What do you do when you're old but still healthy and feel that you have nothing to live for? Well, you would commit suicide. Well, that's what some people would think.
And in the Netherlands, this appears to soon become reality.
The country's MPs will discuss the "right to die" proposals after a campaign forced a debate by collecting over 100,000 signatures in support.
The influential Dutch "Right to Die" campaign, active since 1973, has launched new "vrijwillig levenseinde", or "of free will", demands to extend euthanasia beyond assisted suicide for terminally ill people.
The group has proposed training non-medical staffers to administer a lethal injection to healthy people over the age of 70 that "consider their lives complete" and want to die.
Under the plans, the suicide assistants would be certified and would be required to make sure that patients were not temporarily depressed and had a "heartfelt and enduring desire" to die.
Marie-Jose Grotenhuis, the campaign's spokeswoman, said: "We've been overwhelmed by the amount of reactions, especially because people took it so seriously and reactions were mostly positive."
Euthanasia was legalised in Holland in 2002 and the new proposals have been backed by the majority of people in Dutch opinion polls.
The Royal Dutch Medical Association is divided over calls to extend euthanasia beyond those suffering from painful terminal illnesses and has set up a committee to examine the proposals.
Sander Hofman, the association's spokesman, said: "For instance, a doctor probably has a role in easing the suffering of a person who is refusing to eat or drink."
Several European countries, including neighbouring Belgium, allow euthanasia for terminally ill people who wish to die. Britain and France allow terminally ill people to refuse medical treatment but stop short of allowing active assisted suicide.
The Dutch legalisation for euthanasia for the terminally ill was preceded by decades of negotiations that attached stringent conditions and medical supervision. Up to 2,500 euthanasia cases were reported in Holland in 2009, up nearly 10%, rising over the last decade as doctors have used to the practice.
But, even if the Dutch parliament approves the extension of euthanasia to health elderly people, any new legislation would take over a decade to implement.
The Conservative government appears ready to move ahead on imposing random roadside breath testing, which a new federal discussion paper says has produced "remarkable results" in catching more drunk drivers in other countries.
The Justice Department is inviting public input on the idea of random sobriety tests and federal officials plan to meet this month and next with provincial ministers and other experts to measure support.
In a rare move, the federal government has posted on its website a discussion paper, weighing the benefits of random testing, seeking feedback by the end of April.
Empowering police to conduct random breath tests would replace Canada's 40-year-old legislation on impaired driving, which dictates that breathalyser tests can only be administered when there is reasonable suspicion of drunk driving.
Justice Minister Rob Nicholson has already said he likes the idea, and MADD executive director Andrew Murie said the coming talks with interest groups and provincial governments are a sign the government could take action.
"I think the tone is that this is something they should do and the discussion paper reflects that," said Murie, stressing that he has no inside information on when, or even if, a proposed new law would be introduced in Parliament.
The Justice Department paper states the government is eyeing "a comprehensive set of reforms" to combat impaired driving.
Murie described random breath tests as "No. 1, far and away" among about eight recommendations last year by the House of Commons justice committee that would reduce the growing number of deaths caused by drunk drivers.
The aforementioned discussion paper, which states that the Government of Canada accepts the committee's recommendations in principle, noted that Canada would be following Australia, New Zealand and 22 European countries that have imposed random testing.
The Justice Department reports that such testing has reduced fatal crashes by as much as 35% in some jurisdictions and, in New Zealand, saved society more than $1 billion in 1997 alone.
A Windsor surgeon who performed two unnecessary mastectomies is seeking to have her privileges reinstated at Windsor's Hotel-Dieu Grace Hospital in the midst of three investigations into her practice. Dr. Barbara Heartwell, who is under investigation by the hospital, the Ontario Ministry of Health and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, will make her case before a panel of hospital board members at a formal hearing today.
Heartwell's troubles began three weeks ago, when Hotel-Dieu announced she had misread a pathology report and performed an unnecessary mastectomy last fall on Leamington, Ontario woman Laurie Johnston, who never had breast cancer.
On February 23, Heartwell voluntarily stopped performing surgeries at Hotel-Dieu after it was revealed she also removed Janice Laporte's cancer-free breast in 2001.
But three days later, Heartwell "unexpectedly" withdrew her agreement and wanted to return to the operating room. In a rare move, Hotel-Dieu's interim chief of staff at the time, Dr. Kevin Tracey, immediately suspended her privileges, hospital officials said Tuesday.
Under the Ontario Public Hospitals Act and hospital bylaws governing professional staff, Heartwell was entitled to have her suspension reviewed by Hotel-Dieu's medical advisory committee -- comprised of leading physicians at the hospital -- within five days. The committee then makes a recommendation to the hospital's board of directors on whether to reinstate privileges.
A panel of board members will hear submissions Wednesday from the medical advisory committee and Heartwell, who will attend the hearing with her lawyer.
Hospital board chairman Egidio Sovran said the board will act as a quasi-judicial decision maker and "must act impartially in accordance with relevant legislation."
The board will make its decision after considering arguments from both sides.
Heartwell can appeal the decision to the Health Professions Appeal and Review Board, an independent tribunal that holds hearings concerning doctors' hospital privileges. Hotel-Dieu is currently reviewing all of Heartwell's past cases. The Ministry of Health also got involved recently, sending investigators to Windsor.
In addition, the ministry is also reviewing about 3,000 pathology reports following the January 4 suspension of another Hotel-Dieu medical official, pathologist Dr. Olive Williams, over errors in her work. Williams, who analyzed specimens for all three hospitals in the area, has since resigned from Hotel-Dieu.
The College of Physicians and Surgeons is investigating both Heartwell and Williams.
With local residents still overwhelmed by the loss of Ontario Provincial Police Constable Vu Pham, a clearer picture emerged Tuesday of the douche involved in his shooting. Fred Preston, 70, of Burk's Falls, Ontario remains in critical condition in a London hospital, where he was being treated for injuries sustained in Monday's shootout.
The provincial Special Investigations Unit, which was probing the incident, said Preston became involved in a confrontation with Ontario Provincial Police at 82352 North Line, a home in rural Leadbury, Ontario about 90 kilometres north of London.
Constable Pham, 37, was shot after he pulled over a suspect vehicle around 10 a.m. Monday. A gun battle ensued between OPP and the suspect, who was ultimately wounded by police. Some witnesses reported hearing around 20 shots.
The home on North Line, where neighbours say a man named John Driscoll resided, was under police guard Tuesday. There were reports Preston's estranged wife may have shared that address.
Meanwhile, in nearby Wingham, Constable Pham's neighbours, friends and colleagues were struggling to recover from the loss of the 15-year OPP veteran, who worked out of the Huron detachment and was married with three young children.
"He was forever outside teaching them how to throw a ball, or kick a ball," next-door neighbour Lorne Mackenzie said in an interview at the local arena where Const. Pham coached hockey.
In a Pentecostal church that is minutes from the arena, Constable Pham's family were making funeral arrangements, according to police officers blocking access to the building. By all accounts, Constable Pham was a loving father, a dedicated officer and an active member of the community. A cluster of vehicles were parked outside his home on a quiet side street in the Wingham region.
"Anybody that knew him, liked him," Mackenzie said, noting Constable Pham's wife, Heather, has been "falling back on her faith" to cope.
Chief Tim Poole of the Wingham Police Service, who worked with Constable Pham on matters concerning the town, said the pair frequently went out for coffee, where Constable Pham spoke about his family and his children's sporting events. The local force was stunned by the news of his death, Chief Poole said.
"Everyone copes in their own way," he said outside the station. "It's a tragedy that shouldn't have happened."
The Wingham OPP detachment was sealed tight earlier in the day, the flag outside at half-mast.
A "good listener," Constable Pham was always busy outside his home, tending to his yard or playing soccer or baseball with his children, neighbour Doug Noble said.
"Around here, a lot of days are the same, and then one day, something happens that changes everything," Noble said.
Neighbour Kim Smith, recalling pleasant conversations with the Phams at community barbecues, called them "the perfect family" and said they were heavily involved in the local church.
"Everybody's devastated," Smith said, with tears in her eyes.
Constable Pham, who is a native of Saigon, Vietnam, "lived for his children," and they will miss him dearly, Mackenzie said.
He recalled how the neighbours often relaxed together by a backyard campfire, and says he will remember the Phams in a happier time: "The five of them, sitting by the fire, enjoying them-selves."
Burk's Falls is approximately 260 kilometres north of Toronto.
The Ontario Provincial Police are mourning the loss of one of their own after the calm in the rural community of Leadbury was shattered by a shootout that killed Constable Vu Pham, a 15-year veteran of the force and father of three.
"I am deeply saddened by the loss of this young brave officer who was committed to protecting the citizens of Ontario," OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino said Monday afternoon after learning Pham succumbed to his injuries at the London Health Sciences Centre, where he was being treated.
