Apartheid lawsuit gets a green light

By Rachel Mendleson - Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 8:20 AM - 3 Comments

A New York judge has given the green light to sue multinationals such as Ford and General Motors for their alleged role in the segregation, torture and killing of blacks in South Africa.

Class action suits have been cleared to proceed against Ford, GM and Daimler for allegedly “aiding and abetting” torture and extrajudicial killing by supplying military vehicles used in the persecution of blacks during South Africa’s apartheid regime. IBM faces similar charges for allegedly providing computers for the surveillance of rebels, and Germany-based defence giant Rheinmetall may face a suit for its alleged role in arms dealing. “One who substantially assists a violator of the law of nations is equally liable if he desires the crime to occur or if he knows it will occur and simply does not care,” wrote Judge Shira Scheindlin in her April 8 ruling.

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The Spectator in the Spotlight: Liveblogging Norm Spector at the Oliphant Inquiry

By kadyomalley - Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 8:10 AM - 26 Comments

Given his performance at the Ethics committee — and not to mention what he’s written for his Globe and Mail-hosted blog in the leadup to today’s appearance before the Oliphant inquiry, this morning’s appearance by former Mulroney chief of staff Norm Spector could be fascinating.

9:15:12 AM
Welcome back to the Oliphant Show! Which may be a morning-only special today, since nobody knows just what Norm Spector is going to be asked – and what he’ll say in response. Will he claim that Mulroney told him to put a bullet in the Bear Head project once and for all? Will he recall details of conversations with forgetful witnesses, past and present? Will he seize the opportunity to lecture the media encampment on our wicked, wicked ways? Will he be sporting his signature cap? Wait, is he one with the hat, or am I confusing him with another columnist? All these questions and more may be answered in mere minutes, so stay tuned!

9:24:06 AM
Seriously, this hat thing is going to drive me crazy. Oh, also – apparently – and this is not yet official, but we should know for sure later today – on Monday, we’ll finally get to hear from Elmer MacKay — by webcam, I’m assuming — as well as — drum rull — Luc Lavoie. Oh, that should be fun. On Tuesday, it will be former PCO clerk Paul Tellier, and Senator Lowell Murray. On Wednesday, the forensic accountants from Navigant (no relation other than etymological, don’t worry) will be the first witnesses to take the stand that have absolutely no stake in the proceedings.

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School heads are ‘enablers’ of anti-Semitism

By Barbara Amiel - Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 8:00 AM - 86 Comments

The usual anti-Semitic incidents are listed in a letter from the Anshe Emeth synagogue in New Brunswick, N.J., to Rutgers University president William H.S. Demarest: officials failed to take action after a student mob attacked some Jewish students shouting “We don’t want you Jews here”; the campus allowed vandalism and “narrow-mindedness and bigotry” alien to its principles. The letter writers proposed remedial measures: that president Demarest publicly denounce statements “ridiculing and insulting Jews”; that he threaten expulsion to “students who interfere” with the rights of Jewish students and make serious attempts “to apprehend” the violators. President Demarest met with the synagogue committee, who professed satisfaction. And of course, nothing changed.

The letter and incidents took place at Rutgers in 1920. Israel did not exist. Hitler had not appeared. Islamofascism had not surfaced in the West. The situation, however, was pretty much identical to what goes on at universities year round these days, with highlights during last month’s Israel Apartheid Week, when anti-Semites got together on campuses to demonize Israel, the single democracy in the Middle East.

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Wolverine: Generic X-Man

By Brian D. Johnson - Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 7:53 AM - 8 Comments

If you’re a massive fan of X-Men, or happen to worship the ground that Hugh Jackman walks, claws, growls, sings and dances on, you might want to stop reading right now. I’ve never taken more than a distant interest in this franchise, and never really understood its appeal. I realize that Jackman has his charms, and he vanquished a lot of skepticism (mine included) by proving to be an entertaining Oscar host. He’s quite the showman. But I still find his personality lacks the dimensional definition of his physique. As an actor, he’s a solid technician, able to muster brooding intensity and malevolent rage as if pumping emotional iron without breaking a sweat. But there’s no there there. Jackman’s like a 21st-century male beefcake version of Raquel Welch. He wears his body like a costume. And any actress who bared her breasts on film as consistently as he flashes his pecs would never get taken seriously.

