BRINGING HARMONY TO ALL THE COMMUNITIES
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Volume 11 Issue 280 Rabi ul Thani 20, 1432 AH / March 25, 2011 - $1
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Battles rage for control of Libyan towns
Immigration Minister Jason Kenney meets with local Pakistani Community On March 13, Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney held a meeting with the Pakistani Community in BC. Local MP Nina Grewal and Surrey School Board Trustee Ijaz Chattha are seen here with the Minister.
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Photo by: M.N.Pirzada
Opposition set to vote down budget, election likely The official starter's gun hasn't yet been fired, but all of Canada's political parties are lined up for a May election. The Conservatives have indicated there will be no amendments to Tuesday's budget, after all three opposition parties said they would not support the budget as it stands, setting the stage for a May 2 or May 9 election. The defeat of the government will probably occur this week, either over the budget or in a non-confidence motion the Liberals plan to introduce Friday over the Tories' recent ethical troubles. The NDP was the only party considered to be in play to support the government's budget, but leader Jack Layton quickly ended any speculation Tuesday when he said he would not support it as it stands. The budget contained a small number of olive branches to Layton, but he said Prime Minister Stephen Harper missed an opportunity with the budget. "We set out where we wanted this budget to go and Mr. Harper chose not to go there," Layton told CTV News. "He chose not to give us a budget that gets the job done." The NDP had set out five conditions for their support of the budget: pension reform, cutting the
sales tax on home heating, relief for low-income seniors, raising the number of family doctors, specifically in rural areas, and boosting the EcoEnergy Retrofit program. But Layton said he was "very disappointed" because there was no cut to the sales tax on home heating, and nothing for Canadians without a family doctor in the budget. However, he did say there "is always hope" for amendments to the proposed budget. Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff was the first opposition leader out of the gate, saying he was against the budget. "The priorities of this government are not the priorities of ordinary Canadians," he said. "This is a government that doesn't seem to be listening to what Canadians are telling us. And there doesn't seem to be a credible deficit-reduction plan." Bloc Quebecois Gilles Duceppe said his party can't accept the treatment of Quebec in the budget. "We played our cards for the interest of Quebec and that's what we're doing here and so we can't accept this treatment," he said in French. "I don't have confidence in that government." Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said the opposition hadn't spent enough time with the budget before deciding they weren't going to support it. "They haven't read it clearly, that's disappointing . . . they owe it to their own voters to read the document and decide what they're going to do," he told CTV's Power Play. Regardless of how the government is defeated, the Conservatives are expected to campaign largely on their budget. "If the budget is defeated it will be a major issue throughout the course of the campaign. They are going to have to explain why they voted against things that they advocated for," Flaherty said of the opposition. The finance minister also warned that an election could undermine the economic recovery. "Parliament faces a choice. It is a choice between stability and uncertainty," he said Source: CTV News
Libya has witnessed more intense fighting as forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi, the country's embattled but defiant leader, continue to attack rebel positions across the North African state. Undaunted by air strikes launched by coalition warplanes aimed at enforcing a no-fly zone, pro-Gaddafi forces have pressed ahead with their assaults on the towns of Misurata, Ajdabiya and Zintan in the past 24 hours. Pro-democracy fighters ranged against him are finding the going tough. Mostly outgunned and with little command structure, they have been left to run sporadic raids against Gaddafi's troops, before falling back to their original lines. But despite the little headway made by them, a rebel commander described the men as "real heroes". "They are brave to the point of being suicidal," Mohamed Hariri told Al Jazeera. Amid the continued fighting, Gaddafi insisted he was "ready for battle, be it long or short". "We will win this battle," he said in an address during a public appearance at his Bab Al-Aziziyah compound in Tripoli that was the target on Sunday of a coalition missile strike, Libyan state television reported. He also railed against the coalition forces, saying: "This assault ... is by a bunch of fascists who will end up in the dustbin of history." Overnight, anti-aircraft fire erupted over the Libyan capital, Tripoli for the fourth successive night. "We've been hearing big noises," Al Jazeera's Anita McNaught, reporting from Tripoli, said. "We haven't seen any smoke on the horizon. People are firing guns in defiance. We're in the loyalist heartland here where people are utterly defiant of the international effort to force Gaddafi to surrender, as they would see it. "The anti-aircraft fire has not been as intense [as Monday night when two naval installations outside the city were hit]. Perhaps they feel in the immediate neighborhood that most of the significant targets have already been hit." The AFP news agency reported that at least two blasts were heard at a distance before the capital's air defenses opened fire. In the previous night's operations, the coalition air campaign suffered its first loss with the crash of a US fighter jet in the rebel-held east. Both crew ejected safely. The no-fly zone is intended to protect civilians from attack by forces loyal to Gaddafi. The United States announced on Tuesday that it is shifting its focus to widen the no-fly zone across the north African country. Forces loyal to Gaddafi have been shelling Misurata for days, pressing their siege of the embattled western city. Four children were killed in the shelling on Tuesday and at least 40 people were killed on Monday, a resident said. Fighting for the towns of Ajdabiya and Zintan has been raging for days as well. Al Jazeera's Tony
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