In 2002-2004, almost 5 million Venezuelans signed one or more in a series of three petitions calling for an election to remove President Hugo Chavez from office. After Chavez survived the recall vote of August 2004, the names of those who had signed the final petition were compiled into a database using software called [...]

Edward G. Hollett has the details.
Effective March 1, 2009, Warren Kinsella is a registered lobbyist with the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador as part of a nation-wide effect to spark up some kind of law suit against Big Tobacco.
Danny Williams must be desperate.

So much for that “Islamic solidarity” stuff.
Tehran has canceled the Islamic Solidarity Games after Saudi Arabia asked Iran to remove the term Persian Gulf from game medals and brochures.
The Islamic Solidarity Sports Federation (ISSF) Secretary General Saleh Gazdar and Technical Committee Chairman Mohammad Bashir Al-Trabosli said in a Tehran meeting that Arab states would only [...]

Scott Brison (at right), Liberal MP for Kings-Hants, has sent out a pamphlet with a few questions for the voters.   At least, that’s what I’m told.   He’s my MP, but I haven’t received one yet.
Why do I have to find out about this from Kitchener-Waterloo resident Steve Janke?
Scott Brison has sent out a ten-percenter. [...]

Brian McConaghy is head of the Ratanak Foundation, a Christian Canadian organisation fighting sex trafficking of little girls in Cambodia. He recently spoke at an anti-human trafficking conference in Toronto. I was very moved by his speech, which is posted at Aim4Asia. Here is a snippet.
In the late 18th early 19th century [...]

Atlantic Baptist University, the only English-language university in Moncton, New Brunswick, has been the subject of a long-running debate in the pages of the Moncton Times & Transcript. ABU has been accused of violating Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the provincial Human Rights Act because it refuses to hire homosexuals.
In his latest [...]

The federal government is giving the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs $100,000 to educate and raise awareness about human trafficking.  According to the Winnipeg Free Press report, this is the first money Ottawa has ever spent on the problem.
It is the first time Ottawa has spent anything to combat human trafficking, a growing problem in Canada [...]

Jason Kenney is one of the few members of the Harper government who does the right thing, political correctness be damned.
The current guidebook for Canadian newcomers includes two pages on environmental stewardship and barely a mention of the Canadian military — and that has Jason Kenney hopping mad.
Kenney, the Conservative minister of citizenship and immigration, [...]

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak issued a letter of greeting to the Coptic Diaspora on the occasion of Easter, which Eastern Christians celebrated on 19 April. Voice of the Copts says President Mubarak’s letter contains Taquiah—dissimulation or falsehood permitted by Islam under certain conditions. (The word is also spelled “Taqiyya” in English.)
In last week’s [...]

I bet it’s coming in through Nova Scotia.
Napolitano: Talibans Smuggling Swine Flu Through Canada on Stolen Cruise Ships
Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano urged that we take action in order to stop “Talibans from smuggling swine-flu tainted bunnies through Canada on stolen cruise ships.”
The announcement came at a press conference Napolitano called for 8:00 am this [...]

Stewardship, a Christian financial support charity in the UK, finds that giving has increased three percent during the last six months.
Since October last year, some 30,000 Sovereign Account holders with the ministry have donated more than £24 million in support to charities, churches and mission workers.
Stewardship Chief Executive, David Jones, said: “Our clients tend to [...]

As far as the federal government is concerned, Canada Day is just another opportunity to curry favour with Quebec.  Naturally, the feds are incredulous that someone thinks there’s anything wrong with that. Quebec is entitled to its entitlements.
The Harper government was criticized yesterday over its spending for Canada Day celebrations, but it argued that there [...]

A Glasgow jewellery shop has decided to bar individuals wearing face coverings after being robbed by two men in Muslim female dress. BBC News reports.
ATAA Jewellers in the west end of Glasgow was raided by two Asian men entirely covered apart from their eyes.
[…]
The two girls working at the time were left so shaken [...]

Three of the four students at King’s-Edgehill School, Windsor, Nova Scotia, with confirmed cases of swine flu have now recovered and are out of quarantine.
Joe Seagram, headmaster of King’s Edgehill private school in Windsor, provided the update Monday, a day after the four cases were confirmed.
Seagram said some parents were keeping their children home and [...]

On Easter Day, Anglican Curmudgeon A.S. Haley posted a lengthy item about the Shroud of Turin, arguing that best current evidence strongly suggests that the shroud is the actual burial cloth of Jesus Christ. I did not see that post until yesterday, via a link at Lent & Beyond.
I have known about the Shroud [...]