Another sweep for LU

This time, most of the drama between the Lakehead Thunderwolves and the Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks was served up on the ice.
Delayed airplanes, a snowy tarmac and league appeals stepped aside as the two bitter OUA hockey rivals got together for a penalty-ridden, goal-happy 7-5 Lakehead win on Saturday night at Fort William Gardens. The victory leaves the No. 5-ranked Thunderwolves one win or a Western Mustangs‘ loss shy of clinching the top seed in the West conference.
“You want to be playing your best hockey at the end of the season going into the playoffs,” said Thunderwolves centre Tobias Whelan, who scored twice and added two assists. “With nine wins in a row now against some pretty good teams, it‘s good confidence for us.”
Whelan, scoring one of his team‘s five powerplay goals on the night, and Brock McPherson, who set the team points record in a regular season with his 43rd, scored to open the third period and erase a 3-2 Golden Hawks lead. Kris Hogg pushed the lead to 5-3, but J.M. Rizk and Riley Moher of the Golden Hawks scored late to nullify Andrew Brown‘s would-be insurance empty net goal.
Whelan wrapped up Lakehead‘s 21st win of the season – tying a team record – with one last goal into the empty cage.
“We needed two late empty-netters there,” Lakehead coach Don McKee said. “We‘re pretty confident all night long we were taking the play to them.”
Many on both sides, namely McKee, tried to move on from Friday‘s sticky situation when the Golden Hawks arrived at the arena an hour before the scheduled game time due to travel delays and asked for a postponement of the game.
McKee refused, forcing Golden Hawks coach Kelly Nobes, who told reporters after their 3-2 loss on Friday that the Thunderwolves pushed through with the game to continue for monetary purposes over the well-being of his players, to file an appeal to the OUA.
Twenty-four hours and another road loss later, he was short with the media.
“I believe it‘s already gone to the (Laurier athletic director). The process has already started,” he said of the appeal. “It leaves a bad taste in your mouth. I said what I said (Friday) and I‘m not going to get into it now.”
Thanks to the 22 total powerplays handed out by referee Grant Sherred, Saturday‘s win posed another test to the Thunderwolves in another tight game: Don‘t get burned on late penalties. Lakehead killed two of three Golden Hawks man-advantages to survive.
“Late in the game we had to bear down,” defenceman Mitch Maunu said.
Mark Soares and Dan Speer also scored for the Thunderwolves while Kyle Moir made 26 saves, including a stretching block on Luke Girard‘s breakaway attempt in the second period, for the win.
“All in all in the second period, Moir gave us some big saves while they were pressing a little,” McKee said. “I give him a lot of credit for his patience and we were able to get it going in the third.”

Dog Tags: Mike Wehrstedt and Matt Jacques had their families ushered onto centre ice before the game while they were honoured on seniors night. Wehrstedt added an assist – his 100th point in a Lakehead uniform – in the win. . . . Lakehead (21-3-1) wraps up the regular season on the road next weekend with a game against Toronto and two games against Western. Should they clinch the top seed, they wouldn‘t open the playoffs until the conference semifinals on Feb. 20. . . . Hogg left the game late in the third period after colliding with a Laurier player. He was favouring his left leg, but returned to watch the end of the game from the bench.

Migrants are China's 'factories without smoke'

HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- In the crowds still stranded by snow at train stations around China stand some of the country's most valuable economic assets: migrant workers.

This group of 150 million to 200 million farmers -- more than the population of the United Kingdom, France and Australia combined -- account for the majority of employees in China's world-beating manufacturing sector, the bulk of its coal miners and most of its construction workers.

During the past two decades, according to a conservative estimate from UNESCO and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, migrants have contributed 16 percent of gross domestic product growth.

Living for years at a time in coastal cities, China's migrant workers have built the country's skyscrapers and assembled its exports, sending tens of billions of dollars in earnings home to their families in poor inland provinces. For the workers known as "factories without smoke," the Chinese New Year holiday that starts in less than a week is often their only annual vacation.

The forces that brought these smokeless factories to the cities took shape in the early 1980s, when Beijing, as part of an easing of central controls on the economy, loosened internal mobility regulations. Farmers have been pouring out of the countryside ever since, in what is believed to be the world's largest internal migration.

They leave for mostly economic reasons: wages in the cities are higher than what workers could earn at home. And life there, many find, is more exciting than back on the farm.

Today, migrants dominate the Chinese labor force in dirty and dangerous trades: 70 percent of construction workers, 68 percent of manufacturing employees, and 80 percent of coal miners are migrant workers. But not all are on their hands and knees. More than 60 percent of staff in the service trade, according to state media, are migrants as well.

On average, migrants tend to be among the best educated people in their villages. Still, many have little more than a junior high school diploma. Many migrate as teenagers, often with friends or neighbors, leaving behind their family in the countryside. More than half are men, but the toy and shoe factories of southern China prefer women -- they are easier to control, managers say, and their fingers more nimble.

