Who's most in need of a vacation?
By macleans.ca - Thursday, June 24, 2010 - 0 Comments
What you’re thinking
Getty Images
British Columbia: Just 24 per cent report high confidence in the RCMP (that’s 11 percentage points below the national average and the lowest of any province). Nearly a quarter of those surveyed said they would also feel uncomfortable reporting inappropriate conduct by RCMP members to the Commission for Public Complaints.
The Prairies: Farmers here are more pessimistic than a year ago, with 53 per cent saying “things in agriculture are off on the wrong track” (31 per cent responded the same way in 2009). Some of their biggest concerns include the price of wheat (91 per cent), the cost of farm inputs (91 per cent) and transportation costs (86 per cent).
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A can-do marketing scheme
By Philippe Gohier - Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 12:40 PM - 0 Comments
SABMiller plans to spend $22.8 million on promotion during World Cup.
Global brewing giant SABMiller plans to spend $22.8 million on promotion during the World Cup in an effort to protect its overwhelming 89 per cent market share in South Africa. -
Letters from Fake Muskoka
By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 12:34 PM - 35 Comments
For the next few days, we’re in Toronto (and possibly Huntsville) for all the fun, frivolity and requisite shouting of the G8 and G20 summits. Breathless dispatches from the international media amusement park to follow.
In the meantime, the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s report on security costs is available to be chewed on. The Globe, Canadian Press, Star, Sun, CBC and CTV have taken their turns. Somehow Mr. Page seems to have satisfied all narratives on this occasion.
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Selling Americans on the oil sands
By Luiza Ch. Savage - Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 12:20 PM - 6 Comments
The Alberta government wants to make sure that American states are studying the adoption of low-carbon fuel standards.
Veronqiue de Viguerie/Getty Images
Gary Mar, Alberta’s envoy in Washington, is telling American lawmakers the BP oil spill could result in more Alberta oil coming stateside. The reason is that the six-month moratorium on new deep-sea drilling in the Gulf of Mexico that President Barack Obama announced last month will likely translate into a longer interruption. Rigs will not sit idle in the Gulf, says Mar, but will move elsewhere to drill. Getting them back will take time–perhaps a year or more. In the meantime, Gulf area refineries will need to get their feedstock from somewhere.
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Who's Your Country?
By Andrew Potter - Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 12:05 PM - 26 Comments
As the soccer-mad world cocks half an eye at the goings-on in Hunstville and…
As the soccer-mad world cocks half an eye at the goings-on in Hunstville and Toronto, The Mark presents a look at just what sort of image, or brand, Canada should be presenting on the global stage. It’s a fun series of short essays, with a pretty impressive list of contributors: Two former prime ministers, a bunch of academics and policy wonks, and… some journalist.
What is Canada’s most exportable trait? Kim Campbell suggests it is our approach to federalism, while Eddie Greenspon proposes “Open foreign policy”. My own view is that an effective nation brand can’t be too narrow (which is why I think Paul Martin’s “banking genius” won’t work), and it shouldn’t be tied to a moral trait, which is why I’m not keen on Judith Shamian’s “Clever compassion”.
I suggest “responsible government” as our nation brand, although I intend it in a much broader sense than it is taught in civics 101. Of the other suggestions, I think Tom Axworthy’s “Charter government” is probably the one with the best chance of success.
More on nation branding: An interview I did with nation branding guru Nicolas Papadopoulos, and what I think is the second ever column I wrote for Maclean’s, on the prospects and perils of nation brands.
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American extremists sentenced to 10 years in Pakistani jail
By macleans.ca - Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 12:04 PM - 2 Comments
Five young Muslims from Virginia convicted of planning attacks against Pakistani targets
A Pakistani court has convicted five Muslims from suburban Washington, D.C. of trying to attack an air force base and blow up a nuclear power plant in the Punjab. The men said they were on their way to Afghanistan to do humanitarian work, but contacted the terrorist groups Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba as soon as they arrived in Pakistan. Investigators found maps of their targets in the men’s possession, the anti-terrorism court was told. All five men lived within blocks of each other in Alexandria, Va. Four of the five were born in America and the fifth was a naturalized American. The men, who are all between 18 and 24-years-old, will spend 10 years in jail.
