The Agonist - Global Politics and Culture

US submits Zimbabwe sanctions resolution at UN

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:18:42 -0700

Harare | July 3

AFP -

The United States on Thursday formally submitted a sanctions resolution in the UN Security Council that would target Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and 11 of his aides.

US Ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters here that he hoped that the text, which would also impose an arms embargo on the Harare regime, would be voted upon by the 15-member council next week.

The text would slap an assets freeze and a travel ban on Mugabe, Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono, Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa and nine others for their role in abetting the state-sponsored violence against the opposition, repressing human rights or undermining democracy.

It would condemn the Harare government's decision to proceed with last Friday's one-man runoff presidential election won by Mugabe "and the campaign of violence against the political opposition, which has resulted in scores of deaths, thousands of injuries... making it impossible for a free and fair election to occur."

Canadian poll: Give U.S. deserters status

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 07:32:24 -0700

Toronto | July 2

UPI - Nearly two-thirds of Canadians polled said they support Canada giving defecting U.S. soldiers permanent resident status.

The online Angus Reid survey of 1,001 Canadians found 64 percent of respondents favor giving refuge to an estimated 200 U.S. soldiers who didn't want to fight in Iraq. By gender, the poll found women (69 percent) were more supportive of the defectors than men (57 percent).

Early last month, Parliament passed a non-binding resolution by a 137-110 vote, to freeze the deportation of U.S. deserters, but the minority Conservative government is going ahead with one high-profile case involving Corey Glass, who fled to Toronto from the California National Guard two years ago, the Toronto Sun reported.

India blows up a monsoon

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 06:10:04 -0700

M K Bhadrakumar | July 3

Asia Times - Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has made a very calculated political - and potentially dangerous - move to seal the much-delayed civilian nuclear accord with the United States. The deal, though, is only one piece on the chessboard of India's global ambitions that includes the key players of Pakistan, Iran and the United States. But it's the weather that could decide Manmohan's and the chess game's fate.

Where's the global food crisis taking us?

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 05:57:04 -0700

Ruth Gidley | July 3

Reuters - In five years' time, we could be living in a world where millions are dying in famines with no food aid to hand, regular storms and droughts wipe out acres of crops, and skyrocketing food prices have created global political panic, food experts say.

But there might be a way out. Or a combination of ways.

"(The) tectonic plates are shifting on food... the fundamentals are changing." Timothy Lang, a researcher for British-based foreign policy think tank Chatham House, said at a talk in London this week.

Food costs have shot upwards so quickly that even a consumer in a rich country who doesn't usually keep track of the price of bread will have noticed it. And anyone who counts the pennies has been feeling the pinch already, as global food prices have risen 83 percent over the last three years.

The food crisis is intimately linked to energy factors and environmental issues, Lang and his colleagues argue, and they need to be tackled together.

Ankle-biting hackers storm net's overlords, hijack their domains

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:42:30 -0700

Dan Goodin | San Francisco | June 27

The Register - The websites of two of the net's most critical oversight organizations were hijacked by Turkish hackers who sent visitors to rogue pages that challenged the overseers' authority.

Some of the official domains for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) were temporarily under the control of a group that calls itself NetDevilz, according to zone-h, which tracks hijackings of individual websites. Specific domains that were hijacked included "icann.com," "icann.net," "iana.com" and "iana-servers.com."

Men like casual sex more than women – scientific fact

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 05:12:07 -0700

Steve Connor | The Guardian

It is now a truth acknowledged even by science: men like casual sex more than women do.

One of the first academic studies to investigate positive and negative emotions felt after casual sex has revealed that evolution has not adapted women to having casual sex. Otherwise, they conclude, women would feel better about a one-night sexual partner, instead of feeling "used" and regretful.

Men are biologically capable of reproduction with many women, which may explain their apparent happiness with casual relationships. But for women it is quality, not quantity that is important, said Professor Campbell.

"Recently, biologists have suggested that females could benefit from mating with many men – it would increase the genetic diversity of their children and, if a high-quality man would not stay with them, they might at least get his excellent genes for that child," she said

Well alrighty then, be a slut and have smart kids

From arms deals in Africa to oil speculation in China - the mercenary world of Mark Thatcher

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 20:49:18 -0700

Kim Sengupta | June 26

Independent - Mark Thatcher, say those who know him, has always liked two things: the limelight and wealth. But in the recent past the former prime minister's son has been remarkably elusive, hiding his money-making activities from the public eye, keeping away from the minor celebrity events which were once his regular haunts.

Perhaps it is not surprising. He is on the run from Equatorial Guinea and the safest place for him at the moment is Spain's Costa del Sol – the infamous bolthole of Englishmen who have issues with the law.

But The Independent has established that his new-found reticence has not stopped Sir Mark from staying in the oil business, a venture, he declares, he finds hugely lucrative. Like most enterprises he has taken part in the exact details of what he does are rather hazy: "Oil futures", he would say airily when someone asks. "..

Re-Emergent Fidel Castro Meets Chinese Official

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 19:33:12 -0700

Havana | June 25

Reuters - Former Cuban President Fidel Castro, who has raised his public profile in recent days, met on Tuesday with a Chinese official and told him he spends his days gathering information and analyzing policy for Cuba's leadership, state-run media reported.

After almost two years behind the scenes due to health problems, Castro has re-emerged in the past week with several high-level meetings and a spate of newspaper columns, including a biting blast at what he called the "enormous hypocrisy" of the European Union.

Cuban television said Castro and China's top anti-graft official, He Guoqiang, had a "cordial and fraternal" meeting that included an invitation from He to the ailing 81-year-old to attend the upcoming Beijing Olympics.

