ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) — Prosecutors have charged former Prime Minister Ivo Sanader for allegedly taking a commission from a credit deal during the time he served as deputy foreign minister in 1990s.
The indictment, announced on Wednesday, alleges that Sanader abused his position when he took some €480,000 ($691,296) for the credit arrangement with Austria's Hypo Alpe Adria bank …
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — TCU was coming off a one-win season when Gary Patterson arrived 12 years ago as part of the new coaching staff.
Any victory, even by only a single point, was enough to make the Horned Frogs happy back then.
Patterson has never really wavered on that feeling, but what others expect out of his program has certainly changed. No. 5 TCU, after all, has been a BCS buster, become a perennial Top 25 team and won at least 11 games four of the last five seasons.
"Everybody has high expectations, and you sometimes forget winning is winning," said Patterson, a defensive coordinator-turned-head coach.
While winning by one or two points is still plenty …
THE TIME FOR BANK LEADERSHIP TO START DEVELOPING A STRONGER TALENT MANAGEMENT PROGRAM IS NOW.
For years, reports have circulated about the emerging talent crisis in corporate America. Thus, for many, this may seem like old news. Yet recent changes in demographics among C-suite executives and board members have resulted in an immediate need for well-qualified, next-generation talent to ensure ongoing performance and business vitality.
So while the talent deficit has been recognized for some time, industry experts have noted a remarkable change this past year, characterized by both ownership and action. Namely, CEOs as well as boards of directors are taking ownership of this …
A suspect has been arrested in connection with the mailing of packages containing acid to several local officials in northwestern Austria, a security chief said Sunday.
Alois Lissl, director of public safety in the province of Upper Austria, also said authorities had been alerted to a fifth suspicious package.
A man was in custody in the town of Wels, Lissl told The Associated Press in a phone interview. He identified him as a 48-year-old real estate broker from the local district of Schaerding, adding he was arrested late Saturday and that he had maintained his innocence.
There have been a mysterious series of incidents involving packages which, …
Brazilian stocks are trading sharply higher as global leaders make headway in tackling the world financial crisis at the G20 summit in London.
Brazil's benchmark Ibovespa index rose 4.9 percent to 44,011 in the first two hours of trading.
Shares in state-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA jumped 3.4 percent, while the world's biggest …
Tough law enforcement can curb the sale of cigarettes to minors,helping to prevent smoking by youths, Chicago researchers arereporting.
Experimentation with cigarettes by junior high school studentsin southwest suburban Woodridge dropped 50 percent over two years -to 23 percent - after the village passed a tough law prohibitingsales to minors, psychologist Leonard Jason and colleagues fromDePaul University said.
Under the law, modeled after liquor licensing laws, stores thatsell cigarettes to minors face suspension of cigarette sales licensesand fines of up to $500. Minors can be fined $25 for possession.
In Wednesday's edition of the Journal of the …
WASHINGTON (AP) — Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' aides have urged former Surgeon General Richard Carmona to run for a U.S. Senate seat in Arizona, Carmona said Friday, in the strongest indication that Giffords herself will not seek the seat.
Democrats have been speculating about Giffords' political future since she was shot in the head in January during a constituent event at a Tucson shopping center. She has been undergoing rehabilitation therapy in Houston. Her recent appearance for a key vote in Congress renewed buzz about whether she was well enough to seek re-election or even run for the seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.
Carmona declined to identify who …
Jet engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney Canada says it will lay off more than 400 workers by next year in response to the steep decline in corporate jet purchases.
The subsidiary of United Technologies Corp. said it will lay off 250 workers by the end of the year. It also will shut a plant in Longueuil (Long-ay), Quebec, where Pratt & Whitney Canada is based, by the end of 2010, leaving 160 …
Just at its peak, the cherished tomato plant often begins to sag.It wilts rapidly from a lush, productive bush into a yellow-leafedshadow of its former self.
Several afflictions can damage tomato vines severely enough atthis time of year to reduce or even halt tomato production. Twoblights and a leaf spot named septoria are the three most damaging.
Early blight has concentric rings, each a half-inch to one-inchin diameter, despoiling foliage and fruit.