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Conrad Black: from sentencing to today
By macleans.ca - Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 11:58 AM - 3 Comments
Understanding “Honest Services” and how Black got here in the first place
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the “Honest Services” statute—a favorite of white-collar crime prosecutors— was interpreted too broadly in convicting Conrad Black, as well as former Enron chief executive Jeffrey Skilling. However, the ruling did not require their convictions to be overturned. In both cases, however, the justices left the ultimate resolution to the appeals courts. So where does this leave Black? We’ve compiled some links (more to come) that explain the Honest Services law and how this law was applied to Black’s case.
Shooting down the honesty policy (Canadian Business)
Conrad Black’s appeal may change U.S. law (National Post)
What Are Honest Services? (Huffington Post)The United States vs. Conrad Black—The Maclean’s guide to the white-collar trial of the century
Mark Steyn live blog—the Conrad Black trial from opening arguments to sentencing
Why it’s time to set Conrad Black free—Rehab is mostly irrelevant for corporate fraud
Clash of the titans—Peter C. Newman on how the Aspers came to blows with press baron Conrad Black
A legal victory for Conrad Black—Former press baron’s libel suit against Richard Breeden can continue, in Ontario -
Novelist Tom Rachman on the secret to writing a bestseller and selling movie rights to Brad Pitt
By Anne Kingston - Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 11:22 AM - 2 Comments
Q&A with the former journalist and author of ‘The Imperfectionists’
Photograph by Jim Ross
Tom Rachman’s first novel, The Imperfectionists, set at an English-language newpaper in Rome, has won him the literary success of which writers dream. The manuscript sparked a six-figure bidding war. Since its April publication, the book has garnered stellar reviews and is now in its 10th printing. Brad Pitt’s production company won the film rights earlier this month. The 35-year-old former journalist, who was born in London, England, and raised in Vancouver, now lives in London where he’s working on his second novel.
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Payback time for parents
By Nancy Macdonald - Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 11:20 AM - 19 Comments
A B.C. case is the thin edge of a growing trend: parents suing their adult children for support
Monica Almeida/The New York Times
It’s been 16 years since Ken Anderson saw his mother. His parents moved out to B.C.’s West Kootenay region when he was 15, effectively abandoning him in the town of Osoyoos, 200 km away. (His dad, who worked for Labatt, had been transferred.) Ken was the family baby; by then, his four siblings had moved out. He dropped out of high school and took a job at the local Husky to support himself. He couch-surfed and, for a while, lived with a neighbour.
Eventually, a kindly boss let him crash in his basement. “The past is past,” says the 46-year-old father of two, who lives in Oliver, where he runs a logging truck business. He’s never been angry with his folks. But he’s never tried to rebuild the relationship either. His dad died years ago and in 30 years, he’s seen his mom Shirley fewer than 10 times. Imagine his surprise then, when one fine day he was served with papers announcing he was being sued for parental support.
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Julia Gillard becomes Australia's first female prime minister
By macleans.ca - Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 11:04 AM - 0 Comments
Takes over after Kevin Rudd steps down as Labor party leader
Julia Gillard has become the first female prime minister of Australia, after the Labor Party booted out Kevin Rudd because of public disapproval. After it was clear that Rudd would do dismally in the elections, Gillard took over as leader after a surprise challenge on Wednesday evening. The ruling party has sustained significant drops in popularity after backtracking on election promises, including an about-face on a carbon trading plan and a poorly-handled mining tax. Gillard will lead the party into the country’s next general election expected in October.
