Canada
#1 — CNews | Disabled Nortel workers hobbled
OTTAWA – Disabled Nortel employees, just weeks away from losing their medical benefits on Dec. 31, watched what appears to be their remaining lifeline dissolve before their eyes Thursday.
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#2 — Globe | Loonie drops on EU debt worries
The Canadian dollar was sharply lower Friday morning as worries continued to grow over European debt, a pullback in commodities and tensions in Korea.
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#3 — Globe | Quebec to limit political contributions in effort to curb fraud
The Quebec government is slashing the maximum allowable contribution to political parties in a bid to eliminate fraud and restore public confidence in party financing rules.
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#4 — LFP | Shocking video of woman’s arrest
OTTAWA – A judge Thursday released the video of Stacy Bonds’ treatment at the hands of Ottawa police after she was arrested early in the morning on Sept. 6, 2008.
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#5 — FP | Ottawa’s deficit shrinks
OTTAWA — Canada posted a smaller budget deficit in September compared to the same month last year on a robust gain in tax revenue and a meagre climb in program spending, the federal government reported Friday.
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#6 — NP | CRTC approves Quebecor’s application to launch Sun TV News
OTTAWA — Quebecor Inc. has received the green light from regulators to launch its proposed 24-7 news-and-opinion channel, Sun TV News.
In a release Friday, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission said it has approved Quebecor’s application for a specialty TV licence.
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As Toronto Life has noted, no intelligent person is quite sure why the Toronto Star devoted Wednesday’s front page to a story on Sarah Coyne, the 19-year-old daughter of Pierre Trudeau and Deborah Coyne. The story might have made sense if Sarah has robbed a liquor store, or been elected city councilor, or deployed to Afghanistan as a soldier — or if we were all living in the 19th century, when being an “illegitimate” child was still the stuff of saucy scandal. Instead, the thesis of the Star article is that Sarah … well, that she exists (which everyone who still cares about Trudeau already knew), and that she goes to an American university, and that — shocker — the Americans she goes to school with don’t particularly care who her father was (assuming they even recognize his name).
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#8 — OC | Ottawa police officer appeals firing after guilty finding on nine Police Act charges
OTTAWA — An Ottawa police officer says he plans to appeal his dismissal from the Force after he was found guilty of nine charges under the Police Services Act, including putting an informant’s life in danger.
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#9 — Star | Forman: Healthy wind blows away toxic coal
This week’s release of Ontario’s long-term electricity plan raises anew the debate about coal and renewables’ impact on health and the environment.
On one side is the anti-wind lobby. Organizations such as Wind Concerns Ontario say turbines negatively impact more than 100 Ontarians, depriving people of sleep, producing headaches, and even contributing to heart palpitations. They also believe the structures are a hazard to migrating birds and bats. No doubt these groups are displeased by the proposal to raise capital spending on wind to $14 billion.
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Notes:
World
#10 — BBC | Saudis trumpet al-Qaeda arrests
Saudi Arabian authorities have arrested 149 al-Qaeda suspects over the past eight months, officials have announced.
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#11 — CNN | Why China is an energy consumption hog
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Over the next 15 years China is expected to build the equivalent of 10 New York Citys.
That’s a lot of concrete and steel, and it goes a long way in explaining why the country is using so much energy.
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#12 — Fox | California Officials Pull Out of Homemade Bomb Factory, Citing Danger
ESCONDIDO, Calif. – Explosives experts have pulled out of a northern San Diego County home with a large quantity of bomb-making materials because it’s too dangerous.
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#13 — Fox | The Tea Party Movement Gains Traction in the U.K.
LONDON — The Tea Party movement’s recent electoral gains have gotten international attention, including in the mother country whose taxes inspired the first Tea Party — the United Kingdom.
A new rebellion against big government and high taxes is resonating in Ye Olde England.
