International News

By ROD MICKLEBURGH
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Not even a weekend shark attack could keep 29-year-old Kyle Gruen of Vancouver from the friend's wedding that brought him to idyllic Maui in the first place.

Not long after undergoing surgery Monday to restore mobility to three fingers of his left hand that were severely damaged in the attack, Gruen was discharged from the hospital and headed to the wedding, where he had been scheduled to be best man.

"I'm not sure whether he will still be best man," said his relieved father, Frank Gruen.

By CARLA MARINUCCI
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, appearing at a glitzy Monterrey trade show last week, stood before a huge billboard trumpeting the "California-Mexico Partnership."

The mural depicted him surrounded by flags and symbols of the two neighbors, joined in a common goal of friendship and trade.

But such lofty goals don't impress Roberto Collado Martinez as he sits over a bowl of steaming pozole in the colonial square of Coyoacan, bustling with families, vendors and street musicians.

By MARK MACKINNON
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Khalil Awar's brown eyes narrowed when he was asked whether Palestinian militants such as him are about to resume suicide attacks inside Israel.

"Inshallah," is his chilling one-word answer _ God willing.

The answer was softly repeated by several others in the crowd of angry young men, all members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, standing with Awar in an alley in this impoverished refugee camp on the edge of the West Bank city of Nablus.

By GEOFFREY YORK
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
In the space of a few weeks, Zhang Gongyao has gone from a little-known scholar of medical history to one of China's most notorious intellectuals.

Once accustomed to a low-key life at a provincial university in southern China, he now feels he must avoid the news media and is nervous even about walking the streets in case he is recognized.

By GEOFFREY YORK
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Despite promises of judicial reform, China's courts are still imposing guilty verdicts on more than 99 per cent of all defendants in criminal cases, a new report says.

The latest report, covering more than six million cases in the past eight years, finds that 99.34 per cent of defendants were convicted by the courts.

By HAYLEY MICK
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
The Christmas star almost killed Harvey Fretz.

It was a November afternoon, and the retired minister had just finished unclogging the eaves troughs of his Waterloo, Ontario, home when he decided to attach the electric star _ a Fretz Christmas tradition _ to the chimney.

He managed to reach the top rung of his aluminium ladder.

By JILL MAHONEY
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Canadians are increasingly killing each other with guns, a trend that is partly driven by a spike in gang-related homicides.

The number of homicides involving firearms climbed for the third year in a row in 2005, according to a new Statistics Canada report.

By GRAEME SMITH
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Sweating in the desert sun, the first members of Kandahar's new auxiliary police lined up over the weekend to get their graduation papers. One by one, they trotted over to their commander and solemnly took their printed certificates.

By INGRID PERITZ
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Last spring, a local YMCA in Montreal installed four frosted windows in one of its exercise rooms to accommodate a neighboring Hasidic synagogue and religious school.

TOKYO - Democratic gains in Congress were seen around the world Wednesday as a rejection of the U.S. war in Iraq that led some observers to expect a reassessment of the American course there.

The shift in power also was seen as a signal in some capitals that the United States would put a greater emphasis on trade policy and human rights.