Free Republic

TEHRAN - A Japanese and two Canadian journalists have been arrested along with an Iranian working for "satellite channels," because they were reporting without permission on rallies in Tehran earlier this week, the Fars news agency said on Friday. The cases are under investigation, Fars said, without giving further details of the allegations against the journalists. The Tehran prosecutor said on Friday that his office was investigating the arrest of AFP reporter Farhad Pouladi while he was covering an anti-American rally in the Iranian capital on Wednesday. The annual commemoration of the November 4, 1979 storming of the US embassy...

Toronto has won a bid to host the 2015 Pan AM Games. Just before 5 p.m. the Pan American Sport Organization in Guadalajara, Mexico, announced that Hogtown had earned the rights to host the games and the Parapan American Games. "We are thrilled,” stated Toronto 2015 Bid Chair, the Hon. David Peterson in a quick press release from Mexico. “We will work hard to stage the best Pan and Parapan Am Games ever.” The Pan Am Games are among the premium amateur athletic competitions in the world and is expected to bring 10,000 participants and 250,000 visitors from the 42...

OTTAWA (Dow Jones)--Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Thursday G20 countries have to coordinate planning stimulus exit strategies."That's important so that one country's banking system isn't advantaged over another country's banking system as we exit from this period of stimulus, which isn't going to happen for a while," Flaherty told reporters. He expects G20 finance ministers and central bank governors to discuss exit strategies at their weekend meeting in St. Andrews, U.K. He cautioned, "Not that it's time to implement exit strategies but that we coordinate our planning in terms of exit strategies." Regarding moral hazard when some banks are...

Riyadh, Nov 5 (DPA) Around 5,480 people converted to Islam in Saudi Arabia through the ‘Bring me to Islam’ cell phone hotline service, media reports said Thursday. The service, provided in 12 languages, was launched to raise awareness among foreign communities in the kingdom, the Saudi daily Okaz reported. Any person can suggest names of non-Muslims he thinks might convert to Islam through text messages to the hotline, along with their phone numbers and the language they speak. Later, preachers would call these non-Muslims and try to introduce them to Islam, without revealing the number of the person who suggested...

Note: The following text is a quote: Secretary Napolitano Announces Full Deployment of Radiation Scanning Technology to the Northern Border Ahead of Schedule Release Date: November 5, 2009 For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano today announced the final deployment of non-intrusive scanning equipment to detect radiation emanating from materials used in nuclear devices at all Northern border land ports of entry—a major security milestone completed two months ahead of schedule that reflects Secretary Napolitano’s ongoing commitment to strong, layered security at the U.S.-Canada border. “Securing our Northern border while facilitating...

After more than a decade of public health care with mandatory coverage, so many Canadian doctors have left the practice and so many young people have entered other fields that Canada ranks 26th of 28 developed nations in its ratio of physicians to population. Once, Canada ranked among the leaders in the number of physicians — but that was before government health care drove doctors out of the practice in droves.

Attention: Assignment Editor, Environment Editor, News Editor, Sports Editor, Government/Political Affairs Editor ON, O.F.A.H. MEDIA RELEASE--(Marketwire - Nov. 4, 2009) - Bill C-391, An amendment to the Criminal Code (repeal of the long gun registry), passed a major hurdle in the legislative process earlier today when it was approved at Second Reading in the House of Commons. For 14 years, the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters (O.F.A.H.) has been determinedly fighting to scrap the long gun registry through media campaigns, rallies, presentations and meetings with public officials and politicians, and most recently, a national online petition. The bill, a...

MPs voted by a clear margin Wednesday to repeal the federal long-gun registry, signalling for the first time since the program was adopted 14 years ago that it is headed for the scrap heap, despite police assertions that it saves lives. A private member's bill, sponsored by Conservative backbencher Candice Hoeppner, had the backing of all the Tories, from Prime Minister Stephen Harper down, and enough Liberal and New Democrat MPs to clear its first major hurdle of winning support in principle. The bill passed by a surprising 164-137, winning more supporters than expected as 18 opposition MPs rose to...

On December 6, 1989, a madman entered a Montreal University, segregated men and women in a classroom, and shot 14 women with a Ruger Mini 14. As the 20th anniversary of the shooting nears, Canadian gun control groups are frantically fighting the demise of the Canadian Long Gun Registry. It is set for a preliminary vote in the House of Commons today. If approved, a second final vote will be needed. The Firearms Registry Act was passed in 1995. Gun owners were required to obtain a permit by 2001. All guns had to be registered by 2003. The cost of...

