Iran agrees to return to talks on a nuclear fuel swap

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 26, 2010 at 2:41 PM - 0 Comments

In response to announcements of broadening economic sanctions against Iran by Canada and the European Union, Iran has said that it was prepared to return to talks on a nuclear fuel swap “without conditions.” Speaking of a letter that Iran handed to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran’s envoy to the UN agency, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said: “The clear message of this letter was Iran’s complete readiness to hold negotiations over the fuel for the Tehran reactor without any conditions.” The move seems to illustrate Iran’s desire to appear willing to negotiate. It was not clear whether this offer of fuel swap talks would be enough to satisfy world powers. The question remains whether Iran will agree to negotiate an end to its enrichment programme, which Iran says is for peaceful purposes only, but Western powers believe it is aimed at developing nuclear weapons.

Reuters

The Queen is on Flickr

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 26, 2010 at 2:01 PM - 0 Comments

In its latest bid to keep up with the times, the British royal family has announced that it will open a Flickr account (www.flickr.com/photos/britishmonarchy). The free-to-access site will be continuously updated, though it will initially contain more than 600 photographs of Queen Elizabeth II on formal engagements, pictures from palace collections and portraits of the royals as young children, including baby photos of Prince Charles, pictures from King George VI’s coronation in 1937, and photos of the late Princess of Wales with her two sons, Princes William and Harry (although Diana does not have a dedicated ‘channel’ like the other royals).

Montreal Gazette

Open your mouth and your appendix will follow

By Claire Ward - Monday, July 26, 2010 at 1:55 PM - 0 Comments

Phototake/CP Images

If you needed a gall-bladder removal, Dr. Lee Swanstrom might tell you to open wide. The Oregon-based surgical endoscopist is currently conducting a study wherein he removes patients’ gall bladders through their mouths.

First he snakes an endoscope through the mouth of the patient, who is under general anaesthesia, and feeds a tiny knife through the scope down the esophagus to make an incision in the stomach. He then pushes a small balloon through the tube and inflates it to expand the hole. Finally, using imaging equipment and feel, he locates the approximately six-centimetre-long gall bladder, dissects it, pulls the pieces back out through the mouth, and closes the stomach hole.

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What's with all the Hoop-la?

By Monique Polak - Monday, July 26, 2010 at 1:24 PM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Christinne Muschi

When Montrealer Marie-Pier Jolicoeur needs a break from working on her Ph.D. dissertation, she heads to Parc Lafontaine—with her Hula Hoop. “I get a better sweat hooping than I do on my stationary bike,” said Jolicoeur, 26. She recently completed a four-session hula hooping class at the park. “One or two guys usually stop to talk to me whenever I practise. They want to see my moves,” she said.

Popularized in the 1950s, hooping is back. It doesn’t hurt that it now has celebrity cachet. Just as Desperate Housewives’ Teri Hatcher helped popularize pole dancing, actress Marisa Tomei did her bit for hula hooping when she told Ellen DeGeneres she hoops to stay in shape. Tomei’s new instructional hooping DVD will be available in August.

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Russian Satanists jailed for ritual killings

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 26, 2010 at 12:50 PM - 0 Comments

Six Russians are going to jail for up to 20 years for the ritual murders of four teens in 2008. The group, who were also teens at the time, identify themselves as Satanists and have been found guilty of “murdering four people with the aim of carrying out an initiation ritual into a sect and of desecrating the bodies of the dead.” The bodies were found three months after the group stabbed and dismembered the victims, and then cooked and ate some of their body parts. The hearings were held behind closed doors because of their disturbing nature and the involvement of minors. Tatyana Rachinskaya, a prosecutor, called the case “revolting” and “inhumane.”

Calgary Herald

Specificity and necessity

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, July 26, 2010 at 12:44 PM - 0 Comments

Mike Moffatt explains the need for a mandatory census.

Note that this problem does not go away if you increase the number of people you voluntarily survey. If Polish immigrants are less likely to respond to the survey relative to guys named Moffatt, then you’ll get the same results if you send the survey to 20% of the population of 30% of the population.

Unless the government is planning on putting questions such as race, ethnicity, income and religion into the mandatory short-form census, we’re going to have a really difficult time doing any kind of planning in heterogeneous neighbourhoods, as shown by this example.

