unemployment rate: Torontos overall, seasonally adjusted unemployment rate dropped 3 percentage points in the last year alone. Employment numbers are finally back to the levels before the great recession of the late 1980s. For the third straight year, the city saw positive job growth, according to The Star. Alas, in the midst of this economic prosperity, one in five Toronto youth is unemployed and For the first time in a quarter century, Torontos job-creation performance is humming along, on par with the rest of the province and country. But the rosy stats do not tell the whole story. Economic development director, Mike Williams, was in the middle of singing the citys praises as a magnet for jobs, when his thoughts turned to the employment prospects for immigrants and youths. His language changed. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Manitoba Developmental Centre: Despite its benign name, the Manitoba Developmental Centre haunts our province's past and present. , according to Winnipeg Free Press. Times have changed since then, and so has MDC. But has it changed enough to justify its existence? The Southgrove Building at Manitoba Developmental Centre in Portage La Prairie. Photo Store When the institution for people with intellectual disabilities first opened on the north edge of Portage la Prairie in 1890, it was called the Home for Incurables. This unseemly name was later changed to the Manitoba School for Mentally Defective Persons and then, it became the Manitoba School for Retardates. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

William Osler Health Centre: William Osler Health Centre will be the GTAs sole collection site for the stem cell rich blood when it begins accepting donations in the next few months, Canadian Blood Services officials say, according to The Star. We re targeting ethnically diverse communities, says Sue Smith, Canada Blood Services executive director of Stem Cells and Expectant mothers wishing to donate cord blood to Canadas fledgling public national bank will have to deliver their babies in Brampton. The busy west-GTA facility was chosen, above University Health Network hospitals in Toronto, primarily because it serves a multi-ethnic population. Poll View on Poll Daddy (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Syria: GENEVA - The United Nations is shifting its aid effort for Syria to prepare for long-term help to neighboring countries to cope with the humanitarian crisis, the head of the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said on Tuesday, according to Reuters. "The new approach is to combine the emergency with the long-term. For that, humanitarian agencies alone cannot do it," UNHCR chief Antonio Guterres told a news conference in Geneva and By Tom Miles More than 100,000 people have been killed in Syria's 2-1/2-year conflict as rebels fight to oust President Bashar al-Assad. Over half of its 20 million people need aid and around 2 million have fled to neighboring Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Fred Tufnell: Cabinet orders-in-council show the government recently bumped Fred Tufnell from his position as vice-chairman of the Ontario regional division of the Parole Board of Canada, according to Huffington Post. The cabinet order reveals that last November, then-public safety minister Vic Toews asked Tufnell to explain why he should not lose the posting and OTTAWA - The Harper government has mysteriously demoted a parole board member it once named to a senior position. The Conservatives named Tufnell, a former police officer, to the board in 2009 and elevated him to the vice-chairman's job two years later. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Kenya: For the second time in two months, poorly paid Kenyan security forces that moved in to control an emergency are being accused of robbing the very property they were supposed to protect. First the troops were accused of looting during a huge fire in August at Nairobi's main airport, according to CTV. One witness told The Associated Press that he saw a Kenyan soldier take cigarettes out of a dead man's pocket and NAIROBI, Kenya -- Jewelry cases smashed. Mobile phones ripped from displays. Cash registers emptied. Alcohol stocks plundered. Now shop owners at Westgate Mall are returning to their stores after last week's devastating terrorist attack to find displays ransacked and valuables stolen. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Jorge Sosa: But a defence lawyer suggested that former special forces officer Jorge Sosa answered the questions on his naturalization form as most soldiers would and urged jurors in a California courtroom to focus their attention on the papers he filed, not the horrific accounts of the killings, according to Times Colonist. Prosecutors say Sosa was a member of a special forces patrol that surrounded the village of Dos Erres in a search for weapons believed stolen by guerrillas. The weapons were never found and prosecutors say the patrol decided to kill the villagers, throwing their bodies into a well, after some of the soldiers began raping the women and RIVERSIDE, Calif. - A former Guatemalan soldier charged with lying on his citizenship application about his alleged role in an army-led massacre three decades ago was on the run from his past and sought refuge in the U.S., a federal prosecutor said on Monday. The arguments came after four days of graphic testimony in Sosa's trial on charges of making false statements and obtaining American citizenship unlawfully. If convicted, the 55-year-old former second lieutenant could face up to 15 years in federal prison and lose his American citizenship. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

insurance marketplaces: Whether consumers will be pleased with the experience, the premiums and the out-of-pocket costs of the plans offered to them will finally start to become clear. Tuesday's rollout comes after months of buildup in which the marketplaces, also known as exchanges, have been both praised and vilified, according to Times Colonist. The shutdown will have no immediate effect on the insurance marketplaces that are the backbone of the law, because they operate with money that isn't subject to the annual budget wrangling in Washington and CHICAGO - Millions of Americans will be able to shop for the first time Tuesday on the insurance marketplaces that are at the heart of President Barack Obama's health care reforms, entering a world that is supposed to simplify the mysteries of health coverage but could end up making it even more confusing, at least initially. Illustrating the heated political disagreements over the law, the opening of the exchanges comes the same day as the shutdown of the federal government, led by congressional Republicans who want to block the health insurance reforms from taking effect. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Kenya Jewelry: For the second time in two months, poorly paid Kenyan security forces that moved in to control an emergency are being accused of robbing the very property they were supposed to protect. First the troops were accused of looting during a huge fire in August at Nairobis main airport, according to 660 News. One witness told The Associated Press that he saw a Kenyan soldier take cigarettes out of a dead mans pocket and NAIROBI, Kenya Jewelry cases smashed. Mobile phones ripped from displays. Cash registers emptied. Alcohol stocks plundered. Now shop owners at Westgate Mall are returning to their stores after last weeks devastating terrorist attack to find displays ransacked and valuables stolen. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Truong Tien Thao: The report ranks the social and economic well-being of elders in 91 countries, with Sweden coming out on top and Afghanistan at the bottom. It reflects what advocates for the old have been warning, with increasing urgency, for years: Nations are simply not working quickly enough to cope with a population greying faster than ever before. By the year 2050, for the first time in history, seniors over the age of 60 will outnumber children under the age of 15, according to CTV. "People at my age should have a rest, but I still have to work to make our ends meet," he says, while waiting for customers at the shop, which sells green tea, cigarettes and chewing gum. "My wife and I have no pension, no health insurance. I'm scared of thinking of being sick -- I don't know how I can pay for the medical care." The world is aging so fast that most countries are not prepared to support their swelling numbers of elderly people, according to a global study going out Tuesday by the United Nations and an elder rights group. Truong Tien Thao, who runs a small tea shop on the sidewalk near his home in Hanoi, Vietnam, is 65 and acutely aware that he, like millions of others, is plunging into old age without a safety net. He wishes he could retire, but he and his 61-year-old wife depend on the $50 a month they earn from the tea shop. And so every day, Thao rises early to open the stall at 6 a.m. and works until 2 p.m., when his wife takes over until closing. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.