Wednesday, 2 March 2011
Regulators Reject Proposal That Would Bring Fox-Style News to Canada
As America's middle class battles for its survival on the Wisconsin barricades -- against various Koch Oil surrogates and the corporate toadies at Fox News -- fans of enlightenment, democracy and justice can take comfort from a significant victory north of Wisconsin border. Fox News will not be moving into Canada after all! The reason: Canada regulators announced last week they would reject efforts by Canada's right wing Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, to repeal a law that forbids lying on broadcast news.
Canada's Radio Act requires that "a licenser may not broadcast....any false or misleading news." The provision has kept Fox News and right wing talk radio out of Canada and helped make Canada a model for liberal democracy and freedom. As a result of that law, Canadians enjoy high quality news coverage including the kind of foreign affairs and investigative journalism that flourished in this country before Ronald Reagan abolished the "Fairness Doctrine" in 1987. Political dialogue in Canada is marked by civility, modesty, honesty, collegiality, and idealism that have pretty much disappeared on the U.S. airwaves. When Stephen Harper moved to abolish anti-lying provision of the Radio Act, Canadians rose up to oppose him fearing that their tradition of honest non partisan news would be replaced by the toxic, overtly partisan, biased and dishonest news coverage familiar to American citizens who listen to Fox News and talk radio. Harper's proposal was timed to facilitate the launch of a new right wing network, "Sun TV News" which Canadians call "Fox News North."
Harper, often referred to as "George W. Bush's Mini Me," is known for having mounted a Bush like war on government scientists, data collectors, transparency, and enlightenment in general. He is a wizard of all the familiar tools of demagoguery; false patriotism, bigotry, fear, selfishness and belligerent religiosity.
Harper's attempts to make lying legal on Canadian television is a stark admission that right wing political ideology can only dominate national debate through dishonest propaganda. Since corporate profit-taking is not an attractive vessel for populism, a political party or broadcast network that makes itself the tool of corporate and financial elites must lie to make its agenda popular with the public. In the Unites States, Fox News and talk radio, the sock puppets of billionaires and corporate robber barons have become the masters of propaganda and distortion on the public airwaves. Fox News's notoriously biased and dishonest coverage of the Wisconsin's protests is a prime example of the brand of news coverage Canada has smartly avoided.
Robert F Kennedy Jr @'HuffPo'
Canada's Radio Act requires that "a licenser may not broadcast....any false or misleading news." The provision has kept Fox News and right wing talk radio out of Canada and helped make Canada a model for liberal democracy and freedom. As a result of that law, Canadians enjoy high quality news coverage including the kind of foreign affairs and investigative journalism that flourished in this country before Ronald Reagan abolished the "Fairness Doctrine" in 1987. Political dialogue in Canada is marked by civility, modesty, honesty, collegiality, and idealism that have pretty much disappeared on the U.S. airwaves. When Stephen Harper moved to abolish anti-lying provision of the Radio Act, Canadians rose up to oppose him fearing that their tradition of honest non partisan news would be replaced by the toxic, overtly partisan, biased and dishonest news coverage familiar to American citizens who listen to Fox News and talk radio. Harper's proposal was timed to facilitate the launch of a new right wing network, "Sun TV News" which Canadians call "Fox News North."
Harper, often referred to as "George W. Bush's Mini Me," is known for having mounted a Bush like war on government scientists, data collectors, transparency, and enlightenment in general. He is a wizard of all the familiar tools of demagoguery; false patriotism, bigotry, fear, selfishness and belligerent religiosity.
Harper's attempts to make lying legal on Canadian television is a stark admission that right wing political ideology can only dominate national debate through dishonest propaganda. Since corporate profit-taking is not an attractive vessel for populism, a political party or broadcast network that makes itself the tool of corporate and financial elites must lie to make its agenda popular with the public. In the Unites States, Fox News and talk radio, the sock puppets of billionaires and corporate robber barons have become the masters of propaganda and distortion on the public airwaves. Fox News's notoriously biased and dishonest coverage of the Wisconsin's protests is a prime example of the brand of news coverage Canada has smartly avoided.
Robert F Kennedy Jr @'HuffPo'
ChasLicc Chas Licciardello
Charlie Sheen's been on Twitter for 6 hours and he's already smoked the hash out of all the tags.
You Should Have Stayed At Home
(Photo:TimN - Westgarth 01/03/11)
G20: The Untold Stories
They were the most unlikely of troublemakers. There were thousands of ordinary citizens on the streets at Toronto G20 Summit marching peacefully until the police closed in and shut them down. Many had gone downtown simply to see what was going on, only to find themselves forcibly dragged away by police and locked up for hours in a makeshift detention center without timely access to lawyers or medical treatment.
It's been eight months since the G20 and the iconic images are still with us — burning police cars, rampaging mobs, the massive security presence that according to the official story is all that stood between Canada's largest city and chaos. But that’s not the whole story of Toronto’s G20. Astonishing new images caught on camera are now emerging and they expose a troubling new picture of what happened to hundreds of ordinary citizens caught in the huge police dragnet during those three highly-charged days last June.
