Prince Saud al-Faisal said he hoped the US and Iran would support the planned consortium [AP]
Gulf Arab states is reported to have proposed providing enriched uranium to Iran via a multinational consortium in a bid to defuse Tehran's standoff with the West over its nuclear programme.
Prince Saud al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia's foreign affairs minister, told the Middle East Economic Digest that the six states of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) - Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE - would develop a uranium enrichment plant in a state outside the Mideast.
The plant would also provide nuclear fuel to the region.
"We have proposed a solution, which is to create a consortium for all users of enriched uranium in the Middle East", al-Faisal said on Thursday.
Decreasing fears
Al-Faisal said the project would mean Tehran could continue developing nuclear energy while decreasing fears that their plans are a cover for an atomic weapons programme.
"[We will] do it in a collective manner through a consortium that will distribute according to needs, give each plant its own necessary amount, and ensure no use of this enriched uranium for atomic weapons", al-Faisal said.
"We believe it should be in a neutral country Switzerland, for instance".
"Any plant in the Middle East that needs enriched uranium would get its quota", he said.
Al-Faisal said he belived the US would support the proposal.
"The US is not involved, but I don't think it [would be] hostile to this, and it would resolve a main area of tension between the West and Iran."
He added that Iran was considering the offer.
"We hope the Iranians will accept this proposal. We continue to talk to them and urge them not only to look at the issue from the perspective of the needs of Iran for energy, but also in the interests of the security of the region," he said.
The six GCC states and Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Libya and Yemen have all said thay want to pursue peaceful nuclear projects.
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) — Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Monday announced plans to build several nuclear power plants, joining several Arab countries in the Middle East that recently have broadcast their own atomic energy ambitions.
Mubarak said in a speech broadcast live on national television that the decision to build these nuclear power stations was to diversify Egypt's energy resources and preserve the country's oil and gas reserves for coming generations.
"I announce before you Egypt's position to prepare the program for building several nuclear power stations. We believe that energy security is a major part of building the future for this country and an integral part of Egypt's national security system," Mubarak said at a ceremony inaugurating the second phase of construction of an electrical power plant north of Cairo.
Mubarak said he would re-establish the Supreme Council for the Peaceful Purposes of Nuclear Power, which would be in charge of the nuclear program. He also said Egypt would seek the help of its "international partners" and the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, in building the nuclear power plants.
Last year, Mubarak's son, Gamal, called for Egypt to revive plans for a nuclear program that was publicly shelved in the aftermath of the 1986 accident at the Soviet nuclear plant in Chernobyl.
A committee was formed to study the program's possibilities, and the U.S ambassador said Washington would be willing to help its Mideast ally develop a peaceful program.
At the time, Hassan Yunis, the minister of electricity and energy, said Egypt could have an operational nuclear power plant within 10 years.
Egypt has conducted nuclear experiments on a very small scale for the past four decades, but they have not included the key process of uranium enrichment, according to the IAEA.
Earlier this year, former U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said he supported Egypt's ambitions but said it would be at least a decade before Cairo could launch a nuclear program and urged Egypt to sign additional protocols allowing for greater inspection oversight.
Iran's progress in building its nuclear program had sparked a rush among other Middle East countries to look at programs of their own to diversify and expand their energy resources.
Yemen's government in September signed an agreement with Houston-based Powered Corporation to build nuclear power plants over the next 10 years to generate electricity. Jordan, several Gulf Arab countries and Turkey have also announced that they were interested in developing peaceful nuclear programs.
But the rush has also raised the possibility of a dangerous proliferation of nuclear technology in the volatile region. The United States accuses Iran of secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons. Iran denies the claims and says its program is for peaceful purposes including developing electricity.
Finance Minster Jim Flaherty will today present the Conservative government’s fall economic statement in the House of Commons.
Conservatives are dedicated to paying down debt, keeping spending focused on results and reducing taxes for Canadians.
The Conservative record on economic leadership is clear:
The economy is growing – to $1.45 trillion dollars;
More people are working – unemployment is at a 33-year low;
Personal taxes are going down – tax freedom day arrived four days earlier in 2007;
Cut the GST from 7% to 6%;
We’re paying down debt - $22.4 billion over two years; and
People have more to spend, save or invest.
Stéphane Dion and the Liberal Party oppose cutting the GST and would set families and taxpayers back.
Strong economic leadership. A better Canada.
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Flaherty's treats: GST, income tax cuts
GLORIA GALLOWAY
Globe and Mail Update
October 30, 2007 at 4:24 PM EDT
OTTAWA — A Conservative campaign promise to cut the GST by an additional one per cent will be fulfilled in January and new income tax cuts will be felt when Canadians file their taxes for the current year.
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty unveiled his plans to give a large part of a multi-billion-dollar surplus back to Canadians today with a tax-reduction packages that goes even further than anticipated.
“We haven't seen taxes this low since Lester B. Pearson was prime minister,” Mr. Flaherty bragged in the opening lines of his mid-term economic statement.
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty took the unusual step of announcing Ottawa's swelling budget surplus after the stock markets closed Tuesday. Among the highlights:
Canada's Finance Minister Jim Flaherty seen at a press conference in this October 23 file photo. (REUTERS/Chris Wattie) (REUTERS/Chris Wattie)
• The Goods and Services Tax will be cut an additional 1 per cent as of Jan. 1, leaving the federal consumption tax at 5 per cent. The GST cut will cost the government about $5.5-billion. But the GST credit for low-income Canadians will remain at its current level, said Mr. Flaherty
• In addition, the basic personal income-tax exemption will increase to $9,600 from the current $8,929, retroactive to 2007. And it will increase again to $10,100 as of January 1, 2008.
• The government is also reducing the lowest personal income-tax rate to 15 per cent from 15.5 per cent, a retroactive change that will also be felt at tax-time this coming year.
Mr. Flaherty said his new measures will remove an additional 380,000 low-income Canadians from the tax rolls altogether.
“By reducing the GST, our government has fulfilled a key campaign commitment and kept its word to Canadians,” said Mr. Flaherty.
The vote on the “mini budget” will be held Wednesday afternoon.
Mr. Flaherty's economic statement comes on the eve of Halloween and the one-year anniversary of the government's controversial income trust tax, when the Tories broke an election pledge to protect trusts. He made the statement at the National Press Theatre because the NDP blocked unanimous consent to allow the update to be delivered in the Commons.
The mini budget is a poison pill for Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion, who objects to the GST cut on grounds it's poor fiscal policy, but has said previously that he won't bring down the government over it.
During the 2006 election campaign, Stephen Harper made a two percentage point cut to the then seven per cent GST the top item of his five-point agenda. The rate was dropped to six per cent during the Conservative's first budget. The second instalment was promised before 2011.
Mr. Dion is not alone in his objection to the GST cut. A group of 20 economists surveyed last week by The Globe and Mail were unanimous in their rejection of the Conservative plan as a tax-cutting priority for Canada.
All 20 economists said other tax cuts would be better for the country.
“It doesn't do anything to improve the performance of the economy,” Toronto Dominion chief economist Dwight Drummond said earlier Tuesday on CBC.
“The only way I can benefit from a cut (to) the GST is if I consume more. But we're already consuming an awful lot. We have a very low savings rate. On the other hand, if we look at our personal income tax system, for a lot of families, they get to keep less than half of the last dollar that they earn.”
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Flaherty announces tax cuts
FRED CHARTRAND/THE CANADIAN PRESS
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty stands in the House of Commons Oct. 29 to announce he would deliver the federal government's fall economic statement Oct. 30.
GST cut to 5% as of Jan. 1, tax rate for lowest income earners raised
Oct 30, 2007 04:21 PM
Bruce Campion Smith Les Whittington Ottawa Bureau
OTTAWA — Canadians will enjoy a modest break in their personal income taxes and a 1 per cent cut in the goods and services tax, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced today.
Flaherty turned his fall economic statement into a mini-budget this afternoon as he unveiled a series of tax breaks that he said would drop tax rates in Canada to their lowest level in almost 50 years.
The Tories made good on their pledge to drop the GST to 5 per cent, although the lower rate won't take effect until Jan. 1, 2008, which means Canadians won't see the savings for the busy Christmas shopping season.
The finance minister also announced that the minority Conservatives will drop the tax rate on the lowest person tax bracket to 15 per cent from 15.5 per cent, retroactive to Jan. 1, 2007. That reverses a tax hike introduced by Flaherty in his 2006 budget.
As well, Flaherty said the government is raising the personal exemption to $9,600 from $8,929, retroactive to Jan. 1, 2007. That's the amount Canadians can earn without paying taxes. The exemption will rise again on Jan. 1, 2009 to $10,100. It's a move that will put more money in the pockets of low-income Canadians.
In total, the promised tax breaks announced today to individuals and corporations total $60 billion over the next five years.
"Our government is establishing a proud legacy of tax relief," Flaherty said in his prepared text announcing the changes.
The mini-budget also promises a hefty tax cut for businesses with a 1-per cent cut next year, followed by ongoing reductions that will bring the tax rate to 15 per cent by 2012, down from more than 22 per cent now.
"This is a substantial shot of adrenalin for all Canadian businesses," Flaherty said.
Ottawa is rolling in cash — this year's surplus could top $14 billion - and the finance minister said today that Canada's economic future looks bright.
The government is paying down record amounts of debt, business investment is on the upswing and unemployment is at its lowest rate in 33 years, he said.
"We are seeing unprecedented growth in some parts of the country," he said.
But Flaherty also cautioned that Canada is facing increasing competition from countries such as China, Brazil and India and that troubles in credit markets have caused problems for other nations.
"Poor decisions and weak leadership could unravel our progress and prosperity far more quickly than many would like to believe," Flaherty said.
The economic news comes on the eve of the first anniversary of his still-controversial decision to phase out income trusts. The government is still taking flak for that decision, which wiped out millions of dollars from investment portfolios.
The Liberals are adamantly opposed to another GST cut on the grounds that it does little to boost Canada's long-term economic health. But the opposition party has stopped short of threatening to defeat the government in a confidence vote that would force an election.
The Conservatives are under pressure from their core supporters to reduce the amount of cash Canadians send to Ottawa.
Confidential files reveal fortunes of Leafs empire
RICHARD LAUTENS/TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO
Richard Peddie, right, Maple Leaf Sports president, and Ted Rogers, head of Rogers Communications Inc., unveil a business partnership at the ACC in this file photo.
'It's really about trying to sell pieces of the game' CAROLINE WRIGHT, Leafs vice-president
Parent company's ventures have generated an astonishing 22% profit margin
Hours after Mats Sundin collected his 500th NHL goal last season, the nylon mesh net that corralled the landmark puck was removed from the Air Canada Centre and shipped to a factory where workers cut it into 2,000 pieces.
The small bits of net were mounted on a board next to a photo of Sundin and slipped into a matted frame. In an instant, otherwise worthless scraps of nylon had been transformed into valuable sports memorabilia. One Toronto sports marketing executive estimates the Maple Leafs' parent company, Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, generated $40,000 from the promotion.
That episode demonstrates the one sure fact sports fans understand about MLSE: It knows how to make money. And now, confidential documents reviewed by the Star reveal the sports empire is poised to earn a lot more – much of it coming from increased ticket prices.
Internal financial statements show MLSE generated profit of $83 million on revenue of $383 million in the year ended June 30. The internal documents also show the company forecasts a profit of $105 million by 2011 on revenue of $477 million. Over the same period, ticket revenue is expected to increase 30 per cent, to $166 million.
The documents also reveal that, for every dollar Maple Leaf Sports generated in fiscal 2007, 21.8 cents was profit. (By contrast, Royal Bank of Canada, the country's largest bank, reportedly had a profit margin of 13.3 per cent for its last fiscal year.)
Asked to confirm the figures, Maple Leaf Sports president Richard Peddie said, "I'm not going to say yes or no. However you got your numbers you got them. I'm not going to discuss any financials. That's been my consistent stand for the past 10 years."
Peddie acknowledged the team's financial forecast for upcoming years is "rosy but with some challenges."
While its owners include the publicly traded Toronto Dominion Bank, details of Maple Leaf Sports' finances have long been a closely guarded secret. Besides the company's management committee, only its shareholders – TD, CTVglobemedia, the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board, and real estate developer Larry Tanenbaum – have had access to the figures.
It isn't clear whether the Maple Leaf Sports figures, marked "Highly Confidential," had been audited and the financial statements did not appear to take into account several of the company's recent ventures such as the fledgling Toronto FC soccer team or Maple Leaf Square, a real estate development featuring twin towers that is being built steps from the Air Canada Centre.
Peddie confirmed a separate company has been established for Maple Leaf Square, which includes a hotel, condominiums (already sold out), retail and office space. Peddie said profits from Maple Leaf Square would be realized as soon as 2010.
"These are very healthy numbers," said one investment banker who specializes in the sports industry. "They're making money with the appreciation of the company and generating a great annual profit. Where else are (Maple Leaf Sports shareholders) going to get that?"
However, former MLSE vice-president Jeff Newman warns that repeated ticket-price hikes could mean trouble ahead. "The NFL has it all figured out," Newman said. "The average guy living in Detroit working on the GM line can still afford season tickets for $500 or $1,000."
The Maple Leafs, by contrast, have increased prices to the point where many of the team's most loyal fans probably feel disenfranchised, Newman said, a fact that was underscored during a recent Maple Leafs playoff push.
"We encouraged everyone to wear blue but it didn't work at all," he said. "It was still a lot of investment bankers coming to the game in suits. It's Bay Street that goes to those games. Leafs Nation can't afford it."
While it's hard to value the company as a whole, several sports industry executives said based on its financial makeup, Maple Leaf Sports would likely attract at least $1.5 billion should it ever be put on the block. Maple Leaf Sports has shown a flair for marketing ever since its predecessor company bought basketball's Raptors and the Air Canada Centre in 1998.
During the Leafs' final game at Maple Leaf Gardens on Feb. 13, 1999, team staff collected ice shavings the Zamboni had scooped off the ice between periods. The melted ice was cleaned and purified, and poured into about 2,500 acrylic pucks. Within days, the entire lot had been sold for $50 apiece for a net profit of roughly $125,000.
"It's really about trying to sell pieces of the game," said Caroline Wright, a Maple Leafs vice-president who oversees merchandising efforts. "I think when they shut down Maple Leaf Gardens, they even sold the trough from the bathroom."
While Maple Leaf Sports has made millions through investments in digital TV networks, arena management and real estate, one question looms: Where does it go from here?
"I don't know and if I did know I wouldn't tell you," Peddie said. "I don't know what our next big project is going to be."
Peddie said Maple Leaf Sports has snubbed the idea of starting a team-themed restaurant chain. "We've done the (profit and loss estimates) on this a number of times and the numbers just are too low," he said.
Maple Leaf Sports similarly has rejected the idea of buying a Women's NBA, indoor soccer or arena football franchise. It's also not interested in investing in a European soccer team, Peddie said.
"I joked with (Major League Soccer commissioner) Don Garber about whether he'd consider giving us a second team for Toronto," Peddie said. In its first year, Toronto FC sold an average 20,000 tickets at 15 home games, some 5,500 more than it expected.
Maple Leaf Sports is poised to expand its soccer investment, following in the footsteps of Real Salt Lake, another MLS franchise that recently announced plans to build a $25 million (U.S.) youth soccer academy in Utah that could attract as many as 200 players as young as 13 to train with coaching staff and attend private school.
Peddie on Thursday reviewed plans to build a soccer youth academy here and said it's a promising development.
Soccer teams typically generate a large portion of their revenue selling players, often homegrown, to other clubs. In July, for instance, Real Salt Lake sold American teenage soccer phenom Freddy Adu to the Portuguese club Benfica for $2 million.
While soccer has made strides in Canada in recent years, the Leafs – who haven't won a Stanley Cup since 1967 – remain the engine that drives Maple Leaf Sports.
And while Peddie and other company executives said they're uncertain over the best ways to buttress the hockey team's revenue, Jeff Newman, a former Maple Leaf Sports senior marketer, said a natural move would be for the Leafs to adopt so-called variable ticket pricing. The move might mean a ticket to a Leafs-Montreal Canadiens game could cost much more than a Leafs-Phoenix Coyotes contest. The practice could also see Toronto raise ticket prices at particular parts of the season.
National Post editorial: Stephen Harper was right to meet the Dalai Lama
When it comes to Western governments’ contacts with the Dalai Lama, China talks loudly, but carries a little stick. Every time a president or prime minister meets with the exiled spiritual and temporal leader of Tibet — as Prime Minister Stephen Harper did yesterday — the Chinese threaten severe repercussions, typically the fraying of the trade arrangements Western corporations covet so much because of China’s 1.3 billion consumers. But critics who, on this basis, warn against official meetings with the Dalai Lama need to remember one thing: China needs bilateral trade every bit as much as the West, perhaps more so. That’s why Beijing seldom follows up on its tough talk with anything more than a cancelled meeting or sharply worded letter.
Last week, U.S. President George W. Bush awarded the Buddhist monk — who has lived in exile for 48 years — the Congressional Gold Medal, America’s highest civilian honour. China protested in advance, saying on the eve of the lama’s visit to the White House that it was “strongly dissatisfied,” and that if Washington did not cancel its plans there would be “an extremely serious impact.” Yet, so far, all the Chinese have done is withdraw from a U.S.-led diplomatic summit discussing what to do about Iran’s nuclear program. Similarly, after the Chinese protested loudly about German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s September meeting, the only tangible evidence of their displeasure was the cancellation of an annual German-Chinese meeting on human rights. Australia claims to have seen no consequences at all since Prime Minister John Howard’s meeting with the Dalai Lama during the summer.
China doesn’t follow up on its tough talk because it can’t. The jobs produced by China’s decade-long economic boom keep the population content, and thus less likely to agitate for political reform. Until the threat of the Dalai Lama whipping up an anti-China revolt in Tibet outweighs China’s fear of a broad upheaval by hungry farmers and unemployed factory workers, Western leaders’ contacts with him will evoke little more than Chinese bluster.
Mr. Harper’s meeting with the Dalai Lama is mostly a symbolic gesture, of course. But such symbols are important. Since China’s invasion of Tibet in 1950, Beijing has tended to ease its iron grip only at times when the West is expressing its sympathy with Tibetans. By contrast, the cruel crackdowns of 1959 and 1987-1988 — in which tens of thousands were slaughtered by People’s Liberation Army troops — were preceded by Western countries agreeing to accept China’s controversial claim that Tibet is traditionally part of China.
Mr. Harper was right to meet with the Dalai Lama officially and in front of the media — the first PM to do so. (Paul Martin met with the Dalai Lama behind closed doors in the residence of Ottawa’s Catholic archbishop, as if the meeting were somehow shameful. To our mind, this is worse than not meeting the man at all.) Even if there were a reasonable expectation of trade sanctions by China, giving an audience to this symbol of Tibet’s suppressed identity was the morally correct thing to do.
