Powerful storms in Western U.S. leave 8 dead

A powerful storm system that has caused hundreds of accidents across the Western U.S. has marched eastward with predictions of widespread snow, freezing temperatures and gusty winds.

The fierce weather has caused at least eight deaths and prompted advisories Saturday afternoon in New Mexico and Texas.

Sweeping across the South

As thick, grey clouds covered the Southwest, forecasters said the storm would sweep across the South and toward the Atlantic coast next week, causing problems for holiday travellers.

Joe Harris, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said the "Nordic outbreak" will "produce a mixed bag of wily weather that will end up impacting much of the nation."

In New Mexico, authorities and residents braced for the second hit of a one-two punch that had already blanketed parts of the state with snow and freezing rain and caused a rollover accident that killed a 4-year-old girl in the eastern part of the state.

Dozen vehicle pile-up

Three other storm-related deaths were reported Saturday in a crash in the Texas Panhandle involving nearly a dozen vehicles.

In California, where the storm system hit first, prompting flooding and water rescues in recent days, three deaths have been linked to the storms since Thursday, as authorities found one body near downed power lines, one man crashed his vehicle into a tree and a woman was killed when a tree fell on a parked car.

In Arizona, firefighters recovered the body of a man who was swept away by high waters Friday in the Santa Cruz River in the southern part of the state.

Events cancelled, roads closed

The storm already has affected much of the Western U.S., causing hundreds of rollover accidents and prompting officials to cancel events and close roads.

In Nevada, snow in high elevations in the rural, eastern part of the state stranded dozens of cars. No fatalities were reported and authorities got the road open again by Saturday.

In Arizona, rain came down Saturday as more than 8,000 cyclists competed in the annual El Tour de Tucson. Also, high school football games, soccer tournaments and parades were cancelled across the state.

Forecasters said parts of both California and Arizona could expect severe weather with winter storm warnings through Saturday.

Country western singer Willie Nelson's tour bus among many of the accidents caused by the storms. (Gerald Herbert/Associated Press)

Weather officials said the mountains and the Antelope Valley foothills northeast of Los Angeles were under the most risk. However, they said there was only a small chance of rainstorms like those that prompted flooding in California on Thursday.

In New Mexico, it was unclear where the heaviest bands of snow would develop, meteorologist Jennifer Palucki said.

Several traffic accidents were reported Saturday, including the fatal crash late Friday that left several injured hurt in Vega, Texas and one that injured three members of singer Willie Nelson's band when their bus struck a pillar on Interstate 30 near Sulphur Springs, northeast of Dallas.

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Iran agrees to freeze nuclear program in historic deal

Iran committed to halt the expansion of its uranium enrichment program and not to press ahead with its Arak reactor or related plutonium program, the United States said on Sunday describing a nuclear agreement between Tehran and six major world powers.

The breakthrough deal to curb Tehran's nuclear program in exchange for limited sanctions relief was reached Sunday in what could be the first sign of an emerging rapprochement between the Islamic state and the West.

Aimed at ending a dangerous standoff, the agreement between Iran and the United States, France, Germany, Britain, China and Russia was nailed down after more than four days of negotiations in the Swiss city of Geneva.

The accord was designed as a package of confidence-building steps to ease decades of tensions and confrontation and banish the spectre of a Middle East war over Tehran's nuclear aspirations.

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who has been coordinating talks with Iran on behalf of the major powers, said it created time and space for talks aimed at reaching a comprehensive solution to the dispute.

"This is only a first step," Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told a news conference. "We need to start moving in the direction of restoring confidence, a direction in which we have managed to move against in the past."

In Washington, President Barack Obama said the deal was an important first step towards a comprehensive solution to Iran's nuclear program.

"There are substantial limitations which will help prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon," Obama argued in a late-night appearance at the White House after the deal was sealed in Geneva. "Simply put, they cut off Iran's most likely paths to a bomb."

