News Briefs

Freedom of speech?Salman Hossain is currently being investigated by the RCMP for posting his views on the role of the Canadian military in the war in Afghanistan online. Hossain has been encouraging homeland attacks on the military in hopes that his writings will encourage the Canadian government to pull its troops out of the war.
The RCMP believes that his writings are examples of incitement and facilitating terrorism and have been investigating Hossain since September 2007. Senator Colin Kenny, a member of the Senate National Security and Defence Committee, believes that Hossain should be prosecuted, not only for the safety of Canadian soldiers on home soil, but also to discourage facilitation of terrorism.
The argument against the prosecution, however, is that charging Hossain is infringing on Hossain's freedom of speech and right to assert his beliefs. Prosecutors and police are having difficulty straddling the line between what could be thought of as terrorism, and what exactly the limitations of freedom of speech should be.
Hossain has also written many derogatory comments about the Jewish community.

Black-focused school proposed in Toronto

Despite the Liberal Party's opposition to funding religious based schools, Dalton McGuinty and his party will not prevent the establishment of a controversial black-focused school - a plan put forth by the Toronto District school board. McGuinty, however, will not be putting forth any additional money to allow for the construction of the school as he believes that it will further separate students, and is allowing the people of Toronto to voice their thoughts on the issue rather than stopping it before it even has a chance to begin.
The idea sprouted from statistics showing an increasing dropout rate of black high-school students, and will educate based around "Afrocentric" philosophy in attempts to encourage students to stay. Under-achievement and drop-out rates are an issue across the province in many ethnicities, however, and creating a black-centred school exclusive to the Toronto area will not be the answer to the problem, according to Conservative Elizabeth Witmer.
McGuinty, along with other critics, greatest concern is that the school with create sentiments of superiority, and open the door for segregation on the basis of religion and ethnicity.

Small-town mayor posing in next to nothing on the Internet

We have all been warned about what our Facebook or MySpace profiles say about us, but the mayor of a small town in Oregon is facing the reality of the power of the Internet.
Carmen Kontur-Gronquist, current Mayor of Gilliam, Oregon, can be seen scantily clad in only a black bra and panties posing on a town fire engine, and while there are only 500 or so citizens in the town, it took only 41 of them to sign a petition to force a recall vote.
Kontur-Gronquist apparently took the photos three years ago, before she was even thinking about being town mayor. Yet, the people are upset and want her out of office claiming that the photos that were taken for a contest about woman's fitness according to Kontour-Gronquist, are inappropriate.
Now a small-time celebrity - she recently appeared on ABC's 20/20 - has no intention of resigning, however, as she feels the pictures should have no bearing on her current status in the town.
Kontour-Gronquist also said that she had the full permission of the town fire chief to use the engine as the backdrop for her photo shoot, and it was a relative that set up her MySpace account in the hopes of improving the social life of the single parent.