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AP
MIDDLETOWN - Rescue crews worked through the night looking for additional victims of the power plant explosion in Middletown, which killed five people and injured at least a dozen. The explosion happened around 11:17am at the Kleen Energy Systems power plant under construction along Rover Road in Middletown. (WTNH)
MORE: Power plant blast Explosion at power plant
OTTAWA - A federal cabinet minister's aide killed the release of a sensitive report requested under freedom-of-information. The document was an annual report on Public Works' massive real-estate portfolio, which contained factual information on high vacancy rates and weak returns on investment. Such reports had never been made public before. The department's real-estate branch had consented to the full release, and the Access to Information office at Public Works had determined after extensive consultation that there was no legal basis to withhold any of the report. The file, though, was deemed "sensitive" - partly because it was a media request - and was sent to the Conservative minister's office for review. (CityNews)
RELATED: 100 top lobbyists 2009
MONTREAL - Nicolo Rizzuto, the presumed patriarch of Montreal's Mafia, is facing tax evasion charges. Rizzuto, 85, is accused of not paying taxes on a $5.2M sum split among three Swiss bank accounts. (CBC)
OTTAWA - The cash-strapped Liberal government promises to top up Nortel's underfunded pension plan - a move affecting many retirees in an Ottawa riding where a key by-election is being held March 4. (Toronto Star)
MORE: Ontario to bailout Nortel pensioners
The Competition Bureau says it will challenge rules by the Canadian Real Estate Association that it says “limit consumer choice and prevent innovation” in the real estate market. The commissioner of competition has determined CREA’s rules are restricting consumers and forcing them to pay for services they don’t really need. The rules are also said to be preventing real estate agents from offering more innovative services. (CanWest)
People who complain of “high levels” of boredom in their lives are at double the risk of dying from heart disease or a stroke than those who find life entertaining, researchers at University College London found. Of more than 7,000 civil servants who were monitored over 25 years, those who said they were bored were nearly 40% more likely to have died by the end of the study than those who did not. (Telegraph UK)
Conrad Murray
LOS ANGELES - Prosecutors today charged Michael Jackson's physician Dr. Conrad Murray with involuntary manslaughter in the pop singer's death. After an eight-month-long investigation, prosecutors charged the Houston-based cardiologist with allegedly administering a lethal cocktail of painkillers and anesthetics to the entertainer hours before he died on June 25. (ABC)
PREVIOUS: Death of Michael Jackson
China pulls plug on hacker website
Reuters
WUHAN - China has shut down what it claims was the country's biggest training operation for computer hackers, involving thousands of online members, state media has reported. Wuhan, where the story originated, happens to be home to the Communication Command Academy, which trains hackers, according to US congressional testimony by cyber expert James Mulvenon in 2008. (Reuters)
MORE: China seizes leading hacker training website
Hacker training business shut down
Gatekeepers hold key to documents
Victoria Times Colonist
VICTORIA - To an ordinary person in a BC courthouse, the most powerful member of the justice system might not seem like the judge, jury or even attorney general - it's the clerk behind the counter. Faced with long lineups of sometimes less-than-polite customers, the civilian employees of the registry have near absolute control over who gets access to the thousands of court files, warrants, tickets and reports generated by courts each day. (Victoria Times Colonist)
PREVIOUS: Access Denied
AFP
IQALUIT - The world’s top financial leaders promised Saturday to continue stimulus spending, even as the global economic recovery picks up, and to hold financial institutions financially responsible for any future crisis stemming from the sector. (CanWest)
MORE: G7 meeting ends G7
PREVIOUS: Global Meltdown
The United Nations’ World Food Program (WFP), is preparing to launch a mammoth, three-year relief operation in Afghanistan this year for 7.4M people at a cost of $1.2B - but less than half of that amount will actually go to purchasing food for the war-ravaged country. The majority of the money - nearly $730M - is being spent on shipping, land transportation, handling, office construction and UN staffing and administration costs. (Fox)
PREVIOUS: Greed & corruption: UN
AP
An Australian firm has signed a $60B deal to supply coal to Chinese power stations. Clive Palmer, chairman of the company, Resourcehouse, said it was Australia's "biggest ever export contract". Most of China's power stations rely on coal - and demand has risen sharply in recent months after a government stimulus program re-energized its economy. (BBC)
When good people are swept up with the bad
TORONTO - Black people across Toronto are three times more likely to be stopped and documented by police than white people, a Star investigation has found. To a lesser extent, the same is true for people described by police as having "brown" skin, according to a Star analysis of 1.7M contact cards filled out by Toronto police officers between 2003 and 2008. (Toronto Star)
MORE: Race matters Star paid $12,000 for police data
MONCTON - In an unusual move, a Court of Queen's Bench judge has spoken out against the New Brunswick government, saying he feels betrayed. Justice Raymond Guerette, of Campbellton, made the comments during a meeting of the provincial branch of the Canadian Bar Association in Moncton Friday. Guerette chaired a task force in 2008-09, looking at ways to make it easier and cheaper for people to get a divorce. But the government has instead made it more difficult and more expensive, he said. (CBC)
REPORT: Access to family justice task force .pdf
RELATED: Critics pounce on $15M MPP
Earl Jones
MONTREAL - The victims of Montreal financial adviser Earl Jones announced Friday they are seeking a judge's permission to launch a class-action lawsuit against the Royal Bank of Canada. The suit filed in Quebec Superior Court alleges that the Royal Bank's Beaconsfield Branch in Montreal and its employees were aware that Jones was misusing his personal account at least as far back as November 2001 but did nothing. (CBC)
PREVIOUS: RBC knew The Fifth Estate Earl Jones Scandal Regulators
'People need to be able to trust their financial adviser'
