"Political pressure is mounting to make businesses pay for the damage they cause to the environment, and the latest UN study assessing the impact of the world's biggest companies is almost certainly the first stage in a concerted campaign to calculate how much damage is caused, what it is worth and ultimately how it can be stopped. Another report due later this year, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, led by the economist and UN special adviser Pavan Sukhdev, will be another significant step towards th..."

"CSIS agents wrote to and travelled secretly to Egypt to interrogate a jailed Toronto man and “likely contributed indirectly” to his torture ordeal there, new information revealed Tuesday. The damning details were contained in a supplemental report released by former Supreme Court justice Frank Iacobucci after federal objections to disclosures about Ahmad Elmaati’s fate were “resolved” in court. The government fought for more than a year over whether their release would harm national security. The report shows..."

"Ontario is on a "slippery slope" towards water corporatization and a user-pay system, warns the Council of Canadians. The council voiced its concern Monday after Bill 237 passed second reading in the Ontario legislature last week. The bill, introduced by Liberal MPP David Caplan, would require metering on all water usage to ensure that households pay the full costs of the service. The bill would also create corporate boards to oversee water and waste-water utilities in Ontario, and would likely mean househ..."

"Haiti's de facto government will soon announce the appointment of Robert Tippenhauer as its new ambassador to Canada. Previously, Tippenhauer was the President of the first-ever Haitian-Canadian Chamber of Commerce. He says he will be arriving in Canada shortly after the early June visit to Haiti of Quebec Premier Jean Charest. Should the Canadian government accept Tippenhauer's credentials, it will mark Canada's clearest official alignment with Haiti's right-wing elites. Prior to the Feb. 29, 2004 ouster of dem..."

"According to the most recent government report released in November, during 2002 Canada exported $678.3-million in military goods to 68 countries. The majority of the weapons shipments went to like-minded governments, but transfers also were made to countries at war and to countries whose governments were involved in human rights violations against domestic populations. Because the report again omitted weapons sales to the US and sales of some Canadian equipment shipped for military end-use, the reported total valu..."

"Sitting in the jail in Boone County, Mo., the Chinese woman didn't look like a criminal to Kelley Lucero. She looked like a middle-aged mom. Soon, Lucero learned that the woman had indeed come to America to scout out a college for her teenage son. She had come, legally, as part of a cultural exchange program, but her life had taken an unexpected and terrifying turn in Middle America. Forced to work in a one-room massage parlor, she ended up being arrested for prostitution at a truck stop between Kansas City a..."

"The American Medical Assn. on Tuesday urged the federal government to reconsider its classification of marijuana as a dangerous drug with no accepted medical use, a significant shift that puts the prestigious group behind calls for more research. The nation's largest physicians organization, with about 250,000 member doctors, the AMA has maintained since 1997 that marijuana should remain a Schedule I controlled substance, the most restrictive category, which also includes heroin and LSD...."