Jamaica celebrates independence                                          jamaicans partied after Usain Bolt romped home with his 100m gold medal

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Jamaica kierin is sexy celebrations a day after Usain Bolt retained the Olympic gold medal in the men's 100m, with his compatriot Yohan Blake taking the silver.

The world's fastest man, 25, set a new Olympic record of 9.63 seconds.

Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller described her country's success as "just marvellous".

The Caribbean nation is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its independence from British rule.

In the Jamaican capital, Kingston, thousands gathered in the national stadium to watch the race and celebrate the Jamaican medals.

In an interview with the BBC, Mrs Simpson Miller said: "I am so proud and so happy and pleased at the victory of Usain and young Blake.

"It's a serious achievement, an excellent achievement, particularly coming on the heels of our independence celebrations."

Memories of Jamaican independence, 50 years on

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6 August 2012 Last updated at 18:52 ET

On 6 August 1962, the British flag was lowered in Jamaica for the last time, and the Jamaican flag raised.

Its 307 years as a British colony had come to an end.

Now, the country's streets, buildings and even its people are decorated in the national colours of black, gold and green as Jamaica celebrates 50 years of independence.

Dance and music performances took place all over Jamaica in venues from schools to sports fields. The star events were at the Jubilee Village in Kingston, where thousands of Jamaicans came to celebrate their heritage.

As they gathered there, many reflected on their memories of independence, and how their country has changed in the 50 years since.

Copper production increases in Zambia

 

Pennipher Sikainda, AfricaNews reporter in Lusaka, Zambia

Mining giant, Konkola Copper Mines, has recorded an increase in its mid-year copper production in Zambia by 20 percent. KCM Chief Executive Officer JEYAJUMAR JANAKARAJ has disclosed that the company's production for the period April to September 2012 has shown a mid-year production increase compared to the same period in the last financial year which stood at 86,000 tones finished copper.

Mr JANAKARAJ notes that the increase is a result of high output in copper production at their Nchanga and Konkola mines both located within the copper-belt province of Zambia.

Mr JANAKARAJ nonetheless sates that KCM is on course in meeting copper production targets for the financial year 2012-2013.

The mining company Mr JANAJARAJ further projects increased copper production over the next five years to around 400,000 tones compared to the 2011-2012 financial year, KCM recorded copper production levels of 200,000 tones.

Meanwhile, KCM, a mining firm emerging out of India says it is considering listing on the London metal exchange and the Lusaka Stock Exchange.

The KCM boss says the company may not have immediate plans to carry out the listing for both the LME and Lusaka Stock Exchange; preliminary projections for listing is between the period of late 2013 to 2014.

By James Liu

A wounded Palestinian is treated at a hospital in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday after Israeli gunfire at the Gaza border killed one Palestinian wounded several others. (Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters)

Palestinian youths gesture during a demonstration next to the security fence standing on the Gaza border with Israel, east of Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Friday. A Palestinian was shot dead by Israeli forces near the Gaza border after he entered a no-zone near the fence. (Said Khatib/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images)

On Friday, hundreds of Palestinians approached Israel's border fence in several locations in southern Gaza, according to an Associated Press television cameraman. In the past, Israel's military has barred Palestinians from getting close to the fence, and soldiers opened fire routinely to enforce a no-go zone meant to prevent infiltrations into Israel.

Since the ceasefire, growing numbers of Gazans have entered the no-go zone.

In one incident captured on video, several dozen Palestinians, most of them young men, approached the fence, coming close to a group of Israeli soldiers standing on the other side.

Some Palestinians briefly talked to the soldiers, while others appeared to be taunting them with chants of "God is Great" and "Morsi, Morsi," in praise of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, whose mediation led to the truce.

At one point, a soldier shouted in Hebrew, "Go there, before I shoot you," and pointed away from the fence, toward Gaza. The soldier then dropped to one knee, assuming a firing position. Eventually, a burst of automatic fire was heard, but it was not clear whether any of the casualties were from this incident.

Gaza health official Ashraf al-Kidra said a 20-year-old man was killed and 19 people were wounded.

Israel's military said roughly 300 Palestinians approached the security fence at several locations in southern Gaza, tried to damage it and cross into Israel. Soldiers fired warning shots in the air to distance the Palestinians from the fence, but after they refused to move back, troops fired at their legs, the military said. It also said a Palestinian infiltrated into Israel in the course of the unrest, but he was returned to Gaza.

Leaders meet in CairoThe truce allowed both Hamas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to step back from the brink of a full-fledged war. Over eight days, Israel's aircraft carried out some 1,500 strikes on Hamas-linked targets, while Gaza fighters peppered Israel with roughly the same number of rockets.

The fighting killed 166 Palestinians, including dozens of civilians, and six Israelis.

In Cairo, Egypt was set to hold separate talks Friday with Israeli and Hamas envoys on the next phase of the ceasefire — a new border deal for blockaded Gaza. Hamas demands a lifting of all border restrictions, while Israel insists that Hamas must halt weapons smuggling to the territory.

In Israel, a poll showed that about half of Israelis think their government should have continued its military offensive against Hamas.

The independent Maagar Mohot poll released on Friday shows 49 per cent of respondents feel Israel should have kept going after squads that fire rockets into Israel. Thirty-one per cent supported the government's decision to stop. Twenty per cent had no opinion.

Twenty-nine per cent thought Israel should have sent ground troops to invade Gaza.

The poll of 503 respondents had an error margin of 4.5 percentage points.

The same survey showed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party and electoral partner Israel Beiteinu losing some support, but his hard-line bloc still able to form the next government. Elections are Jan. 22.

By Daniel Hyun

A rumour that a Christian man blasphemed against Islam has sparked a riot in the northern Nigeria town of Bichi, police have said.

Residents said four people were killed and shops were looted.






Christian and Muslim leaders are encouraging inter-faith dialogue in Nigeria

The riot came on the day the incoming head of the Anglican Church, the Rt Rev Justin Welby, launched an initiative to promote religious tolerance in Nigeria.

Religious clashes have claimed thousands of lives in Nigeria since military rule ended in 1999.

The militant Islamist group, Boko Haram, has also been waging an insurgency since 2009 to impose strict Sharia across Nigeria, which is roughly divided between a mainly Muslim north and a Christian and animist south.

'Learning about religions' Nigeria's Kano state police chief Ibrahim Idris said "misinformation" had triggered the riot, AFP news agency reports.

"Rumours went round that someone blasphemed the Prophet [Muhammad] and there was a breakdown of law and order," he is quoted as saying.

The BBC's Yusuf Ibrahim Yakasai in Kano, the main city in northern Nigeria, says that a heavy contingent of soldiers and policemen have been deployed to Bichi to restore order.

It is a small town about 30km (18 miles) from Kano.

Mr Idris said the riot broke out when a Christian tailor mispronounced the name of a dress while chatting with his Muslim neighbour in Hausa, the main language spoken in the north, changing the meaning to "the Prophet has come to the market", AFP reports.

Angry Muslim youths then attacked Christian-owned shops, looting and burning them, he said.

Residents said four Christians were killed, but Mr Idris could not confirm this.

Our reporter says some residents gave him a different account of what caused the riot.

They told him that a Muslim crowd first attacked a Christian man for wearing a T-shirt that they alleged blasphemed against the Prophet Muhammad.

In the capital, Abuja, Bishop Welby joined Nigerian Muslim and Christian religious leaders and former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair to launch a campaign to promote religious tolerance.

The Tony Blair Faith Foundation - which organised the programme - got students from Christian and Muslim communities in Nigeria to chat via a video link with students from different faiths in the UK city of Derby.

Bishop Welby is a former oil executive who will become the Archbishop of Canterbury in March.

