Canada toughens sanctions on North Korea

Posted on Thursday, October 28, 2010 1:22PM EDT7 comments

Canada is drafting “tough” new sanctions against North Korea in direct retaliation for its sinking of a South Korean warship earlier this year, the Harper government said Thursday.

Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said Ottawa is also downgrading its already-limited diplomatic relations with the rogue nuclear state.

Mr. Cannon said the sanctions will prohibit imports and exports to North Korea, with certain humanitarian exceptions.

Earlier this year, Canada announced stiffer restrictions on trade, investment and other bilateral relations with the communist dictatorship – as well as suspending high-level visits by its officials.

Those measures followed the sinking of the Cheonan, a South Korean navy ship, which killed 46 sailors.

Three experts from the Canadian navy joined the multinational team that investigated the incident, and concluded the warship was sunk by a North Korean torpedo.

“They went out deliberately and they sank a South Korean ship with a torpedo,” Mr. Cannon said Thursday. “We had three Canadian investigators part of that. They determined beyond any reasonable doubt that this was an act of aggression and therefore Canada is taking retaliatory measures.”

The Foreign Affairs Minister conceded that Canada's level of interaction with North Korea is already quite low.

But he said Canada's actions are important because they are based on a “position of principle” – a common refrain from the Harper government after its historic failure to win a temporary United Nations Security Council earlier this month.

“The impact is, of course, an impact we will see down the line. But it's extremely important that as a member of the world community we all act together.”

Mr. Cannon said Canada does not want its action in any way to be seen as targeting the North Korean people, some of the poorest and most downtrodden in the world.

He said Canada already delivers about $6-million worth of food aid to North Korea through the UN World Food Program.

As part of its new diplomatic crackdown, Canada is implementing a “controlled engagement policy” that will limit bilateral contact on four issues: regional security, human rights, North-South Korean issues and consular cases.

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Kinsmen Sports Centre has a new eatery

So now once you've worked out HARD, you can have a refreshing fruit shake, including a Pina Cow Lada, with banana, coconut, and other healthy fillings. Breakfast options include a protein muffin ($3), or breakfast-in-a-glass with muesli and yogurt, or an egg wrap. Small meals like feta chicken and veggies, or a lime shrimp curry round out the menu.

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Newfoundland Liberal apologizes for questioning Premier’s mental health

Published Thursday, Oct. 28, 2010 2:00PM EDTLast updated Thursday, Oct. 28, 2010 2:12PM EDT0 comments

The new spin doctor for the Liberal Opposition in Newfoundland and Labrador has apologized for an e-mail that raised the prospect that Premier Danny Williams is mentally ill or in the last stages of a venereal disease.

Craig Westcott said in a statement released Thursday that he's sorry for the “unacceptable” e-mail to the Premier's office — which was private correspondence — that asked if Mr. Williams is being treated for a mental condition or other illness.

The former journalist just signed on earlier this month as the Liberal Opposition communications director. He has criticized the Premier's policies in the past and has been labelled by the most ardent Williams supporters as a “Danny basher.”

“I want to strongly apologize to everyone who, rightfully, was offended by my reference to mental health issues in such a manner,” Mr. Westcott said in a five-paragraph apology sent to media.

“It wasn't my intention to disparage anyone suffering with a mental health issue, but I see now that that was the effect and I am sorry for having done so. I deeply regret that the contents of the email (have) added further stigma to an issue that needs more public support and understanding.”

Mr. Westcott was editor of The Business Post when he wrote to the Premier's communications director, Elizabeth Matthews, 20 months ago. Under the subject line “A delicate matter,” he asked if Mr. Williams was receiving any medical treatment.

“Please excuse the nature of this question,” Mr. Westcott wrote on Feb. 27, 2009.

“I regret to have to ask it, but it may be germane given the premier's behaviour. It has been suggested to me that Mr. Williams is bipolar. Another person suggested to me that he acts as if he is suffering in the later stages of syphilis.”

