What it sounds like

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, March 26, 2011 at 6:03 PM - 28 Comments

Michael Ignatieff addressed a rally of perhaps 1,200 this evening inside a hotel ballroom in downtown Ottawa. There were the requisite signs and thundersticks. Mr. Ignatieff was flanked by a dozen MPs and candidates, behind them the Liberal banner, three Canadian flags on either side. And amid all that, he quoted Bob Dylan.

We are now on a bus bound for Montreal, but below a recording of the first of many stump speeches to come.

The summer of 2004

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, March 26, 2011 at 4:29 PM - 101 Comments

Gilles Duceppe again offers his version of events.

“When he says only the party that received the most votes can form a government, he said the opposite in this letter. He lied this morning.” The Bloc Leader said there was a key meeting in a Montreal hotel where the subject of the opposition parties banding together against Mr. Martin was thrashed out. “He (Mr. Harper) came to my office and said: ‘What do you want in the speech from the throne’?” Mr. Duceppe said.

Furthermore, via Twitter, Mr. Duceppe says that Mr. Harper “definitely talked about a coalition” when they met seven years ago. Add that to the accumulated testimony and evidence collected to date.

For whatever it is worth, here is what William Johnson wrote in his biography of Mr. Harper about the immediate aftermath of the 2004 election. Continue…

The clash over coalitions on the campaign's first day

By John Geddes - Saturday, March 26, 2011 at 3:37 PM - 129 Comments

There’s nothing like a campaign that opens with the two main combatants essentially accusing each other of the being outright liars.

So it was on the first day of the 41^st Canadian general election, with Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff hurling accusations of mendacity at each other over the matter of parliamentary coalitions.

Ignatieff had faced insistent questioning from reporters the day before on whether he would contemplate entering into a coalition with the other opposition parties if his Liberals placed second in the May 2 vote, in a bid to deny Harper the chance to form another minority government even if his Tories place first.

Continue…

Look into Michael Ignatieff's eyes

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, March 26, 2011 at 2:26 PM - 62 Comments

The first Liberal ad of the campaign.

Quebec gets a slightly jazzier version.

The Commons: And so it begins

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, March 26, 2011 at 12:41 PM - 31 Comments

Shortly after the bells chimed to signal three-quarters past nine—after the Prime Minister had gone to Rideau Hall and after the Governor General had formally dropped the writs—Michael Ignatieff walked out from under the Peace Tower and stepped into the sun.

He wore a bright red scarf atop a long black coat. A dozen Liberal MPs walked alongside him. It was cold, but bright. A row of television cameras and television characters awaited. “We’re here today, a beautiful spring day, a little chilly, but you can feel spring is coming,” Mr. Ignatieff said after arriving at his appointed podium. “The Harper winter will soon be over.”

His retinue chuckled.

“We’re here in front of a symbol of our democracy. And we’re here to start our campaign. And it started because yesterday, in this place behind us, for the first time in our history, a Prime Minister was found guilty by the House of Commons of contempt for our parliamentary institutions. And that’s why we’re having an election,” Mr. Ignatieff clarified. “So this election is not just an exercise in democracy, it’s about democracy.”

Indeed, an hour earlier, Mr. Ignatieff had released a statement entitled “Rules of Democracy.”

“We will be asking Canadians to choose between a Prime Minister that shows scant respect for our institutions,” Mr. Ignatieff continued, “and a Liberal team that believes profoundly that the first thing you expect of a government is respect for democratic principle.”

And on that call to a minimum standard of acceptable behaviour does the 2011 election campaign thus begin.

Continue…

Carney: This time it's different

By Jason Kirby - Saturday, March 26, 2011 at 12:13 PM - 38 Comments

In a recent magazine story and blog post, we highlighted the tremendous benefits Canada has enjoyed thanks to the commodity boom, but warned that if you think this will go on forever, you’re basically saying “this time it’s different.” That type of thinking has coincided with every bubble we’ve ever witnessed, and was invariably followed by a loud POP!!.

Well, Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney disagrees.

In a speech in Calgary earlier today Carney said the rise of the middle class in India and China does mean this boom is different than all the others that have come before it. ”Even though history teaches that all booms are finite, this one could go on for some time,” he said. (Here’s the full text of his speech.)

