Volume 1 No. 1 • November 16 - 30, 2005
The Heart of Panday
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Heart Evangelista
IN THIS ISSUE Editor’s Note
Thanks to all of you, we’re here to stay! By Emmie Z. Joaquin
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Message from the Mayor
Operation Clean Sweep: “It is time that we take back the streets of Winnipeg” By Sam Katz
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Showbiz Showbuzz
Lea Salonga at Carnegie Hall
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Red Lotus Letter Feng Shui
Feng Shui for the holidays – and the winter
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By Kathryn Weber
Snowstorm costs $3M WINNIPEG – Southern Manitoba was hit by a snowstorm November 14, closing schools, roads and highways and causing delays at the Winnipeg airport. Many vehicles, tow trucks and more than 50 transit buses were stuck in the heavy snow on roads of Winnipeg. Drivers were reporting bumper-to-bumper traffic on city streets, highways, and quite a number of snowplows were pulled from ditches near Brandon. Winnipeg city crews began plowing major roads Monday night, a task that took almost 36 hours to get through them all. Public works spokesman Bob McDonald expects that residential roads will be plowed later this week. Sidewalks are also on the snow reSee SNOWSTORM p.16 The veterans were up and about early on November 11 to join thousands of poppy-wearing Winnipeggers in commemorating the 60th Anniversary of World War II in various remembrance ceremonies around the city. The Joint Veterans’ Association Annual Service of Remembrance began at 9:30 a.m. at the 1885 Monument on Main St. It was followed by a Remembrance Day Service at the Winnipeg Convention Centre at 11:00 a.m. where an overwhelming number of Winnipeggers (close to 5,000) turned out to remember and pay tribute to the men and women who sacrificed their lives to protect the values and freedoms we enjoy today. MANILA – The Philippine government tried to cover up election cheating allegations last year but was battling a conspiracy trying to oust President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, according to a draft report by a congressional committee. The document, according to Manila newspapers November 15, was to be presented to five panels from the lower house of Congress looking into opposition claims that Arroyo conspired with an election official to seal her victory. The “Hello Garci” tapes were a series of audio recordings allegedly featuring Arroyo talking by telephone with former election commissioner Virgilio Garcillano about rigging the presidential election on May 10, 2004. The tapes mysteriously surfaced
Winnipeggers are digging themselves out from under 30 cm of snow that fell in a storm that is expected to cost $3 million to clean up.
We will remember them
Deputy Mayor Mike Pagtakhan lays a wreath at the 1855 Monument. (Standing l-r) JVAPC Chairman Armand Lavallee, Insp. Gary Walker & Major Len Millar
Philippine election cheating report slams Arroyo, foes in June, sparking months of crisis for the president, including desertions from her cabinet and a failed impeachment. Arroyo’s foes in Congress are demanding that she step down, but the turmoil has largely subsided without the middle-class anger that toppled dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 and Joseph Estrada as president in 2001. Arroyo, whose new term runs until 2010, apologized on television in June. Her administration gave “no sincere cooperation” to the inquiry, said the draft report by congressman Gilbert Remulla, a member of
the ruling coalition. “A conspiracy clearly existed to topple the president by embarrassing her with the so-called Garci tapes,” it said. “On the other hand, the administration could not and would not confront the tapes and contributed nothing toward arriving at the truth about them.” Recordings released by the government, purportedly showing Estrada conspiring with unknown people to assassinate Arroyo, were “suspiciously short and clearly spurious, not to say unquestionably fabricated,” the report said. (by John O’Callaghan)