Bản tin tiếng Anh - Canada now

Bản tin tiếng Anh - Canada now

Bản tin đầu tiên dành cho ai quan tâm đến Giáo Dục. Bản tin cho ta thấy chất lượng giáo dục của 3 trường Đại học nằm tại Vancouver được các sinh viên đánh giá thế nào. Khả năng kiếm được việc làm của sinh viên theo học tại trường University of British Columbia (UBC) khi tốt nghiệp được đánh giá cao hơn so với Simon Fraser University (SFU) và University of Victoria. Nhưng thực tế chất lượng giáo dục của SFU cao hơn so với UBC.

B.C. schools fare poorly in university poll
Students, officials dismiss results as just ''''''''unscientific'''''''' opinions

Wendy McLellan
The Province



B.C. university students have lots of complaints about the quality of their education and the services they get on campus, according *****rvey results released yesterday. More than 26,000 students across Canada answered an online questionnaire to rate their university experiences -- and B.C.''''''''s three largest universities were given poor grades compared to some of the country''''''''s other institutions.The results puzzled student groups and university officials. The University of B.C. -- which is ranked as one of Canada''''''''s top five schools in other surveys -- ranked 36th of 38 universities for its quality of education. The University of Victoria and Simon Fraser University, also in the country''''''''s top five institutions, were rated 15th and 16th for quality of education. SFU was near the bottom of the list for "atmosphere" while UVic was ranked third. None of the three B.C. universities earned high marks for their campus bars.

The University Report Card was produced by two Canadian market-research companies, Uthink and The Strategic Counsel. Students at 64 universities answered questions about their education and life on campus. "Ninety-nine per cent of students have nothing to compare their education to," said Summer McFadyen, B.C. chairwoman of the Canadian Federation of Students. "It seems like more of a survey of school pride than on the actual quality of education. Is it useful? I''''''''m not really sure." Warren Gill, ice-president of university relations at Simon Fraser University, said the survey results seem to favour schools in Eastern Canada, particularly the smaller campuses. "Some of this is really bizarre," Gill said. "We''''''''re asking questions all the time, and student satisfaction is pretty high." Gill said B.C.''''''''s biggest hurdle is access -- increasing demand and too few seats at the universities mean students must achieve very high marks -- more than 80 per cent -- in high school to gain admission. Oana Chirila, president of UBC''''''''s student society, questioned her university''''''''s poor ranking and the survey methodology. "This is a very, very subjective survey," Chirila said. "It is not scientific, and it is based on opinions, not data." Sara Rozell of SFU''''''''s student society said the survey is not terribly useful to students investigating their post-secondary education choices. Brian Sullivan, UBC''''''''s vice-president of student services, said the university always wants to hear from students. "We take feedback, however it comes," he said. "On the other hand, it is a bit of a puzzlement. Some of it doesn''''''''t match our own research and surveys." He said UBC is continually looking to improve services for students. "I think we''''''''re doing a pretty good job, but we could do better," Sullivan said.

Complete survey results are available at www.universityreportcard.com


THE RANKING

Here''s how the University of Victoria, Simon Fraser University and the University of B.C. ranked in selected categories out of 38 schools in a student survey released yesterday:

Quality of education: UVic 15,

SFU 16, UBC 34.

Campus atmosphere: UVic 10, UBC 13, SFU 36.

Course variety: UVic 14, UBC 26, SFU 36.

Career opportunities: UBC 24, SFU 26, UVic 27.

Campus buildings/facilities: UVic 8, UBC 14, SFU 33.

Off-campus environment: UVic 5, UBC 24, SFU 26.