On this score, one may ask: If Ottawa is morally obliged to take a principled stand against Washington whenever U.S. policy deviates from Canada’s — as Canadian nationalists insist — then why should the same not be true of China, whose human-rights record is far worse than Washington’s? A bizarre article by a former diplomat in Sunday’s Toronto Star accused Mr. Harper of meeting the Dalai Lama on the basis of “ideologically driven considerations.” If a commitment to human rights counts as an “ideologically driven consideration,” then Mr. Harper should proudly plead guilty to the charge.
Recently, Chinese officials in Tibet caught four 15-year-old boys scribbling graffiti on the walls of public buildings calling for the Dalai Lama to return. International human rights organizations say the boys have been beaten with cables and tortured with cattle prods. If Mr. Harper hadn’t met with the Dalai Lama, Canada would have been giving tacit approval to such Chinese tactics. Good on our Prime Minister for injecting a little bit more principle into our international relations.
Prime minister says a very public hello to Dalai Lama
Jack Aubry, CanWest News Service
OTTAWA — The Dalai Lama touts Prime Minister Stephen Harper as a strong defender of human rights but the Nobel laureate has reservations about Canada’s combat role in Afghanistan, saying that non-violent means are the only way to win over minds in the war-torn country.
The world-famous pacifist made the comments prior to his historic meeting with Harper in the Parliament Buildings. He said if Afghanistan came up in their conversation, he would tell Harper that meeting violence with violence only makes matters worse in a bad situation.
Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama (L) displays a scarf presented to him by Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper at the start of their meeting in Harper's office on Parliament Hill in Ottawa October 29, 2007.
Photograph by : REUTERS/Chris Wattie
“I always believe non-violence is the best way to solve problems. Using violence, counter-violence, sometimes it creates more complications,” said the Dalai Lama about Afghanistan.
He spoke to reporters after meeting briefly with Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney at his Gatineau office, reminding them he had already expressed his reservations about the war in Iraq when he recently met with U.S. President George W. Bush.
Kenney later said Afghanistan had not come up during the meeting with the prime minister: “Issues like that were not discussed, were not raised. It’s no news the Dalai Lama is an advocate of nonviolent, conflict resolution. It’s our view that we are in Afghanistan at the invitation of the Afghan government and the United Nations with the support of the Afghan people to defend them from violence.”
“And I believe (if) you look at Tibetan history you’ll see that self-defence is considered legitimate — a legitimate context for that.”
The Dalai Lama lauded Harper’s “strong” record on defending human rights: “I think personally it is my duty to express on behalf of, I think, many, many groups of people who suffer under human rights violations. I want to turn to him, he is one of the leaders who speaks very strongly about human rights issues. And certainly he is very, very sympathetic about Tibet.”
The 72-year-old exiled Tibetan leader and Harper met for about 40 minutes in his Centre Block office, making it the first public meeting between a prime minister and the Dalai Lama despite the objections of the Chinese government. A news conference was scheduled at the Chinese embassy late Monday afternoon where officials were expected to further express their unhappiness with the day’s events.
The Dalai Lama said he had “no particular political agenda” for his meeting with Harper but rather he simply wanted to promote “religious harmony.”
The Chinese government view the 72-year-old Dalai Lama as a separatist who is seeking independence of a region integral to their country. Last week, the embassy released a statement denouncing Harper’s decision to host the Dalai Lama.
He said recent polls show that 80 percent of the Canadian population support the Dalai Lama and Tibet.
Conservative Senator Consiglio Di Nino, who met the Dalai Lama on the Hill along with other Parliamentary Friends of Tibet, predicted last week the Chinese would “huff and puff” a lot about the meeting but it would not have any long-term consequences on trade between the two countries. Kenney also dismissed questions Monday about Chinese sanctions against Canada as a trading partner.
The Dalai Lama fled Tibet following the collapse of a rebellion in 1959. Harper is the latest western leader following Bush, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Australian Prime Minister John Howard who have publicly met with him in recent months.
The Tibetan, who is an honourary Canadian citizen, said China should view Canada as a model of “multiracial, multicultural, multi religion” country, adding that Chinese officials could learn from Kenney’s ministry on “how to work for promotion of unity on the basis of mutual respect.”
He praised Canada for accepting its native peoples as “First Nations”, saying he would like to see the same accepting spirit from the Chinese government when it comes to Tibet’s “unique cultural heritage.”
Ottawa Citizen
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Dalai Lama says China could stand to learn much from Canada's example
TORONTO: Prime Minister Stephen Harper welcomed the Dalai Lama to Canada on Monday with the red-carpet treatment, risking the anger of China, which has been critical of western leaders who meet with Tibet's exiled spiritual leader.
Monday's meeting is the first time a Canadian prime minister has met with the Dalai Lama at federal government offices. Former Canadian prime minister Paul Martin met the 72-year-old monk in 2004, but did so at the private home of a Catholic archbishop to avoid drawing political ire.
Canada's Conservative leader followed in the footsteps of U.S. President George W. Bush and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in choosing to meet with him in public and official venues, lending the leader an air of political support.
Harper has said he will not back down on speaking about human rights in China for the "almighty dollar."
Chinese officials in Canada later blasted the warm reception.
"It is a blatant interference in China's internal affairs and has severely hurt the feelings of the Chinese people and will gravely undermine the relationship between China and Canada," Sun Lushan, of the Chinese Embassy, told reporters.
"If you do something to interrupt the normal trade between the two sides, both sides will be hurt, and fundamentally the interests of the two countries and the two peoples will be hurt," he said.
The diminutive, perpetually upbeat monk had joked earlier in the day that he paid little attention to formalities, or where he met with people. Secretary of State for Multiculturalism Jason Kenney hosted the Dalai Lama at his government office in Gatineau, Quebec.
While the Dalai Lama saluted Canada's multicultural, multiracial and harmonious country as a "model" for the world, he told legislators he disagreed with the war in Afghanistan to combat terrorism.
He said he would bring it up during his meeting with the Canadian leader, but Harper did not raise the issue during their 40-minute closed-door meeting, Kenney said.
In a speech earlier this month on its priorities for a new session of Parliament, the Conservative government said Canada's military mission in Afghanistan should be extended to at least 2011, but promised a vote on the issue. Seventy-one Canadian soldiers and one diplomat have lost their lives in Afghanistan since 2002. Canada has about 2,300 soldiers operating in Kandahar province, the former Taliban stronghold.
"Using violence to counter violence, sometimes it creates more complicated" situations, the Dalai Lama told a gathering of government officials at Parliament Hill on Ottawa before his meeting with Harper.
The Dalai Lama is lauded in much of the world as a figure of moral authority, but Beijing demonizes the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize laureate and claims he seeks to destroy China's sovereignty by pushing for independence for Tibet.
The Dalai Lama says he wants "real autonomy" for Tibet, not independence. He is immensely popular in the Himalayan region, which China has ruled with a heavy hand since its communist-led forces invaded in 1951.
He has lived with followers in exile in India since fleeing Chinese soldiers in Tibet in 1959, and said Monday that suppression of religion, language and culture is getting worse in Tibet.
China could stand to learn much from Canada's example, he said.
"I think firstly it is my duty to express on behalf of many, many groups of people who suffer under human-rights violations," he said. "I want to tell (Harper) he is one of the leaders who speaks very strongly about human-rights issues.
"My main commitment is promotion of human values, promotion of religious harmony — wherever I go I speak about these two things."
The Dalai Lama was granted honorary Canadian citizenship in 2006.
If you haven't had the chance to check out the Prime Minister's official website, make sure you add it to your regular series of bookmarks. It is a great way to follow Stephen Harper's speeches, announcements and includes a photo gallery of many of his events. Below are some great images that show Stephen Harper representing Canadian values on the world stage. I think he is doing a great job representing us as Prime Minister.
If you haven't had the chance to check out the Prime Minister's official website, make sure you add it to your regular series of bookmarks. It is a great way to follow Stephen Harper's speeches, announcements and includes a photo gallery of many of his events. Below are some great images that show Stephen Harper demonstrating his interest in hockey and Canadian culture. This is the side that doesn't come out much in the media.
Statement by the Honourable Peter Van Loan, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform
"One of the roles and functions of the Official Opposition is to rise each week in the House of Commons and pose a question to the government about its legislative agenda for the upcoming week.
This week, the Liberal Party abdicated their role as the Official Opposition by failing to perform this simple, straightforward function.
This, just one day after they failed to stand and vote on the Throne Speech.
The Liberal Party is so demoralized, disorganized and weak that it can’t even fulfill its most basic and simple responsibilities as the Official Opposition.
One is left to ask: who is Canada’s real Official Opposition? "
The seemingly unstoppable Canadian dollar traded at a 47 1/2-year high Monday, hitting 104.69 cents US late in the morning.
That's a gain of three-quarters of a U.S. cent since Friday as the currency hit a level unseen since early 1960 – when John Diefenbaker was prime minister and Dwight Eisenhower was still in the White House.
The loonie has risen more than 18 cents US this year, as several factors converged to drive it to parity with its U.S. counterpart and beyond, including record-high oil prices and a weak greenback.
Another element hurting the U.S. dollar, in relation to the loonie and other currencies, is the likelihood that the U.S. Federal Reserve will cut interest rates again this week in an attempt to boost the American economy.
Clinton has been defending vote calling Revolutionary Guard a terror organization
Criticism reminiscent of Clinton's vote in favor of taking action against Iraq
Democratic rivals critical of Clinton's vote, Bush's "saber rattling"
Republican candidates vie to take tough stance on Iran
By Paul Steinhauser and Sasha Johnson CNN Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- When it comes to presidential politics, Iran appears to the next Iraq.
Sen. Barack Obama said the sanctions shouldn't be used to keep troops in Iraq or to attack Iran.
While it hasn't pushed aside the war in Iraq, the debate over sanctions against Iran and the possibility of military action against Tehran is gathering steam on the campaign trail.
Democratic candidates expressed concern Thursday about the Bush administration's extensive sanctions against Iran, arguing that the measures were likely precursors to war.
The new sanctions target Iran's Revolutionary Guard, its Quds force and a number of Iranian banks and people the U.S. accuses of backing nuclear proliferation and terror-related activities.
"It is important to have tough sanctions on Iran, particularly on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which supports terrorism," Barack Obama said. "But these sanctions must not be linked to any attempt to keep our troops in Iraq, or to take military action against Iran." Watch Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice explain the new sanctions »
The senator from Illinois added that "unfortunately, the Kyl-Lieberman amendment made the case for President Bush that we need to use our military presence in Iraq to counter Iran -- a case that has nothing to do with sanctioning the Revolutionary Guard."
The Kyl-Lieberman amendment passed 76-22 in the Senate last month. It calls, in part, for the Revolutionary Guard to be designated a terrorist organization. While Obama opposes the legislation, he was campaigning when the full Senate took up the bill and missed the vote.
Former Sen. John Edwards released a statement saying, "Today, George Bush and Dick Cheney again rattled the sabers in their march toward military action against Iran. The Bush Administration has been making plans to attack Iran for many months. At this critical moment, we need strong leadership against George Bush's dangerous 'preventive war' policy, which makes force the first option, not the last."
Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd echoed that sentiment.
"Unfortunately, the action taken by the administration today comes in the context of escalating rhetoric and drumbeat to military action against Iran," he said in a statement. "I am deeply concerned that once again the president is opting for military action as a first resort."
Dodd also highlighted his vote against the Kyl-Lieberman amendment.
Democratic frontrunner Sen. Hillary Clinton's vote for the measure is now a major topic on the campaign trail. Dodd and Clinton's other 2008 rivals say the amendment's language could be used by the Bush administration to justify military action against Iran.
"I learned a clear lesson from the lead-up to the Iraq War in 2002: If you give this president an inch, he will take a mile -- and launch a war," Edwards said. "Sen. Clinton apparently learned a different lesson. Instead of blocking George Bush's new march to war, Sen. Clinton and others are enabling him once again."
Clinton has been defending her vote on Iran ever since she cast it. If you think this sounds familiar, it is.
The early months of this presidential campaign were dominated on the Democratic side by the Senate's 2002 vote for a resolution authorizing Bush to go to war against Iraq. Clinton and Dodd voted in favor of that resolution. Edwards, who was in the Senate at the time, did as well.
Obama was a state lawmaker in Illinois at the time. But he spoke out at time against the bill and against going to war in Iraq. Obama continues to remind voters that he was against the war in Iraq from the start.
Edwards stood by his vote during his first run for the White House in 2004 but last year apologized for it. Clinton's refusal to apologize became an issue among the Democratic candidates.
Now the spotlight has shifted to the vote on Iran, and again Clinton is defending her vote. Last weekend, her campaign sent out a mailer to Iowa voters in which Clinton explained why she supported the bill declaring the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization.
On Thursday, her campaign released a statement that said she was concerned about Bush's "saber-rattling" but pointed to the opportunity in the sanctions.
"We must work to check Iran's nuclear ambitions and its support of terrorism, and the sanctions announced today strengthen America's diplomatic hand in that regard," the statement said. "The Bush administration should use this opportunity to finally engage in robust diplomacy to achieve our objective of ending Iran's nuclear weapons program, while also averting military action. That is the policy I support."
On the Republican side, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney took a hard stand on Iran on Thursday. Romney told voters in New Hampshire that he would take military action, including a blockade or "bombardment of some kind," to stop Iran's move to gain nuclear weapons.
"If for some reasons they continue down their course of folly toward nuclear ambition, then I would take military action if that's available to us," Romney said. "That's an option that's on the table. And it's not something which we'll spell out specifically."
Romney also spoke out in favor of the Bush administration's sanctions against Tehran.
Romney's language on Iran is similar to what his Republican rivals are saying. Just about all of the GOP White House hopefuls have said they would not allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.E-mail to a friend
US Vice President Dick Cheney and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Left; Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty; Reuters
The prospect of war with Iran is beginning to look real. The hardening of positions in both Tehran and Washington over the past week has brought relations to their lowest point since the Iran hostage crisis that began in 1979. Both sides insist that they seek no military conflict, but tensions on issues ranging from Iran's nuclear program to influence in Iraq and the Arab-Israeli peace process is turning their differences into all-out regional power struggle. Last week, Secretary of State Condeleezza Rice criticized Iran's "emboldened foreign policy" and "hegemonic aspirations," while asserting that the U.S. will continue to be engaged on economic, political and security issues in the Middle East. "We are there to stay," she declared.
On the critical issue of Iran's uranium-enrichment program, Tehran and Washington are now engaged in a game of geopolitical chicken, which favors hard-liners on both sides, making compromise more difficult, escalation more likely and war — by accident, if not by design — a greater possibility than before. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, after stepping up defiance of U.S.-led efforts to compel Iran to halt enrichment, this week appeared to gain greater domestic influence over the issue with the replacement of Iran's pragmatic top nuclear negotiator by a key Ahmadinejad ally. After President Bush invoked the specter of World War III to press the urgency of stopping Iran, the Administration followed up with another round of punitive measures.
"It looks like a slow-motion train wreck," said Barbara Slavin, author of a new book, Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the U.S. and the Twisted Path to Confrontation. "Neither side is willing to back down and the chances for conflict are growing over the nuclear program and Iran's support for U.S. adversaries in the Middle East."
The showdown has elements of a perfect storm. The decline of U.S. fortunes in Iraq has been accompanied by a rise in Iranian assertiveness, which has intensified with Ahmadinejad's recent tough talk. Trumpeting Iran's nuclear ambitions as a nationalist cause, Ahmadinejad rejected the agreement by his moderate predecessor, Mohammed Khatami, to voluntarily suspend uranium-enrichment during three years of negotiations with European powers. Ahmadinejad abandoned Khatami's "dialogue of civilizations" for more confrontational rhetoric, calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map" and goading the West by denying the Holocaust. Iran enthusiastically backed Hizballah and Hamas in their confrontations with Israel, and denounced the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
Ahmadinejad has repeatedly pooh-poohed the idea that the U.S. might take military action against Iran, to the anger and alarm of others in the Iranian leadership structure, who accuse him of downplaying a real danger. Ahmadinejad says that he considers the U.N.'s case against Iran's nuclear program closed, and dismisses U.N. sanctions as "piles of paper." Bragging that Iran's uranium-enrichment efforts have succeeded in achieving "the capacity for industrial-scale fuel cycle production," he also recently withdrew a compromise Iranian proposal that would base its enrichment activities in an international consortium that would allow Western countries to participate in and monitor Iran's activities. "The proposal was based on the situation last year," Ahmadinejad explained. "New terms must be defined."
Against the backdrop of crucial parliamentary elections in 2008 and his presidential reelection bid in 2009, Ahmadinejad is now seeking a greater leadership role in nuclear decision-making, which is controlled by the regime's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Last week, Ahmadinejad accepted the resignation of Ali Larijani, the pragmatic conservative chief negotiator who is a bitter political rival to the President. Although all Iranian leaders defend their right to uranium-enrichment technology for purposes of producing nuclear energy, Larijani believes it is in Iran's national interests to reach an understanding with the West. But on at least two occasions, Ahmadinejad has publicly slapped down Larijani's conciliatory efforts.
A similar hardening of positions has been taking place in Washington, with U.S. rhetoric assuming a more confrontational tone in the past two weeks. On Oct. 17, Bush warned that "if Iran had a nuclear weapon, it would be a dangerous threat to world peace" that risked a third world war. Four days later, Vice President Dick Cheney warned, "The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course, the international community is prepared to impose serious consequences... We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon."
Last week, a day after Rice told Congress that the U.S.'s 2006 offer of talks with Iran was "still on the table" if Tehran suspended enrichment activities, the Administration designated Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps as a proliferator of weapons of mass destruction, and named the Corps' Quds division as a supporter of terrorism.
The tougher tone suggests that U.S. policy has taken a subtle, yet decisive, turn toward not merely stopping Iran's nuclear program, but seeking the end of the Islamic regime. Cheney's objections to Iran went well beyond its uranium-enrichment activities, to include Iran's policies toward Israel and the U.S., its activities in Iraq, its suppression of domestic opposition and what he called its drive for "hegemonic power" in the region — a term echoed by the less hawkish Rice in her congressional testimony.
Cheney, like Bush and Rice, stopped short of advocating a new U.S. policy to aggressively pursue regime change, as in Afghanistan and Iraq. But the Vice President pointed the Administration in that direction. He castigated "the nature of the regime"; said that Iranians have a "right to be free from oppression, from economic deprivation and tyranny"; and declared that "America looks forward to the day when Iranians reclaim their destiny." Cheney's indictment of Iran's regime as one that deserves to be eliminated could be read as another point of U.S. pressure, designed to entice Iranian leaders to accept the U.S. offer to negotiate a peaceful end to the crisis. But such rhetoric, instead, may prove the point of Iran's hard-liners, that there is really nothing for the U.S. and Iran to talk about.