Canada and EU toughen sanctions against Iran

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 26, 2010 at 12:25 PM - 0 Comments

Falling into step with the United States, Canada and the European Union have broadened their economic sanctions against Iran on Monday. The measures come in an effort to force Tehran to resume negotiations on its nuclear program, as it continues to defy international resolutions. Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said the sanctions are intended to “send a strong signal to Iran: the international community is united in purpose and commitment.” The sanctions, effective immediately, will prevent investment, assistance or technology transfers by European companies in the oil and gas industries that form the basis of the Iranian economy. In Canada, they will prohibit dealings with designated persons involved in nuclear, chemical, biological and missile proliferation. They ban the export of proliferation-sensitive goods, items for refining oil and gas, all remaining arms, and technology related to these goods. They also prohibit new investment in Iran’s oil and gas sector, and bar Iranian financial institutions from establishing a presence in Canada, and vice versa. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned Sunday that Iran would retaliate against the new sanctions, describing them as steps forced on Europe by the United States. “Anybody who participates in the U.S. scenario will be considered a hostile country,” he said.

Washington Post

Montreal Gazette

The Only Recent Jane Austen Adaptation Worth Watching…

By Jaime Weinman - Monday, July 26, 2010 at 11:54 AM - 0 Comments

…is “Jane Austen’s Fight Club.”

[vodpod id=Video.4095219&w=640&h=385&fv=%26rel%3D0%26border%3D0%26]

As with a lot of viral comedy videos, there is surprisingly little information on who created it or who’s appearing in it (most articles on the video simply describe what’s in the video itself).

Forgotten by airline, nine-year-old boy spends day in Chicago airport

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 26, 2010 at 11:52 AM - 0 Comments

Genevieve Harte’s nine-year-old son Julien was supposed to land in Ottawa at 5:35 p.m. on Saturday after a trip to San Francisco to visit his father. When the passengers deplaned, Julien was nowhere to be seen. Panicked, Harte called United Airlines who told her the flight hadn’t taken off due to bad weather. That wasn’t true: the flight had taken off, just without Julien. Luckily, she soon got a call from her son who was using his pre-paid cell phone. He was still in the children’s room at Chicago O’Hare where he had switched planes en route from from San Francisco several hours earlier. It had already been more than 12 hours since he had left San Francisco and airline staff had only offered the child food from McDonald’s, which was inadequate for the young vegetarian. United Airlines put the boy on the next flight back to Ottawa and gave Harte an undisclosed “gesture of goodwill.” Julien arrived safely, if a little hungry, in Ottawa at 10 p.m.

Calgary Herald

Police target Love Parade organizers after tragedy

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 26, 2010 at 11:48 AM - 0 Comments

German prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation after 19 people were crushed to death in a stampede at the Love Parade, one of Europe’s biggest music festivals. Sixteen people died at the scene, three more died in hospital, and almost 350 people suffered other injuries. The festival, which was held in the western German city of Duisburg on Saturday, has been permanently cancelled, and investigators are trying to find out how this happened. Among the dead were Bosnian, Dutch, Australian, Chinese, Spanish
and Italian nationals, and nearly all of the victims—who were between ages 20 and 40 years—have been identified. Emergency services said many died from asphyxiation or crushed spinal cords. City officials decided not to evacuate the festival, fearing it might cause panic, and rescue workers carried away the injured as the techno music continued to play.

Montreal Gazette

Vancouver police seek woman who stole from 105-year-old

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 26, 2010 at 11:31 AM - 0 Comments

Vancouver police are looking for a woman who allegedly walked into a 105-year-old woman’s room at an assisted-living home and stole a valuable Emile Zola painting on July 14. The woman apparently entered with a box of flowers and made off with the painting and a photograph of the victim at age 17. Police say the robber was unknown to the elderly victim. Camera footage shows a heavy-set Caucasian woman who appears to be between 30 and 35 years old.

