Bill C-51 is an omnibus anti-terrorism bill that grants CSIS new information sharing powers and converts CSIS from a covert intelligence gathering organization to a covert enforcement agency.

No wonder Canadians don't know what the heck is going on!

Ms. Soapbox is here to offer four simple suggestions to keep you out of trouble when Stephen Harper's majority government finally passes this monstrous piece of legislation.

Get off the grid:

Communicate by pencil and paper. Buy a manual typewriter. Stop posting snarky things about Harper on Facebook and Twitter. You don't want to be identified as a troublemaker and your life will become a nightmare if you're caught in a CSIS "disruption" operation (see below).

No more rallies, demonstrations, protests or sit-ins:

Avoid any form of protest or civil disobedience, especially those organized by environmental or Aboriginal groups.

Why? Because unless you know for certain that the demo organizers got the municipal permits they need to congregate, wave signs or chain themselves to inanimate objects, the protest is not "lawful advocacy, protest or artistic expression" and as such is not immune from CSIS scrutiny (subject to Craig Forcese's comments below).

The growing cancer rates in Serbia are part of the untold legacy of the Yugoslav wars.

The use of depleted uranium munitions by NATO in Kosovo and adjoining areas facilitated a dramatic jump in cancer incidence in central parts of Serbia.

A pertinent report released in 2014 also revealed a notable increase in the number of patients with malignant tumors, according to Slobodan Cekaric, the head of the Serbian Society Against Cancer, told Sputnik.

Lymph node cancer incidences between 1999 and 2012 also rose 80 percent, with terminal cases showing an eleven percent rise.

Other cancer-induced diseases are also on the rise both among men and women. Cancer is one of the main causes of death around the globe, claiming eight million human lives annually.

However, malignant diseases in Serbia have grown at a higher rate than in Western Europe, increasing year to year, Serbian doctors said.

Professor Cekaric feared 2015 could bring about a new wave of cancer victims.

According to expert estimates, in 2013 and 2014 alone, cancer incidences in Kosovo, now free from the "Serbian diktat", rose a hefty 57 percent.

Ally's snooping upset White House because information was used to lobby Congress to try to sink a deal

Soon after the U.S. and other major powers entered negotiations last year to curtail Iran's nuclear program, senior White House officials learned Israel was spying on the closed-door talks.

The spying operation was part of a broader campaign by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government to penetrate the negotiations and then help build a case against the emerging terms of the deal, current and former U.S. officials said. In addition to eavesdropping, Israel acquired information from confidential U.S. briefings, informants and diplomatic contacts in Europe, the officials said.

The espionage didn't upset the White House as much as Israel's sharing of inside information with U.S. lawmakers and others to drain support from a high-stakes deal intended to limit Iran's nuclear program, current and former officials said.

"It is one thing for the U.S. and Israel to spy on each other. It is another thing for Israel to steal U.S. secrets and play them back to U.S. legislators to undermine U.S. diplomacy," said a senior U.S. official briefed on the matter.

The bipartisan Surveillance State Repeal Act, if passed, would repeal dragnet surveillance of Americans' personal communications, overhaul the federal domestic surveillance program, and provide protections for whistleblowers.

House lawmakers Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) are co-sponsoring bill H.R.1466, which was introduced on Tuesday and would repeal the 2001 Patriot Act, limit powers of the FISA Amendments Act, and prohibit retaliation against federal national security whistleblowers, according to The Hill.

"The Patriot Act contains many provisions that violate the Fourth Amendment and have led to a dramatic expansion of our domestic surveillance state," said Rep. Massie in a statement. "Our Founding Fathers fought and died to stop the kind of warrantless spying and searches that the Patriot Act and the FISA Amendments Act authorize. It is long past time to repeal the Patriot Act and reassert the constitutional rights of all Americans."

