statism watch

This appears to be based on the OpenID platform.

Related: China launches interview requirement, licensing for personal websites | UN agency calls for global cyberwarfare treaty, ‘driver’s license’ for Web users | Obama Wants Computer Privacy Ruling Overturned | Security boss calls for end to net anonymity | First it’s ‘For the Children’: Microsoft working to ID you online

Joseph Menn, Financial Times
June 26, 2010

The White House set out a sweeping strategy to make online transactions more secure on Friday. The move is the most ambitious initiative to emerge from a cybersecurity policy intended to blunt the growing menace of online crime.

Howard Schmidt, president Barack Obama’s cybersecurity co-ordinator, who took up his duties in early 2010, released the strategy paper after 12 months of discussions led by the National Security Council and involving scores of private sector groups, critical infrastructure owners and privacy advocates.

The strategy seeks the creation of a system for identity management that would allow citizens to use additional authentication techniques, such as physical tokens or modules on mobile phones, to verify who they are before buying things online or accessing such sensitive information as health or banking records.

A set of standards would let multiple vendors offer authentication services, while people whose identities have been verified would be able to move from website to website without resubmitting information.

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Related: Obama calls for bank tax as next step in Wall Street reform | IMF report advises G20 to make spending cuts top priority | G8 wraps with money for maternal NGOs and words for Iran, N. Korea | G8 Summit: Leaders divided over tackling national deficits

CBC News
June 26, 2010

‘Strong consensus’ for deficit cuts, Harper says ahead of summit

Prime Minister Stephen Harper officially greeted leaders of the G20 nations inside a heavily fortified enclave in downtown Toronto at the start of the organization’s summit.

The prime minister and his wife, Laureen, greeted the G20 leaders and their spouses at a reception at the famed Royal York Hotel on Saturday evening. A working dinner followed.

The event seemed far from the chaos just blocks away outside the barricaded security zone, where protesters earlier set fire to police vehicles and smashed storefront windows, despite a $1-billion security tab and thousands of police at the ready.

The fragile global economic recovery is expected to top the agenda of the G20 summit, with world leaders split on when to end stimulus funds and slash deficits.

Harper, as host of the summit, is expected to urge the more developed countries to commit to halving their deficits within three years as a way of restoring investor confidence after the recent turmoil caused by the Greek debt crisis.

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Related: Pre-dawn raids in Toronto homes result in four arrests

Francine Kopun, Peter Small, The Toronto Star
June 26, 2010

Year-long undercover investigation infiltrated anarchist planning meetings, police allege

Fires were still burning in Toronto Saturday afternoon as Crown attorneys laid out their case against four alleged ringleaders of the violence.

Amanda Hiscocks, Leah Henderson, Alex Hundert and Peter Hopperton appeared before a justice of the peace and had their bail hearing put over till Monday at the request of a prosecutor who said he was overwhelmed by the volume of evidence collected by numerous police forces in a year-long undercover investigation.

Crown attorney Vincent Paris said a plan for violence had been put into place over a series of meetings leading up to the G20 Summit, “action which is what’s happening now.”

The four, allegedly executives in the Southern Ontario Anarchist Resistance, were arrested Friday morning and charged with conspiracy to commit indictable mischief. They are among 15 alleged co-conspirators.

Paris said that their arrest was the culmination of a large-scale investigation, which is still ongoing, involving two undercover agents.

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It’s an incredibly loose definition of ‘anarchist’ that allies itself with Communists carrying a big banner of Mao around. (Interested researchers should mine the Globe and Mail liveblog carried here over the course of the weekend – it was a Communist group that reportedly provided cover for the Bloc to begin its rampage by lighting a flare in the square) While clearly anarchism is not a monolithic movement, Wikipedia provides a reasonable thumbnail def’n for our purposes: “Anarchism is a political philosophy which considers the state undesirable, unnecessary and harmful, and instead promotes a stateless society, or anarchy. It seeks to diminish or even abolish authority in the conduct of human relations.” A quick reading of the history makes it clear that Communism and Anarchism developed concurrently, but were opposed in many of their (confused) principles, with early proponents of both schools of thought exchanging barbs in their correspondence. Clearly, modern anarchism is in something of an identity crisis when it’s understood simultaneously as anti-state, Communist, and vandal. While mainstream media coverage of these groups isn’t helping to clarify things, modern ‘anarchists’ should also take a long, hard look at how their destruction discredits any good ideas their founders may have had in the past, shields potential police provocateurs in their midst (see: Montebello, etc), turns the public against them, creates media cover for the brutal repression of peaceful activists (witness the shamefully underreported crackdown in the Queens’s Park ‘free speech zone’ in which people were trampled by horses and the snatch squad grabbed old women who didn’t even know what the G20 was) and drives the culture into the arms of militarization and the statist globalists they claim to oppose.

