March 21, 2007

Mar. 21, 2007: Totally absorbing

Update: Mar. 24, 2007

The day after the url above was posted, the website had disappeared. The website might have been down. It seems to be all right now, so try it again.

Total‘s CEO charged in Iran probe , Pierre-Antoine Souchard, AP, March 22, 2007

www.localnewsleader.com/elytimes/
stories/index.php?action=fullnews&id=84851

PARIS - An investigating judge filed preliminary charges Thursday against the chief executive of Total SA in a corruption case linked to a 1997 contract with Iran , the company and judicial officials said.

De Margerie, who replaced Thierry Desmarest as Total‘s CEO in mid-February, was released after two days of questioning in the case. However, he is forbidden to meet with certain people during the investigation, the officials said without elaborating.

De Margerie is also targeted in an investigation into Total‘s activities in Iraq.

[....] Total is suspected of having indirectly paid commissions into two accounts of a Swiss citizen of Iranian origin acting as an intermediary, according to judicial officials. Tens of millions of dollars allegedly passed through the accounts before ending up in an account of a Persian Gulf country, the officials said.



Double click to enlarge, back to return.




Total

transnationale.org

transnationale.org/companies/total.php

The list at the left below concerns the ethical rating of Total.




Technip is owned by Total and listed in the above screen capture. Technip is operating in Newfoundland. More here: Frost Hits the Rhubarb April 22, 2005

Search: Technip

There are several entries.

End of Update




Totally intriguing

Check carefully the Total menu at left and don't miss what is available if you move the sliders to reveal more information: ownership, CEO's-managers-directors (See 1999), world locations and manufacturing, subsidiaries owned, shareholder country and related information in revealing gifs explained at left.

And then, there is Addax & Oryx for added absorption

Labels: , ,

Mar. 21, 2007: Budget

Budget: Organized alphabetically by topic of interest

www.budget.gc.ca/2007/bp/topicse.html

I have noted a positive change in the government of Canada websites; we can actually find information since the advent of the CPC government.

Labels:

March 20, 2007

Mar. 20, 2007: Bud Talkinghorn

Surveillance and Superbugs


Surveillance--courtesy of Britain's Big Brother

We saw this coming years ago, as a few thousand public area cameras were mounted in high crime areas of the British urban areas. Well, those "few" have swelled to a few hundred thousand cameras, and they are not just in in the slums of London or Manchester. They have been embraced by shire towns across Britain. In their highest density positions, you can be photographed hundreds of times in a given day. Not content with that Orwellian snooping, they have introduced loud speakers to the cameras, so they can command you (at ear-splittting decibel levels) to stop some behaviour--like stealing or vandalizing ... or surrepitiously picking your nose or scratching some more private bodily part. The almost laughable nanny state has morphed into something far more sinister. One of the great scenes in Orwell's "1984" was when Winston Smith was watching the state-mandated morning exercise on TV. Suddenly a harsh female voice screams from the TV, "Winston Smith, number 2995, you are not properly doing your exercises." As Smith's approved vice is smoking Victory cigarettes, he has to wheeze his way through the routine. Can Britain be far behind this once-fictious control mechanism?

Therefore, we should vigourously oppose our police introducing this method. It always starts off as a law and order issue, but can easily devolves into constant surveillance of your every day public outings. Next thing you know it is, "Citizen, you are walking your cat around the block without the designated pooper-scooper at hand. Go back to your house now."

© Bud Talkinghorn--It's a slippery slope indeed.

Wait until what you do in your free time is monitored for its impact upon the company's image. But hasn't that already happened to a teacher in BC who wrote a letter to a newspaper, in his private capacity, concerning homosexuality and affirmation of it? Dr. Kempling? Check.


Superbugs

No antibiotic bullets left to meet the new plagues

The National Post (Monday, Mar. 18, 2007) ran a truely frightening story entitled "Superbugs: just out there on the street". What we saw with SARS is happening again. The hospital "superbugs", such as C Difficile, drug-resistent staph, and E. coli and a very pesky pneumonia are moving on to your local mall. The implications of these deadly diseases becoming epidemic is almost beyond imagination. Soaring death rates, economic depression and self-imposed isolation of the populous are but a few of the dire consequences.