NEW YORK - Ex-money manager Alberto Vilar and his business partner Gary Tanaka were sentenced to prison terms Friday after they were convicted in 2008 of bilking investors out of millions of dollars. At a hearing Friday, US District Judge Richard J. Sullivan in Manhattan sentenced Vilar, one-time head of defunct Amerindo Investment Advisors, to nine years in prison, while ordering Tanaka, a one-time Amerindo director and officer, to serve five years in prison. On Friday, the judge found the loss to victims who testified at trial was about $21.9M. (Fox)
MORE: Patron of the art Racehorse owner
OTTAWA - The Canadian government could be on the hook for a multimillion-dollar payout to Omar Khadr, after the Supreme Court of Canada appears to have strengthened his hand in a long-standing civil lawsuit by declaring his charter rights were violated. The Guantanamo Bay detainee, in a damages suit launched six years ago, has recently bumped up his claim to $10M from $100,000, court documents show. (CanWest)
JUDGMENT: 2010 SCC 3
PREVIOUS: Repatriation overturned
LAHT
MORELIA - Police found six decapitated bodies alongside their heads in a van in western Mexico, one week after six others were found in the same town, the Michoacan state prosecutor said Friday. (AFP)
PREVIOUS: Massacre response fails to convince Gunmen open fire Gunned down Gun attack Bodies found Cartels
AP
KARBALA - Two suicide bombers have killed at least 40 people and injured more than 140 on the outskirts of the Iraqi city of Karbala, police reports say. About a million Shia Muslim pilgrims are in the city to visit the Imam Hussein shrine. About 60 pilgrims were killed in two other attacks this week. (BBC)
MORE: 'Forces of darkness'
PREVIOUS: 3rd religious festival bombing Woman bomber Deadly blast hits pilgrims Female bomber
AFP
KARACHI - Two bombs in the Pakistani city of Karachi have killed at least 22 people and injured more than 50. In the first blast, a motorbike laden with explosives hit a bus carrying Shia Muslims to a religious procession and exploded, killing 12 people. An hour later, a motorcycle exploded outside the entrance to the emergency ward of the hospital where the victims of the first attack were being treated. At least 10 people were killed in the second attack. (BBC)
MORE: Twin explosions Double bomb attack
NEW YORK - Forged in the depths of the financial crisis, the marriage between Bank of America Corp. and Merrill Lynch & Co. has faced withering criticism from shareholders and regulators. New York Attorney-General Andrew Cuomo called the deal by a new name Thursday: fraud. Mr. Cuomo filed civil charges against Bank of American and former chief executive officer Kenneth Lewis, accusing them of hiding the extent of Merrill's woes from the bank's shareholders and later manoeuvring to receive funds from the government for losses related to the Merrill deal. (Globe & Mail)
PREVIOUS: Global Meltdown
LONDON - The British arms firm BAE Systems has accepted guilt and agreed to pay penalties in the US and the UK totalling several hundred million dollars to settle all the long-running corruption allegations against it. Under the deal, announced simultaneously in London and Washington, BAE will pay $400M in the US and £30M in the UK. (Guardian UK)
MORE: BAE chiefs 'linked to bribes conspiracy'
PREVIOUS: Corporate scandals
Guardian
LONDON - Three Labour MPs and a Tory peer will be charged with false accounting in relation to their parliamentary expenses. Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, revealed that Elliot Morley, a former minister, David Chaytor, the MP for Bury North, Jim Devine, the MP for Livingston, and Lord Hanningfield (Paul White), a former Conservative business spokesman, will be charged under the Theft Act. (Guardian UK)
MORE: MPs to defy courts
PREVIOUS: Greed & corruption: UK
The RCMP will bring in independent agencies to investigate, whenever possible, if a member of its own force has been accused of serious offences, the RCMP commissioner said. "I believe that the RCMP has in the past conducted impartial and thorough investigations of our members. This has been validated time and time again by the commission for public complaints against the RCMP, " William Elliott said on Thursday as he announced the new policy. (CBC)
MONTREAL - Quebec's medicare insurance board has set up a special investigative unit as a result of the largest fraud in its history in which about 750 foreigners obtained free health care at a cost to taxpayers of more than $500,000. An official with the Régie de l'assurance maladie du Québec yesterday described a "sophisticated" scam that lasted five years in which people from the Middle East, almost all from Lebanon, used bogus documentation to obtain medicare cards. (Montreal Gazette)
PREVIOUS: 'Ghost' immigration consultants CSIC
RCMP investigating Crackdown on consultants who counsel fraud Suspected case of citizenship fraud
Palestine House Sham marriage behind surge
SHANGHAI - China has made a habit recently of "punishing" many of the people, institutions and nations that cross it on the Tibet issue, and the University of Calgary appears to be the latest victim. Without fanfare, the University of Calgary was dropped in December from the Chinese Ministry of Education's list of recommended universities for Chinese students going abroad to study. Although no one will say officially that Beijing has blocked Chinese students from going to University of Calgary because the school awarded the Dalai Lama an honourary degree last fall, it seems plausible that is the reason. (Calgary Herald)
MORE: China reiterates opposition against planned Obama-Dalai meeting
PREVIOUS: China warns, again China warns US of detrimental effect of meeting US companies selling weapons to Taiwan will face Chinese sanctions China hits back China to halt military exchanges, punish US companies
RELATED: Bar raised for 'iron rice bowl' civil service jobs
CanWest
PORT-AU-PRINCE - The overall head of the UN Stabilization Mission for Haiti says the international community must change its way of working in the earthquake-devastated country and that a solution for the 2M people left homeless must be found before the upcoming rainy season. “They are not asking permission from the government or from the UN or reporting what it is they are bringing in,” he added, noting that Haiti even before the quake was one of the countries that received the most aid via NGOs. (LAHT)
MORE: Scattershot aid efforts spur frustrations
Canada's Haitian connection It's lack of work, not hard workers
PREVIOUS: Haiti quake 2010 Haiti earthquake
