The Toronto Film Festival

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.

The first movie to have its world premiere at a film festival and go on to win the best picture Academy Award was Woody Allen's Annie Hall, which debuted at Los Angeles' Filmex in spring 1977. Four years later, Chariots of Fire launched in competition at Cannes and came from behind to snare the Oscar. The Last Emperor began its long march to awards glory at the 1987 Tokyo Film Festival, and in 2000, American Beauty, unveiled at Toronto in 1999, pulled off the trick.

OUR EDITOR RECOMMENDS

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Toronto 2011: Buyers to See First Footage of Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper's 'The Place Beyond the Pines' 

Carnage: Venice Film Review

The Descendants: Telluride Film Review

A Dangerous Method: Venice Film Review

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•Toronto International Fil...

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.

COVER STORY: David Cronenberg on How the $20 Million 'Dangerous Method' Got Made

The first was Paul Haggis' Crash, which was unknown when it premiered at Toronto in 2005. The Departed triumphed the next year commercially and at the Oscars despite eschewing festivals, but it was followed by No Country for Old Men(Cannes), Slumdog Millionaire (Telluride), The Hurt Locker(Venice) and The King's Speech (Telluride), all underdog winners.

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 --Alexander Payne's The Descendants, David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method, Roman Polanski'sCarnage -- it was The King's Speech's screening at last year's festival that caught the eye of press and industry figures, not its Telluride premiere.

The Social Network 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.

So what unknown quantities are critics eyeing in Toronto this year? Among the galas, Bennett Miller's baseball dramaMoneyball, starring Brad Pitt, has clear appeal -- but there's no advance word on it, and a choppy production history provokes qualms. Also eagerly anticipated are Sarah Polley's Take This Waltz; Bruce Beresford's Peace, Love, & Misunderstanding, starring Jane Fonda and Catherine Keener; Darrell Roodt's Winnie, with Jennifer Hudson as Nelson Mandela's (Terrence Howard)  controversial wife; another Africa-set drama, Marc Forster's Machine Gun Preacher, starring Gerard Butler andMichelle Monaghan; and Luc Besson's Burma-set drama The Lady, featuring Michelle Yeoh.

In the Special Presentations section are Jonathan Levine's already-hyped dramedy 50/50; Oren Moverman's Rampart; Michael Winterbottom's Trishna, with Freida Pinto starring in an adaptation of Thomas Hardy's novel Tess of the D'Urbervilles set in India; and, for buffs,Guy Maddin's Keyhole, starring Isabella Rossellini.

The New York Film Festival, which opens Sept. 30, will again have one world premiere that's garnering much speculation: My Week With Marilyn, 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.

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.

Since 1977, when Annie Hall beat Star Wars in a battle rather comparable to that of two years ago when Hurt Locker prevailed over Avatar, 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 The English Patient 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 Million Dollar Babyworking the circuit, but it barely made a December 2004 release in time. Like it, Eastwood's J. Edgar is skipping festivals and heading straight for cinemas toward the end of the year.

Taken directly from: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/toronto-2011-critics-preview-why-232256

York University at forefront of Autism research

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.

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.”

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.”
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.

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.

“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.

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.

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.



Contact: Janice Walls, Media Relations, York University

Source: York University

Arctic Rescue deal struck in Greenland

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.
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.
Increased marine traffic

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.

"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.
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.
"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.
Oil spill task force struck

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.

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.
"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.

New direction for council

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.

"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."
Inuit call for sustainable development

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.

"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."

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.

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.

A whale of a story

Minke whale rescued from N.S. river


Fisheries officials rescue a minke whale caught in shallow waters near New Glasgow, N.S. (CBC)For the second time in two days, rescuers aided a large whale stuck in the shallow waters of a Nova Scotia river on Monday. Members of the New Glasgow, N.S., fire department were called out to the East River Sunday to assist a minke whale that had become stranded."We have no idea how it came up the river," said fire chief Doug Dort. "Probably chasing small fish, I would think." Dort said members of the department's water rescue team dug a trench around the whale and pulled it backwards to allow it to swim away.

But on Monday morning the whale was back, this time as far as eight kilometres up the river.Officials say the whale was calm as they helped tow it to open waters. The Department of Fisheries responded to help free the whale, estimated to weigh between 350 and 500 kilograms, after it got stuck on a sandbar.The four-metre whale was freed and on Monday afternoon was being towed to Pictou Harbour, where it will be set free in the Northumberland Strait. Fisheries officer Craig MacDonald said the whale's skin was dry and had some marks on it, but the minke did not have any open wounds.'We'll keep our fingers crossed that he grows up to have kids of his own and can tell them to stay out of the river and enjoy the open ocean.'

—Craig MacDonald, fisheries officer"He was very calm … and he's got some kick to him," MacDonald said. "We'll keep our fingers crossed that he grows up to have kids of his own and can tell them to stay out of the river and enjoy the open ocean."

Minke whales, which have characteristic white bands on their flippers, are commonly seen in the Maritimes in spring. They are seasonal feeders that eat small fish and have been known to chase schools of sardines, anchovies, cod and herring

The Economist's Point of view- pre-election

ON MAY 2nd, for the fourth time in seven years, Canadians will go to the polls. On the previous two occasions the outcome has been a Conservative minority government, under Stephen Harper. Both the Conservatives and their main opponents, the Liberals, hoped to break the stalemate this time. Yet if opinion polls prove correct, it will be Groundhog day for Canada, with the Conservatives again the largest party but lacking an overall majority. There is one possible twist: the left-wing New Democrats are enjoying a late surge of support, especially in Quebec, and might secure more seats than the Liberals. Even if they do not, the two parties might conceivably join forces in an anti-Tory coalition. Then again, the NDP surge may yet help the Conservatives by splitting the opposition vote more evenly (see article).


