March 07, 2007

Mar. 6, 2007: In the interest of control

Think of the implications of this, if it were to come here. Could it?

France bans filming of violence by amateur photogs , By Peter Sayer, IDG News Service, Mar. 6, 2007

www.forumsvibe.com/elwoodpdowd/
viewtopic.php?t=3014&mforum=elwoodpdowd

The French Constitutional Council has approved a law that criminalizes the filming or broadcasting of acts of violence by people other than professional journalists. The law could lead to the imprisonment of eyewitnesses who film acts of police violence, or operators of Web sites publishing the images, one French civil liberties group warned on Tuesday.

... 16 years after Los Angeles police officers beating Rodney King were filmed by amateur videographer George Holliday ....

If Holliday were to film a similar scene of violence in France today, he could end up in prison as a result of the new law, said Pascal Cohet, a spokesman for French online civil liberties group Odebi. And anyone publishing such images could face up to five years in prison and a fine of €75,000 (US$98,537), potentially a harsher sentence than that for committing the violent act.

.... The law, proposed by Minister of the Interior Nicolas Sarkozy, is intended to clamp down on a wide range of public order offenses. During parliamentary debate of the law, government representatives said the offense of filming or distributing films of acts of violence targets the practice of “happy slapping,” in which a violent attack is filmed by an accomplice, typically with a camera phone, for the amusement of the attacker’s friends.

The broad drafting of the law so as to criminalize the activities of citizen journalists unrelated to the perpetrators of violent acts is no accident, but rather a deliberate decision by the authorities, said Cohet. He is concerned that the law, and others still being debated, will lead to the creation of a parallel judicial system controlling the publication of information on the Internet.

The government has also proposed a certification system for Web sites, blog hosters, mobile-phone operators and Internet service providers, identifying them as government-approved sources of information if they adhere to certain rules.
The journalists’ organization Reporters Without Borders, which campaigns for a free press, has warned that such a system could lead to excessive self censorship as organizations worried about losing their certification suppress certain stories.

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Mar. 6, 2007: Coal, Clouds, China, CDM -&- CRA

Montreal Protocol slowing warming -- 1987 pact focused on ozone layer

www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/
RTGAM.20070306.wxclimate06/
BNStory/ClimateChange/home

Is the implication, then, that we should support Kyoto, that maybe it would help too?


Check for whether India signed but China, which would not sign the Kyoto Accord, is one of the countries that would benefit from CDM, according to David Suzuki, (Mar. 6, 2007: CDM - scroll down to it)

[We] can purchase international carbon credits through the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).


Meanwhile, China refused to sign to make any concessions to countries in the West who have actually been working on cleaning up their air.

Is China's soot print changing weather? , Anne McIlroy, Mar. 6, 2007

www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/
RTGAM.20070306.wxpollution06/
BNStory/International/home

Soot produced by burning coal in China and India isn't just making it harder for local people to breathe, but could be contributing to freakish weather in Canada and the United States, a team of scientists reported yesterday.

The particles of pollution, known as aerosols, are responsible for the brown haze over many Chinese cities. But they drift upward over the Pacific, where they are causing more large clouds to form higher in the atmosphere where it is colder, says Renyi Zhang, an atmospheric scientist at Texas A&M University.

The result has been more intense storms over the ocean, he and his colleagues argue in a paper published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. More intense storms over the Pacific will change the air-flow patterns around the globe, they say.

"And that is going to change meteorology everywhere," Dr. Zhang said in an interview. [....]

In April, NASA launched CloudSat (right) and CALIPSO, two satellites equipped to investigate the role clouds play in climate. They will work in conjunction with three satellites already in orbit to learn more about how aerosols affect clouds and weather.




Glitch shuts down Web tax filing , Oliver Moore, Globe and Mail, Feb. 7, 2007

www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/
RTGAM.20070307.wxtaxes07/BNStory/National/home

The computer systems that allow people to file personal income-tax returns online have been shut down indefinitely by the Canada Revenue Agency, which took the unprecedented move after finding data irregularities.

