Overnight News Digest: Maliki suggests U.S. pullout timetable
Mon Jul 07, 2008 at 08:16:33 PM PDT
USA
Baltimore Sun - Domestic spying quietly goes on
| With Congress on the verge of outlining new parameters for National Security Agency eavesdropping between suspicious foreigners and Americans, lawmakers are leaving largely untouched a host of government programs that critics say involves far more domestic surveillance than the wiretaps they sought to remedy. These programs - most of them highly classified - are run by an alphabet soup of federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies. They sift, store and analyze the communications, spending habits and travel patterns of U.S. citizens, searching for suspicious activity. The surveillance includes data-mining programs that allow the NSA and the FBI to sift through large databanks of e-mails, phone calls and other communications, not for selective information, but in search of suspicious patterns. Other information, like routine bank transactions, is kept in databases similarly monitored by the Central Intelligence Agency. |
USA Today - Retired officers urge end to military's ban on gays
| The military's official ban on gays and lesbians is counterproductive to the armed forces and Congress should repeal it, according to a study by retired senior officers, including the man responsible for implementing the existing "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Ending the ban is “unlikely to pose any significant risk to morale, good order, discipline, or cohesion,” concludes the study (pdf), commissioned by the Palm research center at the University of California, Santa Barbara. One of the four authors is Brigadier General Hugh Aitken, USMC (Ret.), and he's the first Marine Corps general to ever call publicly for scrapping the prohibition. "I believe this should have been done much earlier," he said, according to the press release... |
LA Times - More scrutiny, secrecy at Justice Department
| Justice Department lawyers and investigators have come under more scrutiny after the Sept. 11 attacks than at perhaps any time since Watergate. Questions have been raised about the administration's strategies for going after terrorism suspects and about whether politics was allowed to taint the department's core mission to provide equal justice under the law. But the internal unit that polices the lawyers' conduct has been operating under a growing shroud of secrecy, shutting down what were once regular, public disclosures about its activities. |
The Hill - Taking aim at the next Karl Rove
| Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), who has primary jurisdiction over the executive branch, is considering legislation to eliminate Karl Rove-type advisers in future administrations. The chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hints broadly that such a bill could ban the use of federal funds to finance such a politically partisan office. “Why should we be using taxpayer dollars to have a person solely in charge of politics in the White House?” Waxman said in an interview. “Can you imagine the reaction if each member of Congress had a campaign person paid for with taxpayer dollars?” |
McClatchy - Democrats pick stadium for Obama's acceptance speech
| Barack Obama, whose ability to deliver a soaring speech is considered so unrivaled among the current crop of American politicians that it became an issue in the primary campaign, will head for a bigger stage next month when he formally accepts the Democratic presidential nomination — he'll deliver his acceptance speech at Denver's 76,000-seat football stadium. |
Reuters - NYC to spend billions to cut greenhouse gases
| New York City will spend $2.3 billion to cut greenhouse gas emissions from municipal buildings and operations by 30 percent in 30 years, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on Monday. The city aims to cut 1.68 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents a year from 2006 levels by 2017, with measures ranging from improved heating and cooling systems to fixing methane leaks at water treatment plants and using that gas to run electric generation equipment. |
Europe
RIA Novosti - U.S. top diplomat to sign missile deal in Prague
| U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice starts a European tour on Monday with a visit to the Czech Republic to sign a missile shield agreement, and will later travel to Bulgaria and Georgia... In Prague, Rice is expected to sign an agreement on the deployment of a missile tracking radar on Czech territory. The United States also plans to place interceptor missiles in Poland to counter a potential strike from Iran, but talks with Warsaw have stalled. The plans are fiercely opposed by Russia, which sees them as a threat to national security and the international nuclear deterrence system. |
DW-World - US Missile Shield Plan Continues to Rankle
| Poland has sent its foreign minister to the United States in hopes of salvaging a missile defense deal. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev made it clear to George W. Bush that he is unhappy about the missile shield. Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski was travelling to Washington on Monday, July 7 to try and elicit guarantees of US military protection for his country. Poland has demanded billions of dollars in US investment to upgrade its air defenses, including Patriot ground-to-air missiles. |