Được luongvec sửa chữa / chuyển vào 16:24 ngày 17/10/2003

hêh bình luận chẳng có ý kiến gì êhh! chỉ thấy bác nào học tại B.C thì có ý kiến thôi ehhe~! nói chung là BAD!
hải

Number of street people surges
Welfare changes, rising housing costs blamed for increase

Frances Bula
Vancouver Sun
Homelessness has risen dramatically in the past year throughout the Lower Mainland, according to a report to be issued next month by Greater Vancouver''s regional steering committee on homelessness.
Changes to welfare and rising housing costs are the main reasons given by those dealing with the problem, says Verna Semotuk, a planner with the Greater Vancouver regional district and the chair of the committee for the past two years. Added to that are cuts to services for the mentally ill, people with addictions, and young people.
Semotuk said the region''s main shelters in Surrey, Maple Ridge, Richmond, the North Shore, and New Westminster indicated they are turning more people away from shelters and seeing more signs of visible homelessness, from people sleeping in public doorways to camping in parks and beside rail lines.
Although the committee hasn''t got firm numbers yet -- it is hoping to get the money to do an organized count that replicates a study done in January 2002 -- Semotuk said there was no mistaking the trends in the accounts presented by different, geographically separated groups.
"It''s so consistent that we place great credibility in it," she said.
This summer, researchers gathered information on current trends from about 100 sources -- municipalities and shelters, drop-in and transition house operators -- in preparation for applying for $25 million of federal money to help reduce homelessness.
What they heard was that almost everyone was seeing increased volumes from January 2002, when the first region-wide count of the homeless indicated there were about 1,200 people using shelters or sleeping on the streets in one night. About 700 were sleeping in shelters and 500 were counted out on the streets.
"There was real frustration among the service providers because they felt they had made great strides in the past three years, but then they were cut off at the knees because of provincial policies," Semotuk said. Among those organizations that keep statistics, more than 5,000 turnaways were recorded last winter throughout the region.
In Surrey, where the homeless number was put at 160 in the January 2002 count, a May 2003 count showed about 250 sleeping in shelters and on the street.
About 60 people a night are staying at the Front Room, a drop-in centre in Whalley, even though they have to sit in chairs and sleep with their heads on the centre''s tables.
The agency isn''t allowed to open its shelter beds until Nov. 1 because Surrey council turned down a down a request to open earlier. Nov. 1 has been set as the regional start for winter shelters.
Community agencies and businesses in Surrey say they''re seeing more people sleeping outside.
"They''re in doorways, in empty lots, wherever they can find an empty corner," said Dianne Bolton, the director of the Whalley Business Association, recently formed in part to find a way to deal with the homelessness issue.
In Maple Ridge, Salvation Army shelter operator Kathy Chiu said her operation is bracing for an onslaught this winter after seeing the numbers grow drastically since the shelter opened two years ago.
"We could not believe it," she said. "We were asking, ''What happened to Maple Ridge?'' "
When the winter shelter opened in 2001/2002, operators thought it might see five or 10 people a night. It averaged 13. The next winter, shelter workers saw two or three dozen every night.
Now the municipality has a year-round shelter whose 14 beds are already full every night and RCMP recently reported it has identified 30 to 35 people living outside.
"They''re all over the place," Chiu said. "Wherever there''s patches of woods, they''re there."
In Richmond, where the 10-bed shelter takes in people from all over the region, operators have been turning away almost twice as many people this fall as they did last year at this time.
In North Vancouver, where the St. James Society opened a youth shelter in coordination with the three North Shore municipalities, the shelter has had to turn away an unusually high number of kids, 303, since it opened in December.
St. James spokesman John van Luven said the shelter, which did take in 200 young people, has to keep them much longer than was originally anticipated because it is so difficult to get them help from a provincial government system that has been downsized.
"We just can''t get hold of MCFD [the ministry of children and family development], they just don''t return calls," said van Luven, whose organization is also the biggest housing provider in the Downtown Eastside. "I think we''re in for a rough winter."
The North Vancouver shelter, which originally anticipated it would have to keep young people about 10 days before it could find them housing or support elsewhere, now is keeping them for more than a month.
Michael Goldberg, research director of the Social Planning and Research Council, which compiled the data for the regional homelessness committee, said everyone reported feeling more pressure.
"Even the turnaways at transition houses were up, and they reporting that they were getting women who were not fleeing abuse but just looking for shelter," he said.
B.C. has tra***ionally had less of a homelessness problem than other regions of Canada and even North America, which many have attributed to its strong social-housing program.
While Toronto has had 4,000 people in shelters and on the streets on any given night since the mid 1990s, Vancouver, which has the highest number of shelter beds and outdoor homeless in the region, typically would get only about 400 at the worst.
Homelessness appeared on the horizon as a new social problem in the 1980s. Researchers have struggled to pinpoint the causes of the complex phenomenon. Some that have been identified include the loss of cheap hotel rooms, as cities imposed higher standards or sites were redeveloped, the de-institutionalization of the mentally ill, and the waves of new kinds of illegal drugs that made people less able to hang on to housing than previous groups of alcoholics and heroin addicts.
A booming economy can actually increase homelessness levels, paradoxically, since it pushes housing prices higher and encourages more people to live on their own, reducing the stock of housing available for the poor.
There is typically a considerable amount of "churn" among the homeless, with only a small core of people remaining homeless for extended periods, so a one-night count indicates that a much greater number of people would have experienced homelessness throughout the year.
In Toronto, for example, where about 4,000 people use the shelter system or sleep out on any given night, it''s estimated that about 41,000 people experience homelessness at some point in a given year in the region.
In April 2002, the provincial government announced a multitude of changes to the welfare system to take effect in July, lowering the amount of money people would receive in eight of the 12 categories of income assistance. New eligibility rules stipulated people couldn''t get welfare unless they had had two years of continuous employment at some point after they turned 19.
"That really affected First Nations kids who''d been in foster care," said Judy Graves, a city of Vancouver worker.