Mr Harper’s record is in some ways impressive. Canada sailed through the recession better than any other large developed economy. True, that was mainly because of Asian demand for Canada’s natural resources, as well as the strong fiscal position and well-regulated banking system Mr Harper inherited from the Liberals. But he deserves credit for having administered a limited and effective fiscal stimulus, and for promoting investment through corporate tax cuts. Employment is higher now than when the Tories took over in 2006.

But there are some serious blots on Mr Harper’s record. He is a dinosaur on climate change. He has batted away all criticisms of the Albertan tar sands, where oil extraction is an especially dirty business, and placed his faith in carbon capture and storage, an unproven and expensive technology. Even some Albertan oil bosses favour greener rules. But the biggest worry about Mr Harper is his contempt for the rules of Canadian democracy. Since the previous election he has twice prorogued parliament for disgracefully lengthy periods, the second time to avoid awkward questions about whether his officials lied to the house about the treatment of detainees in Afghanistan. He has also got rid of watchdogs whom his government found too independent and generally tried to hand over as little information as possible to the public.

For these reasons The Economist, like many Canadians, would be relieved if there were a better alternative to Mr Harper. But there is not. On paper, Michael Ignatieff, the Liberal leader, looks attractive. The Liberals hoped that Mr Ignatieff, a journalist and writer who lived abroad for three decades, would bring them a scatter of stardust. Instead he has struggled to adapt to politics, and has plodded overcautiously. Fewer tax cuts, more money for health care but without reforms, and focus-group-inspired handouts for niche voters hardly add up to a compelling alternative vision. His party is still struggling, with many Canadians unable to erase the memory of a string of corruption scandals that disfigured the later years of the Liberals’ generally successful stint in power from 1993 to 2006. Indeed Mr Ignatieff’s weakness raises the unattractive prospect of a Liberal coalition with the NDP, an old-fashioned labour party led by Jack Layton, who has opportunistically opposed VAT and courted Quebec separatists.



Some day my prince will come



Coalitions and minorities may be the new norm in a country which now has four substantial parties. All things considered, Canada has not done too badly under Mr Harper’s minority governments. But sooner or later it will need a prime minister with a majority who can tackle difficult issues such as an ageing population, reforming a good but expensive health-care system, and coming up with a policy on climate change. If none of today’s leaders is capable of convincing Canadians that they deserve a clear mandate, then they should yield to others who might.

David Suzuki says VOTE

We Canadians are lucky; all we have to do is vote


Every day we hear news reports about people risking their lives for the right to choose their leaders. Here in Canada, many people are saying "Meh."

We shouldn't be so complacent, and we should never take democracy for granted. True, the current federal election is frustrating. The carefully scripted talking points, the avoidance of controversial issues, the negative attack ads – none of it is very inspiring. It's especially difficult for the millions of Canadians who care about the environment. Scientists from around the world – from countries covering the entire political spectrum – are unearthing incontrovertible evidence that the natural systems that give us life are in trouble. Pollution is affecting our children's health and causing health care costs to rise. Human activity is driving animals and plants to extinction at alarming rates. And climate change is having a dramatic impact on many things that make our world livable, including weather patterns, water availability, sea levels, and our ability to grow food. The economic implications of these environmental issues are immense.

Despite the serious nature of these problems and the fact that many solutions would be as good for the economy as they are for ecosystems and human health, the environment is being all but ignored in this election. Environmental issues barely registered in the leaders' debates, have not factored into most of the campaigns or platforms, and are not being covered by the news media.

Instead, we get the usual platitudes and regurgitations about tax cuts, the economy, jet fighters, and law and order. Of course, these are all important and deserving of our attention, but if we don't protect the air, water, and soil that give us life, we eventually won't be around to worry about the other issues.So, yes, it may be difficult to get worked up about this election when so many politicians and pundits are ignoring the most important issues affecting Canadians and our country's place in the global community. But every vote counts. It's especially crucial for young people to get out and vote. The last election had the lowest voter turnout since Confederation, in part because young people are not engaged with the political process. According to Stats Canada, close to 90 per cent of people over 65 vote in federal elections, but fewer than 50 per cent of voters under 30 cast ballots. Considering that young people have more at stake in the future of our country, this is bewildering.

Sure, it takes time to figure out where the parties stand on issues, but if candidates are willing to devote time to running and to representing us in Parliament, we can at least make some effort: visit a few websites, tell your candidates the environment is important to you, ask a few questions, vote if you're young and encourage young people to vote if you're an elder, and cast your own ballot. It's a lot easier than taking up arms and risking your life for the privilege of living in a democracy.

Some issues may seem distant or abstract, but politicians make decisions every day that affect each of us where we live. Do you want a pipeline running from the tar sands to the B.C. coast? What can we do to make cities more livable and sustainable? Should we do a better job of protecting wildlife and habitat? How can we take advantage of opportunities in the green energy sector?

Every Canadian should be happy for what we have achieved in our relatively short history. We have one of the most tolerant and peaceful nations on Earth, and we're blessed with an abundance of clean water and natural wealth. We have a great country because our democratic system allows us to participate in choosing the people and parties that lead us. The country we will have in the future, that we will leave to our children and grandchildren, will be shaped by the choices we make now, and by the people we elect to act on our behalf. We can't take this responsibility lightly. We enjoy freedoms and a quality of life that others are willing to kill and die for. At the very least, there's one thing we must do to preserve those privileges: vote!
Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation communications and editorial specialist Ian Hanington.

Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org.

Wikileaks - American opinion of Canadian Political leaders

The whistleblowing website WikiLeaks has released sensitive U.S. diplomatic cables that reveal their behind-the-scenes take on Canada’s party leaders — on the eve of the federal election.

The cables released to several media outlets cover a six-year period that ended in early 2010. They not only provide a distillation of media accounts on key Canadian political events by U.S. officials, but include accounts from Canadian party insiders.