CRA commissioner Michel Dorais said yesterday that there was "no indication" these irregularities were being caused by hackers. But the agency decided it wasn't worth the risk of keeping the systems running while the source of the problems was being determined. [....]

Mar. 7, 2007: Correction and a copy

Correction Mar. 7, 2007: to a post from February, Frost Hits the Rhubarb Feb. 10, 2007: Global Warming

I corrected a date: A reference to FHTR May 18, 2006 should have been May 28, 2006 and I added search terms. Earlier I had corrected the header date from Feb. 19 to Feb. 10, 2007. My typing, again. Sorry.



A copy of the corrected post follows.

Global warming


Global Warming is not due to human contribution of Carbon Dioxide
Global Warming: The Cold, Hard Facts?
, By Timothy Ball, February 5, 2007

www.canadafreepress.com/2007
/global-warming020507.htm

Global Warming, as we think we know it, doesn't exist. And I am not the only one trying to make people open up their eyes and see the truth. But few listen, despite the fact that I was the first Canadian Ph.D. in Climatology and I have an extensive background in climatology, especially the reconstruction of past climates and the impact of climate change on human history and the human condition. Few listen, even though I have a Ph.D, (Doctor of Science) from the University of London, England and was a climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg. For some reason (actually for many), the World is not listening. Here is why.

What would happen if tomorrow we were told that, after all, the Earth is flat? It would probably be the most important piece of news in the media and would generate a lot of debate. So why is it that when scientists who have studied the Global Warming phenomenon for years say that humans are not the cause nobody listens? Why does no one acknowledge that the Emperor has no clothes on? [....]


Make a wild guess about who would lose.


UN IPCC Summary - Climate Change

A prospectus for big government , Lorne Gunter, National Post, February 05, 2007 -- Lgunter@shaw.ca

www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/issuesideas/story.ht
ml?id=3ec32ebc-ccdc-4287-a69a-94da29b65178

[....] In effect, the IPCC summary is a prospectus for big government written by big government's sales department.

And don't expect the full truth to come out even when the 1,600 pages of science are finally released. The IPCC has a habit of censuring the work of scientists who disagree with the global alarmist orthodoxy. It has also instructed scientists still working on their academic contributions to the final report that those contributions must be modified after publication of the summary so as to "ensure consistency with" the summary's conclusions.

It is the political tail wagging the scientific dog. [....]



SEPP News Release: More Than 15,000 Scientists [two-thirds with advanced academic degrees] Protest Kyoto Accord; Speak Out Against Global Warming Myth -- signed "a Petition against the climate accord concluded in Kyoto (Japan) in December 1997. " The Science & Environmental Policy Project (SEPP), April 20, 1998 [Contact: Douglas Houts]. via CNEWS Forum link posted by caspar34

www.sepp.org/pressrel/petition.html

This is no longer available online but, my post has a lengthy excerpt. See below for the link -- Frost Hits the Rhubarb week of May 28, 2006.

... More than 15,000 scientists, [8/4/98: now about 17,000] two-thirds with advanced academic degrees, have now signed a Petition against the climate accord concluded in Kyoto (Japan) in December 1997.[....]

Dr. S. Fred Singer, president of The Science & Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) and author of Hot Talk, Cold Science: Global Warming's Unfinished Debate, explained: "Scientists are understandably upset when they see $2 billion per year devoted to research on climate change, much it irrelevant and concerned only with imaginary consequences of a hypothetical warming -- while other fields of science are starved. They are also appalled and angry that an increasing fraction of this research money is diverted into "community workshops," thinly disguised brainwashing exercises to create public fears about climate catastrophes."


Correction Mar. 7, 2007: I changed this from May 18 to May 28, 2006
Related: Frost Hits the Rhubarb May 28, 2006

Search:

May 29, 06 #2: Kyoto, Scientists & Data

May 29, 06 #1: Propaganda, Kyoto, Activists, NRTEE, Global Justice

... "see Kyoto for the bogus alarmism and wealth-transfer scheme that it is."

Climate Change, the Networks, NRTEE National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy


There is much more information on that webpage.