Obama said that if Iran did not meet its commitments during a six-month period, the United States would turn off sanctions relief and "ratchet up the pressure."

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the agreement would make it harder for Iran to make a dash to build a nuclear weapon and would make Israel and other U.S. allies safer, adding that while Obama would not take off the table the possible use of force against Iran, he believed it was necessary first to exhaust diplomacy.

$4.2B in foreign exchange

The West fears Iran has been seeking to develop a nuclear weapons capability. The Islamic Republic denies that, saying its nuclear program is a peaceful energy project.

President Barack Obama speaks in Washington about the nuclear deal between six world powers and Iran that calls on Tehran to limit its nuclear activities in return for sanctions relief. (Susan Walsh/Associated Press)

A senior U.S. official said the agreement would neutralize Iran's stockpile of uranium refined to a fissile concentration of 20 per cent, which is a close step away from the level needed for weapons, and calls for intrusive U.N. nuclear inspections, the official said.

Iran has also committed to stop uranium enrichment above a fissile purity of five percent, a U.S. fact sheet said.

Refined uranium can be used to fuel nuclear power plants — Iran's stated goal — but also provide the fissile core of an atomic bomb if refined much further.

The deal has no recognition of an Iranian right to enrich uranium and sanctions would still be enforced, the U.S. official added.

Iran will get access to $4.2 billion in foreign exchange as part of the accord, and is also expected to receive limited sanctions relief on gold, petrochemicals and autos, a Western diplomat said.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said in a Twitter message that it was an "important and encouraging" first-stage agreement with Iran, whose nuclear program "won't move forward for 6 months and parts rolled back."

Israel critical

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said the deal only confirmed Iran's right to civil nuclear power.

Iran has agreed not to press ahead with building a large reactor at Arak, southwest of Tehran, that would yield enough plutonium to build several bombs a year. (Hamid Foroutan/ISNA/Associated Press)

"After years of blockages, the agreement in Geneva on Iran's nuclear program is an important step to preserving security and peace," Fabius said in a statement.

Kerry and foreign ministers of the five other world powers joined the negotiations with Iran early on Saturday as the two sides appeared to be edging closer to a long-sought preliminary agreement.

The Western powers' goal was cap Iran's nuclear energy program, which has a history of evading U.N. inspections and investigations, to remove any risk of Tehran covertly refining uranium to a level suitable for bombs.

Tehran, whose oil-dependent economy has been severely damaged by tightening Western sanctions over the past few years, denies it would ever "weaponize" enrichment.

Diplomacy was stepped up after the landslide election of Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate, as Iranian president in June, replacing bellicose nationalist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Rouhani aims to mend fences with big powers and get sanctions lifted. He obtained crucial public backing from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, keeping powerful hardline critics at bay.

On a Twitter account widely recognized as representing Rouhani, a message said after the agreement was announced, "Iranian people's vote for moderation & constructive engagement + tireless efforts by negotiating teams are to open new horizons."

The OPEC producer rejects suspicions it is trying covertly to develop the means to produce nuclear weapons, saying it is stockpiling nuclear material for future atomic power plants.

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has loudly criticized the deal, saying the international community is giving up too much to Iran.

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How the RCMP mapped the Wright-Duffy money trail

A deal between suspended Senator Mike Duffy, left, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper's former chief of staff, Nigel Wright, right, is being investigated by the RCMP. (Adrian Wyld and Sean Fitzpatrick/Canadian Press)

RCMP investigators have already pieced together an almost-complete picture of how $90,000 from the prime minister's former chief of staff ended up in Senator Mike Duffy's bank account. But they want more information to finish the narrative.

The money from Nigel Wright's personal resources was used to repay inappropriate housing and living expenses filed by Duffy over a four-year period.

The origin, purpose, deliverance and acceptance of that $90,000 could result in charges against Duffy and Wright. Court documents released this week show both men are being investigated by the Mounties for bribery, fraud and breach of trust. No charges have been laid and the allegations have not been proven in court.

