November 2007
Monthly Archive
November 24, 2007
According to Canadian Press, Stephen Harper succeeded in blocking passage of a Commonwealth resolution on global warming that would have called for binding targets on greenhouse gas emissions.
The move so frustrated some foreign diplomats that they sought out Canadian journalists to express their disgust at what was happening behind closed doors.
Harper said Canada’s position has been consistent from one international summit to the next and will remain so at the upcoming negotiations in Indonesia.
He says there cannot be an international treaty unless everyone’s on board – and that includes big polluters like India, China, and the United States, which were not full members of Kyoto.
…some foreign officials at the Commonwealth have privately poured scorn on the Canadian position, calling it the ultimate recipe for inaction.
They say it relies on developing countries like India and China, which are struggling to eradicate widespread poverty while growing their own economies, to act first.
“It’s a bit disingenuous, actually, to present (Canada’s) position as a higher ambition,” one Commonwealth official said.
“We need to show the Indians we’re willing to lead.”
Britain’s foreign minister this week did not mention Canada or Australia by name but he said climate-change talks were being held up by a ‘you-first’ attitude from some countries.
Sorry, Steve, but someone has to lead in order to get all the polluters to commit to a meaningful global effort and that someone ought to be the nations whose per capita greenhouse gas emissions dwarf all others. By the way, you total hypocrite, those nations just happen to be Canada and the United States.
November 24, 2007
There is a growing number of voices calling for Washington to take advantage of the drop in violence in Iraq to declare victory and get out – while the getting’s good.
Everybody, it seems, from Sadr to the Sunni resistance, wants just that enough to put the guns away and lay low. They’re virtually pleading with America to go.
So what’s keeping Washington from bolting? There are probably several reasons the Bush regime isn’t ready to leave Iraq but, just as they weren’t straight with us about why they went in, don’t expect them to come right out and admit why they won’t leave. That doesn’t mean some of these factors aren’t obvious.
America has built an embassy compound in Baghdad that’s actually bigger than the Vatican. It’s hands-down the biggest American embassy anywhere. Does that sound like a country that is planning to leave? Then there are the major military bases that get mentioned ever so rarely. What do you think they tell us?
These developments might indicate that the United States is very interested in staying put in Iraq. Maybe the US wants to maintain a sizeable military presence on Iran’s doorstep. Maybe the Pentagon wants a spot for its bases that will remove the instability they caused to the Saudis. Maybe Washington intends to keep the power to cut off potential and existing rivals’ access to Middle East oil.
Then there’s oil. Sure, the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do about oil. Didn’t even cross Dick Cheney’s evil little mind. It was sheer coincidence that the only Iraqi ministry US forces secured when they stormed into Baghdad was the oil ministry. What a fluke?
Then there’s the most important piece of legislation the Iraqis never drew up – the cornerstone of their country’s future – the Iraq oil law. Okay, sure, it was drafted by the Coalition Provisional Authority under proconsul Bremer. And, yes, it will, if passed, transfer effective control and development of Iraq’s vast oil reserves from the country and its people to “international” (as in American) oil companies. And it will impose a colonialism on Iraq that other Middle Eastern states shook off decades ago.
So, its grand theft of Iraq’s most valuable resource, so what? Even the Democrats made the passage of this devious bit of larceny one of their key “benchmarks” of Iraqi progress.
Writing in today’s Globe & Mail, Robert Dreyfus argues that the time has come for the US to hand Iraq over to others who can actually help the country.
A new, nationalist Iraq is emerging underneath the presence of 160,000 U.S. troops. That nationalism extends from the current and former Sunni resistance fighters to Mr. al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army to a range of moderate, secular Sunni and Shia politicians, all of whom — albeit under exceedingly difficult circumstances — are now talking to each other about a political framework for a new government.
Two urgent steps are needed, to capitalize on the re-emerging Iraqi nationalism. First, the broad-based majorities among Sunni and Shia Arabs must be reconciled under a new constitution, with new elections creating a new government untainted by American oversight. Second, Iraq’s neighbours — all of them, including Iran and Syria — have to underwrite the new Iraqi nationalism.