A report by two environmental groups and financed by Toronto-Dominion Bank finds that Canada can meet its greenhouse gas reduction targets only by limiting economic growth in the oil-rich provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. The report, from the Pembina Institute and the David Suzuki Foundation, broadly concludes that Canada can lower greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent compared with 1990 levels by 2020 while maintaining a “strong, growing economy, a quality of life higher than Canadians enjoy today, and continued steady job creation across the country.” But the study, which relies on an economic model from M.K. Jaccard and Associates,...

MONTREAL — The federal anti-hate law that “official Jews� lobbied for and got passed has, 32 years later, backfired, sowing the seeds for political correctness, media chill and censorship that have undermined the values that define the Jewish People, says Alberta lawyer, author and activist Ezra Levant. Levant, who is Jewish, made the assertion in an Oct. 21 talk to a small audience at Beth Israel Beth Aaron Congregation about his 900-day saga of being prosecuted by the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission for reprinting controversial Danish cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad in his now defunct magazine, the...

Youngsters in Churchill are warned not to dress in furry white costumes, to steer clear of baited traps stuffed with seal meat and to listen for the tell-tale sound of fireworks. That's because these candy-seekers have more to worry about than ghosts and goblins. They need to avoid a different kind of predator on Halloween - the polar bear. School children get a visit from the polar bear patrol team to go over safety tips. On the day of Halloween, several conservation officers take to the sky in a helicopter to see if there are any bears nearby. As dusk...

RICHMOND - A right foot has been found inside a running shoe on a beach in Richmond, the seventh foot found along B.C.’s coast in two years, RCMP said Wednesday. Two men walking on the beach Tuesday evening found the foot in a white size 8.5 Nike running shoe on the beach at No. 6 Road and Triangle Road, the RCMP said. The BC Coroners Service confirmed the remains were human through a forensic autopsy and will conduct more forensic tests in its investigation with the RCMP. Exams by forensic pathologists and anthropologists will help determine physical characteristics, which, combined...

UNITED NATIONS — A Canadian-led bid to focus attention on Iran's human rights record says United Nations special investigators should turn their gaze on the Islamic republic, according to a draft resolution that's expected to be unveiled Thursday. The move by Canada and the measure's co-sponsoring governments comes amid criticism that many of UN human rights investigators spend a disproportionate amount of time probing alleged abuses in advanced democracies, while ignoring countries where the worst abuse takes place. The draft resolution calls on investigators of torture, extra-judicial executions, free speech suppression, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances and persecution of human rights...

A 19-year-old folk singer from Toronto has died after being attacked by two coyotes in Cape Breton Highlands National Park.

October 28, 2009 Note: The following text is a quote: Eleven Members/Associates of Ummah Charged with Federal Violations One Subject Fatally Shot During Arrest United States Attorney Terrence Berg, Eastern District of Michigan, Andrew G. Arena, Special Agent in Charge (SAC), Federal Bureau of Investigation, (FBI), Detroit, Michigan, and Police Chief Warren Evans, Detroit Police Department (DPD), Detroit, Michigan announced a federal complaint was unsealed today charging Luqman Ameen Abdullah, a.k.a.Christopher Thomas, and 10 others with conspiracy to commit several federal crimes, including theft from interstate shipments, mail fraud to obtain the proceeds of arson, illegal possession and sale of...

A PROMISING young Canadian musician has been attacked and killed by coyotes while on a tour promoting her new album. Taylor Mitchell, 19, was considered a rising star of the folk music scene, having just earned a Canadian Folk Music Awards nomination. She was hiking alone on the Syline Trail in Cape Breton Highlands National Park when a pair of coyotes attacked her. Tourists rushed to her aid when they heard her screams and found Mitchell bleeding heavily from mulitple wounds "all over her body", according to The Canadian Press. "She was losing a considerable amount of blood from her...

TORONTO – Two coyotes attacked a promising young musician as she was hiking alone in a national park in eastern Canada, and authorities said she died Wednesday of her injuries. The victim was identified as Taylor Mitchell, 19, a singer-songwriter from Toronto who was touring her new album on the East Coast.

If vindication means anything its name is spelled George Bush. As former U.S. president George W. Bush spoke to a Saskatoon audience, I stood in the wings, sneaking a peek through the curtains at the spectators beyond the footlights. The crowd was friendly to be sure. But more than that, the relationship was like a musical virtuoso carrying the audience through every nuance, crescendo and dynamic of a composition. With every pause, smile, laugh and down stroke of seriousness, Bush had the crowd in his hand. Before the show, a friend who recently dined with the former Texas governor and...