More here: Frost Hits the Rhubarb May 23-06: UN, Rights, Activists Networks' $$$ -- Sheila Watt-Cloutier was part of that illustrious group who travelled with ex-Governor General Adrienne Clarkson on her Inuit Circumpolar Tour

That connects to what I have written on the natives' spokesperson, at least the one brought out more than once by CBC TV and mentioned in various news items elsewhere as a native with aboriginal traditional knowledge of the environment in the North, Sheila Watt-Cloutier. There is a connection between the talk of global warming, the natives, trusts, nuclear waste ... who knows what else was planned?


Related: posts within the past month or so re: natives , global warming , Sheila Watt-Cloutier

Feb. 4, 2007: Science- Traditional Knowledge-Politics

Feb. 3, 2007: Climate, Spin, Awards, Politics -- Background: excerpts only -- Check the full post and other links.


Frost Hits the Rhubarb Jan. 20, 2007: #2
Kyoto, The Science and the Scientists, Native Input, Funding, Special Arrangements and More



Frost Hits the Rhubarb Jan. 29, 2007: Climate, IPCC, CBC, Film
The Preaching, the Politics and the Science ... and the Hockey Stick Graph

March 06, 2007

Mar. 6, 2007: Canada: Haven to the World's Most Wanted

Via the Judicial Activist Enablers

Prime Time Crime: Leo Knight, a former Canadian police officer, security expert and media commentator -- Fugitives among us , March 04, 2007

leoknight.blogspot.com/2007/03/fugitives-among-us.html

Kudos to The Province's Fabian Dawson and Mike Roberts....

Don't miss them as they show a clear and decisive result of what happens when judicial activism trumps the will of Parliament. [....]




Canada: Haven for world's most wanted , The Province, March 04, 2007 -- Fabian Dawson, Project Editor, and Michael Roberts Reporting

www.canada.com/theprovince/news/story.ht
ml?id=b088fcde-9299-46a6-b9f6-322f80f9d698&k=10407

[....] Canada's hesitancy in dispatching fugitives back to the countries where they are wanted is an increasingly sore point among foreign governments. [....]

The latest case involves a trio of former bankers with the Bank of China. They are accused in an embezzlement scheme involving $100 million. [....]

Why do the world's most wanted seek sanctuary in Canada?

Many are wealthy, allegedly having plundered the treasuries, banks and businesses of their home countries.

They know that, with the right lawyers, they can exploit Canada's extradition system to buy indefinite liberty.

There's one track for the wealthy fugitive, another for the poor, says one extradition lawyer.

"No lawyer's going to take legal aid for making submissions to the minister of justice," he quips.

Canadian law provides a host of options and "protections" within the context of extradition.

"The Charter [of Rights] applies to every aspect of the process," a justice department official says. "That's our system. We can't fault [fugitives] for availing themselves of their legal rights."

And those rights have become more deeply entrenched with rulings by the Supreme Court of Canada that effectively open new loopholes. [....]

COMING UP IN OUR SERIES:

Today: Wanted in Thailand, plus Canada's painfully-slow extradition process.
Monday: Fugitives from the Philippines find a way to stay in Canada.
Tuesday: A Mexican fugitive's fight changes the law.
Wednesday: Murder in India. A son's fight for justice.
Thursday: Chinese bankers stash their loot in B.C.
Friday: Your views on our series.

Worth reading.

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Mar. 6, 2007: Recruiting Jihadists

Terrorists Take Recruitment Efforts Online
Scott Pelley On The Use Of The Internet To Recruit Jihadists
, Mar. 2, 07

www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/02/
60minutes/main2531546.shtml

[....] "Without a doubt, the Internet is the single most important venue for the radicalization of Islamic youth," says Army Brigadier General John Custer, who is the is head of intelligence at central command, responsible for Iraq and Afghanistan.

Custer says he knows where the enemy finds an inexhaustible supply of suicide warriors. ....

Asked if the Internet is training up new battalions of those young people ....

