Harper Lacks Compassion and Leadership When it Comes to the Safety of Indigenous Women

Prime Minister Harper's dismissal of the growing over-representation of Indigenous women and girls as victims of violence, homicide and persons who go missing as isolated crimes to be investigated by police illustrates just how out of touch he is. Moreover, the callous tone of his remarks yesterday, and failure to show any empathy for the families and loved ones of those who have been lost, shows a lack of compassion and leadership.

His characterization of this ongoing national tragedy completely disregards the scope of the crisis, which was confirmed only months ago by an RCMP report. That report doubled the 2010 estimate of the Native Women's Association of Canada of 600 missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in recent decades to almost 1,200 since 1984. Even more disturbing than the shocking number of Indigenous women and girls involved was the finding that their proportion of the homicide rate is growing drastically, from 8 per cent in 1984 to 23 per cent in 2012. That means that today almost one in four female homicide victims in Canada is Indigenous, despite the fact they represent roughly only 4 per cent of the female population.

Princeton Study: U.S. No Longer An Actual Democracy

A new study from Princeton spells bad news for American democracy—namely, that it no longer exists.

Asking "[w]ho really rules?" researchers Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page argue that over the past few decades America's political system has slowly transformed from a democracy into an oligarchy, where wealthy elites wield most power.

Bullets and Ballots

In June, 1966, Stokely Carmichael, the twenty-four-year-old chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, was arrested in Greenwood, Mississippi, for his participation in the March Against Fear, which travelled across the state. The march had been started ten days earlier by James Meredith, who had integrated the University of Mississippi, but he was wounded by a sniper on the second day, and civil-rights figures pledged to complete it on his behalf. After Carmichael was released from jail, he vented his frustration to the crowd. “This is the twenty-seventh time that I have been arrested,” he shouted. “I ain’t going to jail no more.” He concluded that nonviolent direct action had reached its productive limits. “Everybody owns our own neighborhoods except us,” he said. “We want Black Power.”

As Casualties Rise, Egypt Urges Israel, Palestinians To Return To Ceasefire Talks

GAZA/CAIRO, Aug 23 (Reuters) - Egypt called on Israel and the Palestinians on Saturday to halt hostilities and resume peace talks, but both sides kept up attacks, including an Israeli air strike which destroyed a residential tower block in the center of Gaza City.

Hamas militants also fired rockets at Israel, hitting the southern city of Beersheba, where two people were hurt, police said. At least two rockets were also fired from Lebanon into northern Israel, but it was not initially clear who fired them, Lebanese and Israeli sources said.

Timeline for a Body: 4 Hours in the Middle of a Ferguson Street

FERGUSON, Mo. — Just after noon on Saturday, Aug. 9, Michael Brown was shot dead by a police officer on Canfield Drive.

For about four hours, in the unrelenting summer sun, his body remained where he fell.

Neighbors were horrified by the gruesome scene: Mr. Brown, 18, face down in the middle of the street, blood streaming from his head. They ushered their children into rooms that faced away from Canfield Drive. They called friends and local news stations to tell them what had happened. They posted on Twitter and Facebook and recorded shaky cellphone videos that would soon make their way to the national news.

Police Violence Has Been Going On Forever. No Wonder People Are Fed Up With It.

Protests continue following the Aug. 9 shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. The marchers, though, are not just protesting Brown's slaying. They are also voicing pent-up anger at an old problem: police violence, often directed at black and brown people.

The horrific beating of Rodney King by five police officers in Los Angeles in 1991 -- and the subsequent acquittal of his assailants -- sparked the L.A. riots of 1992, leading to 53 deaths, some at the hands of police. It was also a video introduction to police brutality for those in America who may have doubted its severity.

Documents Allege Scott Walker Pressured Groups To Donate To Campaign

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Newly released court documents include excerpts from emails showing that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's recall election campaign team told him to instruct donors to give to a key conservative group that would run ads for Walker and distribute money to other conservative groups backing him.