SNIPPET: "Search at Grundy County plant called part of ongoing probe" SNIPPET: "But a source said the owner of the plant, which processes lamb and goat, was taken into custody at his home in Chicago. Documents and records were taken from the plant and from a Chicago travel agency on West Devon Avenue, also owned by the same person, the source said."

VANCOUVER, October 26, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Unitarian Church of Vancouver has stepped in to provide a Canadian venue for Australian right-to-die activist Philip Nitschke after he was refused workshop space to hold a seminar on how to commit suicide by the Vancouver Public Library.Rev. Steven Epperson of the Unitarian church said he believes Nitschke, director of the suicide advocacy group Exit International, has the right to free speech, even if he's telling people how to kill themselves."Historically, we have provided a forum, a space, for controversial, difficult ideas to be presented," Epperson told the Vancouver Province.The Vancouver church has a...

A senior Mexican senator and former foreign affairs minister yesterday called Canada's visa controls on Mexico a humiliation and questioned whether Canadian-Mexican relations will improve as long as Stephen Harper is Prime Minister. In a blunt speech to a Toronto business and academic gathering, Senator Rosario Green Macias detailed the information she was required to provide to the Canadian government to enter Canada – proof of property ownership, her last six bank statements, a letter from the Mexican senate stating she is a senator and personal information about other members of her family. “That has to stop,” said Ms. Green,...

A Toronto man who contracted HIV from his former stripper wife is hoping he's alive to see her get deported to Thailand. Whiteman and his lawyer appeared before a Federal Court of Canada last Thursday in an ongoing battle with immigration officials to get Iamkhong deported due to her criminal record. He has launched a $30-million lawsuit against the Canada Border Services Agency and Zanzibar Strip Club in Toronto in connection with the case. He claims Iamkhong, 40, a former stripper at the Zanzibar, was allowed into the country with HIV and that led to his life being placed in...

Here is a great new ad by the "Canadian Tourism Federation" that mocks "Global Warming" by saying Canada's "C02" emissions are rising faster than any other G8 country. But, "the bright side" they said is, "A warmer Canada is the perfect place for your next family holiday." NOTE: The whole thing is becoming a total joke. If they were real believers in the dangers of Global Warming, they would not mock it like this. . . . (VIDEO)

16-year-old high school student Jennifer Rankin fully intended to unite her voicelessness with that of the unborn as part of the annual Pro-Life Day of Silent Solidarity when she arrived at school yesterday, reports Bill Henry of Sun Media, reports Patrick B. Craine, LifeSiteNews.com. She was impeded, however, by her school principal, who stated that the right to free speech does not apply on school property and who forced Rankin to remain in isolation for the entire day as long as she participated in the event.

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia,- An Internet campaign has been started to help a 75-year-old Canadian man burned out of his home to get his dog back from a foster home. Earl Shadbolt lost his house in Eastern Passage, Nova Scotia, to a fire in April, and the apartment he took while repairs were made wouldn't allow him to keep his terrier-mix dog Willie, The (Halifax) Chronicle-Herald reported Friday. Shadbolt made arrangements with fellow church member Laura Naugler to board the dog until he could move back in, but things turned nasty in August when he moved back home and asked for...

Former President Bush Honored with Pro-Life Award during Visit to SaskatoonBy Patrick B. Craine SASKATOON, SA, October 22, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Yesterday morning, before delivering an address at TCU Place in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, for a crowd of about 2,000, former U.S. President George W. Bush joined the Saskatchewan Pro-Life Association (SPLA) at a business breakfast where the pro-life group presented him with an award for his "very public determination to protect the unborn while he served two terms as President." The Humanity of the Unborn Child Pro-Life Award, as it is called, was given to the former President "in recognition...

OTTAWA — At the request of the Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada, Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, Governor General of Canada, will make an official visit to the Republic of Slovenia, from October 21 to 22, a State visit to the Republic of Croatia, from October 23 to 27, and a State visit to the Hellenic Republic, from October 29 to 31, 2009, during which she will be accompanied by her husband His Excellency Jean-Daniel Lafond. “Slovenia and Croatia are young democracies whose roots reach back through centuries of history. Canada is young, but it...

Police are negotiating with a gunman reported to be holding as many as nine hostages in the Workers' Compensation Board building in downtown Edmonton. Edmonton police spokesman Jeff Wuite said authorities received a report Wednesday of a man armed with a hunting rifle inside the building, which is close to the legislature for the western Canadian province. "Now that we have communication with the suspect, we feel good that we can move forward to resolving it," Wuite said. "We want to find out what this guy wants and what we can do to end this peacefully."