And this, Custer told 60 Minutes, is just how they do it. "You start off with a site that looks like current news in Iraq. With a single click, you're at a active jihad attack site. The real meat of the jihad Web site, Jihad Internet. Beheadings, bombings, and blood. You can see humvees blown up. You can see American bodies drug [sic] through the street. You can see small arms attacks. Anything you might want in an attack video. Next link will take you to a motivational site, where mortar operatives, suicide bombers, are pictured in heaven. You can you see their farewell speeches. Another click and you're at a site where you can download scripted talking points that validate you have religious justification for mass murder," he explains. [....]


Worth reading.

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Mar. 6, 2007: IPY & UArctic & Studies

University of the Arctic or UArctic

www.uarctic.org/Frontpage.aspx?m=3

The CBC article on the environment

www.cbc.ca/technology/
quirks-blog/2007/03/polar_peril.html

The United Nations International Polar Year [www.ipy.org/] kicked off this week, and Canada [www.ipy-api.ca/english] leads the effort with 2,000 scientists supported by $150-million from the federal government, more than any participating nation. Finally, the Cryosphere [nsidc.org/cryosphere - The National Snow and Ice Data Center] , the realm of ice on the planet, is getting the attention it deserves. [....]

Results from the recent Arctic Climate Impact Study [www.amap.no/acia] show that the Arctic Ocean will be ice-free during the summer, all the way to the pole, in less than 50 years. [That is disputed by many scientists.]


That led to: Arctic Climate Impact Assessment -- Overview Report in four languages ... Saami, Norwebian, Russian ... -- tinyurl.com/2qzybe

amap.no/documents/index.cfm?dirsub=
%2FACIA%20Overview%20
Reports&sort=default

Remember then Governor General Adrienne Clarkson's Circumpolar Tour, a member of which was the Inuit activist and "environmental expert" Sheila Watt-Cloutier, along with approximately 55 others favoured by Her Excellency or the Liberal government of the day (Sept. 2003?). What was the purpose? It seems to have had more import and impact, perhaps, than simply flying around the Polar regions on an official visit. Why the polar regions? Read further and come to your own conclusions. What was that land claim that Andy Scott settled outside of Parliament and did it have anything to do with the optimism toward the bottom of this post?


An international project of the Arctic Council [www.arctic-council.org/] and the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC), to evaluate and synthesize knowledge on climate variability, climate change, and increased ultraviolet radiation and their consequences. The results of the assessment were released at the ACIA International Scientific Symposium held in Reykjavik, Iceland in November 2004.

The Arctic Council is a high-level intergovernmental forum. The members are Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, the Russian Federation, Sweden, and the United States of America. IASC is a non-governmental organization that facilitates cooperation in all aspects of arctic research in all countries engaged in arctic research and in all areas of the arctic region.

[....] Permanent Participants [....]

* Aleut International Association
* Arctic Athabaskan Council
* Gwich'in Council International
* Inuit Circumpolar Conference
* Saami Council [Consider the possible implications; then check below.]
* Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North


The address given:

Indigenous Peoples Secretariat
http://www.arcticpeoples.org/
P.O. Box 2151, Strandgade 91, 4th floor
DK - 1016 Copenhagen

Further research elicited: cyberus, acuns
acuns@cyberus.ca
www.uottawa.ca/associations/aucen-acuns [no longer of use - defunct? Or behind a firewall?]

Member of the Circumpolar Universities Association -- a trans-national network
www.arctic.uit.no/cua_secr/Lib/inst02.html

Course Announcements
www.cyberus.ca/~acuns/ethics.html

[IASSA = International Arctic Social Sciences Association]

UArctic or University of the Arctic: Bachelor of Circumpolar Studies 322 1 -- or here

uarctic.org/BCS322_mod11_3evXS.pdf.file



Key Terms and Concepts

• indigenous intellectual property rights

• indigenous self-determination

• participatory research


• codes of conduct/codes of ethics for research

• informed consent [....]


It might be of interest to see what this includes and where it is leading. For that, check some of the funding awards and some samples of the research. Note oral history, language, personal experiences, qualitative research, constructivist approach, how the Saami influence our own natives, along with a treaty which changes ... something or other, compared to other treaties. There is UN involvement, as well.