The documents released Friday by a federal appeals court also show that prosecutors believe Walker personally solicited donations for conservative group Wisconsin Club for Growth to get around campaign finance limits and disclosure requirements as he fended off the recall attempt in 2012.

Energy East Pipeline route crosses 961 waterways: report

A new report from the Council of Canadians says the Energy East Pipeline would cross and endanger 961 waterways that are important for drinking water, First Nations cultures and treaty rights, fish and wildlife habitat and tourism.

That includes 300 waterways in New Brunswick.

TransCanada Corporation's proposal would see the conversion of roughly 3,000 kilometres of natural gas pipeline on the company's Canadian Mainline route and the construction of 1,400 kilometres of new pipeline, to carry crude oil from Alberta to Saint John.

Pandora and the White Male

On Wednesday, Pandora became the latest Silicon Valley company to publicize a breakdown of its employees by gender and race. Notably, Pandora employs a much larger share of female workers—about forty-nine per cent globally—than most of the other big companies that recently disclosed their numbers, including Google, Apple, Twitter, and Facebook (in all these companies, women only make up around thirty per cent of employees). Pandora also appears to have a larger share of underrepresented minorities than many of the others. The company, commentators concluded from the figures, must be doing something right.

Stupidity outbreak mars Harper’s visit

What a relief. Prime Minister Stephen Harper visited Whitehorse yesterday and shared with the territory a fresh insight: the plight of missing and murdered aboriginal women in Canada is not, in fact, a “sociological phenomenon.” Rather, the root of the problem is that we simply haven’t locked enough people away in prison.

“We should view it as crime,” Harper said. “It is crime against innocent people, and it needs to be addressed as such.”

Well, that makes things much tidier, doesn’t it?

No need to fret over the toxic brew that contributes to the many troubles faced by Canada’s aboriginal communities: high unemployment, rife substance abuse, overcrowded housing, low education levels, not to mention the terrible traumas inflicted during residential schools that continue to be passed from one generation to the next, and so forth.

Wynne: Harper's Missing, Murdered Aboriginal Women Comments 'Outrageous'

TORONTO - Prime Minister Stephen Harper is wrong in saying that police investigations, not a national inquiry, are the best way to deal with crimes involving missing and murdered aboriginal women, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne said Friday.

"For Stephen Harper to say that there's not a systemic aspect to this, I think is just — I think it's outrageous quite frankly," she said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

All the provinces and territories endorsed calls for a national inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women when they gathered last year for the Council of the Federation conference. They'll meet up again next week in Charlottetown, P.E.I.

Royal Bank Q3 2014 Results: Profit Soars To $2.38 Billion

TORONTO _ Canada's largest bank is hiking its dividend for common shares by six per cent after reporting a record third-quarter profit that beat analyst estimates.

Royal Bank of Canada (TSX:RY) said Friday it had $2.378 billion of net income in its third quarter, up four per cent from a year earlier.

Britain In 2014 Still Has Poor Hospitalised For Malnutrition

Brits are suffering from malnutrition because people simply cannot afford food, experts have warned David Cameron.

Figures released earlier this month by the Health and Social Care Information Centre showed hospital admissions for patients with malnutrition have increased from 5,590 to 6,690 in a one-year period.

Poor health due to poor diet is getting worse because of food poverty, vice president of the Faculty of Public Health, John Middleton, has told the BBC.

Hamas Has Lost Almost Every Battle, But It May Have Won The War With Israel

In an asymmetrical war between a militant group and the world's fourth largest military, victory for the underdog would seem impossible. But in the bloody battle between Hamas and Israel, the terms of victory appear asymmetrical too.

Despite weeks of violence in Gaza that has killed nearly 2,000 Palestinians compared with only 64 IDF soldiers and three Israeli civilians dead, experts have told The Huffington Post UK that the war has unequivocally weakened Israel's position and strengthened that of Hamas.

Private firms 'are using detained immigrants as cheap labour'

Campaigners have criticised private firms for using immigration detainees as cheap labour inside detention centres after research suggested this saves them millions of pounds. Some detainees said they were being paid as little as £1 an hour to cook and clean.

