CANADA
#1 — CNews | Call for inquiry in baby’s death
WINNIPEG — The sudden death of a baby girl has prompted First Nations leaders from northern Manitoba to call for changes to the health care system.
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#2 — Globe | A budget of many small cuts, but no apocalypse
In presenting a budget that falls short of apocalyptic forecasts, Mayor Rob Ford has done something unprecedented since he took office: tongue-tie his most vocal critics.
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#3 — LFP | Ont. minister calls for halt in harvesting snapping turtles
TORONTO — Maybe a makeover would help.
The snapping turtle’s fearsome looks and reputation may be the reason that it remains a targeted “game reptile” when all other turtle species are protected by hunting bans in the province, Ontario Nature Staff Ecologist John Urquhart said.
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#4 — NP | Prison couldn’t keep Michael Wayne McGray from killing — just like he said it wouldn’t
Usually when serial killers are caught, they are locked up for good and the public can take comfort they will never kill again. Not Michael Wayne McGray.
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#5 — OC | Toews tries to change government’s own crime bill
OTTAWA — In a strange twist Tuesday, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews tried to change the government’s own omnibus crime legislation by introducing a number of amendments, only to have the Speaker of the House rule them as inadmissible.
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WORLD
#6 — BBC | UK to expel all Iranian diplomats over embassy attack
The UK is to expel all Iranian diplomats following the storming of its embassy in Tehran, Foreign Secretary William Hague has announced.
He said he had ordered the immediate closure of the Iranian embassy in London.
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#7 — CNN | Nigerian senate passes anti-gay bill, defying British aid threat
(CNN) — The Nigerian senate has passed a bill banning same-sex marriages, defying a threat from Britain to withhold aid from nations violating gay rights.
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#8 — Fox | Medal of Honor Marine Suing Contractor Is Not a ‘Drinker,’ Grandmother Says
The grandmother of Medal of Honor recipient Dakota Meyer, who has filed suit against a former employer over claims that he is mentally unstable and a problem drinker, came to the defense of her hero grandson on Wednesday, telling FoxNews.com that, “I’ve never, ever known him to be a drinker.”
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#9 — DM | ‘It’s a damp squib strike’
Thousands of public sector workers took to the streets today in response to the bitter row over pensions.
But if they were hoping to disrupt the country, it appeared they had failed, with Prime Minister David Cameron branding their efforts ‘something of a damp squib’.
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#10 — Telegraph | Eiffel Tower ‘to be turned into green jungle’
The Eiffel Tower could be transformed into a giant green “jungle” covered in 600,000 plants as part of an environmental scheme.
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Re: Call for inquiry in baby’s death I feel for the family – it’s an all to common experience shared by many, we almost last a son to the same system.
I was out of town on business, baby got sick, ex-wife took him to the nursing station and was told it was a cold – go home. The next day she took him again, was told the same thing, that evening she took him again, his lips were turning blue, she was told to go home. She said she wanted to see a different nurse, and was refused – using a phrase common to today she “occupied” the nursing station and refused to leave until someone senior put in an appearance – which they ultimately did. Our son was medi-vaced to the nearest hospital, a two hour flight into the community and another two hour flight back to the hospital – his heart stopped beating within 15 minutes of landing in Iqaluit.
Fortunately they got him started again – we were lucky.
My ex’s brother and his wife lost a child – same thing, go home, it’s just a cold, don’t worry about it, here’s some Tylenol. By the time the nursing station did take it seriously it was too late, the baby had to be medi-vaced to Ottawa and died, from pneumonia, with us standing beside the incubator.
Our youngest sons appendix burst and his abdominal cavity filled with everything that ran out because the nursing station refused to call a medi-vac because there was a scheduled flight the next day.
I was listening to the local radio station one day when a caller said their grandson had fallen off his trike and was bleeding badly, they had called the nursing station (it was a Sunday so it was closed and locked) and were told to bring him in the next morning. The elderly man said they wouldn’t even look at the boy and he wanted someone to come look at his grandson and help stop the bleeding – being first aid trained, and only a few minutes away from where the family lived, I walked over to take a look. The little boy had ripped his sack open, and the only reason he wasn’t bleeding to death was because his testicle was halfway out the cut and was plugging it.
My call to the nursing station was blunt, “I am bringing the boy in, you can unlock the door or I’ll kick it open”
I could fill this page with similar stories, from all over the north, it would do no good…. the simple fact is that the federal government does not care, and Canadians do not care – if they did something would have been done long before this latest death, in a very long line of needless deaths, occurred.
Rank and file Canadians will be satisfied with another Health Canada inquiry (that I, and thousands upon thousands of others who have been here before, already know the findings of), murmur softly about what a sad and tragic thing it is to lose a child like that when they hear about it on the evening news, and then go back to eating their supper because it’s easier than admitting that an entire segment of the Canadian population lives in 3rd world conditions with 3rd world health care.