Vấn đề same-*** marriage được hợp pháp hoá hay không vẫn còn đang có rất nhiều sự canh cãi ,có nhiều phái ủng hộ ,ngược lại ,lại có nhiều tổ chức tôn giáo phản đối gay gắt ,nhất là Catholics .
Bài viết sau đây ,là những ý kiến tranh luận của hội đồng The Supreme Court of Canada .Trích từ Toronto Star .

Top court won''t hear gay marriage appeal​

(Federal government has asked judges to help frame new law)
The Supreme Court of Canada ruled 5-0 to refuse two right-wing coalitions a chance to challenge an Ontario Court of Appeal judgment after Ottawa refused to do so.
Last June, the Ontario court struck down the legal definition of marriage ?" the union of one man and one woman ?" saying it violates equality rights.
The Supreme Court did not give reasons today for refusing to hear the case, as is usual in applications for leave to appeal.
Advocates of same-*** marriage cast the ruling as a historic victory, but others cautioned that it was a narrow, technical ruling.
The coalitions weren?Tt losers in the original case and therefore should not be allowed to appeal, said Justice Minister Martin Cauchon.
?oIt?Ts just a little bend in the river,? said Gwen Landolt with REAL Women of Canada. ?oNothing has been resolved.?
The conservative women?Ts group was among two religious and family coalitions that tried to step in where Ottawa left off.
The Association for Marriage and the Family in Ontario and the Interfaith Coalition on Marriage and Family said changing the century-old marriage definition is too profound an issue for lower courts or a sharply divided Parliament.
They wanted the top court to decide if the tra***ional definition of marriage is constitutional.
Rather than challenging the Ontario ruling, the Liberal government drafted legislation to legalize same-*** weddings. It has sent the bill to the Supreme Court for an opinion on its constitutionality.
Focus now shifts to an April high-court hearing on the draft bill, Landolt said.
REAL Women will join a host of groups seeking intervener status to press their case that hetero***ual marriage should be preserved.
A similar case in Quebec could also makes its way to the top court, Landolt said.
The Catholic Civil Rights League and the Evangelical Christian Fellowship are appealing a lower-court ruling that tra***ional marriage is unconstitutional. The case is to be heard at the Quebec Court of Appeal in January.
Ottawa also refused to fight that judgment, but this time the religious groups are parties with rights to appeal in that case.
Supporters of same-*** marriage were elated at today?Ts high-court ruling.
?oSame-*** marriages are now, and will always be, legal in two provinces which make up over half the population of Canada,? said lawyer Martha McCarthy.
She represented seven Ontario same-*** couples who successfully quashed the coalitions?T appeal bid.
?oThis ruling today is reassuring news for the thousands of legally married same-*** couples across this country.?
Gay weddings in Ontario and British Columbia have been performed since the top courts in those provinces struck down the tra***ional marriage definition.
?oThe hands of time cannot be turned back on equality for lesbian and gay couples,? said Alex Munter, spokesman for Canadians for Equal Marriage.
?oThe only question is: when will the federal government extend this equality to all Canadians??
That?Ts uncertain at best, said Patrick Monahan, dean of Osgoode Hall law school in Toronto.
Same-*** marriage legislation drafted under Prime Minister Jean Chrétien could change when Paul Martin takes over by February, he said.
?oThere may be other ways of defining other categories of marriage that have not been considered.?T
Martin has said he supports the government?Ts approach, but has also left a wide escape hatch, saying other options may be put on the table and they would need to be ?oexamined very carefully.?
Beo dat may troi chon xa xoi ,em oi anh van doi van cho

