Locked Out Shipping in the Strait of Hormuz

"Our candidates are worried. And they are not worried about the Middle East. They're worried about [the] United States and Israel ... There seems to be a lot of rules being broken, and that is a scary place to be. The candidates, they're sending pictures and posting stuff about fires. Some people are overly concerned. The rest of the people know that it's a fairly safe country in general. But again, the fear is not coming from the Middle East. The fear is coming from the U.S. and Israel and how far they're going to take it."

"It's small wonder why many of the employees feel like sitting ducks. We work in oil and gas only, and all of our clients are the national oil companies. So they're government-owned companies for oil and gas, LNG production, and all of the employees have just been told to wait for it [the situation] to stabilize."

"There's a lot of fear and desire to leave the area. And they're not able to. There's no way in or out. So if you're a Canadian citizen, the Government of Canada and the U.S. government aren't able to really do anything for the citizens who are living and working there, but the national countries' governments over there are doing quite a bit. The UAE is covering all the costs for hotels and whatnot, for stranded people and the people who are living there just being told to stay home."

Anisa Rosvold, regional vice-president Arabian Gulf region, Petro Staff International 

A general view shows the Saudi Aramco oil facility in Dammam City, 450 kilometres east of the Saudi capital, Riyadh. Photo by Hassan Ammar /AFP/Getty Images

 

"Insurance companies are cancelling war risk coverage ​for vessels in the Middle East Gulf as the widening Iran conflict disrupts shipping, leaving tankers damaged or stranded and at least two people dead."

"Shipping through the Strait of ‌Hormuz between Iran and Oman, which carries around one-fifth of oil consumed globally as well as large quantities of gas, has ground to a near halt after vessels in the area were hit as Iran retaliated against US and Israeli strikes."

"One tanker in the region was ablaze on Monday, at least four others were damaged and about 150 ships were stranded."

Business Recorder 

Iran announced navigation has been  closed through the Strait of Hormuz and waters surrounding it, from Sunday, the day following the first aerial attacks on the country by Israel and the United States. While defending its territory from the combined attacks that have targeted its military and nuclear installations, flattened government buildings, killed Iran's Supreme Leader and much of the government and Islamic Republican Guard Corps elite, Iran has also focused on causing total disruption and chaos within the Middle East in a surprising move that has alienated its neighbours, including those in support of Iran, like Qatar and Oman.

Birds fly near the boat in the Strait of Hormuz amid the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran, as seen from Musandam, Oman, March 2, 2026.  REUTERS/Amr Alfiky

 

While Iran's plans to foment a wider war, using its military resources to send out thousands of drones and missiles over Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman, numbers greater in total than they launch to strike Israeli targets, what is left of the Iranian military command has not yet called on the services of its Houthi proxies in Yemen which has up to the present been striking international shipping in the Strait, upending normal international shipping. 

 

In the last few days 150 ships including tankers for oil and liquefied natural gas where 10% of the world's container ships pass through, have dropped anchor, unable to venture any further. 

The ships have been ensnared in backups, cargo soon to begin  accumulating at ports and transshipment hubs in Europe and Asia. Asian governments and refiners have been forced to assess their oil stockpiles in this aura of uncertainty where no one knows how extensive it will become or how long it will be before normal shipping passage can resume with safety.

With the threat issued by the IRGC commander that any ship attempting transit of the 21-mile-wide (34-km-wide) maritime chokepoint, tankers remain clustered in open waters off the coasts of Gulf oil producers, including Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and LNG giant Qatar. While berthed in the Middle East Gulf, one U.S.-flagged tanker was damaged by 'aerial impacts' while a Honduras-flagged tanker was burning in the Strait of Hormuz after being hit by IRGC drones.

 

Photo Reuters

 

Contracted oil workers, thousands from Canada the United States and other western countries, have been stranded at work sites throughout Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait. Several hundred Canadian workers out of Calgary dispatched by Petro Staff International are now stranded across the Gulf States and are fearful of the effects of the conflict exploding in the region. Their vulnerability to vengeance attacks by Iranian forces convince many that once they escape their nightmare they plan never to return to the Middle East.

