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THE
BRINGING HARMONY TO ALL THE COMMUNITIES
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MIR A LE
Volume 11 Issue 284 Jamadi ul Thani 17, 1432 AH / May 20, 2011 - $1
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'Dozens killed' in Syrian border town Syria's army and security forces killed at least 27 civilians in a three-day tank-backed attack on the border town of Tel Kelakh to subdue pro-democracy protesters, a rights lawyer told Al Jazeera. "There are 27 confirmed names. An unknown number of bodies were taken to the main hospital in Tel Kelakh
Surrey Civic Coalition elects partial slate of candidates at its first nominating meeting Surrey Civic Coalition elected a partial slate of candidates at its first nominating meeting on Saturday, May 7. Nominated candidates pictured left-right are Rina Gill, council; Laurence Greeff, school trustee; Stephanie Ryan, council; Councillor Bob Bose; Gary Robinson, council, Board of Education Trustee Ijaz Chatha, Charlene Dobie, school trustee; Grant Rice, council and Moh Chelali, school trustee.
Slave Lake residents face more uncertainty Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach has put a fire ban in place across his province as dry, windy conditions have whipped up more than a 100 wildfires. The move comes as thousands of residents
of Slave Lake, who were forced to flee as their town burned, were told they'd have to wait until at least the weekend before they are allowed to return and see if their homes are still standing. The RCMP indicated residents might be able to check out the damage to the town by the weekend at the earliest. Doug and Sharon Horner left within minutes of an evacuation order last Sunday. Now they wait to see if there's anything left to return to. "This is just like a dream, a movie," said Sharon Horner. "You see this stuff on TV and your heart goes out to other people going through this." The couple is now living in an RV in the parking lot of an evacuation centre. Mayor Karina Pillay-Kinnee said it may be as long as a few weeks before residents can return, but officials are trying to get word to people whose homes have been damaged or destroyed. "It is a priority. I understand the frustration of residents," Pillay-Kinnee said. Duncan MacDonnell of Alberta Sustainable Resource Development said the threat of
more destruction in Slave Lake is quite real. "The fires are still burning," he told CTV News Channel Tuesday afternoon. "We finally got a chance to get up and get a good look at the boundaries without all the heavy smoke in the way, so we have a better idea of how large they are." The RCMP say that the town is without stable power, water and other utilities. All 7,000 residents have been ordered out and are staying on evacuation centres in Alberta, as far away as Edmonton. There has been an outpouring of support from surrounding communities, with residents organizing charity drives and delivering supplies. Luc Gascon, who lives 350 kilometres away from Slave Lake in St. Paul, helped bring three trailers full of clothing and dry goods. He said it was "five guys that got together yesterday morning and decided to do something." Meanwhile, Firefighters from British Columbia and Ontario are descending on Alberta today, to join the approximately 1,000 firefighters, 100 helicopters and 20 air tankers already battling blazes across the province. The Calgary Fire Department's public information officer Brian McAsey says fire crews are doing their best to douse hidden fires and restore basic services to the town. Some electrical service has been restored, as have some communications towers, but McAsey said there's still no potable water there. Praising the patience and resilience of the town's evacuees, McAsey said, "We're going to have to ask them to still wait some more time and to put their faith in us that we're going to restore their town back to them." But the firefighting efforts are small comfort to the community's population of 7,000 -- all of whom were evacuated on short notice as the wind-whipped wildfires began consuming the town on Sunday. Federal Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said the government is ready to lend financial assistance. Source: CTV News
and not handed over to their families," Razan Zaitouna said on Wednesday. Tel Kelakh is a few kilometres from Lebanon's northern border with Syria. On Tuesday, security agents violently dispersed university students protesting against Bashar al-Assad, the president, in the country's secondlargest city Aleppo, a human rights activist said. The AP news agency quoted Mustafa Osso as saying that dozens were injured after the protesting students were attacked with batons on Tuesday. He said many of the students were chased into their dormitories and badly beaten. The university has seen several anti-regime demonstrations in the past weeks. Rights activists say a crackdown to crush a two-month wave of protests against Assad has killed at least 700 civilians. Syrian tanks also moved into a southern city on the Hauran Plain on Tuesday after encircling it for three weeks, activists said. Soldiers fired machineguns as tanks and armoured personnel carriers entered Nawa, a city of 80,000 people 60km north of the town of Deraa, according to activists from the region. "The governor (of the province) had announced that the troops have the names of 180 wanted men in Nawa, but the arrests are arbitrary," one rights campaigner said. In Deraa, tanks remained in the streets after the old quarter was shelled into submission last month and residents gave accounts of mass graves, which the authorities denied. The southern towns of Inkhil and Jassem also remained besieged, rights campaigners said, adding that mass arrests continued in the Hauran Plain and other regions of Syria. To the north, pro-democracy demonstrations erupted in the Damascus suburb of Douma, Syria's second city
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