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In Israel; Olmert's and Abbas's meetings are expected one day to lead to final-status negotiations and to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank. If that happens, the evacuation of the two families from the Hebron market yesterday will be nothing compared to the consequential evacuation of dozens of settlements and thousands of families. Also overnight, Tuesday, Aug 7 2007; An Israeli soldier was lightly wounded in Nablus when Palestinians opened fire at IDF troops. Bombs were thrown at the soldiers in the operation in which five terror suspects were arrested. Eight other Palestinian terror suspects were arrested in overnight operations elsewhere in the West Bank. An IDF jeep was damaged when troops were attacked with Molotov cocktails during one of the operations but no one was wounded, Israel Radio reported. Peace Talks, Huh? Yeah, Right!
Aug 19th, 2007; Update from CTV News; At 8 p.m. ET, last night, the Category 4 hurricane's eye was 115 kilometres west-southwest of Kingston, moving westward at 32 kilometres per hour. Hurricane-force winds extend out 95 kilometres on either side of the eye. The U.S. National Hurricane Centre describes Dean as an "extremely dangerous" hurricane. Joe Bastardi of AccWeather.com told CTV Newsnet that Jamaica's eastern-most mountains initially protected Kingston from Dean. As the hurricane continued moving westward, the winds shifted and hit Kingston with 160 km/h winds, he said. In Jamaica, 1,000 shelters were set up in schools, churches and the national sports arena. The country's Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller pleaded with residents to evacuate their homes and head to a shelter but many residents refused, choosing to protect their property and belongings. At the time the storm hit, however, only 47 shelters were occupied, according to Cecil Bailey of Jamaica's Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management. The storm uprooted trees, flooded streets and tore the roofs off homes and buildings, but no deaths have been reported. This weather system will probably bring unsettled weather here in northeastern Ontario. Right now, we are having weather we normanly get in late fall. Today Timmins, which is just north of us is at 4 C. and here in Haileybury, it is 8C, and are expecting a balmy 19°C. We are expecting plenty of rain throughout the week. I can remember when the month of August was the hottest time of the year. But for the past few years, the middle of June and July has been the sweltering hot, humid season.
News on the earthquake in Peru is that the government had sent the army to stop looting, fueled by rising desperation in earthquake-shattered Peru. There are tens of thousands of people who are without fresh water and shivering families are huddling in makeshift shelters at the center of the devastation. A truck which handed out little packets of crackers, candy and toilet paper, was rushed by more than 500 people. They were screaming that they had not eaten and accused the rescue workers of keeping supplies for themselves. 80 percent of the people in the quake-hit urban areas may not have access to clean water, and many rural communities still have not been reached to assess the damage. In Pisco, the city's main Catholic church crumbled as the quake struck during a funeral service. Soldiers and rescue workers searched for people believed trapped. A 10-month-old boy was pulled from the ruins of a collapsed church seven hours after an earthquake leveled the Peruvian city of Pisco. Five elderly nuns huddled outside the ruins of a church that had stood for centuries, their dark shawls tightly wrapped around their shoulders. Rescuers are still digging through rubble in the towns of southwestern Peru on Friday, searching for signs of life following Wednesday's 8.0-magnitude earthquake. Aftershocks have rattled the ground each day since the collapse. The most recent -- with a magnitude of 4.9 -- rattled the region at about 4:30 p.m. (5:30 p.m. ET) on Friday. It came eight hours after a 5.9-magnitude aftershock. A 6.3-magnitude aftershock struck early Thursday, hours after the main quake.
August 20th,2007; News Update on hurricane Dean. The hurricane was already a ferocious Category 4 storm when it passed the Cayman Islands on Monday. The storm, which has led to 10 deaths so far, is moving at 32 km/h and will continue to track either west or west-northwest. Environment Canada climatologist Dave Phillips told CTV Newsnet that Dean is a "strong" Category 4 and is crossing a warm stretch of the Caribbean Sea. The center said Dean is projected to develop sustained winds of about 260 km/h before plowing into the Yucatan early Tuesday, although conditions will start deteriorating before that. If Dean does reach Category 5 size, that would make it a "catastrophic" hurricane, Phillips said. A hurricane warning is effect from Belize to Cancun, and a tropical storm warning for areas north of Cancun, which itself sits on the northeast corner of the peninsula.
