Surrey Six murder trial: updates from the opening day

The trial of three men accused of gunning down six people in a Surrey high-rise in 2007 is scheduled to begin Monday in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver.

Matthew James Johnson and Cody Rae Haevischer are charged with six counts of first-degree murder and Quang Vinh Thang (Michael) Le is facing one charge of first-degree murder. Two other men charged in the case, Jamie Kyle Bacon and Sophon Sek, will be tried separately at a later date.

The case dates back to Oct. 19, 2007, when six people were found dead in a 15th floor apartment of a Surrey high-rise in the 9800 block of East Whalley Ring Road.

An RCMP cruiser blocks the road leading to an apartment building in Surrey, B.C., on Oct. 20, 2007. Firefighters, who were first on the scene, initially thought they were responding to a deadly gas leak. When they arrived, they found the bodies of six men killed in a bloody massacre. (Richard Lam/The Canadian Press)

Firefighters, who were first on the scene, initially thought they were responding to a deadly gas leak, but when they arrived, they found the bodies of six men killed in a bloody massacre.

At the time, Metro Vancouver was in the grips of a violent gang war dominated by a deadly rivalry between the Red Scorpions and the UN gangs.

Four of the victims, Ryan Bartolomeo,19, brothers Michael Lal, 26, and Cory Lal, 21, and Edward Narong, 22, were described by police as having criminal lifestyles.

Two of the victims, Christopher Mohan, 22, and Ed Schellenberg, 55, were described as bystanders who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

In April 2009, a man pleaded guilty to three counts of second-degree murder for killing Mohan, Bartolomeo and Michael Lal, and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in the six slayings, and was sentenced to life in prison.

• Jamie Bacon has been charged with one count of first-degree murder in the death of Corey Lal and conspiracy to murder charges.
• Sophon Sek is facing a manslaughter charge.

In addition, four RCMP officers are facing charges, including breach of trust, obstruction of justice and fraud, dating back to their handling of the Surrey Six slayings.

B.C.'s criminal justice branch appointed Victoria lawyer Christopher Considine as a special prosecutor in the investigation of the officers.

21.48 | 0 komentar | Read More

Former cop blows whistle on brutality, corruption

A former cop with an exemplary record is going public about what he calls corruption in Edmonton police ranks, after he tried internally to expose what he believes is organized brutality, but got no results.

"I stood up for what's right, and I just got run out of the police service," said Derek Huff, 37. "I still can't even really believe it."

Huff is a 10-year-veteran who resigned in February, three years after he said he and his partner watched — stunned — as three plainclothes officers viciously beat a handcuffed man while he was down.

"They basically had their knees on his back and were just punching and kicking him just as hard as they could …six fists just pummelling this guy … I could hear him screaming," said Huff.

Former Edmonton police officer Derek Huff is going public about what he calls "corruption" in the force, after he tried to report police brutality internally and got no results. (CBC)

He reported what he saw — and his allegations are now being investigated — but he said until recently the alleged assault was kept quiet.

"I can still remember the sounds of the contact of the knuckles hitting his face… I've seen lots of arrests and I've never seen anything like that."

Huff said the main instigator was Constable Jack Redlick, now 30. Before joining the Edmonton Police Service, Redlick, who is six foot three inches tall, was a hockey defenceman who was notorious for his fights on ice.

The alleged victim, according to Huff, was Kasimierz Kozina, who was 29 at the time. Redlick and the other officers had targeted the suspected drug dealer in a sting.

Vicious beating reported

Huff said Kozina was much smaller than Redlick — and the attack was unprovoked.

"I compared it to the Rodney King beating," said Huff. "My first initial thought [was] that 'I want to get in this car and get out of here as fast as I can.' [My partner and I] were in shock."

Edmonton Police Chief Rod Knecht said Huff's allegations are being taken seriously. (CBC)

Back at the downtown police station, Huff said he saw Kozina being taken away by ambulance.

"His face was a great big giant black ball … of blood and bruising," said Huff. "It looked like he had a gotten into a full head-on collision and smashed his head into a steering wheel."

Huff said he and his partner Mike Furman agonized over what to do. They felt they had two choices; "rat" on their fellow officers or — if Kozina complained — they might be forced to lie later, to protect their jobs, because they were there.

"We had a big decision to make," said Huff.

The next day, Huff said he and Furman told their sergeant what they'd seen. They were so scared, Huff said, they met their boss in a police cruiser and didn't put anything in writing.

In the meantime, Huff said Kozina needed surgery to repair his face. He never did file a complaint, though.

"If a pack of police officers handcuffed me and put me in the hospital and nothing happened, I'd be pretty scared of them," said Huff, who said nothing came of their report to their boss, either.

Coverup alleged

"[The sergeant] came back and said that he read all the reports that were submitted and as far as he's concerned it justifies the actions that Redlick and his partners took, and that Mike and I no longer need to be involved," he said.

"I couldn't' believe it. Even to this day I still can't believe it."

Huff suggested the other officers involved lied, by telling the sergeant Kozina attacked first.

"People stick to a story. They cover things up. They want to justify beating people up," said Huff. "I ran into corruption. Covering up evidence is corruption."

Submit your story ideas:

Go Public is an investigative news segment on CBC TV, radio and the web.

We tell your stories and hold the powers that be accountable.

We want to hear from people across the country with stories they want to make public.

Submit your story ideas to Kathy Tomlinson at Go Public

Follow @CBCGoPublic on Twitter

He said he and his partner were then branded as "rats" and were mocked and shunned. Huff said it got so bad, when he and Furman called for backup on the street, no one came.

"I went from having a great career to being a rat — and it's almost like jail," said Huff. "If you're labelled a rat in the police service, you're done."

Go Public contacted Redlick for comment on all of this, but he didn't respond. We also asked to talk to Furman. A police spokesperson said neither officer is allowed to talk about this case because it hasn't been resolved.

Huff said the ostracizing became so unbearable, he couldn't function at work. He went to other supervisors and managers for help, but he said no one did anything about the root problem.

"Every time I tried to talk to superiors, they would minimize it — into me and my partner having a problem with these beat guys," said Huff. "And I kept saying, 'That's not the problem.'"

Complaint still unresolved

Two years after witnessing the alleged police brutality, Huff said he went to the deputy chief and revealed all, in a formal, written complaint. It was sent to the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT), which investigates police misconduct.

He also went on stress leave. The investigation into his complaint was completed six months ago, but he's still waiting to hear the outcome. In the meantime, Huff was ordered back to work in the same division. He quit instead.

Before joining the Edmonton Police Service, Jack Redlick, who is six foot three inches tall, was a hockey defenceman who was notorious for his fights on ice. (CBC)

"I gave up. I sacrificed my career. I stood up for what's right, and I just got run out of the police service. I thought there is nothing else I could do. I lost."

Since Huff initially reported the alleged beating, Redlick has been investigated for other violent police incidents.

In 2011, he shot and killed a 17-year-old aboriginal boy. Police who were there said the teen, Cyrus Green, had fled the scene of a robbery and was threatening them with a knife and a baseball bat.

Redlick shot the teen three times. The officer was cleared of wrongdoing, but the boy's mother is suing him.

'Street justice' carried on

Then, last year, Redlick picked up a man in his 50s and beat him up in a schoolyard. Redlick later admitted to that in a statement of fact agreed to during a disciplinary action.

The officer and his partner had arrested George Petropolous after his mother called to say he'd hit her during an argument.

Huff said he and his partner met with their supervisor in a police cruiser and told him how they witnessed Redlick and other fellow officers severely beat a man while he was handcuffed. (CBC)

Redlick rode in the back seat of the cruiser with Petropolous and then told his partner to pull in to a high school parking lot.

Redlick took the handcuffs off Petropolous and walked him to an area where they couldn't be seen. Petropolous said the officer then put him face down in the snow and punched him repeatedly — while holding his head.

"He knew what he was doing exactly. I could tell that this man is trained," said Petropolous, who said he was terrified.

"I was in a tremendous amount of pain — to the point that I couldn't breathe from the punches … there is something wrong with him."

Petropolous's lawyer said the allegations his client was arrested for turned out to be unfounded. The charges were stayed.

"But Redlick just shows up. No investigation. Just on basis of a complaint — decides to beat him up and administers street justice," said Tom Engel.

Petropolous filed a complaint against Redlick, alleging the officer told him he wasn't the first to get beaten up.

"He says, 'I've done it to other inmates before. I've taken them out of the car. Some of them wouldn't come out. They were crying and begging,'" said Petropolous.

At first, Redlick and his partner denied wrongdoing. Redlick then pleaded guilty to misconduct and was docked $15,000 pay. His partner now faces discipline for lying to protect him.

The file was sent to the Crown, but no charges were laid. However, an Edmonton police spokesperson said because of "other recent information" the Crown is now "re-examining the evidence."

Lawyer wants cop fired

The disciplinary decision on Redlick said he was suffering from "mental health issues." Because he had no previous disciplinary citations on his record, it stated, "This was clearly an isolated incident."

Petropolous's lawyer said that is outrageous, especially given what Huff reported years earlier. He can't understand why Redlick is still on the job.

George Petropolous said he suffered bruising and internal injuries after police officer Jack Redlick beat him up behind a local high school. (CBC)

"I've been told this guy has been doing this for a long time," said Engel, who has filed an appeal. "They have a cop who goes vigilante … if you don't fired for doing that, what do you get fired for?"

"There were so many people inside the organization that knew what Redlick was doing, they knew he was doing this to people, but yet they continue on," said Huff.

