All Purpose Politics and News Thread

[gryphon]

Israel and Lebanon are trading fire now after Israel apparently struck a Hezbollah target in Syria, killing a top leader.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35145810

Things just keep getting better and better over there.

The Hezbollah leader killed was a Druze arab. The Druze community in Israel disowned him

[Patty Smyth]

Crazy

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/21/us/las...destrians-hit/

[GoJays]

WTF is wrong with people?

[DaveP]

WTF is wrong with people?

This one is horrific too.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toront...dead-1.3374270

A Canadian war veteran was responsible for the homicide of his pregnant wife who was stabbed several times before being thrown off the balcony of a downtown apartment building Sunday evening, Toronto police say.

Police believe Precious Charbonneau was nine weeks pregnant.

Robert Giblin, 43, and Charbonneau, 33, died after falling from the 21st floor of a building at 111 Raglan Ave. Giblin had served with the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan, Department of National Defence officials have confirmed.

[Darth Penguin]

Zimbabwe to make yuan legal currency after Beijing cancels debts

Zimbabwe has announced that it will make the Chinese yuan legal tender after Beijing confirmed it would cancel $40m in debts.
“They [China] said they are cancelling our debts that are maturing this year and we are in the process of finalising the debt instruments and calculating the debts,” minister Patrick Chinamasa said in a statement.

Chinamasa also announced that Zimbabwe will officially make the Chinese yuan legal tender as it seeks to increase trade with Beijing.
Zimbabwe abandoned its own dollar in 2009 after hyperinflation, which had peaked at around 500bn%, rendered it unusable.
It then started using a slew of foreign currencies, including the US dollar and the South African rand.
The yuan was later added to the basket of the foreign currencies, but its use had not been approved yet for public transactions in the market dominated by the greenback.
Use of the yuan “will be a function of trade between China and Zimbabwe and acceptability with customers in Zimbabwe,” the minister said.
Zimbabwe’s central bank chief John Mangudya was in negotiations with the People’s Bank of China “to see whether we can enhance its usage here,” said Chinamasa.
China is Zimbabwe’s biggest trading partner following Zimbabwe’s isolation by its former western trading partners over Harare’s human rights record.
In reaction veteran president Robert Mugabe adopted a “look East policy”, forging new alliances with eastern Asian countries and buttressing existing ones.
In early December, Chinese president Xi Jinping stopped over in Zimbabwe in a rare trip by a world leader to the country, and presided over the signing of various agreements, mainly to upgrade and rebuild Zimbabwe’s infrastructure such as power stations.

[Natalka]

[gryphon]

Oh if only

[gryphon]

The Hezbollah leader killed was a Druze arab. The Druze community in Israel disowned him

The Israeli Druze are very loyal to Israel

Here is a video of how the Druze treat Druze IDF soldiers returning from deployment

[Natalka]

Big shock, full number of refugees won't be coming by end of year. Man, Trudeau needs better advisors.

Hopefully some Liberals are feeling badly about how they beat up Harper about his plan... (nah, I'm sure they don't)

http://ckom.com/article/411949/mccal...anada-year-end

[DaveP]

Your article has the 1,869 number for the total amount of refugees taken in so far, which is correct. But the CBC broke that number down further. The Liberals during the campaign promised to bring in 25,000 government sponsored refugees. So that would be 25,000 over and above those privately sponsored. The number of government sponsored refugees to date is 339. That's less than 2% of what they committed to. Had this been the Conservatives everyone would be raising holy hell. But hey, Trudeau has nice hair.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/mcca...-end-1.3378261

[Natalka]

^ Exactly, Dave. Humbug to the Liberals.

[gryphon]

But the government is too busy spending 80 grand in toronto on a campaign to get people to support bringing in refugees...

[Darth Penguin]

Israeli PM condemns video of extremists celebrating toddler's death

Senior Israeli politicians and religious figures have condemned an incendiary video showing a hall packed full of Jewish extremist teenagers cheering the death of a Palestinian toddler murdered in an anti-Palestinian hate crime earlier this year.
The video – which shows the teenagers dancing with guns and firebombs and stabbing a picture of Ali Dawabshe, who died with his parents in an arson attack on their home this summer – was filmed at a wedding three weeks ago and obtained by an Israeli television channel. The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, immediately condemned its “shocking images”, which he said displayed “the real face of a group that poses danger to Israeli society and security”.
The emergence of the video follows accusations by far-right Israelis that three Jewish extremists arrested by Israeli security service the Shin Bet for the murder of Ali Dawabshe and his family had been tortured.
It dramatises the deep and growing problems that Israel faces with a small and violent extremist sector that has perpetrated so-called “price tag” attacks on Palestinians, members of the Israeli security forces and targeted Christian churches.

[Patty Smyth]

Your article has the 1,869 number for the total amount of refugees taken in so far, which is correct. But the CBC broke that number down further. The Liberals during the campaign promised to bring in 25,000 government sponsored refugees. So that would be 25,000 over and above those privately sponsored. The number of government sponsored refugees to date is 339. That's less than 2% of what they committed to. Had this been the Conservatives everyone would be raising holy hell. But hey, Trudeau has nice hair.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/mcca...-end-1.3378261

^ Exactly, Dave. Humbug to the Liberals.

But the government is too busy spending 80 grand in toronto on a campaign to get people to support bringing in refugees...

You guys seem to be doing a good enough job of biatching for all the cons. Keep up the good work.

Merry xmas to those who care. lol

[Patty Smyth]

To all the pet lovers on here and I know you are legion