Among the revelations included in the diplomatic documents are accounts of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s “vindictive pettiness,” Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff’s “lack of energy and hands-on leadership,” and New Democrat Leader Jack Layton’s “mouse of a party.”

A cable from March 2009 that is classified as confidential states the Bloc Québécois is “well-entrenched” and plays a “spoiler role” against future Liberal or Conservative majority governments. Calls from Radio-Canada/CBC to the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa, where many of the cables originated, were not immediately returned.
A 10-page brief by officials in the U.S. Embassy in Canada’s capital describes Harper’s governing style in detail.It calls him a “master political strategist” whose reputation was left “somewhat tattered” after his 2008 attempt to abolish public financing for all political parties.The cable was written a month after Harper prorogued Parliament to avoid the fall of the government on a budget-related confidence vote.
“Relying on an extremely small circle of advisers and his own instincts, he has played the game of high-stakes, partisan politics well, but his reputation for decisiveness and shrewdness has been tarnished by a sometimes vindictive pettiness,” says the cable dated Jan. 2, 2009.

Harper called controlling

The document also notes that despite years in the political sphere, Harper “remains an enigma to most Canadians [including many Conservatives].” It also includes references to Harper’s controlling ways within the party. According to the document, a minister of state confessed privately to a U.S. Embassy official that he “did not ‘dare’ to deviate from his preapproved text,” despite events having “overtaken his speech.”
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is shown shaking hands with Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean on July 1, 2009. He prorogued Parliament earlier that year, requiring Jean's OK. A document from early 2010 that was released by WikiLeaks says the Liberal Party had a 'muted' response to the prorogation. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)Citing discussions with Conservative caucus members, the document says the members said they were “often out of the loop on the prime minister’s plans” and many senior Tories said they were stunned to hear about the plan to ban public financing of political parties.

The lengthy cable also critiques Harper for concentrating heavily on short-term election planning, giving the government a “sometimes improvisational air.” Another cable dated March 23, 2009, speaks to strains between the Conservatives and Quebec following the prime minister’s attacks on the Liberal-NDP coalition pact, which alienated many Quebec voters.

“PM Harper reportedly blames Quebec Premier Jean Charest for the Conservatives’ failure to win a parliamentary majority,” the cable says. It also says Conservative Party insiders “repeatedly chafed” at the lack of obvious talent within the pool of Quebec’s Conservative MPs, leaving important portfolios to “less-than-obvious choice MPs.”

A number of cables also weigh in on the state of the Liberal Party and Ignatieff.

A document from early 2010 says the Liberal party’s “muted” response to Harper’s prorogation of Parliament suggested a “lack of energy and hands-on leadership,” noting that Ignatieff reportedly remained on vacation in France. “The Liberals face a tough road ahead if they hope to beat the Conservatives in the next federal election – whether in 2010 or 2011,” says the unclassified cable dated Jan. 5, 2010. Other cables cite conversations with former Liberal Party national director Rocco Rossi, who told U.S. Embassy officials that Ignatieff didn’t really listen to advisers.

“He knows his own mind, and the only person whose opinion he really cares about is his wife Zsuzsanna,” the cable quotes Rossi as saying. Rossi, a longstanding Liberal, quit his role as national director in mid-December 2009 to run in Toronto's mayoral race. He recently switched parties, announcing in February 2011 his intention to run for the Ontario Progressive Conservatives in the October provincial election.
CBC News tried to reach Rossi for comment but he was not immediately available.

Another former party official is quoted as expressing worries that the Liberals may have entered a period of up to as much as six to eight years in the “political wilderness” of opposition. The cable also describes Ignatieff as “urban, articulate, bilingual and with an impressive Rolodex of contacts around the world – including in the new Obama administration.”
Few Bloc, NDP observations

Rossi is also quoted as saying Ignatieff’s insisted on having new substance in each speech rather than perfecting a good stump speech for general use. The result, he says, was Ignatieff was forced to think about what he was saying in each speech, causing him to often look up or at his feet while pondering, instead of connecting with the crowd. “Rossi indicated some frustration that Ignatieff seemed unable to absorb helpful critiques on his delivery,” the cable says. Few of the American documents included observations of the Bloc and NDP.

In an unclassified April 2005 cable discussing how then-Prime Minister Paul Martin might hang on to power, an American official states that no matter what happens, Layton’s New Democrats will come out winners, since his “mouse of a party” has “gotten the attention of the lions.”“In the battle for Canada’s so-called progressive voters, Layton has finally presented himself and his party as having power and influence in Ottawa,” the cable goes on to say.

Another 2007 cable, quoting a PMO staffer, describes the NDP as living “for small victories on the margins, and this may be enough.” The Bloc is characterized in a March 2009 cable classified as confidential as “well-entrenched” and as playing a “spoiler role against future Liberal or Conservatives majority governments.”
“There does not appear to be any prospect of breaking up or giving up,” the cable states. “The Québécois retain a reputation as highly strategic voters.”

700th Post- 'Al-Qaeda assassin worked for MI6 and CSIS', secret cables claim

Thirteen people were killed in the bombing of the Karachi Sheraton in 2002. An alleged al-Qaeda militant suspected of bombing a luxury hotel and two churches in Pakistan in 2002 was an informer for MI6 and CSIS, it has been claimed.Adil Hadi al Jazairi Bin Hamlili was detained at Guantanamo Bay between 2003 and last year when he was sent back to his native Algeria by President Obama.The Guardian claims to have seen secret Wikileaks files in which he is described as an al-Qaeda "assassin".