Grits have too much debt for an early leadership contest
Liberals strongly dismiss speculation of an early leadership race, stand behind Dion, and dismiss Sheila Copps' column.
By Abbas Rana
With Liberal Party infighting back in the spotlight, Liberals delivered a word of caution last week for former leadership contestants who may want to force an early leadership contest: fundraising will be an uphill battle, as each candidate will have to raise funds to pay off debts from the last campaign as well as fundraise for a new campaign.
"I don't think any of the leadership candidates have retired their debts. I don't know where the money for another convention would come from," said one top Liberal who spoke to The Hill Times on condition of anonymity.
Discussions about the possibility of the next Liberal leadership contest and its attendant fundraising started in Liberal backrooms after Liberal infighting came into the open over the last few weeks and ever since the disastrous Quebec byelections for the Grits.
"If I were running a new campaign, I would want to be very careful about incurring a lot of new debt because I'm going to face the same problem. Now, I'm going to be even deeper in the hole and I'm still going to have trouble raising money for it. It's risky for somebody to keep digging a hole for themselves," said another top Liberal who requested anonymity.
Former Liberal leadership contestants interviewed last week said that they are focused on winning the next election, not on when the next leadership will happen and if they will run.
"That's just not anything that was on anybody's mind. What's on our mind is winning the next election. That's not even a question, not an issue, there's nothing to say to it," said Liberal MP Ken Dryden (York Centre, Ont.), who ran unsuccessfully in the last Liberal leadership contest.
Ontario Liberal Senator David Smith, who chaired Liberal MP Michael Ignatieff's (Etobicoke-Lakeshore, Ont.) unsuccessful Liberal leadership campaign, echoed Mr. Dryden's views on the subject.
"I guess it probably would [be difficult], but I haven't been thinking about it. I mean there's no vacancy, and there's no vacancy in my opinion on the horizon. The procedure that we have in the party is that it only arises when you have an election and you haven't formed the government."
According to the accounting reports filed by the 11 leadership contestants with Elections Canada last July, all former candidates racked up collective total debts of about $4-million.
Under the Federal Accountability Act, which came into effect in January, corporations and unions are not allowed to donate any money to federal political parties, but individuals can donate $1,100 to individual candidates and another $1,100 to political parties.
Making matters more complicated is the Canada Elections Act provision that says the contribution limit to a leadership contestant is event-based or contest-based rather than on a calendar year basis. So, if a person makes a contribution to a leadership contestant of $1,100 or more prior to Dec. 31, 2006, that person may not make any additional contributions in 2007 unless there was a new leadership contest.
Someone who contributed less than $1,100 in 2006 can make further contributions up to the maximum of $1,100. Also, all leadership contestants are required to pay off their debts within 18 months after the conclusion of the leadership convention. If that's impossible, leadership contestants can request an extension from the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada who can grant an unlimited number of extensions. The leadership contestant cannot use his or her own money to repay the loan.
Up until the end of last year, individuals were allowed to donate a maximum of $5,400 to a leadership candidate.
In a leadership contest of any party, the most likely donors to a leadership contestant give money to their preferred candidate during the course of the election campaign. After the conclusion of the leadership contest, it's usually an uphill battle for the unsuccessful leadership contestants to raise funds and retire their debts.
Liberals last week were tight-lipped about their infighting and declined to comment on a recent scathing column published in the Sun Media newspapers on Oct. 21 by former deputy prime minister Sheila Copps, now is a columnist with Sun Media. In the column, headlined, " Ms. Copps criticized deputy Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff (Etobicoke-Lakeshore, Ont.) and some of his leadership supporters and wrote that, "While Dion has been fighting for his political life, Ignatieff underlings are doing everything possible to finish him off. With friends like those, Dion doesn't need Conservative enemies."
She specifically criticized Liberal MPs Denis Coderre (Bourassa, Que.) and Pablo Rodriguez (Honoré-Mercier, Que.) for declining to accept the role of Quebec lieutenant.
"How can a savvy political operator like Coderre launch a plea for party unity one week and deliberately sow disunity the next? Obviously, his refusal is no accident but part of a larger plan to pressure the leader. The strategy hatched in advance of the Outremont byelection loss and culminating in a Liberal Parliamentary crisis [last] week, will either provoke an election or a Dion resignation. Some Liberals, convinced Dion will not go quietly, think an early election is the only way to get rid of their hapless leader," Ms. Copps wrote.
Last week, Mr. Ignatieff and Mr. Coderre declined a comment, while Jean-François Del Torchio,an OLO spokesman, wrote in an email that "We have no comments. Mrs. Copps does not speak for the OLO, nor for the Liberal Party, for that matter. So no comments."
Liberal MP Karen Redman (Kitchener Centre, Ont.), who is also her party's whip, in an interview last week, however, disagreed with Ms. Copps's views.
"I'm surprised that Sheila would take that much time and that much ink to dwell on something that I think was not overly important. Sheila made much more of people's body language than was necessary... It's disappointing to see that somebody would use valuable space in major newspapers to talk about trivia when they should be talking about the content and the substance of what Mr. Dion had to say."
In the wake of the public infighting within Liberal circles, some opposition parties and even some Liberals have been saying that if an election is held this fall, Liberals will perform poorly.
But in this week's "Wiseguys" column in The Hill Times, Liberal Warren Kinsella wrote that when Prime Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) was the leader of the Official Opposition, he went through a similarly rough political situation as Mr. Dion, and in the last federal election, the former leader of the Official Opposition ended up becoming Prime Minister. Mr. Kinsella pointed out that political pundits at the time attached words like "beleaguered," "embattled," and "unelectable" to Mr. Harper's leadership.
Meanwhile, infighting and finger-pointing within the federal Liberal Party started after it lost the safe Liberal riding of Outremont, Que., last month and when four nominated and potential federal Liberal Party candidates in Quebec announced that they will not be running in the next federal election as Liberal candidates. The four potential or nominated candidates who announced at the time that they would not run in the next federal election include: former astronaut Marc Garneau; Paul Leduc, former mayor of a Montreal suburb; Pierre-Luc Bellerose, Liberal candidate in the riding of Joliette; and Gilles Landry, Liberal candidate in the riding of Protneuf-Jacques-Cartier. Mr. Garneau however reversed his decision recently and has agreed to run in the riding of Westmount-Ville-Marie.
Earlier this month, Jamie Carroll, former national director of the Liberal Party stepped down amid controversy over alleged comments he made about hiring more Quebecers to the party office.
Two weeks ago, hours prior to the Throne Speech, Liberal MP Marcel Proux (Hull-Aylmer, Que.), Mr. Dion's former Quebec lieutenant and Serge Marcil, director general of the Quebec wing of the Liberal Party, quit their jobs. Mr. Dion then offered this job to Mr. Coderre and Mr. Rodriguez but both declined to accept this position. After that, the Liberal leader appointed Quebec Liberal Sen. Céline Hervieux-Payette (Bedford, Que.) to the position.
Both Mr. Coderre and Mr. Rodriguez have declined to explain publicly why they did not accept this position. In the absence of an official explanation, an accepted theory amongst Liberals was that the Liberal Leader's Office offered the job of Quebec lieutenant to Messrs. Rodriquez and Coderre prior to advising Mr. Proulx that the job would no longer be his, and that the two Quebec MPs turned down the job because of the way the Liberal leader's office handled the matter.
President Vladimir Putin on Friday evoked one of the most dangerous confrontations of the Cold War to highlight Russian opposition to a proposed US missile defense system in Europe, likening the threat to the Cuban missile crisis.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, waves to the media. Photo: AP
The comments - made at the end of a summit between Russia and European Union that failed to resolve several festering disputes - were the latest in a series of belligerent statements from the assertive Putin.
Emboldened by oil and gas-fueled economic clout, Russia is increasingly at loggerheads with Washington and much of Europe on issues ranging from Iran and Kosovo to energy supplies and human rights.
Putin traveled to Portugal, which holds the EU's rotating presidency, for talks with leaders of the 27-nation bloc, in an effort to patch up widening differences. But despite a positive spin put on the meeting by Putin and EU President Jose Manuel Barroso - who called it "open, frank and productive" - the summit yielded no major breakthroughs.
The EU and Russia have been without a new cooperation agreement for more than a year now, during which time doubts have grown in many European capitals about the reliability of Russia's energy supplies and trade policies toward EU member nations, such as Poland.
Putin used the stage of a news conference at the summit's conclusion to reiterate Russia's stalwart opposition to US plans to put elements of a missile defense system in the former Soviet bloc countries of Poland and the Czech Republic - both of which are now NATO members.
"Analogous actions by the Soviet Union, when it deployed missiles in Cuba, prompted the 'Caribbean crisis,"' Putin said, using the Russian term for the Cuban missile crisis.
"For us the situation is technologically very similar. We have withdrawn the remains of our bases from Vietnam, from Cuba, and have liquidated everything there, while at our borders, such threats against our country are being created," he said.
The 1962 crisis erupted when US President John F. Kennedy demanded that Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev remove his country's nuclear missiles from Cuba because they could have been used to launch a close-range attack on the US The Americans imposed a naval blockade and the world teetered on the edge of war before the Soviets backed down.
Putin also suggested that the tension was much lower than in 1962 because the United States and Russia are now "partners," not Cold War enemies. His relationship with President George W. Bush, Putin said, helps solve problems, calling him a "personal friend."
Putin said there has been no concrete US response to his counterproposals for cooperation on missile defense, but added that the United States is now listening to Russia's concerns about its plans and seeking to address them.
In Washington, White House press secretary Dana Perino underscored those remarks rather than the Cuban missile crisis analogy, saying "there's no way you could walk away without thinking that he thinks that we can work together."
The US plan is part of a wider missile shield involving defenses in California and Alaska which the United States says are to defend against any long-range missile attack from countries such as North Korea or Iran.
Russia strongly opposes the idea, saying Iran is decades away from developing missile technology that could threaten Europe or North America, and it says the US bases are aimed at spying on Russian facilities and undermining Russia's missile deterrent force.
US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters there were "clear historical differences" between the US plans and the circumstances that led to the Cuban crisis.
"I don't think that they are historically analogous in any way, shape or form," he said.
Turning to his future, Putin said he would not assume presidential powers if he became prime minister after finishing his term next May.
The popular Putin is barred from seeking a third consecutive term in the March 2008 presidential election. But he suggested earlier this month that he could become prime minister, leading to speculation that the substantial powers now invested in the presidency might be transferred to the prime minister.
"If someone thinks that I intend to move, let's say, into the government of the Russian Federation and transfer the fundamental powers there, that's not the case," Putin told reporters. "There will be no infringement on the powers of the president of the Russian Federation, at least while it depends on me."
After repeating his insistence that he does not intend to change the constitution in order to run for a third term, Putin said he had not yet decided where and in what capacity he would work as former president. He is expected to remain an influential figure in Russia.
Putin will lead the ticket of the dominant United Russia party in December parliamentary elections. An overwhelming victory for the party could turn the legislature into a new power base for Putin and give him a claim to continued authority based on his popularity.
Topping the list of concerns for a growing number of European nations is Russian energy policy - the reliability of supplies and the intentions of state-run oil and gas companies. Russia already provides 30 percent of EU energy imports, including 44 percent of natural gas imports.
The state-controlled gas giant OAO Gazprom has recently moved to acquire assets in Europe and strike bilateral deals with some EU countries.
That has led the EU to consider new restrictions on non-EU companies owning majority stakes in gas pipelines or electricity power grids without additional agreements - much to the Russians' consternation.
Earlier, Putin tried to assure European leaders that Russian investment was not to be feared.
"When we hear in some countries phrases like, 'The Russians are coming with their scary money,' it sounds a bit funny," he said.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has sought the advice of former US presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton ahead of a planned Middle East peace parley scheduled to take place in Annapolis, Maryland, in November or December.
Former PA chairman Yasser Arafat and deceased prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, z"l. Photo: GPO [File]
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Saturday that Rice met with Carter this week. The two reportedly discussed the peace talks Carter brokered between Israel and Egypt in the late 1970s. The White House called the meeting with Carter positive and "to the point."
Rice has also spoken with Clinton, who led the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians in the 1990s. "[Secretary of State] Rice is trying to learn from others what can be done and how their experience can be adapted to today's situation," McCormack said, adding that Rice placed great emphasis on "learning from the past."
The State Department also reported that Rice has recently conferred with former UN Middle East envoy Dennis Ross, as well as her predecessors James Baker, Henry Kissinger, and Madeline Albright.
Rice has stated that she intends to devote the rest of the 14 months remaining in her term to establishing an independent Palestinian state while ensuring Israel's security.
Flaherty ignores advice on black-market cigarettes
Updated Mon. Oct. 29 2007 8:47 AM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty disregarded advice from senior officials warning him to curb the influx of native-made black-market cigarettes, documents obtained by The Globe and Mail show.
The Finance department documents, obtained under the Access to Information Act, warn that Ottawa is losing substantial tax dollars as smokers switch to illegal untaxed, unregulated, cigarettes.
According to The Globe, Flaherty received the documents a month before the 2007 budget was tabled, yet decided against budget measures to combat the problem in the final document.
The documents state the contraband trade has exploded in recent years, profiting an elaborate cross-border networks using native land.
The report states the government's public accounts reveal federal tobacco revenues have plunged by more than $1 billion annually.
According to figures released last month, federal tobacco revenues dropped to $1.6 billion in 2006-07, down from $2.97 bullion two years earlier.
One five-page memo labelled "secret advice to Minister" proposed "new enforcement measures and legislative amendments to protect tax revenues and support the health objective of reducing tobacco consumption."
The newspaper reported the specific recommendations were blacked out as were estimates for how much money would be raised if the advice was followed.
Flaherty's spokesman, Chisholm Pothier, declined to comment on the 2007 budget, but told The Globe the Conservative government has taken a number of measures to curb the illegal trafficking of cigarettes.
Smuggling exceeds peak levels
When the Canadian government raised cigarette taxes in the mid-1990s, the black market for illegal cigarettes quickly developed and reached a historic high in 1994.
Finance officials told Flaherty that seizure of illegal cigarettes now far exceeds 1994 levels due to escalating tax levels.
A recent study by the Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers' Council said the source of contraband tobacco has also changed since the 1990s.
More than a decade ago, the black market was based on popular brands that were exported to the U.S. and then brought back into Canada and sold without charging tax.
Now, bulk contraband tobacco is imported from China and South Africa and then made into cigarettes on aboriginal reserves and sold without taxes.
Currently, only status Indians can purchase tax-free tobacco on reserves by law. Government documents show that increasingly more non-natives are buying legal and illegal cigarettes on reserve without paying tax.
The majority of the illegal cigarettes are concentrated in Quebec and Ontario. Ontario accounts for 53.8 per cent of the contraband and Quebec for 41.1 per cent.
The number of people smoking illegal cigarettes in Ontario has risen to 31.6 per cent this year from 23.5 per cent in 2006, while 37 per cent of smokers in Quebec smoke contraband tobacco.
Health officials troubled
Earlier this month, health officials at the 5th National Conference on Tobacco or Health warned that a new plan to curb contraband tobacco was urgently needed.
"In Canada, tobacco contraband activity is growing," Rob Cunningham, a senior policy analyst with the Canadian Cancer Society said.
"While the new federal steps to implement high-security stamping and increase the number of audits of tobacco factories and farms are steps in the right direction, there is much more that needs to be done."
Smoking remains Canada's largest preventable cause of death, responsible for approximately 37,000 deaths each year. Tobacco-related diseases cost Canada over $17 billion annually, including $4.4 billion in direct health-care costs.
Two recent studies demonstrate that each percentage-point decline in the prevalence of smoking could save $65-97 million in health care costs in Canada.
OTTAWA – If Stephen Harper is hoping to forge a political as well as a personal friendship with the Dalai Lama this week, he may want to consider the example of what happened to George W. Bush on that score.
The Tibetan spiritual leader told an Ottawa audience Sunday he found Bush to be a likable man when he met the U.S. president last week in Washington.
"I love him, really, as a human being. Very nice man, very simple, straightforward, no formality."
When it came to politics, however, it was another story. The message he delivered to Bush was: "As far as your policies are concerned, I have some reservations."
One of the items at the top of the list was American policy in Iraq, which the Dalai Lama described as "not necessarily" badly intentioned.
The problem, in his view, was in the practical application. As so often happens, he explained Sunday, "no matter what the intentions, methods become unrealistic. So instead of solving the problem (they) increase the problem."
The comments, delivered to a crowd of more than 5,000 gathered in a local hockey arena, came as the Dalai Lama prepared to meet Harper and other dignitaries on Monday.
They also came at a time of domestic controversy over Harper's own war-fighting policies as part of the NATO military mission in Afghanistan – a Canadian troop commitment the Dalai Lama diplomatically avoided mentioning on Sunday.
He made only occasional references to the Chinese occupation of Tibet that has lasted for more than half a century, noting that he isn't campaigning now for outright Tibetan independence but merely for "meaningful autonomy" and democratic reforms under Beijing's continued rule.
Because of China's economic might, he said, "we get greater benefit" by maintaining political ties with the People's Republic.
He reiterated, as well, his devotion to non-violent principles, recalling ruefully that when Tibetans briefly resorted to political force in an uprising in the 1950s the result was "more suppression, more control, more rigidity" – and a half-million dead.
"Violence brings more violence, more suffering," he said. ``That's almost like suicide."
The Dalai Lama, now aged 72, fled Tibet with the collapse of the rebellion in 1959 and has lived in exile since then in northern India.
Harper is the latest in a growing list of western leaders – including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Australian Prime Minister John Howard as well as Bush – who have played host to him in recent months.
The fact that the prime minister chose his Parliament Hill office for the meeting lends a more official and political air to the visit than has been the case with past encounters with Canadian politicians.
Three years ago, for example, when then-Liberal prime minister Paul Martin met with the Dalai Lama, he did so at the private residence of a Roman Catholic cleric.
That symbolically served to emphasize the Tibetan leader's status as a revered Buddhist man of religion – and to downplay his role as a campaigner against Chinese oppression in his homeland.
The Chinese government and its diplomats in Canada have made it clear they don't appreciate the subtle shift in protocol under Harper, who complained when he was in opposition that the Liberals paid too much attention to trade relations with Beijing and not enough to pressing the Communist regime to respect human rights.
Aside from the meeting with Harper, the Dalai Lama plans a stop at government offices in nearby Gatineau, Que., to meet with Secretary of State for Multiculturalism Jason Kenney, another vocal critic of Chinese policy.
He will visit Governor General Michaëlle Jean at Rideau Hall later Monday, before getting together with leaders of the federal opposition parties at a downtown hotel on Tuesday.
