Military drones 'an ideal tool' against jihadist groups

U.S. President Barack Obama has been making the case that it is incumbent upon the U.S. to use military force against Syria, if necessary, to uphold international norms that draw the line on the use of chemical weapons.

But for many Americans - not to mention many people around the world — the U.S. has itself crossed the line and broken with international norms through its use of drones. 

Where George W. Bush approved 50 drone strikes during his eight years as president, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Obama has authorized more than 400 such attacks, primarily in Pakistan and Yemen. 

By some counts, more than 3,000 leaders and members of al-Qaeda, the Taliban and other jihadist organizations have been killed by drones – many of them through the controversial practice of targeted killings.

This week on The Sunday Edition:

• Michael Enright's Essay - Myths about policing: Policing is not one of the most dangerous occupations, police don't have sufficient training for crises, and they must submit to civilian oversight.
• Ann Dowsett Johnston: The author and journalist talks about her battle with addiction, and the growing issue of alcoholism among women worldwide.
• Yukon Gold and Netted Gems: How PEI potato farmers David and Brian Best launched a crowdfunding campaign to save their farm.
• Saving the Symphony: Some predict half of North America's symphonies will go bankrupt in the next few years. Toronto Symphony Orchestra music director Peter Oundjian talks about the challenges and joys of his job.
• The Moral Stain of Drone Warfare: Mark Bowden talks about the secretive and controversial world of drone warfare.
• Sunday School with Michael Enright: Michael admits he can't tell a raven from a robin. Birder par excellence Sarah Rupert teaches him how to identify birds by their calls.

Tune in to the CBC Radio broadcast at 9 a.m. ET on Sunday, Sept. 22, or visit The Sunday Edition's website to listen to them online.

Drone strikes have been a deeply polarizing issue. Proponents say drone technology enables an unprecedented level of precision and that they're the best counterterrorism tool the U.S. has. Critics, such as the journalist Jeremy Scahill, argue that drones amount to mass murder or war crimes and that they're on very shaky ground under international law. 

Opponents point to incidents in which drones mistakenly killed entire families, as well as other civilian casualties that resulted from errant strikes or faulty intelligence.

Debate over drones 'ill-informed'

But according to Mark Bowden, the best-selling author of such books as Black Hawk Down and The Finish: The Killing of Osama Bin Laden, the debate over drones is largely "ill-informed." Bowden recently wrote a lengthy article on drone warfare, and the ethical issues arising from it, in The Atlantic Magazine.

"I think at the heart of that debate is the question of whether the United States is at war or ought to be at war," Bowden told Michael Enright, the host of CBC Radio One's The Sunday Edition. "If you feel that somehow war against al-Qaeda is not justified, then obviously, you're not going to warm to the idea of striking them with drones.

"If you think the United States ought to be at war with al-Qaeda, I think you are delighted that we have a weapon that will seek out these folks that are planning acts of mass murder and will kill them."

To the Obama administration, one of the selling features is the fact that they're relatively inexpensive and can be operated by remote control from thousands of miles away, without putting American troops in harm's way.

By some counts, more than 3,000 leaders and members of al-Qaeda, the Taliban and other jihadist organizations have been killed by drones – many of them through the controversial practice of targeted killings. (Reuters)

The power that drones have given the U.S. to kill its enemies with apparent impunity is deeply unsettling to many and has engendered a good deal of resentment globally, but Bowden also points out that the precision of drone strikes allows the U.S. to minimize civilian casualties.

"Once you've made the decision to go to war, the drone is an ideal tool for a variety of reasons, one being that you don't place any of your own people at risk, which is a clear positive.

"And secondly, it is something that enables the United States to fight much more in line with the ethics of warfare, which call for discrimination and proportionality. I think drones allow a far higher degree of discrimination and a far more proportional method of striking than any previous military tool."

You can hear Mark Bowden's full conversation with Michael Enright this weekend on The Sunday Edition, airing on CBC Radio One at 9:05 a.m. on Sept. 22, or in the audio link at the top of this page titled The Moral Stain Of Drones.

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Climate change pushing lobster north, study says

Climate change is a big factor for lobsters and other marine species moving north in large numbers, according to new research published in the journal Science, co-authored by a Halifax university professor.

The study, co-authored by Dalhousie University marine biology professor Dr. Boris Worm, compiled 40 years worth of data to explain several significant marine species shifts seen in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

"The question we asked was 'Are fish on the move?' — generally — and if they are, are they moving in the direction the temperature is moving or are they doing something else?" he said.