In an affidavit filed in an Ottawa court Wednesday, RCMP Cpl. Greg Horton laid out how the money travelled from Wright to Duffy.

Although Duffy owned his Ottawa suburban home before he was appointed to the Senate, he declared that his P.E.I. winterized cottage was his primary residence, allowing him to charge secondary expenses for his house in the nation's capital.

The money route

Once it was established that Duffy had to repay his expenses, he took out a $91,600 mortgage loan from the Royal Bank. In his affidavit, Horton says, "I believe this loan was an effort by Senator Duffy to create a paper trail so he could show that he obtained the loan to repay the money, if ever asked."

Duffy would later tell reporters he voluntarily paid back the inappropriate expenses on his own, although he didn't believe he had done anything wrong. "It was the right thing to do," he said, explaining he'd taken out a bank loan to make the repayment

On the same day Duffy obtained the mortgage loan, he took $80,000 from his private account and put it into a line of credit he said was being used for renovating his cottage.

According to Horton, "He now had $91,600 from a mortgage loan, so having no need for it for the repayment, he put $80,000 of that money on his line of credit."

The officer believes Duffy knew a bank draft from Wright was on its way.

Three days later, on March 25, Wright arranged for a bank draft worth $90,172.24 to be delivered to the office of Janice Payne, Duffy's lawyer. The figure was the exact amount Senate administration staff calculated Duffy owed in inappropriately claimed expenses.

On March 26, a branch-to-branch transfer put $90,172.24 into Duffy's private RBC account.

On that same day, a personal cheque from Duffy for $90,172.24 made out to the Receiver General was delivered to the Senate.

Horton says in the affidavit that he believes this was Nigel Wright's money. One purpose of the 81-page affidavit is to persuade a judge to allow him access to bank records showing who transferred the money into Duffy's account, and from where.

That information would complete the picture of a complex routing of money designed to hide the source of the funds, and a plan to make it seem Duffy had used his own resources to repay his expenses.

Why Duffy's Senate debt jumped from $32K to $90K

A question that rises out of the RCMP documents is how the amount of money Duffy owed the Senate for inappropriate expenses escalated from $32,000, a figure Wright, in early February, initially thought was the correct amount — which the Conservative Party was apparently willing to pay — to $90,000.

The party balked at the higher figure, which Wright wound up covering since Duffy either couldn't, or wouldn't.

The smaller figure may have come from a Deloitte audit on Duffy's expenses, conducted in February, that concluded the P.E.I. senator charged about $34,000 in living expenses for the 18-month period the independent accounting firm was tasked to examine.

The audit shows Duffy collected a private accommodation allowance for his house in Kanata, an Ottawa suburb, because presumably he didn't have a mortgage.

The private accommodation allowance is $28 per day, amounting to about $10,000 a year. Had Duffy been able to show Senate administration he had a mortgage or a lease, he could have charged double that amount

But the the allowance for per diems or meals is much higher — $86 for every day an out-of-town senator is in Ottawa on Senate business.

Wright, an independently wealthy man who never personally charged expenses, didn't seem aware Duffy was charging per diems. When he found out, he told the RCMP, he was incensed that Duffy was getting paid for meals he ate in his own house in Ottawa.

Once the Senate looked back at the entire four years of Duffy's Senate tenure, his ineligible private accommodation costs and per diems jumped to $80,000 with another $10,000 for interest, as well as the payback of claims Duffy said he mistakenly made while on vacation in Florida.

Wright ended up reimbursing the entire amount out of his own pocket, saying in an email obtained by the RCMP, "I am beyond furious ... the money will be repaid."

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Lonely seniors forge friendships through 'little brothers' campaign

Meals on Wheels can deliver a hot meal. A doctor can prescribe pills. A personal support worker can help with dressing, or a bath. They're all important, but what many old people need most is a whole lot harder to come by.

