Myanmar may be building bunkers for nuclear weapons
By macleans.ca - Friday, December 10, 2010 - 6 Comments
Leaked documents hints at cooperation between Burmese and North Korean officials
Newly released diplomatic cables show the U.S. fears Myanmar may be building bunkers to stash nuclear weapons in remote areas of the jungle, some 480-km from Rangoon. The 2004 cable, leaked by WikiLeaks, says Burmese workers are helping North Korea construct “a concrete-reinforced underground facility that is 500 feet from the top of the cave to the top of the hill above.” An estimated 300 workers were at the site, according to the document, which quotes a Burmese official. Another source said General Thura Shwe Mann, Burma’s de facto commander in chief, visited North Korea in 2008. Dockworkers and business people have suggested seeing suspicious cargo entering Burma in recent years too.
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Ontario government conspired to keep G20 law secret
By macleans.ca - Friday, December 10, 2010 at 1:04 PM - 42 Comments
Emails show Liberal officials wanted to keep public in the dark
Emails uncovered by Ontario Ombudsman André Marin show Ontario cabinet ministers fought to keep a special law enacted ahead of last June G20 summit secret. Senior officials were discussing withholding information about the changes to the Public Works Protection Act as early as June 7, nearly three weeks before the Toronto Star broke the news that police had purportedly been given additional powers to arrest people near the summit site. (Dalton McGuinty’s cabinet secretly approved the changes on June 2.) Moreover, a press release saying the new law “does not authorize police officers to require individuals to submit to searches on roads and sidewalks outside the zone,” was scrapped at the last minute by government officials because, according to Marin, there had only been one media call on the matter.
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Bank CEOs complain Canadian mortgage rules are too lax
By macleans.ca - Friday, December 10, 2010 at 12:52 PM - 19 Comments
Household debt is “key risk” to economy: Bank of Canada
Two of Canada’s bank CEOs say that the number of people taking on extremely-long-amortized mortgages is putting the economy at risk. Ed Clark, CEO of TD Bank says that the federal government should reduce the maximum allowable amortization on home loans from 35 years to 25 years. Bank of Montreal CEO Bill Downe told The Financial Post that he agrees that tighter mortgage rules are “consistent with maintaining healthy consumer debt levels.” Their comments came as the Bank of Canada warned in the December issue of Financial System Review that consumer debt is “a key risk” for the Canadian economy. Over the last two years, Canadians have been borrowing at rates much faster than income growth, which makes them vulnerable to a changes in the economy, says the Bank.
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Pakistan fooled by bogus anti-India Wikileaks cables
By macleans.ca - Friday, December 10, 2010 at 12:41 PM - 7 Comments
Pakistani media reported on the false documents as confirming beliefs about its regional arch-rival
Fake WikiLeaks cables containing anti-Indian propaganda fooled Pakistani newspapers, which published reports on the cables as if they were real. The purported cables contained information confirming many right-wing Pakistani views and conspiracy theories about their regional arch-rival. The fake cables notably claimed that U.S. diplomats believed former Indian Army chief General Deepak Kapoor is “an incompetent combat leader and rather a geek,” and that India was guilty of war crimes in Kashmir. Another army chief had apparently been described as “an egotist, self-obsessed, petulant and idiosyncratic general, a braggadocio and a show-off, who has been disliked (and barely tolerated) by all his subordinates.” The fake cables are believed to have been planted by Pakistani intelligence. The Guardian, which has access to all of the 250,000 leaked Wikileaks cables, said that an extensive search of the database had found nothing to match any of the claims in the Pakistani media.
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Haiti orders recount of presidential votes
By macleans.ca - Friday, December 10, 2010 at 12:32 PM - 0 Comments
Top three candidates will be allowed to observe recount process
Haitian election officials have ordered a recount of the ballots cast in last month’s disputed presidential election. The immediate recount will be done in the presence of the top three candidates, Mirlande Manigat, Jude Celestin and Michele Martelly. The third place candidate, Martelly, has alleged that the count was rigged against him. When it was announced he would not pass through to the second round of voting, rioters took to the streets in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. The run-off vote is currently scheduled for January 16.