Prime Minister Harper unveils new environmental initiative
PM announces creation of marine conservation area in Lake Superior
25 October 2007
NIPIGON, ONTARIO
Prime Minister Stephen Harper today announced the creation of Canada’s newest National Marine Conservation Area (NMCA). More than 10,000 square kilometres of Lake Superior, including the lakebed, islands and north shorelands within the NMCA boundaries, will become the largest freshwater marine protected area in the world.
“Our government is taking action to preserve and protect Canada’s environment, including Lake Superior’s north shore, for future generations of Canadians to enjoy,” said Prime Minister Harper. “The creation of this area will benefit the local economy too, by boosting tourism and creating jobs.”
National marine conservation areas are part of Parks Canada’s growing number of national heritage sites. They balance environmental protection with responsible economic activity by protecting key elements of the ecosystem while preserving the livelihoods of local residents who work in marine industries such as commercial fishing, sport fishing and shipping.
The proposed boundaries of the Lake Superior NMCA extend from Thunder Cape at the tip of Sleeping Giant Provincial Park in the west, to Bottle Point just east of Terrace Bay, and south to the Canada-U.S. boundary.
The announcement marked the culmination of a decade of planning and negotiations involving the federal, Ontario and local governments as well as First Nations in the region. Among the groups and individuals who supported the project were His Royal Highness, The Duke of Edinburgh; and from former Prime Minister John Turner, both acting for the World Wildlife Fund, as well as former Canadian astronaut Roberta Bondar, who is one of Ontario’s Champions of the Great Lakes Heritage Coasts.
"Establishing a national marine conservation area in Lake Superior will build on the extensive work Ontario has already done to protect the cultural, recreational, and natural values of the lake’s islands and shoreline," said Premier Dalton McGuinty. "Future generations will benefit from what we have accomplished today through this constructive collaboration among three levels of government, First Nations, stakeholders and community members.”
Prime Minister Harper also acknowledged the contributions of Federal Environment Minister and Minister Responsible for Parks Canada, the Honourable John Baird, and the Member of Parliament from Lake Superior-North Shore, Joe Comuzzi, to the Lake Superior NMCA project. “Without their efforts, today’s announcement would not have become a reality,” the Prime Minister said.
FEMA fakes California fire press conference by replacing journalists with their own staff!!
About This Video
Why not just tell us all the fires are out and ...
Why not just tell us all the fires are out and there are, like, rainbows everywhere and unicorns happily skipping through the fields now.
On Tuesday, while "wildfires raged" in California, Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson, the deputy administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), held a press conference at FEMA's Southwest D.C. offices that was "carried live on Fox News, MSNBC and other outlets." In the presser, Johnson said he was "very happy with FEMA's response" while praising "the good messaging" of federal and local government responders.
But if the questions lobbed at Johnson seemed a bit like softballs, that's because they were asked by FEMA employees posing as journalists.
There aren't enough adjectives in the dictionary to describe Marc Emery.
Abrasive, brash, compelling, driven . . . and that's just the beginning of the alphabet.
It's not surprising, then, that a new documentary on Emery's impending extradition hearing -- and possible life imprisonment for selling pot seeds -- is chock-full of the kind of hyperbole that vaulted him into headlines here when he was a London bookseller and political gadfly.
In the documentary airing tomorrow, by rookie director Nick Wilson, Emery compares himself with slain human rights icon Martin Luther King, Jr. and South African freedom fighter Nelson Mandela.
It's OK, Emery says in the hour-long film, "if I die in jail or get murdered or something like that . . . We need martyrs. We need heroes."
Emery's over-the-top comments are at least matched by the United States Drug Enforcement Agency (USDEA) claims that Emery is Canada's leading drug dealer; is "one of the top 46 drug traffickers in the world"; and that his sale of pot seeds has made him responsible for the production of 1.1 million pounds of addictive marijuana.
If that claim is true, "I produced more marijuana than anyone on the planet, except God," Emery says in The Prince of Pot, a documentary to be aired on CBC Newsworld's The Lens.
The film makes a the case that Emery's prosecution is as much about the international politics of marijuana as it is about the law.
It also is a window into Emery's craving for immortality.
The two goals may converge in Vancouver in January at Emery's extradition hearing.
Fined by a Canadian judge for selling pot seeds here, Emery could be jailed for life if tried and convicted in the U.S.
If he swings a deal with the Canadian government, he could get 10 years here.
In an interview from Vancouver, Emery told The Free Press he would prefer life -- or death -- in jail.
"A dead person remembered fondly is a great inspiration to the movement," he said in a telephone interview.
His other fantasy, he offers, is that the government will see the error of its ways and he will be released -- after enough years in jail to ensure his beatification. Then, just as Mandela was elected head of South Africa after decades in jail, Emery wants to be elected to Parliament, be appointed justice minister and right the wrongs of marijuana laws in Canada.
"I like to think I'm having fun doing what I do. But I'm definitely looking at legacy," he said.
Emery's battle, and his rise to international renown, had its genesis in London.
He ran City Lights book store downtown. It was his pulpit for free speech, legalized Sunday shopping, legalized pot and several runs at political office.
In one infamous battle on the police station steps, he dared police to arrest him (they wouldn't) for opening his store on a Sunday.
He's since become better at it -- in the 30 years since Emery has sought and made headlines, he's been arrested 22 times and jailed 17.
Those days in London were among his best, he says, although, "I'm calmer and more reasonable now."
Wilson believes Emery, 49 now, will opt for jail instead of a plea bargain; preferring martyrdom to being a footnote in history. "He has a choice: upping the ante or becoming irrelevant."
Emery needs to realize that jail in the U.S. is no picnic, Campbell says in one memorable sound bite:
Argentine First Lady Wins Presidential Vote, Polls Show
By REUTERS
Published: October 28, 2007
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - First lady Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner won Argentina's election on Sunday to become the country's first elected woman president, television exit polls showed.
Poll aired by several television channels showed Fernandez, a center-leftist senator, with 42 percent to 46 percent of the vote, well ahead of her nearest rival, former lawmaker Elisa Carrio with 23 percent to 25 percent.
If the official tally confirms that Fernandez has more than 45 percent of the vote, or 40 percent with a 10 percentage point lead over Carrio, she will win the presidency without facing a runoff election next month.
Fernandez, 54, ran on the record of her husband, leftist President Nestor Kirchner, and she would take over from him in a highly unusual transfer of power between democratically elected spouses.
Many Argentines credit Kirchner with pulling the country out of a dramatic economic crisis in 2001-02 and using growth of 8 percent a year to create jobs, raise salaries and expand pension benefits.
"There are more jobs now. Things have calmed down. People aren't dying to leave the country," said Sergio Arrigoni, 41, a delivery truck driver recalling the hundreds of thousands of Argentines who fled the country at the height of the crisis.
Fernandez has been Kirchner's top advisor during his four-year presidency. Voters tired of boom-and-bust cycles hope she will sustain the bonanza he has overseen, even as high inflation and energy shortages cause concern.
Argentina, a major grains exporter and producer of beef on its huge pampas grasslands, is South America's second biggest country and historically one of its wealthiest.
Earlier in the day, Fernandez voted in a school in Rio Gallegos in southern Patagonia, Kirchner's hometown and her adopted homeland.
"I'm part of the generation that grew up and couldn't vote for anything," she said, referring to Argentina's 1976-83 military dictatorship.
Argentina had its only other woman president in the mid-1970s when Isabel Peron took power after the death of her husband, strongman leader Juan Peron, but she was not elected to the job.
A Fernandez victory would make her the second woman elected president in a Latin America country in the last two years, coming after Chile's Michelle Bachelet won office.
It would also continue the trend of leftist leadership in South America. But while Fernandez is expected to stay friendly with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, she, like her husband, is more moderate than the firebrand socialist.
Her campaign seemed effortless. Handpicked by her husband and chosen by a faction of the Peronist party without a primary, Fernandez avoided debates and was vague on policy.
Rivals have criticized the Kirchners as being authoritarian and treating the election as the beginning of a political dynasty to tighten their grip on the presidency and Congress.
Hillier denies contradicting Prime Minister's timeline
BILL CURRY
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
October 26, 2007 at 11:04 PM EDT
OTTAWA — General Rick Hillier, Canada's military leader, made a series of television appearances last night as he attempted to stem a growing controversy over his relationship with the Prime Minister.
The televised comments were made at the end of a difficult day for the general, who was portrayed by the opposition as being at odds with the Prime Minister's proposed timeline for leaving the battlefields of Afghanistan.
Defending his position that he believes it could take at least a decade for Afghanistan to be a stable country, Gen. Hillier was at pains to make clear he had not intended to undermine the Conservative Throne Speech earlier this month that had set out a timetable of troop withdrawal for 2009, and 2011 at the latest.
"I have not contradicted anybody," said Gen. Hillier, who had just returned from an unexpected visit to the battlefields of Kandahar province.
Chief of Defence Staff General Rick Hillier listens to Canadian troops from the NATO-led coalition at Masum Ghar camp in Kandahar province, southern Afghanistan, on Wednesday.
"The last time I saw the Prime Minister was the night from the Speech from the Throne and we had a conversation about a whole variety of things. I'm very clear on where the direction comes from. … We're on exactly the same page and I believe actually we see things exactly the same way."
All three opposition parties were demanding answers yesterday in the House of Commons as to why Gen. Hillier and the government appeared at odds over how long it will take before the Afghan army is ready to take over.
Gen. Hillier said yesterday he agrees with the government that the Afghan army will be ready to take the lead in military efforts in Afghanistan's Kandahar province, where Canadian troops are stationed.
His estimate of 10 years referred to how long it would take for the Afghan army to be ready to defend the entire country. The Throne Speech estimate makes no distinction between Kandahar and the entire country. It predicts that by 2011, "the Afghan army can defend its own sovereignty."
Michael Ignatieff, the deputy leader of the Liberal Party, said the confusion is a troubling sign.
"You can't go out in a Throne Speech and say 2011 and then have your Chief of the Defence Staff saying well, actually, it's 2017," he said.
Cabinet ministers and the Prime Minister's Office stood by their original estimate.
"Building up the capacity of the Afghan people is obviously going to take time," Government House Leader Peter Van Loan told the House of Commons yesterday morning. "We want them to be able to defend their sovereignty. We know that will not happen overnight, but our government does believe it can happen by 2011, the end of the period that is covered in the Afghanistan Compact."
Ultimately, the Prime Minster's Office said, the decision will be made by the House of Commons.
Retired Major-General Lewis MacKenzie said yesterday that he could understand the distinction Gen. Hillier was making. He dismissed the debate as a "tempest in a teapot" but said small defence issues do sometimes explode into far bigger political stories.
His main issue with the comments is the notion that an end date can be predicted at all.
"Nobody can predict when NATO's mission is going to be over," he said. "It will go on forever unless we get enough troops on the ground to win this thing."
Gen. Hillier's free-speaking demeanour has provided regular fodder for the opposition. Former defence minister Gordon O'Connor is widely believed to have been shuffled out of the job earlier this year partly because of a series of public contradictions with the Chief of the Defence Staff.
While seen as a strong and independent communicator, Gen. Hillier has been accused of straying too far at times into the political realm.
In August, Mr. O'Connor said Canadian troops could "basically be in reserve" by early next year as Afghan soldiers move to the front lines. Before long, Gen. Hillier seemed to contradict the minister by saying the process would take a long time.
In July, Gen. Hillier shot down the Conservative government's promise to create 14 territorial defence battalions, saying "we don't need new units."
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MacKay stands by his man
Canadian Press
October 28, 2007 at 2:50 PM EDT
OTTAWA — General Rick Hillier is doing a “tremendous” job as military chief of staff and the Conservative government has no plans to replace him, despite public controversy over his latest comments on the Afghanistan troop deployment, says Defence Minister Peter MacKay.
In an interview Sunday on CTV's Question Period, Mr. MacKay left no doubt about who's in charge of policy matters, like how long Canadian troops will remain in the war-torn country.
“I think the chief of defence staff has said it best — he takes his direction from the government,” Mr. MacKay said. “I think he's clarified that ... He's said very clearly he respects the government's prerogative when it comes to those political decisions.”
Mr. MacKay insisted that, despite what he called “mischief making” on the subject by opposition MPs, the Tories aren't lolling for a replacement for Mr. Hillier when he reaches the three-year mark in his current term next spring.
That's the length of time unofficially considered the benchmark for chiefs in recent years. But Mr. MacKay noted that, in actual fact, the chief of staff “serves at the pleasure of the prime minister.”
He quickly went on to add: “He's a very capable leader and he's providing leadership . . . There is no plan to replace Gen. Hillier. He's doing tremendous work.”
Mr. Hillier sparked a furor on a visit to Afghanistan last week, suggesting it may take a decade for the Afghan army to build itself into a fully professional force capable of handling all security operations in the country.
Opposition critics were quick to pounce on the remarks, noting that the minority Harper government, in the throne speech that opened the current session of Parliament, maintained that the Afghans would be able to take charge of their own security by 2011.
That's the date preferred by Mr. Harper for ending the Canadian military mission to Afghanistan. But the Prime Minister has also promised there will be a vote in Parliament on whether to stay put or pull out when the current Canadian troop commitment to NATO expires in February 2009.
Gen. Hillier insisted, upon his return to Ottawa last Friday, that there was no confusion or contradiction on that point. He said his reference to a decade of work was intended only to explain that NATO — though not necessarily Canada — will have to put in that much time training the Afghan military before it can acquire the core of officers and enlisted men it needs to be a top-notch force.
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PM defends `outstanding' chief of defence staff
Harper denies televised report that top general will be replaced; Hillier has no plans to bow out
Oct 04, 2007 04:30 AM
tonda maccharles ottawa bureau
OTTAWA–Prime Minister Stephen Harper was forced to defend his chief of defence staff, Gen. Rick Hillier, after a televised report suggested the Conservative government was dissatisfied with the charismatic general and wants to replace him.
But Harper did so only after noting the job is purely at the prerogative of the prime minister and not for any fixed term or for a three-year mandate, as has been custom.
"There's been no discussion in my office or with me, with any senior officials about the possibility of changing the chief of the defence staff," Harper told a news conference. He then referred to his own recent performance evaluation of Hillier, who was often publicly at odds with former defence minister Gordon O'Connor.
"As a matter of fact, I think I just approved a pretty good rating for the chief of the defence staff," he said. "I think he's an outstanding soldier who's bringing strong leadership to the Canadian Forces."
A damning CTV story, based on unnamed government sources, left the impression of a deep rift and dissatisfaction with the top general who outshone his last political boss, O'Connor. The report quoted one official saying Hillier "started to believe his own press clippings" and another who said O'Connor was a "good guy" who "had his feet taken right out from under him" by Hillier, who would soon be replaced.
Harper shifted O'Connor in August, moving Peter MacKay to the defence file. Last month, he also shuffled out the deputy minister Ward Elcock.
Hillier said yesterday he has no plans to leave unless asked.
"I don't know how long I'll be in the job because I serve at the pleasure of the government and at some point in time, either the government, or I, or us together, will come to an agreement that it's time for the CDS to move on and somebody else to replace me, right?
"My prime minister has not told me that he's unhappy with my performance," Hillier told reporters after a lunchtime speech. "I see him frequently. Our minister said this morning that I serve at the pleasure of the government, the government is happy."
During a 46-minute speech to 300 government and defence industry representatives, Hillier joked that the only "significant" event next spring to affect him and the Canadian Forces is the Toronto Maple Leafs match against the Ottawa Senators in support of the military.
Later, he also quipped to reporters that he wants to become a golf pro, not join the private sector, but Hillier clenched his teeth tightly as he answered a barrage of media questions about his future.
He said he has not indicated to the government that he wanted to leave nor has he asked to stay. He insisted he still has important work to do "in the immediate future."
"We're into a pretty intense period of operations in our country right now, for me to be focused on anything other than ... my responsibilities ... would be wrong."
Drillers axing winter plans ahead of new royalty regime
NORVAL SCOTT
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
October 26, 2007 at 7:21 PM EDT
CALGARY — Alberta's new energy royalty regime will cut into this year's winter drilling season, reducing employment and the number of wells started by already beleaguered oil field services companies, industry observers say.
On Thursday, Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach announced long-awaited changes to the province's royalty picture, increasing the government's take from oil and gas production.
The changes do not take effect until 2009. However, Western Canada's natural gas industry is already under severe pressure from high costs and low commodity prices, and the sector faces more deterioration as companies further scale back their exploration plans because of the new royalties.
"It already makes no economic sense to drill [natural gas] wells at today's prices, and under the new royalties the gas production outlook in Canada is now dismal," said Bill Gwozd, vice-president of gas services for Ziff Energy Group. "The industry is being kicked when it's already down. Producers will be hard-pressed to push forward on new drilling programs and you will see reductions in expenditures on services and drilling fleets."
Rig utilization rates in Canada are already at their lowest since at least 2002, as companies have eschewed gas exploration in favour of alternatives such as share buybacks or growth projects in the oil sands, placing the share price of services firms such as Precision Drilling under severe pressure.
The miserable outlook already seemed set to continue into 2008, given that major producers like EnCana Corp., Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., Talisman Energy and Husky Energy have all indicated that they won't increase their exploration efforts any time soon because low gas prices continue to discourage drilling new wells.
On top of that bleak picture, producers also threatened to slash their capital budgets for 2008 if the royalty changes originally proposed were implemented; for example, EnCana previously said that it could cut about $1-billion from its annual investment, with natural gas exploration bearing the brunt of the cutbacks. While the province decided to increase its royalties by only about three-quarters of what was recommended — and not until 2009 — there will still be a significant effect on future output from wells brought on stream this winter, and it's still likely that firms will scale back their exploration to some degree, analysts said.
"The changes will slow the industry down, especially on the conventional side, and they're particularly disheartening for the smaller players," said Peter Tertzakian, chief economist at ARC Financial Corp. "It creates a difficult operating environment and makes more companies marginally economic. Firms will now look to make cuts to their programs — it's just a question of how much and how deep."
Don Herring, president of the Canadian Association of Oilwell Drilling Contractors, said his organization now expects only 13,700 wells to be drilled in 2008, down from a high-water mark of 22,300 in 2006. He said uncertainty from the new royalty regime would "very negatively impact the winter drilling season," and as many as 16,000 oil and gas services-related jobs could be lost.
"We were already definitely going to see reduced drilling this winter, and that will be compounded by the higher royalties," said Sue Riddell Rose, CEO of Paramount Energy Trust.
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Price of crude spikes above $92
JOHN WILEN
Associated Press
October 26, 2007 at 3:42 PM EDT
NEW YORK — Crude futures rose to record levels on Friday, supported by worries over political tensions in the Middle East where the U.S. imposed sanctions on Iran and Turkish troops remained massed at the Iraq border to counter Kurdish rebels.
