- War games in the Gulf: Just as I predicted, Iran is now responding with its own little show of testosterone.
- Meanwhile:
Israel warned on Tuesday that it might rethink its adherence to the cease-fire resolution that ended Lebanon war this summer, following a United Nations report that Syria was smuggling arms to Hizbullah in Lebanon.
Israel's IDF has been conducting surveillance flights over Lebanon as well in recent days. All of this military posturing, along with the Israeli government's impatience with the Lebanese government (which hasn't exactly had a very long time to deal with disarming Hezbollah since the recent UN resolution was passed), does nothing to foster any kind of trust for long-term peace in the Middle East. Why can't everybody (the US/Iranian/Syrian/Israeli governments) just sit down and talk? This machismo is ridiculous.
And, to add fuel to the fire, the Bush administration is now saying that the Syrian and Iranian governments are plotting to overthrow the Lebanese government. When WH mouthpiece Tony Snow was asked about this serious allegation on Wednesday, he said he can't offer any information about why Bushco beleives this to be true because that information is 'classified'. Right...
- Following Flaherty's announcement on Tuesday regarding income trusts, the TSX and the Canadian dollar dropped dramatically.
Canadian income trusts are popular with foreign investors, who might move their money elsewhere if they are forced to pay tax on Canadian trust holdings.
- Why does Canada need 100 tanks?
- New military watchdog report out today:
Canada's military watchdog says health concerns of soldiers exposed to toxic material while serving in the Gulf War were largely ignored, and he worries the situation isn't much better for troops deployed Afghanistan.
In a special report to be released today, called Heroism Exposed: An Investigation Into the Treatment of 1 Combat Engineer Regiment Kuwait Veterans, Yves Cote said he's troubled that legitimate concerns from Canadian Forces personnel deployed to Kuwait in 1991 weren't given the "weight and respect" they deserved. And the Ombudsman for National Defence and Canadian Forces said troops in Afghanistan aren't adequately alerted to environmental and health risks in the theatre of operations.
Not only that...during his press conference today Cote said the government doesn't even have up to date information about the soldiers currently deployed in Afghanistan. You can read the government's press release here. "Toxic substances"? Like depleted uranium, perhaps? Why the hell has it taken this long to deal with these problems?
- Via The Province:
Stronach said, "Norman Spector's label hit new lows," adding that she was appalled at the precision of his slur.
"The precision"? Ummm, what?
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