Elizabeth Denham: Elizabeth Denham says citizens and civil society groups have raised questions about the scope and sensitivity of personal information that's accessed and disclosed to police, often for employment-screening purposes, according to Huffington Post. Denham says that while a criminal record check is a report of someone's prior convictions, penalties or outstanding charges pulled from a national police database, such information can also reveal details that have not been proven in court and VICTORIA - Concerns about the amount and type of personal information disclosed in police record checks have prompted an investigation by B.C.'s privacy commissioner. She says thousands of record checks are processed every year by municipal police forces and the RCMP but the relevance of the information collected in the public and private sector needs to be scrutinized. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

World Health Organisation: GENEVA - Polio has broken out among young children in northeast Syria, the World Health Organisation WHO confirmed on Tuesday, and could spread inside and outside the country, where civil war has led to falling vaccination rates. , according to Reuters. Twenty-two children in Deir al-Zor province bordering Iraq became paralyzed on October 17 and WHO's regional laboratory in Tunis has isolated the wild polio virus in samples taken from 10 victims. Results on the other 12 are expected within days. By Stephanie Nebehay Polio, a crippling disease caused by a virus transmitted via contaminated food and water, can spread rapidly among children under five, especially in the kind of unsanitary conditions endured by the displaced in Syria or crowded refugee camps in neighboring countries. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart: OTTAWA The privacy watchdog says weak security practices at the federal tax office led to thousands of files being inappropriately accessed for years without detection, according to The Chronicle Herald. Canadians deserve to have their personal information protected, particularly when they provide it to the government under legal compulsion, Stoddart said in a news release Tuesday and Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart has more than a dozen recommendations including better monitoring of employee access rights to ensure the Canada Revenue Agency protects sensitive information. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Wildrose Party: It laid down policies that, amongst other things, called for the guarantee of equal rights to gays, minorities, as well as accepted the reality of climate change and humanity's role within that change, according to Huffington Post. Will this policy shift benefit the Wildrose? Quick Poll What do you think of the Wildrose Party's social shift to centre and The right wing Alberta Wildrose Party moved to the centre on social and environmental issues during their latest annual general meeting in Red Deer over the weekend. In recent years, the Wildrose has been criticized for alleged racist and homophobic remarks and for party leader Danielle Smith's denial of climate change or man's culpability in the process. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Ahmad Jarba: Just days ago in London, I listened with sadness and shock as Ahmad Jarba and leaders of the moderate Syrian opposition described how ordinary Syrians with no links to the civil war are forced to eat stray dogs and cats to survive a campaign of deprivation waged by the Assad regime. , according to Winnipeg Free Press. Reports of severe malnutrition across vast swaths of Syria suffering under regime blockades prompted the United Nations Security Council to issue a presidential statement calling for immediate access to humanitarian assistance. To bolster the U.N.s position, every nation needs to demand action on the ground right now. That includes governments that have allowed their Syrian allies to block or undermine vital relief efforts mandated by international humanitarian law. President of the Syrian Coalition Ahmad al-Jarba The world already knows that Bashar Assad has used chemical weapons, indiscriminate bombing, arbitrary detentions, rape and torture against his own citizens. What is far less well known, and equally intolerable, is the systematic denial of medical assistance, food supplies and other humanitarian aid to huge portions of the population. This denial of the most basic human rights must end before the wars death toll now surpassing 100,000 reaches even more catastrophic levels. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper: The minister made the pledge after meeting private-sector economists in his office Monday, and after the Parliamentary Budget Officer released his latest analysis of the books, showing a razor-thin surplus in the critical 2015-16 year, according to CTV. The distinction is significant because Prime Minister Stephen Harper is counting on a balanced budget in March 2015 -- and preferably a significant surplus -- to fulfil a 2011 campaign pledge to introduce income splitting for couples with children in time for the October 2015 election and OTTAWA -- The federal government will not only balance the budget in 2015, it will run up a sizable surplus before the next federal election, says Finance Minister Jim Flaherty. "The plan is to budget a surplus in 2015 and not a tiny surplus," Flaherty said. "There will be no doubt that we're balanced in 2015." (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

El Mundo: The El Mundo newspaper report comes a week after the French paper Le Monde reported similar allegations of U.S. spying in France and German magazine Der Spiegel reported that Washington tapped Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone . The leaders of Brazil and Mexico are also reported to have been spied on, according to The Star. El Mundo said the bar graph document titled "Spain Last 30 days" showed daily call traffic volume between Dec. 10, 2012, and Jan. 8, 2013. It says the NSA monitored the numbers and duration of the calls, but not their content. The document does not show the numbers and MADRID A Spanish newspaper published a document Monday that it said shows the U.S. National Security Agency spied on more than 60 million phone calls in Spain in one month alone the latest revelation about alleged massive U.S. spying on allies. A European summit last week was dominated by anger over the reported extent of U.S. spying on allies and Germany was sending its spy chiefs to Washington to demand answers. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Craigslist: The angry and irrational ad, which was written in all caps, poor grammar and posted to Craigslist on Sunday with the location "Slut-couver, B.C.," began by saying that the city's women dress in a sexually-provocative manner every day of the year, and even more so on Halloween, according to Huffington Post. The author, who claims to work in the film industry, goes on to say that Vancouver's female residents are "all show and no go, any guy that gets laid alot can tell you that." A sexist rant about the hypothetical dressing habits of Vancouver women on Halloween is being ripped apart on Reddit. "Why? Because that is their only commodity exchange theory," it read. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Ramiro Osorio Cristales: Now, 31 years later, he remembers the events of that day Dec. 7, 1982 with almost preternatural clarity, according to The Star. I dont feel hate, Osorio says. I dont live with hate and Ramiro Osorio Cristales was just 5 years old on the day the Earth stood still. When he speaks to a reporter on the phone, Osorio has only recently returned to Canada from a late-September journey to Riverside, Calif., where he testified as the final witness for the prosecution at the trial of Jorge Sosa Orantes , a former Guatemalan army officer and alleged war criminal. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Skate Canada International: Weaver and Poje were runners-up once again to Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir this past weekend at Skate Canada International, but the gap between scores was the closest it's ever been -- giving Canada not one, but two ice dance teams that could reach the medal podium at the Sochi Olympics, according to CTV. "We've grown up with them, it feels like, for the past six years that we've been on the international circuit. Every time we get to share the ice with them I feel like we get stronger because they're everything we strive to be." SAINT JOHN, N.B. -- They've long competed in the shadow of Canada's Olympic ice dance champions, but Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje don't mind flying under the radar into Sochi. "Being in the same sentence as Scott and Tessa is an extreme honour for us," Weaver said, after their lyrical free skate tango Saturday night to music by Argentine composer Astor Piazaolla. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.