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What she meant to say
By Aaron Wherry - Friday, December 10, 2010 at 12:23 PM - 16 Comments
On September 28, the Globe reported that provincial health ministers had been told by that the federal government would not be moving forward with new warning labels for cigarette packaging. When NDP health critic Megan Leslie asked about the apparent cancellation that day in the House, Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq ignored the question. A month and a half later, Ms. Leslie asked again about the apparent decision and again Ms. Aglukkaq ignored the question.
This week though, in the wake of a CBC report that tobacco company lobbying preceded the apparent reversal, Ms. Aglukkaq told the House that “additional health information on labels is still under review” and “an announcement will be made soon.”
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Foreign news on Nobel Prize censored in China
By macleans.ca - Friday, December 10, 2010 at 11:51 AM - 4 Comments
Websites of CNN, BBC blocked, and Nobel coverage blacked out on TV
The latest bout of censorship in China relates to the blocking of news websites, including CNN, BBC, and the Norwegian broadcaster NRK, a day before the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony was to be held in Oslo to honor Liu Xiaobo. The move follows China’s denouncement of the decision by the Nobel committee to award this year’s prize to Liu, the imprisoned Chinese dissident who is serving an 11-year prison sentence for his pro-democracy campaign. China has criticized Norway for imposing their values on the eastern nation and censors have also apparently begun blocking reports on foreign television networks about Liu. In recent weeks, CNN and BBC television broadcasts have repeatedly gone dark in China during news segments about the Nobel Prize. China has not said that it is intentionally blocking the sites. However, in Beijing on Tuesday, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, made China’s feelings about the Nobel clear: “By awarding this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to a criminal serving his sentence because of breaking Chinese law, the Norwegian Nobel committee’s move constitutes open support of illegal criminal activities in China and flagrant interference in China’s judicial sovereignty.”
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Week in Pictures: December 3rd – December 9th 2010
By macleans.ca - Friday, December 10, 2010 at 11:41 AM - 0 Comments
The week’s best pictures
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'The process is a serious one'
By Aaron Wherry - Friday, December 10, 2010 at 11:29 AM - 46 Comments
From yesterday’s scrums after QP, here is Liberal defence critic Dominic LeBlanc’s response to the NDP’s impatience.
My understanding is that the process is going quite well. Mr. Dion and others don’t identify any disruptions in the process. The NDP were not serious from the beginning in finding a way to make a process work. They sabotaged the discussions and walked out prematurely as they had always planned to do. So this is as predictable as their publicity stunt around the discussions with the government. I think it is a little disingenuous to pretend that former Supreme Court justices and senior judges would somehow be involved in a sham process and as a front for some government obstruction. My understand is that the process is a serious one and is proceeding well and I’m quite confident that we will see some documents released very soon.
Separately, Gilles Duceppe said there would be documents made public in January.
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Poor nations have higher hospital infection rates: study
By macleans.ca - Friday, December 10, 2010 at 11:27 AM - 2 Comments
Issue has been largely unnoticed until now
According to World Health Organization researchers, poorer countries have far higher hospital infection rates than those in the developed world. After reviewing 220 previous studies, they concluded that infection rates in poor countries were three times higher than in the U.S. Looking at data back to 1995, including urinary tract, bloodstream and surgical site infections, and hospital-acquired pneumonia, they could see the difference. Intensive care infection rates were even higher: 47.9 per 1,000 patient-days, versus 13.6 in the U.S. Low cost measures like hand sanitation, surveillance and staff education could make a big difference, they said.
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Women’s health may be in decline
By macleans.ca - Friday, December 10, 2010 at 11:25 AM - 2 Comments
Signs of setbacks identified in the U.S.
More women are obese, diabetic and hypertensive than just a few years ago, the New York Times reports; more are testing positive for chlamydia (a sexually transmitted disease linked to infertility), binge drinking (consuming five or more drinks at a single occasion within the last month) and not getting screened for cervical cancer. This information comes from a new report by the National Women’s Law Center and Oregon Health and Science University, which gives the U.S. a grade of “Unsatisfactory” on goals set by the government’s Helathy People 2010 initiative. Screening rates for colorectal cancer and high cholesterol have improved since the last report, in 2007, and less women are smoking, or dying of stroke or coronary heart disease. Still, one-quarter of women are sedentary and get no leisure-time physical activity. Most don’t eat five fruits and vegetables a day.
