G7 finance ministers make pledge to Haiti.
Winter storm sweeps Newfoundland.
Police admit racial profiling.
IQALUIT: G-7 FINANCE MINISTERS MAKE PLEDGE TO HAITI
Finance ministers of the Group of Seven have vowed to cancel Haiti's debts. Canada's finance minister, Jim Flaherty, made the announcement at the end of their two-day meeting in Iqaluit on Saturday. Mr. Flaherty had urged his counterparts to follow Canada's example in cancelling the debts. The decision by Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States still leaves Haiti with a foreign debt of about 890 million American dollars. Some 41 per cent of the debt is owed to the InterAmerican Development Bank and a further 27 per cent to the World Bank. But the informal G7 conference ended without reaching a consensus on how best to fix the global financial system. Mr. Flaherty said that it was important to achieve uniform banking regulations to avoid another global crisis. But other delegates commented that uniformity might not be essential if each country's individual reforms are compatible with the others. The ministers and central bankers also held talks on the mounting debt problems in some European countries, particularly Greece and Portugal. The delegates agreed on other less-contentious issues such as the need to continue government stimulus measures and to urge China to make its currency more flexible on world exchange markets. The same issues will be raised at the Group of 20 meeting that Canada will host in June.
ST. JOHN'S: WINTER STORM SWEEPS NEWFOUNDLAND
Schools, businesses and government offices closed early on Friday in St. John's as a severe winter storm swept through eastern Newfoundland. Some areas received as much as 45 centimetres of snow. Winds reached 90 kilometres an hour. Many flights were cancelled on Saturday. The storm was part of a winter weather system that crossed the central-eastern United States, leaving more than 25 centimetres of snow in Washington, D.C.
TORONTO: POLICE ADMIT RACIAL PROFILING
Toronto's chief of police, Bill Blair, is admitting that racial profiling is a factor in police activity in Canada's largest city. A recent study by the Toronto Star newspaper concluded that black people are three times more likely to be stopped by police than white people. The seven-year study shows that race, age and gender are factors in determining people who get stopped. The report says, however, that Toronto police have drafted better standards since they began working with the Ontario Human Rights Commission.
PORT-AU-PRINCE: CANADA TO FUND CENTRE FOR HAITI'S RECOVERY
The body of another Canadian was recovered on Saturday amid the ruins of a building destroyed in the earthquake in Haiti last month. In all, 26 Canadians' bodies have been found. Another 76 Canadians remain missing. Almost four thousand Canadians who were in Haiti at the time of the earthquake have been transported back to Canada. Canada's ambassador to Haiti, Gilles Rivard, says that Canada is promising to fund a temporary administrative centre in Port-au-Prince. The centre will have telephones and computers to help Haitian civil servants rebuild the government.
VANCOUVER: MEASURES TAKEN TO SAVE OLYMPIC SNOW
Mild weather at the sites of the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver next week is forcing Olympic officials to take steps to preserve snow. On Saturday, training runs for some events were scaled back at Cypress Mountain from five days to three to save snow that remains on the slopes. The mountain is the site of some skiing and snowboarding events. Snow is still being trucked in to another site at Manning Park. Cypress Mountain north of Vancouver has seen the warmest January on record.
LEBANON
Searchers have located a large part of the fuselage of an Ethiopian Airlines plane that crashed in the sea off Lebanon last month killing 90 people, including one Canadian. The airplane's black box flight recorder was also recovered. The Boeing 737 crashed minutes after takeoff from Beirut in a fierce thunderstorm. Fifteen bodies were recovered.
ANTARCTICA
A vessel belonging to the anti-whaling group, Sea Shepherd, collided with a Japanese harpoon vessel off Antarctic on Saturday, the second major clash between conservationists and Japanese whalers this year. The founder of Sea Shepherd, Canadian Paul Watson, says the Japanese ship rammed the vessel and tore a gash in the hull above the water line. The boat was in no danger of sinking. No one was injured.