 

Many of the Petro agency's workers are asking to be repatriated, to be stationed elsewhere -- anywhere that is safe in comparison to the conflict surrounding and threatening them. All these employees have been  assured they will be safe as long as they follow local authorities' orders. And that to leave the region is currently just not possible until such time as it has become stabilized once again. No flights are able to get through, so all these employees must wait out the conflict where they are, for the time being.

 

Rumaila oil field, Basra, Iraq   Reuters

 

Operations have, in any event, been shut down temporarily with measures being taken by the Petro group to "minimize becoming targets", according to Anisa Rosvold of Petro Staff International.  

 

Canada: Haven for Islamic Republic Agents

"This happened exactly one hour after people had gathered here to deliberate the death of the oppressive leader of the Islamic Republic."

"Imagine, if families and children had still been here when those shots were fired. The consequences could have been catastrophic." 

"It shows that it's no longer safe here for Canadians themselves, it's not just about Iranians. They've created a place where Canadian citizens cannot live comfortably."

"According to the Supreme Leader ... they had said this themselves before, that we will punish those who organize rallies and demonstrations abroad, and this is part of the IRGC policies."

"It’s concerning because the gym was hit with 17 bullets, which means it was meant for 17 bodies. [Intimidation of Iran’s critics] could become a real problem for Canada … and they are going to have to stop that." 

Salar Gholami, business owner, anti-Iranian regime activist 

Broken glass and bullet holes in the window of Saliwan boxing gym, draped with an Iranian lion and sun flag. The flag is outlawed in Iran by the Islamic Republic. Supplied photo

"We've had to re-prioritize our operations to counter the actions of Iranian intelligence services and their proxies who have targeted individuals they perceive as threats to their regime."

"In more than one case, this involved detecting, investigating and disrupting potentially lethal threats against individuals in Canada."

Daniel Rogers, director, Canadian Security Intelligence Service

 

"The motive behind the shooting is unknown and there is no suspect information at this time."

"Investigators from our Firearms Investigations Team continue to canvass the area for any security camera footage around the time of the shooting."

"The premise shows evidence of gunfire directed at the building. The building was unoccupied at the time of the incident. There were no reported injuries. Damage is limited to property."

York Regional Police

 

"The motive behind the shooting is unknown and there is no suspect information at this time."

"Investigators from our firearms investigations team continue to canvass the area for any security camera footage around the time of the shooting."

Const. Kevin Nebrija, York Regional Police 

In fact, it is not all that difficult to put two-and-two together and come up with four. It is well known that IRGC operatives are in Canada. Some of their identities are known to Canada's intelligence services. Yet little is done to remove them, despite that the Islamic Republican Guard Corps is listed as a terrorist organization in Canada. Canadian Iranians have reported to police the presence of IRGC- and Iranian-government operatives living openly in Canada. Elite Iranian government officials have sent their families to live in Canada as a safe haven.

 

While the two disparate Iranian groups live in the country; Iranian-Canadian citizens increasingly uneasily in the known presence of agents of Iran, their lives complicated by harassment by those agents, the Liberal government does nothing to deport those living illegally in Canada, as a presence of the Islamic Republic in a country with which there are no diplomatic relations. 

 

Since the aerial invasion of Iran by the Israeli and American militaries in response to Iran's governing body's intransigence over demands it abandon its nuclear program, amidst concerns that its increasingly sophisticated ballistic missiles that are more powerful and reach intermediate distances pose a direct threat to Israel, and to U.S. military bases in the Gulf States, exacerbated by the brutality of the regime in dealing with internal dissent by Iranians attempting to free themselves from the regime's oppressive hold on their lives when the IRGC and the Basij police outright murdered thousands civilians taking to the streets, Iranians in Canada have organized massive demonstrations.