Late blight is less common but still a risk. It hits in Augustwith gray and brown splotches on the leaves. One method ofidentifying the disease is to pick a suspicious leaf. All blightsand leaf spots …
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — The nation's financial downturn has forced many states to make tough decisions on expensive but long-untouchable public employee benefits.
Nowhere was the breakthrough more evident than in union-friendly New Jersey, where a Republican governor aided by Democrats enacted sweeping cost-saving changes.
Experts say the overhaul of pensions and health care benefits simultaneously was significant in scope and marked a …
World leaders lined up Sunday behind a bold pledge by rich nations to cut budget deficits in half by 2013.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, host of a summit of the world's 20 top industrial and developing nations, said at Sunday's session that it's "imperative that we get our fiscal house in order."
The deficit-cutting goal would mean that countries cut their red ink in half within three years and get their total debt stabilized by 2016.
"Advanced economies have committed to fiscal plans that will at least halve deficits by 2013 and stabilize or reduce government debt-to-GDP ratios by 2016," according to a draft …
A 44-year-old man was executed Thursday evening for raping and murdering an 11-year-old girl, despite pleas from his attorneys he was too mentally impaired to qualify for capital punishment.
Bobby Wayne Woods received lethal injection about a half-hour after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to halt his punishment, which was delayed briefly until the high court ruled in his case. His lawyers had argued Woods was mentally impaired, making him ineligible for execution, and that previous appeals to spare Woods' life were unsuccessful because of shoddy work by his lawyer at the time.
Tests administered to Woods put his IQ anywhere from the 60s to the 80s. An IQ of 70 is considered the threshold for mental impairment.
Woods was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to die for the April 1997 slaying of Sarah Patterson, his ex-girlfriend's daughter. She and her 9-year-old brother were snatched from their home in Granbury, near Fort Worth. Sarah's throat was slit with a knife. Her brother was beaten and left for dead but survived to testify against Woods.
Asked by a warden if he had a final statement, Woods lifted his head from the pillow on the death chamber gurney and replied: "Bye. I'm ready."
Eight minutes later, he was pronounced dead.
"I'm not a person that likes harm done to anybody, but I believe in justice being done," Larry Patterson said after watching his daughter's killer die. "She had no choice. She didn't get a second chance."
The execution was the 24th and last scheduled for this year in Texas, where 18 inmates received lethal injection in 2008 in the nation's busiest capital punishment state. At least five already are scheduled for 2010, including two in January.
In the appeal to the Supreme Court, Woods' lawyer, University of Texas law professor Maurie Levin, argued the performance of Woods' state-appointed attorney during earlier appeals was "so egregious" the prisoner's mental impairment claims could not be accurately assessed. She pointed out the attorney has since been removed from a list of lawyers eligible to represent condemned inmates but by the time she got the case, "the damage had been done."
State attorneys told the high court no constitutional right exists for an inmate to have an effective appeals attorney and Woods' claim of due-process violations "does not change that fact." They also argued Woods' mental impairment claims already have been rejected by the courts and the last-ditch appeals improperly duplicated those rejections.
Woods blamed Patterson's death on a cousin who subsequently committed suicide. He said injuries to her brother were the result of an accident.
"We went walking around graveyards, horsing around by a fence," Woods told The Associated Press last year from death row. "Cody jumped on my back and hit a fence post.
"I guess I panicked."
At his trial, Cody Patterson testified Woods attacked him, and prosecutors presented a mountain of evidence implicating Woods in Sarah's killing, including signed confessions.
Richard Hattox, the former Hood County district attorney who prosecuted Woods, said authorities also had DNA evidence of the girl's blood on Woods' knife, her blood on his shoe and his DNA on her panties, which were found in Woods' car.
"How could there be little doubt?" Hattox said Wednesday. "Every bit of his appeal effort has been expended toward his claim of retardation. And there's no proof he is retarded."
As the owner of an 80-year-old family grocery business, John Herr has seen things come and go. Of the vast array of ways he could shape his family grocery store, he's tried to pick and choose, embracing some innovations and rejecting others.
Of one thing, he's certain.
John Herr's Village Market in Millersville could get bigger and perhaps even open other locations. But "you'd have to be nuts to do that," he says.