(NB: While the net is clearly afire with both MIHOP (made it happen on purpose) and LIHOP (let it happen on purpose) speculation about the involvement of the G20 ISU in this riot, evidence thus far is obscured by a sort of fog of war, with Judy Rebick among countless others on the #g20report Twitter hashtag suggesting police left cars in the path of the Bloc to be burned on camera. Anarchist media sources suggest this is bullshit, as do the police, and in all fairness the video evidence here – provided by TheYorkLife -  suggests it was some random dumbass that set the car on fire. What do you think? No doubt there’s more details waiting to come out in a week or two once the media has moved on.)

Related: G20 protesters clash with Vancouver police | ‘Anarchists’ leave trail of destruction, peaceful 3hr march forgotten | Black bloc taints anti-Olympic movement | Vancouver Olympics protesters fall silent as Black Bloc ruins it for everyone | Olympic protesters smash store windows | Provocateur Cops Caught Disguised As ‘Anarchists’ At Pittsburgh G20 | G20 police ‘used undercover men to incite crowds’ | G20 protests: Riot police, or rioting police? | Rioters Were Paid To Provoke the Police in Bulgaria | Greek Cops Caught on Video Posing as Anarchists | ACLU wants probe into police-staged DNC protest | Ex-Italian President: Provocateur Riots Then “Beat The Shit Out Of Protesters” | Massachusetts Police Get Black Uniforms to Instill Sense of ‘Fear’ | Police inspector posed as militant protester | Quebec police admit agents posed as protesters | Canadians who trust our secret police should think again | For more, see the G20 Coverage page feature

Jesse Mclean, Toronto Star
June 26, 2010

As suddenly as they burst onto the streets, they vanished into the crowd.

The men and women, clad in black clothes, their faces obscured with bandanas, ski goggles and gas masks, had spent the last hour storming through city streets, hurling rocks and debris through the windows of banks and big-chain stores.

They embraced the Black Bloc tactic, a popular sight at almost every international protest since the late 1990s: The crowd, dressed in their black uniforms, moves as a blob, its members indistinguishable from one another. One will run from the pack and lob a rock through a window, before disappearing back into the mob.

On Saturday, as the riot police shuffled closer to the intersection at College and University Aves.– shields up, gas masks on, guns raised – they disappeared again.

Dozens huddled on a patch of grass outside Queen’s Park. Protected by their peers, the ones in the middle changed into their street clothes. Within minutes, all that was left was a pile of black garments.

“Don’t take a f–king picture of me,” said one man, now wearing a brown T-shirt, as he walked away.

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Related: ‘Anarchists’ leave trail of destruction, peaceful 3hr march forgotten | Naomi Klein and 500 marchers crash party at tent city | Protesters flood the streets on first day of Toronto G20 summit | Huntsville G8: Military, locked down security, few protesters | Canada flunks on indigenous rights: G20 native protesters | Marcus Gee: Why the G20 protesters won’t condemn violence | Peaceful protests continue in Toronto as G20 nears | Anti-poverty activists occupy ESSO station during Monday G20 protest — for ten minutes | Toronto activists launch G20 alternative media centre | Ban G20 summit agents provocateurs: activist groups to PM | Oxfam astroturf march leads early G20 protest for bank tax | Activists plan walkout and tent city to protest G8/G20 summits | G20 centre for protesters set to open | Rights group files for injunction against G20 ‘sound cannon’ | G20 activists accuse CSIS of intimidation | Anarchists plan ‘militant’ protests at Toronto G20 | Toronto labour, native protesters ready for G20 demonstrations | Toronto G20 protest area moved to Queens Park | All Toronto G20 protests will be directed to Trinity Bellwoods Park | Protesters and police get ready to square off at G20 summit | Hundreds of Toronto G20 delegates granted diplomatic immunity | For more, see the G20 Coverage page feature

CBC News
June 26, 2010

While protests against the G20 summit in Toronto turned violent on Saturday, a mostly peaceful gathering in Vancouver became ugly when a group of demonstrators began kicking police officers and poking them with signs.

