Tuesday, September 18, 2007

RONA Vs Greenpeace

What is behind Greenpeace's attack on RONA three weeks ago? The Eastern Canadian home retailer, who has a strong base in Quebec.

Canada's largest home renovation retailer said yesterday it cannot comply with the more environmentally friendly lumber standards demanded by Greenpeace.

About 75 per cent of the lumber products sold at RONA Inc. stores meet the environmental standards of three certifying bodies, a company spokesperson said. But of that 75 per cent, only 15 per cent of wood meets the standards of the Forest Stewardship Council, often considered the most stringent certification program.

Earlier this week, Greenpeace blasted RONA and other retailers for using suppliers that chop down trees from endangered areas of Canada's Boreal Forest.


Canada's forest companies are no angels. For more than a century after Confederation they were, in fact, looters. But government-mandated reforestation and advances in silviculture since then make it hard to swallow Greenpeace's claims that Canada's boreal forest is "indisputably" sick.

What's indisputable is that the boreal forest is a massive storehouse of greenhouse gases that covers 58 per cent of Canada's territory. That 70 per cent of it is commercially inaccessible. That only 0.5 per cent is logged in any given year. That Canada has a deforestation rate of zero. And that in Ontario and Quebec, Abitibi and Kruger are cutting much less than their annual allotment in the face of slumping lumber prices.

What's more, forestry engineers - a group that indisputably loves the forest every bit as much as Greenpeace - marvel at the boreal forest's capacity to regenerate itself more than any other type of forest in the world. Experts are also finding that self-regeneration - whether after natural fires, insect epidemics or logging by humans - may be a more effective way to promote biodiversity than intensive replanting.

All of which makes Greenpeace's attack on Abitibi curious enough. But why does Rona get blacklisted and not IKEA or Home Depot? Greenpeace says it's because the latter two retailers have made specific undertakings to source FSC products. But IKEA conceded in April that only 4 per cent of the wood used in its Chinese factories - the source of most of its furniture - meets the FSC grade.

Much of the wood used in Chinese furniture manufacturing is illegally logged in Russia and Myanmar.

Massive deforestation in Russia, Asia and South America is a real, verifiable, contributor to global warming. And when reforestation occurs, it's on plantations, as in China or Brazil, where such monoculture is biodiversity's worst enemy. Yet, those are the same countries whose low-cost lumber, pulp, paper and furniture are decimating Canada's forest industry.



RONA (TSX: RON), the largest Canadian distributor and retailer of hardware, home renovation and gardening products, has been made aware of a document published earlier today by Greenpeace and wishes to make the following clarification.

Sustainable development has long been a priority at RONA. The Company has a responsible purchasing policy that applies to all of its products. With respect to forest products, the Company does not buy any product derived from endangered species and favours the purchase of products that bear Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), Canadian Standards Association (CSA) and Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) as well as ISO 14001 certifications. Furthermore, RONA ensures that all of the goods it procures, whether forest products or other, have been produced in conditions that respect human rights and the environment. RONA applies these principles in its choice of suppliers, sub-contractors and other business partners.

Over the past 10 years, RONA has recovered 3.6 million containers of paint in Quebec, or over 30% of all paint recovered in the province. Left unrecovered, old paint may be poured out into nature - a real threat to the environment. By promoting the recovery of these products, RONA is offering the public an economical and ecological alternative to burial in landfills or incineration.

From collection points at stores across RONA's Quebec network, the old paint and containers are then sent to the RONA distribution centre in Boucherville. From there, the old paint is sent to Peintures recuperees du Quebec. About 80% of the old paint is reconditioned and put back on the market. Leftover latex and alkyd paint, stain and varnish are all accepted in the recovery and recycling program.


RONA (TSX:RON), the largest Canadian distributor and retailer of hardware, home renovation and gardening products, has announced a 9.1% increase in sales and an 11.6% increase in operating income for the second quarter of 2007. This increase in sales and income can be attributed to acquisitions made in the last 12 months and additional measures taken at the beginning of the quarter to stimulate sales and earnings growth in a business environment that was more difficult than anticipated.

Net earnings increased by $6.2 million or 7.7%, from $80.0 million in the second quarter of 2006 to $86.2 million in the second quarter of this year.

Operating income reached $161.8 million in the second quarter of 2007, an increase of $16.8 million, or 11.6%, over 2006. EBITDA margin rose from 10.8% in 2006 to 11.0% in the second quarter of 2007.

Net earnings for the second quarter of 2007 stood at $86.2 million, or $0.74 per share, diluted, compared to $80.0 million in 2006 or $0.69 per share, diluted. This represents an increase of 7.7% in net earnings and 7.2% in diluted earnings per share.


Well its a back handed attack on Abitibi which is in merger talks with American forestry products company Bowater.

In a recent report, Greenpeace cited logging and pulp companies such as Abitibi-Consolidated, Bowater, Kruger and SFK Pulp as being directly responsible for destroying nearly 200,000 square kilometres of boreal forest.