August 26th, 2007; According to CTV News; The Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe has threatened to take down Stephen Harper's Conservative government in the fall, if the prime minister doesn't make a firm commitment to pull Canadian troops from Afghanistan by February 2009. I fully agree with that idea because we had sent our troops with the prompting of US President George W. Bush and the then British Prime Minister Tony Blair got us involved under the false pretense, that was to capture Bin Laden while they are supporting a very corrupt Afghanistan Government. Canadian troops had gone into Afghanistan on the sole basis to fight terrorism and capture Bin Laden. We had not captured Bin Laden nor had we defeated terrorism in Afghanistan. Canadian troops have been in the nation since 2001 CE, and a lot of people are calling for new debates to bring out Canadian troops home. Canadian troops have been taking on a more aggressive combat role that is at odds with Canada's more traditional role as peacekeepers. But we know how we got involved in Afghanistan, don't we? We know that US President George W. Bush is in league with the United Arab Emirates and is not really interested in making waves with their wealthy oil partners. This is one of the reasons why Bin Laden has remained scott free to roam around despite the murdering of thousands of people in the Twin Towers building in NY city. Liberal Leader Stephane Dion says on CTV's Question Period, that Canadians are now more willing to trust the Liberal Party. Personally; I see nothing about the Liberal Party that would even consider giving my trust to them. Especially when Stephane Dion, the present leader of the Liberal Party had made the ridiculous, stupid statement that they can do something about "Global Warming" when there is absolutely nothing anybody can do, that is human intervention, about the natural warming trend of our planet, Earth. All we can do is to try to lessen the pollution which humanity is pouring into our environment and contaminating it, be it in the air, or in water or in the earth.
August 27th, 2007; After viewing CTV news which had talked about British Bobbies using helmet cams to record public order incidents, I checked with the British Home Office web site to get more information on this new developement in police work. Here is what I had found out.
Home Affairs Office; Police use helmet cams to record public order incidents. The mini digital cameras, strapped to the helmet headbands of patrolling police officers, are to be used to film rowdy late-night scenes, underage drinkers, controversial stop and search confrontations and domestic violence incidents. The cameras can store up to 400 hours of footage with soundtrack on their hard drive, with a battery life of eight to 12 hours. The footage can be played back on a four-inch (10cm) screen attached to the officer's belt. Future versions may use a memory card or even live streaming technology to transmit the pictures to a nearby vehicle or communications centre. The Home Office said the cameras, which have enough memory to hold 24 hours of video, were not intended to record continuously. Officers would turn the devices on and off at their discretion, speaking into the camera after turning it on to explain where, when and why they were starting it. A second explanation was required before turning the device off. The report also cautioned against taking extraneous video when entering private homes, and said officers should turn cameras off during strip searches. But it also threatened disciplinary action against officers who deliberately masked the camera's view or deleted video from the camera's memory. The Home Office said it was exploring other uses for the devices, including fitting them with the ability to send video live to a command centre, or special licence-plate recognition software which would enable police to identify stolen or suspicious vehicles just by looking at them. British Civil rights group Liberty, praised the guidelines of the Home Office report. Spokeswoman Jen Corlew noted police were asked to inform members of the public they were being recorded and the footage not being used in an investigation, had to be erased within a month of its creation. This is something our own Canadian police force should consider using while on call to an investigation .