Rod Knecht has been Edmonton's police chief since 2011. He told Go Public he knew nothing about Huff's initial allegations until last year. He said he also wasn't aware of why Huff had resigned.

"Obviously if the good cop goes and the bad cop stays, that's not a good thing," said Knecht. "Could things have been done differently? Absolutely."

When he came on as chief, Knecht promised to protect whistleblowers. He's now promising to take Huff's allegations seriously.

'We'll deal with it': police chief

"Obviously it's intolerable behaviour. We don't accept that as tolerable behaviour at all. An officer committing a criminal act — or act against the Police Act — we won't tolerate that in this organization and we'll deal with it."

Despite what's happened, Huff said he still loves being a cop and wants his job back once this is resolved.

"I did absolutely nothing wrong," said Huff. "All I've ever wanted since day one was the truth — and it's finally coming out."

Submit your story ideas to Kathy Tomlinson at Go Public

Follow @CBCGoPublic on Twitter

21.48 | 0 komentar | Read More

U.S. government shutdown: What to expect if it happens

The U.S. government could close its doors Tuesday if Congress can't reach a deal on a temporary spending budget bill, and that would jeopardize the paycheques of more than 800,000 Americans, as well as the country's economic recovery.

It's political bickering between Democrats and Republicans in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, along with Republican in-fighting, that has brought the country to the brink of a shutdown yet again.

Once more, the U.S. Congress is deadlocked on a temporary spending bill that needs to pass in order to keep funding the federal government's operations, its employees and the services they provide.

Congress hasn't passed any of the annual bills that fund various government agencies, so it has had to rely on stopgap measures that are known as continuing resolutions. The government needs to pass another one as soon as possible to keep the cash flowing beyond Sept. 30.

The battle started with a House vote to pass the short-term funding bill with a provision that would have eliminated the federal dollars needed to put President Barack Obama's health care overhaul into place. (Associated Press)

A government shutdown won't mean the entire country will grind to a halt, but it will have an impact on the daily lives of Americans.

The rules governing a shutdown say federal workers must be classified as essential or non-essential, so that key government functions can carry on in the event of a fiscal crisis.

Air traffic control, the military, prisons, border security, mail delivery, anything related to national security and public safety, social security cheques, emergency medical care, and food safety inspection are examples of things that would be unaffected.

So what would happen? 

Passports, other services could be on hold

Some 800,000 government workers could be told to stay home and go without pay. However, they might get paid retroactively once the shutdown ends. 

The affected public servants would essentially be unemployed, pumping less cash into an economy that very much needs it.

Those missing paycheques would have an impact on individual bank accounts, but depending on how long the shutdown lasts, the loss of income could also affect the broader economy. The affected public servants would essentially be unemployed, pumping less cash into an economy that very much needs it.

The economy would also take a hit because it costs money to prepare for a shutdown, to carry it out, and start the government back up again. The last two shutdowns, which took place weeks apart in late 1995 and early 1996, cost taxpayers $1.4 billion, according to estimates from the Office of Management and Budget.

The shutdown would also mean an interruption in services. Visa and passport applications, for example, wouldn't be processed.

Parks and museums could be shuttered

And the tourism industry would take a hit. Anyone planning a weekend getaway to one of the country's 400 national parks would have to come up with something else to do, for example, since those parks would be closed. Tourists in Washington, D.C., in particular would have fewer options because most of the city's famous museums would be shuttered.

Closing tourist attractions would also mean less revenue for the government from things like national park user fees.

A shutdown would also mean that small business loans would not be processed, government-backed insurance for home loans would not move forward, and some tax refunds would pile up.

Residents of D.C. would likely feel the effects the most. The capital city's local government depends on the federal government for permission to spend money. A shutdown could mean city services such as garbage collection, street cleaning, motor vehicle offices, and libraries would be on hold or closed.

The city's mayor, Vincent Gray, is trying to get around the problem by declaring all of the local government "essential."

Debt-ceiling crisis also looming

The potential government shutdown isn't the only fiscal crisis looming for the U.S. The other is the debt ceiling, which is far more concerning. 

Under U.S. law, the government must stay below a certain debt limit and Congress must pass legislation to allow the government to exceed that limit. If it doesn't, the government can't pay its bills and would have to default on its legal obligations.

That would have "catastrophic" consequences on the economy, according the the U.S. Treasury, which expects the government to reach the debt ceiling — currently sitting at around $16 trillion — by mid-October.

The U.S. federal government has never defaulted before so no one knows exactly how severe its effects could be, but there's little doubt it would cause severe economic damage.

Congress has until Oct. 17 to figure out a plan for the debt ceiling, and until midnight Monday to deal with the budget spending bill. The clocks in Washington are ticking loudly.

21.48 | 0 komentar | Read More

Kenya mall attack: Toronto-born teen undergoes surgery

The hospital treating a Toronto-born teen injured in last week's deadly attack at a Nairobi shopping mall is expected to release new information Monday about her condition.

Fardosa Abdi, 17, is being treated at Sunnybrook Hospital after arriving in Toronto on Sunday afternoon.

She was wounded along with her 16-year-old sister, Dheeman,  when gunmen from the al-Qaeda-linked group al-Shabaab stormed the Westgate mall in Nairobi.

Abdi suffered serious injuries to her legs and torso when a grenade detonated near her and her sister. Dheeman suffered a broken finger.

CBC's Trevor Dunn was at the hospital Monday.

"I just got off the phone with a spokesperson for the hospital, and right now there's no update on Abdi's condition," he  reported.

"I'm told that she underwent surgery yesterday, and right now the spokesperson is just trying to get ahold of the surgical team that did that work and will try to provide us with an update on her condition.

"All we know is that Abdi is here in hospital and that friends and family are with her."

Both girls were born in Toronto but moved to Kenya a few years ago.

The four-day mall siege, which included the collapse of part of the mall, left 67 people dead, including two Canadians. The Red Cross says 59 people remain missing, though the government puts that number at zero.

Kenyans have become increasingly frustrated over the government's unwillingness to share information about the attack, reports say. Almost no details have been released about what happened after the first hours of the siege.

21.48 | 0 komentar | Read More

Baird denounces 'crime of terror' in speech to UN

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird used Canada's turn at the podium before the United Nations General Assembly Monday to speak out on sexual violence against women and girls, including forced marriage and systemic rape.

"Forced marriage is rape, it is violence against women. Early marriage is child rape, and violence against young girls."

Baird drew attention to Canada's Muskoka initiative to improve women and children's health, in advocating for greater participation by women to help "build a stronger, more secure, more prosperous and more peaceful world."

Baird also denounced "the crime of terror" and paid tribute to a Canadian diplomat killed in an attack on a shopping mall in Kenya last week as he addressed the United Nations General Assembly Monday morning.

Annemarie Desloges, 29, was one of two Canadians who died in the attack by al-Qaeda-linked Somali fighters on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi. Vancouver-area businessman Naguib Damji also died in the attack.

'Our business is a shared humanity. Our interest is the dignity of humankind.'- Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird

In a speech that included references to the ancient poet Homer and philosopher Cicero, Baird made the "oneness of humankind" the theme of his address at the start of the second week of the world body's opening session. He noted that the United Nations' charter begins with the words, "We the peoples."

"Not, 'We the countries," or "we the governments.'" Baird said. "Not 'we the political leaders. We the peoples.'"

"Canada's government doesn't seek to have our values or our principled foreign policy validated by elites who would rather 'go along to get along,'" Baird said, echoing words he has used before.

And he seemed to defend Canada's recent criticism of events in events countries, including Russia's anti-gay propaganda law and the treatment of religious minorities in some Muslim countries, saying it is impossible to protect some human rights and freedoms while infringing others.

"All freedoms are rooted in the inherent dignity of human beings. Whether the issue is religious freedom, sexual freedom, political freedom or any other freedom, some people ask: What business is it of ours? What interest do we have in events outside our borders?

"Our business is a shared humanity. Our interest is the dignity of humankind," Baird said.

The wide-ranging speech, delivered to a largely empty assembly hall, also touched on Canada's participation in trade talks, on Syria and Iran and on peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper was in New York last week for a panel on child maternal health. He has addressed the General Assembly twice, most recently in 2010, and has faced criticism from the NDP and academics and former diplomats for not giving the address himself.

Harper has countered that Canada's prime minister has not traditionally appeared at the assembly year year.

21.48 | 0 komentar | Read More

U.S. government shutdown looms after Obamacare vote

The Republican-controlled House approved legislation early Sunday imposing a one-year delay on key parts of the nation's health care law and repealing a tax on medical devices as the price for avoiding a partial government shutdown on Tuesday.

Senate Democrats had already pledged to reject the measure and the White House issued a statement vowing a veto in any event. Republicans are pursuing "a narrow ideological agenda ... and pushing the government towards shutdown," it said.

The Senate is not scheduled to meet until mid-afternoon on Monday, 10 hours before a shutdown would begin, and even some Republicans said privately they feared that Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid held the advantage.

The Senate had rejected the most recent House-passed anti-shutdown bill on a party-line vote of 54-44 on Friday, insisting on a straightforward continuation in government funding without health care-related add-ons.

U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican, playfully pumps his fist in response to a reporter's question as he arrives at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Sept. 28, 2013. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

That left the next step up to the House — with time to avert a partial shutdown growing ever shorter.

The House Republican Party rank and file that includes numerous conservative tea party allies will soon have to choose between triggering the first partial shutdown in nearly two decades — or coming away empty-handed from their latest confrontation in the deepening struggle with President Barack Obama.

