From Cork to Toronto

From the Daily Times in Lahore, Pakistan, Farrukh Saleem addresses the murder of Aqsa Parvez in Mississauga, Ontario by her father. Here's an excerpt from a stunningly direct analysis: Honour killing is our export to Canada. Women who do not wear hijab are not virtuous. Hijab is a Muslim woman’s identity. Hijab is religion. Hijab is the sixth pillar. Hijab symbolises sexual modesty. The West is conspiring to crush Islamic identity. Fact or fiction? Here’s a fact: Aqsa has been murdered. For us, denial is not an option. According to the United Nations Population Fund more than 5,000 women worldwide fall victim to honour killing. Denial is not an option. According to the UN’s Special Rapporteur “honour killings had been reported in Egypt, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, the Syrian Arab Republic, Turkey and Yemen”. Egypt is 90 percent Muslim, Iran 98 percent, Jordan 92 percent, Lebanon 60 percent, Morocco 99 percent, Pakistan 97 percent, the Syrian ...

China has decided that talking about a medical condition in its country is not a good thing . After all, a code of silence worked so well with SARS , and everyone's already forgotten about the non-existent melamine contamination , right?

Do we thank the Greens for this ? It will be interesting to see how the votes in the Dail go, and how soon the bill is introduced, especially since the FF-PD government refused to assent to Labour's "half-a-marriage bill" last year. There's probably enough votes to pass civil unions as a government bill, but the telegraph wires between Rome and the Nuncio in Dublin must be red hot and a "belt of the crozier" can't be ruled out. An improvement in the status of LGBT citizens in Ireland can't come too soon , it seems.

The CBC are still on the " greatest something or other bandwagon ". In addition to choosing the Seven Wonders of Canada they are asking Canadians to vote on Facebook for a wish , the most popular wishes to be announced on the CBC on Canada Day. Big Blue Wave urges its readers to support "Abolish Abortion in Canada" which at time of writing currently leads the list with 1223 votes . Sixth is "Restore the traditional definition of marriage". Fortunately there is also a wish that Canada would remain pro-choice , that Bob Cole would retire , and that we celebrate what binds us, instead of what divides us . I'm up for all of those.

Robert Mugabe's laundry list expands further, adding to persecution of homosexuals disenfranchisement and persecution of opponents gerrymandering of the Courts provider of State mercenaries thief of productive land to reward the returning mercenaries election rigger unwanted guest . Now he gives haven to Mengistu Haile Mariam , convicted with a life term for genocide in Ethiopia. Zimbabwe continues to suffer, China props them up, South Africa stands idly by . Given his status as a Catholic, it's worth noting the Vatican's relative indolence. I suppose they are busy with the more serious crisis of same sex marriage and all.

All of those who think the process by which Saddam Hussein met his end shows Iraq's maturity as a developing democracy should really watch the video available on the internet, complete with the taunting by the al-Sadr militiamen, not Iraqi government forces, dragging Saddam to his death. I don't know if it showed the actual hanging as I found it revolting and turned it off. Shouldn't be surprised - it's cleaner than how the West's friends in Saudi Arabia do it, after all.

In a story I bookmarked a few days back entitled " an excess of conscience " the Economist hammers Amnesty for leading a campaign against Estonia's cultural laws by saying they were going after the little guys who were doing their best anyway on ideological grounds while letting the real offenders (like Estonia's former occupier) off the hook and alienating those non-leftists who used to form a large part of its support. It's facile to say 1st and 2nd world countries shouldn't be held to high standards - of those who achieve much, more is expected and rightly so - but too often the atrocities of the third world are written off as solely the product of colonialism and that if only people felt guilty enough about the sins of their forefathers that would help more than criticising the parade of despots that litter the African landscape for instance, particularly that homophobic racist headcase in Harare. To save Jüri Kukk and other inmates of the gulag, people of...

When I'm away for a weekend to relax, I hate getting roped into activities I don't feel like doing. I call it "compulsory fun", an obvious oxymoron. The same goes for enforcing patriotism or support of things like the military. I really hope what I've written about below plays out very differently. I don't know Jacques Beaulieu, the coach of the Quebec Major Junior league Saint John Seadogs but I can safely predict his name being mud on websites like rabble.ca and on various left leaning websites before the night is down, because he fired winger Dave Bouchard, a 20 year old left wing, for failing to sign a flag being sent to a Canadian Forces detachment in Afghanistan . Said M. Beaulieu: "Morally, we have standards with this hockey team and that's a standard that we believe in." "I mean, if Dave doesn't believe in it, that's fine. But he won't be part of it. He won't be part of this organization. That's the standard...