Vancouver police Const. Lindsey Houghton said the aggressive protesters were dressed in black and masked their faces to hide their identity.

“A core group of the black-clad protesters began to try to bait officers, who were facilitating the protest, by trying to damage police equipment, kicking the officers and taunting them,” Houghton said.

He said the so-called Black Bloc tactic included protesters in the city’s Commercial Drive area swearing and yelling at officers in an effort to provoke them.

“While there were no arrests today, the right to protest doesn’t include the right to commit criminal acts that place the public’s safety at risk,” he said.

In February, Black Bloc protesters smashed display windows of the downtown Bay store in Vancouver on the opening day of the Olympics.

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All of the articles surveyed on the day’s protest (of those written today) feature, upfront, the activities of a cadre of Black Bloc political vandals numbering somewhere from 50 to 100 people. Compare that to the rough estimate police on the scene made of the number of marchers, somewhere from 15,000 to 20,000, and you’ll have an idea how unbalanced the coverage of Saturday afternoon’s demonstrations have been. Run those numbers – the ratio of peaceful to non-peaceful marchers was somewhere around 150:1. Given the fact, StatismWatch is just going to run with the most sensational of the articles, that published by Sun Media. Why not? The writing is transparently inflammatory on a rebels-without-a-clue template, features some interesting details, and you’ve been given a drinking-straw sized view of the day’s events in any case. It simply throws the features of the day’s reporting by the mainstream media in its entirety into sharper relief. And the coverage of the mass march of peaceful demonstrators? That’s nowhere to be found. Several letters to the Star pointed this out, but after searching through four pages of Google News, the search was called off. Balanced journalism is missing and presumed dead.

The police brutality later on in Queen’s Park was absolutely astonishing as well, with passerby and peaceful protesters trampled under the steel-shod hooves of police destriers, justified apparently by the search for Bloc members that police say melted into the crowd.

Read three timelines of the day’s and week’s events here and here and here. More to come as StatismWatch continues boiling down the weekend’s coverage.

Related: Naomi Klein and 500 marchers crash party at tent city | Protesters flood the streets on first day of Toronto G20 summit | Huntsville G8: Military, locked down security, few protesters | Canada flunks on indigenous rights: G20 native protesters | Marcus Gee: Why the G20 protesters won’t condemn violence | Peaceful protests continue in Toronto as G20 nears | Anti-poverty activists occupy ESSO station during Monday G20 protest — for ten minutes | Toronto activists launch G20 alternative media centre | Ban G20 summit agents provocateurs: activist groups to PM | Oxfam astroturf march leads early G20 protest for bank tax | Activists plan walkout and tent city to protest G8/G20 summits | G20 centre for protesters set to open | Rights group files for injunction against G20 ‘sound cannon’ | G20 activists accuse CSIS of intimidation | Anarchists plan ‘militant’ protests at Toronto G20 | Toronto labour, native protesters ready for G20 demonstrations | Toronto G20 protest area moved to Queens Park | All Toronto G20 protests will be directed to Trinity Bellwoods Park | Protesters and police get ready to square off at G20 summit | Hundreds of Toronto G20 delegates granted diplomatic immunity | For more, see the G20 Coverage page feature

The Toronto Sun
June 26, 2010

The streets of Toronto descended into anarchy Saturday as the city’s police chief warned of more mayhem on the last day of the G20 summit.

Hard-core, balaclava-wearing anarchists burned police cars, smashed and looted stores and threw bricks, bottles and bags filled with urine at police Saturday.

Two cruisers were set alight at King and Bay Sts. and another two cars went up in flames on Queen St. near Spadina Ave.

Violent protesters left a trail of shattered glass along Queen St. W. and then up Yonge St.

The stench of their vinegar-drenched clothes, soaked in a bid to ward off any teargas, followed the anarchy through the streets.

Police Chief Bill Blair said late Saturday as protesters continued to trash city streets that 130 people had been arrested and warned his officers would hunt down all the vandals.

He also confirmed that police used tear gas.

Mayor David Miller condemned the “criminals” who vandalized the city’s streets, expressing outrage at the way some protesters chose to make a political statement as world leaders met here for the G20 summit.