Undeterred, House Republicans pressed ahead with their latest attempt to squeeze a concession from the White House in exchange for letting the government open for business normally on Tuesday.

'Disregard of a will of the people'

"Obamacare is based on a limitless government, bureaucratic arrogance and a disregard of a will of the people," said Republican representative Marlin Stutzman.

Apart from its impact on the health-care law, the legislation that House Republicans decided to back would assure routine funding for government agencies through Dec. 15. Under House rules, the measure went to the Senate after lawmakers voted 248-174 to repeal the medical tax, then 231-192 for the one-year delay in Obamacare.

A companion measure headed for approval assures U.S. troops are paid in the event of a shutdown.

The government spending measure marked something of a reduction in demands by House Republicans, who passed legislation several days ago that would permanently strip the health care law of money while providing funding for the government.

It also contained significant concessions from a party that long has criticized the health care law for imposing numerous government mandates on industry, in some cases far exceeding what Republicans have been willing to support in the past.

Most of health law would go unchanged

Republican aides said that under the legislation headed toward a vote, most portions of the health law that already have gone into effect would remain unchanged. That includes requirements for insurance companies to guarantee coverage for pre-existing conditions and to require children to be covered on their parents' plans until age 26.

It would not change a part of the law that reduces costs for seniors with high prescription drug expenses.

One exception would give insurers or others the right not to provide abortion coverage, based on religious or moral objections.

The measure would delay implementation of a requirement for all individuals to purchase coverage or face a penalty, and of a separate feature of the law that will create marketplaces where individuals can shop for coverage from private insurers.

By repealing the medical device tax, the Republican measure also would raise deficits — an irony for a party that won the House majority in 2010 by pledging to get the nation's finances under control.

21.48 | 0 komentar | Read More

Popular Science online comment ban explained

Popular Science magazine has decided to shut down comments on new articles on their website, saying they can negatively affect funding and scientific progress. CBC Radio's Day 6 digs into the debate.

Popular Science associate editor Dan Nosowitz says there has been a lot of spam, misinformed writing, racism, sexism, and "basically unsourced nonsense, garbage" in the magazine's online comment section.

Hear more on the magazine's decision from Nosowitz, as well as  University of Calgary science education professor Marie-Claire Shanahan as they talk to CBC's Brent Bambury.

21.48 | 0 komentar | Read More

Milos Raonic wins Thailand Open

Canadian Milos Raonic upset top-seeded Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic 7-6 (4), 6-3 to claim his fifth title at the Thailand Open on Sunday.

The No. 11-ranked Raonic put up 18 aces to beat his No. 6-ranked opponent in the final at the Impact Arena in one hour, 17 minutes.

It was Raonic's fifth tour victory, adding to the three in San Jose from 2011-13 and Chennai in 2012.

He also improved his unbeaten record over Berdych to 2-0 after also beating the Czech player in the Cincinnati Masters last year.

Berdych had his chances in the match with a set point at 6-5 in the first but Raonic used his big serve to force a weak return before sending a forehand winner to escape.

The Canadian then relied on powerful serves to force the tie-break, which he sealed with another booming serve.

Raonic managed an early break in the second game to take a 2-0 lead in the second after Berdych netted two successive shots.

'I'm serving well and doing a lot of good things, I want to keep that up and put myself in a position to win more.'- Canadian tennis player Milos Raonic

At 5-3, Raonic produced another ace to set up a championship point before blasting a forehand winner to take the match.

"It feels great to win the title," said the 22-year-old from Thornhill., Ont., now 37-17 this season.

"The first set was about finding rhythm. Once I did I was solid after that," he said.

"I knew I had to play slightly more aggressive, not just put the ball in play. I did that and was able to take control, I got some insight into what I needed to do to beat him."

Raonic's next challenge will be in Tokyo, where he lost the 2012 final to Japan's Kei Nishikori.

"I'll have to carry this momentum onto Tokyo," he said before flying overnight to the Japanese capital for a Monday arrival.

"The only thing I'm worrying about is what I need to do in the first match (against Japan's Go Soeda).

"I'm serving well and doing a lot of good things, I want to keep that up and put myself in a position to win more."

Raonic said he's been working hard on his game since losing to Rafael Nadal in the Rogers Cup final in Montreal in August.

"I maybe wasn't playing my best tennis there but I've been improving a little at a time," he said.

And the payoff for the work came in Bangkok.

"I'm happy with how I dealt with this whole week, I fought my way through and put the pieces together to win," he said.

21.48 | 0 komentar | Read More

Nigeria militant attack on college dorm kills dozens

Boko Haram has launched previous attacks in northeast Nigeria. This photo, taken Sept . 19, shows a house burned in an attack by the militant group in Benisheik. (Abdulkareem Haruna/Associated Press)

Suspected Islamic extremists attacked an agricultural college in the dead of night, gunning down dozens of students as they slept in dormitories and torching classrooms in an ongoing Islamic uprising in northeast Nigeria, the school's provost said.

As many as 50 students may have been killed in the attack that began around 1 a.m. Sunday in rural Gujba, Provost Molima Idi Mato of the Yobe State College of Agriculture said.

"They attacked our students while they were sleeping in their hostels, they opened fire at them," he said.

He said he could not give an exact death toll as security forces still are recovering bodies.

The Nigerian military has collected 42 bodies and transported 18 injured students to Damaturu Specialist Hospital, said a military intelligence official, who insisted on anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press.

The school's other 1,000 enrolled students have fled the college, which is about 40 kilometres north of the scene of similar school attacks around Damaturu town, said Mato.

He said there were no security forces stationed at the college despite government assurances that they would be deployed. The state commissioner for education, Mohammmed Lamin, called a news conference two weeks ago urging all schools to reopen and promising protection from soldiers and police.

Most schools in the area closed after militants on July 6 killed 29 pupils and a teacher, burning some alive in their hostels, at Mamudo outside Damaturu.

Northeastern Nigeria is under a military state of emergency to battle an Islamic uprising prosecuted by Boko Haram militants who have killed more than 1,700 people since 2010 in their quest for an Islamic state. Boko Haram means Western education is forbidden in the local Hausa language.

Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau last week published a video to prove he is alive and prove false military claims that they might have killed him in an ongoing crackdown.

Government and security officials claim they are winning their war on terror in the northeast but Sunday's attack and others belie those assurances.

The Islamic extremists have killed at least 30 other civilians in the past week.

Twenty-seven people died in separate attacks Wednesday and Thursday night on two villages of Borno state near the northeast border with Cameroon, according to the chairman of the Gamboru-Ngala local government council, Modu-Gana Bukar Sheriiff.

The military spokesman did not respond to requests for information on those attacks, but a security official confirmed the death toll. The official spoke on condition of anonymity.

Also Thursday, police said suspected Islamic militants killed a pastor, his son and a village head and torched their Christian church in Dorawa, about 100 kilometres from Damaturu. They said the gunmen used explosives to set fire to the church and five homes.

Meanwhile, farmers and government officials are fleeing threats of imminent attacks from Boko Haram in the area of the Gwoza Hills, a mountainous area with caves that shelter the militants despite repeated aerial bombardments by the military.

A local government official said there had been a series of attacks in recent weeks and threats of more. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared for his life, said Gwoza town was deserted when he visited it briefly under heavy security escort on Thursday.

He said militants had chased medical officers from the government hospital in Gwoza, which had been treating some victims of attacks. And he said they had burned down three public schools in the area.

The official said the Gwoza local government has set up offices in Maiduguri, the state capital to the north.

More than 30,000 people have fled the terrorist attacks to neighbouring Cameroon and Chad and the uprising combined with the military emergency has forced farmers from their fields and vendors from their markets.

The attacks come as Nigeria prepares to celebrate 52 years of independence from Britain on Tuesday and amid increasing political jockeying as the country gears up for presidential elections next year.

21.48 | 0 komentar | Read More

Retired cop 'astounded' at officer's traffic stop tactics

A retired staff sergeant with the Ontario Provincial Police, in an interview with CBC Radio's The Sunday Edition, has spoken out against the heavy-handed tactics he says he experienced after being pulled over by an officer of the same force on a major highway.

Michael Read of Orillia, Ont., was a police officer for 42 years — from age 19 — first in London, England, and later with the OPP. He retired from the OPP in 2003 after 33 years of service, and described for CBC an incident he faced on the road eight years later.

Michael Read says he engaged the officer in a "collegial manner, but he "continued to talk about my attitude, he didn't like my attitude." (Canadian Press)

Speaking to host Michael Enright, Read recalled that he was driving a truck as part of his part-time job with an archaeologist. He remembers it was November, around 3 p.m., when he was pulled over as he headed northbound on Highway 400.

Read said the officer stayed for a lengthy period of time in his cruiser at the side of the road, so Read got out of his vehicle to "have a chat, to see what he wants."

That's when the trouble began. He said the officer kept shouting at him, and then three other cruisers arrived with lights flashing.

Read was told he was a suspended driver. He was handcuffed behind his back, and then put in the officer's cruiser. The fact that Read was a former police officer himself didn't seem to matter, and he said he was told "things have changed" since he had retired.

"I was just astounded at the time. I wasn't expecting any of this, of course," Read said.

Listen to Enright's interview to learn what happened after Read followed up with a complaint against the officer.

21.48 | 0 komentar | Read More

Syria chemical arms plan approved by UN Security Council

The UN Security Council voted unanimously Friday night to secure and destroy Syria's chemical weapons stockpile, a landmark decision aimed at taking poison gas off the battlefield in an escalating conflict that has gone on for over 30 months.

