Headline: Cairo University bans teachers from wearing niqabs:

CAIRO — The recent decision to ban female staff from wearing the full face veil aims to put an end to student complaints of “poor communication” in class, the head of Egypt’s Cairo University said Friday.

Although the head-to-toe covering known locally as the niqab is “not a phenomenon” among his teachers, Gaber Nassar told The Associated Press that he wants to “cure the disease” before it becomes one.

Islamic clerics and students have denounced the move as discriminatory, but Nassar said he has the backing of the Grand Mufti, Egypt’s top religious authority.

Grand Mufti Trudeau has yet to issue an official statement.

…litterbug:

A Pakistani-Canadian imprisoned in California over a plot to decapitate employees of a Danish newspaper and throw their heads on to the street is among those targeted for revocation of their citizenship under a controversial new law, the National Post has learned..

Jim Carr, federal Liberal candidate in Winnipeg South Centre:

“Perhaps in France, perhaps the right-wing movement in Europe that’s becoming more and more insidious, there are Jews now that want to leave France for Israel…”

No mention in the report about whether the audience laughed.
Carr, incidentally, is Jewish.
h/t

Marco Dube, the interim VP for Strategy & Public affairs at the CBC Radio Canada, explains the CBC’s decision to not broadcast the Munk Debate:

We don’t broadcast content, like a debate, over which we have no editorial input. We do news coverage, though.

Parse that one at length if you will.

The WSJ (paywall):

Russia launched airstrikes in Syria on Wednesday, catching U.S. and Western officials off guard and drawing new condemnation as evidence suggested Moscow wasn’t targeting extremist group Islamic State, but rather other opponents of Bashar al-Assad’s regime..

Any opponents in particular? Well..

In Syria’s multi-sided war, Mr. Assad’s military–aided by Iran and the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah–is fighting both Islamic State and opposition rebel groups, some of which are supported by the U.S. and its allies.

Ruh-oh. The BBC’s Jon Sopel:

Extraordinary. A 3-star Russian general went to US embassy in Baghdad this am, saying bombing starts in 1 hour, clear Syria airspace.

The Obama administration responded forcefully with a George Bush reference:

“Russia will not succeed in imposing a military solution any more than the United States was successful in imposing a military solution in Iraq,” spokesperson Josh Earnest said.

Canada’s largest anti-Conservative activist group fights back:

The head of the CBC is hitting back at Conservative Leader Stephen Harper over the national broadcaster’s funding. CEO Hubert Lacroix says the CBC has healthy ratings, but is crippled by a broken funding model.

Lacroix, whose network makes money from ads just like any other network but also gets to scrape an additional billion dollars a year from taxpayers’ pockets, said —

…Canada must look to other European countries for ideas on how to fund public broadcasting. He says Germany has a household fee, while France collects revenue from Internet service providers.

Vladimir Putin, speaking to the UN General Assembly, addresses the West’s “export…of so-called democratic (revolutions)” in the Middle East:

“Instead of the triumph of democracy and progress, we got violence, poverty and social disaster….I cannot help asking those who have forced that situation: Do you realize what you have done?”

On Syrian President Bashar al-Assad:

“We think it is an enormous mistake to refuse to cooperate with the Syrian government and its armed forces, who are valiantly fighting terrorism face to face. We should finally acknowledge that no one but President Assad’s armed forces and Kurdish militias are truly fighting the Islamic State and other terrorist organizations in Syria.”

No sane and moral human being could have sympathy for the Assad regime, but if it was toppled, only to have Islamist barbarians fill the resulting power vacuum, would the humanitarian situation in Syria be any better?

Migrants refuse to stay in Serbia:

Migrants mostly refuse transportation and accommodation in Belgrade because they tend to continue their movement to their final destination – Germany and Scandinavia, Vulin said. They believe they should make their stay in Serbia as short as possible…

Why, it’s almost as if the majority of the people storming Europe are economic migrants, not refugees.

Mark Steyn and his fellow stalwarts stands up for free speech in Christiansborg Castle.
Video at link.

David Akin breaks down Justin Trudeau’s election promise to add $26.1 billion to the national debt.

Andrew Coyne, during the At Issue portion of The National:

“…to spend such a proportion of (the time in the federal leaders’ debate) talking about this question of whether a few dozen women should have to wear a mas…a veil, or not be allowed to wear a veil, in a private citizenship ceremony, or whether they should do it in a private room beforehand, it’s ridiculous.”

A visibly miffed Chantal Hebert proceeded to box his ears:

“It is an issue that is of interest to the voters in this province and to most of the Canadians who have answered that question. Now, as far as I can tell, there is not a list of ‘this is an issue you can debate, and this is of no interest to us in Toronto, so why should you care about it in Montreal (or) ever have a discussion about it?’ An election is about more than whatever is set in the editorial boardrooms of Toronto as what matters to the country.”

h/t
(Euro)Related: The Telegraph’s Janet Daley on democracy vs. the enlightened class.

The Canadian government has revoked the citizenship of convicted terrorist Zakaria Amara, the mastermind behind a plot to detonate massive bombs in downtown Toronto.
A couple of prominent Canadians won’t be too happy about it:

NDP leader Tom Mulcair has said he would scrap the citizenship revocation law, and on Friday Liberal leader Justin Trudeau repeated his pledge to repeal it. “The bill creates second-class citizens,” he said. “No elected official should ever have the exclusive power to revoke Canadian citizenship. Under a Liberal government there will be no two-tiered citizenship. A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.”

Yup. Love those Canadians.