Infinite Unknown

Federal prosecutors and FBI agents in South Florida are investigating allegations of yet another massive investment fraud in which thousands of investors across the United States and Canada are said to have lost $170 million.

The investigation began last month after a 50-page preliminary report about the “Ponzi-style” scheme was sent to a Miami federal judge by a court-appointed special master. The report called for sweeping criminal investigations by U.S. and Canadian law enforcement.

“The unassailable fact [is] that thousands of investors/owners, and by extension their families in the U.S. and Canada, as well as other countries, have been financially destroyed,” says the report by Miami lawyer Thomas Scott, a former federal judge and U.S. attorney.

Investors allegedly sank those now-missing millions into time share units and other property owned by the EMI Sun Village Resort and Spa in the Dominican Republic. But the money actually went to fund the lavish lifestyle and gambling debts of the resort’s developers, court papers say.

“That money has now been almost completely lost”, the report says. “The investors’ plight is tragic. The cause of that plight is criminal.” Continue reading »

Tags: Canada, Crimes, FBI, Fraud, Global News, Ponzi schemes, U.S.

See also:

- Moody’s Puts US, UK on Chopping Block (Wall Street Journal)

- Moody’s Says US, UK Have to Fix Public Finances (ABC New)

- US, Britain may test Aaa boundaries, Moody’s warns (MarketWatch)

Dec. 8 (Bloomberg) — Moody’s Investors Service said its top debt ratings on the U.S. and the U.K. may “test the Aaa boundaries” because their public finances are worsening in the wake of the global financial crisis.

The U.S. and U.K. have “resilient” Aaa ratings, as opposed to the “resistant” top ratings of Canada, Germany and France, analysts led by Pierre Cailleteau in London said in a report. None of the top-rated countries is “vulnerable,” or have public finances that are “stretched beyond the point of ‘no return’ to the Aaa category,” New York-based Moody’s said.

Continue reading »

Tags: Canada, Debt, Economy, Financial Crisis, France, Germany, Government, Moody's, Politics, Rating, U.K., U.S.

Number of Canadians filing for bankruptcy increased 44.8 per cent in September from a year earlier

The number of bankruptcies rose 44.8 per cent in September from a year earlier, according to the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy Canada, an agency of Industry Canada.

During the latest month for which data are available, the number of bankruptcies increased 29.1 per cent from the prior month.

The volume of consumer bankruptcies rose 47.4 per cent from a year earlier, while increasing 29 per cent from September over August.

Businesses have fared well, with the volume of bankruptcies falling 0.4 per cent during the past 12 months, although on a month-over-month basis they rose 31.6 per cent.

Continue reading »

Tags: Bankruptcy, Canada, Economy

The law ’should’ always protect the people and not corporate profits.

I suggest you contact your representatives immediately and tell them what you think about this policy.

Canada is protecting the drugmaker of swine flu vaccine from lawsuits over potential side effects, Canada’s top doctor has confirmed.

Dr. David Butler-Jones told a media teleconference Wednesday that Canada will shield GlaxoSmithKline, in the unlikely event (???) there are problems with the vaccine, but it will not shield health practitioners who make mistakes in administering the shot.

“We’re not obviously anticipating problems with it, but indemnification for a vaccine is important if someone does malpractice, basically injects someone the wrong way or causes harm because of their practice,” he said.

Continue reading »

Tags: Big Pharma, Canada, Corporations, Flu, GlaxoSmithKline, Health, Law, lawsuit, Politics, Vaccination, Vaccine

Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) — Opponents of overhauling U.S. health care argue that Canada shows what happens when government gets involved in medicine, saying the country is plagued by inferior treatment, rationing and months-long queues.

The allegations are wrong by almost every measure, according to research by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and other independent studies published during the past five years. While delays do occur for non-emergency procedures, data indicate that Canada’s system of universal health coverage provides care as good as in the U.S., at a cost 47 percent less for each person.

“There is an image of Canadians flooding across the border to get care,” said Donald Berwick, a Harvard University health- policy specialist and pediatrician who heads the Boston-based nonprofit Institute for Healthcare Improvement. “That’s just not the case. The public in Canada is far more satisfied with the system than they are in the U.S. and health care is at least as good, with much more contained costs.”