The vote, which came after two weeks of intense negotiations, marked a major breakthrough in the paralysis that has gripped the council since the Syrian uprising began 2 ½ years ago. Russia and China previously vetoed three Western-backed resolutions pressuring President Bashar al-Assad's regime to end the violence.
 
"Today's historic resolution is the first hopeful news on Syria in a long time," UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told the council immediately after the vote. 

Syrian Ambassador to the UN Bashar Ja'afari speaks on a phone before a landmark Security Council vote unanimously agreed to destroy Syria's chemical weapons stockpile. (Craig Ruttle/AP)

​Ban stressed, however, that eliminating chemical weapons from the Syrian conflict "is not a license to kill with conventional weapons."

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the "strong, enforceable, precedent-setting" resolution shows that diplomacy can be so powerful "that it can peacefully defuse the worst weapons of war." Kerry said the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile will begin in November and be completed by the middle of next year.

Ban said the target date for a new peace conference in Geneva is mid-November. 

The resolution also covers "most" of Damascus' concerns, Syrian UN Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari said.

Ja'afari, reacting after the Security Council's resolution, said the Syrian government was "fully committed" to attending a proposed November peace conference in Geneva aimed at ending Syria's civil war.

The resolution calls for consequences if Syria fails to comply, but taking action would require the passing of another resolution by the council, a stipulation that gives Assad's ally Russia the means to stop any punishment from being imposed.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov speaks to the UN Security Council after it unanimously voted in favour of a resolution eradicating Syria's chemical arsenal at a meeting during the 68th UN General Assembly in New York on Sept. 27, 2013. (Adrees Latif/Reuters)

The vote came just hours after the world's chemical weapons watchdog — the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) — adopted a U.S.-Russian plan that lays out benchmarks and a timeline for cataloguing, quarantining and ultimately destroying Syria's chemical weapons and delivery systems.
 
The Security Council resolution enshrines the plan approved by the OPCW, making it legally binding.
 
The agreement allows work to start on ridding Syria's regime of its estimated 900-tonne chemical arsenal by mid-2014, significantly accelerating a process that would otherwise take much longer.

"We expect to have an advance team on the ground [in Syria] next week," OPCW spokesman Michael Luhan told reporters at the organization's headquarters in The Hague immediately after its 41-member executive council approved the plan earlier Friday evening.
 
The UN resolution's adoption was assured when the five veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council — Russia, China, the United States, France and Britain — signed off on the text on Thursday.

As a sign of the broad support for the resolution, the other 10 non-permanent of the Security Council signed on as co-sponsors Friday. 

Russia and the United States had been at odds over how to enforce the agreement. Russia opposed any reference to Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which would allow for military and nonmilitary action against Syria. 

The final resolution states that the Security Council will impose measures under Chapter 7 if Syria fails to comply, but this would require the adoption of a second resolution.

21.48 | 0 komentar | Read More

For many Canadian doctors, managing pain is 'not a high priority'

This week on The Sunday Edition

Michael's Essay: Atheists should stop behaving like persecuted outsiders.

Understanding pain

Dr. Fernando Cervero is working to change the way we think about and treat pain. He's a professor of anesthesia and the director of the Alan Edwards Centre for Research on Pain at McGill University in Montreal. He's also president of the International Association for the Study of Pain.

Documentary: Figures in Flight

We meet a group of convicted murderers, drug dealers and sex offenders, who have spent many decades behind bars. Now... they are learning to dance.

Tackling public pensions

Demographics are threatening public pensions, and two provinces are tackling the problem head on. Michael talks with Alberta's finance minister, Doug Horner, and with the chair of New Brunswick's Pension Task Force, Sue Rowland.

Rebecca Solnit

Rebecca Solnit's new book is called The Faraway Nearby. She's wise and insightful, passionate and compassionate. Among other things, she talks to Michael about what her mother's descent into Alzheimer's taught her about letting go. 

Craig's Retreat

What's it like to live like a monk? Craig Desson reports from his 10-day silent meditation retreat -- waking at 4 a.m. and not reading, writing, speaking or eating after noon.

The headlines are full of breakthroughs heralding new treatments and cures for a host of debilitating and lethal diseases and conditions. 

But for the millions of Canadians who suffer from chronic pain, relief - let alone a cure - is still elusive. 

According to the Canadian Pain Society, one in five Canadians suffers from chronic pain. Yet treatment has not been a priority in our health care system; instead, people who complain of chronic pain are all too often derided as whiners. 

They say doctors are incredulous that their pain - which might have no apparent cause - could possibly be that bad. Or else they're just counselled to grin and bear it.

That nonchalance reflects an attitude in western cultures, where pain is largely considered a sign of virtue and a test of character, says Dr. Fernando Cervero, director of the Alan Edwards Centre for Research on Pain at McGill University.

Attitudes slowly changing

But Dr. Cervero notes that social attitudes are changing. Patients and their advocates are demanding better and more timely treatment for chronic pain. But the medical establishment has not kept pace with those changes. For example, veterinary students receive much more training in pain management than medical students.

The societal change in attitudes toward pain "has not completely permeated all the way to the medical schools," Dr. Cervero told The Sunday Edition's Michael Enright. "In a curriculum that is getting more and more busy with more and more discoveries in medicine – and we all have to fight for time in the medical curriculum – pain is not a high priority."

Dr. Cervero, who will be speaking at an international symposium on pain at McGill University on Oct. 3, says more must be done to make the relief of pain, especially for chronic pain sufferers, a top priority in Canadian health care.

"It's not right for people to suffer unnecessarily," he said.

You can hear Michael Enright's full conversation with Dr. Fernando Cervero on CBC Radio's The Sunday Edition on Radio One this Sunday, just after the 9 a.m. news.

21.48 | 0 komentar | Read More

Fire on historic Lunenburg waterfront now out

Dozens of firefighters fought the blaze in Lunenburg. (Colleen Jones/CBC)

Fire investigators are expected to meet in Lunenburg, N.S., this morning to try to figure out what caused a major blaze on the historic waterfront of the town, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Smoke filled the community as flames shot out of Scotia Trawler Equipment Ltd. Firefighters from several communities raced to the scene to help out.

A call reporting the fire came in around 7:20 p.m. When they reached the three-storey building on Montague Street, emergency responders found it completely engulfed in flames.

Lunenburg Fire Services, assisted by numerous other fire departments from the area, worked all night to put out the blaze. There are no reported injuries.

CBC reporter Colleen Jones was at the scene. She said she could see flames shooting out of the roof of the building and that there was initially some concern there may be chemicals or flammable gas in the building.

She said emergency responders cut through the building's roof to gain access to the flames.

Residents said the wooden building was at least 100 years old.

Jones reported many onlookers worried the fire could spread to the waterfront's other historic buildings, many of which are also of wood construction.

She added the fire was nowhere near the iconic Bluenose II schooner, currently undergoing sea trials out of Lunenburg.

Just after 10:30 p.m., Jones reported that it seemed as though the fire was under control and contained to just the one building, but visible flames were still seen coming out of the roof.

21.48 | 0 komentar | Read More

Canada 'skeptical' of Iran despite historic talk with U.S.

It will take more than a long-distance phone call, even a historic one, to thaw diplomatic relations between Canada and Iran, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird indicated in an interview with CBC Radio's The House.

U.S. President Barack Obama's spoke by phone with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Friday, marking the first time leaders from the U.S. and Iran have spoken in over 30 years.

When asked about the phone call, Baird told host Evan Solomon he welcomed the change in tone but that Canada remained "skeptical."

Baird conceded that "good talk is better than bad talk" but quickly pointed out that, "we haven't seen any movement yet" despite Obama's show of optimism following Friday's rare phone call.

Obama said, following his meeting with Rouhani, that he believed the U.S. and Iran can reach a comprehensive solution over the latter's nuclear program.

"We think actions will speak louder than words," Baird said.

The minister outlined three areas where Canada would like to see "real movement" on the part of Iran, namely:

• Its nuclear program.
• Its support of terrorism.
• Its "atrocious" human rights record.

"We hope they can become compliant with the United Nations Security Council sanctions on its nuclear programs and take some real steps back from the brink."

Rouhani announced, ahead of his visit to the UN, the release of almost 80 political prisoners, including a Canadian,

When asked about the good-will gesture, Baird said "we appreciate the release of these political prisoners," but quickly added that they "should never have been in jail in the first place."

"We are not going to pop the champagne just yet," Baird said.

The minister also expressed worry over rewarding the new Iranian president prematurely.

"I am concerned that there is a little bit too much enthusiasm as a result of the different tone. And what we hope is, the world won't take the pressure off the regime to make the substantive changes that are needed."

"The stakes are so high, we have to stay focused on what actions they take," Baird said.

Baird also said Canada would like to see Iran allow women to run for the office in the next election. "In order for an election to be legitimate you can't disqualify 51 per cent of the population."

"I hope my skepticism is wrong," Baird concluded.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper expressed similar skepticism in Ottawa on Tuesday. "I certainly would not fault President Obama and our allies for trying," to improve relations with Tehran, said Harper. "But my sincere advice would be, when it comes to the government of Iran, that we should carefully monitor deeds far more than words."

Harper added that he has no plans to restore Canada's diplomatic presence in Tehran.

Last year, Canada suspended diplomatic relations with Iran and expelled 18 Iranian diplomats from its embassy in Ottawa, including the chargé d'affaires.

Baird will be in New York on Monday to represent Canada at the UN General Assembly, where he is scheduled to address all member states.