The overuse of antibiotics, insufficient drug research and the natural evolution of bacteria and viruses has caught us flatfooted. According to Dr. Robert Hancock, director of microbial diseases research for UBC, we are not prepared for these diseases. Antibiotic funding and research has not been given the priority it deserves. He quotes some interesting statistics. "One in twenty E-coli cases in intensive care is now virtually untreatable and AIDS funding has outstripped that of antibiotics by 7 to 1, AIDS in North America kills about 10,000 people a year, while antibiotic-resistent diseases kills 90,000." Most of those occur in hospital patients, so what will be the death toll when it lurks on public surfaces? Going shopping without a hazmat suit on will be considered fullfilling some death wish. Black Monday will be the new blue Monday at the work site.

It is time the federal and provincial governments start to address this looming crisis. Much more money and effort has to be put into finding stronger antibiotic drugs. The hospitals, in the meantime, must all start enforcing strict hygenic control. That can start with their staffs, who have been shown to be inexcusably lax about basic hygiene such as bathroom handwashing. Doctors have to refuse antibiotics for viral diseases. Immigration must begin to refuse entry to immigrants or refugees, who carry multi-resistent forms of TB, which Dr. Hancock states, "is the most deadly organism on the planet." We used to screen immigrants and refugees for TB, but that sensible health precation probably was overruled after social activists complained it was "too insensitive". I knew years ago that many diseases had shown resistence to Vancomycin, the top line antibiotic, but the extent of the problem was a mystery until now. I thank The National Post for this timely warning. Wash those hands, folks.

© Bud Talkinghorn


The article: Superbugs 'just out there on the streets'
Experts concerned
, Sharon Kirkey, CanWest, March 19, 2007

www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.ht
ml?id=9ca023a3-c331-4666-aacd-03a3c97a55e6

[....] Community-acquired methicillin-resistant s.aureus (CA-MRSA) is emerging in daycares, schools and cruise ships. Nearly 500 cases have spread across Alberta and outbreaks have occurred in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario.

[....] And the superbug "hit list" keeps growing: E. coli, a major cause of wound, urinary and gastrointestinal tract infections are rapidly turning resistant to a growing number of drugs. One in 20 E. coli infections in intensive care units are currently virtually untreatable.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa, an organism that causes life-threatening pneumonia and post-surgery infections, is also becoming multi-drug resistant.

There are multi-resistant strains of tuberculosis, "the most deadly organism on the planet," said Dr. Robert Hancock, director of microbial diseases research at the University of British Columbia and a Canada Research Chair. [....]


Which is more important? To fund AIDS medication for people who apparently, are not changing their behaviour, whether in the West or in Africa, or to fund research to protect Canadians against stuperbugs? What would a prudent family member fund if it were his family vs the rest of the needy ones who won't learn in the face of all kinds of evidence that they should? Should we be funding AIDS victims amongst the community within which it is rising? You all by now must know which voting block that is. You could ask Stephen Lewis, Bill Clinton, or any number of AIDS activists who gathered for the Toronto guilt fest to criticize the rest of Canadians who aren't giving enough for the AIDS activists' pleasure, in Aug. - Sept. 2006. Of course, that might be pointless, for the activists insist AIDS is everyone's disease, not a particular group's. Well, by now, homosexuals, heterosexuals, druggies and those who read and learn, know how AIDS is spread. They have either changed their behaviour or ... well, why should the rest care? Fund the research that is going to help the great majority of Canadians.


Health care dollars - AIDS or Superbugs?

www.forumsvibe.com/elwoodpdowd/
posting.php?mforum=elwoodpdowd

Labels: ,

March 19, 2007

Mar. 19, 2007: EU Declaration of Independence

Native Revolt: A European Declaration of Independence , Fjordman on Fri, 2007-03-16, via PuntedPosters / starboardside

www.brusselsjournal.com/node/1980

After the death last Sunday of Rinie Mulder, a 54-year old indigenous Dutchman who was shot by a police officer, non-immigrant citizens went on a rampage in Utrecht. Apparently Mulder intervened when Muslim youths harassed a pregnant native Dutch woman. Locals claim the police has failed to protect them for years. They say the authorities are afraid of the immigrants and tolerate their criminal behavior.

This issue is not just about Utrecht or Holland. Similar resentment against Muslim immigrants, but at least as much against their own authorities, is quietly brewing among the natives all over Western Europe.