NYT - Blast in Georgian Rebel Region Kills 4
| An explosion in a cafe in a separatist region of the former Soviet republic of Georgia killed four people Sunday night, including a security service official from the rebel government. Six people were wounded. The explosion was the latest of at least a half dozen bombings in less than a week in the region, Abkhazia, and the first to cause fatalities. Although no suspects have been identified, leaders of the separatist government blamed Georgia for the bombing, which they accused of inflaming a 15-year conflict that has become increasingly violent in recent months. The government in Georgia, which claims Abkhazia as part of its territory, denied responsibility. |
Independent - Brown's £7.5bn black hole
| The Chancellor is facing a £7.5bn black hole in his Budget for next year as a result of the economic downturn, an analysis of Treasury figures for The Independent has found. The black hole means that Alistair Darling will either have to raise tax, cut spending or borrow more. Borrowing such sums risks stoking inflation and a further rise in interest rates. The black hole is the equivalent of cutting 57,000 teaching jobs, cancelling the two giant aircraft carriers ordered by the MoD, and closing five hospitals. It is also the equivalent of adding 2p to the basic tax rate. |
NYT - Governing Coalition in Austria Collapses; Early Election Expected
| The Austrian government collapsed on Monday after months of acrimonious dispute between the nation’s two largest parties. New elections, most likely in September, seemed all but certain — pending parliamentary approval — after the People’s Party withdrew from the governing coalition. The leftist Social Democratic Party and the conservative People’s Party had been locked in an uneasy governing coalition since January 2007. |
EU Observer - EU won over to France's hard line on immigration and asylum
| EU interior ministers have thrown their weight behind French-drafted proposals that aim to give the 27-nation bloc new tools to crack down on clandestine migrants, rejecting concerns that they are erecting a wall around Europe. "We can't leave immigration in complete disorder, it has to be organized," EU home affairs commissioner Jacques Barrot said on Monday (7 July), after a first informal meeting of 27 EU interior ministers under the French EU presidency... Brussels officials estimate that some eight million undocumented migrants are currently in the EU. The French proposal suggests that the organisation of legal immigration be based on a state's needs and ability to welcome people. Those illegally staying in the EU could be forced to return to their home country. |
Spiegel - Germany Plans 30 Offshore Wind Farms
| The energy debate is heating up in Germany with advocates of abandoning the planned nuclear phase-out pitted against those who argue that renewable energy is the way to go. Now the German government has said it plans to give a massive boost to wind power in the coming years. Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee said on Sunday that Berlin plans to build up to 30 offshore wind farms to meet the country's renewable energy targets. Speaking to the Welt am Sonntag newspaper he said the plan was to build some 2,000 windmills in the North Sea and Baltic Sea which would provide 11,000 megawatts of electricity. "The price of oil has made this all the more pressing and the interest from investors shows that it is economically viable," Tiefensee said. |
NYT - As Schism Lurks, the Church of England Endorses Women as Bishops
| The governing body of the Anglican church in Britain voted on Monday to approve the appointment of women as bishops, a step that appeared to risk a schism in the church in its historic homeland as the Anglican church worldwide faces one of the most serious threats to its unity in its history, over the ordination of gay clergy members. After a debate late into the night in the city of York, the General Synod of the Church of England, an assembly that holds ultimate authority on church doctrine in Britain, voted by comfortable margins within each of the synod’s three houses — bishops, clergy and laity — to approve the consecration of women as bishops in the face of bitter opposition from traditionalists. |
Africa
LA Times - Zimbabwe youth militias accused of holding women as sex slaves
| She has to call the young men her "comrades." She cooks food for the comrades and serves them. She sweeps the comrades' floor and cleans up after them. And whenever any of the comrades want sex, she is raped. Asiatu, 21, is a prisoner of the comrades at a command base of the ruling ZANU-PF party, one of 900 such camps set up by the party to terrorize Zimbabweans into voting for Robert Mugabe in the one-man presidential runoff late last month and extending his 28-year rule. The election is over, but the terror isn't. |
NYT - British Mercenary Sentenced in Coup Plot
| One of Africa’s most infamous soldiers of fortune, Simon Mann, was sentenced to 34 years in prison in Equatorial Guinea on Monday for his role in an elaborate but failed plot to overthrow the government of the tiny, oil-rich country. Mr. Mann, a flamboyant member of Britain’s upper crust, admitted his role in the plot, but claimed that he was merely carrying out the wishes of more powerful backers. He was arrested in 2004 in Zimbabwe after meeting a plane headed for Equatorial Guinea loaded with 80 mercenaries and a stockpile of weapons. He had served part of a seven-year sentence for weapons trafficking in Zimbabwe, but was extradited to Equatorial Guinea after being released early. |
