The oily belly of the beast, Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands, film by Peter Mettler; Tiff Screenings in Toronto, September 13, 16 & 19.
Harris/Decima Poll:
Almost Half of Canadians Want Elizabeth May to Win a Seat.
In Spite of Recession, Environment Remains a High Priority for Most Canadians.
Greenpeace in Bonn, Germany - "Yes You Can! Our Climate, Our Future, Your Decision:
(Robert van Waarden)
Activists gather at Blackheath climate camp, Climate Camp website, Plane Stupid website:
The Great Climate Swoop
Death of Ian Tomlinson.
Errol Morris' blog, a series on Lying ... & Oscar Wilde's The Decay of Lying.
Site 41 protest has some success: Contentious landfill put on hold, or is it just 'delay and forget' tactics?
Glencolton Farms, The Bovine (blog), You can help finance Glencolton Farms.
What kind of a reprobate do you have to have become? how can anyone be against a Township named 'Springwater', or The Kiwanis Club? It's unbelievable ... inconceivable ... undeniable!
Globe pundit solves world problems!
With a solipsism!
One size fits all (just like condoms), from continuing unsustainable growth to Moammar Gadhafi.
"You Can't Stand In The Way Of Progress, Nope, nope nope." (Neil Reynolds, below)
Appendices:
1. Israeli Arab diplomat ban mooted, BBC, Monday 24 August 2009.
2. Contentious landfill put on hold, Joe Friesen, Wednesday Aug 26 2009.
3. The greening of coal, the fuel of the future, Neil Reynolds, Wednesday Aug 26 2009.
4. Harper hints at appeal of Khadr ruling, Bill Curry, Saturday Aug 15 2009.
5. Ottawa's ‘masochistic' Khadr decision assailed, Bill Curry, Tuesday Aug 25 2009.
6. Terrorist makes plea for clemency, Colin Freeze, Tuesday Aug 25 2009.
7. Saad Khalid's statement, Globe Aug 25 (incomplete).
8. Terrorist's plea for mercy: 'I am not a lunatic', Colin Freeze, Wednesday repeat with different headline.
9. Activists gather at climate camp, BBC, Wednesday 26 August 2009.
10. Greenpeace film dives into the 'oily belly of the beast', Calgary Herald, August 17 2009.
11. Measuring the Damage of our 'Water Footprint', Samiha Shafy, 08/26/2009.
12. Ativistas do Greenpeace colocam cartaz gigante sobre geleira suíça, Ambiente Brasil, 26/08/2009.
13. Ativistas contra mudança climática armam barracas em Londres, Ambiente Brasil, 27/08/2009.
14. Climate change protesters to pitch tents in London, Peter Griffiths, Wed Aug 26 2009.
15. Open Letter to the Met, Camp for Climate Action, August 20 2009.
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Israeli Arab diplomat ban mooted, BBC, Monday 24 August 2009.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has proposed a new regulation that would prevent most Israeli Arabs from becoming career diplomats. He said that only those who complete military service should be eligible for training with the foreign ministry. This would exclude most Arab citizens, who do not serve in the army, as well as ultra-Orthodox Jews, who are exempted from conscription.
Mr Lieberman said he would propose a law to parliament, if necessary.
Current Israeli law guarantees all citizens equal access to the civil service.
More than five Israeli Arabs, Muslims and Christians, currently work as diplomats in the foreign ministry, the Israeli Haaretz newspaper reported.
Mr Lieberman's proposal came at a foreign ministry administrative meeting.
Israeli Arabs, who make up about a fifth of Israel's population, roughly 1.45 million people, are of Palestinian Arab descent.
During the war that surrounded the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, hundreds of thousands of Arabs were forced from or fled their homes.
Those who remained within what became Israel, and their descendents, have been granted citizenship and are known as Israeli Arabs.
Israeli Arabs are citizens of Israel - although their "civic duty" differs as they are exempt from compulsory military service.
But Israeli Arabs frequently describe themselves as "second-class citizens" and say they face institutional and social discrimination.
Mr Lieberman, a hard-line nationalist, has previously tried to sponsor laws requiring Israeli Arabs to swear allegiance to Israel as a Jewish state and to ban Israeli Arabs from marking the Nakba - the Palestinian "catastrophe" of 1948.
These measures have not been enacted, though laws stopping state funding for organisations and activities that reject the existence of Israel as a Jewish state have.
***************************************************************************
Contentious landfill put on hold, Joe Friesen, Wednesday Aug 26 2009.
One-year moratorium on Site 41 likely spells the end of a plan to build a landfill atop a pure-water aquifer
Midhurst, Ont. — Environmental activists won a significant victory in the 25-year battle over the construction of a contentious garbage dump in Simcoe County Tuesday after the county council voted to impose a one-year moratorium on the development of Site 41.
The dump site, located 30 kilometres north of Barrie in Tiny Township, became an environmental cause-célèbre over the years as a broad coalition of natives, local farmers and activists rose up in protest. They argued that the contents of the dump could contaminate some of the world's purest drinking water, which runs through a massive aquifer below the site.
The Simcoe County Council yesterday voted 22-10 in favour of halting construction on the 20-hectare dump, which was being built on a former farm field. Over the last few months a protest camp of more than a dozen tents has been built across from the site and 18 protesters have been arrested. When the result of Tuesday's vote was announced hundreds of dump opponents in the public gallery and hundreds more waiting outside erupted in applause.
It was a victory for the environmental movement, which has tried for years to block the dump. The moratorium sets the stage for another vote next month on whether to kill the project entirely, a vote opponents of Site 41 expect to win based on Tuesday's broad council support.
Maude Barlow, the UN's senior adviser on water issues and president of the Council of Canadians, was one of the most vocal critics of Site 41 and called Tuesday's victory a turning point in the movement to protect water.
“Because this was such an intense fight being watched all over the country, I think you're going to see the same debate start happening everywhere. The shift is going to be from councillors searching for the least contentious place to put a dump to saying how can we have no more dump sites? How can we protect the water?” Ms. Barlow said.
Simcoe County Warden Tony Guergis, who had taken much of the flak for supporting the dump site, is now resigned to seeing the project halted forever. He said he can't understand how a site that was approved by the provincial Ministry of the Environment became so contentious.