Canoe

Keep long-form census, scrap threat of jail: National Statistics Council

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 26, 2010 at 11:28 AM - 0 Comments

The independent body that advises Statistics Canada has suggested a compromise to end the war between the Conservatives and statisticians over plans to scrap the mandatory long-form census. The National Statistics Council, made of 40 prominent analysts and researchers, released a statement Monday saying that plans to switch to the voluntary National Household Survey in 2011 would leave a “serious gap” in knowledge about Canadian society. They want 20% of households to receive the long-form in 2011 with a
guarantee that privacy concerns be addressed in time for the next census in 2016. The council agrees with the government that Canadians “should not be overburdened by intrusive demands for unnecessary information” and says confidentiality concerns could be dealt with through changes to the Statistics Act. The Council recommends removing the threat of jail time for those who refuse to participate in the long-form census, while introducing prison terms for those who willfully breach the confidentiality of census information.

Canada.com

Remains of world’s largest rat found in remote cave

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 26, 2010 at 11:25 AM - 0 Comments

The 2,000-year-old remains of the world’s largest rat have been discovered in a remote cave in East Timor. The rodent was three times as big as its modern cousins and weighed more than 13 lbs, about the same as a small dog. Australian archaeologists from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation found the bones of the giant rat alongside 11 new species of rat, eight of which weighed more than two lbs. Rats have recently become scarce on the island of East Timor, which lies north of Australia and east of Indonesia. The world’s largest living rats weigh about four lbs and live in the rainforests of the Philippines and New Guinea.

Telegraph

'Seeking solutions'

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, July 26, 2010 at 11:18 AM - 0 Comments

The National Statistics Council, the government-appointed group that advises the chief statistician has stepped forward this morning with a series of proposals, which, while keeping the mandatory long form census, include a review of the questions asked along strict criteria, an amendment to the Statistics Act to remove the threat of prison time and the elimination of questions on household activities.

The NSC news release is here. The full NSC statement is here. A full list of NSC membership is here.

Head of Cambodian torture prison found guilty of war crimes

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 26, 2010 at 11:18 AM - 0 Comments

Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, was found guilty of war crimes and sentenced to 35 years in prison for running the notorious Cambodian torture prison where more than 14,000 people died during the Khmer Rouge regime. He was also found guilty of crimes against humanity, murder and torture. However, Duch will serve no more than 19 years of his sentence. The judge took off five years for the time Duch was illegally detained before the United Nations-backed tribunal was established, and another 11 years for the time he has already served behind bars. Duch ran the S-21 prison, where few people made it out alive. When the Vietnamese invaded in 1979, they found only about a dozen survivors. According to the Documentation Center of Cambodia, at least 1.7 million people—nearly a quarter of Cambodia’s population—died under the 1975-1979 Khmer Rouge regime from execution, disease, starvation and overwork. Prosecutors asked for a 40-year sentence, and are currently studying the ruling to decide whether to appeal.

CNN

Higher education keeps dementia at bay: study

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 26, 2010 at 10:58 AM - 0 Comments

The more education you have, the better you will cope if you develop dementia, a new study has found. “Our study shows education in early life appears to enable some people to cope with a lot of changes in their brain before showing dementia symptoms,” said co-author Dr Hannah Keage at the University of Cambridge. For every added year of education, there is 11% decrease in risk of developing dementia. The study examined the brains of 872 people over 20 years. Scientists had observed that people with more education had a lower risk of developing dementia, but didn’t have conclusive evidence to prove it. The new study confirms that link.

Science Daily

Leaked documents paint grim portrait of Afghan war

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 26, 2010 at 10:37 AM - 0 Comments

More than 90,000 military records of incidents in Afghanistan leaked to Wikileaks paint a grim portrait of the near-decade-long conflict. The virtual diary details the use of special forces troops to hunt down Taliban leaders under a ‘kill or capture” mandate; the previously undisclosed use of surface-to-air missiles by Taliban fighters; the sharp rise in the number of roadside bomb attacks, which have killed more than 2,000 civilians; and the high-level cooperation between Pakistani authorities and the Taliban. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange won’t reveal how he obtained the material, which he’s since posted to what he describes as the site’s “uncensorable” servers.