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What Makes a Good Moral?
By Jaime Weinman - Friday, December 10, 2010 at 10:53 AM - 3 Comments
I’ve had a strangely consistent record with this season’s Community of liking “little” episodes (like last week’s, which I thought was terrific) better than the “big” ones. I thought the bottle episode — which was not big in budgetary terms, but was huge in terms of self-proclaimed ambition — started out brilliantly and then got a bit heavy and didactic in the second half. And my reaction to last night’s stop-motion Christmas special was similar: of course I admired the ambition of it, but I found the second half rather heavy-handed and on-the-nose in the way it told us, repeatedly, what the moral of the story was.It may be that moralizing is just part and parcel of this kind of Christmas episode, and after all, it was tougher for them to show rather than tell because they were working in an unfamiliar medium. But what happened in the last scene is not all that different from what the show has done in other episodes. Community and Big Bang Theory are two completely different kinds of shows, but both have this inclination toward having characters openly articulate what the theme of the episode is supposed to be. The former show errs on the side of having too much of a lesson and the second errs on the side of having no lesson at all, but both of them are going to have their characters sit down and tell each other what the story is about, rather than unconsciously showing it through their actions.
With Community, the ability of characters to analyze their own situations is part of the way the show is set up, so I don’t necessarily consider that a flaw. (If every character had equal ability to tell us what the story was about, that would be a flaw. But there’s a sliding scale of self-awareness — starting with Abed, who almost always knows what the episode is about — and the characters are in part defined by how self-aware they are about the story and its moral.) But in some episodes I feel like the show isn’t earning the emotional payoff it clearly wants to have, because it tries to earn it through talking — about the problem, about the epiphany, about the theme. Again, that may be just part of the style of the show, which is about analyzing pop culture and its effect on the way we think about life, and where many characters analyze their lives in the way we analyze pop culture online. But I think when it does earn the payoff it’s because it does so more through something that happens on screen. Last week’s unusually serious episode worked very well for me because much of the moral was conveyed by the things people did and Troy’s unspoken reactions to them.
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Much(less) Music
By Chris Sorensen - Friday, December 10, 2010 at 10:42 AM - 8 Comments
Once an iconic arbiter of teen cool, MuchMusic is now fighting to reinvent itself
Schwartz, the general manager of Much MTV Group, looks over the $5-million renovation of MuchMusic’s Toronto studios; Gossip Girl; A Much VJ prepares for a segment | Photography Jessica Darmanin; Giovanni Rufino/Warner Brothers
These days, MuchMusic’s downtown Toronto studios look more like the set of a home improvement channel than a 24-hour music station. On a recent afternoon, construction workers pounded hammers and wired overhead lights as a group of young, hip-looking VJs and producers made a valiant effort to hold a production meeting amid the clatter.
The $5-million renovations will make the space ready for high-definition broadcasting, and include a swanky new green room, a permanent stage for visiting musical acts, and a modern control room that will no longer be located next to the building’s large, street-facing windows, through which fans have peered for decades to watch Much’s unique brand of off-the-cuff television being created. “The control room has been there since they launched in 1984,” says Brad Schwartz, the 39-year-old, shaggy-haired senior vice-president and general manager of Much MTV Group, a division of broadcaster CTV. “And some of the components hadn’t been updated since that time.”
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How do they get away with it?
By John Geddes - Friday, December 10, 2010 at 10:20 AM - 42 Comments
Peter MacKay and Maxime Bernier have been way off-message this year, but Harper hasn’t slapped them down
MacKay (left) made a fuss over a U.A.E. request for landing rights; Bernier proposed freezing the size of government | Mike Dembeck/CP; Adrian Wyld/CP
In a government defined by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s rigid control, Peter MacKay and Maxime Bernier go their own ways. The Conservatives might sell themselves as the party of small-town values and suburban lifestyle, but MacKay and Bernier dress with big-city flair and have kept company with glamorous women. And during memorable stretches of 2010, they were the two most interesting federal Tories for more substantial reasons—MacKay for the way he pushed the boundaries of cabinet discipline, Bernier for how he made being a backbencher matter.