It is insulting that two thirds of the Dutch, one of the founding members of the European community, voted against the proposed EU Constitution, and yet EU leaders will apparently just ignore this and force their massively undemocratic Constitution down people's throats anyway. [....]

This violence by Muslims is usually labelled simply as "crime," but I believe it should more accurately be called Jihad. Those who know early Islamic history, as described in books such as The Truth About Muhammad by Robert Spencer, know that looting and stealing the property of non-Muslims has been part and parcel of Jihad from the very beginning. In fact, so much of the behavior of Muhammad himself and the early Muslims could be deemed criminal that it is difficult to know exactly where crime ends and Jihad begins. In the city of Oslo, for instance, it is documented that some of the criminal Muslim gangs also have close ties to radical religious groups at home and abroad. As Dutch Arabist Hans Jansen points out, the Koran is seen by some Muslims as a God-given "hunting licence," granting them the right to assault and even murder non-Muslims. It is hardly accidental that while Muslims make up about 10% of the population in France, they make up an estimated 70% of French prison inmates.



Search: We demand that , multiculturalism , Muslim immigration , Europe is being targeted for deliberate colonization , If these demands are not fully implemented


This is a must read article.




A Moral Collapse

Free speech--but only for our enemies , David Frum, National Post, March 17, 2007

www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/issuesideas/story.ht
ml?id=cb35bf58-197b-40f2-9531-6f0dc7248235

.... So if it's legal to burn the American flag, surely it must be legal to trample the flags of murderous terrorist organizations, right? Right? Right??

But that's not how modern universities act. To them, Old Glory may be barbecue starter, but a terrorist flag is a sacred symbol.

Prodded by the local Palestinian student group, SFSU's student government voted to condemn [....]

There is obviously something profoundly wrong on American campuses -- and not only American campuses, as the unhappy history of Canada's Concordia University reminds us. Apologists for terrorism receive maximum protection for the most vicious bigotry, for menace and intimidation, and even outright violence. Yet that zeal for free speech vanishes altogether when opponents of terrorism engage in much, much milder forms of protest. This goes beyond double standards. It is a moral collapse. [....]

Labels: , , , , ,

March 18, 2007

Mar. 18, 2007: Bob Stenhouse, Whistleblower, Arctic Map

Update and Related Mar. 19,2007:

Frost Hits the Rhubarb Nov. 19, 2006: 3 -- or scroll down this for the following: Frost Hits the Rhubarb Nov. 19 - 25, 2006

frosthitstherhubarb.blogspot.com/
2006/11/nov-19-2006-3.html

Search:

Memory Lane -- Whistleblowers and criminal activity -- criminal gang and triad related

[ex RCMP Staff Sgt.] Bob Stenhouse , Cpl. Robert Read

Frost Hits the Rhubarb October 6, 2005
Scam the Taxpayers, Get Half a Million -- But RCMP Get Fired for Doing Their Jobs -- Perhaps Too Well

frosthitstherhubarb.blogspot.com/2005/10/
scam-taxpayers-get-half-million-but.html

The link should have been:
www.macleans.ca/topstories/article.jsp?content=60484

Someone had changed the link to this:
www.nvweather.net/messages/organic_teas_290.html

Undercover Mountie -- a copy of an article published in Maclean's from Nov. 26, 01 by Robert Sheppard

One was a memo Stenhouse himself had written

[....]

One of the cases Read pursued involved three Taiwanese brothers who brought 3,000 Asian families into Canada under our much maligned immigrant investor scheme. The trio was linked to fraud, bribery and the Chinese mafia. [....]

Some background on the judge who made the decision against ex-RCMP Cpl. Robert Read: Justice, the Honourable Sean J. Harrington [....]


Frost Hits the Rhubarb February 15, 2005

Robert Read ex-RCMP: "Triads had infested Canada's immigration system" -- "a political silver bullet" -- NATIONAL SECURITY


frosthitstherhubarb.blogspot.com/
2005_02_13_archive.html

The Report: [There are two posts.]

38th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION -- Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates -- EVIDENCE: ex-RCMP Corporal Robert Read, ex-foreign service officer, the blunt ex-foreign service officer Brian Adams, Joanna Gualtieri, Canada's expert on whistle-blowing, civil servant Allan Cutler, et cetera, February 3, 2005 -- you may download it

[....] 38th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION -- Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates -- EVIDENCE from Allan Cutler and Selwyn Pieters; next, ex-RCMP Corporal Robert Read, ex-foreign service officer, the blunt ex-foreign service officer Brian Adams -- and more February 3, 2005, -- sections 1530 - 1550 only -- The excerpts above Read and McAdam are from further down in this file. Search their names if you are in a hurry.