BRAMPTON -- The two scrawny terrorists are unloading bags labeled ammonium nitrate from the back of a delivery truck when one of them looks up and recoils in shock, while his partner backs into a wall and raises his hands in surrender. A four-member police tactical team dressed all in black descends, laying them spread-eagled on the floor of the warehouse and cuffing their hands behind their backs before one of the officers raises his thumb to say mission accomplished. The dramatic arrests of Saad Khalid and Saad Gaya, members of the "Toronto 18" terrorist group that was planning to...

BRAMPTON -- The two scrawny terrorists are unloading bags labeled ammonium nitrate from the back of a delivery truck when one of them looks up and recoils in shock, while his partner backs into a wall and raises his hands in surrender. A four-member police tactical team dressed all in black descends, laying them spread-eagled on the floor of the warehouse and cuffing their hands behind their backs before one of the officers raises his thumb to say mission accomplished. The dramatic arrests of Saad Khalid and Saad Gaya, members of the "Toronto 18" terrorist group that was planning to...

The editors of The Globe and Mail, Canada’s second most popular newspaper, have lashed out at the Vatican’s decision to permit Anglican communities to join the Catholic Church as communities. “The Vatican's welcome of some Anglicans into the Roman Catholic Church is a Trojan horse,” the editors write. “In the face of an inflexible hierarchy, liberal Catholic voices have had little effect; the grudging loyalty of those who remain is in jeopardy. The Vatican announcement will make the Catholic Church more conservative and the Anglican church more liberal. Is that what ecumenism is meant to accomplish?” Similar criticisms were made...

SNIPPET: "Press accounts like this suggest that Wednesday's Canadian court decision ending the government's terror case against Adil Charkaoui constituted vindication for an innocent man. But the court victory for Charkaoui, accused of being part of an Al Qaeda "sleeper cell," raises more questions than it answers."

SNIPPET: "Would-be migrants who were found aboard a vessel headed for British Columbia may have each paid $45,000 for the trip. The men, believed to be Tamils from Sri Lanka, remain in custody as Immigration Canada determines their identity. The ship, called the Ocean Lady, was seized by RCMP last Friday. Another vessel carrying Sir Lankans was caught off the coast of Australia last week, and the passengers said they had paid smugglers $15,000 to board the ship. One man told a reporter about the Ocean Lady, and said he had wanted to board that vessel instead, but it was...

ST. STEPHEN - The RCMP bomb squad stood by in St. Stephen Sunday night as American authorities questioned five people who attempted to enter the United States. The Canada Border Services Agency closed the Ferry Point Bridge from St. Stephen to Calais, Maine, shortly after 6 p.m. and asked the RCMP to divert traffic. Police at the Calais end of the bridge did the same. Not only did the police not allow traffic across the bridge but, at the St. Stephen end, they did not allow motorists to drive up Milltown Boulevard past the end of it. Traffic coming one...

The Alberta Human Rights Commission has accepted a complaint brought against an Edmonton-area Catholic school board by a substitute teacher who was let go after she announced she was 'becoming' a man. Janet Buterman, 39, had been employed by the Greater St. Albert Catholic School Board for about four months when, in June 2008, she informed deputy superintendent Steve Bayus that she was undergoing a 'sex change' and now wished to be treated as a man. The following October, Mr. Bayus responded with a letter indicating that Buterman had been removed from the substitute teacher list because the procedures she...

It's every hunter's worst nightmare. You've nestled into your tent for the night when you're awakened by the sound of a bear charging. Within seconds it's on you, teeth sinking into flesh as you fight for your life. "I went into survival mode as she batted me around, biting me," Ken Scown, 36, said Saturday. "I was kind of waiting for the bite to the head and neck and it would all be over." Scown and his pal Jeff Herbert were three days into an 11-day hunting trip near Canal Flats in the East Kootenays region of B. C. when...

"The powerful online voice of jihad Shadowy cleric revered by disenchanted Muslim youths throughout West cited in Toronto 18 case" CAPTION: "A Facebook page for Anwar al Awlaki has 4,800 fans. He has been cited as an inspiration for extremist plots." FACEBOOK SNIPPET: "In a snowy field near Barrie, a group of young Muslim men listened intently to the eloquent voice emanating from the laptop. Anwar al Awlaki preached in perfect Arabic and flawless English about the need to fight in the name of religion, because the "world is united in fighting Islam." The time for jihad is now, no...

