Canada confronting a crisis between economy and energy

Energy is on everyone's minds these days. Prime Minister Stephen Harper is determined to make Canada an energy superpower, fuelled mostly by Alberta's tar sands.

Meanwhile, Alberta Premier Alison Redford now finds energy price fluctuations are reducing provincial revenues.

Saskatchewan is booming from oil, gas and uranium revenues, and B.C. Premier Christy Clark plans to vastly expand exploitation of liquefied natural gas, which requires huge amounts of energy and involves the highly contentious practice of fracking.

U.S. Says It Takes North Korea Threats Seriously

WASHINGTON, March 30 (Reuters) - The White House said on Saturday that it takes North Korea's latest saber-rattling threats seriously while cautioning that Pyongyang has a long history of bellicose rhetoric.

North Korea's latest bout of angry rhetoric included a vow that it is entering a "state of war" with South Korea a day after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un signed off on an order putting its missile units on standby to attack U.S. military bases in the South.

Arrest Warrant Issued For Bassem Youssef, TV Satirist Known As 'Egypt's Jon Stewart'

CAIRO — Egypt's state prosecutors ordered the arrest Saturday of a popular television satirist for allegedly insulting Islam and the country's leader, in a move that government opponents say is aimed at silencing critics of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.

The arrest warrant for against Bassem Youssef, who has come to be known as Egypt's Jon Stewart, followed an order earlier this week by the country's top prosecutor to arrest five prominent pro-democracy activists in what the opposition has characterized as a widening campaign against dissent.

Foreclosed 'Zombie' Homes Exceed 300,000 Properties: Study

ORLANDO, Fla., March 28 (Reuters) - A national survey found 301,874 "zombie" properties dotting the U.S. landscape in which homeowners in foreclosure have moved out, leaving vacant property susceptible to vandalism and degradation.

Florida tops the list of zombie properties with 90,556 vacant homes in foreclosure, according to a foreclosure inventory released on Thursday by RealtyTrac, a real estate information company in Irvine, California.

Storage wars: He pays taxes, why not everyone?

MOUNT HOPE Mike Whaling, owner of Airport Mini-Storage on Highway 6 pays nearly $30,000 a year in property taxes.

He also spent nearly $100,000 getting his operation up and running about a decade ago. Ever since, he’s watched as other businesses have got away with not paying for business licences.

The issue was given a higher profile this week with the case of Hillbilly Heaven, the controversial restaurant operating two locations in Hamilton without a licence, due in part says its owner, to having to pay high rezoning fees.

Massive federal government relocation contract under fire again

OTTAWA — The businessman who exhausted all legal avenues to challenge the federal government’s “rigged” contracting for the biggest relocation deal in North America is now intent on proving the 2009 contract that was supposed fix the fiasco was just as unfair.

Bruce Atyeo’s company, Envoy Relocation Services, is suing the government for $62 million in lost profits and damages over its handling of contracts in 2002 and 2004 to relocate the thousands of military, RCMP and public servants moved to new postings every year.

Bank of Cyprus big savers to lose up to 60%

Large depositors at Cyprus' largest bank may be forced to accept losses of up to 60 per cent, far more than initially feared under the European rescue package to save the country from bankruptcy, officials said Saturday.

Deposits of more than 100,000 euros ($128,000) at the Bank of Cyprus would lose 37.5 per cent in money that would be converted into bank shares, according to a finance ministry decree obtained by The Associated Press. In a second raid on these accounts, depositors also could lose up to 22.5 per cent more, depending on what experts determine is needed to prop up the bank's reserves.

Obamacare Faces Near-Solid Block In The South

ATLANTA -- As more Republicans give in to President Barack Obama's health-care overhaul, an opposition bloc remains across the South, including from governors who lead some of the nation's poorest and unhealthiest states.

"Not in South Carolina," Gov. Nikki Haley declared at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference. "We will not expand Medicaid on President Obama's watch. We will not expand Medicaid ever."

Why is Canada the only country to quit UN anti-drought convention?

Why, suddenly, has the federal government chosen to withdraw from a United Nations convention to combat drought, making Canada an outlier among 194 nations, the only country in the world outside the agreement?

Is International Cooperation Minister Julian Fantino to be believed when he said, in the government’s first public statement on Wednesday, that “membership in this convention was costly for Canadians”?

Cheaper green energy storage solution invented by Calgary profs

A new discovery by a pair of University of Calgary chemists could make the large-scale use of wind and solar energy more feasible.

Curtis Berlinguette and Simon Trudel have invented an environmentally friendly, highly customizable way to make a key component in a process that stores electricity by turning water into hydrogen fuel — at a price they say is roughly 1,000 times cheaper than current methods for making that component.