B.C.’s newest ferry is no longer in showroom condition after colliding with a passenger walkway in Nanaimo.
The Coastal Renaissance received a scrape on its side after bumping into the overhead passenger walkway at the Departure Bay ferry terminal at about 2:30 Saturday afternoon.
The collision caused only minor damage to the boat but was strong enough to knock the walkway out of commission, said Deborah Marshall, B.C. Ferries spokeswoman.
By Andrew Hay
MADRID, May 4 (Reuters) – Soaring food prices may throw millions of Asians back into poverty, undo a decade of gains and stoke civil unrest, regional leaders said on Sunday as they urged a boost to agricultural production to meet rising demand.
Asia — home to two thirds of the world’s poor — risks rising social tension as a doubling of wheat and rice prices in the last year has slammed people who spend more than half their income on food, Japanese Finance Minister Fukushiro Nukaga said during the Asian Development Bank’s annual meeting.
If food prices rise 20 percent, 100 million poor people across Asia could be forced back into extreme poverty, warned Indian Finance Secretary D. Subba Rao.
SAINT JOHN, N.B. – A flood-relief financial assistance program will start today in New Brunswick as residents of Saint John watched the St. John River continue to rise Sunday.
Volunteer teams from the Canadian Red Cross are expected to begin to visit affected homes and businesses to assess the damage as floods begin to recede in northern and central New Brunswick.
“In northern New Brunswick we moved to a recovery mode and teams are visiting affected homes and helping with the recovery, but in southern New Brunswick the water still has not crested,” Premier Shawn Graham said Sunday. “It is important to recognize that this is a two-pronged operation now.”
EDMONTON — The company behind a giant oil sands plant in northern Alberta has taken out full-page ads in several Canadian newspapers to apologize for the deaths of an estimated 500 ducks that landed on a toxic wastewater pond near Fort McMurray, Alta., earlier this week.
But groups like Greenpeace say such apologies are “hollow” unless there’s a firm commitment by the company, and others, to change their procedures to protect birds and other wildlife.
Syncrude Canada Ltd., the largest oil sands operation in the world, said in the advertisements which appeared Saturday that it’s committed to making the necessary changes to its long-established practices to ensure a “sad event” like this one never happens again.
The oil sands operator said it will learn from what happened, will improve its practices and will meet the public’s expectations for “responsible development.”
LOS ANGELES — “Iron Man” was pure gold at the box office.
The Marvel Comics adaptation, starring Robert Downey Jr. as the guy in the metal suit, hauled in $100.7-million (U.S.) during its opening weekend and $104.2-million since debuting Thursday night, the second-best premiere ever for a non-sequel, according to studio estimates Sunday.
The film also scored overseas with $96.7-million in 57 countries where it began opening Wednesday, putting its worldwide total at $201-million.
The movie, distributed by Paramount, is the first release by Marvel Studios, which has begun financing its own productions after such studio-backed hits as the “Spider-Man,” “X-Men” and “Fantastic Four” flicks.
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