You really have to walk fast and pay attention to keep up with Herr. Herr, who has been running his own store with 135 employees for 54 years, isn't slowing down a bit. In fact, he's thinking about adding more features to the store that has been located at 25 Manor Ave. since 1974.
"We've got a salad bar and an inhouse bakery and a lot of other things that the big chains have," Herr said. "People don't cook anymore, so we have to do the made-to-order stuff, too."
Conspicuous by its absence, however, is the modern staple of supermarkets. When you check out groceries at John Herr's Village Market, Millersville, a clerk, dressed nattily in a candy-stripped smock, will physically punch the cost into a cash register. UPC symbols are useless here.
Price scanners are nowhere to be seen in Herr's market. In some sense, the lack of scanners give the entire supermarket a "time warp" atmosphere.
However, Herr, and his vice president of 47 years, Jim Eshleman, admit that those days of minimal technology in the store are probably gone.
Maybe.
"We've talked to our customers, and they say they really don't want the scanners," Herr said. "But, it's come to the point where we may have to get them in order to (survive)."
According to both Herr and Eshleman, the scanners are important to the merchandise warehouses and the big chains because they can pinpoint exactly what the buying patterns are of the customers. If a customer has a special "bonus buy" or "gold card" distributed by the chains, it can scan that through at the checkout, which will record the information and know precisely which customer is buying what item.
The scanners, according to the National Cash Register Co., cost between $400 and $2,000 apiece. Only one scanner is placed in each checkout register. John Herr has 10 checkout registers.
"If we want to know what we should carry, we just ask people," Eshleman said, although he noted that as more people move into the area, the supermarket might want to keep closer tabs on what it should be stocking.
The Darrenkamp family has a history similar to Herr's in the grocery market business. The grandfather of the family sold produce and fish from a horse and buggy. That business grew to a store on Lancaster's Union Street in 1932 and has since expanded to three locations: Willow Street, Mount Joy and a new 50,000-square-foot market at Willow Valley.
Darrenkamp's has embraced technology.
"In the long run it's better for the business," said Dave Darrenkamp, coowner with his brothers of Darrenkamp's Mount Joy Market Inc. "At first they may not like it, but they always come around when they see how things are used."
The Willow Valley Darrenkamp's features in-house ATMs, scanners at the checkout, credit card machines for purchases, a full-service restaurant that seats 64, 47,000 different brands and more than a million items overall.
"There are more of us; we have four families," Darrenkamp said. "We have no choice but to grow. Jack (Herr) has taken on the attitude if ain't broke, don't fix it, and he's got a great business. He really does a great job with his store."
But, says Darrenkamp, he was once in the same boat as Herr, struggling to keep up with the surging pace of the marketplace.
"If you would have told me two years ago that we would have 480 employees, in three different stores with all this new technology in the stores, I would have looked at you like you were nuts," Darrenkamp said.
After 80 years and three generations, John Herr's Village Market has survived fairly well. Too much technology, Herr said, might take away from the store's personal touch.
Herr and Eshleman have lowered the ceilings and eliminated as much of the light from fluorescent bulbs as possible. In the big stores, the ceilings are high and aisles wide in order to pack more goods and people in, but that makes the shopping experience impersonal, Herr says.
"We did this intentionally to make the store more comfortable with a more homey atmosphere," Herr said. "We've put in hanging lamps and opened up a bit of space, and to in and our customers, it just feels much more personable."
Service and personality are the calling cards of the market. Baggers are stationed at each of the store's checkout lines. There are also packers just outside the doors to help shoppers load their groceries into their cars. While groceries can be purchased with a MAC card, the store isn't open 24 hours.
"We're not that modem," Herr quips. "We need to sleep sometimes."
The history
The store opened its doors in 1919 when Herr's grandfather, David, bought a broom and harness shop where the Framery, a picture framing store on the corner of Manor and George streets, now stands. Back then, Herr's sold everything from boots to dish cloths.
In 1945, the business was passed on to Herr's father, John Sr., and Herr began working there when he was 16, slicing meats and delivering groceries.