The province itself is reeling from the second death of a policeman in the line of duty in a week.
"It impacts society overall when those who are entrusted with the duty to protect and safeguard are killed in the line of duty," Fantino said. "It diminishes our society gravely."
"But on the other hand, it also highlights the significance of these very fine men and women who put themselves at grave risk and (in) harm's way - very often for strangers - to simply do their duty and their jobs, and Constable Pham is just one of these heroes."
Fantino noted that Tuesday he and other police officers were gathering to honour a Peel police officer killed while on duty last week.
Constable Artem "James" Ochakovsky died from injuries sustained in a vehicle collision March 1. He is to be buried today.
"There's trauma and the sense of loss is felt in every police detachment throughout this province," he said. "This is a tragedy. We're just trying to hold it together and do what we have to do to see this difficult time through."
Pham, 37, was shot after he pulled over a vehicle and confronted an armed suspect at 10:18 a.m. Monday on North Line, a rural road in Leadbury, Ontario, about 90 kilometres north of London. The officer was "immediately incapacitated," Fantino told reporters at a media conference earlier in the day.
He would not reveal the nature of the call that Pham was responding to, nor the reason he pulled the suspect's vehicle over.
"There was nothing fancy about it. He was just doing his job," said Fantino, who flew to London to be at Pham's bedside.
Reports suggested Pham was shot in the head or neck, and that there was an exchange of up to 25 shots. He was airlifted by helicopter to London Health Sciences Centre, but doctors were unable to save the officer's life. No other officers were injured.
Fantino said the suspect in the shooting is a 70-year-old man who was later shot by police. The suspect remains in a London hospital but the extent of his injuries are unknown.
Earlier Monday one of the shooting victims was treated at a Seaforth hospital.
"We had one patient brought in who was stabilized and transferred to London," said Mary Cardinal, site administrator at Seaforth hospital.
Cardinal could not say whether it was the police officer or the suspect, but said the nature of the injury was a "gunshot wound" without specifying how many times the person was shot.
Pham was born in Saigon, Vietnam, and joined the OPP in 1995. During his career he served in Cochrane and in Parry Sound and was attached to the Huron County detachment when he died. He is survived by his wife, Heather, and three children, Tyler, 12, Jordan, 10, and Joshua, 7.
In the legislature Monday, Premier Dalton McGuinty offered his condolences to Pham's family and to the police.
"I think it's an opportunity for all of us just to reflect on how much we count on these men and women every single day to go out there and put it on the line," he said. "They spend so much time away from their families devoted to our families. And so we're very grateful for everything they do and the sacrifices they make."
There have now been 104 OPP officers killed in the line of duty; Pham becomes the 24th member of the force to die after being shot, according to statistics provided by Fantino.
Special Investigations Unit spokeswoman Monica Hudon said her agency has sent nine investigators to the scene. The SIU is an arm's-length agency that investigates incidents involving police who end in death, serious injury or allegations of sexual assault.
The Huron County detachment will also conduct a parallel investigation into the incident. Police set up a massive perimeter, blocking off several kilometres of farmland, while OPP and SIU officers milled outside at the crime scene on North Line.
Neighbour Francis Hunt, who lives further down the road, recalled hearing the mid-morning gunfire.
"I was just coming out of the barn. I heard six or eight shots," Hunt said. "I thought it was hunters, maybe coyote hunting."
But then he saw a quick succession of police cars and ambulances tearing down the road, and discovered something far darker had happened.
"Everybody's in shock. For this community..." he trailed off, shaking his head.
His sentiments were echoed by Elgin and Ruth Schade, who say they were stunned to learn of the shooting in their usually quiet, pastoral community.
"People are shaken up," said Schade, who was following the story on television, despite living minutes away from the heavily barricaded crime scene.
Houses in the tiny community north of London are scattered, with wide swaths of open farmland separating friends and neighbours.
Bonnie Glanville lives just metres from where the shooting took place. She told the Seaforth Huron Expositor that she looked out her window Monday morning and saw a light-coloured pickup truck being pulled over by an OPP cruiser. She said she thought she was witnessing someone getting a speeding ticket.
"I realized something wasn't quite right when he quickly jumped out of the truck," Glanville said, before describing hearing the sound of shots and watching the officer get shot.
Residents were struggling to pinpoint which of their neighbours may have been involved in the altercation, as police were withholding the name of the suspect.
"It's disappointing, and the thing is nobody is immune to disasters like this," said Neil Dolmage, a farmer who also heard the gunshots and lives about one kilometre from the site of the incident. "The officer who's died, I feel badly for him - just (being at) the wrong damn place - and feel bad for the family of whoever did the shooting."
Dolmage said he could still see police lights flashing late Monday evening.
The head of Canada's prison system says that there will be "major construction initiatives" in the coming years to cope with federal legislation to imprison more offenders longer, which is an assertion backed by new spending estimates that are showing a 43% increase in penitentiary capital costs next year.
Don Head, commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada, set the stage for prison expansion in a recent email, obtained by Canwest News Service.
In a brief note to staff sent on Dec. 23, Head announced changes to the senior ranks of the prison system "to best prepare itself to implement many of the changes associated with several of the pieces of legislation that will result in a growth of our inmate population."
The government has previously said it is only contemplating expanding existing facilities or building more prisons to handle an anticipated influx of federal offenders.
"Any conversation before has been general musing," said Liberal public safety critic Mark Holland. "What this says to me is that they know what they are doing, they know what they are building -- they are just refusing to let it go public."
Critics have questioned the need for a prison-building boom in times of fiscal restraint and declining crime rates, particularly when they say there is no evidence that longer sentences work in cutting crime.
"This is basically pouring money down a rat hole," said Craig Jones, executive director of the John Howard Society.
He predicted the prison service is on the verge of becoming "the largest building contractor in Canada."
Government spending estimates, released last week, show the prison system's tab for capital expenditures for the coming fiscal year will increase 43%, to $329.4 million in 2010-2011, from $230.8 million in 2009-2010.
Head's email does not specify whether the federal construction initiatives mean building more prisons or expanding existing ones.
But Christine Cversko, a spokesperson for Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, said there are no plans to build new prisons, and that the money will be spent on "updating and improving" existing facilities.
"Our government is making decisions based on what we need to do in order to make our communities safe," she said in an email. "Releasing criminals onto our streets early has a much higher cost than keeping criminals behind bars."
The government, in a written response last fall to a question posed by Holland, reported that the system "will be able to accommodate anticipated prison population within the existing infrastructure" in the short term, with the possible addition of portable facilities.
The government acknowledged, however, that the Correctional Service would "have to look to construct additional permanent accommodations" in the long term, including new units or institutions.
A 2007 report on prison reform, written by a government-appointed panel, called for the creation of new regional correctional facilities.
The Conservative government has refused to divulge a total tab for its initiatives to imprison more offenders, citing cabinet confidences.
Kevin Page, the independent parliamentary budget officer who keeps an eye on federal spending, is calculating the cost at the urging of the opposition Liberals. A report is expected this spring.
The government has proposed or passed several pieces of legislation that would impose mandatory minimum jail terms for a variety of crimes. One bill, which became law last month, would end a judicial practice of giving offenders a "two-for-one" credit on their sentences to compensate for time spent in pre-trial custody.
The government also has committed to introducing legislation to end "statutory release" after prisoners serve two-thirds of their sentences, in favour of earned parole tied to following a corrections plan.
Justin Piche, a doctoral candidate at Carleton University in Ottawa, has conducted research showing the provinces are also on a building spree, with plans to inject more than $2.8 billion into expanding or renovating existing facilities, or building new ones.
Ronald Smith, the only Canadian on death row in the United States, is one step closer to Montana's execution chamber after an appeal court ruling that upheld his death sentence for the brutal murders of two American Indian men in 1982.
But Smith's 25-year fight to avoid a lethal injection for his crime, which has revived the Canadian debate over capital punishment, could ultimately gain a boost from parts of the ruling made Friday, which highlighted his rehabilitation in prison, the "pitiful" failings of his initial defence lawyer and the power of Montana's governor to grant clemency in the case.
In fact, the Seattle Ninth Circuit judges, who upheld Smith's sentence in a 2-1 ruling, nevertheless appeared to send a message directly to Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer, who has the authority to commute the 52-year-old Canadian's death penalty despite the failed appeal.
"By all accounts, Smith has reformed his life," majority judges Sidney Thomas and Margaret McKeown stated in their decision.
"He has developed strong relationships with various members of his family and has taken advantage of the educational opportunities offered by the prison that houses him. He has expressed deep regret for his deplorable actions."
However, the judges noted that "the consideration of these issues are beyond our jurisdiction in this case. Clemency claims are committed to the wisdom of the executive branch."
Mark Warren, a Canadian human-rights specialist who has testified on Smith's behalf, said on Sunday that the "extraordinary" phrasing of the judges' ruling is a silver lining in the rejected appeal.
