Virginia Tech Shooting

Tragic sequence of events: In five minutes, 30 people were shot dead
- Report From National Post

Schwarzenegger backs 2007 deadline for U.S. in Iraq

Reuters - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, suggested on Wednesday that the United States should withdraw its military forces from Iraq by the end of this year.

Ottawa aims to rebuild frayed ties with China

GEOFFREY YORK AND STEVEN CHASE, The Globe and Mail

BEIJING, OTTAWA -- After nearly a year of friction and neglect in Canada-China relations, the Harper government is launching a big push to rebuild ties with Beijing, including plans to target China as one of 10 markets that will be the focus of Canada's trade efforts.

It's an apparent sharp reversal from just two months ago when Prime Minister Stephen Harper traded barbs with the Chinese and vowed never to sacrifice human-rights concerns on the altar of the "almighty dollar" -- even if it cost business.

This week, a new tone was evident, with International Trade Minister David Emerson and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty making high-profile visits to China to try to restore good relations.

"I would characterize it as re-energizing a relationship that has been very deep and very strong for a long time," Mr. Emerson said yesterday at a news conference in Beijing.

Business groups, which were concerned the diplomatic tiff was hurting trade, applauded the renewed emphasis on commercial relations with China. But they noted that the visit by the two ministers was a far cry from the so-called Team Canada trips that Liberal prime ministers used to lead.

Private-sector players say they believe the Prime Minister's Office is pursuing what it has called a "two-track approach to China," in which Mr. Harper reserves the right to criticize Beijing's human-rights record while leaving his economic ministers to keep trade and business relations humming.

"Prime Minister Harper is not going to stump for Canadian companies the way prime minister Chrétien did," one senior Toronto business official said. "He is not the Team Canada cheerleader-in-chief . . . but believes that's the purview of the minister of trade."

In a speech last night, Mr. Emerson said the Tories are developing a "China strategy" that will be financed with new money in the forthcoming federal budget, along with additional money from reallocations within the Trade Department.

China will be one of about 10 "strategic markets" that will become the focus of Ottawa's trade efforts, based on an internal government study of the countries with the best prospects for trade with Canada, Mr. Emerson said.

He did not identify all 10 countries, but said they would include China, India, Brazil, Vietnam and perhaps other Southeast Asian countries. "China is way up on that list," he said.

The Tories are under pressure from the business community to improve Canada-China relations, which fell into disarray last year. Mr. Harper snubbed the government by declining an invitation to visit Beijing and refusing to send any cabinet ministers to China until late in the year. He also criticized China's human-rights record, provoking a frosty response. Canadian business leaders were increasingly worried that tensions would damage prospects in China, as were some government departments, officials said.

Mr. Emerson acknowledged that Canada has suffered "a little period of remission" in its relationship with Beijing, but said this setback could lead to a "more strategic, more aggressive, more constructive engagement" that could strengthen relations in the long term.

He maintained that his government can improve economic relations with China while retaining the right to criticize its human-rights record.

"As Canadians, we do carry our values and perspectives beyond Canada to the rest of the world," he said. "We talk candidly about democratic governance, about the importance of the rule of law. . . . Open discussion and engagement in these broader issues should not conflict with commercial interests."

But China watchers warn that Ottawa cannot continue to publicly hector Beijing on human rights and assume that trade won't be affected.

Wenran Jiang, director of the University of Alberta's China Institute, said the notion that two nations can have "cold" political relations but "hot" economic relations will not fly in Beijing.

"That is not going to work with Canada and China," he said. "We have cold politics and lukewarm economics." He said the Chinese can take criticism but not "grandstanding statements" such as the ones Mr. Harper made last year.

In an interview, Mr. Emerson acknowledged that the new trade strategy has some similarities to the previous Liberal government's policy of expanding the number of trade offices in China. The Liberals announced in 2005 that a network of trade offices would be created in 25 Chinese cities, but the plan was scuttled after the Liberals lost the federal election last year.

In his speech, Mr. Emerson said Canada is losing ground to its rivals in the Chinese market. Canadian exports to China grew only 2.3 per cent in 2005, while the United States recorded a 9.14-per-cent increase and Australia reaped a 40-per-cent jump. "For Canada, I suspect 2006 was even worse," he said.