“It's clear we can't make decisions locally on such difficult things as waste management,” Mr. Guergis said. “My position is let's not move forward with the site. Let's get out of the waste-management business and clearly indicate to the province that this should not be dealt with at this level.”
He said he doubts that any further environmental study would ease the concerns of activists opposed to seeing the dump in the area. “This has been the most studied site in Ontario. It has all its approvals,” Mr. Guergis said.
“To get public opinion on our side to build this landfill I think is going to be a very difficult thing based on the direction that I think people want.”
The site was originally chosen in the mid-1980s and then rejected by an environmental assessment in 1989. It was approved only after an unusual order-in-council by the Liberal government of former premier David Peterson. Subsequent environmental reviews have declared the site safe, but that assessment is hotly contested by opponents.
Peggy Breckenridge, the mayor of Tiny Township and one of the leading opponents of the dump, said Tuesday's vote is the beginning of the end for Site 41.
“Unless they can prove it's safe, it will be [dead],” Ms. Breckenridge said.
The moratorium will mean no construction can take place before the 2011 construction season, which will be after municipal elections slated for 2010. It's expected that water issues will play an important role in those races. Many councillors said yesterday they want to explore how to incinerate their municipal waste rather than put it in landfills.
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The greening of coal, the fuel of the future, Neil Reynolds, Wednesday Aug 26 2009.
Rivals jockey for space in the new global green-coal industry
The largest power company in Italy, with a significant global presence (95,000 megawatts of generating capacity), Enel SpA operates in 23 countries on four continents and serves more than 60 million customers. Once a state-owned monopoly, it is now a publicly traded company (though Italy's Finance Ministry still owns 20 per cent of the shares and Italy's central bank owns 10 per cent). Enel is a big fan of coal as a fuel of the future and has aggressively embraced the most dramatic advances in clean-coal technology - probably the best hope of breaking the malevolent grip of various oil-exporting dictators and thugs around the world.
Enel's strategic objective is zero-emission power generation from coal and it thinks it can get there with the kind of advanced technology first proved - theoretically - at the federal government's Canmet (Canadian Centre for Mineral and Energy Technology) research labs in suburban Ottawa between 2001 and 2006.
With further research work under way in its own labs, Enel has announced that it will now proceed with the construction in Brindisi, Italy, of a demonstration plant for what it calls the most comprehensive package of green coal-fired technology in the world.
Advanced clean-coal technology strips coal of virtually 100 per cent of its pollutants - sulphur oxides, nitrogen oxides, mercury, particulate matter - and preps these poisons, alchemist-like, for commercial use. At the end of the combustion cycle, nothing remains except ash, a product used to make concrete. It is a closed-loop system, operating without a chimney, and therefore emits nothing into the atmosphere. The theoretical model tested at Canmet captures the coal's carbon dioxide as a compressed liquid, ready either for sale to the oil industry or for underground storage.
Enel's demonstration plant moves clean-coal technology beyond theoretical calculations and marks the beginning of a new global green-coal industry. The company's basic premise is that fossil fuels, and especially coal, will have "a primary role" in the generation of electricity for decades to come - partly because coal provides the only realistic way to ensure a reliable, plentiful and cheap supply of power.
In 2002, coal provided 22 per cent of the power Enel generated; in 2012, coal will produce 50 per cent. By expanding its use of coal, Enel says it will be able to replace oil completely in its generation of electricity. In 2002, oil provided 45 per cent of this power; in 2012, oil will produce zero per cent. (By 2012, renewable energy and natural gas will generate 50 per cent of output.)
An early competitor will be Vattenfall, the big Swedish company (32,000 employees) that dominates power generation in northern Europe.
Last year, Vattenfall commissioned construction in Germany of the world's first "oxy-fired" generation plant - a technology that includes carbon capture and storage. (The "oxy-fired" technology intensifies the combustion process with blasts of pure oxygen; the Enel technology also subjects the combustion process to very high pressure.) Like Enel, Vattenfall has a reputation for aggressive use of clean-coal technologies.
But the United Kingdom can't be counted out, either. In June, the British government announced funding for four commercial-scale demonstration power plants - all coal-fired and all with carbon capture technology. The first plant will begin operation in 2015. In making the announcement, Britain's Energy Minister declared that clean coal would form an integral part of the country's industrial strategy, adding that the U.K. would "lead the world."
Meantime, England-based (though South Korean-owned) Doosan Babcock Energy Co. has begun construction of what it calls a "breakthrough" power plant at its huge science compound in Scotland. This project will include full-scale (40 MW) power generation and will feature specially adapted technology that the company says will permit retrofitting of old coal-fired plants around the world. (Dalton McGuinty, please take note.)
It's actually getting hard to keep up with advances in clean-coal technologies.
Last week, for example, Australia's University of Queensland announced that a chemical engineer named John Zhu has successfully demonstrated a technique that doubles the amount of energy that can be extracted from coal.
Last week, American Electric Power Co. announced plans to build a $330-million (U.S.) demo plant in West Virginia (assuming federal stimulus funding) for the production of clean-coal energy. The company says the commercial-scale project will be operational in 2015. American Electric operates perhaps the biggest coal-fired power plant in the world.
Last week, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory announced that they had developed an organic liquid that strips carbon dioxide and noxious gases from the industrial emissions of existing coal-fired plants.
Last week, the U.S. Department of Energy announced that it is using supersonic shock wave technology to compress carbon dioxide for storage purposes. (To move CO{-2} by pipeline, it must be compressed 100 times normal atmospheric pressure.) Using this jet-engine technology alone, the department said, could boost the useable energy produced in clean-coal plants by 10 per cent.
Not all scientific breakthroughs prove themselves. But it will almost certainly be technology - not taxes - that leads the world to cheap, efficient and green-coal-fuelled electricity production. It will almost certainly be technology that ends Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's alleged ability to use the threat of limiting access to oil to gain the release of a mass-murder terrorist.
***************************************************************************
Harper hints at appeal of Khadr ruling, Bill Curry, Saturday Aug 15 2009.
Federal Court of Appeal upholds decision ordering Ottawa to seek Khadr's return from U.S. military prison
Ottawa — Prime Minister Stephen Harper is hinting his government will fight on in court rather than comply with a second decision ordering his government to ask the Americans to release Omar Khadr from Guantanamo Bay.
