Star-Phoenix from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada • 3

DPAGE rare Mick and the boys 00 their way stage in Regina's football stadium, it will be a historic moment. The official word will come down early next week at a press conference in Germany, where the band is currently in the middle of the European leg of its A Bigger Bang stadium tour. Tickets for the Regina concert go on sale at 10 a.m. on July 3 1 sources close to the show say. Tickets will range from about $1(X) (the cheap seats) to about $3(X).

Sources say many of the tickets will go for the average price of $200. Following a six-week delay in which Richards recovered from a tree fall in Fiji and Wood spent a one-month stint in a London rehab centre for alcohol abuse, the group resumed its tour on July 1 1 at Milan's San Siro Stadium in front of 60,000 rabid supporters. To date, the group's current tour has played on three continents in front of 4.5 million fans. Set lists have been varied on the group's current European leg, but all dates thus far have opened with Jumpin' Jack Flash and It's Only Rock And Roll and ended with Brown Sugar, You Can't Always Get What You Want and Satisfaction. The show at Mosaic Stadium will be the group's only Prairie appearance on a Canadian leg that will also include concerts in Windsor, Halifax and Vancouver.

The massive stadium production is the group's most ambitious to date and requires about 80 tractor-trailers to transport. Mosaic Stadium will be bursting at the seams, but it seems clear the venue can accommodate fans for this rock show of a lifetime. Organizers are hopeful the show will sell out quickly. Because it's the only Prairie date, folks in Regina will have to compete with fans from around the province as well as Manitoba, Alberta, Montana and North Dakota for tickets. We're told box offices here have already fielded calls from fans in the U.S.

and Western Canada, and some have wanted to leave credit card numbers. Only a Stones show can create such hysteria. If Oct. 8 seems a little late in the year for an outdoor concert, consider that the group played at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton on Oct. 4, 1998, during its Bridges To Babylon stadium tour.

So the Regina show will go ahead rain or shine (and hopefully not snow). Of course, when the lights go down and the band hits the stage and launches into Jumpin' Jack Flash, chances are things will get very hot, very quickly. Time is finally on our side and this will be a Thanksgiving weekend like no other. Believe it, Saskatchewan. Like we first told you on June 10, it is going to happen.

(REGINA LEADER-POST) COMMENTARY By Gerry Krochak For Saskatchewan News Network REGINA It's go! The Rolling Stones, the world's greatest rock 'n' roll band, will play Regina's Mosaic Stadium on Oct. 8, sources have confirmed. After months of speculation and a rumour mill that wouldn't stop, the worst-kept secret on the Prairies is out of the bag. It will be the biggest concert event in Regina's history, and perhaps the single greatest event the city has ever hosted. Yes, this could be bigger than the two Grey Cups.

At a combined age of 248 years, there is still no one in rock 'n' roll that can do it better than Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood and when they set foot on their massive Tasting time tit: "'tL ill'! 7. jyi a i Whistleblower settlement upheld Saskatchewan News Network REGINA A Court of Queen's Bench judge has upheld a $200,000 settlement for a high-profile Saskatchewan whistle-blower. In a written decision released this week, Justice Ron Barclay ruled Linda Merk is entitled to the $205,000 compensation package awarded to her for lost wages, insurance benefits, pension contributions and interest after she lost her job in 2001. Merk's former employer, the Iron Workers Union Local 771, had been appealing the settlement, hoping to pay her only about $7,000. It's the latest decision in Merk's long battle with the union.

Merk was fired from her position as the union's office manager and bookkeeper in 2001, after raising concerns two of her supervisors were stealing money. She took action under the province's whistleblower legislation after her dismissal and the case ultimately climbed all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled in Merk's favour in November. After the Supreme Court ruling, a provincial court judge ordered the union to pay a $2,000 fine and give Merk 1 00,000 in lost wages, $60,000 in pension contributions and thousands more in interest and costs, for a total of about $205,000. A month after the provincial court sentence was passed down, the union appealed on the basis the compensation package was too high, prompting Merk to cross-appeal on the basis it was too low. Barclay dismissed both appeals and upheld the finding of the provincial court judge.

He also ordered Merk be compensated for her costs on the most recent action. Merk's case was the first test of Saskatchewan's whistle-blower legislation, which makes it illegal to fire an employee forjeporting wrongdoing. (REGINA LEADER-POST) if i I ifJVC' Ml V- jM i "-umiii Audrey Junk works restaurants and live on her slice from Vern's Pizza at A Taste of Saskatchewan, Wednesday. The event, which features food from 30 Saskatoon music throughout the day, runs until Sunday in Kiwanis Park. (SP Photo by Richard Marjan) Sask.

immigration numbers show decline new immigrants compared to 553 in the third quarter. The new budget kicked in on April 1 and included $6.3 million this year to support increased immigration to Saskatchewan and improved settlement and integration services, up from $1.7 million in 2005-06. Immigration is seen as a cornerstone in the government's strategy to boost the province's population, which has been stagnant at just below one million people. Immigration Minister Pat Atkinson couldn't explain the drop, but she downplayed the significance of the lower immigration numbers in the last two quarters. She said immigration has increased each year since 2002 and is expected to rise again this year.

"Quarterly variations are normal. They've happened in the past. What we want to know is whether we are trending up year over year. And if you go back we are," she said. Overall, the number of immigrants to the province China.