Business leaders said the government's new push is long overdue. "We just don't have the troops on the ground that we need," said Nancy Hughes Anthony, president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, who is traveling in China this week.

But the visit to Beijing by the two cabinet ministers is not enough to resolve the tensions in the relationship, she said. "There should be concrete plans for visits by the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister. So far, they've been missing in action."

Howard Balloch, a former Canadian ambassador to China who is now the head of a consulting firm in Beijing, applauded the visit by Mr. Emerson and Mr. Flaherty. "I'm sure they feel it's time to get back on track," he said.

Rocket slams into U.S. Embassy in Athens

MSNBC News Services - ATHENS, Greece - The U.S. Embassy in Athens came under fire early Friday from a rocket that exploded inside the modern glass-front building but caused no casualties in an attack police suspect was the work of Greek leftists.

Narrowly missing the embassy emblem, the anti-tank shell pierced the building near the front entrance shortly before 6 a.m., damaging a bathroom on the third floor, which houses the ambassador’s office, and shattering windows in nearby buildings.

“We’re treating it as a very serious attack,” U.S. Ambassador Charles Ries said.

Greece’s Public Order Minister said police were examining the authenticity of anonymous phone calls to a private security company claiming responsibility on behalf of Revolutionary Struggle, a militant left-wing group.

“It is very likely that this is the work of a domestic group,” Minister Vyron Polydoras said. “We believe this effort to revive terrorism is deplorable and will not succeed.”

Revolutionary Struggle claimed responsibility for a May 2006 bomb attack on Culture Minister Giorgos Voulgarakis, in which nobody was hurt.

Admitting strategy error, Bush adds Iraq troops

NBC News and news services - Defying public opinion polls and newly empowered Democratic lawmakers, President Bush told Americans Wednesday that he is dispatching 21,500 additional U.S. troops to Iraq. And in a rare admission, he said he made a mistake by not deploying more forces sooner.

“The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people, and it is unacceptable to me,” Bush said in a televised address from the White House. “Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me.”

With American patience running thin over his handling of the war, Bush said he would put greater pressure on Iraqis to restore order in Baghdad and used blunt language to warn Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that “America’s commitment is not open-ended.”

“If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people, and it will lose the support of the Iraqi people,” Bush said.

Bush said his new strategy, in which Iraqis will try to take responsibility for security in all 18 provinces by November rather than just three now, “will not yield an immediate end to suicide bombings” and other violence.

But he said the increased military presence would help break the cycle of violence gripping Iraq and “hasten the day our troops begin coming home.”

Bush said that 17,500 troops would go to Baghdad and 4,000 to the volatile Anbar province, Senior administration officials said before the president spoke that the first wave of troops is expected to arrive in five days, with others joining about 130,000 U.S. troops already in Iraq in the coming weeks.

Bush’s decision will push the American presence in Iraq toward its highest level and puts him on a collision course with the new Democratic Congress.

House votes to increase minimum wage

Democrats push through increase in hourly pay from $5.15 to $7.25.

The Democratic-controlled House voted Wednesday to increase the federal minimum wage to $7.25 an hour, bringing America's lowest-paid workers a crucial step closer to their first raise in a decade.

The vote was 315-116, with more than 80 Republicans joining Democrats to pass it.

Bush puts final touches on new Iraq policy

The Washington Post - President Bush is putting the final touches on his new Iraq policy amid growing skepticism inside and outside the administration that the emerging package of extra troops, economic assistance and political benchmarks for the Baghdad government will make any more than a marginal difference in stabilizing the country.

Washington's debate over Iraq will intensify this week as Bush lays out his plans, probably on Wednesday or Thursday, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other administration officials face tough questions from Democrats in congressional hearings.

Although officials said the president has yet to settle on an exact figure of new troops, senior military leaders and commanders are deeply worried that a "surge" of as many as five brigades, or 20,000 troops, in Iraq and Kuwait would tax U.S. ground forces already stretched to the breaking point -- and may still prove inadequate to quell sectarian violence and the Sunni insurgency. Some senior U.S. officials think it could even backfire.

