QuickNews, Friday, Nov. 27.

New feature: The Week Ahead, current events calendar for Nov. 23-29.

Click here for latest Jargon Watch.

 
A carousel is among the features of Frankfurt's Christmas Market. Photo: Michael Probst, AP. 

T.O. STORES APING U.S. "BLACK FRIDAY" SALES SPREE | Deep discounts and longer hours. Local retailers determined to stem defections of Canadian bargain-hunters shuffling off to Buffalo.

AFGHAN SCANDAL | Witnesses on detainee scandal offer riot of contraditions. Defiant blowhard Hillier calls accusations he knew of detainees' fate "ludicrous." Yet testimony of government's cover-up witnesses shows he must have known, since our local diplomats, more thin on the ground than military C.O.s, were aware since 2006 of Afghan National Army's reputation for torture, along with Red Cross, whose concerns about hand-overs are revealed in one of whistleblower Colvin's reports to Ottawa.

Harper embarks yesterday for Commonwealth Heads of Government summit in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. PMO told to brace for climate-change concerns from imperiled Commonwealth island nations - including the host country - if ocean levels rise as predicted. Photo: Sean Kilpatrick, CP. 

HARPER VOLTE-FACE | PM will attend Copenhagen climate-change summit, after all. Has been bad-mouthing it for weeks. But one day after Obama adds his name to world leaders attending, Harper says "critical mass" of leaders merits his presence. Eco-activist says PM merely "doesn't want to look like a weenie."

SUPPLY OF CANADIAN DOCS ON THE RISE | Ratio of docs to population finally improving. Result of big jump in med-school enrolments earlier this decade. Also physicians deferring retirement for want of replacements to care for their patient load. Progress is significant, but farming and remote communities remain underserved by caregivers, specialists in particular. And eventual retirement of over-65 docs will create a gap that the newest generation of physicians might not be able to quickly fill.

 
Dubai, booming Persian Gulf emirate when world oil prices were soaring, celebrated with spectacular new office towers and offshore, palm-shaped resort (right). With the sharp drop in oil prices, developer of "The Palm" now can't make its debt payments. 

"DUBAI INC." FLIRTING WITH INSOLVENCY | Debt moratorium rocks global financial markets. Dubai World, major sovereign wealth fund, seeks six-month moratorium on making debt payments. Closely related enterprises in oil-rich Persian Gulf emirate suffering from plunge in world oil prices and may all be in trouble. Lack of transparency rattles European and other banks with loans extended to giant Dubai firms, whose true state of financial health is unknown.

IAEA CHIEF DUMPS ON IRAN | ElBaradei washes hands of Tehran's reneging and trickery. Retiring IAEA chief ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace Price laureate retiring in three days, has had it with Iranian games. So even have China and Russia. For the first time yesterday they joined other nations in threatening tougher sanctions if Tehran doesn't come clean about exact nature of its nuclear assets and ambitions.

GIRDING FOR TOUGH TIMES | Big layoffs announced by Bombardier and Rogers. Bombardier, hard-hit by aviation downturn, keen to hold onto engineering talent so it may consider federally subsidized working sharing program it has previously rejected. Rogers to cut 3% of workforce to maintain or lower wireless prices while offering more features, now that rivals Bell and Telus have broken its Canadian iPhone monopoly. And all three incumbents are facing new competition from upstart wireless entrants next year.   

CHEAPO VINO | World seems to be drowning its sorrows in bargain-priced wine. Globe reports on price downshift among recession-weary tipplers. Bad news for many New World wine producers focused on upscale product. Ontario might be an exception. Output of its boutique wineries is premium priced. But province's biggest wineries - Jackson-Triggs, Andres, Hillenbrand - have never shed their gronk heritage and offer VQA and jug wine side by side.

CHINA BLUES | Emerging economic superpower facing protectionist backlash. EU complains Beijing has used its enormous stimulus package to over-expand capacity, and already is dumping below-cost goods onto world market at a loss. This is only partly sour grapes. China continues its stubborn refusal to let currency rise to its natural level, effectively stealing jobs from other nations. And Beijing is compelled to run factories flat out to curb rioting and violence that has occurred at those few Chinese factories that have closed or trimmed production in response to global slump.