A friend.

Researchers say the impact on health of being lonely is comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Lonely elders are more likely to die of a heart attack and are at a higher risk for dementia, depression and anxiety.

And it all happens far from public view, behind closed doors. In Quebec, an organization called "Les Petits Frères: La grande famille des personnes âgées seules" is trying to break through that isolation.  More than 1,000 Quebec seniors are matched with younger volunteers, with the idea of creating a real and ongoing friendship.

The Sunday Edition

Coming up Nov. 24 on CBC radio's The Sunday Edition, starting at 9 a.m. Eastern:

• How food waste contributes to global instability: Tim Benton, UK Champion for Global Food Security.
• Margarethe von Trotta: Feminist director honoured with major award.
• The Deaf Musician:  Peter Stelmacovich relies on technology to stay in band.
• Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Goldman Sachs, But Were Afraid to Ask.

Everything Les Petits Frères does is rooted in the idea that human connection is essential to life. Their motto is "Les fleurs avant le pain," which translates as Flowers Before Bread.

Les Petits Frères was founded in France by Armand Marquiset, a wealthy, debonair Catholic intellectual. In 1939, while praying at Notre-Dame Cathedral, Marquiset decided to dedicate the rest of his days to helping out "les petits frères," little brothers who were less fortunate than he was.

At the end the Second World War Marquiset signed up volunteers. They began feeding impoverished elderly people who had lost all their close family members in the war.

Marquiset believed that loneliness was as great a problem as hunger. He began inviting isolated seniors to vacation at his elegant family estate. He renamed it Le Château de Bonheur - The Chateau of Happiness - where he threw lavish parties, making sure there were lots of flowers and laughter.

A traffic jam of walkers

Today, Little Brothers - Friends of the Elderly as it is known in English - flourishes in eight countries, including the United States. It's almost impossible to keep up with the growing demand for what it has to offer.

Nathalie Brunet greets Henri Gauthier during one of his noon visits to Les Petits Freres in Montreal. (David Gutnick/CBC)

But while it has been in Canada now for 50 years, it hasn't spread beyond Quebec.

​At noon on a weekday afternoon, there is a traffic jam of walkers and wheelchairs in the front hallway of the downtown Montreal headquarters of Les Petits Frères. The air smells of perfume, roast beef and home-made apple pie.

Every few minutes the front door swings open. Another guest is gently led in, welcomed with smoked salmon hors d'oeuvres, and then led to the dining room where there are bouquets of fresh cut roses and lilies on every table.

Benny Valente is a volunteer driver. "I have nothing to do, they have nothing to do, so we get together and we have something to do."

​For others, Les Petits Frères is about much more than that. In between forkfuls of mashed potatoes, 78-year-old Henri Gauthier tells a table-mate about life in his two room apartment in a rent-subsidized residence. "I feel lonely, you know, and I don't want to talk about it. Sometimes I hate that, la vie c'est la vie, life is life. Sometimes I say, 'I do not care,' I hate myself, you know."

Susan Valente is a volunteer, and many conversations with the seniors she meets have convinced her how important these lunch dates can be. "Without Les Petits Frères a lot of people would commit suicide," she says.

Her husband Benny agrees. "Somebody should  start off the organization on the English side, because the way it is now it is only the French side doing this."

There are few English speakers – either seniors or volunteers - involved with Les Petits Frères. The organization is very much old-school French-Canadian.

The headquarters of Les Petits Frères in Quebec is in the Plateau Mont-Royal neighbourhood in Montreal. (David Gutnick/CBC)

Les Petits Frères has no religious or government affiliation. The organization is financed by private donations and is fiercely independent.

To get help you must be 75 years old and have no family members living nearby. Seniors are referred by social workers, nurses or neighbours. It doesn't matter whether they live alone or in a residence, whether they are sick or healthy, rich or poor - they just have to say they are lonely.