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Gov’t spends millions to stop litigation
By macleans.ca - Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 11:01 AM - 2 Comments
New Brunswickers harmed by Agent Orange are having their lawsuit stalled
The federal government is undergoing a class action lawsuit from veterans, their families and residents of the area around C.F.B. Gagetown in New Brunswick who have had their health affected by Agent Orange, a chemical herbicide sprayed on the base from 1956 to 1984. So far, it’s spent $7.8 million on the lawsuit and Tony Merchant, the lawyer in charge of the case, says the government is doing all it can to stall the process in the hope that victims, many of whom have Hodgkin’s disease, lymphoma, respiratory and prostate cancer and type 2 diabetes—diseases associated with Agent Orange exposure—will give up. “Victims should be infuriated that the government spends money, not on helping them or compensating them, but instead fighting even having the issue go to court,” he said. The government is spending the cash despite a promise from Prime Minister Stephen Harper that he would fight for full compensation for the victims. For his part, veterans affairs minister jean-Pierre Blackburn says he didn’t know about the cost of the suit and that he’ll now launch an investigation into the spending.
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Taking on police brutality
By Patricia Treble - Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 11:00 AM - 0 Comments
Anger over Khaled Said’s death
Tarek Fawzy/AP
On Sunday, Egyptian security forces attacked and arrested dozens of demonstrators in Alexandria who were protesting the death of 28-year-old Khaled Said while in police custody.
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Conrad Black's fraud conviction vacated
By macleans.ca - Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 10:53 AM - 3 Comments
Supreme Court sends case back to lower court
The U.S. Supreme Court has sent Conrad Black’s case back to the federal appeals court, rejecting the lower court’s decision to uphold the former media baron’s fraud conviction. Supreme Court justices ruled the “honest services” law was misused in convicting Black as well as former Enron CEO, though the ruling doesn’t require their convictions to be overturned. Still, it’s a blow to a law that’s become popular with those prosecuting white collar crime, despite being denounced by critics for its vagueness.
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Michael Jackson was murdered for money, says sister
By macleans.ca - Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 10:51 AM - 9 Comments
One year anniversary of singer’s death is tomorrow
In a TV interview, LaToya Jackson claims that her brother was “murdered for his catalogue” and that she’s never had a doubt there was any other explanation. Billboard magazine recently reported that since Jackson’s passing, royalties have earned the Jackson estate $1 billion dollars. On Friday, it will be the one year anniversary of the entertainer’s death. Dr. Conrad Murray, Michael Jackson’s personal physician, has pleaded not guilty to a charge of involuntary manslaughter. Meanwhile, Michael’s older brother Jermaine thinks that if Michael had converted to Islam that he wouldn’t have died. “If Michael would have embraced Islam he still would be here today,” said Jermaine to the BBC.
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A "tougher fight" for Gen. Petraeus
By macleans.ca - Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 10:47 AM - 1 Comment
Can he do in Afghanistan what he did in Iraq?
Gen. David Petraeus carved out a reputation for himself as a resourceful, unorthodox commander by helping to pull Iraq back from the edge. He has since even been mentioned as a candidate for president. Now, he’s going to lead what in his own words is “the tougher fight” in Afghanistan, taking over from Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, and risking the reputation he built. “Where Iraq is an urban, oil-rich country with an educated middle class, Afghanistan is a shattered state whose social fabric and physical infrastructure has been ruined by three decades of war,” the New York Times reports. “In Iraq, the insurgency was in the cities; here, it is spread across the mountains and deserts of the country’s forbidding countryside.” In Afghanistan, Gen. Petraeus will be directly responsible for its success or failure. He will take command of the campaign six months into an 18-month-long strategy that will need to show progress for President Obama to continue.