Frost Hits the Rhubarb June 11 - 16, 2006
Whistleblower Profiles 2004

Search:
fipa.bc.ca/library/Whistleblower_Profiles_2004.doc
Notes from Edmonton Journal, Oct. 19, 2000

Bob Stenhouse


End of Update




Mountie trades badge for pulpit (10:05 a.m.)
‘It was God who inflamed my passion to stand up against injustice’
, Don Retson, edmontonjournal.com, March 16, 2007

www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.ht
ml?id=4766cd37-66b8-4c43-b1b7-69ef40131b86&k=79191

This is a good news story and there is more in the Edmonton Journal, Mar. 17, 2007.

Stenhouse learned about International Justice Mission (IJM) Canada from an article in The Journal by Canwest reporter Norma Greenaway.

IJM Canada uses retired or serving police officers and lawyers who go underground in countries like Cambodia, with its notorious child-sex trade industry.

There, as in other countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, the investigators help local authorities rescue victims of sexual exploitation, forced labour and violence, and also prosecute the perpetrators.

The organization is purposely vague about its investigative methods, but makes no secret about its goal of trying to put an end to human trafficking for the purposes of feeding the sex or forced-labour trade.




A call to do justice -- As an undercover Mountie, Bob Stenhouse dealt with the darkest of the dark -- cases involving murder, outlaw biker gangs and sex crimes against children. New role as evangelical pastor a good fit for former RCMP officer, one of the RCMP whistleblowers , Don Retson, The Edmonton Journal, March 17, 2007

www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/religion/story.ht
ml?id=c6df29ed-1724-462a-85a7-3a3a88e6d723

CBC: The Fifth Estate - After the Cameras Went Away -- Listen to a Clip

www.cbc.ca/fifth/after_rcmp.html

www.cbc.ca/fifth/media/mountie.ram

In an earlier operation, IJM [International Justice Mission] was able to rescue 37 girls who'd been forced to work in brothels, also in Cambodia. One of the girls was only five years old while nine of the girls were between five and 10. That operation led to 13 prosecutions, resulting in six convictions, ranging from five- to 20-year prison sentences.

Sadly, McIntosh said Canadian pedophiles are among those who exploit children overseas.



Frost Hits the Rhubarb Nov. 19, 2006: 3

frosthitstherhubarb.blogspot.com/
2006/11/nov-19-2006-3.html

Search:

Memory Lane -- Whistleblowers and criminal activity -- criminal gang and triad related

Undercover Mountie -- Bob Stenhouse was a cop's cop -- until he broke the code and blew the whistle on the RCMP

Ex-RCMP Staff Sgt. Stenhouse

Stenhouse v. Canada (Attorney General) (FC) Reference: [2004] 4 F.C.R. 437




Crucial arctic map missing
Sovereignty issue: Can Canada prove it paid Norwegian for his discovery?
, Nathan Vanderklippe, National Post, March 17, 2007

www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.ht
ml?id=5569b1be-64c5-48f6-8587-75596b554fa5

VANCOUVER - The country's record-keepers can't find a Scandinavian explorer's map that Parliament bought so it could plant the Maple Leaf on a trio of petroleum-rich Arctic islands, potentially opening a door for Norway to grab them back.

[....] The islands in question are Axel Heiberg, Ellef Ringnes and Amund Ringnes. Together, they make up the northwestern edge of the Canadian Arctic archipelago, a place where the winter sun disappears for months at a time and windchills regularly approach -100C. Named after Norwegian beermakers, they are uninhabited and desolate, home only to muskoxen, caribou and the occasional polar bear. [....]


