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AP
YANGON - The World Food Programme says it will resume aid flights to Burma (Myanmar) on Saturday, despite a row over the local authorities impounding deliveries. The government said it had taken control of the aid to distribute it. (BBC)
MORE: UN suspends aid shipments Burma shuns foreign aid workers WFP donors
PREVIOUS: Chaos in Burma Deaths may top 100,000 Prisoners 'executed' Cyclone Nargis NASA 2007 anti-government protests
AFP
BEIRUT - Hezbollah fighters seized control of rival pro-Government strongholds in Beirut today as gunbattles rocked the Lebanese capital for a third day, edging the nation dangerously close to all-out civil war. Gunfire and the thump of exploding rocket-propelled grenades echoed across west Beirut, where the fighting was concentrated between Sunni militants loyal to the Western-backed Government and gunmen from the Shia opposition. (Times online)
MORE: Hezbollah's hostile takeover Shitte gunmen seize key parts of Beirut
PREVIOUS: 2007 Lebanon conflict 1975-1990 civil war
Armed gangs spreading violence
THE PAS/HOBBEMA - In the past five years, aboriginal gangs (ABOC), as they are classified by the Criminal Intelligence Service Canada, have surpassed outlaw motorcycle gangs and Italian organized crime syndicates as the largest single group held in federal prisons, with 536 members serving federal sentences. 90% of them are doing time on the Prairies, dominated by three established gangs: the Indian Posse, the Native Syndicate and the Warriors. (Globe & Mail)
PRISON GANG PROFILE: Alberta Warriors Indian Posse Manitoba Warriors Native Syndicate Redd Alert
PREVIOUS: Aboriginal gangs in 'crisis proportions' Gangs
LONDON - Police are hunting for a gang of girls who were seen pouring a mysterious purple liquid through the letterbox of a house at the centre of a deadly blast in North West London. The incident happened about 10 hours before the property in Stanley Road, South Harrow, was levelled in a blast, which also destroyed two other houses and killed a man living next door. The man has been named locally as Emad Qureshi, 26.
(Times online)
MORE: Girl gang 'blew up Harrow house for revenge'
Violence as an infectious disease
It's always been a fantasy in utopian, and dystopian, science fiction: Human beings will somehow find a cure, a magical vaccine, to eradicate gang violence. The theory is that a shooting, or whatever else might trigger murderous rage in the gang world, leads to a virulent outbreak of anger. This leads to an impulsive and often temporary desire by individuals to retaliate, both for revenge and face-saving machismo. If those people can be isolated - much like a person infected with a deadly virus - and treated (that is, reasoned out of their violent response), the transmission of violence can be stopped. (Vancouver Sun)
PREVIOUS: CeaseFire Crime in Chicago
Williams lashes inquiry for 'inquisitorial methods'
St. JOHN’S - Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams had sharp words Thursday for how the breast cancer inquiry that his government struck a year ago is performing. "I think a lot of people are concerned by the inquiry- not so much the format of the inquiry, but the style of the inquiry," Williams said Thursday evening after a high-level meeting with medical officials aimed at solving a crisis in staffing levels among pathologists and other professionals. (CBC)
PREVIOUS: Cameron inquiry Review of pathology results College defends 'problematic' testing 700 cases reviewed The Entitled
Law allows disclosure of health info
Ontario Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian, and BC counterpart David Loukidelis, say privacy laws do not prevent contacting a family if there are real concerns someone might seriously hurt themselves. Cavoukian adds that if someone uses common sense and good faith to disclose information, her office will not "come down on them,'' adding "privacy is important, but preserving life is more important.'' (CP)
Hate allegation made against Herald cartoon
