Back to newsletter list 17/05/2008 00:20:44 (UTC) Canada | World Briefs | Business News | Sports | Weather Headlines  - Canada spends to help China cope with disaster - Canadian expert decries flimsy Chinese schools - Bombardier stock thrives
OTTAWA: CANADA PUTS UP $1 MILLION FOR CHINA AID The minister responsible for international co-operation, Bev Oda, has announced that Canada will contribute $1 million to the Red Cross to assist its earthquake relief effort in China. Mrs. Oda says the Red Cross will use the money to provide emergency shelters, medical services, water and sanitation to the affected area in the southwest. Mrs. Oda says Canada is "deeply concerned" about the needs of the stricken communities and expects that the contribution will help ensure their needs are met. HAMILTON, MIANYANG: EXPERT SAYS CHINESE SCHOOLS FLIMSY A professor of civil engineering at McMaster University in Ontario says schools are regularly poorly built around the world and that China is no exception. Ahmed Ghobarah says that whenever there are disasters like the earthquake that shattered areas of southwestern China on Monday, schools are always among the most damaged structures. The expert says that in photos of destroyed schools in Sichuan, it's clear that not enough reinforced steel was used in construction, that product being more expensive. But Prof. Ghobarah added that a structure like a school is inherently more vulnerable because of large classrooms and other spaces. KANDAHAR: CHILD BOMBER ATTACKS SOLDIERS A suicide bomber aged as young as 10 attacked a joint Canadian and Afghan army patrol in Zhari district 50 kilometres from Kandahar on Friday. Two Canadian and two Afghan soldiers were injured. A Canadian military spokeswoman said the Canadians were able to walk into a medical facility for treatment unaided. Afghan police told the Canadian Press that the bomb carried by the child may have been remotely detonated. OTTAWA: TIME-HONOURED MILITARY DISTINCTION RESURRECTED The Canadian military has revived the Commonwealth's highest military decoration, the Victoria Cross. The new Victoria Cross was unveiled by Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean and its design is similar to the original medal which dates back to 1856. Awards of the Victoria Cross had lapsed for several decades as Canada devised its own system of honours, but the military decided that the historical connection to the medal were strong enough for it to be revived. The VC was instituted by Queen Victoria. Of the 1,353 crosses bestowed, 81 have gone to Canadians. OTTAWA: GREENHOUSE GASES DROP SOMEWHAT Canada's greenhouse gas emissions fell by 1.9 per cent in 2006 compared with the previous year to 721 megatonnes of carbon dioxide or its equivalent. The result was, however, more than 29 per cent above Canada's target under the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change. Environment Canada attributes the decline in 2006 to lower emissions from fossil fuel production, less demand for heating fuels because of milder winters and greater reliance on cleaner hydro and nuclear power. OTTAWA: PLANNED REACTORS SCRAPPED Canada is scrapping a project to build two new reactors. The reactors were planned to produce medical isotopes which are used to diagnose several diseases, including cancer and heart conditions. The Canadian Association of Nuclear Medicine is concerned about the decision and says the Canadian government has to ensure that it has access to a backup supply of isotopes. Atomic Energy of Canada Limited says it will continue to produce medical isotopes at the reactor at Chalk River, ON, for the time being. The facility produces about half the world's supply of isotopes. Last year, the reactor was shut down for safety reasons. OTTAWA: HIGH COURT RULES ON YOUNG OFFENDERS The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that it is up to prosecutors to prove that young offenders deserve an adult sentence. The court says that young offenders should not automatically be considered as adults under the law. The decision reverses a provision in the Youth Criminal Justice Act that forced young offenders to convince the court that they should not be sentenced as adult. Since 2002, Canadians between 14 and 17 accused of murder or other serious crimes have been sentenced as adults unless they convince the court they should be treated as children. OTTAWA: FEDERAL POLICE CONTEST EQUITY RULING Canada's national police force is challenging an order that it pay an expelled cadet $500,000 and accept him back into its training program. The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal found that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police discriminated against an Iranian-Canadian by expelling him from its training program in 1999. The RCMP says the tribunal was wrong to find it guilty of discrimination and to order it to develop a cultural sensitivity program for employees. The RCMP has asked Federal Court of Canada to conduct a judicial review. OTTAWA: GAY LUTHERAN PASTOR TO BE ORDAINED The Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Markham, ON, was to ordain its first homosexual pastor on Friday evening in defiance of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada's ban on gay pastors. The local church issued a statement that it would proceed despite the Lutheran Church's "discriminatory ban." Lionel Ketola was to become the first homosexual Lutheran pastor in Canada. Last month, Bishop Michael Pryse warned Holy Cross that its action could "do irreparable damage to the already fragile connecting fabric of our church."