Thin Ice-Saattuq, Mar. 17, 2007 on Global TV at 7 p.m. -- It was just about what you would expect from CBC. It featured the usual people: David Suzuki, Sheila Watt-Cloutier and others, with Tom Jackson narrating. There was no attempt at showcasing competing scientific conclusions about global warming, that is, other perspectives from scientists who see what is happening as part of a normal long-term cycle. The program was intended to make us worry about global warming and the Inuit way of life in the North. I have a hard time with stories of how the Inuit pursue their traditional ways and hunt for food ... while using modern inventions such as snowmobiles, guns, etc. Just which aspects do they wish to preserve? Or is it more a call for more taxpayer investment and who would dispense it? No mention of transparency nor accountability. One aspect of note in the program is the attempt by other countries to claim the water passage as not necessarily belonging to Canada; there were wonderful scenes of the North and of an island which Denmark claims.

Labels: , , ,

Mar. 18, 2007: Foundation, Microinsurance, AKAM, Pakistan & Tanzania

Update to: Mar. 15, 2007: Missing screen capture
Banking, Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development, Citigroup, ABN-Amro, Pakistan, Habib Bank


frosthitstherhubarb.blogspot.com/2007/03/
mar-15-2007-missing-screen-capture.html

Scroll down that same webpage to a list of links to related points starting with:

Frost Hits the Rhubarb Feb. 25 2007
re: Global Development
Microcredit - CIDA - Aga Khan Foundation - Taxpayer Input - Public-Private Partnerships - Transparency - Ramifications - Private Microbank - AKCA / AKF

There are other links.


Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Awards $5.5-Million Grant to Aga Khan Foundation U.S.A. for an Initiative In Microinsurance -- Five-year grant will focus on microinsurance for the poor in Pakistan and Tanzania , InterAction.org Media, January 17, 2006 -- American Council for Voluntary Interaction -- here , Aga Khan Foundation U.S.A. Martha Sipple, (202) 293-2537

www.interaction.org/newswire/detail.php?id=4736

66.218.69.11/search/cache?p=
Gates+Foundation%2C+
grant%2C+%245.5&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-501&x=
wrt&u=www.interaction.org/newswire/
detail.php%3Fid%3D4736&w=
gates+foundation+grant+
5.5&d=Io7SnBIeOYg5&icp=
1&.intl=us

Washington, DC, January 17, 2006 – The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded a grant of $5.5 million to Aga Khan Foundation U.S.A. (AKF USA) for a microinsurance initiative in Pakistan and Tanzania. .... improve the economic stability of microentrepreneurs and other poor families....

AKF USA will work with the Aga Khan Agency for Microfinance (AKAM) in implementing activities, first in Pakistan, where the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) has well-established institutions and a long history of innovation in financial services, insurance, social development and poverty reduction. In 2007, AKAM will begin program activities in Tanzania, where AKDN has also had a long-term presence.

The initiative is designed to create a replicable model for extending and deepening the impact of microfinance by providing affordable, comprehensive insurance products to poor and very poor microfinance clients. It offers the opportunity to test how microinsurance services could become a powerful and cost-effective tool complementing micro-lending and savings. [....]

The Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) .... It is a group of private, non-denominational development agencies .... sub-Saharan Africa, Central and South Asia, and the Middle East. The Network’s nine development agencies ... compassion for the vulnerable in society. Its annual budget for philanthropic activity is in excess of US$300 million.

The agencies of the AKDN have been involved in microfinance for over 60 years, starting initially with small-scale micro-credit schemes for the poor. In 2005, these various micro-finance agencies were amalgamated under the Aga Khan Agency for Microfinance (AKAM) to deliver innovative services including micro-insurance, small housing loans, savings, education and health accounts, and support for small entrepreneurs seeking to develop businesses related to restored cultural assets. [....]

Labels: , , ,

Mar. 18, 2007: Coal technology

Related: Frost Hits the Rhubarb Mar. 14, 2007
Updated: Mining, Copper-Gold, DRC, Gobi


frosthitstherhubarb.blogspot.com/2007/03/
mar-14-2007-updated-mining-copper-gold.html


The Precarious Future of Coal -- A new MIT report says that much more effort is needed to develop and test technology that will make clean-coal power plants economical and practical. , By Kevin Bullis, March 14, 2007

www.technologyreview.com/
read_article.aspx?id=18389&ch=energy

Energy experts from MIT have released a long-awaited report on the future of coal. [....]

The report, based on a study by 13 MIT faculty members, comes at a time when growing concerns about global warming are making it increasingly likely that governments worldwide will impose a price on carbon-dioxide emissions to force a cut in the release of this important greenhouse gas.