In addition, the market was unsettled by a dawn attack on an oil vessel off the coast of Nigeria by anti-government militants and suggestions that OPEC oil shipments are not rising as quickly as expected.
“On the back of mounting evidence that the oil balances are tight, and tightening, markets are becoming increasingly uneasy over the prospects of entering the winter high-demand season with inventories at too-low levels,” Kevin Norrish, an analyst with Barclays Capital PLC, said in a research note.
While rising more than $1, crude futures retreated from an earlier all time high above US$92 as investors sold to lock in profits from the latest multi-day record-setting rally.
Oil futures have risen nearly $7 a barrel, or 8 per cent, since the government on Wednesday reported a sharp drop in crude inventories in the United States. The inventory numbers reinforced a view that oil supplies are falling at a time of year when they should be rising to meet expected strong fourth-quarter demand.
Light, sweet crude for December delivery rose $1.40 to settle Friday at a record $91.86 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after rising overnight as high as $92.22, a new trading peak. Crude prices jumped $3.36 a barrel on Thursday.
With the recent gains, the price of oil is closing in on the inflation-adjusted highs hit in early 1980. Depending on the adjustment, a $38 barrel of oil in 1980 would be worth $96 to $101 or more today.
Some analysts argue that the underlying fundamentals don't support such high prices, and say speculative buying is the real reason prices are rising. Tim Evans, an analyst at Citigroup Inc. in New York, noted that despite last week's decline in domestic inventories, supplies remain high by historic standards. Also, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is set to boost production by 500,000 barrels a day beginning Nov. 1.
“What we're seeing ... is rising supply and relatively weak demand,” Mr. Evans said. He believes oil's “true value” is closer to $65 a barrel.
Other petroleum futures also rose Friday. November gasoline rose 3.82 cents to settle at $2.274 a gallon on the Nymex, while heating oil futures rose 2.41 cents to settle at $2.4325 a gallon.
November natural gas futures rose 0.3 cent to settle at $7.218 per 1,000 cubic feet.
Pump prices have risen slightly in recent weeks to keep pace with oil's rally. On Friday, the average national price of a gallon of gas inched 0.3 cent higher to $2.823 a gallon, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service.
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Gold hits 28-year high, platinum matches record
Reuters
October 26, 2007 at 2:53 PM EDT
LONDON — Gold surged to a 28-year peak above $780 (U.S.) an ounce Friday and platinum matched an all-time high as a record low U.S. dollar and lifetime-high crude oil spurred bullion buying.
Gold, often seen as a hedge against oil-led inflation and traditionally deemed a safe-haven asset, was gradually advancing towards the next big target of $800 while the dollar struggled to find a solid base.
A series of disappointing U.S. economic reports have fuelled near-universal expectations that the U.S. Federal Reserve will cut interest rates by at least 25 basis points at its meeting next week – a negative factor for the dollar and good for gold.
“The deteriorating economic picture is manifesting itself in a weaker dollar and that's helping gold. Oil is also looking strong. We are getting close enough to $800,” said John Reade, head of metals strategy at UBS Investment Bank.
“The danger of a correction is still there but you are going to need a trigger for it,” he said.
Spot gold hit a high of $785.70 to mark the highest since January 1980 when it rose to an all-time high of $850. It was quoted at $783.80/784.30 by 2:15 p.m. EDT (1815 GMT), against $767.90/768.70 late in New York on Thursday.
Most-active December gold on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange settled up $16.50 or 2.1 per cent at $787.50 an ounce.
The metal has surged about 23 per cent this year.
The dollar fell to fresh record lows against the euro and a basket of currencies, while oil shot up to record highs on heightened tension between the United States and Iran and on worries over energy supply shortages.
A weaker dollar makes gold cheaper for other currency holders and lifts demand. The metal also attracts investors from the currency market in the event of a cut in interest rates.
“The relationship of the dollar to gold is nonlinear whereby if the dollar is weak and it weakens a little bit more, we have even bigger impact on the gold price,” said Michael Lewis, global head of commodities research at Deutsche Bank.
“We feel that we will be getting new highs in gold. Also the interest rate environment for gold is pretty positive.”
“Rising crude oil prices on fears of interruptions of supply from the Middle East are another supportive factor for gold,” Dresdner Kleinwort said in a daily report, adding the political tension in the Middle East might lead to higher oil prices and further increase gold's appeal as a safe haven.
The United States slapped new sanctions on Iran and accused its Revolutionary Guard of spreading weapons of mass destruction. Also, President Abdullah Gul warned Kurdish rebels on Thursday that Turkey's patience was running out after Turkish forces said they had repelled a guerrilla attack.
Money also continued to flow into exchange-traded gold funds. The latest data showed that volume in StreetTRACKS gold ETF rose 20 tonnes in the past month to a record high of 597.53 tonnes. However, the tonnage growth of the gold ETFs has slowed in October, analysts said.
Analysts said a liquidity boom, fuelled by lower U.S. interest rates and a flight from asset-backed commercial paper, has sparked a rally in the oil and commodity markets.
In other bullion markets, the benchmark August, 2008, gold futures contract in Tokyo rose ¥56 yen (49 cents) a gram, or 2 per cent, to ¥2,879.
Platinum tracked gold, with supply worries supporting the metal, used to clean vehicle exhaust fumes and make jewellery.
Spot platinum was last quoted at $1,454/1,458 an ounce, matching last week's record high of $1,454, against its Thursday finish of $1,443/1,448 late in New York.
A mine shaft remained shut at South Africa's Impala Platinum, the world's second biggest producer of platinum, after a fatal accident earlier in the week.
Silver climbed to an eight month high of $14.22 an ounce before easing to $14.19/14.24, against its Thursday finish of $13.86/13.91 in the U.S. market. Palladium rose to $372/376 from its previous close of $362/366.
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Dollar looks set to surge, again
MALCOLM MORRISON
Canadian Press
October 28, 2007 at 10:07 AM EDT
TORONTO — The Canadian dollar could be set to blow through its all-time high this week on a combination of U.S. dollar weakness, high oil prices and a strong economy.
But it could also be under some pressure because of narrowing interest rate spreads between Canada and the U.S. if the Federal Reserve cuts rates on Wednesday.
The dollar ran up 0.4 cent to $103.93 US on Friday after crossing the $1.04 threshold for the first time since late May 1974, taking the currency closer to the peak of $106.14 US recorded in August 1957.
Financial markets have largely factored in a quarter-point cut by the Fed in a further attempt to stop the spread of damage from the sharply contracting U.S. housing sector.
The American central bank chopped its key funds rate by a larger than expected half-point last month to 4.75 per cent.
The Bank of Canada's trend-setting rate now stands at 4.5 per cent.
The Canadian dollar has jumped following past Fed cuts — it ran up 1.36 cents US on Sept. 18.
But analysts are cautious about the currency effect a cut would have this time around.
“I think the loonie gets less lift per rate cut simply because every time the Fed goes, it's one step closer to the Bank of Canada (cutting) because of the dependence on the U.S. economy,” said Michael Gregory, senior economist at BMO Nesbitt Burns.
“To get to 106 (cents) — that's a bit much, but it is conceivable. That risk is there.”
Mr. Gregory observes that pressure is building on the Bank of Canada to start cutting interest rates to nudge the Canadian dollar lower and ease the pain to manufacturers — and to retailers which are under pressure to cut prices to reflect the fact that the loonie is above parity with the greenback.
But he said Bank of Canada governor David Dodge — wary of inflation — will not act purely on the basis of a strong currency.
“Either he is going to have to see it (the economic damage) in the numbers, in terms of bad numbers somewhere out in the economy, or inflation numbers that just show that things are below target.”
Meanwhile, stock markets aren't expected to do much ahead of Wednesday afternoon's Fed announcement.
Indexes in Canada and the U.S. got a huge boost last month when the Fed cut rates, jumping to or close to the record highs reached in mid-July before mounting foreclosures in the U.S. housing market sparked a credit crisis in August.
But Mr. Gregory doubts we will see that kind of response this time.
“And the reason is that the cuts, as we are going to see, are very much related to worries about the housing sector and its spread to other sectors of the economy and the risk of recession,” he said.
“I think there's a growing worry out there that ... everything is not only weak, but it's weakening and weakening more than expected.”
High oil prices could lend support to the Toronto market after crude closed above US$90 a barrel last week over political tensions in the Middle East. Suggestions that OPEC shipments are not rising as quickly as hoped added to supply worries.
Investors will be also awaiting the October jobless reports for Canada and the U.S. coming Friday.
Deteriorating Canadian employment could give the Bank of Canada a push in the direction of cutting interest rates.
Mr. Gregory said he is looking for the economy to have cranked out 18,000 jobs last month following growth of 51,000 jobs in September.
Hopes are modest for the U.S. with expectations hovering around 80,000 jobs. Analysts note the past four months have registered the weakest American job creation trend since 2003.
Deputy Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff shares a chuckle with Conservatives during Stephane Dion's speech in response to the government's Speech from the Throne.
No one should be surprised by the dangerous crisis between Turkey and Iraq-based Kurdish separatists.
Critics long warned the U.S. invasion of Iraq would inevitably release the genii of Kurdish nationalism. Creation of a virtually independent, U.S.-backed Kurdish state in northern Iraq was certain to provoke Turkish fury.
A decade ago, I covered the low intensity war in Eastern Anatolia between Kurdish PKK guerillas and the Turkish army. At the time, the world ignored this ugly conflict in which 35,000 people had died. I came away torn by sympathy for both sides.
In recent weeks, Turkish-Kurdish tensions erupted. Marxist-nationalist PKK guerillas (Turks brand them terrorists) fighting for an independent nation for Turkey's 20 million or so Kurds killed 12 Turkish soldiers and captured eight.
Hundreds of Turkish soldiers have been killed in Turkish Anatolia by Kurdish fighters known as "pesh-merga."
Fiercely nationalist Turks demand their armed forces invade Iraq's autonomous Kurdish mini-state to destroy PKK bases. Turkish attacks are already under way.
Washington urged "restraint" on its key ally, Turkey. By contrast, after two Israeli soldiers were captured last year in a routine border clash with Hezbullah guerillas, the White House gave Israel a green light to bomb and invade Lebanon, killing over 1,100 civilians and causing $4-billion damage.
This crisis is a huge mess for all concerned. Turkey supplies 70% of air-delivered supplies to U.S. forces in Iraq, and is a vital NATO ally.
But Turks are enraged and increasingly anti-American.
DISCREET
Iraq's Kurds, America's only ally in that strife-torn nation, discreetly back the PKK and are working for full independence -- certain to enflame Turkey's Kurds.
Turkey's government must respond to public outrage, but fears major military action in Iraq will foreclose its hopes of getting into the European Union, and put it on a collision course with the U.S.
Israel is secretly backing Iraq's Kurdish mini-state and hopes to build an oil pipeline from Iraqi Kurdistan to Haifa.
But Israel is a close ally of Turkey's right-wing generals, who hate Kurds and their own democratic government led by able PM Recep Erdogan.
In the 1990s, I wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal -- before being banned from its pages for political heresy -- cautioning that if Iraq one day splintered, Turkey would be tempted to seize Iraq's major northern oil regions around Mosul and Kirkuk.
SPLIT IN THREE
That day is near. President Geoge W. Bush's invasion devastated Iraq and split into three pieces -- fulfilling Israel's strategic plan in promoting the invasion.
Iraq's Mosul oil fields, which formerly belonged to the Ottoman Empire, are only 119 kms from Turkey's border.
After the First World War, the British Empire grabbed the oil-rich region, creating the unnatural state of Iraq to safeguard it.
If Iraq slides further into the abyss, Turkey and Iran may partition Iraq. Today, Turkey has no oil. Its fragile economy is hammered by having to earn U.S. dollars to buy oil. But if Turkey repossessed Iraq's northern oil fields, this nation of 70 million with 515,000 men at arms would become an important power that would reassert traditional Turkish influence in the Mideast, Balkans, Caucasus, and Central Asia.
It's a huge temptation Ankara cannot ignore. If the U.S. can invade Iraq for oil, why not neighbouring, ex-owner Turkey?
Meanwhile, Washington mutters about launching attacks on PKK, which it also brands "terrorists."
But with the hypocrisy typical of U.S. Mideast policy, Washington closes its eyes and may be secretly arming Iraqi Kurds.
Turkey insists it is fighting "terrorism" and has every right to strike into Iraq to protect its national security -- Bush's justification for invading Iraq.
This Kurdish fracas comes just as Dr. Strangelove Dick Cheney and star pupil, Bush, are fanning hysteria over Iran and threatening war. Latest reason: Iran "might" have nuclear knowledge -- welcome to "thoughts of mass destruction." Throw in the growing crisis in key U.S. ally Pakistan, and we face one unholy mess.
CNN takes viewers around the world in a two-part, four-hour documentary that examines our changing planet. This worldwide investigation, shot in high definition, looks at four key issues: climate change, vanishing habitats, disappearing species and human population growth.
To tell this story, Anderson Cooper, Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Animal Planet's Jeff Corwin traveled to some of the most remote and remarkable places on Earth. From exposing illegal wildlife trading undercover in Southeast Asia to seeing first--hand the devastating effects of deforestation in Brazil, they have gathered evidence on the unsettling changes taking place all around us.
Ontario Finance Minister Greg Sorbara (left) is seen speaking with Premier Dalton McGuinty in this Toronto Star file photo.
Shock decision leaves McGuinty, newly re-elected government reeling
Oct 26, 2007 02:29 PM
Robert Benzie Queen's Park Bureau Chief
Ontario Finance Minister Greg Sorbara stunned Premier Dalton McGuinty's newly re-elected government this afternoon by announcing that he no longer wants to sit in cabinet.
Flanked by his wife, Sorbara, 61, said at a press conference that he would continue to sit as Vaughan MPP,
But the wealthy lawyer said he wants to spend more time with his family.
"Katie and I have massaged this decision since the polls closed on Oct. 10," he told reporters during the hastily called news conference at Queen's Park.
"This decision has been the most difficult of my political life and it is a deeply personal decision," said Sorbara.
McGuinty will name a new cabinet Tuesday and Sorbara, key architect of the 2003 and 2007 election victories, will remain as treasurer till then.
Sorbara was finance minister from 2003 to 2005 before he was briefly replaced by Dwight Duncan. He returned to the post last year.
Sorbara had stepped down while the RCMP investigated his personal stake in a land transaction.
He was cleared of all allegations before he returned to politics.
PERHAPS YOU were watching a late-night film or dancing the hours away in some packed nightclub. Maybe you were already tucked up snugly in bed. Wherever you were, it's pretty much a dead certainty you were oblivious at the time to the dramatic events that were unfolding in the skies over Syria on September 6 - events so startling, so secret and dangerous in their implications they could have come straight from the pages of an international best-selling thriller.
But this was not fiction. Indeed, what took place in the small hours of that Thursday morning - still the subject of immense speculation - was a terrifying reminder of the dangerous times we live in, and how much more volatile the Middle East could yet become.
"If people had known how close we came to world war three that day there'd have been mass panic," one senior British ministerial source was later quoted in a magazine as saying.
"Never mind the floods or foot-and-mouth, Gordon Brown really would have been dealing with the bloody Book of Revelation and Armageddon."
So just what were those shadowy, near-apocalyptic events of last month, that some intelligence analysts believe could have been a "dry run" for a military strike on Iran? A strike which, if it went ahead, in itself has the potential to plunge the world into an even bigger Middle Eastern conflict, and simultaneously unleash an unprecedented wave of global terrorist attacks.
In the small hours of September 6, Israeli air force pilots of 69 Squadron locked the missile guidance systems of their F-15 and F-16 aircraft on the target beneath them in northeastern Syria. The endgame of what had been codenamed "Operation Orchard" was about to be played out.
But it was six weeks earlier, in another deadly incident near the Syrian town of Aleppo, where clues lie to the chain of subterfuge, surveillance, and special operations that culminated in that lethal night mission.
On July 26, an enormous explosion had blown up a military ammunition dump in Musalmiya about seven miles from Aleppo. As the official version of events was released by the Syrian news agency SANA, it was claimed that "very explosive products" had detonated after local temperatures of up to 50˚C had sparked a fire at the facility.
Since then, however, based on information from what it says are Syrian inside sources, the highly respected magazine Jane's Defence Weekly has given a very different and alarming account of what happened.
To begin with, Syrian government claims of high temperatures being the cause of the blast were described as "implausible" by the Jane's source, who said the explosion occurred at 4.30am, the coolest time of the day.
Instead, they say, in what was actually a secret weapons complex rather than a simple arms dump, fuel caught fire in a laboratory as Syrian and Iranian engineers were attempting to activate a 300-mile range "Scud C" missile with a mustard gas warhead.
Given its range, the Scud C, originally sold to Syria by North Korea in 1991, could easily be fired into Israel. Even more worrying for the Israelis, who well remember the fear struck into its citizens by the Iraqi Scuds that plummeted into their country during the 1991 Gulf War, the more advanced type of the same missile is capable of accommodating a nuclear warhead.
For Israeli and US intelligence agencies it was nothing new to hear that Syria was in possession of Scud missiles or working on chemical and biological weapons systems. But news of the Musalmiya incident was given a further alarming twist as reports surfaced some weeks later that the Israelis had been monitoring the arrival of a North Korean flagged freighter - possibly the Al-Hamad - at the Syrian port of Tartous on September 3.
Though officially carrying a cargo of cement, according to intelligence sources quoted in the Washington Post newspaper, the Israelis believed that on board the ship was a consignment of nuclear material or equipment.
On September 15, Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler wrote that "an Israeli official provided the US with evidence of Syrian-North Korean co-operation on a nuclear facility".
Many veteran Middle East intelligence hands believe this to be plausible explanation. Among them is Ray Close, a former CIA analyst in the Near East Division and former station chief in Saudi Arabia, who served for 27 years as an "Arabist" for the agency.
According to what Close himself admits is a "speculative" analysis, he believes that: "The Israelis offered us the US intelligence that Syria is beginning to develop a nuclear capability based on North Korean technology and urged the US to co-operate with them in mounting a military attack to destroy the Syrian site."
Close says the advantages of the action as presented by the Israelis would be to "to pre-empt a new and dangerous violation of Israeli and American proliferation red lines intimidate and embarrass Syria, and throw a scare into Iran".
Some accounts say that after the arrival in Syria of the ship carrying the suspected consignment, the Israelis then tracked it to a site near the town of Dayr as Zawr in northeastern Syria, which had already been under surveillance by Israel's own Ofek spy satellite.
What happened over the following few days became known as "Operation Orchard", and such was the unprecedented shutdown on information from Israeli, US, and Syrian government sources alike about the raid that Middle East analysts can only conclude that the stakes were extremely high for all sides and the significance of the event immense.
