Quebec tuition-hike protesters collide with disputed new law


In the throes of massive rallies against planned college tuition hikes in Montreal, police arrested at least 100 protesters Tuesday night under a disputed new law that regulates protests and requires approved routes.

Canadian media reported that clashes and arrests marked the 100th day of demonstrations against government plans to raise the cost of a college education in Quebec, where average tuition is markedly lower than elsewhere in Canada at less than $2,200 per year. Under the plan, tuition fees would go up by 75% in seven years.

Outraged students have boycotted classes and taken to the streets. Many protesters have also tied the tuition battle to a larger revolt against economic inequality that has caught fire in the Occupy movement. Some have tried to stop other students from going to classes or have turned to violence.

Worried by the ongoing unrest, Quebec lawmakers passed an emergency law last week requiring protesters to follow approved routes and inform police of their plans eight hours in advance. It also imposes punishments for blocking other students from getting to class. Those that flout the law face fines ranging from $1,000 for individuals to as much as $125,000 for organized groups.

Though a recent poll found roughly 2 out of 3 Quebec residents support the law as well as the tuition increases, the Quebec Bar Assn. argues that the law violates the fundamental rights of Quebec citizens. A constitutional expert told the National Post it was "flagrantly unconstitutional" because it gave the education minister the power to single-handedly change the law, among other objections.

The new rules have hardly cooled the raging protests. Graduate physics student Samuel René de Cotret told the Montreal Gazette it was “a totalitarian law that serves nothing but to inflame the tension,” saying he was protesting both the tuition hikes and the emergency law.

Although most protesters kept to an approved route Tuesday as tens of thousands of protesters flooded the streets, some splintered away to defy the new law, according to the CBC. Two police officers were injured and four other people were taken to the hospital, the Canadian Press reported.

After the arrests, Quebec's government said it was still open to talking to student activists. But "it's unclear what the sides might possibly discuss," the Canadian Press wrote. The "government remains committed to tuition hikes, and the student groups remain staunchly opposed to them."


What Egyptians and others are saying online as voting begins

Pakistani doctor who helped find Bin Laden gets 33 years in prison

Iran counters Western offer on nuke inspectors, news agency says

-- Emily Alpert in Los Angeles

Photo: Police arrest protesters during a demonstration against college tuition hikes in Montreal on Tuesday. Credit: Ryan Remiorz / The Canadian Press

China now more popular than the U.S., poll says


China has grown more popular than the United States, according to a recently released poll that quizzed more than 24,000 people around the world about whether countries and the European Union affected the world for good or for ill.

China has long been popular in Nigeria and Kenya, where most people polled said it had a positive influence, but jumped in popularity this year in Britain, Canada, Australia and other countries, according to the GlobeScan poll, done in partnership with the University of Maryland for the BBC World Service. Half of the people polled outside China said the country had a mainly positive effect on the world.

A slim majority of the people who said China had a positive effect credited its economy, products and services for their opinion. "It is Chinese economic assistance to these countries and their closer economic ties with China that have improved China's popularity in these countries," Su Hao of China Foreign Affairs University told China Daily.

Yet its economic influence was also the top reason given by people who said China hurt the world, followed by “the way China treats its people” and foreign policy.

The U.S. dropped slightly in popularity in the last year, the poll found, with 47% of people polled outside the country saying it had a largely good influence. Nigeria and Kenya -- the same countries that rank China highly -- view the U.S. the most highly out of the  countries polled.

But the U.S.  has become much less popular in Nigeria than it used to be, and it has also lost points in South Korea, Chile and Russia. The main reason people gave for disliking the U.S. was its foreign policy. European countries and the European Union  also fell.

"The turmoil in the EU ... has raised doubts in people's minds about its continued ability to be a global leader," said Chris Coulter, president of the GlobeScan polling firm. "Hopes are turning to China."

The most popular country of all was Japan, which overtook Germany in the rankings this year with 58% of respondents saying it had a mainly positive effect on the world. The only place polled where Japan was truly unpopular was China, where only 16% of respondents said it had a good influence.