Many wonder how they get away with it. After all, neither was playing from an obvious position of strength. Bernier had looked marginalized when he resigned as foreign minister in 2008, after he left confidential briefing papers at the Montreal home of his former girlfriend Julie Couillard, whose past romantic links to Quebec’s notorious biker gangs had already raised eyebrows. MacKay is an old-school Maritime Tory who has never seemed in his element among Harper’s hybrid team of erstwhile Western Reformers and veterans of former Ontario premier Mike Harris’s provincial regime.
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A rudderless ship of state sails on
By Andrew Coyne - Friday, December 10, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 25 Comments
No sooner had Gordon Campbell left than British Columbia’s NDP caucus decided Carole James should go too
Jonathan Hayward; Richard Lam/CP
It is an interesting experiment British Columbia has embarked upon, having disposed of not one but two political leaders in little more than a month. The question the province appears to be asking itself is: are leaders strictly necessary?
It is not uncommon for a province to declare one party leader expendable, though rarely a sitting premier, such as Gordon Campbell. But to attempt to do without a leader of either party, unless out of mere parsimony, is suggestive of a sort of generalized Presbyterian disdain for hierarchy.
Mind you, I suppose the NDP had no alternative, once the Liberals decided to “go commando.” The canny strategists in the Liberal backroom were plainly on to something: the party had already jumped several points in the polls since discarding Campbell, and might have gained still more, once more people realized he was gone. Clearly, voters were hungering for less leadership, and while it was always possible the Liberal leadership void was still enjoying a honeymoon, to be competitive in the long term the NDP had to close the leaderless gap with their rivals.
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As Confucius once said
By Aaron Wherry - Friday, December 10, 2010 at 9:44 AM - 31 Comments
This week should not pass without some note of the Prime Minister’s altogether profound answer to a question from the Liberal leader on Wednesday. Mr. Ignatieff presented what he saw as a series of recent foreign policy failures on the part of Mr. Harper’s government and then wondered how Mr. Harper could “explain this pattern of obstruction, indifference and missed opportunities.” The Prime Minister stood and here, in this place of crude and disputed words, mused both profoundly and indisputably as follows.
Mr. Speaker, of course the opposite is totally at variance with that.
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Newsmakers
By macleans.ca - Friday, December 10, 2010 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments
Skeletons in Princess Victoria’s closet, Dick Cheney meets his match, and LeBron James goes home
Helena Bonham Carter, fashion plate
Her corsets, crinoline and frizzy hair have made her a constant on “worst dressed” lists over the years, so when the British actor, who counts Marie Antoinette as her style icon and claims a “f–k it attitude” to red-carpet dressing, heard she’d made Vanity Fair’s “best dressed” list, even she burst into laughter.When nature’s in your path . . .
Vancouver’s organic breakfast moguls, Ratana and Arran Stephens, may have cast their professional lot with the environment—their cereal company, Nature’s Path, aspires to “advance the cause of people and planet along the path of sustainability.” But this week they came under fire for razing 25 trees from their lawn in tony Point Grey: a violation of the city’s famously strict tree-protection bylaw, and a major no-no in Lotusland. Their sins made headline news in Vancouver, which bars homeowners from removing trees from their property, prompting the pair to apologize profusely and repeatedly, even writing a letter to Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson insisting that they be heavily fined. -
Music: Best of 2010
By Paul Wells - Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 10:25 PM - 32 Comments
(UPDATED with a few visual aids — pw)
Says who? Only me. Here are the albums, in a few different genres, that seem likely to last past the end of the year. No particular order:
Charles Lloyd, Mirror (ECM): The California peace-and-love Coltrane-disciple tenor saxophonist of the 1960s kept growing and deepening until, by the end of the ’90s, he was one of the most compelling voices in jazz. By now he’s become one of its last legends. I’d call this his best work yet, but I feel that way about every Charles Lloyd session these days. With a mighty band featuring pianist Jason Moran, Lloyd is pensive, mournful, incisive. The highlight comes when he revisits the spiritual The Water Is Wide, a decade after he last recorded it: funnier this time, more relaxed, still heartbreakingly pretty.