"In 20 years of reviewing death-penalty decisions, I've never seen more surprising language than the final paragraph in the Smith opinion," he said. "The court signalled as clearly as it could that Ron Smith should be granted clemency by the governor of Montana."
Smith, who is from Red Deer, Alberta, initially asked to be executed after confessing to the murders of Harvey Mad Man and Thomas Running Rabbit during a drugs-and-alcohol-fuelled hitchhiking trip to the United States with two Canadian friends.
Smith later claimed that depression, fear and bad legal advice had prompted his prison death wish, and he began trying to avoid execution with help from Canadian government officials.
The clemency issue shot into the Canadian political spotlight in October 2007 when it was revealed that the Conservative government was abruptly ending years of efforts by Canada's diplomats to convince Montana's top politician to commute Smith's death sentence.
Canadian government officials at the time said they were "not going to seek clemency in cases in democratic countries, like the United States, where there has been a fair trial."
But the new hands-off policy, defended at the time by Prime Minister Stephen Harper as consistent with his government's tough-on-crime policies, was ruled "unlawful" last year by the Federal Court of Canada, which ordered federal officials to restart their lobbying effort to prevent Smith's execution.
The Government of Canada later agreed to re-launch the clemency bid, but Smith's lawyers indicated last year that a renewed push to convince Schweitzer to commute the death sentence would likely only begin in earnest after the Ninth Circuit appeal was decided.
Now, because of the court's split decision and the life-and-death issues involved in the Smith case, his legal team is expected to seek an "en banc" review of Friday's ruling by a wider panel of Ninth Circuit judges.
A further appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is also an option, but history suggests Smith stands little chance of winning there.
For now, only Schweitzer's intervention could halt the momentum toward Smith's execution.
One day after Avatar was disappointed at the Oscars, a Vancouver restaurant owner plans to file a lawsuit in B.C. Supreme Court today claiming copyright infringement against director James Cameron and other makers of the highest-grossing film of all time.
Emil Malak, 57, says the similarities between his Terra Incognita and James Cameron's Avatar are too striking to simply be a coincidence.
Malak's lawyer Suzan El-Khatib said the claim to be filed today will name, among others, Avatar writer and director James Cameron, his company Lightstorm Entertainment Inc., and Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.
El-Khatib said there are both general and specific similarities in the two stories including the premise of humans going to mine precious minerals on a planet inhabited by indigenous people.
In both stories, she said, a tree is a focal point and contains the collective memories of the indigenous people. In Terra Incognita, it is a Life Tree. Cameron calls it the "Hometree."
Even the characters are similar, she said, with both incorporating spotted faces, long braided hair, flat noses and yellow eyes.
"They are quite alike," El-Khatib said yesterday.
She said the suit will make a claim against the defendants for "damages for copyright infringement for substantially reproducing, adapting and publicly presenting, or in the alternative authorizing such acts, the plaintiffs work as a literary work and a cinematographic work entitled Avatar."
Malak, who owns the Bellaggio Cafe at Hornby Street and Robson Street in Vancouver, began thinking about his sci-fi tale in 1996 at the suggestion of his then seven- and eight-year-old sons who wanted him to write something more exciting than the opera and historical fiction he'd been working on.
It was a turning point in Malak's life. In 1996 he had lost his Granville Island Hotel in a $5 million bankruptcy.
"I took a three-year sabbatical. I lived on about $2-300 a month. I stayed with my brother in Richmond and did nothing but write," said Malak.
He began putting pen to paper for what he calls his "children's story" in 1997 and in the end he figures he spent $100,000 on his script.
He hired a graphic artist to draw his character designs and a screen writer to co-write the script. He took a screen writing course and first copyrighted his work with the Writers Guild of Canada in 1998. He copyrighted it with the guild nine more times between 1998 and 2003, every time he advanced the story and characters.
In a February 27, 1998 note filed with his documents at the Writers Guild of Canada, he wrote that he was copywriting his work because he was "afraid of the big boys."
"I had just lost Granville Island (and) lost $5 million so you become very intuitive. You don't trust anybody," said Malak. "I was so scared someone was going to steal it."
Malak, who was born in Egypt, educated in England and moved to Canada in 1993, believes it was October 2002 when he sent his script and graphic designs to about twenty movie studios including Cameron and his company Lightstorm Entertainment Inc.
He got no response and the script was never returned to him. Malak was stunned to learn of the similarities between his story and Avatar when the movie was released late last year.
Malak told The Province newspaper he believes that James Cameron had an idea similar to his - to write about indigenous people on another planet - but there's no way to account for stories that are up to 60% similar in his opinion.
"Is it possible that two ends can come up with so much similarities? Life tree, same mining material just called different names, the tails?" said Malak. "The basic building blocks of both stories are very similar."
In the end, Malak believes Avatar was shaped in part by his story and he is filing the B.C. Supreme Court writ today because he wants it to be known. He insists it's not about the money.
"I eat three times a day. I have a great life," he said. "The big boys have to recognize you can't just take things and make it a part of yours and walk all over the small guys."
"In my own heart I'm very happy and very comfortable that my vision has become a blockbuster."
Federal Transport Minister John Baird says he wants to hear from the federal privacy commissioner regarding new American security rules that require Canadian airlines flying over the United States to give U.S. authorities the names of passengers as part of anti-terrorism efforts.
"We're going to consult the privacy commissioner," the minister said Thursday. "There has to be consent for the information to be shared."
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's new Secure Flight policy, which takes effect in December, stipulates that passengers who raise the suspicions of U.S. authorities can be prevented from boarding flights that traverse American airspace, even if the flights are not on U.S. carriers and do not originate or land in the U.S.
Baird said the U.S. officials aren't looking for detailed information on passengers. "When they say they want personal information, they are not looking for health information or income tax information. What they are looking for, as I understand it, is your name and your birth date."
Nevertheless, Baird said he expected the Americans to be reasonable and expressed understanding for the American concerns. The Secure Flight policy is a broadening of existing policy that already allows the U.S. to keep aircraft out of American airspace if authorities believe a person on a U.S. government terrorism watch-list is aboard.
For example, at least twice last year, Air France Flight 438 between Paris and Mexico City was prevented from entering U.S. airspace because one of its passengers was on such a list.
Secure Flight applies to flights to, from or over the United States, from Canada to another country. Flights between two Canadian cities that travel over U.S. airspace are excluded, but about 80% of Canadian flights to the Caribbean and other southern points and to Europe fly over the U.S.
Will the introduction of this new security protocol make travelling even more complicated for Canadians? Each year, about 108 million travellers pass through Canadian airports. Of that total, 40 million are trans-border and international passengers. Another 21 million are going to or coming from the United States.
Hernando Calvo Ospina, a Colombian-born journalist working for Le Monde Diplomatique newspaper in Paris who is a vocal opponent of U.S. policy toward Cuba, was on Air France Flight 438 on April 18, 2009, when the captain announced an unscheduled stop on the French island of Martinique.
The captain explained the U.S. government had determined someone who was "undesirable for national security" was on the flight.
Calvo Ospina recalled that passengers around him were saying, "No one looks Muslim."
Then, the co-pilot called him aside to say he was the security threat.
After an overnight refuelling stop in Martinique, Flight 438 continued to Mexico City, where police questioned Calvo Ospina and told him his name was on five U.S. no-fly lists. They also asked him if he is Catholic and whether he knows how to use firearms. He replied no to both questions.
In his annual report for 2009, inspector-general Glenn A. Fine of the U.S. Justice Department disclosed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Terrorist Screening Database contains 1.1 million "terrorist identities."
Fine also said that "in certain circumstances," a person's name could be included on the Terrorist Screening Database even if the FBI doesn't consider that person a terrorism suspect. The contents of the list are not made public for reasons of national security. After analyzing "68,669 known or suspected terrorist identities" from the database, Fine found 35% were named because of terrorism cases that were closed, or for reasons "unrelated to terrorism." Fine did not specify what those reasons were.
Under Secure Flight, Canadian airlines flying over the United States -- without ever landing there -- will be required to provide the U.S. Transportation Security Administration with personal information on all passengers.
Airlines now check passenger names against the TSA terrorist watch list. With Secure Flight, the airlines will no longer have access to that list. Instead, the TSA, a branch of Homeland Security, will run the name, gender and date of birth of all passengers through its own database, plus other U.S. databases, on flights in and out of the United States.
Homeland Security has access to U.S. police records and there is evidence they can consult Canadian police records too. A U.S. border guard who questioned Teresa Healy, a Canadian Labour Congress researcher, at a border crossing in 2008 called up her fingerprint card on his computer.
The prints were taken by Toronto police when Healy was arrested, but not charged, at a 1991 demonstration.
"They told me, 'Don't worry about it. We're just keeping them in case you ever do anything else,'" Healy recalls.