 

A bullet hole is seen in the door of Saliwan Boxing at 7027 Yonge St. in Thornhill. (Simon Sheehan/CP24)

 

The owner of the Thornhill, Ontario boxing gym targeted by gunfire on Sunday, Salar Gholami, has been key in organizing those demonstrations across the Greater Toronto area. His business was riddled with bullet holes at the gym's entrance. And while investigators are of the opinion that the shooting was targeted, no 'motive' has yet been established. Mr. Gholami has no problem identifying the motive. It is related directly to his activism. And behind the shooting up of his establishment was a warning by agents of the Islamist regime.

 

There were two massive protests organized in recent months in Toronto; on February 1st, downtown Toronto saw 150,000 protesters peacefully march in a gathering meant to highlight the plight of Iranian protesters across Iran whose protests erupted in all the country's cities only to be met with gunfire from the regime. Tens of thousands were arrested, thousands injured in the violence committed against the civilians, and the figure of those killed by regime forces range from 3,000 to 30,000 people.

 

Toronto police said the Global Day of Action Rally in Toronto saw crowds estimated at 350,000. (Sammy Kogan/The Canadian Press)

 

A follow-up February 14 solidarity for Iran protest saw over 350,000 people attending the event. The date and the immense size of the protest was not confined to Canada; this was an internationally-organized event with protesters coming out in droves in Canada, the United States, Germany and elsewhere across the globe in a well-publicized Global Day of Action. The Toronto rally, which brought out 350,000 people was the largest of all the rallies.

 

A Persian restaurant in Melbourne Australia where an Iranian flag with the lion and sun -- a symbol outlawed in the Islamic Republic -- was displayed in its window was sprayed by gunfire, quite like the situation in the boxing gym's window in Toronto. Its window too was shattered. Sunday morning two people were killed, 14 others injured when a gunman attacked at a bar in Austin, Texas, wearing a sweatshirt with the legend e. 

 

In Richmond Hill, Salar Gholami, despite the threats he and others within the Canadian-Iranian community face, is determined to continue his activism. "The police told me not to go there (his business that had just been vandalized) , but I was the first person there this morning. I'm a Kurdish-Iranian, and I would be proud to die for my country". 

 

Repairs continue after a shooting that damaged the building housing Saliwan Boxing Club in Richmond Hill, Ont., on Sunday, March 1, 2026. Photo by Supplied

 

Repeat: Iran Does Not Wish To Develop Nuclear Weapons!

"[Operations are likely to last four to five weeks but could] go far longer than that."

"This was our last, best chance to strike -- what we're doing right now -- and eliminate the intolerable threats posed by this sick and sinister regime."

"[Iran] remains one of the largest, if not the largest, state-sponsors of terrorism in the world."

"[It] continues to seek the means to possess and employ nuclear weapons."

"Its array of ballistic, cruise, anti-ship and other missiles pose a direct threat to and are attacking US forces, commercial vessels and civilians, as well as those of our allies and partners."

U.S. President Donald J. Trump

Getty Images

 

Israeli and American forces have been pounding Iran, even as the Islamic Republic's military forces have demonstrated their capacity to respond in kind, attacking Israel and U.S. bases established in the Middle East with missiles and drones. Nothing prepared the Gulf states for the situation they now find themselves in; this was not their war, but one that Iran brought on itself. That Iranian forces schemed to attack its Sunni Arab neighbours in a display of furious payback for their amicable links to the United States likely escaped the imagination of even those states like Qatar and Oman who have always supported Iran.

 

Since the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the stage was set for a prolonged conflict and its resulting far-reaching consequences where Dubai  has been struck with incoming fire, where hundreds of thousands of airline passengers are now stranded around the globe, where oil prices have shot up and allies of the United States though not having offered to form a coalition 'of the willing' still have pledged to assist in stopping the fast-and-furious Iranian missiles and drones.