The study found that in all areas of coastal North America, the organisms followed cooler water.

"What we found is that they're tracking the local climate velocity — that is the direction and rate of climate change across the landscape -- very, very accurately. So if you know where the temperature is going, you know where the fish are going," said Worm.

Earlier this year, scientists with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans were at a loss to explain the record amount of lobster being caught off Atlantic Canada.

"The increase is about three to four-fold over the last 30, 40 years," said Marc Lanteigne, the manager for aquatic resources for the gulf region in a December interview.

Catches have also jumped to about 20,000 tonnes in the past few years, up from 8,000 tonnes in 1975, said Lanteigne.

"The only thing that we know is that it's a global factor for the entire range of lobster from Cape Cod to Labrador," he said.

The relatively cool waters are a draw for marine species, said Worm.

"In our region the climate seems to be just right, so lobster seems to be doing quite well. Whether this will be the same in the future and maybe the more distant future is hard to say. It depends on the rate and direction of climate change in our region," said Worm.

Another factor playing a role in the abundance of lobster off Atlantic Canada, he said, is the fact that many species of predators that hunt lobster have been fished-out.

Worm said lobsters are moving from the waters off southern New England into those off of Atlantic Canada at a rate of six kilometres per year.

The study examined the North Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific shelf and waters around Alaska. The study was the first ever to combine U.S. and Canadian fisheries data for all of coastal North America.

The data collected over four decades included 128-million samples of 360 different marine species.

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Toronto Maker Faire, a creative success

This is a fun weekend for inventors and do-it-yourself techies in Toronto.

Inventors, technology buffs and artists will gather at Toronto Mini Maker Faire for two days this weekend.

It's a chance for inventors and designers to not only show off what they've made but also share with others how they made it.

Toronto Mini Maker Faire is part of a bigger Maker movement –- which is basically the technological version of all things DIY.

"A maker, you can think of in a really broad sense, it's anybody who does something with their hands," said Eric Boyd of the Toronto Maker Faire.

Maker Faires started in California seven years ago and are now held around the world.

Boyd says that the festival is a place where makers can share and learn.

"It's an opportunity to learn and network with each other," he said.

Toronto first is so far a hit, with more than 2,000 tickets being bought in advance.

Peter Gray is a technician and also one of those ticket holders.

Gray brought his kids to the festival so they could experience hands-on technology.

"It's one thing to watch a YouTube video or talk about it, but they've never seen a 3D printer," he said.

And so far 3D printer designers did not disappoint.

A group of graduates from the University of Waterloo brought a twist to the printers, instead of using layers of plastic to create solid figures, their creation used chocolate powder instead.

"I think the draw is just seeing the young people here, you get to inspire people and show off what you've done," said Andy Vopni from the University of Waterloo. 

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Life on Mars? Curiosity rover finds no methane evidence

Methane, a gas considered to be potential sign of life, does not exist in the atmosphere of Mars, according to new data from the Curiosity rover that NASA called "a surprise."

In a news release Thursday, NASA says the results were unexpected because of the previous detection of methane in the atmosphere of Mars by other probes and telescopes.

The new findings reduce the probability of finding living, methane-making bacteria below the surface of Mars, says a new study published Thursday online in the journal Science Express.

The study, led by Christopher Webster, of the California Institute of Technology Jet Propulsion Laboratory, also calls into question controversial measurements of large amounts of methane by satellites orbiting Mars and  "plumes" of methane in the Martian atmosphere measured by NASA scientists with a telescope from Earth in 2003. The estimated 19,000 tonnes of methane had nearly disappeared by 2006, leaving scientists stumped about how that happened.

"There currently remains no accepted explanation for the existence and distribution of the reported plumes, nor of the apparent disappearance of methane over the last few years," wrote Webster and his team.

Rover instrument designed to measure methane

The new results are based on data collected on six occasions between October 2012 and June 2013 using a tunable laser spectrometer, an instrument on the Curiosity rover specially designed for measuring methane on Mars.

Average methane concentrations in the Mars atmosphere were found to be 0.18 parts per billion by volume – essentially, zero. The researchers calculated that that means the maximum possible amount of methane in the Martian atmosphere today is 1.3 parts per billion – about six times lower than measurements taken by by a variety of orbiters and telescopes in the past decade or so.