If Carney is proven right, here again is a chart we put together that shows how unbelievably, astoundingly history-defying his prediction would be:

Yes, that’s 200 years of booms and busts. Whenever 10-year average rates of return climb above 10 per cent, you’re into the danger zone, and as of a few weeks ago, we’d hit 12 per cent, according to Hackett Financial Advisors.

But Carney says this is a Supercycle, so the old rules don’t apply. His analysis seems to stand in contrast to his colleague at the Bank, Deputy Governor John Murray. Last year Murray warned against expecting commodity prices to keep going up forever: “If history is any guide, continuous rapid upward movement in real prices – oil or otherwise – is unlikely, as is a large permanent increase in the real price level.”

So who’s right—Carney or Murray?

P.S. someone will undoubtedly complain again that the chart doesn’t state which currency commodities were priced in. The chart measures 10-year trailing rates of return, priced in US$ terms.

Only Stephen Harper can protect us from foreign invaders

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, March 26, 2011 at 12:07 PM - 93 Comments

On cue, the Conservatives have two new adverts.

The second seems designed to confirm that Michael Ignatieff is the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada.

Do you know where your favourite Maclean's writer is?

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, March 26, 2011 at 11:02 AM - 11 Comments

In the early going, John Geddes will be our man aboard Mr. Harper’s campaign. For the first days, I’ll be travelling with Mr. Ignatieff’s tour. Early next week, I’ll jump off and Paul Wells will jump on.

For the rest of the campaign we’ll be variously out and about, but more on that later.

'We will choose between stable national government and a reckless coalition'

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, March 26, 2011 at 10:23 AM - 16 Comments

The prepared text of the Prime Minister’s statement outside Rideau Hall this morning.

“Good morning.

“In light of yesterday’s disappointing events I met with His Excellency the Governor General, and he has agreed that Parliament should be dissolved.

“Before I say anything else, I would like to begin by thanking Canadians for the confidence and trust they have given me and my colleagues over the past five years.

“It has been a privilege and honour to serve as Prime Minister of the best country in the world as together we faced the most difficult days of the global economic recession.

“At the same time, because of the great challenges that still confront us I understand that our job is not done.

Continue…

The rules of our democracy

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, March 26, 2011 at 9:07 AM - 52 Comments

The Prime Minister will momentarily arrive at Rideau Hall to ask that Parliament be dissolved. Meanwhile this morning, Michael Ignatieff has released a statement on how he would handle a minority government.

This election is not just an exercise in democracy, it’s about democracy.  So as we begin the campaign, let’s be clear about the rules.

Whoever leads the party that wins the most seats on election day should be called on to form the government.

If that is the Liberal Party, then I will be required to rapidly seek the confidence of the newly-elected Parliament.   If our government cannot win the support of the House, then Mr. Harper will be called on to form a government and face the same challenge.  That is our Constitution.  It is the law of the land.

Continue…

The Commons: So it ends

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, March 25, 2011 at 6:55 PM - 140 Comments

Whatever else was discussed within the walls of the House of Commons these last 14 months, the 40th Parliament was about Parliament. From its unprecedented start to its unprecedented end, here was a debate about our democracy—how it works, why it exists and what it means. These were the questions this place wrestled with each day. There are the questions now, implicitly or explicitly, laid before the public.

The events of this day are thus now open to interpretation. By one understanding, a majority of the people’s representatives expressed their lack of confidence in the those representatives who presently form the people’s government, thus compelling the government to resign and the Governor General to call for a general vote of the people. By another understanding, the Liberals conspired with the socialists and separatists to defeat Stephen Harper’s government and force an unnecessary and dangerous election.

Or understand what happened today as a concession. From all sides. An admission of defeat on the part of the 40th Parliament and a plea to the public to sort out what are wildly divergent views on the proper functioning of Parliamentary democracy.
Continue…

Gorillas on a diet at the Toronto Zoo

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 25, 2011 at 4:54 PM - 0 Comments

Shot and edited by Tom Henheffer

Read Kate Lunau’s article, ‘Gorillas on a diet’ in the April 4th edition of Maclean’s

Where Is The Sabermetrics of TV Ratings?

