tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45148323148415952612024-02-20T07:00:12.387-08:00Oh Canadians!A Blog about Canadians Who Are Making or Who Have Made a Difference and the country we all call homeOne Womans Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18379400685620139061noreply@blogger.comBlogger733125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514832314841595261.post-11378505930366498812011-10-01T14:18:00.000-07:002011-10-01T14:18:49.376-07:00Have you ever heard of William White? Somebody should have listened to him<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"></span><br />
<h2 style="color: #990000; font-size: 1.5em; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.2777em; margin-bottom: 13px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 17px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Global Banking Economist Warned of Coming Crisis</h2><div class="spAuthor" style="font-style: italic; line-height: 18px;">By Beat Balzli and Michaela Schiessl</div><div id="spIntroTeaser" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 18px;"><strong>William White predicted the approaching financial crisis years before 2007's subprime meltdown. But central bankers preferred to listen to his great rival Alan Greenspan instead, with devastating consequences for the global economy.</strong></div><br />
<div class="spMiddle2Old" style="text-align: center; width: 522px !important;"></div><div style="line-height: 18px;">William White had a pretty clear idea of what he wanted to do with his life after shedding his pinstriped suit and entering retirement.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">White, a Canadian, worked for various central banks for 39 years, most recently serving as chief economist for the central bank for all central bankers, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), headquartered in Basel, Switzerland.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;"></div><div style="line-height: 18px;">Then, after 15 years in the world's most secretive gentlemen's club, White decided it was time to step down. The 66-year-old approached retirement in his adopted country the way a true Swiss national would. He took his money to the local bank, bought a piece of property in the Bernese Highlands and began building a chalet. There, in the mountains between cow pastures and ski resorts, he and his wife planned to relax and enjoy their retirement, and to live a peaceful existence punctuated only by the occasional vacation trip. That was the plan in June 2008.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">And now this.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">White is wearing his pinstriped suits again. He has just returned from California, where he gave a talk at a large mutual fund company. Then he packed his bags again and jetted to London, where he consulted with the Treasury. After that, he returned to Switzerland to speak at the University of Basel, and then went on to Frankfurt to present a paper at the Center for Financial Studies. From there, White traveled to Paris to attend a meeting at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Finally, he flew back across the Atlantic to Canada. White is clearly in demand, including in North America.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;"><br />
</div><div class="spInfoBox" style="font-size: 0.92em; line-height: 1.25em !important;"></div>Since the economy went up in flames the wiry retiree has been jetting around the globe like a paramedic for the world of high finance. He shows no signs of exhaustion, despite his rigorous schedule. In fact, White, with his gray head of hair, is literally beaming with energy, so much so that he seems to glow.<div style="line-height: 18px;"></div><div style="line-height: 18px;">Perhaps it is because someone, finally, is listening to him.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">Listening to him, that is, and not to his rival of many years, the once-powerful former chairman of the US Federal Reserve Bank, Alan Greenspan. Greenspan, who was reverentially known as "The Maestro," was celebrated as the greatest central banker of all time -- until the US real estate bubble burst and the crash began.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">Before then, no one in the world of central banks would have dared to openly criticize Greenspan's successful policy of cheap money. No one except White, that is.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;"><b>'A Disorderly Unwinding of Current Excesses'</b></div><div style="line-height: 18px;">White recognized the brewing disaster. The analysis department at the BIS has a collection of data from every bank around the globe, considered the most impressive in the world. It enabled the economists working in this nerve center of high finance to look on, practically in real time, as a poisonous concoction began to brew in the international financial system.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">White and his team of experts observed the real estate bubble developing in the United States. They criticized the increasingly impenetrable securitization business, vehemently pointed out the perils of risky loans and provided evidence of the lack of credibility of the rating agencies. In their view, the reason for the lack of restraint in the financial markets was that there was simply too much cheap money available on the market. To give all this money somewhere to go, investment bankers invented new financial products that were increasingly sophisticated, imaginative -- and hazardous.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">As far back as 2003, White implored central bankers to rethink their strategies, noting that instability in the financial markets had triggered inflation, the "villain" in the global economy. "One hopes that it will not require a disorderly unwinding of current excesses to prove convincingly that we have indeed been on a dangerous path," White wrote in 2006.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">In the restrained world of central bankers, it would have been difficult for White to express himself more clearly.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;"></div><div class="spArticleImageBox spAssetAlignleft" style="float: left; margin-bottom: 17px !important; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: 15px !important; margin-top: 0px !important; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; page-break-inside: avoid; position: relative; text-align: left; width: 182px;"><a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,grossbild-1581094-635051,00.html" style="color: #990000; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Graphic: The curse of cheap money" height="180" src="http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,1581095,00.jpg" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-left-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-style: initial; border-top-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; float: left;" title="Graphic: The curse of cheap money" width="180" /></a><div style="background-color: whitesmoke; padding-bottom: 6px; width: 182px;"><div class="spPicZoom" style="height: 28px; position: absolute; right: 11px; top: 146px; width: 28px;"><a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,grossbild-1581094-635051,00.html" style="color: #990000; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Zoom" class="spIEsixPng" height="28" src="http://www.spiegel.de/static/sys/v9/icons/ic_lupe.png" style="border-bottom-style: none !important; border-bottom-width: 0px !important; border-color: initial !important; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-right-style: none !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-style: initial; border-top-style: none !important; border-top-width: 0px !important; float: left; height: 28px; width: 28px;" title="Zoom" width="28" /></a></div><div align="right" class="spCredit" style="color: #666666; font-size: 0.8333em; margin-left: 4px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: right;">DER SPIEGEL</div><div style="font-size: 0.8333em !important; line-height: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 2px; margin-top: 3px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 4px; padding-right: 4px; padding-top: 0px;">Graphic: The curse of cheap money</div></div></div>Now White has been proved right -- to an almost apocalyptical degree. And yet gloating is the last thing on his mind. He, the chief economist at the central bank for central banks, predicted the disaster, and yet not even his own clientele was willing to believe him. It was probably the biggest failure of the world's central bankers since the founding of the BIS in 1930. They knew everything and did nothing. Their gigantic machinery of analysis kept spitting out new scenarios of doom, but they might as well have been transmitted directly into space.<div style="line-height: 18px;"></div><div style="line-height: 18px;">For years, the regulators of the global money supply ignored the advice of their top experts, probably because it would require them to do something unheard of, namely embark on a fundamental change in direction.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">The prevailing model was banal: no inflation, no problem. But White wanted central bankers to take things a step further by preventing the development of bubbles and taking corrective action. He believed that interest rates ought to be raised in good times, even when there is no risk of inflation. This, he argued, counteracts bubbles and makes it possible to lower interest rates in bad times. He also advised the banks to beef up their reserves during a recovery so that they would be in a position to lend money in a downturn.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">If White's model had been applied, it might have been possible to avoid the collapse of the financial system -- or at least soften the fall. But there was simply no support for his ideas in the singular, and highly secretive, world of central bankers.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;"><br />
</div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><div id="spIntroTeaser" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 18px;">Part 2: Prima Donnas of the Banking World</div><div class="spMiddle2Old" style="text-align: center; width: 522px !important;"></div><div style="line-height: 18px;"></div><div style="line-height: 18px;">The BIS is a closed organization owned by the 55 central banks. The heads of these central banks travel to the Basel headquarters once every two months, and the General Meeting, the BIS's supreme executive body, takes place once a year. The central bankers -- from Alan Greenspan and his successor Ben Bernanke, to German Bundesbank President Axel Weber and Jean-Claude Trichet, the head of the European Central Bank (ECB) -- are fond of the Basel meetings. When they arrive, the BIS's dark office building at Centralbahnhof 2 in Basel suddenly comes alive. Secretaries inhabit the otherwise deserted offices of the governors, stenographers and chauffeurs stand at the ready and dark limousines wait outside.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;"></div><div style="line-height: 18px;">The penthouse at the top of the building, with its magnificent view of Basel, is decorated for the annual dinner, the nuclear shelter in the basement is swept out and the wine cellar is restocked with the best wines. At the BIS's private country club, gardeners prepare the tennis courts as if a Grand Slam tournament were about to be held there. The losers of matches can find comfort in the clubhouse, where the Indonesian guest chef serves up Asian delicacies à la carte.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">"Central bankers can sometimes be prima donnas," says former BIS Secretary General Gunter Baer. He remembers the commotion that erupted at one of the annual events when it became known that a certain vintage of Mouton Rothschild was unavailable.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">The corridors of the BIS headquarters buildings are lined with retro white leather chairs and sofas from the 1970s. The round table where the delegates address the problems of the global economy is polished to a high gloss. But the most impressive space of all is the auditorium, with its modern armchairs in white leather and chrome, the thousands of tiny LED lights, the booths in the back where the interpreters sit behind one-way glass, and the console where the financial masters of the world do their work, centrally positioned at the front of the room. The room is evocative of the control room in "Star Trek." It was supposed to be the hub from which the financial world was to be guided through every possible hazard.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">Naturally, the building is largely bugproof, the goal being to prevent anything from leaking to the outside and any unauthorized individuals from penetrating into its interior. There are no public minutes of the meetings. Everything that is discussed there is confidential. The word transparency is unknown at the BIS, where nothing is considered more despicable than an indiscreet central banker.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">Central bankers, proud of their independence, are intent on holding themselves above all partisan influences while taking all necessary measures to keep the global economy healthy.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">These traits make the BIS one of the world's most exclusive and influential clubs, a sort of Vatican of high finance. Formally registered as a stock corporation, it is recognized as an international organization and, therefore, is not subject to any jurisdiction other than international law.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">It does not need to pay tax, and its members and employees enjoy extensive immunity. No other institution regulates the BIS, despite the fact that it manages about 4 percent of the world's total currency reserves, or €217 trillion ($304 trillion), as well as 120 tons of gold.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">"Our strength is that we have no power," says BIS Secretary General Peter Dittus. "Our meetings are generally not oriented toward decision-making. Instead, their value consists in the exchange of views." There are no across-the-board agreements on the order of: "Let's raise the prime rate by a point." Opinions take shape in a much more subtle fashion, through something resembling osmosis.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">Central bankers are not elected by the people but are appointed by their governments. Nevertheless, they wield power that exceeds that of many political leaders. Their decisions affect entire economies, and a single word from their lips is capable of moving financial markets. They set interest rates, thereby determining the cost of borrowing and the speed of global financial currents.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">Their greatest responsibility is to prevent a bank or market crash from jeopardizing the viability of the financial system and, with it, the real economy. It is no accident that central bankers are also in charge of bank supervision in most countries.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">But this time they failed miserably. How could this community of central bankers, despite its access to insider information, have so seriously underestimated the dangers? And why on earth did it not intervene?</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">"Somehow everybody was hoping that it won't go down as long as you don't look at the downside," William White told SPIEGEL. "Similar to the comic figure Wile E. Coyote, who rushes over a cliff, keeps running and only falls when he looks into the depth. Of course, this is nonsense. One falls, because there is an abyss."</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">But why did they all refuse to recognize the abyss? Why did the central bankers, of all people -- those whose actions are above profit expectations, shareholder pressure and the need to please voters -- keep their eyes tightly shut? Did they too succumb to the general herd instinct?</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">"As long as everything goes well, there is a great reluctance to (make) any kind of change," says White. "This behavior is deeply rooted in the human mind."</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">White calls it the human factor. And that factor had a name: Alan Greenspan.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;"><br />
