statism watch

Canada: Torture State. Like the ring of that? If not, Canada, then we have to push against this and take responsibility for the ongoing injustices being committed in Afghanistan, before we can reclaim our good name.

Flashback: Military lawyer stonewalls on Afghan torture claims | Ottawa was warned Afghan detainees might be tortured | Military commission suspends torture hearings, gags witness | Torture probe delayed; Tories deny gagging witness | Federal court limits Afghan detainee torture probe | Watchdog rejects government bid to delay Afghan detainee inquiry | Ottawa moves to block Afghanistan detainee torture hearings again | Bid to Block Afghan Detainee Inquiry Slammed | What Ottawa doesn’t want you to know: Government was told detainees faced ‘extrajudicial executions, disappearances, torture and detention without trial’

Allan Woods, Toronto Star
Novermber 18, 2009

OTTAWA – A former senior Canadian diplomat in Afghanistan has levelled bombshell allegations suggesting the military knowingly handed detainees to Afghan authorities who allowed them to be tortured.

Richard Colvin, now an intelligence officer at the Canadian embassy in Washington, said Canada took six times as many detainees as coalition partners from Britain and the Netherlands, had no way to track their whereabouts, and ignored warnings they were being tortured with electrical cables, extreme temperatures, knives and sexual abuse.

Colvin made the allegations while testifying today before a special House of Commons committee on Afghanistan.

Warnings first delivered in spring 2006 were ignored by senior Canadian Forces and government officials for a year until newspaper reports brought the allegations of mistreatment to light. After that, Colvin said, diplomats were instructed not to keep written records of any talk of torture by their higher-ups in Ottawa.

Colvin said the Canadian military’s handling of detainees betrayed the country’s core values, undermined counterinsurgency efforts in Kandahar, and was “probably illegal” under international law, which prohibits complicity in torture.

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Flashback: Alleged 9/11 mastermind to go on trial in NYC | U.S. artists slam use of music in Guantanamo interrogations | Obama wins Nobel peace prize |Guantanamo January closing deadline may slip | Tory plans for U.S.-style prisons slammed in report | CIA doctors face human experimentation claims | Pentagon-handpicked 9/11 families want Gitmo kept open | Guantanamo’s closure window dressing – overseas CIA ‘black sites’ to stay | CIA waterboarded 2 al-Qaida suspects 266 times | Psychologists Helped Guide CIA Interrogations | Document lays bare CIA torture techniques | Obama administration: Guantanamo detainees have ‘no constitutional rights’ | CIA destroyed 92 interview tapes | Tortured Guantanamo detainee set free | Obama backs Bush: No rights for Bagram prisoners | After Obama praises torture ruling, civil liberties group appalled | Obama shuts network of CIA ‘ghost prisons’ | Obama requests Guantánamo Bay tribunals suspension | Sept. 11 suspects want to “confess” | 9/11 widows call for new investigation after revelations of White House, commission ties

CBC News
November 18, 2009

U.S. President Barack Obama signs an executive order to close the Guantanamo Bay detention centre within a year during a ceremony in the Oval Office at the White House in January. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)

U.S. President Barack Obama has acknowledged that he will not be able to meet his pledge to close the controversial detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by January.

Obama also voiced support for the decision to try the self-professed Sept. 11 mastermind in a U.S. civilian court, predicting his conviction and subsequent execution.

Obama made the comments in a series of TV interviews during his trip to Asia.

In an interview in Beijing with Fox News, Obama said he knew closing down the prison at Guantanamo Bay was going to be difficult.

“It’s hard not only because of the politics. People I think understandably are fearful after a lot of years where they were told that Guantanamo was critical to keeping terrorists out. So, I understood that that had to be processed, but it’s also just technically hard — I just think as usual in Washington things move slower than I anticipated.

“We are on a path and a process where I would anticipate that Guantanamo will be closed next year,” he said. “I’m not going to set an exact date because a lot of this is also going to depend upon co-operation from Congress.”

One of Obama’s first acts as president was to sign an executive order to close the facility within a year, a move he said would restore his country’s “moral high ground.”