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, March 25, 2011 at 4:53 PM - 2 Comments

I like TV By the Numbers. Many don’t. It’s a good source for ratings information and at least some ratings analysis. Now, the thing about the site is that it is completely amoral. It’s a horse-race site. It doesn’t try to find reasons why a network might be justified in renewing a good show — the way Fox found reasons, in real life, to renew Fringe despite its abysmal ratings. It just focuses on the number that matters most, viewers 18-49, ranks shows based on 18-49, and trains its readers on how to get some predictive value out of ratings: to understand that 18-49 ratings make the biggest difference to whether your favourite show will get canceled, or that a certain 18-49 rating might be acceptable on NBC but not on CBS. The site has helped to create what we might call faux-experts, commenters who will look at the 18-49 of Fringe or The Good Wife and announce that it’s doomed. But what it does is still pretty worthwhile in helping us understand what the ratings mean on a slightly more than superficial level.

Only slightly, though, and that’s where ratings analysis on the internet is still way behind analysis of, say, political polling. (For once, things that matter are getting more and deeper interest than things that don’t!) Nate Silver became famous in 2008 for taking the statistical-analysis techniques familiar from baseball, applying them to polls, and really getting the maximum amount of predictive significance out of polling. We don’t really have anything like that for TV yet. It wouldn’t be particularly difficult to do, for someone who knows how to read numbers: it would require looking at what shows have been canceled or renewed in the past decade or so, and figuring out what level of ratings predicts renewal or cancellation in different circumstances. And just as baseball and polling analysis takes into account all the outside factors that can skew the numbers, this kind of TV analysis would have to account for stuff like time slots, daylight savings time, even the amount of money a show stands to make from things other than advertising. (I don’t know that Warner brothers offered Fox a larger cut of the DVDs and other ancillary marketing of Fringe, but that kind of deal has been made in the past.)

And of course, it would require a more in-depth understanding of the meaning of demos. Right now most of the analysis seems to be stuck at “look at 18-49 and only 18-49.” Which is not a bad rule of thumb, because a) That is the demographic that matters most, and b) The decisions are made by network executives and advertisers, and they can be pretty superficial sometimes. (In other words, we may think “they couldn’t be so superficial as to think only viewers 18-49 have any value.” But maybe they are that superficial, in which case we have to think like a guy with a product to advertise.) But all this really tells you about is the “blowouts,” the shows that clearly will be renewed or clearly won’t be (unless the show with is Fringe). Anyone can look at a high 18-49 rating and know the show is safe, just as anyone can look at any single poll for a blowout election and know who’s going to win. But this doesn’t help with shows that are neither hits nor flops, which are the ones that are hardest to predict. When networks start taking all the factors into account, things that don’t usually “matter” may start to matter more than they normally do.

Sort of like Conan O’Brien’s poor performance with total viewers on The Tonight Show really did matter to NBC (according to The War For Late Night) once he was no longer completely crushing Letterman in 18-49. Does that mean total viewers really do sort of matter, or that they matter when developing a strategy to create broader appeal in every demographic, or that they matter to the affiliates with their older-skewing lead-ins and lead-outs? I don’t have the answers to any of these questions, and I’m not qualified to study the numbers and find out whether they provide answers. But until someone comes up with answers, the renewal of Fringe, or the renewal of some old-skewing show (Harry’s Law and The Good Wife could very well both be back next season) will not be predictable because the current models are really not predictive models at all.

Copyright reform: the only thing more depressing than another election

By Jesse Brown - Friday, March 25, 2011 at 4:51 PM - 15 Comments

Hug a political reporter today, they could use it.

With little joy or passion, newsrooms are gearing up to dutifully cover every aspect of an election that nobody really wants. For journalists, the coming weeks will bring nothing but grind, a decaying echo of something that once seemed important, exciting, even fun. Twitter is filled with their tears, the poor babies.

Do I seem glib? I am glib! Glib and glum. I have no pity for those who cover politics, because I’m too busy pitying myself. I cover copyright. And that means I’m stuck on “repeat” for years, not weeks. Continue…

Are there lessons for Canada in Japan's nuclear near-meltdown?

By Kate Lunau - Friday, March 25, 2011 at 4:09 PM - 12 Comments

Bruce Fidler is the mayor of Creighton, Sask., a town of about 1,500 people on the border with Manitoba. “It’s pretty much a one industry community,” he says. “Mining is the largest employer we’ve got.” If Fidler gets his way, that could one day change: this town could become a nuclear waste dump. Continue…

'The only course of action that remains'

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, March 25, 2011 at 3:45 PM - 119 Comments

The Prime Minister’s statement to reporters after his government was defeated in the House.