Yet, despite the censorship and security, some details have slowly emerged.
Last week, the New York Times quoted what it described as foreign nationals with access to intelligence reports as saying that the target of Operation Orchard had indeed been a "partly constructed nuclear reactor", modelled on North Korean lines.
Within the last 48 hours, ABC News have said that another US official told them that the Israelis first discovered the nuclear facility earlier this summer and that Mossad (Israel's intelligence service) had even been able to "co-opt" one of the facility's workers or to insert their own spy.
If this is true, then the activities would be reminiscent of Mossad's undercover work in 1982, which prepared the way for a similar Israeli raid that destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osiraq.
According to the ABC source, pictures taken by Mossad showed a big cylindrical structure with thick reinforced walls deep in the desert along the Euphrates river which undoubtedly had been built with "North Korean expertise".
"It was a place where no-one would ever go unless you had a reason to go there," said the US official, who added that the plant had been there for at least eight months before the Israeli raid.
Until the ABC report little had been known about the specific target of Operation Orchard, but some logistical details have now surfaced from the fog of secrecy. What is certain is that Israeli jets, possibly as many as eight F-15s and F16s, armed with Maverick missiles and 500lb bombs, took part in the mission.
On the ground as part of the operation a "Sayeret Shaldag" Israeli Air Force Commando unit, not unlike Britain's SAS, would probably have been deployed to use laser beams in guiding in the pilots, who were not even told about their ultimate target until they were airborne, such was the level of security surrounding the operation.
Also flying with the Israeli bombers was an ELINT (ELectronic Signals INTelligence) aircraft used for gathering crucial data about any enemy's defence network, including radars and surface-to-air missile systems.
Indeed, one of the most significant aspects of Operation Orchard was the apparent ease with which the Israelis penetrated Syrian air defences.
The Kuwaiti newspaper Al Watan reported that the Americans provided aerial cover for the Israeli strike aircraft, and that Russian experts are studying why the two state-of-the-art Russian-built radar systems in Syria did not detect the Israeli planes.
"Iran reportedly has asked the same question, since it is buying the same systems and might have paid for the Syrian acquisitions," said an Al Watan reporter.
In fact, Iran has already bought and paid for the defence systems. Like Syria, it bought 29 of the Tor-M1 units from Russia for $750 million - to guard its nuclear sites - which were delivered in January and tested in February this year.
This, along with earlier reports in the Kuwaiti press that former Iranian deputy defence minister Ali Rheza Ali, who defected several months ago, supplied intelligence sources in the West with information about the site Operation Orchard targeted, will give little comfort to Tehran as the clamour for a strike against their own nuclear facilities gains momentum.
That such a plan to attack Iran exists is now an accepted fact, as is the belief among many Middle East watchers that its implementation might not be far off.
One year after the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Bush administration published a report entitled The National Security Strategy of the United States of America in which it outlined its response to any similar threats.
"We must be prepared to stop rogue states and their terrorist clients before they are able to threaten or use weapons of mass destruction against the United States and our allies and friends," the report concluded.
Today, the operational embodiment of that strategy is known as Contingency Plan 8022 (Conplan 8022), a strike plan that might be used in any pre-emptive strike on Iran or other countries and is able to be unleashed with 12 hours of a presidential order.
In terms of Iran, a detailed blueprint for a military attack on the country already exists. Earlier this year the Israeli air force held joint exercises with visiting US pilots, although Israeli sources are keen to dismiss speculation that the drills were connected to an attack on Iran.
For Israel, the coming months are crucial in dealing with Iran: either Tehran heeds sanctions and stops enriching uranium, or Israel might feel it has to attack decisively, as it did with Operation Orchard in Syria.
The question on many people's minds is whether Operation Orchard was simply muscle-flexing or a serious statement of intent by Israel to go it alone in attacking Iran's nuclear capacity if the US does not.
Yesterday, the resignation of Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, the country's main contact with the West over Tehran's atomic programme, struck another blow against diplomatic hopes.
Iran's own Revolutionary Guards, meanwhile, were in belligerent mood: "Now the enemy should ask themselves how many of their people they are ready to have sacrificed for their stupidity in attacking Iran," Mahmoud Chaharbaghi, a brigadier, warned.
A few months ago, Sam Gardiner - a retired US air force colonel who has been directly involved in the past with drawing up US strategy on Iran - offered another warning as to the dangers any pre-emptive strike poses.
"The fuel for a fire is in place," he said. "All we need is a spark. The danger is that we have created conditions that could lead to a greater Middle East war."
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White House says Bush made `rhetorical point' in warning of WW III
The White House said Thursday that President George W. Bush was simply making "a rhetorical point" when he suggested that if Iran could make nuclear weapons, it could lead to World War III.
"The president was not making any war plans, and he wasn't making any declarations," said White House press secretary Dana Perino. "He was making a point, and the point is that we do not believe - and neither does the international community believe - that Iran should be allowed to pursue nuclear weapons."
If Iran acquired nuclear weapons, she said, "that would lead to a very dangerous _ a potentially dangerous situation, and potentially lead to a scenario where you have World War III. But he was using that as a rhetorical point, not, you know, making a declaration."
Bush, at a news conference on Wednesday, said, "I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them (Iran) from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."
HAVANA — Fidel Castro wrote Tuesday that President Bush is threatening the world with nuclear war and famine _ an attack on Washington a day before the White House was to announce new plans to draw Cuba away from communism.
"The danger of a massive world famine is aggravated by Mr. Bush's recent initiative to transform foods into fuel," Castro wrote in Cuban news media, referring to U.S. support for using corn and other food crops to produce gasoline substitutes.
The brief essay titled "Bush, Hunger and Death" also alleged that Bush "threatens humanity with World War III, this time using atomic weapons."
The White House on Tuesday brushed off Castro's comments _ particularly his assertion that Bush was pursuing a forceful conquest of Cuba.
"Dictators say a lot of things, and most of them can be discounted, including that," said White House press secretary Dana Perino.
Perino said that Bush on Wednesday would urge other nations to join together in promoting democracy in Cuba.
"It is true that soon the decades-long debate about our policy towards Cuba will come to a time when we're going to have an opportunity here, when Castro is no longer leading Cuba, that the people there should be able to have a chance at freedom and democracy," she said. "That opportunity is coming."
In his essay, Castro predicted that Bush "will adopt new measures to accelerate the 'transition period' in our country, equivalent to a new conquest of Cuba by force."
Cuban officials have long denounced U.S. efforts to produce a "transition" from Castro's government to a Western-style representative democracy.
Ailing and 81, Castro has not been seen in public since undergoing emergency intestinal surgery and ceding power to a provisional government headed by his younger brother Raul in July 2006.
While he has looked upbeat and lucid in official videos, he also seems too frail to resume power.
Life on the island has changed little under Raul Castro, the 76-year-old defense minister who was his elder brother's hand-picked successor for decades.
Cuba staged municipal elections on Sunday, the first step in a process that will determine if Fidel Castro is re-elected or replaced next year as Cuban leader.
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No, It’s Not Really World War III
Photofest
MODERN NIGHTMARE In the 1980s, ABC imagined the unthinkable in the TV movie “The Day After.”
IF what they say has unforeseen or unintended consequences, public figures often complain that their words were “taken out of context.” President Bush did not complain about the news coverage when he suggested that an Iran with nuclear weapons could set off World War III, but his remark cries out for context nonetheless.
The context is historical, geographical and perhaps even personal; one reasonable conclusion was that Mr. Bush was not really envisioning a match about to light a nuclear fuse.
But first, it would be good to review just what he said.
“We got a leader in Iran who has announced that he wants to destroy Israel,” Mr. Bush said at a news conference. He was referring to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s remark that Israel “will disappear soon,” words about as inflammatory as others the Iranian has uttered about Israel.
“So I told people,” Mr. Bush went on, “if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.”
Iran is believed to be accumulating the technical know-how to build nuclear weapons. It has rockets powerful enough to reach Israel and other Middle Eastern countries, although none powerful enough to strike the United States, as the old Soviet Union had, and as Russia does.
It was likely no coincidence that Mr. Bush spoke just after Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, visited Iran and issued a warning of his own.
“We should not even think of making use of force in this region,” Mr. Putin declared at a meeting of the five nations that border the Caspian Sea.
President Bush, on the other hand, has refused to rule out force against Iran, and recently French officials have made statements indicating a similar stance.
So does that mean the West and the Russian leader are at odds?
Maybe not completely. Mr. Bush and top administration officials are known to believe that to renounce force unequivocally beforehand — as a general diplomatic rule, not just in dealing with Iran — would render the United States powerless diplomatically.
Mr. Putin, on the other hand, has his own reasons for playing up to the Iranians at this point, including a huge Russian interest in developing the Caspian region’s oil resources. But that does not mean Russia wants Iran to develop nuclear weapons.
President Bush said he and Mr. Putin actually agree on a lot of issues. “Iran is one,” he said. “Nuclear proliferation is another.”
That may have been an overstatement. Mr. Putin has reportedly called for “deeper” relations between Russia and Iran.
In any event, taking everything into context, the hyperbole about world war last week does not make it less remote than it already is. The maneuvers so far have been diplomatic, more like chess, a game Russians love, than war games.
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Bush World War III rant shows he’s really lost it now By our staff writer
George W. Bush put his foot in his mouth again when he warned of the possibility of World War III breaking out.
The irresponsible remarks of the president of a country armed with nuclear weapons shocked the world.
“So I’ve told people that, if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon,” Bush told reporters at a White House press conference on Wednesday, exactly one day after Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Tehran and expressed support for Iran’s peaceful nuclear program.
What are we to make of the use of such language?
Either Bush has gone totally mad and now makes statements without consulting his advisors, or the neoconservatives are dreaming of a new world order and no longer feel compelled to hide their goal.
How can Bush talk this way when Iran’s nuclear activities are open to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency?
The IAEA, the UN’s only nuclear supervisory body, has announced it has found no evidence suggesting that Iran is seeking a nuclear weapons program, and Iran and the agency have taken constructive steps to clear up the remaining ambiguities one by one.
The Iraq issue should serve as a lesson to Bush and those who share his views. They attacked Iraq under the pretext that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction, despite the fact that the IAEA and former chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix repeatedly announced that they had not found any such weapons program in Iraq.
Now what has been the result? Over half a million deaths.
World leaders, scholars, peace activists, and U.S. Congressmen, both Republicans and Democrats, should ask Bush to explain his remarks about World War III.
And U.S. officials should put a muzzle on Bush to prevent him from giving people the impression that the United States is the main threat to world peace.
Citing Rice testimony, Day asks U.S. to take Arar off no-fly list
`Broader acceptance' by U.S. of error, he says
Oct 26, 2007 04:30 AM
Tonda MacCharles Ottawa Bureau
OTTAWA–Shrugging off the American ambassador's view there was nothing new to pursue, the Canadian government says remarks by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice indicate a "broader acceptance" by the Bush administration of its own mistakes in the Maher Arar case.
In light of that, Ottawa has formally written Washington asking that Arar's name be removed from lists stopping him from entering the U.S.
Though she steered clear of apologizing to Arar, Rice told a congressional committee Wednesday his case had been mishandled.
Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen, was arrested during a stopover in New York in 2002 and deported to Syria, where he was imprisoned as a suspected terrorist and tortured. Although a Canadian inquiry cleared him of any links to terrorism, Arar remains on U.S. security watch lists.
Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day told the House of Commons yesterday that, after reviewing Rice's testimony, he has written U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff asking him to remove Arar from those lists.
In doing so, Day rejected a characterization by the U.S. ambassador to Canada, David Wilkins, that Rice had said nothing new.
"The Secretary of State seemed – at least it's the interpretation of some, including us – seemed to indicate they were accepting the fact that the case was not handled right in the United States either," Day told reporters.
"We've already admitted it wasn't handled correctly in Canada and we have followed through with the recommendations from Justice O'Connor's report in terms of compensation, in terms of a full apology, in terms of putting in place in our security system the things to avoid that."
Wilkins said in a press release after Rice's comments the issue of "imperfect" communications was addressed in 2004 when it was agreed "the U.S. and Canada would notify each other when a citizen of one country is subject to involuntary removal from the other country to a third country."
Oct 25th 2007 | BANJA LUKA AND SARAJEVO From The Economist print edition
Spurred by Russia, the Bosnian Serbs are making trouble again
ON THE face of it, Bosnia is doing fine. The economy is forecast to grow by a healthy 6% this year. When politics is not at issue, Serbs, Bosniaks and Croats get on better now than at any time since the end of the war. But politics keeps rearing its head. The past week has seen battle joined in a power-struggle that will determine where real authority lies in Bosnia and even if, in the long run, it will survive.
At the end of the Bosnian war in 1995 the country was divided into two parts, a federation of Croats and Bosniaks (Muslims) and the Serbian Republika Srpska (RS). Croats and Serbs were unenthusiastic about being forced to remain in a Bosnian state, but accepted that this was the result of the war. To keep this complex show running, the peace agreement provided for an international governor-general to arbitrate between the Bosnians and intervene when necessary.
The last high representative, as he is known, believed it was time for Bosnians to run their own show, so he stepped back from political life. After all, he argued, the office was due to be closed in June 2007. The result was political gridlock and stagnation, so the office stayed open. An agreement with the EU, widely regarded as the first step towards membership, has been ready since 2006. But Bosnia's leaders have not been able to agree on a number of political reforms that are required first, especially of the police.
Enter Miroslav Lajcak, a highly regarded Slovak diplomat who took over as high representative in July. He tried to break the deadlock over police reform, and warned Bosnia's leaders that unless they agreed to it they would lose another opportunity to move forward on the EU track. They failed, and so on October 19th he unveiled the first of what he says is a series of proposals for big changes.
Mr Lajcak is demanding that the Bosnian parliament and government can no longer be blocked simply because their members refuse to show up, which is often the case now. Bosnia's Serbian leader, Milorad Dodik, erupted in fury. This, he said, meant that Croats and Bosniaks could outvote Serbs; and, in revenge, he threatened to withdraw all Serbs from state institutions. If this happened, it would lead to chaos. Bosnians still remember how the RS was formed on the eve of war in 1992, when the Serbs left Bosnia's institutions.
On October 22nd a meeting between Mr Lajcak and Mr Dodik appeared to calm tensions. Immediately afterwards Mr Dodik left for a meeting in Belgrade with Serbia's prime minister, Vojislav Kostunica, and Vladimir Titov, Russia's deputy foreign minister. The threats to bring political chaos to Bosnia then started again. “They should either stop this or reveal their real intentions,” says Mr Lajcak. Asked whether, if things got worse, he would use his legal power to sack Mr Dodik, he replied with a firm “Yes”.
The looming struggle is closely connected to Kosovo. Technically it is a part of Serbia. If it gains independence soon, it will strengthen the hands of those, such as Mr Dodik, who oppose the centralising of the Bosnian state and sometimes threaten RS independence. This week Serbia's leaders have weighed in with denunciations of Mr Lajcak, as have the Russians, who have previously co-operated well in Bosnia with their Western counterparts. Now it seems clear that they are opening a new line of confrontation with the West, which stretches via Kosovo to the dispute over America's proposed missile shield.
Western diplomats have shelved the idea of closing down Mr Lajcak's post. Russia has not, and in November Russia's agreement in the Security Council will be required to renew the mandate for the remaining 2,500 EU peacekeeping troops in Bosnia. A fight may be in the offing. And even if Russia agrees to the renewal of the mandate, the broader outlook for the region is not hopeful. Judy Batt of the EU's Institute for Security Studies, who is working with Mr Lajcak, says that “politics in Bosnia and Serbia now mean that the EU perspective for the whole region is dying.”
Kosovo's future
Fretting
Oct 18th 2007 | PRISTINA From The Economist print edition
Independence is not quite in the bag
KOSOVO should be abuzz. A general election is due on November 17th. Soon afterwards Kosovo's Albanians (Kosovars) hope to declare independence, becoming the seventh country to emerge from the wreckage of Yugoslavia. Yet gloom hangs over the province, under United Nations jurisdiction since the end of the war in 1999. Too many promises have been broken for the Kosovars, who account for 90% of Kosovo's 2m population, to buzz.
The election will change little. None of the parties has any policies beyond independence. They are based on personalities and quarrels over who did what in the war. It will be, sighs a source close to government, “only a reshuffling of the pack”. There is a wild card, in the shape of Behgjet Pacolli. This Kosovar tycoon made his fortune as a builder in Russia and the former Soviet Union and has plastered Kosovo with posters of the Kremlin and other buildings he worked on, stating how many Kosovars he employed on each.
A troika of ambassadors from Russia, America and the European Union is holding talks between the Kosovars and Serbia, due to end on December 10th. After that, as there is unlikely to be a deal, the Kosovars want to declare independence. But a declaration will be worthless unless many countries, especially in the EU, recognise it.
With holidays and time needed to form a government, little will happen until early next year. Then Kosovar leaders fear that there may be calls for yet another round of diplomacy. They are nervous of a repeat of the Balkan past. In 1878 Bosnia came under Austro-Hungarian rule, but with nominal sovereignty staying with the Ottomans. The Kosovars fear that, once the UN mission is replaced by an EU one, the big powers might press them to accept that, even if Kosovo begins acting as an independent state, Serbia should retain sovereignty at least for a few years.
Kosovo's leaders will not accept this. Ominously, one armed group has made a dramatic appearance on television. Albin Kurti, a former student leader under house arrest for leading a protest that turned violent, says that 2m people in Kosovo are, in effect, under house arrest. He argues against any further negotiations, since negotiations always aim at compromise—and Kosovo cannot compromise on independence.
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Serbia's future
The Russian option
Oct 18th 2007 | BELGRADE AND MITROVICA From The Economist print edition
Some Serbs dream of a Russian alternative to the European Union
DOTTED across the Serbian north of the divided city of Mitrovica are pictures of its hero: Vladimir Putin. Russia, Kosovo's Serbs believe, has saved them from the independence demanded by its Albanians (Kosovars), who make up 90% of Kosovo's 2m people. It is too early to be sure they are right. But Western diplomats are worried by Serbia's dalliance with Russia.
Marko Jaksic, a member of Serbia's Kosovo negotiating team, helps to run northern Kosovo. He is a deputy leader of the party of Vojislav Kostunica, Serbia's prime minister. If America and many European Union countries recognise a unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo, he expects Serbia to offer Russia military bases “in Serbia, and especially on the border of Kosovo”. He adds that Serbia should abandon its bid to join the EU, and claims that Mr Kostunica thinks similarly but has less freedom to talk openly.