When Dominick Montiglio was only 2, his "Uncle Nino" - captain of the notorious Gambino crime family - banished the boy's alcoholic father from his home and took on the role of surrogate and godfather. Anthony 'Nino' Gaggi and his crew, headed by Roy DeMeo, set an early example for Montiglio, reportedly murdering 200 people and dismembering their bodies at Brooklyn's Gemini Lounge, also known as the "Horror Hotel." "I lived the life," said Montiglio, now a 62-year-old struggling artist, who admits he was involved in scores of those killings, then testified against the family before entering the federal witness protection program in 1983. (ABC)
MONTREAL - If Quebec really wants to cripple the underground gambling economy, it should crack down on illegal poker games run out of bars and other venues, the union representing Loto-Quebec croupiers says. Poker is wildly popular and Quebec's legal casinos only have about 35 poker tables - with maybe 20 open for play on any given night - so the demand for poker is filled by the illegal operators who host games in bars and hotels, Jean-Pierre Proulx of the Canadian Union of Public Employees said. (Montreal Gazette)
The Russian military allegedly dumped nuclear waste into the Baltic Sea in the early 1990s, according to a report on Swedish television. Radioactive material from a military base in Latvia is thought to have been thrown into Swedish waters. For many the biggest shock is that the Swedish government may have known at the time and done nothing about it. (BBC)
Authorities should disclose budget
GUANGZHOU - A lawmaker of southern China's Guangdong Province has been pressing the provincial authorities to disclose government budget, months after Guangzhou opened its budget for public scrutiny. "The budget plan covers 116 departments and is as high as 469.5B yuan ($69B). The public should know how and where the money will be used," Guangdong lawmaker Xin Pu said. Liu Kun, director of the Provincial Finance Bureau., told Xinhua that opening provincial budget to the public did not have legal ground. (Xinhua)
GUANGZHOU - Two courts in Guangzhou, capital city of south China's Guangdong Province, sentenced 25 people to death in separate trials Thursday in nine kidnapping-for-ransom cases. (Xinhua)
Spiegel
BERLIN - There has never been a shortage of brutality between the biker gangs Bandidos and Hell's Angels. But after 70 members of a Berlin club defected to their erstwhile rivals, police in the German capital are bracing for violence. A total of 76 members and supporters of "Centro," as the Berlin chapter of the Bandidos is known, are reportedly trying to defect to the Hell's Angels camp. (Spiegel)
ATHENS - Customs officials and tax inspectors in Greece are holding a two-day strike to protest against government austerity measures, including wage cuts. The strike is disrupting Greece's import market, with lines of trucks being held at the country's borders. The austerity measures have been introduced to try and tackle Greece's huge budget deficit and national debt. The EU approved the plan on Wednesday, but insisted on inspecting Greece's notoriously unreliable accounts. (BBC)
MORE: Greece faces strike barrage over austerity cuts European debt fears
Australian band Men at Work copied a well-known children's campfire song for the flute melody in its 1980s hit Down Under and owes the owner years of royalties, a court ruled today. Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree was written more than 70 years ago by Australian teacher Marion Sinclair for a Guides competition - the song has since been a favourite around campfires from New Zealand to Canada. The teacher died in 1988, and publishing company Larrikin Music owns the copyright to her song about the native Australian bird. (Guardian UK)
Blast hits girls' school reopening
Reuters
TAIMARGARA - A roadside bomb has killed at least 8 people, including 3 US military personnel and 4 school girls, near a girls' school in northwest Pakistan. "We have 4 dead bodies (in this hospital). They are schoolgirls aged 10 to 15. We have received 65 injured, most of them are girls," Mohammed Wakeel, chief doctor at the local Taimargara hospital, said. "We claim responsibility for the blast," Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesman Azam Tariq said. The school had been blown up in January 2009 and rebuilt with the help of a foreign aid organisation. (Al Jazeera)
MORE: Taliban plants bomb near school
EUPA
PYONGYANG - A recent move by North Korean officials to rejigger the nation's economic system has introduced a new level of misery to everyday life. In the last month, the price of rice rose tenfold at private markets, and residents often had to wait in line for hours in subzero temperatures to buy food. Humanitarian aid workers have been unable to travel to large portions of the country because many hotels no longer accept foreign currency and the exchange rate bounces around wildly. At the heart of the turmoil is a series of dictates imposed late last year by Kim Jong Il's regime: revaluing the currency, closing down privately run markets in favor of state-owned shops and banning the use of foreign currency and the sale of many imports from China. (LA Times)
LAUSANNE - Switzerland's highest court ruled that the family of Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier can reclaim at least $4.6M in Swiss bank accounts that had previously been awarded to aid groups. The Federal Supreme Court reversed a lower court's ruling that the money should have gone to charities working in the impoverished nation. (Telegraph UK)
MORE: Embarrassment for Swiss government Bern freezes 'criminal clan' money
The international carbon market has been hit by a phishing attack which saw an estimated 250,000 permits worth over 3M euros ($4.2M) stolen this week. The scam involves six German companies and meant emissions trading registries in a number of EU countries shut down temporarily on 2 February. In the global carbon market, companies can buy permits from other firms, allowing them to emit greenhouse gases. The criminals are believed to have created fake emissions registries. (BBC)
MORE: New errors in IPCC climate change report Science designed for propaganda The great global warming collapse
COMMENT: House of peers
PREVIOUS: Climate Debate
Non-partisan organization in fight
MONTREAL - Top management at Montreal's dissension-riddled International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development are stonewalling on inquiries about this week's suspension of three senior staffers from the federally funded advocacy organization. (Montreal Gazette)
The website WikiLeaks, known for breaking numerous news stories - ranging from publishing secret documents on Guantanamo Bay to corruption in Kenya - has shut down due to a lack of funds. (AFP)
