2010 Top 20
ahh, finally finished. it took me about 7 hours in total to get this baby done. i broke it up over yesterday and today and i'm sure it would have been better if i had spent a whole lot longer on it but since none of you read it anyway...well i'll survive. :)
here is it, 2440 glorious words to sum up the top 20 news stories of 2010:
2010's Top 20 News Stories
As Picked By Sara
Appearing In No Particular Order.
First Hati: January 12th, 2010 a 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit, just 16 miles west of Hati’s capital, Port-au-Prince. Estimate state that 230,000 people had been killed, with 300,000 injured, making this the sixth deadliest earthquake in history. Massive structural damage led to more than one million Haitians being made homeless. By January 24th, 2010 there had been 52 aftershocks felt, each 4.5 in magnitude or greater.
Second BP Oil Spill: The night of April 20th, 2010 there was a methane gas explosion on the Deepwater Horizon mobile offshore drilling unit. 11 men were killed and 17 others were injured. After the explosion, approximately 206 million gallons of crude oil (approximately 4.9 million barrels) leaked into the Gulf of Mexico. By July 15th, 2010, the wellhead had been capped but it was not officially sealed until September 19th, 2010. By May 25th, 2010, BP stated that 215,000 barrels of oil/water mix had been removed and they continued to use machinery to separate the water and oil. By late June BP had successfully removed 890,000 barrels and burned another 315,000 barrels off the ocean’s surface in controlled burns. However estimates say that despite these efforts approximately 75% of the oil is still in the Gulf of Mexico. Due to an outdated American Oil Pollution law, BP was only responsible for paying up to $75 million in damages, however BP continues to take responsibility for the spill and has to date spent approximate 12 $billion. In 2010 the company reports a 54% loss and by early April had already lost over $105 billion in market value.
Third Copiapó, Chili mining accident: August 5th, 2010 there is a cave-in at the San Jose copper-gold mine. 33 men are trapped approximately 700 meters underground. It is not until August 22nd, 2010 that the men are discovered alive. Immediate plans to drill them out begin. There are three false starts before finally on October 9th, 2010 the drilling is complete. Late into the night on October 12th, 2010 and into the following day, all miners are slowly extracted. All are in good health. After being trapped below ground for 69 days, there are no deaths and no injuries to report. Everyone is happy. It is my birthday. :)
Fourth Newsworthy People Who Died: Leslie Nielsen, Pat Burns, That Guy That Directed Star Wars, J.D Salinger, Charlie Wilson, Alexander McQueen, Jackie Burroughs, Howard Zinn, Maury Chaykin, Corey Haim, Malcolm McLaren, Sebastian Horesly, Dennis Hopper, Ronnie James Dio, Gary Coleman, Harvey Pekar, Ted Stevens, Tony Curtis, Elizabeth Edwards, Kate McGarrigle, John Babcock [Canada’s last surviving WW1 veteran], Dame Joan Sutherland
Fifth Rahm Emanuel Leaves The White House: White House Chief of Staff for Barack Obama, Rahm Emanuel announced his departure on September 20th, 2010. After being a kick-ass chief of staff and super sexy and hilarious (and named as "perhaps the most influential chief of staff of a generation" by The New York Times in his 2010 article), he announced his intention to run for mayor of Chicago. His last day was October 1st, 2010 [watch President Obama say goodbye: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31LBFEgAf-I ]. Pete Rouse took over on October 2nd, 2010. [here’s a photo of Obama and Rahm having a snowball fight, just because I can: http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/4291639000/ ]
Sixth Stephen Harper doesn’t want to be Canada’s Prime Minister, he wants to be a rock star: December 8th, 2010 at the Conservative’s annual Christmas Gala, Stephen Harper didn’t bother with a speech and instead put on a show for the crowd. He sang everything from Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline" while playing piano to standing centre stage for The Who's "The Seeker". Although these little “Glee Moments” is clearly amusing, it would be nice if he, you know, tried to actually run the country every now and then instead of only coming out of hiding when he wants us to listen to his Beatles cover band. http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20101208/harper-piano-tories-101208/20101208?hub=BritishColumbiaHome