21.48 | 0 komentar | Read More

Greece far-right party leaders arrested

Police in Greece arrested the leaders of an extreme right-wing political party this morning on charges of forming a criminal organization.

The leader of Golden Dawn, Nikos Michaloliakos, was among the 16 people arrested, along with party spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris.

Supporters of the extreme far-right Golden Dawn party shout slogans during a protest in solidarity of the arrested legislators in front of police headquarters in Athens on Saturday. (Kostas Tsironis/Associated Press)

Police officials say an operation by the counterterrorism unit was still ongoing late on Saturday morning, with a total of about 35 arrest warrants for Golden Dawn members issued.
 
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not permitted to speak publicly.
 
It is the first time since 1974 that a party head and sitting members of parliament have been arrested.

Despite the arrests, the party's legislators retain their parliamentary seats unless they are convicted of a crime.  
 
Golden Dawn holds 18 of parliament's 300 seats, after winning nearly seven per cent of the vote in general elections last year.
 
The arrests came 11 days after the killing of a left-wing activist rapper by an alleged Golden Dawn member.  
 
Though the party has vehemently denied any role in the killing, it has appeared to dent its appeal among Greeks and the government has worked to crack down on the party.  
 
Golden Dawn expressed outrage at the arrests in a text message to journalists and called on supporters to head to police headquarters.
 
A formerly marginal organization with neo-Nazi roots, Golden Dawn entered the Greek parliament for the first time in May 2012, capitalizing on Greece's deep financial crisis, rising crime and anti-immigrant sentiment.
 
The party's members and supporters have frequently been suspected of carrying out violent attacks, mainly against immigrants. On Sept. 17, anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas was stabbed to death in Athens, allegedly by a Golden Dawn supporter. The incident sparked protests across the country.

Despite its reputation for violence, the party had enjoyed growing popularity.
 
A government spokesman refused to comment on the details of the operation.

21.48 | 0 komentar | Read More

Striking diplomats make pay gains in tentative deal

Canada's striking diplomats have moved closer to the pay equity they wanted, according to details of the tentative agreement provided to CBC News.

The agreement between the union representing foreign service officers and the Treasury Board effectively ends one of the longest strikes in the federal public service. Both sides announced the news on Thursday afternoon.

The agreement, which still needs to be ratified by union members before it can be put in place, moves the union members much closer to salaries equal to other civil servants who do similar work and who sometimes take the place of foreign service officers on postings abroad.

The deal is expected to cost $2.5 million, about 60 per cent of the $4.2 million sought by the union.

Tim Edwards, president of the Professional Association of Foreign Service Officers (PAFSO), posted the news on Twitter, saying that the two sides had reached a settlement, adding that all strike measures would cease immediately.

"Good news for free collective bargaining," Edwards said.

In a written news statement, Treasury Board president Tony Clement said he was pleased to announce the two sides had reached a deal.

Treasury Board President Tony Clement, right, posted this "seflie" photo on Instagram after he and PAFSO president Tim Edwards, left, "signed a deal that is good for taxpayers & FSOs." (Instagram)

"The settlement represents the efforts of both parties to reach an agreement that is aligned with what was accepted by other public- and private-sector employees," Clement said.

"This is the same balanced and consistent approach which has allowed the government to settle 26 of 27 collectively bargained agreements in the core public administration."

Salaries would increase

A Facebook message posted privately to union members and obtained by the CBC lays out the proposed agreement.

New pay steps have been added to two of the salary bands, or ranges, with another band having the lowest two steps deleted, so employees in that band start at a higher wage.

Pay steps are gradually increasing pay rates within a salary range.

The wage gap between the more junior FS-02 level of foreign service officers and the same level of commercial officers, who had been earning more, is eliminated, with two new pay steps added. Those workers will get 4.5 per cent increases per step up through the pay scales, rather than four per cent. 

The gap between the FS-02s and two competing groups, the commercial officers and economic officers, is small enough "to be considered 'at equivalent level,'" the union said to its members.

The wage gap between the more senior FS-04 level and the most junior level of public service executives is eliminated with the addition of one new pay step, the union told its members, putting the foreign service officers $875 higher at their maximum level.

The mid-range FS-03 level of foreign service officers are losing their two lowest pay steps in the range, bringing the new starting rate for the salary band to $86,604.

The high end of the FS-03 salary range will be almost $110,000 under the new agreement.

Union recommends deal

The F3-03 level is a particular irritant between the union and the government, because there hasn't been a competition to enter that level for several years, leaving many diplomats frozen at the lower FS-02 level as younger colleagues catch up to the same level.

All foreign service officers will get raises of 1.75 per cent, 1.5 per cent and two per cent over the next three years of the contract, in line with other public service settlements. The total 5.25 per cent includes a 0.75 per cent increase to compensate for the loss of severance pay available to public servants who resign or retire.

The contract expires June 30, 2014.

In an interview with CBC News, PAFSO member Chrystiane Roy said: "We are elated. We are very very happy that this is finally over."

Roy said that Treasury Board officials approached the union last week wanting to reach a deal.

She said Clement hosted them today and they signed the agreements together. Roy said PAFSO will recommend the deal to its members and hopes to have a ratification vote within 10 days.​

Labour board ruling spurs action

NDP Foreign Affairs critic Paul Dewar welcomed the news, adding that the dispute could have been avoided if the Conservatives had negotiated in good faith.

"Canada's international presence depends on the patriotic dedication of our talented foreign service officers. Our diplomats take on personal risk and hardship in being posted abroad — they deserve our respect and gratitude for their service to our country," Dewar said in a written statement.

The Public Service Labour Relations Board ruled two weeks ago that the federal government had been bargaining in bad faith in its negotiations with striking diplomats.

The government "violated its duty to bargain collectively in good faith and make every reasonable effort to enter into a collective agreement," concluded the board in its 27-page decision.

Roy said PAFSO believes that ruling helped spur the government to come back to the table.

The federal government signalled its intent to appeal the ruling with the Federal Court, as a way "to preserve all available options."

Foreign service officers were in a legal strike position since April 2.

The union representing the striking diplomats maintained there was a wage gap of up to $14,000 between diplomats and other government professionals.​

21.48 | 0 komentar | Read More

Is the anti-bullying message getting through?

Despite all the high profile media campaigns, government programs and school initiatives launched to address youth bullying, tragic stories continue to emerge about teenagers continuing to suffer.

This week, the mother of 15-year-old Saskatchewan teen Todd Loik, said her son —​ just like Rehtaeh Parsons, Amanda Todd, Jamie Hubley and Mitchell Wilson — killed himself after years of being tormented by his schoolmates.

It was yet another story where bullying looks to have played some role in the suicide of a young teen. But despite the attention governments and school boards are devoting  to developing an anti-bullying strategy, questions remain about how effective is the message, and is it reaching its target audience?

"I guess it's not effective enough if young people are being tormented," said Debra Pepler, a York University psychology professor who helped establish PREVNet — Promoting Relationships and Eliminating Violence Network. 

The issue, however, has certainly gotten its fair share of media attention.

Celebrities have taken part in multimedia anti-bullying campaigns, like the It Gets Better pledge that reached out to gay, lesbian, transgender and other bullied teens. And schools and provinces have also launched initiatives. 

Ontario passed the Accepting Schools Act last year, while B.C. announced its 10-point Expect Respect And a Safe Education (ERASE) bullying strategy. And this year,  Nova Scotia implemented its new Cyber-Safety Act, aimed at protecting victims and holding bullies responsible.

Meanwhile, in June, the prime minister's wife Laureen Harper joined then heritage minister James Moore and Ottawa city councillor Allan Hubley, whose son killed himself after being bullied, to announce $250,000 in funding for the training of 2,400 young people to deliver anti-bullying workshops in their communities and to reach out to others.

Shelley Hymel, a professor in the faculty of education at the University of British Columbia, noted that the issue has become a worldwide concern, and that in some countries progress has been made. Schools that have instituted anti-bullying policies have shown a 20 per cent reduction in the behaviour, she said.

However, she added, "I think the reductions we're talking about, although in the right direction, they're still pretty darn small. Twenty per cent, that means there's 80 per cent still going on. And there are a lot of schools who don't have this as a priority," she told CBC News. "So I think there's still a lot of work to do."

Hymel added that attitudes are evolving for the better on how to approach the problem. Schools and researchers are now taking a much broader view of the issue, and changing many long-held assumptions that include,  for example, that bullying is only carried on by socially incompetent kids.

Rehtaeh Parsons,17, died in April following a suicide attempt. Her family said she had been tormented at school for over a year by lewd comments and photos taken of her, and texted to her classmates. (Facebook)

"One of the big approaches that's happening, and this is kind of worldwide, is getting at peer observers," she said, adding that two or three kids witness every incident.

"We're trying to get kids to move from bystanders to 'upstanders.' Getting the kids involved,  you're trying to change the climate of the school, to where the culture basically says 'this is not OK.'"

Hymel said they've been collecting bullying-related data at B.C schools over the last four years. 

At one school, where the issue became a priority among staff, they initially saw no reductions in bullying.

"But now after four years we're seeing real significant reductions in kids' reports of bullying and victimization. So it takes a long time to change the culture of a school," she said.

Tracy Vaillancourt, Canada Research Chair in children's mental health and violence prevention at the University of Ottawa, cautioned that the media is creating a perception of a bullying crisis that really isn't there, and that research suggests bullying is no worse than it has ever been.

She also said it may still be too soon to measure the effectiveness of some of the recent anti-bullying strategies.

