UN, Frechette, McKenna, Marijuana, PetroKazakhstan, Chretien, CPC Art Hanger Does NOT want Brothel Tour, Rifle-Roszko, Ont-PQ Hydro Deal, ER, Kazemi

Canada's Ambassador to the US, Frank McKenna, mentioned this in his CPAC interview

Scroll down or search McKenna on this webpage.

Canada slaps rare sanctions on U.S. -- Hopes to force an end to an internationally condemned trade law





Marijuana found in 19 units of complex April 1, 05, Vancouver Sun

. . . in the 90-unit Cranberry Lanes townhouse complex in east Richmond... [. . . . ]

There is a Globe and Mail article by Petti Fong on marijuana grow ops , if you subscribe; it is on page A12

VANCOUVER -- Dark secrets lurked inside the shiny new townhouses of Richmond's Cranberry Lane complex.

Triggered by their investigation into a botched home invasion, Richmond RCMP stumbled upon a apartment complex rife with grow operations, where 19 out of 90 rental units were being used to cultivate pot. [. . . . ]

Search: Muir Drive, one-fifth of the units in the complex, the 24-hour notice gave operators time to, pot-infested complex, wrong residence, 1,350 plants, average hydro used in a grow-op, minimum sentences, The study -- based on an examination of 25,000 police files in British Columbia

What is this mention of "24-hour notice" in the article? Do police now have to give enough time for grow operators to dismantle the evidence? That doesn't sound right. If someone knows how this fits in, please comment.




Digression: I noticed a name change, "University College of the Cariboo made way for Thompson Rivers University". Why was the change made? Caribou was distinctive; I liked it -- which just goes to show . . . . .




The CPC's MP Art Hanger has already stated that this trip is unnecessary (scroll down), though this article does not mention it and lists him as one of the ones making the request.

Dirty pool! Put someone from each political party on a committee and then release/make available the names of all committee members, whether they agree or not. The rest of us read this and think, what the heck is he/she doing going . . .? Then, check further is the lesson.

Prostitution committee told travel abroad unnecessary

Controversy has swirled around the subcommittee's $200,000 request to send its members -- Liberals John Maloney and Hedy Fry, Conservative Art Hanger, New Democrat Libby Davies and Bloc Quebecois Paule Brunelle -- to European and American cities where various forms of prostitution are legal. The proposed visits to Britain, the Netherlands, Sweden and Reno, Nev., would be an extension to the cross-Canada tour that ends today in Winnipeg.

Brothel trip big cash waste: Hanger March 31, 2005, Kathleen Harris, Ottawa Bureau

THE LONE Tory MP on a special committee studying Canada's prostitution laws says a tour of European cities is a waste of time and money. Art Hanger, a former Calgary police officer, said there's no point in blowing taxpayers' cash on a proposed MPs junket to visit legal brothels and red light zones in the United Kingdom, Sweden, the Netherlands and Reno, Nev.

"We're looking at $200,000 to go and do that -- that's a lot of money," he said, adding the impact some of those systems in Europe are already widely known. [. . . . ]

"While elite Westerners may drive to their 'no blood for oil' rallies in upscale cars, in the Middle East most acknowledge that oil in not stolen, but hawked at sky-high prices. . . . "

Don’t Stop Now -- Opening Pandora’s democratic box. Victor Davis Hanson, April 1, 05

With the encouraging news of change in the air in Lebanon, Egypt, and the Gulf, coupled with a solidification of democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan, there has arisen a new generation of doubters. Not all are simply gnashing their teeth that their prognostications of doom were wrong, but rather often reflect genuine worries about the viability of emerging democracy in the Middle East. [. . . . ]

If you have not seen the HK-91 before . . .




H&K, HK91, Caliber 308


Later Update: I wondered about the Roszko rifle, and when I first read the third item posted below from Mar. 31 about the Roczko rifle, I thought new information had surfaced. Well, no, that's not quite right.

The moral of the story is: check. Google search for "Roszko" and "fully automatic" which has several articles listed. Note these.

'Many unanswered questions' in RCMP shootings Mar 22 2005, CBC News

[. . . . ] . . . the 42-year-old was carrying at least three guns, including a fully automatic rifle with a 20-round magazine, a semi-automatic pistol in his waistband and another long gun over his shoulder.

He was spotted by a member of the auto unit moments after shots were heard in the shed.

Note: fully automatic




Rifle that killed 4 Mounties wasn't fully automatic Apr 1 2005, CBC News

EDMONTON – The rifle used by James Roszko to kill four RCMP officers a month ago couldn't be switched to a fully automatic mode, police say. [. . . . ]

Note: it could NOT be switched, but the result was the same.



This is the article from CBC yesterday which needs the above explanation.

Rifle that killed 4 Mounties wasn't fully automatic 31 Mar 2005, CBC News

"With a fully automatic weapon, it takes one squeeze of the trigger and as long as that trigger is held, the weapon will continue to fire so long as there are rounds in the magazine," said RCMP Cpl. Wayne Oakes.

"With a semi-automatic, for each bullet that is fired, it requires a squeeze of the trigger."

Unlike a regular rifle, he said, "you don't have to cock, you don't have to action a bolt, you don't have to pump a lever, you just keep squeezing the trigger." [. . . . ]

Search: whether the weapon itself was prohibited, two other guns

The officers are still dead. I think of their families and of the poor young police officer left a quadraplegic, I believe, after chasing some character, in the Brantford area of Ontario. I wonder what has happened in the almost two years since then.