The activists charged pulp manufacture, SFK Pulp, with purchasing wood
chips from destructive logging operations. Two of the main suppliers of wood
chips to SFK Pulp, Abitibi-Consolidated and Bowater, log in the last remaining
intact areas of the Boreal Forest, in the habitat of threatened species as
woodland caribou, and in areas where industrial logging is opposed by local
First Nations.
"Logging companies like Abitibi-Consolidated and Bowater continue to deny
that there's anything wrong in Canada's forests," said Ferguson. "But anyone
who's seen the satellite images showing massive fragmentation, the scientific
reports showing species extirpation, and the news reports describing closure
after closure of mills and towns knows different."

A detailed new Greenpeace report,Consuming Canada's Boreal Forest: The Chain Of Destruction From Logging Companies To Consumers, traces the journey of clear-cut trees from virgin boreal stands to retail store shelves.

The group fingers what it calls the worst despoilers of northern timberland: Abitibi-Consolidated Inc., Bowater Incorporated and Kruger. The first two merged last month, creating a corporate colossus with cutting rights to an area of the Ontario and Quebec boreal as big as the state of Nebraska.

Also named are a list of retailers buying products from the three – part of a campaign to get firms to buy forest products made either from recycled material or from logging operations certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.

Consuming Canada's Boreal Forest: The Chain Of Destruction From Logging Companies To Consumers,

The report release follows on the hanging of a massive banner from the Montreal headquarters of Abitibi-Consolidated two weeks ago. Canada’s Boreal Forest stretches across the north of the country, from Newfoundland to the Yukon. It represents a quarter of the world’s remaining intact ancient forests and stores 47.5 billion tonnes of carbon in its soils and trees. Ontario and Quebec's intact Boreal Forest represent 14% and 18%, respectively, of the entire country’s intact forest areas.

The demands of the Logging Companies are to:
o Cease logging in all intact forest areas, caribou habitat, and mapped endangered forests immediately, and work with governments and nongovernmental organizations to formally protect these areas;
o Shift to FSC certification across all tenures to ensure environmentally and socially responsible management of these forested areas, and ensure all products are FSC-certified;
o Commit publicly to not pursue licensing and new logging activities in currently unallocated areas of the Boreal Forest; and
o Refrain from logging without the prior and informed consent of First Nations whose territories are affected.



Left Nationalists like Mel Hurtig and Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians may want to ask Greenpeace if this really helps Canada. Attacking indigenous capitalist industries like Abitibi and Rona.

While we ponder the silence over the sale of Abitibi to Bowater in the MSM and among the politicians. You see that was yesterday's news. Before Alcan and Stelco.

A union representing forestry workers said the move by Abitibi and Bowater should cause concern in government and community circles.

"There are many issues underlying this announced merger which should raise alarm bells in Ottawa," said David Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada. "Our forest-based industries and communities are already in crisis with the loss of some 10,000 jobs over the past few years.

"Our history with mergers and acquisitions has been that so-called 'synergies' really mean more mill closures, job losses and devastation in our communities," he said.

The deal continues a wave of consolidation in the forestry sector as companies try to get bigger to deal with increased competition and to cut an increase in operating costs due to higher fuel, transportation and raw material costs and the rising Canadian dollar.

For example, Montreal-based Domtar (TSX: DTC) is expected to soon close a $3.3-billion deal to muscle up its operations by merging with the fine paper division of U.S.-based Weyerhaeuser, one of the world's largest forestry companies.

The marriage of Abitibi and Bowater is just the latest move in a tectonic shift that sees North America forestry players jostling to grow and compete with the rest of the world, said Bowater president and CEO David Paterson, who will move to Montreal to head the new corporate entity.

"This is a continuation of what I see as a long-term trend of a globalization of the market, that North American companies have to be able to compete with Asian, South American and European producers and they have to do that from a low-cost platform and that's what we're trying to create here."


However the merger is still in the works. Abitibi-Consolidated and Bowater Provide Merger Update

And with the high dollar and housing crash in the U.S. comes the warning of more plant closings.

The double blow of slowing home construction and falling newsprint demand is hitting wood and paper companies and forcing them to try to adapt quickly. The strategies of choice: consolidation and cost-cutting.

Shareholders of Montreal-based Abitibi-Consolidated Inc. (nyse: ABY - news - people ) and Bowater Inc. (nyse: BOW - news - people ), based in South Carolina, approved a deal last month to combine the two companies. U.S. regulators still need to give approval before the two can become AbitibiBowater Inc., which would be the third-largest forest products company in North America.

The deal could close by the end of September, and may lead to plant closures.

"U.S. regulators are expected to require mill closures in order to let the merger go through," Banc of America Securities analyst George Staphos told investors in an industry update last week.

Since May, Abitibi shares have dropped 21 percent, Bowater fell 23 percent, International Paper by 16 percent and Weyerhaeuser 21 percent.




But in
Roberval–Lac-Saint-Jean it was a crucial issue, leading to the election of a Mayor who can get things done. Grease the palms, bring in a bit of largese; some federally funded development projects to offset in some small way the devastation occurring in primary forestry in the region.

Quebec experienced the greatest decline in the country, as production decreased by 20.4 per cent to 1.18 million cubic metres, or 19.1 per cent of total Canadian output.

Quebec's production has declined monthly by double digits since July 2006.