With its track record, the Bush administration cannot accomplish either of these tasks. It’s a job for the United Nations, the Arab League, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and other parties. And all of this, in turn, depends on the United States announcing a timetable for withdrawing its forces.
Dreyfus is probably right but, as always, the devil is in the details. Everything, as he puts it, “depends on the United States announcing a timetable for withdrawing its forces.” Even a new American administration may not be willing to bite that bullet and actually withdraw US forces from Iraq.
I don’t think there will be peace or reconciliation, in the long run at least, if the proposed oil law is enacted. Fully two-thirds of the Iraqi people and their leaders know it is pure carpetbagging, the outright theft of their country’s badly needed wealth. If it is passed I’d bet it will fuel a fresh insurgency against the American occupiers, their collaborators in the Iraqi legislature and the oil companies and anyone who dares work for them.
November 24, 2007
Howard is gone and, with him, so goes Australia’s support for Canada’s effort to thwart Commonwealth efforts to pass a resolution calling for binding targets for greenhouse gas emission cuts.
Now the world can see Green Stevie for what he truly is, a dissembler who pays lip service to the global warming crisis but is intent on doing everything he can to let Big Oil dodge the consequences of that. Harper likes Bush’s way of doing business. Say what people want to hear and then do just the opposite.
A Commonwealth official told the Toronto Star, “There is no sense there is a serious commitment to make the changes in the Canadian economy that we will all need to make in response to the challenge.”
You think?
What better way to block essential emission caps than to fall back on Big Polluter Grid Lock. This has Canada and the United States saying no deal until China and India sign on and those two countries saying their pre capita emissions are a mere fraction of our own so no deal until the states primarily responsible for creating the existing crisis (the US in particular) take the lead.
November 24, 2007
We probably won’t know until he’s gone how Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe has managed to hold onto power so long while presiding over his country’s fiscal collapse.
Inflation has become so bad that the country’s central bank it is knocking three zeroes from its currency notes. In other words, a thousand Zimbabwe dollars is now one new Zimbabwe dollar. If that sounds radical, bear in mind this is the second time the country has pulled this stunt this year.
The central bank governor, Gideon Gono, said holders of cash needed to urgently deposit it into the banking system “before it turns to useless manure”.
Actually it sounds like he’s asking Zimbabweans to turn last month’s crap into next month’s crap. The official rate of inflation is about 14,800%. Independent assessments come in closer to 40,000%.
November 24, 2007
She was 16-years old. That didn’t stop Brazilian officials from throwing the girl into a prison cell with 20-men. What would be the likely outcome from leaving her in that cell for four weeks? How about gang rape and torture?
The girl is said to have emerged from custody covered with bruises and cigarette burns. Brazilian media report her cellmates forced her to have sex in exchange for food.
According to The Guardian, this isn’t an isolated case:
The revelations have unearthed other cases in which women were apparently imprisoned alongside men.
On Wednesday there were reports that a 23-year-old woman had shared a cell with about 70 men in the town of Parauapebas, also in the state of Para.
Amnesty International’s Brazil researcher, Tim Cahill, said: “We receive extensive reports of women in detention who suffer sexual abuse, torture, substandard healthcare and inhuman conditions, showing that this case is far from isolated but continues to be hidden from the public.”
November 24, 2007
Australia’s nasty little troll, non-Liberal prime minister John Howard, has been given the boot. The genuinely little man loved coal even more than the Chinese, opposed Kyoto and, of course, subscribed to the entire “War on Terror” series.
In fairness, Howard had brought economic prosperity to Australia, largely based on coal exports to China. Not quite the same thing as pushing crystal meth to 1.3-billion addicts but close enough.
The best part is the report that the whiny little bugger is also expected to lose his own seat.
The Australian newspaper The Age, headlined the election as, “A Triumph of Humility Over Hubris.”