Such talk is meant to send chills down Western spines. If Serbia gave up trying to join the EU, not only would it return to the isolation of the 1990s but it could also drag the whole region down with it. How serious is the risk? Mr Kostunica's party is aligned with Mr Putin's United Russia party, and its official position is that Serbia should be neutral. Mr Kostunica has disparaged a potentially independent Kosovo as nothing but a “NATO state”.
A source close to President Boris Tadic, whose party is in uneasy coalition with Mr Kostunica, concedes that, if Kosovo's independence is recognised, it will be hard to instil “European values” in Serbia. Even Serbs who would secretly like to be shot of their troublesome southern province fear that full independence would be disastrous. They predict that Mr Kostunica would, if not formally end the country's bid for EU membership, at least slow it down, as well as trying to punish countries that recognise Kosovo and companies that trade there and in Serbia.
Yet the Russian alternative does not look appetising. The prospect of Russian bases in Serbia is “very unlikely”, says Ivan Vejvoda, who heads the Balkan Trust for Democracy, a big regional donor to good causes. Serbia is surrounded by the EU and NATO. “The Russian thing is a temporary, opportunistic thing, a balloon which will burst once we are over Kosovo,” he says. There is much excitement in Serbia about Russian companies moving in. On the list for privatisations that may interest them are JAT Serbian airlines, Belgrade airport, a mine in Bor and NIS, Serbia's oil company. Alexei Miller, head of Russia's energy giant, Gazprom, met Serbian leaders to discuss potential pipelines on October 9th. But so far Russian companies (except for Lukoil) have been notable by their absence. Russia is only the 18th-biggest investor in Serbia; the country's largest single exporter is owned by US Steel. The EU has poured lots of money into rebuilding Serbia. If Serbia kept on track, a lot more cash could come—and Russia offers little.
On October 15th Montenegro signed a “stabilisation and association agreement” with the EU, normally a step towards membership. Serbia could soon do the same. But a negative report to the EU from Carla Del Ponte, chief prosecutor at The Hague war-crimes tribunal, means that it must first be seen to do more to catch the fugitive Ratko Mladic. Ms Del Ponte will visit Serbia soon to check progress (the government has posted a reward for the missing general, 12 years after he was indicted). This suggests that the Russian option is, as one diplomat puts it, “loose talk”—for now. If many EU countries recognise an independent Kosovo next year, it will be their turn to call Serbia's bluff.
Oct 25th 2007 | GOMA AND KINSHASA From The Economist print edition
The dangers of Congo and Rwanda, Hutus and Tutsis, going back to war
WITH gun-battles almost every day, and 370,000-plus refugees fleeing from fighting in eastern Congo's long-suffering North Kivu province in the past ten months, fear of a full-blown war is fast growing. On October 17th, Congo's president, Joseph Kabila, announced he had ordered the army to prepare for an all-out offensive against Laurent Nkunda, the self-styled saviour of Congo's Tutsi minority, whom the government accuses of war crimes.
In August a peace deal between the two sides broke down, resulting in a week of heavy fighting. When Mr Nkunda broke a subsequent UN-imposed ceasefire, the Congolese army took the opportunity to push Mr Nkunda's fighters out of key positions near North Kivu's capital, Goma. Bolstered by this rare victory, Mr Kabila, who has refused to negotiate directly with Mr Nkunda, now seems bent on crushing the rebellion by force by the end of the year. “Have we ruled out now the possibility of a negotiated solution? I don't know what a negotiated solution is,” says the president.
But with wounds still raw from Congo's war that lasted from 1998 to 2003, when eight countries got involved at a cost of 4m Congolese dead, not everyone favours a military option. At least not yet. President George Bush is expected to greet Mr Kabila soon at the White House, but the Americans would rather not host a leader about to launch a bloody ethnic conflict. Diplomatic efforts seem to have delayed the impending offensive, at least until after Mr Kabila's state visit. America is also trying to persuade Mr Nkunda to abandon his rebellion and perhaps go into exile.
America's diplomatic push is partly because it has close relations with Congo's neighbour and long-time foe, Rwanda. The continued presence in eastern Congo of Rwandan Hutu rebels, some of whom participated in 1994 in the genocide of Rwanda's Tutsi minority, has been at the root of much of the instability in the Great Lakes region for more than a decade. Rwanda has twice invaded Congo, in 1996 and 1998, under the pretext of wiping out the rebels and protecting ethnic Tutsis on both sides of the border. Despite repeated promises to do so, Congo has done little to pursue the Hutu rebels and push them back into Rwanda, choosing instead to focus its attention on Mr Nkunda's three-year-old Tutsi rebellion. The Americans want the Nkunda issue settled so that Congo can concentrate on dealing with the Hutu rebels, now rebranded as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda.
Congo has accused Rwanda of sending its soldiers across the border again, this time to shore up Mr Nkunda. The Rwandans are worried that Congo's government has started to back the Hutu rebels. If true, America would almost certainly withdraw its diplomatic support for Congo's military operations in the east. It would also provide a casus belli for Rwanda to invade yet again. If that happened, a new round of killing between Hutus and Tutsis could start, beyond the control of Congo, Rwanda or America.
Oct 25th 2007 | GENEVA From The Economist print edition
A party that toys with xenophobia is the biggest winner
JUDGING by the election on October 21st, the fastest-rising political forces in Switzerland are the far-right Swiss People's Party (SVP) and the ecologists. Both sport the colour green in their logos. They have little else in common.
The Green Party fell just shy of 10% of the vote and surged to a new high of 20 seats in the 200-seat lower house, the National Council. The nascent centre-right Liberal Greens took three more. Helped by worries about climate change in a nation full of mountains and glaciers, and with a reputation for efficiency in several cities and regions, the Greens also gained their first seat in the Senate. Although the ecologists remain behind the four biggest parties—and therefore outside the government—they have a new role to play as kingmakers in parliament, where no party commands a majority.
The populist SVP, however, which draws most of its support from rural and small-town Switzerland, had a clear lead in the polls. By building a personality cult around its billionaire leader, Christoph Blocher, the justice minister, and adopting a three-line agenda—expulsion of foreign criminals, no EU entry, tax cuts—the SVP captured seven more seats in the National Council. With 62 seats and 29% of the vote, against 26.7% in 2003, it recorded the best result of any party since 1919.
Mr Blocher, who has led the SVP's shift to the right, is one of the government's least-liked ministers. One of his most controversial acts in his first term was to criticise the country's anti-racism law. But he is the defining force in Swiss politics. “If you want to find out who's on the left or right, you just ask the Blocher question,” says Bianca Rousselot of gfs.berne, a polling institute.
The SVP's distance from its rivals was enhanced by a surprising slump for the unrenovated Socialists, to 43 seats. The business-friendly Free Democrats crumbled to their worst-ever score, 15.7% and 31 seats. The junior partner in the seven-minister Federal Council, the Christian Democrats, gained ground to reach 31 seats. However, the left, the centre-right and the SVP are roughly level-pegging, with 62 or 63 seats each. There is little prospect of a change in the 48-year-old power-sharing agreement when the new parliament elects a new Federal Council, Switzerland's equivalent of a cabinet, on December 12th.
What has changed is the renewed vigour of intolerance in a country that, unlike its neighbours, has been spared the experience of extremism in power. On October 6th, far-left demonstrators blocked an SVP campaign rally in Bern and clashed with police. Mr Blocher had polarised the country in the 1990s with a tough stance on asylum-seekers and immigration. But violence like this was hitherto unknown.
Pollsters found that the riot helped mobilise new voters, especially for the SVP. The party's unusually well-financed campaign, which was closer to British or American political marketing, already outshone its dated and timid rivals. But the SVP is also showing ever less restraint in stoking popular fears about foreigners. A game on the party's website shows Swiss passports being caught by overwhelmingly brown and yellow hands. And forthcoming campaigns, backed by the SVP, will call for referendums both on foreign offenders and on the building of mosques with minarets in Switzerland.
Casey, Arthur, Conservative and Liberal support leads to Throne Speech Passed
Last night as expected the throne speech passed.Conservative MPs along with Bill Casey and Andre Arthur supported the throne speech by voting in favour.Liberal MPs also supported the throne speech by staying seated and allowing it to pass.The NDP and Bloc both voted against the throne speech with Jack Layton taunting the Liberals every step of the way.The budget passed 126-79 with the Liberals killing Kyoto and their position on Afghanistan to avoid a short term disaster.Dion apparently wanted to go to an election, but couldn’t convince his caucus to take the plunge.The vote came at a time when Conservative prospects of a majority seem to be improving in the polls.
Canada / Ipsos Conservative 40% Liberal 27% NDP 14% Bloc 9% Green 8% Best Outcome For Canada? Majority government 58% Minority government 34%
Canada / Unimarketing Conservative 36.3% Liberal 24.7% NDP 18.9% Bloc 9.7% Green 8.7% Who Would Make The Best PM? Harper 42% Layton 16% Dion 14% Duceppe 6% May 4%
Dan Cook from blog from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs/wblogolitics did a good job of naming the Liberals who showed up for work and failed to do their job on behalf of the Canadians who sent them to Ottawa
The 95 Liberal MPs who failed to show up to work:
Omar Alghabra, Navdeep Bains, Susan Barnes, Colleen Beaumier, Mauril Bélanger, Don Bell, Carolyn Bennett, Maurizio Bevilacqua, Raymond Bonin, Ken Boshcoff, Scott Brison, Bonnie Brown, Gerry Byrne, John Cannis, Brenda Chamberlain, Raymond Chan, Denis Coderre, Irwin Cotler, Roy Cullen, Rodger Cuzner, Jean-Claude D'Amours, Sukh Dhaliwal, Ruby Dhalla, Stéphane Dion, Ujjal Dosanjh, Ken Dryden, Wayne Easter, Mark Eyking, Raymonde Folco, Hedy Fry, John Godfrey, Ralph Goodale, Albina Guarnieri, Mark Holland, Charles Hubbard, Michael Ignatieff, Marlene Jennings, Susan Kadis, Nancy Karetak-Lindell, Jim Karygiannis, Tina Keeper, Dominic LeBlanc, Derek Lee, Lawrence MacAulay, Gurbax Singh Malhi, John Maloney, Diane Marleau, Keith Martin, Paul Martin, Bill Matthews, John McCallum, David McGuinty, Joseph McGuire, John McKay, Dan McTeague, Maria Minna, Brian Murphy, Shawn Murphy, Anita Neville, Massimo Pacetti, Bernard Patry, Glen Pearson, Marcel Proulx, Yasmin Ratansi, Karen Redman, Geoff Regan, Lucienne Robillard, Pablo Rodriguez, Anthony Rota, Todd Russell, Michael Savage, Francis Scarpaleggia, Andy Scott, Judy Sgro, Mario Silva, Raymond Simard, Scott Simms, Lloyd St. Amand, Brent St. Denis, Paul Steckle, Belinda Stronach, Paul Szabo, Andrew Telegdi, Lui Temelkovski, Robert Thibault, Alan Tonks, Garth Turner, Roger Valley, Joe Volpe, Tom Wappel, Bryon Wilfert, Blair Wilson, Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Paul Zed.
Thanks to NDP.ca for the images...
Alghabra, Omar Mississauga - Erindale
Bagnell, Larry Yukon
Bains, Navdeep Mississauga - Brampton South
Barnes, Sue London West
Beaumier, Colleen Brampton West
Bélanger, Mauril Ottawa - Vanier
Bell, Don H. North Vancouver
Bennett, Carolyn St. Paul's
Bevilacqua, Maurizio Vaughan
Bonin, Raymond Nickel Belt
Boshcoff, Ken Thunder Bay - Rainy River
Brison, Scott Kings - Hants
Brown, Bonnie Oakville
Byrne, Gerry Humber - St. Barbe - Baie Verte
Cannis, John Scarborough Centre
Chamberlain, Brenda Guelph
Chan, Raymond Richmond
Coderre, Denis Bourassa
Cotler, Irwin Mount Royal
Cullen, Roy Etobicoke North
Cuzner, Rodger Cape Breton - Canso
D'Amours, Jean-Claude Madawaska - Restigouche
Dhaliwal, Sukh Newton - North Delta
Dhalla, Ruby Brampton - Springdale
Dion, Stéphane Saint-Laurent - Cartierville
Dosanjh, Ujjal Vancouver South
Dryden, Ken York Centre
Easter, Wayne Malpeque
Eyking, Mark Sydney - Victoria
Folco, Raymonde Laval - Les Îles
Fry, Hedy Vancouver Centre
Godfrey, John Don Valley West
Goodale, Ralph Wascana
Guarnieri, Albina Mississauga East - Cooksville
Holland, Mark Ajax - Pickering
Hubbard, Charles Miramichi
Ignatieff, Michael Etobicoke - Lakeshore
Jennings, Marlene Notre - Dame - de - Grâce - Lachine
Kadis, Susan Thornhill
Karetak - Lindell, Nancy Nunavut
Karygiannis, Jim Scarborough - Agincourt
Keeper, Tina Churchill
LeBlanc, Dominic Beauséjour
Lee, Derek Scarborough - Rouge River
MacAulay, Lawrence Cardigan
Malhi, Gurbax Bramalea - Gore - Malton
Maloney, John Welland
Marleau, Diane Sudbury
Martin, Keith Esquimalt - Juan de Fuca
Martin, Paul LaSalle - Émard
Matthews, Bill Random - Burin - St. George's
McCallum, John Markham - Unionville
McGuinty, David Ottawa South
McGuire, Joe Egmont
McKay, John Scarborough - Guildwood
McTeague, Dan Pickering - Scarborough East
Minna, Maria Beaches - East York
Murphy, Brian Moncton - Riverview - Dieppe
Murphy, Shawn Charlottetown
Neville, Anita Winnipeg South Centre
Pacetti, Massimo Saint-Léonard - Saint-Michel
Patry, Bernard Pierrefonds - Dollard
Pearson, Glen London North Centre
Proulx, Marcel Hull - Aylmer
Ratansi, Yasmin Don Valley East
Redman, Karen Kitchener Centre
Regan, Geoff Halifax West
Robillard, Lucienne Westmount - Ville-Marie
Rodriguez, Pablo Honoré-Mercier
Rota, Anthony Nipissing - Timiskaming
Russell, Todd Labrador
Savage, Michael Dartmouth - Cole Harbour
Scarpaleggia, Francis Lac-Saint-Louis
Scott, Andy Fredericton
Sgro, Judy York West
Silva, Mario Davenport
Simard, Raymond Saint Boniface
Simms, Scott Bonavista - Gander - Grand Falls - Windsor
St. Amand, Lloyd Brant
St. Denis, Brent Algoma - Manitoulin - Kapuskasing
Steckle, Paul Huron - Bruce
Stronach, Belinda Newmarket - Aurora
Szabo, Paul Mississauga South
Telegdi, Andrew Kitchener - Waterloo
Temelkovski, Lui Oak Ridges - Markham
Thibault, Robert West Nova
Tonks, Alan York South - Weston
Turner, Garth Halton
Valley, Roger Kenora
Volpe, Joseph Eglinton - Lawrence
Wappel, Tom Scarborough Southwest
Wilfert, Bryon Richmond Hill
Wilson, Blair West Vancouver - Sunshine Coast - Sea to Sky Country
Wrzesnewskyj, Borys Etobicoke Centre
Zed, Paul Saint John
Clearly it was a terrible night for Liberals while supporters of the Conservative Party and NDP Party have good reason for optimism as the fall session in the house moves forward.
Thanks for reading…
Darryl
***********
Throne Speech gets green light
Liberals Abstain. Might of Bloc, NDP not enough to bring down government
NORMA GREENAWAY, Canwest News Service
Published: 6 hours ago
OTTAWA - Liberal MPs sat on their hands as the federal government's Throne Speech won final approval in the Commons yesterday, giving Prime Minister Stephen Harper a grudging green light to continue governing.
The 126-79 vote formally ended the allotted six days of debate on the Throne Speech and cleared the way for MPs to begin dealing with the minority Conservative government's legislative priorities, a process that promises to keep all parties in election-alert mode.
The government survived the first major confidence test of this parliamentary session because all Liberal MPs present obeyed their beleaguered leader, Stephane Dion's, call to abstain from the vote. The NDP and Bloc Quebecois voted against the speech, but their combined strength was not enough to defeat the government and force an election.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper (centre) gets a standing ovation after Throne Speech is accepted, clearing the way for MPs to begin dealing with the minority government's legislative priorities.
CHRIS WATTIE REUTERS
NDP leader Jack Layton accused the Liberals of being an "absent opposition" and handing the Tories the gift of being able to operate as if they had a majority government.
"Nothing makes people more cynical about politics than when parties don't do what they say, don't stand up for what they believe," Layton told reporters just hours before the vote.
Ontario Liberal MP Garth Turner, a former Conservative, praised Dion for not allowing the "bully" Harper to goad the Liberals into an election.
"He (Dion) has chosen to fight on issues Canadians are passionate about rather than the thin and tasteless gruel of a Throne Speech," Turner said during the Throne Speech debate.
The next major item on the government's agenda is a promised fiscal update. Given the government's overflowing coffers and the election guillotine hanging over this Parliament, there is speculation that next month's update will be more like a mini-budget, complete with details about promised broad-based tax cuts, than a status report on the government's finances.
The Liberals will use the session's first opposition day today to seek support for a motion that, among other things, calls on the government to go beyond tax cuts and also invest in better access to post-secondary education, new technologies, increasing the number of skilled workers in the country, and making it easier for immigrants to use their skills.
The vote on the Throne Speech was anti-climactic, given Dion's well-publicized orders for his MPs to sit on their hands. Liberals have shrugged off the Conservatives' criticism of the move by reminding them they abstained in a budget vote in 2005 rather than bring down the minority government of Paul Martin.
Although yesterday's vote squelched the prospect of an imminent election, it did not kill the possibility of Canadians going to the polls later this fall or winter.
Dion is playing ball with the Tories for now, having been persuaded that the party is in no shape for an election now.
He has signalled the Liberals will support the two pieces of legislation that have been rolled out since Parliament resumed Oct. 16 - a massive anti-crime package, as well as a pair of counter-terrorism measures that have been slightly modified since the Liberals opposed them last spring.
Schwarzenegger: Marijuana is not a drug, 'it's a leaf'
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LONDON - The governor of California says marijuana is not a drug, a British magazine reported Monday.
Arnold Schwarzenegger told the British edition of GQ magazine that he had not taken drugs. The former bodybuilder and Hollywood star has acknowledged using marijuana in the 1970s and was shown smoking a joint in the 1977 documentary "Pumping Iron."
"That is not a drug. It's a leaf," Schwarzenegger told GQ.
"My drug was pumping iron, trust me," he added.
Aaron McLear, Schwarzenegger's press secretary, said the governor made the comments in a lighthearted context, noting his interviewer was Piers Morgan, one of the judges on "America's Got Talent." Morgan is a former British newspaper editor.