He has visited Nigeria 70 times, and was the special envoy to Africa for the outgoing Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who is stepping down after 10 years in the role.

Student: 1129282, 1272004

  Just one month shy of turning 40 years, the Moro rebellion in the Philippines, officially comes to an end as the Aquino administration and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) are set to sign today a framework agreement creating Bangsamoro.

  While the stirrings for Moro revolution emerged after the infamous Jabidah Massacre on Corregidor Island on   March 17, 1968, it was not until Nov. 14, 1972, that "the guns of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) started to speak," Salah Jubair wrote in the book "Bangsamoro: A Nation Under Endless Tyranny."

  The first assault was in Jolo, Sulu, a month after then president Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law. Rebels put the town to the torch in an attack reminiscent of the World War II bombing of Manila by Japanese invading forces.

  In all, the Moro rebellion is estimated to have claimed some 120,000 lives and kept Mindanao impoverished.

  The preliminary pact provides the "overarching architecture" for the process of addressing the so-called Bangsamoro question, defining the powers and structures of a new self-governance entity that will replace and have far greater political and economic powers than the current Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

  It also lays down the principles, processes and mechanisms "that will shape the new relations between the Central Government and the Bangsamoro."

Bangsamoro force

  Although details are still to be threshed out, the agreement enshrines the MILF's agreeing to "undertake a graduated programme for decommissioning of its forces so that they are put beyond use."

  In turn, the government agrees to "a phased and gradual" transfer of  law enforcement functions from the Armed Forces of the Philippines to a Bangsamoro police force, which is also to be defined further.

  Chief government negotiator Marvic Leonen has said the decommissioning of the Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces, the MILF's armed wing, "can keep apace within the period of transition" from the ARMM to Bangsamoro. This means within the next two years.

  By mid-2016, the first set of elected Bangsamoro leaders, to rule under a ministerial government, is expected to assume power.

  "The agreement heralds a change of status of the parties vis-a-vis each other, from enemies to partners," Leonen said.

  With an estimated 12,000-strong army, the MILF is the remaining Moro revolutionary group in Mindanao which enjoys international legitimacy.

  The self-styled Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Movement, a band of some 300 armed men led by erstwhile commander Ameril Umra Kato, has been relegated by authorities to "a lawless group" that will be subjected to joint pursuit efforts by government and the MILF.

  Although still posturing as a revolutionary movement, the MNLF has disintegrated into various factions after it signed a final peace agreement with the government on Sept. 2, 1996.

  The MILF itself split from the MNLF in 1977 over differences in strategy and political outlook.

Apprehension

  National Democratic Front chief Luis Jalandoni has expressed apprehension at the overdependence on legal and constitutional processes for entrenching the Bangsamoro.

  But MILF chief negotiator Mohagher Iqbal said they were confident the government would fulfil its commitments especially in the face of a very high international interest on the Mindanao peace process.

  MILF chief Murad Ebrahim has praised President Aquino for his "unflinching commitment to justice and reforms" which is "amply manifested by the exercise of his resolute political will to resolve the Bangsamoro question on the negotiating table."

  In a statement, the MILF said the framework agreement "is a template for real self-rule for the Bangsamoro in Mindanao."

  "It is a solid document, [although] short of the ideal option providing for an independent state," it added.

  "Of course, it is not a perfect agreement, especially for those who wish for a better one. But for those who have been in the negotiation since 1997, especially negotiators of the MILF, the agreement is the best," the MILF stressed.

  "There could never be another like it, because so much blood, sweat  and tears have been invested in it, and there would have been no time in the past and perhaps in the future that such agreement will ever be possible."


http://www.asianewsnet.net/home/news.php?sec=1&id=37624

Student: 1273584, 1162624

     KARACHI, Pakistan — Doctors on Wednesday removed a bullet from a Pakistani schoolgirl shot by the Taliban, as Pakistanis from across the political and religious spectrum united in revulsion at the attack on the 14-year-old education rights campaigner.

     A Taliban gunman singled out and shot the girl, Malala Yousafzai, on Tuesday, and a spokesman said it was in retaliation for her work in promoting girls’ education and children’s rights in the northwestern Swat Valley, near the Afghan border.

     Ms. Yousafzai was removed from immediate danger after the operation in a military hospital in Peshawar early Wednesday, during which surgeons removed a bullet that had passed through her head and lodged in her shoulder, one hospital official said.

      The government kept a Boeing jet from the national carrier, Pakistan International Airlines, on standby at the Peshawar airport to fly Ms. Yousafzai to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, for emergency treatment if necessary, although senior officials said she was too weak to fly.

      “She is improving. But she is still unconscious,” said Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the provincial information minister, whose only son was shot dead by the Taliban in 2010. He said Ms. Yousafzai remained on a ventilator.

      Mr. Hussain announced a government reward of more than $100,000 for information leading to the arrest of her attackers. “Whoever has done it is not a human and does not have a human soul,” he said.

      Across the rest of the country, Pakistanis reacted with outrage to the attack on the girl, whose eloquent and determined advocacy of girls’ education had made her a powerful symbol of resistance to Taliban ideology.

      “Malala is our pride. She became an icon for the country,” Interior Minister Rehman Malik said.

      The army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, visited the Peshawar hospital where Ms. Yousafzai was being treated; in a rare public statement he condemned the “twisted ideology” of the “cowards” who had attacked her. Her parents and a teacher from her school remained at her side in the hospital.

      Imran Khan, the cricket star turned opposition politician, offered to pay for her treatment, while officials from his party parried accusations that they were soft on the Taliban.

      Last weekend Mr. Khan led a motor cavalcade of supporters to the edge of the tribal belt as part of a demonstration against American drone strikes in the area — a theme that, until now at least, has frequently been a more concentrated focus of public anger than Taliban violence.

      Even Jamaat ud Dawa, the charity wing of the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which follows a different strain of Islam from the Taliban, condemned the attack. “Shameful, despicable, barbaric attempt,” read a message on the group’s official Twitter feed. “Curse b upon assassins and perpetrators.”

      The anger was amplified by the Taliban’s brazen claims of responsibility for the shooting, and by avowals that the group would attack Ms. Yousafzai again if it got a second chance. Reports circulated that the Taliban had also promised to target her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, who privately appealed to neighbors from Swat not to visit the hospital in case of a second attack.

      In the Swat Valley, private schools remained closed in protest over the attack.

      Some commentators wondered whether the shooting would galvanize public opinion against the Taliban in the same way as a video that aired in 2009, showing a Taliban fighter flogging a teenage girl in Swat, had primed public opinion for a large military offensive against the militants that summer.

      “The time to root out terrorism has come,” Bushra Gohar of the Awami National Party, which governs Swat and the surrounding Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, told Parliament.

      But no military drive is in the works in Swat for the moment, officials say — in fact, a large army contingent has occupied the picturesque mountain valley since 2009, which contributed to alarm by the prospect of a Taliban resurgence in the area.

      Among some commentators, there was a sense that rage was redundant: that unless Pakistan’s military and civilian leaders drop all equivocation about Islamist extremism, the country is likely to suffer further such traumas.

      “We are infected with the cancer of extremism, and unless it is cut out we will slide ever further into the bestiality that this latest atrocity exemplifies,” read an editorial in The News International, a major English-language daily.

http://nyti.ms/RwCchn

     This Friday, Ang Lee's big-screen adaptation of "Life of Pi" finally comes ashore.

     Based on Yann Martel's Booker Prize-winning novel, the movie follows Pi (Suraj Sharma), a zookeeper's son, who finds himself adrift on a small lifeboat after his ship was destroyed in a storm. He, of course, is not quite alone: Pi is accompanied by a a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan and a not-so-friendly Bengal tiger -- all of whom are fighting for their survival.