But US interrogators believed he was also a British and Canadian intelligence informer.The revelations come as The Daily Telegraph revealed separate secret files which suggested London was the hub of a global terror network. The files, also believed to come from Wikileaks, alleged the Finsbury Park mosque in north London was a "haven" for extremists. BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner said some of the files show MI6 in a very bad light.He said: "A lot of it doesn't surprise me... In my view they completely under-estimated how dangerous recruiters and proselytisers like Abu Qatada and Abu Hamza were."

The Guardian says Mr Hamlili was described in his Guantanamo assessment file as a "facilitator, courier, kidnapper and assassin for al-Qaeda".

Sent back to Algeria

But despite the accusations, he was never brought to trial and although he was sent back to Algeria last year it is not clear whether he is still in custody.Wikileaks released the files of 759 Guantanamo detainees at the weekend.They included unverified claims that al-Qaeda had hidden a nuclear weapon in Europe for detonation should Osama Bin laden be captured and attempts by al-Qaeda to recruit workers at London's Heathrow Airport. Mr Hamlili was captured in Pakistan in June 2003 and taken to Bagram detention centre in Afghanistan where he was interviewed by the CIA.The CIA agents were apparently told he had been an informer for MI6 and the Canadian secret service since 2000.

But the CIA claimed he had "withheld important information from the Canadian Secret Intelligence Service and the British Secret Intelligence Service... and to be a threat to US and allied personnel in Afghanistan and Pakistan".Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who has apparently admitted being the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, allegedly told his interrogators Mr Hamlili was behind a March 2002 grenade attack on a church in Islamabad, which killed five people.

Mr Mohammed also alleged Mr Hamlili was responsible for an attack on a church in Pakistan in December 2002 which killed three children. Separate US intelligence reports said Mr Hamlili was "possibly involved" in a bombing outside Karachi's Sheraton hotel in May 2002 which killed 11 French engineers and two Pakistani citizens.

A woman's Prayer in War

Russell Peters Rerun

Russel Peters- How to become a Canadian

Canadians are 2nd happiest in world: survey

Canadians share second place among the most contented people on the planet, according to a global survey that asked respondents to rate their own lives. Gallup's global well-being survey found that 69 per cent of Canadians polled fell into a category that Gallup called "thriving." Canada tied with Sweden, three percentage points below Denmark, whose citizens are apparently the most satisfied with their current situation and prospects for the future.

Country % thriving

Denmark 72%

Canada 69%

Sweden 69%

Australia 65%

United States 59%

United Kingdom 54%

Germany 44%

Italy 37%

Spain 34%

Russia 24%

Greece 21%

India 17%

Libya 14%

China 12%

Zimbabwe 9%

Haiti 2%

Central African Republic 2%

Chad 1%

Source: Gallup well-being survey

People in the "thriving" category rate their current lives at seven or higher on a 10-point scale and rated their future lives eight or higher, Gallup says. Only two per cent of Canadians were considered to be "suffering." People in this category rated their current life and future prospects at four or below.Another 30 per cent of Canadians were considered to be "struggling" — somewhere between the two extremes, the poll indicated. Gallup found a majority of respondents "thriving" in only 19 countries — most in Europe and the Americas.

The story was much less rosy in 67 other countries where fewer than a quarter of residents were thriving. In sub-Saharan Africa, the median thriving percentage was just eight per cent, with Chad coming in at the bottom with just one per cent of its respondents deemed to be thriving. Gallup said its well-being survey suggests little progress was made from the previous year."Gallup's global well-being data underscore the diversity of development challenges worldwide," the polling company said on its website.

"As the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt showed earlier this year, leaders should not rely on GDP alone as an indicator of how well their countries and their citizens are doing."The well-being survey results are based on interviews with about 1,000 adults carried out between February and December 2010 in each of 124 countries.

The Cure for Apathy

Is Britain to blame for many of the world's problems?

Given Canada's colonial past- I thought I would paste a debate on the assertions made by David Camerson that the British Empire was responsible for many of the world's historic problems. It was published on the BBC news site. Two historians give their views.
David Cameron made the remarks in Pakistan David Cameron has suggested that Britain and the legacy of its empire was responsible for many of the world's historic problems. But is that view fair?Answering questions from students in Pakistan on Tuesday, the prime minister said: "As with so many of the problems of the world, we are responsible for their creation in the first place."

Here two historians give their view.
Nick Lloyd, lecturer in defence studies, King's College London

Mr Cameron's remarks about the painful legacy of colonialism could not be further from the truth and they reveal a disappointing lack of historical judgment. The British Empire in India, known as the Raj, was the greatest experiment in paternalistic imperial government in history.
By the time the British left India in 1947 they had given the subcontinent a number of priceless assets, including the English language, but also a structure of good government, local organisation and logistical infrastructure that still holds good today. Far from damaging India, British imperial rule gave it a head start.

"The empire gave its colonies real, tangible benefits” At the centre of this was the Indian Civil Service, the 1,000 strong "heaven-born" group of administrators that ran the country. Their role in laying the foundations for strong, efficient government in India has never been accorded the respect and admiration it deserves. While history has recorded that the ICS were aloof and disdainful of the "natives", in reality, the men who ran India were selfless, efficient and - most importantly of all - completely incorruptible. Not only did they oversee the spread of good government, western education, modern medicine and the rule of law, they also put in place local works, famine relief, and irrigation projects, most notably in the Punjab, which benefited enormously from what was then the largest irrigation project in the world.

Perhaps the most priceless asset of all was the English language itself, which gave a unity to the subcontinent that it had never known before and which is allowing India's people to do business around the world today with great success. Indeed, it is indicative of this that in February 2011, a Dalit (formerly untouchable) community in Uttar Pradesh built a shrine to the goddess English, which they believe will help them learn the English language and climb out of their grinding poverty.