"There is a lot of concern that this won't work," said one military official not authorized to speak publicly about the debate at the Pentagon.

Meanwhile, the political and economic ideas under consideration all appear to be variations on initiatives that U.S. and Iraqi authorities have proved unable to implement successfully since the 2003 invasion or have tried and found wanting, according to former U.S. officials and experts on reconstructing war-torn countries.

Many officials at the State and Defense departments also doubt that the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is capable of making the necessary reforms, given its track record of promising but not delivering since taking power in May and despite Maliki's assurances in a speech yesterday that he would hold Iraqis accountable for implementing a new Baghdad security plan.

Possible Israel nuclear attack on Iran

U.K. newspaper reports Israel intends to strike up to three targets in Iran

London, Associated Press - A British newspaper reported Sunday that Israel has drafted plans to strike as many as three targets in Iran with low-yield nuclear weapons, aiming to halt Tehran’s uranium enrichment program. The Israeli Foreign Ministry denied the report.

Citing multiple unidentified Israeli military sources, The Sunday Times said the proposals involved using so-called “bunker-buster” nuclear weapons to attack nuclear facilities at three sites south of the Iranian capital.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s office said it would not respond to the claim. “We don’t respond to publications in the Sunday Times,” said Miri Eisin, Olmert’s spokeswoman.

Israeli Minister of Strategic Threats Avigdor Lieberman also declined to comment on the report.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev denied the report and said that “the focus of the Israeli activity today is to give full support to diplomatic actions” and the implementation of a U.N. Security Council resolution imposing sanctions on Iran for refusing to halt enrichment.

The United States and its allies accuse Tehran of secretly trying to produce atomic weapons, but Iran claims its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes, including generating electricity.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has condemned as invalid and illegal the U.N. resolution.

'He who confront'

By Peter Goodspeed, National Post

In a region familiar with despotism, Saddam Hussein, whose name in Arabic means "he who confronts," was one of the most ruthless and violent dictators in the Middle East's bloodstained history.

He subjected Iraq to his will for more than 30 years of informal and formal rule. He attacked his neighbours, raised the world's fourth-largest army and relentlessly sought to arm it with weapons of mass destruction.

Raised by a poor peasant family in a mud hut in a small village dominated by tribal loyalties, Saddam aspired to a life of riches, opulent palaces and power.

In public, he presented an image of a fastidious family man, while in private he indulged his every whim and selected nightly partners much like Sultan Sharyar in The Thousand and One Arabian Nights.

A master at using fear to command obedience, Saddam sought to become an Arab hero and entertained visions of leading his people to new glory. Instead, he repeatedly led them to disaster.

He murdered tens of thousands to maintain his regime and condemned millions more to death in three unsuccessful wars.

The Iraqi leader was a master of brutal reprisals. In 1990, when Lieutenant General Omar al- Hazzaa, a military advisor, was overheard criticizing Saddam, he was immediately sentenced to death. Before the execution, Saddam ordered the man's tongue cut out. The general's son was also executed and his family's home bulldozed.

On another occasion during a Cabinet meeting, Saddam is said to have drawn a pistol and shot dead a minister who had dared to question his strategy.

Born in al-Awja, just east of Tikrit, in north-central Iraq, Saddam grew up in the impoverished village after his father abandoned the family just before Saddam's birth.

Saddam had a harsh and brutal childhood. His stepfather was a cruel, illiterate peasant who beat him and called him the "son of a whore."

The boy did not go to school or learn to read until he was 10 and did not finish the equivalent of grade school until he was 16. Later, when he wanted to become a soldier, he was unable to enter the Baghdad Military Academy because he was such a poor student. Once he became a dictator, Saddam compensated for those setbacks by appointing himself lieutenant-general in 1976, then promoting himself to field marshal after he became president in 1979.

Despite his lack of formal military training, Saddam insisted on personally directing his wars against Iran, the UN Gulf War coalition and the U.S.-led coalition that finally toppled him.