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Related: CP Reporter: How I was detained by G8 security | Toronto activists launch G20 alternative media centre | Iceland Unanimously Approves ‘Wikileaks Bill’ To Establish Free Speech Press Haven | Pentagon hunts WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in bid to gag website | Michigan Considers Law to License Journalists for ‘Moral Character’ | Obama Czar Wants Mandatory Government Propaganda On Political Websites | Media can’t shield sources all the time, court rules | Press For Truth Arrested While Reporting On The G20 Summit | Secret Document Calls Wikileaks ‘Threat’ to U.S. Army | North Korean worker executed for passing on news | The Toronto 18 Publication Ban: Silence affects the core of justice | Obama Information Czar Outlined Plan For Government To Infiltrate ‘Conspiracy Groups’ | Obama Information Czar Calls For Banning Free Speech | Canadian Supreme Court expands freedoms for media | Border guards are now Olympic thought police — Amy Goodman detained | Cuban blogger claims she was roughed up by state agents | Globe appeal to protect adscam sources before court | Obama: We Need To Bailout Newspapers To Stop New Media Taking Over | Canadian media watched closely in Afghanistan | It’s a great day for freedom of speech: ‘Hate Speech’ laws found to violate Charter Rights | Associated Press Tries To DRM The News | Murdoch CEO Labels Bloggers “Political Extremists” | Should linking be illegal? | Top court to hear ‘Adscam’ media gag order challenge | Top court reserves decision in reporter confidentiality case | Don’t let media shield ‘criminals’, hearing told | Supreme Court to rule on ‘tidal-wave’ of press freedom cases | Fredericton police arrest well-known N.B. blogger on legislature grounds | Barclays bank gags Guardian newspaper over tax avoidance leaks | Chinese Learn Limits of Online Freedom as the Filter Tightens | UK Terror Law To Make Photographing Police Illegal | Publication ban law too broad, top Ontario court rules | Public access vs. government secrecy the issue in Supreme Court of Canada case | UK MPs seek to censor the media | Italian Judge: Blogs are Illegal | RCMP lays no charges in Maher Arar ‘terrorist’ leaks, declares case closed | Human rights body to consider Internet speech regulation | Blogger arrests hit record high | For more, see the G20 Coverage page feature

Olivia Ward, The Toronto Star
June 26, 2010

Ottawa’s plan aimed at quelling critics, NGOs suggest

Toronto has become used to G20 barriers, but prominent charities say that Ottawa has blocked them from reaching the international media with messages that criticize global governments.

“This is different from other summits that have opened up more and more,” says John Ruthrauff of Washington-based InterAction, a coalition of 150 relief and development groups, which cancelled its delegation out of frustration with lack of media access. “It’s taken a step backward.”

At most summits, Ruthrauff says, NGOs can mix and mingle easily with mainstream media, airing their critiques of the meeting’s progress. But in Toronto, they have been split into two camps, with the mainstream international media headquarters across the street from the non-traditional media and NGOs.

Both groups are exiled to the Exhibition grounds, far away from the action of the heavily guarded G20 summit downtown. But NGOs and alternative media can only enter the international media building in the Direct Energy Centre by invitation.

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President Obama wishes to create a protocol for dismantling troubled financial firms. The more skeptical among us may envision a wood chipper pointed straight into the ‘blood funnel’ of Goldman-Sachs. But don’t pay attention to the fact globalists are looting your country, look! People kicking a ball on TV!

Update (2010/06/29): Spoiler alert: The G20 version of Obama’s legislation didn’t happen. Not this time. Flaherty and Harper held off the EU and stuck to their guns. Maybe in France G20 2011, we hear Sarkozy’s a big fan. In the meantime, wait and see if Obama gets to sign this in as national legislation on July 4, a particularly obscene gesture.