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Flashback: Elderly Quebec man dies after H1N1 shot | French Woman Gets Crippling Illness After H1N1 Vaccine | Swine flu cases drop in England | Teen Diagnosed With Guillain-Barre Syndrome After Swine Flu Shot | H1N1 overplayed by media, public health: MDs | Ask military to help with H1N1: Ottawa councillor | Special H1N1 vaccine for pregnant women now here | Elite Council Recording Suggests Creating False Scarcity To Drive Up Demand For H1N1 Vaccine | WHO pandemic definition too broad, doctor contends | Vaccine scarcity claims don’t add up‘No reason’ to delay seasonal flu shots, global health panel says | Flu Season Has Already Peaked in US, Little Benefit to H1N1 Jab: Study | Flu vaccine shortage expected to last a week | Washington Man Paralyzed After Routine Flu Vaccination | Mass Rejection Of Swine Flu Vaccine Continues Throughout Europe | GlaxoSmithKline profit rises on flu drug | Swine Flu Scam Reaches New Heights With Obama’s Emergency Declaration | Deaths Associated With Swine Flu Vaccine Reported In Europe | US Government Hijacks Kids TV To Propagandize For Swine Flu Shots | Swine flu vaccine approved in Canada | German Government to get special swine flu vaccine | Woman Says Seasonal Flu Shot Triggered Seizures, Rare Disorder | Harper’s hedge on H1N1 shot sparks confusion | Higher instance of severe H1N1 cases in natives, women | UK: National Health Service frontline staff shun H1N1 vaccine | US: Hospitals fear ‘Flumist’ H1N1 nasal vaccine could spread swine flu | New swine-flu wave hits GTA: Provincial Health Official | Canadian taxpayers on hook for any H1N1 vaccine damages | Second wave of swine flu pandemic begins to hit US | Seasonal flu shots delayed for non-seniors on fears of increased H1N1 risk | Seasonal flu shot may increase H1N1 risk | Swine flu death rate similar to seasonal flu: expert | Swine flu unlikely to become superbug | UK: Half of all pregnant women will refuse swine flu jab, poll reveals | Flu vaccine plan will be too slow: CMAJ | Swine flu jab link to killer nerve disease: Leaked letter reveals concern of neurologists over 25 deaths in America | Canada to order 50.4 million H1N1 vaccine doses – with adjuvant additive | Genetically modified Swine Flu hybrid may provide vaccine yield solution | Washington Post: Swine Flu Vaccine Will Contain Mercury | UK Government Swine Flu Advisor On Vaccine Maker Payroll | Fast-tracked swine flu vaccine will be safe, officials insist | Swine flu: How scared should we be? | Top Epidemiologist Slams Swine Flu Fearmongering | Legal immunity set for swine flu vaccine makers | Swine flu ‘related’ to 1918 pandemic virus – survivors exhibit resistance | Did leak from a laboratory cause swine flu pandemic? | Swine Flu May Be Human Error; WHO Investigates Claim | Lessons of 1976: swine flu, fear, mass vaccinations, wasted millions | ‘Accidental’ Contamination Of Vaccine With Live Avian Flu Virus Virtually Impossible | Officials investigate how bird flu contaminated vaccines in Europe | Researchers unlock secrets of 1918 flu pandemic |

Kate Kelland, Reuters
November 18, 2009

LONDON, Nov 18 (Reuters) – More than half of Britons being offered vaccination against pandemic H1N1 flu are turning it down because they fear side-effects or think the virus is too mild to bother, a survey of doctors showed on Wednesday.

Many of the 107 family doctors polled by Britain’s Pulse magazine said there was widespread resistance from patients and on average only 46 percent of those offered the vaccination agree to have it.

Doctors reported particular difficulties in persuading pregnant women to be vaccinated against the virus, according to Pulse, a trade newspaper for doctors.

“In all the pregnant women we’ve offered it to, I think only about one in 20 has agreed,” Dr Chris Udenze, a family doctor based in Nottingham, central England, said in the survey.

Scepticism has been growing in Britain and other European countries about health authorities’ handling of the H1N1 pandemic because the number of people infected has been lower than originally feared.

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This is a move that respects individual rights. The challenge for the Nisga’a Lisims community will of course be to avoid being bought out or assimilated. But this is their decision to make. So wish them luck as they disentangle themselves from the old, condescending native laws.

Flashback: BC Native tribe will petition Ottawa to remove its Indian status | BC chiefs kill flawed aboriginal rights law | Akwesasne chief pushes for Mohawk sovereignty | Title law would undermine native rights, lawyers say | BC Court Tells Ottawa to Amend Status Rules for Natives | Quebec First Nations declare sovereignty, opposition to provincial development plans | Native leaders vow to fight mining law in Ontario

CBC News
November 18, 2009

A northwestern B.C. First Nation has approved a revolutionary land reform deal, making it the first in Canada to approve private property rights.

After years of discussion and debate, the Nisga’a Lisims government has quietly passed the Nisga’a Landholding Transition Act. The move means that next year Nisga’a citizens will have the chance to own their own homes on what used to be collectively owned native land in B.C.’s Nass River Valley, north of Terrace.

They will also be able to mortgage their property or transfer, bequeath, lease, or sell it to anyone they choose, aboriginal or non-aboriginal. The system will be voluntary and all private land will remain subject to Nisga’a laws.

The bill passed third reading in the Wilp Si’ayuukhl Nisga’a, the legislative body of Nisga’a Lisims government, at its October 2009 sitting. But there are still some amendments to be made to the Nisga’a legislation and a land title administration system has to be set up before the changes come into effect.