But he does seem to be the closest thing to a movie star in this franchise of mutant superheroes. And with X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the multi-taloned Hugh Scissorhands really gets to strut his stuff. Not only that, he gets to be a Canadian lumberjack.

The story spins a Cain-and-Abel saga of two feral brothers, Logan/Wolverine (Jackman) and Victor/Sabretooth (Liev Schreiber), who slash their way through history with retractable claws. Even before the opening credits have finished, they’ve gouged a bloody trail through the American Civil War, the Second World War and Vietnam. Led by Stryker (Danny Huston), a sinister colonel, they’re on a covert U.S. mission in Nigeria when Logan finally loses his taste for mutant special ops. Leaving behind the bloodthirsty Victor, he tries to make a new life as a lumberjack in the Canadian Rockies, where he shacks up with a vaguely aboriginal babe (Texan Lynn Collins) and tries to keep his claws retracted while wielding a chain saw and and axe—until the bad guys, led by Stryker and Sabretooth, track him down and force him back into the fray. Which prompts an exchange that’s sure to get a laugh from local audiences:

“Your country needs you,” says the colonel.

“I’m a Canadian,” replies Logan. Continue…

Mr. Christine Elliott

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 3:01 AM - 6 Comments

 

 

Jim Flaherty’s wife Christine Elliott, who is running for leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservatives, held a meet-and-greet at the Elephant & Castle pub and restaurant in Ottawa. Flaherty introduced himself as Mr. Christine Elliott.

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New fears of sedition

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 1:12 AM - 21 Comments

Stephen Harper, Dec. 1. “I would certainly not want to find myself governing this economy today in a situation that required me to follow socialist economics and to be at the behest of a veto of the separatists.”

James Moore, heckling Gilles Duceppe, Dec. 1. “Traitor!”

Stephen Harper, Dec. 2. “The Canadian people made a choice to elect the Conservative Party to govern, without the support of the separatists.”

Dean Del Mastro, heckling Jack Layton, Dec. 3. “Jack, you’re a traitor.”

Stephen Harper, Dec. 3. “The Liberal Party leader proposes to help the economy by signing a pact with the Quebec sovereignists to govern the country. This is not a plan to improve the economy; it is a plan to destroy this country, which is why he should withdraw his proposal.”

Canadian Press, tonight. “The Harper government has sketched out a road map that would see it avoid an election in this recession year and survive to bask in the glory of the 2010 Olympic Games … The Tories need to stave off defeat in confidence votes until then and are considering ways to secure support from the NDP and Bloc Quebecois on a case-by-case basis … The Bloc will table its own list of economic demands Thursday, and they have been pushing for EI changes as well as a tax-harmonization deal for Quebec … One senior Conservative said there will be plenty of ways for the parties to work together. ‘We’re hopeful they’d want to work with us. … Maybe cooler heads will prevail,’ he said.”

Cashing in on swine flu

By Jason Kirby - Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 12:13 AM - 1 Comment

As media coverage of the swine flu outbreak turned feverish Tuesday afternoon, a woman rushed into a downtown Vancouver convenience store, out of breath, and pushed her way to the front of the line.  “Do you have masks?” she asked a bewildered clerk. “You know, gas masks, to stop the flu?”

With the virus continuing to spread to more cities, and health officials warning of a possible pandemic, a sense of panic, verging on paranoia, is setting in. But while the outbreak threatens to traumatize a global economy that was already acutely ill, there’s been no shortage of companies lining up to capitalize on flu fears. A quick scan of corporate press releases from the past three days turns up numerous companies trying to position themselves close to the crisis in order to drum up new business and attract investors. “Face mask that kills swine flu readied,” one Hong Kong biotech claimed; another, in Utah, promised that its hand sanitizer “kills the swine flu virus.” Meanwhile, Medicago, a biotech company in Quebec City, announced it has already obtained the genetic code of this particular strain of influenza, and, using its technology, could whip up a vaccine within a month.

