Canadian leader warns against election
Flu priority list to be established in Canada
Air Canada gets $1 billion in financing
ADSTOCK: PM TELLS OPPOSITION TO FOCUS ON ECONOMY
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has advised his opponents that another federal election would only undermine the budding economic recovery from nine months of recession. Speaking in Quebec, he said that the first priority of his government in Quebec and everywhere else is that Parliament deal with the economy. Mr. Harper says the current recovery remains fragile and that therefore the country doesn't need the political instability that would be caused by another election campaign. Last spring, the opposition Liberal Party threatened to bring down the minority government if employment insurance benefits were not made more generous and available. The two parties compromised by forming a bipartite panel that will consider that question and the Conservative promise to make self-employed workers eligible.
OTTAWA: FLU VACCINE LIST TO BE DRAWN UP
Canadian health officials have set September as the target date to announce a special list of people who should first receive a vaccine for the H1N1 virus. Federal Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq says she's optimistic that the pharmaceutical firm GlaxoSmithKline will be in a position to begin clinical trials by October, if not earlier. A United States government panel has recommended pregnant women, health-care workers, and children six months and older be placed first in line. The death toll in from the virus in Canada is more than 50.
OTTAWA: TREATMENT OF CANADIAN STUCK IN SUDAN TO BE PROBED
The Globe and Mail newspaper reports that the body that oversees Canada's national security service will conduct a full investigation into the case of a Canadian who was marooned in Sudan for six years. The Security Intelligence Review Committee will hold the inquiry into the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service's dealings with Abousfian Abdelrazik. He returned home several weeks ago after Federal Court of Canada ordered the federal government to repatriate him. The court also ruled that the security service was complicit in his arrest and detention by the Sudanese authorities. CSIS has denied it. After his return, Mr. Abdelrazik said his jailers had tortured him. He said as well that CSIS agents harassed him and his family before he went to Sudan in March 2003. Mr. Abdelrazik claims that one of the agents who questioned him at his home in Montreal also interrogated him in jail in Khartoum and refused the Canadian government's help.
CALGARY: REWARD INCREASED TO FIND BOMBER
Canadian natural gas firm EnCana Corporation has doubled the reward it's offering for information leading to an arrest in the bombings of its operations in northeastern British Columbia. The reward now stands at $1 million. Since October, there have been six bombings of its pipeline near the town of Dawson Creek. The bombs have damaged the pipeline but no one has been hurt. Newspapers have received several letters warning EnCana to stop operating in the area. Federal police have made no arrests but have said they suspect the perpetrator lives in an area 30 kilometres southeast of Dawson Creek.
QUEBEC CITY: PROVINCE COMPLAINS ABOUT VISA RULE FOR MEXICANS
The Quebec government says Ottawa is open to its request for emergency measures to allay the new requirement for Mexican visitors to obtain a visa. Quebec's minister of tourism, Nicole Ménard, says she spoke to her federal counterpart Diane Ablonczy on Friday, who without making any promises appeared open to discussion. Ottawa imposed a visa requirement on visitors from Mexico and the Czech Republic several weeks ago to stop what it considers a flood of phony refugee applications. Mrs. Ménard noted that 90,000 Mexicans a year visit Quebec and generate revenue of $63 million. She and three of her cabinet colleagues wrote a letter of complaint to federal Immigration Minister Jason Kenney expressing the Quebec government's displeasure with the development. The letter demanded that Ottawa send more personnel to Mexico to accelerate the visa process and that exemptions be permitted for Mexicans already signed up for organized tours.
IRAN
Riot police in Iran have used tear gas and batons to disperse a group of anti-government demonstrators on their way to a memorial service in Tehran. The service was for at least 20 people killed in protests following Iran's controversial presidential election last month. Public demonstrations are banned in Iran, and the government had rejected a request to hold the memorial at a place of prayer that can accommodate thousands of people. Among those who were dispersed today were two unsuccessful candidates for president, Mirhossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi, who have accused President Mahmoud Ahmajinedad of election fraud.