File-sharing scam targets Twitter
Twitter has identified a scheme that uses compromised file-sharing sites to steal the log on information of users. The service said it had discovered a number of compromised "torrent" sites that had been set up specifically to skim usernames and passwords. Torrent sites acts as indexes of links to TV, film and music files. Scammers were then able to use the data to gain access to Twitter and other sites because many people use the same logon for multiple services. (BBC)
MONTREAL - Researchers at McGill University have made a co-discovery that some morbidly obese people are actually missing a set of genes that play a role in controlling weight. According to the findings, published today in the journal Nature, such individuals are lacking a part of their DNA that contains about 30 genes. (Montreal Gazette)
Gankhuyag Bumuutseren
TORONTO - A man who spied on Chinese dissidents in the US has been living in a Toronto church since this past August to avoid deportation. Hours before the Canada Border Services Agency was scheduled to deport Gankhuyag Bumuutseren for espionage, he sought sanctuary in St. James Anglican church in Etobicoke. The 41-year-old Mongolian citizen has inhabited a room in the church basement since then, and while he admitted on Tuesday he had spied for China, he said he is afraid to return to his homeland. (National Post)
RELATED: Cyber espionage targets contractors
Cyber warfare a growing threat Cyberthieves are hiring
AP
PARIS - Nearly a decade after Air France Concorde Flight 4590 crashed shortly after take-off, effectively grounding the legendary supersonic aircraft, a trial at a specially enlarged courtroom in a Parisian suburb on Tuesday re-examines one of aviation’s most high-profile disasters. US airline Continental, along with two of its employees and three other individuals, face charges of manslaughter for the deaths of 113 people in the accident. (AFP)
MORE: Trial opens to determine blame
PREVIOUS: Air France Flight 4590
KARACHI - At least nine people have been killed in the Pakistani city of Karachi as clashes between rival ethnic groups continued on Monday, officials say. Violence over the weekend left 12 dead. In Karachi's Orangi town, both Pahstun activists working for the Awami National Party (ANP) and and Urdu-speaking workers loyal to the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) party have set up road blocks. (BBC)
BERLIN - The head of a Catholic order in Germany has apologized for the systematic sex abuse apparently committed by two priests at a prestigious Berlin school. He said he was aware of 25 cases not just in Berlin, but at two other Catholic schools in Hamburg and in the Black Forest, where the priests had been transferred. Both men, named in the German press as Peter R and Wolfgang S, left the Jesuit order in the 1980s. However, there is suspicion they may have continued to abuse children at institutions in Spain, Mexico and Chile. (BBC)
MORE: 'Systematic' sexual abuse
PREVIOUS: Catholic Church abuses
India issues zero rupee banknotes
NEW DELHI - Campaigners from the Fifth Pillar charity, which confronts corrupt officials using freedom of information legislation, have issued notes bearing the image of Mahatma Gandhi, the leader of its freedom struggle. The notes are identical to Indian banknotes, but carry the slogan "Eliminate corruption at all levels" and the pledge "I promise to neither accept not give bribe". The group claims the notes have been very successful in challenging train ticket inspectors, police officers and civil servants demanding "backsheesh" for performing their public duties. (Telegraph UK)
Canadian agents tackle corruption
CanWest
KABUL - Canada has opened a new front in the war in Afghanistan. Two uniformed Canadian customs officers have been in Kabul since the beginning of the year to mentor Afghan customs officers on revenue collection and drug enforcement and, crucially, to not take bribes. More Canadian agents are likely to be coming in the near future. (CanWest)
Tim McGrath
OTTAWA - The senior bureaucrat in charge of Ottawa's massive real-estate portfolio left his job after allegations that he engaged in favouritism and was in a conflict of interest with one of his suppliers, sources say. Public Works and Government Services Canada has confirmed that it called in the RCMP and hired the auditing firm KPMG to review contracts at the centre of the complaint. Government and private-sector sources said the concerns surround the relationship between Tim McGrath, the former assistant deputy minister of real property at Public Works, and Brian Card, the president of an Ottawa-based firm called the Corporate Research Group (CRG). (Globe & Mail)
OTTAWA - This story reads like Don Quixote tilting at windmills, only instead of windmills Mike Kennedy has been taking a run at government bureaucrats and public-health officials. But you know what? Someone finally listened to Mike Kennedy. Martin W. Mason is one of the most respected lawyers in Ottawa. In the pursuit of some societal goal, even one most Canadians feel is laudable, can the state go too far? (QMI)
TORONTO - Two Canadian class action lawsuits have been commenced against Toyota in the wake of the ongoing recall involving problematic gas pedals in some 270,000 Canadian vehicles. Toyota recalled 4.2M vehicles in North America, Europe and China on Jan. 21, citing a problem with gas pedals that were found to stick in some situations. (CTV)
PREVIOUS: 2010 Toyota vehicle recalls
OTTAWA - The Harper government has decided to tweak rather than overhaul Canada's young offender laws, which the prime minister once dismissed as an "unmitigated failure." Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said Thursday that his department is drafting a bill that proposes to fine tune the 2003 Youth Criminal Justice Act, which he asserted is working well. The act promotes rehabilitation for young people aged 12 to 17 who are in trouble with the law, while reserving incarceration for serious violent crimes. (CanWest)
PREVIOUS: YCJA debate rekindled YCJA Time to give killer a face
POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS
POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS
Jessica Lloyd Marie Comeau Russell Williams
BELLEVILLE - A Canadian military commander has been charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of two eastern Ontario women. Russell Williams, 46, of Tweed, 8 Wing Commander of Canadian Forces Base Trenton, was arrested Sunday in Ottawa. He has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of 27-year-old Jessica Lloyd, whose body was found Monday off Cary Road in the Municipality of Tweed. Lloyd had been missing since Jan. 28. Williams has also been charged in the death of Marie Francis Comeau, of Brighton who was slain on Nov. 25, 2009. (CBC)
