William Koch, Billionaire Koch Brother, Accused Of Imprisoning Executive

Billionaire William Koch is facing a lawsuit in federal court from a former top-level employee who claims the energy mogul lured him to a secluded property, where he was imprisoned and interrogated for a period of time, according to a report in Courthouse News.

John Houston Scott, an attorney for Kirby Martenson, a former executive for a number of Koch subsidiaries, confirmed the story to HuffPost, adding that he guessed the case could go to trial in a year.

Gun Crime Canada: Firearm-Related Crimes Cost Canadians $3.1 Billion In 2008, Justice Department Says

OTTAWA - Crimes involving guns cost Canadians more than $3 billion a year, suggests an internal Justice Department study that may stoke the gun-control debate.

The newly released report examined all firearm-related crime in 2008, and calculated costs across a broad range, including the value of policing and prosecuting offenders, lost income and even burial fees for victims.

The total came to $3.1 billion, or about $93 for every person in the country, says the study, completed last year by two federal researchers.

Conservative MP’s scholarship doesn’t pass the smell test: Angus

Conservative MP Susan Truppe may have violated the federal government’s ethics rules by arranging for two corporations, including one that lobbied her earlier this year, to fund a scholarship in her name.

NDP MP Charlie Angus says the Susan Truppe International Day of the Girl Scholarship unveiled this week appears to be a clear violation of the guidelines that govern MPs.

Prime Minister Harper’s foreign policy hobbled by ideology

Stephen Harper has gone back to Africa after five years. In 2007, he went to Uganda for the Commonwealth summit. Now he’s in the Democratic Republic of Congo for the Francophonie summit. He has taken a side trip to Senegal to do what politicians love: handing out a cheque — in this case, for food aid to the Sahel region. But there are signs that he is also beginning to see Africa’s economic growth as a trade opportunity for Canada, as seen in Foreign Minister John Baird’s recent trade trip to Nigeria.

The Province of Northern Ontario

George Orwell warned us. Somehow he knew that the future would be marked by the use of words that mean one thing but that mean another.

I’m thinking of this because I came across the use of one of these doublespeak words while looking up an article for this post.

Sustainable.

Indigenous Nations in Canada face humanitarian crisis

This blog post is not an official report, but is modeled off situation reports from international groups and organizations about specific crises in other countries. Canada portrays itself as a model nation but always hides the darker side of the historic genocide perpetrated on Indigenous peoples and the aggressive assimilatory actions it is taking currently -- which only serve to make poverty in First Nations much worse.

Staff at XL Foods shocked by layoffs

Staff and union officials attached to the embattled XL Foods meat processing plant in Alberta expressed shock after the company said Saturday it is temporarily laying off almost all of its employees — 2,000 out of approximately 2,200.

"The employees have a fear, they don't understand what is going on," said Abdi Nasir Guir, a worker at the Brooks, Alta. plant which remains at the centre of an international beef recall because of E. coli contamination.

PM wants next Francophonie summit held in a democracy

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he's glad he attended the summit of French-speaking nations but hopes the next one is held in a country that promotes democratic values.

Harper admitted Sunday that he had definite reservations about taking part in this weekend's international gathering of la Francophonie in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Roma in Hungary feel persecuted but they have nowhere to turn

GYONGYOSPATA, HUNGARY—They called themselves a neighbourhood watch.

On March 1, 2011, at least 2,000 members of a right-wing paramilitary group called the Civil Guard Association for a Better Future rolled into this sleepy former coal-mining village 80 kilometres east of Budapest.

Wearing black uniforms and hats, they pledged to help police maintain law and order and stamp out “Gypsy criminality.”

'The courage to say no to misogyny': Statement on the attack against 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai

Malala Yousafzai remains in hospital after being shot in the head by members of a faction of the Taliban in Pakistan. Only 14, Yousafzai received international notoriety soon after her "Diary of a Pakistani Schoolgirl" was published by the BBC in 2009.

Owais Tohid, writing for the Christian Science Monitor, reported that young Malala was motivated by another women's rights activist with the same namesake:

"The first time I met Malala, a couple of years ago, I asked her what her name signified. She answered: 'Probably, a hero like the Afghan heroine Malalai [of Maiwand] or Malalai Joya. I want to be a social activist and an honest politician like her,' she said, smiling. Ms. Joya, a 30-something activist, politician, and writer who was bitterly critical of both the Taliban and the Karzai regime, was at one point dubbed the bravest woman of Afghanistan."