Iqaluit sweats in record heat wave

Ice in Frobisher Bay causing headaches for ships, coast guard

To that end, the article would have to articulate, in concrete terms, how Senator McCain defines victory in Iraq. It would also have to lay out a clear plan for achieving victory — with troops levels, timetables and measures for compelling the Iraqis to cooperate. And it would need to describe the Senator's Afghanistan strategy, spelling out how it meshes with his Iraq plan.

20% increase in energy efficiency in 12 years, premiers pledge

Nova Scotia Premier Rodney MacDonald said the No. 1 issue facing Canadians this winter is rising energy prices, but the targets the premiers have set out are achievable goals.

"Israeli military officials have identified Hamas's civilian infrastructure in the West Bank as a major source of the Islamic group's popularity, and have begun raiding and shutting down these institutions in cities like Hebron, Nablus and Qalqilyah.

"Last week, troops focused their efforts in Nablus, raiding the city hall and confiscating computers. They also stormed into a shopping mall and posted closure notices on the shop windows. A girls' school and a medical centre were shut down in the city, and a charitable association had its computers impounded and documents seized.

"This policy, officials say, is meant to deny the Islamic group, which is committed to Israel's destruction, the ability to use these institutions as a pipeline by which money is channelled to finance attacks on the Jewish state. But the main goal of this campaign is to stem Hamas's growing popularity in the West Bank, and ensure it does not seize control of the area as it did in Gaza a year ago, when its forces vanquished the more moderate Fatah movement headed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas...

"In recent months, the army has also closed down an orphanage, a bakery and other institutions in Hebron, which Israel believes are associated with Hamas. In Gaza, meanwhile, Israel and the Islamic group are observing a truce, but this does not pertain to the West Bank where the Israeli military operates freely."

Are they serious? Having Israel attack Hamas orphanages and medical centers is supposed to make Palestinians turn against Hamas?

G8 leaders also made a separate statement on oil production, calling on oil-rich nations, including Canada, to ramp up production to bring skyrocketing prices back down.

As the Group of Eight summit wrapped up in northern Japan on Wednesday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said it's a "mathematical certainty" that developing countries will do the brunt of the work in lowering global greenhouse gas emissions.

President George Bush signed off with a defiant farewell over his refusal to accept global climate change targets at his last G8 summit.

As he prepared to fly out from Japan, he told his fellow leaders: "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter."

Confidential documents insecurely posted on the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's computer network laid out sensitive plans to turn over food inspections and labelling to industry and also led to the firing of the scientist who stumbled upon them.

Luc Pomerleau, a biologist with a 20-year "unblemished record" in government, said he was fired last week for "gross misconduct' and breaching security because he sent the documents to his union. Pomerleau, who is a union steward, also was deemed "unreliable," which means he no longer has the security clearance to do his job or to work again in the public service.

She said the incident exposed another embarrassing security breach for the government, but the mistake rested with whomever authorized the documents be put on the server. Coincidentally, the circulation of the document came to light the same the week Maxime Bernier resigned from his position as federal affairs minister, after leaving classified documents in the apartment of former girlfriend Julie Couillard.

Treasury Board is reviewing the government security policy as part of its massive policy review. The new policy, which is being updated to reflect concerns about national security, will tighten rules for sharing classified information, as well how to handle it and destroy it.

The Canadian Forces have come under fire in an internal report highly critical of military leaders' lack of interest in an Arctic sovereignty protection exercise last August.

. . .

It says Canadian military leaders didn't place a high enough priority on the operation, and it singles out for criticism Canada Command, the military organization given the task of defending this country.

The report says Canada Command failed to issue a set of orders that had been planned to help disseminate instructions on Operation Nanook.

“[It's] a sad testament to the lack of interest in this operation and its associated training events displayed by the superior HQ that directed it to be conducted in the first place.”

In 1967, Morgentaler made his debut on the national stage and entered the abortion debate in a dramatic way. He testified before a government committee considering changes to the abortion law, advocating that any woman should have the right to end her pregnancy without risking death.

It was a bold statement. At the time, performing an abortion could land a doctor in jail with a life sentence. Women who had abortions faced imprisonment of up to two years.

Against that backdrop, Morgentaler at first refused requests to end pregnancies. But by 1969, he said he could refuse no longer. He opened an abortion clinic in Montreal and openly began performing abortions illegally — thousands of them. It was no secret; he gave interviews and even allowed TV news crews to film. He viewed the access to abortion as a simple matter of human rights.

Condemnation came quickly and on a variety of fronts. It didn’t take long for his first arrest.

He was subsequently acquitted by a jury. But the Quebec Court of Appeal overturned that acquittal and sentenced him to prison. He served 10 months in Montreal’s Bordeaux Jail.

The law was eventually changed so that a jury acquittal could no longer be overturned on appeal, another piece of Morgentaler's legacy.

There would, of course, be many more arrests, two more jury acquittals (one in Quebec and one in Ontario), at least eight raids on his clinics, one firebombing and huge legal bills.

Father Larre, on the other hand, is probably best known for being convicted in 1992 on two counts of physically abusing children in his care at Bosco Homes in Saskatchewan: slapping and choking a female, and forcing another to take pills to teach her a lesson about drug abuse.

Nine other charges including one of sexual assault were overturned.

In 1998, Larre registered as a psychologist in B.C., but the B.C. College of Psychologists suspended his registration because it felt he posed "an immediate risk to the public."

MP Maurice Vellacott, a Conservative from Saskatchewan who opposes abortion, told the Globe and Mail on Monday that he heard Morgentaler's appointment was not unanimous.

"This is a pretty divisive issue," he said. "I think we can all agree on that, so why would we have the highest honour in the country being issued when there is obviously a strong difference of opinion about it?"

The Harper government said it had nothing to do with the appointment, which was announced by the Governor General’s office on the advice of a high-powered committee.

“The Conservative government is not involved in either deliberations or decisions with respect to which individuals are appointed to the Order of Canada,” said a statement issued Tuesday evening by Dimitri Soudas, a spokesman for Harper.