The overall rankings, based on the percentage of people who said the country or countries had a positive effect, in descending order were: Japan, Germany, Canada, Britain, China, France, the European Union, the United States, Brazil, India, South Africa, South Korea, Russia, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan and Iran.


Fearing anarchist attacks, Italy tightens security

Syrian opposition group leader says he'll resign to stem shifts

West African troops in Guinea-Bissau to restore order after coup

-- Emily Alpert in Los Angeles

Photo: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chinese President Hu Jintao attend the opening ceremony of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Beijing on May 3, 2012. Credit: Mark Ralston / AFP/Getty Images

Canada ditches the penny






Continue reading »

Banning brothels could endanger prostitutes, Canadian court rules

Photo: Terri-Jean Bedford, left, sits alongside lawyer Alan Young during a press conference in Toronto on Monday after Ontario's Court of Appeal struck down a ban on brothels, saying a ban on brothels puts prostitutes at risk and is unconstitutional. Credit: Aaron Vincent Elkaim / Associated Press/The Canadian PressA Canadian appeals court in Ontario ruled Monday that banning brothels is unconstitutional and could put prostitutes in danger by not allowing them to work in a safe location.

Such a ban would "prevent prostitutes from taking the basic safety precaution of moving indoors to locations under their control," the court wrote in its decision Monday.

The case could set a legal precedent for challenging laws against prostitution in Canada. Though sex work is legal in Canada, running a brothel or "bawdy house" has been banned, along with other activities linked to prostitution.

"The feds and the province did not have the evidence to prove that these laws are constitutional and are effective," dominatrix Terri-Jean Bedford, one of the parties in the legal battle, told the Toronto Star. "They’re totally opposite. They force women underground into dark segments of society in harm's way."

In its decision, the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld part of a ruling two years ago that struck down several laws that restricted sex work. However, the court disagreed with another part of that decision, saying prostitutes should still be prohibited from soliciting clients in public places.

The court has given the government one year to rewrite the law if it chooses to, the Associated Press reported. The decision is expected to be appealed to the Canadian Supreme Court.


Afghan shooting: U.S. pays $50,000 per villager killed

Germany signals willingness to boost Europe's bailout fund

Tibetan sets himself ablaze in India before Chinese leader visits

— Emily Alpert in Los Angeles


Maybe we don't blame Canada after all


Blame Canada? Maybe not.  Americans feel better about Canada than ever, according to a Gallup poll on how people in the United States view other countries that stretches back to 1987.

A Gallup poll this month found that 96% of Americans surveyed had a good opinion of the northern neighbor, higher than any other country included in the poll. Gallup dubbed that rating "the highest Gallup has measured for any country in more than 20 years of asking this question."

The lowest-ranked country is Iran, which has been at loggerheads with the U.S. over its nuclear program. Second-to-last is North Korea, which saw a slight bump in popularity this year.

Egypt and Cuba jumped the most in popularity, though they’re still behind long-standing U.S. allies such as Britain and Germany. China, which has faced a tougher stance on trade issues from President Obama this year, had the biggest drop in favor among the countries included on the survey.

Pakistan fell to the lowest point that Gallup has measured since 2000. Gallup speculated that could be tied to the discovery that Osama bin Laden had been hiding in Pakistan, raising suspicion that some Pakistani officials knew or even helped the late Al Qaeda leader.

Pollsters surveyed more than 1,000 adults across the country, asking about countries in random order. Here is a chart from Gallup listing the full rankings for this year and how they've changed:



Al Qaeda weakened, Iran a threat, U.S. official say

Obama signals tougher stance on China trade practices

Suspicions grow over whether Pakistan aided bin Laden

-- Emily Alpert in Los Angeles

Photo: Canada fans wave flags before Canada played Cuba in a women's Olympic qualifying soccer game in Vancouver in January. Credit: Darryl Dyck / The Canadian Press

Canadians debating travel to Mexico after attacks on citizens


Tourists enjoy spring break in 2009 in Cancun.
REPORTING FROM MEXICO CITY -- A string of brutal attacks on Canadians has travelers in Canada debating whether they should continue to visit Mexico.