​Peter McGrail is one of the people who draws support from the organization. He's pretty good at steering his electric wheelchair through the narrow halls of his senior's apartment tower in Montreal's east end, which Les Petits Frères helped him find when others didn't work out.

McGrail is a bachelor: he worked for decades at Eaton's, decorating store windows from Toronto to Halifax. After he retired he enjoyed attending concerts, tinkering with antique clocks and gardening at his cabin. But then McGrail's health and his finances went south.

By the time he was 80, life was grim. His only friends were the birds and chipmunks he fed in the park.

"I thought of  suicide a few times," he says, "When you are down and out at Christmas time, you look out the window and see a cement wall, and it is snowing out and you don't know what to think, what to do, so you just lie down."

Nathalie Brunet is the the program coordinator at Les Petits Frères. She remembers the phone call from a social worker asking if the organization could see one of her clients - an Anglophone - who was in trouble.  

Peter McGrail shows off his studio apartment, which he found with help from Les Petits Frères in Montreal. (David Gutnick/CBC)

"Mr. McGrail has diabetes," she says, and he was not eating the foods he needed. "His eyes were getting weaker, so of course he could not see if something was dirty, if something was misplaced."

McGrail was in a difficult situation and like many seniors was "depressed and starting to think suicidal thoughts."

Les Petits Frères helped McGrail get medical help and found a home suited to his needs and his budget. He also became a regular guest at the organization's fancy four course meals. But most importantly, Les Petits Frères twinned McGrail with a volunteer.

"They got me a gentleman," he says "to come and see me once a week, just to talk. It  takes the weight off you, worrying. If it wasn't for Les Petits Frères, I don't know where I would be."

To the last breath and beyond

Nathalie Brunet looks over today's party. Despite the delicious food, laughter and flowers, there's a hint of sadness in her - this week there's an empty chair at one of the tables.

Madame Lucille Mclaughlin had just died. She was 80.

Les Petits Frères will make sure what happens next will be done just right.

"Our commitment is to take care of them to the end. That also means after," says Nathalie.

Les Petits Frères  takes charge of funeral services when no-one else steps up. There are six areas reserved for "Old Friends" in the  Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery on Mont Royal. At some funerals there are but a handful of mourners.

"If we were not there," says Nathalie Brunet, "there would not be anybody else."

[Listen to David Gutnick's full radio documentary about Les Petits Frères. Click the link at the top of this page or visit The Sunday Edition's website.]

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Diaries of a jihadist released

The English translations of diaries written by a Saudi man currently being held at the U.S. Guantanamo Bay prison have been leaked to Al-Jazeera America, which has published the first volume online.

Terrorism suspect Abu Zubaydah, seen in an undated photo provided by U.S. Central Command. (U.S. Central Command/Associated Press)

Abu Zubaydah was held up during the Bush administration as one of al-Qaeda's senior members and part of Osama bin Laden's inner circle.

He himself has denied a connection with al-Qaeda, but he has certainly supported its aims.

In a recruitment video for his own terror group, the Martyrs Organization, he praised the attacks on the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001, as "truly magnificent."

After the attacks, he wrote, "We were in a state of elation that God only knows."

From 1990 until his capture in 2002, he chronicled his life in diaries that were found by the U.S. government. Those six notebooks were used to justify his ongoing detention as well as that of other prisoners at Guantanamo.

"I'm trying to divide myself into two parts because I believe that everything changes with time, even human beings."

They also provide a unique first-person account of the time period when Islamist militant groups became players on the world stage, while giving a glimpse into the inner life of someone joining a jihadist movement.

CBC Radio's Day 6 host Brent Bambury talks to Miami Herald journalist Carol Rosenberg about the importance of Zubaydah's writings.

In addition, Toronto actor Yasin Sheikh reads portions of the first volume of the diaries for Day 6.

Listen to passages here or on the the link appearing to the left of the story.

