PLAY BOMBAY DREAMS COULD BE A HUGE HIT IN TORONTO

Audiences are flocking to London's West End to see the outlandish and flamboyant Bombay Dreams.

What's revolutionary about the show is that it's the first big Bollywood musical to reach the stage in the western world, and it is drawing crowds of South Asians who don't usually go to the theatre. Given the nature of the show and the audience and the population of Canada's showbiz capital, Bombay Dreams could be a huge hit in Toronto.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber is involved in producing the show. The score is composed by A.R. Rahman, celebrated in India for his film music
http://www.goacom.com/news/news2002/dec/msg00018.html

$1.8 BILLION TO START FIXING EDUCATION: ROZANSKI
The provincial government has to add more than $1.8 billion to education funding, the man charged with reviewing the Ontario funding formula said Tuesday.
FULL STORY http://toronto.cbc.ca/template/servlet/View?filename=to_rozanski20021210

TORONTO GENERAL CLOSES ER
The emergency room at Toronto General Hospital was shut down Monday night following an outbreak of what appears to be the Norwalk virus.
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IMMIGRATION CRITICS PAN TORONTO 'PRISON'
Members of Parliament on the federal immigration committee say Ottawa is giving in to U.S. pressure by building a "prison" near Canada's largest airport.
FULL STORY http://toronto.cbc.ca/template/servlet/View?filename=detention_centre_20021209

MANY SENIORS IN A BAD WAY, REPORT FINDS

SOURCE: The Hamilton Spectator
BYLINE: Carmelina Prete

A new report on Hamilton seniors paints a dismal picture of high poverty, inadequate housing, poor health care and increasing isolation for this city's fastest growing population.

"It's not good at all," said Winston Tinglin, CEO for the United Way of Burlington Hamilton-Wentworth, which paid for the report.

"We really have ... to move now or the situation is going to be way worse as we go down the road."

The news is worse for women, who are more likely than men to be poor, regardless of age. For example, in Hamilton, 50 per cent of female seniors who live independent from their family fall below the poverty line, compared to 18 per cent of men. The report, released yesterday, defined poverty using Statistics Canada's low income cutoffs, based on family size and the population size of the community of residence.

Basically, the older a person is, the more likely it is that they are poor and female. But poverty is just one part of other problems, such as inadequate housing, that seniors face.

Seniors made up 15.3 per cent (70,255 people) of Hamilton's population last year. About three-quarters of them live in the old city, but that is expected to drop to 69 per cent by 2009.

The former suburbs will probably make up the difference. We can expect 74 per cent more seniors in Flamborough, 52 per cent more in Ancaster and 53 per cent more in Glanbrook.

This matters because only 4 per cent of Hamilton's subsidized housing for seniors is in the former suburbs.

Thelma McGillivray, president of the Hamilton and District Council of Women, said it's crucial that seniors speak out about their inequalities.

cprete@thespec.com or 905-526-2487.

NOTICE TO PUBLIC: SETTLEMENT HEARING IN THE MATTER OF JAYANTH NORONHA

Copyright 2002 Canada NewsWire Ltd. Canada NewsWire
December 6, 2002, Friday
SECTION: FINANCIAL NEWS

The Investment Dealers Association of Canada announced that a hearing date has been set regarding Jayanth Noronha and relates to matters for which he may be disciplined by the Association. The conduct of Mr. Noronha, that is the subject of the hearing, occurred during the period between January and May 2000 when Mr. Noronha was a registered representative at the office of Berkshire Securities Inc. located in North York, Ontario. The proceeding is open to the public and is scheduled to commence on December 18th, 2002.

VIEW ADDITIONAL COMPANY-SPECIFIC INFORMATION: http://www.newswire.ca/cgi-bin/inquiry.cgi?OKEY=32728

CONTACT: please contact: Alex Popovic, Vice-President, Enforcement, (416) 943-6904 or apopovic@ida.ca; Jeff Kehoe, Director, Enforcement Litigation, (416) 943-6996 or jkehoe@ida.ca

Canada is blessed with many superb writers and illustrators of books for younger children. Maclean's writers and editors take a crack at choosing 12 of the best. Robert Louis Stevenson is combined with illustrations by Kim Fernandes in The Little Land (Kids Can, $ 14.95). Fernandes's vibrant, 3-D artwork is a perfect match for Stevenson's rhyming couplets.

11 Dec. National Post (Canada). The latest census data shows that there were more than 100 languages listed as being spoken by Canadians, including such little-known tongues as Twi, spoken in southern Ghana, and Konkani, spoken by some in India.
(Courtersy of Eddie Fernandes)

7 Dec. The East African Standard. Mr Raila Odinga of the National Rainbow Coalition said there have been lots of injustices beginning with the death of Pio Gama Pinto and Tom Mboya among others, "which are as old as Kenya". He further said that Kenya has had its own dark history and there was need for transitional justice.
(Courtersy of Eddie Fernandes)