Producers face reduced overall harvest quotas from the provincial government. They have also reduced volumes to fit a quota agreed to under option B of the softwood lumber agreement with the United States.


As Jean Paul Blackburn has in the neighboring riding. After all Abitibi is the major employer in that region.

The new mega forestry giant Abitibi/Bowater will face a tremendous responsibility
to employees and their communities as the planning now begins to integrate the two paper companies.

Abitibi-Consolidated and Bowater will now put the troops to work planning detailed integration of their global pulp and paper and lumber business. Both company’s Canadian mills are being bled by high energy and fibre costs and especially by the Canadian dollar’s surge – as all products are sold in U.S. dollars. “Costs will have to be cut right across the system,” said David Paterson, Bowater’s CEO who will become CEO of the new Abitibi/Bowater. John Weaver of Abitibi-Consolidated would not comment on possible rationalization in eastern Canada, where the highest cost mills are located.
While Bowater has to pay for a less than stellar environmental record.
Bowater Inc. will pay $42.5 million to Weyerhaeuser Co. to settle a dispute over costs at a Canadian pulp and paper plant Bowater sold to the company in 1998. Bowater and Washington-based Weyerhaeuser (NYSE:WY) have been arbitrating a claim regarding the cost of environmental matters related to the mill.


And while the Conservatives assert a lassiez faire attitude to corporate takeovers, try and pawn the disaster that their Softwood Agreement onto the Charest government, they realize that Quebec expects state capitalism in some form. And that is how you keep seats.

 MONTREAL, Sept. 7 /CNW Telbec/ - A new Leger Marketing poll commissioned
by Greenpeace reveals that 86 per cent of Quebecers support the suspension of
logging in the last remaining intact areas of Boreal Forest in the province.
Additionally, only 18% per cent of respondents believe that forest
companies and the government of Quebec are managing forests in a way that
serves the public interest and forest workers.
"The public's lack of confidence in the government and logging companies
is significant," said Melissa Filion, a forest campaigner with Greenpeace.
"Without taking quick and concrete action to protect the forest, the
government and logging companies will not regain the public's trust."

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Denis Lebel Nationalist

As newly elected Roberval–Lac-Saint-Jean Conservative MP Denis Lebel told CPAC last night "I am a nationalist and Mr. Harper knows that." Well that says it all. Harper played the Mulroney nationalist card and has won over voters from the BQ as well as the ADQ.

In fact this can also be seen in Saint Hyacinthe-Bagot which went neck and neck all night between the BQ and the Conservatives. While the NDP came in third there. In playing the nationalist card Harper bought himself a round of support in rural Quebec. It is the nationalists in rural Quebec who voted Conservative as they do BQ.


The NDP on the other hand are now a viable left wing alternative to the BQ in Quebec. Their position on the War and the Environment resonated with voters in Outremont and will in other urban Quebec ridings come the general election. Mulcair's acceptance speech last night emphasized that he was the Peace Candidate first and then the Environmental Candidate. The war will be as big an issue as the environment come the general election and that bodes well for the NDP.

"Today, Quebec has chosen a new direction," NDP Leader Jack Layton told supporters in Outremont, and praised them for "making history and changing the direction of politics in Quebec and across Canada. For the future we are hoping that what people see here now about the NDP is something that we are going to be able to take to the ballot box, not only in the election here in Quebec but the rest of Canada as well, as people realize we are a national party with representation everywhere," he said.


The Liberals lost last night, in all three by-elections and thus they can no longer claim the mantle of the Natural Governing Party. They can no longer take Quebec for granted and will be forced to retreat to Ontario as their base. They are no more important in Quebec now than the NDP and anyone who says they are a player needs only look at their standing in Roberval and Saint-Hyacinthe after last night. Those are not big numbers.

In a Liberal nightmare scenario-turned-reality, the party lost a traditional Montreal fortress and was reduced to single-digit support in two other Quebec ridings. A party that owned the province through much of Canada's history has now fallen below what was supposed to be the nadir of the post-sponsorship election last year.

Francophones deserted the party in all three ridings on Monday. Their last remaining stranglehold on multi-ethnic, federalist pockets of Montreal was slackened.



And in Roberval–Lac-Saint-Jean
the Liberal candidate was high profile, a businesswoman who was head of the Chamber of Commerce, while the NDP ran a parachute part time candidate. She certainly lost big for the Liberals.

With high profile candidates the NDP can make a break through in the next election in Quebec while the Liberals will need to rebuild. Something they have failed to do for the past year. Petulant over Dion's victory, the Quebec Liberals abandoned the party to work for Charest and his victory should have been telling about the party's loss of power in Quebec. And last night was the result of their petulance.


The finger-pointing began before the ballot boxes even closed.

Some said it was incompetence on the part of Liberal officials. Others said it was the result of leadership rivals sabotaging the Liberal campaign.

Less than a year after Liberal Leader Stephane Dion moved to reunite his party after a winning a bloody leadership race, that fragile unity was in danger last night and questions swirled about his leadership ability after his party was shut out in three byelections — including the traditionally Liberal bastion of Outremont.