On the basis of those profiles, Homeland Security will decide whether a Canadian airline should issue or deny a boarding pass. Canadian airlines can also issue a qualified boarding pass with an SSSS code, which stands for Secondary Security Screening Selectee. This will require additional interrogation before the passenger is issued a boarding pass.
The basic TSA watch-list, supplied from the larger FBI list, contains 16,000 names from around the world. Among those, 2,500 would be denied boarding and arrested, and 13,500 people would be flagged for secondary security screening. It is not known how many Canadians are on that list.
Here's how it might play out for a would-be Canadian traveller whose name is flagged under the Secure Flight system.
For example, a passenger with a ticket from Montreal to Varadero, Cuba, would get her first hint of a problem if she could not print out a boarding pass on her home computer or at an airport kiosk.
Secure Flight Final Rule, the U.S. government regulation defining the program, states that the "aircraft operator may not issue a boarding pass to the passenger, and the passenger must come to the airport for resolution."
And then there's interrogation. Someone designated a "selectee" or a "potential match" on the watch-list will be subjected to enhanced screening by Canadian law enforcement officers.
"A potential match is someone who has been determined not to be an exact match but has the potential to match some of the data elements," explained TSA spokesperson Andrea McCauley.
The TSA does not disclose its criteria for putting someone on its no-fly or selectee lists, deeming such information "sensitive," and McCauley would not say how many terrorists TSA screening has stopped.
Bruce Schneier, a computer cryptography expert and author of the blog Schneier on Security, dismisses the no-fly list as "counterterrorism silliness."
In an email exchange, he said the screening process has captured "zero terrorists."
Schneier was a consultant for Secure Flight when it was first proposed in 2004. He found it an improvement on the no-fly list, but "riddled with security holes" and easy to work around using false ID.
"Secure Flight is a passive system," Schneier explained in his blog. "It waits for the bad guys to buy an airplane ticket and try to board. If the bad guys don't fly, it's a waste of money."
According to the U.S. government, Secure Flight cost $300 million to develop.
"If I had some millions of dollars to spend on terrorism security, and I had a watchlist of potential terrorists, I would spend that money investigating those people," Schneier continued. "I would clear the innocent people, and I would go after the guilty."
Do you like getting your haircut by a man? Well, for me, personally, I don't really like it, and would prefer a female.
Well, in Gaza, they really seem to hate that. In fact, they hate it so much that they are willing to ban male salon workers.
Reports of the ban surfaced Thursday, as observers marked the move as the latest in a series of laws restricting personal freedoms in the coastal enclave. Over the past four months, women have been prohibited from riding motorcycles, and men have been banned from removing their shirts at the beach.
The latest ban targeting women's hair salons was signed by de facto Minister of the Interior Fathi Hammad, set to be enforced by the Gaza government's police.
A separate statement from the local police in Gaza said those violating the ban would be "tracked and punished."
The decisions mark a departure from the stated policy of the Hamas-run government, which has said it would not work to impose Islamic rule on the people of Gaza.
Internal bombings targeting CD and DVD shops, coffee houses and salons, which have occurred sporadically in Gaza since 2008, were condemned by government officials.
"Next thing you know, they will ban doctors from treating women, and will only let women treat women," 44-year-old hairdresser Barakat Al-Ghoul told The Associated Press in an initial announcement on the ban, adding, "Tomorrow, they will ban everything."
In 2004, Reverend Nathan Dutnall from Saskatoon's home was broken into. However, the items stolen were odd. Among them were cordless phones, without the base the charges the cordless phones and a PlayStation 2 console. However, the bizarre thing was that after the thieves busted through a window, there was a reasonable effort to place the window back in its place.
Well, recently, in Saskatoon, something odd like that happened again.
Business for the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) in Saskatoon has been far from usual since their van's door was stolen more than two weeks ago.
"The van to us was worth gold," said Del Lennea, a worker with the MCC.
The MCC is a non-profit organization that provides relief to countries in distress. The van was being used to transfer items for Haiti relief kits to the MCC's building, from which the kits would be sent to Haiti.
Lennea showed up at the MCC office on 45th Street on the morning of February 16 and everything seemed to be in order. That was until he noticed the organization's van was missing the driver-side door. Nothing was stolen from inside the van and it wasn't vandalized.
Lennea called police and filed a report but was told the chances of finding the door are slim to none.
"I wouldn't put looking for a door as a top priority, especially when there is other stuff happening around our city," Lennea said.
The van was written off by SGI, but Lennea bought a door from a wrecker for $100. After the door was put on, a safety inspection had to be done before the van could be allowed back on the road.
After the inspection, Lennea was told that van's anti-lock brake system was not working properly and the van was not cleared to be on the road.
Lennea said he knew the braking system wasn't working, but the van was still running fine.
"I only want safe vehicles on our roads, too, but the whole problem is that if that person hadn't stolen our door, we wouldn't have been in this situation," Lennea said, adding the van is now for sale.
The van was getting a lot of use lately as Lennea has been gathering items such as comforters, towels, toiletries and medical items for the relief kits. The MCC is planning to send 1,000 kits to Haiti.
"The problem is that I have to go all over the city to get stuff that doesn't fit in your common vehicle," Lennea said. "When that door got stolen it really put a damper on our production here."
To fill the void, Lennea has been using his own trailer to transport items.
Lennea could only speculate as to why someone would steal the door from the van, but he is sure he won't find it.
"It's a white door off a GMC cargo van. How many companies around Saskatoon have that?" he asked.
Lennea and the MCC can only rely on money they get from the sale of their old van and donations to find a replacement.
A Vancouver Island teenager who was credited earlier this week with thwarting a violent attack on a school in the United States is now a suspect in the crime. Police officials in Brewster, Washington confirmed Wednesday that they are investigating the 14-year-old girl from Port Alberni, British Columbia in the shooting plot.
The teen was chatting last week with a 17-year-old boy from Brewster on the social-networking website Facebook when the American youth told her his plans to go to school and begin shooting people, police said.
The boy was arrested and is now facing charges of conspiracy to commit assault in the first degree.
Brewster police Chief Ron Oules said that the girl's parents learned of the threats and called officials at the local RCMP detachment, which then passed on the information to Brewster police.
"The parent believed their... daughter was involved in a school shooting plan with a juvenile male from the United States," Oules said in a Wednesday news release.
Police also informed the schools of the threat, Oules said.
RCMP officials said Wednesday that "unless more evidence surfaces," the girl will not face charges under Canadian law.
"As a result of the thorough investigation and with the evidence obtained there was not enough evidence to support a charge against the 14-year-old Port Alberni female," Sgt. Lee Omilusik said in a news release.
The girl could still face charges in the United States.
It's not known whether the two teens knew each other prior to last Friday's conversation.
Brewster is located about 250 kilometres south of Osoyoos, British Columbia, and is home to three schools: an elementary, middle and high school.
Last month, another British Columbia teen was credited with alerting officials to a possible school shooting.
On February 4, an online gamer called police after a youth in San Antonio, Texas, said he would participate in a school shooting. Local police passed on the details of the tip to U.S. authorities and the teen was arrested.
A Swedish pilot with a fake commercial licence was arrested in his cockpit at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport as he prepared to fly 101 passengers on a Boeing 737 to Turkey, Dutch police said Wednesday.
The 41 year-old Swede, who was at the helm of a jet bound for Ankara, had been flying for 13 years and logged more than 10,000 flight hours using forged documents for airlines in Belgium, Britain and Italy, authorities said.
The pilot, whose name was not disclosed, was said to have expressed relief when confronted and taken off his pilot's stripes.
Wait... so a man who had no licence had flown an aircraft safely for 13 years?! Holy crap... I wonder if his learning is from a videogame like that guy on Snakes on a Plane!
British "supermodel" Naomi Campbell will not face charges related to assault accusations by her driver, New York police said Wednesday.
The 39-year-old model was accused of striking her driver from behind and causing his head to hit the steering wheel of the car Tuesday afternoon. By the time police arrived at the scene in Midtown Manhattan, Campbell had left on foot, apparently.
New York police said in a statement Wednesday that the driver "filed a harassment complaint, but elected not to pursue criminal charges" and that there would be no arrest.
Campbell's spokesman Jeff Raymond said after the incident that there should not be a rush to make a judgment on the supermodel and that "there is more to the story than meets the eye."
This situation was not Campbell's first brush with the law.
In 2008, Campbell was sentenced by a London court to 200 hours of community service after pleading guilty to assaulting two police officers during an expletive-filled incident after she had discovered an airline had lost one of her bags.
Campbell also spent five days mopping floors and cleaning toilets as part of a community service sentence in New York in 2007 after throwing a mobile phone at her housekeeper during an argument over a pair of jeans. She was also ordered to attend anger management classes.
In a previous incident with a telephone in 1998, Campbell assaulted an assistant, Georgina Galanis. The model agreed in 2000 to plead guilty in a Toronto court to the assault in exchange for expressing remorse, paying Galanis an undisclosed amount of money and attending anger management classes.