It’s not hard to see why companies are eager to catch some of the spotlight. The swine flu outbreak, which began in Mexico where more than 150 have died, has attracted intense attention. Never mind that Canada has experienced just 19 cases of swine flu, all of them mild, or that the virus has claimed just one life in the U.S. The 24/7 news cycle, along with the echo-chamber of the Internet, have dramatically amplified fears.

Some companies are already benefiting from all the attention as their share prices soar. Big pharmaceutical companies like Switzerland’s Roche Holding, the manufacturer of the Tamiflu vaccine, and Britain’s GlaxoSmithKline, have seen their shares rise nearly six per cent since word of the outbreak spread. Many others are tiny penny stocks that can benefit hugely from increased attention. Noveko, a Montreal-based biotech that says it has developed a germ-killing face mask, has seen its shares soar nearly 80 per cent over the last week to $2.60. Likewise, Medicago’s shares began to rise last week as investors called the company to ask whether it was working on a vaccine, says Frederic Ors, vice president of business development. Medicago put out a statement Tuesday saying that it had begun work on a vaccine for swine flu. At one point the tiny biotech’s share price had nearly doubled to 32 cents. “It’s not good that it’s happening, but it’s good for us because it gives visibility to our technology,” says Ors.

When investors and companies pounce on a crisis such as swine flu, many are quick to criticize them for profiting on the misery of others. But Sherry Cooper, the chief economist at BMO Capital Markets, says no one should be surprised by what’s going on. “I think that the markets are functioning as they always do, trying to predict the future,” she says. “Some of it is irrational, but much of it is similar to what happened with previous pandemic scares.  I don’t think we should try to make value judgments about whether it is right or wrong to do this.”

What’s more certain is that those investors trying to make a buck off of swine flu are likely to be disappointed when the payoff doesn’t come as fast as they expect. While Medicago says it can turn around a potential vaccine in a matter of weeks, that doesn’t mean it will make any money any time soon. The company has already been working on an avian flu vaccine for a year and a half and human trials are still four months off. Barring an urgent situation in which health officials decide to forego their entire drug testing regimen, a swine flu vaccine wouldn’t be ready until at least 2011.

The hottest docs in Hot Docs

By Brian D. Johnson - Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 12:05 AM - 0 Comments

At the risk of sounding Toronto-centric, there’s no question this city now serves as a movie mecca like no other. Not only is TIFF the world’s most significant film festival next to Cannes,  Hot Docs has become North America’s number-one documentary destination. Tonight the 16th annual edition of Hot Docs kicks off with two strong features by Toronto filmmakers: Act of God and Inside Hana’s Suitcase. I’ve seen them, and both are unique works that tell astonishing stories without resorting to formula.

Act of God, the official opening-night gala, is about lives that have been irrevocably changed by lightning strikes. It bears the distinctive signature of award-winning director Jennifer Baichwal (Manufactured Landscapes), a documentary alchemist who likes to mix landscape, art and metaphysics, and whose previous films have ranged from the Moroccan musings of Paul Bowles to the arcane rites of Appalachian serpent-handlers. For more on lightning, the  movie,  and an interview with Jennifer Baichwal, look up my piece in last week’s Maclean’s: Why me?

Inside Hana’s Suitcase is technically Larry Weinstein’s first documentary feature, but as a founding member of Rhombus Media this veteran director has been making music films for years. And this feels like the work of an artist in his prime. Based on the best-selling book, it tells the story of a Holocaust survivor, now living in in Ontario, who lost his sister in a death camp, and whose memories came flooding back with a battered suitcase painted with her name that showed up at Tokyo’s Holocaust Centre. This sounds depressing, and the story is indeed heartbreaking. But, buoyed along by the words of school children reading Hana’s story, it unfolds as an uplifting tale with a stranger-than-fiction narrative that takes some breathtaking twists. Weinstein has not just done justice to a story that rivals Anne Frank’s; with this film he has taken Hana’s story to another level, braving the treacherous waters of dramatization (especially dicey, given the subject). The result is a masterful weave of art and artifact. I discovered Inside Hana’s Suitcase while at its unofficial premiere as “a work in progress” at the Victoria Film Festival earlier this year. To read my blogged first impressions , go to: A holocaust detective story makes a splash in Victoria.

