Vancouver, Jan 5 : A Sri Lankan migrant, who was among the 76 young Tamils who paid smugglers to take them to Canada on a decrepit freighter, has claimed that they are routinely threatened both by government officials and rebel separatists in their homeland, and expressed dismay at being branded as ‘terrorists’ in Canada.

Vancouver, Nov 30 : The bodies of six people, including a child, were recovered Monday from a float plane that crashed Sunday shortly after takeoff in Canada's Saturna Island.

Troy Haddock, maritime coordinator for the Rescue Coordination Centre, told IANS that a divers' team located the plane with great difficulty because visibility in the water was less than three feet.

He said the diver team members could not remain in position as they struggled to retrieve the bodies.

Vancouver, Nov 12 : The 76 Sri Lankans, detained on a migrant ship off the West Coast last month, may be the first wave of defeated LTTE fleeing to Canada, a terrorism expert has said.

Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism expert who is advising Canada on detained men, said that one of the 76 Sri Lankans was a key player in the LTTE network that transported weapons from North Korea to Sri Lanka.

He also defended his claim that most migrants are Tamil Tigers, not refugees, who are coming to Canada to regroup.

Vancouver, Canada  - Vancouver has the best quality of life of any big city in the world, according to the British international affairs magazine The Economist. The magazine grades cities around the globe according to criteria such as security, leisure, culture activities and transport.

The Canadian port city of Vancouver received 98 of the possible 100 points on offer in the study. But apart from the high score what makes Vancouver? What do locals think about their city which hosts the Winter Olympics in February?

Vancouver, Oct 31 - There are few supporters for Khalistan in Canada today - 25 years after the assassination of prime minister Indira Gandhi by her own Sikh bodyguards.

Outside India, Canada was the worst affected by the Khalistan movement, for a separate Sikh state, at its peak in the 1980s.

Sikh radicals openly indulged in violence to further their goal of Khalistan.

Though nobody was found guilty by a trial court here, Sikh radicals plotted the bombing of the Air India Kanishka flight that killed all 329 passengers aboard in June 1985.

Vancouver, Oct 19 - Canadian authorities have thwarted a major attempt at human smuggling, seizing a ship-load of refugees possibly from Sri Lanka near Vancouver Saturday.

The ship bearing the name of Ocean Lady was carrying 76 males. The passengers were brought to Vancouver Sunday and sent to correctional facilities (jail) for questioning.

The ship was spotted in the sea near the Canadian coast and escorted by the authorities into Victoria which is the capital of British Columbia province.

Vancouver, Sep 28 : Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama has reached Canada on a week-long visit, but unlike his previous visits, this time members of the Conservative Government are not to keen to meet the revered monk.

Authorities have not announced any meetings with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper or any other cabinet members, who had met the Dalai Lama during his visit in
2006 and made him an honorary citizen of Canada.

Harper had also held a 45-minute private meeting with the Dalai Lama.

Indian tennis ace Sania Mirza has made into quarterfinals of the Oldum Brown Vancouver Open with prize money of $175,000 after ousting American Laura Granville 6-2, 6-4 in the second round on Friday.

The top seeded Sania was in awesome flow and the two times former finalist of Vancouver Open, Laura was not able to match her performance.

Sania performed well and won the match with her powerful strokes.

Vancouver - A court in Canada has reserved judgement in the case of female ski jumpers who are suing to to compete in the 2010 Winter Olympics . After five days of hearings, British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Lauri Ann Fenlon said Friday the issues behind the case were "very complex" and that she needed time to consider all the arguments.

Fifteen female ski jumpers took the Vancouver Organizing Committee to court for the right to compete at the Vancouver Games.

Vancouver - A court in Canada has reserved judgement in the case of female ski jumpers who are suing to to compete in the 2010 Winter Olympics. After five days of hearings, British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Lauri Ann Fenlon said Friday the issues behind the case were "very complex" and that she needed time to consider all the arguments.

Fifteen female ski jumpers took the Vancouver Organizing Committee to court for the right to compete at the Vancouver Games.

Vancouver (Canada), Mar 4 : A lawyer representing for Ripudaman Singh Malik, who was acquitted in the 1985 Air India bombing case, says the government has no evidence to suggest that his client is trying to hide assets to avoid repaying 1.8-million dollars in legal fees.

Bruce McLeod has filed documents in a British Columbia Appeal Court showing that two commercial properties owned by Malik and his wife are worth 20-million dollars. The province says Malik owes 7.6-million dollars in legal fees.