Related: Obama celebrates banking bill’s passage in Senate | Goldman Sachs concedes case for restraining the big banks | US prepares to push for global capital rules | The Obama Banking Regulation: Big Banks Are Too Politically Connected to Fail | Obama scolds Wall Street for fighting reform, pushes new regulation package | Obama urges Senate to hand total oversight of financial sector to Federal Reserve, eliminate ‘Reserve’ part | Bernanke Pushes to Keep Regulation Power as Some Senators Waver | The Federal Reserve as Giant Counterfeiter | Bankers unite against Barack Obama and Gordon Brown in call for world regulation | Banks find gaping loophole in Obama financial reforms | Obama talking tough with banks | Wall Street’s leading bankers admit: we made mistakes | Obama ponders bank transaction levy to recoup bailout shortfalls | Explosive Leaked Emails Expose Treasury Secretary Geithner’s Deception in ‘Backdoor Bailout’ | US Bankers Get $4 Trillion Gift From Barney Frank | Financial reform bill passes U.S. House | Taibbi: Obama’s sellout to Wall Street creates ‘permanent bailout’ | Americans Deserve a Transparent Federal Reserve | Bernanke continues pressing for sweeping new powers for Fed | Federal Reserve Appeals Order to Disclose Emergency Bank Loans | Judge Orders Federal Reserve To Disclose Who Received Bailout Trillions | Geithner lambastes US economic watchdogs resistant to planned transfer of powers to Federal Reserve | Obama Regulatory Reform Plan Officially Establishes Banking Dictatorship In United States | Obama unveils overhaul of financial system oversight | Federal Reserve To Be Given Sweeping New Powers | Top Senate Democrat: bankers “own” the U.S. Congress | Wall Street’s Big Takeover | Geithner Said to Have Prevailed on the Bailout | Banks won’t say where U.S. bailout money going | Paulson, Bernanke defend change of plan: $700-billion now to be given directly to banks | Congress Accuses Federal Reserve Bagman Of Bailout “Bait and Switch” During Angry Hearing | U.S. government won’t use bailout fund to buy troubled assets | Behind the panic: Financial warfare over the future of global bank power | Goldman-Sachs Alumni Hold Reins of Financial System | Treasury’s Plan Would Give Fed Wide New Power | Financial ’super cop’ role for Fed

Caren Bohan, Mario Di Simine, Reuters
June 26, 2010

President Barack Obama, fresh from a win on a sweeping overhaul of Wall Street regulations, on Saturday urged Congress to take up his proposal for a $90 billion, 10-year tax on banks as the next step in reform.

Obama wants to slap a 0.15 percent tax on the liabilities of the biggest U.S. financial institutions to recoup the costs to taxpayers of the financial bailout.

“We need to impose a fee on the banks that were the biggest beneficiaries of taxpayer assistance at the height of our financial crisis — so we can recover every dime of taxpayer money,” Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address. [Ed. Note: Presumably not the government-connected banks, they paid their loans off in record time. It's their next biggest competitors that are targeted by this legislation.]

Obama, who is in Canada to attend gatherings with leaders of the world’s biggest economies, also used the address to welcome a deal by congressional negotiators on a historic rewriting of U.S. financial regulations.

Obama hopes to tout the changes as a model for other countries at the Group of 20 summit on Saturday and Sunday.

“I hope we can build on the progress we made at last year’s G20 summits by coordinating our global financial reform efforts to make sure a crisis like the one from which we are still recovering never happens again,” he said.

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“Lies and theft/ Guns and debt/ Life and death/ IMF” – Vampires by Thievery Corporation

What’s the balance of outstanding loans between the IMF and G20 countries? Well, it turns out they have a webpage for that and the present total is 51 billion in credit outstanding accounts. That’s priced in ‘SDRs’, the house scrip of the IMF, which aspires to be a sort of world Federal Reserve. So in this communique, they’re simply giving their clients a little friendly advice to pay up. Can you imagine if this institution, its interventions and predatory loans the cause of so much turmoil in the developing world, won its PR campaign to get international transactions denominated in SDRs? Soros, DSK, Sarkozy and others are hopping with urgency for the  Petrodollar replacement. The IMF would be the top creditor to the world, essentially taking over the Federal Reserve’s role and extending its services, so helpful to the USA, to all nations. Hopefully DSK would be gone by that point, a small mercy. Have you read his bio? Domique Strauss-Khan is a dyed in the wool collectivist, scion of the socialist party in France, a veteran of the “Yes” campaign for the EU constitution, a top globalist. If the IMF takes over the printing of currency, this guy becomes a sort of Alan Greenspan to the world. And if you thought Greenspan was creepy, check out old DSK.

The IMF’s business primary business is setting up military dictatorships to drain the resources of a country dry. DSK and the IMF both fulfill the archetype of the wight, the vampire – he with his insistent SMS, they with their SDRs and SAPs – “Structural Adjustment” austerity programs. Hey Canada, there’s a new banker in town and you’re not going to like what he puts on the table. You thought turmoil followed the G20? Just wait until you see an IMF riot. That’s why Harper spent a good chunk of the 1.2 Billion it cost to stage the IMF on security hardware. They’re just getting ready for the really angry mobs all the military studies are predicting when people figure out how they are being bled dry. (It would go some way to explain why Harper appears so bloodless. It should come as no surprise he’s for austerity programs as well.)