Murder acquittal for Steven Truscott
Aug. 29 2007; According to CTV News, Steven Truscott has finally won the battle he has been fighting to clear himself for the murder of Lynne Harper. Steven Truscott, his family and lawyer James Lockyer had fought for nearly half a century to get some Justice. It is great news that an innocent person has finally won after all these years to get an acquittal for the wrongful charge of the 1959 rape and murder of a young 12-year-old neighbor, Lynne Harper. Truscott said after so many disappointments, including a Supreme Court decision in 1966 not to order a retrial in his case, he never imagined he would ever be acquitted. What is troubling about this whole issue is the thought how quickly a conviction was laid, but how long it takes to clear oneself of a wrong conviction. What is also very troubling with this whole Justice system is that, according to Truscott, the Crown, had fought against his lawyers "every step of the way" for years, despite having fresh evidence. This tells me clearly that Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant was more concerned about saving face, rather than to see Justice done. Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant should have done everything in his power to determined wither there could have possibly been a miscarrige of Justice, for Justice sake. "On behalf of the government, I am truly sorry," Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant said Tuesday. The Crown has no plans to mount an appeal, he said. That is little comfort given that it had taken 48 years to get this acquittal. It is little comfort that the then young Steven Truscott could have been executed, let alone having served ten years in prison, before he was paroled. I must give credit to that lawyer, James Lockyer for not giving up on Steven Truscott. There are no doubt other Canadians in situations similar to Steven Truscott who have been wrongly convicted. How long will it take for those people to have the same opportunity to clear their names?
Working on the lawn mower Tractor
Aug. 29 2007; Today I worked on my lawn tractor to see if I can get it to go a little faster. I was greatly concerned that when I had to cross a busy intersection, I would only crawl, even on the top speed. I would make sure that no traffic was coming before I engage the gear to cross the roadway, but as I crawl along, sure enough cars and trucks would come along while I am halfway across the roadway, holding up traffic as I tried to get across. I had to find a way to get a little more speed so that I can get across a busy roadway without interfering with the flow of traffic. I borrowed a winch from Woody, who is my landlord, and hoisted the tractor so that I could better size up the situation. I noticed right away that if I could get a larger pulley installed to replace the original small pulley, that would give me the necessary speed to get across a roadway safely without hanging up the traffic. This tractor is all belt driven, with one reverse and a low and high gear. I went about to exchange one of the small pulley's for a larger one, which would greatly change the speed ratio. After I had done this work, I went about to test the results. I found out that the tractor in high gear had gone from a crawl of five miles per hour, to somewhere between fifteen to twenty miles per hour. I do not have a speedometer on this tractor. A great improvement, I must say. Now I can cross a roadway without having to worry about vehicles coming before I have a chance to get across the roadway. I also installed an old radio antenna which extended quite long to place a red flag on it for traffic to see me better. I like to replace this with a Canadian flag as soon as I can get one, something that is not so easy to do around here. I pat myself on the shoulder for a job well done. I had never worked on a lawn tractor before, but with some common sense, one can tackle almost any problem one may encounter. I am quite delighted with this and as a bonus, I will get better gas mileage now, than what I was getting before the changeover. I can still use the low gear to cut lawns if I ever need to. This day had turned out to be a happy, successful one.
Lets see what's going on in the News; Out of the twenty-three 23 original South Koreans, who were volunteers from a church group, which had been kidnapped by Taliban militants on July 19, 21 hostages were freed on Thursday. The two people who were executed during the first two weeks of the kidnapping was the leader of the Christian religious group and another man. Taliban's accompanying the hostages had handed a note to journalists, claiming that the South Koreans had converted and became Muslims. "They came to our nation to change our faith," the unsigned note read. "This is the reason we arrested them." The Afghan people had saved the lives of the remainder of the hostages because they had converted to the Islamic faith. Relatives of the hostages and the South Korean government have maintained the group was only in Afghanistan to help suffering Afghans, not to do missionary work. On Wednesday, the Taliban released 12 of the hostages into the care of the Red Cross at three separate locations in central Afghanistan, near the city of Ghazni. The South Korean government said Tuesday that they reached a deal by agreeing to pull all of their troops out of Afghanistan by the end of 2007, and also to stop all missionary work in the country. The Taliban leaders had originally demanded that prisoners be released in exchange for the Koreans' lives, but the Afghan government said it was not prepared to let go of any prisoners. The South Korean government said it's common practice to negotiate with hostage-takers.