A 34-year-old man has been arrested after he allegedly ran naked down the streets of Regina and streaked into city hall, taking an elevator up 15 floors to the mayor's office before being subdued by two bylaw officers and a commissionaire.
Cops have said the man is expected to face criminal charges. However, his name has not yet been released.
Eyewitnesses described seeing a naked man running north down Smith Street at about 10:10 a.m. yesterday while wearing nothing but a pair of glasses, then crossing Victoria Avenue and racing onto the grounds of city hall.
"It's just something you don't expect to see," said one woman who witnessed the bizarre event.
She said the man was still naked when he was taken away by police. Other witnesses said the man did not even appear to be wearing shoes.
At a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, mayor's office spokesman Mark Rathwell said that the nude man was in "a distressed state" and not making any sense when he burst into the 15th floor office, where four employees were working. The mayor was not in the office at the time.
Cops were initially alerted to the situation after receiving a report that a man without pants walked into an apartment in the 2100 block of Rae Street, then fled. Minutes later, cops got a call about a naked man who had briefly entered the YMCA on 13th Avenue, and he appears to have then proceeded on to city hall.
Police say the nude suspect entered the building, yelled at a cashier, then walked into an open elevator and headed upstairs.
Rathwell described the suspect as "a gentleman that we've dealt with in the office before."
Several of those who witnessed the streaking said they also recognized the accused.
A Leamington, Ontario woman who underwent an unnecessary mastectomy at Hotel-Dieu Grace Hospital in Windsor, Ontario, has a prominent Toronto law firm and one of the most powerful public relations companies on the planet launching legal action on her behalf.
Laurie Johnston will hold a news conference Wednesday at the office of law firm Torkin Manes. In a media advisory, PR giant Hill & Knowlton said Johnston "will make a statement about the reasons for her legal action."
It will be Johnston's first public statement since she learned she wasn't the first patient at Hotel-Dieu to have a breast removed unnecessarily.
Johnston, who had a cancer-free breast removed by Dr. Barbara Heartwell in November of 2009, and Janice Laporte, a Sarnia, Ontario woman who underwent an unnecessary mastectomy by the same surgeon in 2001, have triggered probes by the Ontario Ministry of Health and the provincial body that regulates doctors. Hotel-Dieu is also reviewing cases involving Heartwell and pathologist Dr. Olive Williams.
Dr. Heartwell has voluntarily stopped operating last week after Hotel-Dieu officials learned through the media of the unnecessary mastectomies. At the time that Dr. Heartwell stepped down, the hospital announced it had suspended Dr. Williams on January 4 after reviewing her pathology reports since November.
Torkin Manes chairman Ronald Manes has been repeatedly named one of the best lawyers in Canada by his peers and is a governor of the Law Society of Upper Canada, which is the body that regulates lawyers.
Johnston's case is being handled by Barbara MacFarlane, who, according to the Torkin Manes website, is one of three lawyers at the firm who handle medical malpractice suits.
Harvey Strosberg, a Windsor lawyer who has litigated several medical malpractice suits, said there is no question Johnston has a strong case.
"This is a case where the doctor says, 'I made a mistake.' It's just a matter of damages. That's the kind of case that will probably never see the inside of a courtroom," Strosberg explained.
Strosberg predicted Johnston's lawyer will likely negotiate a settlement. Doctors are insured through the Canadian Medical Protective Association, a non-profit organization funded by doctors and the provincial government that pays damages in medical malpractice suits.
"Surgeons make mistakes from time to time. It's tragic when it happens," Strosberg said.
Did you know that it has been "illegal" to drive while texting or talking on your cellular phone (with the exception of a hands-free device) since January 1? Well, if you didn't, you had a grace period of up until March 1.
Now, cops are not going to be that lenient anymore.
"For the first couple of months we were issuing warnings in the hopes that people would break old habits and develop safer habits," said Saskatoon Police Service Staff Sergeant. Grant Obst.
Drivers who do not adopt safer driving habits risk getting a $280 ticket and four demerit points on safe driver programs. The legislation states that people cannot surf the Internet or send text messages or emails while driving.
Drivers are also not allowed to send or receive phone calls unless it is done with a hands-free device.
The Saskatoon Police Service will now be focusing more on drivers who violate the legislation.
"We think by telling everyone that we are out there in an undercover and high-profile capacity, then maybe they will think twice about engaging in that risky behaviour," Obst said.
Cops will be at location throughout Saskatoon in squad cars and unmarked vehicles. However, a problem that cops face is that people often use their handheld devices out of view, such as when they send a text with their phone in their lap.
To get a better view, officers will be in unmarked high-clearance vehicles such as trucks or SUVs. Obst said he believed 17 tickets were handed out Monday to people who were using their handheld devices while driving.
"Our goal is not to go out and write a whole bunch of tickets, our goal is to get motorists to comply," Obst said.
By saying that writing tickets isn't the goal of police officers, Obst may be taking the fun out of being a police officer.
According to cops in New York, 39-year-old model Naomi Campbell is accused of striking her driver from behind and causing his head to hit the steering wheel of the car.
By the time cops had arrived, Campbell had fled by foot.
"The driver said a small bruise and swelling under his right eye was caused by her," the New York police said in a statement. "We want to talk to her."
Campbell's spokesman Jeff Raymond said that she would cooperate voluntarily with the cops.
"There shouldn't be a rush to judgment," he said in a statement. "There is more to the story than meets the eye."
In 2008, Campbell was sentenced by a London court to 200 hours of community service after pleading guilty to assaulting two police officers during an expletive-filled incident after she had discovered an airline had lost one of her bags.
Campbell also spent five days mopping floors and cleaning toilets as part of a community service sentence in New York in 2007 after throwing a mobile phone at her housekeeper during an argument over a pair of jeans. She was also ordered to attend anger management classes.
In a previous incident with a telephone in 1998, Campbell assaulted an assistant, Georgina Galanis. The model agreed in 2000 to plead guilty in a Toronto court to the assault in exchange for expressing remorse, paying Galanis an undisclosed amount of money and attending anger management classes.
The Merchant Law Group is launching another class-action lawsuit against Toyota, which is the third such legal action by the Regina-based law firm. This time the vehicle in question is the Pontiac Vibe, a vehicle marketed by General Motors but manufactured by Toyota.
"These claims being issued across Canada yesterday and today -- Quebec and B.C. yesterday, today in most other jurisdictions -- are in connection with the Pontiac Vibe," lawyer Tony Merchant said yesterday.
Merchant said that the compact sport utility vehicle, despite bearing the Pontiac nameplate, is actually manufactured by Toyota and is a "veritable twin" of the Toyota Matrix. Wow... what a strange accusation, and retarded, I may add.
"It really isn't a General Motors product. It is virtually identical to one of the Toyota products. It's manufactured by Toyota at their Fremont, California, plant," he said.
The "product liability" class action is the third one launched by the Merchant Law Group against Toyota in recent weeks. In the first claim, Merchant claims that accelerator problems in Toyota products are due to a defect in the electronics systems of the vehicles, rather than a mechanical problem. So, wait... what proof does Merchant have?
Merchant also argues that the accelerator problems, which have caused Toyota to recall 270,000 vehicles sold in Canada, actually affect about 400,000 Toyotas and Lexus vehicles sold in the country since 1999. Again, where is his proof?
In the second action, Merchant claims defective electronics also caused braking problems in about 30,000 Prius and Lexus hybrid vehicles.
The third lawsuit, which was launched this week, claims that 28,000 Pontiac Vibe vehicles built in 2009 and 2010 share the same electronics systems with Toyota vehicles and consequently have the same accelerator defect. Wow... this is just getting retarded!
The class-action lawsuit also argues the "steel reinforcement bar" being installed on Toyota-manufactured vehicles to fix the accelerator problem "does not correct the design flaw" and "diminishes the value of the Pontiac Vibe." Again, where is his freaking proof?
"Low-tech solutions to high-tech problems simply don't work,'" Merchant said in a press release issued from his Regina office. "Toyota's problems are extremely difficult to solve."
The allegations contained in the statements of claim have not been proven in court and the class-action lawsuits have not been certified by any court.
According to recent news reports, the recall on 2009 and 2010 Vibes affects 1,357 vehicles in Canada. These Vibes were made by New United Motor Manufacturing, or NUMMI, a joint venture between General Motors Co. and Toyota that ended last year.
In Canada, the 2009-2010 Pontiac Vibe models is included in two Toyota recalls related to unintended acceleration. One recall is for "sticking accelerator pedals" and one for "possible floor-mat entrapment."
Apple is suing phone maker HTC and has filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission, alleging that the Taiwanese company is infringing twenty Apple patents related to the user interface, underlying architecture, and hardware of the iPhone.
"We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We've decided to do something about it," Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO, said Tuesday in a statement. "We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology... not steal ours."
HTC makes a number of mobile phones based on Google's Android operating system.