Although Britain was not able to replicate its success in India everywhere across its vast colonial empire, it is still clear the empire gave its colonies real, tangible benefits. Wherever the British ruled, they erected a light, relatively inexpensive form of government that was not corrupt, was stable, and was favourable to outside investors.
Its imperial civil servants may not always have been completely sympathetic to local peoples, but they were always motivated by humanitarian impulses and did their best in often difficult circumstances. Indeed, when we look at Africa, many of the benefits of imperial rule were squandered in the generations after independence with a succession of corrupt and brutal regimes.

Dr Nick Lloyd is the author of the forthcoming book The Amritsar Massacre: The Untold Story of One Fateful Day


Andrew Thompson, professor of imperial and global history, University of Leeds

Does Britain's colonial legacy still poison its relations with Africa, the Middle East and Asia? Mr Cameron's remark raises important questions for society about how we relate to history.

"Detention without trial, beatings, torture, and killings punctuated the twilight years of colonial rule” There's the inheritance of colonial violence. What you saw in the later stages of empire was a series of British counter-insurgency operations, exported from one hot spot to another. In places such as Kenya, Palestine, Malaysia, Zimbabwe, and of course Northern Ireland, the British were forced to resort to repressive legal and military measures in what was to prove an ultimately vain attempt to curb the tide of political unrest and nationalist opposition.

Detention without trial, beatings, torture, and killings punctuated the twilight years of colonial rule. The disclosure this week of a large tranche of Foreign Office files, hitherto kept secret about full extent of British brutality against Mau Mau in Kenya, suggests there may be further revelations still to come. Will there be similar stories and claims from Palestine, Malaya, Cyprus or Nigeria?

There is also the question of whether the violence that characterised these counter-insurgency operations during decolonisation then set the scene for the way in which independent, post-colonial African and Asian governments dealt with political dissent from their own peoples.

The imperial past is far from being dead. On the contrary it is actually very much part of contemporary politics.
Perhaps we should not be surprised then when British foreign policy interests and interventions today are seen and perceived as "neo-colonial" in their nature. The reaction of Iran in 2007 when 15 Royal Navy personnel were seized is instructive here. As heavy-handed as it may have seemed to people in Britain, it needs to be understood in the wider context of Iranian sensitivities over the presence of any western powers in or near its territorial waters - sensitivities arising in part from a very fraught and fragile 20th Century relationship over oil and territory.

In a deeper and more fundamental sense still, Britain's colonial legacy can be seen in the ways in which globalisation is being experienced today. From the 1870s onwards, the integration of labour, capital and commodity markets promoted by empire was very much skewed towards its "white" settler societies.

The economic benefits of empire for the so-called dependent colonies were much more meagre in comparison or did not exist at all. When we find critics of globalisation questioning whether economic integration and cultural diversity can comfortably co-exist, we should remember that for much of the last century the form of globalisation the world experienced rested on a view of social relations governed by racial hierarchies.

Finally, we might reverse the colonial encounter and think about how empire has left an imprint on British society. Despite its multi-ethnic empire, Britain did not embrace ethnic diversity at home.
There was the rhetoric of an inclusive imperial citizenship for the peoples of all Commonwealth countries. But in reality in post-war Britain there was little desire to promote integration for immigrants from the likes of the West Indies and the Indian subcontinent.

The consequences are perhaps reflected in experiences today, especially in terms of the so-called ethnic penalty many of these communities face in education, employment or housing.

The future of Energy in Canada

The words "power plant" tend to evoke images of imposing structures jutting out of the landscape — huge dams, nuclear reactors or coal plants that leave a large footprint on the environment they draw from. That image is about to change, according to trends identifed in a CBC News special report.


Megawatts explained

The currency of energy production is the megawatt (MW), and power plants are typically measured in megawatt-hours (MWh). One megawatt of power is equivalent to 1,000 kilowatts. A generator producing one MW of power, if left to run at full capacity for an entire year (8,765 hours) would produce 8,765 MWh of energy. To put some context to that, a typical Canadian family home uses roughly seven MWh per year, so under ideal circumstance, that 1 MW plant could power 1,200 homes.

The word "megaproject" has been used to describe many of Canada's older power installations, from the dams in Quebec and B.C., to reactors in Ontario and New Brunswick. They're enormous plants made to generate enormous amounts of electricity."There's only one Niagara Falls," as University of Toronto environmental economics professor Alan Dewees puts it.

The federal Conservatives are pledging support for the $6.2-billion development of the Lower Churchill project in Labrador if they are re-elected, but this large-scale approach to new power generating stations is a dying breed. The vast majority power plants of Canada's near future are likely to be far less ostentatious than Lower Churchill, or developments like the gigantic facility on the Niagara river that Ontario uses to meet a significant chunk of the province’s energy needs.

Across Canada, much of the capacity scheduled to come online in the next 10 years will come from renewable energy projects, which tend to be relatively small by design. (See the interactive map of plants across the country or use the power plant database to search for plants by location, type or operator.)That’s partly because they’re more scaleable, both to build and manage. It's simply not economically feasible to adjust the output of a 5,000-megawatt nuclear power station as power demands warrant, for example. But a 100 megawatt wind farm or a 20 megawatt solar facility can quickly and easily come online or shut down depending on the need, and the availability of the renewable resource it uses. And a collection of small plants can generate as much power as a single megaplant.

Going green

Renewable energy isn't a new concept. The country’s power network is already heavily dependent on hydroelectricity, drawing on Canada’s vast water resources. A CBC News analysis calculated that 74,391 MW of the more than 127,000 MW the country currently generates annually comes from hydro.The 219 MW Harmon Generating Station near Kapuskasing, Ont. Hydro and wind plants can work in tandem, dams can be closed to store water, and energy, during periods of high wind speed. (OPG) But as Canada runs out of sources of hydroelectricity to develop, attention is turning to other forms of renewable energy to meet the country's growing need for electricity.