Guardian - G8 summit: West told to fulfil its African aid pledge
| The leaders of the G8 were under strong pressure today to live up to their aid promises to the world's poorest countries as their three-day summit opened against the backdrop of a looming economic crisis. With the credit crunch and the escalating price of food threatening to divert attention from the fight against global poverty, the G8 met seven invited African leaders for lunch at a luxury resort on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. When it met in Gleneagles three years ago, the G8 pledged to increase global aid by $50bn (£25bn) a year by 2010 and raise aid to Africa, the world's poorest continent, by $25bn. But, with only two years to go until the deadline, a monitoring report released last month by the independent African Progress Panel showed the bloc of rich nations was only 14% of the way towards hitting its target. |
Middle East
WaPo - Iraq's Maliki Suggests Setting Timetable for U.S. Withdrawal
| Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has for the first time suggested establishing a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops, a step that the Bush administration has long opposed... Meanwhile, a bombing near a market in the city of Baqubah killed as many as nine people Monday, continuing a recent wave of attacks in Baghdad and surrounding areas. Police in Diyala province, north of Baghdad, said the blast took place outside a cosmetics store in a market west of the city. There was confusion over the source of the blast. Some police in the area described it as a bomb, though witnesses and others said it was caused by a female suicide bomber. The use of women to carry suicide bombs has become more common in recent months, as insurgent groups exploit the ability of women to bypass checkpoints and other security measures more easily than men. As many as a dozen others were injured in the Baqubah explosion. Elsewhere, two women were killed in an explosion to the east of Baqubah, and four others died in a separate bombing on the eastern edge of Diyala province. The deaths add to 16 fatalities that occurred on Sunday when a wave of attacks in Baghdad and areas north of the capital Sunday shattered a relative lull in violence. Fifteen others were injured. Just one day earlier, Maliki had declared that Iraq's government had defeated terrorism. |
Ventura County Star - Blogger kicked out of Iraq province for war photos
| It's a disturbing picture. The dead Marine is lying on his back, his face damaged beyond recognition because of the blast. But for photojournalist and blogger Zoriah Miller, 32, it was important to capture the daily toll of war in Iraq. "I just feel this war has become so sanitized that it was important to show," said Zoriah, who prefers to go by his first name. "My only discomfort is the idea that the family could accidentally stumble on it." ... The Marine commanders who saw the photograph were not happy, saying it violated a "trust" between the military and journalists. Zoriah was immediately "disembedded" from a Marine unit and barred from working with the military in Anbar. |
His blog is here: zoriah.net.
RIA Novosti - Iranian leader defiant over uranium enrichment
| Iran will continue to enrich uranium despite demands by the so-called Iran Six to suspend its nuclear program, the president of the Islamic Republic said on Monday. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke after arriving in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, to attend a Developing 8 summit. The Developing 8 is an economic development alliance also involving Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Turkey. "On the one hand, they want talks with Iran, on the other, they threaten us and tell us to give in to their illegitimate demands and relinquish our rights. This is the same old story," Ahmadinejad said. |
Times of India - UAE arrests 3,000 Indian workers for rioting
| Nearly 3,000 Indian workers have been detained at an undisclosed location on the outskirts of the UAE capital, Abu Dhabi, on charges of rioting. The workers - from Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Kerala - of a large ceramics manufacturing unit in the emirate of Ras Al Khaimah were rounded up by security agencies after they went on a rampage at their labour camp on Friday night to protest against the poor quality of food being served to them. Indian ambassador to the UAE, Talmiz Ahmed, confirmed on phone that employees of RAK Ceramics indulged in arson by burning vehicles and destroying furniture and are now under arrest. |
South Asia
LA Times - Afghanistan hints at foreign role in Indian Embassy blast
| The massive car bomb that killed more than 40 people outside the Indian Embassy here Monday has stoked regional tensions and threatened to erode already diminishing confidence in the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Afghanistan's Interior Ministry indirectly blamed Pakistan for the suicide attack, the deadliest in Kabul since the fall of the Taliban movement in 2001. Nearly 150 people were injured in the bombing, an audacious strike in what had previously been considered a well-secured area of the capital. |
NYT - Indian Premier Expresses New Hope for Completion of Nuclear Pact With U.S.
