The Post is reporting the story:

A Saudi woman who fled her family, claiming fear for her life, and used social media to amplify her calls for safe haven was granted asylum by Canada on Friday, an official in Thailand said.

The decision to give haven to the 18-year-old Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun capped a nearly week-long drama that highlighted the power of social media to call attention to her case and reverse initial plans by Thai officials to deport her to Kuwait, where she fled her family while on holiday.

With all its enormous flaws…Twitter can do that. It can put people in danger, and it can save people who are in danger.

The Post notes with surprise that … Read the rest

ALL RIGHT

#BREAKING Prime Minister Trudeau has confirmed that Rahaf Al-Qunun, the Saudi teen, has been granted asylum in Canada. @rahaf84427714 #SaveRahaf https://t.co/Zuz42wjILO

— Natasha Fatah (@NatashaFatah) January 11, 2019

… Read the rest

The BBC on Rahaf al-Qunun’s escape to Canada:

The UN’s refugee agency has said it considers her to be a legitimate refugee.

Refugee status is normally granted by governments, but the UNHCR can grant it where states are “unable or unwilling to do so”, according to its website.

Thai immigration officials told Reuters that Canada had “granted her asylum”, however Canadian officials told the BBC they currently have “nothing to confirm” on the issue.

I didn’t know the UNHCR can grant refugee status on its own; that’s useful.

The BBC talked to another Saudi woman.

Rahaf is an inspiration. But she’s not the first one who did this and definitely not the last one.

What we are going

Meanwhile in Burma:

A court in Myanmar has rejected an appeal by two Reuters reporters jailed for breaking a state secrets act.

Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were sentenced to seven years in September in a case condemned around the world.

They exposed the summary execution of 10 Muslim Rohingyas by the security forces during the military’s anti-Rohingya operation in 2017.

State murder shouldn’t be protected by state secrets acts.

When arrested the two were investigating a mass execution of Rohingyas, hundreds of thousands of whom have been forced to flee destruction and persecution in the northern Rakhine province of Myanmar (also called Burma).

UN investigators have called for top Myanmar generals to be investigated for genocide, and

White nationalists marching in Princeton:

A white supremacist group — the New Jersey European Heritage Association — plans to host a march in Princeton Saturday, a move that local officials say they don’t condone, but can’t stop.

Now look here – that’s my hometown, and that’s no good. (It’s also quite surprising, because Princeton is frankly very up itself…but then come to think of it that’s probably why they chose it. “Take that, you exurban preppy elleetist snobs.”)

The Princeton Police Department was notified that flyers were posted around town advertising the march, which is happening in Palmer Square. The department will have a strong presence in the area Saturday, Chief Nick Sutter said.

“We want everybody to be

Good news:

#BREAKING: Saudi teen who fled family will leave Thailand for Canada on Friday night – Thai immigration chief (Reuters) https://t.co/Zuz42w27ne

— Natasha Fatah (@NatashaFatah) January 11, 2019

The AP has more:

Thailand’s immigration police chief says a Saudi woman who fled alleged abuse by her family will leave Bangkok for Canada.

Police Chief Surachate Hakparn says the 18-year-old woman, Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun, is leaving on a flight late Friday evening. He gave no other details.

He earlier said that several countries including Canada and Australia were in talks with the U.N. refugee agency on accepting Alqunun.

Well done Canada.

This doesn’t mean she has refugee status now, but it’s a step in a good direction.… Read the rest

Hmmmm.

AP FACT CHECK: Democrats put the blame for the shutdown on Trump. But it takes two to tango. Trump's demand for $5.7 billion for his border wall is one reason for the budget impasse. The Democrats refusal to approve the money is another. https://t.co/9IWnqUgl2d

— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) January 9, 2019

The rapist’s demand for the woman to spread her legs is one reason for the rape. The woman’s refusal to comply is another.… Read the rest

Justin E. H. Smith on the higher bullshit:

Derrida means nothing without his Parisian institutional setting, but once that setting comes into focus, he continues to mean nothing, though now in a different way: he means nothing, individually, because the tricks he was encouraged to perform that so dazzled the crowds at Johns Hopkins and Irvine were taught to many others just like him, who would all of course insist on their own uniqueness, would claim they were always outsiders to the true French intellectual elite, but only because you cannot enter the tightest nucleus of this elite if you do not claim to be an outsider to it, all the while, all of them, yielding up only minor

The BBC tells us:

Victims of forced marriages overseas will no longer have to take out loans to pay for their return to the UK.

It emerged last week in an investigation by The Times that those unable to cover flights, food and shelter were made to take out an emergency loan.

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said the policy was changing as victims “may have endured particular suffering”.

Existing loans will be written off and the women’s passports returned.

The Foreign Office is going to try to get the money back from the people who arranged the forced marriage, which seems only fair.… Read the rest

Deutsche Welle reports that the Trump administration has downgraded the diplomatic status of the EU delegation to the US.

The unannounced move by the US State Department, which has not previously been reported, downgraded the EU delegation’s diplomatic status in Washington from member state to international organization.

“We don’t exactly know when they did it, because they conveniently forgot to notify us,” an EU official who is familiar with the matter told DW in an interview.

“I can confirm that this has not been well received in Brussels,” the person said, adding that the issue and an official EU response was still being discussed.

Welllll who needs Europe when we can have Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia? Europe is for … Read the rest

Russell Berman in the Atlantic:

Eric Young is the president of the union that represents the approximately 30,000 employees of the Federal Bureau of Prisons who are working during the government shutdown.

Young’s members, scattered at 122 facilities located in largely rural areas across the country, aren’t being paid and don’t know when their next paycheck will come. Like the leaders of virtually every federal-employee union during the past three weeks, he has condemned the shutdown and its toll on innocent workers as “unconscionable.”

“My personal opinion,” Young told me over the phone from his office in Arkansas, “is that it constitutes involuntary servitude.”

Neither Young nor any of his partners in union leadership, however, will urge their members

Meanwhile this vehicle we’re trapped in is racing toward the cliff.

President Trump slammed his hand on a table and stormed out of a White House meeting with congressional leaders on Wednesday after Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said she would not fund a wall along the southern border, dramatically escalating the confrontation over the government shutdown.

Stunned Democrats emerged from the White House meeting declaring that Mr. Trump had thrown a “temper tantrum.” The president’s allies accused Democrats of refusing to negotiate. Then he tweeted that the meeting was “a total waste of time.”

As opposed to rage-tweeting, and withdrawing emergency aid to victims of wildfires, and watching Fox News for 8 hours a day? Those are valuable … Read the rest

But, in much better news –

Incredible news for Saudi teen @rahaf84427714.

The UN says she should be granted asylum in Australia as a refugee.
This the power of a Twitter campaign and the bravery of one young woman.#SaveRahaf #رهف_محمد_القنون pic.twitter.com/2x06dFYrRe

— Natasha Fatah (@NatashaFatah) January 9, 2019

https://twitter.com/rahaf84427714/status/1082961242979938304

Kudos to the Government of Australia !!! @Liam_Cochrane @australian @SkyNewsAust @westaustralian @PravitR #RahafMohamed #RahafMohammedalQunun #RahafMohammed #Rahaf #Saudi #SaudiWomen @veen_th @JeromeTaylor @RichardBarrow @leunigcartoons pic.twitter.com/JbisWws7GE

— stephff cartoonist (@stephffart) January 9, 2019

… Read the rest

Make America demonic again.

Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg… Read the rest