[....] The report challenged the idea, argued by some energy experts, that a new type of coal plant--one that converts coal into a gas before burning it--will make it easier and cheaper to capture carbon dioxide, compared with collecting it from the smokestacks of conventional power plants. The MIT experts say that several factors make the picture more complicated. Such coal gasification doesn't work well with low-grade coal, for example, and both the new and the conventional plants will require major changes to capture carbon dioxide, according to the MIT report.

As a result, the MIT researchers recommend that governments not support the new gasification plants over conventional plants.




Part I: China's Coal Future , By Peter Fairley, January 04, 2007

www.technologyreview.com/Energy/17963/

To keep pace with the country's economic growth, ­China's local governments, utilities, and entrepreneurs are building, on average, one coal-fired power plant per week. The power plants emit a steady stream of soot, sulfur dioxide, and other toxic pollutants into the air; they also spew out millions of tons of carbon dioxide. In November, the International Energy Agency projected that China will become the world's largest source of carbon dioxide emissions in 2009, overtaking the United States nearly a decade earlier than previously anticipated. Coal is expected to be responsible for three-quarters of that carbon dioxide.

[....] Gasification transforms coal's complex mix of hydrocarbons into a hydrogen-rich gas known as synthesis gas, or "syngas." Power plants can burn syngas as cleanly as they can natural gas. In addition, with the right catalysts and under the right conditions, the basic chemical building blocks in syngas combine to form the hydrocarbon ingredients of gasoline and diesel fuel. As a result, coal gasification has the potential both to squelch power plants' emission of soot and smog and to decrease China's growing dependence on imported oil. It could even help control emissions of carbon dioxide, which is more easily captured from syngas plants than from conventional coal-fired plants.

Despite China's early anticipation of the need for coal gasification, however, its implementation of the technology in power plants has lagged. The country's electricity producers lack the economic and political incentives to break from their traditional practices.

[....] Direct liquefaction produces more fuel per ton of coal than Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. Experts at the Chinese Coal Research Institute in Beijing estimate that the process captures 55 to 56 percent of the energy in coal, compared to just 45 percent for Fischer-Tropsch. However, direct lique­faction is also far more complicated, requiring separate power and gasification plants to deliver heat and hydrogen and considerable recycling of oil, hydrogen, and coal sludge between separate sections of the plant. And breaking down hydrocarbons to just the right length requires exquisite control of the operating conditions and a consistent coal supply.


Search: Inner Mongolia's coal capital, Erdos


Part II: China's Coal Future -- To prevent massive pollution and slow its growing contribution to global warming, China will need to make advanced coal technology work on an unprecedented scale. , By Peter Fairley, January 05, 2007

www.technologyreview.com/Energy/17964/

Carbon Power ....

Ironically, China's move to a more open economy has hampered efforts to deploy more innovative technologies. [....]

The Yantai power plant was based on integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) technology. IGCC plants resemble natural-gas-fired power plants--they use two turbines to capture mechanical and heat energy from expanding combustion gases--but are fueled with syngas from an integrated coal gasification plant. They're not emissions free, but their gas streams are more concentrated, so the sulfurous soot, carbon dioxide, and other pollutants they generate are easier to separate and capture. Of course, once the carbon dioxide--the main greenhouse gas--is captured, engineers still need to find a place to stow it. The most promising strategy is to sequester it deep within saline aquifers and oil reservoirs. [....]

The problem is that IGCC plants still cost about 10 percent to 20 percent more per megawatt than pulverized-coal-fired power plants. (And that's without carbon dioxide capture.) China's power producers--much like their counterparts in the United States and Europe--are waiting for a financial or political reason to make the switch. In part, what's been missing is regulation that penalizes conventional coal plants. And China's environmental agencies lack the resources and power to make companies comply even with regulations already on the books. Top officials in Beijing admit that their edicts are widely ignored, as new power plants are erected without environmental assessments and, according to some sources, without required equipment for pollution control. [....]



Buffett to PetroChina Dissident: You Can Always Sell Your Berkshire Stake Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s Warren Buffett turned the tables on a shareholder who called on him to sell shares of PetroChina Co. because its government-owned parent operates in a nation accused of genocide. , March 9, 2007

www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=
20601109&sid=
aHFqv4n.uxwE&refer=exclusive

[....] The Berkshire shareholder, Judith Porter, submitted a ballot proposal aimed at forcing Berkshire to divest its stake in PetroChina because of killings in Darfur, a region of western Sudan. Last month Buffett said PetroChina, controlled by China's biggest government-owned oil company, has no influence over the country's business with Sudan because it's merely a subsidiary.

