How Team Canada Performed at Day 1 Commonwealth Games

Swimmer Ryan Cochrane won Canada's first gold medal of the Games when he repeated as champion in the men's 400m freestyle. (Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

A recap of the top moments for Canadian athletes on the opening day of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland, including a pair of gold medals:

The waiting is the easiest part

Canada didn't have to wait for its first medal, as Victoria's Kirsten Sweetland took the silver in the women's triathlon — the first medal event of the Games.

Sweetland finished between a pair of Englishwomen: winner Jodie Stimpson and bronze medallist Vicky Holland.

The other two Canadian entries couldn't finish the race. Calgary's Ellen Pennock suffered a broken collarbone in a bike crash, and Winnipeg's Sarah-Anne Brault was ordered to drop out during the running leg in order to save herself for the relay event.

Sweetland, 25, has struggled with injuries for years, but she peaked at the right time. Less than two weeks ago, she reached the podium in a World Triathlon Series event for the first time in her career, finishing third in Hamburg.

Andrew Yorke of Hamilton, Ont., fell just short of a medal in the men's event, finishing fourth.

Hail to the Victorians

Later, another 25-year-old Victoria athlete won Canada's first gold of the Games when swimmer Ryan Cochrane repeated as champion in the men's 400-metre freestyle.

NBA Free Agency Roundup: Dwayne, James, Bosh

Dwyane Wade secured a no-trade clause as part of his new contract with the Miami Heat, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com. That gives the shooting guard some extra leverage over the next year or two as things sort themselves out in the wake of LeBron James' return to Cleveland.

Wade agreed to a two-year, $31.1 million contract with the Heat earlier this week, ultimately losing millions as a result of his decision to opt out of the final two years and $42 million on his previous contract. That initial move was made with LeBron in mind, but LeBron stunned the basketball world by breaking up the Big Three and leaving South Beach.

Pat Riley has been busy reloading the Heat since then, starting with Chris Bosh's five-year, $118 million deal and now Wade's contract. Obviously, Bosh came out of this situation much better than his teammate, but now Wade can at least maintain greater control over the next few years of his career.

Luke Ridnour to sign two-year deal with Magic

The Orlando Magic added another veteran to their backcourt by agreeing to a two-year deal with free agent guard Luke Ridnour on Wednesday, as Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel reports. NBA.com's David Aldridge says the contract is worth $5.5 million and the second year is not guaranteed.

 

The Magic likely targeted a veteran point guard after losing Jameer Nelson earlier this offseason, and Ridnour certainly qualifies after 11 seasons in the league.

RIP: 5 Canadians aboard Air Algerie flight that crashed in Mali

A Montreal-area family of four and their friend were among the 110 passengers aboard an Air Algerie flight that crashed in Mali.

The wreckage of the plane that went missing Thursday has been found about 50 kilometres from the border of Burkina Faso near a village in Mali, according to Gen. Gilbert Diendere.

"They found human remains and the wreckage of the plane totally burnt and scattered," said the aide to the president of Burkina Faso.

Diendre said search crews went to the site near the village of Boulikessi after a resident described seeing a plane go down.

Two Canadian parents and their two children, along with a family friend, were on their way to a relative’s 50th wedding anniversary celebration,

The parents and two children are members of the Burkina Faso community who live in the Montreal area.

The victims’ ages and identities were not immediately known.

Flight 5017 vanished off the radar early Thursday over northern Mali while a heavy storm pounded the area.

Germany Reverts to Typewriters in a Bid to Foil NSA Spies

German politicians are considering a return to manual typewriters following the U.S. surveillance scandal last year

German MPs considering a return to typewriters to combat spy activity

Non-electronic models could be used in government, politician suggests

Comes after claims German Chancellor Angela Merkel's phone was bugged by U.S agents last year

German officials unearthed two suspected spies in the country last week

German politicians are considering a new way of keeping sensitive information away from spies – reverting to typewriters.

The idea of re-introducing manual typewriters was floated by the man fronting an inquiry into U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) activity in Germany.

Christian Democrat politician Patrick Sensburg, head of the Bundestag’s parliamentary inquiry into the NSA surveillance scandal, was asked on television whether politicians were considering a return to older technology.

 

Speaking on the Morgenmagazin TV programme, he replied ‘As a matter of fact, we have – and not electronic models either’ before adding ‘Yes, no joke,' The Guardian reports.