</div></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><div id="spIntroTeaser" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 18px;">Part 3: The Killjoy Vs. the Party Animal</div><div class="spMiddle2Old" style="text-align: center; width: 522px !important;"></div><div style="line-height: 18px;"></div><div style="line-height: 18px;">Greenspan was long a member of the BIS board of directors and was effectively White's superior. As a fervent champion of the free market, he advocated the model of minimal intervention. In his view, the role of central banks was to control inflation and price stability, as well as to clean up after burst bubbles. Because no one can know when bubbles are about to burst, he argued, it would be impossible to intervene at the right moment.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;"></div><div style="line-height: 18px;">In his eyes, the instrument of sharply raising interest rates to counteract market excesses routinely failed. Leaning "into the wind," he argued, was pointless. He could even cite historical proof for his thesis. Between the beginning of 1988 and the spring of 1989, the Fed raised the prime rate by three percentage points, the goal being to curtail lending by raising the cost of borrowing. The textbook conclusion was that this would be toxic to the markets, but precisely the opposite occurred: Prices continued to rise.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">This supposed paradox repeated itself five years later. Once again, the Fed raised interest rates and, again, the market shot up.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">These experiences only strengthened Greenspan's conviction that raising interest rates was an ineffective tool to counteract bubbles. However he never tried raising interest rates to a significantly greater degree than had previously been done, to see what would happen.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">The question of who was right, Greenspan or White, didn't exactly lead to a power struggle in Basel. The forces were too unevenly distributed for that. On the one side was the admonishing chief economist, with his seemingly antiquated model that advocated the establishment of reserves, and on the other side was the glamorous central banker, under whose aegis the economy was booming -- the killjoy vs. the party animal.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">The central bankers certainly discussed the competing models. But most of them were behind Greenspan, because his system was what they had studied at their elite universities. They refused to accept White's objections that the economy is not a science. There was no way of verifying his model, they said.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">Besides, who was about to question success? Greenspan was their superstar, the inviolable master, a living legend. "Greenspan always demanded respect," White recalls, referring to the Maestro's appearances. Hardly anyone dared to contradict the oracular grand master.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">And why should they have contradicted Greenspan? "When you are inside the bubble, everybody feels fine. Nobody wants to believe that it can burst," says White. "Nobody is asking the right questions."</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">He even defends his erstwhile rival. "Greenspan is not the only one to blame. We all played the same game. Japan as well as Europe followed the low interest policy, almost everybody did."</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">Meanwhile, White noted with concern what the central bankers were triggering as a result. Their policy of cheap money led to the Asian financial crisis in 1997. When the debt that banks had accumulated went into default, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other donors had to inject more than $100 billion (€71 billion) to rescue the world economy.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">In describing the failure of the markets as far back as 1998, White wrote that it is naïve to assume that markets behave in a disciplined way.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">But Greenspan, the champion of free markets, remained impassive.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;"></div><div class="spArticleImageBox spAssetAlignleft" style="float: left; margin-bottom: 17px !important; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: 15px !important; margin-top: 0px !important; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; page-break-inside: avoid; position: relative; text-align: left; width: 182px;"><a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,grossbild-1581094-635051,00.html" style="color: #990000; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Graphic: The curse of cheap money" height="180" src="http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,1581095,00.jpg" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-left-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-style: initial; border-top-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; float: left;" title="Graphic: The curse of cheap money" width="180" /></a><div style="background-color: whitesmoke; padding-bottom: 6px; width: 182px;"><div class="spPicZoom" style="height: 28px; position: absolute; right: 11px; top: 146px; width: 28px;"><a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,grossbild-1581094-635051,00.html" style="color: #990000; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Zoom" class="spIEsixPng" height="28" src="http://www.spiegel.de/static/sys/v9/icons/ic_lupe.png" style="border-bottom-style: none !important; border-bottom-width: 0px !important; border-color: initial !important; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-right-style: none !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-style: initial; border-top-style: none !important; border-top-width: 0px !important; float: left; height: 28px; width: 28px;" title="Zoom" width="28" /></a></div><div align="right" class="spCredit" style="color: #666666; font-size: 0.8333em; margin-left: 4px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: right;">DER SPIEGEL</div><div style="font-size: 0.8333em !important; line-height: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 2px; margin-top: 3px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 4px; padding-right: 4px; padding-top: 0px;">Graphic: The curse of cheap money</div></div></div>A few weeks later, the market demonstrated its destructive power once again, when Russia plunged into a financial crisis, bringing down the New York hedge fund Long Term Capital Management (LTCM) along with it. The New York Fed hurriedly convened a meeting of the heads of international banks, initiating a bailout that remains unprecedented to this day. The global economy was saved from a systemic crisis -- at a cost of $3.6 billion (€2.6 billion).<div style="line-height: 18px;"></div><div style="line-height: 18px;">And what did Greenspan do? He lowered interest rates. Then the next bubble, the so-called New Economy, began to grow in Silicon Valley. It burst in the spring of 2000. What did Greenspan do? He lowered interest rates. This time the reduction was massive, with the benchmark rate dropping from 6 percent to 1 percent within three years. This, according to White, was the cardinal error. "After the 2001 crash, interest rates were lowered very aggressively and left too low for too long," he says.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">While the economy was recovering from the demise of the dotcom sector and from the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, cheap money was already on its way to triggering the next excess. This time it took place in the housing market, and this time it would be far more devastating.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">White was losing his patience. Was there no other option than to regularly allow the economy to collapse? Didn't the policy of operating without a safety net border on stupidity? And wasn't it written, in both the Bible and the Koran, that it was important to provide for seven years of famine during seven good years?</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">This time, White didn't just want to discuss his views behind closed doors. This time, he decided to seek a broader audience.</div></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><div id="spIntroTeaser" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 18px;">Part 4: One Villain Replaced by Another</div><div class="spMiddle2Old" style="text-align: center; width: 522px !important;"></div><div style="line-height: 18px;"></div><div style="line-height: 18px;">His destination was Jackson Hole in Wyoming, a kind of Mecca for financial experts. It was August 2003.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">Once a year, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City invites leading economists and central bankers to a symposium in Jackson Hole. Against the magnificent backdrop of the Grand Teton National Park, the world's financial elite spends its time unwinding on hiking trails and in canoes, before retreating into conference rooms to discuss the state of the global economy. Only those who can hold their own in front of this audience are considered important in the industry.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;"></div><div style="line-height: 18px;">"This is an opportunity we can't afford to miss," BIS economist Claudio Borio told his boss, White, as he wrote himself a few last-minute notes in his room at the Jackson Lake Lodge in preparation for his speech to the symposium.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">Greenspan was in the audience when Borio and White presented their theories -- theories that had absolutely nothing in common with the powerful Fed chairman's worldview, or that of most of his colleagues.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">White and Borio described the dramatic changes that had taken place since deregulation of the financial markets in the 1980s. Price stability was no longer the problem, they argued, but rather the development of imbalances in the financial markets, which were increasingly causing earthquake-like tremors. "It is as if one villain had gradually left the stage only to be replaced by another," White and Borio wrote in the paper they presented at Jackson Hole. As it turned out, it was a villain with the ability to unleash devastatingly destructive forces.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">It was created by what the two BIS economists called the "inherently procyclical" nature of the financial system. What they meant is that perceptions of value and risk develop in parallel. People suffer from a blindness to future dangers that is intrinsic to the system. The better the economy is doing, the higher the ratings issued by the rating agencies, the laxer the guidelines for approving credit, the easier it becomes to borrow money and the greater the willingness to assume risk.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">A bubble develops. When it bursts, the results can be devastating. "In extreme cases, broader financial crises can arise and exacerbate the downturn further," White wrote in his analysis. The consequences, according to White, are high costs to the real economy: unemployment, a credit crunch and bankruptcies.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">All it takes to predict such imbalances, White argued, is to monitor "excessive credit expansion and asset price increases," and to take corrective action early on, even without a pending threat of inflation.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">This task, the authors concluded, must be performed by monetary policy, among other things. The central banks, according to White and Borio, could limit credit expansion and thus avoid adverse effects on the global economy.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">The Jackson Hole paper was an assault on everything Greenspan had preached and, as everyone knew, he was not fond of being contradicted. Other members of the audience glanced surreptitiously at the Maestro to gauge his reaction. Greenspan remained impassive, his face expressionless behind his large spectacles, as he listened to White. Later, during a more relaxed get-together, he refused to even look at White.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">White suspected he had failed to convince his audience.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">"You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink," he says.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;"><b>'All We Could Do Was to Present our Expertise'</b></div><div style="line-height: 18px;">Now that the US prime rate is bobbing up and down between zero and 0.25 percent, and the Fed is pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into the market, White's words at the 2003 conference have undoubtedly come back to haunt many a central banker.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">In that speech, White had prophesied that if the "worst scenario materializes, central banks may need to push policy rates to zero and resort to less conventional measures, whose efficacy is less certain."</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">He warned that the money supply could dry up. Markets, he wrote, "can freeze under stress, as liquidity evaporates." He also identified -- a full four years before the bursting of the real estate bubble -- the disturbing developments in the US real estate market as a consequence of lax monetary policy.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">"Further stimulus has not come free of charge and has raised questions about the sustainability of the recovery," he warned. From today's perspective, White's predictions are almost frightening in their accuracy.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">But when push came to shove, he was unable to overturn the prevailing ideology. "We were staff," he says. "All we could do was to present our expertise. It was not within our power how it was used."</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">Despite the disappointment at Jackson Hole, White didn't give up on supplying data, facts and analyses. Perhaps, he reasoned, this constant flow of information could help to break through mental barriers.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">He would repeatedly refer to the "Credit Risk Transfer" report published by the BIS's Committee on the Global Financial System in 2003. The publication describes how loans were packaged into tranches using so-called collateralized debt obligations and then marketed worldwide. For banks, the experts wrote, "CRT instruments may reduce banks' incentives to monitor their borrowers and alter their treatment of distressed borrowers."</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">That, in a nutshell, was the underlying problem that would eventually trigger the mother of all crises. Many US bankers lowered their guard when it came to issuing subprime mortgages, because they could be repackaged and quickly resold, for example to unsophisticated bankers at German state-owned Landesbanken in places like Dresden, Hamburg and Munich.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">The central bankers were also not exactly taken by surprise by the failure of the rating agencies. In their report, the BIS experts derisively described the techniques of rating agencies like Moody's and Standard & Poor's as "relatively crude" and noted that "some caution is in order in relation to the reliability of the results."</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">But nothing happened.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;"><b>A Greek Tragedy in the Making</b></div><div style="line-height: 18px;">In the 2004 BIS annual report, White was unusually frank in criticizing the Fed's lax monetary policy. Although Greenspan sat on the bank's board of directors at the time, the board never sought to influence the analyses of its experts. But neither did it take them seriously.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">In January 2005, the BIS's Committee on the Global Financial System sounded the alarm once again, noting that the risks associated with structured financial products were not being "fully appreciated by market participants." Extreme market events, the experts argued, could "have unanticipated systemic consequences."</div><div style="line-height: 18px;"></div><div class="spArticleImageBox spAssetAlignleft" style="float: left; margin-bottom: 17px !important; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: 15px !important; margin-top: 0px !important; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; page-break-inside: avoid; position: relative; text-align: left; width: 182px;"><a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,grossbild-1581094-635051,00.html" style="color: #990000; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Graphic: The curse of cheap money" height="180" src="http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,1581095,00.jpg" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-left-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-style: initial; border-top-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; float: left;" title="Graphic: The curse of cheap money" width="180" /></a><div style="background-color: whitesmoke; padding-bottom: 6px; width: 182px;"><div class="spPicZoom" style="height: 28px; position: absolute; right: 11px; top: 146px; width: 28px;"><a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,grossbild-1581094-635051,00.html" style="color: #990000; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Zoom" class="spIEsixPng" height="28" src="http://www.spiegel.de/static/sys/v9/icons/ic_lupe.png" style="border-bottom-style: none !important; border-bottom-width: 0px !important; border-color: initial !important; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-right-style: none !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-style: initial; border-top-style: none !important; border-top-width: 0px !important; float: left; height: 28px; width: 28px;" title="Zoom" width="28" /></a></div><div align="right" class="spCredit" style="color: #666666; font-size: 0.8333em; margin-left: 4px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: right;">DER SPIEGEL</div><div style="font-size: 0.8333em !important; line-height: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 2px; margin-top: 3px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 4px; padding-right: 4px; padding-top: 0px;">Graphic: The curse of cheap money</div></div></div>They also cautioned against putting too much faith in the rating agencies, which suffered from a fatal flaw. Because the rating agencies were being paid by the companies they rated, the committee argued, there was a risk that they might rate some companies too highly and be reluctant to lower the ratings of others that should have been downgraded.<div style="line-height: 18px;"></div><div style="line-height: 18px;">These comments show that the central bankers knew exactly what was going on, a full two-and-a-half years before the big bang. All the ingredients of the looming disaster had been neatly laid out on the table in front of them: defective rating agencies, loans repackaged to the point of being unrecognizable, dubious practices of American mortgage lenders, the risks of low-interest policies. But no action was taken. Meanwhile, the Fed continued to raise interest rates in nothing more than tiny increments.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">"You can see all the ingredients of a Greek tragedy," says White. The downfall was in sight, and yet no one dared disrupt the party, no one except White, the lone BIS economist, who says: "If returns are too good to be true, then it's too good to be true."</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">And yet the economy was humming along, and billions in bonuses were being handed out like candy on Wall Street. Who would be willing to put an end to the orgy?</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">Clearly not Greenspan.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;"><br />
