Canadian roundup

Canadians near record number of UFO sightings. The Prairies seem to be a hotbed of unexplained activity. No sign of Art Bell.

Bill Clinton booksigning wasn't the rockfest the Toronto Sun gushed over.

For Mr. Clinton, the campaign never ends. The guy who raised retail politics to an art form — nobody can lock eyes and shake hands like he can — was on his game Thursday and he left in his wake thousands of tired people who fattened his bank account and were overjoyed to do so.

Still waffling on the U.S. missile defense shield, although the daily poll seems to think it's a given. Probably because of a new NORAD agreement. Unflattering picture of Minister of Defense. (Media warning device.)

Canadian troops returning from Afghanistan. “Afghanistan is progressing but it's going to take a while. There's still a job to do over here.”

Once again, the UN has triumphed and solved the Sudan problem. All by itself. Source of story: UN Press Release. The U.N. won't be going to Iraq anytime soon. They can't find any troops to protect them.

Still flogging the terror-alert-as-politics.

The British posture appeared likely to fuel suspicions in the United States that President George W. Bush's government is cranking up warnings about terrorism to improve its prospects in the Nov. 2 elections.

Because Britain hadn't issued a terror alert. And not to be left out, "Yesterday, a United Nations human-rights investigator criticized countries that create public hysteria over fears of terrorism." Oh, and Sydney Bloomenthal.

Advice on intelligence gathering.

Commentary includes Gerald Caplan, author of Rwanda: The Preventable Genocide, the report of the international panel of eminent persons, appointed by the Organization of African Unity to investigate the Rwandan genocide.

That's all the Dallaire book tells us. In fact, Mr. Fowler was so shaken by what he learned that he poured his heart into a 17-page cri de coeur, pleading with the Chrétien government to send Gen. Dallaire the reinforcements he desperately needed. Mr. Fowler's passionate memo was duly passed along the government's chain of command. When it was last seen, there was a handwritten comment in the margin: "Canada doesn't do Africa." Canada never intervened to help stop this most easily preventable of genocides. No rich country did.

For rich country, read the Clinton administration, the rock star on book tour in Canada.

Speaking of stars, Canada's immigration minister gave special permission for Indian star Sanjay Dutt to enter Canada to complete a film, despite the fact that he was involved in an Indian terrorist incidents in 1992 and 1993 that killed more than 200. He is hurt at the allegations.

Bruce Stringsteen has been demoted to "an American rock musician" as noted in footer of his "Stakes are too high to sit election out" letter. Too bad the Toronto Star doesn't provide the same space to an post-Tailban Afghanistani or post-Saddam Iraqi. I guess Afghanistan deserved liberation, Iraq does not. Maybe Springsteen's political advisor failed to mention the Kurds who were gassed by Saddam or the Frontline report on the marsh Iraqis who were hunted down, or the murderous mustard gas war waged against Iran, or the bloody invasion of Kuwait.