Back to newsletter list 27/05/2007 22:58:49 (UTC) Canada | World Briefs | Business News | Sports | Weather Headlines  - Foreign Affairs minister appeals for more international help in Afghanistan. - Military looking to increase stipends for slain soldiers' funerals. - Canadian film closes Cannes Film Festival.
OTTAWA: FOREIGN MINISTER APPEALS FOR MORE INTERNATIONAL HELP IN AFGHANISTAN Canada's foreign affairs minister is appealing to countries such as Russia and China to join NATO's international effort to bring security to Afghanistan. Speaking in a television interview on Sunday, Peter Mackay noted that Canada is one of only seven of the 37 NATO countries are participating in military activity in southern Afghanistan, the most volatile part of the country. Mr. Mackay says that countries can help not only with soldiers, but with equipment and training. Without extra help, Mr. Mackay says that NATO's Afghan mission remains vulnerable to insurrection. Canada has 25-hundred soldiers as part of NATO's force of 37-thousand troops in Afghanistan. Fifty-five Canadian soldiers have died during the mission. OTTAWA: MILITARY LOOKING TO INCREASE STIPENDS FOR SOLDIERS' FUNERALS Canada's military has requested the federal government to increase its stipends for the funerals of soldiers slain in action. The rate of the stipends was set in the 1990s at a maximum of CDN$4,675. Additional expenses are the responsibility of the victims' family. The military decided to make its request after learning of cases of families that had difficulty meeting funeral expenses. A Canadian Forces spokesman said that the military has been paying families for extra funeral expenses for the past nine months. The military will continue to do so until the government replies to its request. The average cost of a funeral in Canada is CDN$7,500, but the cost of a cemetery plot and monument can raise the cost to CDN$12,000. CANNES: CANADIAN FILM CLOSES CANNES FILM FESTIVAL The annual Cannes Film Festival ended on Sunday with the public screening of a Canadian movie shown out of competition. L'Age des Tenebres or Days of Darkness was directed by the Quebec French-language filmmaker, Denys Arcand. Mr. Arcand won the U.S. Academy Award for best foreign film in 2004 for The Barbarian Invasions. His latest film is about a married suburban man with extravagant fantasies. Pre-screenings of the film were generally received mildly by the critics. TORONTO: ENVIRONMENT MINISTERS TO DISCUSS GOVERNMENT'S CLIMATE CHANGE PLAN Environment ministers from Canada's ten provinces will meet with their federal counterpart, John Baird, in Toronto on Monday to discuss his controversial climate change plan. It's their first meeting since the plan was announced. Mr. Baird wants the provinces to harmonize their environmental standards with federal standards. He notes that one province, Alberta, is already two years ahead of the federal plan to regulate industrial greenhouse gas emissions. Mr. Baird angered some environmental groups when he announced that Canada was rejecting the standards of the Kyoto Protocol on reducing harmful emissions because the standards were not realistic. Environmentalists criticized his new plan, saying that its proposed measures would be ineffective. TORONTO: GOVERNMENT MINISTER WANTS CANADA TO SET ENVIRONMENT EXAMPLE John Baird, Canada's environment minister, said on Sunday that Canada must first set an example of good environment practices before it can start criticizing the practice of other countries. Mr. Baird was responding to an accusation made the day before by the leader of the opposition Liberal Party, Stephane Dion. Mr. Dion wondered why Canada's Conservative Party government remained silent after reports that the United States planned to reject a deadline for reducing greenhouse gas emissions proposed by Germany. The plan will be raised at the Group of Eight summit next month. So far, Canada's position on the plan remains unclear. TORONTO: ONTARIO PREMIER PROPOSES NEW AUTHORITY TO HANDLE NATIVE LAND CLAIMS The premier of the Canadian province of Ontairo, Dalton McGuinty, is proposing that the federal government create a new authority to handle the large numbers of outstanding native land claims. Mr. McGuinty said in a television interview on Sunday that the provinces and territories are finding themselves caught up in what he called 'peacekeeping missions' settling land claims disputes between the federal government and First Nations communities. Some of the claims date before Canada became a country in 1867. Mr. McGuinty said that he puts a 'heavy weight' on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to resolve the issue. Mr. McGuinty also urged native leaders to respect the law during a national day of action that they plan on June 29. There are fears that the action might include blockades on roads and railway lines. WINDSOR: AUTO WORKERS STAGE RALLIES Canadian auto workers staged rallies in the central province of Ontario on Sunday. About 38,000 workers converged in Windsor, one of the nation's largest automotive-making communities. A second rally took place in Oshawa, an auto centre near Toronto. The workers were protesting against the loss of