Speaking with reporters, Mr. Harper said officials will be reviewing yesterday's 2-1 ruling from the Federal Court of Appeal before announcing the government's next move. However, he twice highlighted the fact that one of the judges sided with the Crown.
“I'm aware there is a decision that has been rendered. Apparently it is a split decision,” Mr. Harper told reporters today in Chelsea, Que.
That comment leads one constitutional expert to predict the government's next move will be to seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.
“I think the federal government would be wanting to hang its hat on the dissent because it so clearly agrees with its position,” says Michael Lynk, the associate dean of law at the University of Western Ontario. “The dissent, in my view, gives them enough hope that - whether or not they win at the Supreme Court - they certainly can wait another eight to 15 months.”
Mr. Khadr is facing criminal prosecution stemming from allegations he killed an American with a hand grenade during a 2002 battle in Afghanistan when he was 15 years old.
Since 2002, he has been held by the United States in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Mr. Khadr's lawyer has said criminal prosecutions there are currently in limbo as the U.S. reconsiders its policies regarding detentions at the military base.
Canada is the only country not to have asked for and received the repatriation of its citizens from Guantanamo and Mr. Khadr is the only remaining detainee from a Western country.
Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae said the government has a moral obligation to seek Mr. Khadr's return.
“The government's legal case has been blown out of the water,” he told reporters at a news conference. Mr. Rae acknowledged there is little public sympathy for the Khadr family, whose late patriarch, Ahmed Said Khadr, had close ties to Osama bin Laden. Yet Mr. Rae said the government must treat all Canadians equally when it comes to human rights.
“Frankly, there isn't a choice,” he said. “We can't choose between different levels of citizenship.”
The federal court ruled in April that Canada must ask the Americans to hand over Mr. Khadr. The federal government appealed, arguing the courts have no business interfering in foreign affairs. In a June hearing, the government's legal team told the three court of appeal justices that such decisions should be left entirely in the hands of the Prime Minister and his cabinet.
While one of the three court of appeal justices agreed with the government, two did not.
In their majority ruling, justices John Evans and Karen Sharlow said Canada must act because Canadian officials violated Mr. Khadr's Charter rights by interrogating him at Guantanamo while he was under duress and then sharing that information with the Americans.
“While Canada may have preferred to stand by and let the proceedings against Mr. Khadr in the United States run their course, the violation of his Charter rights by Canadian officials has removed that option,” the decision states.
“The knowing involvement of Canadian officials in the mistreatment of Mr. Khadr in breach of international human rights law, in particular by interviewing him knowing that he had been deprived of sleep in order to induce him to talk, ‘opens up a different dimension' of a constitutional and justiciable nature,” they wrote.
Mr. Justice Marc Nadon dissented from his two colleagues' position. He agreed with the government's view that the courts should not be deciding whether Canada should request Mr. Khadr's repatriation.
“It is up to Canada, in the exercise of its powers over foreign policy to determine the most appropriate course of action in dealing with the US with regard to Mr. Khadr's situation,” he wrote in a dissenting judgment.
***************************************************************************
Ottawa's ‘masochistic' Khadr decision assailed, Bill Curry, Tuesday Aug 25 2009.
Government to launch Supreme Court appeal of judicial order demanding return of Guantanamo detainee as soon as possible
Amnesty International and federal opposition parties are strongly condemning the Harper government's decision to take the Omar Khadr case to the Supreme Court, warning the move will further stain Canada's international reputation when it comes to defending human rights.
Foreign Affairs minister Lawrence Cannon released a statement Tuesday outlining Ottawa's reasons for seeking leave to appeal to Canada's highest court. The government will ask the Supreme Court of Canada to overturn two lower court rulings that Ottawa must ask Washington to release Mr. Khadr from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and hand him over to Canadian authorities.
Mr. Khadr is the only remaining Western detainee at the detention facility and has been there since 2002. He is accused of killing an American during a battle in Afghanistan when he was 15 years old.
“Our position regarding Mr. Khadr remains unchanged. In fact, it is the same policy held by two previous governments,” reads the statement from Mr. Cannon. “Omar Khadr has been accused of serious crimes (including murder, attempted murder, conspiracy, material support for terrorism and spying, all in violation of the laws of war).”
After years in solitary confinement, Mr. Khadr is now being held with other detainees. His Canadian lawyer, Dennis Edney, describes the area as a “cage,” where his client is chained to the floor.
Mr. Edney said Mr. Khadr is blind in one eye and is slowly losing sight in the other. Prison officials have denied requests for glasses for security reasons.
“This is a government that is mean-spirited,” said Mr. Edney, who has had two recent visits with Mr. Khadr. Mr. Edney suggested there are racial overtones to Ottawa's decision, given that the same government sent a private plane to Mexico last year to bring home Brenda Martin, who was convicted of fraud-related charges.
“Was that because she was an Anglo-Saxon?” he asked.
Mr. Cannon has strenuously objected to previous suggestions that racism is a factor in this case.
Alex Neve, the Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada, said Ottawa's stand is particularly contentious given Mr. Khadr's age at the time of the alleged offences.
“It's been noted all around the world by many that Canada has taken such an extreme stand in this case and there's no question it has tarnished Canada's important and hard-earned reputation as a country that is prepared to stand up for human rights,” said Mr. Neve. “The wanton way in which very serious human rights concerns in this case have just been wholly disregarded have been noted by governments and human rights organizations and the general public right around the world.”
Opposition MPs issued similar condemnations, with Liberal MP Dan McTeague describing the decision to appeal as “appalling” and NDP MP Joe Comartin accusing the government of having a “masochistic streak.”
Mr. Comartin, a lawyer, said that, in his view, there is not enough evidence to charge Mr. Khadr, let alone convict him.
However, David Rittgers, who served in Afghanistan as a U.S. special forces officer and is now a policy analyst with the Washington-based Cato Institute, says the Americans have more evidence in the Khadr case than they do for most other Guantanamo detainees. As a result, Mr. Rittgers said he suspects U.S. officials want the case to continue in a military proceeding or a federal court.
“I suspect that American authorities will be reluctant to release Mr. Khadr to Canada,” he said.
When the Court of Appeal's decision was released this month, two of the three judges agreed with Mr. Khadr's lawyers that Canada must request Mr. Khadr's return because Canadian officials violated his Charter rights in 2003 and 2004.