The Premier's office didn't respond to the e-mail at the time, but released it to media Wednesday after a cabinet minister raised it on a radio program.

Acting Liberal leader Kelvin Parsons said the overwhelmingly popular Mr. Williams released the private e-mail in an effort to bully and discredit Mr. Westcott.

Mr. Parsons initially tried to downplay the contentious e-mail as a joke, but Mr. Westcott was then accused by open-line radio callers of trivializing serious mental-health issues.

Mr. Westcott ran unsuccessfully for the federal Conservatives in 2008, when Mr. Williams made national headlines with his ABC – Anything But Conservative – campaign. The acerbic effort shut Prime Minister Stephen Harper's candidates out of all seven federal ridings in the province.

Mr. Williams accused Mr. Harper of breaking a 2006 promise to exclude non-renewable energy sources from the calculation of federal equalization payments. Relations between the two men have since improved.

Mr. Westcott wrote the 2009 e-mail to the premier's office a few weeks after Mr. Williams lambasted Ottawa for what he saw as punitive federal budget measures that he said would cost the province $1.5-billion over time.

Mr. Parsons has said Mr. Westcott was hired for his writing and communication skills, and that his job is safe despite the “distraction” of the e-mail controversy.

Mr. Westcott concluded his apology by saying he'll make no further comment on the matter.

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Part 1: Has Canada failed in Afghanistan?

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Published Thursday, Oct. 28, 2010 10:30AM EDTLast updated Thursday, Oct. 28, 2010 1:07PM EDTThe mission was futile defence analyst Peter Langille suggests, while Ret. Lt-Gen. Michael Jeffery argues it's difficult to measure success when the objectives keep changing.37 comments

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Convicted killer charged in cold-case deaths of three sex workers

Published Thursday, Oct. 28, 2010 12:14PM EDTLast updated Thursday, Oct. 28, 2010 1:39PM EDT0 comments

Toronto police have charged a man they are calling a serial killer with three counts of first-degree murder for the slayings of prostitutes in the 1990s.

Peter Dale MacDonald, 52, appeared in court on Thursday in relation to the deaths of three Toronto women. He is currently serving a jail sentence for a separate murder conviction.

“Today, the Toronto Police Service cold case squad arrested a serial killer,” said Staff Inspector Mark Saunders, unit commander of the homicide squad.

Mr. MacDonald is charged with the deaths of Julianne Middleton, Virginia Coote and Darlene McNeill. Their bodies were found in Lake Ontario, near Sunnyside Pool in the city’s west-end, between 1994 and 1997. All three were strangled.

Mr. MacDonald is currently in jail for the 2000 murder of James Campbell in Toronto.

In January, he was charged in connection with the death of Michelle Charette, 40, who was killed in Windsor, Ont., in 2000.

Mr. MacDonald’s name originally surfaced in connection with the 1994 deaths of Ms. Middleton, 23, and Ms. Coote, 33, but police didn’t have evidence to back charges then, said Detective Sergeant Steve Ryan. The body of Ms. McNeill, 35, was discovered in 1997.

New evidence surfaced over the past six or seven months, Det. Sgt. Ryan said. Mr. MacDonald was living in Toronto at the time of the murders, he said.

Staff Insp. Saunders credited the hard work of Toronto police officers and co-operation with other forces for the breakthrough. He said investigators worked hard to put “small pieces of the puzzle together.”

“Today’s investigation took just over 16 years of putting those pieces of the puzzle together to reach that conclusion.”

Police are asking anyone with information about Mr. MacDonald between 1994 and 1997 to contact them.

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They're cutting a really big cheese this weekend at Spinelli's

Italian Centre Shops (north and south side) have some 80 different varieties of cheeses at each location. This weekend, the two stores are hosting a special cheese-tasting event. Owner Teresa Spinelli says they'll be cutting into the world's largest wheel of Emmanthaler. This is quite a claim, and I wouldn't miss it if I were you.