      Take a look at our review round-up to see if the flick lives up to the source material.

http://huff.to/UThxUL

     This year’s IgNobel prize in Acoustics went to Kruihara and Tsukada, of Japan, for an invention straight out of a sci fi movie: The SpeechJammer.

      Have you ever had to listen to someone who just won’t. Shut. Up. Have you ever been stuck in a library or on the quiet car of a train, giving passive aggressive dirty looks to talkative passerby? Well suffer no more from lack of silence! This speechjammer will solve all of your problems, using the power of SCIENCE.

     How does it work? How do you stop other people from talking without going “SHH!”. What you need is delayed auditory feedback. When we speak, we not only generate sound, but we rely on auditory feedback to make sure that what we are saying is coming out right. If we suffer problems with auditory feedback, such as a very short delay between the production of speech and hearing it, we will begin to stutter and eventually come to a stop.

     So all you have to do if you want to shut someone up is induce some delayed auditory feedback. The designers of this device invented a microphone hooked up to a speaker, aimed at the person chattering (in the portable version, this looks a lot like those guns they use to track whether or not you’re speeding on the highway). The microphone records the chatter and induces a small delay (which you can control, depending on the distance from your target, so you get the maximal interference), and then plays your own voice back at you.

      They even let me test it! And I have to say it’s a very disconcerting experience. As one of the authors noted, we really don’t like the sound of our own voice talking over us.

      So what would be use of such a device? Well, apart from the obvious uses by passive aggressive people in quiet spaces, the author propose a potential use for helping to moderate things like group debate. When you need someone to shut up and given someone else a turn, you can turn the SpeechJammer on them and watch them lapse into silence. The psychological effects of the SpeechJammer on the person who want quiet should be pretty positive. But the psychological effects on those made to shut remains to be seen.

p.s: IgNobel - The Ig Nobel Prizes are an American parody of the Nobel Prizes and are given each year in early October for ten unusual or trivial achievements in scientific research. The stated aim of the prizes is to "first make people laugh, and then make them think". The awards are sometimes veiled criticism (or gentle satire). Organized by the scientific humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research (AIR), they are presented by a group that includes Nobel Laureates at a ceremony at Harvard University's Sanders Theater, and they are followed by a set of public lectures by the winners at MIT.

http://bit.ly/SIeai2

Place all three news stories here (paste over top of these words here) - make sure to include the title for each story so the readers can clearly see that these are three separate stories.

Also, if you wish, you can add a YouTube video or a picture.

Please include links to the original news story.

Protests Over Killing Roil Lebanon By:503 892 +669 149

EIRUT—Army soldiers fired tear gas and shots into the air to stop protesters from storming the prime minister's office here on Sunday, as Lebanon's opposition pressed for the government to resign over the killing of the country's intelligence chief in a car bombing.

The mayhem came during a political rally called the same day as the funeral of Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hassan , a Sunni Muslim who headed intelligence for Lebanon's police force until he was killed in Friday's bombing. Many top Lebanese opposition figures blamed his death on Syria's regime next door.

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203406404578070193069945444.html

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Middle East liberal safe haven rocked by Al Qaeda mass terrorist plot




ordanian authorities unveiled on Sunday a foiled Al Qaeda terror plot to carry out attacks on diplomatic and civilian targets across Amman using weapons from Syria.

According to the General Intelligence Department (GID), security services have arrested 11 Jordanian nationals charged with plotting to carry out a series of attacks on shopping centres, cafés and diplomatic missions, using explosives and mortar rockets.

The 11 suspects, who allegedly have active ties with Al Qaeda in Iraq, began plotting the attack in June and smuggled explosives and mortar rockets from Syria to carry out the attacks, officials said.

“These 11 terrorists were Jordanian nationals with clear ties to Al Qaeda targeting the security and stability of Jordan,” Minister of State for Media Affairs and Communications Samih Maaytah said during a press conference on Sunday detailing the foiled plot.

According to Maaytah, who is also government spokesperson, the group, which had allegedly consulted with Al Qaeda in Iraq weapons experts via the Internet, had travelled to Syria and returned with explosives and mortar rockets to carry out the attack.

http://www.albawaba.com/editorchoice/jordan-al-qaeda-terrorist-plot-447622

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Iran halts gas exports to Turkey after an explosion




Iran halted gas exports to Turkey after a blast damaged the pipeline in the Turkish territories, authorities announced on Monday.

The explosion occurred near the town of Dogubayazit in the Agri province on Sunday, press tv reported.

It is not yet known what caused the blast; however, Turkish officials accused members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) of blowing up the pipeline.

The governorate of the Northeastern city of Agri said in a statement that PKK members "sabotaged the Dogubayazit-Van natural gas pipeline on Saturday... forcing a disruption in the flow."

This is not the first time that the gas flow from Iran to Turkey has been stopped. In earlier instances, Turkish officials cited blasts caused by the PKK members, or technical problems as the main reasons for halts.

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Czech man with no heart dies after six months
A Czech father of one who survived for more than six months without a real heart has died at the age of 37.

Jakub Halik had his heart replaced with two mechanical pumps in pioneering surgery last April after an aggressive cancerous tumour was found.

Doctors say his death was caused by liver failure, and not the artificial heart itself.

Mr Halik, a former firefighter, was waiting on the transplant list for a suitable donor when he died.

Despite not having a pulse and always having to carry a battery pack to power his mechanical heart, Mr Halik was able to walk around and even use the hospital gym.

He was not able to accept a donor heart earlier because the cancer meant he would not be able to take the drugs he would need for a successful organ transplant.

The radical surgery had only ever been tried on one other patient, a man in Texas, who survived for just a week.

'Healthy man' Mr Halik's operation was carried out by Jan Pirk, director of cardiology at the Institute of Clinical and Experimental Medicine in Prague.

His team used two plastic pumps, each designed to perform the separate tasks of the left and right sides of the heart.

Speaking at a press conference in August more than four months after the surgery, Mr Halik said he felt "very good physically", and said he had made the right choice to proceed with the operation.

"It was hard for me but I didn't have any other chance at all," he told reporters. "It was acknowledged that with the tumour I can survive for about one year and I decided to fight and do it this way."

He said the experience of living without a heart had not been difficult.

"I don't even realise it, because the functions of the body are the same, only my heart is not beating and I have no pulse anymore," Mr Halik said. "Otherwise I am functioning like a healthy man at present."

Doctors said it is unclear how Mr Halik's liver failed. They are awaiting the outcome of a post-mortem examination.

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Pirates have kidnapped seven crew members during an attack on their ship off the coast of Nigeria.

Six Russians and one Estonian have been abducted from the Liberty 249, operator Bourbon - a French shipping company - confirmed.

Another nine crew members were safe and on their way to the Nigerian port of Onne, a spokeswoman said.

There has been a spate of pirate attacks on cargo ships off the West African coast in recent months.

Bourbon did not disclose the vessel's exact location at the time of the attack on Monday but said an emergency unit had been set up to help the missing sailors.

"The emergency unit has been set up to aim at their rapid liberation under the safest security conditions," the company said in a statement.

The firm has been targeted by pirates in Nigeria before.

In 2010, three French crewmen were kidnapped off a Bourbon-operated ship in an oilfield in the Niger delta, the heart of Africa's biggest oil and gas industry.

The hostages were later released.

The trade in stolen oil has fuelled violence and corruption in the Niger delta.

Although attacks in the region have declined since a 2009 amnesty for militants, piracy is on the rise in parts of West Africa.

In the first six months of this year, the International Maritime Bureau has recorded 17 pirate attacks in Nigerian waters this year - a significant increase on 2011.