</div></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><div id="spIntroTeaser" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 18px;">Part 5: 'I Asked Myself: Is This the Big One?'</div><div class="spMiddle2Old" style="text-align: center; width: 522px !important;"></div><div style="line-height: 18px;"></div><div style="line-height: 18px;">The Fed chairman was not even impressed by a letter the Mortgage Insurance Companies of America (MICA), a trade association of US mortgage providers, sent to the Fed on Sept. 23, 2005. In the letter, MICA warned that it was "very concerned" about some of the risky lending practices being applied in the US real estate market. The experts even speculated that the Fed might be operating on the basis of incorrect data. Despite a sharp increase in mortgages being approved for low-income borrowers, most banks were reporting to the Fed that they had not lowered their lending standards. According to a study MICA cited entitled "This Powder Keg Is Going to Blow," there was no secondary market for these "nuclear mortgages."</div><div style="line-height: 18px;"></div><div style="line-height: 18px;">Three days later, Greenspan addressed the annual meeting of the American Bankers Association in Palm Desert, California, via satellite. He conceded that there had been "local excesses" in real estate prices, but assured his audience that "the vast majority of homeowners have a sizable equity cushion with which to absorb a potential decline in house prices."</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">The Maestro had spoken -- and the party could continue.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">William White and his Basel team were dumbstruck. The central bankers were simply ignoring their warnings. Didn't they understand what they were being told? Or was it that they simply didn't want to understand?</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">In the March 2006 BIS quarterly report, the Basel analysts described, once again, the grave risks of the subprime market. "Foreign investment in these securities has soared," they wrote. They also cautioned that there were "signs that the US housing market is cooling" and warned that investors "may be exposed to losses in excess of what they had anticipated."</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">A short time later, White argued for his model once again in a working paper titled "Is Price Stability Enough?" Low inflation rates are not a sign of normalcy, he warned, and central banks should not allow themselves to be led astray by low rates. Both the LTCM bankruptcy and the collapse of the stock markets in 2001 occurred "in an environment of effective price stability."</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">It was a waste of time and effort. Roger Ferguson, the then-deputy Fed chairman, ironically started to refer to the BIS's Cassandra-like chief economist as "Merry Sunshine."</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">"There are limits to pressing your argument," White says. "If you keep repeating your point over and over again, nobody will listen anymore."</div><div style="line-height: 18px;"><b>A Loss of Confidence</b></div><div style="line-height: 18px;">Ben Bernanke, who succeeded Greenspan as Fed chief in early 2006, was especially deaf to White's warnings. When he presented his biannual report on the state of the economy to the US Congress on July 19, 2006, he made no mention whatsoever of the subprime risk.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">A few months later, in December, the BIS reported that the index for securitized US subprime mortgages had fallen sharply in the fourth quarter of the year. A loss of confidence began to take shape.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">The first casualties began surfacing a few weeks later. On Feb. 8, 2007, HSBC, the world's third-largest bank at the time, issued the first profit warning in its history. On April 2, the US mortgage lender New Century Financial filed for bankruptcy.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">Bernanke remained unimpressed. "The troubles in the subprime sector seem unlikely to seriously spill over to the broader economy or the financial system," he said. It was June 5, 2007.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">White made one last, desperate attempt to bring the central bankers to their senses. "Virtually no one foresaw the Great Depression of the 1930s, or the crises which affected Japan and Southeast Asia in the early and late 1990s, respectively. In fact, each downturn was preceded by a period of non-inflationary growth exuberant enough to lead many commentators to suggest that a 'new era' had arrived," he wrote in June 2007 in the BIS annual report.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">But even if Bernanke had listened, it would have been too late by then. On June 22, the US investment bank Bear Stearns announced that it needed $3 billion (€2.1 billion) to bail out two of its hedge funds, which had suffered heavy losses during the course of the US real estate crisis. In Germany, entire banks were soon seeking government bailout funds. Banks increasingly lost trust in one another, and the money markets gradually dried up.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">It was the beginning of the end. "When the crisis started, I asked myself: Is this the big one?" White recalls. "The answer was: Yes, this is the big one."</div><div style="line-height: 18px;"><br />
</div></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><div id="spIntroTeaser" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 18px;">Part 6: Just as Predicted</div><div class="spMiddle2Old" style="text-align: center; width: 522px !important;"></div><div style="line-height: 18px;"></div><div style="line-height: 18px;">Meanwhile, the global economy is on the brink of disaster, as it faces the most devastating and brutal crisis in a century. The only reason the financial system is still intact is that governments are spending billions to support it. Central bankers have been forced to abandon their air of sophisticated aloofness and to try, together with politicians, to save what can be saved. Nowadays no one is talking about the free market's ability to heal itself.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;"></div><div style="line-height: 18px;">And everything happened just the way White predicted it would.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">This is visibly unpleasant for officials at the BIS. Even though they can pride themselves for having provided the best analyses, they have also been forced to admit that their central bankers failed miserably. "We had the right nose, but we didn't know how to use it," says BIS Secretary General Dittus. "We didn't manage to portray the global and financial imbalances in a convincing fashion."</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">Did White express himself unclearly? No, it was more that he represented a system that only questioned the prevailing view. "Ultimately, an economic model can only be defeated by an opposing model," says BIS Chief Economist Stephen Cecchetti, White's successor. "Unfortunately, we don't have a generally recognized model yet. Perhaps this partly explains why our warnings were less effective than would have been desirable."</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">The group of the 20 most important industrialized and emerging nations, which is now left with the task of cleaning up the wreckage of the crisis, apparently faces less academic problems. At the London G-20 summit in April, the group decided to promote a crisis-prevention model based on White's theories.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">They want to introduce what might be called his hoarding model, which calls for banks to build up reserves in good times so that they can be more flexible in bad times. The central banks, according to White, must actively counteract bubbles and exert stronger control over the financial industry, including hedge funds and insurance companies.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">As an adviser to German Chancellor Angela Merkel's group of experts, White helped to shape the basic tenets of the new order. And the 79th annual report of the BIS, published in Basel last week, also reads like pure White. It lists, as the causes of the crisis, extensive global imbalances, a lengthy phase of low real interest rates, distorted incentive systems and underestimated risks. In addition to improved regulation, the BIS argues that "asset prices and credit growth must be more directly integrated into monetary policy frameworks."</div><div style="line-height: 18px;"><b>Simply Part of Life</b></div><div style="line-height: 18px;">Even though this is what he has been saying for more than 10 years, White, a passionate financial professional, is the last person to show signs of bitterness. During a conversation in his Paris office at the OECD, he has no harsh words for those who had long dismissed him as an alarmist. For White, the BIS will always be the greatest experience for an economist. The errors made by central bankers, politicians and business executives, he says, are simply part of life.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">"Take the Enron example," he says. "We analyzed the disaster and found that 12 different levels of the government malfunctioned. This is part of human nature."</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">He is familiar with human nature, and he knows how to handle it. White is more concerned about the things he doesn't understand. New Zealand is a case in point. Interest rates were raised early in the crisis there, and yet the central bank was unable to come to grips with the credit bubble. Investors were apparently borrowing cheap money from foreign lenders.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">This is the sort of thing that worries him. "That's when you have to ask yourself: Who exactly is controlling the whole thing anymore?"</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">Perhaps his model has a flaw in that regard. Could it be possible that central bankers today have far less influence than he assumes?</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">The thought causes him to wrinkle his brow for a moment. Then he smiles, says his goodbyes and quickly disappears into a Paris Metro station.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;">He knows that he is needed.</div><div style="line-height: 18px;"><i style="padding-left: 1px;">Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan</i></div></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><div style="line-height: 18px;"><br />
</div></span></div>One Womans Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18379400685620139061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514832314841595261.post-38745854701702825852011-09-12T06:19:00.000-07:002011-09-12T06:19:29.518-07:00CBC reports Canada unexpectedly loses 5500 jobs<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"></span><br />
<div id="storyhead" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px; vertical-align: baseline;"><h1 class="headline" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 33px; line-height: 39px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Canada unexpectedly loses 5,500 jobs</h1><h3 class="deck" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Jobless rate rises to 7.3% in August</h3><h5 class="byline" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #666666; display: inline; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 5px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/credit.html" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; 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padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Posted: Sep 9, 2011 7:15 AM ET </h4><h4 class="lastupdated" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-color: rgb(137, 137, 137); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #666666; display: inline; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; line-height: 15px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 5px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Last Updated: Sep 9, 2011 10:09 AM ET </h4><span class="socialicons rec show" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; 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</ul></div><div class="digdeeper" id="storyextra" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div id="intlinks" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: -webkit-gradient(linear, 0% 0%, 0% 100%, from(rgb(0, 0, 0)), to(rgb(255, 255, 255))); background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px; vertical-align: baseline;"><h4 style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #f7f8f9; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-color: initial; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-color: rgb(225, 225, 225); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(225, 225, 225); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: initial; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 8px; vertical-align: baseline;">Related Links</h4><dl style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #f7f8f9; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(225, 225, 225); border-bottom-left-radius: 4px 4px; border-bottom-right-radius: 4px 4px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-left-color: rgb(225, 225, 225); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(225, 225, 225); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: initial; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 7px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 12px; vertical-align: baseline;"><dt style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: url(http://www.cbc.ca/i/news/v10/gfx/bluebullet.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 5px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 12px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/09/08/obama-speech-congress.html" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #115278; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Obama pitches $447B jobs plan to boost economy</a></dt>
<dt style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: url(http://www.cbc.ca/i/news/v10/gfx/bluebullet.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 5px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 12px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/09/08/pol-conservative-mp-fall.html" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #115278; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Economy will be focus of fall session, Harper tells MPs</a></dt>
<dt style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: url(http://www.cbc.ca/i/news/v10/gfx/bluebullet.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 5px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 12px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2011/09/02/us-jobs-august.html" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #115278; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">U.S. creates zero jobs in August</a></dt>
</dl></div></div><a class="metanav" href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2011/09/09/unemployment-august-jobs-canada.html#accessibilitylinks" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #115278; float: left; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; width: 0px;"></a></div><div id="storybody" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.35em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 160px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><h2 class="metanav" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: black; float: left; font-size: 19px; font-weight: bold; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 0px;"></h2><iframe frameborder="0" height="510" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://www.cbc.ca/news/charts/bar/employment-industry/index.html" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="460"></iframe><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 14px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Canada's unemployment rate in August inched up to 7.3 per cent, rising by 0.1 percentage points from <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/08/05/jobs-canada-july.html" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #115278; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">7.2 per cent in July</a>.</div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 14px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The country lost a total of 5,500 jobs in August — the second consecutive month that employment picture was little changed.</div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 14px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Economists had been expecting overall job growth last month to increase by 21,000 to 25,000. However, the loss of more than 31,000 part-time jobs overwhelmed the addition of 25,700 full-time positions.</div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 14px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Canadian dollar took an immediate hit, dropping about half a cent to below 101 cents US.</div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 14px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Statistics Canada said job losses in the construction, transportation and warehousing, as well as natural resources sectors offset gains in health care and social assistance.</div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 14px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The private sector lost 20,600 positions, while public-sector employment rose by 22,000.</div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 14px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Employment increased by 4,100 in Nova Scotia in August, but declined by 3,400 in Newfoundland and Labrador and by 3,000 in Saskatchewan.</div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 14px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Economists said in an early reaction that Canadians should prepare for a tough jobs market going forward.</div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 14px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"Jobs momentum has clearly been lost in Canada," Scotiabank economists said in a note to clients.</div><div class="promosidebar" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; display: block; float: left; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 20px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 140px;"><div class="promo med" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(196, 196, 196); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; display: block; float: left; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 3px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 140px;"><h3 style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 14.5px; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 10px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/interactives/unemployment-stats/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #115278; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" border="0" height="" src="http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/images/news/promos16x9image/2011/09/09/promo-jobs-graph.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; height: 80px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 140px;" width="" /><span class="flag" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 0px; clear: both; color: #115278; display: block; float: left; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 7px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 2px; text-transform: uppercase; vertical-align: baseline; width: 133px;">JOB RATE</span><strong class="headline" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; clear: both; display: block; float: left; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 4px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 2px; vertical-align: baseline;">Mapping the unemployment gains and losses across Canada</strong></a></h3></div></div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 14px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"It further calls into question the Bank of Canada's (second half of year) optimism as the effects of a global confidence shock work their way through the economic variables."</div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 14px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">TD Bank's Derek Burleton noted that the jobs number was not as bleak as the bottom line would suggest, since all the losses were in part-time work.</div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 14px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Full-time employment rose, Burleton said.</div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 14px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Still, he said, Canadians should prepare for the unemployment rate to start edging up, predicting it could go 7.5 per cent or higher by the end of the year.</div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 14px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"Looking through the statistical fog, the underlying trend in Canada's job market is beginning to cool," agreed Bank of Montreal economist Douglas Porter.</div><cite class="source" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #565656; font-size: 10px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">With files from The Canadian Press</em></cite></div></div></div>One Womans Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18379400685620139061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514832314841595261.post-54856505285475437182011-09-11T13:23:00.000-07:002011-09-11T13:23:36.589-07:00British MP says its time to get out of Afghanistan<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