I haven’t seen all the 171 films playing in Hot Docs, not even close. But I’ve had a few sneak previews. Some outstanding highlights. . . Continue…

Reasonableness watch (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, April 29, 2009 at 6:35 PM - 3 Comments

From just before QP today.

Mr. John Duncan (Vancouver Island North, CPC): Mr. Speaker, the NDP member for Western Arctic campaigned against the billion dollar gun registry boondoggle and then last week he forgot to vote against it. The NDP member for Thunder Bay—Rainy River said, “I’m very pleased to tell the House that for eight years, since the turn of the century— 

The Speaker: Order. The hon. member knows that he has to refrain from attacks on members and making statements about what they are doing. Party statements are one thing, this is beyond that. I would urge him to switch. If he has something else to say, fine. Otherwise, that is it.

Is the GOP softening its hard line on gay marriage?

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, April 29, 2009 at 6:18 PM - 0 Comments

As the Republican Party struggles to rebuild itself, party insiders are intimating its long-time opposition to gay marriage may be “more of a hindrance than a help,” the New York Times reports. The fact the recent legalization of gay unions in several states, among them Iowa, has met with little public backlash suggests a shift in national sentiment, says Steve Schmidt, a former strategist for John McCain. Indeed, where once the party’s position energized conservatives, it might now even alienate younger voters, says Schmidt. Other prominent Republicans are downplaying the issue, among them Rudy Giuliani who said recently that the “party does best organizing itself around economic issues and issues of national security.” Not that anyone expects a complete volte-face: social conservatives in Iowa are currently organizing to try to amend the state Constitution to restore the ban. But it’s clear the GOP’s focus on the issue is shifting along with the national mood: “I think it’s likely that all our candidates will be against gay marriage,” Schmidt said. “But the point is this: There should be a de-emphasis on this issue. This is not the most important issue facing the country.”

New York Times

Swine flu: One step from a pandemic

By Michael Friscolanti - Wednesday, April 29, 2009 at 5:47 PM - 6 Comments

Every year, influenza kills up to half-a-million people around the world. In Canada alone, the flu’s annual death toll is close to 4,000. That’s eleven funerals per day. The current “swine flu” outbreak is nowhere near those levels. At last check, the fatalities (both confirmed and suspected) totaled 159, and although thousands of others have fallen ill with coughs and headaches and nasty muscle pains, most of the reported cases are in the “mild” category. In fact, many patients have already recovered. So why is the world bracing for a potential pandemic? What makes this particular flu so scary? Fear of the unknown. Continue…

The Commons: Retro Wednesday

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, April 29, 2009 at 5:36 PM - 7 Comments

The Scene. Ralph Goodale stood to applause and chants of his first name, a garish tie hanging from his neck. With Michael Ignatieff away, it was the Liberal house leader’s privilege to lead the official opposition’s interrogation of the government side.

Goodale is, in various ways, the epitome of a parliamentarian, or at least the living embodiment of the sort of politician many must imagine when they think of this place. First elected in 1974, three months shy of his 25th birthday, he was defeated in 1979, 1980 and 1988, only to return in 1993. Reelected another five times, his service now stands at some 7,445 days. He’s held seven ministerial portfolios and, for the past two years, possessed the title of house leader for Her Majesty’s opposition. He is a blustery, partisan, fast-talking Prairie boy from Wascana, a frequent heckler well-schooled in the ways and means of legislation and procedure and equipped by now with a long memory for otherwise forgotten votes and policies.

But if Mr. Ignatieff operates here with a scalpel, Mr. Goodale tends to prefer a sledgehammer. And so the absence of the former and prominence of the latter surely made what followed foreseeable and ultimately familiar. Continue…

Reasonableness watch

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, April 29, 2009 at 5:34 PM - 16 Comments

A point of order after QP yesterday.