Scientists had been very interested in finding methane on Mars as a possible indication of life. On Earth, 90 to 95 per cent of the methane in the atmosphere has been produced by living organisms, both those alive today and those that lived millions of years ago, decomposing into fossil fuels such as methane.

Microbes on Mars still possible

Michael Meyer, NASA's lead scientist for Mars exploration, said the "important" new result would "help direct efforts to examine the possibility of life on Mars."

He said the finding didn't rule out the existence of microbial life on Mars, since many microbes on Earth don't generate methane.

The new study also suggests there is likely very little methane on Mars even from non-biological sources, such as comets or interplanetary dust.

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Bird deaths in the millions lead to government, industry action

Bird advocates say the federal environment minister's order to protect a rare Prairie bird is another example of the significant steps government and industry are taking to protect winged creatures from manmade threats.

"Sector by sector, there is a growing awareness of ways to mitigate bird deaths," says Alexander MacDonald, manager of protected areas for the advocacy group Nature Canada.

MacDonald says hundreds of millions of birds die every year in Canada due to manmade hazards, from building collisions to water pollution to habitat degradation.

While it is impossible to prevent all deaths, he says governments and industry are becoming more serious about protecting bird populations.

One of the most important developments, he says, came earlier this week, when Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq announced that her department will be issuing an emergency order to protect the greater sage grouse. The department says this is the first time they have implemented such an order.

According to Environment Canada, the population of this grouse subspecies has dropped 98 per cent since 1988, to the point where fewer than 150 of the birds remain. The decline has been attributed to habitat degradation caused by industry, mainly the oil and gas industry.

Bird advocates say the federal government's order to protect the greater sage grouse is another example of government and industry taking significant steps to protect these winged creatures from manmade threats.

The protection order, which will be issued in the next few months, seeks to protect the sage grouse's habitat on provincial and Crown lands in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

"It appears to be a very positive step," says MacDonald. "It's certainly a precedent-setting move."

Tall, glass-heavy buildings the biggest threat

The single biggest manmade threat to birds are the glass-encased skyscrapers and other buildings that cover the urban landscape, says Ryan Norris, a professor in the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of Guelph.

The problem with glass is that it reflects an image of the surroundings, which in daylight can confuse birds into thinking that a closed window is actually a clear passage.

The Fatal Light Awareness Program (FLAP), a Toronto-based bird conservation initiative, estimates one million birds die every year as a result of building collisions in Toronto.

The reason Toronto has such a big problem is a combination of having so many tall structures and the fact that the city is located in the middle of "one of the busiest migratory corridors on the planet," says FLAP's executive director, Michael Mesure.

To address the problem, FLAP has partnered with the City of Toronto in crafting bird-friendly development guidelines. Mesure, who co-founded FLAP in 1993, has also consulted with other municipalities across the country to reduce building collisions.

Mesure says he isn't advocating for fewer windows, merely that the windows contain markings of some sort.

The objective, he says, "is not the birds don't see the reflection anymore, but that they see that there's something between them and that illusion of reflection."

While they were initially resistant, Mesure says that developers, architects and engineers are increasingly seeing the wisdom of modifying window designs.

Mesure says FLAP has "really built some momentum, which was desperately needed, to emphasize how big a problem it was, and still is."

Dangerous light

While window reflections pose a threat to birds during the daytime, at night, the biggest hazard is artificial light, says Mesure.

Birds typically navigate by the light of the moon and stars, but if they find themselves in an artificially lit environment, they may get confused and often have difficulty leaving it, causing them to have collisions.

In 2006, FLAG and the City of Toronto launched Lights Out Toronto!, a public awareness campaign aimed at encouraging homes and business to turn out unnecessary lights.

7,500 migrating songbirds were killed by the flare at Saint John's Canaport LNG terminal. (CBC)

Mesure says it was their innate attraction to light that likely sent 7,500 songbirds to their deaths in a gas flare at the Canaport LNG plant in Saint John, N.B. last week.

The incident was no doubt tragic, says the University of Guelph's Norris, but he believes it was "an isolated incident."

Toxic ponds

A bigger concern, he says, are migratory birds that land in toxic tailings ponds in Alberta's oilsands, thinking they are natural water bodies.

In 2010, oilsands operator Syncrude Canada was ordered to pay a $3-million penalty for the deaths of 1,600 ducks in one of its tailings ponds in April 2008.

