Chan's Personal Blog

Canadians James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, were freed along with Briton Norman Kember, 74, during a raid by multinational forces northwest of Baghdad on Thursday morning.

Pentagon sources have told CBC News that Canadian special forces were involved in the operation, but it's not clear who took part or what their role may have been.

Thursday afternoon, RCMP Sgt. Martin Blais said, "I can comfirm we were there, working in collaboration with DND, foreign affairs and our international partners."

For operational reasons, and to protect operational security, he would not elaborate.

There have been reports that JTF2 commandos, based at Dwyer Hill in Ottawa's west end, had been working in Iraq. It's believed they worked in tandem with Britain's elite Special Air Service (SAS).

Ayub Nuri, a reporter for Global Radio News in Iraq, said Thursday that Canadian police agents were involved in the operation.

The Department of National Defence has not commented on those reports. In a midday address to public service workers in Ottawa, Harper said Canadian agencies were involved on the ground, but didn't offer any specifics.

He offered thanks to "a number of Canadian departments and agencies that worked on this delicate operation with their British, American and Iraqi counterparts, and played an important role in ensuring the success of this operation.

"You did excellent work, and Mr. Loney and Mr. Sooden asked me to thank you for the assistance," said Harper, who spoke to the two former hostages earlier in the day.

Harper refused to say whether Canada's elite commando squad, JTF2, is operating in Iraq, citing national security. He did say, however, that it should be no surprise that Canadians are in Iraq.

"There have been a small number of Canadian military personnel embedded in American and allied units. That's been the case since the beginning of the war. Nothing has changed on that front," he said.

The prime minister said he hadn't known exactly when the rescue operation would take place, but he did have some indication days ago that it was in the works.

Harper also thanked "our British and American allies" for their "exceptional" role in the rescue.

A U.S. House of Representatives committee on Wednesday voted overwhelmingly to block an Arab-owned company from managing American ports, defying President George W. Bush who has vigorously supported the deal.

By a vote of 62-2, the House Appropriations Committee approved a measure to stop the state-owned United Arab Emirates company Dubai Ports World from managing six U.S. ports. [...]

Since word of the deal broke last month, lawmakers have complained about security risks if ports management was turned over to firms from countries that in the past were sympathetic to terrorist activities.

"We want to make sure the security of our ports is in America's hands," said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis, a California Republican. Lewis' amendment did not try to force broader controls on foreign investment in U.S. facilities, as some lawmakers have suggested.

Lewis' amendment targets just the Dubai ports deal by blocking use of federal funds to implement it and barring the acquisition of leases or contracts of British-based P&O by Dubai Ports World. The Arab company's takeover of the global assets of P&O -- including ports such as New York and New Jersey -- sparked the controversy.

One of the committee members arguing against blocking the port deal was Rep. James Moran, a Virginia Democrat, who said, "Dubai is a staunchly pro-American, pro-business nation whose objectives are entirely the opposite of Osama bin Laden."

Moran, like Bush, said that working with Middle East companies such as Dubai Ports World would further American goals of modernizing and Westernizing the Arab world.

The other committee opponent, Rep. Jim Kolbe, an Arizona Republican, argued, "American ports are going to be just as insecure after we pass this amendment as they were before."

How Many People Can The Earth Support?

If you ask the Census Bureau’s population clock (www.census.gov) the answer is a lot.

In fact, it’s projecting a world jam-packed with people in 2050. By then, say the demographers who make the clock tick, the planet’s population will soar to 9.22 billion.

Some argue it won’t take nearly that long. According to the French National Institute of Demographic Research, the planet’s population hit 6.5 billion last Dec. 19, and will probably pass 7 billion by the middle of 2012.

According to the population clock, 41 people are born worldwide every 10 seconds, and 18 die.

Canada’s population, which stood at 32.8 million by the end of this year, is also expected to soar if current trends remain stable. By 2025 we’ll have 38.1 million Canadians on board, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates; and in the long run, according to one estimate, the country’s population will double to some 66 million by 2083.

Population experts point out, however, that births in the industrialized world - which mostly has no difficulty feeding its populations - are stagnant or declining, while births in a Third World increasingly unable to feed itself are soaring.

Feeding them, as Malthus predicted, will be the challenge.

But the advances in agriculture that he wasn’t around to see - mechanization, factory fishing, miracle fertilizers - will continue, according to many experts, and the focus in future will remain.