Recently the Toronto Media Co-op took a look at the winners and losers in the stampede for Libya's oil resources.

Today, the Toronto Star outlined the Canadian companies entering the fray:

“As I’m sure you would expect, we’re watching the situation extremely carefully and waiting to see how it all unfolds,” said Kelli Stevens, a spokesperson with Calgary-based Suncor.

“The biggest thing is that if we were to go back we would want to do so safely, responsibly, in compliance with sanctions.”

The energy firm, working in partnership with the state-owned National Oil Corporation, was producing about 50,000 barrels of oil a day before the uprising.

A spokesperson for Montreal’s SNC Lavalin, which was working on an irrigation project and building a prison and airport when the uprising began, said they’re still monitoring the situation in Libya.

“For the moment, our position is unchanged. Our projects are still on hold, and we intend to return to Libya once the situation is resolved and diplomatic relations are re-established,” said Leslie Quinton.

Both Suncor and SNC-Lavalin have been featured in the Media Co-op Investor series.

Last month, a white, far-right, Christian fundamentalist in Olso, Norway orchestrated a terror-attack which bombed downtown Olso and killed between 60-70 people and injured close to 100 others on at a Labour-party youth camp near the Norwegian capital.

Friends of the Media Co-op in Norway have offered the following thoughts on the attacks:

 

"I haven't done anything except reading and watching the news since Friday. It has been terrible days for Norway, and obviously many of us knew people who got killed or who had friends that was killed. I am doing ok, as is my closest friends and family. However, I just found out yesterday that I knew one of the girls that was killed in the bombing of Oslo centre, so it is quite hard to go to work today. The way Norway has reacted to the tragedy helps us cope with the meaningless violence. It was beautiful to see more than 200 000 people stand united outside the Oslo city hall on Monday and to see the vast ocean of flowers outside the cathedral."

 

Bjoern

 

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"We are all affected in some way or another. Small country... Needless to say we are all shocked and disgusted to our deepest guts. But we aren't going to be all hysterical like Fox News about it. Instead we'll counter it with showing each other love and respect. 

 

"Names of the deceased are being announced little by little. First five or six yesterday. The rest in the following days."

Geir

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"Norway is now slowly coming back to its normal state, and newspapers are beginning to get filled with the normal gossip again.(and some newspapers are even starting to report from the killings in syria!)

I am very happy that the killer was a blond Norwegian and not a Muslim. By the way  this totally surprised the secret police, they havent monitored racists since a Norwegian killed an adopted child in 2001. At that time the police knew about the killing almost before it was committed, but this year they were searching for the muslims while the killer drove towards the island where he continued his crime.

Now the anti-immigrant forces are on the defensive, it is difficult for them to speak in public about their beliefs, and it will be very interesting to see how the political debate will be in the time to come....

With the speed and degree of attack breathtaking but anticipated, Julian Assange has officially pissed off almost ever government in the world and is now being targetted financially, criminally and physically.

Numerous different articles in the Guardian and CBC have outlined the fight both Wikileaks and Assange are facing.

On the financial attacks:

The international pressure on Julian Assange increased today after the banking arm of the Swiss post office [PostFinance] announced that it had closed the WikiLeaks founder's account because he had given "false information".

PostFinance is the latest institution to sever its ties with Assange and WikiLeaks. Last week, Amazon.com withdrew its hosting of WikiLeaks' cables site and the WikiLeaks.org domain was taken offline by Everydns.net. On Saturday, PayPal, which is owned by the auction website eBay, froze WikiLeaks' account, saying it was being used for "illegal" activity. - Guardian

None of these companies took action against Wikileaks with the posting of the Afghan and Iraqi warlogs.

On criminal attacks:

[Wikileaks lawyers] Jennifer Robinson and Mark Stephens of the law firm Finers Stephens Innocent told the Guardian they had been watched by people parked outside their houses for the past week.

"I've noticed people consistently sitting outside my house in the same cars with newspapers," said Robinson. "I probably noticed certain things a week ago, but mostly it's been the last three or four days."

Stephens told BBC1's Andrew Marr Show: "It is quite bizarre, because the chief prosecutor in Sweden dropped the entire case against him, saying there was absolutely nothing for him to find back in September, and then a few weeks later on – after the intervention of a Swedish politician – a new prosecutor, not in Stockholm where Julian and these women had been, but in Gothenburg, began a new case which has resulted in these warrants and the Interpol Red Notice being put out." - Guardian

On death threats:

Former U.S. Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who is widely expected to run for president in 2012, has called the former computer hacker an "anti-American operative with blood on his hands" and accused Obama of...

From a CBC review of the new the Omar Khadr documentary, You Don't Like the Truth: 4 Days Inside Guantanamo:

"Even Damien Corsetti, who was a U.S. interrogator at Bagram prison – where Khadr was detained before going to Guantánamo – is dismayed at his treatment. Corsetti, who describes himself as a monster in the interrogation room, went easy on the young man: "When I saw him at Bagram, he was a typical 15-year-old kid. He was still a child. That was what was prevalent in him, the child,” Corsetti says in the doc.

"Canadian people need to look at themselves and figure out who they are," Corsetti later claims. "There have been elections since Omar was captured, so now ultimately the blame lies on the Canadian people. Why is it that I, as a cold, callous son-of-a-bitch, had more compassion for that boy than his own people?"