HALIFAX - Police are investigating an allegation that an editorial cartoon in The Chronicle Herald promoted hatred. The cartoon by award-winning Herald staff cartoonist Bruce MacKinnon appeared on April 18 and depicted Cheryfa MacAulay Jamal, a former Nova Scotia woman now living in Ontario. She had told the Herald that she would seek millions of dollars in compensation from the federal government after terrorism-related charges against her husband, Qayyum Abdul Jamal, were stayed. (Halifax Chronicle Herald)
MORE: Another Islamic group files a hate speech complaint Battle of Khartoon comes to Halifax
PREVIOUS: Big Brother
Oda admits she failed to report fees
OTTAWA - Conservative cabinet minister Bev Oda acknowledged to the House of Commons yesterday that she failed to publicly report thousands of dollars in limo bills. After being outed this week by an access-to-information request by the NDP, Oda told the Commons that "administrative errors" were responsible for the oversight. (Toronto Star)
PREVIOUS: Oda accused of 'conflict' over broadcast executives fundraiser
Julie Couillard & Maxime Bernier
OTTAWA - Prime Minister Stephen Harper is brushing off security concerns over the relationship between a top cabinet minister and an ex-girlfriend with past ties to the Hells Angels. (CP)
COMMENT: Not much at all
PREVIOUS: Bernier to Opposition: mind your own business Minister's onetime partner was target
'Dramatic escalation of attacks'
HARARE - President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa arrived in Zimbabwe on Friday for talks with the country's longtime leader, Robert Mugabe, as fresh evidence emerged that forces sponsored by Mugabe's government are accelerating their attacks on the political opposition. (IHT)
PREVIOUS: Zimbabwean election 2008
President agrees to vote of confidence
BOLIVIA - President Evo Morales said Thursday he supports a congressional decision to hold a referendum on whether he and his administration should remain in power amid a move for autonomy that he opposes.
(CNN)
PREVIOUS: Vote for autonomy Morales rejects autonomy vote Revolt against the peasant president
AIG reports a $7.8B loss in quarter
NEW YORK - The fortunes of the world's biggest insurance company, American International Group, rise and fall on precise calculations of risk. Last quarter, those calculations went seriously awry. In the worst three months of the company's 89-year history, AIG lost $7.81 billion, primarily from bad investments in complex financial instruments. (IHT)
COMMENT: Why piggy banks are in vogue
PREVIOUS: Credit default swap Arcane market is next to face big credit test UK repossession claims rise by 16% US repossession rate doubles Subprime mortgage crisis
BBC sorry for keeping charity cash
LONDON - The BBC today apologised for keeping £106,000 made from premium-rate phone calls on about two dozen shows that should have been given to charity. The issue involved the BBC Worldwide subsidiary Audiocall, which provides premium-rate phone lines to many BBC shows. (Guardian UK)
'No sign' Canada is keeping track of illegal migrants
OTTAWA - Canada's border agency's failure to track down 41,000 illegal migrants may be only the tip of the iceberg as an unknown number of people simply overstay in the country after their visas expire, a security expert warns. With the federal government's rapid expansion of the temporary foreign worker program, many of these overseas workers may just want to stay here - legally or not - after their work permits end and simply go underground, said Martin Collacott of the Fraser Institute. (Toronto Star)
REPORT: May 2008 - Immigration and Security .pdf
COMMENT: Plenty of room for more tax cuts
PREVIOUS: 2008 May report of the AG of Canada 41,000 rejects lost in our midst AG's report lacks lightning bolts of history Sponsorship Scandal
OTTAWA - The RCMP is investigating seven suspected terrorist plots so disturbing they "keep me awake at night," the senior Mountie for national security disclosed yesterday. The seven cases are among an unprecedented 848 national security cases, most related to terrorism, currently under investigation, Assistant Commissioner McDonell told an Ottawa conference on critical infrastructure protection. (Ottawa Citizen)
PREVIOUS: CSIS keeping tabs on protesters Protests 'to get more violent' Extremist activity associated with 2010 A changed perspective
Putin passes power, or does he?