In Timmins, Ontario, close to a dozen of St. Mary's Manor's 41 residents had moved out of St. Mary's Manor, a long-term care facility, on Wednesday in response to an eviction notice and no working elevators. The residents all got scared, and they took off. Colasacco said. "Everybody has been going crazy around here." Most of the vacating residents have opted to stay with family, according to city Mayor Tom Laughren. Instead of putting up with the living conditions at St. Mary's Manor. St. Mary's Manor administrator Linda Allaire would not comment on the issue. Mayor Tom Laughren said "I want to make sure the residents don't continue to be pawns, in this ongoing dispute between the owner and the operator of St. Mary's. I wouldn't want something like this to happen to my mom and dad." A decision from the Ontario Landlord and Tenant Board, based on a July 31-hearing that saw adjudicator Brian Cormier listen to grievances filed on behalf of the 41 inhabitants at St. Mary's Manor against the building's owner, Mauro Marcantognini, was made public last Friday. Marcantognini has been ordered to pay three fines ranging from $1,500 to $2,500 to the board, a $337-rebate to each resident and give them 120 days notice of any tenant eviction plan. If the owner does plan to evict the residents, he must help them find new places to live or face paying each resident three months worth of rent. The building's owner, Mauro Marcantognini, has offered the residents a place to stay in Sudbury.
In the wake of that Ted Haggard scandal, New Life Church is recommending Rev. Brady Boyd, a Texas megachurch leader to replace the disgraced senior pastor Ted Haggard. Haggard was fired last year after a male prostitute had claimed that he had a three-year cash-for-sex relationship with Haggard. The man also said he saw Haggard use methamphetamine. Haggard did confessed to unspecified "sexual immorality" and admitted to have bought the meth, though he claims he never used it. Haggard was forced to resign as president of the U.S. National Association of Evangelicals in the wake of that scandal.
On the other side of the world, these days it's easier to find a bakery in Mecca than the house where the Prophet Muhammad was born. Some people complain that the kingdom's Islamic austerity and oil-stoked capitalism are robbing this city of its religious history. Mecca is not only a city, it is a sanctuary. Unfortunately it isn't anymore," said Sami Angawi, a Saudi architect who has devoted his life to preserving what remains of the area's history. "Every day you come and see the buildings becoming bigger and bigger and higher and higher." The Abraj al-Bait is a complex of seven towers, some of them still under heavy construction, rising only metres from the Kaaba, the cube-like black shrine at the centre of the Muslims worship center in Mecca. "Be a neighbour to the Prophet," promises an Arabic-language newspaper ad for its apartments there. The towers are the biggest of the giant construction projects that have gone up in recent years, as the number of Muslims attending the hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, has swelled to nearly four million last year. Saudi Arabia is trying to better serve the growing upscale end of the pilgrimage crowd, while investors, many of them members of the Saudi royal family, realize the huge profits to be made. Developers are building giant glass and marble towers that loom over the revered Kaaba, which millions of Muslims face in their daily prayers. At the same time, some Muslim groups, called religious zealots, continue their work as they have for decades, to destroy landmarks that they say encourage the worship of idols instead of GOD.
According to SooNews.ca, a dream of a lifetime is in the making for a young Australian couple. Here is the story written by By Bob Stares; That dream will be fulfilled when Adam Terah and Hannah Bourne complete their goal of sailing to the other side of the world from Sault Ste. Marie to Fremantle Australia. They estimate the journey will need two and a half years to complete, give or take a Pacific Island or two…but they are in no rush. As if that weren’t enough of a fairy tale, the fact that the pair didn’t know anything about sailing has been only a minor inconvenience to the courageous duo with wanderlust as their guide. According to Adam he had only been on a sailboat a couple of times as a passenger, but never actually held the wheel or hoisted a sail. Hannah, Adam;s female partner, had only the same experience in saliling boats. The idea started to take shape almost 3 years ago when Adam, a Palliative Care Worker and his partner Hannah, a winery representative (Harewood Winery) decided that they had had enough of the rat race and their plans to leave it all behind began to form. Because of his work he had seen how dreams can be snuffed out prematurely and was determined that life was just too precious to squander. These are my kind of people, who are adventurous and are not afraid to leave the comfort, the security of urban living. Who are willing to take the chance to leave the comfort, the security of urban living and go off to explore an unknown environment, from which they had been accustom to living in.