About 1,600 ducks died after landing on a Syncrude oilsands tailings pond in Alberta on April 28, 2008. (Government of Alberta)

Syncrude and Suncor were exonerated of blame for a subsequent incident in October 2010, when more than 500 ducks died or had to be euthanized after landing in tailings ponds.

A report written by Colleen Cassady St. Clair, a biologist at the University of Alberta, suggested that the latter incident was partially influenced by bad weather and the positioning of deterrents and artificial lights.

The Alberta government said oilsands companies are now working with the University of Alberta to explore new bird deterrence methods.

MacDonald points out that bird conservation efforts have been in effect since the early 1900s, but back then, the main human threat was hunting.

As a result of industrial progress, the threats have multiplied, which means conservation needs to be a more broad-based effort.

"Nowadays we're looking at populations that are really in trouble for a number of reasons," says MacDonald.

"It's definitely not just one jurisdiction that has the ability to work with industry and the public to mitigate those factors."

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IPhone 5C and 5S go on sale in Canada

Best Buy mobile manager Howard Sampson reaches for a new iPhone during the opening day of iPhone 5S and 5C sales in Richmond, Va., on Friday. The phones also went on sale in Canada and several other markets. (The Associated Press)

Smartphone users lined up to buy Apple's newest iPhones, the 5C and the 5S, after they went on sale across Canada and several other countries today.

The colourful plastic iPhone 5C and the higher-end 5S, a faster, more powerful model that sports a fingerprint sensor, went on sale online at 3 a.m. ET and in stores at 8 a.m.

The phone is also now available in

• The U.S.
• Australia 
• China
• France
• Germany
• Hong Kong
• Japan
• Puerto Rico
• Singapore
• The U.K.

In Canada, the phone is available from Apple retail stores, Bell, Rogers, Telus, Virgin mobile, Fido and Koodo mobile, as well as select Best Buy, Future Shop, Target and Wal-Mart stores and Apple authorized resellers.

While there were complaints from wireless providers in the U.K. of limited stock, several U.K. media outlets said, in Canada, there were no reports of shortages. However, it wasn't clear how soon online orders were expected to be filled. 

Lineups formed at Apple stores around the world, including this one in Richmond, Va., ahead of the release of the latest iPhones. In Canada, iPhone 5S and 5C smartphones went on sale in stores at 8 a.m. ET. (The Associated Press)

For example, Bell's website noted that the phones are available in-store, but online orders would "ship when we receive new inventory" and added that the company was awaiting shipping information from Apple.

In Canada, with a two-year wireless plan, the iPhone 5S sells for $229.95 to  $439.95, depending on whether customers choose the model with 16, 32 or 64 gigabytes of memory. Without a wireless plan, it sells for $729.95 to $959.95.

With a two-year wireless-plan iPhone 5C with 16 gigabytes of memory sells for $129.95, and with 32 gigabtyes it sells for $229.95. Without a wireless plan, the two versions sell for $619.95 or $729.95, respectively.

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Rehtaeh Parsons Facebook ad a 'textbook' case of online photo abuse

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Rare mola mola washes up in Miramichi River

Another mola mola fish has washed up in New Brunswick, this time the ocean sunfish was discovered in the Miramichi River.

Scott Campbell was out for a walk with his dog when he found the mola mola along the banks of the Miramichi River.

Campbell said he knew right away the fish wasn't native to the area. 

"It looks like a fish head with a wavy tail and a long fin on the top and bottom," he said.

Campbell took a picture of the 11-kilogram fish with his phone and emailed it to Laurent Robichaud, the co-ordinator with the New Brunswick Aquarium and Marine Centre in Shippagan.

Last month, a 160-kg mola mola washed up on a beach in St. Andrews. (Courtesy of Erin Carpenter)

Robichaud said it is "odd" to see this type of ocean fish in a river.

He said the mola mola is known to swim long distances from its home in tropical waters.

"It must have been lost or following some jellyfish and eventually ended up in the river and got diosoriented and eventually died, cause it doesn't live in fresh water," he said.

He said the high tides could also have brought the ocean fish into the Miramichi River. 

This isn't the first time a mola mola has been found in New Brunswick. Last month, a 160-kg mola mola washed up on a beach in St. Andrews.

Researchers are wondering whether warming waters in the Bay of Fundy are enticing more, larger sea creatures further north.