Gillian Findlay presents a revealing new street-level perspective of what happened when thousands of police were deployed in downtown Toronto and instructed to do what was necessary to ensure the wall around the G20 Conference Centre was never breached. Exclusive eyewitness video obtained by the fifth estate brings to light startling images captured on cellphones and minicams by the innocent bystanders who found themselves on the wrong side of all that G20 "order." In a rare television interview, Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair explains why police took the actions they did.
On this edition of the fifth estate: the summit from the street, and the people who never dreamed it could happen to them. The stories you'll hear will raise questions about what protest means in this country and what the limits to dissent have become.
Watch it
Gaddafi's billionaire children
Saif al-Islam, the suave, western-educated second son of the Libyan dictator, was the best known of the sons.
Seen as the natural successor to his father before the wave of protests across the north African nation, the 38 year old Saif al-Islam presented himself as a reformer. He was welcomed in the West as the acceptable face of the regime, and claims the Duke of York, Peter Mandelson and Tony Blair among his "good friends".
In 1995, he received his degree in architecture and engineering at Tripoli's al-Fateh University, and then went on to obtain a management degree from the International Business School in Vienna before gaining a doctorate at Britain's London School of Economics (LSE).
Presenting himself as a humanitarian ambassador through the charitable body he set up in 1997, the young Gaddafi – whose name means the sword of Islam in Arabic – was at the heart of the complex negotiations over the Bulgarian nurses and Palestinian doctor freed by Libya in July 2007.
His foundation also negotiated the release of Western hostages held by a group of Islamist extremists in the Philippines in 2000 – who had earlier been funded by his father. He is said to have personally negotiated the financial compensation paid by Libya to the families of victims killed in the Lockerbie plane bombing in 1988 and the 1989 bombing of a French airliner.
The shaven headed bachelor, who keeps lions as pets, enjoys sea fishing and has a number of falcons with which he hunts, pledged a £1.5 million through his foundation to his alma mater, the LSE, a donation that in the light of recent events has caused no end of embarrassment to the university.
Saif al-Islam was a regular at London's top night spots. He and his brothers reportedly paid over £600,000 a pop to get Mariah Carey, Beyoncé and Usher to sing at their birthday parties.
It is reported that Saif al-Islam owns an £10 million mansion in Hampstead, North London – complete with suede-lined cinema room and swimming pool. The house was bought in 2009 by a holding company registered in the British Virgin Islands.
According to US diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks, the Gaddafi children routinely benefited from the Libya's wealth. One cable written by Chris Stevens, a US diplomat in Libya, said it had "become common practice" for government funds to be used to promote companies controlled by Gaddafi's children. He also indicated that their companies have all benefited from "considerable government financing and political backing."
Gaddafi's fifth eldest son, Hannibal, also developed a reputation for things unconnected to his business acumen. In 2001, he attacked three Italian policemen with a fire extinguisher. In September 2004, he was briefly detained in Paris after driving a Porsche at high speed in the wrong direction and through red lights down the Champs-Elysees while intoxicated.
A year later his model wife, Aline Skaf, filed an assault suit against him. And on July 15, 2008, Hannibal and his wife were held for two days and charged with assaulting two maids in a hotel in Geneva, Switzerland. Gaddafi retaliated by arresting Swiss nationals in Libya and suspended oil deliveries to Switzerland.
Rumours have long abounded that state funds were used to further the career of Col Gaddafi's footballing son, Saadi, who despite his limited talent once played for Perugia in the Italian football league. The 37-year old, third son of Gaddafi was planning a new city styled on Vegas in the west of Libya.
Fiona Govan @'The Telegraph'
The shaven headed bachelor, who keeps lions as pets, enjoys sea fishing and has a number of falcons with which he hunts, pledged a £1.5 million through his foundation to his alma mater, the LSE, a donation that in the light of recent events has caused no end of embarrassment to the university.
Saif al-Islam was a regular at London's top night spots. He and his brothers reportedly paid over £600,000 a pop to get Mariah Carey, Beyoncé and Usher to sing at their birthday parties.
It is reported that Saif al-Islam owns an £10 million mansion in Hampstead, North London – complete with suede-lined cinema room and swimming pool. The house was bought in 2009 by a holding company registered in the British Virgin Islands.
According to US diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks, the Gaddafi children routinely benefited from the Libya's wealth. One cable written by Chris Stevens, a US diplomat in Libya, said it had "become common practice" for government funds to be used to promote companies controlled by Gaddafi's children. He also indicated that their companies have all benefited from "considerable government financing and political backing."
Gaddafi's fifth eldest son, Hannibal, also developed a reputation for things unconnected to his business acumen. In 2001, he attacked three Italian policemen with a fire extinguisher. In September 2004, he was briefly detained in Paris after driving a Porsche at high speed in the wrong direction and through red lights down the Champs-Elysees while intoxicated.
A year later his model wife, Aline Skaf, filed an assault suit against him. And on July 15, 2008, Hannibal and his wife were held for two days and charged with assaulting two maids in a hotel in Geneva, Switzerland. Gaddafi retaliated by arresting Swiss nationals in Libya and suspended oil deliveries to Switzerland.
Rumours have long abounded that state funds were used to further the career of Col Gaddafi's footballing son, Saadi, who despite his limited talent once played for Perugia in the Italian football league. The 37-year old, third son of Gaddafi was planning a new city styled on Vegas in the west of Libya.
Fiona Govan @'The Telegraph'
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