Liberal insiders recount a litany of organizational problems with the Outremont campaign, including an apparent power struggle between members of Dion’s entourage and personnel in the Quebec wing’s headquarters. For example, while some in the Quebec wing tried to keep Dion’s appearances in Quebec to a minimum, personnel in Dion’s office insisted on him making trips to his home province to campaign.

Fuelling the discontent even more was an article published over the weekend in which unnamed Liberal supporters of Dion and Michael Ignatieff traded barbs over whether the poor campaign was the result of incompetence, or of sabotage by Ignatieff supporters trying to undermine Dion’s leadership.
And so while the Liberals regroup some to lick their wounds and others to sharpening their knives. Good thing then that newly elected Saint- Hyacinthe MP Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac is not a Liberal.


Born in Vietnam, Thai Thi Lac was adopted by Quebecois parents and raised from the age of two on a local farm. She speaks French and reminded voters of her local roots by telling them during the campaign that, unlike the other candidates, she knows how to castrate a pig.


SEE:

Sept. 11 for Dion

Politics is Local

Quebec By-elections




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Monday, September 17, 2007

Sept. 11 for Dion

Dion in Outremont conceding Liberal defeat in all three Quebec by-elections, as seen on CPAC.

"When a general election comes we will remember this evening
of Sept 11 err Sept 17"


Uh oh Freudian slip.


And thanks to Far and Wide for setting up a live blog in on the by-election.

SEE:

Politics is Local

Quebec By-elections




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Stating The Obvious Redux


"the Iraq War is largely about oil." Allan Greenspan.


And all the U.S. media and pundits are all agog over this confession. Well duh, what did you think it was about? The funniest was to hear Chris Matthews on Hardball refer to Greenspan's analysis as Marxist. Hey I said that here.

Matthews: "So if you're in the European left and never liked Bush, to start with, now you got his Fed chairman say it's all about oil, you love it, right? This is the old Marxist analysis."
Yet some folks in the White House continue to live the lie, and remain in implausible denial.

In the book, "The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World," Greenspan writes, "the Iraq war is largely about oil." The comments, released before publication, put Defense Secretary Robert Gates on the defensive as he made the Sunday talk-show rounds following major recommendations on war policy last week.

"I know the same allegation was made about the Gulf War in 1991, and I just don't don't believe it's true," Gates said, appearing on ABC's "This Week."

But it was as much about oil then as it was being the first high tech war declaring the New World Order of the 21st Century. Just as this war was about oil and revenge.

Jill Zuckman, Chicago Tribune: "I think this is one of the reasons why what Greenspan says has so much resonance because this is the Texas oil crowd in the White House and so-"

Matthews: "The oil patch crowd."

Zuckman: "-people assume that a lot of what they do is motivated."

Matthews: "Okay let me ask you this. Exxon, Mobil, making tens of billions of dollars in profits this year. So the war worked out well for them right?"

Zuckman: "Yes and we can pay crazy amounts of money at the pump."

Matthews: "Should we put Exxon signs up over Arlington Cemetery and Mobil signs up there, like they have at baseball stadiums?"

And Halliburton, Bechtel and Blackwater too.



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Bank Run

While all those folks on the cable Business news channels in the U.S. and on Fox on the weekend were navel gazing over whether the U.S. economy was in a pending recession or not they missed this run on the bank. One caused by the U.S. mortgage meltdown.

Of course that's because it was in the UK. And banks were open on Saturday. BBC showed folks lined up outside the Northern Rock mortgage bank waiting to remove their deposits something not seen in any other market correction, err
crash, since 1929. "Remember, 1928 was a credit bubble that popped in '29"

DR EAMONN BUTLER, ADAM SMITH INSTITUTE

My economics teachers used to say that the days of a 'run on the bank' were long over.

It might have caused problems in the 1930s, but modern banking controls and accounting had consigned bank runs to economic history's dustbin.

WILL HUTTON, THE WORK FOUNDATION

We are in the middle of a bank run.

We've never seen it on this scale in Britain - of a major bank - since the 19th century.


This is a sure indicator of a recession.

The firm has been withering under the harsh spotlight of media glare on the mortgage-lending mess, ever since it came to light Friday that Northern Rock needed a British central-bank bailout. Unfortunately, the bank built its lending business on taking in loads of short-term borrowings, followed by loan securitization and sales. Over the past few months, as credit markets have finally decided to reevaluate risk, both ends of that pipeline have gotten seriously clogged.

THE BANK OF ENGLAND HAD NO choice but to agree to provide emergency liquidity last week to ailing U.K. mortgage lender Northern Rock, even at the risk of being seen as supporting a bank with a flawed business model.

Clearly, Northern Rock's customers and the impact that the lender's collapse would have on the rest of the U.K. banking sector, the housing market and the broader economy have been uppermost in the BoE's mind.

The queues of customers outside Northern Rock's branches Friday, seeking to withdraw their savings despite assurances from the central bank and the government that Northern Rock (ticker: NRK.U.K.) is fundamentally sound, proves the point.

But investors aren't buying the idea that Northern Rock will weather the liquidity crunch. The stock was down 25%, to 483 pence (about $9.85), in late Friday trading in London, even though the bank is in no immediate danger of going under.

