OTTAWA (CP)
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Festival Officials Order Removal of Peace Banner Welcoming Dixie Chicks
Matthew Behrens
Homes Not Bombs
“Freedom of speech is also supposed to be a Canadian tradition, but not so, ironically, at the September 12 world premiere of the new Barbara Kopple film “Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing,” which documents the group’s 2003 world tour and the fallout from their anti-war comments.”
TORONTO, SEPTEMBER 13, 2006 — Among the many terms that have entered the public lexicon under the Bush regime, from “extraordinary rendition” (getting kidnapped and deported to torture) to “shock and awe” (the
devastating physical, emotional, and psychological impact from a U.S. military assault), one of the most unique is the term “getting Dixie-Chicked.”
Choice quote from the article below:
Alan M. Dershowitz, the lawyer and Harvard Law School professor, said he doubted whether many of the current buyers would ever actually read the book.
Paul Beingessner
September 24, 2006
“If Canada’s new government is funnelling money to this effort, is the government registered as a lobbyist to itself? And should farm newspapers ever trust another letter to the editor from a farmer who hates the CWB?”
The discussion over the future of the Canadian Wheat Board takes new twists weekly. Some are mysterious. Some are just way too funny. At least it won’t be dull in the farm community for the next couple months.
Canadian Press
Thursday, September 21, 2006
LEAMINGTON, Ont. (CP) - Migrant farm workers at three farms in Quebec and one in Manitoba have voted to join the United Farm and Commercial Workers Union.
The union called the vote a “historical breakthrough” which could eventually impact thousands of migrant agricultural workers brought each season to Canada.
by Anil Netto
Inter Press Service
September 19, 2006
SINGAPORE - The World Bank receives more from developing countries than what it disburses to them says a new report released Tuesday as finance ministers endorsed a controversial new Bank plan to tackle corruption in developing countries.
The Social Watch Report 2006, released here at the annual meetings of the Bank group and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), stressed the need to reform the current international financial structure. Net transfers (disbursements minus repayments minus interest payments) to developing countries from the Bank and the International Bank for Reconstruction (IBRD), have been negative every year since 1991, the report pointed out.
The IBRD is now not making any contribution to development finance other than providing funds to service its outstanding claims.
Let’s be Realists, let’s demand the impossible!
SLAVOJ ZIZEK
In These Times
30 August 2006
One of the most repulsive moments of the present Middle East conflict occurred after one of Hezbollah’s rockets killed two Israeli-Arab children: Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah pointedly apologized only for these deaths, thus making it clear that there is nothing to regret in the deaths of Israeli civilians. Doesn’t this make clear the ethical difference between Hezbollah and the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), which always regret civilian casualties among the Lebanese, perceiving them as a necessary evil?
However, upon a closer look, this clear opposition gets blurred. The IDF always emphasize how Hezbollah locates its headquarters and arms in the midst of densely populated areas, well aware that any attack on Hezbollah strongholds will thus lead to large numbers of innocent civilian casualties. While certainly true to some extent, the problem is: Why does Israel, fully aware of these tactics, still bomb the sites? The obvious answer is that it believes the deaths of innocents are worth the price of hurting Hezbollah.
Let’s try a mental experiment and imagine that, instead of Lebanese women and children, the human shields used by Hezbollah were Israeli women and children. Would the IDF still consider the price affordable and continue the bombing? If the answer is “no,” then the IDF is effectively practicing racism, determining that Jewish life has more value than Arab life. No wonder that, in order to defend the IDF’s tactics, Alan Dershowitz recently introduced in the Los Angeles Times a gradation between civilians, distinguishing between the “totally innocent” Israeli civilians threatened by the Hezbollah rockets and the not-so-innocent Lebanese civilians.
Job Title: Publisher
Publication: Briarpatch Magazine
Job location: Regina, Saskatchewan
Competition closes: September 22, 2006
Briarpatch Magazine invites applications for the full-time position of Publisher. Based in the Regina office, the Publisher works collaboratively with the Managing Editor and reports directly to a volunteer board of directors.
By Nicolas J S Davies
Online Journal
Sep 11, 2006
George W. Bush’s speech on September 6 amounted to a public confession to criminal violations of the 1996 War Crimes Act. He implicitly admitted authorizing disappearances, extrajudicial imprisonment, torture, transporting prisoners between countries and denying the International Committee of the Red Cross access to prisoners.
These are all serious violations of the Geneva Conventions. The War Crimes Act makes grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and all violations of Common Article 3 punishable by fines, imprisonment or, if death results to the victim, the death penalty.
At the same time, Bush asked Congress to amend the War Crimes Act in order to retroactively protect him and other U.S. officials from prosecution for these crimes, and from civil lawsuits arising from them. Read the rest of this entry »
Letter to the Editor
From celebrity headlines to daily pro-war editorials, there is much that this country’s two national newspapers share. On Thursday, they took their editorial kinship to the absurd when both papers published the same dubious letter by Helen Sterzer [Jack in the box - letter, 7 September] What’s more, neither paper identified the letter writer as a regular Reform/Conservative candidate and party activist.
Couldn’t the Globe just call on one of the regular letter writers instead of cutting and pasting partisan nonsense from the National Post?
Jon Elmer
Vancouver, BC