Có vẻ có vấn đề rồi đây nhỉ, chị hoahonggay box nhà mình đang định lấy chồng, thế mà cái thằng cha Paul Martin lại đi phá bỏ luật hôn nhân của những người đồng tính luyến ái thế này mới bựcr23)]. Bực hơn nữa cha đang đi hưởng tuần chăng mật mới tức chứ, cha được cưới vợ thì cũng để những người đồng tính luyến ái lấy vợ lấy chồng với chứ. Mà ông Jean Chrétien làm thủ tướng cũng khá lâu rồi còn gì. Hì hì hì...giới đồng tính luyến ái ở Canada cũng khá đông, tất cả bỏ phiếu cho ông làm thêm một nhiệm kỳ nữa thì mọi cái ổn ngay í mà

Massive hunt for missing girl​

​

Grade 4 student believed snatched from her home
Police comb through trash at transfer station
Police were to step up a massive kidnap investigation this morning for a 9-year-old girl feared snatched from her North York bedroom.
Scores of officers combed through garbage at the Victoria Park Transfer Station last night, stuffing four bags with items picked up from the mounds of trash.
Earlier in the evening, a couple of addresses in Brampton were checked by Peel Region police following reports of a suspicious car possibly connected to the disappearance.
Other officers continued to knock on doors in the quiet, tree-lined neighbourhood west of Finch Ave. E. and Highway 404 as a police helicopter cruised overhead, its powerful searchlight sweeping the darkened area
A broken screen on an upper rear window could be seen from the backyard of the house.
The Grade 4 student, who is 4-foot-11, is Asian with straight, black hair with blonde highlights, and brown eyes.
She was last seen by her parents when she went to bed Sunday night in the family''s two-storey detached home at 33 Whitehorn Cr.
Jan Barr of Child Find Ontario said stranger abductions are "absolutely rare," adding there was 35 last year in Canada. But she also said "time is of the essence because statistics show the first 24 hours are crucial in stranger abductions."
Barr was at the scene handing out colour posters with information about Cecilia.
"The studies say 75 per cent of those end in unfortunate circumstances, others show 90 per cent end in unfortunate circumstances ?" in other words the child is not found alive."
Last night, at an on-site briefing, Sergeant Jim Muscat acknowledged Barr''s concern. "The longer this goes, the more concerned we get."
uhoh lại bắt cóc trẻ em ,mà nạn nhân toàn là những bé gái trên dưới chục tuổi
--) Canada lắm thằng điên thật
Beo dat may troi chon xa xoi ,em oi anh van doi van cho

Bài báo dưới đây cho ta thấy một vấn đề đau đầu của xã hội ở Canada, nạn hút cần xa của học sinh, sinh viên cao đến mức báo động. Điều đáng trách là ngay cả trên TV và phim ảnh thì ma tuý vẫn xuất hiện, điều này dẫn đến sự tò mò của những học sinh, sinh viên chưa làm chủ được hành động của mình.
Marijuana tops tobacco among teens
Youth cannabis use hits 25-year peak