CHINA President Hu Jintao said in the city of Mianyang, one of the worst-hit cities in Monday's earthquake, that "Quake relief work has entered into the most crucial phase," adding that he felt the survivors' anguish. Rescuers continue to try to save any among the thousands buried under rubble who are still alive. Relatively few survivors have been extracted. Rescue teams from Japan, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong are assisting the mainland rescuers. Prime Minister Wen Jiabao says the quake was the "most destructive" China had experienced since 1948, surpassing in power the 1976 Tangshan disaster which killed 240,000. BURMA While China has permitted access to the disaster zone to foreign rescuers and journalists, the attitude of the Burmese military junta in the cyclone catastrophe is the opposite. The Associated Press reports that the army has confined aid workers, foreign diplomats and journalists to Yangon and has set up roadblocks around the city to prevent such people from leaving. An AP reporter who attempt to leave the city from the north going in the opposite direction of the disaster zone was stopped. Even the few tourists in Yangon cannot take a ferry to cross the Yangon River or visit other tourist sites. In Washington, 41 members of the House of Representatives have written a letter to President George W. Bush urging him to "strongly consider" backing efforts by France, Britain, Germany, Denmark and other nations to gain access to the stricken Irrawaddy Delta region. The junta on Friday put the official death toll at 133,000, nearly twice the figure on Thursday. SAUDI ARABIA Oil Minister Ali Naimi says the country's oil industry has responded to requests by 50 customers, most of them American, to increase production. The minister says that starting on May 10, 300,000 more barrels a day were being produced. The revelation at a news conference in Riyadh came on the day when oil reached a record price of $127 a barrel. However, Mr. al-Naimi noted that he told U.S. officials travelling with U.S. President George W. Bush, who made one-day visit to Saudi Arabia on Friday, that the increase in production won't have an effect on gasoline prices in the U.S. He attributes those prices to a weak U.S. dollar, speculation and political tensions in oil-producing nations. ZIMBABWE The country's electoral commission has set June 27 as the date for the presidential runoff vote between President Robert Mugabe and the leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, Morgan Tsvangirei. The commission had ruled that Mr. Tsvangirei won a plurality in the vote in March but that in the absence of an absolute majority a runoff vote was required. Also on Friday, an independent poll monitoring group claimed that dozens of its monitors have been assaulted in an attempt to dissuade them from watching the balloting on June 27. The Zimbabwe Elections Support Network says its poll watchers "...have been under siege from suspected ZANU-PF supporters," a reference to Mr. Mugabe's party. The group also says that the conditions for a fair vote don't exist because tens of thousands of villagers and farm workers supposed loyal to the opposition have been driven from their homes by ZANU-PF militias. ARGENTINA Farmers have decided to prolong their second strike this year in protest against higher export taxes of agricultural products. Interior Minister Florencio Randazzo says the government of President Cristina Fernandez had thought that her appeal for continued dialogue would persuade farmers to end the strike, which had been scheduled to end on Thursday. Instead, the job action will continue until May 21. The farmers initially went on strike for three weeks in March, stopping deliveries and blockading major highways. The strike severely reduced exports of corn and soy, Argentina being the world second-biggest exporter of the former commodity and the third-largest of the latter. ITALY Italy is calling on the European Union to tighten border security as a way to prevent illegal immigrants. Foreign Minister Franco Frattini proposes starting a data base that would include digital fingerprints. He says that vigilance is especially needed along the borders of the 24 countries belonging to the Schengen zone. Schengen zone citizens may travel within the zone without passports. Mr. Frattini's call comes one day after Italy's new government arrested almost 400 suspected illegal immigrants. BRAZIL The state of Sao Paulo, the country's economic centre, has suspended licences to expand the production of ethanol. The state authorities intend to examine the impact on the environment of the expansion of cultivation of sugar cane from which much of Brazil's ethanol is made. The suspension is to last four months during which officials will study the impact of the growing expansion of sugar cane cultivation on the ecosystem. Sao Paulo is Brazil's main producer of sugar and ethanol.