It comes a year after allegations surfaced that the mobile telephone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel had been bugged by American agents.

 

Just last week her government told the CIA station chief in Berlin to leave the country, in a dramatic display of anger after German officials unearthed two suspected spies.

 

The move has added to the damaged relations between Berlin and Washington.

Pope Meets Sudanese Woman Meriam Ibrahim and Family

Sudanese woman, Meriam Ibrahim, who flew into Italy this morning in company of her husband Daniel Wani and their two children Martin and Maya, met with Pope Francis at Casa Santa Martath inside the Vatican.

According to the head of the Vatican Press Office, Father Federico Lombardi, the meeting took place in a 'very serene & affectionate' environment, and Pope Francis thanked Meriam for her 'courageous witness to perseverance in the Faith.'

Fr. Lombardi said Meriam thanked the Pope for his prayers, saying they provided great support and encouragement to her during her ordeal.

Canadians to Supply 1,000 Litres of Water to Detroit, US

A Canadian group is planning to bring about 1,000 liters of water from Windsor to Detroit to protest thousands of residential service shutoffs by Detroit's water department.

The Windsor chapter of the Council of Canadians says the water will be carried in a convoy Thursday through a commuter tunnel to a rally outside Detroit City Hall.

Council national chair Maude Barlow says she will ask U.S. President Barack Obama to declare a state of emergency in Detroit.

The water issue gained national attention last month after activists appealed to the United Nations for assistance.

On Monday, the utility suspended shutoffs for 15 days to educate customers on how to make payment plans.

It has said nearly $90 million was owed on past due accounts.

Photo: Python swallows live Antelope then spews out dead body

The jaw dropping moment a giant Python swallowed a baby Antelope was captured on camera by animal rescuer Nitish Bambhaniya in the village of Billa in Gujarat, India.

"I got a call in the morning for an Indian rock python. When we reached the spot, we saw this massive python. The python had hunted a baby blue bull and had already eaten 80% of the bull's body. It is on the edge of an open field, so lots of locals start gathering there." Nitish said

As people gathered, with many saying the snake should be killed as it could be a danger to them, the snake known as the Indian Rock Python stopped swallowing the antelope & let go of its lifeless body

"Pythons do it so that they can shed body weight and escape faster. Meanwhile, we convinced the villagers not to kill the python and they agreed. Later we caught the python and handed it over to the forest department officials." Nitish said

The python was released by the officials in a nearby forest, before slithering away to freedom.

Here It Comes: Fifty Shades of Grey

Obama is Slammed as Being Weak and Timid Over Ukrainian Crisis

Response: President Obama's emotionless reference to the attack as ‘a terrible tragedy’ seemed disconnected from the horrific moment

 

Clark S. Judge believes Obama's reaction to the tragedy was 'disconnected'

Immediately 'reverted to script' to praise his administration

Former adviser to Ronald Reagan says it confirms 'chaos' of foreign policy 

 

At a political event in Wilmington, Delaware, on Thursday, President Obama devoted only 40 seconds to the shooting down of the Malaysian airline, his first statement to the world following the news.

 

His emotionless reference to the attack as ‘a terrible tragedy’ seemed disconnected from the horrific moment, particularly as he immediately reverted to script to praise his administration and criticize Republicans.

 

It was a far cry from President Reagan’s 1983 fierce denunciation of the Soviet shooting down of a Korean airliner as a ‘crime against humanity’.

 

But it only confirmed the chaos into which US foreign policy has descended since the summer of 2012 when reporters at a White House briefing asked Mr Obama about the security of chemical weapons in the Syrian stockpile.

 

The commander in chief went beyond safety and said: ‘We have been very clear to the Assad regime … that a red line for us is [when] we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilised.’

 

The term ‘red line’ is the kind of clear, emphatic language major powers use only when they are prepared to back words with action.

 

A little over a year later, the Assad regime utilised chemical weapons against its own people.

'I Wanted to Abort Him' Says Star Footballer Cristiano Ronaldo’s Mum

Inside her recently released autobiography Mãe Coragem (which translates to ‘Mother Courage’) , mother of Cristiano Ronaldo, Dolores Aveiro, claimed that she attempted to abort him when she was pregnant by 'drinking warm beer' and 'running until she dropped'

Although she did not give any reason for wanting to abort her unborn child, Dolores said she had approached her doctor to carry out the abortion but he didn't agree with it and refused to do it. She then resorted to doing it herself by drinking warm beer and running with the hope that she would lose the pregnancy.

