Back to newsletter list 29/09/2007 22:27:15 (UTC) Canada | World Briefs | Business News | Sports | Weather Headlines  - Liberal defence critic ready to go to Afghanistan on his own - MacKay addresses Karzai proposal on talks with Taliban - Another Canadian soldier makes the final trip home
OTTAWA: AFGHAN MISSION GETS MORE POLITICAL The Official Opposition Liberal Party defence critic says he will go on an unauthorized fact-finding trip to Afghanistan after having his request to visit the troops consistently ignored by Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative Party government. Denis Coderre says he is set to leave for Kabul and Kandahar to visit with development workers, Afghan government officials and Canadian soldiers. Mr. Coderre says he has made multiple requests with Defence Minister Peter MacKay's office but that they were systematically ignored or rejected. Mr. Coderre says that he has the full blessing of his leader, Stephane Dion. With a potential election looming due to the possible collapse of Mr. Harper's minority government in October, the future of the Afghan mission could be a matter of intense debate this fall. The Liberals and Bloc Quebecois want Canada to scale back its fighting operations in Afghanistan once the current mission expires in February 2009, while the government wants to continue. The New Democratic Party wants troops withdrawn immediately. The government has repeatedly accused its opponents of failing to support the troops. Canada has 2500 troops in Afghanistan. Most are based in southern Kandahar province. Seventy-one Canadian soldiers and one Canadian diplomat have been killed since Canada joined the NATO mission in 2002. HALIFAX: MINISTER SAYS TALIBAN MUST RENOUNCE VIOLENCE Defence Minister Peter MacKay says the Taliban will have to renounce violence and accept the NATO mission in Afghanistan if it wants to work with the Afghan government. On Saturday Afghan President Hamid Karzai renewed his call for talks with the Taliban after a suicide bombing in Kabul in which 30 people were killed. Mr. Karzai said he wants to meet with Taliban leader Mullah Omar for peace talks and is willing to consider giving the militants a position in government. Speaking at an enrolment ceremony for new military personnel in Halifax, Mr. MacKay said any co-operation must include the preconditions that Mr. Karzai has laid out. Those include the Taliban's renunciation of violence and acceptance of the fact that NATO forces are not leaving the country any time soon. Mr. MacKay said he is comfortable with anyone who is prepared to move away from activities on the ground that put Canadian soldiers, and others who are part of the NATO mission, at risk. CFB TRENTON: FALLEN SOLDIER IS HONOURED ON NATIVE SOIL A 24-year-old soldier killed in Afghanistan is back on Canadian soil. A p*** carrying the body of Cpl. Nathan Hornburg touched down at CFB Trenton on Friday. A sombre repatriation ceremony was held at the eastern Ontario military base. Governor-General Michaelle Jean, Defence Minister Peter MacKay and Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier were among the dignitaries to pay their respects. A group of veterans and emergency personnel gathered outside the base. Cpl. Hornburg became the first Afghanistan casualty to travel down the Highway of Heroes since the stretch of Highway 401 from Trenton to Toronto was renamed by the Ontario government. Cpl. Hornburg was a reservist with the King's Own Calgary Regiment. He died Monday while trying to put a track back on a tank while under fire. Cpl. Hornburg was the 71st Canadian soldier to be killed in Afghanistan since Canada joined the NATO force in 2002. OTTAWA: PHYSICIANS WANT MORE MED SCHOOL FUNDING The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada says a doctor shortage in Canada will become critical over the next decade unless action is taken now. The organization wants federal and provincial governments to spend money to expand enrolment in the country's 17 medical schools. It says the doctor shortage began 15 years ago when Ottawa ordered medical schools to cut class sizes by 10 per cent. OTTAWA: MINISTER TAKES HARD LINE ON ILLEGALS Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day is warning that any illegal refugees who try to enter Canada without the proper documents will face "consequences." The minister made his comment amid reports that another busload of Mexicans will arrive in the border city of Windsor, Ontario within a week. In the last month at least 200 Mexicans have arrived in Windsor in an attempt to flee a US crackdown on illegal immigrants. OTTAWA: RCMP BEGINS RECRUITING CAMPAIGN The Royal Canadian Mounted Police launched campaign Saturday to try to encourage more young people to join the force. The ads are aimed at Canadians between the ages of 18 and 34. The RCMP says it offers an exciting career with vast opportunities. The federal police force needs new members to replace veteran officers who will be retiring in high numbers over the next few years. EDMONTON: STUDY SAYS NOT EVERYTHING ROSY IN ALBERTA A new study concludes that Alberta's