The Guardian

Wikileaks

Mexican guards used inmates to kill 33 people: prosecutors

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 26, 2010 at 10:33 AM - 0 Comments

Prosecutors in northern Mexico say prison guards armed inmates and temporarily released them so they could carry out drug-related murders. Witnesses say guards gave official vehicles and weapons to prisoners before temporarily releasing them from the prison in Gomez Palazio in the state of Durango. Witnesses say the prison killing squad sprayed at least 120 rounds of bullets at a party in nearby Torreon, killing 17 people on July 18. Attacks on February 1 and May 15 that killed a total of 16 people are now believed to have been carried out by the same prisoners. Northern Mexico has experienced an increase in murders in recent years as the Gulf cartel and Zetas gang fight for control of the drug trade.

Globe and Mail

Scary hypotheticals

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, July 26, 2010 at 10:21 AM - 0 Comments

As our John Geddes points out, one of the questions that most disturbs Tony Clement about the census has never actually been asked.

Undaunted, the Conservatives continued on Friday to insist Canadians not be made to answer it. And they are apparently equally concerned that Canadians might be made to tell the government how many toilets they own.

Here though is the 2006 census. Here is the 2001 census. And here is the 1996 census. A search of each shows no results for the word “toilet.” The only reference to “bathroom” is a note in each to exclude such when counting the number of rooms in one’s dwelling.

The collection of numbers by the numbers (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, July 26, 2010 at 9:02 AM - 0 Comments

The Industry Minister has claimed that 160,000 Canadians “refused” to complete the long-form census in 2006. Statistics Canada now says 275,000 households failed to return a short-form census and 160,000 failed to return the long form, but only that census officials were unable to “make contact” with the majority of those households.

If a breakdown of the reasons for not responding exists, I’m not aware of it. (Requests for information in this regard have so far failed to produce a response.) It was reported in 2008 that 35,000 Aboriginals had refused to participate in the process. And there was something of a campaign to boycott that year’s count on account of Lockheed Martin’s involvement.

As noted previously, roughly 10.9 million households in 2006 received the short form, while 2.7 million received the long form. The response rates then were 97.5% for the short form and 94.1% for the long form.

Conrad Black: Let the vengeance begin

By Jason Kirby and Chris Sorensen - Monday, July 26, 2010 at 8:41 AM - 0 Comments

M. Spencer Green/AP

It has been a good summer for Conrad Black. He won a key victory at the U.S. Supreme Court that could help overturn his fraud convictions and, this week, managed to secure his release on bail from a Florida prison. For Black’s accusers, though, the mood is likely less jubilant. With several defamation lawsuits already filed, Black has been promising vengeance on those who played a role in his downfall—and his moment of retribution appears to be drawing closer.

Black still has a way to go before he can claim complete vindication, but experts say those who dismissed his flurry of litigation as long as he languished in jail might want to think again. “If you’re convicted of a crime, that makes it very difficult to win any defamation lawsuits,” says Peter Henning, a professor at Wayne State University Law School and a former attorney with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. “If Black can get his convictions reversed that puts him in a much better position.”

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The unsinkable Jean Charest is here to stay

By Martin Patriquin - Monday, July 26, 2010 at 8:39 AM - 0 Comments

Ryan Remiorz/ Canadian Press Images

Jean Charest wants to be Quebec premier for the foreseeable future. As headlines go, it’s about as exciting as “Worthwhile Canadian initiative.” Politicians, even those as terminally unpopular as Charest, always say they’re sticking around, if only to stymie opposition and further confound pundits.

Yet the premier’s frank declaration on CBC Radio’s The House recently that he wants to fight an unprecedented fifth election, which must take place before December 2013, goes against the loud whispers in both Quebec and Ottawa. Charest, goes the speculation, is effectively a spent force in Quebec; the 52-year-old premier is rumoured to be returning to federal politics, where he got his start as an MP in 1984, as early as this fall—for a Senate seat, perhaps, or a plum government appointment.

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Shows That Look Cheap

By Jaime Weinman - Sunday, July 25, 2010 at 11:37 PM - 0 Comments

While waiting for the Mad Men replay at midnight, I’m watching AMC’s repeat of the pilot of Rubicon, their new show that will be premiering officially next week though they’ve already “sneak previewed” the pilot at least twice. I don’t judge the overall quality of shows based on pilots if it isn’t necessary, so I haven’t made up my mind about the show; I’ll wait to see the series. But one thing that has struck me based on the pilot is how cheap the show looks. In the way it’s shot and lit, even in the sound mix — with dialogue dimly recorded and underlaid with generic street noises to remind us that we’re in the city — it reminds me of nothing so much as a Canadian drama series from the ’80s or ’90s. And this just as the production values of Canadian dramas have improved. It’s like AMC felt that someone had to pick up the mantle of dull photography and tacky sets after we dropped it. As someone else mentioned, it has sort of a Night Heat look to it.