This TED talk by Rory Stewart a British MP explains why he believes it is time for other countries to get out of Afghanistan.<br />
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</div></div>One Womans Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18379400685620139061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514832314841595261.post-75254655559645839192011-09-11T12:01:00.000-07:002011-09-11T12:01:05.790-07:00The Toronto Film Festival<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 16px;"></span><br />
<h2 class="main_article_deck" style="color: #252525; font-family: 'Vonness Bold Compressed', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 30px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 15px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 30px; padding-right: 30px; padding-top: 0px;">It's only been a few years since festivals started picking future Oscar winners -- now, they're where the action all begins, writes Todd McCarthy.</h2><div class="article_body" style="color: #454545; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 30px; padding-right: 30px; padding-top: 15px;"><div style="font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The first movie to have its world premiere at a film festival and go on to win the best picture Academy Award was <strong>Woody Allen</strong>'s <em>Annie Hall</em>, which debuted at Los Angeles' Filmex in spring 1977. Four years later, <em>Chariots of Fire</em> launched in competition at Cannes and came from behind to snare the Oscar. <em>The Last Emperor</em> began its long march to awards glory at the 1987 Tokyo Film Festival, and in 2000, <em>American Beauty</em>, unveiled at Toronto in 1999, pulled off the trick.</div><div class="recommended_articles" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; clear: both; float: left; line-height: 1em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: -20px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 35px; padding-top: 20px; width: 195px;"><div class="header" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 3px; color: black; font-family: 'Vonness Bold Compressed', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 21px; line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;"><span></span>OUR EDITOR RECOMMENDS</div><div class="module_wrap" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: url(http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/all/themes/thr/images/border_dot_h.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 50% 100%; background-repeat: repeat no-repeat; float: left; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 10px; width: 195px;"><div class="media" style="display: table-cell; float: left; height: 58px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 16px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 58px;"><img src="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/default/files/lady_a_58.jpg" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; float: left;" /></div><div class="text" style="display: table-cell; float: none; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: middle;"><div class="outer" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div class="inner" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/toronto-2011-10-hot-titles-232148" style="color: black; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15px; text-decoration: none;">Toronto 2011: 10 Hot Titles Buyers Dare Not Miss<img class="redarr" src="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/all/themes/thr/images/elements/icon_red_darrow.png" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; display: inline; float: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 3px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" /></a></div></div></div></div><div class="module_wrap" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: url(http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/all/themes/thr/images/border_dot_h.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 50% 100%; background-repeat: repeat no-repeat; float: left; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 10px; width: 195px;"><div class="media" style="display: table-cell; float: left; height: 58px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 16px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 58px;"><img src="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/default/files/ryan_gosling_bradley_cooper_a_l_58.jpg" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; float: left;" /></div><div class="text" style="display: table-cell; float: none; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: middle;"><div class="outer" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div class="inner" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/toronto-2011-buyers-see-first-232171" style="color: black; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15px; text-decoration: none;">Toronto 2011: Buyers to See First Footage of Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper's 'The Place Beyond the Pines' <img class="redarr" src="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/all/themes/thr/images/elements/icon_red_darrow.png" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; display: inline; float: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 3px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" /></a></div></div></div></div><div class="module_wrap" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: url(http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/all/themes/thr/images/border_dot_h.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 50% 100%; background-repeat: repeat no-repeat; float: left; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 10px; width: 195px;"><div class="media" style="display: table-cell; float: left; height: 58px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 16px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 58px;"><img src="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/default/files/2011/07/carnage-1_e.jpg" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; float: left;" /></div><div class="text" style="display: table-cell; float: none; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: middle;"><div class="outer" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div class="inner" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/carnage-venice-film-review-230266" style="color: black; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15px; text-decoration: none;">Carnage: Venice Film Review<img class="redarr" src="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/all/themes/thr/images/elements/icon_red_darrow.png" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; display: inline; float: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 3px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" /></a></div></div></div></div><div class="module_wrap" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: url(http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/all/themes/thr/images/border_dot_h.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 50% 100%; background-repeat: repeat no-repeat; float: left; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 10px; width: 195px;"><div class="media" style="display: table-cell; float: left; height: 58px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 16px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 58px;"><img src="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/default/files/td-03437_a_l_58.jpg" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; float: left;" /></div><div class="text" style="display: table-cell; float: none; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: middle;"><div class="outer" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div class="inner" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/descendants-telluride-film-review-230930" style="color: black; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15px; text-decoration: none;">The Descendants: Telluride Film Review<img class="redarr" src="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/all/themes/thr/images/elements/icon_red_darrow.png" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; display: inline; float: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 3px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" /></a></div></div></div></div><div class="module_wrap last" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; float: left; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 10px; width: 195px;"><div class="media" style="display: table-cell; float: left; height: 58px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 16px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 58px;"><img src="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/default/files/2011/08/dangerous_methoda_e.jpg" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; float: left;" /></div><div class="text" style="display: table-cell; float: none; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: middle;"><div class="outer" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div class="inner" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/a-dangerous-method-venice-film-230566" style="color: black; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15px; text-decoration: none;">A Dangerous Method: Venice Film Review<img class="redarr" src="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/all/themes/thr/images/elements/icon_red_darrow.png" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; display: inline; float: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 3px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" /></a></div></div></div></div></div><div class="related_topic_pages" style="clear: both; float: left; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: -20px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 35px; padding-top: 0px; width: 195px;"><div class="header" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 3px; color: black; font-family: 'Vonness Bold Compressed', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 21px; line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;"><span>RELATED TOPICS</span></div><div class="title" style="float: left; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px; width: 195px;"><a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/package/toronto-international-film-festival" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;"><span style="padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 2px; padding-right: 5px; padding-top: 0px;">•</span>Toronto International Fil...<img class="redarr" src="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/all/themes/thr/images/elements/icon_red_darrow.png" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; display: inline; float: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" /></a></div></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">From 1928 to 2004, these four were the only films launched at festivals that then bagged the top Oscar. All that has changed. During the past six years, five best picture winners have bowed at festivals; for the most part, they were relatively low-budget productions initially perceived as niche pictures. In the end, all but one became big hits.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><strong><a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/david-cronenberg-how-20-million-231997" style="color: #e11a1f; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">COVER STORY: David Cronenberg on How the $20 Million 'Dangerous Method' Got Made</a></strong></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The first was <strong>Paul Haggis</strong>' <em>Crash</em>, which was unknown when it premiered at Toronto in 2005. <em>The Departed</em> triumphed the next year commercially and at the Oscars despite eschewing festivals, but it was followed by <em>No Country for Old Men</em>(Cannes), <em>Slumdog Millionaire</em> (Telluride), <em>The Hurt Locker</em>(Venice) and <em>The King's Speech</em> (Telluride), all underdog winners.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">No wonder, then, that Hollywood's radar screens are trained on Toronto. Although some of the most eagerly awaited films have already been viewed at Venice or Telluride --<strong>Alexander Payne</strong>'s <em>The Descendants</em>, <strong>David Cronenberg</strong>'s <em>A Dangerous Method</em>, <strong>Roman Polanski</strong>'s<em>Carnage</em> -- it was <em>The King's Speech</em>'s screening at last year's festival that caught the eye of press and industry figures, not its Telluride premiere.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><em>The Social Network</em> had its world premiere at the New York Film Festival a couple weeks later, and the two films duked it out for the next five months until Speech prevailed at the Kodak Theatre.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">So what unknown quantities are critics eyeing in Toronto this year? Among the galas, <strong>Bennett Miller</strong>'s baseball drama<em>Moneyball</em>, starring <strong>Brad Pitt</strong>, has clear appeal -- but there's no advance word on it, and a choppy production history provokes qualms. Also eagerly anticipated are <strong>Sarah Polley</strong>'s <em>Take This Waltz</em>; <strong>Bruce Beresford</strong>'s <em>Peace, Love, & Misunderstanding</em>, starring <strong>Jane Fonda </strong>and <strong>Catherine Keener</strong>; <strong>Darrell Roodt</strong>'s <em>Winnie</em>, with <strong>Jennifer Hudson</strong> as Nelson Mandela's (Terrence Howard) controversial wife; another Africa-set drama,<strong> Marc Forster</strong>'s <em>Machine Gun Preacher</em>, starring <strong>Gerard Butler</strong> and<strong>Michelle Monaghan</strong>; and Luc Besson's Burma-set drama <em>The Lady</em>, featuring <strong>Michelle Yeoh</strong>.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">In the Special Presentations section are<strong> Jonathan Levine</strong>'s already-hyped dramedy <em>50/50</em>; Oren Moverman's <em>Rampart</em>; <strong>Michael Winterbottom</strong>'s <em>Trishna</em>, with Freida Pinto starring in an adaptation of Thomas Hardy's novel <em>Tess of the D'Urbervilles</em> set in India; and, for buffs,<strong>Guy Maddin</strong>'s <em>Keyhole</em>, starring <strong>Isabella Rossellini</strong>.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The New York Film Festival, which opens Sept. 30, will again have one world premiere that's garnering much speculation: <em>My Week With Marilyn</em>, in which Michelle Williams and Kenneth Branagh appear as Marilyn Monroe and Laurence Olivier. All other releases for the rest of the year will open directly in theaters without major festival exposure.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">What caused the sudden shift from more obviously mainstream fare winning all the Oscars to specialized films taking their place? All sorts of explanations can be proposed, but the answer lies in a combination of several of them: studios are no longer in the prestige pictures business, a gradual shift in the makeup and sensibilities of Academy members, the increasing sophistication of marketing and publicity campaigns, DVDs of smaller films getting into the hands of voters, and the shrewd use of festivals as a launching pad.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Since 1977, when <em>Annie Hall</em> beat <em>Star Wars</em> in a battle rather comparable to that of two years ago when <em>Hurt Locker</em> prevailed over <em>Avatar</em>, how many Oscar winners have there been that might, in this day and age, be considered festival-type films? Even now, it's perplexing that <em>The English Patient</em> was not shown at any festivals -- it seems a natural. And, given Clint Eastwood's longtime presence at major festivals, it would have been easy to imagine <em>Million Dollar Baby</em>working the circuit, but it barely made a December 2004 release in time. Like it, Eastwood's <em>J. Edgar</em> is skipping festivals and heading straight for cinemas toward the end of the year.</div></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">Taken directly from: </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/toronto-2011-critics-preview-why-232256">http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/toronto-2011-critics-preview-why-232256</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 16px;"><div class="article_body" style="color: #454545; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 30px; padding-right: 30px; padding-top: 15px;"><div style="font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><br />
</div></div></span></div>One Womans Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18379400685620139061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514832314841595261.post-63506493219855075852011-09-11T07:51:00.000-07:002011-09-11T07:51:51.266-07:00Magnitude-6.4 quake hits off Vancouver Island<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #505050; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"></span><br />