Northern Rock isn't guilty of reckless lending. The problem is that the bank, the U.K.'s fifth-largest mortgage lender, sources a large proportion of its funding from the wholesale market through covered bonds and the securitization of mortgages. Only 25% of its funding comes from customers' deposits, versus 65% for a typical U.K. bank.

This wouldn't happen in Canada, though the picture below is from the 1832 bank run in Montreal, because Purdy Crawford has ridden to the rescue.

The image “http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1c/Montreal_City_Bank_Run.gif” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

See:

Sub Prime Exploitation

Canadian Banks and The Great Depression

Wall Street Deja Vu

Housing Crash the New S&L Crisis

US Housing Market Crash


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Politics is Local

If the Conservatives win the byelection in Roberval-Lac-St-Jean today it will be because this former BQ stronghold has seen a neighboring riding get largese from their Conservative MP Jean Blackburn, and because the Conservative candidate is a former Mayor who is personally popular as this CPAC report shows. Harpers coat tails will not count as much as local politics.

And while all politics is local, it is also interesting that in CPAC's coverage of all three by-elections the top national issue discussed was Afghanistan.

Quebec By-elections


Watch the Video

Carole-Anne Guay looks at the by-election taking place on September 17, 2007 in the Quebec riding of Roberval-Lac-St-Jean.

SEE:

Quebec By-elections




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Moral Turpitude Is Spelled Blackwater

This is what happens when you contract out your war to private armies.

"A state that privatizes most of its functions will inevitably defend itself by employing its own people as mercenaries-with equally profound strategic consequences. " Philip Bobbitt

- Iraq's Interior Ministry canceled the license of controversial American security firm Blackwater USA today after Iraqi officials charged that eight civilians were shot by company bodyguards accompanying a U.S. State Department motorcade the day before in Baghdad.

"It has been revoked," said Brig. Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf, a spokesman for the ministry. "They committed a crime. The judicial system will take action."

The decision marks Iraq's boldest step yet to assert itself against foreign security contractors, who arrived in Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. Blackwater has become the symbol of foreign gunmen accused by many Iraqis of speeding through Baghdad's streets and shooting wildly at anyone seen as a threat.

moral turpitude

1. depravity
2. (law) Any base or vile conduct, contrary to accepted morals, that accompanies a crime

turpitude

"depravity, infamy," 1490, from M.Fr. turpitude (1417), from L. turpitudinem (nom. turpitudo) "baseness," from turpis "vile, ugly, base, shameful," used in both the moral and the physical senses; of unknown origin. Perhaps originally "what one turns away from" (cf. L. trepit "he turns").

TURPITUDE - Everything done contrary to justice, honesty, modesty or good morals, is said to be done with turpitude.

Moral Turpitude is a legal concept in the USA, which refers to "conduct that is considered contrary to community standards of justice, honesty, or good morals"

Blackwater was founded by an extreme right-wing fundamentalist Christian mega-millionaire ex- Navy SEAL named Erik Prince, the scion of a wealthy conservative family that bankrolls far-right-wing causes.

Erik Prince was political at a very early age and watched as his father used his company as a cash-generating engine to fuel the rise of what we now know as the religious right in this country, as well as the Republican Revolution of 1994. His father gave the seed money to Gary Bauer to found the Family Research Council. Young Erik Prince was in the first crop of interns to serve at the Family Research Council. They gave significant funding to James Dobson and his group Focus on the Family, which is now sort of the premier evangelical organizing network in this country, the “prayer warriors.”

Personnel

Blackwater's president, Gary Jackson, and other business unit leaders are former Navy SEALs. Blackwater was founded and is owned by Erik Prince, who is also a former Navy SEAL.

Prince and Jackson are also major contributors to the Republican party. In addition, Prince was an intern in George H.W. Bush's White House and campaigned for Pat Buchanan in 1992.

Cofer Black, the company's current vice chairman, was the Bush adminstration's top counterterrorism official when 9/11 occurred. In 2002, he famously stated: "There was before 9/11 and after 9/11. After 9/11, the gloves come off." But Black is not alone, Blackwater has become home to a significant number of former senior CIA and Pentagon officials. Robert Richer became the firm's Vice President of Intelligence immediately after he resigned his position as Associate Deputy Director of Operations in fall 2005. He is formerly the head of the CIA's Near East Division.

In October 2006, Kenneth Starr, independent counsel in the impeachment case of Bill Clinton in 1999, represented Blackwater in front of the US Supreme Court in a case related to the March 2004 killing of four Blackwater employees in Fallujah, Iraq. In response to that event, Blackwater also hired the Republican lobbying and PR firm, the Alexander Strategy Group.

Iraq pulls Blackwater license
Ahmad Al-Rubaye / AFP / Getty Images
Blackwater USA contractors secure the site of a roadside explosion in central Baghdad in 2005. The U.S. Embassy said that the Blackwater convoy accused of killing eight civilians during a shootout on Sunday had come under fire, and some local Iraqi television accounts reported an exchange of gunfire at the scene in Baghdad.


