Eideard

Gordon Brown is to offer a formal apology for the UK’s role in sending tens of thousands of children to a new life in Commonwealth countries during the 20th century, many without the consent of their families.

Government records show that at least 150,000 children aged between three and 14 were taken abroad, mainly to Australia and Canada, in a programme that began in 1920 and did not stop until 1967.

The children, almost invariably from deprived backgrounds and already in some form of social or charitable care, were cut off from their families or even informed, falsely, that they were orphans.

While their parents were told the child migrants had gone to a better life, in many cases they remained in institutions or were sent to farming families and treated as unpaid labour. A key subtext to the programme, particularly in relation to Australia, was an aim to supply Commonwealth nations with sufficient new white settlers.

A spokeswoman for the prime minister said…”We will undertake a period of dialogue with those affected, prior to a formal apology. We plan to make a more detailed announcement early in the new year.”

The announcement comes a day before Australia’s prime minister, Kevin Rudd, is due to make a wider apology to the estimated 500,000 children, many from overseas, who were held in orphanages and other institutions around the country between 1930 and 1970.

The habits of governments who provide White Settlers are consistently racist, cruel and self-serving.

I’d rather hear that these creeps are finally pressing their political peers for a change of policies – not just apologies well after the deeds.

Quality-of-life in nations is measured using an index of ‘Happy Life Years’, developed at Erasmus University Rotterdam in The Netherlands.

This index combines average appreciation of life with average length of life. Costa Rica is on top with 66.7 and Zimbabwe at the bottom with only 12.5 happy life years.

The USA rank in the sub-top with an average of 58 years lived happily. Canada outscored the U.S. with an average ranking of 64 years.

Rank lists are published periodically on the World Database of Happiness. The latest rank list counts 148 nations and covers more than 95% of the world’s population.

Here’s the detailed list of countries and their ‘Happy Life Year‘ score.

First Nation Chiefs transport Olympic flame across Vancouver Harbour in a miner’s lamp
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

Paradise for Hawaiians

Imee Gallardo, 24, has been scooping ice cream at a Häagen-Dazs shop at Waikiki Beach for five years, and during that time the shop has done something its counterparts on the mainland rarely do: it has paid for her health care.

“I wouldn’t get coverage on the mainland?” Ms. Gallardo asked. “Even if I worked? Why?”

Since 1974, Hawaii has required all employers to provide relatively generous health care benefits to any employee who works 20 hours a week or more. If health care legislation passes in Congress, the rest of the country may barely catch up.

Lawmakers working on a national health care fix have much to learn from the past 35 years in Hawaii, President Obama’s native state.

Among the most important lessons is that even small steps to change the system can have lasting effects on health. Another is that, once benefits are entrenched, taking them away becomes almost impossible. There have not been any serious efforts in Hawaii to repeal the law…

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They will be watching Juan Carlos Guzmán-Betancourt very closely at his jail in Vermont.

The last time the silver-tongued Colombian conman with a taste for the high life was locked up he walked out of a British prison after persuading the authorities to let him go to the dentist on his own.

But after illegally crossing the border from Canada, the man who British police have likened to the legendary US conman Frank Abagnale, played by Leonardo DiCaprio in the film Catch Me If You Can, now faces the prospect of up to eight countries and the US state of Nevada asking for his extradition…

The Colombian has at least 10 identities and has been pursued in Canada, Colombia, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Thailand and Venezuela. He’s been convicted of larceny in Virginia and New York and credit card fraud in Florida, and deported from the US three times.

RTFA. I can never resist reading about a good con.

Excluding Congress of course.

Body Bag shipment

Health Canada has apologized for sending more than two dozen body bags to a Manitoba First Nation in preparation for a possible swine flu outbreak.

“We regret the alarm that this incident has caused,” said a statement issued late Thursday afternoon. “It is important to remember that our nurses are focused entirely on providing primary health-care services under often-trying circumstances.”

But the apology only cites the bags sent to the Wasagamack First Nation. Manitoba First Nations chiefs said the bags — which arrived this week with a shipment of hand sanitizers and face masks — also arrived in God’s River First Nation.

Earlier Thursday afternoon, Jim Wolfe, director of First Nations and Inuit Health for Manitoba, issued his own apology and took the blame.

He said his department regrets the alarm the shipment has caused in those communities, which were hard hit by the H1N1 flu virus in the spring. Wolfe said the apology goes out to all First Nations in the country, not just those who received the bags.

He said their remote geography was part of the reason he asked nursing stations in those communities to stock up for the winter.

Usually, shipments deliver enough supplies to nursing stations to last for six weeks, he said, adding that this time they shipped a lot more…

“Given the unknown events that we may facing in the fall, we asked our nursing stations to stock up for three to four months. And unfortunately in this case we overestimated our requirements and that unfortunately caused the alarm we are seeing now,” Wolfe said…

“Is the body bags a statement from Canada that we as First Nations are on our own?” Wasagamack Chief Jerry Knott asked.