<h1 class="story-header" style="clear: both; color: #505050; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 2.461em; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: -1px; line-height: 34px; margin-bottom: 13px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: -160px; margin-top: 3px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; position: relative; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; width: 623px;">Magnitude-6.4 quake hits off Vancouver Island</h1><div class="caption body-narrow-width" style="clear: both; color: #505050; display: inline; float: right; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 16px; margin-right: -160px; margin-top: 0px; position: relative;"><img alt="Map" height="171" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/55273000/gif/_55273580_canada_quake_0909.cmp.gif" style="-webkit-user-select: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #505050; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 16px; position: relative;" width="304" /></div><div class="introduction" style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; font-weight: bold; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">A magnitude-6.4 earthquake has hit near Vancouver Island, Canada, the US Geological Survey (USGS) says.</div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">The epicentre of the quake, which hit at 12:41 local time (19:41 GMT), was 289km (179 miles) west of Vancouver, the USGS reported.</div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">The quake occurred a depth of 23km (14.3 miles), the USGS added. Eyewitness accounts say buildings swayed in central Vancouver.</div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">However, no tsunami warning has been issued.</div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">The closest major settlement, Port Hardy - with a population of over 5,000 - has received no reports of damage caused by the earthquake.</div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">Police in Seattle, more than 200km away in the US state of Washington, said tremors were also felt there, but there were no reports of damage.</div></div>One Womans Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18379400685620139061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514832314841595261.post-32046924160871643062011-06-14T06:28:00.000-07:002011-06-14T06:28:50.046-07:00Almost 1/3 of rich Canadians born abroad: BMO<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><em>While on a cruise a couple of years ago, I sat at the dinner table each night with a large group which included two sisters from New York who had immigrated to the USA from Hong Kong. Over the course of one evening the conversation turned to immigration and new countries and one of the sisters asserted that one could 'buy their way into Canada' but they could not do so in the USA. I had no experience or education in the matter but I have to admit it troubled me. I wonder if the following article from CBC online actually supports that contention?</em><br />
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Almost 1/3 of rich Canadians born abroad: BMO<br />
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The face of Canada's wealthy is changing with almost a third of high net worth Canadians reporting they were born outside of Canada, according to a new survey by BMO Harris Private Banking.<br />
The online survey, conducted for BMO by Harris Decima and released Tuesday, said 30 per cent of affluent Canadians, which it defined as those having more than $1 million of investable assets, were born elsewhere.<br />
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The study also found that almost all affluent new Canadians — or about 96 per cent — keep the bulk of their wealth in Canada."These findings speak to the Canadian spirit of multiculturalism and how this country fosters an environment that helps individuals to succeed and thrive," said Andrew Auerbach, head of BMO Harris Private Banking.<br />
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"Attracting the best and the brightest demonstrates the relative prosperity and openness of Canada's economy. This bodes well for long-term wealth generation." Meanwhile, the study found only a minority of affluent Canadians overall — 38 per cent — say they are being treated fairly when it comes to taxation.<br />
Two-thirds of the affluent would like to see a reduction in capital gains and incomes taxes.<br />
Meanwhile, the number of affluent Canadians putting their money into tax-efficient investments has risen in recent years to 92 per cent from 73 per cent in 2008 and 67 per cent in 2005, the survey found.<br />
While a majority of high net worth Canadians keep most of their money in Canada, about four in 10, or 37 per cent, said they allocate a portion of their wealth outside the country.<br />
The top three foreign markets identified were The United States (69 per cent), Europe (35 per cent) and Asia (28 per cent).<br />
"There's no question that the growth we're seeing in Asia is making it increasingly attractive to affluent Canadians," said Jennifer Chua, BMO Group's head of private banking (China), BMO Financial Group.<br />
"Ultimately, Asia is a good market for any investor to consider, regardless of net worth," Chua added.<br />
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</div>One Womans Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18379400685620139061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514832314841595261.post-29818586632206044162011-06-14T06:22:00.000-07:002011-06-14T06:22:07.782-07:00Canada and Asbestos<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">The Canadian government rejected advice from Health Canada that asbestos be added to a global list of hazardous materials in 2006, CBC News has learned.According to documents obtained under Access to Information, a senior Health Canada bureaucrat wrote that the agency believed that chrysotile — a form of asbestos that has been linked to cancer — should be added to a UN treaty known as the Rotterdam Convention.<br />
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"[Health Canada's] preferred position would be to list — as this is consistent with controlled use — i.e. let people know about the substance so they have the information they need, through prior informed consent, to ensure they handle and use the substance correctly," wrote Paul Glover then director general of Health Canada's safe environments program, in 2006.<br />
The 2006 Rotterdam Convention comprises a list of hazardous substances that require countries to disclose any restrictions imposed for health or environmental reasons by exporting countries. Importing countries would then decide whether to import the substance, ban it, or restrict it, something known as prior informed consent.<br />
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More than 50 countries ban the use of asbestos. But Canada, one of the leading exporters of the material, lobbied to keep asbestos off the Rotterdam list with the support of producing countries such as Russia and Zimbabwe. Ultimately, chrysotile asbestos did not make the list and remains off it.<br />
Canada exports $90 million of asbestos, all of it from Quebec, every year.<br />
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While Glover noted in his email that Health Canada cannot say that chrysotile is safe, he said the agency does feel "there is science and evidence to support that chrysotile is less dangerous than other forms of asbestos.""We also feel that the risks associated with chrysotile can be managed by using a controlled use approach — i.e. know the substance its properties and hazards, and handle and use it accordingly."<br />
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He also acknowledged that "the final decision will not be made on the basis of health alone."<br />
In 2006, just prior to the Rotterdam Convention, the World Health Organization (WHO) stated that "the most efficient way to eliminate asbestos related diseases is to stop using all types of asbestos." The agency also said that "more than 40 countries, including all members of the European Union have banned the use of all forms of asbestos, including chrysotile."<br />
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Canada’s Department of Natural Resources also supported keeping asbestos off the Rotterdam list. "Listing of chrysotile alongside the world’s most toxic substances will be perceived as encouraging a ban of the substance" it stated on its website.<br />
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It also says on the website that inclusion of chrysotile to the Rotterdam Convention "is inappropriate because it is widely recognized that chrysotile fibre can be used safely and responsibly."Canadian officials have long held that Canada’s approach to asbestos is a responsible one. By pursuing a policy of controlled-use and working with developing countries to minimize exposure, officials have asserted that the risks associated with chrysotile can be minimized.<br />
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The Chrysotile Institute, which speaks for the industry, and has received millions in government funding, said there's no need to say anything about chrysotile before selling it, because it’s less harmful than other kinds of asbestos."The declared objective of the people who are pushing for inclusion on the convention is to ban the substance worldwide and this would be a move in that direction which is totally unwarranted," said institute spokesman Guy Versailles.But for years, Canada has been scraping asbestos out of buildings, including those on Parliament Hill and at 24 Sussex Dr., the prime minister's residence.<br />
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Asked during the recent election campaign how Canada can justify the contrast, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said as long as countries are willing to buy it, he won’t stand in the way."This government will not put Canadian industry in a position where it is discriminated against in a market where sale is permitted," Harper said. But criticism of this policy has been fierce.<br />
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"Canada is the only Western democracy to have consistently opposed international efforts to regulate the global trade in asbestos. And the government of Canada has done so with shameful political manipulation of science," the Canadian Medical Association Journal stated in an editorial in 2008.<br />
The Canadian Labour Congress has also accused the Canadian government of "ignoring expert advice indicating that chrysotile asbestos is not safe and is causally linked with various forms of cancer."<br />
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"The government has failed to consult with labour and other stakeholders on steps that Canada could take to comply with international conventions calling for a ban on asbestos," the congress has stated.<br />
A decision by the International Labour Organization’s Committee on the Application of Standards last week demanded that the Canadian government adopt the “strictest standard limits for the protection of workers’ health as regards exposure to asbestos.” <br />
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It also asked Canada to “take into account the evolution of scientific studies, knowledge and technology … as well as the findings of WHO, the ILO and other recognized organizations concerning the dangers of the exposure to asbestos.” "If you have any information about this story, or other investigative tips, please email investigations@cbc.ca"<br />
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Officials from the countries that agreed to the Rotterdam Convention will meet on June 20, but Canada remains undecided on its strategy. Despite the fact that the government has had years to co-ordinate its position on this issue, an official from Environment Canada recently told CBC News that "Canada's position for the upcoming meeting is under consideration." <br />
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But Kathleen Ruff, the co-ordinator of the Rotterdam Convention Alliance which represents environmental and health organizations criticized this position."There’s no excuse for the government’s refusal to tell the public the position we as a country will take at the UN environmental conference in a few days. This is not transparency."<br />
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</div>One Womans Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18379400685620139061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514832314841595261.post-58749874718151985882011-06-12T03:50:00.000-07:002011-06-12T03:50:20.829-07:00"Take back" movements around the world<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/kqh6dZt8U8Q" width="560"></iframe></div>One Womans Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18379400685620139061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514832314841595261.post-21230351893113950942011-06-07T13:24:00.001-07:002011-06-08T04:17:58.294-07:00Hassan Diab: Canada allows bomb suspect's extradition<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
Mr Diab, who was arrested in 2008, says he was not in Paris at the time of the attack A Canadian judge has approved the extradition to France of a man charged in a deadly 1980 bombing outside a Paris synagogue.<br />
Lebanese-born Canadian Hassan Diab was arrested in 2008 at the request of French authorities.<br />
France says Mr Diab was a member of a Palestinian militant group and planted a bomb that killed four and wounded 40.<br />
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Mr Diab denies the accusation and has pledged to appeal against the extradition order.On Monday, Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Maranger ruled Mr Diab could be transferred to France. The final decision rests now with Canadian Justice Minister Rob Nicholson.<br />
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Mr Diab's lawyer René Duval requested he be granted bail until his appeal can be heard.French authorities say Mr Diab, who has taught sociology at two Ottawa universities, was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.<br />
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He is accused of making a bomb and it in a motorcycle outside the Copernic Street synagogue in Paris on 3 October, and is charged in France with four counts of murder, several counts of attempted murder and destruction of property.<br />
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Mr Diab was arrested in Ottawa in 2008 on an international arrest warrant issued by the French. He has said investigators are mistaken and he was not in Paris at the time of the attack.<br />
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</div>One Womans Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18379400685620139061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514832314841595261.post-66362135253480576752011-06-01T12:25:00.000-07:002011-06-01T12:25:50.477-07:00Toronto couple has chosen to keep their baby's sex a secret<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Toronto couple defend move to keep baby's sex secret <br />
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Mr Stocker and Ms Witterick say the decision to keep Storm's sex a secret was "a tribute to freedom" A Toronto couple are defending their decision to keep their infant's sex a secret in order to allow the child to develop his or her own gender identity. Kathy Witterick and David Stocker have been widely accused of imposing their ideology on four-month-old Storm.<br />
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The family were the subject of a recent profile in the Toronto Star newspaper.In an e-mail, Ms Witterick wrote that the idea that "the whole world must know what is between the baby's legs is unhealthy, unsafe, and voyeuristic".Ms Witterick, 38, and Mr Stocker, 39, have also been criticised over the manner in which they are raising their two sons Jazz, five, and Kio, two.<br />
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The boys are encouraged to choose their own clothing and hairstyles - even if that means wearing girls' clothes - and to challenge gender norms. Jazz wears his hair in long braids, and the boys are "almost exclusively assumed to be girls," Mr Stocker told the Toronto Star.<br />
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The child's grandparents do not know Storm's sex, the Toronto Star reported, and have grown weary of explaining the situation, but are supportive. In an e-mail to the Associated Press news agency, Ms Witterick, a stay-at-home mother, said a four-month-old infant was still learning to recognise him or herself, and said it was inappropriate to impose a gender identity on the child.<br />
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</div>One Womans Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18379400685620139061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514832314841595261.post-13284083162563115792011-05-19T14:05:00.000-07:002011-05-19T14:05:43.201-07:00John Baird- the Americans love him- but should Canadians?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Even in early 2007 when John Baird took over the environment portfolio, American diplomats saw a bright future for the feisty Conservative MP. 'Baird is a young, ambitious and dynamic minister who should be one of the Conservatives' top leadership prospects in the future," a leaked U.S. diplomatic cable says.<br />
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Americans devoted an entire nine-page diplomatic cable to analyzing Baird after he was appointed to the tricky file in January 2007 and he met with the U.S. Ambassador to Canada, David Wilkins. The document, dated Feb. 2, 2007, and classified as confidential, was among a batch of leaked U.S. State Department cables recently released to CBC News. "Baird clearly enjoys and is comfortable with the rough-and-tumble of Parliamentary debate in contrast to his predecessor Rona Ambrose," says a section of the cable marked "embassy comment."<br />
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"It is clear that Baird hopes a strong performance handling the politically sensitive environmental file will eventually be rewarded by his appointment to an even higher profile ministry," it says.<br />
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WikiLeaks<br />
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The flattering portrayal of Baird — particularly in comparison to his predecessor, Rona Ambrose, who is described as ineffective — suggests the newly anointed foreign affairs minister clearly made a positive impression abroad.Prime Minister Stephen Harper named Baird to the coveted top cabinet job on Wednesday amid questions over how the known Conservative party "pit bull" would fare on the world stage where diplomacy is key.Baird, 41, previously held the post as Treasury Board president and it was a job he enjoyed, according to the cables. "Baird volunteered that he had not asked to be environment minister," the U.S. diplomatic cable says. "He had been happy as Treasury Board President where, as a fiscal conservative, he could cut 'stupid' spending."<br />
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Baird expected defence file<br />
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The Ottawa West-Nepean MP recalled when the prime minister called him to 24 Sussex ahead of the 2007 cabinet shuffle and told him of his new post. Baird said he would not have chosen it, but was now delighted by its challenges."He regards it as a 'first-line' ministerial position and recognizes that the environment and Afghanistan may be the two most important issues in the next election," the cable says.And perhaps prescient, given his current post, Baird's other topic of conversation with U.S. officials was Afghanistan.<br />
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He recounted a trip the previous month to visit Canadian Forces members stationed in Afghanistan and stressed the importance of Canada's involvement in NATO fighting the Taliban as "an essential national commitment."<br />
Baird also described spending a cold night sleeping in a tent with the soldiers.Baird went on to say that he was "proud to fire an artillery piece (although he did not think that the shell had caused casualties)," the cable says.<br />
