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Ottawa plans much looser refugee policy
A draft of the Liberal government's long-anticipated new Immigration Act contains an expanded definition of refugees that goes beyond the United Nations Convention on Refugees to include a new category for "people in need of protection." The new classification would vastly widen the notion of asylum, opening up Canada's refugee system not only to those who fear torture in their homeland, but to those who fear becoming the "object of cruel and unusual treatment or punishment."

New book challenges belief that HIV is main cause of AIDS
The real destructive agent in AIDS is not HIV, as widely believed, but a herpes virus carried by more than 90% of the population, says a controversial new book by Canadian writer Nicholas Regush. In his book, The Virus Within, which is to be published later this month and is excerpted exclusively in the National Post today, Mr. Regush says the virus lies dormant in most people from infancy until activated, possibly by drug use or infection.

Who wants to grow up a millionaire?
PALO ALTO, Calif. - Every day after school, 13-year-old Jeffrey Mendelman has a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with milk, finishes his homework -- and checks his stocks. "My dad's stock was going up," he explains of his decision to plunge into the market, and he now follows stocks the way he collects baseball cards.

Cinar restates its financial statements
Cinar Corp., the Montreal-based animation company, dropped a bombshell late yesterday when it announced it will need to restate its audited financial statements for the past two fiscal years of 1997 and 1998 and the first three quarters of 1999. The company said the restatements "relate to tax incentives and the disclosure of related party transactions." As well, the company also alluded to a number of "unauthorized transactions."

Virk screamed as accused hit her, teen witness says
VANCOUVER - Accused killer Kelly Ellard was "throwing most of the punches" at Reena Virk in a swarming attack less than an hour before she allegedly held the teenager's head underwater, B.C. Supreme Court was told yesterday. Marissa Bowles, 16, was a witness to the first beating of Ms. Virk. She said that Ms. Ellard, who is now 17, had been drinking before the attack in the shadows of a bridge across the waterway in suburban Victoria where Ms. Virk's body was later found.