Indigenous Intellectual Property Rights [This may be related to the UN Protocol on Protecting Cultural Diversity - See FHTR the week of Jan. 29, 2006]

According to standard-setting documents formulated by indigenous peoples, “indigenous cultural and intellectual property rights [refer] to such things as indigenous art, songs, poetry, literature, biological and medical knowledge, ecological knowledge and environmental management practices, and other aspects and expressions of indigenous cultural heritage” (Simpson 1997, 18). Indigenous peoples’ use of intellectual property law is linked to the fact that states have been put under pressure to protect intellectual property, within a Western, legalistic tradition. However, the terminology and concepts of such legislation are quite alien to indigenous ways of thought. “Property” is not a universally recognized concept, especially not under its aspect of individual rights that can be alienated and sold. Likewise, the distinction between “cultural” and “intellectual” is reductionist and not necessarily relevant outside the legal context. The whole issue is framed in concepts originating in Western property law and legal systems. Dr. Erica-Irene Daes, who has long been chairperson of the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations (WGIP) (which convenes every summer in Geneva), has suggested that “indigenous heritage” would be a more “simple and appropriate” expression than “indigenous cultural and intellectual property rights” (cited in Simpson 1997, 20).

The work of ethnographers .... has been done without seeking the consent .... In the last decades of the twentieth century, some aspects of indigenous knowledge have also emerged as commodities of increasing economic value to non-indigenous peoples. In this context, indigenous peoples of the circumpolar North have voiced their concerns about the unauthorized appropriation of their heritage by outsiders and the commodification of this heritage without their control. [....]


Canada
Association of Canadian Universities for Northern Studies, ACUNS [www.cyberus.ca/~acuns/] However, the website(s) mentioned for Canada is defunct but there is another possibility via Thompson River University

Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) ... -- or Thompson Rivers University - TRU - formerly University of the Cariboo or Cariboo University

www.tru.ca/finance/pro_manual/research_in
dex/research_grt_agencies.html

Handbook of Opportunities pdf

www.gov.nu.ca/education/eng/css/curr/10-12/
Aulajaaqtut/Handbook%20of%20
Opportunities/Handbk_of_Opp.pdf

Some samples of studies subsumed under "science":

Science Award Recipients 2005-2006

Title: Bringing History Home: Digital Media and the Repatriation of Cultural Knowledge in Northern Athabaskan Communities

The issue of repatriation is usually connected to the return of cultural artifacts and human remains by museums to source communities. However, through ethnographic fieldwork and multimedia projects .... examine the role of digital archives and multimedia as tools for the repatriation of language materials and cultural documentation, such as photographs, film, and audio and video recordings. My research will compare the ways in which four Athabaskan communities ... are making use of digital media. Using methods of participatory ethnography while facilitating community media projects as a videographer, trainer, and multimedia producer, I will document the ways that new technologies (visual documentation and multimedia) are used to represent aspects of native culture and language by different agents such as community members, academics, and government institutions.

These communities differ significantly in their historical experiences with residential schools and with land claims. They offer a unique opportunity to study how current approaches to the use of technology are influenced by earlier attitudes towards literacy and increasing political awareness derived from land claims. At the community level, my research will make a significant contribution to the creation of multimedia resources that are focused on the needs and knowledge systems of northern indigenous people, minimalizing the orientation towards urban Euro-Canadian practices in developing new media for First Nations communities. On a more general level, my research will examine the potential for digital archives and multimedia to aid in the reconstitution of wider socio-economic, political and authority practices and evaluate the impact of such new technology on the socially contended roles of northern native and non-native Canadians. [....]



Title: The Perspectives of Inuit Women on Their Health and Well-being in a Nunavut Community: A Qualitative Study

[....] The study will utilize participatory action qualitative health research methods to interview community members in Iqaluit, Nunavut. ... opportunity to participate directly in the study by sharing their knowledge and providing their perspectives on the research question. ....

... important to both acknowledge the skills and support systems .... Key Inuit organizations in Nunavut, such as the Qulliit Nunavut Status of Women Council and the Qikiqtani Inuit Association have been consulted during the proposal process and given an opportunity to provide feedback on the topic and nature of the research study. [....]