As a youngster desperately searching for an identity and a sense of family, his chief role model was his uncle, Khayralla Tulfa, a former army officer and ardent Arab nationalist who had been expelled from the military for participating in a failed uprising. When he started school, Saddam went to live with his uncle and eventually married his daughter, Sajida, who remained his wife for 40 years. They had two sons and three daughters.

While still in school, Saddam joined the clandestine Baath party. One of his first roles was to organize fellow students into a gang to intimidate political rivals.

By the time he was 21, Saddam was implicated in the murder of one of his uncle's political rivals -- a cousin who was the Communist party chief in Tikrit. He was jailed briefly on suspicion of murder, but released for lack of evidence.

Within a year, he was involved in the attempted assassination of then Iraqi leader, General Abdul Karim Kassem.

Saddam was the leader of a four-man hit squad that botched the assassination so badly some of the would-be killers shot each other. Saddam and his intended victim were the only survivors. Saddam carved a bullet out of his leg and fled to Syria. Later, he went into exile in Egypt, where he was infatuated by General Abdul Nasser's appeal to Arab nationalism.

He returned to Iraq in 1963, when the Baath party staged a coup. But he was jailed within months when right-wing military leaders seized power from the Baathists.

By 1966, one of Saddam's older cousins from Tikrit, Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr, had become president and chairman of the Baath party's Revolutionary Command Council. When Saddam escaped from prison, his cousin made him party vice-chairman and gave him responsibility for north-central Iraq, including his hometown.

By 1968, the party had once again seized power in a coup and Saddam's cousin became president. The then 31-year-old Saddam automatically became the power behind the throne. As deputy, he created a ruthless new state security system that answered to no one but himself. Enemies were eliminated, unfriendly factions in government were intimidated into silence and Saddam's reputation as a man to be feared grew.

Saddam extended his grip on power by appointing relatives and allies to key government and business posts. Then, in 1978, it became illegal -- punishable by death -- to belong to an opposition party. The following year, Saddam forced his cousin, General Bakr, to resign and assumed the presidency himself.

Shortly after he took office, Saddam purged the Baath party of all potential rivals by murdering dozens of officials he suspected of disloyalty. In a bloodchilling episode, Saddam invited all the members of the Revolutionary Command Council and hundreds of other party leaders to a conference hall in Baghdad. Then, dressed in a suit and

smoking a cigar, he announced he had uncovered a Syrian plot against his government.

Within minutes, the acting secretary-general of the Baath party was dragged from behind a curtain and began to confess his involvement in the alleged coup. As he spat out the names of coconspirators in the audience, they were dragged away to be executed. In one fell swoop, Saddam eliminated 66 rivals and injected Iraq with an atmosphere of fear that lasted two decades.

His ambition turned almost inevitably to dreams of conquest, leading ultimately to the defeat of Iraq and his own capture. In a series of massive miscalculations, he launched a war with Iran, then later invaded neighbouring Kuwait. Both invasions ended in disaster.

The war with Iran dragged on for eight years and killed more than a million people before Saddam reluctantly accepted a ceasefire that changed nothing in terms of the disputed boundary along the Shatt al-Arab waterway between the two countries.

But his army had grown steadily, with conscription and modern weapons, until it was the fourth-largest in the world. Saddam had an arsenal of Scud missiles. He had launched a sophisticated nuclear weapons program and used chemical and biological weapons in battle.

Undaunted by his failure in Iran and desperate to redeem his reputation as a great commander, Saddam invaded oil-rich Kuwait and tried to turn it into a province of Iraq in 1990. Like Hitler in Czechoslovakia half a century before, Saddam did his best to confuse the issue before he invaded, producing a long string of grievances and territorial claims to justify his actions.

But he failed to convince his Arab neighbours or the Western states who had previously acquiesced in his aggression toward Iran. Then he compounded his blunder by bracing to face a U.S.- led UN coalition in the "Mother of all Battles" instead of simply withdrawing from Kuwait.

Oblivious to his impending defeat, Saddam told CNN television he was prepared to endure weeks of bombing by the most powerful military force in the world.

"Whoever has God on his side never gets defeated," he said in an interview.