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Rob Ford was subject of August police alert

Toronto police issued a city-wide alert for Rob Ford's SUV on Aug. 29 after witnesses called police with concerns about the Toronto mayor's fitness to drive, CBC News has learned.

The calls to police came in response to Ford's behaviour at a barbecue attended by Prime Minister Stephen Harper at Sunnybrook Park.

CBC News has learned that when Ford got behind the wheel to leave the event, his departure set off a series of calls to a police dispatcher.

On that evening, the mayor became the focus of a city-wide police alert, with patrol cars ordered to keep a lookout for his vehicle.

Ford had attended the barbecue hoping to speak with Harper about getting federal money for the Scarborough subway. That meeting never happened.

Later in the evening, police spotted Ford's vehicle in the parking lot of the Grand Hotel & Suites at 225 Jarvis St., where Ford was staying. CBC News has learned that a police sergeant spoke to Ford inside a hotel room and told the mayor that police had been looking for his vehicle and told him why.

CBC News has learned that police spoke with Ford at this hotel after the Aug. 29 barbecue. (CBC)

Ford was not charged in the incident and it appears the investigation did not proceed further.

Members of council have raised concerns recently about Ford's drinking and Ford himself admitted recently he has driven after drinking alcohol.

That statement came after Ford admitted earlier this month that he has smoked crack cocaine while serving as mayor.

That admission set off a whirlwind few weeks for Ford who was stripped of much of his powers and office budget by city council.

Court documents have revealed that for much of the summer Ford and his friend and occasional driver Alexander (Sandro) Lisi were under police surveillance. Lisi is now facing extortion and drug trafficking charges.

CBC News has learned that police surveillance teams were not watching Ford on the night of the Aug. 29 barbecue.

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5 things the RCMP documents tell us about Nigel Wright

Nigel Wright resigned as Prime Minister Stephen Harper's chief of staff in May, just days after a news report identified him as the source of a $90,000 cheque to repay the ineligible expenses of Senator Mike Duffy.

That payment and audits of the expenses claimed by Duffy and three other senators have touched a growing RCMP investigation.

RCMP court documents released this week outline efforts within the Prime Minister's Office to manage the repayment of Duffy's expenses and avoid embroiling him in the audits by Deloitte and a Senate committee. The documents also allege there is evidence Wright and Duffy committed bribery, fraud against the government and breach of trust.

Here's a look at what the documents reveal about Wright, who has stayed largely silent since he left the PMO last spring.

1. He doesn't need the money

During his three years as chief of staff for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Nigel Wright did not make a single expense claim. Not for meals. Not for hotels. Not for travel while on government business.

Wright admits he is "financially comfortable" after working for many years in the private sector. He was most recently managing director at Onex, a private equity firm. Wright tells the RCMP he is "out of pocket tens of thousands of dollars" because he did not claim expenses while doing government business. Wright is also still out the $90,000 he used to pay Duffy's expenses and another unexplained $60,000 in legal fees on a mysterious unrelated matter that Senator Irving Gerstein offers to pay at one point.

2. Wright believed Duffy at first

Wright believed Mike Duffy had followed the rules about expense claims. That was made clear when the two spoke by phone on Feb. 7 and the senator told Wright he had been cleared to make the claims. Although Duffy didn't produce permission in writing, Wright tried to make sure the Senate committee on internal economy treated Duffy differently by changing the wording of an early press release about the audits.

For days, Wright was also under the impression that Duffy was going to pay back his expenses. From Feb. 11 to Feb. 19, Wright told Duffy at least three times to pay the money back, with no success. On Feb. 11, Wright tells another PMO staffer, "I met with Duffy today. He will repay, with a couple of conditions…"  

It wasn't until days later, after another phone conversation with the senator, that Wright realizes Duffy is balking at repaying the money.