The store was completely remodeled and expanded by 1964, when Herr took over. As to the future, Herr isn't sure. He said he doesn't have family members working at his store.
"We'll worry about that when it comes," he said.
Herr has had a lot of time to reflect on the changes of his business.
"I think the biggest thing that has happened is the frozen-food business," Herr said. "There are so many new items specifically made just for the microwave oven. Everything has to be able to be prepared so quickly because nobody cooks anymore."
Eshleman remembers when people who lived on farms in the outlying areas of the town set aside one day a week to come to town. It was the day when they went to the bank, the grocery store, the barber and the doctor.
Later, the store would stay open until after the last bus from Lancaster arrived in Millersville.
"People got their groceries and walked home with them," Eshleman recalls. "Today, everybody shops with their car, and a lot of people shop almost daily."
Steve Molitor leaned in real close and waited patiently for the response.
Fernando Beltran Jr., his opponent in Saturday's Rumble At Rama IV, had been asked what he planned to do differently than the three previous men who had lost to The Canadian Kid.
"I'm not sure what they did wrong but I'm coming here to win," Beltran said through a translator during a pre-fight press conference on Thursday. "Even if I have to die in the ring, I'm going to win. I'm hungry and I'm going to do it."
Molitor shook his head and smiled when he heard the answer.
The 27-year-old isn't overly concerned about Beltran. He fully expects to stretch his pro record to 27-0 when he defends his IBF junior featherweight title for the fourth time in nine months on Saturday.
"He's no different," Molitor said. "At the end of the night he's going to be a loser just like the rest of them."
Maybe so, but the Mexican challenger is approaching this bout with real urgency.
Beltran (30-2 with one draw) is taking his second shot at a world title and is eager to make amends for the unanimous decision loss he suffered to Joan Guzman in April 2005, when they were fighting for the WBO super bantamweight belt.
"The first time I was inexperienced," explained Beltran. "I was physically prepared but inexperienced. This time is a different story."
He earned the right to a mandatory fight with Molitor by beating countryman Jose Arboleda in December and has spent the past two and a half months preparing for the Canadian.
There's more muscle on his 55-kilo (122-pound) frame than ever.
"He's never been in this shape before," said Fernando Beltran Sr., who trains his son. "It's going to be a great show.
"We know for sure that we're going to win."
The Molitor camp is accustomed to hearing that kind of pre-fight talk.
"I've been in this sport for 27 years and I hope that every fighter who travels so far comes to win," said Chris Johnson, who trains Molitor. "I hope they come prepared."
On the blustery morning of Nov. 13, thousands came together to commemorate the life of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Standing side by side, backs against the wind, people of all races and backgrounds celebrated as ground was broken on the National Mall in Washington, D. C., for the memorial to this civil rights legend. Even in death, Dr. King was able to unite this nation.
As co-chairs of the Executive Leadership Cabinet of the Martin Luther King, Jr., National Memorial Project Foundation, we owe a deep debt of gratitude to all of those whose generous support made the groundbreaking possible. However, we must keep in mind that amidst the excitement, and the wonderful media coverage of the historic groundbreaking, one important fact remains: Our job is not yet finished.
The Washington D.C. National Memorial cannot be completed until we reach our goal of $100 million. So far, the foundation has raised $70.4 million.
There is no doubt that Dr. King is a hero for all of humanity - and his rightful place among our nation's greatest leaders on the National Mall is overdue. Now, we must not rest until his memorial becomes a permanent, physical reminder that all people are created equal and that racial injustice cannot be tolerated in a civil and free society.
Dr. King was a staunch defender of such freedom and equality, and he put his life on the line to free all Americans - regardless of one's race, color, creed or national origin - from the tyranny of inequality.
Our nation indeed, our world - is a far better place because of the life he Inland the calling he answered. His place in the pantheon of American leadership enshrined on the National Mall is well-deserved.
By joining our actions with our intentions, we can ensure that the construction can begin in 2007 as scheduled. We hope that we can continue to build upon the dream he began so many years ago.
To contribute, please visit www.buildthedream.org for more information.
We appreciate your generosity, and we hope to return to Dr. King's site on the Mall in 2008 to reveal a finished monument, one worthy of his historic and noteworthy contributions to this great country.