 

A military evacuation flight for Czechs who were stranded in the Middle East landed in Prague on Tuesday, March 3, at the Vaclav Havel Airport.    Roman Vondrous/AP

 

President Trump has tasked U.S. forces to destroy Iran's missile capabilities, to extinguish its naval capacity, to put a stop to the country succeeding in obtaining nuclear weapons, and to make completely certain that the Islamic Republic will be incapable of supporting proxy terror groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, which has joined Iran, distracting Israel from its mission there to retaliate against Hezbollah's missile attacks. 

 

Even as airstrikes struck Tehran, its top security official, Ali Larijani vowed: "We will not negotiate with the United States", fulfilling the uncompromising orders given him by Ayatollah Khamenei before his death, to continue to guide the country, to ensure that the Islamic Republic lives on. The Iranian Red Crescent Society stated that 555 people have been killed in the U.S.-Israel operation. Hezbollah, in attacking Israel, invited a return of Israeli bombardments. Iran's missiles striking its neighbours caused the death of three people in the United Arab Emirates and one each in Kuwait and Bahrain.

 

Iran's ballistic missile facilities were struck with 2,000-pound bombs unleashed by U.S B-2 stealth bombers, even as President Trump announced Sunday that nine Iranian warships had been sunk, leaving the Iranian navy's headquarters "largely destroyed". The situation did bring a response from Britain, France and Germany declaring Sunday they were prepared to work with the U.S. to aid in the goal of putting an end to Iran's attacks. 

 

People gather in front of the destroyed center of a Lebanese Islamic group which hit by an Israeli strike, in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Tuesday, March, 3.   Mohammed Zaatari/AP

 

The paramilitary Basij force set up checkpoints across Tehran; known for their violent repression, the streets of the capital are silent with the absence of protesters, reminders of the violent crackdowns still fresh in memory. The Basij checkpoints are a pointed reminder to Iranians that this time, even more than last, any encouragement by them toward the invaders would be seen as treason, punishable by death. 

 

Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency informed news media that the Natanz nuclear enrichment site was hit by airstrikes on Sunday. "Their justification that Iran wants to develop nuclear weapons is simply a big lie", said Reza Najafi.

 

Social media videos showed heavy damage to the Assembly of Experts building in Qom. Social Media via Reuters

 

Alcohol Over-Consumption Health Risks

Drinking excessively on an occasion can lead to these harmful health effects:

• Injuries—motor vehicle crashes, falls, drownings, and burns.
• Violence—homicide, suicide, sexual violence, and intimate partner violence.
• Alcohol poisoning—high blood alcohol levels that affect body functions like breathing and heart rate.
• Overdose—from alcohol use with other drugs, like opioids.
• Sexually transmitted infections or unplanned pregnancy—alcohol use can lead to sex without protection, which can cause these conditions.
• Miscarriage, stillbirth, or fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD)—from alcohol use during pregnancy. 

The checklist above relates to short-term effects of drinking alcohol; by-products of alcohol consumption leading to events that can have life-altering effects in their harmfulness. But there are also the profound effects of alcohol consumption taking a toll on tipplers over time. Those effects are numerous and most people would like to avoid them if at all possible, but most people reaching for a drink at a social occasion or at home, or at a favourite pub don't really give the time of day to long-term health effect introspection at the moment they are anticipating the comforting high alcohol delivers.

 

Here are some of the health effects that alcohol consumption has the potential to deliver to the uninitiated whose awareness levels are absent not only in the moment but in their foreseeable future due to lack of exposure to scientific data and public  awareness announcements that slip by people's notice. For starters, a brief rundown:

 

*Alcohol use, while immediately pleasurable, relaxing and hugely anticipated for those benefits, poses a threat associated with brain structure alterations. Middle-aged and older adults who enjoy on average a single daily drink, according to some studies, tend to have somewhat less brain volume than those who don't consume alcohol at all. The brain shrinks in volume the more alcohol is consumed. Without knowing exactly what is involved one theory held by scientists is that the brain's immune system is altered by alcohol in an increase in inflammation, damaging neurons.