The patents that Apple alleges HTC is infringing are related to the iPhone's graphical user interface, and the iPhone's underlying hardware and software design. The company is asking for a permanent injunction, which would prevent HTC from importing and selling infringing devices in the United States. Apple also said that it is seeking damages, but it did not specify an amount.
HTC said it was taken off guard by the legal action. In a statement earlier Tuesday, the company said that it had only heard of the complaints through media reports and Apple's press release. The company said it was reviewing the filings. Until it completes its review, a spokeswoman said she is unable to provide "comment on the validity of the claims being made against HTC."
"HTC is a mobile technology innovator and patent holder that has been very focused over the past 13 years on creating many of the most innovative smart-phones," the company said in its statement. "HTC values patent rights and their enforcement but is also committed to defending its own technology innovations."
Students who filmed two suspended teachers performing a lap dance at Churchill High School and posted the event on the Internet could face serious disciplinary action.
The students appear to have violated the Winnipeg School Division's zero-tolerance policies forbidding the use of cell phone cameras and other devices in schools.
School board chairwoman Jackie Sneesby refused to rule out punishment for the students Monday.
"We haven't finished the investigation. It (disciplining students) hasn't been discussed yet," Sneesby said in an interview. "It isn't anything we would do without thinking about it."
Teachers Chrystie Fitchner and Adeil Ahmed have been suspended with pay after being filmed performing a lap dance, including simulated oral sex, at a school spirit event in the school gym two weeks ago.
Sneesby would only say the senior administration's investigation was not completed yet.
The policy on WSD's website forbids the use of cell phones, video cameras, and similar devices in schools. The only exception is for school projects, but even that use requires prior approval by the principal.
During the open portion of Monday night's regular school division meeting, trustees Mike Babinky and Kristine Barr asked that they be provided with an update during the subsequent closed session. Superintendent Pauline Clarke said she would be reporting behind closed doors on process, but there would be no update Monday night on the investigation into the lap dancing teachers.
Babinsky emerged from a closed-door meeting Monday night to tell reporters senior administrators had not given trustees any new information. Babinsky said he was told repeatedly his continuing to express his opinion about the Churchill situation could jeopardize the eventual outcome of the case.
However, Babinksy said he was assured in the closed-door meeting that unidentified division personnel have been talking to Churchill students about the impact of both the incident with the two teachers and a traffic accident that recently sent a Churchill student to hospital.
Despite being told not to express his opinion, Babinsky speculated the division could fire the teachers, could allow their contracts to expire or the teachers themselves could choose to resign. Babinsky suggested Education Minister Nancy Allan could even consider cancelling their teaching certificates.
Winnipeg Teachers Association president Dave Najduch said the two teachers have heard nothing yet from the division. They have been suspended with pay since February 19.
The number of collisions at Saskatoon's first red-light camera intersection has increased since the system was put in place in 2005, but severe collisions more likely to cause injuries have been reduced, crash figures show. Rear-end collisions have increased at Avenue C and Circle Drive as drivers make abrupt stops to avoid being ticketed, causing chain-reaction crashes from behind, analysts say. But the number of right-angle or T-bone collisions, which cause more severe injuries, has dropped despite heavier traffic.
The cameras have achieved the objective of reducing major crashes, said Jamison Gillert, a traffic operations technician with the city.
"If we can reduce those high-percentage types of crashes that cause fatalities, we're okay with having rear-end collisions increase," said Gillert.
The analysis is from 8.5 years of crash data from Saskatchewan Government Insurance (SGI) at Avenue C and Circle Drive, the first intersection in the city where red-light cameras were installed in late 2005. Since the installation of cameras, the average number of vehicles involved in collisions per year has increased 32%, driven up primarily by fender benders.
The number of vehicles involved in such rear-end collisions at the intersection has jumped to an average of 94 per year from 61 per year, according to data.
The increase is explained, in part, by a jump in traffic volumes, with 8,000 more vehicles per day travelling east and west on Circle Drive across Avenue C since 2005 and 12,000 more vehicles since 2000. At the same time, technology, such as handheld devices used in vehicles, has caused more distracted driving.
The rear-end collisions are most likely from anxious drivers braking abruptly to avoid the sting of a $230 ticket, Gillert said.
There's a misconception that a ticket is issued if a driver enters the intersection on an amber light, which isn't the case, Gillert said.
The increase in rear-end collisions has largely been offset by a 30% decrease in right-angle T-bone collisions, considered the most dangerous and usually caused by a red-light runner, according to data. The supposedly high-tech red-light system installed in Saskatoon senses when a vehicle has run a red light and holds cross-traffic longer to avoid collisions.
But while the number of right-angle collisions has been reduced, the number of vehicles involved in broadside crashes while turning left, a more common collision, has remained steady.
Many drivers turning left try to clear the intersection when it may not be safe in order to avoid receiving a fine, Gillert said.
"We don't want people to panic (because of the red light cameras)," Gillert said. "That's a message we have to get across."
Another study of the intersection by SGI, which has yet to be publicly released, accounts for traffic flows and data from other similar intersections but reaches the same basic conclusion: the number of severe collisions has been reduced while the number of rear-end collisions has increased, Gillert said.
Other types of crashes, such as head-on, sideswipe and right-turn crashes, have also dropped significantly at Avenue C and Circle Drive when traffic flow and the behaviour of other similar intersections are accounted for, he said. The findings in Saskatoon adhere to a pattern around North America. Studies by government agencies and university researchers have found that cameras can reduce red-light violations and severe collisions but can also increase less serious rear-end collisions caused by people making sudden stops to avoid tickets.
Advocates of the cameras, which were also installed in late 2008 at Warman Road and 51st Street and Preston Avenue and Eighth Street, have championed them as effective tools in reducing collisions, injuries and deaths, freeing police officers to perform other crime-fighting duties, and as an efficient way to raise revenue in the process.
Critics have called them a cash-grab that seems to fail to improve safety as much as they generate revenue from fines. After costs are accounted for, the City of Saskatoon has made $1.45 million on red-light fines since 2006. The revenue is directed into traffic safety measures such as speed bumps and pedestrian crossings around the city.
The number of red-light fines given out at Avenue C and Circle Drive, at roughly 16 per day, has continued to rise, which is a trend that was expected to go in the opposite direction when the cameras were debated by city council.
"It tells you that people are slow learners or they've got too much money," said Councillor Myles Heidt. "It's mind-boggling to me."
Several other jurisdictions in Canada have installed pedestrian countdown timers at red-light camera intersections to help give drivers a more exact sense of when the green light is going to turn amber and thus avoid abrupt stops.
Heidt said he supports that change, but Gillert said there is little proof that the technology, which is installed at some downtown intersections in Saskatoon, would improve safety when red-light cameras are involved.
"Those are only meant for pedestrians," Gillert said. "What's meant for vehicles is the amber light."
A Saskatoon woman has her phone back after it was allegedly held for ransom during the Olympics in Vancouver.
Meaghan Dubois was in Vancouver enjoying the Olympics last Friday when she forgot her cell phone in a local coffee shop. When she reached the person who had it, he demanded a ransom of several hundred dollars for its return, said Vancouver police spokesperson Lindsey Houghton. That reminds me of that time my PlayStation 2 was held hostage because I didn't always rent my games at BLOCKBUSTER.
After Dubois called police, an undercover officer posed as Dubois' husband and showed up to meet the jerk on Commercial Drive in East Vancouver. As police tried to arrest him, the loser attempted to run but was quickly wrestled to the ground, Houghton said.
An 18-year-old punk faces charges of possession of stolen property, obstructing a police officer and possession of a weapon for dangerous purposes, as he was found to be carrying a canister of bear spray.
"It happens from time to time, especially with valuable items," Houghton said.
Houghton said property crime is down significantly this month, even though there are thousands of tourists in town for the Olympics.
"The influx of 7,000 police officers might have something to do with it," he said.
Toyota Motor Corp's president apologized to U.S. lawmakers and ended the day in tears, marking a potential climax to his company's safety crisis but leaving it with a long road to rebuild its reputation.
Akio Toyoda, who was peppered with questions about its massive series of recalls, told lawmakers he was deeply sorry for accidents and injuries involving its cars and acknowledged it had lost its way in its pursuit of growth. Investors, who have knocked about $30 billion off its market value in the past month, appeared to view Mr. Toyoda's hearing as a small step forward in what could be a difficult task of recovering the trust of consumers.
"I think Toyoda did a good job, and its stock price shows the market shares the same view," said Kazutaka Oshima, president of Rakuten Investment Management in Tokyo. "He should have come forward earlier, but his sincere attitude was understood by the audience. I would guess the flow of negative news on Toyota has reached a peak."
Toyota shares ended down 0.2% in Tokyo on Thursday, failing to match the 3.9% rise in U.S.-traded shares, but outperforming a fall in rivals Honda Motor and Nissan Motor, and the broader Tokyo market. Cheered by Toyota plant workers and dealers at an event organized by the automaker on Wednesday evening in Washington, Mr. Toyoda broke into tears under a giant display bearing the name of the company that his legendary grandfather founded.