Especially now that he's going to be a grand-dad. ( New York Times - rego required )

I have written about Ontario's dubious policies in respect of children before and the reports by the Auditor General of Ontario in respect of financial and operational mismanagement just reinforce for me the need to immediately begin a process to "nationalise" the CAS and CCAS. It's time Ontario ends the outsourcing of vulnerable children under the 1990 Family and Child Services Act and instead makes the Ministry of Children and Youth Services directly responsible for Ontario's most vulnerable citizens. CBC: Ontario children's aid societies misspent money, auditors allege. CBC: Ontario vows to stop 'disturbing' spending at children's aid societies Globe: Ontario review also finds children's needs are not being met in a timely manner Star: CAS failing at-risk kids: Auditor.

It's difficult to credit the actions of the UCPD cops who resorted to Tasering a student (youtube.com) who, against regulations, was in the college library without student ID and was reluctant to leave. The student should not have refused to leave but I doubt the announced review will allow what appears to be current UCPD practice to go unreproved. It is even more difficult to credit Kathy Shaidle who considers herself a Catholic rebroadcasting this intolerant cackle of glee : Let's see more of this… Police taser UCLA student for behaving like a jackass. My God, this cannot happen often enough. Do you have any idea how happy it makes me to watch a black cop taser a college student who is being a huge, whiny baby and screaming "This is an abuse of power!" (No, it's the violence inherent in the system.) And just when you think this story can't get better, there's a hilarious video. Screams of anguish never sounded so beautiful. What makes this even b...

Seen at Dunner's blog . Not content with self-portrayal as barbarians on camera at Abu Ghraib , these soldiers have added video, making Iraqi kids run in an attempt to get a proffered water bottle. One poor kid ran for ages and then when the idiot grunt tossed the bottle some kids standing nearby got it anyway. Let freedom ring, huh?

There has been a slow but steady stream of stories regarding friction between sectarian and non-sectarian groups in Montreal lately, such as covering the windows of a pool so Muslim girls could take a swim test and replacing the windows of a gym with frosted glass at the request of (and paid for by) a neighbouring Orthodox Jewish school. I have no real problem with either, especially the latter since the accommodation did not cost the gym a dime but it has offended some of the members. This one in my opinion is a whole different ballgame. The Star reports female Montreal police officers encountering a Hasidic Jewish person who declines to interact with them to call a male colleague to take over the interview . Apparently it happens in Toronto too: Toronto police only accommodate requests for specific officers from Hasidic males, and anyone else who asks, when someone comes into a station in a non-emergency situation. If your culture doesn't allow you to interact with women as e...

As a non-lawyer, reading a dense judgement riven with partial joinings and multiple dissents such as this week's 185 page Hamdan versus Rumsfeld from the United States Supreme Court, it is difficult to make sense of the legal appropriateness of the 5-3 decision, with Justice Kennedy siding with the majority and Chief Justice Roberts abstaining due to involvement in previous Court of Appeals proceedings. I can only go with my gut instinct which is to agree with Justice Breyer's comments: Congress has not issued the Executive a “blank check.” [...] Indeed, Congress has denied the President the legislative authority to create military commissions of the kind at issue here. Nothing prevents the President from returning to Congress to seek the authority he believes necessary. Where, as here, no emergency prevents consultation with Congress, judicial insistence upon that consultation does not weaken our Nation’s ability to deal with danger. To the contrary, that insistence strengt...

Given the disgrace that Zimbabwe has become in the last decade, with the homophobia, the de facto ethnic cleansing and the political purging of the judiciary, it's odd that the Liberal Party have only recently become aware of the situation to the extent of wanting to do something about it . Obviously they weren't briefed - it's not like they weren't in power for over a decade ... or maybe they didn't see any of the frequent media coverage. With the thousand priorities Paul Martin had - this couldn't have been one? He couldn't have publicly exhorted the South Africans and Chinese to stop sending the regime aid, probably the only thing keeping Mugabe afloat? But then the Chinese might not have bought Canadian reactors - that piece of tech that gets the Chinese Government a free pass from Canada. Instead the Federal Liberals did in that respect what the Ontario Liberals are doing in Caledonia, Ontario - standing by, mouthing platitudes, achieving nothing.