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Flashback: Top Mountie says Huntsville too small for G20 | Leaked G20 Documents Shed Light on Global Carbon Tax | G20 decides to become world’s new ruling economic council | G20 nations meet as protests flare on issue of international banking regulation | Dollar to fall under scrutiny at G20 summit | Gordon Brown urges EU to back new economic order | A year after financial crisis, a new world order emerges | UN wants new global currency to replace dollar | UK PM reveals G20 plan to boost IMF by $1 trillion, hails new world order (again) | World Bank President Admits Agenda For Global Government | Gordon Brown chooses pulpit as latest platform to push New World Order | US backing for world currency stuns markets | Gordon Brown’s amazing patent cure-all globalization deal | Volcker sees crisis leading to global regulation | Gordon Brown seeks sweeping reforms to give IMF global ’surveillance role’ | Kissinger Calls for a New World Order | Kissinger Calls For New International System Out Of World Crises | Financial Times: And now for a world government | Gordon Brown calls for new world order to beat recession | Baron Rothschild tags along with Gordon Brown, expects new world order | Hope for Obama’s US and Europe to drive a ‘new deal’ for a ‘new world’: Barroso, Brown | ‘Stick together or sink together’: European Commission president invokes ‘global governance’ | Paul Martin calls for ‘global solution’ | Towards a new world order: Canada-EU trade proposal rivals scope of NAFTA | Paul Martin promoting a new League of Nations on the road | The Resurgent Idea of World Government

Jennifer Lewington, Jane Taber, Josh Wingrove, The Globe and Mail
November 18, 2009

The Prime Minister’s Office hasn’t announced the location, but Toronto’s hospitality industry is bracing for a last-minute blitz

With the G20 summit seven months away and its location unannounced, officials in Toronto are scrambling to consider whether the city can accommodate the premier, last-minute addition to its tourism calendar.

Sources say plans are in the works to hold the summit in Toronto and rumours of tentative hotel block-booking by G20 delegates are swirling, but the Prime Minister’s Office hasn’t announced the location of the event, considered by many to be too large for the Ontario cottage country resort town where it was first expected to be held.

The silence leaves Toronto and its 43,000 hotel rooms in limbo. The city is already hosting three conferences of 10,000 attendees or more next June. The Metro Toronto Convention Centre, the likely site of the G20 and home of the 1998 G7 summit, is booked for the month.

“The whole thing is in a state of flux until the Prime Minister decides what he is going to do,” said John Houghton, MTCC executive vice-president. “We would have to shift business around to accommodate anything.”

As Toronto’s hospitality industry braces itself for a last-minute planning blitz, Ottawa says the G20 site is still up in the air. “No decision has been made on the location. No announcement has been made. One will be made in due time,” said Sara MacIntyre, spokeswoman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

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Brace for impact, Toronto.

Flashback: Military readies reservists for threats to ‘domestic front’ | Muskoka resort will host G-8 summit in 2010

Heather Scoffield, Jim Bronskill, The Canadian Press
November 18, 2009

OTTAWA – Canada’s top cop has dared to say what top politicians won’t: Ontario’s Huntsville is just too small to host the G20 summit, despite tens of millions in expenditures to bring the area up to world standards.

RCMP Commissioner William Elliott said Wednesday it would be “difficult if not impossible” to hold the Group of 20 summit next summer in the Muskoka cottage-country community, whose premier hotel, the Deerhurst Resort, has just 400 rooms.

“I don’t frankly think there’s enough room in Deerhurst for all the people would attend a G20,” Elliott said in an interview.

The initial plan was to hold the Group of Eight summit in Huntsville and a second, larger G20 meeting somewhere nearby.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced in September that the G20 would be in Muskoka, and that has been the official line ever since.

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Flashback: Vancouver police get military sound cannon just in time for Olympics | Protesters block Olympic torch relay | Anti-Olympic signs could net 6 months’ jail: rights group | Olympic security follows protester’s friend | UK: Police given powers to enter homes and tear down anti-Olympics posters during 2012 Games | 2010 Olympic security plans include ‘free speech’ zones | Olympic security boss puts protesters on notice | Activists seen as potential threat to Vancouver Games | CSIS Spying on Natives, Olympic Dissidents

CBC News
November 18, 2009

Two activists in Antigonish say the RCMP invaded their privacy in an attempt to protect the Olympic torch.

Jesse Campbell and Rachelle Enxuga were contacted by RCMP after they placed anti-Olympic posters around the northern Nova Scotia town.

“Just keeping tabs on a community discussion group in that way, I find a little bit Orwellian. It’s kind of bizarre,” Campbell told CBC News.

The posters invited people to attend meetings before the torch relay passed through Antigonish on Tuesday. One depicted a riot police officer with Olympic rings on his helmet, while the other had handcuffs instead of rings.

“It’s supposed to be intentionally provocative,” Campbell said of the posters.

He said he believes public money is better spent on housing and social programs than on sports infrastructure for the Olympic Games.

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