Wages vary by city and company, but many migrants in export factories in the south take home about Rmb1,000 a month ($139) -- or even more. They sleep 12 to a room in bunkbed dormitories furnished by their employers, working six and sometimes seven days a week for months at a time. Wages are not always paid on time, occasionally not at all.

Victims of occupational disease, lacking of insurance

As little as a fifth of migrant workers in southern China's Guangdong province, according to one Hong Kong non-governmental organization, have medical insurance. China's household registration or hukou system links social benefits to the place where one is registered, and most migrants are still registered in their rural hometowns, hundreds of miles away from where they work. About 90 percent of the victims of occupational disease in China are migrants.

These migrants' schedules are dictated by the fluctuations of demand from their foreign customers: winter is peak season for lawn furniture factories, for example. But most of the factories in southern China are busiest in summer, as they fill orders for the Christmas season.

Many of these plants close for the first months of the year and take the Chinese New Year holiday off, triggering an exodus of migrants as those who can afford the train and bus tickets travel home to see their families.
Much has changed since Chinese farmers began arriving in the cities two decades ago. Some of today's migrant workers are "second generation" -- the sons and daughters of the first generation of migrant workers. Most were born after China introduced a family planning policy in 1979, so they come from smaller families. Second generation migrants tend to be more demanding employees: they are pickier about where they work, preferring factories with better facilities and wages.

Their preferences, along with a rapid growth in factories in the Yangtze River Delta around Shanghai and a rise in rural incomes, have contributed to labor shortages in Guangdong province in the last several years. In response, the government is raising the minimum wage and strengthening labor laws. Forced to compete for workers for the first time in more than a decade, factory managers are building basketball courts and libraries, installing air conditioners and improving their cafeteria menus.
Beijing, too, is realizing the importance of migrant workers as a political constituency. The state-controlled labor union, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, is targeting migrants in a recruitment drive. The government is expanding insurance coverage for migrant workers.

State media cover their hardships regularly. "Migrant Workers: We Need Them Just Like They Need Us," read one headline in the China Daily last March. As the appearance of premier Wen Jiabao at the packed Guangzhou train station this week illustrated, migrants are crucial to keeping China's economic development on track.

Clinton Advisers Criticize Obama Mailer

(AP) Advisers to Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton Friday complained vehemently about a Barack Obama campaign mailer that criticizes Clinton's health plan, with one adviser likening the mailer to "Nazis marching through Skokie, Illinois."

Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson disavowed the analogy leveled by Len Nichols, a health policy expert at the New America Foundation who has consulted with Clinton and other candidates on their proposals.

But the remark still reflected the emotional dispute over how best to achieve universal health care, a key concern of many Democratic primary voters.

The Obama mailer, which the Clinton campaign traced to mailboxes in North Dakota and Alaska, shows a young couple sitting at a table, appearing to puzzle over a stack of bills.

"Hillary's plan forces everyone to buy insurance, even if you can't afford it," the headline reads.

On a conference call with reporters, Clinton advisers complained the image and the message closely resembled the $100 million "Harry and Louise" TV ad campaign waged by the insurance industry in 1994 to kill the former first lady's effort to reshape the health care system. In those ads, a middle class couple sat at a table worrying about the Clinton plan's complexities and wondering if they might lose the right to choose their own doctors.

Clinton campaign policy director Neera Tanden said the mailer falsely suggests that the New York senator's plan wouldn't bring down costs. She noted that Clinton would offer tax subsidies to help pay for insurance and would seek other cost controls before enforcing a mandate to buy coverage.

Obama, Tanden said, "betrays the cause of universal health care. For a potential Democratic nominee to be attacking universal care is quite stunning."

Nichols of the New America Foundation went farther.

"I am personally outraged at the picture used in this mailing," Nichols, a supporter of the so-called universal mandate said. "It is as outrageous as having Nazis march through Skokie, Illinois."

In late 1970s, the American Nazi party won a court battle over the right to march through the predominantly Jewish Chicago suburb of Skokie, home to many Holocaust survivors. Despite their victory, the white supremacists decided to hold their demonstration in a Chicago park instead.

While both Clinton and Obama have outlined detailed plans to make health care more affordable and accessible, Clinton would require everyone to carry insurance while Obama would make enrollment voluntary. The two have clashed repeatedly over the matter, with Obama saying people cannot be required to buy insurance if they can't afford it, and Clinton saying universal enrollment is the only way to bring down insurance costs.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton responded by pointing to comments by Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, a longtime champion of universal health care who endorsed Obama earlier this week.

"It's the passion of my life, universal comprehensive health care, and I wouldn't support Barack Obama unless I was absolutely convinced that he was for universal comprehensive health care as well," Kennedy said in a television interview. "I've tried for 38 years to get the universal comprehensive health care. I've supported 12 different proposals to try to get there. Elect Barack Obama and we will get there."