Hon. Carolyn Bennett (St. Paul’s, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I do not believe the Minister of Health would willingly mislead the House, however, I think in her answer to the excellent question from the member for Etobicoke North she mistakenly said that there were stockpiles of vaccines in Canada. There are indeed stockpiles of antivirals, not vaccines, and that was the purpose of the question. I would invite the minister, with your permission, to correct herself now on the record.

Hon. Leona Aglukkaq (Minister of Health, CPC): Mr. Speaker, to clarify for the record, the member is correct. I meant to say anti-virals. Let me go back again. We have been in contact with provincial and territorial counterparts across Canada and provided them updates on the situation. The provinces and territories have already access to stockpiles of Tamiflu and are able to make decisions on its use. As well, yesterday in my press conference, I said that we were also conducting research on the vaccine development about the swine flu. I thank the member for asking for that clarification.

Spending Money To Make Money, Or At Least Get a Spot On a U.S. Network

By Jaime Weinman - Wednesday, April 29, 2009 at 5:26 PM - 0 Comments

Tassie Cameron, the Flashpoint writer producer who has created the upcoming show Copper for ABC, says that one of the key components in Flashpoint‘s success was that they spent extra money to create the sense that the show has major-league production values:

Flashpoint‘s success is due both to its storylines as well as the decision to invest in the show’s look and feel, so it doesn’t seem “Canadian,” Cameron said.

“It was shot in 35 mm [film]. It was very rich colours. It was the very first show I’d ever worked on in Canada where we were allowed to have a police dog. You’re never allowed to have a police dog, because it is expensive working with dogs,” she said.

“They spent money on going through plate-glass windows. They spent money on the things that show up on the screen and I think that accounts for people watching it, [saying] ‘This doesn’t feel low-budget.’”

This doesn’t men that only Canadian shows have that “low-budget” look. Plenty of U.S. shows, whether they’re produced in America or Canada, cut corners on the same things as Canadian shows — film stock, for example. (Smallville is one of many shows that recently switched from 35 mm film to the cheaper format of digital HD.) But I do get the sense that a number of Canadian shows have had a problem establishing what I might call a big-studio look; in particular, shows produced in Toronto often have a look and feel that’s reminiscent of U.S. syndicated shows from the ’90s. Doing procedural shows that look like other CBS procedurals (the CSI shows are shot on 35 mm) doesn’t guarantee success, but it does help to create the sense that the show is operating on a level playing field with the big shows in the same genre.

(Link via Diane at TV-Eh.)

R.I.P. Ici

By Philippe Gohier - Wednesday, April 29, 2009 at 5:03 PM - 1 Comment

[via Patrick Lagacé]

Montreal’s venerable, Québecor-owned alt-weekly Ici is no longer. Blaming the decision on the steady decline in advertising revenue, Quebecor announced today that Ici will live on as an insert in the Montreal edition of 24 heures and on the web, but will no longer exist as a standalone paper. (Hopefully, a website re-design is coming, because the current one is atrocious.)

I haven’t lived in Montreal for a couple of years, but I was a regular reader when I did. Best of luck to the nine folks who got laid off as a result of the move.

Exclusive videos of Tyson and Toback

By Brian D. Johnson - Wednesday, April 29, 2009 at 5:01 PM - 0 Comments

Almost a year has gone by since Tyson premiered to a tumultuous response in Cannes, stirred by the appearance of its subject on the red carpet.  James Toback’s eye-opening documentary finally opens in Canadian theatres May 8, after hitting Toronto’s Hot Docs festival May 5. Here are two videos that I shot last year in Cannes. The one above shows Mike Tyson at the Cannes premiere; it has received over 27,000 hits, far more than any movie star video I’ve posted on YouTube. Below Toback tells the story of how he met the heavyweight icon during the ’80s, with a playboy circle that included Warren Beatty and former U.S. presidential candidate Gary Hart. To read my article about the film, containing fresh interview material with Toback, see this week’s Maclean’s.

