An American citizen living in Queens arrested by the FBI, and who has admitted to being a sleeper agent for al-Qaida, has ties to a British-based Islamic extremist organization with still more agents operating in the New York borough, WorldNetDaily has learned.

Mohammed Junaid Babar, a naturalized citizen from Pakistan, was secretly taken into custody in April and is being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan. Babar, who is said to be cooperating with interrogators, allegedly admitted to aiding in a plot to blow up discos, restaurants and train stations in London. Babar faces 30 years to life in prison under an agreement with federal prosecutors.

The plot was foiled in late March when British authorities arrested eight suspects and seized 1,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, which can be used to make explosives, from a storage locker near central London.

WND has learned that Babar, 29, was a member of the UK-based Al-Muhajiroun, a worldwide Islamic fundamentalist group led by London cleric Sheik Omar Bakri Muhammad, who maintains operatives in Pakistan and in Queens, N.Y. [. . . . ]

CAIRO - Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is being questioned about claims he has billions of US dollars deposited in Japanese and German bank accounts, the Arab newspaper Al-Hyat reported Monday, citing anonymous "high-ranking" officials.

Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi estimated the funds to be worth USD 40 billion, the report said.

Al-Hyat said it had a document in which the Iraqi interim government called on the US government to discuss how the funds could be accessed.

[. . . . ] "I don't think we've gone too far," said Judge Iacobucci, one of the court's most ardent champions of human rights.

"I think the planks that we've made ... are very important beginnings. I think we've evolved greatly and will we evolve more to other minorities? I hope we will."

Judge Iacobucci stressed he does not want to get political during a federal election campaign. [Surely, he does not expect people to believe that? How droll.] But it was clear from his candid comments that his robust view of the judiciary and the Charter contrast sharply with the views of Conservative leader Stephen Harper, who could be in a position to name a replacement for the veteran judge when he retires next week.

[. . . . ] If elected, the Conservatives would use the notwithstanding clause to preserve the traditional definition of marriage and to eliminate artistic merit as a defence for owning child pornography.

"I think it [the notwithstanding clause] should be used with extreme care," Judge Iacobucci cautioned. "It is there in the Constitution, so its legality can't be questioned, but one could question the legitimacy of it. It was put there as the compromise to get the deal.... If one invokes the notwithstanding clause, at least on a regular basis, then you're back to the old system."

The Conservatives also want to amend the Constitution to ban prisoner voting that was granted by the Supreme Court two years ago under the Charter of Rights, a prospect that made Judge Iacobucci balk.

Mr. Harper pointed out that Mr. Martin himself voted to uphold the traditional definition of marriage.

[. . . . ] But why stop there? We know, for example, that Harper would allow private health providers to operate within the public system, whereas Martin already has. And let's not forget Iraq: Harper would have sent our troops to Iraq, in sharp contrast to the Liberal government, which did.

[. . . . ] Which Canadian political party introduced and fought successfully for draconian new limits on women's reproductive choice in the House of Commons this spring?

Give up? The correct answer is: "The Liberal Party of Canada." The same Liberal Party of Canada whose new television ad, first aired Wednesday, warns that their chief opponent "won't protect a woman's right to choose."

Bill C-6, the Assisted Human Reproduction Act, sailed through the House and Senate and received royal assent on March 29. Press coverage focused mostly on the provisions concerning stem-cell research and on cloning. Few bothered to notice that reproductive choice had been given a savage beating by the surviving provisions, which ban the sale of sperm and eggs and outlaw surrogate motherhood for pay. Mr. Martin voted for C-6. [. . . .]

But consider this quote, doubtless representative of legal-world terrors, from constitutional expert David Stratas:

This is the first time in its 129-year history that the Supreme Court has been an election campaign issue. If Mr. Harper is too overt about this, there will be a whole host of people concerned about court-packing. Until now, Supreme Court appointments are seen to have been made entirely on merit. Court-packing is alien to our culture. It would backfire. [Globe and Mail via Andrew Coyne ]

Got that? The very act of replacing the judges retiring in the normal course of aging would be deemed "court-packing" by the Stratasphere. Prime Minister Stephen Harper can't be "overt" about looking for ideologically sympathetic judges: Stratas, staggeringly, seems unaware that Jean Chretien put almost nothing but Martian left-liberals on the Court, and that among his "merit"-driven choices have been the unknown and unheralded wife of a former Quebec Liberal cabinet minister (Deschamps), the national "Yes" chairman from the 1992 Charlottetown Accord referendum (Bastarache), and a former anti-sovereignty strategist from the Quebec Liberal party in the '70s (LeBel). He also turned a former president of the national Liberals into the Chief Justice of the Quebec Court of Appeal last year. Question for Stratas: isn't this court-packing? Pardon my French, but I'd say it's practically fudge-packing.

[. . . . ] Some--and I am thinking of the majority of my Alberta compatriots--believe that while democracy may not be an end in itself, more of it would be desirable, as a check on the unexpected growth in the power of the Prime Minister's Office. For years now Westerners, including those at the old Alberta Report magazine, have favoured citizens' initiatives, binding federal referenda on particular matters of urgent concern, an elected Senate, the right of recall, and other procedural reforms designed to purify our constitution by injecting a heady speedball of democracy into it. For years, Westerners' advocacy of these ideas has fallen on deaf ears--been mocked, to some degree, and actively spurned without really offending anyone, in the case of Senate reform.¹ Similarly, Alberta has complained that its representation in the number of overall House of Commons seats has never caught up with its share of the Canadian population, and never can, under the current distribution formulas. In this last instance, the cries for "proportional representation"--in the most basic sense of the phrase--have been little heard outside Alberta. If PR is coming, as I am assured confidently by my correspondents, let it come here to my doorstep first.