Janice Tibbetts and Dave Rogers
The Ottawa Citizen
Wednesday, October 29, 2003
Canadian teens are more likely to smoke marijuana than tobacco, according to a new national survey.
A poll of 1,250 12-to-19 year olds revealed that getting high is once again "mainstream," says a Health Canada representative.
The results suggest the greatest cannabis use among young people in 25 years.
Health Canada gave a preliminary report of its findings last week to a House of Commons committee holding hearings on a bill that would decriminalize marijuana, but stiffen penalties against grow operations.
"Research we have conducted on 12-to 19-year-olds shows us that marijuana has gone mainstream and is well integrated into teen lifestyle," reported Linda Dabros, a special adviser to Health Canada''''s director general of drug strategy.
Fifty-four per cent of 15-to 19 year-olds said they had smoked marijuana more than once. When 12-to 14-year-olds were added to the mix, however, the overall numbers dropped to 34 per cent.
Cigarette smoking, on the other hand, continues to decline among young people, with the latest national figures showing that 22 per cent of teens light up regularly.
The nationwide findings are mirrored in a similar study by the regional health and social services board in the Outaouais, where marijuana has surpassed cigarettes as one of the two most popular drugs among high school students.
Marthe Deschênes, a researcher with the Régie régionale de la santé et des services sociaux de l''''Outaouais said yesterday a 2002 survey showed 30 per cent of high school students used marijuana more than once a month.
That compared to 24 per cent who smoked cigarettes. The board''''s study was based on a survey of 2,180 students in 23 public and private high schools.
The 275-page study asked English- and French-speaking students in public and private schools about their family life, work, smoking, drinking, drug use, Internet habits and mental health. The report was the third in a series conducted previously in 1991 and 1996.
It showed that alcohol remained the drug of choice among high school students, with 55 per cent drinking at least occasionally. That figure is virtually unchanged from numbers recorded in 1991 and 1996.
Ms. Deschênes said cigarette consumption among teenagers declined after 1996 because of increases in cigarette prices. She said marijuana has become more popular than cigarettes in recent years because it is widely available.
"You can see cannabis culture everywhere, even on TV," Ms. Deschênes said. "There are people older than the teenagers -- even parents with children at school -- who sell it. "
Teen marijuana smokers appear to be imitating their baby-boom parents, said Richard Garlick, a spokesman for the Canadian Centre for Substance Abuse.
"Youth rates are going up and are at levels that we haven''''t seen since the late ''''70s when rates reached their peak," said Mr. Garlick.
A survey of Ontario high-school students, conducted by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, also showed an upswing through the 1990s after a large drop in the 1980s. Of 4,894 students polled in 1999, 29.3 per cent said they had used marijuana while 28.3 had smoked.
The national telephone survey was conducted in August, with four to five follow-up discussions online with participants.
Ms. Dabros said that teens appear to be confused about the state of the federal pot law. It is a criminal offence to smoke marijuana, but the federal Liberals have proposed legislation to decriminalize possession of less than 15 grams so that people would be fined rather than criminally charged.
The survey is one of the first that the federal government has done in a decade to measure the extent of Canada''''s drug problem. The Health Department intends to use the data for an anti-marijuana campaign that is being developed to prevent teens from smoking their first joint.
The last national survey involving young people and drugs, done in 1994, showed that one-third of 15-to-24 year olds had tried marijuana.
Health Department spokeswoman Catherine Saunders said the government, in the latest survey, questioned teens about how often they smoke drugs, but that those figures are still to be analysed.
Bill Baker, president of the Ontario School Counsellors Association, said he suspects that only a small minority of teens smoke marijuana regularly and that it is not "just flaunted everywhere" in schools.
"I think it''''s very dependent on the school and the clientele at the school," Mr. Baker said. At his small high school in southern Ontario, for instance, police drug dogs do periodic checks but have failed to find anything, he said.
Addiction centres worry about the dangerous mix of drugs and alcohol, considering that the numbers of teens who drink also appears to be increasing, according to the Ontario survey.
"It becomes a lifestyle," Ms. Deschênes said. "They are not interested in studying, they prefer to be with their friends and they are poorly co-ordinated. There are some similarities to alcohol and some teenagers become addicted to cannabis."
Được luongvec sửa chữa / chuyển vào 17:36 ngày 30/10/2003