MORE: Body found, arrest made Body found Base commander's home cordoned off Commander faces 2 homicide charges Commander charged
CTV
TORONTO - Detectives are probing the city’s latest murder after a man was fatally shot on Jane Street. A 30-year-old man was found just after 11pm Sunday with two gunshot wounds on the side porch of a house. The victim, who's been identified as Glenn Lowe, was pronounced dead at the scene. (CityNews)
MORE: Shooting
CALGARY - Police and EMS were called to a home on Edgehill Drive NW late Sunday afternoon. They found a 41 year old woman in medical distress inside the home. She was rushed to hospital but died a short time after arriving. The homicide unit has taken over the investigation. No charges have been laid but a male from the same residence is in police custody, and being questioned about the death. (CTV)
CTV
KINGSTON - Police confirm the death of a man whose body was discovered in a gully in Kingston is now considered a homicide. The victim has been identified as Allan Mott. His body was found in a wooded area on Station Road near Highway 401 in Kingston on Feb. 1. (CTV)
CBC
HALIFAX - The man who died in North Preston on Sunday was murdered, RCMP said this morning. The victim was Casey Marleen Downey, 20, of North Preston. The man was not a resident of 1166 Downey Rd, where the body was found. There were other people in the house when officers arrived, but no one else was injured. (Chronicle Herald)
MORE: RCMP ID man
CBC
MIDDLE SACKVILLE, NS - A 17-year-old boy charged with second-degree murder remains in the mental-health ward of a Halifax children's hospital. The teenager is accused of killing Joy Ann Wright, 49, last Friday in Middle Sackville. (CBC)
PREVIOUS: Naked teen charged with murder
Vancouver Sun
VANCOUVER - RCMP in Richmond have arrested a woman after finding a baby's body in a landfill south of Vancouver. Police allege the 20-year-old woman gave birth to the baby boy on Jan. 21 at her boyfriend's home in Richmond. At some point following the birth, police believe she wrapped the baby in a towel, placed him in a garbage bag, and dropped the bag into a nearby school dumpster. Acting on a tip, about 35 officers spent three days searching through the Burns Bog landfill before recovering the body. (CBC)
MORE: Mom could face charges
RED DEER - 22-year-old Chad Olsen of Sedalia, AB has been charged in connection with the deaths of two people after a collision in Red Deer early Sunday morning. Police say that alcohol was a factor in the crash that happened in south Red Deer at around 2am near the intersection of Ironstone DR and 30th Ave. Police say the two victims, a 35-year-old female driver and 34-year-old male passenger from Red Deer, were related and were also both wearing their seatbelts at the time of the collision. (CTV)
MORE: Driver charged
Not guilty by reason of insanity
Martin Rondeau
MONTREAL - A man who killed an 80-year-old nun in 2007 has been found not guilty of the murder by reason of insanity. Martin Rondeau, 33, killed Estelle Lauzon, a member of the Catholic order of the Sisters of Providence, in August 2007 while he was being looked after by nuns at the Maison de la Providence convent on De Maisonneuve Blvd. The order looks after recovering drug addicts and the mentally ill. (Montreal Gazette)
MORE: Unfit to stand trial Not criminally responsible
PREVIOUS: Suspect knew murder victim
Nanaimo Daily News
NANAIMO - Investigators hope to determine on Monday the cause of a weekend fire that destroyed a Long Lake cabin. No one was home when the blaze broke out shortly after 3am on Saturday. The small cabin overlooks Long Lake from a trail at the end of Apsley Avenue. It is the sixth house fire within three weeks that have left more than a dozen people homeless. (Nanaimo Daily News)
CBC
SASKATOON - A 55-year-old man is Saskatoon's second homicide victim of 2010. Dennis Weiman lived in a home on Maxwell Crescent on the city's west side. Police were called there Friday night by his brother. "I found him sitting in his sofa and he was shot," Werner Weiman said Saturday. "It looked like shot in the head. I called the police and they come over there." (CBC)
MORE: Man discovers brother dead
Mother sought psychiatric help for teen
Victoria Times Colonist
VICTORIA - A 17-year-old charged with murdering his father was suffering from paranoid thoughts in the days leading up to the stabbing, says his mother. The Grade 11 student at Spectrum Community School is charged with second-degree murder after his 53-year-old father died of a single stab wound to the chest Thursday night. The family sought emergency psychiatric help just hours before the stabbing occurred. (Victoria Times Colonist)
MONTREAL - A 30-year-old woman could be charged with assault with a weapon after a man broke into her apartment on Friday night. The man, 31, who was arrested in January on conjugal violence charges, broke into the apartment about 9:30pm Friday. Montreal police Constable Anie Lemieux said the man was not permitted to go near the woman as a condition of his release after being arrested in January. Lemieux said an altercation ensued and the woman stabbed the man at least once in the upper body. There were two children in the apartment at the time of the altercation. (Montreal Gazette)
WINNIPEG - Last week, the Freep ran a print story and web story on an illuminating police report prepared for a sentencing hearing for Thon Guot and Mayen Madit, two African Mafia members. The report garnered a lot of attention, even thought the Organized Crime Unit detective who carefully prepared it wasn't chatting with media. The Winnipeg Police Service usually does not name gangs, presumably to avoid enhancing each gang's street status. (Winnipeg Free Press)
OTTAWA - An Ottawa police officer was on probation for harassing a woman when he was charged Saturday in a similar case involving another woman. It is alleged Const. Allen Percival began persistently calling, stalking and confronting a woman after she had broken up with him. The woman called police, who said they acted immediately. (QMI)
Children's sports liability waivers void
VANCOUVER - The BC Supreme Court decision that removed a parent's ability to sign away their child's right to sue if he or she is injured in a sports class will stand, after an appeal was dropped this week. (CTV)
WINNIPEG - A tainted version of the illegal drug cocaine has hit Winnipeg streets, making it even more dangerous to users, say health officials. Two people in Winnipeg have been hospitalized after using cocaine laced with a drug known as Levamisole. It is used by veterinarians to treat animals with parasites. (CTV)
