» Archive: November 2005
Kyoto Talks in Montréal
I have trouble getting excited about the talks about the implementation of the Kyoto protocol, which are being held in Montréal. The international press doesn't share my trouble.
But the fact is, everyone is either behind, or way behind, on meeting the targets of the Kyoto protocol. The meetings will, as far as I can tell, be about political wrangling over how little various countries can get away with cutting. There will be thousands of people protesting the lack of reductions. But for all the complicated games, it reduces to the bottom line: will the planet reduce emissions enough, or will it not?
The outlook is grim. But what makes the meetings that much less interesting is that the degree to which things have already been decided far exceeds the degree to which it is possible for them to change over the course of the meetings.
Am I wrong? Will a big international meeting of leaders and bureaucrats come up with an unprecedented result? I'd be happy to be surprised.
Gaza Border: Don't Believe the Hype?
Ramzy Baroud explains why "the Great Gaza Border Deal" that all the papers were talking about this weekend is extremely likely to be a lot of hype.
"Freeing" the Palestinians in Gaza was the needed confirmation of Israel's good intentions. Although we are yet to observe the Gaza border agreement in practice, there is little historic precedent to conclude that Israel will respect the arrangement. Since the Israeli army has the "green light" to strike Gaza at any time of its choosing (as it has repeatedly since the disengagement) and to freely assassinate any Palestinian "terror suspect", it is difficult to convince ordinary Palestinians that they are truly free, even if the man checking their worthless travel documents at the Rafah border looks and sounds Palestinian.In the last 12 years, numerous arrangements regarding Rafah border control were painstakingly reached and quickly violated. So much Palestinian blood, including that of Palestinian border security officers, was spilled at Rafah and thousands of Palestinians went hungry as they were denied exit while camping on the Egyptian side of the crossing for weeks. Knowing all this, and understanding Israel's overall designs in the occupied territories, it becomes clear that the historic deal in Rafah is, at best, short-lived hype.
Ignatieff's Parachute
Looks like Michael "Empire Lite" Ignatieff's bypassing of the usual rules for Liberal party nominations is pissing off the locals of Etobicoke-Lakeshore (scroll down).
The two candidates delivered their nomination documents to Liberal Party headquarters in Toronto, only to find that the office was locked before the 5:00 p.m. filing deadline. Liberal party staffers could be seen through the second storey windows but they refused to answer repeated knocking on the doors and phone calls to the office.But what's all this about Ignatieff being a "Ukrainophobe"?
The intended coronation of Mr. Ignatieff, a virulent Ukrainophobe, is offensive to the numerous Ukrainian Canadian residents of the riding, many of whom have been members of the riding association for many years and form more than one half of the membership of the riding association. To Mr. Ignatieff, Ukrainians conjour up images of embroidered peasant shirts, the nasal whine of ethnic instruments, phoney Cossacks in cloaks and boots. These views are unacceptable to all right-minded Canadians.[Update: Here's the quote that might sabatoge Ignatieff in the election:
My difficulty in taking Ukraine seriously goes deeper than just my cosmopolitan suspicion of nationalists everywhere. Somewhere inside, I'm also what Ukrainians would call a Great Russian, and there is just a trace of old Russian disdain for these "Little Russians."Oops.]
For more on Ignatieff and the Liberals, check out this post. The basics: Ignatieff is gunning for Liberal leadership after Paul bites the dust after another minority (at best), but has to get experience first.
As a prof at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and as a high-profile intelleckshuall, his main argument is that imperial interests are good for human rights. He strikes the pose of a clear-eyed pragmatist with liberal (small-L) values. This leads him to believe that bombing the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq, killing tens (probably hundreds) of thousands, is good for human rights. In the words of Michael Neumann:
[Ignatieff's argument] functions like a sprig of cilantro on the nouveau-imperialist bucket of KFC, transforming Bush's blunderings into a treat for liberal white folks the world over.He's also an author of the "responsibility to protect" doctrine. While ostensively about protecting people from "ethnic cleansing" or "genocide", it is actually, according to Ignatieff himself, about protecting imperial interests. The improvements in human rights come about as a side effect of empire.