Home Office figures showed that in May this year, detainees in centres run by Serco, G4S and other contractors did nearly 45,000 hours of work for a total of nearly £45,500 in pay. Had they been paid at the national minimum wage, the cost would have been more than £280,000.

Justice Ginsburg: America Has A ‘Real Racial Problem’

The Supreme Court was “once a leader in the world” in combating racial discrimination, according to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. “What’s amazing,” she added, “is how things have changed.”

Ginsburg, who was one of America’s top civil rights attorneys before President Carter appointed her to the federal bench in 1980, spoke at length with the National Law Journal‘s Marcia Coyle in an interview that was published Friday. In that interview, she lays out just how much the Court’s outlook on race has changed since she was arguing women’s equality cases before it in the 1970s.

Young People's Wages Fell 10% Under The Tories, Says Labour

Young Britons have been hit by a real-terms drop in weekly wages of around 10% under the coalition, analysis released by Labour shows.

Earnings for 18 to 21-year-olds have dropped by 10.3% since 2010, while 22 to 29-year-olds saw their weekly income fall by 9.4%, according to research by the House of Commons library.

Why Underwater Homeowners Won't Be Saved By Bank Of America's $17 Billion Deal

Since law enforcement officials first began pursuing banks for misdeeds related to the housing collapse, the stated goal has been the same. The objective, the Justice Department has said, is to hold banks accountable and to aid people most harmed by the financial crash that destroyed home prices and led to an epic wave of foreclosures.

Yet after more than two years of multi-billion dollar deals involving Wall Street's elite, including Thursday's $17 billion settlement with Bank of America, most distressed homeowners have no chance of obtaining the form of help considered the gold standard of borrower aid -- principal reduction, or the forgiveness of mortgage debt.

Legalizing Weed Is ‘A Security Issue,' Says Uruguayan President

Uruguay’s trailblazing legislation legalizing the world’s first government-controlled weed market “began essentially as a security issue,” President José Mujica told The Economist magazine in an interview published Thursday.

Mujica has continued to defend the legislation, which he spearheaded as president, despite a lack of popularity at home and criticism from the International Narcotics Control Board, a U.N. agency.

Videotaped Police Shooting Shocked The Nation, But These Experts Say It Was Justified

Just days after the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown that rocked the nation, another young black man was shot dead by police in broad daylight — miles away from Michael Brown’s home of Ferguson, Missouri. This man had a weapon of sorts. Kajieme Powell was reportedly carrying a knife — seemingly no larger than a steak knife — when police shot him down.

Russia Moves Artillery Units Into Ukraine, NATO Says

WASHINGTON — The Russian military has moved artillery units manned by Russian personnel inside Ukrainian territory in recent days and was using them to fire at Ukrainian forces, NATO officials said on Friday.

The West has long accused Russia of supporting the separatist forces in eastern Ukraine, but this is the first time it has said it had evidence that the Russian military was operating in Ukrainian territory.

Russian Aid Convoy Drives Into Ukraine Seemingly Without Kiev's Approval

IZVARYNE, Ukraine (AP) -- The first trucks in a Russian aid convoy crossed into eastern Ukraine on Friday, seemingly without Kiev's approval, after more than a week's delay amid suspicions the mission was being used as a cover for an invasion by Moscow.

Trucks loaded with water, generators and sleeping bags are intended for civilians in the city of Luhansk, where pro-Russian separatist fighters are besieged by government forces. Shelling of the city has been ongoing for weeks.

Gaza counts cost of war as more than 360 factories destroyed or damaged

Gaza's economy will take years to recover from the devastating impact of the war, in which more than 360 factories have been destroyed or badly damaged and thousands of acres of farmland ruined by tanks, shelling and air strikes, according to analysts.

Israeli air strikes on Gaza have resumed since a temporary ceasefire brokedown on Tuesday after rockets were fired from Gaza. The Israeli Defence Force said it launched air stikes on 20 sites on Friday morning and Gaza health officials said two Palestinians were killed in an attack on a farm.