[....] Campaigners such as the Sudan Divestment Task Force, based in Washington, are trying to sway universities, investment companies and state pension plans to pull their money out of companies that do business that directly benefits the Sudanese government. Militias backed by the government have killed more than 200,000 people, according to United Nations estimates. [....]


Search: taught sociology at Bryn Mawr College , business that directly benefits the Sudanese government



A woman's right to choose deserves a sympathy card? RightWingNews -- Sending Sympathy Cards To Women Who've Just Had An Abortion?

www.rightwingnews.com/mt331/2007/03/
sending_sympathy_cards_to_wom
e_1.php?comments=show#comments

Labels:

Mar. 18, 2007: Afghan Prisoner, Allegations, Attaran Complaint

Security, Afghanistan, Amir Attaran, Justices


Background

When the Globe and Mail reports and quotes someone, particularly anyone connected to a university, a foundation, an agency or similar publicly funded group, or "experts", check into their backgrounds. Often why we should pay attention to those quoted is omitted; sometimes, I check backgrounds to see whether they have their own agenda, are connected to a political philosophy or some cause. Usually, I am not disappointed. I noted that Mr. Attaran (see below) came from Harvard (as did Michael Ignatieff) and his interests seem to be AIDS, money for AIDS drugs (to be administered by the UN?) and sub-Saharan Africa, coincidentally, an interest of Paul Martin's if you recall.

How far should Canada go to ensure fair treatment of Afghani detainees? , Kady O'Malley, Macleans.ca | Mar 06, 2007


www.macleans.ca/homepage/features/
article.jsp?content=20070307_121257_5348&s=ct

OTTAWA - It was, Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor insisted, completely unrelated to allegations of prisoner abuse. But in light of how things had played out in the month previous, it was hard to see last week's news that Canada had become the first NATO ally to sign an agreement with the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) to monitor transferred detainees as a coincidence.

While sold by O'Connor has an "extra layer of protection" that complement an agreement with the International Red Cross that the minister repeatedly assured the House was already in place, the new arrangement seems a little more important than that - especially now that thel Red Cross has publicly contradicted O'Connor's description of how much it's been doing to date. [....]


Search: a complaint filed with the Military Police Complaints Commission (MPCC) by Amir Attaran. The University of Ottawa professor , In Kabul, prisoner Abdul Rahman alleged , Amnesty International Canada secretary general Alex Neve , AIHRC, which monitors prisons and detention centres , In Kabul, prisoner Abdul Rahman alleged that local authorities beat him with rubber hoses and wood batons


And Rahman's word would be beyond reproach? From a Lib/lib/left perspective, some people believe the word of these prisoners; yet they are trained to lie, to claim torture and racism.


Check a little further into the University of Ottawa's Mr. Attaran and other activists, experts or spokesmen for the poor prisoners.

Amir Attaran -- or here

www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Amir_Attaran

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=
pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=
11197373&query_hl=1&itool=pubmed_docsum

Defining and refining international donor support for combating the AIDS pandemic.
* Attaran A
,
* Sachs J.

Center for International Development, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. amir_attaran@harvard.edu

The international aid effort against AIDS is greatly incommensurate with the severity of the epidemic. Drawing on the data that international aid donors self-reported to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), we find that, between 1996 and 1998, finance from all rich countries to sub-Saharan Africa for projects designated as AIDS control ...


Is there any reason Mr. Attaran would be negative about the military in Afghanistan or wish the Conservative government to be gone and then things could return to normal?

Dr. Amir Attaran, lawyer and immunologist, writes on public health and global development issues.


Attaran is a frequent critic of the unaccountability and poor performance of what he has called the "foreign aid industrial complex", and organizations such as USAID, the World Bank, the World Health Organization, and although his work with [Jeffrey] Sachs [director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University] inspired it, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

[....] Dr. Attaran has been a paid consultant to NGOs (e.g. Doctors Without Borders), the United Nations (e.g. the UNDP), the pharmaceutical industry (e.g. Novartis), and an unpaid consultant when requested by various developing country governments (e.g. Brazil, Malawi) and human rights groups (e.g. Amnesty International).