MONTREAL: BOMBARDIER HAS WIND IN SAILS Bombardier Inc. stock rose 40 cents on Friday to close at $7.56, its highest level since August 2002. The shares have gone up 27 per cent in 2008. The rise comes as another debt rating firm, Fitch Ratings, upgraded Bombardier's credit worthiness, as had Moody's and Standard and Poor's. Fitch pointed to the company's large backlog, diversification, leading market positions and strong business jet division. The rating firm also says it feels more positive about Bombardier's planned 110- to 130-seat CSeries airliner. Bombardier's board of directors has given interim approval to proceed with the new model and a formal launch is expected this year, with the p*** going into service in 2013. CALGARY: GAS PIPELINE SUFFERS NEW REGULATORY SETBACK The Globe and Mail newspaper reports that the project to build a $16.2-billion natural gas pipeline from the Mackenzie Valley in the Northwest Territories to markets in the south has suffered yet another delay. The latest delay is due to a decision by the joint federal and provincial panel assigned to assess the environmental impacts of the project won't make public its report in October as planned by rather will deliver it sometime next year. One of the newspaper's sources say the delay is due to the enormous task of evaluating the thousands of pages of data. The independent panel named by the federal government had originally been supposed to publish its report in August 2007. The decision is the second regulatory reverse suffered this week by Imperial Oil Ltd., the leader of the consortium trying to launch the Mackenzie Valley project. On Wednesday, a court decision delayed the company's $8-billion Kearl oilsands by several months. MARKETS TSX on Friday: 14,984.20 up 156. Canadian dollar: US$100.02 cents, up 0.02 of a cent. Euro: C$1.5592, up 1.31 cents. Light, sweet crude: US$126.29, up $2.17.
HOCKEY The host Canadians advanced to Sunday's gold-medal match in Quebec City with a 5-4 semifinal win over Sweden. Canada will face Russia, which advanced to the final with a 4-0 shutout of Finland. BASEBALL Canada's baseball team at Beijing will get a boost from infielder Stubby Clapp. He has received permission from the Houston Astros to compete for Canada. The Astros had initially turned down a request for Clapp to take a month off from his duties as a hitting coach with their single-A affiliate. PARALYMPICS The head of the International Paralympics Committee says he's pleased with the progress being made for the 2010 Winter Paralympic Games in Vancouver. Xavier Gonzalez says Vancouver's organizers have made great strides in addressing issues such as ceremonies and media coverage for the Games. But he says accommodation for the Paralympic family in Whistler remains a problem, though one he is confident can be solved.
Weather British Columbia on Saturday: sun, forecast high 32 Vancouver. Yukon: mix sun, rain, cloud. Northwest Territories: sun. Nunavut: rain. Whitehorse 12, Yellowknife 16, Iqaluit 5. Alberta: sun south, rain north. Saskatchewan: sun. Manitoba: sun north, rain south. Edmonton 29, Regina 22, Winnipeg 18. Ontario, Quebec: rain. Toronto 19, Ottawa 20, Montreal 21. New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador: cloud. Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island: rain. Fredericton 16, Halifax 9, Charlottetown, St. John's 13.
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