Many welders have come to Saskatchewan through the Kiev labour centre, said Atkinson. She said federal Immigration Minister Monte Sol-berg was sympathetic to the concerns of Saskatchewan and other provinces experiencing labour shortages. Atkinson said the increased budget means new partnerships and settlement units to work with immigrants and employers and increased work with settlement agencies. It also means an increased capacity to process nominees, she said. There will also be a new international promotion and marketing initiatives for the province.

Bertha Gana, executive director of the Saskatoon Open Door Society, which helps newcomers settle in the city, said she thinks it will take a little time for the impact of the new initiatives to be felt, but she expects they will ultimately have a positive affect. "Let's give it some time," she said. jwoodsp.canwest.com increased by 8.4 per cent from 1,942 to 2,106 between 2004 and 2005. The number of applications under the province's immigrant nominee program is expected to increase from 450 last year to more than 800 this year. The number of nominees is expected to increase to 1,200 next year and 1,500 after that.

"You start to get a mass of people and then you attract more," said Atkinson. The program operates under an agreement with the federal government. It allows the province to nominate immigrants who meet its criteria skilled workers, farmers, long-haul truck drivers, health-care professionals and entrepreneurs for speedier entry into the country. Immigration is primarily a federal responsibility and Atkinson said there are some issues on the senior level that are affecting Saskatchewan. For instance, the Canadian embassy in Kiev, Ukraine, recently lost one immigration official to Immigration minister discounts quarterly figure, expects overall increase By James Wood ofTheStarPhoenix REGINA The NDP government's ambitious new program to lure immigrants to Saskatchewan appears to be coming none too soon, as the number of new immigrants dropped by 13 per cent in the first quarter of this year.

According to the government's monthly statistical review, there were 461 immigrants to the province between January 1 and April 1, compared to 532 in the same period in 2005. It follows a sharp decline in immigration numbers in the fourth quarter of 2005, when there were 386 ite-size columnettes not the old COMMENTARY To play something suggests that skill is involved. You play cards. You play golf. You play Scrabble.

The more skillful players usually prevail. But there's no skill that can improve your infinitesimal odds of winning Lotto 649, say. many Canadian cities. Evacuating those who want to leave is one problem. The other problem is where to put them all when they get to Canada.

Most are dual citizens who haven't lived here in years. Where will they stay? The Field House? Tired of the same old newspaper columns going on and on forever about just one, tedious subject that might not even interest you? Try instead these bite-size columnettes. They're tasty, delicious and too small to choke on. People who buy tickets are not playing the lottery. They're being played.

0 Panasonic this week unveiled the world's biggest plasma-screen TV. It features a screen almost Discovery was falling apart on the launch pad. On the launch pad! The rigid foam insulation covering the huge fuel tank was visibly cracked. A chunk fell right off. This before liftoff.

If the thing was falling apart just sitting there, what would happen at 25,000 miles an hour? Unbelievably, NASA characterized the problem as minor and pressed ahead with the launch. But wasn't it falling chunks of foam that led to the Columbia disaster? NASA has since spent more than 1 billion trying to fix the disintegrating foam, and still it was disintegrating. If the problem already caused one disaster, if it was worth spending a billion dollars to fix, how could the shuttle be allowed to fly when it manifestly was not fixed? According to NASA, the piece of foam that fell off was less than half the size necessary to damage the shuttle. But wasn't this a warning that bigger pieces might shake loose in flight? I don't purport to be a rocket scientist, but I know a Cessna pilot wouldn't even think about taking off if, in his pre-flight inspection, he saw chunks falling off his airplane. For NASA to ignore this fundamental of flight safety is an invitation to further disasters.

The next shuttle launch is scheduled for Aug. 28. I can hardly bear to watch. eight feet wide. Viewers will have to run back and forth to see the whole picture.

I ir 'A Speaking of Lebanon, when U.S. President George Bush was caught the other day speaking privately into a live microphone, he bluntly articulated a formula for peace in Lebanon. The solution, he said, is to "get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this Well said. What I'd like to know, however, is why the asterisks in always go at the end. Why is it never written as or or This would make guessing the bad word a little more of a challenge.

And why is it always the three asterisks? Why not two asterisks as in sh, or one asterisk, as in shi? This would make it loo obvious, perhaps. If the point is to protect sensitive readers, why not go with all asterisks, as in Because even the most sensitive reader can decode the more customary s. Life is filled with little disappointments. I have proof. The other day, for example, I was driving along the riverbank when I saw, far in the distance, a woman jogging.

I knew it was a woman because she was wearing a black sports bra. Hmmm, I thought. This would bear closer scrutiny. But strictly for scientific purposes, you understand. Here was a chance to test my theory it is mostly attractive women who jog in their sports bras.

Only when I was almost alongside her did I realize my grievous mistake. The jogger was manifestly not an attractive woman. In fact, it was not a woman at all. It was an old guy with a black, elastic heart monitor around his chest. He was probably recovering from angioplasty.

Hey, put a shirt on, gramps. In spite of the safe return this week of space Discovery, the program looks like a continuing horror show. You can't be too safe. For instance, when I went to buy some shaving cream the other day, I saw printed on the label: 'This product has not been tested on animals." So I bought another brand. I'd hate for the stuff to dis solve my face or something and then hear, "Well, we warned him it wasn't tested on animals." Still in international news, ho would have imagined there were 50,000 Canadians in Lebanon? That's more Canadians than you'd find in On a totally different subject, something that never fails to irk me is radio ads urging us to "play" the lottery.

lmacphersonsp.canwest.com.