However, the third judge, Marc Nadon, sided with the government's argument that only the Prime Minister and cabinet – rather than the courts – should have the power to make decisions affecting foreign policy.
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Terrorist makes plea for clemency, Colin Freeze, Tuesday Aug 25 2009.
'I am not a lunatic hell-bent on destruction' of the West, young man tells court today in Brampton, Ont.
Brampton, Ont. — It was a scheme to bomb downtown Toronto that even a confessed conspirator now acknowledges as “a despicable crime.”
Prosecutors say the ringleaders debated whether to plant metal chips in bombs to maximize the number of people injured – and spoke of their co-ordinated explosions dwarfing the impact of the 2005 London subway bombings that killed 50 commuters.
A penitent Saad Khalid Tuesday asked a Superior Court judge for clemency during sentencing.
“I acknowledge that I made a huge mistake and not a day passes by that I am not filled with regret for my role in this despicable crime,” Mr. Khalid told the court.
Having already pleaded guilty to involvement in the foiled bomb plot, he became the first person arrested to speak of the crime.
“I am not a lunatic who is hell-bent on destruction of Western civilization,” said the 22-year-old, who explained that he was a middle-class McMaster University student from a good home. His mistake, he said, arose from a “disagreement on the issue of Canadian foreign policy, specifically Canada's involvement in Afghanistan.”
Although he was a helper and not a mastermind, Mr. Khalid's statement addresses questions that have lingered since his arrest: How real was the bomb plot? And what did the alleged conspirators – raised in Canada – hope to accomplish?
“I know now that resorting to violence is not the way to bring about social or political change,” said Mr. Khalid, wearing a dark suit and a short haircut.
He also told Mr. Justice Bruce Durno he has a better understanding of Islam since being jailed.
On a day when five co-ordinated car bombs in Kandahar killed dozens of Afghan civilians, Mr. Khalid didn't say precisely what he was thinking when he helped unload boxes of fertilizer from the backs of trucks three years ago. That was on June 2, 2006, the day that police swept across the Toronto area to arrest 18 Muslim youth.
Publication bans still shield the identities of Mr. Khalid's co-accused. Nine other adults await trial on terrorism charges that range in severity and scope.
The bomb plot involved a maximum of five of the suspects, including Mr. Khalid, but ongoing secrecy orders and pretrial wrangling have prevented any public discussion of the case.
However, in public documents filed after Mr. Khalid's guilty plea earlier this summer outline the Crown's case. A 37-page statement says the bomb-plot suspects were followed, wiretapped, and infiltrated.
The Crown alleges that only two suspects – not Mr. Khalid – were privy to the full details of the bomb plot.
They are alleged to have discussed targets for fertilizer-laden U-Haul vans rigged with cellphone detonators: The Toronto Stock Exchange, the Toronto headquarters of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, and an unspecified military base along Highway 401.
The man accused of being the ringleader was allegedly spotted at public libraries in Mississauga with “a soldering iron, spools of wire, and batteries,” and searching on Google for terms like “ammonium nitrate,” “nitric acid” and “rocket fuel.” While he is said to have given pagers and computer memory sticks to underlings to avoid police surveillance, the digital devices were intercepted.
It's alleged that the No. 2 bomb plotter was heard discussing the acquisition of chemicals, setting up delivery locations and the purchase of airline tickets to Pakistan.
The document says the two ringleaders said the plot would “screw Stephen Harper.” Other times, they predicted the bombs would “result in Canadians not leaving their homes due to fear” and prompt Canada to withdraw troops from Afghanistan because “it is not tough like Britain or the United States.”
The Crown says in the document the infiltration continued until a couple of underlings in the plot – including Mr. Khalid – were spotted buying corrugated cardboard boxes from Rona Home and Garden and later unloading cartons marked “ammonium nitrate” from a truck. That was the day of the police sting.
Last month, Judge Durno ruled that Mr. Khalid was part of a core group of suspects who were in on the bomb plot. But he also found the accused was unaware of the specifics and willfully blind to the likelihood that the explosions would seriously harm people. RCMP forensics experts suggest the bombs would have killed people in downtown skyscrapers, along with pedestrians, as deadly glass shards rained down.
After Mr. Khalid read his statement, his lawyer argued that his client should get only 10 years in jail – and that his tough pretrial conditions meant he had already served the equivalent of eight.
The court is expected to mete out its punishment next month, but the suspect said he is already consumed with guilt.
***************************************************************************
Saad Khalid's statement, Globe Aug 25 (incomplete).
Note that the on-line version of the statement is incomplete - the words below were transcribed from the latest effort to obfuscate communication, Scribd! worse (if possible) than ^%$#! pdf.
I would like to begin by first accepting responsibility for my actions, I am sure that one would wonder about what drives a young person like me, who comes from a middle class family, was attending university and had all the signs of a promising future to get caught up in what I did. To begin with, I would like to make clear that I was not motivated by a hate for Canada, Canadians, democracy, or Canadian values of freedom, civil liberties and women's rights. Actually, these are values that I admire, I was instead motivated by my disagreement on the issue of Canadian foreign policy, specifically Canada's involvement in Afghanistan, and I had thought that I could have made a difference. I realize that this does not justify my actions in any way but it is important for me to have my motive known so people understand that I am not a lunatic who is hell bent on the destruction of western civilization. I acknowledge that I made a huge mistake and not a day passes by that I am not filled with regret for my role in this despicable crime, I have disappointed my family and myself and will have to live with this for the rest of my life. I never wanted to hurt anyone and am glad that no one ever did.
I want to make it clear to your Honour that since my arrest I have been studying Islam more closely than ever before. I have consulted with elders in my community and I have continued my education to the extent possible. I know now that resorting to violence is not the way to bring about social or political change.
