NewsCloud.com Vancouver News http://www.newscloud.com/section/vancouver Fri, 29 Aug 2008 11:33:14 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 en-us Tickets to 2010 Vancouver Games go on sale in October http://www.newscloud.com/read/Tickets_to_2010_Vancouver_Games_go_on_sale_in_October Prepare to get screwed: Vancouver organizers will place the bulk of the 1.6 million tickets on sale in October, with a lottery through the Games' Web site, www.vancouver2010.com. But American fans won't be able to simply get in line online with Canadians. Those tickets, ranging in price from $25 for cross-country skiing to $1,100 for the opening ceremony, will be sold only to Canadian residents. Americans will need to pursue a separate procedure, purchasing through Jet Set Sports, the sole agency licensed to resell Vancouver 2010 tickets in America.

]]> GM Place to change name for 2010 Olympics http://www.newscloud.com/read/GM_Place_to_change_name_for_2010_Olympics General Motors Place will get a new name stripped of corporate marks during the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, the organizing committee said Wednesday.

]]> Rush of Homes on Vancouver Market: Prices to Slide? http://www.newscloud.com/read/Rush_of_Homes_on_Vancouver_Market_Prices_to_Slide Vancouver has long had extremely high real estate prices: The number of homes for sale tipped 20,000 on Friday and is still climbing. Paul Boenisch, a popular blogger who runs the North Vancouver Homes blog was the first to announce the turn of the dial: "20,000 listings. Is this the top???" This time last year, there were around 12,000 listings for sale, and it was, to use the blogger lingo, a bullish seller's market. But when there are more listings, and the sellers outnumber the buyers, the theory goes that it becomes a buyer's market -- the law of supply and demand.

]]> Wanted: A Real Climate Change Vision http://www.newscloud.com/read/Wanted_A_Real_Climate_Change_Vision What Campbell gets wrong, that ordinary BCers have right. British Columbia's carbon tax holds the potential to inspire a new vision: to transform the economy from the brown, carbon-based solutions of the past to the clean, green sustainable solutions of the future. The citizens of British Columbia understand how crucial this transformation is. Poll after poll

confirms

that British Columbians and Canadians are worried about global warming and want action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution. British Columbians want to change; they just need some leadership.

]]> Smoking ban considered for Vancouver beaches http://www.newscloud.com/read/Smoking_ban_considered_for_Vancouver_beaches Having a smoke at the beach may soon be an illegal act, if staff at Vancouver Coastal Health get their way.

]]> Police probing reports of man targeting aboriginal women with date-rape drug http://www.newscloud.com/read/Police_probing_reports_of_man_targeting_aboriginal_women_with_daterape_drug Vancouver police have confirmed they are investigating reports that a man using a date-rape drug has been targeting aboriginal women in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. A man has been preying on the women at a particular bar and spiking their drinks, Marlene George, a longtime community worker at the Carnegie Centre, told CBC News on Tuesday.

]]> Vancouver power outage could take days to repair: BC Hydro http://www.newscloud.com/read/Vancouver_power_outage_could_take_days_to_repair_BC_Hydro A fire Monday morning knocked out power to skyscrapers and buildings throughout Vancouver's downtown core, causing traffic nightmares in the city and Internet woes all over North America. Power was cut to more than 2,200 Hydro customers, many of them major employers in the city.

]]> The Culture of Meat http://www.newscloud.com/read/The_Culture_of_Meat Food safety scares as well as animal welfare, human health and environmental concerns have no doubt given Canadians many reasons to rethink where our meat comes from. There's just one problem: meat that may be safer (that which is healthier, more humanely produced and has less of an overall ecological impact) is not always readily available. This is especially the case in British Columbia. Prior to October 2007, it was legal for a British Columbian to show up at a farm and purchase meat from a farmer. That choice is no longer afforded to anyone because all meat sold in the province must now be processed at a federally or provincially licensed facility.

]]> A buyer's market in Vancouver still no bargain http://www.newscloud.com/read/A_buyer_s_market_in_Vancouver_still_no_bargain According to The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, Canada's most expensive market is in "a buyer's phase," but the cost of an average detached home is still $305,878 higher than the national average. The Canadian Real Estate Association lists the average price in May 2008 for a property in Canada as $318, 761, where houses in Vancouver are listed at an average of $624,639. According to the numbers from June 2008 released by REBGV, a typical detached residential property in Greater Vancouver sells for $765,654. That's a change of seven per cent over one year and 89.5 per cent over five years. A typical apartment will cost $388,722, a change of 7.8 per cent over one year and 105.2% over five years.

]]> Court gives B.C. safe-injection site one-year reprieve http://www.newscloud.com/read/Court_gives_BC_safeinjection_site_oneyear_reprieve The controversial safe-injection site here that allows addicts to shoot up illegal drugs in a safe environment won a major court victory Tuesday, shielding the facility from a threat of being closed by the federal Conservative government for at least another year...

]]> Vancouver's Bed Bug Plague http://www.newscloud.com/read/Vancouver_s_Bed_Bug_Plague At least once a week in Vancouver, bug exterminator Mark Amery enters a private home, lifts a mattress and watches the box spring move with blood-sucking vermin. It's an optical illusion caused by up to a thousand twitching bed bugs, each no larger than a lentil, which are infesting more houses, rental apartments and hotel rooms in Vancouver today than at any point in the city's modern history.

]]> Vancouver Olympics security cameras raise privacy concerns http://www.newscloud.com/read/Vancouver_Olympics_security_cameras_raise_privacy_concerns The RCMP plans to install hundreds of closed-circuit television cameras for security during the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, CBC News has learned. Under the plan, cameras would be placed at approximately 100 Olympic sites, including both athletic and public celebration venues.

]]> Green Party staple opts for new Vision http://www.newscloud.com/read/Green_Party_staple_opts_for_new_Vision For years, Andrea Reimer and the civic Green Party were inextricably linked in Vancouver politics. Not anymore. The 36-year-old activist left the party in March to co-chair NDP MLA Gregor Robertson's Vision Vancouver mayoral nomination campaign.

]]> Doctors to visit poorest Vancouver residents to free up hospital beds http://www.newscloud.com/read/Doctors_to_visit_poorest_Vancouver_residents_to_free_up_hospital_beds In a bid to reduce the number of hospital beds being taken up by the homeless and drug addicts in Vancouver, doctors will soon be making house-calls to those who live in single room occupancy (SRO) hotels in the Downtown Eastside. Many residents of the Downtown Eastside are seriously ill, often the result of drug use and hard living on the streets, said Lorna House, the director of mental health for the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority. By the time they get to a hospital, she said, they often need long-term care.

]]> Safe-injection site mounts constitutional challenge http://www.newscloud.com/read/Safeinjection_site_mounts_constitutional_challenge The operators of Canada's only supervised safe-injection site are launching a constitutional challenge they hope will bolster their ability to continue operating the controversial facility in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. The Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users and the Portland Hotel Society, which operate the site, are scheduled to appear in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver on Monday morning.

]]>