Last week, a Greek tanker carrying 32,000 tonnes of petrol went missing with a crew of 24 on its way to the port of Abidjan in the Ivory Coast.

In August, pirates attacked a Greek tanker off the coast of Togo, stealing 3,000 tonnes of fuel.

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Downing Street denies Cameron and Osborne cat feud
Downing Street has denied rumours of a feud between cats belonging to the chancellor and prime minister after they were pictured fighting.

George Osborne's Freya was photographed slugging David Cameron's Larry with a nasty-looking left claw, the evidence being posted on Twitter.

But the PM's spokeswoman insisted the two tabbies were able to "co-exist".

She added that she would not "get into commenting on the adventures of our feline friends".

Residents of Numbers 10 and 11 Downing Street have historically disagreed strongly over policy.

Labour's Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were reportedly often left hissing over public sector reform impasses.

But Mr Osborne and Mr Cameron are thought to be among the more friendly prime minister-chancellor teams of recent decades.

Five-year-old Larry, in fact, has sometimes been castigated for a lack of aggression, and his suitability for "mousing" duties was questioned as a result of repeatedly falling asleep on the job.

The Political Pictures snap seems to confirm Freya's dominance. In it she bats Larry away, while he raises his right paw in what could be placatory fashion.

Larry came to Downing Street from Battersea Dogs and Cats Home in February last year after a large rat was seen scuttling past the door of No 10 during live television broadcasts.

Freya went missing from the Osborne's old home in Notting Hill, west London, for two years, her owners being identified when a vet found the details on a microchip. They were reunited last year.

Perhaps hardened by her time on the road, Freya has been drafted in for pest control duties, in an arrangement described by the Daily Mail as a "job-share to avoid hurting Larry's feelings".

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Links: 1st: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-19977958
          2nd: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-19977958
          3rd: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-19967916

Deadly fire at Germany workshop


Deadly fire at Germany workshop 'caused by gas leak' Firefighters said that smoke from the blaze had spread very quickly.   
A fire which killed 14 people on Monday at a workshop for disabled people in south-western Germany was the fault of a gas leak, investigators say.

An inquiry into possible charges of manslaughter by negligence has been opened into the blaze, in the Black Forest town of Titisee-Neustadt.

Police say all 14 people who died have now been identified.

The centre, where disabled people were working on ornaments for Christmas markets, is run by the Caritas charity.

The fire, it is now known, began in one room, and did not affect the entire building. 

A day after the fire, the building in which it took place shows little sign of damage, the BBC's Imogen Foulkes reports from Titisee-Neustadt.

However, the blaze caused thick smoke to spread very quickly, overcoming those who died, our correspondent adds.

'Terrible event' About 50 people were believed to be in the building when the fire started.

The blaze occurred at about 14:00 local time (13:00 GMT) on Monday, and flames were first spotted on the roof of the modern three-storey building. 

More than 100 firefighters backed by helicopters tackled the blaze - some, wearing breathing apparatus, braved the thick smoke to rescue a number of people trapped inside. 

Eight people were hurt; none are thought to be suffering from life-threatening injuries.

The centre is run by Caritas, a relief organisation affiliated with the Catholic Church, and offers a range of workshops to people with both mental and physical disabilities.

"We know the colleagues at the scene will do everything to find out the cause for this terrible event," Caritas president Peter Neher said in a statement posted on the organisation's German website.

Police have spoken of the bewilderment of many of the survivors over what happened.

"I don't know anything in the past that was so horrible as this, in the whole region, not only in our town," Titisee-Neustadt's mayor Armin Hinterseh told the BBC.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman said on Twitter that she was "shocked" by the loss of so many lives.

Train services are being resumed in the Channel Tunnel after a freight train fire on the French side caused traffic to be suspended, the operator says.

All train services in the north tunnel were suspended as French firefighters dealt with the incident, according to Eurotunnel spokesman John Keefe.

The freight train was immediately diverted to an emergency siding.

Nobody was hurt and everybody on the train was safely evacuated, the spokesman added.

Eurostar passenger train services and freight traffic between London and Paris and Brussels were affected by the suspension.

The freight train affected was a HGV shuttle heading from Folkestone in England to Coquelles in France, Mr Keefe said.

'Car ablaze'It appears that a car transporter caught fire on the rear part of a freight train, a source at Eurotunnel said, on condition of anonymity.

Continue reading the main story“Start QuoteThe blazing saloon on the transporter passed within 20 metres of our Eurostar. Not exactly reassuring!”

Paul CunninghamRTE Europe correspondent
Paul Cunningham, Europe correspondent for the Irish public broadcaster RTE, witnessed the fire from a London-bound Eurostar passenger train waiting to enter the tunnel at the French end.

In dramatic updates on Twitter, he described how the two trains passed each other.

"Train emerges from Channel Tunnel with car ablaze while on transporter," he wrote.

"The blazing saloon on the transporter passed within 20 metres of our Eurostar. Not exactly reassuring!

"The car closest to the transporter cab was ablaze. 2 other cars behind it - one of which also seemed to be catching fire."

He tweeted later to say his fellow passengers had remained "calm and good-humoured" despite the delay to their journey.

Concorde crash:                                                 Continental Airlines killings verdict quashed


A French appeals court has cleared US airline Continental of criminal blame for the July 2000 crash of a Concorde jet shortly after take-off from Paris.

The ruling comes two years after another French court fined the airline and held it criminally responsible for the crash in which 113 people died.

But Continental may still be liable for damages after the court said the firm still bore civil responsibility.

A piece of metal from a Continental jet was blamed for causing the crash.

But Continental labelled the initial court decision and its explanation absurd, and launched an appeal.

The Air France Concorde burst into flames and crashed into nearby buildings after it took off from Charles de Gaulle airport, killing all 109 people on board and four hotel workers.

Most of the passengers were German tourists heading to New York to join a cruise to the Caribbean.

In 2010, a French court decided that the crash had been caused by a titanium strip that had fallen from a Continental airliner.

The US operator was convicted of involuntary manslaughter, fined 200,000 euros (£160,000) and ordered to pay 1m euros in damages to Air France.

In addition, a Continental mechanic, John Taylor, was given a 15-month suspended prison sentence over the crash.

Thursday's ruling overturned the criminal convictions of Mr Taylor and Continental and quashed the 200,000-euro fine.

But the court said Continental still bore civil responsibility and upheld the 1m-euro payment.

Separately, Air France is suing Continental for 15m euros at a commercial tribunal.

The US airline had consistently argued that the Concorde caught fire before it hit the metal strip, and that they were being used as a scapegoat to protect France's airline industry.

Continental merged with United Airlines earlier this year.

The airline's parent firm, United Continental Holdings, said in a statement it supported the court's decision that Continental was not to blame.

"We have long maintained that neither Continental nor its employees were responsible for this tragic event and are satisfied that this verdict was overturned," the statement said.