In the latest case to rattle nerves among Canadian travelers, a Calgary woman was found badly beaten in an upscale hotel elevator last month in the Pacific coastal city of Mazatlan. Sheila Nabb was placed in a medically induced coma and underwent reconstructive surgery for injuries to her face, Canadian news reports said.

In early January, a retired man from British Columbia was shot and killed during a robbery in Puerto Vallarta. Robin Wood, 67, had lived there for four years, reports said.

In December, a dual citizen of Mexico and Canada named Ximena Osegueda Magana and her boyfriend, Alejandro Santamaria, disappeared on the southern Pacific coast of Oaxaca, an area popular with foreign tourists. Their stabbed bodies were found  Dec. 27 near Huatulco beach.

Osegueda was remembered as a student at the University of British Columbia.

In all, six Canadians were killed in Mexico in 2011, reports said, and 50 were assaulted. (In contrast, 111 U.S. citizens were killed in Mexico in 2010.)

It's unclear whether those incidents had anything to do with Mexico's escalating drug-related violence, which has left more than 50,000 dead in five years. Yet some Canadians now appear to be thinking twice about Mexico, with travel agents noticing concern expressed in online forums.

"We came to a conclusion that [Cuba] was a lot better for our security," one Canadian traveler told the Globe and Mail newspaper after deciding to cancel plans to visit Mazatlan after the Sheila Nabb attack.

Authorities in Mexico and Canada are reminding tourists that more Canadians are visiting Mexico than ever, with 1 million traveling here in 2009 and 1.6 million in 2010. Others are also urging travelers to keep violent incidents in Mexico in perspective.

"It is easy for producers to justify this sensationalism because the TV stations are making Canadians aware of the risks of travelling to Mexico, which are real," wrote a columnist at "But there are risks, also ... with taking a cruise in Italy, or even staying locked in your own residence in Canada, where you might slip in the tub and crack your head."

Canada's current travel advisory on Mexico urges high levels of caution throughout the country and avoiding non-essential travel to the violence-plagued U.S.-Mexico border area.

"Presidential elections are scheduled for July 1, 2012," the current alert says. "In the period leading up to and during the elections, Canadians are advised to remain vigilant, avoid large crowds and demonstrations, exercise caution, follow the advice of local authorities, and monitor local media." 


Mexicans flock to Canadian Embassy for new travel visas

Demonstrations on Mexico drug war offered look at Mexicans abroad

Canada to require visas for Mexicans following surge in refugee claims

-- Daniel Hernandez

Photo: Spring-breakers, mostly from Canada, enjoy themselves at the beach in Cancun, Mexico, in 2009. Credit: Israel Leal / Associated Press

Q&A: How global conflict shows up in computer games

Gamers try out the "Sphinx and the Shadow of Set" game at the 2003 E3 show

Earlier this month, an Iranian court handed a death sentence to a former U.S. Marine of Iranian descent who was convicted of spying for the Central Intelligence Agency. One strange twist in the case was that the defendant allegedly confessed to using video games to manipulate public opinion.

Iranian state television broadcast a purported confession by Amir Mirzaei Hekmati saying he worked for a gaming company that was funded by the CIA "to convince the people of the world and Iraq that what the U.S. does in Iraq and other countries is good and acceptable.”

Strange as it may seem, this isn’t the first time that video games have played a part in foreign disputes. Rex Brynen, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal who co-edits a blog on conflict simulation, answered our questions about how computer games reflect global tensions.

How have video games caused disputes in Iran and elsewhere?

One of the biggest disputes is the current one in Iran. Hekmati worked for a period with Kuma games, which has published several titles that have displeased Iranian authorities.

