from The Guardian
Venezuelan leader leaves legacy of literacy and healthcare for poor alongside crumbling infrastructure and dependence on oil…
Mar 062013
News blog
Mar 062013
from The Nation
…I hadn’t planned to write about the war on terror, but driven by curiosity about lives most of us never see and a few lucky coincidences, I stumbled into a world of Muslim women in London, Manchester and Birmingham. Some of them were British, others from Arab and African countries, but their husbands or sons had been swept up in Washington’s war. …
Mar 062013
from The Vancouver Observer
The US State Department recently released a draft version of its Keystone XL report — a document eagerly awaited by the pipeline's proponents and opponents alike. In the lead up to the release of the report (which disappointed environmental organizations across the board) Canadian officials worked overtime to extol the virtues of Alberta's tar sands. Their pitch? Get your oil from Canada, or get it from the devil…
Mar 062013
from The Nation
The death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez will mean unseemly celebration on the right and unending debate on the left. Both reflect the towering legacy of Chavismo and how it challenged the global free market orthodoxy of the Washington consensus.
Less discussed will be that the passing of Hugo Chávez will also provoke unbridled joy in the corridors of power of Major League Baseball…
Mar 052013
Professor forced to retract, recant, in 2002 civil suit.
by Paul Barnsley
Thomas Flanagan, a former policy advisor to the Reform Party and author of First Nations? Second Thoughts, the Donner Prize winning book that is critical of what the author calls "Aboriginal orthodoxy," is seen by many First Nations leaders as an arch political foe. He was subjected to five grueling days of cross-examination in Federal Court in Calgary in his role as an expert witness called by the Crown in a $1.5 billion lawsuit brought by the Samson Cree and Ermineskin Cree nations.
Ed Molstad, the lawyer for the Samson Cree, told this publication that his approach with this witness was "more detailed" than usual.
The two Alberta bands instructed their lawyers to argue that Flanagan was not an expert on matters related to their actions against the Crown as they seek legal rulings on a number of issues, including oil and gas revenues. They also claim that Flanagan has a bias that renders his opinions of little use to the court. His credibility was challenged on dozens of fronts….
…Molstad spent six hours of court time in January narrowing down the areas where Flanagan can claim to have expertise in Native issues, getting him to admit that he has never done research on reserve and has never spent any time working directly with Native people. Flanagan, who holds a PhD in political science from Duke University in North Carolina, also admitted he has never taken a single course in Canadian history or Canadian Aboriginal history….
Mar 052013
from Al Jazeera
Fighters battling regime troops say they are now in "near-total control" of al-Raqqa, as clashes also escalate in Homs.
Mar 052013
from TheTyee.ca
Info commissioner's investigation highlights BC gov't high-level record-keeping gaps.
Mar 052013
from The Guardian
Pointing to US-South Korean drills and draft UN sanctions, Pyongyang says it will cancel deal that ended 1950-53 conflict.
Mar 052013
from Democracy Now
The Freedom to Connect conference has attracted people from across the political spectrum, including Derek Khanna, a "rising star" in the Republican Party, who has worked on both of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaigns. Khanna wrote a policy brief for the Republican Study Committee entitled "Three Myths About Copyright Law and Where to Start to Fix It." In it, he advocated lighter penalties for copyright infringement and an expansion of fair use, arguing that current copyright law hinders progress and runs against constitutional principles. The day after it was released, the committee retracted the report, reportedly after pressure from the entertainment industry and politicians.
Mar 042013
Giant banner hanging just the kickoff event.
from the Montreal Gazette
MONTREAL — A union coalition plans “many surprises for Conservative Members of Parliament” as it ramps up a confrontation with the federal government in a campaign designed to force Ottawa to reverse recent changes to the Employment Insurance program, organizers said Monday.
The opening salvo played out for many morning rush-hour commuters heading into Montreal from the South Shore.
Using a crane, the union coalition briefly unfurled a large banner sending an emphatic “no” message to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Like the broader public pressure campaign that is to follow, it calls on Harper to roll back the changes — which the coalition and its banner characterize as a “sacking” of benefits for the jobless.