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Harper to aid evacuation
PARIS (CP) - Prime Minister Stephen Harper is flying to Cyprus where he intends to take up to 120 evacuees from Lebanon home to Canada on his Canadian Forces plane. It's a start. Apparently there are over 40,000 dual Canadian Lebanese citizens travelling/living in Lebanon. Who knew? Not known is how many of those are also card carrying Hezbollah Harper announced the surprise side trip on his week-long European diplomatic tour after a meeting with French President Jacques Chirac at the Elysee Palace on Wednesday afternoon. "Because of the seriousness of the situation and our relative proximity to Cyprus, we have decided to take the Canadian Forces aircraft we have been travelling on to help airlift evacuees back home," Harper said in a statement. "The aircraft will be stripped down to a skeleton staff." Media travelling with the prime minister have been bumped to commercial flights for their return home to Canada. Reporters booted for refugees! WTF. Only Harper's wife, Laureen, a couple of his communications staff and his official photographer, will join him on the 3 1/2-hour flight to Cyprus where the first boatload of Canadian evacuees from Beirut was expected to arrive in the port of Larnaca sometime on Wednesday. Posted by: john 2006-07-19 |
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