Canadians live two to three years longer than Americans and are as likely to survive heart attacks, childhood leukemia, and breast and cervical cancer, according to the OECD, the Paris- based coalition of 30 industrialized nations.

Deaths considered preventable through health care are less frequent in Canada than in the U.S., according to a January 2008 report in the journal Health Affairs. In the study by British researchers, Canada placed sixth among 19 countries surveyed, with 77 deaths for every 100,000 people. That compared with the last-place finish of the U.S., with 110 deaths.

Infant Mortality

The Canadian mortality rate from asthma is one quarter of the U.S.’s, and the infant mortality rate is 34 percent lower, OECD data show. People in Canada are also 21 percent more apt to survive five years after a liver transplant.

Continue reading »

Tags: Canada, Health, Healthcare, Medicine, U.S.

- Swine flu: TV presenter’s daughter ‘almost died’ after taking Tamiflu (Guardian):
GMTV star Andrew Castle confronts health secretary, Andy Burnham, over policy of giving drug to children
Castle said his older daughter, Georgina, had a “respiratory collapse” and “suffered very heavily” after being “just handed” the drug without a proper diagnosis.
The presenter said: “I can tell you that my child – who was not diagnosed at all – she had asthma, she took Tamiflu and almost died.”

- Oxford University researchers said children should not be given Tamiflu or Relenza to combat swine flu:
Children under the age of 12 should not be given Tamiflu or Relenza, the two antiviral drugs that form the cornerstone of the government’s fight against swine flu, because their side-effects outweigh any benefits,

- Study: Tamiflu causes sickness and nightmares in children (Times)

- Bird Flu Medicine Toxic for Teens (Korea Times)

- Tamiflu drug made with cocktail of chemical ingredients, linked with bizarre behavior (Natural News)

- What’s Missing From Every Media Story about H1N1 Influenza (Natural News)

Tamiflu has just one anti-viral incredient in it and that is Star Anise. A herb that is mainly used by TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine). Yet TCM would never just prescribe just one herb to do the job. TCM looks at the entire bodily condition and strengthens the entire body with several herbs and acupuncture or even Qi Gong exercises.

TCM had a cure rate for diseases in general of over 95% (before China was invaded with MSG, junk food and GMOs).

Western medicine can just dream of that. Western medicine has a very high ’supress the symptoms rate’, which usually aggravates the health condition in the long run (as intended), but then thats it.

Big Pharma and western medicine just ‘borrow’ ancient knowledge, patent it and sell it to you as ‘the cure’ and calls herbal medicine ineffective and unscientific.

Duh!

Study raises questions about effectiveness of Tamiflu for young children, but public health agency stands by broad use of treatment

Toronto — Canadian health authorities will not change their practice of prescribing the anti-viral drug Tamiflu to treat cases of pandemic H1N1 flu in children, despite a new study that raises questions about the drug’s effectiveness.

Researchers at the University of Oxford cautioned about the broad use of anti-viral drugs to treat children 12 years of age and younger suffering from seasonal flu. They found anti-viral drugs have little or no effect on asthma flare-ups, ear infections or bacterial infections in children. Tamiflu was also linked to increased vomiting.

The authors questioned whether children would face the same risks when being treated with anti-virals for the pandemic H1N1 flu virus.

But the Public Health Agency of Canada assured parents Monday that Tamiflu has a strong safety profile, and has recommended doctors prescribe it for infection prevention and to treat cases of H1N1 in infants under one year.

“We know that Tamiflu thus far is effective in treating the vast majority of people who have H1N1, making their symptoms less severe and the illness lasting fewer days,” the agency said in an e-mail. “We now have some evidence that there seems to be less risk in using Tamiflu in young children.”

The pandemic virus has shown resistance to Tamiflu, one of two anti-virals that can keep it in check if taken within days of the first symptoms. However, there have been people who have fallen ill despite taking the drug.

