A Russian journalist who burst on to a live TV news programme to protest against the war in Ukraine has been reported missing overnight.
Marina Ovsyannikova, an editor at state-controlled Channel 1, was detained after she ran on to the set on Monday holding an anti-war sign.
The sign, clearly visible for a few seconds, read: “No war, stop the war, don’t believe the propaganda, they are lying to you here.”
Her whereabouts are now unknown.
Ukraine’s president Zelenskyy likely to ask for more than Canada or NATO can give
OTTAWA – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will address parliamentarians in Ottawa on Tuesday, but his major request is likely more than Canada or other Western nations can give.
… Zelenskyy is set to speak to MPs through a videoconference link at 11:15 Tuesday morning. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the opposition leaders are expected to speak as well.
Ontario confirms 16 more COVID-19 deaths, 220 in ICU
Ontario confirmed 16 more COVID-19 deaths on Tuesday as ICU occupancy continued to decline.
The Ministry of Health says 13 of the deaths occurred in the past month and three happened more than a month ago.
220 people are in ICU with #COVID19. 77% of patients admitted to the ICU were admitted for COVID-19 and 23% were admitted for other reasons but have tested positive for COVID-19.
There are 1,076 new cases of COVID-19.
— Christine Elliott (@celliottability) March 15, 2022
Canadians sharply and evenly divided over Trudeau’s pandemic performance, poll suggests
A new poll says public opinion on the political response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada is deeply divided, with those polled split evenly on the question of how Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has handled the emergency.
The poll, conducted by the Angus Reid Institute in partnership with CBC, found that 48 per cent of Canadians say Trudeau has done a “good” or “very good” job during the pandemic so far.
Another 48 per cent said Trudeau has done a “bad” or “very bad” job.
More than a year after President Joe Biden killed the Keystone XL project, support for the pipeline has surged in the U.S. in the wake of the country’s ban on the import of Russian oil, a new poll shows.
The exclusive poll of Americans conducted by Maru Public Opinion for Postmedia found that 71 per cent of Americans think Biden should give an executive order to “green light the restart of the building of the Keystone XL pipeline that would transport oil from Canada’s oil sands region through the Midwest to refineries in Texas.”
Anybody want to take bets that Joe Biden will know what to do when the next crisis hits? His presidency is one crisis after another, and his record, well…
The next crisis is bound to be a doozy.
Based on Russia’s horrible war against Ukraine, grain and fertilizer prices are skyrocketing and shortages are on the way. Ukraine’s and Russia’s customers already are hoarding supplies. Based on the little-discussed stories out there, this crisis is bound to be felt in all countries, and looks certain to happen. Joe, of course, is nowhere to be found on this, as we shall shortly see.
The public esteems the Marines for their discipline and toughness. Like their bulldog mascot, Marines latch onto an enemy and don’t let go. They stand ready to fight in any clime or place — until recently.
A few years ago, policy-makers advocated a “pivot” to the Pacific, concerned that China was building forts on atolls in the South China Sea. The commandant of the Marine Corps immediately proclaimed a counter. Small groups of Marines would move into unoccupied islands in the South China Sea, after receiving permission from the host nations. From those islands, they could then fire missiles to sink Chinese warships. Congress joined the press and policy-makers in praising this dramatic initiative, launched in haste and with scant consultation.
The scope and strength of western sanctions seem to have surprised Beijing
Joe Biden appears to be trying to force China’s hand over Ukraine. This follows days during which Beijing has tied itself in knots, offering to play a “positive role” for peace, but refusing to criticize Russia — avoiding even calling the invasion an invasion, and echoing Moscow’s justifications.
US officials at the weekend briefed American news outlets that Russia has asked China to provide military equipment, and requested additional economic assistance to help cushion the impact of Western sanctions. The officials, keen to protect their intelligence sources, declined to say precisely what Russia was seeking, nor what China’s response had been. But they said they were watching closely and warned of “consequences” should Beijing come to Russia’s aid.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ strikes may indicate that Iran is growing more emboldened and willing to directly retaliate with ballistic missiles against its adversaries.