[Author Affiliation]
Ambassador Andrew Young; Gary L. Cowger, General Motors Co-Chair, Executive Leadership Cabinet Co-Chair, Executive Leadership Cabinet Washington DC, Martin Luther King, Jr. Washington DC, Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation, Inc. National Memorial Project Foundation, Inc.
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) — B.J. Coleman threw for 375 yards and tied his career high with four touchdowns and Chattanooga held off Eastern Kentucky 42-24 Saturday night for its first win of the season.
Coleman, who had four TDs last year against Wofford, was 24-for-32 with one interception. He had scoring passes of 21, 80, 6 and 14 yards to stake the Mocs (1-2) to a 35-9 lead with 8:49 left in the third quarter.
The Colonels (0-3) scored the next 15 points, starting with T.J. Pryor's 10-yard touchdown to Orlandus Harris with 6:07 left in the third.
Eastern Kentucky made it 35-24 after Marcus Williams blocked a Mike Hammons punt and Shawn Shupperd returned it 25 yards for a touchdown.
The Mocs answered with a nine-play, 86-yard drive, culminating in Keon Williams' 3-yard rush with 2:30 left.
Kadeem Wise intercepted a deep pass by Pryor with 28 seconds to go.
Making his second visit in six days to Victory Lane, Carl Edwards triumphantly raised the glittering gold belt he earned at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. In a town known for title fights, Edwards emerged as a heavyweight contender Sunday.
"We do this to win. Winning these races is the greatest," Edwards said. "Winning a championship would be the ultimate. What we're trying to do is win the championship this year. That's our No. 1 goal."
Just three races into this new season, it's far too early to call Edwards the favorite to win the Sprint Cup title. And this win may not be controversy free: NASCAR discovered the lid was off of his oil tank box during postrace inspection and is taking the parts back to North Carolina for further inspection.
Five Nationwide Series crew chiefs were suspended six races each, fined $15,000 and their drivers were docked 25 points last month because their lids were loose during an inspection.
It could mean that Edwards, who won his second Cup race in six days, could have a short first visit atop the points standings. He holds a 21-point lead over Kyle Busch.
Edwards earned it by overcoming an early pit-road penalty, escaping NASCAR punishment on a second pit-road mishap, then holding off a rusty Dale Earnhardt Jr. on a pair of late restarts Sunday.
Edwards, who scored his first win of the season in Monday's rain-postponed event in California, celebrated win No. 2 with his trademark backflip. Then he gleefully carried around the shiny new belt he was certain good friend John Cena, the WWE champion, would covet.
For Edwards, it seemed like a return to his 2005 form, when he finished third in the series standings.
"I think we are close to the form we were in 2005 when it seemed like a Roush Fenway car would win every week," Edwards said.
It was the sixth victory for team owner Jack Roush in 11 races at Las Vegas, and it ended Jimmie Johnson's string of three straight wins in the desert.
Edwards was penalized early in the race when one of his tires rolled away from the team during a pit stop. He then caught a break when it happened a second time, escaping a penalty because NASCAR determined the tire broke free because a television cameraman shooting from inside the box interfered with the crew members.
"When you think you didn't actually break a rule, you have to keep a level head," said crew chief Bob Osborne, who immediately climbed off the pit box to make a case against being penalized.
"I wanted to go ballistic and yell and scream and kick and punch and do whatever I had to do to get my way. But I kept a level head and NASCAR reviewed it."
With the decision to not penalize the team, Edwards remained in contention to run for the win. But two late restarts gave the competition a chance to run down his No. 99 Ford.
Kurt Busch's wreck with 11 laps to go brought out the caution, and Edwards was in front of Earnhardt on the restart with five to go. But Earnhardt appeared to spin his tires at the start, and Matt Kenseth and Jeff Gordon had to split his car to avoid running into him.
"I've been out of the game so long," joked Earnhardt, who hasn't consistently run up front for several years. "I ain't had a whole lot of practice out there. I looked like a tool out there."
Once past Earnhardt, Gordon and Kenseth raced side-by-side and Edwards pulled away. Then Gordon drifted into the side of Kenseth's car, starting a spin that led to Gordon slamming into the inside wall. His Chevrolet broke into tons of part and pieces, and NASCAR had to red-flag the race to clean the debris.
