Galati Quits!

Canadian lawyer, Rocco Galati, gets a death threat over his new client Khadr. He was shocked and seemed very frightened. He said: " We now live in Columbia! "I'm happy that he didn't say we live in Middle East, somewhere! It's said Galati knows the guy. Khadr is the fifth or sixth guy that he accepted his case as a national security one. He gave up all of them yesterday.

(Photo: Galati and his client in news conference)

Canadian Millitary Faces Collapse!

Canadian Forces faces collapse, it is said, and takes a generation to recover! This is one of the major problems that the new Government of Canada has to deal with. There was a very interesting and funny comment on radio when I was driving: The only threat is from the US and Canada can't resist anyway, so there's no need to recovey and spend millions of dollars!!
Serving millitary is not mandatory in Canada and Canadian Forces has its recruitment advertisements all over the place: newspapers, buses, schools (including SAIT) and government buildings.

The Flames Are Doin' Very Well

The Flames are unbeaten in their last 4 games, having 3 wins (2 home games, 1 road) and 1 draw at home. They beat the Canucks in Vancouver. It was great. A 4-1 victory. And just one day after that, tonight they beat the Wild in Saddledome, 2-1. Jerome Iginla scored the winner with only 22 seconds left in the game. Flames is the 8th team in Western Conference now. There's hope for them to make this season's playoff. But nobody can tell 'cause there'll 59 more games in regular seasonand many of them r road games!
(Photo:Pengroth Saddledome in Calgary, home of Calgary Flames)

Gas Price and Exchange Rate

Gas price is not fixed here. Sometimes it changes even every day. Although it's winter now and we had flurry and it's cold as usual but gas price is goin' down. It was 60.9 on Mon., 60.05 yesterday and 59.9, I guess, today! All prices in cent/liter. I bought gas for 58.4, the night before I flew to B. C. at ESSO. It's very good for people who drive long distances every day. I don't but mine is really inexpensive in gas. About 6 L in 100 km in the city.
Also exchange rate went up to 77.04 cents of Canadian dollar for 1 American. The highest in last 10 years. But it's not good for some businesses which export to the US.

Khadr Case: The Story Continues

A young Arab-Canadian guy is back home after months being detained in Guantanamo Bay Camp. Abdul-Rahman Khadr is from an Egyptian father and a Palestinian mother and is only 20. When he arrived at Lester L. Pearson International Airport and it was shown on CBC - he said he was innocent and the only reason he had been arrested in Kabul and was sent to the camp was because he was originally Arab. But there was another report in The National tonight and he admitted that he had been trained in Afghanistan!! He revealed it in a press conference while sitting beside his lawyer. A reporter asked him: Was it an Al-Qaeda training camp? He answered: No. It was an Al-Qaeda related camp(!!!)
His father was a Taliban financial supporter. Afghans told the CBC reporter that he had packed and left Kabul just one day before Northern Alliance freed the city(!!) The family used to live in Ontario but they moved to Afghanistan when Soviets invaded the country, in order to support the Holy War. His younger brother, Omar, 15, is still in Americans' custody in the Camp. The US has recently begun to free few prisoners from the camp in Cuba. There are hundreds of them there from 42 different countries, without any charge and legal rights.
(Photo: Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. The US has occupied it since 1903 and pay $4000 annually as rent!)

Friends Are Back

I talked to 4 of my friends today after months! Kami H., my Oracle Certified friend. He called me and said that finally found a real career in Waterloo, ON in the third biggest insurance company in the world. Keiv The SAIT student. I met him on my way home from library. Sasan, My friend in Vancouver and the student of UBC. I met him online and talked to him for awhile. And Finally Renay, the nice and young East Indian girl from Edmonton. It's nice to have good friends but the only real friends among them are Kami H. and Keiv, although Sasan and Renay are nice people. I haven't met them yet and Sasan is very angry with me 'cause I teased him, kidded him and pulled his leg.