Good afternoon.  I’ll be brief.  The global economy is still fragile.  Canada’s recovery has been strong but it needs to remain our focus. That’s why the economy has been and will continue to be the number one priority for me as Prime Minister and for all the members of our Conservative government.  This is what Canadians expect of us in Parliament, all of us.

Continue…

Opening Weekend: 'Certified Copy' and 'Win Win'

By Brian D. Johnson - Friday, March 25, 2011 at 3:34 PM - 3 Comments

When you plunk down your money to see a movie, there’s more to consider than the question of “how good is it?” You also have to ask, where will this movie take me, and are these actors I want to spend time with? Opening this week are two modest pictures in which a superb actor co-stars with a novice. And they transport us to entirely different worlds. Win Win, by American writer-director Thomas McCarthy (The Visitor, The Station Agent), takes us to a New Jersey suburb, and the unglamourous life of a chronic loser. Written and directed with impeccable authenticity, it offers further proof that Paul Giamatti (Sideways, Barney’s Version) is the most compelling nebbish to carve out a place for himself on the big screen since Woody Allen. (Plus he’s a lot more likable.) And his teenage co-star, Alex Shaffer, makes an impressive acting debut. Certified Copy (Copie conforme), a scenic puzzle immaculately composed by Iranian master Abbas Kiarostami, takes us to Tuscany with two beautiful people, Oscar-winning actress Juliette Binoche (Caché, Chocolat, The English Patient) and newcomer William Shimmel, an operatic baritone who has never acted in film. He is not so convincing. While Win Win is a strictly realist drama, Certified Copy is playful conceit. As the title suggests, authenticity, or lack of it, is what the film is all about.

Which is the better movie? I’d say Win Win wins, hands down. But if you put a gun to my head and told me I’d have to watch one or the other again and again, I’d prefer to be stranded in the romantic riddle of Certified Copy, despite some obvious flaws. Perhaps that just means I’d rather hang out with Juliette Binoche than with Paul Giamatti. I did that, in fact, one afternoon last May at the Cannes Film Festival, where Binoche would win Best Actress for Certified Copy. I took part in a group interview with some foreign journalists on the beach, and you can watch some video clips of our encounter at: Juliette Binoche in Cannes, where she talks about the strange “vibe” of revisiting Tuscany, where she shot The English Patient. More details about the two films:

Certified Copy is a two-hander, a walking-and-talking drama in a picturesque locale, and in that regard it bears an uncanny resemblance to Richard Linklater’s Before Sunset. It, too, is tale of a headstrong Frenchwoman who meets an Anglo author in mid-book tour, takes him on an afternoon jaunt, and tempts him to delay his departure. As she looks for an opening in his English armour, their bantering argument takes a twist when they’re mistaken for a married couple. As they stroll the southern Tuscan village of Lucignano, they begin acting the part, dredging up passions and resentments that never existed. But at a certain point we start to wonder if, in fact, these two characters have known each other all along, and simply play-acting. Of course, the riddle is never resolved.

The fact that Binoche’s co-star, English opera tenor William Shimmel, had never acted before nicely compounds their abrasive chemistry, up to a point. Because he’d never been on a film set, and their Iranian director, who’s English is poor, was focused on composition, Binoche virtually directed the dialogue. “I was driving the whole deal,” she told me in Cannes. “It was an almost orgasmic experience after every take.” Her performance is stellar, and worthy of the Best Actress award she received at the festival. But Shimell is no match for her. His poker-assed English dignity goes only so far. And when he’s called upon the express real emotion, his portrayal of repressed anger is stilted. But then again, perhaps that’s because it’s the character who is play-acting, if the first-date-with-a-stranger scenario is indeed a charade. Either way, this mobius strip of a movie feels lop-sided. We feel Binoche is doing all the heavy-lifting and Shimmel is just along for the ride. Continue…

America's nuclear renaissance stalls

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Friday, March 25, 2011 at 3:27 PM - 1 Comment

Japan’s nuclear crisis came just as the Obama administration was gearing up to jump-start a nuclear renaissance in America. The U.S. has not broken ground on a new nuclear power plant in the thirty years following the partial core meltdown at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island reactor in 1979. Obama’s plan to change all that in the name of climate change is now looking very uncertain.