I do wish to move on with my life and I am eager to integrate back into society and contribute to it in a positive way. I hope to complete my education and be an active member of my community but I realize that I need help. I need a second chance and I do not think that keeping me in jail and throwing away the key will be good for society or me. I am still very young and there is a lot of good that 1 can do, If I am further incarcerated however, I will endeavor to further my education by whatever means available to me, I will try to take advantage of any counseling that is available to me and will attempt to make arrangements myself if necessary;
I realize now that there are opportunities that are available to me outside of jail When I am released, I sincerely intend to work hard and do the best I can to make up for all the time 1 have lost, I hope to use education as a tool to make a positive difference in my own life, my community and the world. I still have strong political views that may be shared by other Muslim youth and I want to work towards providing a venue where there can be discussion in hopes of preventing someone going down the same path I did. I do not ever intend to break the law or participate in any activity similar to what led up to my arrest I wish to live a peaceful life and appreciate what I have left of it I want to move on, be with my family and live to make the world a better place,
I would like to take this opportunity to thank my family who has been there for me since the beginning. Words are not enough to describe how much they mean to me. I would also like to thank all my friends and strangers who have shown continued support for my family and me, Your support gives me strength and I hope that I can someday repay you for what you have done for me.
Everyone makes mistakes, takes a slip and falls down, but the reason you fall down is so you can learn how to get up and I am glad to have people who are there to give me a helping hand.
Thank you for taking the time to listen to me.
***************************************************************************
Terrorist's plea for mercy: 'I am not a lunatic', Colin Freeze, Wednesday repeat with different headline.
Saad Khalid, convicted in so-called Toronto 18 plot, acknowledges he 'made a huge mistake' at sentencing hearing
BRAMPTON, ONT. — It was a scheme to bomb downtown Toronto that even a confessed conspirator now acknowledges as "a despicable crime."
Prosecutors say the ringleaders debated whether to plant metal chips in bombs to maximize the number of people injured - and spoke of their co-ordinated explosions dwarfing the impact of the 2005 London subway bombings that killed 50 commuters.
A penitent Saad Khalid yesterday asked a Superior Court judge for clemency during sentencing.
"I acknowledge that I made a huge mistake and not a day passes by that I am not filled with regret for my role in this despicable crime," Mr. Khalid told the court.
Having already pleaded guilty to involvement in the foiled bomb plot, he became the first person arrested to speak of the crime.
"I am not a lunatic who is hell bent on destruction of Western civilization," said the 22-year-old, who explained that he was a middle-class McMaster University student from a good home. His mistake, he said, arose from a "disagreement on the issue of Canadian foreign policy, specifically Canada's involvement in Afghanistan."
Although he was a helper and not a mastermind, Mr. Khalid's statement addresses questions that have lingered since his arrest: How real was the bomb plot? And what did the alleged conspirators - raised in Canada - hope to accomplish?
"I know now that resorting to violence is not the way to bring about social or political change," said Mr. Khalid, wearing a dark suit and sporting a short haircut.
He also told Mr. Justice Bruce Durno that he has a better understanding of Islam since being jailed.
On a day when five co-ordinated car bombs in Kandahar killed dozens of Afghan civilians, Mr. Khalid didn't say precisely what he was thinking when he helped unload boxes of fertilizer from the backs of trucks three years ago. That was on June 2, 2006, the day that police swept across the Toronto area to arrest 18 Muslim youths.
Publication bans still shield the identities of Mr. Khalid's co-accused. Nine other adults await trial on terrorism charges that range in severity and scope.
The bomb plot involved a maximum of five of the suspects, including Mr. Khalid, but ongoing secrecy orders and pretrial wrangling have prevented any public discussion of the case.
However, public documents filed after Mr. Khalid's guilty plea earlier this summer outline the Crown's case. A 37-page statement says the bomb-plot suspects were followed, wiretapped and infiltrated.
The Crown alleges that only two suspects - not Mr. Khalid - were privy to the full details of the bomb plot.
They are alleged to have discussed targets for fertilizer-laden U-Haul vans rigged with cellphone detonators: The Toronto Stock Exchange, the Toronto headquarters of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, and an unspecified military base along Highway 401.
The man accused of being the ringleader was allegedly spotted at public libraries in Mississauga with "a soldering iron, spools of wire and batteries," and searching on Google for terms such as "ammonium nitrate," "nitric acid" and "rocket fuel." While he is said to have given pagers and computer memory sticks to underlings to avoid police surveillance, the digital devices were intercepted.
It's alleged that the No. 2 bomb plotter was heard discussing the acquisition of chemicals, setting up delivery locations and the purchase of airline tickets to Pakistan.
The document says the two ringleaders said the plot would "screw Stephen Harper." Other times, they predicted the bombs would "result in Canadians not leaving their homes due to fear" and prompt Canada to withdraw troops from Afghanistan because "it is not tough like Britain or the United States."
The Crown says in the document the infiltration continued until a couple of underlings in the plot - including Mr. Khalid - were spotted buying corrugated cardboard boxes from Rona and later unloading cartons marked "ammonium nitrate" from a truck. That was the day of the police sting.
Last month, Judge Durno ruled that Mr. Khalid was part of a core group of suspects who were in on the bomb plot. But he also found the accused was unaware of the specifics and willfully blind to the likelihood that the explosions would seriously harm people. RCMP forensics experts suggest the bombs would have killed people in downtown skyscrapers, along with pedestrians as deadly glass shards rained down.
After Mr. Khalid read his statement, his lawyer argued that his client should get only 10 years in jail - and that his tough pretrial conditions meant he had already served the equivalent of eight.
The court is expected to mete out its punishment next month, but the suspect said he is already consumed with guilt.
***************************************************************************
Activists gather at climate camp, BBC, Wednesday 26 August 2009.
About 1,000 climate change protesters are making their way to Blackheath in south-east London where they plan to set up camp for a week.
Activists had been gathering in central London waiting to swoop on a site kept secret by organisers. The protesters were informed by text and Twitter.
The site was chosen because it is within view of the City and near the River Thames, said organisers.
Police said: "We are standing off and allowing people to set up camp".
A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: "We are currently on our way there, making sure the site is secure and people can access it easily.
"We are standing off and allowing people to set up camp as easily and freely as possible".
The first group of activists reached the site off Shooters Hill on bicycles just after 1430 BST. Others are arriving at the site using trains and the Underground.
'Capitalism is crisis'
A statement from organisers said: "From this heath in 1381, preacher John Ball gave what was probably the country's first speech against class oppression.
"What better place to continue the struggle for social justice and the fight against climate change?"
The group said it chose the location as it was "in clear sight of the London City skyline which symbolises the financial and corporate centres of power, and is also within the floodplains of the River Thames, which is at risk of bursting its banks as climate change escalates."
More than 20 vans and lorries were already in place and a temporary wire fence has been erected at the site by camp organisers.