Now, I don’t know how much or how little the network and production company are spending on it; all I know is what’s on the screen. But the thing is, just because a show is low-budget doesn’t mean it automatically looks cheap (just as someone can spend money carefully without being a cheapskate). On the same network, Breaking Bad is clearly a show on a tight budget, and I’ve talked before about the techniques they use to get the show made without a lot of money to throw around — like cutting to the distant master shot so they can dub dialogue over it. But Breaking Bad does not look cheap. They’ve got a visual flair that makes the most of the money they have, and the results they get are equal or superior to shows with bigger budgets.

Rubicon, for me anyway, doesn’t have that; much of it just leaves me thinking that the rooms are small, the lighting flat, the shot setups predictable. When they shoot characters from a distance or through doors and windows, it looks less like a stylistic choice (which is how it looks on Breaking Bad) and more like a response to the limited number of places to put the camera. Maybe they haven’t found a coherent visual style for it because the type of movie they’re trying to imitate — the conspiracy thriller — is unachievable on their budget and schedule. But then, Breaking Bad has figured out how to sort of do a Coen Brothers movie without a great deal of time and money. Ultimately it’s about how cleverly they use their resources; beautiful-looking movies have been made for almost nothing by directors who knew how to use what they had (for example, on a historical note, what we call film noir lighting became popular because it was a great way for low-budget movies to hide their limited or recycled sets).

For the moment that I can’t see myself sticking with Rubicon a long time unless they make it more enjoyable to look at. Maybe they will. If not, Canada need no longer have an inferiority complex about our TV production technique.

Those Afghan Wikileaks (Updated)

By Andrew Potter - Sunday, July 25, 2010 at 11:18 PM - 0 Comments

So Sunday plans went out the window when the Times, Guardian, and Der Spiegel hit the web with huge packages of stories based on what the Times is calling The War Logs — thousands of military and intelligence reports from Afghanistan going back to 2005. The documents were leaked to Wikileaks, who then gave these papers early access to scrape them for stories. The raw data is available from Wikileaks. The Guardian has some excellent map-based analysis; the Times’ CJ Chivers has a heart-stopping piece about the attack on Outpost Keating. Wikipedia already has a decent entry.

Both the Times and Guardian have posted caveats about their use of the information; at the moment I don’t have much to say on the ethics of it all. I’ve spent the past few hours working through the database looking for interesting stories or events using a handful of keywords, nothing special. I’m sure some of you have been doing the same and I look forward to your comments and insights.

The big news is that the Taliban have been using surface to air missiles (some successor to the Stingers, apparently) against helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, which has been kept very quiet. There is also the revelation that Pakistan’s ISI is appears to be a Taliban accomplice.

A few other things that have jumped out at me so far:

1.The conflict has clearly been going worse, for longer, than we’ve been led to believe, even correcting for the suspicion that we were being misled.

2. The amount of friendly fire incidents is really high, but I kind of expected that. But more surprising is the amount of Green-on-Green (i.e. friendly Afghan vs friendly Afghan) violence. Some of it is accidental fog-of-war stuff, but I’m amazed at how much fighting and score-settling goes on between Afghan army members and Afghan police, from minor skirmishes to the guy who blew up his neighbour’s house, with the whole family inside.

3. The sheer number of civilians wounded and killed as a matter of course is depressing. From little girls getting run over by humvees to teenagers on bikes getting shot at roadblocks to entire families getting taken out by airstrikes… it makes you wonder how there can possibly be any goodwill left at all, any hearts and minds left to be won over. One story in particular left me shaking my head: coalition forces were using what they assumed to be an empty field for artillery practice. Only later did they find out they had killed a young girl who was herding some sheep. The elders carried her body down, but they apparently weren’t angry — they knew that ISAF routinely used the field for practice. A fee was negotiated as compensation for the dead girl, and for the dead sheep.