 

**There are also alcohol-linked effects in mouth and neck where microbes convert alcohol into acetaldehyde, a compound that remains in saliva, causing oxidative stress in cells with the potential for inflammation and tissue damage. The compound is a carcinogen able to modify DNA which can then lead to cancer-causing mutation. Risk of mouth and throat cancers increases by 13 percent, and 26 percent or the risk of esophageal cancer -- on merely one drink daily. The risk of all three cancers can rise with five or more drinks daily four times higher.

 

***Regular alcohol use is associated with higher blood pressure, along with increased risk of hypertension due to alcohol's damaging effect on cells lining blood vessels. Regularly enjoying a drink a day increases the chance of breast cancer developing by 10 percent for women while two drinks daily raises the risk by 19 percent; possibly, experts believe, caused by alcohol increasing estrogen levels. 

 

****Heavy drinking relating to 3 or more drinks daily is associated with higher risk of heart attack and stroke -- with a few studies suggesting that one drink a day results in a modest increased risk. Mixed research results emerge with light to moderate drinking comprising two drinks or less daily. Other research however, report that moderate consumption may reduce risk, in comparison with non-drinkers.  

 

*****Intestinal lining leading to gastrointestinal bleeding and 'leaky gut syndrome', where food and microbes escape the intestines to enter the bloodstream is associated with long term, heavy drinking. People who consistently average two or more drinks daily, a recent study found, had a 25 percent increased risk of developing colorectal cancer in comparison with those averaging fewer than one drink per week. 

 

******The organ most vulnerable to drinking damage is the liver where alcohol-related liver disease is the leading cause of death related to excessive alcohol consumption. Some 30 percent of those who regularly take 3 or more drinks daily according to one estimate, will develop cirrhosis. Advanced cirrhosis is permanent, although alcohol-related fat deposits, inflammation and early fibrosis in the liver can be reversed. The risk of liver cancer resulting from DNA damage is linked to heavy drinking caused by acetaldehyde. 

 

According to experts, odds of experiencing health harms from drinking remain relatively low, averaging one drink or less each day. Risks rise at eight to 14 weekly drinks. An inherited disposition through genetics, along with pre-existing conditions can determine whether someone develops serious illness from alcohol over-consumption. Research also demonstrates that if heavy drinkers stop or cut their drinking level back severely, adverse health effects can be reversed. 

 

John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

 

Message to the People of Iran

Trump speaks with the CIA chief, John Ratcliffe, left, alongside the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, and Marco Rubio at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday. Photograph: The White House/Reuters

"[Grand Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei, one of the most evil people in History is dead."

"[Khamenei] was unable to avoid our Intelligence and Highly Sophisticated Tracking Systems and, working closely with Israel, there was not a thing he, or the other leaders that have been killed along with him, could do."

"This is the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their country." 

U.S. President Donald J. Trump 

Months in the planning stages, the  joint American/Israeli operation began on Saturday during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan -- following nuclear program negotiations that went nowhere on a circuitous route of circumvention, protestations of innocence of intent alongside declarations of entitlement and stall tactics that the Islamic Republic is known for. Despite the tension building up to the moment, it is doubtful that anyone believed military action would indeed be taken against the Islamic Republic of Iran. 

 

Yet the action, in a seeming repeat of June's combined Israeli-U.S. attacks on Iran's nuclear installations, its military headquarters and weapons-storage units as well as the regime's missile-launch sites, seemed inevitable given its theocratic rulers' frequently repeated intentions to attack Israel to wipe it from the face of the Middle East, and its ongoing characterization of the United States as 'Satan' needing to be confronted. The ever-increasing lethality and reach of Iran's ballistic missiles threatening to reach the U.S. seaboard, as well as its  history of fomenting schemes with its terrorist proxies to attack U.S. forces signed its death warrant.