According to the Star, some children born in Ontario are not being registered (up to 3% of 130,000 births in the province annually) because it costs up to $35 depending on the municipality and low income and single parents are unable to afford it. The effect of this is that deaths of these infants are not recorded either - it's as if they never existed. This is born out of the Harris era where the costs of registering children is borne by municipalities ( such as Toronto ) and passed on to the parents. I have to say am not impressed with how children's services work in this province. I'm thinking especially of child protection, a function one would normally expect to be a direct arm of government but which in Ontario is farmed out to voluntary Children's Aid Societies , some of which are denominational such as the Catholic Children's Aid Society of Toronto which failed in its duty to protect Jeffery Baldwin . It is unconscionable that children can go unregister...

The job is: stop faffing around in Kandahar and get over to Beijing smartly to propose and sign a bilateral agreement with the Chinese, the effect of which would void double jeopardy for citizens deported after completing their sentences. The Star brings up something I had wondered about on the Globe and Mail's "conversations"- what if China decided to execute Min Chen as a punishment for crimes committed abroad. I learned from the Star article that the Supreme Court already forbids this explicitly, but has not spoken on lesser punishments. Should Chen be unable to be deported then having completed his sentence it would be difficult to avoid releasing him. We should not wait until Chen is released in 2019 to make him another Karla Homolka , with whatever opportunist successor to Michael Bryant there is as AG in Ontario wailing on about the consequences of a plea bargain . We should have an assurance that Chen will leave federal prison in transportation that puts him...

Richard Waghorne posts that Ruth Kelly is being "bored to death" by calls for her to make her position clear in respect of matters which the Roman Catholic church, of which she is a member, has declared to be immoral. This may not seem interesting at first blush if you didn't know that Ms. Kelly is the current Minister for Equality in the United Kingdom's Labour Government, and that in recent years the Catholic Church has re-affirmed the duty of opposition to laws legalising and facilitating such matters as abortion and gay unions. In 2004, the Vatican told U.S. bishops to refuse communion to pro-choice legislators , which caused a controversy involving John Kerry during his bid for the presidency. Controversy in respect of Catholic politicians is recurrent in Canada, not least because of the number of Prime Ministers from the heavily Catholic province of Quebec such as the two most recent holders. In the same year, Paul Martin was accused of moral incoherence b...

The British House of Lords delivered their judgement today in R (on the application of Begum (by her litigation friend, Rahman)) (Respondent) v. Headteacher and Governors of Denbigh High School (Appellants). Shabina Begum , a pupil at Denbigh High School in Luton, a state maintained school with 79% Muslim enrolment, was contesting the school's right to enforce its dress code. The school, whose Head is a Bangladeshi woman of Muslim belief and which had several Muslim governors, had devised a dress code in consultation with local Islamic leaders for which the suggested dress for female muslim students which would conform with Islamic norms was the s(h)alwar kameez(e) , a long tunic and trousers, together with an optional headscarf of specified type. Her father was deceased and her mother spoke no English at the time. On the first day of the autumn term (3 Sept 02) she attended the school wearing jilbab and accompanied by her brother and a friend who has not been identified in t...

The Supreme Court of the United States recently decided Rumsfeld vs Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, Inc. A coalition of American law schools whose policies denied the US military equal access to career facilities at those schools under non-discrimination policies were fighting the Solomon Amendment . This statute ( 10 U.S.C. § 983 ) allowed the US government to withhold federal funding to those institutions who refused the military access equal to any other employer receiving the most favourable treatment. The non-discrimination policies related to the treatment of homosexuals in the military, including the "don't ask, don't tell" policy which was instituted under President Clinton. I noticed the judgement first at Mental Meanderings in a post headed " Can't stop them now " which referenced SCOTUSblog's coverage . Somewhat irritated, in comments I pointed out to Fiona that Chief Justice Roberts had said quite the opposite - The Solom...