503851, 550134
2nd story: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20545637
3rd story:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20545201

14 Year Old Charged With First-Degree Murder and Aggravated Child Abuse



http://digitaljournal.com/article/334035

http://bit.ly/P5mQUJ

 +
Warning: Graphic story, reader discretion is strongly advised

Lakeland - Cassidy Goodson, 14, of Lakeland, Fla., a ninth-grader at Kathleen High School, has been charged with first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse after she allegedly choked her newborn to death while it was still attached to her by the umbilical cord. According to a press release by the Polk County Sheriff's Office, she then stuffed the dead body in a shoebox and left it to decompose in her bedroom till the odor alerted members of her family.  The Daily Mail reports that shortly after Cassidy gave birth to the baby in the bathroom, her mother, Teresa Goodson, noticed blood in the toilet and took her to the Lakeland Hospital. Cassidy told her mother and the hospital staff that she had suffered a miscarriage. She claimed that she accidentally flushed the fetus down the toilet after it was born. But after lacerations were found in her vaginal wall that appeared self-inflicted, hospital staff called Polk County sheriff's deputies and officials of the Florida Department of Children and Families and gave them details of the case for closer investigation. The facts of the case came to light gradually. A few days after Cassidy gave birth, deputies received a call that the body of a full-term baby had been found inside a shoebox at the girl's residence. According to the Polk County Sheriff's Office, Cassidy's mother detected the odor while collecting dirty laundry in her daughter's room. Cassidy had given birth to the baby on September 19, unaided. She told detectives she began feeling sick on Sep. 17, and two day later, she went into the bathroom. To hide her moans during labor, she clenched with her teeth on a towel and ran the water. She delivered the baby in the bathroom and used a pair of scissors to pry it out into the toilet. She then lifted the baby out of the toilet and felt for its pulse. When she found one, she placed her hand on the infant's neck and squeezed until it stopped moving and breathing. She then bathed herself and the dead baby, cleaned the bathroom and concealed the dead baby, the soiled towel and clothing in a shoebox. The baby, according to the Polk County Sheriff's Office press release, was rather large, reportedly weighing almost 10 pounds and measuring 20 inches long. Autopsy confirmed the baby was full term and that it was a live-birth. The cause of death was determined as "asphyxia from strangulation and blunt force trauma." According to officials, Cassidy is a tiny girl who weighs 100 pounds and is about 5 ft 3 inches tall. The Polk Country Sheriff's Office reports Cassidy said she killed the child because she "didn't know what to do with it." The Daily Mail reports she told detectives she was forced to kill the baby because she was afraid that "her relationship with her parents would change if they found out the truth." According to The Huffington Post, Cassidy wore baggy clothes during the course of her pregnancy to hide the fact from her family. However, two aunts grew suspicious of her appearance and attempted to alert her mother to the possibility that she was pregnant. But according to The Ledger, Sheriff Grady Judd said that although the two aunts suspected Cassidy was pregnant, her mother, Teresa Goodson, "was in complete denial." Cassidy reportedly showed her mother two home pregnancy tests she conducted that returned negative as evidence that she was not pregnant when suspicion grew. The Ledger, however, reports that Sheriff Grady Judd said Cassidy conducted the tests alone because "her mother wanted to protect her daughter's privacy." The sheriff expressed the opinion that Cassidy Goodson's young age should be taken into account in passing judgment on her actions. He said: "Let's remember she is a child. Where was her support system?" The Huffington Post reports prosecutors are considering whether to charge her as an adult. The prosecutors are also considering the option of charging adult members of her family instead. The Blaze reports detectives are also working to determine the father of the baby. They said they have an idea of his identity but that they need confirmation. According to the sheriff, Cassidy showed little emotion when she was interviewed. The Ledger reports that North Lakeland Little League President Bubba Garcia, said she is a skilled softball player and that she has played on several youth teams. Garcia said "she is pretty good" in the infield and as a catcher. According to Garcia, there had been rumors rumors that she was pregnant. The Ledger reports circuit Judge Mark Carpanini ordered her to remain in secure detention. She will be represented by a public defender. Polk County Public Information officer, Donna Wood, told the Daily Mail: "This is the most perplexing, confusing, disheartening case I've ever seen in my 18 years on this job. Everyone has been touched by it."
Read more: http://digitaljournal.com/article/334035#ixzz29OxW4DID

New York Couple Arrested for Possession of Guns, Alligator

http://nbcnews.to/T1iahV

Police in New York arrested a man and woman for allegedly stashing illegal handguns, drugs and an alligator in their Brooklyn home, authorities said.  Michael Volpe, 32, and Alisa Volpe, 25, were taken into custody Monday and charged with criminal possession of a weapon, including two handguns and a shotgun.They were also charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance and harboring an alligator, which is prohibited in New York.  Police discovered the 3.5-foot reptile while they executed a search warrant at about 5:30 a.m., the New York Daily News reported.  Other items found were a pair of brass knuckles and a stash of pills and marijuana.  Michael Volpe has had four prior arrests, including a weapons-possession charge, police said.

100 Car pileup in texas

Fog suspected in 100-vehicle Texas wrecks that claim at least two lives By Vivian Kuo, CNN updated 7:27 PM EST, Thu November 22, 2012 Deadly 100-vehicle pileup in Texas STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• After being closed for hours following the accident, all lanes of Interstae 10 reopened
• The two fatalities occurred after a vehicle was hit from behind by an 18-wheeler
• Some 100 cars were in a series of pileups on Interstate 10 near Beaumont, Texas
• As many as 120 injured were taken to hospitals

For more on this story, check out CNN affiliate KBMT.

(CNN) -- At least two people were killed and as many as 120 injured in Thanksgiving pileups involving an estimated 100 cars on a foggy stretch of highway in southeast Texas, authorities said.

The first accident -- a multi-car wreck in the eastbound lands of Interstate 10 -- occurred about 8:45 a.m., according to the Texas Department of Public Safety. Chain-reaction crashes followed, the department said in a news release, and included several accidents in the westbound lanes of the intersate, southwest of Beaumont in Jefferson County.

"Initial reports at the time of the crash indicated there was dense fog, which could be a contributing factor to those crashes," Texas Highway Patrol Trooper Stephanie Davis said.

The two fatalities occurred in the same vehicle, authorities said. The victims were identified as Vincent Leggio, 64, and Debra Leggio, 60, both of Pearland, Texas.

The two were killed when their vehicle was hit from behind by an 18-wheeler, the Department of Public Safety said.

Video from CNN affiliate KBMT showed badly mangled vehicles atop one another and people who appeared to be injured stretched out in grass alongside the highway and on ambulance gurneys. Long lines of cars, each battered and some appearing to be totaled, lined the roadway. The vehicles included cars, minivans, pickups, tractor-trailer trucks and at least one FedEx truck.

No details were known about the fatalities or exactly how many injuries resulted from the accidents, officials said. The role of fog and the causes of the accidents were still under investigation Thursday. In several pictures, there appeared to be a slight sheen of fog.

It was not known exactly how many injuries resulted from the accidents, said Davis.

Jefferson County Deputy Sheriff Rod Carroll said that at least 80 and as many as 120 injured people were taken from the scene. The most seriously injured were being transported to Houston, about 75 miles away.

Several victims were transported to neighboring hospitals in Beaumont and Port Arthur.

The role of fog and the causes of the accidents were still under investigation, Davis said.

Westbound lanes of the interstate were closed for nearly four hours before being reopened. The eastbound lanes of I-10 were closed after the accident throughout most of the day, with the Department of Public Safety saying shortly after 5 p.m. that those lanes had been cleared of debris and reopened.


http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/22/us/texas-highway-pileup/index.html?hpt=us_c2

What's really at stake in election 2012 By John Avlon, CNN Contributor updated 1:21 PM EST, Sun November 4, 2012



(CNN) -- The stakes in this election go far beyond just who takes the oath of office in January.

Each of us is faced with choices that will have huge ramifications in our nation for decades -- and the choice is not simply about Democrats versus Republicans or even Obama versus Romney. The real stakes are this: The political strategies that prove successful in this election will be replicated far into the future.

Throughout this election cycle, we've seen hyperpartisan narratives resonate more than facts, total opposition embraced as a congressional tactic, and unprecedented dark money flow through our airwaves in an avalanche of negative ads.

f those forces are rewarded, we'll see much more of them from both parties going forward. They will become the new normal. Opinion: Vote, damn it!