Arcade Fire, The Suburbs (Merge): It’s a canny album, one recorded, it seems to me, with some thought to keeping Arcade Fire interesting over the long run. So The Suburbs tones down the epic gestures of Funeral and, especially, Neon Bible to avoid sinking into grandiose self-parody: this one’s cooler, more intimate, almost conspiratorial. It’s a summer-evening sound that wears well. Continue…
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The Commons: The hangover and the afterglow
By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 6:35 PM - 43 Comments
The Scene. The Speaker rose and announced that a new member had arrived and here a short, balding, baby-faced man appeared at the entrance to the House. This man was Kevin Lamoureux, the victorious Liberal candidate in the recent by-election ordered to fill the vacancy in the riding of Winnipeg-North.
In keeping with tradition, the leader of the new member’s assigned party was dispatched to retrieve him. Michael Ignatieff, finding something here for which he could surely not be blamed, positively beamed as he took Mr. Lamoureux by the arm and led him to where he would be formally introduced to the Speaker. All sides stood to applaud as Mr. Lamoureux made his way down the aisle, the Liberals hooting and hollering most of all. As he then went to find his seat, various members of the official opposition reached out to shake his hand. Hedy Fry planted a kiss on his cheek.
Momentum here seeming to swing on the most flimsy and fleeting of grounds—a bit like a professional wrestling crowd, only less rational—the official opposition was obviously chuffed, noticeably buoyant. If the government had spent last night dancing and singing and feigning interest in the ideals of John Lennon, this was apparently the opposition’s turn to revel for the cameras. Continue…
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Christmas Eve at Bethlehem International
By Scott Feschuk - Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 5:00 PM - 11 Comments
In which Joseph, Mary, and Jesus face holiday air travel
Try telling the agent that you forgot to check the myrrh, and that those clothes are so swaddling because he’s a baby | Getty Images; AP; Illustration by Taylor Shute
Christmas story: 2010 version
Scene: The Bethlehem International Airport.•••
TSA agent: Next, please.
Joseph: You go first, honey. I’ll hold Jesus.
Mary steps forward. Joseph turns to continue a conversation with a man in line behind him.
Joseph: We finally get there and the girl at the desk is all, “Sorry, there’s no record of your reservation.” And I’m like, “Then I guess I just invented this confirmation number, right?” So that’s the last time we use Travelocity. We ended up having to spend the night in an old hovel with just a terrible animal smell.
Traveller: I think I’ve stayed at that Holiday Inn.
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Newsmakers – The End
By macleans.ca - Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 5:00 PM - 0 Comments
Newsmakers 2010
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Ready to wrap
By macleans.ca - Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 4:40 PM - 1 Comment
Gifts we’d give to the most memorable personalities of the year
James Cameron; Céline Dion; Ryan Reynolds | Roger Kisby/Christopher Polk/Matt Carr/Getty Images
Céline Dion
The new mom of twins gets two Metro Babycotpod cribs ($595), a “Bandit” Doll ($65) from Vancouver’s the Cross (ships across Canada) and a Hudson’s Bay blanket, to keep her Canuck roots strong. For René Jr., the start of a broader musical education: “Bob Dylan: The Original Mono Recordings” (Columbia/Legacy, $130).Naomi Campbell
Infamous for her blood diamonds, compliments of former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor, the supermodel could use some conflict-free bling: ethically sourced sapphires and Canadian diamonds from Brilliant Earth ($1,150).Glenn Beck
A tea kettle, of course. How about this Michael Graves design from Alessi, along with a sample of soothing herbal brews? As for all those righteous tears, Beck could use a fresh pile of Paul Smith handkerchiefs ($42), all 100 per cent woven cotton. This striped one is nice, though he might also like the white one that says: “Bless You.” -
A touch of class
By Cathy Gulli - Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 4:20 PM - 0 Comments