But some of the problems with current programs, she said, is this one-size-fits-all type of mentality. Every school will get the same anti-bullying program without taking into consideration the different demographics and culture of the facility.

"I think what happens is that we have these policy programs that worked in one school, and then we try to roll them out to other schools and they don't work."

There's also more to dealing with bullying than just addressing the problem at school, Pepler said.

"We've put it at the door of the school and said you solve it. And it's not a school problem. It's a problem at home, it's a problem at school, it's a problem with peer groups, it's a problem in the community, it's a problem everywhere we aggregate children and youth.

It's not a problem that schools can solve on their own."

Too often, people are looking for a simple fix or single program that fixes all, Hymel said.

"And the one thing we figured out in 40 years of research in this area is that there's no simple solution and there's no single reason why kids bully.

"There's lots of reason why kids bully and we have to treat each one differently."

21.48 | 0 komentar | Read More

Global warming 95% likely to be man-made, UN panel says

Scientists can now say with extreme confidence that human activity is the dominant cause of the global warming observed since the 1950s, a new report by an international scientific group said Friday.

Calling man-made warming "extremely likely," the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change used the strongest words yet on the issue as it adopted its assessment on the state of the climate system.

In its previous assessment, in 2007, the UN-sponsored panel said it was "very likely" that global warming was man-made.

One of the most controversial subjects in the report was how to deal with a purported slowdown in warming in the past 15 years. Climate skeptics say this "hiatus" casts doubt on the scientific consensus on climate change.

Many governments had objections over how the issue was treated in earlier drafts and some had called for it to be deleted altogether.

In the end, the IPCC made only a brief mention of the issue in the summary for policymakers, stressing that short-term records are sensitive to natural variability and don't in general reflect long-term trends.

"An old rule says that climate-relevant trends should not be calculated for periods less than around 30 years," said Thomas Stocker, co-chair of the group that wrote the report.

Improved observations

Many scientists say the purported slowdown reflects random climate fluctuations and an unusually hot year, 1998, picked as a starting point for charting temperatures. Another leading hypothesis is that heat is settling temporarily in the oceans, but that wasn't included in the summary.

Stocker said there wasn't enough literature on "this emerging question."

The IPCC said the evidence of climate change has grown thanks to more and better observations, a clearer understanding of the climate system and improved models to analyze the impact of rising temperatures.

'Our assessment of the science finds that the atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amount of snow and ice has diminished, the global mean sea level has risen and the concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased.'- Qin Dahe, IPCC co-chair

"Our assessment of the science finds that the atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amount of snow and ice has diminished, the global mean sea level has risen and the concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased," said Qin Dahe, co-chair of the working group that wrote the report.

The full 2,000-page report isn't going to be released until Monday, but the summary for policymakers with the key findings was published Friday. It contained few surprises as many of the findings had been leaked in advance.

As expected, the IPCC raised its projections of the rise in sea levels to 26-82 centimetres by the end of the century. The previous report predicted a rise of 18-59 centimetres.

But it also changed its estimate of how sensitive the climate is to an increase in CO2 concentrations, lowering the lower end of a range given in the previous report. In 2007, the IPCC said that a doubling of CO2 concentrations would likely result in 2-4.5 C degrees of warming. This time it restored the lower end of that range to what it was in previous reports, 1.5 C.

A map presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shows the rise in the Earth's surface temperature between 1901 and 2012. (IPCC)

The IPCC assessments are important because they form the scientific basis of U.N. negotiations on a new climate deal. Governments are supposed to finish that agreement in 2015, but it's unclear whether they will commit to the emissions cuts that scientists say will be necessary to keep the temperature below a limit at which the worst effects of climate change can be avoided.

Using four scenarios with different emissions controls, the report projected that global average temperatures would rise by 0.3 to 4.8 degrees C by the end of the century.

Only the lowest scenario, which was based on major cuts in CO2 emissions and is considered unlikely, came in below the 2-degree C limit that countries have set as their target in the climate talks to avoid the worst impacts of warming.

"This is yet another wakeup call: Those who deny the science or choose excuses over action are playing with fire," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement. "Once again, the science grows clearer, the case grows more compelling, and the costs of inaction grow beyond anything that anyone with conscience or common sense should be willing to even contemplate."

Government action

At this point, emissions keep rising mainly due to rapid growth in China and other emerging economies. They say rich countries should take the lead on emissions cuts because they've pumped carbon into the atmosphere for longer.

Climate activists said the report should spur governments to action.

"There are few surprises in this report but the increase in the confidence around many observations just validates what we are seeing happening around us," said Samantha Smith, of the World Wildlife Fund.

The report adopted Friday deals with the physical science of climate change. Next year, the IPCC will adopt reports on the impacts of global warming, strategies to fight it and a synthesis of all three reports.

21.48 | 0 komentar | Read More

BlackBerry loses $965M in 2nd quarter

Smartphone maker BlackBerry lost $965 million US in its second quarter on its continuing operations and had revenues of $1.6 billion US, both in line with its earlier warnings to investors.

Revenues were down 45 per cent from the same period last year, the Waterloo, Ont.-based company said Friday.

BlackBerry said it booked sales of 3.7 million smartphones in the quarter, a drop of 74 per cent from the 14.5 million it sold in its best quarter ever, almost three years ago. 

BlackBerry's new raft of handsets released earlier this year, including the Q10, above, did not sell as well as the financially troubled company had hoped they would. On Friday, the company reported a large loss for its most recent quarter. (Geoff Robins/Canadian Press)

"We are very disappointed with our operational and financial results this quarter and have announced a series of major changes to address the competitive hardware environment and our cost structure," chief executive Thorsten Heins said.

BlackBerry had already telegraphed that its second-quarter results would include a loss of between $950 million to $995 million on $1.6 billion in sales, far short of analysts' expectations of about $3 billion.

The results include a pre-tax inventory charge of $934 million and restructuring charges of about $72 million, the company said.

BlackBerry said in a statement earlier this week that it decided to cancel its usual post-earnings conference call "in light of the letter of intent agreement between BlackBerry and FairfaxFinancial Holdings Ltd."

On Monday, Fairfax proposed a tentative agreement to take the company private with a consortium of unnamed financiers for $9 per share.

The letter of intent values BlackBerry at $4.7 billion but allows Fairfax to walk away from the offer if it is dissatisfied with a number of conditions.

BlackBerry's stock was up slightly in morning trading Friday, rising about 1.5 per cent to $8.07 US on the Nasdaq and to $8.31 Cdn on the Toronto Stock Exchange..

21.48 | 0 komentar | Read More

Drug-sniffing dog searches OK on 'reasonable' grounds

The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that police can deploy drug-detecting sniffer dogs for warrant-less searches against suspects, but only with "reasonable suspicion based on objective, ascertainable facts" of criminality.

Legal experts had been monitoring two decisions today regarding the use of drug-sniffing dogs, believing it would clarify what constitutes "reasonable suspicion" for when the animals can be called forth. The outcomes would decide whether police in both cases had breached the two men's charter rights to be free from unreasonable search and seizure.

In a ruling today, the Supreme Court stated: "The deployment of a dog trained to detect illegal drugs using its sense of smell is a search that may be carried out without prior judicial authorization where the police have a reasonable suspicion based on objective, ascertainable facts that evidence of an offence will be discovered."

In 2006, Saskatchewan man Benjamin MacKenzie was found with 14 kilograms of marijuana in his car trunk. A year earlier, Nova Scotian Mandeep Chehil was searched by dogs and was found to have three kilograms of cocaine in his suitcase.

Lower courts acquitted both men, reasoning that police did not have reasonable suspicion when the law enforcement officials set their dogs upon MacKenzie and Chehil for a sniff search. However, their acquittals were later overturned by appellate courts.

The Supreme Court decided today to dismiss both men's latest appeals.

21.48 | 0 komentar | Read More

Why Stephen Harper has no time for the UN: Chris Hall

You could see just that hint of the smile Stephen Harper reserves for questions he doesn't agree with, as he waited out one such query during a media session this week with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Why, the reporter wondered, would Harper not attend the opening of the UN General Assembly as other Canadian prime ministers have done?

The smile disappeared as Harper dispatched the question. What he said can be summed up something like this: other prime ministers didn't attend regularly, and he has better things to do while in New York this week to promote Canada's economic agenda and his own foreign policy priorities.

What are those things?

On Wednesday, the prime minister attended a panel discussion on the UN's maternal and child health initiative, which he co-chairs. It's now a $20-billion fund, and, more importantly for the prime minister, it's had a demonstrable impact on reducing the death rate among mothers, newborns and children in the developing world.

He plans to follow that up on Thursday by chatting with a well-heeled gathering of the Canadian American Business Council. That has become a regular gig for this prime minister, taking questions about his government's economic record, pushing his own prescription of how the world must continue to eschew protectionism and tax increases.

He leaves debating the wisdom of not attending the UN's annual opening to others who, it just so happens, are more than happy to oblige.

Canada's waning influence?

In fact, questioning Harper's views of the UN is becoming as much a regular event as the prime minister's streak of missing its annual opening session, even though he's been in New York at the same time for the last two years.

Academics, retired diplomats and the opposition parties insist he's making a huge mistake by, at best, ignoring the UN, or at worst, denigrating its role and importance in a world increasingly fractured by civil war, terrorism and inequality.

Carolyn McAskie is part of a group of very accomplished foreign policy experts who released a booklet this week entitled "The United Nations and Canada: What Canada has done and should be doing at the United Nations.''

A former assistant secretary-general for peacekeeping at the UN from 2006-2008 and career diplomat, McAskie insists the Harper government misrepresents what the UN does.