jobs in the Canadian manufacturing sector. The president of the Canadian Auto Workers Union, Buzz Hargrove, says there is a crisis in auto manufacturing in Canada that no one seems to recognize. The auto industry has lost 17,000 jobs in assembly and parts in the past two years, with more losses expected to come. TORONTO: GOVERNMENT URGES LESS LOGGING IN ALGONQUIN PARK A report by the Ontario Parks Board is urging less logging in the province's largest government-run park, Algonquin Park. The report also says that the park's protection zones must be increased from 22 per cent to 54 per cent of the entire area if old-growth forests and lakes and streams are to be preserved. The park's protection zones have not been expanded in 40 years. Most people in Ontario are not aware that logging is even permitted in the park, about 260 kilometres northeast of Toronto. It was created in 1893. No other provincial park in Ontario permits logging. Less than two per cent of the park territory has logging operations at any given time. Ontario's natural resources minister is studying the report. MONTREAL: FEDERAL OPPOSITION LEADER ADVISES QUEBEC PREMIER TO COMPROMISE Gilles Duceppe, the leader of the federal Bloc Quebecois party that promotes Quebec separatism, says that Quebec's premier, Jean Charest, needs to make compromises if he hopes to retain a minority government. Mr. Charest faces losing a budget vote this week in the Quebec legislature, where two opposition parties, including the separatist Parti Quebecois, are threatening to vote against the government unless major changes to the budget are made. The Parti Quebecois has been without a leader for the past month, and only one person, Pauline Marois, has offered her candidacy. Losing the budget vote would almost certainly lead to an election. Mr. Charest's Liberal Party was re-elected only in February. CHARLOTTETOWN: ELECTION CAMPAIGNING ENDS IN ISLAND PROVINCE Sunday was the last day of campaigning for the provincial election in Canada's Atlantic province of Prince Edward Island. The governing Conservative Party and the Liberal Party are both predicting victory in the vote on Monday. Premier Pat Binns is seeking a historic fourth term in office. When the election was called, the Conservative Party held 23 seats in the legislature and the Liberal Party held the remaining four.
GAZA The Palestinian militant group, Hamas, vowed on Sunday to continue rocket attacks against Israel, defiantly responding to Israel's threat to continue its incursions into Gaza. Hamas said that it had no choice but to defend its people. The exchange came on the same day that an Israeli man was killed in a rocket attack on the Israeli border town of Sderot. Hamas claimed responsibility. On Saturday, Israeli air-strikes on the Gaza Strip killed five Palestinians and Israel arrested a second Hamas member of the Palestinian cabinet, Wasfi Kabaha. AFGHANISTAN A roadside bomb killed six Afghan police officers in southeastern Afghanistan on Sunday. Another bomb exploded near a convoy of foreign troops in the eastern province of Kunar. Some of the troops were reported wounded. Their nationality was not reported. On Saturday, a British soldier was killed in Helmand province, and on Friday, a Canadian soldier was killed by a bomb explosion while on foot patrol. On Sunday, three Afghan humanitarian workers were freed by the Taliban after being kidnapped last month along with two French aid workers who were previously released. A Taliban spokesman said that the Afghan workers were turned over to tribal elders in Nimroz province in the southwest. The spokesman said that no money changed hands and no special deals were made with the government. UKRAINE Ukraine will hold a parliamentary election on September 30, a date determined by President Viktor Yushchenko after crisis talks on Saturday with his rival, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. The two met into the early hours on Sunday in Kiev. Mr. Yushchenko said that the political crisis was finished and a compromise reached. Mr. Yushchenko said that the two sides would work together to prevent any further crisis. In April, the president dissolved parliament, accusing his rival of trying to usurp his power. LIBYA Bulgaria is hailing a decision by a court in Libya that might affect the fate of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor. In a trial the outraged the world, the six were convicted three years ago of infecting hundreds of Libyan children under their care with the AIDS virus. The defendants were sentenced to death. An appeal failed last year. They were also found guilty of slandering Libyan police whom they accused of torturing them. A court in Libya has now acquitted them of the slander charge. Libya's government calls the acquittal a good sign in advance of a final appeal of the death sentence that's expected to go before the court soon. RUSSIA About 20 homosexual activists were arrested on Sunday as they held a demonstration for the right to hold a Gay Pride parade in central Moscow. The activists were attempting to present a petition asking Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov to lift a ban on the parade. Mr. Luzhkov