BRUSSELS – More and more Muslims are refusing to allow a male gynaecologist to attend at their wives’ deliveries, says the head of gynaecology at the Brussels University Hospital VUB and the Ghent University Hospital. Various newspapers have reported on the problem.

The Flemish Association of Gynaecologists are urging for a strict, uniform policy in all hospitals. The phenomenon is common particularly in cities with a large immigrant population.
Read the rest of this entry »

GREGORY BONNELL

OTTAWA (CP) - Same-sex unions are growing at five times the rate of opposite-sex ones according to census numbers that also reveal, for the first time, the number of homosexual marriages in Canada.
Some 45,300 couples, both common law and married, reported as same-sex in the 2006 census, up from 34,200. Those numbers represent a 33 per cent surge since 2001, while heterosexual couples grew by just six per cent in the same time period.
The historic Statistics Canada query on same-sex marriage, coming in the wake of Parliament legalizing such unions in 2005, revealed 7,465 homosexual marriages.
That’s considerably lower than numbers reported by the now-defunct advocacy group Canadians For Equal Marriage. The group, based on its own research of municipal records, reported last November that 12,438 marriage licences had been granted to same-sex couples since provincial courts began recognizing such unions in 2003.
The census relegated same-sex marriages to a write-in category under the questionnaire’s ‘other’ box - a move that raised the ire of Egale Canada. The national advocacy group responded by urging its membership to list their relationships as husband and wife.

Read the rest of this entry »

By JUAN MONTANO

PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Mexico (AP) — A dynamite-laden truck exploded after colliding with another vehicle on a busy highway in northern Mexico’s coal country, killing at least 34 people, including three reporters at the scene, state and federal officials said.

Authorities said the two vehicles crashed into each other Sunday evening, drawing a crowd of curious onlookers as well as a small army of police, soldiers, emergency officials and journalists.

Read the rest of this entry »

Prime Minister Stephen Harper wears a traditional outback hat and rain coat during the official photo at the APEC summit in Sydney, Australia Saturday, Sept. 8, 2007.
SYDNEY, Australia (CP) - Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he won’t be holding a vote in Parliament on Canada’s Afghanistan mission unless he can get some other party to support his desire for an extension beyond 2009.

Harper, speaking after a summit of pan-Pacific leaders in Sydney, Australia, said there’s no rush to have a debate or a vote on mission.
Read the rest of this entry »

By BRUCE CHEADLE

SYDNEY, Australia (CP) - Prime Minister Stephen Harper says Elections Canada is subverting the will of Parliament by permitting Muslim women to wear veils and burkas while voting.

And he’s promising Parliament will do something about it if the arm-length elections agency doesn’t change course. Harper said he “profoundly disagrees” with Elections Canada’s recent ruling, prompted by three byelections in Quebec on Sept. 17.

He noted that all four parties in the House of Commons this past spring voted to bring in a new law requiring visual identification of voters.

“That’s the purpose of the law,” said Harper, speaking to reporters Sunday following an international summit in Sydney, Australia.

“That was a law adopted virtually unanimously by Parliament. I think this decision goes in an entirely different direction.”

Harper has fought a series of battles with Elections Canada going all the way back to his days in private life as president of the National Citizen’s Coalition, when he sought to overturn rules prohibiting third-party advertising during election campaigns.

The Conservative party is currently in a legal dispute with Elections Canada over candidate rebates from the 2006 federal campaign.

Harper said the veil decision concerns him deeply “because the role of Elections Canada is not to make its own laws, it’s to put into place the laws that Parliament has passed.”

Elections Canada has scheduled a news conference Monday morning in Ottawa to address the controversy.

Condemnation of the veil ruling has united politicians on all sides of the political fence, both federally and in Quebec.

And it has left some Muslim organizations scratching their heads, saying they were never consulted.

A spokeswoman for the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations in Montreal said this week the ruling will have an impact on very few Muslim women.

“We’re talking about a minority of a minority of a minority,” said Sarah Elgazzar. “It’s a very small section of the practising Muslim women, which is already a small enough section of the Muslim community that actually wear the niqab.”

Harper said he hopes Elections Canada reconsiders, “but in the meantime, if that doesn’t happen, Parliament will have to consider what actions it’s going to take to make sure that its intentions are put into place.”