Update on the freed South Korean hostages; Now that the Christian South Korean Saemmul Community Church volunteers, who were held hostage by the Taliban in Afghanistan for six weeks had returned home to an uncomfortable welcome on Sunday, thanking their government for saving them from death. A senior Taliban leader told Reuters News that Seoul had paid $20 million for their release. The South Korean government denies paying any ransom, although they had been criticized internationally for striking a deal through direct negotiations. One of the freed hostage said after arriving. "All of us returned from being on the verge of death and have been given our lives back. We went to Afghanistan, to spread the love of Je-Zeus Christ and carry out his wishes to spread Christianity over there," had said after having safely arrived back home. The number of South Korea Christian missionaries working abroad is second only to those from the United States. South Korea is the second largest source of Christian missionaries, after the United States, with an estimated 17,000 abroad. For many Korean Christian churches, the number of missionaries they send abroad is a reflection of the strength of their congregation. Often, dozens or even hundreds of Korean evangelicals can be found abroad in a single small city fighting one another for exposure. The ex-hostages with their heads bowed, looking somber and some fighting back tears, stood as they made a brief statement at Incheon airport outside Seoul. The ex-hostages stood between the framed pictures of the two hostages who were shot dead by the Taliban. "All of us owe a big debt to the country and the South Korean people," said Lyu. "When thinking about the trouble we have caused them, it is proper for us to bow deeply and ask for your forgiveness." The six-week standoff gripped the country, leading thousands to join in candlelight vigils. But many South Korean's criticized the suburban Seoul Saemmul Christian Church that had dispatched the group as having a naive world view and for putting their government in a bind. Web sites of the country's main Protestant groups and largest Internet portals have been flooded with messages saying the group and Christian churches were to blame for ignoring government warnings and for making an ill-advised mission to an obvious danger spot. Some church leaders said they would rethink their overseas missions but a leading group said the Afghan ordeal had only strengthened its resolve to send more missionaries overseas, even if it meant taking over negotiating hostage releases. Now that this South Korean Saemmul Christian group are back in their local church, they are bragging how they had duped the Taliban into believing that they had converted to Islam. These Christians are now laughing at those Taliban Muslims and claiming how great their fictitious, man-made god, Je-Zeus Christ is, who had delivered them from the hands of the Taliban Muslims . These Christians had lied to the entire world when they had claimed that their mission was not to "Evangelize" the people in Afghanistan, when in fact we see now, that their so-called, volunteer work was only used as a cover for their real intentions. What a bunch of liers and hypocrites! Personally; I think the next time the Taliban captures another one of these Christian groups, they will not be so fortunate.
September is here, and that means summer is over, and it's time for back to school for students. Here is what the CPAP Advocacy Project has to say about "Back to School"; The end of summer can bring a mix of emotions – excitement that school is going to start and perhaps disappointment that summer is over. Whether or not your child’s summer has been packed with activities, many kids – and parents – have a difficult time making the transition back to school. So while stocking up on new school supplies and clothes take the time to check in on your children’s feelings about going back to school – and your own! Whether your child is starting school for the first time, entering a new grade or a new school, a new school year brings new pressures for your child to face – both inside and outside the classroom. Ask them how they feel about going back to school. By asking open-ended questions you are allowing your child to explore his or her own feelings. Remind them that everyone feels a little nervous about the first day of school – even you and even the teacher. Also remind them that in no time, it will all become an everyday routine. Being involved in your child’s life can be a bigger factor in his or her success than money or education. So taking the time to listen to your children as they begin a new school year is an essential investment in their futures! Studies show that as children get older, the time they spend talking with their parents drops dramatically. And only a small percentage of youth say they have had conversations with their parents about important issues such as drugs. But with regular communication children are more apt to listen to important parental messages which will improve the quality of parent-child relationships, and help protect against dangerous behaviours such as alcohol use and early sexual activity. Tips for parents: Make the time to talk to your kids about going back to school. Ask them what they are feeling – and let them know how you are feeling, too. Be an active listener - when your children are talking, listen. Be interested in what they have to say and focus on their feelings (rather