In the Kuma\War series, two fictionalized scenarios are based on the U.S. Embassy hostage rescue mission of 1980, while another is based on a fictionalized American raid against an Iranian nuclear facility. The same company's "Sibaq al-Fursan" ("Race of the Knights") is an Arabic-language car racing game set in a radioactive post-apocalyptic Middle East, complete with Iranian villains.

There's no evidence that Hekmati was involved in these, that they are anything other than just games, or even that the gaming issue has much to do with his arrest and conviction. However, one can see how in the context of growing Iranian-U.S. tensions, even video games might be used by Tehran as evidence of nefarious American intent.

On a less serious note, an incident occurred a couple of years ago when a Cuban website condemned the game "Call of Duty: Black Ops" because part of it revolved around plots to kill [Fidel] Castro.

The game itself, however, also featured an optional level where a very-much-alive Castro teamed up with President Kennedy, Robert McNamara and Richard Nixon to defend the Pentagon from a zombie invasion -- hardly incitement against the Castro regime!

What's the strangest international game you've seen?

During a period of heightened domestic political tensions in Lebanon a few years ago, a video game surfaced in which you had to storm the Serail (the main Cabinet offices in Beirut) to try to kill then-Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. I was working for the Lebanese government at the time, and so it was a bit creepy to see a game which started with the player killing the guard I said good morning to each day.

How do global politics creep into video gaming?

As with television, films or books, international events can provide the backdrop to a game. A so-called tactical shooter game, for example, will largely be about shooting electronic enemies but will draw on current events or imagined future ones to provide the storyline.

In such cases, the treatment of politics is rarely very sophisticated. Instead, it is more of a hook to create a sense of engagement for the player. How the story is told, however, may tell us something about a society's fears, hopes and preoccupations: Not surprisingly, for example, a lot of games started using terrorism and insurgency themes after 9/11 and amid the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

At times this can be controversial because the broader events are controversial -- for example, the issue of whether one should be able to play as the Taliban in the popular video game "Medal of Honor" sparked considerable debate a couple of years ago.

Video games may also be designed to promote certain views or political attitudes. The U.S. Army, for example, has developed the "America's Army" series of video games as a military recruiting tool since 2002.

The Iranian government, concerned at what it views as the bias of the Western video game industry, has promoted Iranian-made games that often focus on nationalist topics. The militant Lebanese Islamist group Hezbollah has produced a couple of video games that glorify its military confrontation with Israel.

Do you think gamers absorb the messages about other countries? Or are we all taking this too seriously?

Certainly it can all be taken too seriously -- sometimes a game is just a game. However, it is also the case that games both reflect societal values and may in turn influence them as well. The U.S. military wouldn't be investing money in "America's Army" if didn't think that it improves their image and helps recruitment.

How are games designed outside the Western world different than here?

The major difference is one of historical perspective. The Vietnamese company Emobi Games, for example, recently released a "tactical shooter" game about the pivotal battle of Dien Bien Phu during the early Vietnam War. Not surprisingly, the Viet-Minh are the heroes in the game, and the French colonialists are the electronic opponent. I would expect to see much more of this as video game purchasing power grows in the non-Western world, especially in China.

The Chinese video game "Glorious Mission," to cite another example, is a sort of Chinese version of "America's Army," which extols the role of the People's Liberation Army and where the bad guys use U.S. military equipment.

Do gamers seem to prefer games with global themes, or would they rather just go after zombies?

The mass public is much more interested in casually blowing things up. Plus, it has to be said, going after zombies is cool, and there's no zombie lobby to complain.


EU imposes Iran oil embargo

Sanctions begin taking a bigger toll on Iran

Iran sentences American accused of spying to death, reports say

-- Emily Alpert

Photo: Gamers try out the "Sphinx and the Shadow of Set" game at the Interactive Digital Software Assn.'s E3 Expo 2003 gaming trade show in Los Angeles. Credit: David McNew / Getty Images

Canada Boy Scouts chief apologizes for sex abuse

The head of Canada’s Boy Scouts has apologized to victims of sexual abuse in the organization and announced an independent review of confidential files the group has long kept on leaders accused of molestation.