Bố khỉ ! cứ như thế này thì làm sao mà trẻ em tuổi dưới vị thành niên sử dụng cần xa, ma tuý không tăng.
Time running out for marijuana bill, Cauchon still hopeful it will pass

Canadian Press
Wednesday, October 29, 2003
ADVERTISEMENT
OTTAWA (CP) - Justice Minister Martin Cauchon says he believes there''''s still time to pass his controversial bill to decriminalize marijuana.
Cauchon acknowledged time is tight, but downplayed reports that Parliament will prorogue next week, killing the bill. "People expect that the House will close next week. We don''''t know yet about that so I''''m working on a daily basis in order to make sure that we''''re going to go as fast as we can."
The legislation would reduce the punishment for simple possession of pot to a fine rather than a criminal record, while boosting penalties for growers.
Cauchon''''s comments came as British lawmakers voted to downgrade marijuana''''s status in their country. The reclassification places pot on par with steroids, rather than hard drugs.
Được luongvec sửa chữa / chuyển vào 17:56 ngày 30/10/2003

Có vẻ có vấn đề rồi đây nhỉ, chị hoahonggay box nhà mình đang định lấy chồng, thế mà cái thằng cha Paul Martin lại đi phá bỏ luật hôn nhân của những người đồng tính luyến ái thế này mới bựcr23)]. Bực hơn nữa cha đang đi hưởng tuần chăng mật mới tức chứ, cha được cưới vợ thì cũng để những người đồng tính luyến ái lấy vợ lấy chồng với chứ. Mà ông Jean Chrétien làm thủ tướng cũng khá lâu rồi còn gì. Hì hì hì...giới đồng tính luyến ái ở Canada cũng khá đông, tất cả bỏ phiếu cho ông làm thêm một nhiệm kỳ nữa thì mọi cái ổn ngay í mà
[/QUOTE]
Ấy ấy , đập cho cưng một phát chết tươi bây giờ . Chọc anh hoài nghen .
Click chuột vào đây để tham gia vào sự ấm nồng của thành viên xứ sở lạnh giá Canada

Ridgway confesses to killing 48 women
Vancouver police say he is still a suspect in their missing women investigation
Lạnh lùng vô cảm, tay hoạ sĩ chuyên trang trí xe tải Gary Ridgway hôm qua đã thú tội trước toà án ở tây bắc Seattle. Nạn nhân của Ridgway suốt hai thập kỷ qua chủ yếu là gái giang hồ, mại dâm. Hắn gây ra nhiều vụ án mạng hơn nhiều kẻ giết người hàng loạt tiếng tăm khác ở Mỹ.
Trước khi thú tội, Ridgway (54 tuổi) đã đạt được một thoả thuận ân giảm với bên công tố nên nhiều khả năng hắn sẽ không bị tử hình. Ridgway khẳng định là hắn đạt được thoả thuận với công tố viên Jeff Baird trước mặt thẩm phán Richard Jones tại toà án tối cao ở hạt King.
Nhiều thi thể các nạn nhân (thường là trần truồng và bị băm vằm) được tìm thấy gần Green River, phía nam Seattle. Phần lớn trong số đó bị treo cổ hồi đầu những năm 80. Bởi vậy, các nhà điều tra đã đặt tên cho vụ án là Green River.
Trong suốt nhiều tuần, Ridgway đã dẫn cảnh sát tới nhiều khu vực nơi hắn chôn vùi xác các cô gái trẻ. Trước đó, khi kiểm tra mẫu ADN, những người điều tra phát hiện Ridgway liên quan tới một số vụ án mạng và hắn được coi là nghi phạm chính. Hắn bị bắt năm 2001, chấm dứt cuộc điều tra vụ giết người hàng loạt dài hơi nhất trong lịch sử nước Mỹ.
Kẻ sát nhân nói: ?oTôi muốn sát hại nhiều gái bán hoa. Phần lớn tôi giết người ngay khi mới gặp lần đầu, bởi thế nên không nhớ nhiều về khuôn mặt của họ. Tôi ghét cay ghét đắng gái làm tiền và không muốn vung tiền để được quan hệ ********?. Sở dĩ gái mại dâm trở thành nạn nhân là vì ?ohọ dễ bị giết hại mà không gây ra nhiều sự chú ý?. Hắn còn cho biết thường lái xe tới các khu vực xảy ra án mạng nhiều lần để ?osuy tư? về những gì đã làm.