The Iraqi government said Monday that it was revoking the license of an American security firm accused of involvement in the deaths of eight civilians in a firefight that followed a car bomb explosion near a State Department motorcade.

Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul-Karim Khalaf said eight civilians were killed and 13 were wounded when contractors believed to be working for Blackwater USA opened fire in a predominantly Sunni neighborhood of western Baghdad.

"We have canceled the license of Blackwater and prevented them from working all over Iraqi territory. We will also refer those involved to Iraqi judicial authorities," Khalaf said.

The spokesman said witness reports pointed to Blackwater involvement but said the shooting was still under investigation. It was not immediately clear if the measure against Blackwater was intended to be temporary or permanent.

Blackwater, based in Moyock, N.C., provides security for many U.S. civilian operations in the country.

The secretive company, run by a former Navy SEAL, has an estimated 1,000 employees in Iraq and at least $800 million in government contracts. It is one of the most high-profile security firms in Iraq, with its fleet of "Little Bird" helicopters and armed door gunners swarming Baghdad and beyond.

The decision to pull the license was likely to be challenged, as it would be a major blow to a company at the forefront of one of the main turning points in the war.

The 2004 battle of Fallujah — an unsuccessful military assault in which an estimated 27 U.S. Marines were killed, along with an unknown number of civilians — was retaliation for the killing, maiming and burning of four Blackwater guards in that city by a mob of insurgents.

Tens of thousands of foreign private security contractors work in Iraq — some with automatic weapons, body armor, helicopters and bulletproof vehicles — to provide protection for Westerners and dignitaries in Iraq as the country has plummeted toward anarchy and civil war.

Monday's action against Blackwater was likely to give the unpopular government a boost, given Iraqis' dislike of the contractors.

Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani called the shootings "a crime that we cannot be silent about."

Many of the contractors have been accused of indiscriminately firing at American and Iraqi troops, and of shooting to death an unknown number of Iraqi citizens who got too close to their heavily armed convoys, but none has faced charges or prosecution.

"There have been so many innocent people they've killed over there, and they just keep doing it," said Katy Helvenston, the mother of Steve Helvenston, a Blackwater contractor who died during the 2004 ambush in Fallujah. "They have just a callous disregard for life."

Helvenston is now part of a lawsuit that accuses Blackwater of cutting corners that ultimately led to the death of her son and three others.

The question of whether they could face prosecution is legally murky. Unlike soldiers, the contractors are not bound by the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Under a special provision secured by American-occupying forces, they are exempt from prosecution by Iraqis for crimes committed there.

Khalaf, however, denied that.

The embassy also refused to answer any questions on Blackwater's status or legal issues, saying it was seeking clarification on the issue as part of the investigation, which was being carried out by the State Department's diplomatic security service and law enforcement officials working with the Iraqi government and the U.S. military.

Is there even a license to revoke? Buzz on the contractor street is that it isn't clear how this development will affect Blackwater. Allegedly, Blackwater doesn't have a "license" to revoke, and its contracts with the State Department and CIA may not be immediately affected. This could play out in an interesting (albeit depressing) powerplay between the al-Maliki, Iraq's Ministry of Interior, and the U.S. Government.

The issue of accountability is a troubling one, however, as Scahill reveals the Blackwater operatives are essentially above the law in Iraq. They can’t be prosecuted under military law because they’re civilians. But they have little to worry about from civilian law in the chaos of Iraq.

At one point in the book, a politician confronts a military official and claims Blackwater agents can get away with murder, and the official more or less admits he’s right. It’s a point that’s highlighted by another video featuring an alleged mercenary shooting people at random on a highway in Iraq (YouTube link).

It was inevitable. Private military contractors have been involve din all sorts of questionable incidents, since the very start of the Iraq enterprise. U.S. military officers frequently expressed their frustrations with sharing the battlefield with such private forces operating under their own rules and agendas, and worry about the consequences for their own operations. For example, Brigadier General Karl Horst, deputy commander of the US 3rd Infantry Division (responsible for Baghdad area) tellingly put it two years back, “These guys run loose in this country and do stupid stuff. There’s no authority over them, so you can’t come down on them hard when they escalate force. They shoot people, and someone else has to deal with the aftermath.”

Karel Prinsloo/AP, File
A U.S. private security officer, with his face covered against dust, on board a Chinook helicopter in Iraq.

Blackwater Guards Accused of Past Deaths

NEW YORK (AP) — In the past year, employees of the Blackwater USA security firm have been involved in other incidents in which they were accused of killing civilians and security forces in Iraq.

On Dec. 24, 2006, a drunken Blackwater employee shot and killed a bodyguard for Iraq's Shiite vice president, Adel Abdul-Mahdi, according to Iraqi and U.S. officials.

The contractor had gotten lost on the way back to his barracks in the Green Zone and fired at least seven times when he was confronted by 30-year-old Raheem Khalaf Saadoun, an official in the vice president's office said on condition of anonymity because the case is still under investigation.

The contractor fled after the incident. Eventually, he made his way to the U.S. Embassy, where Blackwater officials arranged to have him flown home to the U.S., said American officials.

Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said earlier this year the company was cooperating with investigators from the Justice Department and the FBI. She declined to provide further details.