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Cooler crullers
By Sarmishta Subramanian - Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 10:40 AM - 1 Comment
The richer, better heeled cousin of the common doughnut is suddenly everywhere
Photograph by David Bagosy
Even for a chef who’s worked with Charlie Trotter and Anton Mosimann, cooking at the James Beard House is a bit like scoring a ticket to the Oscars. So when Jason Parsons, executive chef of the Peller Estates Winery Restaurant in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., was invited to the venerable New York City institution earlier this year, he was chuffed. His multi-course extravaganza included such delicacies as poached lobster linguine, and venison infused with cocoa nib, basil and merlot. But he wanted a note of fun, he says, and a gesture that was quintessentially Canadian. So for appetizers, he decided on a punnish take on a classic: that gloriously fatty ring of fried dough known as the doughnut.
Parsons’ version was really a Timbit of sorts: a complex, savoury morsel stuffed with an ice-wine chicken-liver parfait and rolled in crisp feuilletine flakes, sea salt and sage—in other words, related only very distantly, by marriage, several times removed, to that humble treat handed out with double-doubles across this country. “As a chef, you look at things everyone else takes for granted,” Parsons said. “And so doughnuts—it’s that idea of saying, this could so be better.”
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Jewish dance group attacked with stones in Germany
By macleans.ca - Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 10:38 AM - 10 Comments
Police say a group of teenagers shouted anti-Semitic slurs through megaphone while throwing rocks
A Jewish dance group about to perform in a street festival in Hanover, Germany was pelted with stones, injuring at least one of the dancers in the leg on Saturday. A group of Muslim immigrants simultaneously hurled anti-Semitic slurs against the dancers through a megaphone. A 15 year old and a 19 year old are being questioned by police, AP reports.
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New poll shows Liberals catching up to Tories
By macleans.ca - Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 10:32 AM - 10 Comments
Conservatives’ double-digit lead shrinks to 3 points
Just over 3 percentage points separate the Conservatives from the second-place Liberals according to the latest EKOS poll. Now at 31 per cent, the Conservatives have seen their 10 point lead over the Liberals (27.7 per cent) shrink considerable over the past month. Still, the news isn’t all bad for Stephen Harper and co. Support for the government has rebounded from last week’s low of 36.6 per cent—40 per cent of Canadians now believe the Conservative government is moving in the right direction. The poll had NDP support at 16.5 per cent, while the Greens finished fourth with 11.4 per cent.
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Toronto 18 trial concludes
By macleans.ca - Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 10:25 AM - 9 Comments
But threat of homegrown terrorism is alive and well, experts say
After four years, the Toronto 18 terror cell story closed Wednesday with the convictions of 11 members. But experts warn there is no end to the threat of homegrown religious extremism among Muslim youth in Canada, the Toronto Star reports. Community members and security experts say Muslim youth are being radicalized by the extremist community online and behind the closed doors of private prayer rooms. There is also the problem of young radicals travelling overseas from Canada to countries such as Somalia and Pakistan to fight jihad. The trend is especially troubling for Canada’s spy agency, which is tracking people with possible links to terrorism. “Terrorism on Canadian soil is a real threat,” says RCMP Supt. Jamie Jagoe, who until recently oversaw all national security investigations in Ontario. “There was a number of individuals who were involved in a conspiracy, who were willing to commit an attack on Canadian soil, which would have caused, most likely, large-scale mass casualties and death.”
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U.S. Supreme Court gives Conrad Black another chance
By Luiza Ch. Savage - Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 10:21 AM - 37 Comments
The full opinion is here:
The court ruled that the “Honest Services” statute under which he was convicted was interpreted too broadly.
The jury should have been told it only applies to bribery and kickback schemes. (A few judges wanted to strike it down as unconstitutionally vague altogether.)
It’s a short decision. The reasoning on the Honest Services statute is laid out in detail in a separate opinion in the case of Enron’s Jeffrey Skilling, also handed down this morning. That decision is here.
Update: I should add it’s unclear to me at this moment whether the case goes back to the same jury with new instructions, or whether the whole process starts from square one.
Update 2: I shouldn’t have said a new trial in the headline. First it goes back to the appeals court.
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The $175,000 shrubbery
By Tom Henheffer - Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 2 Comments
Hiding the manzanita
Paul Chinn/San Francisco Chronicle/Polaris
It cost $175,000 to move a shrub in San Francisco. Apparently it was a bargain.