Wednesday, November 05, 2003

Gary Ridgway, long suspected to be the Green River Killer, pleaded guilty to the murders of 48 women in the Seattle area Wednesday.
The murders of dozens of women during the early 1980s are believed to be the worst serial killing spree in U.S. history.

SEATTLE - Gary Ridgway, the former truck painter long suspected of being the Green River Killer, pleaded guilty Wednesday to 48 murders. "I killed so many women I have a hard time keeping them straight," he said in a confession read aloud by prosecutors.
"I wanted to kill as many women I thought were prostitutes as I possibly could," Ridgway said in the statement.
Some victims'''' relatives wept quietly in the courtroom as Ridgway, in a clear but subdued voice, admitted killing each woman.
He then entered formal guilty pleas to the 48 counts of aggravated first-degree murder, a process that took nearly 10 minutes. As Judge Richard Jones read each count, Ridgway replied, "Guilty."
Ridgway, 54, made the pleas under a deal that will spare him from execution in the King County cases and result in a sentence of life in prison without parole.
However, no deal was cut that might spare him from death penalties in other jurisdictions. Ridgway has not been charged elsewhere, but admitted dumping victims outside the county and in Oregon.
Vancouver Police are not ruling out a link between Vancouver''''s missing women case and the Green River killer in Washington state.
There have been reports Ridgway travelled to B.C. on occasion.
RCMP Corporal Catherine Galliford says Ridgway is one of many possible suspects in the B.C. investigation.
She says he was listed as a suspect when the joint RCMP-Vancouver Police task force was first set up to investigate the missing women case. She says Ridgway was among hundreds of potential suspects and that hasn''''t changed.
The King County agreement, signed June 13, puts more murders on Ridgway''''s record than any other serial killer in U.S. history.
Since signing off on the deal, Ridgway has worked with investigators to recover still-missing remains of some victims, one of the most baffling and chilling serial killer cases the United States has ever seen.
The Green River Killer''''s murderous frenzy began in 1982, targeting women in the Seattle area, mainly runaways and prostitutes. The first victims turned up in the Green River, giving the killer his name. Other bodies were found near ravines, airports and freeways.
The killing seemed to stop as suddenly as it started, with prosecutors believing the last victim had disappeared in 1984. But one of the killings Ridgway admitted to occurred in 1990 and another in 1998.
In court Wednesday, Ridgway entered the 48 guilty pleas, one by one.
He said in his statement that he killed all the women in King County, mostly near his home or in his truck not far from where he picked them up. He said he enjoyed driving by the sites afterward, thinking about what he had done.
"In most cases, when I killed these women, I did not know their names," Ridgway said in the statement. "Most of the time I killed them the first time I met them, and I do not have a good memory of their faces."
He said he had several reasons for preying on prostitutes.
"I hate most prostitutes and I did not want to pay them for ***," he said. "I also picked prostitutes as victims because they were easy to pick up without being noticed. I knew they would not be reported missing right away and might never be reported missing. I picked prostitutes because I thought I could kill as many of them as I wanted without getting caught."
Ridgway, of the Seattle suburb of Auburn, was arrested in 2001 as he left his longtime job as a painter at a truck company. Prosecutors said advances in DNA technology had allowed them to match a saliva sample taken from Ridgway in 1987 with DNA samples taken from the bodies of three of the earliest victims.
In many cases, the killer had *** with his victim and then strangled her.
Ridgway had been a suspect as early as 1984, when the boyfriend of victim Marie Malvar reported that he last saw her getting into a pickup truck identified as Ridgway''''s.
But Ridgway told police he didn''''t know Malvar, and investigators cleared him as a suspect. Later that year, Ridgway contacted the King County sheriff''''s Green River task force, ostensibly to offer information about the case, and passed a polygraph test.
He is scheduled to be sentenced within six months to 48 consecutive life prison sentences without parole.
Được luongvec sửa chữa / chuyển vào 16:55 ngày 06/11/2003