On December 30th, 2009, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper rang up Canada’s Governor General, Michaelle Jean to prorogue the Canadian Parliament.  Jean granted permission (as a good Governor General always does), and the Canadian legislative assembly was officially put into suspension until March 2010.
Since then, Canadians have been divided into two camps:
A) ones who are appalled by Harper’s seemingly despotic power and
B) people who just don’t care.
(Personally, I do not know anyone from a camp C who is ecstatic for prorogation.  If you do, let me know.)

It’s an interesting …

After Senate passed their version health-care reform on Christmas Eve, the prevailing wisdom was that Congressional Democrats would quickly resolve the differences between the House and Senate versions so that the President could sign the bill and use his State of the Union address to pivot to a new job-focused legislative agenda. Scott Brown’s victory on Tuesday in the Massachusetts Senate election now means the era of the Democratic Party’s senatorial “supermajority” is over and brings the fate of American healthcare reform into question.
An obvious solution would be for …

The suicide bomber who killed seven CIA agents in Afghanistan was an al-Qaeda triple agent, US media reports say.
He is said to have been a doctor from Jordan who was arrested by Jordanian intelligence a year ago.
He was then reportedly recruited by the Jordanians and CIA – who thought they had successfully turned him – and given a mission to find al-Qaeda leaders.
He is believed to have been working undercover in Afghanistan for weeks before detonating a bomb at a CIA base.
The attack at Forward Operating Base Chapman was the …

CULIACÁN, Mexico — The steady drumbeat of complaints against Mexico’s army is expected to continue Tuesday, when Amnesty International is scheduled to release a report raising allegations of extrajudicial killings, torture and arbitrary detentions against soldiers engaged in the nation’s drug war.
The report, which meshes with earlier examinations by Human Rights Watch and Mexican human rights groups, accuses soldiers of torturing 25 police officers in Tijuana in March to coerce them to confess to links to organized crime. It says a man arrested by soldiers in October 2008 in Ciudad …

The release of Canadian freelance journalist Amanda Lindhout has brought a sense of relief to her friends and family and Canadians across the nation. After 15 months in captivity in Somalia by their kidnappers, Ms. Lindhout, along with her fellow colleague, Australian photographer, Nigel Brennan, will be home for Christmas.
The scenario, however, is much more bleak for Canadian journalist Beverly Giesecrecht. Not only does she lack the family support base, she seems to have lost the support the from the majority of Canadians.
That is because the 53 year-old West Vancouverite …

On the eve of the Chilcot inquiry into Britain’s involvement in the 2003 invasion and its aftermath, The Sunday Telegraph has obtained hundreds of pages of secret Government reports on “lessons learnt” which shed new light on “significant shortcomings” at all levels.
They include full transcripts of extraordinarily frank classified interviews in which British Army commanders vent their frustration and anger with ministers and Whitehall officials.
The reports disclose that:
Tony Blair, …

Lebanese Army commander Gen. Jean Kahwaji instructed his troops to raise the level of alert along the border with Israel in preparation for an attack planned by “the Israeli enemy”, London-based Alquds Alarabi reported on Saturday.
In a statement published ahead of Lebanon’s independence day, which will take place on Sunday, the Lebanese military chief called for “greater vigilance” on the border “to counter the planned attacks by the Israeli enemy against the homeland.”
All the available options must be used to address Israel’s violations of the country’s sovereignty “land, sea and …

Deposed Honduran president Manuel Zelaya has rejected any possibility of a deal to restore constitutional order in the two weeks before the next scheduled elections, saying that to do so would legitimize a June coup.
Zelaya, who was ousted by the military on June 28, informed US President Barack Obama in a letter Saturday that he would not accept any proposal to return him to office temporarily to cover up the coup d’etat.
“This electoral process is illegal because it conceals the military coup and the de facto state of Honduras that …

WASHINGTON — Top executives at Blackwater Worldwide authorized secret payments of about $1 million to Iraqi officials that were intended to silence their criticism and buy their support after a September 2007 episode in which Blackwater security guards fatally shot 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, according to former company officials.
Blackwater approved the cash payments in December 2007, the officials said, as protests over the deadly shootings in Nisour Square stoked long-simmering anger inside Iraq about reckless practices by the security company’s employees. American and Iraqi investigators had already concluded that …

BOISE (CN) – KBR and Halliburton poisoned U.S. troops and civilian contractors by burning an immense variety of toxic, unsorted wastes in Iraq and Afghanistan to cut costs and preserve profits, according to a federal class action. The class claims at least 100,000 people were endangered by the contractors’ “utter indifference to and conscious disregard” of troops’ welfare.
The class claims the Pentagon contractors, “motivated by financial gain,” ignored contract requirements minimize risks, environmental effects and human exposure to toxic fumes when disposing of waste. Instead, the contractors cut corners and …