Sound impossible? Ignatieff reckons it isn't, and is happy to ignore evidence that suggests that this isn't what happened in Iraq, former-Yugoslavia, or Afghanistan.
Democracy in Afghanistan
The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan lay it all out about the illusion of democracy in Afghanistan.
It is not difficult to predict what will be the result of the "miracle" election about which you take comfort. A parliament filled with the most cruel, misogynist, anti-democracy, and reactionary fundamentalists headed by such disgusting drug traders as Sayyaf, Qanoni, Rabbani, Mohaqqiq, Pairam Qul, Hazrat Ali, and their likes. These U.S. backed religious fascists will never “spread democracy”, but rather try to "legitimate" and perpetuate their bloody domination on our people by sitting in the legislature as "lawmakers".This reminded me of an exchange that Mohammed Elmasry related at a conference a little while ago, which I wrote down. Elmasry met with Bill Graham, who (according to Elmasry) said that Canadian troops were in Afghanistan.
How much aid is Canada delivering, asked Elmasry.
$200 million per year.
How much does the military presence in Afghanistan cost?
$600 million per year.
Latte Labour Action
Workers from stores across Auckland walked off the job today to join the world’s first Starbucks strike, held on Auckland’s counter-culture café strip, Karangahape Rd, New Zealand.What began as a small protest by workers from one store became a city-wide strike when Starbucks workers heard that managers would be brought in to cover the shifts of the striking K’Rd workers.
“What began as an event to highlight the poor conditions of low pay and minimum wage workers turned into a show of solidarity and strength between Auckland’s Starbucks workers,” said Simon Oosterman, SuperSizeMyPay.Com campaign coordinator.
“More than 30 workers spontaneously walked out from 10 different Auckland Starbucks stores to join KFC, Pizza Hut and McDonalds employees, and around 150 other supporters outside the K’Rd store,” he said.
“Starbucks workers continued their solidarity despite being threatened with being sacked for abandonment of shift if they did not return after one hour,” said Mr Oosterman.
UK Health Services: Big People Need Not Apply
Overweight people in Suffolk, Britain, are being denied some medical surgeries based on their weight.
Patients with a Body Mass Index over 30 will be refused operations like hip and knee surgeries.
Dr Brian Keeble, a director of Ipswich PCT said: "We cannot pretend that this work wasn't stimulated by pressing financial problems."
Agonizing over Prose over Bolivia
Check out the painstaking way in which this paragraph from an NYTimes article on Bolivia's upcoming elections avoids placing any responsibility for Bolivia's problems on the US.
Many Bolivians, and certainly almost all MAS supporters, are more than prepared to blame the Americans for much of what went wrong during what Roberto Fernandez Téran, the economist from the University of San Símon, described to me as "the lost decade of the 1980's and the disappointments of the 1990's." A joke you hear often in Bolivia these days sarcastically describes the country's political system as a coalition between the government, the international financial institutions, multinational corporations and la embajada - the U.S. Embassy. But while it would be unwise to underestimate the force of knee-jerk anti-Americanism in Latin America, the ubiquitousness of leftist sentiments in Bolivia today has more to do, as Joseph Stiglitz points out, with the complete failure of neoliberalism to improve people's lives in any practical sense. It is almost a syllogism: many Bolivians believe (and the economic statistics bear them out) that the demands by international lending institutions that governments cut budgets to the bone and privatize state-owned assets made people's lives worse, not better; the Bolivians believe, also not wrongly, that the U.S. wields extraordinary influence on international financial institutions; and from these conclusions, the appeal of an anti-American, anti-globalization politics becomes almost irresistible to large numbers of people.
The burden of proof for establishing US responsibility for anything substantially bad is so amazingly high that if it was applied equally everywhere else, we would indeed live in a world without facts.
I'd love to see the exchanges between the editors and the author about those last dozen paragraphs. I simply can't believe that anyone writes with such a keen eye to avoiding the obvious conclusion that is backed up by all of the available facts. It's almost as if it's a rhetorical ploy to show how obvious it actually is.