These people are running a school system
Toronto District School Board trustee Josh Matlow is refusing to apologize for his scathing and public criticism of a board decision to spend $345,000 for a one-day conference at the Air Canada Centre. The cash-strapped school board approved $1.7M for education director Chris Spence's vision that includes a one-day teachers' conference for $345,000 - $195,000 of that for delegates' commemorative booklets. It's the first time the board has challenged anyone under Bill 177 – which deals with conduct of school board members – and chair Bruce Davis acknowledged he has to figure out how to enforce it. I don't want to make more out of it than required," said Davis, adding he wasn't keen on taking it to court and spending money on lawyers. (Toronto Star)
QMI
MONTREAL - A five-alarm blaze gutted the 117-year-old église du Centre-Ville on René Lévesque Blvd. near Atwater Ave. Friday night. The blaze broke out at 5am at the former Franciscan church, which had been condemned. Firefighters were unable to determine the cause of the fire, and transferred the investigation to Montreal police. Squatters were known to stay in the abandoned church. (CTV)
MORE: Fire destroys church History up in smoke
RELATED: CTV Ottawa newsroom destroyed by fire
Duane John Lacquette
BRANDON - Brandon police have arrested a suspect from Canadian Forces Base Shilo in connection with the death of Duane John Lacquette, 21. Jason John Ouimet, 28, has been charged with second-degree murder, said police. Lacquette died from blunt-force trauma injuries to his upper body and was found in the basement of his residence in the 3600 block of Centennial Boulevard on Jan. 16, (CTV)
WINNIPEG - A police task force says it has found similarities in some cases of missing and murdered women in Manitoba. The task force has been working for about four months and is analyzing 84 files, one dating as far back as 1926. The more recent cases, however, are responsible for public groups calling on government and police to form a task force, which began operating in October. While they have found some commonalities, officers aren't saying how many of those cases appear to share similarities. (CTV)
REGINA - A 23-year-old man from Halbrite appeared in Carnduff Provincial Court on Thursday after a fatal collision north of Estevan that killed another man on Sunday. Randy Mack was charged with impaired driving causing death after officers who attended the scene assessed him. He was taken to hospital after the collision that occurred at the junction of Highways 47 and 361 at about 5:50pm Sunday. The other man involved in the collision, 26-year-old Michael Allan Pachalko, was pronounced dead at the scene. (Regina Leader-Post)
VANCOUVER - Seven children have been taken into custody and a 36-year-old Surrey man has been charged after RCMP were tipped to an international child-pornography ring. Six of the children are from British Columbia; the seventh is from Ontario. The children range in age from five to 11, police said. (Vancouver Province)
TORONTO - In a bizarre fraud scheme that could have been lifted from a movie, Toronto police allege a Scarborough gang bilked insurance companies out of hundreds of thousands of dollars by staging car crashes. The gang would recruit people and encourage them to register cars in their names. They would then slam the cars into each other and have the operatives make insurance claims for property damage and personal injury, police said. During a three month-period in 2007, investigators estimate the scheme netted $300,000 in fraudulent insurance claims. (Toronto Star)
Mikhail Khavkine
MISSISSAUGA - Police have issued a warrant for a Mississauga, Ont., man after a major fire tore through a Conservative MP's constituency office on Wednesday. Peel Regional Police obtained an arrest warrant for Mikhail Khavkine, 42, on Friday. Khavkine is wanted in connection with the fire that started on the third floor of a building at 1270 Central Parkway W. at about 4:30pm Wednesday. (CBC)
RELATED: Blenheim fire arson Regina house fire arson Granby fires arson Mission house fire arson
Windsor Star
LEAMINGTON - Police have identified a man who died in hospital after being found in his driveway suffering from serious injuries, and a woman found dead in their southwestern Ontario home on Wednesday. The husband and wife were identified as Lorena Sousa, 36, and Miguel Sousa, 39, both of Leamington, Ont. Police say they have no suspects and are not commenting further on the case. (QMI)
MORE: Regular people
AG questions politicians' staff payroll system
HALIFAX - The auditor general’s critical view of Nova Scotia MLAs’ payments to staff could attract the watchful eyes of the Canada Revenue Agency. In a report released Wednesday, provincial auditor general Jacques Lapointe said the politicians’ staff payroll system has unclear lines of responsibility and it isn’t always clear if a person is considered an employee or a contracted worker. Another factor is that payments can be issued through the Office of the Speaker or by constituency expenditure allotment. (Chronicle Herald)
REPORT: Feb 2010 report .pdf
MORE: Inappropriate MLA spending MLAs respond
REGINA - The board of governors of the embattled First Nations University of Canada (FNUC) has been dissolved, following a vote by chiefs of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, which controls the institution. In addition, the chiefs approved putting senior administrators of First Nations University on what was described as administrative leave from their duties. (CBC)
MORE: Board dissolved senior management on leave
PREVIOUS: Spending scandal
VANCOUVER - An off-duty West Vancouver police officer who beat up a newspaper delivery man in downtown Vancouver should not be fired from his job, an internal Police Act disciplinary report recommended. The report by Abbotsford police chief Bob Rich recommended that Const. Griffin Gillan's rank should be reduced to probationary constable, that he should be suspended without pay for five scheduled working days (120 hours) and that he must take alcohol counselling. (Vancouver Province)
MONTREAL - It wasn’t the blue wall of silence that kept investigators from questioning Jean-Loup Lapointe after the shooting death of Fredy Villanueva. It was Constable Lapointe himself, who, having lawyered up three days after the incident on Aug. 9, 2008, invoked his right to silence. In his mind, he was no longer a police officer implicated in a shooting on the job, but the prime suspect in a potential murder investigation. (Montreal Gazette)
PREVIOUS: Affaire Fredy Villanueva