"I wanted to abort but the doctor didn’t support my decision,” she wrote in her autobiography.

Speaking at the launch of the autobiography in Lisbon recently, Dolores said that Ronaldo already knew about his past and even joked about it. "“He told me when he found out, 'Look mum, you wanted to abort me and now I'm the one who’s pulling the purse-strings in the house,'” she said..

 Dolores (second from right) at her book launch recently...

Could MH17 Cause Worldwide War

Emergency workers on Saturday carried a body from the site of the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 crash in the Donetsk region. For many, the disaster brought home a struggle that had seemed distant. Credit Maxim Zmeyev/Reuters       

From the start, the telephone call did not go well. Dispensing with pleasantries, President Vladimir V. Putin launched into an edgy and long-winded complaint about the new American sanctions imposed on Russia the day before.

President Obama, on the phone from the Oval Office on Thursday morning, responded that Russia was arming rebels in Ukraine — citing among other things the antiaircraft weapons that the United States believed they had been sent. “This is not something we’re making up,” Mr. Obama said, according to an American official.

 

Then, more than halfway through the tense, hourlong call, Mr. Putin noted, almost in passing, that he had received a report of an aircraft going down in Ukraine.

 

Mr. Putin was vague about the details, and the conversation moved on. But in that instant, the monthslong proxy war between East and West took a devastating turn, one that would shift the ground geopolitically amid the charred wreckage and broken bodies in a Ukrainian wheat field.

 

The downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 rippled across multiple continents — from Amsterdam, where friends and family had just seen off their loved ones, to the distant shores of Asia and Australia that had been waiting for 298 passengers and crew who would never show up.

The Secret of Happiness

How are you feeling at this very moment? If your answer is anything less than "content," the chances are that your state of angst is being caused by two elements that have nothing to do with the Here and Now; specifically, Yesterday and Tomorrow.Regrets about events that have occurred in the past and apprehensions about what could occur in the future have done more to immobilize otherwise healthy people than anything else in the world.
Most people have no control over their emotional well-being. They feel ecstatic when good stuff happens and depressed when things go wrong. Their lives are roller coaster rides: sometimes up, sometimes way down.

It is a fact that if you want something too badly, it is likely to evade you. And this is truer for happiness than anything else. The reason why happiness seems to evade the millions of people searching for it is because they are looking in the wrong place.

Most people look for happiness “outside” themselves and not “inside”.

But what if you could be happy no matter what happens?

You’d stay calm when your car breaks down and your boss shouts at you. You’d stop feeling lonely when there’s no one to talk to on a rainy day. You’d never lose sleep over a relationship that isn’t working out.

The question of how to be happy everyday may be a little difficult to answer, but as always said, happiness is a choice and you can definitely learn how to be happy everyday. Here are some ways to help you remind yourself to stay happy every single day.

Italy Secure Sudanese Woman Sentenced to Death For Marrying a Christian

Mariam Yahya Ibrahim, the Sudanese woman who was recently spared death sentence for apostasy was flown to Italy this morning July 24th in company of her two children, and accompanied by Italy's Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister, Lapo Pistelli.

Speaking to journalists at Rome's Ciampino airport this morning, Pistelli said the Italian government have been in 'constant dialogue' with Sudan but did not give more details on Italy's role in securing her exit from Sudan. She was received at the airport by the Italian prime minister, Matteo Renziw.

 

See more pictures

Footprints of Tyrannosaurs Discovered in British Columbia

The tyrannosaur footprints discovered by hunting guide Aaron Fredlund were each more than 60 centimetres long. (Aaron Fredlund)

It would have been terrifying to run into a tyrannosaur like Albertosaurus. The massive creature that roamed western North America about 70 million years ago was as long as a bus, with a wide smile of razor-sharp teeth and claws to match. But here's the worst part — it probably wasn't alone.

Tyrannosaurs, it seemed, travelled in packs.

Scientists came to that conclusion after carefully analyzing an extremely rare find — three sets of tyrannosaur tracks found in northeastern B.C.



Tyrannosaur tracks are so rare that this is the first time more than a single print has ever been found in one place.

