I admit, I originally thought that the idea that the Chalk River "emergency" was actually a "manufactured crisis" was too far of a leap. Surely the government and AECL wouldn't conspire to create a false crisis just so that they could replace a nuclear regulator who's primary concern was nuclear safety, with a nuclear regulator who's primary concern was "doing whatever big business wants you to do". Then again...
Today, I realize that I'm just not cynical enough, and that I shouldn't just assume that our government would be more concerned about nuclear safety than kowtowing to big business just because they're "honourable" or "public-minded". Turns out, before Linda Keen's body is even cold, and while her federal court challenge to her firing is still pending the new Tory-appointed (turnabout is fair play) head of CNSC is bending over backwards to do EXACTLY WHAT AECL WANTS HIM TO.
Clearly the Tory plan all along was to gut a nuclear safety regulator with a spine in order to replace her with the more traditional "Anything you want Mr. Nuclear industrialist, Sir" regulator. I apologize to everyone who tried to tell me that the Tories were this crass.
Clearly, they are.
At this point, I don't see why the Tories don't just dismantle the CNSC and make the nuclear industry self-regulating. I'd rather have NO nuclear safety regulator than one with its collective heads so far...
Grrrrr.
JUST. SO. MAD.
Friday, February 22, 2008
What the whole Chalk River fiasco was really all about...
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Where the world stands on Kosovo's independence...
This will obviously be in the news for a while, so I thought I'd let people interested in the story of Kosovo's declaration of independence know about this Wikipedia page which is tracking international reaction and has handy tables of who's pro-independence and who's anti.
As of right now, leaving out the all of the essentially "neutral" and "wait and see" countries (including our own, for now) here's where things stand:
States recognizing Kosovo's independence or planning to (those that have already done so are in bold) :
The United States, the United Kingdom, France, Australia, Italy, Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, Finland, Sweden, Afghanistan, Austria, Bulgaria, Costa Rica, Pakistan, Turkey, Japan, Hungary, Senegal, Germany, Latvia, Norway, Malaysia, Ireland, Lithuania, Portugal, Slovenia, Switzerland, and the U.A.E.
States that have declared that they will not recognize Kosovo and States that have voiced concern (those that have merely expressed concern are not in bold):
Russia, Serbia, Argentina, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bolivia, Cyprus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Sri Lanka , Venezuela, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, China, Mexico, Phillipines, South Africa, Ukraine, New Zealand*
So there you have it. The pulse of the planet in a nutshell!
* Does not recognize unilateral moves. "It's never been the New Zealand Government's position to recognize in such circumstances. We will neither recognize nor not recognize". according to PM Helen Clark.
Friday, February 01, 2008
Wow, covering up allegations of torture by the Governor of Khandahar!
So, our wonderful government had credible evidence that the Governor of Kandahar has been personally involved in torture ("involved" as in "personally beat prisoners").
Even worse, "Despite sharing the allegations with the Afghan government and outside agencies, Ottawa kept them from a Canadian Federal Court judge hearing a case brought by Canadian rights groups".
So, the good - when we learned of the allegations we (apparently) quickly (though, secretly) told the Karzai government (yeah, I'm sure they had no idea what their hand-picked Governor was up to!) the Red Cross, and the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission.
The bad (and ludicrous) - Despite telling a foreign government (admittedly, the directly involved foreign government) the ICRC AND the AIHRC, documents mentioning the torture were HEAVILY redacted (the words "the governor" repeatedly purged from documents (and much more)) and the government cited "security concerns" for not sharing the evidence with a federal court judge? Security concerns??? We told not one, but TWO independent human rights organizations, but we had to withhold it from a Canadian federal judge for "security concerns"??? Our government considers a federal judge a higher security risk than the Red Cross and the Karzai government???
Ridiculous.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Two interesting and important facts about the detainee transfer issue:
#1: NATO was kept in the dark.
"Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer has asked Canada to explain its Nov. 6 decision to quietly suspend handing over detainees captured by the Canadian Forces to the Afghan government.
That detainee policy shift -- publicly disclosed this week in a Justice Department letter -- appears to contravene NATO's guidelines that Afghan detainees must be transferred within 96 hours, Canwest News was told Friday.
'This came as something of a surprise to us,' NATO spokesman James Appathurai said from Brussels.
'The policy that we have was developed with a very clear idea in mind and that is: this is a sovereign country in which we are invited guests. Therefore, it is not for us as NATO to create a separate parallel detention system.'"
#2. Dion thought you should know.
"In reply to a specific question by a reporter on what the military told him and deputy leader Michael Ignatieff on their recent trip to Afghanistan, Mr. Dion revealed that they certainly knew that the military had stopped transferring detainees.
'This is the other reason why I never believed their story that they were not aware,' Mr. Dion told reporters Friday.
He said he and Mr. Ignatieff 'forcefully disagreed' with Canadian Ambassador Arif Lalani's decision to keep the matter under wraps for reasons of operational security.
'We said this is information that Canadians should have and that they shouldn't get it from us, they should get it from the government since we don't have the right to repeat it,' Mr. Dion said, explaining that they agreed to the confidential briefing as a condition of their Afghanistan trip."
Interesting times.