 

The final impetus to carry out a final attack to exterminate the ruling theocracy, its military and policing units came courtesy of the Iranian people themselves whose eruption of mass protests in January against stringent economic conditions resulting from the regime's focus on funding its sponsored, trained and armed terror groups in Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq and the Palestinian Territories while Western sanctions imposed high inflation and medical and food shortages at spiralling prices, drove ordinary Iranians to massive protests. Protests the regime responded to with expected brutality, where thousands among the protest movement were killed, tens of thousands wounded and imprisoned.

 

"Hundreds of Iranian missile and drone attacks" responded in retaliation from Iran to targets in Israel and toward U.S. military bases in Gulf States. Targets in Iran included Revolutionary Guard command facilities, air defence systems, missile and drone launch sites and military airfields. The commander of the Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Iranian defence minister, along with the secretary of the Iranian Security Council had been targeted by Israel and were extinguished.

 

Among the first strikes on Iran, the compound of the Grand Ayatollah Khamenei was shown by satellite photography to have been utterly crushed. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, his wife, and several of their offspring were killed in the strikes that levelled his offices and all the associated buildings in the compound. Although this wasn't entirely predictable, there was an expectation built on the obvious conclusion that the buildup of the largest force of U.S. warships and aircraft in decades in the Middle East presaged just this.

Satellite image showing damage to the compound of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran   Airbus DS 2026 

 

In the earlier June of 2025 aerial assaults carried out jointly by Israel and the U.S. meant to defuse Iran's nuclear capabilities, and to destroy its armouries and ballistic missile launching sites to put an end to the regional threats posed by the regime, it had been generally felt that the mission had accomplished its goal. Since then, however, it became clear that Iran's nuclear program had not after all been obliterated and that the regime was busy rebuilding destroyed infrastructure. Moreover its centrifuges were producing highly enriched weapons-grade uranium. 

"The  hour of  your freedom is at hand. Stay sheltered. Don't leave your home. It's very dangerous outside." 

"Bombs will be dropping everywhere."

"When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take."

"This will be probably your only chance for generations."

U.S. President Donald Trump ... message to the people of Iran 

Smoke rises up after a strike in Tehran on March 1, 2026. (Vahid Salemi/The Associated Press)

Canada: A Shy Energy Giant

"Canada holds 163,108,000,000 barrels of proven oil reserves as of 2025, ranking #4 in the world and accounting for about 9.24% of the world's total oil reserves of 1,765,151,568,000."

"Canada has proven reserves equivalent to 188.6 times its annual consumption levels (based on 2024 data). This means that, without net exports, there would be about 189 years of oil left (at 2024 consumption levels and excluding unproven reserves)."

world0meter  

Visual Capitalist 

"Canada has significant reserves of conventional and unconventional oil and gas resources. Canadian oil production is focused in the west of the country, especially in Alberta. Canada’s proven oil reserves remain among the world’s largest — estimated at around 168 – 170 billion barrels (about 10 % of global reserves), with the majority in oil sands. The largest oil reserves are found in Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, which have around 18.2 % and 16.2 % of the total reserves, respectively."

"Canada also produces natural gas, with reserves and production primarily in provinces such as British Columbia, Alberta, and the Northwest Territories. Producing natural gas involves extracting gas from underground reservoirs and processing it so it is suitable for various uses, such as heating. In 2025, Canada’s natural gas production averaged about 19 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), making it the fifth-largest producer globally and accounting for roughly 5 % of world natural gas supply."

"Canada is currently the fourth-largest oil producer in the world, with production near 6.0 million barrels per day in 2024, including oil sands, conventional, offshore, and liquids."

Olivia Bush, Made in CA   

A large oil refinery along the Athabasca River in Fort McMurray, Alta.  dan_prat/iStock/Getty Images 

 

New Brunswick, an eastern province of Canada was the second place in the world in 1859 to discover oil and gas would bubble to the surface when a hole was drilled in the ground. New Brunswick has a wealth of fossil fuel; an estimated 77.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, according to Natural Resources Canada. New Brunswick held the knowledge of its great natural resources close to its chest, making the choice not to develop its reserves. The province imposed an indefinite moratorium on hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in 2014 judging it to be environmentally unfriendly. 

