statism watch

Elise Stolte and Emily Senger, National Post
Friday, August 01, 2008

EDMONTON — Darcey Kolewaski says he quit his security job at the Edmonton bus terminal two weeks ago partly because of the lack of passenger surveillance.

“It’s wide open. You take whatever you want on board, you put whatever you want underneath,” he said, reflecting on Wednesday night’s murder on a bus travelling from Edmonton to Winnipeg. The killer used a large knife or machete.

“I’m surprised there are not more,” Mr. Kolewaski said. “You throw 40, 50 people together, in close quarters, sometimes with alcohol involved. Anything can happen.”

At most, two security guards work at a time at the Edmonton terminal, he said. They do random checks on some buses, generally targeting specific routes where there have been problems in the past. But when several buses are leaving and arriving at the same time, there’s no way two security guards can check all suspicious bags, said Kolewaski, who worked there for five years. “They just don’t have the manpower.”

Management at the local terminal could not be reached for comment.

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[ed. note - expect this to provide cover for additional crackdowns on dissidents for democracy in China. No doubt they'll be universally labeled terrorists. Could this be why Torstar chief went to power-broker Bilderberg conference this year?]

Bill Schiller, Toronto Star
August 1, 2008

Bus drivers undergo anti-terror training; screening on Beijing subway upgraded

BEIJING–The bus bombs exploded in sequence, shattering the Monday morning commute of residents in the Chinese city of Kunming, some 2,100 kilometres southwest of Beijing.

But the reverberations were felt all the way to the capital, where final preparations were underway for the Olympic Games, which begin a week from today.

The first blast occurred at 7:05 a.m., on a bus travelling Route 54. It killed one and injured 10.

The second detonated at 8:10 a.m. on the same route, killing another and wounding four.

The blasts, though small, seemed calculated to send a message.

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[ed. note - consider 'The future offers you totalitarian cities' as an alternate headline

Christopher Hume, The Toronto Star
August 1, 2008

Now that more people than ever are living in cities, more people than ever are talking about them.

Suddenly, it seems the urban agenda is the global agenda. In recent years, internal migration has led hundreds of millions to cities.

In Europe and North America, nothing has inspired more words than the advent of a number of “cities of the future.” Virtually all these paradoxical communities have appeared in the developing world – China, the Middle East and Africa.

These “instant cities” have little in common but the speed with which they are being built. The two that spark most debate – Shanghai and Dubai – have become symbols of approaches to urbanism that both fascinate and appall; fascinate because these are cities where anything goes, appall because absence of context means absence of meaning. Those of us consigned to cities of yesterday – the vast majority of the planet – are left feeling both reassured and unnerved by these futuristic conurbations. God knows we’d rather stay where we are; on the other hand, where does this leave us?

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CBC News
August 1, 2008

U.S. authorities now have the power to seize and detain travellers’ electronic devices, including laptops and cellphones, and make copies of their contents at an off-site location, under newly disclosed customs policies.

The policy gives border agents at any point of entry into the United States the authority to also take documents, books, pamphlets and hard drives. The items can be seized from anyone crossing the border and may then be copied and shared with other government agencies, according to Department of Homeland Security documents dated July 16.

“Officers may detain documents and electronic devices, or copies thereof, for a reasonable period of time to perform a thorough border search,” the policy says. “The search may take place on-site or at an off-site location.”

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BBC News
August 1, 2008

The jury in the trial of three men accused of helping the 7 July London bombers has failed to reach a verdict.

The Kingston Crown Court jury had spent two weeks considering a charge of conspiracy to cause an explosion.

Waheed Ali, 25, Sadeer Saleem, 28, and Mohammed Shakil, 32, all from Leeds, admit having known the 7/7 bombers but denied having helped them find targets.

The prosecution is expected to seek a retrial and the men were remanded in custody until a hearing in September.

On Friday, the jurors told Mr Justice Gross they had not reached a verdict on any of the three defendants and he said the time had come to discharge them.

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Daniel Nasaw, The Guardian
August 1, 2008

Bruce Ivins, a government scientist whom federal agents were preparing to prosecute in connection with the anthrax attacks that killed five in 2001, apparently committed suicide on Tuesday after learning authorities had identified him.

The death in Maryland of Ivins, who helped the FBI analyse anthrax samples used in the attacks, may bring to a close a long-running mystery in the US “war on terror”. Following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the anthrax assaults crippled the US mail system and sowed fears the US was under attack from al-Qaida terrorists who had acquired biological weapons.

Ivins, whose name had not surfaced publicly in connection to the attacks, was a civilian bio-defence researcher at a top military research laboratory at Fort Detrick, Maryland. The 62-year-old scientist had worked at the lab for the past 18 years.

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CBC News
August 1, 2008

The water coming out of Mildred Dyck’s tap doesn’t worry her despite what happened in 2001. That’s when parasites contaminated the supply for North Battleford, Sask., where she lives and 50 people ended up in hospital. Another 2,000 got sick, including Dyck’s sister, her sister’s son-in-law and her sister’s grandchildren.

The crisis in North Battleford came not long after the deaths of seven people in Walkerton, Ont., who died after that town’s water became contaminated from manure spread on a nearby farm.

“If I couldn’t go to a tap and get a drink of water, I don’t know what I’d do,” said Dyck, 61, who works as a cleaner at the provincial building in the city of 14,000.

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