"I believe that Toyota has always worked for the benefit of the United States," Mr. Toyoda said. "I tried to convey that message from the heart, but whether it was broadly understood or not, I don't know."
He also offered a sober assessment of the challenges still ahead: "We at Toyota are at a crossroad. We need to rethink everything about our operation."
Mr. Toyoda's appearance in Washington marked a dramatic peak in a safety crisis that broke a month ago with a series of recalls over unintended acceleration and braking problems that now include more than 8.5 million vehicles globally.
Politicians in Japan continued to express worries about the potential fallout from the crisis. Toyota, with a market value of about $125 billion, is at the heart of a massive supplier network that is vital to the economy's health.
"It was good that the Toyota president himself appeared before the panel and testified," Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama told reporters in Tokyo on Thursday. "I don't think this marks the end of everything. He spoke of working to make improvements. This is a matter involving cars -- that affects people's lives, so the important thing is to pay close attention to safety and to fulfill its aim to make improvements where they are needed. I'm hopeful and I think they will do so."
But some warned that Toyota's woes have just begun and that people in Japan, far from the centre of the crisis, may be underestimating the potential long-term impact.
"In Japan, many think Toyota's damage from the recalls will be relatively limited in the hope of not hurting the Japan-U.S. relationship, but the reality is very severe," said Koji Morioka, economics professor at Kansai University in western Japan.
"At the hearing, some serious flaws in the company's corporate governance came to light, including that Toyoda had not been aware of key pieces of safety-issue information until recently," he said.
The costs of the recall are set to grow with an agreement with the State of New York to speed customer repairs and provide alternative transportation, a pact likely to expand to other states.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who preceded Mr. Toyoda before the committee, simply labelled recalled Toyota vehicles as "not safe." Yeah, having a last name like LaHood is not safe. It sounds like it's French for "the hood," which, in stereotypical terms, is a dangerous neighbourhood.
Dressed in a gray, pinstripe suit, Mr. Toyoda said he, more than anyone, wanted Toyota cars to be safe. "My name is on every car," he said in English before using an interpreter to answer questions.
However, Mr. Toyoda pointed out that any possibility that some of the acceleration problems are in the electronics rather than the recalled sticky accelerator mechanisms and floor mats that can trap the accelerator pedal are false.
Chris Gidez, director of risk management and crisis communications at Hill & Knowlton, said Mr. Toyoda gets points for coming from Japan to testify and judgments will not be made in just one hearing. "This is going to be a marathon for Toyota."
In its hometown of Toyota City, anxious employees rallied behind their president.
"There were some tough questions, but I think he answered them earnestly," said Shingo Mori, who works at Toyota's Kamigo Logistics Centre. "Now we all need to work together to meet our customers' needs and try to regain the trust that we've lost."
The unintended acceleration problems have been linked to five U.S. deaths, with 29 other fatality reports being examined by U.S. authorities.
Representative Paul Kanjorski, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, warned Mr. Toyoda that his company would have to pay for the deaths and injuries as U.S. lawsuits mount. "You will be called upon to pay compensation," Kanjorski said. Ha ha... that's a cool last name.
Rep. John Mica, a Florida Republican, called it an embarrassing day for regulators and for Toyota.
"I'm embarrassed for you, sir," Mica told Toyota's North American President Yoshimi Inaba, who was testifying with Mr. Toyoda. "I'm embarrassed for the thousands of Americans who work at 10 plants across the United States."
Yeah... I think Mica has other things to worry about. For instance, I'd be embarrassed if my last name were Mica.
Toyota now faces a criminal investigation and a securities probe in the U.S. as well as unresolved questions about hundreds of incidents of unintended acceleration reported by consumers. The FBI raided the Detroit operations of three Japanese suppliers of electronic components to the auto industry on Wednesday. Denso Corp. confirmed the raids were unrelated to the Toyota recalls.
Other automakers are dealing with recalls as well.
For instance, Nissan said on Thursday it would recall 76,415 cars across 10 models in Japan due to a possible defect that may cause engine failure, and another 2,300 for the same problem overseas. Suzuki Motor said it would recall 432,366 units of two mini-car models in Japan.
Toyota itself has promised internal reforms, including a new committee on safety chaired by Mr. Toyoda himself. Jim Press, a former North American chief for Toyota who left in 2007, said the company had become dominated by "anti-family, financially oriented pirates" and needed Mr. Toyoda at the helm.
"Akio Toyoda is not only up for the job, but he is the only person who can save Toyota," Press wrote in an e-mail to industry publication Automotive News.
Mr. Toyoda, who took just a few questions from reporters, only appeared to relax at the evening rally organized for Toyota dealers and workers. One woman who works in a Toyota plant in Alabama, building engines, asked him what she could do to help the company in its crisis. "Let's make a better car," Toyoda said, breaking into English.
See, the company needs more dedicated employees like that woman in Alabama!
Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada Robert Nicholson said on Wednesday that the Government of Canada's medical marijuana regulations are under review after the United Nations' drugs watchdog warned that Canada needs to tighten up the system.
The Vienna-based International Narcotics Control Board said Canada is operating outside international treaty rules aimed at minimizing the risk criminals will get hold of cannabis grown under the program.
"The whole question of medical marijuana is being looked at by the minister of health with respect to the options that she has," said Nicholson, whose ministry serves as the umbrella agency for the government's anti-drug efforts.
The warning in the INCB's annual report accompanies praise for the government's National Anti-Drug Strategy, which the board said it notes "with appreciation."
Nicholson said he took heart from that, adding it "plays very well" into the government's efforts to push through a crime bill containing tougher drugs-offences sentencing provisions that has been held up in the Senate.
Public Safety Minister Vic Toews also argued the report "provides further proof that Canada is recognized internationally as a leader in crime prevention."
Canada increased the number of cannabis cultivation licences a person can hold last year after court decisions stated patients' earlier access had been too restricted. Currently, Health Canada has issued almost 4,900 permits allowing people to possess medical marijuana they get from more than 1,100 licensed growers, some of whom are growing it for their own use.
"Canada continues to be one of the few countries in the world that allows cannabis to be prescribed by doctors to patients with certain serious illnesses," said the INCB report.
But the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotics, which Canada has signed, says the government must be the sole distributor of the otherwise illegal substance, which patients use as a pain reliever. The opportunity for misuse of the system is reflected in an RCMP review identifying 40 cases in which licensed growers were also trafficking marijuana for profit. The same review found violations in a total of 70 cases.
While the INCB report noted that Canada "intends to reassess" its access-to-cannabis program, it said the board "requests the government to respect the provisions" of the 1961 convention in conducting its review.
The sole company among the growers that Health Canada has contracted to supply some 28% of the current permit holders signalled Wednesday it would welcome a more focused oversight.
"We get severe criticism from the armchair critics and those who feel threatened that we're infringing on their rights to produce cannabis," said Brent Zettl, president of Prairie Plant Systems Inc., of Saskatoon. "But we're already essentially conforming to the convention."
Health Canada frequently inspects the company's operations, and officially "owns" the cannabis it produces for shipment to clients.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown apologized Wednesday for a government program instituted in the 19th century that sent poor children from London's slums overseas to do hard labour in British colonies, including Canada.
"To all those former child migrants and their families, to those here with us today and those across the world, to each and every one, I say we are truly sorry," Brown said in Parliament. "We are sorry that instead of caring for them, this country turned its back. And, we're sorry that the voices of these children were not always heard, their cries for help not always heeded. And we're sorry that it's taken so long for this important day to come and for the full and unconditional apology that is justly deserved."
Brown said he would meet a number of former child migrants, who were known as "home children," to "listen first-hand to their experiences."
"As prime minister, I will be apologizing on behalf of our nation," he said.
Seven Canadians travelled to London to hear the apology in Parliament.
"I've got butterflies," Marjorie Skidmore told CBC News, as she walked hurriedly with her daughter, Patricia, through London on Wednesday. Skidmore, who is 83, was sent to Canada in 1938.
"It's about time that somebody recognized that... it was not the right thing to do to take her from her family," Patricia Skidmore said.
"It's an apology, it's a beginning, and I think it's a beginning to put together the missing stories that are not there," she continued. "They're not in the history books and they need to be there."
Marjorie Skidmore, née Arnison, is one of the more than 100,000 juvenile migrants sent to Canada from Britain between the 1860s and 1939, when the program officially ended.
Many of those migrants ended up in rural communities, where families "welcomed them as a source of cheap farm labour and domestic help," according to the Canadian Genealogy Centre.
The churches and philanthropic organizations that sent the orphaned, abandoned and pauper children, usually between the ages of nine and 14, to Canada were "motivated by social and economic forces," the centre's website says.