Vladimir Putin & Dmitry Medvedev
MOSCOW - Dmitri Medvedev, the Kremlin insider and unprepossessing lawyer who had never held elected office before, was sworn in as the Russian president Wednesday inside the Grand Kremlin Palace. The ceremony, mixing czarist splendor with renewed Russian confidence, marked the passing of formal power from President Vladimir Putin to his young and untested protégé. But the events also served as a tribute to the enduring stature and popularity of Putin, who Medvedev nominated as prime minister within hours of taking office. (IHT)
PREVIOUS: Russia and the return of the FSB
Federal Security Service (FSB)
Wayne Nelson Corliss
PARIS - Police detained a suspected pedophile in New Jersey Thursday, just two days after Interpol made a rare appeal for public help in the international manhunt to catch him, the police agency said. Wayne Nelson Corliss, 58, was detained in Union City, N.J., Interpol said. He is suspected of sexually abusing at least three boys from Southeast Asia thought to have been as young as 6 to 10 years old, the international police agency said. (AP)
PREVIOUS: Worldwide search Images of 'paedophile' released Interpol Wanted
Taxes are fueling Organized Crime
NEW YORK - While the problem first surfaced during the Great Depression, tax hikes in the early 1960s created a major profit opportunity for smugglers and kicked the epidemic into high gear. By 1967, a quarter of the cigarettes consumed in the Empire State were bootlegged. New York City's finance administrator labeled cigarette smuggling the "principal stoking facility of the engine of organized crime." (Wall Street Journal)
MORE: RCMP sounds alarm over illegal smokes
FBI withdraws national security letter
SAN FRANCISCO - A non-profit digital library has successfully fought an FBI attempt to seize information about one of its users, and is calling on other groups to challenge government agencies attempting to obtain online customer information without a judge's order. The FBI presented the San Francisco-based Internet Archive with a national security letter in November asking for a library patron's records. The group sued the agency a month later, alleging the letter violated free speech rights because they prohibit recipients from talking to anyone else about them. (AP)
Is the fix in on new copyright laws?
OTTAWA - Representatives of the US government and the entertainment industry met on Wednesday night with a group of MPs studying intellectual property to talk about cracking down on copyright infringements. Caucus members are also planning a trip to Washington before the new law is introduced to meet with the congressional leaders and other groups working on copyright and piracy issues. Industry Minister Jim Prentice was set to table the legislation last December, but pulled it at the last minute amid concerns the Canadian legislation too closely resembled the US law. (CanWest)
PREVIOUS: Geist: Copyright Canada Copyrights and regulated markets
Vallejo, looking to bankruptcy
VALLEJO, Calif. - In the wake of the city of Vallejo's decision to declare bankruptcy, city officials Wednesday assured citizens that municipal services will continue uninterrupted and that a move to bankruptcy court will begin immediately. The City Council late Tuesday night unanimously agreed to seek bankruptcy protection, after two months of intensive mediation sessions with employee unions failed to produce a long-term fiscal plan. (Times-Herald)
MORE: Vallejo, residents foresee cuts as bankruptcy looms
DND's cloak of secrecy covers would-be suppliers
OTTAWA - The Defence Department has increased the secrecy around the way it spends taxpayers' money by bringing in a new rule that prevents companies interested in bidding on equipment projects from talking publicly. That stipulation, however, does not have to do with security aspects of the project and is aimed more at controlling what the media might write, defence industry insiders say. (Ottawa Citizen)
PREVIOUS: AG balks at vetting by PMO Why did fed kill information registry CAIRS Tories kill information registry No respect
'He just thought it was his duty to serve'
Michael Starker
KANDAHAR - Cpl. Michael Starker had already dedicated years of his life to the Canadian military when volunteers were sought to serve in the dangerous Afghan mission. Despite having a wife and a career as a Calgary paramedic, the local medic felt the need to serve one more time. (Calgary Herald)
MORE: Militants kill medic Medic killed in ambush
RELATED: Mission shifting toward development: incoming commander
MANILA - More than 200 million children worldwide under age 5 do not get basic health care, leading to nearly 10 million deaths annually from treatable ailments like diarrhea and pneumonia, a US-based charity said Wednesday. Use of existing, low-cost tools and knowledge could save more than 6 million of the 9.7 million children who die yearly from easily preventable or curable causes, the report said. They include antibiotics that cost less than $0.30 to treat pneumonia, the top killer of children under 5, and oral rehydration therapy (cost about $0.10) for diarrhea, the second top killer. (AP)
REPORT: Annual Report 2007 .pdf
RELATED: State of the World's Mothers 2008 .pdf
Kind of makes you wonder about the righteousness of Canadians screaming for money for their special interests doesn’t it. – Chris
Federal agents raid office of Special Counsel
WASHINGTON - Nearly two dozen federal agents yesterday raided the Washington headquarters of the agency that protects government whistle-blowers, as part of an intensifying criminal investigation of its leader, who is fighting allegations of improper political bias and obstruction of justice. Agents fanned out yesterday morning in the agency's building on M Street, where they sequestered Office of Special Counsel chief Scott Bloch for questioning, served grand-jury subpoenas on 17 employees and shut down access to computer networks in a search lasting more than five hours.