He flew to Winnipeg with the bags on Wednesday and took them to the Health Canada building on York Avenue. The office was closed at the time, so he stacked the bags on the doorstep and marked them “Return to Sender.”

Seems like a pretty clear comment to me. Some of the suits running Health Canada haven’t a clue about life outside their gridlocked urban reservations.

The risk of infant death following planned home birth attended by a registered midwife does not differ from that of a planned hospital birth, found a study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

The study looked at 2889 home births attended by regulated midwives in British Columbia, Canada, and 4752 planned hospital births attended by the same cohort of midwives compared with 5331 physician-attended births in hospital. Women who planned a home birth had a significantly lower risk of obstetric interventions and adverse outcomes, including augmentation of labour, electronic fetal monitoring, epidural analgesia, assisted vaginal delivery, cesarean section, hemorrhage, and infection.

The safety of home births is under debate. American, Australian and New Zealand Colleges of Obstetricians and Gynecologists oppose home births while the United Kingdom’s Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the Royal College of Midwives are supportive, as are midwife organizations in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Canada’s Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has encouraged further research into the safety of home birth, and this study addresses that directive.

“Women planning birth at home experienced reduced risk for all obstetric interventions measured, and similar or reduced risk for adverse maternal outcomes,” writes Dr. Patricia Janssen from the University of British Columbia and coauthors. Newborns born after planned home births were at similar or reduced risk of death, although the likelihood of admission to hospital was higher.

Factors in the home environment that decrease risks are not well-understood and could be due to sample bias. “We do not underestimate the degree of self-selection that takes place in a population of women choosing home birth. This self-selection may be an important component of risk management for home birth.” They write that the eligibility screening by registered midwives safely supports a policy
of choice in birth setting.

“Our population rate of less than 1 perinatal death per 1000 births may serve as a benchmark to other jurisdictions as they evaluate their home birth programs,” the authors conclude (.pdf).

Terrific study. Designed for comparison and peer review.

Nowhere near as political as some author [me] tried to make it with the headline.

Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper has named a gregarious member of the left-leaning New Democratic Party to advance Canada’s interests as ambassador in the Democratic-dominated United States.

Harper said ambassador-designate Gary Doer, who has served for 10 years as premier of the Prairie province of Manitoba, had been “a strong advocate of both good and assertive relations with the United States.”

Doer said he would go to Washington as a Canadian rather than as a member of a particular party, but his political affiliation will not do him any harm with the Obama administration or the Democratic-controlled Congress.

He replaces Michael Wilson, a former cabinet minister in the Conservative government of Brian Mulroney, who helped negotiate the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and had good ties with the Bush family.

“It’s a good fit in the same way that Michael Wilson was a good fit for George Bush’s America,” University of Toronto foreign relations expert John Kirton commented…

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Harper’s on the ship with the heated cabins – of course

Canada is launching a series of military exercises in the Arctic far-north region of the country.

The so-called sovereignty operation is designed to show a visible presence in the resource-rich area, amid competing claims among other nations. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is expected to join in some of the exercises later in the week.

Operation Nanook will see the Canadian Armed Forces involved in sea, land and airforce operations in the country’s eastern Arctic territory.

Mr Harper is expected to join the operation midweek, when he will board both a navy frigate and a submarine during a warfare exercise.

He’s preparing for an attack by Sarah Palin and her teabag army.

Once thought a barren region, a number of countries with competing claims – including Denmark and Russia – have been carefully mapping the area around the North Pole, thought to be rich in minerals and natural resources.

Canada is also concerned by the melting of ice each year through the fabled Northwest Passage, blamed by scientists on global warming. The United States government has said that it does not recognise exclusive Canadian rights to the waterway, that could be a link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Don’t forget – the population of Canada is almost exactly the same as Afghanistan. So, the United States won’t be reticent about invading.

Alberta Hutterites have lost their fight to be exempted from a law making digital photos mandatory for drivers to get new licences in the province. The Hutterites, a Christian sect that believes being photographed violates their faith and way of life, have been allowed to carry special driving permits since 1974 – the year the government introduced photo licences.

But the Supreme Court of Canada ruled 4-3 on Friday to uphold provincial rules that went into effect in 2003 that make a digital photo universally mandatory for all new licences. “The goal of setting up a system that minimizes the risk of identity theft associated with drivers’ licences is a pressing and important public goal,” Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin wrote.

“The universal photo requirement is connected to this goal and does not limit freedom (of) religion more than required to achieve it.”

When Alberta offered the Hutterites a comprise in 2003 allowing permits without photos – with the proviso that photos must still be taken for a database – the Hutterites refused.

The Hutterites believe being photographed violates the second of the Ten Commandments forbidding idolatry.

And that’s about where serious legal discussion comes to an end.