In May, Blackwater guards under contract to the State Department were involved in two other shootings in Iraq.

In one, a Blackwater guard shot to death an Iraqi deemed to be driving too close to a security detail near the Interior Ministry in Baghdad, enraging Iraqis. At the time, Tyrrell said the guard acted lawfully and appropriately, given the incident reports and witness accounts.

A day earlier, Blackwater guards and Interior Ministry forces exchanged gunfire on the streets of the capital. A passing U.S. military convoy intervened and stopped the fighting.





The Nation's Jeremy Scahill describes the rise of Blackwater USA, the world's most powerful mercenary army.


"As the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen (Muslims) ... it is declared ... that no pretext arising from religious opinion shall ever product an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries....
"The United States is not a Christian nation any more than it is a Jewish or a Mohammedan nation."


-- Treaty of Tripoli
(1797), carried unanimously by the Senate and signed into law by John Adams (the original language is by Joel Barlow, US Consul)

PAMBLOQ Rules! Yesss!!

SEE:

IRAQ- THIS WAR IS ABOUT PRIVATIZATION

Bad News For Bush

U.S. Supplies Iraqi Insurgents With Weapons

Surge Blackout



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a href="http://tagcentral.net/?tag=President" bush="" rel="tag">President Bush,
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Sunday, September 16, 2007

Capitalism and Islam

Dubai World Begins MGM Mirage Tender

Ah good old capitalism it will make a believer out of Muslim businessmen yet.

Dubai's proposed purchase of a 9.5 per cent stake, as well as a 50 per cent share in MGM's $7bn CityCenter project, for a total outlay of $5bn, stunned the gaming industry when it was announced last week.

They invest in gambling while prohibiting it to believers. Making money off the vices of the infidel.

While it won't be just another day at the office, Nevada gambling regulators say they're ready to dig into a mass of paperwork to be filed in the $5.1 billion investment that the Persian Gulf state of Dubai is making in MGM Mirage.

The deal marks the first time a state has applied for a Nevada gambling license. And the applicant is part of a Middle Eastern emirate that strictly forbids gambling for its citizens.

Notice there has been no hew and cry about Dubai World buying MGM. Nope not a peep. Of course Congress is off on holidays. But what about Lou Dobbs? Nope not a peep.

MGM needs the investment money with credit drying up because of the sub-prime melt down.

Las Vegas Not Exempt From Money Woes

A silver lining to this means the hotel workers can be assured that management will meet their contract demands.
MGM Mirage workers: Unions approve contract


While on the global level it means the Gulf States, UAE, are using Dubai to create Arab capital to compete against other national capital. Since they have little in the way of military power in the region, they are amassing capital to compete with the other imperial powers.

Qatar Offers $2 Billion to Buy Nasdaq’s Share in London Stock Exchange

SABIC Concludes Purchase of GE Plastic Business



They are using their capital to further their own political agenda in the region;
Gulf’s Federation of Chambers of Commerce Welcome Free Trade with Iran

And typical of capitalism they have created a metropolis a capitol of capital in the region; Dubai.

Sovereign Wealth Funds: The Growth and Challenges of State-Sponsored Investments

A combination of an unprecedented volume of oil revenues in the last three years and a staggering American trade deficit have been the main causes of foreign exchange reserve buildup in countries around the world—specifically in the Gulf region (oil revenues) and East Asia (current account surplus). As economist Michael Pettis explains, “…it seems reasonably certain that what has powered the [globalization] boom in the last decade is the recycling of the massive U.S. trade deficit. As central banks and sovereign funds accumulate reserves as the flip side of the U.S. trade deficit, excess U.S. consumption is being converted into global excess savings.”

China and the Gulf countries, excluding Kuwait, actively ensure the growth of their respective sovereign wealth funds by holding down their exchange rates in order to retain the dollar amount of their funds, which draw on dollar-denominated oil revenues. Kuwait is the only Gulf country to have un-pegged its currency from the dollar as a measure to combat inflation. Saudi Arabia does not consider it in its interest to follow suit.

In addition to rapidly accelerating oil revenues, capital appreciation and dividends on initial country investments caused incomes to snowball long before the SWF became an investment vehicle. For instance, the father of Dubai’s current ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, defied skeptics by investing a large part of the emirate’s oil revenue into developing the Jebel Ali Port in the 1970’s. The port is now one of if not the world’s busiest ports, and has firmly established Dubai as the region’s trading and transit hub.


Dubai World Ports Might Offer IPO of $4.2 Billion

On the other hand, the QE2's future is settled. Sold for $100 million, it will become a hotel permanently docked in Dubai, and many past passengers view that as a good thing.

Halliburton Spin-Off Positive

The KBR spin-off and an increased push in the Eastern Hemisphere through a headquarters in Dubai are both positive developments for Halliburton (NYSE: HAL). The spin-off of the high volume, low margin KBR business removes distractions, improves operational focus, and makes Halliburton a pure-play on the oilfield service market.


Ahmed Lotfy relocates to Dubai, strengthens Halliburton’s regional presence


Halliburton Company (NYSE:HAL) announced today that Ahmed Lotfy, Senior Vice President – Eastern Hemisphere, is relocating to Dubai following the opening of a second corporate headquarters office for Halliburton in the centrally located Gulf city.