has described gay marches as satanic acts. Many of the demonstrators were punched and kicked by right-wing Russian nationalists who shouted death to homosexuals. Among those detained were the leader of Russia's gay rights movement, Nikolai Alexeyev, German parliament member Volker Beck and Marco Cappato, a European Parliament deputy from Italy. VENEZUELA Angry Venezuelan protesters and journalists headed for a confrontation with the government on Sunday as the government move to take over the country's largest private television station. President Hugo Chazez claims that RCTV actively tries to undermine his government. The station was set to end its broadcasts at midnight on Sunday after its license was not renewed. But employees vowed to continue to occupy the studios overnight, possibly to hinder the handover to the government on Monday. Tens of thousands of Venezuelan protestors took to the streets, claiming that the president is limiting freedom of expression. But the decision is hugely popular among Chavez followers, who also marched to show their support. IRELAND Ireland's prime minister, Bertie Ahern, headed for an unprecedented third consecutive term in office on Sunday. However, his Fianna Fail party did not win an outright majority in Thursday's general election, taking only 78 of 166 seats in parliament. The Progressive Democrats, a junior coalition partner in the government, fell to two seats. This means that Mr. Ahern will need an additional coalition partner to govern with an overall majority. The opposition Rainbow Alliance also failed to win a majority. SYRIA Syrians went to the polls to re-elect President Bashar al-Assad for a second term in a ballot widely viewed as a formality. Mr. al-Assad was the only candidate allowed to run. Since taking office after the death of his father, Hafez al-Assad, in 2000, he has clamped down heavily on pro-democracy activisits. Earlier this month, the Syrian parliament unanimously nominated Mr. al-Assad for a new term. SPAIN A small turnout marked regional and municipal elections in Spain on Sunday. Government estimates shortly before polls closed put the turnout at 51 per cent, compared to 54 per cent four years earlier. Analysts said that the lower turnout could affect the governing Socialist Party's standings negatively. Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero looked to the vote as a sign of voter support in advance of general elections expected next year. FRANCE A Romanian film about a girl's illegal abortion called 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days won the Palme D'Or, the highest award at the annual Cannes Film Festival on Sunday. The Grand Prize went to the Japanese film, The Mourning Forest. The American Julian Schnabel won Best Director for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. The Best Actor was awarded to Konstantin Lavronenko for the Russian film, The Banishment. The Best Actress was Jeon Do-yeon in the South Korean movie, Secret Sunshine.
EDMONTON: CANADIAN LIQUOR CHAINS MERGE Two privately owned Canadian liquor store chains announced a friendly merger on Sunday. Liquor Stores Income Fund and Liquor Barn Income Fund will have a combined total of 188 outlets in the western provinces of Alberta and British Columbia. The merger deal is worth CDN$222 million. It ends seven weeks of negotiations that began after Liquor Stores mounted a hostile bid that its smaller rival rejected as inadequate.
BASEBALL The Toronto Blue Jays lost to the Minnesota Twins, 4-2, on Sunday. On Saturday, Toronto beat Minnesota, 9-8, in thirteen innings. Lyle Overbay drove in the winning run. He also had a two-run homer in the first inning. HOCKEY The Vancouver Giants won the Memorial Cup on Sunday, beating the Medicine Hat Tigers, 3-1, to take Canada's junior championship. The Canadian Hockey League's player of the year is John Tavares of the Oshawa Generals. He had 72 goals and 62 assists this season. He was the league's rookie of the year last year. SOCCER Toronto F-C and Columbus Crew tied, 2-2, on Saturday. SWIMMING Canadian Valerie Grand'Maison won the S13 classification for the visually impaired in the 50 freestyle, 50 butterfly and 400 freestyle at the German international championships for swimmers with a disability. Canadian Benoit Huot was the 400 freestyle, while compatriots Darda Geiger was first in the 400 freestyle in the S9 classification. Canadian Brian Hill was first in the 100 backstroke in the 50 butterfly in the S13 class.
Weather Here is Canada's weather on Monday. British Columbia will have clearing skies. The high temperature in Vancouver will be 18 degrees Celsius. The Yukon: mainly sunny. Whitehorse, 14. Northwest Territories: sunny. Yellowknife, 11. Nunavut: rain. Iqaluit, four. Alberta: variable cloudiness. Edmonton, 17. Saskatchewan: rain showers. Regina, 15. Manitoba: rain showers. Winnipeg, 24. Ontario: mainly sunny. Toronto, 22. Ottawa, 21. Quebec: sunny periods. Montreal, 20. New Brunswick: rain showers. Fredericton, 17. Nova Scotia: rain showers. Halifax, 13. Prince Edward Island: rain. Charlottetown, 13. Newfoundland: increasing cloudiness. St. John's, 12.
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