That made the discovery exciting to begin with, since it allows paleontologists to see how the animal walked, said Richard McCrea, lead author of a new study in the journal PLOS ONE describing the tracks

The fossil tracks were discovered in the fall of 2011 by Aaron Fredlund, a hunting guide in Tumbler Ridge, B.C. He was guiding a group of moose hunters and looking for a place to cross a river when he spied a promising looking rock ledge.

Fredlund said he spends all day looking for animal tracks as part of his job. He had never seen dinosaur tracks himself, but knew others had been found in the region.

CBC

Tragic! Mayor of Quebec Town Dies After Being Attacked by a Swarm of Wasps at Home

Lucie Rouseel, of Montreal suburb, La Prairie, dies after being stung more than 15 times

Her children, aged 19 and 18 lost their father to a heart attack six years before

The mayor of a Quebec town has died after being stung more than 15 times by a swarm of wasps while at her summer cabin on Sunday.

Luci eRouseel, 51, was vacationing at her lakeside home when she stood on the nest and was attacked by more than 15 wasps.

The mother-of-two leaves behind two children, age 19 and 18 and the citizens of Montreal suburb, La Prairie have been left stunned.

Laurent Blais, the town's deputy mayor, said that Rouseel was not allergic to wasp stings and everyone is in shock.

 

The fact that Roussel was stung many times was porbably the reason why she passed away.

 

Her friend Reine Herbert said that she feels for her children, who also lost their father six years ago.

MH17: Days after downing passenger jet, rebels shoot down 2 Ukrainian military planes

Guess these rebels have no soul. They couldn't even give it time before they start shooting down planes again. Less than a week after shooting down a passenger jet carrying 298 people, pro-Russian rebels today Wednesday July 23rd shot down two Ukrainian military fighter jets close to the Russian border just 35km away from the Malaysian crash site.

A spokesman for Ukraine’s military operations said the planes were downed near Savur Mogila, a burial mound in the Shaktersky region, but didn't have any information about the pilots.

Photo: History of underwear goes at Bendigo Art Gallery

Queen Victoria's underwear from the 1860s on display at a Bendigo exhibition. (ABC News)

It is not often old undies are exhibited anywhere other than the hills hoist, but the Bendigo Art Gallery is making a grand display of underwear that dates back more than three centuries.

 

It is hosting an exhibition called Undressed: 350 Years of Underwear in Fashion, which focuses on the history of underwear over the last 350 years and how it has shaped our bodies.

It is another first for the gallery, which has hosted a number of popular exhibitions in recent months.
One of the highlights of the show is the underwear of Queen Victoria from the 1860s.

       

Photo: A bra dress by fashion house Moschino designed in 1988. (Supplied: Bendigo Art Gallery)

The drawers are one of 80 pieces, ranging from corsets to modern day underwear and will be on display over the next three months.

Curator Karen Quinlan said Queen Victoria's drawers are one of the more interesting pieces.
"It was one of the first pieces I wanted to see, it's a bit of a favourite," Ms Quinlan said.

"They're very comfortable, practical, I think she was a practical woman and obviously with all of that skirt she had to wear and everything else the loose draws made sense."

There is a rare metal corset on display, which appears uncomfortable but was used for orthopaedic reasons.

How Come! Just 3 months after split from Rapper Big Sean, actress Naya Rivera is married!

 

That was fast. Not that many people even knew they were dating. Just three months after she publicly split from rapper, Big Sean, Glee star Naya Rivera is a married woman.

Naya married longtime friend actor Ryan Dorsey on July 19 in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, in front of a small group of close family.

"We feel truly blessed to be joined as husband and wife. Our special day was fated and everything we could have ever asked for." the couple told People magazine.

The Couple

Photo of the Week: Prince George with Duke and Duchess of Cambridge

Use this Flow-Chart To See If A Woman Owes You Sex

 

Microsoft Excel took a turn for the explicit this week when the Internet learned the once-innocuous office tool was being used in a dispiriting new bro-trend: tracking the number of times their partners refuse sex. Yes, #sexspreadsheets are a thing, presumably because some men still believe that owning a penis entitles them to unlimited sexy times.

Sorry, guys, that's just not the way the world works.

When the first #sexspreadsheets went viral on Reddit, it was almost immediately followed by a second, equally sophomoric spreadsheet, which may or may not have been making fun of the first.
Unfortunately, we're not really getting the joke.

