Back to newsletter list 17/02/2008 22:33:12 (UTC) Canada | World Briefs | Sports | Weather Headlines  - Demonstrators in Toronto stage support for Kosovo. - Anglican church bracing for more diocese defections. - Bad season of west coast fires predicted.
TORONTO: DEMONSTRATORS IN TORONTO STAGE SUPPORT FOR KOSOVO Canadian supporters of Kosovo's independence staged a public demonstration in Toronto on Sunday to press the Canadian government to recognize the new state. A few hundred people assembled at Ontario's provincial legislature at Queen's Park. Canada's government is considering its position and by late Sunday had yet to make a statement. Canada accepted several thousand refugees from Kosovo in the 1990's after the United Nations assumed Kosovo's adminstration from Serbia. In Europe, expatriate ethnic Albanians from Kosovo celebrated in cities in Belgium, France and in Switzerland, where Thousands demonstrated in Geneva and in Lausanne. The United States says that it has taken note of Kosovo's declaration and is calling on those in the region to exercise restraint. Britain views Kosovo's declaration of independence as an important development, but will make a full statement after a meeting in Brussels on Monday. Germany called on all parties to exercise moderation following the declaration. Slovakia will not recognize Kosovo for the time being. VANCOUVER: ANGLICAN CHURCH BRACING FOR MORE DIOCESE DEFECTIONS More Anglican congregations are expected to vote this week on whether to re-align themselves with more conservative church groups. Last week, St. John's Shaughnessy in Vancouver, Canada's largest Anglican congregation, voted to leave. The diocese followed two other British Columbia churches that had already voted to join a conservative diocese in South America. The split is over the contentious issue of blessing same-sex unions. The church warns that defecting members will lose their church property and funding if they leave. Federal legislation allows same-sex unions in Canada. But many church groups are still struggling with the issue. OTTAWA: FOREIGN MINISTER CONDEMNS AFGHAN ATTACK Canada's foreign affairs minister, Maxime Bernier, on Sunday condemned a suicide bomb attack that day against civilians in southern Afghanistan. Eighty people were killed and dozens of others were injured. Mr. Bernier called the attack a cowardly and despicable act, and expressed his condolences to the victims' families. Canada has 2,500 soldiers serving with NATO forces in Afghanistan. KAMLOOPS: BAD SEASON OF WEST COAST FIRES PREDICTED Canadian fire officials have already begun to warn about the wildfire threat in British Columbia. They say that conditions are frightening because 11 million hectares of standing timber was killed by a mountain pine beetle epidemic, leaving the wood vulnerable. They're recommending that work is needed to put up more fire buffers in the forests. They also suggest selective burning of forests to knock down areas that have no value. OTTAWA: REPORT ISSUES WARNING TO SHELLFISH INDUSTRY A newly released report warns that poor monitoring of Canada's shellfish industry is putting consumers at risk. The report was commissioned by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. It concluded that government monitoring of the industry is inconsistent and fraught with problems. There are not enough inspectors to look for deadly toxins in shellfish products. The lack of proper inspection means that consumers cannot be assured that shellfish were harvested in approved growing areas. The Canadian government's Shellfish Sanitation Program has roots that extend to 1925, when 150 people died in the United States as a result of a typhoid outbreak linked to contaminated oysters.