NIGERIA
Police in the northern state of Borno said on Thursday that security forces captured the leader of a radical Islamic sect responsible for days of clashes which have killed more than 180 people. Yussuf Mohammed is being held at a police barracks in Maiduyguri. Security forces hunted door-to-door for Islamic militants in northern Nigeria on Thursday after storming the compound of his radical sect and killing more than 100 people. A top rights group said the government forces had killed bystanders and other civilians. A military spokesman denied the charge and said it was impossible for rights workers to tell who was a civilian and who was a member of the Boko Haram sect, which the government blames for instigating days of violence in the mostly Muslim region.
SPAIN
The civil guard says police defused a second booby-trap bomb found under a civil guard vehicle on the Spanish island of Majorca, where a car bomb earlier Thursday killed two policemen. The two civil guards, aged 27 and 28, were killed when their vehicle blew up outside a barracks in the coastal town of Palmanova. Several people were also injured in the explosion, which bore
the hallmarks of ETA.
TORONTO, MONTREAL: NEW FINANCING BOOSTS AIR CANADA STOCK
Air Canada shares rose by 20 per cent to $1.95 in midday trading after the troubled airline announced it had arranged more than $1 billion in financing. This followed federal approval of a 21-month pension fund moratorium and 21-month contract extensions for unionized employees. Analysts say the new financing will enable Air Canada to avoid another bankruptcy for at least two years. The lenders include GE Canada Finance, Export Development Canada, Aeroplan Canada Inc. and the airline's parent firm, ACE Aviation Holdings.
CALGARY: PETROCAN PROFIT EVAPORATES
Petro-Canada says its profit for the second quarter ending June 30 came only to $77 million, a 95-per cent drop from the result a year earlier. The company blames continuing weak oil prices. Despite the result, President Ron Brenneman says the company is in good shape on the brink of its merger with Suncor Inc., which could conclude as early as this weekend.
WINNIPEG: WHEAT EXPORTS BOOMING
The Canadian Wheat Board says it recorded its highest exports this year in nine years. The Board says it has exported 18.5 million tonnes of wheat, durum and barley during the crop year that ends Friday. The figure exceeds last year's total by one million tonnes and is the highest since 2000. The Board earned more than $6 billion, a result second only to last year's total of $7.2 billion. Board President Ian White attributes the success to record exports of malting barley and growth in new markets like Saudi Arabia and Iran. The Board has a monopoly on the all wheat and barley grown in Western Canada.
MARKETS
TSX on Thursday: up 120.47 points, or 1.3%, to close at 9,773.92. Canadian dollar: US.92, unchanged. Euro: C$1.53. Oil: $3.59, or 5.6 percent, to settle at $66.94 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
HOCKEY
The National Hockey League's board of governors has unanimously approved a bid by Jerry Reinsdorf to assume ownership of the financially troubled Phoenix Coyotes. Canadian billionaire Jim Balsillie's proposal was unanimously rejected.
SWIMMING
Vancouver's Annamay Pierse has set the 24th world record
at the world swimming championships in Rome, eclipsing Rebecca Soni's time
in the semifinals of the 200-metre breaststroke.
Pierse finished in two minutes 20.12 seconds during the second
heat to edge Soni's 2:20.22.
Weather
British Columbia on Friday: sun, high 27 Celsius Vancouver. Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut: sun. Whitehorse 28, Yellowknife 19, Iqaluit 9. Alberta: sun. Saskatchewan, Manitoba: rain. Edmonton 25, Regina 16, Winnipeg 15. Ontario: cloud south, rain north. Quebec: rain south, cloud north. Toronto, Montreal 26, Ottawa 27. Maritimes: cloud. Newfoundland and Labrador: rain. Fredericton 27, Halifax, Charlottetown 26, St. John's 23.