(Washington Post)
MORE: Bloch misused own task force
Colombia extradites militia head
BOGOTÁ - Colombia has extradited of a former paramilitary leader to the US to face drug-trafficking and terrorism charges. The Colombian president's office said Carlos Mario Jimenez, also known as Macaco, was flown to Washington on a US Drug Enforcement Administration plane. (BBC)
MORE: Colombia extradites warlord
Possible 'Smiley Face Gang' link
New details have emerged in the search for missing 19-year-old Middlebury College freshman Nicholas Garza that could link him to the so-called "Smiley Face Gang," which a group of retired detectives believes is responsible for the apparent drowning deaths of dozens of young men across the country. (Fox)
PREVIOUS: FBI: 'No evidence to support' 'Smiley face gang' 'Smiling face' gang Detectives chase murder mystery Murder connects dozens around country
Uma Thurman Jack Jordan
NEW YORK - A lovesick former mental patient was convicted Tuesday of stalking and harassing Uma Thurman for more than two years, showing up on her front doorstep and movie set and sending the actress a series of creepy love letters. Jack Jordan, a 37-year-old out-of-work lifeguard and pool cleaner, faces up to a year in jail. He was convicted of stalking and one count of aggravated harassment, and acquitted of two other harassment counts. (AP)
Johnson bans alcohol on public transport
LONDON - Boris Johnson, the new Mayor of London, made his first policy announcement today - banning the consumption of alcohol on all public transport in the capital from June 1. However, the move immediately drew criticism from transport unions claiming the policy could endanger transport staff. (Guardian UK)
PREVIOUS: Johnson vows to fight crime Johnson pledges to fight crime Labour Party vows to learn lessons after poll defeat
RELATED: CCTV has failed to cut crime Don't count vandalism
Chelsea siege gunman was a barrister
LONDON - A gunman shot dead by police after a five-hour stand-off in an luxury townhouse in Chelsea, West London, was named today as Mark Saunders, a 32-year-old Oxford-educated divorce lawyer. (Times online)
MORE: Gunman 'was divorce barrister'
Canada faces UN probe over greenhouse gases
OSLO - Canada will be probed on suspicion of violating rules for registering greenhouse gases that are the mainstay of a UN-led fight against global warming, official documents show. Ottawa could be suspended from rights to trade carbon dioxide if found to be in breach of the rules by the enforcement branch of the UN's Kyoto Protocol. Greece was suspended last month, the first nation to face such a sanction under Kyoto. (Globe & Mail)
COMMENT: Brits offer a taste of Kyoto
PREVIOUS: Climate Debate
System used to label food is 'awful'
OTTAWA - The former head of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency conceded yesterday that Canada's food labelling system is "awful." "It significantly undermines innovation. It significantly undermines competition," said Ronald Doering, who was instrumental in setting up the food inspection agency a decade ago and served as its first president. Appearing before a House of Commons committee, Mr. Doering provided his frank assessment as parliamentarians wrap up their review of the controversial Product of Canada label. (Ottawa Citizen)
COMMENT: Time to fix our food labelling fiasco
BEIJING - The number of hand-foot-mouth disease (HFMD) cases reported in China this year jumped to 19,962 as of Wednesday, resulting in 28 deaths, according to a Xinhua tally of local official figures. The figure stood at 15,799 on Tuesday. (Xinhua)
PREVIOUS: China issues alert Nationwide fight against fatal virus
UBS banker held in US tax probe
MIAMI - Martin Liechti, a senior banker at UBS, has been detained by US authorities investigating whether the Swiss banking giant helped its American clients to avoid taxes. (Times online)
AP
SANTIAGO - Lava started to spew from an erupting volcano in southern Chile on Tuesday, authorities said, ordering the immediate evacuation of all remaining residents and journalists from a nearby town. Chaiten volcano, in Patagonia around 760 miles south of the capital of Santiago, began erupting on Friday, sending a towering plume of ash into the sky that has since coated the surrounding area and reached as far as Argentina. (Reuters)
PREVIOUS: Chile volcano spews ash Volcanoes in Chile
MOGADISHU - Residents protested for a second day on Tuesday against food traders who are rejecting old currency notes, fuelling tension as residents go hungrier, witnesses said. Hundreds of youths barricaded roads, stoned vehicles and burned tires in parts of the bombed-out Somali capital demanding that traders accept the worn-out Somali notes from residents desperately in need of food and other essentials. (Reuters)
MORE: Somalia riot Food, currency riot
TORONTO - RCMP counterterrorism investigators in Toronto have seized a letter signed by the leader of Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers (LTTE) guerrillas directing Canadian Tamils to send him $3-million, according to police files released yesterday by the Federal Court.