Demonstrators have begun to erect tents for the seven-day camp, which has a banner carrying the words "Capitalism is crisis" at its entrance.
Lizzie Jacobs, an activist, said: "The 'swoop' is one of the most inspiring events to take part in, but it's only the beginning."
Henry Twigger, 41, who travelled to the camp from his home in Nottingham said: "It's certainly big enough for the 3,000 people we are expecting."
More than 50 homes overlook the location which is a short distance away from Blackheath Village.
A 40-year-old woman who lives nearby said: "I just hope it's going to be peaceful. "They could not have picked anywhere more middle class than Blackheath. "We have got a view right across the camp and I guess we will be looking at hundreds of students for the rest of the week."
Revolutionary legacy
The heath was the setting for the Peasant's Revoltuion, which saw thousands of protesters demonstrate against taxes more than 700 years ago.
The site hosted Jack Cade's Kentish rebellion against King Henry VI in 1450, which was followed by the Battle of Deptford Bridge in 1497 during which Cornish rebels camped at the site.
Apart from its revolutionary legacy, the heath is also the starting point for London Marathon.
The camp will end on 2 September.
Activists had repeatedly refused to reveal the final location claiming they did not trust the police. It followed accusations the Metropolitan Police were heavy-handed in policing the G20 protests.
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Greenpeace film dives into the 'oily belly of the beast', Calgary Herald, August 17 2009.
Director hopes to stir debate about oilsands
It was clouds that first got acclaimed filmmaker Peter Mettler interested in Alberta's oilsands.
Not the fluffy white clouds found on gorgeous sunny days, necessarily. But clouds nonetheless.
Since Mettler is probably best known for his trippy, poetic and Genie-winning 2002 documentary Gambling, Gods and LSD, this is perhaps an appropriately surreal explanation as to how the filmmaker entered the divisive world of the oilsands debate.
"I'm making a film that is actually called End of Time," Mettler says in an interview from his home in Toronto.
"Clouds figure into that film. I was looking at what goes into the clouds in different places, also from jungles, oceans and garbage heaps and whatever. The images I'd seen of the tarsands in the winter with all the steam and smog billowing up were intriguing to me."
That exploration has led to his newest documentary, Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands.
It's the first film produced by Greenpeace Canada, which gives a clear indication which side of the fence Mettler sits on when discussing the impact of Alberta's massive oilsands operations on the environment. But the 50-year-old filmmaker--who was once Atom Egoyan's cinematographer and has a number of critically acclaimed documentaries to his name--has enough of a following to guarantee it preaches to people other than the already converted.
In mid-September, it will have its North American debut at the Toronto International Film Festival's Real to Reel program and has already played to an enthusiastic, if perplexed, European crowd with no prior knowledge about the oilsands at a festival in Switzerland recently, where it picked up a jury prize.
Not bad for a film that, at least on the surface, seems like a fairly simple idea. As its title suggests, Petropolis is made up of aerial shots of the oilsands development. With a helicopter and high-definition camera, Mettler hovered high above Alberta's oilsands development, revealing a messy and alien landscape. There are no talking-head interviews, very little voice-overs and only a sparse offering of factual information, making for a visceral experience that is hard to argue with. Over 43 minutes, Mettler's camera slowly pans across the Alberta wilderness and into what Greenpeace refers to as the "oily belly of the beast," revealing a damaged earth and slow-moving, insectlike machines burrowing into the ground. Accompanied by either silence or its minimalist score, the film is both unsettling and hypnotic.
"It's like you cross a border," Mettler says. "You go from something untouched to something that is completely transformed, or completely devoured in a way."
Mettler admits that Greenpeace's involvement will have many seeing his work as unabashed activism. He said he hopes the film simply gets more people thinking about the size of the oilsands project and how quickly it is being developed.
"One of the things that we discussed up front, and I wouldn't want to work any other way, was to present this as a trigger for discourse," Mettler says. "That's how I like to work. And I think (Greenpeace) was thinking of this as a kind of experiment and different approach because it opens to different audiences, especially if it gets into the film festival circuit or on television. And it's interesting from my point of view as a filmmaker and probably many filmmakers out there who are genuinely interested in these issues. We incorporate them into our films, sometimes in very artistic ways, sometimes in hardcore documentary ways. But they are issues we feel are important and that we deal with in our work."
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Measuring the Damage of our 'Water Footprint', Samiha Shafy, 08/26/2009.
A Dutch hydro engineer has come up with a "water footprint." At a conference in Sweden, he and other participants discussed water waste, supermarkets filled with fruits and vegetables produced in some of the world's most arid regions and ways we can stop wasting our most precious resource.
Arjen Hoekstra didn't really stand out in the crowd of 2,000 scientists, activists, politicians and representatives of industry roaming the halls of the Stockholm trade fair. Far more attention-getting figures than the 42-year-old Dutch hydro engineer attended World Water Week in Sweden last week. Asian delegates wore glowing saris. And Indian businessman Bindeshwar Pathak drew flocks of media everywhere he went at the event after being named the recipient of this year's Stockholm Water Prize for inventing a toilet for slum dwellers.
But Hoekstra preferred to keep a low profile at the annual global conference, which focuses on water-related issues. He had nothing to prove. Still despite his apparent efforts to keep a low-profile, Hoekstra's creation served as a magnet for debate here. Hoekstra came up with the idea of the "water footprint."
10,000 Liters of Water for a Pair of Jeans
His equation is actually just a couple of numbers used to describe the amount of water that is used -- or polluted -- during the manufacture of various products. Anyone can calculate their water footprint by looking at the amount of water they use directly and then by looking at the amount of "virtual water" they use -- that is, how much water is used in the production of any goods they consume. The global average for an individual's water footprint is 1,243 cubic meters of water per year. In the US, this goes up to 2,483 cubic meters per year; in Germany it's 1,545 and in China, 702.
Hoekstra's water footprint formula has already made headlines around the world with its estimates of the amount of water that is used or abused in the simple products that are a part of our everyday lives:
* 140 liters of water for one cup of coffee!
* 2,400 liters for a hamburger!
* 10,000 liters for one pair of jeans!
In the dicussions and workshops in Stockholm, participants debated what sort of action should be taken as a result of the water footprint figures. The WWF environmental group first recognized the validity of the water footprint, and further conservation and environmental protection groups as well as the United Nations and the World Bank soon followed suit. Finally, even multinational companies like Nestle, Unilever and Pepsi got on board.