hourly workers are falling behind despite the province's booming economy. The study was conducted by the Alberta Federation of Labour and the left-leaning Parkland Institute. It suggests that average real hourly income has been stagnant for years. Adjusted for inflation, the study says hourly wages in sectors such as construction have even fallen. Report author Tom Fuller says government policies that make it tough for unions to organize and easy for employers to bring in foreign workers are the most likely culprits. Mr. Fuller says workers have lost so much ground they are unlikely to make it up before Alberta's racing economic engine begins to slow. Alberta's average wage remains higher than the Canadian average. TORONTO: CANINES WITH CAMERAS SEEN IN FUTURE RESCUES An emergency response police officer says search-and-rescue dogs, complete with two-way cameras, will revolutionize how lives are saved during a crisis on the scale of the September 2001 attacks on the United States. Cst. Kevin Barnum is a canine handler with Ontario's elite Provincial Emergency Response Team. He says dogs can get into smaller spaces and "search much more effectively with their noses." The dog wears a harness, sporting an infra-red lens on either side. Earlier this year, when Toronto's Heavy Urban Search and Rescue team simulated a real-time disaster, Cst. Barnum says responders were extremely happy at how well the technology worked. He says that his six-year-old black Labrador retriever, Dare, provided rescue workers with "a live-eye view of exactly what the dog sees." He says the dog is able to move through areas that it might take days or weeks for humans to cover, in a matter of "minutes or hours." Cst. Barnum says he would like to see one dog from each of the provincial police's 27 two-dog teams wearing one of the harnesses within a year. He says he has no idea what each might cost but considers it critically important that the province invest in the technology.
BURMA A United Nations envoy arrived in Burma on Saturday to meet with the military junta in the hope he can persuade the regime to end the violence against anti-government protesters. Ibrahim Gambari is the first outsider to meet with the junta since mass protests began in a number of cities last month. On Friday the United States called on Burmese authorities to let Mr. Gambari meet with whomever he wants, including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest for more than a decade and has not been seen for almost a week. However, Western diplomats say Mr. Gambari's schedule was set by the junta and likely would not include meetings with pro-democracy figures, such as Ms. Suu Kyi. Several hundred people protested in Burma's main city of Rangoon Saturday despite three days of crackdowns on the pro-democracy protests. The protesters chanted slogans before being charged by security forces. At least two protesters were severely beaten. In the central town of Pakokku hundreds of monks reportedly led a peaceful march of thousands of demonstrators. In the past week, at least 10 people have been killed. Observers say the total might be much higher. UNITED NATIONS Humanitarian groups say many people in Burma are not just being affected by the violence, but by restricted access to food aid as a result of military roadblocks. The UN World Food Program said its deliveries of food aid to 500,000 needy people have been severely impeded in the central regions of the country. CHINA The Chinese government says it will work with the international community to help resolve the Burmese issue peacefully. Premier Wen Jiabao has been facing calls from foreign leaders for Beijing to exert pressure on the junta. In a telephone conversation with Britain's prime minister, Gordon Brown, Mr. Wen is reported to have told Mr. Brown that Beijing is paying close attention to the situation and hoped all sides would use restraint to reach a peaceful solution and achieve "democracy and development." China is one of Burma's few allies but has been reluctant to push the junta to stop its crackdown. Meanwhile, Japan, which is Burma's biggest aid contributor, lodged a protest over the death of a Japanese journalist. He was among at least nine people killed when soldiers fired into a crowd of unarmed demonstrators on Thursday. So far, Japan has not taken any sanctions against Burma but Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura suggested Saturday measures could be taken. AFGHANISTAN A suicide bomber killed 28 Afghan troops and two civilians in an attack on an army bus in Kabul Saturday. Afghan officials said the Taliban militia claimed responsibility. It was the deadliest attack in the Afghan capital since the Taliban was ousted from power for harbouring al Qaeda leaders in the wake of the 2001 terror attacks on the United States. Meanwhile, the Taliban Saturday released four Red Cross workers, including two foreign nationals, captured near the capital four days ago. The four -- one from Myanmar, one from Macedonia and two Afghans -- were seized in the province of Wardak on Wednesday while returning from a mission to release a