CEO OF THE YEAR? | Globe and Mail settles on Fiat boss Sergio Marchionne. Lavish profile of putative Chrysler saviour in paper's Report on Business Magazine today. If the Globe had to pick the CEO of a foreign company as "Canada's" CEO of the year, and it had to be in the profit-challenged auto sector, the only serious candidate would be Ford's turnaround CEO Alan Mullaly. So why Marchionne? Because he spent most of his career in Toronto, and because Eric Reguly, author of the piece, is Rome-based Globe correspondent with special access to the prickly Marchionne. Not the usual criteria for such picks. I might have held off until we see a coherent reclamation plan for Chrysler. Fortune was closer to the mark in lavishing Steve Jobs with "CEO of the Decade" honours, though devoting most of its Nov. 23 editon to one topic was a bit over the top.

MAMMOGRAM DEBATE | Folks taking sides on merit of procedure, and Pap smears too. Efficacy of mammograms, as described in NYT timeline, has long been questioned. Indeed, by detecting cancers that will not become problematic in the life of a patient, but are treated nonetheless, procedure is a cause of needless trauma and spiralling health care costs. Then again, advocates are speaking up about how they are alive today only because of a cancer detected at age 32. No easy answers on this one.

THE "8 TO 8" DIET | Body clock - more accurately, organ clocks - are set by food intake not brain. Salk Institute researcher says midnight snacks and 3 a.m. repasts throw liver and other organs out of whack. 

"Sopranos" bus tour includes stop under the Pulaski Skyway where character Christopher Moltisanti breathed his last. Photo: David Goldman for The New York Times

 

HAD TO HAPPEN | NYC outfit offers bus tours of "Sopranos" greatest hits (pardon the pun). I fondly recall my honeymoon Circle Line ferry cruise around the island, the Cloisters, Rockefeller Church, the U.N. hugging the East River shoreline. Oh, to go back and see where Tony was almost garrotted in the Holland Tunnel while keeping bad company enroute to a Jersey strip club.

QUOTE OF THE DAY | "All celebrated people lose on close view." -Napoleon.

 
 

Courtesy The New Yorker, Nov. 2 edition.

Please consider joining me as an elf this holiday season by participating in the Toronto Star's Santa Claus Fund, a century-old Toronto tradition. The Star uses donations to assemble and distribute gift boxes to thousands of less-financially advantaged children throughout the GTA. Each box contains a book, clothing and a toy. You can read all about it, including first-hand accounts of Toronto families in need, at http://www.thestar.com/santaclausfund. I'm counting on your kindness to help put smiles on thousands of young faces this December 25th! Many thanks, David 
 

 

QuickNews, Thursday, Nov. 26.

New feature: The Week Ahead, current events calendar for Nov. 23-29

 

An Afghan vehicle clears a NATO checkpoint northeast of Kabul that is run in part by French Foreign Legion forces. U.S. to tap allies for more troops. Photo: Jerome Delay, AP.

UNCLE SAM WANTS YOU! | Obama seeks 10,000 more troops for Afghanistan from allies. Britain, Italy, Poland and Georgia likely to help, France and Germany won't, Canada and the Netherlands still committed to withdrawal. In TV address Tuesday, Obama will commit about 30,000 more U.S. troops, bringing American total to almost 100,000, and describe exit strategy that has U.S. out of Afghanistan no later than 2017 - 16 years after initial post-9/11 invasion.

CANADIANS DON'T TRUST HARPER ON AFGHAN DETAINEES | They believe the whistleblower. Richard Colvin's grim version of events trumps Harper's in believability by a 2 to 1 margin in survey by former Tory pollster Allan Gregg. Pollster says it was a PR blunder to attempt discrediting Colvin. Yet Tories persisting with that strategy, lining up career-protecting military and other officials to dispute Colvin testimony that for years has aligned with reports of human-rights groups.

A SPECIAL THANKSGIVING FOR U.S. BANKERS | Taxpayer bailout restores lavish pay. The idea, in the U.S. and Europe, was to prevent the bankers' self-inflicted wounds from triggering another Great Depression. The apocalypse was averted, but the public got stuck with the bill while the malefactors of great wealth, as Teddy Roosevelt called them, are hoovering up pre-recession-size bonuses. And fiercely resisting, with success, needed reforms to prevent an even bigger bailout down the road when the bankers are next consumed with recklessness - which happens every decade like clockwork. WaPo columnist Dana Milbank cuts to the nub of the bank lobbyists' special pleading: "Don't regulate us now because the economy is still suffering from the mess we made because we weren't regulated the last time. Chutzpah, it appears, is recession-proof."

"TOYOTA WAY" GOES AWRY | Former quality leader to recall 4 million vehicles. In latest Toyota stumble, company to repair faulty gas pedals that get stuck under floor mats in high-acceleration mode. Vaunted Toyota quality has suffered - this is the latest of several recalls over past two years - ever since firm decided to ramp up production to displace GM as top world automaker. Employees at hastily built new plants, especially in N.A., were not sufficiently trained in Toyota's quality-production methods. Global recession, which prompted Toyota to cut world production 50% for first six months of this year, might give company a chance to upgrade training at its newest assembly plants.