"And wind is the ideal complement to hydroelectricity because you can tone it [hydro power] down when wind is available," Canadian Wind Energy Association president Robert Hornung says. "When wind is up, you close the dam and essentially let energy to build up in it."
The renewable resource projects, like wind, solar, and biomass, that will power Canada tomorrow are evenly spread across the country. And their scalability, versatility and small size are part of what’s sparked a rush of investment in the sector as new players get into the energy business.Far from looking like the next Hoover Dam, the kinds of projects coming online in the coming decade are likely to be more akin to the Fitzsimmons energy project at Whistler/Blackcomb ski resort, which takes advantage of the site’s natural vertical drop to turn river water into enough energy to power the entire resort — and then some.Or the Drake Landing solar community in Okotoks, south of Calgary, which uses the site’s natural preponderance of sunlight to meet the heating needs of more than 50 households, year-round.

'Having a basket of options is the way to go.'

—Kent Brown, BluEarth Renewables Inc.Or maybe the ExPlace turbine that dominates Toronto’s lake shore, harnessing the power of wind coming in from the lake and turning it into enough energy to power 200 households for a year.Individually, none of those projects are anywhere close to the same scale as the monolithic entities people normally associate with power plants. But taken collectively, their small outputs add up to be a significant portion of Canada’s electricity generating capacity moving forward.

At 9 p.m. on Oct. 28th, 2010, for example, wind energy use hit an all time high of 1,056 megawatts in Ontario. Throughout the whole day, wind made up five per cent of the province’s total energy use. The wind energy association says wind output has increased tenfold in Canada since 2003, so that ratio’s going nowhere but up.

Diversification

BluEarth Renewables Inc. is one of the startups aiming to capitalize on the burgeoning renewable energy sector.
10 biggest power plants in Canada (by 2010 capacity):

1. Bruce nuclear generating station, Tiverton, Ont., 6,250 MW
2. Robert Bourassa hydroelectric station, Radisson, Que., 5,616 MW
3. Churchill Falls hydroelectric station, Churchill Falls, N.L., 5,428 MW
4. Nanticoke coal generating station, Nanticoke, Ont., 3,640 MW
5. Darlington nuclear generating station, Clarington, Ont., 3,512 MW
6. Pickering nuclear generating station, Pickering, Ont., 3,100 MW
7. La Grande-4 hydroelectric station, Keyano, Que., 2,779 MW
8. Gordon M. Shrum hydroelectric station, Hudson’s Hope, B.C., 2,730 MW
9. La Grande-3 hydroelectric station, Kayami, Que., 2,417 MW
10. Sundance coal generating station, Wabamun, Alta., 2,126 MW

"Having a basket of options is the way to go, because we need more energy production," says Kent Brown, BluEarth president and CEO. "But ultimately we won’t have a choice about de-carboning our world."
Brown would know. He used to head up Canadian Hydro Developers Inc., which was the largest renewable energy company in Canada until TransAlta Corp. acquired it in a $1.6 billion hostile takeover in 2009.
Conventional power generator TransAlta was looking to complement its oil and gas plants with Canadian Hydro Developers’ suite of renewable facilities. Now, with 13 wind farms, 28 hydro plants, a biomass operation and one geothermal heating plant, TransAlta is a major player in the renewable space.

Even after the sale of Canadian Hydro Developers, Brown recognized the vast potential of the renewable space. He and fellow co-founders John and Ross Keating set up BluEarth to try to catch that same lightning in a bottle.
"To me, renewables are the bridge to whatever’s next," he says. "And the combination of that, plus natural gas, is the most logical transition."

BluEarth has no operating plants just yet, but with $162 million in financing in place from heavy-hitting private equity titans such as the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan and Calgary-based ARC Financial Corp., the company is currently scouring the country for assets that are ready to come online.
"Best-case scenario is we have some sort of generating capacity by the end of 2011," Brown says.

The company forecasts rapid growth; Brown expects to have between 350 and 400 megawatts in place within four or five years. An ambitious target for most, "but we think it’s achieveable," he says.Turbines from TransAlta's 70 MW Summerview wind farms located in Pincher Creek, Alta. The company owns 13 wind farms, 28 hydro plants, one biomass plant and a geothermal heating facility. (TransAlta)

"When I started [at Canadian Hydro Developers] in 2001 we had 89 megawatts of generation and when I left we were up to 700," he notes.The financial crisis cut off funding for a lot of viable projects, Brown says. So BluEarth is hoping to leverage its expertise in the renewable space — not to mention that $162 million in available funding — to get stakes in smaller projects across the country that are close to flipping their power switches on.

Most will be small — 20 MW and above for wind projects, 10 MW run of river hydro projects or solar farms with at least 5 MW of output. The company is looking exclusively at Canadian sites because in Brown’s view, that’s where the best opportunities for them lie.



As Brown puts it: "They may be small, but there’s huge potential."

Families of Canadian Soldiers need our help

We send our men to fight in wars and the LEAST we can do as a country is to stand behind them and their families when they return. I read that more American soldiers died by their own hand than died in combat last year. We need to realize that war is destroying not only the warriors but their families who have already sacrificed so much. Let's all urge the Canadain govenment to respond to these people and give them the help they need!


A CBC News investigation has found a disturbing rise in domestic violence among soldiers returning from deployment in Afghanistan.Domestic violence on Canadian military bases has climbed steadily in recent years, coinciding with the return of soldiers who carry physical and psychological battle wounds home.The problem exists in military communities across the country, but is acute at Ontario's Canadian Forces Base Petawawa where a spike in cases was noted after troops returned from Operation Athena in Afghanistan in 2007.

Military police documented the trend in a 2008 report that was not released, but that CBC News has obtained through Access to Information.