Nuclear energy has been a key part of Obama’s strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. by 80% by 2035. Not only are nuclear plants a stable source of electricity without a carbon footprint, nuclear is also one area of energy policy where the president sees eye-to-eye with Republicans in Congress. In February, Obama announced a federal loan guarantee worth $8 billion for the construction of two new nuclear plants in Georgia. And in his 2012 budget request to Congress last month, Obama asked for a whopping $36 billion to expand federal government loan guarantees to help encourage the construction of other new nuclear plants. “We’re going to have to build a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in America,” he said last month.

Obama held to this line after the disaster in Japan, declaring on March 17, that nuclear power is “an important part of our own energy future, along with renewable sources like wind and solar, natural gas and clean coal.” Obama emphasized that American nuclear power plants have undergone “exhaustive study” and had been declared “safe for any number of extreme contingencies.” Nonetheless, he asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to do a comprehensive review of the safety of our domestic nuclear plants in light of the natural disaster that unfolded in Japan.

But across the country, the Japanese crisis reawakened old fears. Continue…

Harper government falls

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 25, 2011 at 3:01 PM - 41 Comments

The opposition parties have passed a vote of non-confidence in the House of Commons on Friday, defeating the Conservative government led by Stephen Harper with a vote of 156 to 145 and paving the way for the 41st General Election in Canada. It is the sixth vote of non-confidence in Canadian history, and the first one against a government that was found in contempt of Parliament. Prime Minister Harper will ask Governor General David Johnston on Saturday to formally dissolve Parliament and issue a writ of election, kicking off an election campaign. The election is expected to be held on May 2.

CBC News

The Speaker says goodbye

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, March 25, 2011 at 3:00 PM - 2 Comments

Below are the Speaker’s parting words to the House of Commons, delivered shortly after Question Period.

Avant de commencer mes remarques personnelles, je voudrais me joindre aux collègues pour saluer la présence parmi nous aujourd’hui de l’honorable députée de La Pointe-de-l’Île. Bienvenue madame, c’est un plaisir de vous voir.

I am honoured by the very kind comments so many colleagues have made today.

Je voudrais vous remercier pour vos remarques. Cela a toujours été un plaisir pour moi d’être ici, en Chambre et j’ai apprécié cette opportunité, depuis mon élection en 1988, par les électeurs de Kingston et les Îles.

I have really enjoyed being their representative in this House. I am honoured to have been able to do it for so long, and so consistently in the sense that they keep re-electing me. I have appreciated that support immensely. I am very pleased and honoured to have been the member of Parliament for such a great constituency, obviously Canada’s first capital. It has been a privilege to serve my community of Kingston. I must say I look forward to spending a little more time there, if there is a dissolution shortly.

Continue…

156-145

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, March 25, 2011 at 2:26 PM - 67 Comments

By a count of 156 votes in favour and 145 opposed, the House of Commons has passed a motion of non-confidence, thus defeating the Harper government.

The House is now adjourned.

All the wrong reasons for an election

By Andrew Coyne - Friday, March 25, 2011 at 2:20 PM - 66 Comments

Chris Wattie/Reuters

An election? Over that?

Well, no. Whatever the election, if that is indeed where we are now headed, is about, it will not be this week’s thin pamphlet of a budget. The government may or may not succeed in contriving to be defeated on it, but it is hard to imagine how it could run on it. Or, for that matter, how the opposition could run against it.

One would have supposed, prior to Jack Layton’s surprise announcement that his party would not support it, that that was the point: to write a budget that was so innocuous, so inoffensive, so utterly inconsequential that it would be bulletproof. And indeed, the betting line in the budget lock-up was that the government had offered just enough to the NDP—money for the poorest of the old, incentives for doctors to practise in rural areas, an extension of the EcoEnergy retrofit boondoggle—without giving away the store on the deficit.

The rest is a mist of microscopic subsidies and tax credits sprayed in all directions, intended to remind their recipients at every turn of all the good things Mother Ottawa has done for them. Once, you might have invested in an exciting new sector like the digital economy in the expectation of profit: now you do it in expectation of a grant. Once, parents might have decided for themselves whether their kids should take piano lessons: now the government badgers them into it, with children’s arts tax credits. Once, there were volunteer firefighters. Now they are paid volunteers, via the volunteer firefighters tax credit.