The big-ticket bush is called a Franciscan manzanita, thought to be extinct in the wild since 1947. Workers building a highway spotted the six-metre-wide hedge last year, and once the county realized it was about to bulldoze over the world’s last wild specimen, it was decided that the shrub had to be carefully transplanted off the road’s path.
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War buddies: Petraeus and Natyncyzk face Afghanistan
By John Geddes - Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 11 Comments
It’s no surprise that Gen. Walt Natynczyk, the Canadian Chief of Defence Staff, is praising his old friend Gen. David Petraeus as a grand choice to replace Gen. Stanley “Runaway” McChrystal as the new American commander in Afghanistan.
Both Natynczyk and Petraeus hit their strides as soldiers in Iraq after the downfall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Petraeus commanded the 101st Airborne Division out of Baghdad in those days, while Natynczyk, on loan to the U.S. military, served in Baghdad as deputy commanding general of the multi-national corps—even though Canada, as you might recall, officially stayed out of that war.
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Stimulus now, restraint later
By macleans.ca - Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 9:48 AM - 1 Comment
Tension over timing the shift sets the G20 mood
When Prime Minister Stephen Harper sent a letter last week calling on the G20 countries to cut their budget deficits in half by 2013, Canadians didn’t blink. After all, Canada’s federal government is to be back in the black by about 2014. But his target would have sounded ambitious to much of Europe and in Washington, where President Barack Obama is warning against adopting strict deficit-cutting measures too soon. The U.S. President fears that moving quickly into an age of austerity will snuff out the unsteady flame of the economic recovery. The tension between the need to restrain spending and the imperative to keep growth alive is, according to this Associated Press story, the main undercurrent of the upcoming G20 summit in Toronto. The leaders who took on last year’s severe economic crisis with such remarkable solidarity are finding it harder to maintain a common front now. Ultimately, it’s a matter of timing. “The global economy is still very fragile,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “Countries have to balance the need for continued support now while also putting together credible deficit cutting plans that can be implemented down the road.”
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Mutiny in an Internet boot camp
By Patricia Treble - Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 9:40 AM - 0 Comments
Desperate parents are sending their children away for treatment
Reuters
Fourteen Internet-crazed youths were tired of the “monotonous work and intensive training” at a Chinese boot camp designed to cure them of their addiction. So the young men tied up a night supervisor at the Huai’an Internet Addiction Treatment Centre and made a break for it. Unfortunately, their great escape came to a sudden end when they couldn’t pay a taxi driver, who turned them in to the police. Then their unsympathetic parents marched them back to the boot camp. After all, the families had paid around $2,750 each for a six-month treatment.
There are an estimated 24 million Internet addicts in China, many obsessed with massive multi-player games and social networking. Desperate parents often resort to boot camps as a way to break their addiction. The treatments can be brutal. Last month, two instructors at a camp in southern China were sentenced to prison for beating a teen to death with wooden boards. At the Huai’an centre, military-style treatment starts at 5 a.m. and, after a day full of exercise, calligraphy and other mind-numbing courses, ends at 9:30 p.m. “We have to use military-style methods on these young people,” a proud official told the Global Times. “We need to teach them some discipline.” -
Another 'Alberta apocalypse'?
By Colby Cosh - Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 9:40 AM - 2 Comments
A Calgary start-up with the rights to America’s own oil sands has environmentalists fuming
Glen Snarr
Earth Energy Resources Inc. is a private Calgary start-up with eight employees and no cash flow. As energy firms go, it’s basically a garage band—one struggling, so far unsuccessfully, for a crumb of scarce capital with which to do business.
Yet to hear some American environmentalists talk, one would think the company was an instrument of Satan. Phrases like “horrifying and unprecedented,” “blatantly criminal,” “extremely destructive environmentally,” and “the Alberta apocalypse” are being used to describe its plans.
