Prime Minister Harper and his media cronies are pressuring the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to weaken Canada's journalism standards. If successful, it could spell the end for fair and balanced media in Canada.
The CRTC will close public comments at midnight on February 16. We don't have long to go. I've just signed a petition urging them to protect not weaken Canada's media standards -- you can sign here:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/canada_fair_and_balanced/96.php
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Angela Davis coming to Regina
Written by Marc Spooner and Patrick Lewis
Tuesday, 15 February 2011
We wanted to alert you to a special campus visit by Dr. Angela Davis Dr. Angela Davis will speak to the university and broader community about being an agent of change.
Monday, March 7th, 2011
TIME: 5:15pm
WHERE: University Theatre, Riddell Centre
COST: FREE!
Introduction to be given by Dr. James McNinch, Dean, Faculty of Education
About Angela Davis:
Professor Angela Davis is an
American political activist, educator and author. Davis was most
politically active during the late 1960s through the 1970s and was
associated with the Communist Party USA, the Civil Rights Movement and
the Black Panther Party. Prisoner rights have been among her continuing
interests; she is the founder of "Critical Resistance", an organization
working to abolish the prison-industrial complex. She is presently a
retired professor with the History of Consciousness Department at the
University of California, Santa Cruz and is the former director of the
university's Feminist Studies department. Her research interests are in
feminism, African American studies, critical theory, Marxism, popular
music and social consciousness, and the philosophy and history of
punishment and prisons. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Davis)
Dr. Davis' talk was made possible by the generous support of the following sponsors (to date):
Faculty of Education, V.P Academic Conference Fund, Humanities Research Institute, Dr. Charity Marsh, President
Vianne Timmons, Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts, Faculty of
Kinesiology, Faculty of Nursing, Social Policy Research Unit, &
CUPE 1975
Rush hour commuters will be encouraged to make some noise for neighbourhood schools on Wednesday, Feb. 9. “Honk for our schools will be the message,” said Bob Hughes, whose has two grandchildren attending Athabasca School, slated for closure in June. Hughes and a few of his River Heights neighbours plan to hold up placards at the Elphinstone Street Bridge, just north of 17th Avenue, from 5 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Write Comment (0 Comments)
Saskatchewan will honour its Global Citizens at gala events in Saskatoon and Regina. This year's citizens are Arnold and Bertha Epp, Catherine Verrall, John and Besty Bury and John Crawford. The Saskatchewan Council for International Cooperation will host a Regina ceremony on Thursday, Feb. 10 and a Saskatoon ceremony on Saturday, Feb. 12. The awards evenings cap off International Development Week, which was officially proclaimed today at Regina City Hall. For more information and a full list of events, visit www.earthbeat.sk.caWrite Comment (0 Comments)
Housing action heats up in Regina
Written by Trish Elliott
Tuesday, 08 February 2011
The Regina Tenant’s Association is gathering steam. At a meeting Feb. 2, the group established a working structure and identified the following objectives:
Promote solutions for tenants
Increase awareness of tenant and landlord rights, responsibilities and obligations
Provide educational materials for tenants and homelessness
Advocate and assist Regina residents facing housing challenges
They have an email address (
) and a website is on the way. The next meeting is March 9, 7 p.m. at the United Way office.
In other housing-related news, the Homeless Individuals and Families Information System has released a report titled Tracking the Tears: Homelessness in Regina. The report notes growing concern over the number of inadequately housed young families . “Despite strides in building and upgrading capacity of sheltering sites, it has become clear that we can no longer manage homeless through services - affordable housing must become part of the equation,” the authors state. Tracking the Tears is available at http://www.pathwaysregina.com/
The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Saskatchewan Office today released Exploiting Saskatchewan’s Potash: Who Benefits? by John W. Warnock. The new report considers the history of potash exploitation in the province with an eye to answering the question of whether the people of Saskatchewan are receiving the full benefit from the exploitation of this strategic natural resource.