"The governor was doing an interview with the host of 'America's Got Talent,' the newest version of the gong show," McLear said. "I think it's important to keep that quote in the context of the environment where it was said."
"Of course the governor understands marijuana is a drug. It's like when he goes on Leno or the Daily Show, if you took something like that out of context, it might seem shocking but it was in a silly entertainment context," he added.
In the interview for the magazine's December issue, Schwarzenegger refused to condemn politicians who declined to answer questions about drug use.
"What would you rather have? A politician taking stuff and not saying, but making the best decisions and improving things? Or a politician who names all the drugs he or she has taken but makes lousy decisions for the country?" Schwarzenegger was quoted as saying.
"A politician's job is to do what's best for the people and to improve the country, the economy, the environment. Why should I care if a politician takes sleeping pills every night so long as he can do his job?"
In the same interview, Schwarzenegger listed former British prime minister Tony Blair, who left office in June, as one of the greatest leaders in history, alongside former South African president Nelson Mandela, former U.S. presidents John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan and the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev.
Asked if he would include U.S. President George W. Bush on the list, Schwarzenegger - a Republican - said: "I would say that I was ... very fond of his father. I worked for President Bush Sr. and he was a great man."
"I think his son does some great things and there are some other things I don't agree with."
Former United Nations' chief weapons inspector Hans Blix has challenged U.S. President George Bush's assertion that Iran poses a nuclear threat and the world should take pre-emptive action.
Bush has recently renewed calls for a missile defence shield in Europe, issuing grim warnings that Iran could have a ballistic missile capable of reaching Europe and the U.S. by 2015.
Blix, who is the executive chair of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission and headed the search for WMDs in Iraq prior to the U.S. invasion, acknowledged Iran has a nuclear enrichment program and has long-range missile capability. But he told CTV's Canada AM that Bush is over-reacting.
"Right now, I don't think it's a threat," Blix said.
"President Bush talks about 2015. There's time to negotiate with Iran and to carry out those negotiations in a sensible manner. I think they use too much sticks and they should use more carrots, just as they've done in the case of North Korea where they are making some headway."
And if the U.S. does move forward with a missile defence plan, it should only be done in co-operation with other nuclear powers, including Russia and China, Blix said.
Any unilateral movement could trigger an arms race over fears that any country that perfected a missile defence shield would have an incredible advantage over the others.
"We need to wake up to that," Blix said. "Al Gore has woken us up to the danger of global warming as one inconvenient truth, but there is another one and that is we are moving into arms races again."
The U.S. plan involves placing missile interceptors in Poland and a radar system in the Czech Republic as protection against threats from "rogue" states such as North Korea and Iran.
Russia is against the plan, fearing it would constitute a threat against its national security.
Blix was in Toronto as part of United Nations Disarmament Week, speaking about what the world would look like without weapons of mass destruction.
Though that reality is probably a long way off, Blix said it is possible, with the help of the United Nations.
"It's a long perspective and I'm not saying we can eliminate weapons by tomorrow. It will take decades. But I think we'll get rid of them because the interdependence is so great in the world today and we'll need the UN for this process. There is no alternative. The UN has some weaknesses but it is something we must improve on. It's a mechanism. It's something that can be used."
Progress is being made, Blix said. The number of nuclear weapons thought to be in the world has gone from a peak of 55,000 warheads during the Cold War, down to a current 27,000, and the number will continue to fall.
But he said there also needs to be a concerted effort to tackle the issue in the earlier stages.
"We need to go on also to stop the production of similar materials for bombs -- plutonium and enriched uranium -- a gradual process of disarmament."
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Rice tells nuke watchdog to butt out of Iran diplomacy
Story Highlights
U.N. watchdog chief ElBaradei wants slowdown in discussions on sanctions
Rice says ElBaradei's group isn't in the "business of diplomacy"
U.N. readies third sanctions resolution against Iran for its uranium enrichment
U.S. and other nations seek to divert Iran's alleged nuclear weapons ambitions
SHANNON, Ireland (CNN) -- U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice cautioned the U.N. nuclear watchdog group Wednesday not to interfere with international diplomacy over Iran's alleged weapons program.
Condoleezza Rice criticized the U.N. nuclear watchdog group Wednesday while en route to the Middle East.
The International Atomic Energy Agency "is not in the business of diplomacy," Rice told reporters traveling with her to the Middle East.
The IAEA's role should be limited to carrying out inspections and offering a "clear declaration and clear reporting on what the Iranians are doing; whether and when and if they are living up to the agreements they have signed," she said.
Rice was referring to recent comments made by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei, in which he criticized U.S. rhetoric about Iran.
ElBaradei has called for less emphasis on additional U.N. sanctions against Iran in favor of enhanced cooperation between the IAEA and Tehran. Iran has agreed with IAEA requests to answer unresolved questions about its nuclear program.
Iranian officials insist their nuclear program is aimed at producing civilian electric power, but the Bush administration accuses Tehran of working toward a nuclear weapon. President Bush has called the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran "unacceptable."
Rice said the IAEA agreement with Iran was "a good thing," but "this wouldn't be the first time the Iranians made an agreement only to break it"
She said the U.N. Security Council is working on a third resolution imposing additional sanctions against Iran for failing to suspend its uranium enrichment program.
The elements of a possible resolution will be discussed in Washington on Friday at a meeting of the political directors of the "P5 plus one" -- Germany and the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council: Britain, France, China, the United States and Russia.
Those talks will continue next week in New York when Rice meets with her counterparts on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, she said.
"The United Nations Security Council has in two resolutions set forth obligations that Iran must fulfill," Rice said. "It is not up to anybody to diminish or to begin to cut back on the obligations the Iranians have been ordered to take under Chapter Seven unanimous United Nations Security Council resolutions. "
Rice insisted that Bush was committed to diplomacy, but has not taken any options off the table. She said the United States has confronted Iranian agents in Iraq when they are believed to be threatening American forces.
She encouraged Iran to take advantage of international offers of economic incentives and improved Western relations in exchange for suspending its nuclear program.
"We believe the diplomatic track can work," Rice said. "But has to work both with a set of incentives and a set of teeth."
Separately, European Union members Britain, France and Germany have led Western powers in negotiations with Tehran. But French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner warned Sunday that Europe must prepare for war if Iran continues to flout international demands.
The U.N. Security Council slapped sanctions on Iran in December after Tehran refused international demands to freeze its production of enriched uranium.
It is not the first time the IAEA director has butted heads with Rice over Iran. ElBaradei has often criticized what he called "war mongering," only to be told by Rice to mind his business.
ElBaradei and the IAEA won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 for efforts to stop nuclear proliferation.
U.S. Weighing Terrorist Label for Iran Guards
Syed Jan Sabawoon/European Pressphoto Agency
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, left, meeting with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan in Kabul, where he called Afghanistan “a brotherly neighbor.” President Bush has accused Iran of destabilizing Afghanistan.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 14 — The Bush administration is preparing to declare that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps is a foreign terrorist organization, senior administration officials said Tuesday.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, at a ceremony with Revolutionary Guard members in Tehran in November.
If imposed, the declaration would signal a more confrontational turn in the administration’s approach to Iran and would be the first time that the United States has added the armed forces of any sovereign government to its list of terrorist organizations.
The Revolutionary Guard is thought to be the largest branch of Iran’s military. While the United States has long labeled Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism, a decision to single out the guard would amount to an aggressive new challenge from an American administration that has recently seemed conflicted over whether to take a harder line against Tehran over its nuclear program and what American officials have called its destabilizing role in Iraq.
According to European diplomats, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has warned of the move in recent conversations with European counterparts, saying that a delay in efforts to win approval from the United Nations Security Council for further economic sanctions on Iran was leaving the administration with little choice but unilateral action.
A move toward putting the Revolutionary Guard on the foreign terrorist list would serve at least two purposes for Ms. Rice: to pacify, for a while, administration hawks who are pushing for possible military action, and to further press America’s allies to ratchet up sanctions against Iran in the Security Council.
The State Department and Treasury officials are pushing for a stronger set of United Nations Security Council sanctions against members of Iran’s government, including an extensive travel ban and further moves to restrict the ability of Iran’s financial institutions to do business abroad. American officials have also been trying to get European and Asian banks to take additional steps against Iran.
Senior administration officials said current plans called for the declaration to be made this month, but cautioned that it could be put off, and that the effort could still be set aside if the Security Council moved more quickly to impose broad sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program.
The officials said the declaration was being pushed by Ms. Rice, and would not say if it had been endorsed by the National Security Council or the Pentagon.
President Bush seemed to signal a tougher approach to Iran last week when he called attention to what American officials have said was an active role by the Revolutionary Guard in providing munitions, training and other support to Shiite militants who have been attacking American troops in Iraq. “When we catch you playing a nonconstructive role, there will be a price to pay,” Mr. Bush said of Iran during a news conference on Thursday.
Listing would set in motion a series of automatic sanctions that would make it easier for the United States to block financial accounts and other assets controlled by the guard. In particular, the action would freeze any assets the guard has in the United States, although it is unlikely that the guard maintains much in the way of assets in American banks or other institutions.
In the internal debate over American policy toward Iran, Ms. Rice has succeeded over the last year in holding the Bush administration to a diplomatic course in which America and five other world powers have used the Security Council to impose sanctions to try to get Tehran to suspend its enrichment of uranium.
But in recent months, there has been resurgent debate within the administration about whether the diplomatic path is working, with aides to Vice President Dick Cheney said to be among those pushing for greater consideration of military options. The debate has been kindled by reports from international inspectors detailing Iran’s progress in its nuclear program, including the installation of more than 1,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium, as well as the assertions from American intelligence officials about an Iranian role in providing arms and other support to Shiite militias in Iraq and to Taliban militants in Afghanistan.
Iran has repeatedly denied that it is seeking to build nuclear weapons, that it is helping in any way to facilitate attacks on American troops in Iraq or that it is shipping any weapons to the Taliban, a group Iran opposed in the 1990s.
On Tuesday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad again dismissed American complaints that Iran is providing weapons to the Taliban. Speaking in Kabul, Afghanistan, after talks with President Hamid Karzai, he said Iran was “fully supporting” its new government.
Mr. Karzai played down the dispute over the weapons shipments, as he did during a visit to the White House this month. He said that Afghanistan and Iran were “brothers” and that both the United States and Iran were helping reconstruct his country.
In June, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said the volume of weapons reaching the Taliban from Iran made it “difficult to believe” that the shipments were “taking place without the knowledge of the Iranian government.” In a television interview the same day, Assistant Secretary of State R. Nicholas Burns said there was “irrefutable evidence” that the weapons were coming from the Revolutionary Guard.
There are currently 42 organizations on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations, including Al Qaeda, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and the Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
In taking aim at the guard, the administration is also trying to divide Iran’s population. During his news conference on Thursday, President Bush addressed the Iranian people directly. “My message to the Iranian people is, ‘You can do better than this current government,’ ” Mr. Bush said. “ ‘You don’t have to be isolated. You don’t have to be in a position where you can’t realize your full economic potential.’ ”
The United States government has not made a public estimate about the size of the Revolutionary Guard, an organization that dates to the Islamic revolution of 1979 and whose branches are believed to extend widely throughout the Iranian military. An estimate by GlobalSecurity.org, a research group based in Alexandria, Va., puts the total guard forces at 125,000.
The guard and its military wing are identified as a power base for Mr. Ahmadinejad. Under his administration, American officials said, the guard has moved increasingly into commercial operations, earning profits and extending its influence in Iran in areas involving big government contracts, including building airports and other infrastructure, oil production and providing cellphones.
The immediate legal consequence of the guard’s designation as a terrorist organization would be to make it unlawful for anyone subject to United States jurisdiction to knowingly provide material support or resources to the guard, according to the State Department. Any United States financial institution that becomes aware that it possesses, or has control over, funds of a foreign terrorist organization would have to turn them over to the Treasury Department.
Because Iran has done little business with the United States in more than two decades, the larger point of the designation would be to heighten the political and psychological pressure on Iran, administration officials said, by using the designation to persuade foreign governments and financial institutions to cut ties with Iranian businesses and individuals.
The decision would have little impact on American military activities in Iraq, where coalition forces already pursue fighters, advisers and financiers who support antigovernment forces, according to a senior Defense Department official. “We are going to go after any forces that are engaged in activities that are disruptive to the stability and security of Iraq,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the subject was pending administration policy.
Washington's reported plan to name Iran's Revolutionary Guards as a "specially designated global terrorist" organization may be less about raising pressure on Tehran than about raising pressure on U.S. allies to support a tougher line with Iran. In fact, the move reflects Washington's relative isolation on the question of how to deal with Iran. The New York Times reported Wednesday that the move is primarily directed at appeasing Bush Administration hawks and U.S. legislators who have been agitating for a more aggressive posture on Iran, and at turning the screws on European allies who are reluctant at this stage to escalate U.N. sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear program.
Tehran‘s jailing of Haleh Esfandiari, a 67-year old grandmother who holds dual Iranian-American citi...
Naming the IRG as a terrorist group could be used to pressure foreign corporations whose business ties with Iran potentially involve dealings with the IRG, which is extensively involved in Iran's economy. The rationale offered for the move is to curb an organization that has long been at the forefront of Iranian support for Hizballah and other radical groups in the region — and, the Administration alleges, is playing an active destabilizing role in Iraq.
In fact, it is Tehran's role in Iraq and other neighboring countries, rather than the state of its nuclear program, that has been the focus of much of the Administration's recent statements on Iran. U.S. officials from President Bush on down have sought to portray Iran, and organizations associated with the Revolutionary Guards specifically, as the prime source of trouble in its neighborhood. U.S. officials now routinely blame Iran for many of the attacks on U.S. forces inside Iraq — despite limited evidence to back the claim — and accuse it of destabilizing the Iraqi government by supporting radical Shi'ite militia. The Administration also insists that Iran has been working to destabilize the Karzai government in Afghanistan, and accuses it of funneling weapons to the Taliban.
Adopting a more aggressive posture toward Iran's regional role may play well on Capitol Hill, but the White House is clearly having trouble selling it abroad. Just last week, the leaders of the two governments most reliant on U.S. military protection directly contradicted President Bush's claims that Iran was causing trouble in their countries. Both Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai and Iran's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki publicly reiterated their view of Iran as a friend and a positive influence for stability in their countries, leaving President Bush to huffily demur. Iran helped install the Karzai government and has a longstanding hostility towards the Taliban. And Tehran has also been a vocal supporter of the Iraqi government, whose leaders have been historically close to Iran. In both cases, though, these governments fear that the strategic rivalry between Iran and the U.S. could prompt both sides to take actions that could provoke the other and prompt an escalation that negatively affect both Afghan and Iraqi stability. In other words, it's not Iran they fear, but an Iran-U.S. confrontation.
So, the Karzai and Maliki statements highlight a key problem facing those who seek a more aggressive U.S. posture towards Iran: Outside of Israel, there's very little international support for confronting Tehran. It's not that European and Arab allies don't share U.S. concerns over Iran's increasingly assertive regional role, or over the fact that its civilian nuclear energy program will eventually put nuclear weapons within easy reach of the Islamic Republic. But neither the Europeans nor the Arabs see much good being achieved by either economic isolation or military action against Iran.
Like the Europeans, the Bush Administration routinely proclaims its support for a "diplomatic solution" to the nuclear standoff. But unlike the Europeans, until now the Bush Administration appears to have taken "diplomatic solution" to mean simply Iranian acquiescence to Western terms as a result of non-military pressure. The Europeans know that's unrealistic, and are more inclined toward a give-and-take approach to diplomacy. They have lately been encouraged by Iran's moves to restore cooperation with the inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which prompted them to shelve any discussion of further U.N. sanctions until September, to allow more time for talks between Iran and the Europeans.
But the hawks on Capitol Hill and in the Administration know that such engagement is unlikely to produce a satisfactory Iranian climb-down, pointing out that the sanctions so far imposed have not ended Iran's uranium enrichment. But that position enjoys little support among the countries whose support the U.S. has worked hard to court over Iran.
Far-reaching compromises with Iran are not on the agenda of the current U.S. administration, nor are they likely to be. But pursuing a harder line effectively isolates the U.S. from its European and Arab allies. Those allies, of course, are well aware that the current U.S. administration has less than 18 months left in office, and they hope for a successor more open to compromise. But they may also be increasingly fearful of what the outgoing Administration may do on Iran before leaving office. That bad-cop fear, of course, is what Secretary of State Condi Rice is trading on when she warns European governments that their failure to back stronger sanctions will force the U.S. to act alone.
Germany's unwillingness to impose further sanctions on Iran has pushed the United States closer towards a decision on a military strike, FOX News reported on Wednesday.
A satellite image showing the Natanz nuclear enrichment plant. Photo: AP [file]
According to the report, Germany's decision has spurred senior US army officials to try and convince US Foreign Secretary Condoleezza Rice to abandon once and for all the diplomatic route of preventing a nuclear Iran. The report further stated that the date of preference for an attack against Iran is in eight to 10 months - after the US presidential candidates for both the Democrats and the Republicans have been chosen, but before the major presidential campaign kicks off.
The report stated that the attack would be comprised of two main strategies: cutting off the Iranian gas supply, which the US hopes would pressure the Iranian people towards action against their government, and an aerial bombing campaign, which would be meant to paralyze Iranian defenses and allow American bombers to destroy the nuclear facilities.
Opponents to a military strike claim that an attack would require at least one week of intense bombing, and that it would only set the Iranian nuclear program back a few years, the report said. Two other claims of the opponents is that an American strike would provoke Iran into attacking Israel, and that abandoning diplomatic action would negatively impact Iraq and the US troops stationed there.
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IAEA chief warns against striking Iran
Updated Mon. Sep. 17 2007 9:46 AM ET
The Associated Press
VIENNA, Austria -- Invoking the war in Iraq, the chief UN nuclear inspector criticized talk of attacking Iran as "hype" on Monday, saying the use of force should only be considered as a last resort and only if authorized by the UN Security Council.
"I would not talk about any use of force," said Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in an indirect response to French warnings that the world had to be prepared for the possibility of war in the event that Iran obtains atomic weapons.
Saying only the UN Security Council could authorize the use of force, ElBaradei urged the world to remember Iraq before considering any similar action against Iran.
"There are rules on how to use force, and I would hope that everybody would have gotten the lesson after the Iraq situation, where 700,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives on the suspicion that a country has nuclear weapons," he told reporters.
He was alluding to a key U.S. argument for invading Iraq in 2003 without Security Council approval_ that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear arms. Four years later, no such arsenals have been found.
ElBaradei, speaking outside a 144-nation meeting of his agency, urged both sides to back away from confrontation, in comments addressed both to Iran and the U.S.-led group of nations pressing for new UN sanctions for Iran's refusal to end uranium enrichment. <
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