Seventh Fighting The Good Fight [read: sometimes people are awesome]: Anthony Weiner: “The gentleman is correct in sitting” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O_GRkMZJn4, Patrick Kennedy: “The press of the United States is not covering the most significant issue of national importance” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q-VGZiEbrs, Jon vs Rachel: two sane people having a sane and rational discussion. It’s sad that this is newsworthy: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/#40141311, Gawker gets it right: http://tv.gawker.com/5714157/the-most-memorable-daily-show-segments-from-2010, Eager to Please Hipster: “Dude you have no Qu’ran” [See ‘Bad Fight’] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2-KgBhslBQ, AutoTune the News [just because it makes me happy] check it out -special guest: weezer- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KucV8renOfI, The Repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell!, Facebook?, “President Barack Obama signs off on the biggest expansion of federal health care in more than four decades. The $940 billion plan is projected to extend insurance coverage to roughly 32 million additional Americans.” [I stole that from CNN, the only reason it didn’t get its own slot is because I talked about it last year and I wanted more room to talk about ridiculous things :)], BoldProgressive fought the suspension of Keith Olbermann and with the help of a petition got him back on the after just a few days,
Eighth Fighting The Bad Fight: Pastor Terry Jones of Florida wanted to burn the Qu’ran on September 11th, 2010. That guy is a douchbag, fortunately a hipster stopped him. [See ‘Good Fight’], Charlie Rangel member of the U.S. House of Representatives [NY 15th District] had a whole boatload of ethic violations against him. In the end, he basically said “yeah, I did it but what are you going to do?” So he was censured which means pretty much nothing. Yay politics!, Arizona started a HUGE human rights violation by decided the police could stop anyone Hispanic and ask to see their papers, not unlike the Nazis and Jews, Facebook?, MSNBC suspending Keith Olbermann for an arbitrary rule about donating
Ninth Winter Olympics Yay!: The 21st Winter Olympics were held in Vancouver, British Colombia, Canada from February 12th-28th, 2010. Just under 3000 athletes from 82 nations participated. Canada broke the record for most gold medal wins at a Winter Olympic, taking home 14. Canada also won most gold medals overall. We also beat the USA in hockey! SUCK IT AMERICA!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DfS3ha0VeU . . . anyway, the whole thing cost about $1.87 billion but brought in an estimated $1 billion in revenue and created 45,000 jobs in the year leading up to and during the Olympics themselves. All in all, everyone had a good time. We laughed and cried and complained about the weather and had fun watching Brian Williams and Brian Williams meet up and create a new pundit vortex. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzTtKbXQSUs
Tenth Iceland Volcano: Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull [which means "island-mountain glacier"] volcano erupted, spewing a cloud of ash over Europe for a period of six days in April 2010. Not only is the name of the volcano impossible to pronounce [but hilarious when watching pundits try anyway], it severely disrupted air travel. Major airports were shut down causing thousands of passengers to be stranded. It was the most air travel disruption since WWII. It erupted again, on a much lower scale, in May 2010 and was not officially over until October 2010.
Eleventh Pakistan Flooding: July 28th, 2010 saw massive torrential rains lead to catastrophic flooding in Pakistan. Amazingly the death toll was less than two thousand but more than four million people have been left homeless. Aid to the area was slow coming and not given nearly as freely by the public. This is partially because of the view of the wars in the middle east and Pakistan’s involvement doubled with the fact that with flooding there is no immediate damage to fix as with a hurricane or earthquake because they happen and finish much faster.
Twelfth Stanley McChrystal: On June 23rd, 2010, four-stared general in the US Army “was resigned” after he gave the stupidest interview to Rolling Stone Magazine, mocking government officials including Vice President Joe Biden. Obama hired General David Petraeus to replace McChrystal shortly after. [which is cool because I really like him].
Thirteenth North and South Korea are going to kill each other and take us all down with them. Try not to think about it, it’ll only freak you out.