The Pastor, the Police Officer and the Political Activist: Three Perspectives on Ferguson

Police brutality against black men has become a shockingly common phenomenon in the U.S. The names of those who have died at the hands of law enforcement or their unofficial vigilante deputies over the past few years are too numerous to count. Eric Garner, John Crawford, Ezell Ford, Dante Parker, Kendrec McDade, Oscar Grant and Trayvon Martin are just a handful of names on the list of victims.

On Aug. 9, 18-year-old Michael Brown joined the list when he died from gunshot wounds at the hands of Ferguson, Mo., police officer Darren Wilson. The subsequent protests and police response in Ferguson have thrust the long-simmering issue of police brutality against black men into the national spotlight.

Ferguson Exposes America’s Enduring Legacy of White Bigotry

At the heart of what’s happening in Ferguson, Mo., is an unbridgeable racial divide that has prevented too many whites from looking at African-Americans as human beings.

The racial divide is not exclusively between black and white. As a resident of Los Angeles and a journalist working here, I experience life in a city where Latinos, the largest ethnic group, whites, blacks and Asian-Americans generally live in different and largely separate neighborhoods. Relationships between dominant whites, Latinos and Asian-Americans each have their own dark, tangled stories in a state with a long history of oppression of people of color.

How the War on Terror Created the World’s Most Powerful Terror Group

There are extraordinary elements in the present US policy in Iraq and Syria that are attracting surprisingly little attention. In Iraq, the United States is carrying out air strikes and sending in advisers and trainers to help beat back the advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (better known as ISIS) on the Kurdish capital, Erbil. The US would presumably do the same if ISIS surrounds or attacks Baghdad. But in Syria, Washington’s policy is the exact opposite: there the main opponent of ISIS is the Syrian government and the Syrian Kurds in their northern enclaves. Both are under attack from ISIS, which has taken about a third of the country, including most of its oil and gas production facilities.

Selinger seethes over Harper's comment; says teen's slaying is 'not just a crime'

OTTAWA -- Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger was seething Friday over comments made by Prime Minister Stephen Harper dismissing any suggestion the slaying of a Manitoba teenager indicates a wider social ill.

Selinger, speaking to the Free Press, didn't wait to be asked about the comments before he launched into a short and icy response to what Harper said.

Harper: Missing Aboriginal Women Cases Should Be Solved Through Police, Not National Inquiries

WHITEHORSE - Prime Minister Stephen Harper says police investigations, not a national inquiry, are the best way to deal with crimes involving missing and murdered aboriginal women.

The death of a 15-year-old aboriginal girl found wrapped in a bag and dumped in the Red River has prompted renewed calls for a national inquiry.

Tina Fontaine had been in Winnipeg less than a month when she ran away from foster care.

Economists and business leaders who gathered behind closed doors last week with Finance Minister Joe Oliver to provide budget ideas were divided over introducing income-splitting for couples, and urged the government to find a way to get the Northern Gateway pipeline built.

Several policy ideas on taxes and the economy were discussed in the room, including a retooled approach to income-splitting and the possibility of creating a multi-billion-dollar fund to help win First Nation and community approval for the Northern Gateway oilsands pipeline, according to some of those present.

World's Largest Ice Sheets Melting At Fastest Rate Ever Recorded

Greenland and Antarctica are home to the two largest ice sheets in the world, and a new report released Wednesday says that they are contributing to sea level rise twice as much as they were just five years ago.

Using the European Space Agency's CryoSat 2 satellite, the Alfred Wegener Institute from Germany has found that western Antarctica and Greenland are losing massive amounts of ice.melt

The Most Important Commentary You'll Read About Ferguson

What do we do about Ferguson?

That was the inevitable question facing teachers throughout St. Louis in the days following the police shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed African-American teenager, in nearby Ferguson on Aug. 9. With summer drawing to a close, students were heading back to school just as nearby protesters were being tear-gassed and shot with rubber bullets.

