So as we prepare for the G8 and G20 meetings this month, I was asked to attend a Domestic Threats training session at CBC. It's nice to work for someone who actually offers some training on these type of situations. I remember when I covered the G7 in Detroit - Windsor years ago. I was working for Chum Television at the time. We didn't even have PPE's never mind training.

Hopefully I will not need any of this stuff but somehow I think it may come in handy. Let's hope things don't get too out of hand. It was all pretty well common sense stuff but as we've all heard before, common sense isn't really that common.

The training was provided by http://www.akegroup.com/

This goes out to all the night shift shooters. We salute you.

Brig.-Gen. Daniel Ménard said a Canadian civilian was also wounded in the attack at about 4 p.m. local time.

Ménard said their armoured vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device in the city of Kandahar. The attack came during a community security patrol to both gather information on the pattern of life and to maintain security in the area.

"The journalist was travelling with them to tell the story of what Canada's soldiers are doing in Afghanistan," he said.

Ménard said the military is notifying the families of the soldiers and more information will be provided once this has been completed.

The journalist was identified as Michelle Lang, who worked for the Calgary Herald.

Lang, who was 34, grew up in Vancouver and was a well-respected health reporter for the Herald, winning a National Newspaper Award in 2008 for best beat reporting. She had also worked in Regina, Moose Jaw and Prince George.

Friends described Lang, who was engaged, as bright with a sharp tongue and quick wit.

"She came across as sweet and quiet — but could bring a room down with laughter with one observation," one friend said. "She was a fabulous friend: kind, loyal, thoughtful. No number of adjectives can describe her talent, her charm or the hole she leaves in the lives of those close to her."

CBC reporter James Murray, who is stationed in Afghanistan, said: "She was the kind of journalist you would want to have here. She was kind and decent, and curious."

"She'd been in Afghanistan for just a few weeks and

RIYADH (Reuters) - A Saudi court sentenced a female journalist to 60 lashes in a case brought after a Lebanese television channel she worked for aired the sex confession of a Saudi man, the reporter and a lawyer said.

Rosana, 22, who did not want her full name disclosed, said a court in Jeddah convicted her on Saturday on grounds that the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (LBC) she worked for did not have proper authorization to operate in the Islamic kingdom.

The ruling follows the sentencing by the same court of Mazen Abdul-Awad to five years in jail and 1,000 lashes earlier in October after he appeared on an LBC show and talked about his sexual exploits.

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE59N1H520091024?sp=true

CKX TV went dark on October 2nd, 2009. The owner CTV had failed to find a buyer for the money losing station. Two attempts had fallen through. Some say the station is just a pawn in the fee for carriage battle, offered up as a sacrificial lamb to strengthen the case for new fees. Local communities suffer and employees are devastated as TV stations across the country are downsized, have local programming cancelled or stations closed.

We will surely see more stories like this as Canada approaches the switch to digital broadcasts, which requires large investments in new transmitters. Will local news survive in small town Canada? 

MONT-LAURIER, Que. – Backfiring as it fell out of the sky, a sputtering helicopter snagged power lines before striking the ground and exploding into flames Wednesday in rural Quebec.

CTV cameraman Hugh Haugland, 44, and pilot Roger Belanger, who was in his 60s, died when the chopper went down just outside the Laurentian town of Mont-Laurier, northwest of Montreal.

The crash came as local residents were busy cleaning up a day after a powerful tornado hammered the village, ripping roofs from the tops of buildings and blowing out windows.

Belanger, a veteran pilot, was giving Haugland an aerial tour of the area so he could film some of the devastation left by Tuesday's storm.

It was not immediately clear what caused the crash, but the weather had cleared up when the helicopter went down.

Witnesses said that moments after the helicopter hit the roadside ditch along Highway 117, it burst into flames as tall as the surrounding trees.

Alain Coursol, who runs an automotive body shop across from the crash site, heard the backfires of a dying engine and looked up to see the machine plunge to Earth.

As the chopper dropped, its blades yanked the wires out of a transformer across the street and snapped a wooden electrical pole in half before hitting a patch of long grass upside down, he said.

Coursol rushed to the scene, where he saw one man lying on the ground and the other still in the helicopter, but the flames were too intense to get anywhere near the victims.

"You never think you're going to live long enough to see something like that," said Coursol, who had repainted old airplanes for Belanger.

"He was a good guy. Nobody deserves to die like that."