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Indeed, it was the national defence file that Baird thought Harper might allot him back in 2007."He wondered whether he would be switched to the Department of National Defence in light of his Afghan trip," said the cable. "He got Environment instead, but was not dissatisfied."<br />
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</div>One Womans Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18379400685620139061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514832314841595261.post-49804125055686931522011-05-19T13:59:00.000-07:002011-05-19T13:59:07.397-07:00CPP earnings up 12%<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
Canada Pension Plan Investment Board ended fiscal 2011 with $148.2 billion in assets, a 20.6 per cent increase over 2010's level. The managers of Canada's national pension plan earned $15.5 billion in investment income, and got another $5.4 billion in CPP payments during the year.The 11.9 per cent annual gain was just off the 14.9 per cent increase during the previous fiscal year. The fund has now earned $31.7 billion worth of investment income in the two years since the recession, CEO David Denison said in a release.<br />
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"By adhering to our long-term strategy during and following the recent financial crisis, the fund has benefited from the recovery in the global public equity markets," he said.The CPPIB invests the funds not needed by the Canada Pension Plan to pay current benefits on behalf of 17 million Canadian contributors and beneficiaries.The Chief Actuary of Canada has repeatedly deemed the found actuarially sustainable for at least the next 75 years. CPP contributions are expected to exceed annual benefits paid until at least 2021.<br />
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The fund was active in the real estate space during the year, closing major deals for assets in Australia, the United States, and Londo. Just last week, the fund agreed to pay $370 million for a stake in a major German shopping complex.The year also saw the CPPIB increase its portfolio of infrastructure assets. The fund completed its largest infrastructure investment to date with two concurrent transactions involving the acquisition of a 40 per cent interest in the 407 Express Toll Route outside Toronto during the period, as well as an interest in a toll road in Sydney, Australia.<br />
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All 12 of the fund's asset classes were in positive territory for the year. In 2010, five lost value, but they were more than overcome by a major gain in the public equity portfolio.The CPP outperformed its own benchmark by 2.07 per cent, the fund said in a release. The 2011 showing brings the fund's five-year annual performance to 3.3 per cent and over 10 years, that return jumps to 5.9 per cent per year.<br />
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</div>One Womans Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18379400685620139061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514832314841595261.post-46353413431560740992011-05-19T13:33:00.000-07:002011-05-19T13:33:46.177-07:00Sperm donor anonymity overturned by B.C. court<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Olivia Pratten succesfully sued the B.C. government to force changes in the B.C. Adoption Act to allow the offspring of sperm, egg and embryo donors to find out who their donors are. (Jonathan Hayward/Canadian Press)The B.C. Supreme Court has struck down provincial legislation that protected the identity of sperm donors. The court also prohibited the future destruction of any records and ordered the province to draw up new legislation in line with the Charter of Rights.<br />
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Lawyers for Olivia Pratten had argued that the existing rules discriminated against the children of sperm donors. The court ruled in her favour on Thursday. "It is a total win for us. No more anonymity. Donor offspring have been recognized as having the same rights as adoptees in B.C.," said Pratten after the ruling was released. In the decision, Justice Elaine Adair wrote that the rights of the child must be protected in sperm donation, much like they are protected in cases of adoption in B.C. "I conclude, based on the whole of the evidence, that assisted reproduction using an anonymous gamete donor is harmful to the child, and it is not in the best interests of donor offspring," wrote Adair.<br />
"I grant a permanent injunction, in accordance with these reasons, prohibiting the destruction, disposal, redaction or transfer out of B.C. of gamete donor records in British Columbia," she wrote. The ruling gives the province 15 months to enact conforming changes to the B.C. Adoption Act that are in line with the Charter of Rights.<br />
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Pratten was conceived through sperm donation. The 28-year-old journalist fought for years to learn her biological father's identity, but was eventually told the doctor legally destroyed the records in the 1990s.<br />
She then decided to sue the B.C. government on behalf of other children who still have hopes of learning their parentage and to ensure donor records are preserved indefinitely and that children can have access to the records when they turn 19.<br />
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</div>One Womans Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18379400685620139061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514832314841595261.post-10379076653604725262011-05-18T06:07:00.000-07:002011-05-18T06:07:55.112-07:00Canadians secretly added to U.S. security list: WikiLeaks<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">The Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Canada's principal intelligence agency, routinely transmits to U.S. authorities the names and personal details of Canadian citizens who are suspected of, but not charged with, what the agency refers to as "terrorist-related activity." The criteria used to turn over the names are secret, as is the process itself.But a new cache of WikiLeaks documents pertaining to Canada lays bare the practice. It contains not only frank assessments by U.S. officials of Canadian co-operation, but the names of 27 Canadian citizens turned over by their own government as possible threats, along with 14 other names of foreign nationals living in Canada. <br />
In at least some cases, the people in the cables appear to have been named as potential terrorists solely based on their associations with other suspects, rather than any actions or hard evidence.Of the 41 people named, 21 do not appear to have ever been charged, and some had never come to the attention of the Americans before being named by their own government. Most of the remaining 20 names comprise the group known as the Toronto 18. Some of that group were charged and convicted; others had charges against them stayed.<br />
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The cables are a snapshot of periods in 2009 and 2010. Over the years, the number of names handed over is certainly much higher. The first stop for these names is usually the so-called Visa Viper list maintained by the U.S. government. Anyone who makes that list is unlikely to be admitted to the States.Given Washington's policy of centralizing such information, though, the names also go into the database of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Centre. Inclusion in such databases can have several consequences, such as being barred from aircraft that fly through U.S. airspace. Paul Cavalluzzo, who acted as chief counsel for the Canadian commission of inquiry that cleared Arar of any wrongdoing, put it this way after being briefed on the cables: "Once you give the name to the Americans, that's the end of the game."<br />
Long-standing practice<br />
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Interviews with several Canadian security sources confirm that the practice of naming people who are suspected, but not charged, has been going on for many years.One security official with deep knowledge of the subject said the cables go to "the nub of some of the most sensitive communications between our side and the Americans."He stressed that any decision to hand over names is the result of a detailed process, in which an individual's threat level is assessed by a committee of Canadian security officials, including a senior executive at CSIS. Lawyers from the Department of Justice also participate, and often a representative of the RCMP.As part of the process, someone plays the part of devil's advocate, challenging the information gathered on the individual being considered. Even then, said the official, the decision to hand over a name to the Americans is subject to written ministerial directives and internal CSIS policies.<br />
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Still, as Cavalluzzo points out, the process is secret, with no judicial oversight, and takes place without the knowledge of the individual being "targeted.""It certainly doesn't meet any criteria of due process in the sense that the individual has no representation whatever. Don't tell me there's a devil's advocate. That and a dollar will get you a cup of coffee."<br />
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The Canadian security official said two considerations loom over the CSIS committee's deliberations.<br />
The first is Arar, who was secretly traduced by the RCMP to American authorities and, as a result, was removed from a commercial flight at John F. Kennedy airport in 2002, then forcibly deported to Syria, where he was tortured. Maher Arar in January 2007, holding a copy of Justice Dennis O'Connor's report recommending a government apology and compensation for his ordeal, which was forthcoming. (Tom Hanson/Canadian Press) Arar subsequently received an apology and $10.5 million in compensation from Ottawa. Significantly, though, he remains on the U.S. no-fly list. He, too, was named to American authorities based solely on association.<br />
"We don't want another Arar," said the security official. But at the same time, he said, CSIS is acutely aware that if it did not pass on information about someone it suspected, and that person then carried out some sort of spectacular attack in the U.S., the consequences could be cataclysmic for Canada. U.S. authorities, already suspicious that Canada is "soft on terror," would likely tighten the common border, damaging hundreds of billions of dollars worth of vital commerce.<br />
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A former senior official, who also spoke to CBC on the basis of anonymity, put it more bluntly: "The reality is, sorry, there are bad people out there. "And it's very hard to get some of those people before a court of law with the information you have. And so there has to be some sort of process which allows you to provide some sort of safeguard to society on both sides of the border." Furthermore, he said, "it's not a fundamental human right to be able to go to the United States."<br />
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Current realities<br />
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Both security officials said they are absolutely certain that individuals they've had a hand in naming posed threats to Canada's security.Cavalluzzo, though, is uncomfortable with the practice. He says the names should be vetted by a judge before being handed to the Americans. He says there should be guarantees that any information turned over is accurate and that any person named could be delisted if it turns out the intelligence was poor. (One Canadian security official said at least two people named over the years have indeed been delisted at Canada’s request, although he acknowledged that once you are in the American system, you are most likely in for life).Despite Cavalluzzo's discomfort, though, he agrees that, given the current reality, the names of suspects must be shared: "It would seem to me that it's reasonable so long as it is done in a way that provides Canadian citizens with adequate controls, and I don't know if you can ever do that when you're dealing with the Americans."<br />
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Toronto lawyer Clayton Ruby, who also has had considerable experience in national security cases, took a different view. The practice, he said, is "abhorrent.""This is information that is being handed over with the knowledge that it will have adverse consequences on Canadian citizens. And Canadian citizens have a right to be protected by their government."Ruby described the committee practice as a "bureaucratic process" that falls far short of what a citizen is due. "Due process would involve some standards such as, well, more than 'we suspect he's involved in something nasty.'"A third source, also highly placed in the Canadian intelligence apparatus, objected to the accusation that the process is hidden from scrutiny. He pointed out that the Security Intelligence Review Committee, created to oversee CSIS, has access to all the names and all the deliberations.<br />
"We [CSIS] are the most reviewed service in the world," he said. He added that he felt sorry for some of those whose names have been released by Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks. "They were not charged or convicted."When it was pointed out that they are nonetheless now in the American databases, courtesy of CSIS, the official replied: "Yes, and so are you, and so am I."The databases are vast, he said, and the Americans are capable of distinguishing dangerous threats from individuals of concern, or simply of interest.<br />
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Reasonable suspicion of a crime<br />
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But Ruby said the threshold for naming someone to the Americans should be "reasonable suspicion of a crime." Abdullah Almalki listens to Justice Frank Iacobucci's opening statement in March 2007 at the start of the commission investigating the ordeals of himself and two others, all of whom deny allegations of terrorist ties. Two years later, Parliament voted in favour of an apology and compensation for the three men. (Tom Hanson/Canadian Press) In other words, that the authorities have reasonable and probable grounds to believe that the individual has planted a bomb, or is planning to plant a bomb.<br />
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Canadians have a constitutional right to privacy and to protection from unreasonable search and seizure, said Ruby."This is clearly a search. They're searching out information about you. They're invading your privacy. And the question is whether it's reasonable."Well, clearly it's reasonable when there's an actual crime being investigated. But short of that, some generalized threat to the state because the state says so? All in secret? I'm not sure it's legal. I think it isn't."In another of the WikiLeaks cables, though, U.S. Embassy officials in Canada make it clear they think Canada already accords too many rights to suspects."Canadian services do not appear to be as proactive as U.S. law enforcement regarding terrorist cell penetration and source development," says the cable, which is classified as both secret and "noforn," meaning not for foreign eyes.<br />
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"Both [CSIS and the RCMP] are supportive and co-operative with U.S. law enforcement for the most part, although restricted by the Canadian Charter of Rights, which is the basis for Canada's strict privacy laws."<br />
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CSIS declined a request for an on-the-record interview, instead putting out a lengthy written statement that essentially urged Canadians to trust the agency’s secret proceedings. The executive director of the Security Intelligence Review Committee, Susan Pollak, would not discuss the criteria CSIS uses to name people to U.S. authorities, but told CBC she is satisfied that CSIS operates within the law.<br />
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</div>One Womans Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18379400685620139061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514832314841595261.post-44167277110411797382011-05-15T06:57:00.000-07:002011-05-15T06:57:52.081-07:00New Canadian Bid for TMX<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Canada's TMX Group, operator of the Toronto Stock Exchange, has received a domestic takeover bid to rival the group's proposed merger with the London Stock Exchange (LSE).The bid came from from a group of Canadian banks and pension funds.TMX said it would consider the bid while still seeking shareholder and regulatory approval for the LSE deal. Recent months have seen a spate of merger talks between the world's leading stock exchanges.<br />
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In March, the US exchanges Nasdaq and ICE mounted a bid for NYSE Euronext, topping a previous offer from Deutsche Boerse, while last month Australia indicated that it would block a bid from the Singapore stock exchange for ASX, the firm that owns the Australian Stock Exchange.<br />
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'Exciting offer'<br />
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"For years it has been totally inconceivable that any British government would tell a bidder for a UK company to take a hike ” Robert Peston. The fresh bid for TMX was made by a number of Canadian financial institutions operating under the name Maple Group Acquisition Corporation."Now Canadians have a Canadian alternative to look at that points to the strength of our financial services sector," said Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan.He said the government would look at the bid, but while it was too early to say whether he personally preferred Maple's offer to that of the LSE, he was "excited" a Canadian bid had been made.<br />
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Any deal for TMX must gain government approval.<br />
At the end of last year, the government blocked an offer for fertiliser group Potash Corporation from Anglo-Australian mining giant BHP Billiton on the basis that it was not in the Canadian national interest.<br />
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</div>One Womans Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18379400685620139061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514832314841595261.post-82714716156753542032011-05-15T04:49:00.000-07:002011-05-15T04:49:14.341-07:00Honour killings in Canada: even worse than we believe<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Gerald Caplan- Special to The Globe and Mail <br />
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If you are already sufficiently appalled knowing there’ve been 12 despicable “honour killings” in Canada since 2002, don’t read any further. This is only the tip of a nightmarish iceberg, I’m afraid. For some reason, the term honour killings seems to be reserved for murders committed by male family members against daughters or sisters in South Asian or Middle Eastern communities. These unimaginable crimes have been receiving much high-profile notoriety in the Canadian media, as they surely deserve. All Canadians must now know of the tragic murder of 16-year old Aqsa Parvez of Mississauga, strangled to death three years ago by her brother and father. <br />