The Militarization of Racism and Neoliberal Violence

The recent killing of an unarmed 18-year-old African-American, Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Missouri, by a white police officer has made visible how a kind of racist, military metaphysics now dominates American life. His subsequent demonization by the media only confirms its entrance into the public consciousness as a form of vicious entertainment. The police have been turned into soldiers who view the neighborhoods in which they operate as war zones. Outfitted with full riot gear, submachine guns, armored vehicles, and other lethal weapons imported from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, their mission is to assume battle-ready behavior. Is it any wonder that violence rather than painstaking, neighborhood police work and community outreach and engagement becomes the norm for dealing with alleged “criminals,” especially at a time when more and more behaviors are being criminalized?

Veteran Cop: 'If You Don't Want To Get Shot,' Shut Up -- Even If We're Violating Your Rights

Sunil Dutta, a 17-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department and adjunct instructor of homeland security at Colorado Technical University, has a suggestion for victims of police violence searching for someone to blame: Look in the mirror.

In a column published Tuesday in The Washington Post titled, "I’m a cop. If you don’t want to get hurt, don’t challenge me," Dutta responds to mounting criticism of the policing tactics on display in Ferguson, Missouri, amid the hyper-militarization of law enforcement and accusations that officers have violated the First Amendment rights of both demonstrators and journalists covering the events. In a particularly telling passage, Dutta argues that citizens could deter police brutality if they were simply more cooperative, even when they're unjustly targeted.

The American Correctional Association Ushered Me Out of Its Convention With Armed Guards

I've dealt with surly, armed prison guards in my reporting career, but Tuesday was the first time the encounter involved a PR man kicking me out of a convention I had personally requested to attend, paid for, and traveled across country to attend. On Tuesday, the director of government and public affairs of the American Correctional Association (ACA), a prison trade group, pulled me out of a seminar at their conference in Salt Lake City, which I'd been attending for several days. Flanking him were two men in Utah Department of Corrections uniforms, with pistols and tasers on their hips.

For Many Politicians, Ferguson Isn’t Happening

Representative Paul Ryan’s response to the shooting death of Michael Brown by Ferguson, Missouri, police was fairly straightforward: say nothing, do nothing. “We should take a deep breath, let’s have some sympathy for the family and the community, and let’s not prejudge anything, and let’s let the investigation take its course and hope that justice is served appropriately,” he told Fox News on Tuesday. “But what I don’t want to do as a political leader is try to graft my policy initiatives or my preferences onto this tragedy.”

How to End the Criminalization of America’s Mothers

Nightmarish stories about about the criminalizing of motherhood have been making headlines of late. There was Shanesha Taylor, arrested on child abuse charges for leaving her kids in a car to go to a job interview; Debra Harrell, locked up for child abuse for letting her 9-year-old play at a nearby park while she worked her shift at McDonald’s; Mallory Loyola, the first woman to be charged under a new Tennessee law that makes it a crime to take drugs while pregnant; and Eileen Dinino, who died serving a jail sentence because she was too poor to pay legal fees from her kids’ truancy cases. Other countries provide social programs and income supports for poor single mothers; in the United States, we arrest them. This week at The Curve, we ask contributors what, in their view, is driving America’s assault on mothers, and what is the remedy? —Kathleen Geier

Children Deported To Honduras Are Getting Killed: Report

As a debate continues to rage in the United States over whether to treat the influx of unaccompanied minors at the border as refugees or to summarily deport them, The Los Angeles Times reports that minors deported to Honduras over the last month are being killed.

A morgue director in the city Honduran city of San Pedro Sula told The Los Angeles Times that “at least five, perhaps as many as 10” children killed there since February had been deported from the United States.

Deadly Fighting In Ukraine As Government Troops Advance Into Rebel-Held Territory

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Fierce fighting raged in eastern Ukraine on Thursday in what appeared to be a last-gasp attempt by government troops to snatch back territory from pro-Russian separatists before the arrival of a Russian aid convoy overseen by the Red Cross.

Trucks loaded with water, generators and sleeping bags for desperate civilians in the besieged city of Luhansk began moving through Ukrainian customs after being held up at the border for a week, in part because of safety concerns and Ukrainian fears that the convoy's arrival could halt the military's advance.