–George Monbiot writes about biofuels and why they cannot be implemented the way that the US government wants. It also seems that Castro agrees with him. I think that it is fairly obvious that there should be some more thought put into a plan that wants to replace growing food with growing fuel for US consumers.

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A special investigation reveals how the Home Office deported a Darfur refugee back to the Sudanese capital, where he was then tortured. He escaped to tell his story, reports Inigo Gilmore.

Are we really to believe that the West is a civilised society when it purposely sends people to areas where they know things like this will happen? We are not only responsible for sending people back to this but we are also share the blame for the cruel governments that are in power in these regions.

–Most of the Left do not like CIDA and see it as an imperialist organisation (they would be correct in this analysis), the problem is that many of these people work for NGOs that get their money through CIDA grants… How about calling for dedicated funding for NGOs that is not filtered through the CIDA bureaucracy.

–Is there still an argument against oversight of the RCMP?

I am leaving Fredericton soon and I am afraid I have to leave part of my library behind. I am offering these books for sale. There are no prices listed, as I have not set any. Simply make an offer to geoffrey_mccormack[at]yahoo[dot]ca and we can determine price on a case by case basis.

All of this in a city that only a year ago was cited as an example of progress toward peace in Iraq by Bush.

–… and the attack on the people and their environment continues.

–Exposing health hazards should not put your job in danger… at least it wouldn’t in country that put the citizens ahead of profit.

–Interesting method of getting the message out.

The main prize is control over pipelines that will deliver an estimated 5 percent of the world’s dwindling energy reserves to market. And the players are far more diverse: In addition to the US, China, France, and India, the region’s five post-Soviet states are getting into the game, giving the local hazards that stalk them – including faltering authoritarian governments, rising Islamic militancy, and a wave of drug trafficking that originates in the poppy fields of Afghanistan – a new international dimension

“The Central Asian countries are still very much locked into the Russian pipelines and infrastructure and must sell their oil and gas to world markets on Russian terms,” says Ivan Saffranchuk, Moscow director of the independent World Security Institute. “The Western idea is that these countries will have real sovereignty only when they are able to independently sell their resources.”

The US strongly backed the recently opened $4 billion Baku-Ceyhan pipeline, which carries Caspian oil to the West without Russian participation. Mr. Suslov says that Washington is urging hydrocarbon-rich Kazakhstan to break free from Russia’s grip and build links to the Baku- Ceyhan network. China has recently managed to buy a key Kazakh oil company and in 2005 a 1,000-mile pipeline began carrying Kazakh crude to China. It reportedly has plans to extend the pipeline westward by 2011 to funnel Caspian oil eastward.

Prices for processed uranium ore, also called U308, or yellowcake, are flying through the stratosphere. Yellowcake is trading at around $90 a pound, nearing the all-time high, adjusted for inflation, of about $120 in the mid-1970s. The price has more than doubled in the past six months. As recently as late 2002, it was below $10.

The fundamental causes of the uninterrupted ascendance of prices since 2003 can be traced to inventory constraints among power companies and a drying up of the excess supply of uranium from old Soviet-era nuclear weapons that was converted to use in power plants, coupled with the expected surge in demand from China, India, Russia and a few other countries for new nuclear power plants to fuel their growing economies.

But many people in the region, including leaders of the Navajo Nation, are not particularly excited to have Pandora and its nuclear bedfellows back in their communities. They have not forgiven the mining and power companies for poisoning their workers and residents, in some cases fatally, with radon, silica and tainted groundwater.

–Have a look at this animation from CUPE. It is a response to the current Federal Budget from the Conservatives.

–James Laxer writes about the current situation in Quebec politics.

“[S]everal sewage projects, including one in the village, had been halted after international funding dried up in the wake of the election victory of Hamas in January last year … A UN report in 2004 had warned that the sewage facility was at its maximum capacity, and flooding was inevitable unless a new waste treatment plant was constructed … The facility, built in the 1970s to serve a population of 50,000, was serving 190,000 people by 2004, according to the UN.”

We must remember that Gaza is an assortment of refugee camps, and that the public-infrastructure in refugee camps are never meant to be long-term.

Here is how Haaretz has covered the story: Flood of sewage in Gaza Strip village kills at least four people

“It will be fascinating to see what relationship may develop between the Protestant patriarch and the one-time IRA commander. But if yesterday’s introductory Paisley-Adams performance is anything to go by, the expected friction may be less than anticipated, given that the two men have spent a full generation eyeing each other from opposite ends of the political spectrum.”

In the dark of winter, the airlines have effectively increased cost of a trans-Atlantic ticket for a bicyclist by as much as $300. If the base ticket price is $900 that is over a 30% increase in the cost of travel.

What a ridiculous headline; a more accurate one would read: “Jamaican anger at the way Britain is commemorating the end of the slave trade”

“Many Jamaicans believe Britain wants to play up its role in helping to end the trade and downplay its role in slavery itself.”

“Shortly after the publication of the survey in October last year Tony Blair’s official spokesperson said the Lancet’s figure was not anywhere near accurate … President Bush said: “I don’t consider it a credible report.” … But a memo by the MoD’s Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Roy Anderson, on 13 October, states: “The study design is robust and employs methods that are regarded as close to “best practice” in this area, given the difficulties of data collection and verification in the present circumstances in Iraq.”

–This is outrageous.

–A little poem by economist of the Canadian Auto Workers Union.

–Canada needs a living wage now.

–Always worth a read.