[. . . . ] ¹The Alberta legislature demanded the right to elect senators as the price of its support for the Meech Lake Accord, and received it, electing Stan Waters. Jean Chretien's refusal to follow this precedent bothered approximately no one outside this province. In fact, some columnists have a noxious habit of pretending that the original exercise never took place and that provincial elections for senators would require an active change--impossible under current political circumstances--to the Constitution. It requires only a prime minister willing to play along, as Brian Mulroney was, and a public willing to hold the prime minister to the principle until it becomes entrenched by custom.

Nobody, after all, had to change the Constitution to create the office of "Prime Minister", a phrase which is not found at all in the British North America Act of 1867, but which magically appears--without being anywhere defined or ever having been formally created--in the Constitution Act of 1982.

(Cornwall, Ontario - Thursday, June 17, 2004) – As part of a major operation enlisting the collaboration of 12 police organizations in Ontario, Quebec and the United States, four criminal organizations involved in transborder cannabis smuggling were dismantled this morning as a result of 10 searches conducted in the Montreal, Cornwall, Akwesasne and northern New York State regions. The police officers arrested several people in the process.

In 2002, the Cornwall Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit (CFSEU) launched Project Outstay on the basis of information received from New York State Police Organized Crime Task Force (OCTF) on the illegal activities of a Canadian smuggling ring that exported cannabis to the Syracuse and New-York City areas.

[. . . . ] The police raids conducted this morning in Cornwall, Les Côteaux, St-Calixte, Maitland (Ontario), Montréal, Mirabel, Laval and St-Jérôme led to the seizure of cannabis, US$600,000, a large quantity of high-calibre weapons, automobiles, all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) as well as several properties acquired through criminal activities.

[. . . . ] “Organized crime groups pose a serious threat to society, the economy, and to the quality of life in our communities, said Chief Mitchell, Akwesasne Mohawk Police Service. These organized crime groups are exploiting the people and the unique geographical location of the Akwesasne Territory to further their criminal enterprises. Law Enforcement agencies from both sides of the border have shared their expertise, intelligence and resources in a coordinated effort to combat the smuggling of illicit drugs.”

[. . . . ] More than 70 police officers from several police services were involved in the arrests and searches in Canada. In addition to members of Cornwall CFSEU, assisting in today's searches and arrests in Canada were the Criminal Intelligence Service Ontario, Sureté du Québec, MUC, Laval Police, Police de Mirabel, RCMP Cornwall/Valleyfield, Cornwall Integrated Border Enforcement Team and RCMP ERT teams from Montreal and Ottawa.

In prison gymnasiums and jail corridors across the country, inmates will be lining up to cast a ballot in this year's election. It is not the first time offenders have been allowed to vote. A small number of federal inmates voted in the 1997 general election, and before that an even smaller number participated in the 1992 referendum on the Charlottetown accord.

The issue of voting rights for prisoners has been an on-again, off-again tangle of court petitions, appellate reversals, legislation and counter legislation, not to mention hot newspaper editorials and hotter talk show debates. What has become clear in constitutional law courts -- in 2002, the Supreme Court struck down a federal law restricting voting by prisoners serving terms of two years or more -- has done little to convince the Canadian public of why ballot boxes should be shuttled through the front gates into a prison.

Why allow the vote inside? It's a fair question. It could be defended with an earnest humanitarian plea, or even argued in a logical, lawyerly way, but for anyone observing the actual process inside our prisons, the reason for giving criminals the vote is that it's one of the most interesting things about this election.

[. . . . ] The library crowd remains fairly solidly NDP but even they agree that Jack Layton's smile is thin, and his presence even thinner. The tough guys, especially those with a long history of meting out rough prison-yard justice, have now decided to vote because they are attracted to Stephen Harper's promises of harsh treatment for sex offenders. And the Marijuana Party has hardly been mentioned in weeks; I think it's a short-term memory thing. [. . . . ]

A Mexican man arrested in the U.S. last year and linked to a $200-million Cdn drug-money laundering scheme has admitted he helped smuggle cocaine to B.C. using couriers who hiked across the border to Osoyoos.

Adalberto Silva-Rivas shipped at least 140 kilograms of cocaine across the Canada-U.S. border during a five-month period in 2002, according to a plea agreement between the drug dealer and U.S. prosecutors. The agreement was obtained by The Vancouver Sun.

[. . . . ] Charged with money laundering and cocaine trafficking in the U.S., he was facing two life sentences and a fine of up to $4.2 million.

In the plea agreement he signed March 31, he has agreed to cooperate with U.S. and Canadian authorities in exchange for a 12-year prison sentence and forfeiture of $200,000, a Camaro car, and two trucks. [. . . . ]

Rivas-Viveros is among the unindicted co-conspirators named in the cocaine trafficking charges filed last month in Vancouver provincial court against Lopez-Guzman, Tran, Phan, Khuc, Van Doan Ha and Nhi Mui Chiem.

[. . . . ] A recent court judgment concerning the money seizure alleges that Phan and Tran, both personally and through such corporate entities as currency exchanges, laundered more than $200 million Cdn from the trafficking of large amounts of cocaine and marijuana.