Gone are the days when the oil sheikdoms simply amassed personal wealth and engaged in conspicuous consumption. Now that capital is being used to take on the imperial powers at home as the case of MGM and OMX show and by attracting their TNC's, like Halliburton, to Dubai.


Changing Patterns of Investment in the Gulf Region: The Case of Dubai

The massive increase in oil revenues in most of the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)—Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait—has created unprecedented opportunities for the building of infrastructure, the provision of social services and, at the same time, for investments overseas.

These investments have been channeled through two principal pipelines—acquisition of assets and the purchase of shares in high quality financial and industrial firms. According to the London daily al-Sharq al-Awsat of August 13, the Gulf countries have channeled $140 billion into overseas investments in the last three years. In a relatively short time, some of the Gulf countries have become respectable actors on the international financial scene.

At the same time, a hospitable investment environment, the privatization of state-owned entities and the prospects of mutually profitable deals have attracted a massive influx of Western financial services and industry to the Gulf region. The opening of the real estate market for foreign investors, particularly in Dubai, has created a massive construction boom which is fueling economic growth at a rapid rate.

The purpose of this article is to shed light on the investment activities of Dubai, and how an enlightened and entrepreneurial leadership has turned what was a small desert outpost just a few decades ago into a bustling metropolis with a vigorous economy that is subject to both envy and emulation.

In contrast to the earlier oil booms of the 1970’s and 1980’s, however, these countries are not squandering their oil revenues on spending sprees, but rather are focusing on diversifying their assets and buttressing their fiscal solvency through massive investment schemes.

Dubai, one of the seven emirates that make up the UAE, in particular, exemplifies the investment trends of the Middle East, mostly on account of the fact that it is an investment powerhouse out of necessity. The emirate seeks to open itself to and extend its reach within international markets in order to hedge any risk it faces due to the steady decline of its oil and gas reserves, which are expected to reach depletion within twenty years. Dubai currently has a strong penchant for the real-estate sector, but is learning to thoroughly diversify its assets in its search for some high-yielding financial instruments.

The current generation of economic and industry ministers in the Gulf region is largely composed of men who began their careers in the private sector. This correlates with efforts in almost all MENA countries to increase the privatization of state-owned entities in an attempt to create an “open market” atmosphere. As the Middle East daily al-Sharq al-Awsat reported on August 8, 2007, an international investment firm in Kuwait noted that privatization trends in Gulf countries—which are competing amongst themselves to become the next global “financial capitol”—are reflected in the flow of private capital into publicly traded stocks and other financial instruments. In 2006 this amount totaled $7.07 billion, which was a 61.6% increase over the previous year.

The Carlyle Group LP says that the Middle East is now the “hot spot” for private equity deals, and HSBC reports that as much as one third of all project finance involves Middle Eastern projects. Dubai is a particular hub of this activity. The chief executive of oil services company Halliburton has recently opted to relocate at least part of the company’s corporate and executive headquarters from Houston to Dubai. Other prospective buyers of property in the emirate include Oracle, Cisco and Microsoft.

Expanding Horizons

While Western banking, financial and information technology industries are rapidly being drawn to the Gulf countries, Gulf investment is not necessarily giving preferential treatment to the Western hemisphere that has largely responsible for its explosion of financial power.

While it is true that various emirate companies invested $3.5 billion in the US last year, many of those same companies are also shifting their interest to Asian markets on account of the falling dollar and for the sake of diversification:

- Dubai International Capital and DIFC Investments are working to extend their reach into Pakistan, India and South Korea.

- Istithmar’s real estate arm, which is part of the Dubai World group of companies, plans to increase the 5% of its assets it has invested in Asia to 30% within five years.

- The Dubai government firm Emaar is responsible for the housing boom taking place across Asia, most recently securing a deal to construct a 1,200-hectare project, set on the pristine Mandalika Beach, estimated at $600 million in worth.

- Remaining oil exports in the Dubai are being used to help launch the Dubai Mercantile Exchange, a joint venture with Nymex that is to create a futures market for Mideast crude oil exported to Asia.

- Dubai Ports World, in its attempt to double its capacity in 10 years, is developing terminals in China, India, Vietnam and Pakistan.

These investment patterns place the Gulf region, and especially Dubai, in a unique position. As relationships increase in number and depth within certain markets, namely Iran and China, diplomatic ties with Washington and Europe will probably occasionally feel a squeeze.

SEE:

At Least It's Not Dubai Ports

Calgary Fraud Funds Dubai Boom



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Saturday, September 15, 2007

Ezra Levant Does Not Speak For Me



Hey Fellow Albertan does Ezra Levant Speak For You?

Well he sure as hell does not speak for me.


Let CBC know.




Dear Eugene Plawiuk:

I write to acknowledge your e-mail which I am sharing with Sharon Musgrave, the Producer of "Politics" so that she may be aware of your concerns.

Yours truly,

Vince Carlin
Ombudsman, CBC

If you agree post this on your blog

Hey CBC

Does Not Speak For Me!







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