(National Post)
MORE: Tigers using electoral list Text of letter to 'Canadian Office' .pdf Directives to foreign agents .pdf
PREVIOUS: Tamil terror group's manual revealed Tamil Tigers operations manual Rising desperation
Neil Boyd
VANCOUVER - There is a case to be made for establishing safe-injection sites in other cities plagued by drugs, says Neil Boyd, the Simon Fraser criminologist hired by the federal government to study Insite, Vancouver's supervised drug-injection site. Boyd said his research shows the site in the Downtown Eastside has not contributed to drug dealing and other crimes and that there has been a "modest decline" in drug use on the streets. (CanWest)
MORE: Nears its expiry date Safe injection site improves 'public order'
PREVIOUS: Neil Boyd articles Neil Boyd books Mixed review Expert Advisory Committee on supervised injection site research
Livent founders scammed half a billion dollars, Crown alleges
Garth Drabinsky Myron Gottlie
TORONTO - Theatre impresario Garth Drabinsky and his business partner Myron Gottlieb falsified the books and bilked investors and creditors out of half a billion dollars when they were at the helm of theatre producer Livent Inc. and its predecessor companies, a court was told today. (Toronto Star)
PREVIOUS: Livent trial: Showtime Livent's fate tied to Westsun, Crocus How Canada's dawdling cost US an opportunity to deter crime Regulators
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Vancouver Sun
VANCOUVER - A 30-year-old Richmond man is dead and another injured after a double shooting at the Cecil Hotel that police say started with a "Wild West-style" brawl in the strip bar. "A fight broke out between two groups of people and fists, chairs and bottles were flying inside, when a shot was heard - a flash was seen inside the bar," said Vancouver police Const. Tim Fanning. The two shot men were gang associates known to police and to each other. (Vancouver Province)
MORE: Fight leads to slaying
PREVIOUS: Details emerge One dead in downtown shooting One dead after Cecil Hotel shootout
Man familiar to police shot dead
VANCOUVER - A man well known to police has been killed in the Lower Mainland's latest shooting. The 40-year old was found dead in the doorway of a home in Abbotsford late last night. (NEWS1130)
Calgary Herald
CALGARY - Police have identified the man shot and killed in the northwest Calgary Wednesday as 18-year-old Levan James Van Der Ross. Van Der Ross and a 17-year-old who has not been identified were shot Wednesday afternoon while sitting in a red Jeep in the Varsity Area, around the intersection of Vandergrift Crescent and Valiant Drive N.W. (CBC)
MORE: Teen promised to be home for Mother's day
PREVIOUS: Daylight shooting Man gunned down
Body discovered in the Fraser River
VANCOUVER - The RCMP's Integrated Homicide Investigation Team says it will be a while before they are able to identify the body discovered in the Fraser River in Richmond Thursday evening. Corporal Dale Carr says the body had been in the water for weeks.
(News1130)
TORONTO - Murder arrest warrants were issued for two more men wanted for the February shooting death of a Scarborough man in what homicide detectives believe was a drug rip-off. Police are searching for Ron Joseph Williams, 20, and Dwayne Gordon, 24, both of no fixed address and both wanted for first-degree murder, in the death of Jonathan Rodrigues, 21, in his Golfhaven Dr. home. Police had earlier arrested Mohmed Ahmed Nakhuda, 36 on Easter Sunday thanks to a tip. (Sun Media)
MORE: 1 suspect surrenders
PREVIOUS: Man shot dead in east end