Much has been made of President Obama’s being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The ground has been covered so many times by now that it looks like a CSI crime scene contaminated by too many eager cops. The various media are all agog, internet hits multiply by the hour, and the pundits keep weighing in as if there were no yesterday — as witness this very article. Yet, perhaps, there is still something to be said — and a little reiteration wouldn’t hurt either. According to the left-leaning Oslo committee, Obama deserves the award for creating “a new climate in...

Dr. Paul L. Williams, PhD thelastcrusade.org October 16, 2009 I am a United States citizen on trial in Canada for exposing a situation at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario that threatened the lives and welfare of Canadians and Americans alike. My book "The Dunces of Doomsday," published in the U.S. by Cumberland House, revealed potential terrorist threats from al-Qaeda affiliates at McMaster. The university is suing me for libel, demanding $4 million in punitive and aggregated damages. Unlike American libel laws where the plaintiff must prove that what said about him is not true and it was said in...

. . Once Again, Entertainment Industry Looks To Force Massive Copyright Changes Via Int'l Treaties from the how-the-game-is-played dept By now you should know that one of the entertainment industry's favorite tools for forcing ever more draconian copyright laws around the world is to use international treaties. Such treaties are not put together by elected officials, but appointed diplomats, often with tremendous input (to the point of allowing them to write the details) from industries that are protected. Then, once those treaties are in place, copyright maximalists just get to sit back and say "but we must make our copyright...

I am a United States citizen on trial in Canada for exposing a situation at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario that threatened the lives and welfare of Canadians and Americans alike. My book "The Dunces of Doomsday," published in the U.S. by Cumberland House, revealed potential terrorist threats from al-Qaeda affiliates at McMaster. The university is suing me for libel, demanding $4 million in punitive and aggregated damages. Unlike American libel laws where the plaintiff must prove that what said about him is not true and it was said in malice, Canadian libel laws, like the British, put the burden...

Speaking of free speech, Steyn speculates about what the Liberal leader can’t say now In Ottawa on Monday, I kept getting asked—including by three stray passersby on Wellington Street—what Beatles song Michael Ignatieff should sing. Oh, come on, you don’t really need a professional for this, do you? Help! Yesterday (All my troubles seemed so far away). The Fool On The Hill. Hello, Goodbye. Get Back (to Harvard and a little light BBC hosting) . . .

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada's Liberal Party said on Thursday it was launching an ethics complaint against the Conservative government, charging it was playing partisan politics with stimulus programs. The Liberals lodged the complaint against Prime Minister Stephen Harper and 47 other legislators for putting their signatures at the bottom of oversized publicity checks used in announcing federal grants for infrastructure programs and other economic stimulus measures. In the case of at least two members of Parliament, they said, the Conservative Party logo was also on the checks. The Liberals have asked Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson to rule that putting legislators'...

Canadian Police Chase

SNIPPET: "MONTREAL -- Saïd Namouh thought his apartment in Trois-Rivières was an ideal location to plot jihad, far from the prying eyes of anti-terrorism investigators. But the Internet that allowed him to spread hatred from the boondocks also proved his undoing, and on Thursday — largely on the strength of his online activity — the 36-year-old Moroccan was convicted of four terrorism charges. Quebec Court Judge Claude Leblond ruled that far from simply exercising free speech, as the defence had argued, Namouh participated with “zeal and enthusiasm” in the planning of terrorist acts and the distribution of jihadist propaganda. The...

SNIPPET: “Mr. Amara’s paycheques were small. His day job was drudgery. But his schemes were big – very big.”

Now that the Nobel nonsense noise has died down a bit we can get back to the important stuff like asking who is going to treat our sore throats after we get a lousy version of health care reform shoved down them. Forget what the American people want, the brain trust in Washington has decided that this issue is what the Lightbringer legacy will be staked upon and they're moving ahead with it. There are two vastly different worlds in the health care debate. First, we have the fluffy unicorn world where the overhaul doesn't cost anything and the federal...

ORONTO (Reuters) – A Canadian truck driver has been fined for smoking in his vehicle because it is considered his workplace, a police spokeswoman said on Friday. A police officer saw the 48-year-old trucker driving on a highway in southwestern Ontario with a cigarette in his mouth on Wednesday, and gave him a C$305 ($290) ticket. The Smoke-Free Ontario Act, adopted in 2006, prohibits smoking in an enclosed workplace or enclosed public area, and that extends to work vehicles, said Constable Shawna Coulter of the Ontario Provincial Police in Essex County.

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