Fourteenth Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear: On October 30th, 2010, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert held a rally at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. It is estimated that 215,000 people were in attendance. The purpose of the rally was to be a voice for the majority who were not being covering by the media [Stewart came down hard no news media claiming they only give voice to the far right and far left and distort the image of the true America. Claims which caused some news pundits to get all huffy but were somewhat soothed after Rachel Maddow dedicated an entire hour of her MSNBC show to discussing these opinions with Jon. And Keith Olbermann, to his credit, stopped having ‘Worst Person in the World’ segments which he later brought back renamed as ‘Not Really Worst Person in the World’ to ensure viewers that it was to be satirically and not taken so seriously.] Along with some great jokes and many musical guests, the highlight of the show was the final speech given by Jon Stewart. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JzGOiBXeD4 “Most Americans don’t live their lives solely as Democrats, Republicans, liberals or conservatives. Americans live their lives more as people that are just a little bit late for something they have to do. Often something they do not want to do. But they do it. Impossible things, every day, that are only made possible through the little, reasonable compromises we all make.” [also in ‘Good fight’ are ALL the signs made up for this rally. People are generally awesome.] awesome: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvQbkPS8zCA
Fifteenth Combat Mission Ends in Iraq: August 31st, 2010 saw the President of the United States declared the combat mission in Iraq over. American soldiers are still in Iraq to reenforce and help stabilize the Iraq government. The last U.S.A combat brigade actually evacuated the area two weeks prior to the announcement. President Obama did not declare victory but instead stated that the security of the land was now in the hands of the Iraqis and the war had a “huge price” for the United States.
Sixteenth Elena Kagan: August 7th, 2010 Kagan is sworn in as a U.S. Supreme Court justice. She is the second justice confirmed since President Obama took office and the fourth woman to ever serve on the court. Elena replaced Justice John Paul Stevens, who retired in April, 2010.
Seventeenth Publication Ban on Tori Stafford Murder: For months there has been what is being called an unprecedented publication ban on the going’s on of the Murder of little Tori Stafford. Many Canadian news organizations fought this ban but it wasn’t until three weeks ago that it was finally lifted. Of course, living in the city where this happened most of us already knew the details. However this city is still recovering, and the media are like vultures, shutting down the street in front of the courthouse and police sation every few months to catch a glimpse. I’m sure other small towns/cities where tragedy has stuck feel the same but honestly, it’s not that we don’t want to talk about it: it’s that we don’t want to talk about it with you. Shut up about it already. Let us mourn and move on, it’s time.
Eighteenth WikiLeaks: Founder of the website, WikiLeaks, Julian Assange made news starting in late July 2010 when the website published more than 75,000 documents relating to America and the war in Afghanistan. Over the rest of the year more and more classified documents on a ranger of subjects are released. Governments quickly shut down access to the site where they can. Lawmakers fight over what to do with the released documents, how to punish and what exactly to call such punishments. Hackers rush to the side of WikiLeaks and take down the MasterCard website as well as the Visa website and some others. The struggle between what should remain out of the hands of the public and what the public has a right to know continues.
Nineteenth G8/G20 Summit: The 36th G8 summit was held in Huntsville, Ontario from June 25th to June 26th, 2010. Meetings were held at the beautiful Deerhurst Resort. The 4th G-20 summit meeting of all the G-20 heads of government was held in the Metro Toronto Convention Centre in Toronto, Ontario from June 26th to 27th, 2010. It was Canada’s largest and most expensive security operation. In the end it cost $858 million. Tens of thousands of police officers, thousands of security and military forces were brought in to deal with protesters. The majority of Toronto shut down during the summit week, many businesses in the immediate area boarded up their windows in case of vandalism. During the first day, the majority of the protests stayed peaceful. Into the second day a black bloc tactic used by some began to spread and the protests turned sour. Police cars and news media vehicles were set on fire, many local businesses were vandalised [the target being large corporations such as fast food chains and coffee shops]. With tensions high and more security called in the police began attacking the crowds when they believed any people involved in a black bloc were in the crowds, leading to the arrest of 500 people at one time [see footage]. Over the summit a total of over 900 people had been arrested and held. [Some without reason or given any rights to contact family or a lawyer] [amateur footage of ‘Toronto Police attacking people singing the Canadian National Anthem’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RKoYrZffWE ]
Twentieth Colonel Russell Williams: Colonel for the Canadian Forces, Russell Williams was charged and then arrested on February 8th, 2010 with two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of forcible confinement, two counts of breaking and entering and sexual assault and another 82 charges relating to breaking and entry. On October 21st, 2010, he was sentenced to two life sentences for first-degree murder, two ten-year sentences for sexual assaults, two ten-year sentences for forcible confinement and 82 one-year sentences for burglary; all to be served at Kingston Penitentiary in Ontario. His rank was revoked and his severance pay was terminated and any salary he received after his arrest was taken. In an unprecedented move, The Canadian Forced removed all military clothing and other gear and had it burned to destroy it.
here is it, 2440 glorious words to sum up the top 20 news stories of 2010:
2010's Top 20 News Stories
As Picked By Sara
Appearing In No Particular Order.