The writer of the original post noted the varied "excuses" his partner had used over the past weeks.

Apparently, she sometimes got "tired," felt "sick" and occasionally even had the ridiculous idea she might want to go the gym. Who does she think she is? An equal, self-determined member of society?

While many might believe #sexspreadsheets like these are harmless, perhaps even humorous, pieces of Internet minutiae, the motivation behind them highlights a much deeper pattern of pathological male behavior. Cases of domestic violence against women in the U.S. are alarmingly frequent, and perpetrators often exhibit a similar attitude of entitlement toward their partners. That the couple in the spreadsheet are allegedly married does not change the equation: 1 in 4 American women will face domestic abuse in their lifetime, and one-third of those cases involve marital rape.

MIC

Trouble in the House: Grandma Sex Flick Got Couple Arrested

A couple have been arrested after they were filmed having sex on a crowded beach in Florida in front of children, including a 4 year old girl.

Elissa Alvarez, 20 (pictured right), straddled Jose Caballero, 39, (pictured left) on a blanket for 25 minutes in full view of other beach-goers before they calmly went for a swim

When they returned from the swim and started again, a disgusted grandma filmed their actions on her mobile phone before calling police. They were arrested & charged with lewd & lascivious behaviour.

The grandma who recorded the porno on her phone said;

"This went on for about 25 minutes. I’ve lived here since 1978 and I go to the beaches, and I’ve never seen anything like this. They laid on the beach and passed out for hours. We thought they were dead. But when they woke up, they cuddled for a while - then they started into the same thing they did before.”

How Come! 51 die as TransAsia Airways crash lands in Taiwan

Not again, we barely survived MH17. Over 50 people have been reported dead after a TransAsia Airways passenger plane crashed on one of Taiwan's Penghu islands today Wednesday July 23rd.

According to Taiwan's Central News Agency, at least 9 other people were injured in the crash of the twin-engine turboprop plane, which happened outside Magong airport at about 7 p.m local time.

The cause of the crash wasn't immediately known but the region is currently dealing with powerful typhoon.

Conservatives Hold fast to ‘fair and open’ nominations for 2015 election

Conservative Party brass are holding a hard line on their promise of open nominations before the 2015 election, proposing disqualifications in one high-profile riding and placing a senior official on leave in another.

On Wednesday, rank-and-file members in Alberta were informed that a member of the party’s governing council would be stepping away from her post while her husband runs for nomination.

Marilyn Elliott will be on a leave of absence while party organizer Gord Elliott makes his bid to carry the party banner in the riding of Calgary Rocky Ridge for the next election. Elliott will be going up against former Canadian Alliance MP Eric Lowther.

“The Conservative Party of Canada is committed to fair and open nominations in all 338 electoral districts across the country,” wrote national council secretary Michael Lauer in an email obtained by The Canadian Press.

“To ensure there are no perceived or actual conflicts of interest with nominations, national councillors with immediate family members seeking the party’s nomination are required to take a leave of absence until the conclusion of the nomination contest.”

The announcement comes months after the party had to grapple with another issue of alleged favouritism involving former executive director Dimitri Soudas and his fiancee, MP Eve Adams.

Adams is in a pitched battle for the nomination in the Toronto-area riding of Oakville North-Burlington.

That case continues to make waves inside the party. A senior source said that party officials are recommending that both Adams and her nomination rival Natalia Lishchyna, an Oakville chiropractor, be disqualified from running.

Adams’ team had been accused of paying for the memberships of supporters, alleged donations that are illegal under the Elections Act. Adams in turn has accused Lishchyna of improperly using data research firms to phone members at home.

The party’s National Candidate Selection Committee has the final say in such matters. The committee has no set date to decide on the issue.

Palestinian delegation urges Harper governement to press Israel to stop Gaza attack

A Palestinian man stands in the rubble of a house after it was hit by an Israeli missile strike in Gaza City on Friday. The Palestinian delegation in Ottawa wants the Harper government to lobby Israel to stop its land invasion of Gaza. (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS)

The Palestinian delegation in Ottawa has asked the Harper government to talk Israel out of its land invasion of Gaza.

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird instead blamed Hamas for the latest escalation in the area and urged Egypt to broker a new ceasefire.

