Public Works and Government Services Canada has awarded a $25,000 contract to a BC firm in return for a controversial service -- the design of urban camouflage specifically suited to Toronto, Montréal and Vancouver.

The contract requirements are as follows:

The Department of National Defence, Defence Research and
Development Canada - Suffield, (DRDC-S), AB, has a requirement to develop a Canadian Urban Environment Pattern (CUEPAT) based on the unique requirements of Canada's three major metropolitan areas, Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. The current CBR individual protective equipment (IPE) used by the Canadian military is provided in a woodland or desert camouflage. A camouflage suited to the Canadian urban environment is required when the milatary (sic) operates in urban terrain.

Hyperstealth Biotechnology Corp, pride of Maple Ridge, BC, was the only firm invited to bid on the contract. The company has designed camouflage patterns for countries including Israel, Iraq and Malaysia.

A proposal by UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown for a global tax on financial transactions to fund bank bailouts has been rejected by Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, according to the CBC.

"That’s not something that we would want to do. We’re not in the business of raising taxes," said Flaherty.

A a global tax on financial transactions (also known as a Tobin Tax) was first proposed by economist James Tobin as a means of regulating out-of-control speculation in financial markets.

Brown's proposal was also rejected by the US.

The US-backed deal meant to restore a "government of national unity" in Honduras is dead. How dead depends on your taste for dictators.

Totally Dead, if you ask ousted president Manuel Zelaya, who is still holed up in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa.

"No, it's not dead, but maybe sleeping for the time being," if you doubted the US State Department's position on the deal.

Popular organizations around Honduras, after expressing an initial support for the reinstatement of Zelaya, have since denounced the deal.

"Once again, history has shown us that the United States is not anyone's friend; we were once again betrayed when we endorsed an agreement full of gaps and capricious interpretations," Indigenous activist Salvador Zúñiga told IPS.

The Civil Council of Popular and Inidigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) released a statement denouncing the coup and the negotiations on November 4.

In their statement, they "urge the National Front of Popular Resistance to raise an initiative of dialogue and negotiation towards more dignified agreements," call for a popular constituent assembly, and give the following message to international supporters:

By Wadner Pierre-www.haitianalysis.com

In 2006 two struggles were going on in two different Catholic churches and in two different countries. At Saint Claire’s Parish, Tiplas Kazo, Delmas 33 (one part of Delmas County), Haitian parishioners, students, and community leaders stood up against the decision of the Archdiocese of Port-Au-Port to remove the late activist priest, Gerard Jean-Juste, who had been serving this parish for ten years. Simultaneously at Saint Augustine Church, in Tremé, New Orleans, a similar struggle was taking place. Students of different beliefs and backgrounds, civil right’s movement leaders and community leaders stood up against the unjustified decision of the New Orleans Archdiocese, to remove the elderly African-American priest, Father Jerome Ledoux, from the oldest African-American Catholic church in the United States. To explain the meaning of the people’s struggle at Saint Augustine Church, it is important to understand the history of this church and why it is so important for the African-American Catholic community to keep this church from closing after Hurricane Katrina.

The History of Saint Augustine Church

To those who believe that education is not a privilege, but rather a right for all, SOPUDEP Public School in Pétion-Ville Haiti needs your attention.

We are writing on behalf of the hardworking and dedicated Haitian educators of SOPUDEP School who wish to empower the most vulnerable children in their community. The children of SOPUDEP cannot afford to go to school is Haiti's highly privatized education system. Without SOPUDEP School in their community, these children would never learn to read or have access to a well-rounded education.

The Sawatzky Family Foundation is a registered Canadian charity created in 2008 with the sole purpose of providing financial support for SOPUDEP and raising awareness about this wonderful local social program.

The Sawatzky Family has personally paid the teachers’ salaries ($26,000 (US) for 47 staff) and the majority of the food program that feeds over 650 students five days a week for close to two years.

We have run short on our own resources and are urgently calling for immediate support. We are currently faced with the terrible possibility of cutting teacher salaries. This would force many of them to find other work just to get by, thereby reducing SOPUDEP's effectiveness. Turning away students would subsequently become a very real possibility.

We need a minimum of $6000 (US) to get through the next three months. We are currently preparing a longer-term financial appeal which will allow us to avoid such shortfalls in the future.

SOPUDEP School is a critical social program in Haiti, one that is integral to the future of its people. It is a unique program serving as an example of what free public education should look like in Haiti, and it is one that needs our care and support!