Virtual Water Heading In The Wrong Direction
And they all seem to agree that Hoekstra's numbers could be potentially explosive -- mainly because they make it clear how thoughtlessly water, the most precious of resources, is handled in so many areas. "Because of the international trade in water-intensive products, there are floods of virtual water flowing around the world," Hoekstra said. "And many of them are flowing in the wrong direction, going from water-poor regions to the water-rich."
Mostly these flows involve food, biofuels and cotton. Between 70 and 80 percent of all the water consumption in the world is used for agricultural purposes. The European Union, for example, contributes indirectly to the drying out of the ever-shrinking Aral Sea in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan through its cotton imports from the region. And when the Germans buy ham from Spain or oranges from Israel, they are also contributing to water scarcity in those areas. In fact, Germany, a country that has plenty of water, is one of the biggest importers of virtual water in the world.
Today, around 1.4 billion people live in areas where water is scarce. Climate change, population growth and the flows of virtual water only serve to exascerbate the problem. "By 2050, we will be confronted with the paradoxical situation of having to feed another 2.5 billion people, but with significantly less water," said Colin Chartres, director general of the International Water Management Institute, an internationally funded, non-profit organization looking into ways to improve land and water management.
'In Dry Areas There Should Be No More Agriculture'
Against that backdrop, delegates in Stockholm argued about how realistic Hoekstra's more radical ideas are. "In dry areas there should be no more agriculture," the Dutchman has suggested. His idea involves using the trade in virtual water to rebalance the earth's water budget. Instead of watering desert fields, Egypt would be better off importing beans or millet from Ethiopia, for example. And Australia, where the Outback is one of the world's most arid regions, should also cease to export virtual water in the form of meat, fruit and wine production.
The same arguments could be applied to all of Earth's dry zones -- from the Middle East to northern China and northwestern India to Southern California. Hoekstra says all of these regions could mitigate their water paucity by letting their fields dry up and importing more virtual water. "These water-poor regions need to come up with a new vision for the future," Hoekstra argued. "Just as the oil producing countries, where oil is starting to run out, have had to do."
But what would make any country abandon agriculture, altogether or partially? British environmental researcher Tony Allan, 72, first coined the phrase "virtual water" in the 1990s and he agrees with Hoekstra. "Singapore is an interesting example," he said. "They don't have water sources or agriculture. Ninety percent of their water needs are covered by the import of virtual water. The rest comes from recycling and desalination."
Rich Countries Buying Up Land To Insure Water Supplies
Of course, Allan knows that Singaporean model isn't necessarily appropriate for the rest of the world. Even he admitted that no country would voluntarily give up its agricultural practices in the foreseeable future. "But it is no longer taboo to talk about these things," he noted.
During the Stockholm workshops, experts quickly agreed that new pricing structures could steer the water trade in the right directions. Today, water prices are often distorted through government subsidies to farmers -- mainly because if the subsidies were not there, then agriculture and animal husbandry would very quickly become prohibitively expensive in those dry regions and no longer worthwhile.
Meanwhile, countries like China and Saudia Arabia are buying up large, fertile pieces of land in places like Africa, Asia and Latin America. By buying land instead of food, they are ensuring access to water in the future. The land-grabbing countries aren't alone, either -- they're competing directly with food production giants like Nestle and Coca-Cola, which have been buying up rights to water reservoirs around the world for years.
Many companies are welcoming the increasing debate about water footprints in Stockholm. It's a great opportunity for them to do something to improve their image. Indeed, several large corporations sent whole delegations to Stockholm. At the workshops, the delegates continually repeated the same message: Their employers are trying their very best to leave a smaller water footprint.
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Ativistas do Greenpeace colocam cartaz gigante sobre geleira suíça, Ambiente Brasil, 26/08/2009.
Cerca de 40 militantes da organização ambientalista Greenpeace colocaram um cartaz gigante sobre a geleira suíça de Gorner com a inscrição "Nosso clima - Sua Decisão" nesta terça-feira (25), a fim de pedir aos governantes do mundo que assumam suas responsabilidades sobre o fenômeno da mudança climática.
A inscrição, de 130 metros por 40 metros, é, pelo tamanho, a maior reivindicação de todos os tempos sobre a necessidade de lutar contra a mudança climática. Os ativistas do Greenpeace precisaram de dois dias para conseguir colocá-la.
"Os conhecimentos científicos mais recentes mostram que o aquecimento climático é muito mais rápido e dramático do que se acreditava. Como país alpino, a Suíça é especialmente afetada e o derretimento das geleiras é uma testemunha impressionante disso", afirmou hoje a organização.
O Greenpeace lembra que o governo suíço anunciará amanhã sua decisão sobre a revisão da lei de CO2, o que indicará a posição que assumirá durante a Conferência do Clima da ONU que será realizada em dezembro, em Copenhague.
Por isso, pede que a Suíça, como país industrializado, reduza em 40% suas emissões de CO2 dentro de suas fronteiras até 2020, e que entregue todos os anos 1,3 milhão de francos (840 mil euros) a um fundo mundial para o clima.
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Ativistas contra mudança climática armam barracas em Londres, Ambiente Brasil, 27/08/2009.
Reivindicando a reforma da economia mundial para ajudar a salvar o planeta, ambientalistas se reuniram em Londres na quarta-feira (26) para um acampamento de uma semana de duração que deve representar um dos maiores desafios para a polícia londrina desde as manifestações do G20.
O evento começou tranquilamente, mas seus organizadores disseram que podem lançar ações diretas contra o governo, empresas e instituições financeiras que acusam de não fazer o suficiente para combater o aquecimento global.
Um porta-voz do Acampamento Climático, Kevin Smith, disse que os manifestantes poderão ocupar repartições, acorrentar-se a edifícios ou obstruir ruas.
Os manifestantes esperam intensificar a pressão sobre políticos antes das negociações climáticas internacionais cruciais marcadas para dezembro, na Dinamarca.
Centenas de manifestantes se reuniram em seis pontos espalhados por Londres, incluindo o Banco da Inglaterra, para aguardar a divulgação do endereço do acampamento, que estava sendo mantido em segredo para não alertar a polícia.