'Genesis' by Bernard Beckett

By Brian Bethune - Wednesday, April 29, 2009 at 4:51 PM - 3 Comments

Bernard Beckett, 41 (or possibly 42), is a New Zealand high school teacher who has written eight (or is it nine?) novels for young adults. Accounts, to put it mildly, vary: Beckett is not exactly well-known outside his native land, a lamentable state of affairs—at least for foreigners—that’s liable to change very rapidly. Genesis, Beckett’s whatever number novel, written in 2006 and now available across the English-speaking world, is superb: a taut, thrilling, thought-provoking dystopia, just perfect for intellectually curious teens, and pretty damn good for adults too. And virtually all it consists of is conversation, a Socratic question-and-answer session between Anaximander, a young candidate for her society’s ruling Academy, and her examiners.

It takes place in late 21^st-century New Zealand, now re-named the Republic after a reforming leader, Plato. It doesn’t need any further name, because it’s the last functioning state on earth, the rest having fallen to environmental catastrophe, nuclear war and endless waves of plague. The Republic has maintained itself at a cost: soldiers manning a giant seawall shoot down any refugees approaching by boat or plane; there is no individual liberty and all citizens function within their assigned roles.
Then comes a new Adam, young Adam Foote, the subject of Anax’s historian’s thesis, and the first Republican in decades to act independently. He ends up imprisoned, sentenced to become the human participant in an experiment with a new form of artificial intelligence named Artfink. Anax’s increasingly off-kilter conversation with the three Academy examiners reconstruct Adam and Artfink’s interaction, and raise millennia-old, never-to-be-solved questions about meaning and consciousness: what, if anything, really separates us from animals and machines?

Genesis is beautifully written, with an eye-popping conclusion, but what really makes it stand out is its bottom-line difference from other, and more famous, dystopias like Aldous Huxley’s Brave New Worldor Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake. The difference lies not in the how of our fate—human greed and folly pretty much sums that up—but in the why of it. Most dystopias are dire warnings, allegories of now, that implicitly argue there’s still time to change. In Beckett’s novel, disaster takes on a kind of tragic inevitability, leading humanity down a path that’s as strangely triumphant as it is squalid. As Anax says of those men who made one particularly fateful decision: “Circumstances conspired against them.”

Why me?

By Brian D. Johnson - Wednesday, April 29, 2009 at 4:10 PM - 1 Comment

It takes unusual dedication for a filmmaker to allow her husband to risk instant incineration in the name of art. But when director Jennifer Baichwal was shooting her documentary about lightning, Act of God, her husband, Nick de Pencier, served as director of photography. And part of his job entailed standing on the shoreline of their summer cottage on Georgian Bay during fierce thunderstorms, manning a camera on a metal tripod. “To get the good shot you have to expose yourself,” says de Pencier. “So you play the odds. It’s an interesting mental game.”

Sometimes Baichwal would be with him, until they decided that might not be in the best interests of their two children, ages six and nine. “We’d say, ‘Let’s not both get killed,’ ” she recalls. “So I’d go back to the house. And Nick would put on a life jacket so we could find his body if he was knocked into the water and was floating.” But if he received a direct hit there might be nothing to find, as Baichwal knew only too well. She goes on to tell the story of a girl who was struck while riding a pony down an English country lane: “All that was left of them was a pool of fat. They were completely incinerated.”

Continue…

Germany and Switzerland paid ransom for kidnapped Canadians: Algerian security source

By Michael Petrou - Wednesday, April 29, 2009 at 3:51 PM - 0 Comments

I have an article in tomorrow’s print edition of Maclean’s about al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the Islamist group that held Canadian diplomats Robert Fowler and Louis Guay, along with some details about how they were freed.

I’ve learned more since our magazine was sent to the printers – most notably that Germany and Switzerland paid a US$8 million ransom to spring their kidnapped nationals and, unofficially, to free the Canadians as well. The new info in online here.

Source: Germany and Switzerland paid ransom for kidnapped Canadian diplomats

By Michael Petrou - Wednesday, April 29, 2009 at 3:28 PM - 0 Comments

Germany and Switzerland paid al-Qaeda’s North African branch a ransom of approximately US$8 million for the release of four hostages, including Canadian diplomats Robert Fowler and Louis Guay, according to a senior Algerian security official who spoke to J. Peter Pham, an Africa specialist at James Madison University.