 

Yet it is precisely that system of extraction that is required to draw up the provincial gas reserves. New Brunswick is not alone among Canadian provinces in the abundance of its energy resources, given the Canadian total of about 1.4 quadrillion cubic feet. And according to an analysis conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy, that plenitude of energy is sufficient for Canada to provide natural gas needs for the entire world for a period of 200 years. 

 

When Japan's prime minister travelled to Canada in 2023 and a year later Germany's chancellor followed, both leaders had a distinct and direct purpose in mind. To persuade the Canadian government of those countries' dire need for a reliable energy source in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, when the U.S. and the EU took punitive steps against Russian aggression by sanctioning Russian gas whose sale helped to fuel the war. Their persuasive efforts fell on deaf ears. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's off-handed response was that there was no business case to be made for Canada to export gas.

 

 

 

Under the new Liberal government headed by Marc Carney that succeeded the Trudeau government, Canada re-elected yet another figure influential in environmental circles dedicated to ensuring that energy resources were kept underground, as a source of carbon dioxide that was adding fuel to global warming, responsible for dramatic weather changes and adding to natural disasters in extreme weather conditions. Resistance to oil pipelines to tidewater for shipping abroad, to continued exploitation of the Alberta heavy crude oil to a world hungry for energy, continues under the current prime minister.

 

A situation where a country's vast natural resources are being left underground, with the full potential of extraction not to be realized on the basis of the harm it would do to the environment already in a situation of degradation from climate change. This despite vast technical advances in the extraction of oilsands for a cleaner product. And in the face of the fact that Canada's contribution to global greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is slightly more than 1-percent of the world total. 

 

A situation that has led Canada to export its oil to U.S. refineries at a discount, and where the U.S. sells that refined oil elsewhere at a profit denied to Canada. In turn, Canada continues to import oil from the Middle East for the energy needs of New Brunswick and Quebec, lacking a pipeline that would provide them with Canadian oil from the Western provinces; pipelines are dirty words to environment-dedicated British Columbia, New Brunswick and Quebec. 

 

The Maran Gas Hector

 

And out of this impasse the absurdity of an Australian oil tanker, the Maran Gas Hector, sailing 25,000 kms from Gladstone, Australia, across the Atlantic to New Brunswick's Saint John harbour where it docked and proceeded to unload its cargo to fill the need of the very province sitting atop a wealth of untapped oil reserves.  A decade ago four LNG export terminals were proposed for Canada's Atlantic coast, but the prospect failed to resonate. Leading to the shipping across a vast distance, of Australian natural gas. 

 

Unlike Canada, Australia has exploited its reserves for export since the 1980s as supercooled liquefied natural gas through its 10 LNG export terminals and thousands of kilometres of natural gas pipelines. As opposed to Canada's single LNG export terminal in Kitimat, British Columbia, just a year old, following a lengthy process of environmental reviews and legal confrontations, amidst civil environmental insurrectionists. 

 

The only LNG terminal on the Canadian Atlantic coast, and it's to import LNG, rather than export it. Photo by Twelve O'Clock High Drone Services

 

  

Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan Penal Law

Women wait in a hospital in Ghazni, August 2025.  Elise Blanchard (Getty Images)

"On 4 January 2026, the Taliban adopted the “Criminal Procedure Code for Courts” (De Mahakumu Jazaai Osulnama). Until then, Taliban leader Hibabullah Akhundzad simply posted new rules on X, which were subsequently applied – often inconsistently – by Taliban “judges” with no formal legal education. "

"A formal written code is an improvement, standardising the applicable law and making it more predictable."

"However, the new Code substantively contradicts international human rights standards by formalising discrimination against religious minorities, restricting basic freedoms, and enabling arbitrary arrest and punishment."

"It simultaneously omits core fair-trial safeguards; weakens legality and the presumption of innocence; and relies on confession and testimony, heightening risks of torture and abuse."