"It's uncharacteristic of Jeff to overdrive or make a mistake like that," said Greg Biffle, who had to avoid the wreckage.
That accident set up a two-lap sprint to the finish, but the wait time cooled Earnhardt's tires and he was unable to mount a charge on Edwards on the restart. Earnhardt's losing streak stretched to 64 races.
"The red flag just really killed us," said Earnhardt, who settled for second. "We were terrible on cold tires. It's real frustrating."
Biffle was third and was followed by the Richard Childress Racing cars of Kevin Harvick and Jeff Burton. Kasey Kahne was sixth, followed by David Ragan, Travis Kvapil, Denny Hamlin and Mark Martin.
Kyle Busch, who was trying to become the first driver to win from the pole at Las Vegas, struggled with adjustments to his Toyota the entire race and had to settle for 11th on his hometown track.
Johnson, the two-time defending series champion, was looking for a fourth straight win in the desert. But his team struggled the entire weekend, he fell two laps down in the race and finished 29th.
Two-time series champion Tony Stewart bruised his foot 108 laps into the race when his right front tire failed and he hit the wall for the second-straight day.
"I was kind of worried, my legs, my entire legs from my hips down were just tingling," Stewart said. "And I had pain in my lower back and that kind of scared me a little bit. I've not had my legs tingle like that before.
"I was kind of worried about, `What's going on here?'"
He slowly climbed from his car and gingerly walked with the assistance of two emergency personnel into a waiting car that took him to the infield care center. He said the tingling sensation had improved before he left the care center, and said he still planned to participate in the Cup test scheduled for Monday and Tuesday in Phoenix.
"It's going to be a miserable next two days," he said. "I was already sore. We'll do what we've got to do the next two days."
Bath Rugby did not put in a firm cash offer to tempt Matt Stevensback to The Rec, it has emerged. Despite having held two informalchats with Stevens during the early stages of the disgraced prop'sban for cocaine use, the club's new chief executive Nick Blofeldsays he felt it was "too early" to put a concrete contract offer onthe table.
But Saracens were less circumspect and announced on Monday thatthey had signed the 27-year-old England international on a two-yeardeal.
Blofeld admitted to the Chronicle he was disappointed Stevens hadoverlooked the club that launched his career, while coach SteveMeehan's frustration was thinly veiled.
"I would have thought there were opportunities for Matt to comeback and make a bigger statement than just rugby," said the headcoach.
NO DEAL: Stevens - a larger-than-life personality and Bath's best-known player - plunged the club into crisis a year ago when heannounced he had tested positive for cocaine. He stood down from theclub before being banned by the game's authorities for two years.
On Monday - a year into his suspension - Durban-born Stevensconfirmed he would be joining Saracens, a club with which his SouthAfrica-based family has strong financial connections.
The Bath camp's disappointment at Stevens' decision to head eastmust be keen, particularly because just two months ago Blofeld wasopenly courting the tighthead.
In a statement on the club's website published in November,Blofeld said: "I have spoken to Matt about where he sees his futureand what he would like to do.
"We would love him to come back to us and I have made thatclear... it is clear that Matt's presence at the club has beenmissed both on and off the pitch."
Stevens For his part, Stevens said at the time that he would giveBath's interest "very serious consideration".
Speaking to the Chronicle this week after confirmation ofStevens' new deal, Blofeld said: "It's slightly disappointing butMatt has his own reasons. We wish him all the very best, to behonest, and good luck to him.
"We would have loved it for him to come back here but it's not tobe so we move on.
Describing why he hadn't made a firm offer to Stevens, Blofeld,added: "We thought it was too early. I hadn't been here that longbut I had a couple of conversations with Matt and I just wanted himto know we would love him to come back to this club.
Continued on page 111 Grewcock sees red as European campaign endsin Rec loss - See pages 108&109 Continued from page 112 "We hadn'tbeen in contact again recently so he's obviously weighed up the prosand cons and decided to go with Sarries."
While disappointed at Stevens' decision, head coach Meehan wasbullish about Bath's chances of prospering without his services.