Mais tarde, se dirigiram para Blackheath, um parque a três quilômetros ao sul do distrito financeiro de Canary Wharf.
O Acampamento Climático terá chuveiros aquecidos com energia solar, banheiros de compostagem, cozinhas e um playground para crianças, disseram organizadores dos protestos. Assessores jurídicos estarão a postos para aconselhar os manifestantes sobre como lidar com a polícia e para tomar medidas legais diretas.
Haverá workshops diários sobre aquecimento global, economia e protestos, além de ioga e meditação.
A polícia manteve postura discreta diante do banco central inglês, onde cerca de cem manifestantes com mochilas e barracas conversavam em grupinhos.
A polícia de Londres foi fortemente criticada pela maneira como lidou com os protestos na reunião do G20, em abril, nos quais um jornaleiro morreu depois de ser empurrado por um policial durante manifestação perto do banco central.
Duzentos policiais adicionais foram convocados de todo o país para formar uma força de 500 homens para cobrir o acampamento, que a polícia estima que deve atrair entre mil e 1.500 ativistas.
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Climate change protesters to pitch tents in London, Peter Griffiths, Wed Aug 26 2009.
LONDON (Reuters) - Environmentalists demanding an overhaul of the world economy to help save the planet met in London Wednesday for a week-long camp, one of the biggest tests of the capital's police since the G20 demonstrations.
While the event got off to a quiet start, organizers said they may take direct action against the government, companies and financial institutions they blame for failing to do enough to tackle global warming.
That could mean protesters occupying offices, locking themselves to buildings or blocking roads, according to Climate Camp spokesman Kevin Smith.
"I would be very surprised if someone didn't superglue themselves to something," he said. "We are saying we can't maintain economic growth and deal with climate change."
They hope to raise pressure on politicians before crucial international climate change talks in Denmark in December.
Several hundred protesters met at six locations across London, including the Bank of England, to wait for the site's address. It was kept secret to avoid alerting the police.
They later headed for the campsite on Blackheath, a park two miles south of the Canary Wharf financial district.
The Climate Camp will have solar-heated showers, compost toilets, kitchens and a children's play area, organizers said. Legal experts will be on hand to give protesters advice on dealing with the police and taking direct action.
Daily workshops will teach people about global warming, economics and protesting, as well as yoga and meditation.
Police kept a low profile at the central bank, where about 100 protesters with backpacks and tents chatted in small groups or sat quietly on the steps of the Royal Exchange, an upmarket shopping center.
A crowd of about 50 people, some with their faces painted with peace signs, gathered at the London offices of BP Plc.
"We want to send a very clear message to BP: Get the hell out of the tar sands," said magazine editor Jess Worth, 34, referring to a BP project to extract oil from tar sands in Alberta, Canada.
The camp will be a challenge for London's police force after it faced heavy criticism for its handling of G20 protests in April, when a newspaper seller died after being shoved by a policeman during a protest near the central bank.
About 200 extra officers have been drafted in from across Britain to create a 500-strong force to cover the camp, which police estimate will attract between 1,000 and 1,500 activists.
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Open Letter to the Met, Camp for Climate Action, August 20 2009.
Open Letter FAO Chief Superintendent Ian Thomas,
New Scotland Yard
London SW1H 0BG
Dear Chief Superintendent Thomas,
On August 17th, you wrote to the Camp for Climate Action, requesting further information on the location of our next Camp, which will take place from August 27th to September 2nd, somewhere in the London area. You say that you require this information in order to help with “community liaison”, to ensure the Camp is a “safe and healthy” event, and to help you put a “pre-planned and proportionate policing operation” in place. We are writing this open letter in order to alleviate your concerns, and to make our position clear both to yourself and to the public.
Community liaison has been a vital part of every Climate Camp. At Drax in 2006, Heathrow in 2007 and Kingsnorth in 2008, we put a lot of time and effort into spending time with local residents and allaying people’s concerns, and this year will be no different. We have a good track record of building community support for the Camp and for climate change campaigning, we’ve already been in touch with local Councils across London, and our friendly outreach volunteers will be chatting to the locals from the moment we arrive on site. We plan to be excellent neighbours for as long as we’re there, we’ll be open and welcoming to any local residents with questions or concerns, and we’ll leave the site spotless when it’s time to go.
As regards health and safety – thanks for your concern, but again we’ve got it under control. As with previous Camps, we’ll have great food, water, compost toilets, a team of medics, a wellbeing space, excellent on-site communication, emergency vehicle access, and a family space. We also have a “Safer Spaces” policy and a “Tranquillity Team” to help keep the site free from oppressive behaviour or aggro. Anyone who’s spent time at past Camps will tell you how friendly and safe the atmosphere is – better than most mainstream festivals.
Of course, there is one unfortunate exception to all of this. While most visitors to previous Camps have had an inspiring and positive experience, some of us have had to suffer violence, intimidation, theft, sleep deprivation and harassment, thanks to past examples of “pre-planned and proportionate policing operations”. Local communities have been disrupted by police road closures and indiscriminate stops-and-searches. Members of the public have been attacked with batons or arrested on trumped-up charges simply for standing on the perimeter of a campsite (nearly all of them have now been acquitted or had their charges dropped). Judging from past experience, the best thing the police could do to ensure the health and safety of the public at Climate Camp 2009 would be to stay as far away from it as possible.
Bearing all of this in mind, I hope that you, and the public, understand why we don’t feel able to reveal the precise location of the Camp at this time. Every other aspect of the Camp has been organised in an open, accountable and democratic way, via monthly public meetings. The only secret is the location. There’s a simple reason for this: I’m afraid we just don’t trust the police. Why? Because it seems as though every time we have a protest, the police turn up and start hitting people. Look what happened at the G20. That’s not really a very good way to win people over.
Just because you’ve started using friendlier language and talking about “lighter-touch” policing, do you really think we’re suddenly going to believe you’re our friends? Just a few weeks back the Big Green Gathering was shut down by the police on spurious grounds, for “political” reasons. If the police are really trying to build up trust within the climate action movement, then that’s a funny way to go about it.
The precise location of the Camp for Climate Action 2009 will be announced via mass text as part of the exciting August 26th “Swoop”. I’m afraid you’ll just have to sign up on our website, and wait for the updates just like everybody else!
Yours sincerely,
The Camp for Climate Action Media Team
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