Weeks later, as his armies reeled in retreat from Kuwait and bombs rained down on Baghdad, Saddam ordered the Kuwaiti oil fields set on fire and sabotaged the country's oil pipelines.

In defeat, Saddam remained defiant and sought Arab support as the only Middle East ruler willing to stand up against both Israel and the United States. He offered a bounty to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers and ordered an Iraqi hit squad to try to kill former U.S. president George H. W. Bush in a car bomb attack while he was visiting Kuwait in April, 1993. Two months later, president Bill Clinton ordered air strikes on Iraqi intelligence headquarters in response.

In the meantime, international economic sanctions, imposed on Iraq to force its disarmament, continued to devastate what little of the country's infrastructure had not been destroyed in the war. Infant mortality rates soared. But Iraq continued to defy UN weapons inspectors and tried to manipulate the images of children dying in poorly equipped hospitals to win international sympathy.

The UN introduced an "oil-for- food" program that allowed Iraq to sell small amounts of oil on international markets to provide people with basic foods and medicines. But the elite continued to have access to luxuries and military spending continued to climb.

Saddam continued to build and furnish dozens of new "presidential palaces" but refused to allow UN weapons inspectors access to them.

He repeatedly accused the inspectors of spying for the United States and Israel.

But in 1995, after a shootout with Saddam's eldest son, Uday, two of Saddam's sons-in-law defected to Jordan and began to reveal secrets about Iraqi weapons programs the UN inspectors had not even suspected.

They said Saddam had been closer to building a nuclear bomb than anyone had thought and that he had enough biological and chemical warfare agents to wipe out hundreds of thousands of people.

Both men were immediately killed after Saddam persuaded them to return to Iraq.

By mid-December, 1998, UN weapons inspectors had left Iraq, claiming they could no longer do their work because of Iraqi resistance.

Still, Saddam continued to defy the West and methodically plotted to rebuild Iraq's military.

After the 9/11 terror attacks, the U.S. government was no longer prepared to tolerate a possible new terrorist threat from Iraq. Pentagon planners began to plot Saddam's downfall.

Outgunned and outmanoeuvred, Saddam nevertheless continued to manipulate the UN inspections process and displayed considerable diplomatic skill at splitting his opponents as he repeatedly reversed course and offered and then withdrew minor concessions.

But Saddam's diplomatic dancing, displays of defiance and macho rhetoric accomplished little. He immediately became a target as soon as a U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq from Kuwait in March, 2003.

His regime collapsed beneath a blizzard of satellite-guided bombs and cruise missiles and he was forced to go into hiding as Iraqis began pulling down his statues all over the country.

In the weeks before his capture in December, 2003, his retinue had dwindled to just a handful of trusted aides, but he continued to try to defy an enemy he could never defeat -- the military forces of the United States.

At the end of the year, he was pulled bedraggled from a hole in the ground by U.S. troops. The man who claimed he would go down fighting was captured without firing a shot.

Imprisoned for the past three years at Camp Cropper, a U.S. base not far from one of his former palaces, Saddam was sentenced to death by an Iraqi court in November after a year-long trial over the killings of 148 Shiites from the village of Dujail in 1982.

Conspiracy theories rebuffed on Diana's death

The British police inquiry report examines all the allegations of wrongdoing in the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales, and Dodi Fayed.

Allegation: Mohammed al-Fayed said his son and Diana were involved in a serious relationship and intended to get engaged.
Conclusion: The inquiry found no evidence that Diana was to be engaged or has selected a ring.

Allegation: Mr. al-Fayed alleged Diana was pregnant with his son's child.
Conclusion: Tests on a blood stain from the carpet of the crashed car, confirmed to be Diana's, found no evidence of pregnancy, the inquiry said. Only Mr. al-Fayed says Diana told him she was pregnant. There is no other evidence she thought she might be pregnant.