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But I’m confident that not one in a million is aware that in Ontario alone, from 2002 until only 2007 (the latest data), 212 women have been killed by their partners. That’s 42 every year, compared with 12 so-called honour killings in all of Canada in the past eight years. Women killed by partners are known as domestic homicides, and, unless especially gruesome, are barely worth a mention in the media. Maybe there's just too many of them to be newsworthy. The data comes from the Ontario Domestic Violence Death Review Committee, which I didn’t even know existed until it was recently cited in the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives' Monitor. I’ve never come across these figures anywhere else. <br />
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Let me rush to be clear here. I don’t for a moment minimize the horror of 12 girls and women in Canada murdered by members of their immediate family. To steal a phrase, one would be far too many. Terrible things still happen to women everywhere, as the domestic violence figures for Canada demonstrate. No nation, religion, class or ethnic group has the monopoly on misogyny..<br />
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There is no conceivable excuse or justification for doing anything but condemning such murders in the most unequivocal way. There is no cultural tradition, no sensitivity to the different values of other societies, that can ever justify or even “understand” how a father or brother can kill their daughter or sister, or how a mother can be a sympathetic witness to such a savage act. It is beyond any rational understanding. <br />
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What accounts for the high profile of these relatively small number of murders in Canada? Why do we know little or nothing about the larger epidemic of women killed, almost routinely it sometimes seems, by boyfriends or husbands? Is it less terrible to be strangled to death or shot or have your throat slit by them than by family members? Is it just too commonplace to bother paying attention to? Do we still harbour that sneaking suspicion that women murdered by partners have somehow brought it on themselves? <br />
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Yet both kinds of murders have a common root. Both are honour killings, reflecting a twisted, pathological male sense of honour. Both are executed by men who feel they haven’t received their due deference, men who consider “their” women, whether daughter or partner, to be their chattel, to do with as they choose. Have we smug white Canadians forgotten that you don’t have to be a Muslim or South Asian to regard women this way? <br />
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Or do we focus on so-called honour killings precisely because the victims are Muslims, or South Asians, or Middle Easterners? By giving such prominence to these communities and their cultures, are we not denigrating them? For all our ostensible acceptance of multiculturalism, are we not feeding our lingering prejudices against certain specific minorities among us? Look at it purely statistically. If so-called honour killings are in fact culturally approved by their communities, as is often charged, shouldn't we expect far more than 12 in the entire country in eight years? And if the rest of us truly embrace a culture that repudiates violence against women, why are so many of them still being murdered? <br />
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Let me again emphasize that I have no illusions about these dark issues. According to the United Nations, there are a staggering 5,000 instances annually of women and girls being shot, stoned, burned, poisoned, buried alive, strangled, smothered or knifed to death by family members. I can barely write the sentence without getting sick to my stomach. The killers are fathers, brothers, sons, uncles, and yes, even mothers. The disgusting deeds are carried out in the name of preserving or protecting family honour. Most such murders are indeed carried out in the Middle East or in the countries of South Asia – India, Bangladesh, Pakistan – or by South Asians or Middle Easterners living elsewhere. These terrible crimes can never be “understood,” justified or condoned. They must be stopped, wherever they happen. <br />
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But terrible things still happen to women everywhere, as the domestic violence figures for Canada demonstrate. No nation, religion, class or ethnic group has the monopoly on misogyny. Honour killings should be seen not as uniquely evil but as the most extreme and perverse proof of this truth. That's why it's encouraging that women's equality groups have been so vocal in their denunciations of all violence against women and are supporting women in minority communities to give them the strength to stand up for their rights. <br />
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Despite the remarkable progress women have truly made in the past half-century, clawing for every inch of it, the struggle for women’s equality can never rest. It simply has too many enemies, always fighting to keep women in their place, where they belong, dead or alive. Young women who dismiss feminism as irrelevant or outdated are, I’m afraid, dead wrong. The struggle is never over. <br />
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</div>One Womans Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18379400685620139061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514832314841595261.post-82791159742564330662011-05-13T11:52:00.000-07:002011-05-13T11:52:34.430-07:00York University at forefront of Autism research<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">A York University study has shown for the first time how the drug misoprostol, which has been linked to neurodevelopmental defects associated with autism, interferes with neuronal cell function. It is an important finding because misoprostol is similar in structure to naturally-occurring prostaglandins, which are the key signaling molecules produced by fatty acids in the brain.Past clinical studies have shown an association between misoprostol and severe neurodevelopmental defects including autism symptoms. Those studies looked at cases in Brazil in which women misused the drug early in pregnancy in unsuccessful attempts to terminate their pregnancies.<br />
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The York study examined mouse neuronal cells to discover how the drug actually interferes at a molecular level with prostaglandins, which are important for development and communication of cells in the brain.“Early in the first trimester of pregnancy, neuronal cells reach out to communicate with one another,” says Dorota Crawford, an assistant professor in the School of Kinesiology & Health Science in York’s Faculty of Health. “Our study shows that misoprostol interferes with this process by increasing the level of calcium ions in neuronal extensions, which reduces the number and length of these extensions. It prevents the cells from communicating with each other. If changes in prostaglandin level alter the development or differentiation of cells, it may have a physiological impact.”<br />
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Crawford and Javaneh Tamiji, who undertook the research for her master’s thesis in the Neuroscience Graduate Diploma Program at York, co-authored a study published online in the journal Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications: “Prostaglandin E2 and misoprostol induce neurite retraction in Neuro-2a cells.”<br />
There is no indication that women in Canada are misusing misoprostol to terminate pregnancies, and in fact the drug is used safely for other purposes such as treatment and prevention of gastrointestinal ulcers. However, during early neuronal development the drug misoprostol or other environmental factors such as infections or inflammations, which can also increase the level of prostaglandins, may interfere with normal brain function, says Crawford.<br />
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Crawford and Tamiji focused on the drug misoprostol because they had evidence from the clinical studies of the neurotoxic effects of the drug. They used misoprostol and the naturally occurring prostaglandins side by side in their study and found that both compounds produced the same effects on neuronal cell function.The study shows that misoprostol interferes with the prostaglandin pathway in a dose-dependent manner – in other words, the higher the dose, the greater the problems created.<br />
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“What that indicates to us is whether it is infection that will activate it, or whether it is the drug, it will cause the same effect,” says Crawford. Now that it has been shown that misoprostol affects interaction between cells, the next step will be to do animal studies on mice to examine the physiological impacts on particular parts of the brain, she says.<br />
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Crawford’s lab is one of very few in the world that has adopted a multidisciplinary approach to the study of autism spectrum disorders, using molecular techniques to understand the link between causative biological factors (genes and environment) and the behavioural expression.<br />
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York University is the leading interdisciplinary research and teaching university in Canada. York offers a modern, academic experience at the undergraduate and graduate level in Toronto, Canada’s most international city. The third largest university in the country, York is host to a dynamic academic community of 50,000 students and 7,000 faculty and staff, as well as 200,000 alumni worldwide. York’s 10 Faculties and 28 research centres conduct ambitious, groundbreaking research that is interdisciplinary, cutting across traditional academic boundaries. This distinctive and collaborative approach is preparing students for the future and bringing fresh insights and solutions to real-world challenges. York University is an autonomous, not-for-profit corporation.<br />
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Contact: Janice Walls, Media Relations, York University<br />
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Source: York University<br />
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</div>One Womans Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18379400685620139061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514832314841595261.post-44970078066016902482011-05-13T11:44:00.000-07:002011-05-13T11:44:02.706-07:00Arctic Rescue deal struck in Greenland<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Canada and other Arctic nations will work together on major search and rescue operations in the Arctic, under an international treaty signed by eight nations Thursday in Greenland. Foreign affairs ministers and other leaders from Canada, the United States, Russia and five other northern countries signed the search and rescue treaty during a ministerial meeting of the Arctic Council in Nuuk, Greenland.<br />
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Canada's Leona Aglukkaq were at the Nuuk meeting, along with foreign affairs ministers from Norway, Iceland, Finland, Sweden and Denmark.<br />
Increased marine traffic<br />
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The new treaty, which would require Arctic Council nations to co-ordinate with each other in the event of a plane crash, cruise ship sinking, big oil spill or other major disaster, is the first legally binding agreement to be reached by the circumpolar intergovernmental forum. The need for a search and rescue agreement comes as shrinking sea ice in recent years has opened up Arctic waterways to more marine traffic, including shipping vessels and cruise ships.<br />
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"As the ice melts and will continue to melt, we can expect increased human activity at sea, with the increased risks that accidents may happen," Danish Foreign Affairs Minister Lene Espersen told reporters on Thursday.<br />
Norwegian Foreign Affairs Minister Jonas Gahr Store said each participating nation, including Canada and the U.S., will have to ensure it can live up to its responsibilities under the search and rescue treaty.<br />
"That is a cumbersome and long and expensive process that each state has to take on, but I think with this as a legal basis, we have the foundation to sort out what we have to do back home," Store said.<br />
Oil spill task force struck<br />
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The leaders meeting in Nuuk also agreed to set up a task force to work on an Arctic oil spill preparedness and response agreement.Given companies' growing interest in drilling for offshore oil and gas in the Arctic, northern countries need to work fast on an oil spill plan, said Alexander Shestakov, director of the Global Arctic Program with the World Wildlife Fund."From our point of view, the changes [in] the Arctic are so rapid, the governments should really follow this pace rather than be too accurate and too slow in some decisions," he said.<br />
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Aglukkaq, who was health minister before the recent federal election, was representing Canada at the Arctic Council meeting because former foreign affairs minister Lawrence Cannon lost his seat.An Inuk from Nunavut, Aglukkaq wore a sealskin vest and coat in Nuuk, saying she wants European members of the Arctic Council to know that Canada opposes the European Union's ban on Canadian seal products.<br />
"You're taking something that we, as Inuit people, have eaten for thousands and thousands of years, and other countries are making decisions to ban that, so there is an impact," Aglukkaq said Thursday.<br />
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New direction for council<br />
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Observers in Nuuk said Thursday's meeting shows that the Arctic Council is moving in a new direction, in which there will be more action than talk.Nunavut Premier Eva Aariak said in a statement that she welcomes the "trend within the [Arctic] Council for more policy-making" as a step towards a stronger council."It is historic for the Arctic Council to agree today to a binding legal instrument," Aariak said.<br />
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"I look forward to the work of the next task force towards another potential agreement for 2013 on emergency response and preparedness," she added."This issue is important for Nunavut, as it witnesses the prospect of exploration drilling for oil and gas in its adjacent and internal waters."<br />
Inuit call for sustainable development<br />
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On Wednesday, Inuit leaders issued a joint declaration on Arctic resource development that says they support offshore oil and gas exploration as long as it's sustainable — culturally as well as environmentally — and strict safety measures are put in place. But Jimmy Stotts, president of the Inuit Circumpolar Council in Alaska, said he does not think Arctic oil and gas development is sustainable right now.<br />
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"We're not convinced, at least in Alaska, that it's sustainable so far, despite statements that are made by government or industry or others," Stotts told reporters. "We're still waiting for somebody to prove to us that they can clean up an oil spill in the Arctic Ocean."<br />
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Shell has set its sights on the Chukchi and Beaufort seas off the northern Alaskan coast, while BP is trying to work out an arrangement in Russia's Arctic.<br />
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Meanwhile, oil rigs are already heading west of Greenland, where Cairn Energy plans to drill four holes this year. The government in Greenland has authorized oil and gas exploration in the area, despite public concerns that development is moving too quickly and could harm Arctic wildlife.<br />
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</div>One Womans Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18379400685620139061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514832314841595261.post-5413514047205672962011-05-13T11:36:00.000-07:002011-05-13T11:36:59.771-07:00Canada's Supreme Court<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3r11JtCPKVYrjBviaDoxZiXOgQ4WPxUdUBLzfEVGlKGSDo1JUSPU560UOrcEUlKr0n-PNMfqGMKshvTwJ2cg9ni0CjC3-7iI4VKC4Dg3lHAPeNjycpqFEPbpnrLjeBqXuW-DSwD5jhLKO/s1600/Canadiansupremecourtjustices.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3r11JtCPKVYrjBviaDoxZiXOgQ4WPxUdUBLzfEVGlKGSDo1JUSPU560UOrcEUlKr0n-PNMfqGMKshvTwJ2cg9ni0CjC3-7iI4VKC4Dg3lHAPeNjycpqFEPbpnrLjeBqXuW-DSwD5jhLKO/s400/Canadiansupremecourtjustices.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The Supreme Court of Canada currently consists of, front row, left to right, Justices Marie Deschamps, Ian Binnie, Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, Louis LeBel and Morris Fish; back row, left to right, Marshall Rothstein, Rosalie Silberman Abella, Louise Charron and Thomas Cromwell. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press) </div>Justice Ian Binnie, 72, and Justice Louise Charron, 60, have written to Federal Justice Minister Robert Nicholson, to inform him of their plans, both effective Aug. 30, Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin said Friday in a release. Binnie has indicated a willingness to stay longer if needed during the judge-selection process.<br />
Justice Louise Charron "It has been an honour and a privilege to serve on the Supreme Court of Canada since January 1998," Binnie wrote. "Much as I will miss the work and my colleagues, I am now well into my 14th year on the court, and the time has come to return to Toronto to pick up some of the threads of an earlier existence."<br />
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Charron said her reasons for retiring are quite simple: she recently turned 60.<br />
"As promised when I took the oath of office, I have brought to this task my best, every day, whatever that could be at the time," she said. "I hope that I have lived up to the trust and honour that was bestowed upon me."With several justices nearing retirement, Harper was expected to be able to appoint replacements, but it was thought he would have more time to work with.Binnie has been on the Supreme Court since 1998 and was due to retire within the next three years.Justice Ian Binnie Charron joined the bench in 2004, but is stepping down well before the mandatory retirement age of 75.<br />
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McLachlin says she hopes the government makes the selection of new justices a priority and uses the care and deliberation that is required. Binnie was born in Montreal and graduated in law from the University of Toronto in 1965. He also has two law degrees from Cambridge University. He was a litigator with Wright & McTaggart and its successor firms until 1982, then became an associate deputy minister of justice with the federal government. Binnie was a senior partner at McCarthy Tétrault from 1986 to 1998, when he was appointed to the Supreme Court.<br />