Tune into The Current, March 31 at 8:37 a.m. ET, to hear CBC journalist Nancy Wood's full report. Wood's French television documentary will air on Radio-Canada's Enquête program on March 31 at 9 p.m. ET.

In the report, the independent police service notes a five-fold jump in reported cases of domestic violence after Operation Athena, when Canada's role in Afghanistan changed and troops experienced ongoing casualties.
Recommendations included reviewing psychological services for soldiers and their families. But the study was shelved.Psychology experts believe the rise in domestic violence is directly linked to physical and emotional trauma suffered by soldiers in Afghanistan, especially post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.The Canadian Forces say although that may be possible, there isn't any concrete proof the two are linked.
"We found, unfortunately, some methodological flaws in the way some of that military police data was collected and analyzed," said Col. Jean-Robert Bernier, Deputy Surgeon General with the Canadian Forces.That dismissal angers some families struggling with domestic violence in the aftermath of service in Afghanistan, who say they feel abandoned by the military.

Afghanistan changed father of four

More than a quarter of Canadian Forces troops return with some kind of "operational stress injury" or psychological problem — ranging from anxiety and depression to substance abuse.



Among those psychologically wounded, one in six will develop PTSD, a condition that triggers recurring feelings of intense, prolonged fright, flashbacks, nightmares, anxiety, insomnia and aggression.Roger Perreault is one of them."Ever since I've come back, I feel like I've lost everything, employment, life as a whole," says Perreault, a Warrant Officer in the Canadian Infantry based in Petawawa.The father of four developed PTSD after he was deployed to Afghanistan in 2006, where he was severely injured by an improvised explosive device, and watched friends die.His symptoms include insomnia, a short temper and nightmares. He has attacked his wife Fran in the middle of the night.

155 Canadian soldiers have died in Afghanistan

"The only thing I remember of that, it's like waking up and being on top of her, and then my hands around her throat," he recalls.Fran says her husband is a good father, but changed in Afghanistan."I've got that stigma attached to me now," she said. "I'm ashamed of it. We're treating it and I think we're the brave ones because we're confronting it."

Canadian Forces says more studies needed

Roger and Fran Perreault firmly believe that their family is not alone in their ordeal. They say they know many military homes struggling to cope with PTSD-related violence.Several U.S. studies have documented a four-fold higher risk of violent behaviour among PTSD sufferers.But the Canadian Forces is skeptical about American research."They have [found] a slight correlation, but this is new research that needs to be investigated," said Col. Suzie Rodrigue, head of social work with the Canadian Forces.Rodrigue points out the military has "robust" programs already in place to help, counsel and support soldiers transitioning from the field back home.

The Perreault family says those services have fallen short for them and they've scrambled to find adequate support.They have to travel out of town for weekly marriage counselling. One of their daughters waited a year to get an appointment at a local counselling centre, where she only gets one session a month.
It's not enough, Roger Perreault says."I wish someone would just sort this out for our injured guys."

Debate over May diverts campaign

The federal election campaign took a temporary detour Wednesday into whether Green Party Leader Elizabeth May would be excluded from the televised leaders debates. The broadcast consortium that independently governs debates, made up of representatives from CBC, Radio-Canada, CTV, Global and TVA, has decided that May would not be invited to take part.
May reacted angrily, and both Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff and the NDP's Jack Layton said they didn't mind her participation.Conservative Party Leader Stephen Harper, appearing in Brampton, Ont., said the Tories were open to any number of formats, including one involving the Green Party. He specifically mentioned a one-on-one debate with Ignatieff."I hope that [the consortium] will consider the views of all Canadians, and everyone should be treated fairly," he said, speaking in French.
May scheduled a press conference for 1 p.m. PT in Vancouver, and CBC News has learned she has hired a lawyer to plead her case. May was initially denied a spot at the 2008 leaders debates as well, at about this point in the campaign, but in the face of threatened legal action and public opinion, May was allowed to take part.
Harper started the morning at an event with local candidates at auto parts manufacturer Hydroform Solutions in Brampton, Ont. He stressed his party's lower-tax plan for businesses and announced an extension of accelerated business write-offs for capital investments, which was propsed in the Conservatives' March 22 budget. He said this would Canadian companies invest in machinery and equipment to raise productivity and create jobs."If you want people to invest, you need to make it easy for them," he said. "Lowering taxes on investments will create and protect jobs for Canadians."
Layton reached out to small businesses, promising to cut their tax rate to nine per cent from 11 per cent and offering tax credits to help companies keep employees, but he said his party would also raise corporate taxes paid by big business to 2008 levels.

Speaking in Oshawa, Ont., Layton said the NDP would:

Offer a job-creation tax credit of $4,500 for every new hire. This would be a rebate of employer Canada Pension Plan and Employment Insurance contributions for a year. As well, there would be a $1,000 tax credit to the employer for people that are kept beyond the first 12 months. Extend capital cost allowances for machinery and equipment. Drop the small business tax rate from to nine per cent from 11 per cent.

Pay for this $2.2 billion program by raising the corporate tax rate to 2008 levels of 19.5 per cent from 16.5 per cent today (scheduled to drop to 15 per cent in 2012). The party estimates that the corporate tax increase would to restore $5.9 billion to general revenues.The NDP says it can create 220,000 jobs with its economic program.

Romeo Dallaire- Rwanda and the World's Responsibility

Romeo Dallaire, general; commander of Rwanda international peacekeeping mission :"no human is more human than any other".

Lieutenant-General Romeo Dallaire was born on June 25, 1946 to a Canadian non-commissioned officer and a Dutch mother in Denekamp, Netherlands. He came to Canada at the age of 6 months and spent his childhood in Montreal. He discovered in 1971 when he went to apply for a passport that he was not actually a Canadian citizen and then took steps to become officially Canadian. In 1963 he enrolled as a cadet at Le College Militaire Royale de Saint-Jean and he graduated fro the Royal Military College of Canada with a Bachelor of Science degree and was commissioned into the Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery. He has been a Canadian Senator, humanitarian, author and a retired general.