Castro, the report said, spoke of "the advances of the Chinese people" and the "importance of the concept of socialism with Chinese characteristics."

Biofuels pushing 30 million into poverty - Oxfam

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 19:23:24 -0700

Pete Harrison | Brussels | June 25

Reuters - Biofuels are responsible for 30 percent of the increase in global food prices, pushing 30 million people worldwide into poverty, aid agency Oxfam said in a report on Wednesday.

The use of biofuels is soaring as developed countries try to reduce their dependence on imported oil and cut emissions of carbon dioxide, but critics say they have led to a shortage of grain, pushing up commodity prices.

"Rich countries' demands for more biofuels in their transport fuels are causing spiralling production and food inflation," said Oxfam biofuel policy adviser Rob Bailey, who wrote the report. "Grain reserves are now at an all-time low."

Latin America May Halt Trade Talks Over EU Immigration Rules

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 08:02:53 -0700

June 23

Deutche Welle - A new EU law that calls for the swift deportation of illegal immigrants has been loudly criticized by Latin America, which has threatened to halt trade talks as a result.

In an effort to have illegal immigrants treated equally across the bloc, the European Parliament has passed a controversial deportation law. Now, some Latin American countries, especially those with many immigrants in Europe, are protesting the measures. Millions of Latin Americans live in Europe, many from poor Andean countries and war-weary Colombia.

The EU Returns Directive regulates the deportation of illegal immigrants to their country of origin. Under the law, an illegal immigrant will have two options: either "return" home or face "removal." The directive also allows clandestine migrants to be detained for up to 18 months, and face a five-year travel ban after being deported.

Rhetoric reached new heights on Saturday, June 21, when Ecuador's President Rafael Correa warned that trade talks between the EU and the Andean Community could be suspended if the 27 member bloc pushes ahead with the new law.

"What do we have to talk about with a union of countries that criminalizes immigrants?" Reuters news agency quoted him as telling a radio broadcast. "It will be very hard to talk business and ignore human rights."

Man dies in Ontario police custody after taser used

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 06:23:58 -0700

June 24

CTV.ca - A 36-year-old Ontario man is dead after a confrontation with Ontario Provincial Police on Monday during which he was Tasered by officers.The death comes just days after the RCMP said it would restrict the user of the controversial Taser device.

Sgt. Pierre Chamberland said police were responding to a report of a man causing a disturbance in Norfolk County, about 130 kilometres southwest of Toronto, at about 10:30 a.m. ET Monday. "Upon arrival police located a male who was combative and during the encounter police had to deploy a conducted energy weapon," Chamberland told CTV's Canada AM on Tuesday.Chamberland would not say whether the man was known to police or whether the Taser was used more than once.

George Carlin 1937-2008

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 02:36:22 -0700

June 23

Reuters -

Comedian George Carlin, a counter-culture hero famed for his routines about drugs, dirty words and the demise of humanity, died of heart failure at a Los Angeles-area hospital on Sunday. He was 71. Carlin, who had a history of heart and drug-dependency problems, died at Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica about 6 p.m. PDT (9 p.m. EDT) after being admitted earlier in the afternoon for chest pains, spokesman Jeff Abraham told Reuters.

"We're all f*cked. It helps to remember that." --George Carlin

World's Ugliest Dog

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 07:32:01 -0700

3 legs, 1 eye, no hair

Syria to cooperate with nuclear team on its own terms

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 06:43:36 -0700

Damascus | June 21

AFP - UN atomic inspectors begin a three-day visit to Syria on Sunday to probe allegations that a mysterious site bombed by Israel last year was a nuclear facility.

Syria has said it is ready to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency team led by IAEA deputy Olli Heinonen, but would only allow them to visit the remote desert site of Al-Kibar on the Euphrates River.

"Syria invited the IAEA and will cooperate with it," President Bashar al-Assad said this month, dismissing allegations made by the United States and Israel that the bombed site was a nuclear facility.

"It is a military facility... it is not nuclear," he said again last week before a landmark visit to nuclear power India.

Robert Fisk: Today's despot is tomorrow's statesman

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 06:32:43 -0700

June 21

How are the mighty fallen, we used to say. Now we turn it round. How did the fallen become mighty again? Remember the "mad dog of the Middle East" – Reagan's stupid cliché – the "terrorist" sponsor who even sent a shipload of guns to the IRA? A certain Moammar Ghazzafi – there are 17 different ways of spelling his name in Latin script – was the crazed leader of Libya who wrote a mind-numbingly boring volume of pseudo philosophy called The Green Book and who wanted to mock the White House by calling his own palace the Green House until someone tipped him off that this would mean he would look even more of a cabbage than he already was.

Then suddenly, he gave up some imaginary weapons of mass destruction and Anthony Blair, now the commercial director of World Faith, went out to fawn over him in Tripoli and he was called "statesmanlike" by the absurd Jack Straw and then he was invited to Paris by the even more absurd Nicolas Sarkozy where he right royally made the French president look like a twat by behaving in an extremely unstatesmanlike way.

And now – bingo – Sarkozy has done it again. This time it's Bashar al-Assad, another presumed "sponsor of world terror" – this twaddle comes from Washington, of course – who will (if he accepts the invitation française) be in Paris on Bastille Day to take his place in the reviewing stand at the end of the Champs Elysées. The man whom millions of Lebanese believe plotted the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri in Beirut on 14 February 2005 will thus be receiving one of France's highest honours: to stand beside the French president as he reviews his military forces. MORE