3. Wright ran out of patience

By Feb. 20, he is clearly fed up with Duffy. In response to an email from Duffy claiming Wright says the senator is not in violation of the housing policy, Wright responds, "I did not say that, and if you continue to misquote me, then we will be speaking only through lawyers going forward." On Feb. 26, Wright lays bare his anger in an email after discovering Duffy charged meals and per diems and will owe the Senate much more than initially predicted: "I am beyond furious".

4. Wright tried to influence the audit process

As one of the conditions of the deal, Duffy asked to be withdrawn from the Deloitte audit process. Wright confirms he will try to limit the work done by auditors once Duffy repays the expenses. Wright has trouble getting the senators on the committee to help him so he turns to Senator Gerstein to try to speak with someone at Deloitte directly. On March 1, he emails, "…Today I asked Sen.Gerstein to actually work through senior contacts at Deloitte." Wright also agrees with a suggestion that Duffy no longer co-operate with the audit process to try to limit the damage.

5. Wright didn't think RCMP would get involved

Wright has now been questioned by the RCMP and provided hundreds of emails, but he did not believe in the beginning that any of this would be subject to an RCMP investigation.

In February, when Liberals first start talking about sending the matter to the RCMP, Duffy emails Wright with his concerns. Wright responds, "I can't figure out why the RCMP would have anything to do with this - unless there is clear fraud, which I have never heard."

In May, Wright again writes, "I personally don't think that Mike committed a crime at all - if I did I would have pursued a different course."

In spite of this, Wright told the RCMP he flatly denied one condition suggested by Duffy's lawyer: that the matter never be referred to the RCMP.

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Ancient palace wine cellar held sophisticated vintages

Scientists have uncovered a 3,700-year-old wine cellar in the ruins of a Canaanite palace in Israel, and chemical analysis shows this is where they kept the good stuff.

Samples from the ceramic jars suggest they held a luxurious beverage that was evidently reserved for banquets, researchers said.

"It's not wine that somebody is just going to come home from a hard day and kick back and drink," said Andrew Koh of Brandeis University. He found signs of a blend of ingredients that may have included honey, mint, cedar, tree resins and cinnamon bark.

The discovery confirms how sophisticated wines were at that time, something suggested only by ancient texts, said Eric Cline of George Washington University. He, Koh and Assaf Yasur-Landau of the University of Haifa in Israel spoke to reporters Thursday before their work was presented Friday at a meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research.

The wine cellar was found this summer in palace ruins near the modern town of Nahariya in northern Israel. Researchers found 40 ceramic jars, each big enough to hold about 13 gallons (49 litres), in a single room. There may be more wine stored elsewhere, but the amount found so far wouldn't be enough to supply the local population, which is why the researchers believe it was reserved for palace use, Cline said.

The unmarked jars are all similar as if made by the same potter, Yasur-Landau said. Chemical analysis indicates that the jars held red wine and possibly white wine, Koh said. No liquid was left, and he analyzed residues he had removed from the jars.

Patrick McGovern of the University of Pennsylvania, an expert in ancient winemaking, said the discovery "sheds important new light" on the development of winemaking in ancient Canaan, from which it later spread to Egypt and across the Mediterranean. He said the chemical analysis would have to be published before the ingredients of the wine could be assessed.

Curtis Runnels, an archaeologist at Boston University, called the finding significant not only in showing the sophistication of the wine, but also in suggesting that it was meant specifically for palace use. He noted that the chemical analysis showed each jar held wine from the same recipe, showing the "consistency and control you'd expect in a palace."

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How your eating habits threaten global security

Everyone knows that we eat too much — we're bombarded with warnings about the obesity epidemic every day. But all those extra calories are not only a threat to our waistlines; they're a threat to global security as well. 

Everything that well-off people in the developed world eat — or even worse, throw away — is food that isn't feeding the impoverished and hungry of the developing world. Pope Francis has equated food waste with "stealing from the table of the poor and the hungry." 