| India’s prime minister went to the Group of 8 summit meeting in Japan on Monday with his government intact and enough political strength to complete a landmark nuclear agreement with the United States, ending months of speculation that either his government or the agreement, on which he has staked his reputation, would collapse. The prime minister, Manmohan Singh, told reporters traveling with him to the summit meeting that his administration would “soon” complete an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, though he did not offer a date, his spokesman, Sanjaya Baru, said here. Mr. Baru added that the text of an agreement was near completion, and that India could swiftly finish it and go on to secure approval from the 45 member nations of the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Only after those two steps have been completed can the United States Congress vote on the final agreement. |
The Hindu - ‘India will not agree to targets for cutting carbon emissions’
| Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said emphatically that India would not accept any targets that may be set by international bodies reducing its carbon emissions. Speaking at a press conference onboard a special Air India aircraft flying him to Japan for meetings on the margins of the G-8 summit, where climate change and curbing of carbon emissions are expected to be hot issues of debate, Dr. Singh said, “Our position has been made very clear.” “India cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be regarded as a major polluter of greenhouse gases,” he said. “Our contribution to global emissions is less than 4 per cent. On per capita basis it is among the lowest — an average of 1.2 tonnes.” “For us the topmost priority is development,” he said, but added that India had brought out a national plan to deal with climate change. |
Guardian - Muslim-Hindu tension: Land riots bring down Kashmir coalition
| Violent street protests by rival groups of Muslims and Hindus in a dispute over 40 hectares of forest land led to the fall of the democratically elected government in India's Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir yesterday. The chief minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad, who headed a coalition government, submitted his resignation to the provincial governor after the People's Democratic party pulled out of the coalition and it became clear that he could no longer muster a majority in the state assembly. The governor, NN Vohra, who accepted the resignation, had earlier asked Azad to prove his majority in the state assembly. The collapse of the Congress-led coalition government is seen as a huge setback for the peace process and has raised fears of a revival of Muslim separatist groups. |
Independent - Tigers released to play mating game – and rescue species
| In the wilds of an Indian nature reserve, a soap opera is gripping the nation. The hero of the drama is a four-year-old male tiger who was flown to the Rajasthan park by wildlife officials and released last week. Yesterday, the heroine, a similarly aged female, was also set free from a holding pen inside the reserve. Now it is up to the two cats to play their parts. "This is a real attempt to try and do something to help the tigers," said Valmik Thapar, a tiger expert and member of India's National Board of Wildlife. "There has been real consultation with the experts, and the tigers were carefully selected. All efforts have gone into doing this the right way." |
Asia-Pacific
Independent - Over caviar and sea urchin, G8 leaders mull food crisis
| World leaders are not renowned for their modest wine selections or reticence at the G8 summit's cheese board. True to form, discussing the global food crisis – spiralling grocery prices in the developed world and starvation in Africa – was clearly hungry work that left their stomachs rumbling. Shortly after calling for us all to waste less food, and for an end to three-for-two deals in British supermarkets, Gordon Brown joined his fellow G8 premiers and their wives for an eight-course Marie Antoinette-style "Blessings of the Earth and the Sea Social Dinner", courtesy of the Japanese government. The global food shortage was not evident. As the champagne flowed, the couples enjoyed 18 "higher-quality ingredients", beginning with amuse-bouche of corn stuffed with caviar, smoked salmon and sea urchin pain-surprise-style, hot onion tart and winter lily bulbs. |
Xinhua - Warming may cause rapid plant species loss on Qinghai-Tibet Plateau
| Global warming could cause a dramatic decline in plant species diversity on the rangelands of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, say Chinese and U.S. scientists. An experiment on climate change and grazing conducted in the northeastern part of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau from 1998 to 2001 showed a 26 percent to 36 percent warming-induced decrease of plant species in the experiment zones, said Julia Klein, a U.S. Colorado State University assistant professor who led the research. |
NYT - In Election Dispute, a Challenge for Mongolia’s Democracy