German engineer and five Afghans captured by Taliban in mid-July. Canada currently has 2500 troops with the NATO force in the southern province of Kandahar. PAKISTAN At least five people were injured in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, Saturday during a clash between police and lawyers. The lawyers were protesting against President Pervez Musharraf's re-election bid. Reports said at least 300 lawyers turned out for a march on the Election Commission. Pakistani officials at the office were due to formalise the military ruler's candidacy for the Oct. 6 presidential vote. At least 24 arrests were made. On Friday Pakistan's Supreme Court ruled that Gen. Musharraf could run for a second five-year term as president while remaining as army chief. IRAQ The US military confirmed Saturday it carried out an air strike in the Doura district of southern Baghdad on Friday. It said the target had been men who were firing mortars into a neighbouring area. A senior health official in central Baghdad said seven men were killed in the attack and six others were wounded. The US military said it estimated two or three people were killed or wounded but could not give a precise figure as the bodies were removed before troops arrived at the scene. MIDDLE EAST President Mahmoud Abbas says the Palestinian Authority remains fully committed to a planned Middle East peace conference. The conference is to be hosted by the United States and will be held in November. Mr. Abbas made the comments in an address to the UN General Assembly on Friday. He said it is hoped that all parties will sit down together at the negotiating table. US officials have indicated they would like the participants to include Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. But they admit that no invitations have been issued yet. CHINA The senior US military official in Japan says that while the US has been tied up in Iraq, China is modernizing its military. Lieut.-Gen. Bruce Wright said Saturday China's air defences are now nearly impenetrable to all but the newest of American fighters. Gen. Wright said the Iraq war is reducing the availability of US troops and equipment to meet other contingencies. He added that because of the war, there is less money to replace or upgrade US p***s that are being pushed to their operational limits. IRAN Iran's parliament on Saturday approved a resolution to label the US Central Intelligence Agency and the US army `terrorist organizations.' The move is seen as diplomatic tit-for-tat after the US Senate voted in favour of a resolution urging the State Department to designate Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization. The Iranian parliament statement says `the aggressor US army and the Central Intelligence Agency are terrorists and also nurture terror.' It was signed by 215 legislators at an open session of the parliament. The session was broadcast live on state-run radio. NORTH KOREA Six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear program continued for a third day in Beijing on Saturday. The discussions between China, the US, Russia, Japan and North and South Korea are believed to be focusing on energy aid to Pyongyang and on what the North needs to do to disable its nuclear facilities. On Friday US President George W. Bush gave the go-ahead for $25 million US worth of energy aid for 50,000 metric tonnes of heavy fuel oil. The aid comes in response to North Korea's progress on reporting and disabling its nuclear facilities. This was required as part of an agreement signed last February between North Korea and the other five nations. SERBIA The leaders of Serbia and its breakaway province of Kosovo have failed to make any major progress at their first direct talks on the territory's future status. Serbia said it had offered Kosovo broad autonomy at the talks in New York. But the province's ethnic Albanians had demanded full independence. Serbian PM Vojislav Kostunica said he was disappointed by the stalemate. Belgrade has rejected a UN plan to grant Kosovo supervised independence. The UN has administered Kosovo since a NATO bombing campaign forced out Serbian troops in 1999.
VANCOUVER: STRIKING WORKERS TRY NEW STRATEGY Striking forestry workers are handing out leaflets at Home Depot stores across the country asking customers to avoid buying certain wood products. embers of the United Steelworkers are asking shoppers not to purchase lumber products labelled Western Forest Products, Interfor and Weyerhauser `Cedar One.' In Vancouver, union director Steve Hunt says workers are taking the fight beyond the picket line so that shareholders understand that employees have an impact on the retail side of the business. Representatives from Home Depot could not be reached for comment. About 7,000 members of the United Steelworkers have been on strike in British Columbia since July. The dispute centres around work scheduling, severance and protection from contracting out. On Friday, TimberWest Forest Products (TSX:TWF.UN) threatened legal action against the union if it didn't apologize after accusing the company of poor forestry practices.
NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE The new NHL season began Saturday in London, England with the first of two games between the Anaheim Ducks and the Los Angeles Kings. The Ducks--the defending Stanley Cup champions--lost to the Kings 4-1. Mike Cammalleri scored twice. Rob Blake and Michal Handzus scored once each for the Kings. Rookie Bobby Ryan scored his first NHL goal for the Ducks. The start of the game was delayed for 16 minutes because of a lights malfunction. The teams meet again in London Sunday. The games are in the first regular-season games ever played in Europe. Regular-season games in North America begin Wednesday......Philadelphia forward Steve Downie has been handed with a 20-game suspension for a hit on Dean McAmmond last week that left the Ottawa Senators veteran with a concussion. Downie's suspension is the fifth-longest ever handed down by the league. Downie says the hit was unintentional. He has since apologized to McAmmond. MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL The Toronto Blue Jays are five games over .500 for the first time this season after a 5-3 over Tampa Bay at the Rogers Centre Saturday afternoon. Adam Lind hit a three-run homer and John-Ford Griffin had a solo homer to pace the offense. Rookie Jesse Litsch pitched six strong innings for the Jays, allowing one run on four hits. The victory left the Jays with an 83-78 record heading to the season's final game on Sunday. They are in third place in the AL East. On Friday, the Jays assured themselves of a winning record for the second consecutive season with a 5-4 win over Tampa Bay. Dustin McGowan was effective over six innings, earning his 12th win. The Jays finished second in the AL East last season with a 87-75 record. CANADIAN FOOTBALL LEAGUE Saskatchewan posted over 500 total yards to beat the Montreal 33-22 Saturday in Regina. Saskatchewan beat Montreal twice in one season for the first time since the Alouettes' re-entry into the CFL in 1997. The `Riders had a total of 502 yards, while the defence sacked Montreal quarterback Anthony Calvillo five times. Roughrider quarterback Kerry Joseph completed 26 of 40 attempted passes for 355 yards, while Calvillo went 27-for-41 for 410 yards....On Friday, Toronto defeated Edmonton 18-11 as Andre Talbot caught two touchdown passes. The win moved the Argos into a second-place tie with Montreal in the East Division standings. Edmonton lost quarterback Ricky Ray with a separated shoulder in the second quarter, possibly ending his season. OLYMPIC BASKETBALL Canada's national women's basketball team won't compete at next year's Olympics in Beijing. The Canadians lost 85-37 to the US Friday at the FIBA Americas Olympic qualifying tournament in Chile. The loss dropped Canada to third in the Group B standings with one win and two losses. Only the top two teams in each Group advance to the next round. WORLD CUP RUGBY Canada was eliminated from the Rugby World Cup competition Saturday, losing 37-6 to Australia in Bordeaux, France. Canada's only points against Australia came via James Pritchard's two second-half penalties. The Canadians finished the competition with three losses and a draw. PROFESSIONAL GOLF A desperate rally by the Internationals fell short late Saturday afternoon, leaving them with only faint hope heading into Sunday's singles matches at the Presidents Cup competition near Montreal. After being swept in all five of the alternate-shot matches in the morning, the Americans posted two wins and a tie in the afternoon, while the Internationals picked up one win and were leading in the remaining match. Canadian Mike Weir and South African Ernie Els delivered a convincing 4-and-2 win against Charles Howell III and Lucas Glover. Americans Tiger Woods and David Toms won 5-and-3 against Australians Nick O'Hearn and Geoff Ogilvy.
Weather On Sunday: British Columbia has rain in the south, showers in the northwest and periods of rain in the northeast. The forecast high temperature in Vancouver: 14 degrees Celsius. Alberta has a mix of sun and cloud. Saskatchewan is sunny. Manitoba has a mix of sun and cloud in the south and periods of rain in the north. Highs: 14 in Calgary and Regina, 15 in Winnipeg. Ontario has showers in the southwest and northwest, sun in south-central and southeastern regions and a mix of sun and cloud in the northeast. Quebec has a chance of showers in the northwest and sun elsewhere. Highs: 23 in Toronto, 21 in Ottawa, 19 in Montreal. New Brunswick is sunny. Prince Edward Island has a mix of sun and cloud. Nova Scotia is sunny. Newfoundland and Labrador has a mix of sun and cloud over the island and cloud over Labrador. Highs: 17 in Fredericton, 13 in Charlottetown, 16 in Halifax, 12 in St. John's. Yukon has a chance of showers in the south and a mix of sun and cloud in the north. The Northwest Territories has a mix of sun and cloud in the south and sun in the north. Nunavut has a mix of sun and cloud in the south and a chance of flurries in the north. Highs: eight in Whitehorse, minus-one in Yellowknife, four in Iqaluit.
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