Newsmakers Good Samaritans
Master Cpl. Pinchin; Myron and Berna Garron | Chris Wattie/Reuters; Keith Beaty/Toronto Star/Getstock
Under enemy fire
The Governor General presented one Canadian soldier this year with a Star of Military Valour, the second-highest award honouring heroic actions in the battlefield. Master Cpl. Jeremy Pinchin received his medal in June, more than two years after he came under enemy fire in Afghanistan. It was late fall when he and his sniper detachment took position on a remote rooftop in Zhari District to protect the southern flank of a Canadian-Afghan patrol. Suddenly, they were “attacked and outnumbered by a well-coordinated group of insurgents,” according to a summary of events. A comrade fell, badly wounded. Rather than leave him, Pinchin treated his fellow soldier—and used his own armoured body as a shield.Pulled from the fire
It was the middle of the night when Saint John, N.B., taxi driver Sonny Trenholm, 67, headed into a gas station for a snack. As he rounded the corner, Trenholm saw an SUV rolled over on the driver’s side—and heard a woman, trapped inside, screaming, “I’m on fire!” He ran over, called 911, and yelled at her to kick the front windshield. The glass shattered, and he pulled the woman out, tore off her burning coat and hugged her. Rescue workers arrived, and Trenholm drove home—but got no sleep. “I thought she was going to die,” he said the next day. But she didn’t. -
Have yourself a merry little Xmas, Mr. Martin
By Jaime Weinman - Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 4:00 PM - 1 Comment
The 96-year-old composer of the classic holiday song talks about his life
Bettman; Everett Collection; Istock; Getty Images; Illustration by Taylor Shute
“One of the things I’m most grateful for is that God gave me a variety of gifts,” says Hugh Martin, the 96-year-old composer-lyricist who also built parallel careers as a vocal arranger, accompanist and singer. But the cover of Martin’s new autobiography, The Boy Next Door, emphasizes the thing he’s best known for: it mentions that he’s “the composer of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” Martin told Maclean’s that he didn’t expect that song to be the biggest part of his more than 70 years in show business: “I only wrote it because there was a spot in the movie [Meet Me in St. Louis] that called for a Christmas song.” For many years, it was less popular than another song from the same film, The Trolley Song, and then suddenly, “a lot of people began to do it about the same time. I never found out who started it.”
There’s much more to Martin’s career than one Christmas song, though, and one of the purposes of the book is to remind us that he wrote music and lyrics for pop standards and jazz favourites alike, both alone and with collaborators like his former singing partner Ralph Blane. The book touches on the origins of his best songs, including Pass That Peace Pipe, which has been covered by Bing Crosby and even the Muppets, and the campy cult classic An Occasional Man, inspired by a phrase he heard from a maid in his native Alabama. Cabaret entertainer Michael Feinstein, who has performed and recorded many of Martin’s songs, told Maclean’s that he considers Martin “one of the most inspired songwriters of his generation,” and Stephen Sondheim put four of Martin’s songs on a list of 100 songs he wishes he’d written himself.
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Rogues' gallery
By Nancy Macdonald - Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 4:00 PM - 0 Comments
Hollywood is refusing to forgive Mel Gibson, Woods blamed golf for his problems
Getty Images; AP; Reuters; Paul Darrow/Globe and Mail; Istock
Mel Gibson
He spared nothing in a series of secretly recorded aural assaults aimed at his girlfriend. Women and
African-Americans bore the brunt of his bug-eyed rage. So far, Hollywood is refusing to forgive. Even his cameo in “The Hangover” remake—however pathetic a shot at redemption—was axed after a revolt by the film’s cast.Lloyd Blankfein
Goldman Sachs’s paltry $550-million fine to settle civil fraud charges was widely trumpeted as a victory for CEO Blankfein, unapologetic defender of Wall Street’s most repellent practices. His firm has also been accused of betting against clients, and of hiding Athens’s debt problems—“God’s work,” as Blankfein unforgettably once labelled it.