"If there are problems, and there are always problems, then we as a member state have a responsibility to fix it, '' she said at a news conference.

"We walk out of meetings because North Korea is in the chair. The reason you go to these meetings is so that you can engage all 193 states.

"You go, you play the game. If you're not at the table, you don't have a voice.''

Others who contributed to the booklet accused Harper of pouting ever since Canada failed to win one of the rotating seats on the Security Council in 2010; of contributing just 56 of the 83,000 UN peacekeepers deployed around the world; and of being a laggard in paying Canada's fees to UN agencies.

This country, they say, is losing influence where it counts the most.

''Canada couldn't get elected dogcatcher at the United Nations today,'' said Ian Smillie, an academic, author and former aid worker, and another contributor to the booklet.

Not exactly a boycott

It all adds up to some pretty damning stuff. Except for one thing.

Harper is unmoved, and generally uninterested in what the critics have to say about his approach to the UN.

A busy week of diplomacy for Canada's prime minster. On Tuesday, he entertained Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Ottawa. (Sean Kilpatrick / Canadian Press)

​

John Baird, once again, will represent Canada before the General Assembly, where he is scheduled to speak first thing Monday morning.

It's not an ideal slot, coming several days into the session. And nearly a week after U.S. President Barack Obama served his own notice — that the UN's credibility is at stake if it refuses to hold Syria accountable for using chemical weapons.

"If we cannot agree even on this," the president said in his speech, "then it will show the United Nations is incapable of enforcing the most basic of international laws."

Harper maintains a similarly dim view of the UN's effectiveness. The only real difference is that he doesn't bother to lecture the world from inside the assembly hall.

For the record, the prime minister has gone twice. His maternal health initiative is partnered with the UN's World Health Organization. On Wednesday, Baird acted as co-host for a new UN program to end the practice of child and forced marriages.

Plus, Harper will still rub shoulders with like-minded world leaders in New York.

But when it comes right down to it, Harper clearly prefers Bill and Melinda Gates (whose foundation is a key contributor to Harper's initiative to improve the health of women and children in the developing world) and North America's business elites to the leaders of countries that don't share his democratic values.

In other words, his disinterest in speaking to the General Assembly is deliberate.

Conservatives are irritated by the UN's bloated bureaucracy, its perceived bias against Israel and willingness, for example, to allow states such as North Korea, Cuba and Iran membership on the UN Human Rights Council.

Harper believes other multilateral agencies accomplish far more, and provide Canada with a much greater influence over world affairs.

He sees the G8 group of leading Western industrialized nations plus Russia as the right forum for dealing with issues of global security and peace. (His maternal and child health initiative came out of the 2010 G8 summit in Huntsville, where the prime minister committed $1.1 billion to the cause.)

He considers the G20, which includes the emerging economic powers such as India, Brazil, China and South Africa, as the world's pre-eminent economic forum, and looks at Canada's participation in other multilateral gatherings, specifically the Francophonie and Commonwealth, as historic alliances to be tolerated if not respected.

So don't expect Harper to change his approach to the United Nations.

It's simply not on his list of places where things get done. 

21.48 | 0 komentar | Read More

Revenue Canada corruption feared over $400K cheque to Mafia

The Canada Revenue Agency issued a rebate cheque for nearly $400,000 to a top Quebec Mafia figure even though he owed the tax department $1.5 million at the time, heightening concerns of possible infiltration of the agency by organized crime.

Details about the payment to former Sicilian mob boss Nicolo Rizzuto were unearthed during a three-year investigation by journalists at Radio-Canada, CBC's French-language sister network, into allegations of corruption at the tax agency's Montreal office, which the RCMP have been probing since 2008.

The $381,737.46 cheque was made out to "Nick Rizzuto" and addressed to his house on Antoine Berthelet Avenue in north-end Montreal, a street known as "Mafia row" because it was home to several major players in the city's Sicilian mob.

The cheque is labelled "income tax refund" and is dated Sept. 13, 2007. Rizzuto was in jail then, having been arrested the year prior and charged with extortion, bookmaking and drug smuggling as part of the biggest police crackdown on the Italian Mafia in Canadian history.

Court records show that at the time, he also owed the tax department $1.55 million, which the Canada Revenue Agency tried to collect by getting a tax lien on his home.

Surveillance footage from a massive police anti-mafia operation in the early 2000s shows mob boss Nicolo Rizzuto stuffing cash he received from a construction entrepreneur into his socks. (Charbonneau Commission)

The veteran CRA auditor who first discovered the anomaly said he can't understand how a big rebate cheque to someone who had such a huge tax bill — and who was a known Mafia figure — could have gotten past internal controls without inside help.

"That name there was all over the headlines after the arrests. I mean, look, we're not talking about Joe Blow here," Jean-Pierre Paquette, who retired from the revenue agency in 2009, told the Radio-Canada investigative program Enquête.

"There are checks in place. There are approvals that are required during the whole process," he added. "It's left me rather perplexed about the validity of that kind of rebate or that kind of move by the agency."

Got a news tip?

If you have more information on this topic, or other news tips you'd like CBC to investigate, please e-mail us.

Paquette, who spent 35 years with the CRA's anti-organized-crime unit, said after he learned about the cheque, he went to Rizzuto's home to persuade the family to return it. Rizzuto's daughter handed it back to him in the kitchen.

Noël Carisse, assistant director of media relations at CRA, said:  "It would be highly irresponsible to suggest that there was anything inappropriate, illicit or nefarious in CRA's dealings with this specific taxpayer. Any suggestion that CRA did not devote the proper resources or attention to this situation is unequivocally false."

Rizzuto, whose son is former Montreal Mafia godfather Vito Rizzuto, pleaded guilty to gangsterism charges in 2008 and was sentenced to time served. Two years later, he was charged with tax evasion for failing to declare income on $5.2 million in Swiss accounts and again pleaded guilty, paying $209,000 in fines.

He was shot dead at his home by a sniper in November 2010 at the age of 86.

Corruption alleged inside CRA

The cheque to Rizzuto is the latest in a series of troubling revelations about the Canada Revenue Agency's Montreal tax office, which the RCMP began investigating for possible corruption in 2008 at the agency's own request.

Evidence has emerged that some revenue agency officials in Montreal might have received tens of thousands of dollars in cash and other benefits, including a trip to a Montreal Canadiens game, from people and businesses they were auditing.

Watch

CBC News will broadcast more details today from the Enquête investigation into allegations of corruption within the Canada Revenue Agency.

There are also allegations some CRA agents tried to extort restaurateurs whose taxes they were assessing.

One of the businessmen alleged to have bribed auditors, Francesco Bruno, is a construction executive with ties to the Rizzutos.

So far, the CRA has fired nine employees. Six of them have been charged by the RCMP with crimes ranging from breach of trust to tax fraud to extortion.

The RCMP says the total amount of taxes avoided through the corrupt schemes could total in the tens of millions of dollars.

A mysterious $381,737 tax-rebate cheque issued by the Canada Revenue Agency to Quebec crime boss Nicolo Rizzuto is stoking concerns about possible corruption at the agency. (CBC)

21.48 | 0 komentar | Read More

Canadian population surpasses 35 million

Canada's population has surpassed 35 million over the past year, a 1.2 per cent increase with growth generally higher in the western provinces, according to Statistics Canada.

The information is contained in the agency's population estimates released Thursday morning.

Canada's population is estimated at 35,158,300, an increase of 404,000 over the last year.

The 1.2 per cent increase is the same as the previous year's and similar to the annual growth in the country over the last three decades. 

"Except for the period between 1986 and 1990 [when it was higher], the population growth rate has shown little variation in 30 years, ranging from 0.8 per cent to 1.2 per cent," the report said.

Growth in the last year exceeded the national level in Alberta (up 3.4 per cent), Nunavut (2.5 per cent) and Saskatchewan (1.9 per cent).

Statistics Canada said the growth in Alberta was due to record levels of international migration and people arriving from other provinces. 

Meanwhile, population growth in the last year was lower in the Atlantic provinces, with Nova Scotia's population declining by half a per cent.

In the Atlantic provinces, the lower growth was due to a combination of out-migration and a low ratio of births to deaths, the agency said. 

Estimated pop. growth, 2012 to 2013

	% change
Newfoundland and Labrador	0.0
Prince Edward Island	0.0
Nova Scotia	–0.5
New Brunswick	–0.1
Quebec	0.9
Ontario	0.9
Manitoba	1.2
Saskatchewan	1.9
Alberta	3.4
British Colombia	0.8
Yukon	1.2
Northwest Territories	–0.2
Nunavut	2.5

21.48 | 0 komentar | Read More

Heather Conway plans to take CBC 'to the next level'

Heather Conway has been formally appointed as the CBC's next executive vice-president of English-language services, a position that puts her in charge of media products in what she calls "the most important cultural institution in the country."

'You have to engage people. You have to be meaningful, and that's our challenge.'- Heather Conway, CBC's new executive vice-president of English-language

"I have butterflies; I think they're good butterflies," Conway told CBC's Suhana Meharchand. "I'm very, very excited to be here. I'm just thrilled.

"I think the CBC is the most important cultural institution in the country."

Conway said Canadians come to the CBC for a national perspective on world and local events, and that she wakes up regularly listening to CBC Radio's Metro Morning.

"It's the place where Canadians come to tell Canadian stories. It's where the Canadian point of view around the news and how we look at the world all happens," she said.