That said, it would be more obvious if the article discussed the massive profits that multinational corporations and the Bolivian elite have made through the privatization of natural resources (including, for a time, rainwater). It didn't.
$100 laptop
Nicholas Negroponte has been demoing the prototype of the $100 laptop to various world leaders.
A pretty interesting project, notable for its being outside of the usual capitalist mindset that seems to permeate the consciousness of tech luminaries like Negroponte. One expects them to talk about this kind of thing, and then expect the private sector to deliver it in some hypothetical future.
The future is still hypothetical, but the specs are impressive. Open source software, and the promotion thereof. Non-dependence on fossil fuels or even external energy sources. Negligible profit margins. Use of corporations as a (so far) non distorting means to an end... an end that could have some deep and lasting effects on all kind of political and social levels.
Wait and see...
Guardian on Canada
The Observer: It's great up north
Canadians are sceptical to a point where they appear simply unable to recognise that they live in a very successful and civilised country. 'We peer so suspiciously at each other,' Pierre Trudeau once said, 'that we cannot see that we Canadians are standing on the mountaintop of human wealth, freedom and privilege.'
He was right. Some 32 million people occupy a territory which is larger than Russia and is blessed with enormous natural resources. Canada is democratic to its marrow, relatively enlightened on environment, health and welfare issues and its political discourse, unlike America's, is recognisably connected to the rest of the free world. That is almost certainly because the centre ground of politics, the place where you find a nation's core values and you can most easily read its character, is some distance to the left of the centre ground in the US.
Bitter Orange Pill
For weeks the "orange revolution" [in Ukraine] dominated headlines across the world. In the end it swept Mr Yushchenko, a pro-western reformer, to the presidency.Yet, one year on, the euphoria of that people-power victory has been transformed into bitter disappointment. An opinion poll this week indicated that 57% of Ukrainians think the orange promises have been broken. "It turned out our new leaders acted the same old way as their predecessors," says Andriy.
Duff Conacher on the Problem with Polls
From Duff Conacher of :
Dear Editors/Producers,[Emphases added]As the federal election speculation rollercoaster continues, many media reports are misleading the public concerning public support of the federal parties, and hurting the media's credibility at the same time.
The reporting of the results of about a dozen polls in the past month has often neglected to mention one key fact -- the percentage of voters who told pollsters they were undecided. Any media report that leaves the impression that pollsters found no undecided voters is misleading.
Assuming that the percentage of undecided voters is about 20-25 percent right now (as it usually is at this time before an election), and given that the gap in the polls between the Liberals and Conservatives has been no greater that five percent (when polling error rates are taken into account), the recent polling results could all be summarized as actually showing nothing important in terms of possible election results.
If my assumption is wrong, please let me and all Canadians know. Hopefully sooner than later all Canadian media outlets will present a summary of recent polls that includes the percentage of undecided voters, and seriously takes into account the error rate, so that Canadians will be told the actual reality of the pre-election situation.
Or are we headed toward a repeat of the polling reporting fiasco of the June 2004 federal election?
The million is half full
A half-million Australian workers protested the Howard government's rollback of labour rights. Many cities saw the biggest mobilizations in their history.
Anyone notice what was on the cover of the Globe today? I just checked. They didn't cover it at all.
The following item was found to be worthy of reporting, though:
Police believe a nuclear reactor in southern Sydney was a possible target for an Islamic terror cell there, according to details of an Australian counter-terror investigation released Monday.
Update: Wanna know which Canadian media covered this? The National Union of Public and General Employees and the Angus Reid Global Scan.
Maybe the Australian unions didn't hire the same PR firms the Soros Institute got for the "Orange Revolution"?
Bush Imagines
Please do listen to the brilliant mashup of Bush rapping John Lennon's "Imagine".
(Click on 'download mp3' next to 'Imagine This')
Nigerian Flare Up
A Nigerian judge ruled on Monday that the burning of natural gas by oil firms in the Niger Delta violates the human rights of local people and should stop immediately, the parties in the case said.
The Iwerekan community of Delta State in the southern wetlands region had argued that flaring, or burning off gas associated with the extraction of crude oil, breached their right to life, dignity and a healthy environment.