But the working and living conditions for the migrants could be atrocious, some former home children have said, and many of the children were exploited or abused.
"They told us we were going to the land of milk and honey," Elsie Hathaway, who was six when she was put on a ship after being given a Bible and a vaccination shot, told CBC News in 2001. "But I never saw it."
Instead Hathaway, who was 85 when she was interviewed, ended up in a cramped shed for a week until authorities were satisfied that she and the other children didn't have any diseases. They were then given tags, put on trains and sent out to be exploited as cheap labour. Stories like Hathaway's are what prompted Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to apologize for his country's role in the home children program on November 16, 2009.
A Milan court convicted three Google Inc. executives on Wednesday for violating the privacy of an Italian boy with autism by letting a video of him being bullied be posted on the site in 2006, which is presumably YouTube.
Google, which will appeal the six-month suspended jail terms in Italy, also heard that European Union antitrust regulators were looking into complaints about it from three online firms. Google said it was confident it would avoid formal investigation by the European Commission.
It said the Milan verdict "poses a crucial question for the freedom on which the Internet is built" as none of its employees had anything to do with the video.
"They didn't upload it, they didn't film it, they didn't review it and yet they have been found guilty," said Google's senior communications manager, Bill Echikson, in Milan.
The court convicted senior vice-president and chief legal officer David Drummond, former Google Italy board member George De Los Reyes and global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer. Senior product marketing manager Arvind Desikan was acquitted. The executives, none of whom are based in Italy, do not face actual imprisonment as the sentences were suspended, while an appeals process in Italy can take many years.
They were not in Italy for the hearing. Drummond is based in California, Fleischer in Paris and Desikan in London, while De Los Reyes has since retired, Echikson told news agency Reuters.
The complaint was brought by an Italian advocacy group for people with Down's Syndrome, Vivi Down, and the boy's father, after four classmates at a Turin school uploaded a clip to Google Video showing them bullying the boy. Vivi Down was a plaintiff because it was named by the boys in the video, a lawyer for the group said. But Google's Echikson and the prosecutor said on Wednesday the boy had autism, not Down's as widely reported during the three years of the case.
"A company's rights cannot prevail over a person's dignity. This sentence sends a clear signal," public prosecutor Alfredo Robledo told reporters outside the Milan courthouse.
The video was filmed with a mobile phone and posted on the site in September 2006.
Google argued that it removed the video immediately after being notified and cooperated with Italian authorities to help identify the bullies and bring them to justice. It says that, as hosting platforms that do not create their own content, Google Video, YouTube and Facebook cannot be held responsible for content that others upload.
Drummond said in a statement the verdict "sets a dangerous precedent" and meant "every employee of any internet hosting service faces similar liability." He said the law was clear in Italy and the European Union that "hosting providers like Google are not required to monitor content that they host".
Fleischer said if employees were "criminally liable for any video on a hosting platform, when they had absolutely nothing to do with the video in question, then our liability is unlimited."
The prosecutors accused Google of negligence, saying the video remained online for two months even though some web users had already posted comments asking for it to be taken down.
Censoring of websites has become a hot issue in Italy in recent months, following a spate of hate sites against officials including Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
The government briefly studied plans to black out Internet hate sites after fan pages emerged praising an attack on the premier, but the idea was dropped after executives from Facebook, Google and Microsoft agreed to a shared code of conduct rather than legislation.
Google counsel Julia Holtz said the scrutiny by EU antitrust regulators "in all likelihood... will not go anywhere. The Commission has not expressed any hint of guilt."
The Commission can fine companies up to 10% of their revenues and has imposed billions of Euros of fines on Intel and Microsoft for breaking antitrust rules, though it was far too early to say if Google could be fined.
Google said British price comparison site Foundem and French legal search engine ejustice.fr had complained that its search algorithm demoted their sites in results and Microsoft-owned Ciao from Bing had complained about its terms and conditions.
Google has 90% of the global search market compared to 7.4% for Yahoo and Bing combined, according to November data from research firm StatCounter. The company has drawn increasing regulatory scrutiny as it has grown.
Surpassing the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, the Pope's visit to Toronto in 2002 and even the Summit of the Americans in Quebec City in 2001, government officials said that the G8 and G20 summits that Canada will host this year will also be the largest security event in Canadian history.
The Government of Canada announced last week that it would host the G20 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre June 26 until June 27, despite the city's expressed wishes that it be at Exhibition Place. It will be preceded by the G8 in Huntsville, Ontario.
In the 2001 Summit of the Americas in Quebec City, a three-metre concrete and wire fence encased a security zone around the meeting site, which included parliamentary and residential buildings. A blueprint of Toronto's security perimeter has not been divulged, but there is already a glimpse of the force being amassed to protect those coming to and living in Toronto.
That's interesting...
I wonder if retarded people will throw stuff again like they did in 2001.
What do you do when you're old but still healthy and feel that you have nothing to live for? Well, you would commit suicide. Well, that's what some people would think.
The Conservative government appears ready to move ahead on imposing random roadside breath testing, which a new federal discussion paper says has produced "remarkable results" in catching more drunk drivers in other countries.
A Windsor surgeon who performed two unnecessary mastectomies is seeking to have her privileges reinstated at Windsor's Hotel-Dieu Grace Hospital in the midst of three investigations into her practice. Dr. Barbara Heartwell, who is under investigation by the hospital, the Ontario Ministry of Health and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, will make her case before a panel of hospital board members at a formal hearing today.
The head of Canada's prison system says that there will be "major construction initiatives" in the coming years to cope with federal legislation to imprison more offenders longer, which is an assertion backed by new spending estimates that are showing a 43% increase in penitentiary capital costs next year.
Ronald Smith, the only Canadian on death row in the United States, is one step closer to Montana's execution chamber after an appeal court ruling that upheld his death sentence for the brutal murders of two American Indian men in 1982.
One day after Avatar was disappointed at the Oscars, a Vancouver restaurant owner plans to file a lawsuit in B.C. Supreme Court today claiming copyright infringement against director James Cameron and other makers of the highest-grossing film of all time. 
Federal Transport Minister John Baird says he wants to hear from the federal privacy commissioner regarding new American security rules that require Canadian airlines flying over the United States to give U.S. authorities the names of passengers as part of anti-terrorism efforts.
Do you like getting your haircut by a man? Well, for me, personally, I don't really like it, and would prefer a female.
In 2004, Reverend Nathan Dutnall from Saskatoon's home was broken into. However, the items stolen were odd. Among them were cordless phones, without the base the charges the cordless phones and a PlayStation 2 console. However, the bizarre thing was that after the thieves busted through a window, there was a reasonable effort to place the window back in its place.
A Vancouver Island teenager who was credited earlier this week with thwarting a violent attack on a school in the United States is now a suspect in the crime. Police officials in Brewster, Washington confirmed Wednesday that they are investigating the 14-year-old girl from Port Alberni, British Columbia in the shooting plot.
A Swedish pilot with a fake commercial licence was arrested in his cockpit at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport as he prepared to fly 101 passengers on a Boeing 737 to Turkey, Dutch police said Wednesday.
British "supermodel" Naomi Campbell will not face charges related to assault accusations by her driver, New York police said Wednesday.
A 34-year-old man has been arrested after he allegedly ran naked down the streets of Regina and streaked into city hall, taking an elevator up 15 floors to the mayor's office before being subdued by two bylaw officers and a commissionaire.
Did you know that it has been "illegal" to drive while texting or talking on your cellular phone (with the exception of a hands-free device) since January 1? Well, if you didn't, you had a grace period of up until March 1.
The Merchant Law Group is launching another class-action lawsuit against Toyota, which is the third such legal action by the Regina-based law firm. This time the vehicle in question is the Pontiac Vibe, a vehicle marketed by General Motors but manufactured by Toyota.
Apple is suing phone maker HTC and has filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission, alleging that the Taiwanese company is infringing twenty Apple patents related to the user interface, underlying architecture, and hardware of the iPhone.
A Saskatoon woman has her phone back after it was allegedly held for ransom during the Olympics in Vancouver.
Toyota Motor Corp's president apologized to U.S. lawmakers and ended the day in tears, marking a potential climax to his company's safety crisis but leaving it with a long road to rebuild its reputation.
Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada Robert Nicholson said on Wednesday that the Government of Canada's medical marijuana regulations are under review after the United Nations' drugs watchdog warned that Canada needs to tighten up the system.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown apologized Wednesday for a government program instituted in the 19th century that sent poor children from London's slums overseas to do hard labour in British colonies, including Canada.
A Milan court convicted three Google Inc. executives on Wednesday for violating the privacy of an Italian boy with autism by letting a video of him being bullied be posted on the site in 2006, which is presumably YouTube.
Surpassing the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, the Pope's visit to Toronto in 2002 and even the Summit of the Americans in Quebec City in 2001, government officials said that the G8 and G20 summits that Canada will host this year will also be the largest security event in Canadian history.