SUDAN
A Red Cross worker from France who was kidnapped three months ago in Chad was released on Saturday. Laurent Maurice insisted that no ransom was paid. He was reported to be on his way to Sudan. A Red Cross spokesman declined to say more about the conditions of his release for fear of jeopardizing negotiations for the release of another French Red Cross worker who was kidnapped in October in Sudan's Darfur region. The kidnappers call themselves the Falcons for the Liberation of Africa.
CHINA
Chinese authorities in the Xinjiang region have restored access to 27 Internet sites that were blocked following local ethnic unrest last year. The government news agency, Xinhua, reports that the restored Web sites include official government services, commercial sites, airlines and online games. Partial access was also restored to the public discussion forums of the People's Daily newspaper, of Xinhua and other official information sites. Authorities had accused Uighur organizers of using the Internet and mobile phones to orchestrate the unrest that led to the death of almost 200 people. About 1,600 people were wounded. Some of the 26 people who were sentenced to death for their part in the uprising have already been executed.
YEMEN
Shiite rebels were reported to have killed 23 Yemeni soldiers in twin attacks in the country's northern mountains. Rebels ambushed a military supply convoy in Wadi al-Jabara district, killing 15 soldiers on Friday. Rebel fighters killed another eight soldiers in clashes in Saada town.
IRAN
Iran opened two new missile production plants on Saturday, three days after Iran fired a rocket carrying live animals into space. The plants will produce a ground-to-air missile and a surface-to-surface missile. The missiles are designed to target helicopters at low and medium altitudes and to destroy tanks and other armoured vehicles.
MEXICO
Severe winter storms in Mexico this week have killed at least 29 people. On Friday, a landslide killed at least 11 people in Mexico State. At least 20 more people are reported missing. The storms have closed schools and freeways and flooded thousands of homes. The rains slammed Mexico City, where open sewage canals have overflowed.
NORTH KOREA
An American missionary who was arrested after illegally crossing into North Korea in December was freed on Saturday. Robert Park went to North Korea with letters calling on leader Kim Jong Il to close the country's notoriously brutal prison camps and step down from power. Mr. Park arrived in Beijing and planned travel to the United States.
HOCKEY
In the National Hockey League on Saturday, Vancouver beat Boston, 3-2, in a shootout. Pavol Demitra scored in the shootout. The Montreal Canadiens extended their win streak to three games with a 5-3 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins. On Friday, New Jersey defeated Toronto, 4-3, and Calgary defeated Florida, 2-1. In other hockey news on Saturday, the Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke was mourning the death of his 21-year-old son, Brendan, who died in a car crash the day before in Indiana. A passenger was also killed. Brendan Burke made headlines in November after he revealed publicly that he was homosexual and his father expressed his continued support.
CURLING
Krista McCarville's Ontario rink won its playoff match against B.C.'s Kelley Scott, 6-4, on Saturday at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Sault Ste. Marie. Jennifer Jones on Friday moved her Canada rink into the final with an 8-5 win over PEI's Kathy O'Rourke.
Weather
Here is Canada's weather on Sunday. British Columbia will have variable cloudiness. The high temperature in Vancouver will be nine degrees Celsius. The Yukon: clearing skies. Whitehorse, minus one. Northwest Territories: overcast. Yellowknife, minus six. Nunavut: sunny. Iqaluit, minus 13. Alberta: cloudy. Edmonton, minus four. Saskatchewan: mainly sunny. Regina, minus 18. Manitoba: snow. Winnipeg, minus eight. Ontario: sunny. Toronto, minus five. Ottawa, minus seven. Quebec: increasing cloudiness. Montreal, minus seven. New Brunswick: snow flurries. Fredericton, minus three. Nova Scotia: overcast. Halifax, minus one. Prince Edward Island: overcast. Charlottetown, minus one. Newfoundland: cloudy. St. John's, two.