4. The flip side of this is the scale and frequency of attacks against young girls by the Taliban, especially girls schools. The intimidation is as routine as it is shocking:

(S//REL GCTF)  A LETTER WAS RECEIVED BY THE DISTRICT COMMISSIONER OF DAMAN DISTRICT STATING THAT ANY GIRLS ATTENDING SCHOOL WILL CAUSE THE SCHOOL TO BE BURNT DOWN. NOSES AND EARS WILL BE CUT OFF FROM ANY WOMEN SEEN GOING TO AND FROM THE SCHOOL IT STATED IN THE LETTER SENT BY THE COUNCIL OF SCHOLARS. (GLOBAL)

…

PAKTYA: BLOOD LETTERS/DEATH THREATS HAVE BEEN RECEIVED BY A GRS INTERPRETER AND HIS WIFE, A TEACHER AT A GIRLS SCHOOL IN JAJI. THE AUTHOR OF THE LETTER HAS THREATENED TO BURN DOWN THE SCHOOL AND TO KILL THEM SHOULD THEY CONTINUE TO HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE WESTERNERS OR THE ELECTORAL PROCESS.

5. Then there’s this:

(U) ECHO CHAMBER – CHILD TALIBAN BEHEADING CAPTIVE: (Source:  SECSTATE WASHDC 55709, 25 Apr 07)

Under Secretary Karen Hughes requests your assistance to support the dissemination of counterterrorism messages in response to a grisly video circulating in Pakistan showing a young boy affiliated with the Taliban beheading an adult Pakistani male.  Exploiting children and making them instruments of hate and death is a barbaric and abhorrent tactic of Taliban terrorists.

6. One thing this database gives is a much better sense of the tempo and pace and intensity of the conflict. Canadian officials won’t talk about much that is combat-related except deaths, so we don’t hear about what is obviously a clear routine of firefights, IED strikes, disabled vehicles, rocket and mortar attacks, and so on. The apparent constant contact with the enemy is something that surprised me. I wish the military was more upfront about this.

7. I don’t really understand this:

EOD team responded to suspect package received at KAF post office. Item was suspiciously like incident from 10 April 07. This one was mailed from Canada, return address from Los Angeles CA, addressed to Prince Charles and the Post Master General, Kandahar AF APO AE 09355. This one contained a letter and a business card. Team X-rayed item, found no explosive hazard and declared the package safe. Upon examination, it was discovered that the person who sent the letter was ready to sell information he had concerning the Italian International Mob, This information had a $10 million price tag. The letter continued on to wish the Prince a happy Easter and congratulated him on his new baby. Incident terminated without further adieu. Discussions are underway with other agencies to alert us when visiting dignitaries such as the Prince of Wales arrive.

8. Every now and then, you come across a report that starts out seeming as routine as all the rest, and then, suddenly,  the fog of acronyms and militarese clears and the shocking headlines come flooding back:

TF Bayonet reported an SVBIED strike in Kandahar. At 0855Z, KPRT reported an SVBIED detonated against the second vehicle of one of its four vehicle convoys. The blast caused damage to two vehicles (LUVW). The first vehicle sustained minor damage. However, the second vehicle sustained significant damage requiring it to be towed back to KPRT. An immediate reaction force from TF Bayonet moved to the site with TF IED and is currently exploiting the site. Also, as a result of the IED strike, one Canadian Foreign Service Representative was killed in action, and three Coalition soldiers were wounded in action. There were also two civilians killed and ten wounded. At 0918Z, TF Bayonet requested a MEDEVAC for the three Coalition soldiers. Patient one suffered an amputation, patient two is trapped in a vehicle, and patient three has severe internal bleeding. All three Coalition soldiers are listed as URGENT and patients two and three require a LITTER. MEDEVAC 01-15A (MM 01-15A) was approved by CJTF76 at 0920Z. MM 01-15A, wheels-up from KAF at 0934Z and wheels-up from PZ at 0953Z. TF IED was requested and CJTF76 approved request (ground transport) at 0939Z. MM01-15A, mission complete at 1010Z. The remains of the deceased Canadian Foreign Service Representative were transported to Kandahar Airfield by ground today. EOD destroyed two M72 AT (LAW) launchers (Coalition) damaged in the explosion.