He served as Force Commander of UN AMIR during the Rwandan genocide of the Tutsis and Hutu moderates about which he wrote the book “Shaking Hands with the Devil’. The atrocities and the lack of power he felt in the face of the horror combined with the lack of will of those who were in charge of the mission, left him with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and he attempted suicide after returning to Canada. This has made him an outspoken advocate for mental health intervention for Canadian soldiers. He is now a Senior Fellow at the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies and Co-Director of the MIGS “Will to Intervene Project” that recently released a policy recommendation report called “Mobilizing the Will to Intervene: Leadership and Action to Prevent Mass Atrocities”.

IN 1995 he won the Vimy Award. In 1996, Dallaire was made an Officer of the Legion of Merit in the United States, the highest military decoration for his service in Rwanda. Dallaire was also awarded the inaugural Aegis Trust Award in 2002, and on October 10 of the same year, he was inducted as an Officer in the Order of Canada. He was ranked 16th in the CBC’s “The Greatest Canadian’ program which placed him as the highest ranked military figure. He is also the 25th recipient of the Pearson Peace Medal which was awarded by Governor General Adrienne Clarkson. In 2006, Daillare was awarded the Human Security Award from the Centre for Unconventional Security Affairs at the University of California, Irvine. He has also received numerous doctorates from Canadian and American Universities including: U of Saskatchewan, St. Thomas U, Boston College, The U of Calgary, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Athabasca U, Trent U, U of Western Ontario, Simon Fraser U, U of Lethbridge, Ryerson Polytechnic U,the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, and Queens College of the City University of New York (CUNY).His book "Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda", was awarded the Governor General's Literary Award for Non-Fiction in 2004.

For more information about this amazing Canadian, please see his website at:
http://www.romeodallaire.com/

Arranged marriage breaks down at Toronto airport

Pakistani bride says she was stood up at Pearson; groom says he told her not to come

Owais Qurni and Aisha Noor were wed in 2009 during an arranged marriage in Peshawar, Pakistan.
Arranged marriage gone wrong3:16Beginning of Story ContentA Toronto man who allegedly rejected his Pakistani bride at Pearson Airport says he wanted a divorce and told his wife to stay home.The woman, Aisha Noor, says her husband, Owais Qurni, told her he was excited about their reunion and didn't learn he was backing away until she had landed. Aisha Noor says her Pashtun culture will stigmatize her if she returns to Pakistan divorced. "I have been crying since I came to Canada," said the 23-year-old, who says she is speaking to highlight the issue of so-called abandoned brides.
Immigration officials have given Noor until Sunday to leave the country.
Qurni and Noor were married in August 2009 during an arranged marriage in Peshawar, Pakistan.
In an email to CBC News, Qurni, 22, said the marriage was never consummated and had only been held to start the immigration process. Noor's visa was issued in January, but Qurni had second thoughts, he wrote.

Conflicting stories

He says he told Noor before she arrived March 4 that the marriage would be a failure because there was no chemistry between them and that they didn't share any interests."I decided to back off from this wedding before it was too late and both our lives were further ruined," he wrote. He says he sent the application to withdraw his sponsorship to Noor's father last month.
Qurni says he had no idea Noor was flying to Canada.
"I did not find out that she had landed in Canada until an immigration official contacted me on the phone and confirmed my cancellation of sponsorship, which I confirmed," he wrote. "It was after that that Miss Aisha Noor decided to call me from the airport and asked me to pick her up. This was shocking for me because I advised her against coming because I was not willing to go ahead with preparations anymore."
Noor claims that's not what happened. She says he told her he loved her and couldn't wait for her to arrive.
"His emails, his video chat, I still remember," she said. "That was all fake."Noor also accuses Qurni of withdrawing her immigration sponsorship because her family refused to pay thousands of dollars. Qurni says those allegations are "completely false."

Couple have not met in Canada

Qurni refuses to see Noor. She says she was never served with divorce papers and can't understand his behaviour.Noor hopes to stay in Canada because she says she'll be stigmatized in their Pashtun culture if she's forced to go back to Pakistan after a divorce. Qurni admits that divorced women are stigmatized in Pakistan, but says it would be worse for Noor if the marriage had been consummated.
"In that regard her life was not ruined because we had no physical contact whatsoever," he said. Qurni said he only went along with the marriage out of respect for his parents and wants to marry somebody he loves.
Noor hopes that immigration officials will allow her to remain in Canada on compassionate grounds. It can take years for a spouse to be sponsored, but sponsorship can be cancelled in just days, sometimes with just a phone call. Critics say it leaves young brides open to extortion and blackmail.

Shalini Konanur, executive director of the South Asian Legal clinic, said it's up to Canadians "to decide whether we value these women enough even though they're not Canadians, and that we value women in general internationally." Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said all spouses should check on their sponsorship status before getting on a plane to Canada.

Graeme McCreath: The Politics of blindness

Graeme McCreath is a physiotherapist in Victoria and he's training for an up-coming 10-kilometre race. So he runs this route about three-times-a-week. When Graeme says this is a challenge, he's alluding to the fact that he is blind. His running partner and the two seeing-eye dogs -- one retired, one still working -- are all there to help nudge him out of harm's way from time to time. But apart from that, Graeme charts his own course.
In many ways, Graeme defies the typical profile of a blind Canadian. In Canada, most blind or partially sighted adults don't have work. Many live in poverty. And that's why he has written a new book called The Politics of Blindness: From Charity to Parity. In it, he calls for a complete overhaul of how blind people are treated in our society. And he lays out a manifesto for blind citizens. Graeme McCreath was in Victoria

Steven Pinker- Major Canadian Thinker