Only a handful of the fish have ever been found in the Bay of Fundy and those were discovered mostly in the late 1960s and 1970s.

An adult mola mola weighs 1,000 kilograms on average.

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Longtime Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi dies

Hiroshi Yamauchi was the president of Nintendo from 1949 to 2002. He led the company, originally a maker of playing cards, when it developed its early Family Computer consule and Game Boy portables. (The Associated Press)

Hiroshi Yamauchi, who ran Nintendo for more than 50 years and led the Japanese company's transition from traditional playing-card maker to video game giant, has died. He was 85.

Kyoto-based Nintendo said Yamauchi, who owned the Seattle Mariners major league baseball club before selling it to Nintendo's U.S. unit in 2004, died Thursday of pneumonia at a hospital in central Japan.

Yamauchi, who had little interest in baseball, was approached to buy the Mariners, who may have had to move to Florida without a new backer. The acquisition made the Seattle club the first in the major leagues to have foreign ownership.

Yamauchi was company president from 1949 to 2002, and engineered Nintendo's global growth, including developing the early Family Computer consoles and Game Boy portables.

Nintendo, which makes Super Mario and Pokemon games as well as the Wii U home console, was founded in 1889. It made traditional playing cards before venturing into video games.

Reputed as a visionary and among the richest men in Japan, Yamauchi made key moves such as employing the talents of Shigeru Miyamoto, a global star of game design and the brainchild of Nintendo hits such as Super Mario and Donkey Kong.

A dropout of the prestigious Waseda University in Tokyo, Yamauchi's raspy voice and tendency to speak informally in his native Kyoto dialect was a kind of disarming spontaneity rare among Japanese executives.

After being succeeded by President Satoru Iwata at the helm of Nintendo, Yamauchi stayed on as adviser, but his role increasingly diminished with the years.

The company has floundered in the past couple of years, hurt by a strong yen and competition from games on smartphones and tablets.

Yamauchi is survived by Katsuhito Yamauchi, his eldest son. A funeral is scheduled for Sunday at Nintendo, following a wake on Saturday.

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Wind Mobile to bid for new spectrum

Small cellphone player Wind Mobile will be among bidders for valuable wireless spectrum being put up for auction in January as it moves to take on big carriers Rogers, Telus and Bell, chief executive Anthony Lacavera said Monday.

Lacavera owns a 35 per cent stake in Wind Mobile, the company he founded and launched in December 2009 after participating in the previous spectrum auction five years ago.

"Obviously, there has been a very rapid evolution of smartphones," he said from Toronto. "We're now in a position where we need a lot more spectrum to service demand."

Under rules of the auction, Lacavera said he couldn't discuss funding for the company's bid.

Companies that want to bid in the government auction for wireless spectrum early next year must register and pay a deposit by Tuesday at noon.

America's AT&T, Norway's Telenor and U.K.'s Vodafone have been rumoured to be interested, now that U.S. giant Verizon has announced it's no longer considering an expansion north.

Lacavera said Wind Mobile is the fourth major carrier in Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta and has more than 650,000 cellphone customers.

'We're now in a position where we need a lot more spectrum to service demand.'- Anthony Lacavera, Wind Mobile

The company needs more radio wave spectrum to build out a faster, more advanced network that can run the latest devices, such as Apple's new iPhone.

Lacavera said the application is being submitted by Toronto-based Globalive Wireless Management Corp., which is the legal entity for Wind Mobile.

Amsterdam-based telecom VimpleCom owns the remainder of Wind Mobile and its Russian owners have put their majority stake up for sale.

The auction of 700 megahertz spectrum, which analysts have called "beachfront property" due to its value, could raise a lot of cash for the federal government. The 2008 auction raised about $4.3 billion.

These radio waves have the ability to allow cellphone signals to reach into elevators, deep into underground parking lots, traffic tunnels and basements where calls are often dropped.

The signal can also travel greater distances and, in rural Canada, will require fewer cellphone towers to provide coverage. It will also will help meet consumers' growing smartphone and tablet use.

Wind Mobile is the first new player to enter the auction. It's not yet clear if financially struggling Mobilicity will bid, while Public Mobile also hasn't declared its intentions yet.

Rogers (TSX:RCI.B), Telus (TSX:T) and Bell (TSX:BCE) have about 25 million customers between them and dominate the wireless market in Canada.

Industry Canada says it won't publish a list of those who have put down a five per cent, refundable deposit for the auction until Sept. 23.

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