“Unfortunately for the Liberals and Nationals, all of the opinion polls, the focus group testing and, yes, the 2007 election result, suggest that when an increasing number of voters looked at the Prime Minister and his senior colleagues during their fourth term, they saw too much arrogance and a little too much self-satisfaction.”
November 23, 2007
Canada sticks out like a sore thumb at the Commonwealth conference in Kampala. 51 of the 53-member states want a climate change resolution that would force developed countries to adopt a binding commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The only two members not supporting the proposal are Canada and Australia. Even then we’re pretty much alone as Australia is one day away from getting a new leader who’s indicated he would back this sort of resolution.
So, Harpo, what’s the deal? Even Britain’s Gordon Brown backs the resolution. He’s expected to pressure Harp over the weekend.
If Howard goes down to defeat tomorrow, that’ll leave Stephen Harper, the face of Canada’s New Government, standing alone in the Commonwealth.
November 23, 2007
According to the Globe & Mail, Stephane Dion wants to bring down the Harper government in February.
The paper reports that Dion wants to take advantage of what he feels will be the fallout of the Mulroney/Schreiber affair and get to the polls before the Conservatives can bring in another budget.
I guess it’s really a no-lose situation for Liberal supporters. It’ll give Dion a chance to refute his critics and, if not, it’ll clear the way for a new leader. I don’t see any particular downside either way.
November 23, 2007
Everyone knows that the effort to halt global warming will depend on real co-operation among the nations of the world, particularly on curbing greenhouse gas emissions.
It seems the logical, even sane thing to do but that’s not enough to get the industrialized nations to pull together and do the right thing.
To understand what lies ahead, take a look at efforts to keep the Atlantic, blue fin tuna stocks from collapsing. Canada and the US complain that too many blue fin are being taken from the waters off Europe and Africa.
There’s an organization to deal with this very problem, the International Committee on the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna. It represents 45-nations from North America, Europe and Africa. ICCAT has been a dismal failure at getting the Europeans and Africans to stop overfishing the tuna stocks. Scientific evalutations and quotas are simply ignored.
What’s coming is a repeat of what has already happened and is happening to other species – collapse. When that happens the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species kicks in and shuts down the fishery entirely.
Canada and the US want a managed, sustainable blue fin fishery but it’s just not happening.
November 23, 2007
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman sees real similarities between the Enron collapse and the subprime mortgage crisis now spreading through the US – bad executive management. In Enron’s case, top management fudged the books and some went to jail for it. In the mortgage lending business it wasn’t so much fraud as garden variety greed.
“What were they smoking?” asks the cover of the current issue of Fortune magazine. Underneath the headline are photos of recently deposed Wall Street titans, captioned with the staggering sums they managed to lose.
The answer, of course, is that they were high on the usual drug — greed. And they were encouraged to make socially destructive decisions by a system of executive compensation that should have been reformed after the Enron and WorldCom scandals, but wasn’t.
In a direct sense, the carnage on Wall Street is all about the great housing slump.
This slump was both predictable and predicted. “These days,” I wrote in August 2005, “Americans make a living selling each other houses, paid for with money borrowed from the Chinese. Somehow, that doesn’t seem like a sustainable lifestyle.” It wasn’t.
Krugman points out that the losses, upwards of $400-billion, aren’t astronomic but they may cause such a loss of bank capital to force lending cuts of up to $2-trillion.
Around 25 years ago, American business — and the American political system — bought into the idea that greed is good. Executives are lavishly rewarded if the companies they run seem successful: last year the chief executives of Merrill and Citigroup were paid $48 million and $25.6 million, respectively.
But if the success turns out to have been an illusion — well, they still get to keep the money. Heads they win, tails we lose.
Not only is this grossly unfair, it encourages bad risk-taking, and sometimes fraud. If an executive can create the appearance of success, even for a couple of years, he will walk away immensely wealthy. Meanwhile, the subsequent revelation that appearances were deceiving is someone else’s problem.
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