KOSOVO Kosovo made an historic declaration of independence from Serbia on Saturday. The announcement came a decade after a war that killed ten thousand people and after years of administration by the United Nations. As thousands of ethnic Albanians celebrated the announcement in the capital, Pristina, several hundred people in Serbia's capital, Belgrade, protested, stoning the diplomatic missions of the United States and European Union. Police moved in to stop the protest. Russia called on the United Nations Security Council to hold consultations on Kosovo in an apparent bid to annul Kosovo's declaration of independence. AFGHANISTAN A suicide bomber attacked a crowd in Afghanistan today, killing more than 80 people in the worst single attack since Taliban militants were overthrown seven years ago. At least 50 people were wounded, many of them seriously. The bomb exploded at a dog fighting competition in the southern city of Kandahar. Among those killed was the head of a local auxiliary police force. Witnesses say that some of his guards reacted by firing into the crowd, causing casualties. Hundreds of people had gathered in an open field to watch the competition. NEPAL One person was killed and 59 others were injured in Nepal on Sunday when police clashed with demonstrators. The demonstrators had defied a curfew. The protest came on the fifth day of a general strike in southern Nepal called by the United Democratic Mahadhesi Front. The group is seeking for more representation for ethnic minority Mahadhesis at the federal level. The strike has led to food and fuel shortages across the country. CYPRUS The president of Cyprus, Tassos Papadopoulos, lost in elections on Sunday. Two challengers, Demetris Christofias and Ioannis Kasoulides, will contest a runoff election next week. Both candidates won 33 per cent of the vote. Mr. Papadopoulos won just over 31 per cent. Mr. Kasoulides served as foreign minister for six years. TAIWAN In what appears to be the first incident of its kind in almost 60 years, Chinese fireboats acted to put out a fire on a ferry in Taiwan waters. The ferry had docked at Taiwan's island of Kinmen after crossing from Xiamen in China. All 37 passengers had disembarked when the fire broke out. Taiwanese boats rescued the crew, but Kinmen has no firefighting boats, so the Chinese fireboats came to the rescue. It's believed that no Chinese fireboats had operated in Taiwanese waters since China and Taiwan split in 1949. VENEZUELA Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez, warned on Sunday that he might create a special tax on earnings generated by recent rapid increases in oil prices. Such a move would be his latest gesture to increase taxes on oil companies. He continues to wage a legal battle with the American oil company, Exxon Mobil, over its assets in Venezuela that his government nationalized. SPAIN Four Cuban dissidents who were released from prison in Cuba for the past five years arrived on Sunday in Spain. They were released for reasons of their health. They were the first dissidents to be released from jail in six months. The four men arrived in Madrid with their families. A Cuban human rights group estimates that there were 234 political prisoners in Cuba in late 2007, about 50 less than in 2006. GERMANY Germany's finance ministry admitted on Sunday that it paid more than six million dollars for information about hundreds of people allegedly involved in a massive tax scam. The money was paid to an informant who provided data about the suspects retrieved from a bank in Lichetenstein. It's alleged that the suspects used the bank to hide millions of dollars from taxes. One of them is Klaus Zumwinkel, the head of Germany's postal service. Many rich and prominent Germans are believed to be implicated in the scam. Germany's government expects to recover as much as one billion dollars in lost revenue. GAZA Israeli troops killed four Palestinians in an assault on the Gaza Strip on Sunday. Troops supported by helicopters moved in overnight, killing a civilian and three militants from the armed wing of the Islamist Hamas movement. The Israeli forces arrested 80 Palestinians over the course of the operation before withdrawing. The assault came as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert unveiled plans to protect nearby homes from rockets.
SPEED SKATING Canadian Jeremy Wotherspoon won the gold medal in the men's 500 metres at a World Cup event in Inzell, Germany, on Sunday. His compatriot, Mike Ireland tied for silver with Japan's Keiichiro Nagashima. Canadian Denny Morrison and Japan's Joji Kato tied for fourth. In the one thousand metre race, Morrison was second behind American Shani Davis. Jan Bos of Holland was third. In the women's one thousand metres, Canadian Shannon Rempel was third. Germany's Anni Friesinger was first. HOCKEY The Vancouver Canucks defeated the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday, 4-2. Vancouver is tied with Calgary for the final two Stanley Cup playoff spots in the Western Conference. The Montreal Canadiens beat the Philadelphia Flyers, 1-0. Rookie Cary Price scored the winner while lying flat on the ice. The Toronto Maple Leaf beat the Boston Bruins, 4-3. The New Jersey Devils beat the Ottawa Senators, 3-2. Ottawa leads the Devils by two points for first place in the Eastern Conference. LACROSSE The Rochester Knighthawks beat the Calgary Roughnecks, 15-12, on Saturday in the National Lacrosse League.
Weather Here is Canada's weather on Monday. British Columbia will be sunny. The high temperature in Vancouver will be 11 degrees Celsius. The Yukon: variable cloudiness. Whitehorse, three. Northwest Territories: increasing cloudiness. Yellowknife, minus 19. Nunavut: sunny. Iqaluit, minus 24. Alberta: mainly sunny. Edmonton, one. Saskatchewan: clearing skies. Regina, minus 14. Manitoba: sunny. Winnipeg, minus 19. Ontario: cloudy. Toronto, one. Ottawa, two. Quebec: rain showers. Montreal, eight. New Brunswick: rain. Fredericton, nine. Nova Scotia: heavy rain. Halifax, eight. Prince Edward Island: rain. Charlottetown, seven. Newfoundland: snow flurries. St. John's, minus one.
|