PetroKaz [Kazakhstan], Onex bosses strike gold Elizabeth Church, Mar. 31, 05

[. . . . ] Bernard Isautier, chief executive officer of oil producer PetroKazakhstan Inc., took home $92.6-million from stock options last year in addition to a base salary of $493,850 . . . $757,283 from salary only last year.

Check: Onex Corp. CEO Gerry Schwartz, "Robert Gratton, CEO of Power Financial Corp", based in Canada but has operations in Kazakhstan



Related:

The Toronto Star. Ex-PM's resumé grows longer 2004-02-04

DAVID OLIVE

Jean Chrétien
c/o PetroKazakhstan Inc.,

Calgary-Almaty

Dear Jean,

I was surprised yesterday to see the announcement of your appointment as special adviser to PetroKaz for international relations.

[. . . . ] In fact, as a political adviser to a company whose $2.4 billion market cap is entirely tied up in Kazakhstan, your task will be somewhat eased by not a few things you have in common with the Kazakh president, Nursultan Nazarbayev. [. . . . ]

Search: PetroKaz chief executive Bernie Isautier, owed some $30 million, a valuable contact in foreign capitals, Human Rights Watch




PetroKaz oil spat heats up -- Russian partner claims $100-million Wendy Stueck with files from Bloomberg, December 31, 2004

VANCOUVER -- The scrap between PetroKazakhstan Inc. and its partner OAO Lukoil escalated yesterday, with Lukoil claiming $100-million (U.S.) in damages stemming from PetroKaz's decision to cut off production from an oil field jointly owned by the two companies. [. . . . ]

Search: Turgai Petroleum, dispute hinges on, woes of OAO Yukos, not under the influence of, Kumkol South field




The Hallowed Halls of Academe

When Academia Favors Values Over Facts or here Alexander H. Joffe, April 1, 2005

[. . . . ] Such problems at Columbia, however, are anything but new. Words written nearly four decades ago, after another crisis at the university, could just as easily apply to the situation today:

"Universities, as others have said, have become knowledge factories with much wider and possibly more powerful constituencies than the students they educate. At least some branches of the university, moreover, are attracting to their faculties a new type of academician — the man of action as well as intellect whose interest is not the pursuit of truth for its own sake but to shape society from [. . . . ]

New Hydro Deal? March 31, 2005, Alan Findlay, Toronto Sun

THE Ontario government is bidding to spend billions of dollars on a Labrador power project that would supply enough electricity to power 550,000 homes. Energy Minister Dwight Duncan yesterday announced a joint proposal with Hydro-Quebec to construct a hydro-electric plant on Labrador's Lower Churchill River that could be up and running by 2011.

[. . . . ] The proposal involves Ontario footing one-third of the cost and taking out one-third of the 2,800 megawatts produced. Ontario estimates the project's cost to run somewhere between $3-6 billion but Hydro-Quebec pegs the total cost at up to $9 billion.

Newfoundland and Labrador is now considering the proposal along with other bids that would see power flow into the U.S. [. . . . ]

Read the fine print, whoever is negotiating for Ontario. Do you remember Newfoundland's atrocious deal with Hydro Quebec -- or was it the Quebec government? Either way, Newfoundland is still being taken to the cleaners on that deal and that is the reason the Premier of Newfoundland forced PM Dithers to up the ante in the recent negotiations. Check further into this deal and whether there is some talk of welching on that agreement.

Then, there is the agreement arranged between some chief(s) of the Innu and the Minister responsible for native affairs, Andy Scott. The chief went away happy, it seems.

Does this deal mentioned above happen in any of this chief's area of responsiblity? Check it out.



ER delays common and deadly, doctor says -- Ontarians are ''on a fairly regular basis dying when they don't need to die'' because of long waits Christie Blatchford, Mar. 31, 05

Ontarians are ''on a fairly regular basis dying when they don't need to die'' because of long waits in hospital emergency rooms. The bald acknowledgment came yesterday from Sean Gartner, a 37-year-old emergency physician in Guelph.

[. . . . ] For instance, he said, last month at Guelph General Hospital, where he works most of the time, about 3,400 patients came to emergency.

Between 355 and 380 of them -- or one in nine -- left without ever being
seen by a doctor. [. . . . ]

Kazemi

Doctor reveals what happened to Kazemi -- Canadian's 'body carried strange marks of violence,' Iranian doctor says Arne Ruth and Haideh Daragahi, March 31, 2005 via Jack's Newswatch

Arne Ruth, former editor-in-chief of Dagens Nyheter in Stockholm, is a writer and lecturer on politics, culture and human rights and a winner of the Swedish Grand Award for Journalistic Achievement. He is a member of the board of the Swedish Helsinki Committee and the Article 19 Freedom of Expression Centre in London.

Stockholm — Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi was savagely beaten, tortured and raped while in Iranian custody in 2003, according to an emergency-room doctor who examined her before she died.

The doctor has recently received political asylum in Canada. [. . . . ]

[. . . .] What the Iranians said

'The death of the late Kazemi was an accident due to a fall in blood pressure resulting from hunger strike and her fall on the ground while standing.'
-Iranian judicial branch, July 28, 2004

Search: What the doctor found

The doctor's story

Doctor says Kazemi raped -- Iranian physician claims photojournalist beaten when brought to hospital Mar. 31, 05, CP/Calgary Sun


There was something, somewhere I read about Canada still being willing to aid Iran. What is that all about? Aid the mullahs or the people desperate for democracy? Check further.