GM EXPANDS ONTARIO COMMITMENT | Will add employees to assemble Buick Regal at Oshawa. Redesigned Regal, Opel-engineered, has won auto-critics' acclaim in Europe. GM will also add employees to boost Oshawa production of hot-selling Camaro and forthcoming 2011 Camaro convertible. Company to will increase Ingersoll, Ont. output of popular Chev Equinox and GMC Terrain small crossovers. Even St. Catharines operations, especially battered by layoffs in recent years, to get new flexible transmission product. A fifth vehicle for GM Canada remains to be named under GM commitment in exchange for $10.5 billion in government rescue funds. But much of this largely unexpected increased activity is due to the popularity of models already assigned to Canada.

FORD THINKS SMALLER, NOT SMALL | Says smaller cars, not minis and micros, are the ticket. North American drivers insist on minimum comfort, capacity, power, while seeking higher fuel efficiency. "Just so nobody freaks out, we won't look like Europe," Ford spokesman reassures analysts. MarketWatch reviewer raves about reborn Taurus, which turnaround CEO Alan Mulally over-ruled subordinates in greenlighting after failure of blobby second-generation Taurus of the 1990s.

ROAD TO COPENHAGEN | Obama will go to climate change summit, Harper to join him. PM until yesterday adamant about not going, since no firm agreement will be struck until next year. But changed his mind this morning, citing what spokesman described as "critical mass" of other world leaders who will attend. Obama will bring commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 17% below 2005 levels by 2020. That's a big cheat on the 1990 baseline used by U.N. Also, Obama will duck out before the heads of state show up to collect his Nobel Peace Prize while he's in the neighbourhood.

ROBUST CANADIAN HOUSING | In stark contrast with U.S., housing supply is tight in Canada. Which means housing costs will rise here, since current low mortgage rates can't last forever, RBC warns in report. U.S. glut of housing inventory, after record housing bubble, will take years to wear off. But in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and Montreal supply is drying up, forcing price hikes and, one hopes, soon boosting new-home construction.

GIFT CARDS ARE A GIFT TO ISSUERS | Watch for cards with dormancy and other fees. Over past two years, Americans bought $185.4 billion (U.S.) worth of gift cards, and $14.4 billion (U.S.) was left unused. Think twice about whether these things will get used by recipient. At best, they're interest-free money for the issuer until redeemed. At worst, many cards expire or issuers demand fees for postponed usage.

SELL MORE COOKIES? | 16 of Ontario's 33 Girl Guide camps are slated to close. Roughly half of the Guides' camps will be sold or leases given up, after GG Ontario ran a $1.3-million deficit last year just on camp operation. With membership declining, most of the camps have been struggling for years.

CRY YOURSELF A RIVER | Seven reasons why crying is good for you. It helps prevent dehydration of eyes, kills bacteria, removes toxins and can elevate your mood, among other things. I feel justified now in making An Affair To Remember a quarterly ritual.

QUOTE OF THE DAY | "If you want to kill any idea around the world today, get a committee working on it." -Charles Kettering, U.S. industrialist and philanthropist.

Courtesy The New Yorker, Nov. 23 edition.

Please consider joining me as an elf this holiday season by participating in the Toronto Star's Santa Claus Fund, a century-old Toronto tradition. The Star uses donations to assemble and distribute gift boxes to thousands of less-financially advantaged children throughout the GTA. Each box contains a book, clothing and a toy. You can read all about it, including first-hand accounts of Toronto families in need, at http://www.thestar.com/santaclausfund. I'm counting on your kindness to help put smiles on thousands of young faces this December 25th! Many thanks, David

  

QuickNews, Wednesday, Nov. 25.

 New feature: The Week Ahead, current events calendar for Nov. 23-29

 

The Lieberose solar farm about 150 km southeast of Berlin, world’s second-largest solar power plant, takes up equivalent of more than 210 football fields. Germany and China are among leaders in solar panel R&D, manufacturing and application. Photo, Reuters. 

GLOBAL WARNING | Pace of climate change faster than expected, say experts. At worst, sea levels could rise up to 2 metres (6-1/2 ft) by 2100, endangering coastal cities from New York to Buenos Aires to Shanghai. Researchers report that global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels are almost 40% higher than in 1990. "Carbon dioxide emissions cannot be allowed to continue to rise if humanity intends to limit the risk of unacceptable climate change," said Richard Somerville of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California.

