By LINDA LEATHERDALE Here’s a surefire sign our economic woes are getting worse. Amid a growing credit crunch that’s crippling the world’s financial system pushing bankruptcies and loan defaults ever higher, American Express is offering its U.S. clients US$300 to pay off their balances and close out their accounts. A spokesperson for American Express Canada [...]
Dear John, Zimbabwe was once one of the most promising countries in Africa with a thriving agricultural industry, one of the region’s highest literacy rates and a robust healthcare system. Today, the people of Zimbabwe are facing desperation.Twenty eight years of increasingly dictatorial rule by President Robert Mugabe have led to hyperinflation, food shortages and [...]
Iran’s first nuclear power plant will undergo comprehensive testing Wednesday in front of Russian and Iranian officials, Iranian Students’ News Agency reported, quoting a nuclear expert. Reza Khazaneh, a former adviser to the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization (IAEO), told the semi-official news agency the tests will be carried out using “dummy” fuel [...]
Abducted as an 11-year-old child from her village in West Africa and forced to walk for months to the sea in a coffle—a string of slaves— Aminata Diallo is sent to live as a slave in South Carolina. But years later, she forges her way to freedom, serving the British in the Revolutionary War and [...]
Wednesday, February 25, 2009 6:30pm – 9:00pm Location: Meaford Hall North Gallery Annual General Meeting featuring guest speaker Anna Bradford – Director of Culture for the city of Hamilton – speaking about Municipal Cultural Planning. She will be providing insight into how best to utilize and include community consultation and decision making, creating social and [...]
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton broached the issue of human rights with Chinese leaders on Saturday, but emphasized that the global financial slump and other international crises were more pressing and immediate priorities. The United States will continue to press China on issues such as Tibet, Taiwan and human rights, she told [...]
Visa and MasterCard interested in offering debit cards in Canada. Two major international credit card companies are poised to enter Canada’s debit market, a move that could dramatically alter the structure of the payments industry in Canada and stoke fears of higher fees for business and consumers. By DANA FLAVELLE AND RITA TRICHUR BUSINESS REPORTERS [...]
ENERGY REPORTER Municipalities will lose the power to decide how close wind turbines can be to residential properties and environmentally sensitive areas under proposed green-energy legislation being tabled Monday. The new rules, a blow to NIMBYism, will also ensure that developers of wind and other renewable-energy projects get construction permits within six months. [...]
by MICHAEL SHNAYERSON After getting $125 billion in taxpayer bailouts, the top officers at Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, and three other banks agreed to forgo their 2008 bonuses. Now they’re awarding billions to their troops. Can government “ claw back” that money? On December 8, The Wall Street Journal reported that John Thain, the 53-year-old chairman [...]
The Chinese are latecomers to space, and desperate to catch up. Two years after shooting down a satellite, they stand accused of stealing US secrets. A new arms race has begun. The Chinese astronauts (left to right) Jing Haipeng, Zhai Zhigang and Liu Boming carried out their country’s third manned space mission last September Dongfan [...]
Benjamin Netanyahu urged his top rivals on Friday to join his government after he was formally tapped to put together the country’s next coalition – a tricky alliance that would dilute the power of nationalists opposed to Mideast peace talks but team him up with politicians far more moderate than he is. Mr. Netanyahu opposes [...]
By Susan Bourette | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor For his first foreign visit as president, Barack Obama chose a country where no major banks have failed, home foreclosures pale by comparison with those in the United States, corporate and consumer debt is low, and citizens enjoy universal health care. Canada often gets [...]
This is not the New Depression, but we are on the way to discovering how the New Capitalism will operate argues economist Irwin Stelzer Students at Harvard’s John F Kennedy School of Government succeed as policymakers if they take away only one message: “Ask the wrong question, and you get a useless answer.” That [...]
BY LINDA LEATHERDALE Before visiting Canada yesterday, the new messiah for America, U.S. President Barack Obama was busy doling out more bailout money. And finally, after billions went to Wall Street, with bank brass treating themselves to fat-cat bonuses paid for by the taxpayer – some of the money is filtering down to Main [...]
TONY VAN ALPHEN BUSINESS REPORTER Reeling General Motors has significantly increased the amount it’s seeking as a lifeline from Canadian taxpayers to more than $6 billion. GM of Canada Ltd., at one time the country’s biggest industrial enterprise, submitted a survival plan to the federal and Ontario governments yesterday that asks for a lot [...]
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