"We've been without Matt for 12 months now and there's another 12months before he plays," he said. "Our squad will move on in thattime. We'll be looking forward to competing against Sarries whenhe's playing for them.
"Ever since I've been at Bath and beforehand every time Matt'scontract negotiations were brought up he was always linked with aLondon club, so in some respects it's not surprising at all.
"He would have made the decision for his own personal reasons,which he hasn't shared with me. That's fine, that's his right, but Iwould have thought there were opportunities to come back and make abigger statement than just rugby. But that's a difference ofopinion.
"You have to take into consideration that one of Saracens'financial backers is good friends with the Stevens family so thatcould have had a significant part to play in all of this."
Stevens, who played 120 times for Bath during his seven-yearspell at The Rec will officially join Saracens on January 19, 2011,once he completes his drugs ban.
He said: "I have many great memories and friends in Bath butthere is something special happening at Saracens and I am very eagerto be part of it."
Blofeld believes Stevens' departure "simplifies the spreadsheet"when it comes to contract negotiations and shortens the odds onDuncan Bell receiving a new contract from Bath.
"We would love Duncan to be here and I'm sure we're close to anagreement, but at this stage I'd rather not comment further," saidBlofeld. "We are in that delicate situation at the moment - it's myfirst experience of it. It's a bit of a house of cards, jugglingpeople with contracts."
Stevens signs for Saracens
Everybody wants to feel safe and deserves to, but what about offenders?
The federal government is working towards passage of Bill C-IO, formerly known as "The Safe Streets and Communities Act," as a bundled bill in order to speed up the legislation. Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) believes this action is hasty and not thought through, as it focuses mainly on punishing offenders further and barely at all about the victim's healing.
According to the MCC Ottawa website, four of the nine pieces of legislation propose longer or mandatory prison sentences, two would impose greater financial penalties on offenders, and two would create new obstacles for offenders reintegrating into society. Only two directly address the needs of victims, and none of the initiatives propose new crime prevention or rehabilitation strategies.
MCC doesn't believe these initiatives will make streets and communities safer. Instead, it advocates for community-based justice initiatives, including preventive and restorative justice, claiming they address the victim as well as the offender. Community-based justice programs are proven to work better than merely imprisoning people, according to the John Howard Society, which cites recidivism rates of 45 percent for people who have been incarcerated without communitybased justice programs, but only 15 percent or less for those who are involved in such programs.
"Justice varies for each community," says Paul Heidebrecht, director of the MCC Ottawa Office. "It is not just a one-sizefits-all process of what will make everyone safe in Canada. We think the Government of Canada should be looking at the creative alternatives."
Bundling bills is a fairly rare occurrence, according to Heidebrecht. It occurs occasionally, but usually the legislation requires that each separate initiative be processed three different times to ensure there are no faults. The Conservative's election platform stated that Bill C-10 would be pushed through within the first 100 sitting days of Parliament.
Don Peters, MCC Canada's executive director, recently sent a letter to Rob Nicholson, the minister of justice and attorney general of Canada, advising the government to take due process to attend to the bill: "We affirm the Government of Canada's interest in making our communities safe - Our basic concern is that Bill C-10 will diminish the federal government's capacity to fulfill this calling."
Included among the omnibus Safe Streets and Communities Act's nine pieces of legislation are: The Protecting Children from Sexual Predators Act, which proposes increased penalties for sexual offences against children and two new offences for facilitating or enabling the commission of such an act; The Penalties for Organized Drug Crime Act, which would target organized crime by imposing tougher sentences for the production and possession of illicit drugs; and The Eliminating Pardons for Serious Crimes Act, which would extend the ineligibility period of pardons to five years for summary conviction offences and 10 years for indictable offences.
According to the government, the crime bill will target crime and terrorism, and provide support and protection to victims of crime. Heidebrecht, on the other hand, believes the bill will primarily impact offenders and ex-offenders.
[Sidebar]
It is not just a one-size-fits-all process of what will make everyone safe in Canada. We think the Government of Canada should be looking at the creative alternatives.
[Author Affiliation]
BY RACHEL BERGEN
National Correspondent