| Now, with an election in dispute, Mongolia’s fledgling democracy faces its biggest challenge since its birth in 1990. Following cries of fraud in parliamentary elections — accusations that were disputed by international election observers — hundreds of rioters, many of them drunk attacked the headquarters of the dominant political party and the neighboring national art gallery on July 1. Fires were started. Five people were killed. More than 1,000 pieces of artwork were destroyed, damaged or looted. |
BBC News - Indonesia clerics 'growing force'
| Hardline Muslim groups in Indonesia are gaining greater influence over government policy, a report says. The study, by the International Crisis Group, looks at why the government decided last month to restrict the activities of a minority Muslim sect. It says that careful lobbying by hardline clerics is giving them a greater role in the country's politics. Hardline groups are poorly represented in parliament, but the report says they are finding ways around that. |
Bangkok Post - NCCC may file Thaksin cases itself
| The National Counter Corruption Commission (NCCC) may file corruption cases against former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his government officials by itself. The commission is prepared to act if the Office of the Attorney-General (OAG) continues to reject the investigation reports of the Assets Scrutiny Committee (ASC). The NCCC has taken over the corruption cases involving the Thaksin government from the ASC, which completed its term at the end of last month. |
NYT - Thai Museum at Angkor Draws Tourists, and Criticism
| There is no question that Angkor and its famed temples are among the world’s archaeological treasures, providing a window into the Cambodian dynasty that flourished there from the ninth century to the 15th century. But tourists who flock to the site in northwestern Cambodia say something is missing; few artifacts remain to help them imagine the customs and rituals of the ancient empire. Antiquities were looted over the centuries or appropriated by museums in France, the country’s former colonial ruler. Of those that remained, many were relocated to Cambodia’s National Museum, more than 185 miles from Angkor. Now, a Thai company says it is trying to address the problem, opening a museum that borrows artifacts, including nearly 1,000 Buddhas, from the National Museum and elsewhere. It is just a few miles from Angkor Park, the sprawling area near here that is considered one of Southeast Asia’s most important archaeological sites and includes Angkor Wat, its celebrated temple. |
Reuters - Public transit packed as gas soars in Manila
| As inflation soars in the Philippines and gasoline prices climb relentlessly, more and more commuters in the capital are squeezing into suburban trains and public buses, putting an enormous strain on the services. On the positive side, Manila's legendary traffic jams are diminishing, but that's only good news for those who can afford to travel by car in the city of 15 million people. Unlike consumers in many other Asian countries which subsidize fuel prices, Filipinos are forced to pay the free-market rate for gas. So far this year, they have been hit with 18 price hikes for a total increase of over 35 percent as global oil prices climb to stratospheric levels. |
I believe this scenario is coming soon to America.
Asahi Shimbun - Suspect in huge fraud admits shrimp farms didn't exist
| A chairman suspected of defrauding about 35,000 people of 84.9 billion yen ($792 million) has admitted the shrimp farms in the Philippines used to lure investors did not exist, police sources said. But Isamu Kuroiwa, chairman of the now-defunct World Ocean Farm (WOF) who was arrested Wednesday, denied allegations he was engaged in organized fraud... When the Metropolitan Police Department in Tokyo dispatched investigators to the Philippines, they found that the size of the WOF's farming ponds was about 65 hectares, or one-30th of what the company had claimed. |
SMH - Meanwhile, Rudd's fat cats get href="400 extra a week
| Kevin Rudd may be working his most senior public servants harder but he is rewarding them handsomely, signing an 18.9 per cent pay rise for Canberra's mandarins. That is an extra $1400 a week, and takes the three top earners to almost $490,000 a year. After freezing MPs' pay and urging unions to show wage restraint, the Prime Minister has given the big rise to secretaries of the 19 federal government departments. The pay rise is unusually generous because Mr Rudd has "cashed out" John Howard's system of delivering annual performance bonuses of up to 20 per cent to individual public service chiefs. |
SMH - The Aussie who's changing the world of whistleblowers
| In the past year and a half, Australian-born Julian Assange and his band of online dissidents have helped swing the Kenyan Presidential election, embarrassed the US Government and sparked international scandal. His site, Wikileaks, provides a safe haven for whistleblowers to anonymously upload confidential documents and, after 18 months of operation, Assange says no source has ever been exposed and no document - now over 1.2 million and counting - has ever been censored or removed. Now, the site is expanding its focus from oppressive regimes and shady corporate dealings to religion and even the cult of celebrity. |