Coming up Nov. 24 on CBC radio's The Sunday Edition, starting at 9 a.m. Eastern:

• Les Petits Frères: Montreal organization seeks out lonely seniors, pairs them with younger friends.
• Margarethe von Trotta: Feminist director honoured with major award.
• The Deaf Musician: Peter Stelmacovich relies on technology to stay in band.
• Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Goldman Sachs, But Were Afraid to Ask.
   

In 2011, 1.3 billion tonnes of food, or about one third of all the food produced globally, was lost or wasted annually, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN. In developed countries, the average person wastes about 100 kilograms of food every year.

"Some the food is lost during the production stage to pests, some is lost during harvesting, some is lost during processing, some is lost in storage. But a considerable amount is lost in people's homes," explains Tim Benton, a professor of population ecology at the University of Leeds.

"In the U.K., we end up throwing away 20 to 30 per cent of the food that we buy. And when you add it all up, it's quite frightening," he says. "The waste that we throw away in Europe and North America is about equal to all of the food that sub-Saharan Africa produces."

Prof. Benton, who also holds the title of U.K. Champion for Global Food Security, discusses the situation in a feature interview with Michael Enright on CBC radio's The Sunday Edition this week.

And he says that food waste only one problem. Overeating is another.

Research shows that based on average weight gain through adulthood, people are consuming 20 to 30 per cent too many calories. So eating a healthier, more balanced diet would not only help tackle the obesity epidemic, it would also take as much as a third of the caloric demands out of the global food chain.

In developed countries, the average person wastes about 100 kilograms of food every year, according to UN estimates. (CBC News)

"If everyone in the world chose to live like your average North American, it would require four Earths to produce all the necessary food," Prof. Benton says.

You might not notice it on your grocery bill, but pressure on the global food chain is having an impact.

Between 2006 and 2008, the average world prices for food skyrocketed, including these staples:

• Rice 217 per cent
• Wheat 136 per cent
• Corn 125 per cent
• Soybeans 107 per cent

Food shortages have already caused massive social and political unrest, contributing to revolutions that toppled governments in Haiti and Madagascar in 2008 and 2009, after the global price spikes. And the riots in Tunisia that triggered the Arab Spring were initially dismissed by the government as just another round of protests over the rising cost of bread, which had sporadically hit the country for decades. 

The World Food Programme estimates that 870 million people worldwide do not have access to enough food to be healthy.

And with the global population expected to increase 50 per cent, or three billion people, by 2050, Prof. Benton warns that it's only going to get worse.

"We're going to have all those extra mouths to feed," he says. "We're going to have less land on which to produce food because of all those extra people, and our ability to produce it will be further hampered by climate change."

[Listen to The Sunday Edition's full audio documentary about how food waste contributes to global instability. Click the link at the top of this page, or visit the show's website.]

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Attawapiskat flights planned for homeless after fire

Flights from Attawapiskat were planned today to transport 70 people forced from their homes by a fire in the remote First Nation community in northern Ontario.

Officials declared an emergency in the James Bay Coast community on Friday after a fire broke out earlier this week in a set of trailers being used as temporary housing due to a sewage system break.

No one was injured in the fire.

Two flights were scheduled Saturday to fly the evacuees to Kapuskasing, said Charlie Angus, the NDP Member of Parliament for the area.

The Ontario government is arranging the air transportation.

The Provincial Emergency Operations Centre of the Office of the Fire Marshal and Emergency Management is working with Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development Canada and municipal leaders.

Angus says the housing complex is a "giant set of construction trailers with little holding cells that families are living in."

James Murray, editor at netnewsledger.com, says these are old construction trailers that were once used by De Beers.

He told CBC News the fire is the latest in a string of hardships the community has recently faced. The week started with a storm that brought winds gusting to 90 km/h, then a power outage in the community of 2,000.

In 2011, Attawapiskat became a flashpoint for relations between the federal government and First Nations after a housing crisis triggered a state of emergency.

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