midnight prayers in Scarborough, Toronto police say. The victims range in age from 28 to 35 years.
Acting staff supt. David Rydzik says that around 1 a.m., a group of individuals celebrating the Islamic holy month of Ramadan gathered in a parking lot to discuss where to eat.
Rydzik says the group was “randomly attacked” in a drive-by shooting, adding that there’s no information to suggest that the victims are involved in any type of criminality.
I HAVE some encouraging news for this special weekend, as we focus on the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. The trial of open-air preacher Pastor John Sherwood took place at Uxbridge magistrates’ court last week, and he was acquitted of the public order charges brought against him. This represents some welcome relief in the assault upon Christian liberties in contemporary Britain.
Ohio Professor Wins Settlement in Preferred Pronoun Case
A measure of sanity returns to the world of pronouns.
San Francisco lost a whopping 6.7 percent of its population during the COVID-19 pandemic, the second-largest percentage drop after New York.
Since the 1970s, California policymakers have embarked on a land-use strategy designed to promote “urbanism”—the idea that we all ought to live in dense housing developments, that suburban sprawl should be limited by government planning restrictions, and rural land should be protected for farming and open space.
During his first stint as governor, Jerry Brown oversaw a report called, “An Urban Strategy for California.” In it, the state detailed a policy we’ve seen play out in the ensuing decades. The goal was to “create a more compact urban environment” and curb “wasteful urban sprawl” by focusing new construction in “existing cities and suburbs.”
His attempted takeover of Twitter has revealed just how terrified the liberal elites are of freedom of speech.
We stand here on the edge of tyranny… Elon Musk wants to buy Twitter. That, roughly speaking, has been the commentariat reaction in recent days as the world’s richest man has launched a takeover attempt of the social-media giant, citing his concerns about its censorious policies as his main motivation.
Musk revealed last week that he had become Twitter’s largest shareholder, with a 9.2 per cent stake. Now he’s offered to buy the whole company for a cool $43 billion, a nice premium on its current worth. As it stands, Twitter’s board is resisting and America’s great and good have gone berserk.
Look no further than Junior’s efforts to censor the web.
In 1946, the American author John Gunther described Houston as “mostly ugly and barren, without a single good restaurant and hotels with cockroaches”. The only reasons to live in the city, he claimed, were financial; it was a place “where few people think about anything but money”.
This view was widespread at the time, and has lingered well into the 21st century. Forget Houston. New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles are the cities most frequently associated with the urban American dream.
In her classic memoir, Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys, Viv Albertine recounts not only the time she spent as a punk during the 1970s in her pioneering band the Slits, but also documents her life after the band had ended. This is unusual. Most music books don’t venture into this territory, tending to stop when the hits stop, thereby drawing a veil over what happens next. The unspoken suggestion seems to be that, were it to continue, the story would descend helplessly into misery memoir.
A fitting piece on rebirth during Easter.
The rest of the world is noticing the West’s pronoun madness, trans madness, grooming madness, and other evils, and is drawing the obvious conclusions. The deputy commander-in-chief for coordination of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), General Mohammad-Reza Naghdi, said in a recent interview on Iranian TV that Europeans were losing the sense of their own national identity, and that the Western lifestyle had placed European societies on the path to extinction. He could have said exactly the same thing about the United States of America.