Title: Gathering Stories for Community-Based Environmental Contaminants Research: A Partnership of the Moose Cree First Nation and Environmental Toxicologists

Through interviews with MCFN members, stories will be gathered for examination from both an indigenous cultural perspective and a toxicological (western science) perspective. The people of the MCFN are interested in exploring how their knowledge can be complemented with western science to identify environmental factors that may be contributing to a decline in the health of their people. ....

Our research team consists of the MCFN community, an environmental toxicologist, an environmental fate expert ....



Title: Prevalence of Gonococcal and Chlamydial Infections in an Inuit Community, Identifying Gender Differences in: Social Networks, Risk Perception and Health Services Utilization



Title: Ice, Through Inuit Eyes: Contributions of Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit to sea ice and climate science in the Canadian Arctic

.... gain a better understanding of the importance of sea ice to Inuit culture and identity; ....



Title: Historical, biophysical and cultural basis of revegetation in Whapmagoostui-Kuujjuarapik, subarctic Québec.

The vegetation cover at Whapmagoostui-Kuujjuarapik was destroyed by the building of a military base in 1955. Since then, it has never succeeded in regenerating itself completely and shows generalized degradation. The incapacity of the vegetation cover to return to its original state is explained in part by the rigour of the subarctic climate, and the demographic pressure combined with the anarchical use of all-terrain vehicles. ....

-to study the inhabitants’ perception of the vegetation cover, of its degradation and of its restoration ....


Speech Language Pathology
Title: Using Maximum Length Sequences in Auditory Brainstem Response to Assess Auditory Processing Disorder



Of interest also was the direction in which the studies appeared to be moving; there appears to be much social science, as opposed to "hard" science.

2006-07 Awards
www.acuns.ca/cnst06-07rec.htm

Title: Adapting to Environmental Change in the North: Linking Traditional Knowledge, Social Capital, and Adaptive Capacity in the Slave River Delta

.... My research project has evolved through collaboration with the local Dene Band after members expressed interest in implementing a people-focused project to parallel ongoing paleohydrological research. Through an examination of the relationship between change and human responses, I am focusing specifically on the contributions of traditional knowledge and social capital. The objectives of this study are to: a) develop a framework of trends and indicators of environmental change, impacts and adaptations based on traditional knowledge, ....


Education

Title: Indigenous Higher Education in Canada’s Western Arctic: An Inuvialuit Perspective.

As a result of my thirty-five years residency at Inuvik, NWT,.... transformation among the Inuvialuit people living within the Inuvialuit Settlement Region.

This proposed research is qualitative, with constructivist assumptions, utilizing a critical auto-ethnographic theory of inquiry. My methods will comprise use of open-ended questions in select interviews with elders combined with utilization of my field observations. My primary sources will be Inuvialuit (Inuit) and Gwich’in (Dene) oral histories (current and past), documentary sources from diaries, archives and personal collections, and print sources (indigenous and non-indigenous government publications). Secondary sources ....

The second time frame, 1973-78 .... their [sic] emerged a mainstream type of public adult education that consisted of programs of individual vocational skill development and English language literacy. From the Inuvialuit perspective, these adult education initiatives were no longer community/ family generated from within by Inuvialuit chiefs/ leaders but imposed by outside educational agents (Government of Canada; Government of the Northwest Territories).



Education

Title: Envisioning Alternative Education for Northern Indigenous Students
My doctoral research will focus on Alternative Education for Northern Aboriginal Students, with the main focus on high school students. ....

1. Why is the current education system unsuccessful for a large number of students?
2. What would constitute a more successful education system?

I will be using a qualitative approach because of its flexible nature, the possibility for rich data collection and the ability to follow wherever data lead. The research process will be based in constructivist grounded theory, with focus groups and interviews as main modes of data collection. [....]


Land Claims and Nunatsiavut
Title: The Nunatsiavut land claim agreement: towards a culturally sustainable future for the Inuit of Labrador

.... Not only has the newly ratified Nunatsiavut land claim agreement changed the geopolitical landscape of Canada as a whole, but it provides the foundations through which the Labrador Inuit can finally recognize their claims to self-government and territorial sovereignty. .... This project will look at the principles and stipulations that make up the treaty’s body, and show how its foundations provide for the cultural security of the Inuit people. More specifically, I want to show the evolution of modern Inuit treaties in Canada by emphasizing on how Nunatsiavut differs from earlier treaties (like Nunavut)....