than yours) when you are talking. Emphasize the positive things about going back to school like seeing old friends (or making new ones) and learning new things. · Try to transition your child into a consistent school-night routine 1 or 2 weeks before school starts. · Consider adjusting your own schedule so that you are home at the end of the school day for the first week. Many working parents do not have that flexibility so try to arrange your evenings so that can give your child as much attention as he or she needs. Resolve to eat dinner together as a family a few times a week. This is a good time to find out what your child has been up to – inside and outside of school. For more information, Visit CPAP ADVOCACY PROJECT BACK TO SCHOOL. You can also contact the Canadian Psychological Association at (888) 472-0657, or www.cpa.ca
Sun. Sep. 9 2007; Israeli police say they have broken up a cell of young neo-Nazis who are implicated in a series of attacks on foreign workers, religious Jews, drug addicts and gays. "It is difficult to believe that Nazi ideology sympathizers can exist in Israel, but it is a fact," said Major Revital Almog, the police officer in charge of the year-long investigation that began when vandals daubed swastikas and Hitler's name on synagogues in Petah Tikva, near Tel Aviv. When I first read about it on CTV.ca News on the internet, I went and logged on to Jewish sources directly in Israel, to see what this was all about. Sure enough there it was in living color at Israel National TV.com. The ADL clarified that while the detainees were from the former Soviet Union and religiously identified as Christians, they had immigrated to Israel under the Law of Return which grants "even grandchildren of Jews sanctuary in the Jewish state." I could hardly believe my eyes, let alone what I was hearing. Of all the things that are going on in the world, I would have thought that at least in the nation of Israel, it would be the last place on Earth one would find neo-Nazis groups or even sympathizers to have been allowed to establish themselves there. Let alone to find out that these neo-Nazis were citizens of Israel and had daubed swastikas, Christian crosses and Hitler's name on and inside of a synagogues in Petah Tikva, near Tel Aviv. I find this hard to take especially when the vast majority of the Jewish people who live in Israel had been or have/had relatives who had been persecuted or were taken by force to Hitler's damnable concentration camps. I am talking about the Jewish Holocaust survivors. I had thought that I had seen it all in my lifetime, but this is something I had never expected to see. How Israel will deal with these Israeli citizens, is hard to say. I would not expect, of all places, Israel would tolerate, to let something like this go on in their own country.
Sep. 10, 2007; For the first time in the Ontario's history, the date of the election has been known long before the writ was dropped because of legislation passed in 2005 establishing fixed election dates every four years. Voters this year will also get an extra ballot, to be cast in the province's first referendum in more than 80 years. The referendum question is: "Which electoral system should Ontario use to elect members to the provincial legislature?'' Options will be the existing so-called "first past the post'' electoral system, or a mixed member proportional system. The proposed mixed member proportional system would give citizens two votes -- one for the political party of their choice and another for a local candidate. This needed electoral referendum has been on my mind for a long time. I for one am glad that this electoral referendum has finally come. It has been a long time coming for this electoral referendum to be presented to Canadians and give them the opportunity to decide on their choice electoral system. There had been many occasions during the past forty five years, while the existing so-called "first past the post'' electoral system was in place, where I had wanted to cast my vote to a particular political party but would not want to vote for the candidate who was running in my district. That forced me to vote for the candidate which belong to another party I would not normally want to vote for. If people choose the mixed member proportional system, I believe it would bring a fairer, better balance of power in the legislature that better reflects the popular vote. It will be interesting to see which electoral system Canadians will end up choosing.
I had cast my vote on the CTV News web site poll which was; Is enough being done to help immigrants succeed in the Canadian workforce? The poll results at this writing was; Yes 65% No 35% . I was greatly surprise at the poll results. I had voted no because immigrants who come to Canada with highly skill trades, with diplomas or certificates, have an extremely hard time to use those skills because Canada has so many roadblocks in place which prevent these people to get into those trades. The reason this situation exist is because our Government refuse to recognize the diplomas or certificates these highly skilled people have. They are not valid here in Canada. The great majority of these highly skilled people end up getting jobs that are far removed from their skill level and potential. While this poll was not a scientific poll, it show's me what those Canadians who had taken this poll really think.
Rocket attack by al-Quds Brigades
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