The Black Rod

Winnipeg's reputation for crime is so bad that Judy Wasylycia-Leis' own mother in Montreal shudders at the thought her daughter is running for mayor here. Last week Wasylycia-Leis used two radio interviews to audition her election campaign themes and crime was one of them. More community centres is her solution. With more paid staff and higher taxes to pay for it. Wasylycia-Leis knows she's vulnerable on the crime file, given her track record in watering down crime bills and supporting criminal youth over citizens in the 14 years she sat as an NDP member of Parliament. So she's working on revamping her image, from enabler to saviour of the run-down neighbourhood rec centre. But more about that later. CJOB's Richard Cloutier showed he's a reader of The Black Rod when he asked Candidate Judy on June 21st to cite some jobs she's had that haven't been tied to politics and which qualify her for the job of mayor. We've pointed

Israeli military sources say the commandos had control of the top deck of the Mavi Marmara within 3 minutes of the first landing, once they got the okay to use live fire. A second team had been dropped by helicopter and more soldiers were coming aboard on the deck below from the Zodiacs. They began handcuffing passengers. But when they assessed the situation, they could see they were still far from their objective---to stop the ship and search it. The first problem was that three commandos were missing and presumed captured by the mob. If that wasn't bad enough, their pistols were missing with them. Ken O'Keefe, former Marine who renounced his U.S. citizenship :" ... on the morning of the attack I was directly involved in the disarming of two Israeli Commandos. This was a forcible, non-negotiable, separation of weapons from commandos who had already murdered two brothers that I had seen that day. One brother with a bullet entering dead center in his forehead,

It's taken three weeks to collect enough information to piece together what really happened when Israel enforced it's blockade of Gaza by boarding the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara. The story that emerges is of clashing perceptions of the same events. But the conclusions are inescapable. Here, collated from news sources around the world too numerous to mention, is the full story of that event, in the actual words of the participants where possible. You will see how: * while most passengers slept, a relatively small group of men intent on Islamic martyrdom planned to escalate the expected confrontation with the Israelis beyond anything imagined by the rest of those who signed on to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza. * the taking of three Israeli commandos hostage was the tipping point that plunged the takeover of the Mavi Marmara from a police action to a b loody military rescue mission * a single commando could dispatch six of the 9 "activists" who were k