If they are rejected, it may inspire a necessary recalibration and a renewed focus on finding ways to work together in Washington. This won't be just because it's the right thing to do; it will be because it is what is seen as practical and politically expedient.

When President Obama took office, the fiscal crisis was in full effect, but our nation was briefly united after the 2008 election. Then the partisan media started to try to repolarize the nation for their profit.

A relentless drumbeat of demonizing the president gave rise to all sorts of dark conspiracy theories, driven by the conviction that the first African-American president of the United States was somehow un-American. Hating Obama became a profitable cottage industry, with the publication of at least 89 different obsessively anti-Obama books -- more than twice the number that were directed at President George W. Bush by the end of his first term. Unhinged ideas seeped perilously close to the mainstream, to the point that the gap between partisan narrative and actual facts seems cavernous and finds fellow Americans divided beyond reason.

This has real civic cost. A president who has presided over a doubling of the stock market is called socialist or even communist. A president who ordered the killing of Osama bin Laden is seen by some as secret Islamist-sympathizer. And perhaps most important, a president whose actual record leads respected nonpartisan political scientists at the VoteView blog to say "President Obama is the most moderate Democratic president since the end of World War II" is instead seen as a far-left liberal. A reality check is overdue.

This hyperpartisan reality distortion field has impacted Congress as well. In the past, we've achieved a great deal with divided government -- ranging from the Marshall Plan, to the interstate highway system, to the achievements of the Reagan administration, to welfare reform and the turning of deficits into surpluses under President Bill Clinton and then-Speaker Newt Gingrich. But the current congressional environment has led to division and dysfunction, Super Committee fails and justifiably low congressional approval rates.

Too many conservative members of Congress took Rush Limbaugh's 2009 anti-Obama admonition -- "I hope he fails" -- to heart. They argued that confrontation rather than cooperation with the new president was the best strategy. Thanks to Obama's unwise overdelegation to congressional Democrats on the stimulus bill, their approach was validated, and so an economic recovery effort that was one-third tax cuts passed along stark partisan lines. A pattern was established.

President Barack Obama: My vision for America

An individual mandate-driven health care bill, based on proposals from the conservative Heritage Foundation implemented by Mitt Romney in Massachusetts, was not praised as policy triangulation -- taking a Republican approach to achieve a Democratic goal -- but called an unconstitutional gallop toward socialism. Rational debate stopped when talk of "death panels" started taking hold. And so health care reform became the first major piece of social legislation to pass along stark partisan lines.

Even onetime bipartisan legislation was no longer embraced by Congress. For example, Obama's proposed jobs bill was almost entirely composed of what had been bipartisan proposals -- but it was considered DOA on Capitol Hill. The debt ceiling was used to hold America's full faith and credit hostage, with disastrous results, including the downgrading of our AAA credit rating.

The source of much congressional dysfunction is the now-routine use of the filibuster by the Senate, making a supermajority of 60 votes necessary for meaningful action. As a point of historical perspective: In the eight years that Republican Dwight Eisenhower was president, from 1953 to 1961, the filibuster was used only two times. In the four years that Barack Obama has been president, the filibuster has been invoked more than 200 times by Senate Republicans.

Add to this unhealthy civic mix the unprecedented amount of money flowing into this election -- expected to exceed $6 billion total. The most troubling aspect is the rise of dark money, the abuse of tax-exempt 501(c)(4) organizations to hide donors while flooding the airwaves with negative ads.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, spending from these nondisclosing groups has passed $200 million in this election -- more than every other election cycle over the past 20 years combined -- and 88% of the ads airing now from outside groups are negative.

Just three groups -- the Karl Rove-founded Crossroads GPS, the Koch Brothers-backed Americans for Prosperity, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce -- account for more spending than the next 17 outside groups combined. This makes a mockery of post-Citizens United promises about unlimited money being combined with unprecedented disclosure, and the net impact is chilling: This is perilously close to what trying to buy an election looks like.

All this matters, because if outside money spent on negative ads can indeed sway an election, we will see much more of it in the future. But if partisan billionaires believe that their money has been wasted, it will help rein in such efforts going forward.

We need to stop the cycle of incitement in our politics, where every action creates an equal and opposite reaction. In the closing weeks of this campaign, Romney has been promising that he will bring bipartisanship back to Washington. But simply slapping on a new slogan won't solve these underlying problems.

Mitt Romney: My vision for America

If Romney is elected president, Democrats will likely decide to follow the apparently successful path of the Republicans in recent years -- play to the base with fear-mongering claims, demonize the new president from Day One, and obstruct his agenda in Congress. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, has already announced that he will not work with a President Romney, taking a page from his Republican counterpart, Mitch McConnell, who pledged that making President Obama a one-term president was his No. 1 priority. Republicans will complain, but they will have their own precedent to thank. The result will be all-but-guaranteed gridlock and division over the next four years.

If Obama is re-elected, it will send the message that all the hyperpartisan distortions, the intensely ideological congressional obstruction and the flood of dark money didn't work.

Republicans will have to confront the fact that these extreme tactics backfired by alienating the moderate majority of Americans (and interestingly, Obama currently leads among moderate voters in key swing states like Ohio by nearly 20 points). This will alter the landscape of the next Congress and shift the incentives back toward working together on a more bipartisan basis. It might even help re-center the Republican Party going forward, something I would sincerely like to see because it would be good for our democracy.

America needs to break this fever of hyperpartisanship. The day after the election, we will have to start healing as a nation. Members of Congress will be confronted with a fiscal cliff and serious questions about how to deal with taxes, spending, the deficit and the debt. If they feel that extremism and obstruction have been punished by the voters, they will find a way to work together. If either party feels it has achieved an ideological mandate, it will be tempted to play chicken with the fiscal cliff.

The stakes are so high because they cut to the heart of the American experiment. We cannot continue to allow extreme partisan distortions to define our policy debates and paralyze our capacity for constructive self-government.

We need Washington to get the message that I've heard from swing voters so often on the CNN Battleground Bus Tour -- stop fighting and start fixing. Find a way to work together, especially on our long-term economic problems. That means both parties agreeing to compromise on issues of taxes, spending and entitlement reform -- a balanced bipartisan plan to deal with deficits and debt. It will require putting the national interest ahead of all partisan special interests -- and we won't be able to do that until this fever breaks.

Washington is looking to your lead at the voting booth. These are the stakes. Now it is your decision. Go out and vote on November 6.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of John Avlon.

Nanny pleads innocent


New York (CNN) -- Handcuffed to a bed and wrapped in a hospital blanket, a New York nanny accused of killing a sister and her toddler brother pleaded not guilty Wednesday to murder.

In a case that has given many parents nightmares, Yoselyn Ortega was watching 6-year-old Lucia and 2-year-old Leo Krim at their Upper Westside Manhattan home in late October when police say she stabbed the kids to death.

Their mother came home, police said, and found her children in the bathroom. She also saw the nanny stab herself with a kitchen knife, authorities said.

"This crime shocked and horrified parents around the city, many of whom entrust their children to the care of others both by necessity and by choice," Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance said in a statement. "My heart goes out to the family of those beautiful young children, and I hope that, with time, this family will heal."

Wednesday's hearing took place -- not in a courtroom -- but at Manhattan's Weill Cornell Medical Center.

Ortega, 50, did not speak, and her lawyer entered her plea for her. The nanny is expected to undergo psychological evaluation, said authorities. She has been indicted and charged with first- and second-degree murder in both deaths.

A native of the Dominican Republic, Ortega had been a naturalized U.S. citizen for 10 years. Her next court date is scheduled for January 16.