“Our sincere efforts to prevent such crimes have not always succeeded, and we are sorry for that and saddened at any resulting harm,” said Steve P. Kent, chairman of the governing board of Scouts Canada.

Kent said he has asked an outside auditing firm to review confidential records that Scouts Canada, like the Boy Scouts of America, has maintained for decades to keep known molesters out of its ranks. The two organizations are independent of each other.

Kent said the moves were sparked by recent media attention. In October, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. and the Los Angeles Times published a joint investigation that found Scouts Canada and the Boy Scouts of America had failed to prevent a convicted child molester from abusing Scouts over two decades on both sides of the border, and at times had helped him cover his tracks.

Scouts Canada Chief Executive Janet Yale denied that her organization kept confidential records. She resigned abruptly in November after the CBC published proof of their existence.

The Boy Scouts of America has fought in court to keep its files from public view, arguing that they contain no information of value. On Thursday, a spokesman said the BSA has apologized to victims both publicly and privately in the past.

“We believe perpetrators of abuse should be punished to the fullest extent of the law; even suspicion of abuse must be reported by members and volunteers to law enforcement and result in immediate removal from Scouting,” the organization said in a statement.

In recent years, the BSA has been the subject of dozens of lawsuits alleging it mishandled cases of sexual abuse. Last year, an Oregon man was awarded nearly $20 million when a jury found the BSA had failed to protect him from a known molester.


Boy Scouts failed to report abuser

Chief executive of Scouts Canada resigns unexpectedly

-- Jason Felch and Kim Christensen

South Africa loses $1.4 billion training doctors who emigrated

REPORTING FROM SOUTH AFRICA -- South Africa, the nation with the highest number of people living with HIV/AIDS, has spent more than $1.4 billion training doctors, only to see them emigrate overseas for jobs. It's part of a massive flow of expertise from poor and developing countries to rich nations such as the United States, Canada, Britain and Australia.

A Canadian study in the British Medical Journal estimated the cost of lost doctors in nine sub-Saharan African countries at nearly $2.2 billion. And that didn't take into account the large numbers of nurses who leave Africa for the West.

With more than 5 million people living with HIV/AIDS, South Africa has just eight doctors for every 10,000 people. Its public hospitals are understaffed and overburdened because of HIV/AIDS, according to  medical analysts. It costs the South African government $58,700 to educate a doctor. 

Zimbabwe lost $40 million, Ethiopia $25 million and Nigeria $654 million to emigrating doctors, according to the study led by Edward Mills, a global health expert at the University of Ottawa. A World Health Organization report in 2006 said Africa was facing a critical shortage of medical staff.

Continue reading »

Chief executive of Scouts Canada resigns unexpectedly


The chief executive of the Canadian scouting organization resigned unexpectedly over the weekend, citing “philosophical differences” with the board of trustees over the future of the volunteer youth organization, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported Monday.

Janet Yale said in a statement that her departure was not connected with a recent CBC News investigation into the organization’s handling of sexual abuse cases over the years.

In October, the CBC and L.A. Times published a joint investigation that found both the Boy Scouts of America and Scouts Canada, its independent counterpart, had failed to stop a sexual predator from molesting more than a dozen children and at times helped to cover the pedophile’s tracks.

In response to that story, Yale denied the organization kept records about suspected abuse. But after the CBC published a copy of a form used by the organization in the 1980s, Scouts Canada clarified that it did maintain a confidential record of suspected or terminated scouting leaders.

Another story reported Scouts Canada had settled more than a dozen abuse cases confidentially, keeping the cases from public view with confidentiality agreements.


Boy Scouts failed to report abuser

Paper trail: Documenting the abuse

Timeline: Richard Turley's legacy of abuse

-- Jason Felch reporting from Los Angeles

Photo: Richard Turley molested children in Canada and the U.S. for nearly two decades. Credit: CBC News' "The Fifth Estate"


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