Continue reading »

Tags: Big Pharma, Canada, Children, Drugs, Health, Medicine, Politics, Relenza, Science, Tamiflu, Virus

Tories call in Mounties over mint’s missing millions

Canada’s money-makers can’t find tens of millions in precious metals that are shown on the books

Employees work June 8, 2009 at the Royal Canadian Mint in Ottawa, where there are worries security could have been breached following the revelation that a large amount of precious metals recorded on the books is missing. The mint uses gold, silver, platinum and palladium in its operations.

OTTAWA – The federal government has asked the RCMP to launch an investigation into the tens of millions worth of precious metals that have gone missing from the Royal Canadian Mint.

The announcement comes after an external audit was launched to reconcile the mint’s records with the physical stock of metals.

And it comes after the Star revealed today that the value of the missing metal was worth more than $10 million.

“I think we are all very concerned,” said Rob Merrifield, minister of state for transport, the department responsible for the mint.

Merrifield said he “instructed” mint staff today to call in the Mounties to assist with the ongoing audit, which has been under way since early March.

Continue reading »

Tags: Accounting, Canada, Global News, Gold, Government, Palladium, Platinum

A former researcher at the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg is facing charges in the United States after allegedly trying to smuggle genetic material from the Ebola virus across the Manitoba-North Dakota border.

U.S. authorities allege Konan Michel Yao had 22 vials of the substance in the trunk of his car when he tried to cross the border on May 5. He is charged with smuggling merchandise, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000 US.

Related video: Scientist attempts to smuggle 22 vials of Ebola into US

U.S. customs officers allegedly found the vials wrapped in aluminum foil inside a glove and packaged in a plastic bag, along with electrical wires.

In his affidavit, the 42-year-old researcher said he was hired by the Public Health Agency of Canada to work as a PhD fellow at the Winnipeg facility. Yao told officers he was working on a vaccine for the Ebola virus and HIV.

On Jan. 21, his last day at the lab, he said he stole 22 vials, which he described as research vectors, according to the affidavit.

Yao told officers he was taking the vials to his new job with the National Institutes of Health at the Biodefense Research Laboratory in Bethesda, Md., because he didn’t want to start from scratch in his research.

Continue reading »

Tags: Canada, Crimes, Ebola, FBI, Health, U.S., Virus

Inspectors for swine flu walk through a terminal at Narita International Airport in Narita City, Chiba Prefecture, Japan on April 30, 2009. Photographer: Haruyoshi Yamaguchi/Bloomberg News

May 1 (Bloomberg) — Flu reached 11 countries, as governments closed schools, planned for vaccine production and tapped emergency stockpiles of antiviral medicine.

Genetic tests have confirmed more than 331 people have the strain originally labeled swine flu, according to the World Health Organization’s Web site. Hundreds more cases are suspected in New York, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand. The WHO said thousands of samples from sick patients are backlogged for testing, and disease trackers are looking at whether an outbreak in Spain should trigger a declaration of a pandemic.

The Geneva-based health agency raised its six-tier alert to 5 on April 29 and said a move to the next and final level, for the world’s first influenza pandemic since 1968, may soon be made. The WHO urged countries to make final preparations against a disease that may sweep across the globe, preying on a world population that has no natural immunity to the new virus.

Continue reading »

Tags: Austria, Canada, CDC, Flu, Germany, Health, Holland, Israel, Medicine, Mexico, New Zealand, Pandemic, Spain, Switzerland, U.K., U.S., Virus, WHO

Mr Galloway’s comments on Iraq led to his expulsion from the Labour Party

George Galloway, a British member of Parliament, has been banned from Canada on security grounds, the country’s immigration service has confirmed.

Mr Galloway, a Respect Party MP, said the ban was “idiotic” and he would look at legal action to try to overturn it.

British media reported the decision was due to his views on Afghanistan and the presence of Canadian troops there.

The anti-war MP was expelled from the Labour Party in 2003 because of his outspoken comments on the Iraq war.

Mr Galloway said he was not prepared to accept what he described as an “inexplicable decision” and indicated he would challenge it with all means at his disposal.

“This has further vindicated the anti-war movement’s contention that unjust wars abroad will end up consuming the very liberties that make us who we are,” he said.

“All right-thinking Canadians, whether they agree with me or not, will oppose this outrageous decision.”

Continue reading »

Tags: Canada, Civil liberties, Immigration, Politics