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OTTAWA (AFP) - China's military is reportedly harvesting organs from unwilling live prison inmates, mostly Falungong practitioners, for transplants on a large scale, including to foreign recipients, a study said. The report's authors -- Canada's former secretary of state for the Asia Pacific...

"Thomas Willoughby, thou art a ne'er-do-well! Get thee to Cupers Cove and reform thyself." Young Willoughby, 19, may not have heard exactly those words, but he was sent to Cupers Cove, Newfoundland in 1612 to 'reform himself.' Cupers Cove, now Cupids, was established by John Guy in 1610 under a...

Alphonse Desjardins (1854-1920) of Lévis, Quebec, was disgusted when he realized how poorly banks treated people – all people, not just those with questionable solvency. He saw how difficult it was for the working classes to make a go of it. In 1897, upon learning about loan-sharking, he...

History was made last Thursday when the leader of Vietnam, Premier Nguyen Tan Dung visited Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican. The Holy See described the event as a "an important step towards the normalisation of bilateral relations," saying: "Those relations have, over the last few years...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A U.S. retailer has been deluged with angry messages since an employee sent an e-mail to an American soldier in Iraq saying "if you were sensible, you and your troops would pull out of Iraq." Bargain Suppliers of West Allis, Wisconsin, took down its Discount Mats Web...

BEIJING (AFP) - China defended its use of the death penalty amid an international campaign urging the country to abolish capital punishment as part of a human rights clean-up ahead of the 2008 Olympics. China is expected to be a focus of the campaign, as more people are believed to be executed...

"Tears and taxes are the price of liberty. The pockets that pay are more blessed than the eyes that weep." So said Toronto newspaper editor John "Black Jack" Robinson in a 1928 editorial urging the conscription of wealth. Conscription was an important issue when Robert Borden's Conservative...

Radiant sunshine bathed the Island of Montreal on the morning of May 18th, 1642. The hawthorns and wild cherry trees were in blossom and the meadow, where a group of French colonists had set up an altar, was dotted with trilliums and violets. Father Vimont celebrated mass, and declared that the...

Fr. C. G. Vaillancourt We are children of God, created in His image and sanctified by His own Blood. In paradise we lost our inheritance and we were condemned to dust. We have desecrated the image of God in us by our sins, it is then imperative that we come to the Son to be restored onto His...

by Dr. Jeff Mirus, special to CatholicCulture.org Although homilists are more likely in this generation to mention marriage when they speak about vocations, the emphasis is still on the need for priests. Yet marriage is manifestly the vocation of most people. Demonstrably, it is also...

"The stone that was rolled before Christ's tomb might appropriately be called the philosopher's stone because its removal gave not only the pharisees but, now for 1800 years, the philosophers so much to think about." --Soren Kierkegaard, The Journals, November 25, 1834

Besides hockey and the maple leaf, there is little as symbolically Canadian as the CBC – the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It grew out of a developing nation's need to express its identity and find its voice. The country had emerged from World War I with a degree of autonomy and sense of...

Canada's national anthem was first heard one fine June evening in 1880, on the campus of Laval University in Quebec City. Joseph Keaney Foran and some fellow law students were relaxing in one of the buildings when they heard a commotion at the front door. They saw Father Pierre Rouselle, the...

Before stocking up at the supermarket, shoppers are swabbing down their grocery carts in an effort to kill cold and flu germs but experts say the practice may be giving shoppers a false sense of security. Dan Woods, manager of the infectious disease program for Alberta's David Thompson Health...

By Gene Cherry RALEIGH, North Carolina (Reuters) - Maurice Greene wants to turn back the clock and rediscover life among the world's elite sprinters this year, at the age of 32. "This year is going to be one of the best years I've had, and you'd better believe it," Greene told Reuters in a...

The Northwest Territories may consider banning non-aboriginal people from hunting barren-ground caribou to help save the declining herds. The proposed ban was among a dozen recommendations resulting from a three-day caribou summit in Inuvik last week. Non-aboriginal hunters kill about five per...

TOKYO (AFP) - A Japanese stand-up comedian has been given a stern warning by Chinese authorities for baring his buttocks in front of tourists on China's Hainan Island, press reports said. Ken Mitsuda, 47, was shooting a scene for an entertainment programme for Osaka-based Asahi Broadcasting...

ANTANANARIVO (AFP) - Authorities in Madagascar has confirmed the killing of a Saudi businessman and brother-in-law of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Police chief Claude Ramananarivo said Thursday an armed gang of about 10 attacked and killed Jamal Khalifa early Wednesday in his hotel room in...

Stephanie Stahl Reporting (CBS 3) TULSA, Okla. Can you imagine walking around with a tumor in your belly that weighs 93 pounds and not know it was there? A 32-year-old woman, who was repeatedly told she needed to lose weight, soon discovered why years of dieting simply didn't work; she was...

So much has been said and written about the Beatles -- and their story is so mythic in its sweep -- that it's difficult to summarize their career without restating clichés that have already been digested by tens of millions of rock fans. To start with the obvious, they were the greatest and most...