Finally, the paper will focus on how the treaty attempts to realize Inuit concerns for cultural protection, with language retention and cultural education being paid close attention to. ....



Impact of the Saami

Nunavut Teacher Education Program, Nunavut Arctic College
Title: How to prepare caribou skins for different purposes.

A century has passed and a new beginning has started, today the Inuit people are reclaiming their traditional way of preparing and sewing hunting clothing though programs that are geared towards teaching those who are interested on how to prepare and sew caribou skins and other skins and pelts; ....

[....]

Title: Sami self government in Northern Europe: an example for northern Canadian Aboriginals

.... the Sami have their own parliament, there own government structure, and a great deal of land and hunting rights across their tradition territory ....



Language

Title: The Visual and Aural Representations of the Cultural Geography of the Yukon-Alaska Borderland

The purpose of this project is to expand existing documentation of the cultural geography of the Yukon-Alaska borderlands through the integration of photographs and recordings of pronunciation of place which bear Athapaskan names within an existing geographical and textual database. ....

The Upper Tanana Dineh Place Names Dadtbase [sic] currently contains documentation of 647 named localities along the borderlands from the White River, Yukon, to Tanacross, Alaska. It exists in several formats (print, PDF and ArcView GIS and Filemaker databases). The Yukon Native Language Centre at Yukon College and Easton both hold photograpsh and aural recordings of many of these places. My work will integrate these photos and recordings direcly into the Filemaker database. Users of the database will then be able to see a visual representation of the place and hear an expert speaker pronounce the name of the place in the Upper Tanana language. ....





Indigenous Cultures in Digital Cultures

www.arsc.edu/news/indigenous_cultures.html

Spring Training: Workshops for EMACS, MATLAB®, and IDL

www.arsc.edu/support/training/SpringTraining2007.html

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Mar. 6, 2007: MP Andy Scott

N.B. Liberal MP Andy Scott leaving federal politics for private life

He had been Minister of Indian affairs, Minister for Infrastructure and Housing, Solicitor General and regional minister for New Brunswick. [pork portfolio]

Loose lips on a plane resulted in his having to resign from his position as Solicitor General, the APEC scandal, the "Let Hughie take the fall" episode. Also, it was then-Min. Scott who settled a Labrador Inuit land claims suit by regulation, and not through Parliament, as had been customary. He was a supporter of Paul Martin, a good Liberal ... whatever that implies. There were a few scandals in Indian Affairs involving money shenanigans which seem not to have impacted his tenure. What has been the outcome of investigations into those?

Related: Solicitor General Andy Scott resigned in November 1998 after he was heard loudly ... When the letter became public, Mulroney sued the federal government for ...

www.cbc.ca/news/background/
cdngovernment/scandals.html

Andy Scott is a career politician who became executive director of the New Brunswick Liberal Party shortly after leaving school. ...

www.cbc.ca/news/background/
martin_paul/cabinet2004.html

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Mar. 6, 2007: CDM

An Inconvenient Truth , David Suzuki, February 20, 2007

www.forumsvibe.com/elwoodpdowd/view
topic.php?t=2854&mforum=elwoodpdowd

[....] As for the remainder, we can purchase international carbon credits through the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). This was set up precisely to help countries like Canada achieve our targets in a meaningful way. Funds from the purchase of these credits goes towards projects in developing countries that will result in a net decrease in greenhouse gas emissions.

Global warming is a problem without borders, so if Canada helps reduce heat-trapping emissions in another part of the world, the effect is the same. A global carbon market is an effective economic tool to help solve a global problem. Canada should embrace this market. A well-regulated market can be an extremely effective way to help developing countries “leapfrog” technologically and go from high-carbon to low-carbon sources of energy. [....]



Who will run that Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and could we expect it to be run as the UN Oil for Food Program was run? Who are the intermediariaes? Who benefit?

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