With the recent controversy over the proposed BHP Billiton takeover bid of PotashCorp, the question of ownership of Saskatchewan’s vital natural resources are again front and centre. Warnock argues that to ensure that Saskatchewan receives the full benefit of its natural endowment, we must move to a more democratic form of resource ownership and management.
Victory for Kalahari Bushmen as Courts Grant Rights to Water
Contributed by Jim Elliott
Thursday, 27 January 2011
At a recent Botswana Court of Appeal, the court quashed a ruling that had the Kalahari Bushmen being denied access to water in their ancestral lands.
The Bushmen, with the help of Survival International, had appealed a 2010 judgment that had prevented them from access a well that they relied on for water. The appeal decision has gone beyond the simple statement of access to water but stated that the Bushmen had the right to use their old borehole, the right to sink new boreholes and the government was to pay the Bushmen for the costs of the appeal. The government's actions have been widely condemned.
No Coal-fired power plants built in US in past 2 years
Contributed by Jim Elliott
Tuesday, 04 January 2011
Even though there are abundant sources of coal, there hasn't been a new coal-fired power plant built in the United States in the past two years. The current demands are still there as coal is still needed for half of the electrical generating plants in the US. But if the price of natural gas stays cheap in respect to the cost of coal, the companies that own the power plants will continue to convert the current stock of power plants to natural gas from coal.
"Coal
is a dead man walkin'," says Kevin Parker, global head of asset
management and a member of the executive committee at Deutsche Bank.
"Banks won't finance them. Insurance companies won't insure them. The
EPA is coming after them...And the economics to make it clean don't
work."
Now coal isn't dead just yet as they have a lot of influence in the politics of energy supply in the United States. But that is waning. The EPA is starting to fight the production of greenhouse gases by regulating the amount of carbon dioxide emitted each year, especially for the large emitters like coal-fired power plants. As coal is the dirtiest of the fossil fuels, there will continue to be pressure politically to either shut down the coal plants or to convert them over to cleaner fuels like natural gas. it is still currently cheaper to reduce the demand for electricity and shut down the plants than to continue to need the plants running on whatever fuel they might use.
On Thursday, a 5.6 magnitude earthquake has struck the northern island of Indonesia called Sumatra. There was no tsunami warning associated with the earthquake. The earthquake 190 kilometres south east of Banda Aceh, the focus of the 2004 tsunami.
The Disappearance of Democracy in the Western World
Contributed by John W. Warnock
Wednesday, 22 December 2010
Authoritarian regimes give rise to forces which oppose them by pushing against the individual and collective will to freedom, truth and self realization. Plans which assist authoritarian rule, once discovered, induce resistance. Hence these plans are concealed by successful authoritarian powers. This is enough to define their behavior as conspiratorial.
Julian Assange, “State and Terrorist Conspiracies”
by John W. Warnock December 22, 2010
This is the season to be jolly. So they say. But how can one be upbeat in the present world? Just the other day, Robert Gates, President Obama’s Secretary of Defense, stated that it did not matter how large the majority of Americans opposed to the war in Afghanistan. The war would go on because the U.S. had major long term geopolitical strategies at stake there. While the President had claimed that U.S. troops would start withdrawing from that war in 2011, no one could really believe that. In 2010 the President’s budget called for spending $1.3 billion on new military bases in Afghanistan. The latest U.S. poll revealed that two-thirds of Americans believe that the Afghan war cannot be won and is not worth the effort. In all the NATO countries a majority of the population, in recent polls, are opposed to participation in the Afghan war. Yet all the NATO governments remain strongly committed to the war. What happened to democracy?
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Saskatchewan will honour its Global Citizens at gala events in Saskatoon and Regina. This year's citizens are Arnold and Bertha Epp, Catherine Verrall, John and Besty Bury and John Crawford. The Saskatchewan Council for International Cooperation will host a Regina ceremony on Thursday, Feb. 10 and a Saskatoon ceremony on Saturday, Feb. 12. The awards evenings cap off International Development Week, which was officially proclaimed today at Regina City Hall. For more information and a full list of events, visit