"It's a thing that goes on 24 hours a day, every day of every year. It causes explosions, constant noise and great heat. Many people have never had a time of quietness or a dark night because of these flares," said Nnimmo Bassey, director of Environmental Rights Action, a Nigerian campaign group that supported the legal case brought by the community in the delta city of Benin.
Environmental group Friends of the Earth says more gas is flared in Nigeria than anywhere else in the world and Nigerian flaring causes more greenhouse gasses than all other sources in sub-Saharan Africa combined.
Guardian Attacks Chomsky
Diana Johnstone, Alexander Cockburn and Chomsky himself have responses to the Guardian's recent hitpiece interview with Chomsky, who was voted the "most important public intellectual in the world today" in a poll run by Prospect and Foreign Policy.
That last link goes to an interview where Chomsky talks a bit about who he thinks are the most important intellectuals. One of his suggestions was about Turkish intellectuals:
They're exposing themselves to severe danger ... They're constantly doing things like that. They've been to jail; being in a Turkish jail is not much fun. These are extremely rare activities for intellectuals. But [there it] is rather mainstream.
Update: The Guardian has issued a categorical retraction of its interview.
With hindsight it is acknowledged that the juxtaposition has exacerbated Prof Chomsky's complaint and that is regretted. The Guardian has now withdrawn the interview from the website.
Burma
The T-Star has a long feature on "brutal Burma".
It's not long enough for them to mention that Canada's Ivanhoe Mines is about to become the Burmese government's largest-ever foreign investor.
Canada is a supporter of human rights. (Full stop.) Why would our companies play a key role in propping up brutal military dictatorships?
Kellan on Religion
Laughing Meme: "So Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all represent successive waves of innovation to produce a more viral ideology that could better leverage network effects. It's an idea that has fascinated me since an off hand comment in a college history class that monotheisms were better able to displace traditional pagan cultures because monotheists were able to bring their God with them rather then being tied to a series of local, non-portable phenomena."
182 Countries vote against US Cuba blockade
It's not being covered much, except for a few scattered wire reprints and a Miami Herald article, but 182 countries voted for a motion opposing the US economic blockade of Cuba.
Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau, and the United States voted against it.
UN warns on Iraq environment fate
The UN Environment Program has trained Iraqi specialists in detoxification, but says any clean-up could cost up to $40m (£23m).
Chemical spills, unsecured hazardous material and widespread pollution by depleted uranium are among the issues.
Among the five sites already probed are a metal plating facility at al-Qadyissa that was bombed, looted and then demolished in 2003.
Several tons of cyanide remain on the site, which is now an unsecured area used as a playground by local children.
"There are hundreds, probably thousands of other sites with the need of assessment," said Mural Thummarukudy, Unep's manager in Iraq, who appealed for donations.
Montreal Police Have Their Day In Court
The United Nations High Commission for Human Rights is concerned that police in Montreal have resorted to large-scale arrests of demonstrators during social protests -- including those who have not even committed a criminal offense.
Ironically, Canadian officials are noting a long list of human rights issues, including concerns about police violence, in meetings with visiting officials from China.
Toxic Shock
Study released today tested volunteers from across Canada for 88 chemicals believed to be carcinogenic, to disrupt reproduction and hormonal function and interfere with fetal development. Researchers found that, on average, participants had a cocktail of 44 in their bodies.
Dr. Kapil Khatter, head of Canadian Physicians for the Environment, said what angers him is how little control individuals have over their exposure: "We don't have the choice to avoid things coming of smokestacks and getting into our food and water and things in consumer products we don't know about."
The most polluted individual in the study turned out to be David Masty, chief of the Whapmagoostui First Nation, a Cree community in northern Quebec. A total of 51 chemicals was found in his blood, as well as some of the highest levels of heavy metals, lending more credence to the belief that toxic pollutants are accumulating in Canada's North.
Albert in Venezuela
Z Magazine's Michael Albert visited Venezuela, talked to a bunch of officials, and shared his exchanges and impressions.