First Hati: January 12th, 2010 a 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit, just 16 miles west of Hati’s capital, Port-au-Prince. Estimate state that 230,000 people had been killed, with 300,000 injured, making this the sixth deadliest earthquake in history. Massive structural damage led to more than one million Haitians being made homeless. By January 24th, 2010 there had been 52 aftershocks felt, each 4.5 in magnitude or greater.
Second BP Oil Spill: The night of April 20th, 2010 there was a methane gas explosion on the Deepwater Horizon mobile offshore drilling unit. 11 men were killed and 17 others were injured. After the explosion, approximately 206 million gallons of crude oil (approximately 4.9 million barrels) leaked into the Gulf of Mexico. By July 15th, 2010, the wellhead had been capped but it was not officially sealed until September 19th, 2010. By May 25th, 2010, BP stated that 215,000 barrels of oil/water mix had been removed and they continued to use machinery to separate the water and oil. By late June BP had successfully removed 890,000 barrels and burned another 315,000 barrels off the ocean’s surface in controlled burns. However estimates say that despite these efforts approximately 75% of the oil is still in the Gulf of Mexico. Due to an outdated American Oil Pollution law, BP was only responsible for paying up to $75 million in damages, however BP continues to take responsibility for the spill and has to date spent approximate 12 $billion. In 2010 the company reports a 54% loss and by early April had already lost over $105 billion in market value.
Third Copiapó, Chili mining accident: August 5th, 2010 there is a cave-in at the San Jose copper-gold mine. 33 men are trapped approximately 700 meters underground. It is not until August 22nd, 2010 that the men are discovered alive. Immediate plans to drill them out begin. There are three false starts before finally on October 9th, 2010 the drilling is complete. Late into the night on October 12th, 2010 and into the following day, all miners are slowly extracted. All are in good health. After being trapped below ground for 69 days, there are no deaths and no injuries to report. Everyone is happy. It is my birthday. :)
Fourth Newsworthy People Who Died: Leslie Nielsen, Pat Burns, That Guy That Directed Star Wars, J.D Salinger, Charlie Wilson, Alexander McQueen, Jackie Burroughs, Howard Zinn, Maury Chaykin, Corey Haim, Malcolm McLaren, Sebastian Horesly, Dennis Hopper, Ronnie James Dio, Gary Coleman, Harvey Pekar, Ted Stevens, Tony Curtis, Elizabeth Edwards, Kate McGarrigle, John Babcock [Canada’s last surviving WW1 veteran], Dame Joan Sutherland
Fifth Rahm Emanuel Leaves The White House: White House Chief of Staff for Barack Obama, Rahm Emanuel announced his departure on September 20th, 2010. After being a kick-ass chief of staff and super sexy and hilarious (and named as "perhaps the most influential chief of staff of a generation" by The New York Times in his 2010 article), he announced his intention to run for mayor of Chicago. His last day was October 1st, 2010 [watch President Obama say goodbye: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31LBFEgAf-I ]. Pete Rouse took over on October 2nd, 2010. [here’s a photo of Obama and Rahm having a snowball fight, just because I can: http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/4291639000/ ]
Sixth Stephen Harper doesn’t want to be Canada’s Prime Minister, he wants to be a rock star: December 8th, 2010 at the Conservative’s annual Christmas Gala, Stephen Harper didn’t bother with a speech and instead put on a show for the crowd. He sang everything from Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline" while playing piano to standing centre stage for The Who's "The Seeker". Although these little “Glee Moments” is clearly amusing, it would be nice if he, you know, tried to actually run the country every now and then instead of only coming out of hiding when he wants us to listen to his Beatles cover band. http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20101208/harper-piano-tories-101208/20101208?hub=BritishColumbiaHome
