It seems some politicians in the US were listening when the Canadian government was talking about the Maher Arar case. According to the Globe and Mail, US Democrats have cited the Arar case in a movement to ban extradition to third countries that engage in torture. Representitve Ed Markey of Massachusetts said, "outsourcing torture is a hideous and illegal practice that has no place in the policy tool kit of [the] United States."
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According to the US Department of State's Annual Report on Human Rights, the genocide in Darfur (Sudan) was the worst human rights abuse of 2006. The genocide continues today. Major violations were also reported in Iraq and Afghanistan. It seems Canada did okay in the study. I found this via an article in the Globe and Mail.
If you read the New York Times article, Afghanistan and Iraq aren't mentioned until the second paragraph (both are mentioned in the first paragraph of the Globe's article). Those two American muck-ups are mentioned only after Darfur, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and China (they are second and third in the Globe's article). Interesting.
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Is this really the first time this has come up? The CN Tower has been standing for decades, why hasn't ice fallen from it before? Toronto police were forced to order the closing of a section of the Gardiner Expressway yesterday as falling ice threated motorists. Perhaps this will bring back calls for a Torontonian version of the Big Dig.
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Elsewhere in the Big Smoke, PM Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest) has announced $1.5B in funding for an anti-gridlock plan. The Toronto Star called it "an election campaign style event." Remember, Mr McIver, when you decried Liberal big-spending announcements close to elections as a way to buy votes? Must just be politics.
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Apparently there is a giant hole in the middle of the Atlantic... Should we be concerned at all?
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The absurd intrusion into free-market economics proposed by NDP leader Jack Layton (Toronto-Danforth) apparently found ears in the Conservative government. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty (Whitby-Oshawa) says he believes banks will cut ATM service fees. If you're wondering, that's the government's way of telling banks to do it voluntarily or have it legislated. I thought the Tories said they were not courting the NDP to help stabilize their minority government...
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This is so cool - the Guardian's "24 Hours in Pictures" - check out number 4 of a firefighter in Mexico and number 6 of a sunken Bolivian city. Then check out the rest because they're pretty cool too.
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US President George W. Bush is heading out on a trip to Latin American where he will talk about "an energy partnership plan to create jobs and decrease poverty and inequality." The plan is aimed at countering Hugo Chavez's leftist revolution which is sweeping that region. Since the elder Bush was President, the American policy has been strictly trade liberalization (with a dash of drug war). But that continent has quickly turned left down an anti-US road, and the younger Bush is trying to redirect popular opinion.
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