The Palestinian statement was issued hours after Israel launched its first major offensive into Gaza in five years, following 10 days of airstrikes aimed at stopping the militant group Hamas from firing rockets at Israeli cities.

“For the past 11 days the world has stood by as the Palestinians of Gaza have been subjected to indiscriminate killings and collective punishment,” the statement said.

“We call on the government of Canada to talk Israel back from the brink of this disaster.”

The statement stressed that the Israeli ground offensive will only compound the suffering of Palestinian civilians, children in particular, saying they account for 30 per cent of the 245 people killed so far.

Carlos Slim Richest Man in the World Advocates for 3-Working Days

Carlos Slim, 74, advocated for three-day work weeks for workers, claiming that the extra to pursue hobbies and other activities would be beneficial to peoples' quality of life

The richest man in the world says that you should be working only THREE days per week

• Carlos Slim, worth $79.6 billion, told a business conference in Paraguay that workers should work three days per week, 11 hours a day, and retire later
• Slim: 'With three work days a week, we would have more time to relax; for quality of life.'
• According to Forbes, Slim surpassed Bill Gates as the richest man in the world this week

Do you wish that your weekend was longer than just Saturday and Sunday? According to the world's richest man, it should be.

Carlos Slim Helú, the Mexican telecommunications mogul worth approximately $79.6 billion, told attendees to a business conference in Paraguay on Friday that it was time for 'a radical overhaul' in people's working lives.

As of July 15, 2014, Forbes announced that Slim was the richest man in the world, edging out Bill Gates' $79.1 billion fortune.

According to Slim, 74, people should take more time off in the course of their professional lives, working only three days a week instead of the standard full-time five days per week.

'People are going to have to work for more years, until they are 70 or 75, and just work three days a week – perhaps 11 hours a day,' Slim told the conference, including the catch that not only would workers have to work longer days (11 hours instead of the usual eight), but would have to continue to work well into their 70s, an age many opt to retire before reaching.

However, according to Slim, the benefits for such a short work week are plentiful.

'With three work days a week, we would have more time to relax; for quality of life.

Having four days [off] would be very important to generate new entertainment activities and other ways of being occupied,' he told the conference.

Iraqi Christians Excommunicated by ISIS or Convert or Face Death

 Exodus: Thousands of Iraqi Christians today poured out of Mosul after ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq  and Syria) jihadis gave them an ultimatum - convert to Islam, pay a special tax or face death. Above, Christian women pray at a church in Arbil, Kurdistan

Thousands of Iraqi Christians today poured out of Mosul after ISIS jihadis gave them an ultimatum - convert, pay or face death.

The Islamic State terror group declared that Christians must either convert to Islam, pay a special tax or leave the city, around 250 miles north-west of Baghdad.

If they did not do so by noon (9am GMT) today, there would be 'nothing for them but the sword', it said.

 

ISIS told Christians they must convert, pay special tax or leave Mosul, Iraq

If they did not, there would be 'nothing for them but the sword', it declared

Deadline of noon (9am GMT) today was relayed by mosques in the region

Christians have now joined Shiite and other refugees in nearby Kurdistan

Chaldean patriarch: 'For first time in history, Mosul is empty of Christians'

Militants enforcing an extreme Islamic law launched offensive on June 9

 As militants attempted to break government defences in strategic areas and edge closer to Baghdad, Christians fled to join hundreds of thousands of Shiite and other refugees in the neighbouring autonomous region of Kurdistan.

 

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Journey: The mass displacement was the latest in six weeks of turmoil which has forced more than 600,000 people from their homes, left thousands dead and brought Iraq to the brink of collapse

 

Their escape to the safety coincided with the expected homecoming of Iraq's Kurdish president, Jalal Talabani, after 18 months of medical treatment in Germany.

Meme: Barack Obama Vs Vladimir Putin

Harper Heaps Blame on Russia for MH17 Disaster

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is pointing a finger at Russia in the aftermath of a Malaysia Airlines plane crash in Ukraine that killed nearly 300 people, saying the plane was “shot down” and that, while the cause is unclear, it is Russian aggression that is driving conflict in the region.

The airline said the victims include at least one Canadian, and Mr. Harper was among many world leaders to speak out. The crash could exacerbate tensions in the region, where the Ukraine government is fighting pro-Russian separatists, and each side was blaming the other for the tragedy

Mr. Harper’s written statement, released just after 7 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday, said he was “shocked and saddened” to learn the plane was “shot down,” and expressed condolence to families of those on board.