Seventh Fighting The Good Fight [read: sometimes people are awesome]: Anthony Weiner: “The gentleman is correct in sitting” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O_GRkMZJn4, Patrick Kennedy: “The press of the United States is not covering the most significant issue of national importance” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q-VGZiEbrs, Jon vs Rachel: two sane people having a sane and rational discussion. It’s sad that this is newsworthy: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/#40141311, Gawker gets it right: http://tv.gawker.com/5714157/the-most-memorable-daily-show-segments-from-2010, Eager to Please Hipster: “Dude you have no Qu’ran” [See ‘Bad Fight’] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2-KgBhslBQ, AutoTune the News [just because it makes me happy] check it out -special guest: weezer- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KucV8renOfI, The Repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell!, Facebook?, “President Barack Obama signs off on the biggest expansion of federal health care in more than four decades. The $940 billion plan is projected to extend insurance coverage to roughly 32 million additional Americans.” [I stole that from CNN, the only reason it didn’t get its own slot is because I talked about it last year and I wanted more room to talk about ridiculous things :)], BoldProgressive fought the suspension of Keith Olbermann and with the help of a petition got him back on the after just a few days,
Eighth Fighting The Bad Fight: Pastor Terry Jones of Florida wanted to burn the Qu’ran on September 11th, 2010. That guy is a douchbag, fortunately a hipster stopped him. [See ‘Good Fight’], Charlie Rangel member of the U.S. House of Representatives [NY 15th District] had a whole boatload of ethic violations against him. In the end, he basically said “yeah, I did it but what are you going to do?” So he was censured which means pretty much nothing. Yay politics!, Arizona started a HUGE human rights violation by decided the police could stop anyone Hispanic and ask to see their papers, not unlike the Nazis and Jews, Facebook?, MSNBC suspending Keith Olbermann for an arbitrary rule about donating
Ninth Winter Olympics Yay!: The 21st Winter Olympics were held in Vancouver, British Colombia, Canada from February 12th-28th, 2010. Just under 3000 athletes from 82 nations participated. Canada broke the record for most gold medal wins at a Winter Olympic, taking home 14. Canada also won most gold medals overall. We also beat the USA in hockey! SUCK IT AMERICA!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DfS3ha0VeU . . . anyway, the whole thing cost about $1.87 billion but brought in an estimated $1 billion in revenue and created 45,000 jobs in the year leading up to and during the Olympics themselves. All in all, everyone had a good time. We laughed and cried and complained about the weather and had fun watching Brian Williams and Brian Williams meet up and create a new pundit vortex. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzTtKbXQSUs
Tenth Iceland Volcano: Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull [which means "island-mountain glacier"] volcano erupted, spewing a cloud of ash over Europe for a period of six days in April 2010. Not only is the name of the volcano impossible to pronounce [but hilarious when watching pundits try anyway], it severely disrupted air travel. Major airports were shut down causing thousands of passengers to be stranded. It was the most air travel disruption since WWII. It erupted again, on a much lower scale, in May 2010 and was not officially over until October 2010.
Eleventh Pakistan Flooding: July 28th, 2010 saw massive torrential rains lead to catastrophic flooding in Pakistan. Amazingly the death toll was less than two thousand but more than four million people have been left homeless. Aid to the area was slow coming and not given nearly as freely by the public. This is partially because of the view of the wars in the middle east and Pakistan’s involvement doubled with the fact that with flooding there is no immediate damage to fix as with a hurricane or earthquake because they happen and finish much faster.
Twelfth Stanley McChrystal: On June 23rd, 2010, four-stared general in the US Army “was resigned” after he gave the stupidest interview to Rolling Stone Magazine, mocking government officials including Vice President Joe Biden. Obama hired General David Petraeus to replace McChrystal shortly after. [which is cool because I really like him].
Thirteenth North and South Korea are going to kill each other and take us all down with them. Try not to think about it, it’ll only freak you out.
