Canada Revenue Agency and Conrad Black battle over $5 million

Conrad Black is locking horns with the Canada Revenue Agency over taxes from 2002 that may see him paying taxes on more than $5 million in income and benefits.

Among the litany of items the CRA is trying to collect on is a $90,000 bill for security at his Toronto home and $1.3 million in benefits from the use of a company airplane.

The agency alleges Black held Canadian residency at this time and must pay taxes, including those applicable to taxable employment benefits such as the private jet. At the time, he filed as a U.K. resident, which his lawyers maintain was the true case.

The full Star story

North Korean television takes a look at US poverty

A North Korean television documentary gives a detailed report on poverty and homelessness in the US and Europe, apparently in an attempt to counter "Western imperialist propaganda" about widespread poverty and starvation due to famine in North Korea.

The report manages to suggest that vast numbers of Americans live on the streets in conditions of extreme poverty. According to the documentary entitled "How Americans Live Today," millions of Americans sleep in tents and homes that get blown down easily. The report claims that American children buy guns to kill each other, and drink hot coffee made of snow. It explains that the poor, cold, lonely and homosexual Americans live cramped in shelters.

More:

Ex-TIME INCers will enjoy Maureen Dowd's column today, aptly titled "as TIME goes bye" "

Excerpt:

It was a plummy time when a top editor could arrive in Paris and think nothing of sending a staffer from Paris to London to fetch a necktie he had left in his hotel room, or of sending a minion flying off to fetch a box of his favorite cigars, or of having articles about the Nicaraguan contras flown to his Martha’s Vineyard house so he could make sure the political tilt was right.

Mere writers got to expense dial-a-cabs out to the Hamptons after working late Fridays, at $150 a pop; and people rarely shared, snaking out to Sag Harbor in a pampered convoy.

The whole column

Angelo Persichilli named citizenship judge

Toronto Star

CBC attacks Sun News over Suzuki ‘escort’ claims

CBC president Hubert Lacroix unleashed a ferocious retort against Sun News in front of a government committee Tuesday, saying the newspaper chain and TV network has mislead Canadians in their “outrageous” accusations that the public broadcaster is a hotbed for sexual harassment. National Post