Oxford Human Rights Hub  

 

"[There is] no article, clause, section or ruling that is not in accordance with Islamic sharia and has no sharia source, but is completely in accordance with Islamic sharia."

"[Any objection to "Emirate laws is therefore] an objection to sharia, [a protest based on] ignorance or neglect [and itself constitutes] a crime that will be punished."

Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan Ministry of Justice 

 

"It provides for the use of corporal punishment for numerous offences, including in the home, legitimizing violence against women and children."

"And it criminalizes criticism of the de facto leadership and their policies, in violation of freedom of expression and assembly."

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk  

Taliban officials and members look on during the public flogging of 27 people, women and men, in front of a large crowd at a football stadium in Charikar city in Parwan province on 8 December 2022. Photo: AFP

Harsh punishments have been formalized within a new penal code in Afghanistan issued by decree. Signed by Afghanistan's Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, the decree "defines several crimes and punishments that contravene Afghanistan's international legal obligations" according to Volker Turk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, as he spoke before the Human Rights Council in Geneva of the decree issued in early January.

 

The 60-page Decree No.12, comprised of 119 articles, sets penalties for women who visit their relatives without having first obtained permission of their husbands. Husbands and heads of households are permitted to mete out punishment in their own homes. A man who beats his wife sufficiently severely to cause a visible cut, wound or bruise, can face 15 days in prison, with the proviso that the women is able to prove her case to a judge (a difficult task to begin with since any man's word has precedence over a woman's).

 

On the other hand, a woman who leaves her home to go to her father's house and remains there        without her husband's specific permission stands to be punished with three months in prison. That punishment extends as well to her family members should they fail to return her to her husband. What can be read into that item within the decree relates to an abused women leaving the marriage home to seek shelter at the home of her parents. 

 

Taliban operatives intimidate/threaten Afghan women to obedience.

 

Married women in Afghanistan become the chattel of their husbands; they no longer have personal agency in complete subordination to a man who has brought her into his home with the expectation that she will obey him completely and implicitly in every facet of their common life together; an indentured servant/slave to share his bed, work in his kitchen, tend to his every comfort, and raise their children.

 

The mistreatment of animals has its own onerous category of punishment. Which in other circumstances where there is no comparison to any other issues, would seem enlightened. Where anyone arranging for animals or birds to compete in a fighting arena faces penalties of five months in prison. Such fighting matches featuring animals and birds have a popularity as a social custom in Afghanistan, banned following the Taliban's return to power in 2021.

 

Similar types of crime are also treated differently on the new penal code, depending on social class, where scholars and "high-ranking people" can be penalized with a warning issued by a judge. A warning plus a court summons becomes standard for tribal leaders and businessmen, while "average people of society" face imprisonment.  The harshest punishment, however, is reserved for "the lower classes" who are subject to physical beatings/public floggings for their unlawful infractions of the penal code.

Zan Times

"In such a system, obedience to the imam or religious ruler is obligatory; a woman is half a man; Muslims have superiority over non-Muslims; and followers of one Islamic sect are superior to those of others. Thus, the authority to punish is granted, in order of hierarchy, to the imam, the husband, the master, and then to any Muslim. If one accepts a penal system rooted in sharia and does not question the concepts of hudud and taʿzir, it becomes impossible to demand equality before the law or the abolition of slavery-based and husband-dominated rules."

"The Taliban have not limited this categorization to criminal punishment. They have applied the same gender, class, religious, and sect-based discrimination to education, dress, employment, travel, religious practice, and freedom of expression. Why would granting a husband the right to punish his wife seem “new” or “abnormal” when a woman’s presence outside the home is conditional on a male guardian, when a man’s marriage to four wives is legally sanctioned, and when male superiority is embedded across all laws and social norms?" 

"The words slave and master may sound offensive today to many. Even in Afghanistan, formal slavery no longer exists as people are not openly labeled as slaves and masters. In practice, however, the Taliban system is quasi-slaveholding. The obedience they demand from the public and the restrictions and conditions they impose on women are manifestations of bondage."

Zan Times