B. C. Supreme Court Justice Mark McEwan ordered Malik to repay 1.8-million dollar of that total by last October, but Malik has filed an appeal, Globe and Mail newspaper reports.

Arthritis is one of the leading causes of disability and autoimmune diseases. According to statistics, more than 4.5 million Canadians live with arthritis.

On Sunday morning, more than 100 people gathered inside the Vancouver Island University gymnasium as a part of Power of Movement 2009, a national yoga fundraiser to raise awareness and money for arthritis research. Some of the participants were on the wheelchairs.

This yoga class was led by Kim Scarrow, who had inflammatory arthritis of the spine since she was 18.

Vancouver - With just a year to go until the opening ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and the winter resort of Whistler, organizers are battling to stay within budget and maintain enthusiasm for the project.

Thursday sees the countdown for the 2010 Games reach the one-year milestone and the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) has called on all Canadians to forget the negative headlines that have surrounded the event, at least for one day.

Vancouver  - Cross-country and Nordic combined skiers on Friday started their World Cup events in the Olympic venues in Whistler, on the eve of British Columbia legislators' emergency session to discuss the financing of athletes' accomodation for the 2010 Games.

Also on Friday, Vancouver's deputy manager for the budget-plagued Olympic Village, Jody Andrews, resigned over the issue which has been dubbed the Olympic Village "fiasco" and "scandal."

Vancouver, Jan. 13 : The Supreme Court of Canada has tossed out an unusual bid to stop it from hearing a Crown appeal against holding a fourth trial in the murder of Canadian Indian Reena Virk a dozen years ago.

According to the Globe and Mail, a five-judge panel of the Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that B. C. prosecutors could proceed with its appeal of a split lower-court ruling to retry Kelly Ellard in the beating and drowning death the 14-year-old Victoria student.

New York/Vancouver - Villagers in Canada's far western province, British Columbia, spent 12 days engineering the rescue of two horses stranded by two metres of snowfall, Canadian media reported Sunday.

The horses, an eight-year-old gelding and three-year-old bay mare, were discovered by villagers on Mount Renshaw before Christmas, trapped and starving in a valley, the Vancouver Sun reported.

A group returned to the horses with hay bales on their snowmobiles, then spent the following days digging out a kilometre- long path in minus-35-degree Celsius temperatures, the newspaper reported.

The horses were brought out by 11 pm Tuesday, two days before Christmas, and spent the holidays recovering in a barn.

Vancouver (Canada), Nov. 29 : A Canadian businessman, who was held hostage by terrorists inside the Trident-Oberoi Hotel in Mumbai said that he was saved from being killed by terrorists because he drifted off to sleep and ignored a mysterious knock to his door.

Vancouver-based Jonathan Erlich, 40, told the Globe and Mail newspaper that he decided to give a miss to a friend’s invitation for a nightcap in the Oberoi Hotel''s plush lobby on Wednesday night, drifted off to sleep and only woke up after hearing a loud explosion on the street below.

He said that when he went to turn on a light, a second, more powerful blast rocked the hotel. He peered in the hall and heard a guest say something about a bomb.

Recent research has shown that a common epilepsy drug can be used to treat Alzheimer's disease. Researchers at Vancouver-based University of British Columbia found that valproic acid (VPA) helps in curing Alzheimer by blocking the production of beta amyloids, a neurotoxic protein linked to Alzheimer's. Deposits or "plaques" made from beta amyloid build up in the brains of Alzheimer's patients damaging their nerve cells and fibres, or "axons".

Vancouver - A Cathay Pacific Boeing 747 aircraft was damaged in mid-air when it descended towards Vancouver airport in western Canada, news reports said Tuesday.

According to initial reports, an external air-conditioning vent on the underside of the plane broke and damaged other parts of the aircraft, the Canadian TV station CBC said.

The plane, however, landed without problems, its 363 passengers were unharmed.

The plane was en route from New York to Hong Kong via Vancouver, reports said.

Vancouver, July 12: Good conduct and the fact that he had not committed perjury, helped Inderjit Singh Reyat, one of the main accused in the bombing of an Air India plane in 1985, as well as a related explosion at Japan's Narita Airport in luggage destined for another Air India flight, get bail.

According to a Globe and Mail report, a British Columbia Court of Appeal judge concluded that perjury was not an offence that warranted denial of bail, and that the only man convicted in the 1985 bombing had been a model prisoner who would respect strict bail conditions.