On Sunday, March 13, Iran launched nearly a dozen Fateh-110 ballistic missiles at targets in Erbil, northern Iraq, close to the United States Consulate compound. The attack injured at least two people and caused significant damage to a number of cars and properties, including to the Kurdistan 24 newsroom. It also heightened concerns about additional escalation amid the floundering efforts to revive the nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
The moral defeatism of the West stands in stark contrast to the valiance of Ukraine.
Of the millions of words uttered about the war in Ukraine, the most pertinent came from Olexander Scherba. He’s a Ukrainian diplomat. He was the Ukrainian ambassador to Austria from 2014 to 2021. And like other members of Ukraine’s political class, he has been doing the media rounds this past fortnight, eloquently making the case for his nation’s right to resist the Russian onslaught. A few days ago he took to Twitter to express irritation. ‘Every time I give an interview to Western media I get a feeling that they want us to give up’, he said. Then he posed a question that ought to make our commentariat engage in some serious self-reflection. What’s behind this moral defeatism infecting the media elites, he wondered? ‘[Is] it because they know they wouldn’t be fighting like us if they were in our shoes?’
Putin doesn’t need a reason to kill
Why did Smerdyakov kill cats? Just because. The lackey is one of the most washed-out faces in Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. He is inconspicuous, elusive, slippery, always hiding, always doing things on the sly. And yet behind this mask of anonymity there lies something frightening: a compulsion to do evil for its own sake. When Smerdyakov is introduced, we learn of him that “as a child he was fond of hanging cats and then burying them with ceremony”.
The armorer for Rust is not letting Alec Baldwin off the hook for last year’s tragic on-set shooting in New Mexico that killed one member of the Western film’s staff and injured another.
Responding to Baldwin’s recent court filing in which he tried to evade liability, armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed insisted he violated gun safety protocols.
To strike at the coalition of truck drivers demonstrating against his government’s vaccine mandates, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau ordered financial institutions to search customer records and sanction both the protesters and those who had given financial support to them. Banks investigated the accounts of anyone identified by the government as being a participant or a donor and froze them, all without warrants or court approval. This was a manifestation of expanding state power, which would have been unimaginable just a couple of years ago in a democracy.
These stories have become as ubiquitous and annoying as that 1-877- Kars 4 Kids jingle.
A “white supremacist” writes something racist on a school wall. The students are SHOCKED! How could a drooling, white nationalist goober infiltrate their scholastic utopia? (Was it the janitor???) The angry students skip class to protest the hatred! White students tearfully rally around their black friends and vow to protect them from the tiki-torch-wielding bushwhackers who are likely patrolling the streets at night, noose in hand, looking for a minority to lynch.
Russian soldiers have shot people dead in the street as they took over Ukrainian villages, according to fleeing residents.
Soldiers shot randomly at buildings, threw grenades down roads and went from house to house confiscating phones and laptops, witnesses said.
Online groups created for family members or friends looking for information about people in affected areas are receiving hundreds or even thousands of requests a day.
#Ukraine: Russian Ka-52 helicopters hitting at least one 2S1 Gvozdika SPG of the Ukrainian Army. pic.twitter.com/ZphuIJyq1i
— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) March 14, 2022
#Ukraine: Ukrainian farmers found themselves another two MT-LB, it seems. (We also see a burned out truck) pic.twitter.com/XOaxrdga2a
— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) March 14, 2022
America is moving into what might be the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the virus – and potentially regular shots for it – may be around for long into the future.
How long can not yet be determined, though, and even some of the world’s top health experts can not give solid answers as to how many shots people will need, and for how long.
Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, told CNBC in an interview published Monday that he was unsure what was next for Covid vaccines, but he is confident that more will be needed down the line.
