Women Make Headway in Politics - and Want More
Danilo Valladares

GUATEMALA CITY, Mar 7 (IPS) - The victory of Laura Chinchilla in Costa Rica's presidential elections, and the growing participation of women in Central American parliaments, point to their progress in the region's spheres of political power. But they still have a long way to go, experts say. "The election of a woman president in Costa Rica is a step forward for women in the region's political arena, and a qualitative advance in terms of political democratisation," political analyst José Dávila Membreño told IPS told IPS.

Canwest media has reported: "Genetically engineered pigs are one step closer to becoming meat on Canadian kitchen tables with the federal government poised to declare that they do not harm the environment.Canwest News Service has learned Environment Canada has determined that Yorkshire pigs developed at the University of Guelph are not toxic to the environment under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. The official declaration will be made on Saturday."  

And also it has been reported that  BASF's genetically modified Amflora potato,  which contains genes that are resistant to antibiotics has just been approved by the European Commission,

It’s still a war budget.

-Sid Lacombe Canadian Peace Alliance March 5, 2010

The Conservative’s 2010 Budget still represents an unprecedented increase in defence spending, says the Canadian Peace Alliance, Canada’s largest peace network. While there is a small decrease in the amount previously allocated to the military under the Canada First Defence Strategy, overall defence spending continues to go up.

The impacts of uranium mining on indigenous communities.

- Heather Tufts

The climate change debate positions nuclear power as a partial solution to carbon emissions according to some scientists and politicians. Uranium mining speculation lacks comprehensive health and safety regulations while the ethics of Canadian exported uranium, which can lead to depleted uranium used in zones of war, needs greater scrutiny. Abandoned uranium mines and the subsequent hazards experienced in forgotten communities have been virtually ignored in Canada leading to tragic, unmitigated circumstances.

WSWS  
                       
Thursday, Feb 25, 2010
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper visited Haiti for two days last week, becoming the first G-20 leader to visit the country since the January 12 earthquake that devastated Port-au-Prince and its environs killing more than 250,000 people.

U.N. Women's Agency Remains Politically Paralysed
Thalif Deen - IPS/TerraViva

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 3 (IPS) - A longstanding proposal for the creation of a special U.N. agency for women - officially called a "gender entity" - is apparently moving at the sluggish pace of a paralytic snail. The proposal - originally conceived by a high-level panel of U.N. experts back in 2006 - has remained a theoretical exercise for so long that a coalition of women activists is spoofing it in a fake electronic newspaper being circulated at a U.N meeting on gender empowerment here.

Potential motion accusing Harper of Contempt of Parliament and Parliamentary Committees

- Joan Russow (PhD) Global Compliance Research Project
Hopefully, MP Dennis Lee will table his motion in Parliament; this motion if passed would find the Harper government in contempt of Parliament. The Parliamentary Foreign Affairs committee had requested unredacted documents about the Afghan Detainees; the Harper government refused to comply with the request. Unfortunately, this process should have been invoked in 2008 when the Harper government was in contempt of the Parliamentary Committee on Ethics and Access to Information which was investigating the Harper Conservatives` in-and-out scheme used during the 2006 Federal Election  investigation. 

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