Garry Prokopishin
CALGARY - Police accuse a Calgary man once named “Foster Parent of the Year” with numerous sex-related offences spanning several years. Garry Prokopishin, a director for the Calgary & District Foster Parents Association, is charged with luring a child via a data device, three counts of obtaining or attempting to obtain sex from a person under age 18 and sexual contact with a youth by a person in authority. (QMI)
MORE: Province vows sweeping review
Teen charged in sexual assault
GITSEGUKLA - A nine-year-old girl has been hospitalized after being sexually assaulted by another child in a home in BC's Interior. Police say they were called to a home in Gitsegukla at about 7:30pm Wednesday after receiving a complaint that a child had been injured during a sexual assault earlier in the day. A 14-year-old boy was arrested and charged with aggravated sexual assault. The two children were known to each other, police say. (Vancouver Province)
Dexter Strawberry
EDMONTON - Police are searching for a 54-year-old man in connection with the sexual assault of a child northwest of Rocky Mountain House. Early Thursday, RCMP officers were called to a home on the Sunchild First Nations Reserve and were told a young child who lived at the home had allegedly been sexually assaulted by a family friend living at the house. The child, who is under the age of six, was taken to a Calgary hospital to be assessed. RCMP are searching for Dexter Strawberry, 54. (Edmonton Journal)
TORONTO - A report released by Toronto’s Auditor General, Jeff Griffiths, suggests the city is losing approximately $105M a year in unpaid parking tickets, according to 2008 tallies. Last year, the city wrote off a total of $18M in parking fines. The city failed to collect $5M in fines in 2008 because people drove away before the ticket was handed over. Out-of-province drivers failing to pay their tickets also resulted in more than $4M in losses in 2008. (CityNews)
MORE: Auditor's review
Municipal taxes, suburban anger
MONTREAL - This week saw the final few of the 82 municipalities in the Montreal region pass their budgets for 2010. The 15 suburbs on the island of Montreal - most of them in the West Island - were among the last of the 82 to table budgets. They had to wait until the city of Montreal got around to producing its budget on Jan. 13, because that budget assigned the suburbs their shares of the bill for island-wide services like policing and transit. The increase in those shares turned out to range between 10-13%; those hikes that provoked anger and raised questions about tax equity in the Montreal region. (Montreal Gazette)
MORE: Parking tax here to stay
CALGARY - The province of Alberta could soon be offering gang members and their associates protection to testify in court after a new provincewide witness protection program was announced Thursday in the speech from the throne. (Calgary Herald)
Protesters amass ahead of Olympics
VANCOUVER - While past Olympics have been magnets for protest over issues such as aboriginal rights in Australia and oppression in Tibet, the Vancouver Winter Games are preparing to host one of the biggest displays ever of organized opposition to the Olympics themselves. Building on years of disgruntlement over the increasingly corporate nature of the Games - and widespread alarm over a projected $5.6B price tag - a resistance network has vowed to post thousands of protesters outside venues, some of whom aim to disrupt the events. (LA Times)
MORE: Olympic resistance network
Flotveline Jean-Louis & Casy Pierre Mesidor
MONTREAL - A LaSalle couple who admitted to the beating death of the woman's nine-month old son will each spend less than five years in prison after pleading guilty to reduced charges. Flotveline Jean-Louis, 21, will spend four and a half years behind bars after time already served is factored in. Her partner, Casy Pierre Mesidor, 28, will spent two and a half years in prison. The pair will be deported to their native Haiti once they're released from prison. They admitted to involuntary homicide in the February 2008 death of the boy, who had been severely beaten. (CTV)
PREVIOUS: Suspects arrested Warrants issued
ST. STEPHEN - Sarah Russell, a 20-year-old New Brunswick woman was sentenced to 30 months in prison for criminal negligence causing death in the slaying of her newborn boy, a graphic case that was an example of "wanton and reckless disregard," a judge said Tuesday. The boy was stabbed three times, wrapped in a towel and a blanket, doused with gasoline and set on fire in a wooded area behind their home in Moores Mills in southern New Brunswick on Jan. 17, 2009. Russell's boyfriend, Rodney Miller, pleaded guilty in September to first-degree murder for fatally stabbing the child. (CTV)
PREVIOUS: Plea to criminal negligence Guilty plea
EDSON - RCMP homicide detectives are investigating the shooting death of a 52-year-old man in a home in Edson. Police were called around 1:15am Wednesday to a home where several people were gathered. Investigators believe a confrontation broke out between two people, during which one man was shot with a long-barrelled gun. RCMP arrested a suspect and removed several guns from the home. (Edmonton Journal)
MORE: Shooting
CityNews
TORONTO - Police have identified the woman stabbed to death at a downtown townhouse complex Wednesday. Larisa Belekova, 51, was attacked in the basement office of the rooming house she operated on Homewood Ave just after 10:30am. Police arrested 46-year-old Roble Nour Adam at the scene and he’s been charged with second-degree murder. (CityNews)
MORE: Victim identified
ST. THOMAS - A woman described by her family as a "total angel" with a heart of gold was killed by a gunshot wound, an autopsy has determined. And the slaying was "domestic related," London police said Wednesday. Police did not provide further details about the relationship between Marie Roberts, 29, and the man accused of killing her, David Hatch, 30, of Calgary Alta. Police said earlier the two knew each other. (QMI)
Bernard Hart
THOMPSON - A Stony Mountain inmate has been charged with second-degree murder in connection with the death of 37-year old Bernard Hart. Former Leaf Rapids resident Skylar Spence is the third person now facing charges. An arrest was made in December and a 13-year old boy from Thompson was charged with second-degree murder. Police made a second arrest on January 19 at the Brandon Correctional Centre. Raymond McDonald of Nelson House First Nation has also been charged with second-degree murder. (CTV)
PREVIOUS: 2nd degree charge 13 year-old charged
Lindsay Buziak