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Charron was born in Sturgeon Falls, Ont., and graduated in law from the University of Ottawa in 1975. She practised with the firm Lalonde, Chartrand & Gouin in civil litigation, then began a career as an assistant Crown attorney and district court judge. She was promoted to the Ontario Court of Appeal in 1995, and to the Supreme Court of Canada in 2004<br />
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</div>One Womans Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18379400685620139061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514832314841595261.post-84921599654915459752011-05-12T05:58:00.000-07:002011-05-13T13:38:14.410-07:00From drug cocktails to vegetarian sorbet: young scientists excel in national contest<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">The discovery of a drug cocktail that might have potential some day to help patients with cystic fibrosis took first place Tuesday at a national science contest, and a method of making vegetarian-friendly sorbet was the runner-up. The judges were left in awe at the level of science that participants brought to bear at a young age, said the chair of the judging panel, Dr. Luis Barreto, former vice-president of immunization and science policy at Sanofi Pasteur. <br />
The students are driven by curiosity and "we know the future of Canada is in good hands as Canada looks into creating the R and D strategy for the country," he said in an interview after the awards were presented at the National Research Council Canada laboratories in Ottawa. "The constant feeling with all the judges was I would hire these guys not as my summer student but as my post-doc ... every one of them. It was very difficult to actually identify the first five."<br />
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Marshall Zhang, a Grade 11 student in Richmond Hill, Ont., used the Canadian SCINET supercomputing network at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto to identify how two drugs interacted with a specific part of a mutant protein that's responsible for most cases of CF. He then proved what he'd found using living cells in culture. "Not only did they (the drugs) work together, they worked together so well that they actually allowed the cells that were treated with both compounds to function as if they were the cells of healthy individuals," said Zhang, who was awarded a $5,000 prize.<br />
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The second-place prize of $4,000 at the 2011 Sanofi-Aventis BioTalent Challenge went to three 19-year-old students from Montreal who made sorbet without gelatin, potentially opening up a large new vegetarian market for the dessert.Jonathan Khouzam, Simon Leclerc and Francis Marcogliese also won a special $1,000 prize for the project with the greatest commercial potential.<br />
They combined three polysaccharides: caraggeenan, pectin and gellan, Khouzam said. Gellan has similar properties to gelatin, but it's relatively new on the market and hasn't really been exploited as a sorbet stabilizer, he said."When used together, the combined effect is greater than that of each individual stabilizer, which means we used less, and in the process we make a more cost-effective product," he said.<br />
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Their experiments were done with sugar, water and a bit of acid. "We're hoping to test it with fruit as well and eventually take it to market," Khouzam said.<br />
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The first- and second-place winners will go on to compete against American and Australian teams at an international challenge in Washington on June 27. Students in the contest were mentored by university professors and others who volunteered their time and expertise.<br />
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Third place went to Shannon Watson, 18, of Ottawa, who identified bacteria in a probiotic fermented milk product from Zambia that inhibit the growth of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. <br />
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Yasamin Mahjoub, 16, of Calgary won fourth place for showing that hormones produced by pregnant women protect neurons from the effects of iron accumulation in the brain, a characteristic of multiple sclerosis.<br />
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Winnipeg student Siyuan Cheng, 18, finished in fifth place for combining a drug treatment for leukemia, fludarabine, with a lung cancer drug, gefitinib. The experiment showed an increase in the number of leukemia cells being killed.<br />
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Cheng said he's hoping to pursue a career in medicine<br />
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</div>One Womans Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18379400685620139061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514832314841595261.post-11406651692498869852011-05-12T05:50:00.000-07:002011-05-13T13:38:10.919-07:00Did a Canadian Teen in Grade 11 cure Cystic Fibrosis?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">High Schooler Uses Super Computer to Potentially Cure Cystic Fibrosis<br />
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Cystic Fibrosis is a hereditary disease that causes excessive buildup of thick mucus in the lungs and digestive track. Marshall Zhang is an 11th grader from Ottawa that may have just cured it.<br />
For his entry to the 2011 Sanofi-Aventis BioTalent Challenge, Zhang leveraged a Canadian supercomputing network to identify an interaction between two drugs that affect the same portion of mutant gene that accounts for a majority of Cystic Fibrosis cases. <br />
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The initial interaction tests and identification were all accomplished via simulation using the collaborative SCINET supercomputing system at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. The interaction was then confirmed using live cell cultures. This interaction was so effective, in fact, that "they actually allowed the cells that were treated with both compounds to function as if they were the cells of healthy individuals," according to Zhang. <br />
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"Not only did they (the drugs) work together, they worked together so well that they actually allowed the cells that were treated with both compounds to function as if they were the cells of healthy individuals," said Zhang, who was awarded a $5,000 prize.<br />
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</div>One Womans Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18379400685620139061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514832314841595261.post-90450042515038224352011-05-12T05:29:00.000-07:002011-05-13T13:38:14.532-07:00Concordia University studying aging in Bilingual brains<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">How the Bilingual Brain Copes with AgingAs brain power decreases, older adults find new ways to compute language Older bilingual adults compensate for age-related declines in brainpower by developing new strategies to process language, according to a recent study published in the journal Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition.<br />
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Concordia University researchers studied two groups of fluently bilingual adults – aged from 19 to 35 and from 60 to 81 years old – and found significant age-related differences in the manner their brains interpreted written language. “We wanted to know whether older adults relied on context to process interlingual homographs (IH) – words that are spelled the same in both languages but have a different meaning,” says lead author Shanna Kousaie, a PhD candidate at Concordia University’s Department of Psychology and Centre for Research in Human Development (CRDH).<br />
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Does “coin” mean “money” or “corner”? <br />
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As part of the study, subjects were asked to read hundreds of trios of words. The first word in the triplet was in either English or French, indicating the language of the IH, putting it in context for readers. The second was an IH – a word such as “coin,” which means “money” in English but “corner” in French. The third word was one that might or might not help the person understand the meaning of the IH more quickly.Subjects’ neurophysiological responses to these words were recorded using an electroencephalograph, an instrument that records the brain’s electrical activity.<br />
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Kousaie and co-author Natalie Phillips, a professor in Concordia’s Department of Psychology and member of the CRDH, found that the older adults processed these letter strings differently, using context to a greater extent to determine meaning.These findings were based on the relative speed of responses for younger and older bilingual research participants and on the differences in their EEG recordings as they “processed” the word triplets. Both measures indicated younger participants relied less on the first (contextual) word when processing the trios of words in the test.<br />
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“As we get older, our working memory capacity and ability to quickly process words declines,” says Phillips. “As a result, older adults become a little more strategic with capacity. It’s important to stress these are normal and mild age-related changes. Participants didn’t have any cognitive deficit. Rather, they were making the best use of mental resources by using context to help them process language.”<br />
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More than half the world is bilingual <br />
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These findings shed light on how bilingual adults process language. Although some 50 per cent of the world’s population is bilingual, much language research has so far focused only on single language speakers. Understanding the effects of bilingualism on the brain may be of more than academic interest. Evidence is mounting that bilingual people have a cognitive advantage over monolingual individuals because their brains are accustomed to “manipulating” two languages.“Our study suggests that bilingual adults, as they age, are able to find strategies to compensate for changes in language comprehension,” says Phillips.<br />
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Notes about this brain research article<br />
Partners in research: This work was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.<br />
Related links:<br />
Cited research: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a927919047~db=all~jumptype=rss<br />
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Concordia Department of Psychology: <a href="http://psychology.concordia.ca/">http://psychology.concordia.ca/</a><br />
Centre for Research in Human Development: http://crdh.concordia.ca/<br />
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</div>One Womans Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18379400685620139061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514832314841595261.post-71124529509847907942011-05-11T14:38:00.000-07:002011-05-13T13:38:14.298-07:00Paul Nicklen: Extraordinary Canadian Photographer<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><object height="326" width="446"><param name="movie" value="http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"/><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><param name="bgColor" value="#ffffff"></param><param name="flashvars" value="vu=http://video.ted.com/talk/stream/2011/Blank/PaulNicklen_2011-320k.mp4&su=http://images.ted.com/images/ted/tedindex/embed-posters/PaulNicklen-2011.embed_thumbnail.jpg&vw=432&vh=240&ap=0&ti=1141&lang=&introDuration=15330&adDuration=4000&postAdDuration=830&adKeys=talk=paul_nicklen_tales_of_ice_bound_wonderlands;year=2011;theme=a_taste_of_ted2011;theme=new_on_ted_com;theme=animals_that_amaze;event=Animals+That+Amaze;tag=Culture;tag=Design;tag=Entertainment;tag=animals;tag=biodiversity;tag=creativity;tag=photography;tag=storytelling;&preAdTag=tconf.ted/embed;tile=1;sz=512x288;" /><embed src="http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf" pluginspace="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" bgColor="#ffffff" width="446" height="326" allowFullScreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" flashvars="vu=http://video.ted.com/talk/stream/2011/Blank/PaulNicklen_2011-320k.mp4&su=http://images.ted.com/images/ted/tedindex/embed-posters/PaulNicklen-2011.embed_thumbnail.jpg&vw=432&vh=240&ap=0&ti=1141&lang=&introDuration=15330&adDuration=4000&postAdDuration=830&adKeys=talk=paul_nicklen_tales_of_ice_bound_wonderlands;year=2011;theme=a_taste_of_ted2011;theme=new_on_ted_com;theme=animals_that_amaze;event=Animals+That+Amaze;tag=Culture;tag=Design;tag=Entertainment;tag=animals;tag=biodiversity;tag=creativity;tag=photography;tag=storytelling;"></embed></object></div>One Womans Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18379400685620139061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514832314841595261.post-20888487478969726082011-05-10T05:43:00.000-07:002011-05-10T05:43:26.090-07:00Phone App for Diagnosing Strokes<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">University of Calgary researchers have developed an iPhone application that allows doctors to diagnose a stroke in a patient thousands of kilometres away.The application will be particularly helpful to doctors in rural areas who need the expertise of a specialist, such as a neurologist or radiologist, who is working in an urban setting, say researchers.<br />
The specialist will be able to see diagnostic images from a CT scan on their phone, whether they are at a Calgary hospital or a hockey game.Ross Mitchell, a professor of radiology at U of C, holds an iPad showing a CT scan of the brain. "Now a physician anywhere can get a call on their iPhone and can immediately take a look at the images in the remote community," said Ross Mitchell, a professor of radiology at the university who helped develop the software. "They can do more than just look at them. They can cut into them, rotate it in 3D, they can do all kinds of advanced visualizations and analysis, which may be critical to make the diagnosis."<br />
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Every minute counts when diagnosing a stroke, he added.<br />
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A study published in the current issue of the Journal of Medical Internet Research found that doctors using the application were 94 to 100 per cent accurate in diagnosing acute stroke, compared to a traditional medical diagnostic work station.Health Canada approved the application last month so Canadian doctors can now legally use it as a primary diagnosis device.<br />
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The application, called ResolutionMD Mobile, works on iPhones, iPads and Android smartphones and tablets.CT scanners in rural communities would be attached to a server protected by the hospital's firewall. That means patient information would be kept safe, says Mitchell. Also the doctor with the iPhone doesn't have to wait for all the information to download, the server is doing the hard work and streams the images to the phone in real time.<br />
Calgary Scientific Inc., the company that helped refine the software, has already licensed the application to over 50,000 hospitals around the world.<br />
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</div>One Womans Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18379400685620139061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514832314841595261.post-7669733323087244032011-05-10T05:22:00.000-07:002011-05-10T05:22:12.246-07:00Quebec opens up the north for mining<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">A large area of northern Canada is to be opened up to mining, energy and forestry projects.The government of Quebec has unveiled a massive plan to develop a largely inhospitable but untouched area in the north of the province.The "Plan Nord" aims to turn 1.2 million sq km of land into a major area of mining and renewable energy.The plan also aims to ensure that half of the area will be environmentally protected.<br />
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"It is one of the world's last virgin territories," said Quebec's Premier Jean Charest. "It's also a fragile territory and a territory of great richness and it's also a responsibility." <br />
Huge potential<br />
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The area is rich in deposits of nickel, cobalt, platinum, zinc, iron ore and rare earth minerals."Northern Quebec has incomparable mining potential," said natural resources minister Sege Simard.<br />
The plan includes 11 new mining projects, the development of renewable energy resources (mainly hydro-electric projects), sustainable forestry and a huge infrastructure programme.This part of Canada is so remote that new roads, airports, and even a deep sea port will have to built to get the raw materials out to sell them to the outside world.The government of Quebec said that everyone in the province would benefit. <br />
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"(Plan Nord) will create or consolidate 20,000 jobs a year, on average, and generate C$14bn (£8.86bn; $14.5bn) in revenue for the government and Quebec society," said Mr Charest.With global appetite for raw materials growing, mining companies are likely to keen to invest in the region.<br />
Arcelor Mittal, Xstrata, Tata Steel and Barrick Gold are just some of the companies who are already active there.According to the plan, mining regulations will be amended to ensure the government obtains what it calls a "fair return" from the development of natural resources.<br />
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Sceptical<br />
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However, the plan will be scrutinised by environmental groups and indigenous people.<br />
The government says that Plan Nord will mean better jobs, housing and education for the local Inuit people who often live in poor, remote communities."All of them are sceptical. They point to past agreements where certain things were promised and feel that they were short-changed by the government in the south."<br />
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Announcing the plan, Mr Charest said it was hoped that the project would be "one of the most environmentally sustainable projects for the world". The goal has been welcomed by environmental groups."There are no models for this type of conservation planning on such a grand scale," said Matthew Jacobson of the Pew Environmental Group, but he commended Quebec for not undermining the environment with plans for excessive economic growth.<br />
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</div>One Womans Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18379400685620139061noreply@blogger.com0