He is currently Associate Professor of Law and Population Health, and the holder of the Canada Research Chair in Law, Population Health and Global Development Policy at the University of Ottawa, Canada. Previously he was an adjunct lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard University, publishing research as part of the Center for International Development and the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government.


Search: human rights and development


Dow Jones International: DAVOS: AIDS Activists Laud Pharmacia Plan For Generic Mfg -- More on Amir Attaran , 24 January, 2003

www.accessmed-msf.org/prod/
publications.asp?scntid=
2812003950572&contenttype=
PARA&

DAVOS, Switzerland (AP)--AIDS activists Friday praised the plan of Pharmacia Corp. (PHA) to work with a nonprofit agency to allow the manufacture of cheap copies of its AIDS drug for marketing in poor countries.

[....] even if the drug on offer isn't in great demand.

They stressed that without billions more in aid from the West, the world's hardest-hit countries wouldn't be able to afford even the cheap, generic copies.

"This is half of what's needed," said Dr. Amir Attaran of the Center for International Development at Harvard University, who helped develop the model. "This helps solve the supply side, but there's no demand because these countries are deadly poor."


Canada Research Chair in Law, Population Health and Global Development ...

Mr. Attaran -- ATTARAN, Amir ... Canada Research Chair in Law, Population Health and Global Development Policy, Associate Professor, Biotech, Comparative Law, Environmental Law, Globalization, Health Law and Policy, Human Rights, International Human Rights Law, Law and Society, International Development

www.etudesup.uottawa.ca/Default.aspx?tabid=
1727&monControl=Profs&ProgId=661

www.google.com/search?q=
cache:iJXtcSbPn8oJ:www.etudes
up.uottawa.ca/Default.aspx%3Ftabid%3D1727
%26monControl%3DProfs%26Prog
Id%3D661+who+appointed+Amir+Attaran+,+
Canada+Research+Chair+in+Law,
+Population+Health+and+Global+
Development+Policy+at+the+University+
of+Ottawa&hl=
en&ct=
clnk&cd=
8&gl=ca


"Attaran is best known in the HIV community for co-authoring an updated version of Lee Gillespie-White's earlier paper on patents in Africa. .... 172 patents on ARV products in Africa are not a barrier to treatment"

www.cptech.org/ip/health/pharmadefenders.html

Amir Attaran: Attaran is currently an Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy for the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, but his main job has been to work for Jeffrey Sachs [....]

Amir Attaran Says New Study Shows that Patents Are Not The Obstacle to HIV Treatment in Africa. PhRMA's page on patent on AIDS drugs provides typical spin for the article.

The basic thrust of the Attaran/Gillespie-White JAMA paper is that 172 patents on ARV products in Africa are not a barrier to treatment. [....]

What were the plans?


On the way to finding more on the man who would speak out on Canada, prisoners, and Afghanistan, Amir Attaran of Ottawa University, I found more Ottawa University graduates.

Common Law Bulletin, Summer 2005 -- Paul Martin's gift to the SCOC
The Honourable Justices Bastarache & Charron: Our Pride
Common Law Graduates on the Supreme Court of Canada


My heart fills with pride when I see the present composition of the highest court in the country. Indeed, currently on the bench of the Supreme Court of Canada are two Common Law graduates from our Faculty of Law. These are, of course, the Honourable Mr. Justice Michel Bastarache (’78) and the Honourable Madam Justice Louise Charron (’75).


Two Supremes from the University of Ottawa? I am tempted to say of such coincidence: Of all the gin joints in all the world* ... and I'm afraid I have given in to temptation. [* coincidence]


Justice and Justices

Provinces regain power to force public inquiries into conduct of judges , Janice Tibbetts, CanWest, March 14, 2007

www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.ht
ml?id=19dc0564-f7c7-4e24-8c39-135bb30f239b

Judges have lost a showdown with politicians in a court ruling that reinstates a special power allowing provincial attorneys general to force public inquiries into judicial conduct that can lead to removal from the bench. The Federal Court of Appeal ruled against Ontario Superior Court Justice Paul Cosgrove, a former federal Liberal Cabinet minister .... decision to clear a Barbadian woman of first-degree murder. .... independence of the judiciary .... "Judicial independence does not require that the conduct of judges be immune from scrutiny," Justice Karen Sharlow wrote in a unanimous ruling.

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