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#14 — Fox | China Raises ‘Concern’ Over U.S. Plan to Hold Joint Military Exercises With South Korea
DANDONG, China—China made its first official protest over plans by the U.S. and South Korea to hold joint military exercises involving the aircraft carrier
USS George Washington in the Yellow Sea on Sunday.[...]
#15 — Fox | Iceland elects ordinary folk to draft constitution
REYKJAVIK, Iceland – Iceland’s getting a new constitution — and it’s really going to be the voice of the people.
The sparsely-populated volcanic island is holding an unusual election Saturday to select ordinary citizens to cobble together a new charter, an exercise in direct democracy born out of the outrage and soul-searching that followed the nation’s economic meltdown.
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#16 — NY Times | Administration Is Bracing for Court Setbacks to Health Law
WASHINGTON — As the Obama administration presses ahead with the health care law, officials are bracing for the possibility that a federal judge in Virginia will soon reject its central provision as unconstitutional and, in the worst case for the White House, halt its enforcement until higher courts can rule.
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#17 — NY Times | Front-Line City in Virginia Tackles Rise in Sea
NORFOLK, Va. — In this section of the Larchmont neighborhood, built in a sharp “u” around a bay off the Lafayette River, residents pay close attention to the lunar calendar, much as other suburbanites might attend to the daily flow of commuter traffic.
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The worst November snow for 17 years could reach London and the South-East this weekend as Arctic winds usher in a freezing fortnight.
Parts of south-west England were expecting their own snow showers after much of the eastern half of the country was blanketed by up to 6in yesterday and now forecasters have warned that the chilling conditions could last at least a fortnight.
The freezing weather shut dozens of schools, closed roads and brought chaos for millions of drivers while a Thomson flight from Lanzarote to Newcastle Airport managed to land safely after overshooting the runway.
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Telegraph | UK snow: 10 inches forecast as Britain prepares for an Arctic weekend
Notes:
If this keeps up “Chelsea Tractors” are going to be on everyone’s Christmas list.
#19 — DM | Bank worker loses £6,000 redundancy package by boasting about it on Facebook
A bank worker who boasted about receiving a big redundancy payout on Facebook was fired after employers saw the messages.
RBS employee Kate Furlong, 23, posted the messages minutes after her bosses at the bank announced they were planning to cut 3,500 jobs in September.
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#20 — Independent | Why the Republicans’ hammer got nailed
When the Texas judge had done delivering the two guilty verdicts late Wednesday, the suddenly convicted man – former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay – gave his daughter and wife a hug each and whispered words to the effect: don’t think badly of me, this was rigged from the start.
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#21 — Telegraph | South Africa murder: Anni Dewani’s widower will not return to South Africa
The widower of Anni Dewani, murdered on her honeymoon in South Africa, is not a formal suspect in the investigation and has no plans to return to the country, his publicist Max Clifford has said.
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#22 — Telegraph | Global warming has slowed because of pollution
Global warming has slowed in the last decade, according to the Met Office, as the world pumps out so much pollution it is reflecting the sun’s rays and causing a cooling effect.
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Were those Nortel workers disabled on the job, and if so, how did working for Nortel cause Parkinson disease.
#7 — NP | Kay: Deborah Coyne fires back at Toronto Star for its weird, creepy A1 piece on her daughter
If anyone is remotely curious the Star's original weird, creepy tabloid article, with identifying picture, is at ..
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/895866–pierre-trudeau-s-daughter-sarah-lives-under-the-radar-today
The final paragraph is the item's reason ..
"While her half-brother is touted as a future leader of the Liberal Party, Sarah Coyne seems content to remain out of the public eye."
MaryT:
Most, if not all, major companies provide extended health benefits (80% of prescription drugs, etc.). Nortel has cancelled all of these for-life health insurance contracts. No, I don't know how Nortel managed this. No, I don't have any sympathy for Nortel's long running (mis)management or stockholders. No I don't know why Nortel's directors didn't go to jail. But the law is the law.