Vatican: Darwin is just alright with me
The Vatican has issued a stout defence of Charles Darwin, voicing strong criticism of Christian fundamentalists who reject his theory of evolution and interpret the biblical account of creation literally.
Cardinal Paul Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, said the Genesis description of how God created the universe and Darwin's theory of evolution were "perfectly compatible" if the Bible were read correctly.
His statement was a clear attack on creationist campaigners in the US, who see evolution and the Genesis account as mutually exclusive.
"The fundamentalists want to give a scientific meaning to words that had no scientific aim," he said at a Vatican press conference. He said the real message in Genesis was that "the universe didn't make itself and had a creator".
Not French Now, Not French Then
Some critics say the [French] government's decision to use the state-of-emergency law is wrong-headed and could backfire.
Christophe Bertossi of the Institute of International Relations says the symbolism of the law's original purpose – to stem an insurrection in Algeria, then a northern African colony of France – won't be lost on the many angry young men of North African descent at the centre of the current violence.
"The signal again is 'You are not part of the French society. You have encumbered identities which are very difficult to reconcile with how France defines itself.'"
Not much to celebrate?
Montreal Gazette: "[Tremblay's] party headquarters was hardly abuzz with excitement, as people trickled in and stood chatting at tables sipping wine and beer, or bottles of water selling for $3 a pop. About 750 supporters had been invited to the party in the Old Port, but the turnout of fewer than 200 people didn't even begin to fill the cavernous room."
Are white farmers killed by black nationalists more dead than those killed by criminals under capitalism?
ZNet: Can Zimbabwe Become Africa's Cuba?
In Zimbabwe, during the land seizures ten white farmers were killed [1]. By contrast in South Africa, where even after the fall of apartheid whites still own 80% of arable lands [2], over 1,500 white farmers have been killed since 1994 according to the BBC [3]. The South African government blames criminal elements but given this high number, it is hard not to imagine that the murders are tied to the history of apartheid. While the acts are certainly criminal, the numbers are too high not to suggest that a history of apartheid and a lack of redress have colluded. In Zimbabwe government policy created the conditions in which ten white farmers were killed. In South Africa lack of government policy has led to the conditions in which 1,500 whites farmers have been killed. It is in a sense part of the same movement.Emphasis added.
But in Zimbabwe, the infinitely much smaller number of white farmer deaths has created uproar whereas the South African murders are not common knowledge; international media does not report them and Western politicians have turned their gaze elsewhere.
The Canadian Internet Project Releases Survey Results
An extensive academic study of internet use shows that the majority of Canadians are heavy internet users and consider the net to be a growing and integral part of their lives.
The Canadian Internet Project (CIP) said its survey showed that 56 per cent of all Canadians are online at least seven hours a week, with the average Canadian user online 13.5 hours each week.
The survey goes far beyond simply asking whether or how often people use the net. It tries to find out how the internet is being integrated into people's lives.
"The emergence of new, Internet-based digital content and distribution channels is influencing social, political, cultural and economic behavior and ideas everywhere," said CIP co-director Charles Zamaria, who is also a professor at Ryerson University.
"We believe that by studying the internet and other emerging technologies as they develop over time, we can better understand their implications for society," he said.
NDP Premier interested in selling uranium to Chinese
NDP Premier Lorne Calvert says he's interested in selling Saskatchewan uranium to China and wouldn't rule out storing nuclear waste here.
China wants to build dozens of nuclear power plants over the next 15 years to meet its soaring power demands
Factory Hog Farm Closes, Community Victorious
A controversial factory hog farm in Ste-Marie-de-Kent has closed after six years, leaving behind more than three million gallons of manure.
The Metz farm near Bouctouche, New Brunwick surrendered its license to operate five months ago.
For years, neighbours have complained that manure from the farm's 10,000 hogs made it difficult to breathe and hurt the area's tourism trade.
Locals also worried that the manure, which neighouring farmers spread on their fields, would pollute their water table and endanger wildlife.
Community groups rallied against the farm and the provincial government for allowing it to exist.
Provincial Agriculture spokesman Alain Bryar says the farm owners have left behind a lagoon of liquid manure. He says the company has until May to get rid of it.