Allegation: Members of the Royal Family, Britain's domestic intelligence agency MI5, and foreign intelligence agencies were involved the deaths.
Conclusion: The inquiry said Diana's ex-husband Prince Charles, his father Prince Philip, and Prince William co-operated with the investigation. The inquiry found "no evidence" to support Mr. Fayed's assertion that Philip was directly involved in a conspiracy to killed the princess. The inquiry quoted some of Diana's friends as saying she never feared Charles or his entourage.The inquiry categorically dismissed the role of MI5 in Diana's death. The report said Henri Paul, the driver, was working for the French intelligence as a "low-level informant of sorts." But it found no evidence to substantiate claims that U.S. intelligence monitored Diana's phone calls. The inquiry was not allowed to see the 39 files related to Diana held by the National Security Agency, but it quoted the agency's policy director, Louis Giles, as saying none of the files was relevant to the crash. The report concludes that the spying allegations were "a very difficult thing to prove or disprove."

Allegation: A white Fiat caused the Mercedes to crash.
Conclusion: There was a glancing contact between the Mercedes and a white Fiat Uno just before the tunnel. It is "very unlikely" that the car will ever be located.

Allegation: Photojournalist James Andanson, who owns a Fiat Uno, committed suicide because of guilt over his involvement in or knowledge of the deaths.
Conclusion: Mr. Andanson, who did own an Uno, was interviewed by French police and was not implicated, said Robert Stevens, who led the inquiry. Mr. Andanson committed suicide in 2000 and his offices were burgled shortly afterward. There was no evidence he was murdered or that he was involved with any security service.

Allegation: Blood samples from Mr. Paul, the driver, were switched to make it appear he was drunk.
Conclusion: The blood samples match Mr. Paul's DNA, and show that he had three times the legal limit of alcohol in his system at the time of the crash.

Allegation: British authorities have developed a bright flash weapon designed to temporarily blind a driver with the intent of causing a crash, and such a device might have been used.
Conclusion: British authorities do not have such a weapon, and there is no evidence of blinding flashed at the time of the crash.

Friends rally to help Alberta farmer after freak accident

Lief Erickson, a third-generation Northern Alberta cattle farmer, has survived it all: low grain prices, droughts and most recently the financial drain spurred by the mad-cow crisis. But what happened to him two weeks ago has rallied people in farming communities from across North America with offers of cows, cash, hey bales and even free labor.

More than half of Mr. Erickson's cattle herd plunged to their deaths in a freak drowning accident on his sprawling farm north of Viking, a small community of 1100 about 110 kilometers southeast of Edmonton.

The animals, 170 black Angus cows and calves worth more than $100000, which were uninsured, died after walking onto the ice of a 60-meter-long dugout that was covered by snow from a recent storm.

His neighbors quickly pulled together to help Mr. Erickson with the grim task of burying the 170 carcasses, which were frozen into the watering hole. People offered the use of their backhoes, while others donated their labor.

A local auction mart has organized a cattle sale and silent auction last Friday. Proceeds will go to Mr. Erickson and his family. Terry Cartier, a local auctioneer, helped to organized the fundraiser at the Viking Auction Mart. "Our phones haven't stopped ringing. We've got calls from Illinois to the Northwest Territories. There's lots of support from Saskatchewan and just all over the country. Every body wants to help", he said. "People in the cattle industry understand how tough it is to be in this business right now trying to make a living." Mr. Cartier said that donations for the silent auction have ranged from tickets from a rodeo to generators to cows to thousands of dollars worth of tubing needed to build corrals. "We have no idea how much we are going to raise. Stuff just keeps coming in," he said.

According to Mr. Cartier, the Ericksons are well known in the community, and Mr. Erichson is the "kind of person who would take off this shirt for anybody else." He said while farmers routinely lose a few animals from time to time in drownings, he doesn't recall ever seeing an accident on this scale.

Harper announces national cancer strategy

Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced Friday the formation of a national agency to co-ordinate the fight against cancer, a long-awaited strategy that many involved in the battle say will help iron out inequities in prevention and care that currently face patients in different parts of country.

Ottawa has dedicated $260 million over five years to the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer, fulfilling a promise Harper made during the last federal election campaign.

China and India Emphasize Cooperation

China and India declared today that there was room in Asia for the two emerging economic giants to coexist in a cooperative rather than competitive relationship. At the start of a visit that was heavier on symbolism than on substantive new agreements, President Hu Jintao of China and his Indian host, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, unveiled a 10-point plan that aims to double bilateral trade to $40 billion by 2010. They also pledged “cooperation” in the field of civilian nuclear energy -- potentially marking an end to decades of nuclear rivalry and suspicion.