Toews demands RCMP form gender bias action plan



The RCMP has been ordered by Public Safety Minister Vic Toews to quickly rework a plan to address gender bias in the force.

In a letter obtained by CBC News, Toews is demanding that RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson rewrite a report addressing gender inequality in the force.

Toews asks for solutionsPublic Safety Minister Vic Toews's letter to RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson demands an action plan attacking the force's gender bias that focuses on:

• Recruiting more female members.
• In the short-term, reaching a 30 per cent female membership.
• reducing the number of complaints and increasing the timeliness of the RCMP's response to complaints.
• Creating targets for promoting female RCMP members.
• Improving work environment satisfaction.

Toews expresses frustration that he did not receive an action plan from Paulson that "we (you and I, the RCMP and the Government) could present to Canadians." Instead, Toews only received an analysis of the existing situation within the force.

Paulson's original report on the state of women within the force did not surprise Toews.

"In many ways the analysis confirmed issues that we have all known to exist within the force," he wrote.

Now, Toews calls for a plan with "specific, objectively measurable, milestones" to be sent to him by Dec. 11.

Toews says the RCMP needs to recruit more women, with the goal of having women make up at least 30 per cent of the force. He also wants to see more women promoted within the RCMP's ranks.

Currently, there are about 15,000 male officers and about 4,000 female officers. The majority of the women officers have lower ranks.

Toews also says the RCMP needs to reduce the number of harassment complaints, and address any complaints more quickly.

Paulson promised to rid force of 'bad apples'Paulson has often talked about his commitment to end sexual harassment in the force, and to hire and promote more women.

The RCMP appointed Paulson as the new commissioner last November, after allegations of sexual harassment within the force first emerged.

Cpl. Catherine Galliford, shown in 2002, filed a 115-page internal complaint alleging constant sexual harassment from male RCMP members. (Richard Lam/Canadian Press)Cpl. Catherine Galliford, the RCMP's former spokeswoman, filed a 115-page internal complaint, which she shared with CBC News. Galliford said she faced constant sexual advances from several senior officers from 1991 until 2007, when she took sick leave.

Last spring, it was revealed that RCMP Sgt. Don Ray was demoted and transferred from Edmonton to B.C. after he admitted to having sex with subordinates, drinking with them at work and sexually harassing them over a three-year period.

Galliford's story prompted several other female Mounties to come forward, resulting in a federal investigation and multiple lawsuits against the RCMP. The first hearing in a class-action lawsuit, which alleges systemic harassment and gender-based discrimination, was held in British Columbia's Superior Court in August.

After he became commissioner, Paulson said in an open letter to Canadians that he would rid the RCMP of "bad apples."

A year after his appointment, Paulson told CBC News in an interview earlier this month that the Mounties' "harassment crisis" had "shadowed" his first year on the job, something which was "appropriately and properly in need of attention."

"[It's] the culture of harassment, it's the culture of misuse of authority," he said. "That's really where I've been focused on and where many of my commanding officers have been focused."

But Toews is demanding Paulson take action on his comments to address the gender bias within the force.

"The time for review and report in relation to this issue has passed," wrote Toews. "Now is the time for action."
By: Justin Schramm and Milton Duran
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/11/23/can-rcmp-toews-paulson-women-equality-letter.html




No bribes, no deal: In 2007, pipe-maker refused to pay $150K kickback; the product hasn’t been used by Montreal since



MONTREAL — As sales director for a Montreal manufacturer of PVC pipe, Michel Cadotte had been trying for over a decade to get his company’s product used in the city’s aqueduct projects.

Then in 2006 a breakthrough came. After complaining to the head of the city’s public works division about substandard pipe he saw being installed at one site, he was invited to meet Nicolo Milioto, head of Mivela Construction Inc. and a major player in the Montreal construction industry.

Mr. Milioto was impressed by the pipes produced by Mr. Cadotte’s company, Ipex Inc.

“I got the impression he had ties with the city of Montreal,” Mr. Cadotte recounted Thursday before Quebec’s Charbonneau inquiry into corruption.

A little more than a month later, Robert Marcil, the public works head, issued a memo declaring from then on, due to “quality problems” with the cast-iron pipe that had been the norm, new projects would use an Ipex product called TerraBrute or its equivalent.

Mr. Cadotte, who was on vacation when the news came in, said he uncorked a bottle of wine to celebrate, and Ipex revved up production to meet short-term orders expected to be worth up to $800,000.

Then Mr. Milioto called him to another meeting in the fall of 2006. After some small talk, he cut to the chase.

“Mr. Cadotte, things are going well, it’s rolling. There’s just one thing that you need to know,” he said, according to Mr. Cadotte’s testimony.

“Because of the acceptance of your product by the city of Montreal, I’ve got some people to compensate.” Mr. Milioto said he needed $150,000 in cash to pay three unnamed city of Montreal officials “who did the work to get us here.”

Mr. Cadotte testified it was the second time in his 23 years as sales director he had been asked for a kickback. The first time was about 10 years earlier, when a private engineer said Ipex could be guaranteed of winning a municipal contract in the Laurentians if it paid a bribe.

If we don’t get on board, if we don’t give the money, we know that’s the end

The answer had been no back then, and Mr. Cadotte was certain it would be no again.

“We don’t get involved in projects where we make profits on the back of taxpayers,” he told the commission, headed by Superior Court Justice France Charbonneau.

After running Mr. Milioto’s demand by his superiors, Mr. Cadotte returned to give him the news: “Ipex doesn’t work that way.”

He figured Ipex was finished in Montreal. “If we don’t get on board, if we don’t give the money, we know that’s the end,” he testified. And to this day, Ipex has not been chosen to provide pipe for Montreal aqueduct projects, even though it sells its products to municipalities across eastern Canada.

We don’t get involved in projects where we make profits on the back of taxpayers

Commission counsel Denis Gallant produced an April 2007 memo from Mr. Marcil to his engineers, reversing his earlier edict and declaring TerraBrute would no longer be considered for city projects.

Mr. Marcil left the city in 2009 after it was revealed he had accepted a trip to Italy with another construction contractor, Joe Borsellino of Construction Garnier.

The commission has heard Mr. Milioto acted as a middle man between colluding construction companies and the Rizzuto crime family. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police recorded him entering a notorious Rizzuto hangout 236 times over two years. He was filmed receiving stacks of cash from various contractors, which he would then turn over to Mafia bosses.

Mr. Cadotte testified he got the impression Mr. Milioto was deciding on behalf of the city and of contractors what type of pipe would be used in the city’s waterworks.
By: Justin Schramm and Milton Duran
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/11/23/no-bribes-no-deal-in-2006-pipe-maker-refused-to-pay-150k-kickback-the-product-hasnt-been-used-by-montreal-since/



Anti-tax crusaders jailed after following B.C. man’s ‘preposterous’ evasion scheme



OTTAWA — A wealthy Ottawa couple who followed the teachings of a B.C. group that believes taxes are unconstitutional have pleaded guilty to evading almost a million dollars in personal taxes and to helping others evade millions more.

Pembroke dentist Tania Kovaluk, 50, and her husband, U.S. citizen Lee Williams, 55, were sentenced Tuesday to 2.5 years and four years in prison, respectively. They are followers of Russ Porisky, a British Columbia man who is himself serving a four-year prison sentence for tax evasion.

Porisky is the brains behind Paradigm Education Group, which teaches followers that taxes are unconstitutional and that taxing a human being’s labour is a confiscation of property and, therefore, against the Canadian Bill of Rights.

[The scheme] shows remarkable hubris and contempt for the rule of law

The group posits that the federal government set up a parallel legal system in order to overcome the constitutional problems with taxation. Through Paradigm’s seminars — for which people pay dearly — citizens “awaken” to the fact that this parallel taxation system was created and learn how to withdraw from it. The group sells books, CDs and DVDs that teach people how to set up their businesses to avoid being taxed and how to declare “nil” in the income box at tax time.