“We understand from reports that a Canadian citizen is among the dead. On behalf of the Government of Canada, Laureen and I offer our thoughts and prayers to the families and friends of the victims of this outrageous act,” the statement said, referring to Mr. Harper’s wife, Laureen Harper.

The Prime Minister went on to say Russian aggression is feeding the turmoil in the region.
“While we do not yet know who is responsible for this attack, we continue to condemn Russia’s military aggression and illegal occupation of Ukraine, which is at the root of the ongoing conflict in the region,” he said.

Air Canada cancels flight to Israel in light of Gaza attack

Air Canada is among the airlines that cancelled a flight to Tel Aviv Tuesday after reports a rocket exploded not far from the city’s Ben Gurion International Airport.

Air Canada has cancelled flight AC 84, which was scheduled to take off from Toronto’s Pearson International Airport at 6:10 p.m. ET.

Transportation Minister Lisa Raitt said the federal government supports Air Canada’s decision


It’s the safety of Canadians that’s always going to be our priority in the government, but any particular questions about what’s next really belongs to Air Canada as the operator,” Raitt said Tuesday.

The airline tweeted that the return flight, AC 85, which was to take off on Wednesday, is also cancelled.

“We will continue to evaluate the situation going forward, and provide updates as needed,” Isabelle Arthur, the airline’s media relations manager, said in a statement.

Tuesday’s flight from Tel Aviv to Toronto is already in the air and will land as scheduled, the airline said.

The cancellations follow word from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration that U.S. airlines are currently prohibited from flying to the Tel Aviv.

The FAA placed a 24-hour ban on all U.S. flights to Tel Aviv starting at 12:15 pm ET Tuesday. The agency said it will issue updated guidelines “as soon as conditions permit.”

Several European airlines also suspended flights to Tel Aviv, including Lufthansa and Air France. Air Canada was the only Canadian carrier that had a scheduled evening flight into Tel Aviv leaving Tuesday.

Violence erupted in the region earlier this month after Hamas rockets began landing in Israeli territory and Israel responded with a military operation in Gaza.

Israel's Transportation Ministry called on the airlines to reverse their decisions and continue flying to Tel Aviv, insisting that the airport is safe.

"Ben-Gurion Airport is safe and completely guarded and there is no reason whatsoever that American companies would stop their flights and hand terror a prize," the department said in a statement.

CTV

How Inflation is Killing off the Canadian Middle Class

Some recent research finds that while inflation remains relatively low, the benefits of rising prices are going to business and the top one per cent while everyone else gets poorer. (CBC)

If it feels like you are getting poorer despite relatively low inflation, new research indicates that's because you are.

This week, new figures from Statistics Canada show annual inflation hit 2.4 per cent. That's up from 2.3 per cent last month, the ninth month in a row of a rising inflation rate. And while the things you buy are more than two per cent dearer (three per cent if you live in Ontario) than they were a year ago, wages have not been keeping pace.

Over the same period, StatsCan data shows that Canadian wages rose only 1.9 per cent. In Ontario, where prices were up three per cent, wages rose a mere 0.7 per cent. That means if you live in Ontario and spend what you earn, you are effectively 2.3 per cent poorer than you were only one year ago.

'If we value the prosperity and stability associated with middle-class society ... then we should really pay attention to what generates that middle-class affluence'-

Jordan Brennan, York University economist

And according to York University economist Jordan Brennan, that is bad for the Canadian middle class. Brennan represents a new kind of economist who rejects the traditional story that he learned in Economics 101 and once believed wholeheartedly.

"If we value the prosperity and stability associated with middle-class society — the things that we ascribe to Canadian citizenship — if we value those things, then we should really pay attention to what generates that middle-class affluence," says Brennan.  "And letting the free market rip does not seem to the main generator of that affluence."

Brennan says his latest research confirms what others have also discovered, that while inflation remains relatively low, the benefits of rising prices are going to business and the one per cent while everyone else gets poorer. 

Today's Canadian numbers confirm it. And in slightly different words, that's exactly what U.S. Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen said earlier this week: that the returns of the U.S. economy are disproportionately going to capital, with less going to labour.