Despite the emphasis on collaboration, there was no sign of a significant breakthrough in any of the key areas of conflict, including border disputes, bilateral relations with Pakistan and the United States and tension over Tibet. Nor was there any progress on the creation of a free trade agreement.

Wikipedia offline in China

China's easing of a ban on the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia appears to have been short-lived. Users reported Friday that the site was unavailable in several parts of China, barely a week after it suddenly became accessible.

It wasn't immediately clear if user-contributed encyclopedia was unreachable due to technical glitches or because government censors had blocked the site again. The Foreign Ministry and Ministry of Information Industry did not immediately respond when contacted for comment Friday.

Beijing first blocked access to the English and Chinese versions of Wikipedia in October last year, apparently out of concern about entries touching on Tibet, Taiwan and other sensitive topics. China's communist government has waged a battle to control the anarchic Internet and filter the information Chinese can get. Police employ an array of measures, from sophisticated filters and detection software that hunts for sensitive words to having officers monitor Web traffic.

As a result, surfing the Web in China is a very different experience from that in much of the world. Because almost anyone can add to and edit listings in Wikipedia, the site is famously freewheeling, addressing sensitive topics that pose a challenge to Beijing's control.

Calif. court says bloggers can't be sued

The California Supreme Court ruled Monday that bloggers and participants in Internet bulletin board groups cannot be sued for posting defamatory statements made by others.

In deciding a case closely watched by free speech groups, the court said a federal law gives immunity from libel suits not only to Internet service providers, like AOL, but also to bloggers and other users of their services.

U.S. Concerned about Rising China

By ANNE GEARAN, The Associated Press, Friday, November 17, 2006

HANOI, Vietnam -- The United States has some concerns about a rising China, including a military expansion that may be excessive, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday.

Beijing has spent heavily in recent years on adding submarines, missiles, fighter planes and other high-tech weapons to its arsenal and extending the reach of the 2.3 million-member People's Liberation Army, the world's largest fighting force.

Its reported military budget rose more than 14 percent this year to $35.3 billion, but outside estimates of China's true spending are up to three times that level.

Beijing insists its multibillion-dollar buildup is defensive, but it has alarmed some Asian neighbors and U.S. military planners who see China as a potential threat to U.S. military pre-eminence in the Pacific.

U.S. concerns are manageable within a relationship she described as strong overall, Rice said. She visited China last month to shore up United Nations sanctions against China's ally, North Korea, and she credited Beijing with cooperation in opposing the North's nuclear development.

Bush and Rice were both meeting with their Chinese counterparts during this weekend's Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

The first brand logo that can be seen from space

The goateed visage of Colonel Harland Sanders has long been one of North America's best-known corporate icons. Yesterday(Nov. 14, 2006), however, he became the most visible logo on Earth.

In a publicity stunt to kick off a global marketing campaign, KFC Corp. has painstakingly constructed a one-hectare likeness of the Colonel in Rachel, Nev., making him the first brand that can be seen from outer space.

The 65,000-piece mosaic, situated, appropriately, in a patch of desert known as the UFO capital of the world, introduces an updated look for the fried-chicken chain's deceased founder and former pitchman: the southern gentleman's white suit has been scrapped in favor of a chef's red-and-white striped apron.

"If there ate extraterrestrials in outer space, KFC wants to become their restaurant of choice," said Gregg Dedrick, president of KFC.

Human rights or business?

A meeting between PM Mr. Harper and Chinese President Hu Jingtao during APEC was canceled by China, who originally requested the meeting. China's Decision comes amid a cooling in the bilateral relationship as Canada takes an increasingly harder line on China's human rights record. Recently, some of Canadian businesses have expressed concern to the PM' Office about the lack of engagement with China, the emerging economic giant.

The problem for Canada is how to find such a way that we can encourage improvement in democracy and human rights in that country while at the same time do not let our economic interests are unduly jeopardized.