Fourteenth Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear: On October 30th, 2010, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert held a rally at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. It is estimated that 215,000 people were in attendance. The purpose of the rally was to be a voice for the majority who were not being covering by the media [Stewart came down hard no news media claiming they only give voice to the far right and far left and distort the image of the true America. Claims which caused some news pundits to get all huffy but were somewhat soothed after Rachel Maddow dedicated an entire hour of her MSNBC show to discussing these opinions with Jon. And Keith Olbermann, to his credit, stopped having ‘Worst Person in the World’ segments which he later brought back renamed as ‘Not Really Worst Person in the World’ to ensure viewers that it was to be satirically and not taken so seriously.] Along with some great jokes and many musical guests, the highlight of the show was the final speech given by Jon Stewart. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JzGOiBXeD4 “Most Americans don’t live their lives solely as Democrats, Republicans, liberals or conservatives. Americans live their lives more as people that are just a little bit late for something they have to do. Often something they do not want to do. But they do it. Impossible things, every day, that are only made possible through the little, reasonable compromises we all make.” [also in ‘Good fight’ are ALL the signs made up for this rally. People are generally awesome.] awesome: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvQbkPS8zCA
Fifteenth Combat Mission Ends in Iraq: August 31st, 2010 saw the President of the United States declared the combat mission in Iraq over. American soldiers are still in Iraq to reenforce and help stabilize the Iraq government. The last U.S.A combat brigade actually evacuated the area two weeks prior to the announcement. President Obama did not declare victory but instead stated that the security of the land was now in the hands of the Iraqis and the war had a “huge price” for the United States.
Sixteenth Elena Kagan: August 7th, 2010 Kagan is sworn in as a U.S. Supreme Court justice. She is the second justice confirmed since President Obama took office and the fourth woman to ever serve on the court. Elena replaced Justice John Paul Stevens, who retired in April, 2010.
Seventeenth Publication Ban on Tori Stafford Murder: For months there has been what is being called an unprecedented publication ban on the going’s on of the Murder of little Tori Stafford. Many Canadian news organizations fought this ban but it wasn’t until three weeks ago that it was finally lifted. Of course, living in the city where this happened most of us already knew the details. However this city is still recovering, and the media are like vultures, shutting down the street in front of the courthouse and police sation every few months to catch a glimpse. I’m sure other small towns/cities where tragedy has stuck feel the same but honestly, it’s not that we don’t want to talk about it: it’s that we don’t want to talk about it with you. Shut up about it already. Let us mourn and move on, it’s time.
Eighteenth WikiLeaks: Founder of the website, WikiLeaks, Julian Assange made news starting in late July 2010 when the website published more than 75,000 documents relating to America and the war in Afghanistan. Over the rest of the year more and more classified documents on a ranger of subjects are released. Governments quickly shut down access to the site where they can. Lawmakers fight over what to do with the released documents, how to punish and what exactly to call such punishments. Hackers rush to the side of WikiLeaks and take down the MasterCard website as well as the Visa website and some others. The struggle between what should remain out of the hands of the public and what the public has a right to know continues.
Nineteenth G8/G20 Summit: The 36th G8 summit was held in Huntsville, Ontario from June 25th to June 26th, 2010. Meetings were held at the beautiful Deerhurst Resort. The 4th G-20 summit meeting of all the G-20 heads of government was held in the Metro Toronto Convention Centre in Toronto, Ontario from June 26th to 27th, 2010. It was Canada’s largest and most expensive security operation. In the end it cost $858 million. Tens of thousands of police officers, thousands of security and military forces were brought in to deal with protesters. The majority of Toronto shut down during the summit week, many businesses in the immediate area boarded up their windows in case of vandalism. During the first day, the majority of the protests stayed peaceful. Into the second day a black bloc tactic used by some began to spread and the protests turned sour. Police cars and news media vehicles were set on fire, many local businesses were vandalised [the target being large corporations such as fast food chains and coffee shops]. With tensions high and more security called in the police began attacking the crowds when they believed any people involved in a black bloc were in the crowds, leading to the arrest of 500 people at one time [see footage]. Over the summit a total of over 900 people had been arrested and held. [Some without reason or given any rights to contact family or a lawyer] [amateur footage of ‘Toronto Police attacking people singing the Canadian National Anthem’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RKoYrZffWE ]
Twentieth Colonel Russell Williams: Colonel for the Canadian Forces, Russell Williams was charged and then arrested on February 8th, 2010 with two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of forcible confinement, two counts of breaking and entering and sexual assault and another 82 charges relating to breaking and entry. On October 21st, 2010, he was sentenced to two life sentences for first-degree murder, two ten-year sentences for sexual assaults, two ten-year sentences for forcible confinement and 82 one-year sentences for burglary; all to be served at Kingston Penitentiary in Ontario. His rank was revoked and his severance pay was terminated and any salary he received after his arrest was taken. In an unprecedented move, The Canadian Forced removed all military clothing and other gear and had it burned to destroy it.