Happy April Fools!

Bourque has his usual April fools day story leading, this year about Paul Martin scrapping the GST. It's too bad that Brad fell hook, line and sinker for it last night when we were talking. The Bourque thing is important too, since last year when he 'reported' that then Finance Minister Paul Martin was leaving politics, it caused the loonie to drop almost a cent. The British using chickens to deliver nuclear weapons, however, turns out to be true. In another story that sounds like an April fools day joke but turns out to be real, Google is offering a new email service akin to Hotmail and Yahoo that will let users store 1GB of messages, with a maximum message size of 10MB.

The news that I'm sure everyone has heard by now concerns the killing and mutilation of four American contractors working for the defense department in Iraq. Echoing what happened to American soldiers in Mogadishu, their bodies were dragged through the streets before being tied to a bridge, in a scene so violent that American television stations censored the clips of the incident. Paul Bremer, the American administrator of Iraq, has vowed to capture the killers. As the New York Times points out, the real problem illustrated by this attack is that it wasn't carried out by Islamist militants, but rather Iraqis who are still loyal the Saddam Hussein.

The Spanish investigation into the train bombings has identified the leader of the operation, Tunisian native Sarhane ben Abdelmajid Fakhet. The photos of six men wanted in connection with the bombings have been released as well. Turkish police in alliance with police forces in Italy, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands arrested a total of 53 people who are suspected members of a Turkish extremist group that has carried out previous attacks in Turkey.

The US Justice Department is taking on the case of an Oklahoma girl over the right for her to wear a headscarf in public school. The German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, on the other hand, has outlawed teachers from wearing them.

Also:
- The increasing salinization of water is proving to be a problem in many parts of Australia, including one of the major cities, Adelaide.
- Queen's University, Belfast, has released a study showing that Viagra may reduce fertility.
- Scientists in Greece have found that measuring variations in the length of the heartbeat may be an indicator before a cardiac arrest.
- Despite a seemingly well-orchestrated raid, NATO troops have failed to capture former Bosnian Serb leader and world's most wanted war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic.
- China has warned the United States not to communicate with Taiwan so as not to send 'the wrong message.'
- The Israeli government and some Palestinians have tentatively accepted plans for a 'coexistance day' to be celebrated.
- Jewish leaders are accusing the EU of covering up attacks on Jews by young Muslims.
- Hong Kong residents have held a vigil protesting China's plans to restrict the city's movement towards greater democracy.
- UN troops have arrived in the Ivory Coast in a bid to halt the recent violence.
- An African Defense Force has gotten the green light from the Europeans as talks over African economic and social development begin in Ireland.
- The state of Georgia will be putting the question of banning same-sex marriages before the voters in November.
- Michael Jackson wants to tour Africa to support the fight against AIDS, if a judge will let him leave the country.
- Walmart has increased the number of computer systems it sells with Linux as the operating system.