Related: G8 Summit: Leaders divided over tackling national deficits | The End of The Great Bailouts is Approaching | The Real Meaning of ‘Economic Austerity’: IMF/World Bank devastation | For G20 leaders, fiscal austerity is the new normal | IMF says Spain taking right steps towards stability | Harper urges austerity, Obama stimulus in urge for G20 to boost economic recovery | Carney warns of ‘age of austerity’, global outlook ‘getting worse’ | Spanish bailout readied as EU chief warns ‘democracy could disappear’ in debt ridden states | Europe embraces the cult of austerity — but at what cost? | | British face big spending cuts as coalition shows unity on austerity | Impact of $47B stimulus minimal: Fraser Institute | More stimulus spending coming | Federal budget watchdog disputes Flaherty’s forecasts | Hope keeps Flaherty’s balanced budget afloat | Tories hand out $75 billion worth of ’spending restraint’ | Stimulating our way into debt crises | IMF warns against retreat from stimulus spending | Flaherty’s economic plan blasted as leading to taxation or cuts | Idle job market hurting recovery, Flaherty warns | No new stimulus, economy ’stabilized’: Harper | Lower tax haul helps widen Ottawa deficit, $56.2B shortfall expected | Can’t say if federal stimulus is working: watchdog | Liberals call stimulus numbers ‘fiction’ | Ottawa on track for largest-ever deficit | Flaherty, USA say no to global financial tax, yes to continued ’stimulus’ at G20 | Economic picture still not very bright, and more layoffs are in store, manufacturers say | G20 to pledge continued ’stimulus’, examine international reserve fund | Aspiring government economists must reveal views on stimulus plan | Fund me or axe me, parliamentary budget officer says | Stephen Harper trumpets economic report card | Carney says G20 must stay the course on stimulus | Ottawa’s deficit plan would hike EI premiums | Canada’s $1-trillion debt baby | Flaherty sees deficit, debt, and timetable to return to surplus all expanding | G20 agrees to continue economic stimulus measures; Geithner shops international reserve accord | Federal deficit hits $7.5B in April-May | Budget officer ‘can’t tell’ if stimulus plan working | G8 leaders see no early end to stimulus | Flaherty looks for way to end stimulus | Stimulus cash is flowing — down a hole? | Harper lays out stimulus spending in progress report | ‘Reduced pace of deterioration’ indicates economy on the mend: Flaherty | Federal deficit to top $50B | Stimulus needed now, Bank of Canada says | US Congress reaches deal on economic stimulus package | $12B for infrastructure forms key pillar of stimulus package | Brace for a big, ‘comprehensive’ budget: Harper | Transport Minister Baird calls for dramatic action on stimulus package | Obama calls for ‘dramatic action’ on stimulus package | Flaherty vows short-lived deficit, consults corporate chiefs on spending initiatives | Harper government plans deficits as deep as $30 billion | Britain to introduce massive stimulus package | Deficits ‘essential,’ Harper says | Flaherty eyes sale of Canadian government assets | Flaherty lauds Keynesian global ‘economic stimulus’ strategies

Heather Scoffield, The Globe and Mail
June 26, 2010

Sacrifices would be great, but rewards would be enormous, with millions of new jobs, widespread reduction in poverty, and stronger global growth, paper says

Related: G8 Summit: Leaders divided over tackling national deficits | For more, see the G20 Coverage page feature

The Canadian Press
June 26, 2010

HUNTSVILLE, ONT.– G8 leaders wrapped up their cottage country summit today with some tough words for Iran and North Korea – and a commitment to work with the G20 to stave off another global financial crisis.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the heads of the world’s other top industrialized democracies emerged from a meeting room at a secluded resort with their remedy for the world’s woes.

The 43-point summit communique admonishes Iran and North Korea for their nuclear activities and holds North Korea responsible for the sinking of a South Korean warship last march.

“We cannot be complacent about the grave threat posed to the security of present and future generations by the proliferation of nuclear weapons,” the communique states.

Harper went a step further: “The world must see that what they spend on these weapons will not be the only costs they incur,” he told a closing news conference.

Iran and North Korea have become international pariahs for their nuclear ambitions, oppressive regimes and inflammatory rhetoric.

The communique also chides both countries for their human rights record and urges them to abide by international law, UN Security Council resolutions and International Atomic Energy Agency rules.

The unanimous statement is welcome news for the Harper government, which had been pushing hard for it. Sources say the deal came together at the last minute. That’s because Russia was reluctant to take a strong stand.

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