Conway joins the public broadcaster's senior executive team after a tenure at the Art Gallery of Ontario, where she was chief business officer overseeing human resources, digital services, marketing, and corporate and public affairs, among other operations.

As head of CBC/Radio-Canada's English-language services, she will be in charge of television, radio and online properties, including:

• CBC Radio One.
• CBC Radio 2.
• CBC Television.
• CBC News Network.
• CBC.ca.
• Documentary and digital operations.

Amid budget cuts at the public broadcaster, Conway said ensuring the content comes first will be particularly important for managing on-air and digital products.

"When you're in a public-sector organization and in particular a cultural one, employees and management alike are mission-driven, right? You're not here for the money; you're here because you care about public broadcasting and you believe in it, and I believe in that," she said.

On audience engagement, Conway said viewers, listeners and readers are attracted to content that's meaningful to them.

"You have to engage people. You have to be meaningful, and that's our challenge," she said. "And I actually think the CBC does a pretty good job of that. And you've got to keep doing that and take it to a new level."

Under Conway's tenure at the art gallery, it achieved its highest membership levels and saw attendance rise by 20 per cent.

Conway has also held top executive and consulting positions in the private sector, working with TD Bank Financial Group, Hill & Knowlton and The Neville Group.

She spent six years as executive vice-president at Alliance Atlantis, responsible for strategic marketing, publicity and on-air creative plans for 13 Canadian cable specialty channels.

Conway is currently a member of the boards of directors of IGM Financial and American Express Canada. In 2001, she was named as one of Canada's Top 40 Under 40.

In a memo explaining why Conway got the job, CBC's president and CEO Hubert Lacroix said he was looking for a leader with a particular set of attributes.

"A person with a business focus to decision-making, and a reputation of nurturing and developing teams," he wrote. "A person who is as comfortable in a corporate boardroom as she is on the newsroom floor. And a person who has delivered results in a wide variety of circumstances."

Conway, who joins the CBC in December, replaces Kirstine Stewart, who left in April to become the head of Twitter Canada.

21.48 | 0 komentar | Read More

Iran's president wants worldwide nuclear weapon ban

Iran's new president is calling on Israel to join an international treaty banning the spread of nuclear weapons.

Thursday's comments by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani came hours before a meeting that will mark the highest-level direct contact in six years between the United States and Iran over Tehran's disputed nuclear activities.

Israel is the only Mideast nation that has not signed the landmark 1979 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and Rouhani says that has prevented the region from establishing a nuclear-free zone.

He said no nation should possess nuclear weapons.

Iran was the first nation to speak at a United Nations meeting on nuclear disarmament on the sidelines of the General Assembly.

21.48 | 0 komentar | Read More

Steven Fletcher, Conservative MP, backs assisted suicide

Manitoba Conservative Member of Parliament Steven Fletcher spoke out Tuesday in support of assisted suicide, a position not backed by the federal government. 

Speaking on Power and Politics with Evan Solomon, Fletcher, who is a quadriplegic, said: "At the end of the day, I want to be in power to make the best decisions for myself. I'm a disabled Canadian, I don't want someone telling me what I can or cannot do. Actually, it doesn't even matter if I'm disabled. If was an able-bodied Canadian, I wouldn't want people to tell me what I can or cannot do."

"Life can be very tough. And when you can't breathe, can't speak and you can't move, fully conscious — I've gone through that, for months. I knew I was going to get better, but if it was going to go the other way — yeah, I would ask for that," he said, referring to assisted suicide.

The debate on assisted suicide resurfaced following the release of an impassioned YouTube video of Dr. Donald Low, the microbiologist credited with guiding Toronto through the 2003 SARS crisis, shot eight days before died of a brain tumour. In the video, Low makes a final plea for Canada to change the law to allow assisted suicide.

"I know I'm going to die, what worries me is how I'm going to die," the 68-year-old Low says in the video.

It is currently illegal in Canada to aid or counsel suicide. Assisting suicide is an offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

Paloma Aguilar, a spokesperson for Minister of Justice Peter MacKay, said Tuesday that the government has no intention of re-opening the debate on assisted suicide.

Hugh Scher, a lawyer with Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, said there have been numerous bills on the issue introduced into Parliament, with the most-recent one defeated handily. 

Scher said there are serious concerns about protecting seniors, vulnerable people and people with disabilities. 

"Those override, if you will, the significance about implementing a measure that would really be applicable to a select few," he said.

21.48 | 0 komentar | Read More

Kenya mall attack death toll expected to rise

The death toll in the militant attack and a four-day siege at a shopping mall in Nairobi is expected to rise above 72, as Kenya marks the first of three days of national mourning.

The attack that started Saturday on Westgate Mall by Somali militant group al-Shabaab killed at least 61 civilians, six security officers and five extremists, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has said. Another 175 people were injured, including more than 60 who remain hospitalized.

"Several witnesses who have come out in the last few days have talked about seeing a number of bodies," CBC correspondent Nahlah Ayed said from just outside the mall.

"In addition, for the past few days we've heard from loved ones who are outside of here who have come every day looking for their loved ones and saying that they have still been unaccounted for. The Red Cross says there is at least somewhere between 50 and 60 people still unaccounted for, so it's expected the body count will rise."

Government spokesman Manoah Esipisu said floors of the mall collapsed after a fire started by the al-Shabaab attackers caused structural weakness in a third-floor parking lot, which then came down onto the second floor and brought it down onto the first, or ground floor. He said there were known to be eight civilians in the rubble, which were included in the government's official death estimate. There could be several attackers also buried, he said.

At the mall Wednesday morning, gunshots could be heard. Esipisu said they were from Kenyan forces going room to room in the large Westgate Mall, firing protectively before entering unknown territory.

"During sanitization, once you take control of the place, if you go to a room where you haven't visited before, you shoot first to make sure you aren't walking into an ambush," he said. "But there hasn't been any gunfire from the terrorists for more than 36 hours."

Ayed said now that the fighting is over, it will be possible for investigators to get a better idea of how the attack was staged.

"This was something that has been in the planning for weeks and months, according to American officials, who also believe that there were foreign militants among the group," Ayed told CBC News Network. The U.S. believes the attackers had detailed maps, and perhaps a mole inside the mall that helped spirit in weapons.

The Kenyan government said forensic experts from countries including Canada, the United States, Britain and Israel would be assisting them in their investigation.

"The mall is sealed off. It is a crime scene," Esipisu said.

The process of retrieving bodies from inside the mall still had not begun Wednesday morning — possibly indicating that the situation was not yet considered secure — though a city morgue official said his workers were preparing to go into the building soon.

Al-Shabaab alleges chemical attack

Al-Shabaab claimed Wednesday that the Kenyan government assault team carried out "a demolition" of the building, burying 137 hostages in rubble, a claim Kenya quickly denied.

In a series of tweets from a Twitter account believed to be genuine, al-Shabaab also said that "having failed to defeat the mujahideen inside the mall, the Kenyan govt disseminated chemical gases to end the siege." It did not specify which gases, which could theoretically include anything from tear gas to poison.

The Westgate mall attack in Nairobi, Kenya explained in five steps. Kenya's national police service said on Monday, Sept. 23 that officers had regained control of the mall where al-Qaeda-linked militants launched a savage attack Saturday, killing a reported 62 people, including two Canadians.

Esipisu told The Associated Press that no chemical weapons were used, that the collapse of floors in the mall was caused by a fire set by the attackers and that the official civilian death toll remains 61.

"Al-Shabaab is known for wild allegations and there is absolutely no truth to what they're saying," he said.

In another development, a British man was arrested in Kenya following the attack, Britain's Foreign Office said.

The agency said in a statement Wednesday that British officials are ready to provide assistance to the man. Officials would not provide his name or details. He is believed to be in his 30s. Britain's Daily Mail newspaper said he was arrested Monday as he tried to board a flight from Nairobi to Turkey with a bruised face and while acting suspiciously. 

Fears persisted that some of the attackers could still be alive and loose inside the rubble of the mall, a vast complex that had shops for retailers like Bose, Nike and Adidas, as well as banks, restaurants and a casino.

A high-ranking security official involved in the investigations said it would take time to search the whole mall before declaring that the threat had been crushed. That official insisted on anonymity in order to discuss information not publicly disclosed.

Eleven other suspects have been taken into custody, and Esipisu said: "At this at this point the interrogations are ongoing and I can't reveal any of the details."

Al-Shabaab says attack was revenge

Al-Shabaab, whose name means "The Youth" in Arabic, first began threatening Kenya with a major attack in late 2011, after Kenya sent troops into Somalia following a spate of kidnappings of Westerners inside Kenya.

The al-Shabaab extremists stormed the mall on Saturday, throwing grenades and firing on civilians.

Catholic Sisters gather near Westgate Mall to pray for the victims. (Nahlah Ayed/CBC)

"You could have avoided all this and lived your lives with relative safety," the group tweeted Tuesday. "Remove your forces from our country and peace will come."The group used Twitter to say that Somalis have been suffering at the hands of Kenyan military operations in Kenya, and the mall attack was revenge.

The militants specifically targeted non-Muslims, and at least 18 foreigners were among the dead, including two Canadians, as well as citizens from France, the U.K., the Netherlands, Australia, Peru, India, Ghana, South Africa and China. Five Americans were among the wounded.

The mall attack was the deadliest attack in Kenya since the 1998 al-Qaeda truck bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, which killed more than 200 people.

Security officials in Nairobi always knew that Westgate, which was popular with foreign residents of the capital as well as tourists and wealthy Kenyans, was a likely target for attacks.

21.48 | 0 komentar | Read More