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PM defends trade talks with Ukraine despite Kiev’s strong-arm tactics

Stephen Harper arrived Sunday to a Ukraine of diminishing freedoms and rising strong-arm tactics. And yet the Canadian government is working to sign a free-trade deal with the regime.

The Prime Minister landed in Kiev from the meeting in Switzerland of La Francophonie, the 70 nations with links to the French language and culture. That group’s final communiqué stressed the importance of protecting human rights and the rule of law no fewer than three times, even though many of its governments are either undemocratic or corrupt or both.

How does this Conservative government square the contradiction of seeking business deals with countries whose governments exhibit varying degrees of unsavouryness, while taking a principled stand on human rights?

The answer, according to the Prime Minister, is to deny the contradiction exists.

The question assumes “that there is an inherent tension between these two issues, between wanting to do business and raising issues of human rights and the rule of law,” he told a reporter Sunday when asked how he juggled the two subjects in conversations with leaders.

“And I will not deny that sometimes there is tension. But in fact these go hand in hand.”

That tension may enter the room when Mr. Harper meets with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, whose government has tightened its grip since its election in February – even as negotiations proceed on a trade agreement with Canada. An early sign of an agreement is the deal to be signed this week that allows young people to work, study and travel more easily between both countries.

On the first leg of his European trip, the most tangible product of Mr. Harper’s time at La Francophonie was announcing a new $43-million commitment to aid for francophone African countries. But that organization has a reputation for glossing over questions of rights and freedoms simply because there is little of either in so many member countries. Switzerland volunteered to play host to the this year’s gathering of La Francophonie after a last-minute coup in Madagascar, the original host, forced a change of venue.

The next gathering, in 2012, is to be held in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a desperately poor nation that is emerging uncertainly from a civil war that, at its height, was killing 45,000 people a month.

Thirty of the 70 member states are designated either Not Free or only Partly Free by the human-rights watchdog Freedom House.

Yet Africa is increasingly attracting investment, with growth rates well above that of the developed world. And Ukraine is also doing better this year, thanks in part to the relative calm that Mr. Yanukovych has imposed on the tumultuous state.

That calm has been imposed by cracking down on freedom of the press and blatantly trying to undermine opposition parties.

Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based organization that monitors press freedom around the world, downgraded Ukraine in its latest annual ranking from 89th to 131st.

Mr. Harper, whose government is still smarting from the unexpected failure on Oct. 12 to win a seat on the UN Security Council, maintains that he has no difficulty having free and frank exchanges with leaders who don’t like to hear hard truths.

“We raise [human rights issues] frankly with them,” he said. “I tend by nature to be fairly direct and that’s what I am in these conversations.”

Mr. Harper is scheduled to meet with Mr. Yanukovych, but he has also arranged to meet with rival politician Yulia Tymoshenko during his two-day visit.

In a twist on the human-rights-or-business dichotomy, the Prime Minister said he talked about human rights with world leaders in countries where they were lacking because without them, Canadian businesses wouldn’t be able to thrive.

Mr. Harper’s argument is simple: impartial courts, freedom of the press and dignity of the person are good for both parties in a contract.

“Canadian companies … need rule of law and human rights,” he said. “Where those things are problematic they create severe problems for Canadian business.”

Companies, he argued, need reliable and enforceable laws to conduct business, and worry about the impact of consorting with oppressive regimes on “their own self-image.”

Of course, Canadian businesses have been operating in countries with unpleasant regimes for many a year. Each prime minister has balanced the two sides of the rights-versus-business conversation his own way. Mr. Harper started out emphatically emphasizing rights, only to learn to his sorrow that countries like China do not like to be lectured to or to be cold-shouldered.

The dichotomy will become increasingly difficult as the century evolves – and as waning democracies court and confront rising powers.

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