Canada's banking system is often lauded for being one of the world's safest. But an analysis by CCPA senior economist David Macdonald found that Canada's major lenders were in a far worse position during the downturn than has ever been previously believed.



Macdonald pored over data provided by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions and the big banks themselves for his report published Monday.



It says…

Intelligence experts say that Osama bin Laden's death on May 2, 2011, crippled the organizational capabilities of al-Qaeda, the global terror network he created in the late 1980s.

When Osama bin Laden was still alive, intelligence experts envisioned one of three outcomes for al-Qaeda in the event of his death.

The first was that it would have no effect at all, because the group had made operational contingencies for such a crisis. The…

Here's an Associated Press story on an agreement for another decade of U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, an agreement between two governments that do not represent their peoples, a story that was clearly translated from the language of some foreign planet. I'll help out with improving the translation a bit below:



"By HEIDI VOGT, Associated Press



"KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The U.S. and Afghanistan reached a deal Sunday on a long-delayed strategic partnership…

"An officer who gives an order to torture or kill is an ‘individual’ in that word’s ordinary usage; an organization is not - US Supreme Court Justice: Sonia Sotomayor - April 18, 2012".



Justices Limit Suits Under Law on Torture - the family of an American citizen killed during a visit to the West Bank, may not sue the Palestinian Authority, and the Palestine Liberation Organization, under a 1991 federal law, the Torture Victim Protection Act.

Source:…

The US government pretends to live under the rule of law, to respect human rights, and to provide freedom and democracy to citizens. Washington’s pretense and the stark reality are diametrically opposed.



US government officials routinely criticize other governments for being undemocratic and for violating human rights. Yet, no other country except Israel sends bombs, missiles, and drones into sovereign countries to murder civilian populations. The torture prisons of Abu Gahraib,…