CANADA: Starting on Canada Day, British Columbians will likely be paying the highest gas prices in the country thanks to a new provincial carbon tax that adds almost 2.5 cents to a litre of fuel. Meanwhile, federal bureaucrats were so uneasy about Ottawa’s dismal progress in greening its vehicle fleet that efforts were made to prepare officials for damage control, recently released documents show.
Retiring Gen. Rick Hillier is being remembered for bringing a refreshing bluntness to the country’s top military job, but his true legacy may be that he re-introduced Canadians to their soldiers and instilled a pride in both. Families of Canadian soldiers fighting in Afghanistan are banding together to form their own support networks while their loved ones are away.
POLITICS: The centrepiece of the Conservatives’ election promise to clean up
government goes into effect Wednesday when senior
government and public-service officials will be banned from immediately
making the leap into lucrative lobbying careers, and records show that Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day has favoured former police and
corrections officers for new appointments to the National Parole Board
since the Harper government took office in 2006.
WORLD: Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s supporters beat people who could not prove they voted in the presidential runoff in which the incumbent was the only candidate, according to an international human rights group, and China is resisting a U.S.-led push for UN sanctions to punish the Mugabe regime. In Malaysia, opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has taken refuge in the Turkish Embassy, saying he fears a government plot to assassinate him.
Israel reopened its border crossings with the Gaza Strip, allowing a trickle of goods into the territory and putting a rocky cease-fire back on course after Palestinian rocket fire last week led to a closure of the passages.
Pride week was capped off by hundreds of gay activists prepared to march in three Indian cities in the largest display of gay pride in the deeply conservative country where homosexuality is illegal, and a lesbian motorcycle group dressed in bridal veils and wedding gowns
lent a matrimonial touch to San Francisco’s parade as
revellers celebrated their newfound freedom to marry.
SPORTS: Fernando Torres lived up to his billing as one of the world’s great strikers by scoring to give Spain a 1-0 win over Germany and the European Championship title.
Canada Day will be Stanley Cup Day in Harbour Grace, N.L. when native son Dan Cleary — the first Newfoundland-born player to win the big prize — brings the trophy home.
