Canadian govt. lays out legislative goals
Canada seeks new sanctions against Iran
Canadians, Danes in joint Arctic operation
OTTAWA ACTS AGAINST DEFICIT
Canada's Conservative Party government has laid out its determination to reduce its current budget deficit of $56-billion deficit in the Throne Speech read by Gov.-Gen. Michaelle Jean to Parliament in its first session after its Christmas recess. The government says it will continue to spend the last $19 billion provided for in the economic stimulus. A salary freeze will be imposed on the salaries of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, his cabinet ministers, Members of Parliament and senators, and budgets of all federal departments will be frozen as well. The government will keep taxes low and further open up satellite and communications industries to foreign investors. It pledges to streamline regulations affecting the resource sector, untangling mazes of complex rules. In particular, it will give foreigners access to ownership in Canada's uranium business, the world's biggest. Child-support payments to single-parent families will be increased. Legislation will be present to toughen criminal punishments. The details of how the the goals will be implemented will be presented in the federal budget on Thursday. The minority government needs the support of at least one of the three opposition parties represented in the House of Commons to pass the budget.
OTTAWA: CANADA TO SEEK MORE SANCTIONS AGAINST IRAN
Canada is going to encourage its fellow members in the Group of Eight most industrialized countries to seek more United Nations sanctions against Iran. Canada's foreign minister, Lawrence Cannon, will raise the issue when he hosts a meeting of his G-8 counterparts later this month. He'll discuss how to exert pressure to stop Iran from pursuing its nuclear enrichment activity and to resume international talks. Canada's government is a strong ally of Israel, which fears that Iran is developing a nuclear bomb. Canada holds the G-8's rotating presidency. Canada's relations with Iran deteriorated in 2003 when an Iranian-Canadian photographer, Zahra Kazemi, was beaten to death while in police custody in Teheran.
OTTAWA: CANADIANS, DANES IN JOINT ARCTIC PATROL
Danish soldiers will join Canadians in an unusual patrol in the Canadian Arctic. A Danish military dogsled team will join 150 Canadian soldiers and Rangers on a patrol on the northern tip of Ellesmere Island in an exercise aimed an enforcing national sovereignty in the area. It will be the northernmost such patrol ever carried out. The soldiers will take note of ice and water conditions and test new communications equipment. The Canadian military explained that learning to work in the region with the militaries of other Arctic nations is important in mounting successful search-and-rescue operations. Denmark is often seen as a rival of Canada for control of the North.
TORONTO: WOMAN SUES OVER NEEDLESS SURGERY
A Canadian woman is taking legal action against a surgeon who mistakenly removed her breast last November. Laurie Johnston is suing for wrongful surgery performed in the city of Windsor, ON. She had a mastectomy although she did not have breast cancer. The surgeon allegedly misread a biopsy report. Her case and that of another woman who had a breast removed even though she was cancer-free have prompted a series of investigations.
CHILE
Thousands of Chilean troops have restored order to Chile's second-biggest city, Concepcion, four days after a massive earthquake and tsunami struck Chile. The soldiers patrolled overnight to stop rampant looting and arson in the city 500 kilometres south of Santiago. President Michelle Bachelet sent 14,000 troops to the disaster to stop the looters and to distribute food and medicine. Her government also imposed overnight curfews on seven cities, including Concepcion. The official death toll now stands at 799. The disaster has affected two million people, or one-eighth of the population.
UKRAINE
The Ukrainian parliament has rejected the government of Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko in a no-confidence vote. The resolution passed with 243 votes in the 450-seat parliament. The lawmakers now have 30 days to form a new government, which expected to gather around President Viktor Yanukovich's Party of Regions. If no new coalition materializes, the president can dissolve parliament and hold new elections. Mrs. Timoshenko will become opposition leader as the head of the second-biggest faction in the legislature.
IRAQ
Three suicide bombers killed at least 32 people in the city of Baqouba on Wednesday. One bomber got dressed up as an ambulance driver and drove an ambulance to a hospital where he blew himself up. No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks. Al-Qaeda in Iraq has vowed it will violently disrupt Sunday's parliamentary election and warned Sunnis not to vote.
EGYPT
The Arab League has agreed to back the resumption of indirect Palestinian-Israeli talks after months of U.S.-led diplomacy. The announcement was made in Cairo Wednesday at a meeting of Arab foreign ministers. It was recommended that the indirect talks last for four months. Israel and the Palestinians appear to accept the initiative. Negotiations have been stalled since Israel launched a three-week attack on the Gaza Strip in December 2008. The main impediment to restarting the talks has been the building of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. The Palestinians have said they will only return to the negotiating table if Israel first stops all settlement construction. Israel has agreed only to a 10-month freeze, a decision rejected by the Palestinians. U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell proposed U.S.-brokered indirect talks as a way of getting around the deadlock.
DUBAI
Dubai's police chief plans to seek the arrest of Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the head of Israel's spy agency over the killing of a Hamas leader in the United Arab Emirates in January. Police chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim says he will ask the Dubai prosecutor to issue arrest warrants. Mr. Tamim has said he is almost certain Israeli Mossad agents were involved in the killing of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouhat at a Dubai hotel in January. Members of the murder team used fraudulent passports from Britain, Ireland, Germany, France and Australia.
ST. ALBERT: DUCK TRIAL CONTINUES
The trial of Syncrude Canada continues in the case involving 1,600 ducks who died in a tailings pond in northern Alberta two years ago. The energy firm is charged with both federal and provincial environmental violations. The prosecution charges that Syncrude was the only oilsands company in the area that didn't have noise-making cannon in place to keep wildlife out of the tailing ponds. The company had already acknowledged that the cannon at the pond were turned off. But on Wednesday, a Syncrude lawyer told the court that birds lose their fear of sonic cannons after only two hours.
MARKETS
TSX on Wednesday: 11,849, up 20. Canadian dollar: US96. Euro: C$1.41. Oil: $80.90 1.22.
OLYMPICS
The Paralympic torch relay has begun.
A ceremony on Parliament Hill lit the Paralympic flame and
launched its 10-day journey to Vancouver.
Some 600 people will carry the flame before the Games begin with
opening ceremonies at B.C. Place next Friday.
Fifty-five Canadian athletes will join 1,300 competitors from 43
other countries.
SOCCER
Canada has dropped five spots in the latest FIFA world soccer rankings. Canada is currently at Number 62, sandwiched between Peru and Bahrain. European champion Spain still leads the rankings ahead of Brazil, the Netherlands and Italy. Canada's women's soccer team defeated New Zealand 1-0 to win the Cyprus Cup and finish the tournament undefeated. Diana Matheson scored the lone goal in the 70th minute as Canada won its second Cyprus Women's Cup title in three years.
Weather
British Columbia on Thursday: mix sun cloud, high C11 Vancouver. Yukon: mix sun cloud. Northwest Territories, Nunavut: sun. Whitehorse -2, Yellowknife -1, Iqaluit -26. Alberta: sun. Saskatchewan: sun north, mix sun cloud south. Manitoba: cloud. Edmonton 5, Regina -1, Winnipeg -2. Ontario, Quebec: sun. Toronto 4, Ottawa 6, Montreal 5. Maritimes: snow. Newfoundland and Labrador: rain. Fredericton -1, Halifax, St. John's 1, Charlottetown 0.