Williams and Kovaluk, who married in 2003, ran at least 16 Paradigm seminars in Toronto and Ottawa. Williams was an “educator” at the closed-door sessions and Kovaluk promoted Paradigm’s ideas and used her dental contact list to recruit new members, according to an agreed statement of facts presented in court.

As part of the deal, students — many of whom were also dentists — agreed to pay between 7% and 10% of the money they saved by not paying taxes to Williams, their educator. Williams then forwarded a percentage of that income to Porisky, the father of the scheme.

The court estimates that Williams helped his students defraud the government of $4.5-million between 2003 and 2008. Ontario Superior Court Justice Colin McKinnon said before sentencing that the “preposterous” tax scheme “shows remarkable hubris and contempt for the rule of law.”

He said the defendants had defrauded not only the Canada Revenue Agency but, “all honest, taxpaying Canadians.”

Between 2003 and 2007 Kovaluk failed to report $2.6-million in income earned from her dental practice. During that time, Kovaluk and Williams built two villas in Costa Rica, purchased gold in Canada and through offshore accounts, and built a home in Ottawa worth at least $974,000. They also bought luxury items such as art, jewellery and furniture and took lavish vacations.

Kovaluk also pressured her employees to join Paradigm and, once they did, she deducted the cost of seminars — and a percentage of the money they saved from filing false tax returns — directly from their paycheques. In addition to her prison term, Kovaluk must also pay the government $887,000 which includes her personal tax evasion, GST she collected at her dentistry practice but never declared, and the money she helped Williams hide from the government. Williams must pay back $56,000.

McKinnon, who called the scheme “highly sophisticated and fanciful,” shook his head as he said “it is deplorable, if not depressing, that seemingly intelligent people can be caught up in its tentacles. But, many have been.”
By: Justin Schramm and Milton Duran
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/11/23/anti-tax-crusaders-jailed-after-following-b-c-mans-preposterous-evasion-scheme/

Talk of fertilizer mixes and soil composition could be
heard as the participants in Aldor Acres' Giant
Pumpkin Weigh Off waited to hear the latest numbers.

The Saturday event brought together some of B.C.'s most competitive gourd-growers, each hoping to have created a giant that can squash the competition.

The first six pumpkins were manhandled onto the industrial scale by three or four men.

The last four required farmer Albert Anderson's tractor and a forklift attachment. Weights increased from more than 100 pounds for the smallest pumpkins, to more than 700, 800 and 900 pounds.

In the end, it came down to a tiny difference between the largest two pumpkins.

"Seven is now my unlucky number," joked Glenn Dixon after his pumpkin came in second - by just seven pounds.

Winner Chad Gilmore of Pemberton brought a pumpkin that tipped the scales at a colossal 1,044 pounds. That's just five pounds off his personal best, a 1,049 pounder he grew in 2010.

Gilmore took home a $500 cheque, while second place got $250 and third $100.

Gilmore has been growing competitively for several years, and knows many of the other growers who took part in Saturday's event.

"It's a pretty small community. I hope it gets bigger," said Gilmore.

Gilmore admits that trying to get a pumpkin up to giant size means paying a lot of attention to it as it grows.

"You're in the patch every day," he said.

And although he doesn't name his giant pumpkins, he knows several who do.

He and his friendly competitors - Dixon presented Gilmore with the winner's plaque - typically share tips online through www. bigpumpkins.com. The site tracks the entire giant pumpkin hobby, including news of the new world record holder, a 2,009 pound pumpkin grown in the U.S.

A potato farmer, Gilmore plans to carve his award winner into a huge Jack O'Lantern for Halloween. Until a few years ago, his family would see just four or five kids a year trick or treating. Now, with their big pumpkins out front, about 50 stop by.

After Halloween, he'll smash up the pumpkin and feed it to his cattle.

This was the first time Aldor Acres has held a giant pumpkin weigh-off.

http://www.langleyadvance.com/life/Gigantic+gourd+squashes+competition/7395637/story.html

A Canadian border guard was shot at Douglas (Peace Arch) crossing Tuesday afternoon, and her shooter killed himself.

The officer was shot in the neck shortly before 2 p.m. and was airlifted to hospital. She is in stable condition, according to the RCMP Integrated Homicide Investigation Team, which is investigating the incident as an attempted homicide.

At a news conference at Peace Arch Park 2½ hours after the double shooting, RCMP Cpl. Bert Paquet said the shooting of the officer and the suicide of the gunman occurred at the same time.

"The instant following the shooting of the officer, the lone male had been pronounced dead at the scene from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound," Paquet said.



The gunman's body remained in a white van with Washington State plates, stopped by the booth of the northbound lane closest to the Canada Customs building.

A blanket covered the windshield, and the licence plate number was also obscured.

A witness who was in the lineup told reporters he heard a single shot, followed by the sound of someone screaming, and then saw a border officer running towards the van with his hand on his sidearm.

"It was just a pop," said Delta resident Brian White, who was in the Nexus express lane, returning from what he had expected to be a brief trip for gas.

"It wasn't really loud at all."

The muffled sound seemed to come from the inside of the van, White said.

"One girl was screaming."

He saw one officer running toward the van, then others at the van with their guns drawn.

Golfers at nearby Peace Portal course also reported hearing what sounded like gunfire.

"The first one to come in and say something was actually one of our members. They were on the 18th green," assistant general manager Kevin McAllister told Peace Arch News. "She heard two shots fired."

The sound of emergency vehicles racing for the border followed soon after, and police helicopters began hovering over the area, McAllister said.

He described the incident as "the most serious I've ever seen" in six years of working at Peace Portal.

Prior to the news conference, a police officer was taking photographs of each of the approximately 75  vehicles that had been stopped in the lineup behind police tape, paying particular attention to licence plate numbers.

The cars began to be released through the border as the news conference got underway.

Luc Portelance, president of the Canada Border Services Agency, flew to Vancouver Wednesday morning to meet with the injured officer.

CBSA also flew the officer's family to Vancouver to be with her.

In a news release the day before, Portelance said his thoughts are with the unnamed officer and her family.

"I know everyone at the CBSA will be thinking of her, as well as her colleagues at Douglas and in the Pacific Region, today and in the days to come," he said.

"This is a profound reminder of the risks that border services officers assume every day. I know that the courage and dedication of our officers are second to none."

The border remained closed in both directions as of Wednesday morning.

Drivers are being diverted to the Pacific Highway and Aldergrove crossings.

http://www.peacearchnews.com/news/174458841.html

A 27-year-old Surrey man is facing several charges following a 10-hour standoff with police in a downtown Vancouver hotel on Monday.

Ranjit Singh Sandhu was arrested in the Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel just after noon on Oct. 15 and is now charged with unauthorized possession of a firearm, possession of a weapon dangerous to the public and two counts of possession of a prohibited weapon, according to a Vancouver Police Department news release.

At about 2:30 a.m. police were called after a man brandishing a gun walked into the hotel. Streets around the hotel were blocked to traffic and pedestrians and hotel guests were asked to stay in their rooms until a safe exit route was established at 10 a.m.

The incident ended at 12:15 p.m. when officers used a “flash-bang” device to distract the distressed man, then shot him with a rubber bullet. The man was taken to hospital with minor injuries.

Sandhu remains in custody; his next appearance is scheduled for Oct. 19 in Vancouver provincial court.

http://vancouverdesi.com/news/standoff-surrey-man-facing-weapons-charges-over-fairmont-hotel-standoff/