Americas
Reuters - Peru leftist gears up for general strike
| Peru's ultranationalist opposition leader is backing a general strike this week to protest President Alan Garcia's free-market policies and is considering a second presidential bid. Ollanta Humala, who nearly won the presidency in 2006... , said Peruvians were demanding change because Garcia's economic model was broken and a six-year boom had failed to trickle down to the poor... Since taking office two years ago, Garcia has forged free trade deals, lured foreign investment and slashed tariffs -- deepening a commitment to orthodox economic policies Peru started adopting in the 1990s by privatizing state companies. Garcia's reforms, along with record high prices for minerals it exports, have turned Peru into one of the world's top-performing economies, with annual growth of 9 percent. But the poverty rate still hovers near 40 percent, and while it has fallen under Garcia, the poor are demanding a share of the economic surge. Investors are worried that high rates of poverty could pave the way for a leftist leader like Humala to win the presidency in 2011. |
MercoPress - One out of five trees lost in Amazon are from protected areas
| One of each five timbered trees in the Brazilian Amazon belongs to government protected areas according to a report published on Sunday by O’ Globo. Apparently 2% of deforestation last year was in Indigenous reservations o preserved areas, says O’ Globo adding that the information was collected from Brazil’s Environmental Office, Ibama, appealing to satellite photos. “It’s a terrible number, it is horrendous”, said Carlos Minc, Environment Secretary, who added that “it’s not enough to create an area in maps, on paper to guarantee the conservation of the rainforest”. |
LA Times - Colombia leaders call ransom story 'absolutely false'
| Colombian authorities sought over the weekend to discredit a Swiss academic and former intermediary in talks with a left-wing rebel group who has been linked to a disputed report that officials paid $20 million for last week's release of 15 high-profile hostages. A Colombian government official who asked to remain unnamed said Sunday that authorities suspect Geneva-based Jean Pierre Gontard was the source for the Swiss radio report last week stating that officials paid a ransom for the release of the hostages. Officials have denied any ransom was paid and said the rescue was based on subterfuge and infiltration of the rebel high command. The notion of paying ransom is extremely sensitive here, since U.S. and Colombian authorities have labeled the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, a terrorist group and have ruled out payments to terrorists. |
Reuters - Charred bodies dumped in drug gang-hit Mexico city
| Police found six charred bodies, one still on fire, dumped on a street in the northern Mexican city of Tijuana on Monday, in the latest brutal killing on the U.S.-Mexico border. A police spokesman said drug gangs were believed to be behind the attack... Tijuana is one of the most gruesome fronts in Mexico's three-way war between rival drug cartels and security forces, as Mexico's most-wanted man Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman tries to wrestle control of smuggling routes into California from the city's long dominant Arellano Felix cartel. Following two months of relative quiet in Tijuana, across the border from San Diego, California, drug murders and kidnappings are rising again, police say. At least 14 people have been killed in drug violence since early Sunday. |
AFP - Mexico plants nine million trees in one day: minister
| More than nine million trees were planted in Mexico as part of a day-long campaign against deforestation, the environment minister said Monday. The day of tree-planting took place on Saturday and aimed to compensate for the 316,000 hectares (780,000 acres) of forest that are lost annually to illegal exploitation, Environment Minister Juan Elvira said. |
Globe and Mail - Military showed little enthusiasm in Arctic sovereignty patrol, report says
| 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. Defending Arctic sovereignty is supposed to be a major priority under goals the Harper government set when it took office in February, 2006. |
CS Monitor - American visits to Canada hit 36-year low
| The summer tourism season has arrived in Old Montreal, but the tourists have not... It's a situation being played out across Canada, where visits by Americans have been plummeting for years. In March, the last month for which official statistics have been released, visits by Americans fell to their lowest level since record keeping began 36 years ago. Data released June 28 showed foreign tourist spending in the first quarter fell to the lowest level since 1999, and that the number of US visitors has fallen by nearly a third since 2003... Among the hardest hit are communities and businesses that rely on short-term, drive-in tourists. In March, Americans made only 730,000 same-day car trips, down 2.5 percent from February and 68.3 percent from 2001. |
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