VICTORIA - The family of slain real estate agent Lindsay Buziak is posting a $100,000 reward for information leading to an arrest of a suspect in the two-year-old case. Buziak, 24, was stabbed to death on Feb. 2, 2008, in a home in Gordon Head she was showing to prospective clients, but Saanich police have yet to find her killer. (Victoria Times Colonist)
MORE: Mystery callers could be killers
PREVIOUS: No leads Realtor's death investigated Real estate agent found dead
Lorne Wayne Carlson
VANCOUVER - It didn't take long for police to catch up with serial jailbreaker L. Wayne Carlson after his latest escape. A Chilliwack RCMP officer on routine patrol spotted a vehicle matching the description linked with Carlson and pulled him over. Carlson was arrested for the Canada-wide warrant without incident. (Vancouver Province)
MORE: Parolee on the lam escaped from jail 13 times
Police fail to investigate complaint
CALGARY - Police admit they failed to investigate a criminal complaint against a Calgary gynecologist. An hour after Kelly Dunlop's first appointment with Dr. Lawrence Demco she filed a complaint with police. Dunlop also complained to the College of Physicians and Surgeons, along with a number of other patients. Last month, the college forced Dr. Demco to close his practice due to improper care. (CTV)
WINNIPEG - A Vancouver man arrested in one of Manitoba's largest ever drug busts was sentenced Tuesday to 81/2 years in prison. Phil Cheung, 44, pleaded guilty to one count of possession of ecstasy for the purposes of trafficking. The Crown stayed an identical charge against his wife Gertrude Cheung. (QMI)
EDMONTON - The province has lost its attempt to block Alberta teachers from getting a 5.99% raise. (CTV)
Curtis, Connor, Allyson & Jayden McConnell
MILLET - Curtis McConnell and Allyson Meager did what many young couples do after they fall in love: they moved in together, got married, bought a home, started a family. And somewhere in the last few months, it all began to fall apart. On Monday, a neighbour who lives near the couple's home in Millet said a frantic Curtis McConnell showed up at her door around 3pm. The woman said she followed him back to the home, where she saw the lifeless bodies of two little boys, Jayden and Connor, lying "cold and stiff " on the bathroom floor. The neighbour said police later told her the boys' mother had tried to kill herself by jumping off an Edmonton bridge on Monday afternoon. (Edmonton Journal)
MORE: Bitter divorce Autopsies confirm boys were slain
PREVIOUS: Double fatality Death in a small town
Accused
KINGSTON - Tooba Mohammad Yahya, 40, filled the courtroom with her cries for minutes at a time as lawyers reviewed evidence in the killings of her daughters Zainab, 19, Sahari, 17, and Geeti, 13, and of Rona Amir Mohammad, 50, the first wife of Yahya's husband. The four were found dead June 30 in a Nissan Sentra submerged near the Kingston Mills Locks of the Rideau Canal. Yahya, along with her husband, Mohammad Shafia, 56, and their son, Hamed Mohammad Shafia, 19, is accused of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. A publication ban prevents the media from reporting on the evidence presented at the preliminary hearing. (Montreal Gazette)
MORE: Crown begins to reveal evidence
CAYUGA - A Crown attorney has withdrawn charges against OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino, who was alleged to have illegally influenced elected officials in Caledonia, the site of a long-running aboriginal occupation. In a Cayuga, Ont., courtroom Wednesday morning, Milan Rupic said there were no reasonable grounds for conviction. He also said his office had the authority to take over the case, which hinged on private charges. Justice of the Peace Dan MacDonald agreed, adding that pursuing the case would not be in the best interest of the public. (CBC)
PREVIOUS: Chief facing prosecution Fantino vows pushback Top cop must face allegations Investigative Headlines
After 30 years US nabs criminal
NEW YORK - A 74-year-old Hamilton woman is in New York State Police custody on a 30-year-old drug warrant. Homenella Cole went to the Queenston-Lewiston border crossing on Monday to apply for a criminal waiver to cross into the US, said Kevin Corsaro, chief customs and board protection officer, Buffalo division. Cole needed the waiver to enter because she has a criminal record in Canada. But as part of a routine criminal background check, Corsaro said, an April 1, 1980, warrant for the woman's arrest was discovered. The charge was possession of marijuana with intent to distribute. (Hamilton Spectator)
Beaten 'just for being homeless'
KELOWNA - Police and shelter volunteers in Kelowna are shocked and saddened that a homeless man was repeatedly kicked and badly beaten by four young men simply because he was homeless. The 41-year-old Kelowna man remains in hospital after the unprovoked attack outside Orchard Plaza Shopping Centre on Sunday. (Vancouver Province)
MORE: Bystanders ignored pleas
VANCOUVER - Street level/entry-level youth gangs. Organized (mid-level) gangs. Organized (high-level/organized-crime) gangs. (Vancouver Province)
REPORT: Taking back Vancouver streets .pdf
VANCOUVER - A Vancouver police investigation has resulted in 125 charges (.pdf) against 14 gang members including notorious gang boss Manny Buttar. Insp. Brad Desmarais said the arrests include some of the most dangerous gangsters operating in the city of Vancouver including Buttar and his right-hand man Bobby Gill. (Vancouver Sun)
Victims named as Bacon associates
VANCOUVER - Abbotsford’s latest homicide victim, Tyler Dziwak, was identified in court documents this week as a drug trafficker who was an associate of convicted killer Dennis Karbovanec back in 2005. And another victim of a targeted hit, Alfred Walcott, was also named in the document as being a drug trade associate of Karbovanec, Dziwak and Jamie Bacon. The document was filed by federal Crown prosecutor Paul Riley in support of his appeal of a Provincial Court ruling in June 2008 tossing out 15 gun and drug charges against Jon Bacon, Rayleene Burton and Godwin Cheng. (Vancouver Sun)
PREVIOUS: Gangs
Janeil Berreault
FORT NELSON - Late Saturday afternoon Fort Nelson RCMP received a call about a woman in distress in a home on the reserve. Officers arrived and provided medical help, but fire and BC Ambulance personnel attended and confirmed that the woman, 22-year-old Jeaniel Berreault, was dead. The woman's common-law husband, who had called police, was also in the home. He has since been charged with second-degree murder. Michael "Emerson" Capot-Blanc has been remanded in custody until his next court appearance in March. (Vancouver Province)
PREVIOUS: Suspicious death
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Monday, February 08, 2010 13:20:30