As it looks right now, this is HUGE!!!! If this is what it appears to be, we have to fight like animals for it! - http://t.co/nHoXtd0MGB

— Wade Biery (@WadeBiery) March 24, 2015

Specifically, the bill would revoke all the powers of the Patriot Act, and instruct the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General to destroy any information collected under the FISA Amendments Act concerning any US person not under investigation.

The Canadian dictator Stephen Harper has announced that he will increase Canada's military participation in the fraudulent 'war' against ISIS, calling for new airstrikes inside Syria.

The reviled neocon leader also plans to extend Canada's 'mission' to pretend to combat ISIS for another year.

Harper proclaimed that he would not seek the approval of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad to conduct airstrikes on his territory, proving that the illegitimate ruler of Canada is a violent aggressor and bona fide sociopath.

Harper's de facto argument for dropping bombs on Syria is not 'law' or 'consent' or any of the other artificial concepts that politicians usually invoke to justify immoral policies. It is simply, "I can do it because I can."

Some deluded and hopelessly ignorant people will argue that since Harper claims his airstrikes will target ISIS positions in Syria, the actions are defensible or justifiable, even if they are in violation of 'international law.'

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed a decree relieving Dnepropetrovsk Governor Igor Kolomoysky from his post, the president's website said. The resignation came after a meeting between the two, amid the ongoing standoff around oil giant Ukrnafta.

According to the presidential website, Kolomoysky decided to hand in his resignation, which the president accepted.

"We need to ensure peace, stability and tranquility. Dnepropetrovsk region should remain a bastion of Ukraine in the east," Poroshenko said while commenting on his decision. Meanwhile, Valentin Reznichenko was named acting governor of the eastern region.

The seemingly peaceful resolution came in stark contrast with statements voiced earlier by Kolomoysky's deputy, Gennady Korban, who on Tuesday said that "Kiev is occupied by thieves, and these thieves must go and free the way for honest people" and accused Poroshenko's government of "lying" about decentralization of power in the country and success in the so-called anti-terror operation in the east.

Previously we reported that in the latest "coup" for US foreign policy, the US had "lost" over $500 million in weapons in Yemen, until recently an Obama administration foreign policy "success story", following the abrupt evacuation of the US embassy there, all of which ended up in local rebel and al-Qaeda hands.

It didn't take long for the local Houthi rebels to put all these weapons to good use: as Reuters reports, Houthi forces in Yemen backed by allied army units seized a key air base on Wednesday and appeared poised to capture the southern port of Aden from defenders loyal to President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, local residents said.


As a reminder this is the second time the Yemeni president, so close to Obama, will be forced to uproot and get out of Dodge, after his prompt "evacuation" from the capital Sanaa a month ago:

The Houthis and their military allies later advanced to within 40km (25 miles) of the city, where Hadi has been holed up since fleeing the group's stronghold in the capital Sanaa last month.

Yemen's slide toward civil war has made the country a crucial front in mostly Sunni Saudi Arabia's rivalry with Iran, which Riyadh accuses of sowing sectarian strife through its support for the Houthis.

Sunni Arab monarchies around Yemen have condemned the Houthi takeover as a coup and have mooted a military intervention in favor of Hadi in recent days.

We're here to help, and rape your children.

Soldiers and military contractors sexually abused more than 54 children in Colombia between 2003 and 2007, according to a recently released historic document on the country's conflict. The suspects have allegedly not been prosecuted due to immunity clauses in bilateral agreements.

The 800-page independent historic report was commissioned by the Colombian government and rebel group FARC to establish the causes and violence aggravators of the 50-year-long conflict they are negotiating to end.

The document is to help negotiators determine who is responsible for the more than 7 million victims of the armed conflict between leftist rebels and the state while they are negotiating peace.

"There exists abundant information about the sexual violence, in absolute impunity thanks to the bilateral agreements and the diplomatic immunity of United States officials."