In an interview with Maclean’s, Pham said the Algerian security official told him yesterday that the ransom was officially only for the two European hostages–a Swiss and a German–but that the amount paid was double what would have been necessary to free them. The extra cash was meant to cover the release of Fowler and Guay, the security official said, while still leaving Canada able to deny it paid a ransom.

The Algerian security official also confirmed that a member of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s family–his son, Saif al-Islam, according to other news reports–played a key role in negotiating the hostages’ release.

Relations between Switzerland and Libya have been strained ever since Swiss police detained Hannibal Gadaffi, another of Muammar’s sons, along with his wife, for allegedly beating two of their staff at a Geneva hotel last summer. Switzerland is now beholden to Gadaffi, who will, in the words of the Algerian, extract his “pound of flesh” at a later date.

Prior to the hostages’ release, Pham was in contact with highly placed members of the governments and security services in both Mali and Niger. These officials told Pham that negotiations had stalled because Canada and the United Nations refused to pay a ransom to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The kidnappers wanted the governments of Niger and Mali to release AQIM prisoners in their custody, while Niger and Mali were reluctant to release prisoners without getting something in return.

Pham has no proof, but he suspects a “package deal” was struck that would see Mali and Niger receive some sort of political or financial compensation in exchange for releasing prisoners to AQIM.

Kory Teneycke, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s press secretary, told Maclean’s Canada did not make any concessions to the governments of Mali or Niger to persuade them to exchange prisoners with al-Qaeda. “The government of Canada did not give any money or considerations as part of a deal to get these two hostages released,” he said.

News reports out of Algeria have since alleged that four Islamist terror suspects held by Mali were released as part of a deal to free the Canadian and European hostages. Al-Qaeda made the same claim in a statement released Sunday. It is unlikely that Mali would agree to release prisoners without compensation, or the threat of losing something if it refused. Canada has recently focused its foreign aid on only 20 countries. Mali is one of them.

Thumbs out! MPs and video games

By Mitchel Raphael - Wednesday, April 29, 2009 at 3:09 PM - 10 Comments

 

The Entertainment Software Association of Canada held a reception with a host of video games at the Métropolitain Brasserie Restaurant.

 

Heritage Minister James Moore.

One of the games Moore wanted to play against a Liberal.

Continue…

Berlusconi called out for his wandering eye

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, April 29, 2009 at 3:00 PM - 0 Comments

Silvio Berlusconi is in trouble again—with his wife. The impetuous Italian prime minister has raised the ire of his bride Veronica Lario for his fondness for beautiful young women. In an email to the country’s national news agency, the first lady complains of Berlusconi’s “shameless rubbish” and likens him to a Roman emperor.

Telegraph

The seven pivotal moments in the Obama presidency

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Wednesday, April 29, 2009 at 2:58 PM - 0 Comments

January 22: On the second day after his inauguration, President Barack Obama issues three executive orders aimed at returning the U.S. to “the moral high ground” in the war on terror. He orders the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay closed within one year, and orders the closing of secret CIA prisons abroad. Obama also orders all interrogations by U.S. officials to follow the Army Field Manual, which forbids torture or harsh interrogation techniques. He also orders a review of all detention procedures and individual cases. His supporters call it a necessary step to restoring America’s stature around the world; critics say he is risking national security in the name of political correctness.

Feb. 17: Obama signs a US$787 billion stimulus bill and orders 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan. Continue…

“Autism gene” discovered

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, April 29, 2009 at 2:57 PM - 0 Comments

While it offers no immediate hope of treatment, the gene could account for up to 15 per cent of cases of the disease, and helps explain its underlying causes, Reuters reports. The team of researchers looked at DNA from over 12,000 people, some from families affected by autism; others from unaffected volunteers. “Previous studies have suggested that autism is a developmental disorder resulting from abnormal connections in the brain. These studies suggest some of the genetic factors which might lead to abnormal connectivity,” Dr. Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health in the U.S., said in a statement. Three studies were published: two in the journal Nature, and one in Molecular Psychiatry.

Reuters