[NEWS] Some Monday links

[rfmcdonald]

• Bloomberg observes Iran's boycott of the hajj and Iranian hopes for relatively strong economic growth this year, looks at the impact of Middle Eastern economic decline on Thai hospitals, and notes the absence of IKEA from Ukraine.


• CBC notes retesting has revealed eight Russian athletes who used banned substances at the London Olympics.


• Foreign Policy looks at the human-caused Sidoarjo mud volcano in Indonesia.


• MacLean's notes a push in Montréal for a memorial to Irish immigrants killed by typhus.


• The National Post notes that Sun Life will stop treating pot users as smokers and start treating them as users of medicine.


• Open Democracy is critical of Iran's open-ended military objectives in Syria, given their human toll.


• Spiegel investigates Russia's support of the Euroskeptic AfD party.