Renan Vega - Historic Commission for the Conflict and its Victims

One of the scholars that helped redact the historians' report, Renan Vega of the Pedagogic University in Bogota, focused part of this historic document on the American military that has actively supported the Colombian state in its fight against drug trafficking and leftist rebel groups like the FARC and ELN.

In his report, the historian cited one 2004 case in the central Colombian town of Melgar where 53 underage girls were sexually abused by nearby stationed military contractors "who moreover filmed [the abuse] and sold the films as pornographic material."

The New York Police Department has begun installing monitoring systems on city streets as part of what they describe as an effort to curb "gun crime."

One such example was reported back in 2007, in East Oakland. Fusion.net reports an anecdote about a gunshot victim, Tyrone Lyles, whose dying words helped convict his killer back in 2007.

"Why you done me like that, Ar?" he said. "Ar, why you do me like that, dude?"

Contra Costa Times notes that the exchange was used in court, but it would have never been obtained had it not been for a street crime surveillance system called "ShotSpotter."

The gunshot detection system has been installed in nearly 100 cities across the country, and now New York City is joining them. The city is installing the surveillance system in high crime neighborhoods where they are said to zero in on gun shots and start monitoring.

In just the past week, the NYPD activated hundreds of these microphones throughout Brooklyn and the Bronx, according to the New York Times.

"Today, we are rolling out cutting edge technology to make the city safer, to make our neighborhoods safer, to keep our officers safer," Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

Valéry Marie René Georges Giscard d'Estaing, also known as Giscard or VGE, is a French centrist politician and a member of the Constitutional Council of France. He served as President of the French Republic from 1974 until 1981.

Extensive excerpt from Isabelle Laserre's interview:

Isabelle Lasserre: How do you view the annexation of Crimea and the destabilization of eastern Ukraine by Russia?

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing: Concerning the "return" of Crimea to Russia, very frankly, I judge it in conformity with history. I've re-read books describing Russian history of the 18th century. Crimea was conquered in the reign of Catherine II, with the predominant lead of prince Potemkin, when Russia went south toward Turkey with the idea of reconquering Constantinople. The conquest of Crimea was rather harsh, but it was not at the detriment of Ukraine, which did not exist, but at the expense of a local sovereign who depended on Turkey. Since then, it has not been populated by anyone but Russians. When Nikita Khrushchev wanted to increase the weight of the Soviet Union in the UN, which was then aborning, he invented Ukraine and Bielorussia to give two more votes to the Soviet Union, and he gave Ukraine authority over Crimea that it had never had before. At the time, already, I thought this dependance was artificial, and that it would not last. The recent events were predictable. Further, the return of Crimea to Russia has been largely approved by the population. It is only since the problems extended to the east of Ukraine that one gets worried.

IL: Numerous analysts and responsible politicians plead for a greater understanding regarding Vladimir Putin. Seeing that you've always been a supporter of detente vis-a-vis Moscow, during the Cold War as well as today, do you accept that one can thus violate international law and destabilize a country?

VGE: The conventional rules adopted at the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 set the principle of respect for sovereignty and frontiers; in virtue of this principle, some suppose that Ukraine must absolutely keep the totality of territory that was theirs at the moment of Ukraine's independence in 1991. But let us not forget that the decomposition of the USSR happened in a stampede and provoked a crumbling of borders! But today, the question of Crimea ought be left aside. The matter of the east of Ukraine, though, is more difficult. Do not forget that Ukraine was long Russian; Kiev was the capital of Russia. Why, when I was finance minister, I went to the Soviet Union at the request of general De Gaulle, and Khrushchev received me in Kiev!

To see the matter clearly, you have to ask what really happened a year ago in the Ukrainian capital. What role did the CIA play in the Maidan revolution? What is the meaning of the systematic anti-Russian policy conducted by Barack Obama? Why did the US want to advance their pawns in Ukraine? Is there a potent Ukrainian lobby in the US? Do the Americans want to compensate for their impotence in the Middle East by conducting a harder policy against Russia on the European continent?