Yet the amounts involved are so trivial that it is hard to take them seriously. Nor are the differences between the parties so large as to suggest the sort of fundamental divide that might justify defeating the government and dissolving the House. The Conservatives would enrich the Guaranteed Income Supplement by $300 million; the NDP had demanded $700 million. A general election, over $400 million—one-sixth of one per cent of federal spending? The election itself would cost very nearly as much.

So no, we are not going to have an election over tax credits for volunteer firefighters. But what is the reason, then? Normally the surest guide to how politicians make decisions is crass self-interest. But even that old faithful appears to have let us down. There is simply no clear upside for any of the parties in an election at present. Two and a half years have passed, and the parties all stand at exactly the same level in public opinion as they did in the last election. I mean to the percentage point: an average of recent polls gives the Conservatives 38 per cent, the Liberals 26 per cent, and the NDP 18 per cent.

The Tories might have been supposed to enjoy some momentum, before the rash of incriminating news stories of recent weeks: though these have yet to register in the party standings, they appear to have taken their toll on the Prime Minister’s personal approval ratings, according to the latest Nanos poll. The Liberals, besides starting 12 points back, are saddled with a leader who trails the party by a similar margin, while the NDP, for all Layton’s personal popularity, must surely wonder how he will stand up to the rigours of a long campaign, given his failing health.

So, just as a thought experiment, let’s suppose this really is what some in the opposition claim it is: an election about this government’s abuse of power, its disregard for Parliament, its refusal to be held to basic norms of democratic accountability. Put that way, it is hard to see how we could avoid an election: if ever a House has lost confidence in a government, it is surely this one.

But to be an election worth having, it can’t just be a referendum on the government. The choice, after all, is not between a Conservative government and no government at all. It is between one party and another (or others: see “coalition”). If the Liberals, in particular, wish to make an issue of ethics and accountability, they will have to overcome the public’s understandable doubts about them on both counts: a recent Ipsos Reid poll, while identifying honest and open government as a key public priority, found people trust the Conservatives to deliver it more than the Liberals—though both parties trailed behind “none of the above.”

An election about restoring our democracy should be an example of it. If the parties want the public to trust them, they’re going to have to trust the public—by bringing forward specific proposals for reform, and seeking a mandate for them. If Parliament has ceased to be relevant, let’s give it real power to hold the executive to account: for example, by giving committees the staff and research budgets to do their jobs properly, or by taking from government the power to invoke closure (in Britain, it’s the prerogative of the Speaker). If MPs are too beholden to party, let’s see some bold proposals to empower them: like abolishing the requirement for candidates to get their party leader to sign their nomination papers, or restricting the confidence convention, to reduce the whips’ sway.

Let’s clean up nomination races. Let’s give MPs the right to choose their leader. Let’s trim the size of cabinet. Let’s ban the use of public dollars for partisan advertising, as Ontario has done. Let’s pass Michael Chong’s package of reforms to question period. Let’s reform our broken electoral system, and give new parties with new ideas a chance to breathe.

And before we do any of that, let’s find some way to persuade the voters that the party that promises these things will actually do any of them.

Juliette Binoche talks about 'orgasmic' takes in Certified Copy

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 25, 2011 at 1:40 PM - 0 Comments

West African leaders urge UN to intervene in Ivory Coast

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 25, 2011 at 1:11 PM - 2 Comments

West African leaders have called on the UN Security Council to increase pressure on Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo, who has refused to cede power despite losing the November 2010 election to his rival, Alassane Ouattara. More than 450 people have been killed in clashes between rival militias that have brought Ivory Coast to the brink of civil war, with 52 killed this week alone. ECOWAS leaders at a meeting in Nigeria have called for tougher sanctions to be placed on Gbagbo and for the 9,000-strong UN peacekeeping force deployed throughout the country to be given a more robust mandate to protect civilians and control the violence. Meanwhile, up to 1 million people have fled the capital of Abidjan, according to the UN refugee agency. Banks have collapsed, unemployment and food prices are skyrocketing, and observers fear that if left unchecked, the fighting could spread to neighbouring Liberia.

BBC News

CBC News