News stories by Paul Weinberg, page 2

Canada has flexed its military muscles, first in Afghanistan for nine years alongside NATO forces, and now in Libya in its supply of ships and combat planes for the rebel forces, but little debate has happened on the ground among Canadians themselves on this direction.

It was a highly disciplined campaign focused on the core base of Canadians, especially in greater Toronto, where a large number of citizens of recent immigrant origins helped to boost the Conservatives Monday to a comfortable parliamentary majority status of 167 seats out of a total 308.

The just-announced Canada-U.S. security perimetre discussions are comprehensive and potentially wide-ranging and could impact Canadian sovereignty. However, the domestic opposition appears to have been caught off-guard.

Six months after the chaos surrounding security and policing at June's G20 leaders' summit in Toronto, there is little agreement about where the buck should stop.

The corporate clout of the mining industry trumped political ideology in Canada when members of all political parties helped to narrowly defeat a bill late last month that would have imposed standards on Canadian mining companies operating in developing countries.

The world is ill-prepared for the human toll from the expected increase in floods, droughts and extreme storms and hurricanes on the horizon.

Canada's parliamentary is so broken and dysfunctional that the country is in danger of becoming 'the laughing stock' of the world.

Ottawa's refusal to repatriate a former child soldier, 23-year-old Omar Khadr, back to Canada to face justice in the country of his birth opens to the door to a trial before a controversial U.S. military commission process that has been challenged for its use of evidence gleaned from interrogation after torture.

Restrictions on art displays and signage critical of the upcoming February 2010 Winter Olympics and the creation of a massive high-tech security network are putting a damper in some residents' minds on what should be a celebratory sports extravaganza in Vancouver.

Canadians appear unlikely to get the entire story behind their military's transfer of Afghans captured in war to Afghan government authorities and possible torture.