PIPE DREAM? | Ottawa to jointly finance $558-million CO2 pipeline. Idea is to inject CO2 into aging oil fields, squeeze more oil from played-out fields and sequester CO2 at same time. Sounds like a win-win, but technology isn't proven and enviros complain it diverts funds from R&D on alternative energy. Meanwhile, Australian opposition reaches agreement with Rudd government on CO2 trading scheme.

U.S REMAINS OUTLIER ON LAND MINES | America still won't sign treaty banning land mines. Treaty, spearheaded by Canada and others and now 10 years old, bans the use, production, stockpiling or export of anti-personnel mines. Treaty ratified by 156 nations. U.S., Russia, China and India among holdouts. U.S. spends more money than any nation on removal of land mines, which claimed 5,197 casualties last year alone, one-third of them children, but reserves right to use them. Describing renewed refusal to join treaty as "a default of U.S. leadership," U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), a leading advocate for the treaty, said: "It is a lost opportunity for the United States to show leadership instead of joining with China and Russia and impeding progress."

 

Yesterday the last group of Edmonton-based soldiers returned from Afghanistan. Maj. Joe Boland twirls his son Markhus Boland, 4, at the Edmonton Garrison. Dianne Perry hugs her husband, Master Warrant Officer Edward Perry. Photos by Dan Riedlhuber, Reuters.

U.S. BANK BREAK-UPS | Increasingly popular notion wins backing of FDIC. U.S. keen to avoid ever again having to bail out banks whose size poses systemic risk and are thus "too big to fail." The big U.S. banks hate the idea, of course. And it's true, unless non-U.S. nations follow suit, American lenders would be at competitive disadvantage. And it does seem a drastic remedy, given how the healthy Big Five Canadian banks have proved that size and diversity of businesses (lending, trust, brokerage under one roof) isn't the issue. The issues are (a) lousy managerial risk management, and (b) under-supervision by regulators who failed to enforce existing laws and devise new ones for "innovative" risky products and services banks came up with during the unsustainable, record U.S. housing boom. Americans are looking for needlessly complex solutions to a simple problem here. (Illustration: The September 2008 collapse of New York brokerage Lehman Brothers triggered the global capital freeze that in turn deepened the worldwide recession.)

HIV AIDS PROGRESS, SORT OF | Global rate of infection is down. But mostly because of progress in developing world, notably sub-Saharan Africa. Meanwhile, decline in infections has plateaued in U.S. and Europe, where complacency about safe sex has set in.

FULLER DISCLOSURE | Harper bends to pressure on Afghan detainee scandal. Ottawa will release additional "legally available" documents from 2006-07 period when Canadian Forces' transfer to detainees to Afghan National Army resulted in abused and often tortured detainees. "Legally available." You could run the Orient Express through that loophole.

BRAIN CRAMP | N.S. MP Gerald Keddy retracts slur on Halifax unemployed ("no-good bastards."). This is how it always goes, an outrageous utterance followed by a "clarification." Why not be a man and stick with what you really believe, that the jobless are lazy louts happily reliant on state handouts, rather than insulting our intelligence by trying to convince us you're not insensitive and unfit to serve in Parliament? Why not join the jobless, see what it's like, rather than living on the taxpayer's dime?

YET ANOTHER GM BRAND SALE FALLS THROUGH | Saab buyer bravely runs away. Swedish investor consortium with Chinese backing realizes only now that it hasn't the money or smarts to turn around failing niche automaker. Penske has backed out of buying Saturn. GM took Opel-Vauxhall off the market. And the Hummer sale to obscure Chinese firm is in limbo. The only brand the over-branded GM has rid itself of is Pontiac, which it reluctantly killed - on orders from Obama - since there were no buyers. Saab's fate, like Saturn, looks to be burial, since Stockholm adamantly will not devote a kroner to its rescue, unlike the four billion or so euros GM stands a good chance of extracting from European governments to repair the vastly larger Opel.

WAPO GIVES UP PRETENSE TO BEING IMPORTANT PAPER | Post kills last of its U.S. bureaus. Publisher justifies move, saying Post is not a national paper or "cable channel," whatever that's supposed to mean. Says paper will still cover the nation "as we always have" by sending intrepid reporters into the field. As if conceiving story ideas at WaPo office inside the Beltway is as good as tips from the soon-to-be-closed bureaus in Chicago, L.A. and NYC, where stories about the real America are far more easily identified and promptly reported.

ROBOTIC SURGERY | CAE teams with TSX-listed Titan Medical in robotic-surgery tech. Bedside manner not an issue since patients have been knocked out, but there's no one to sue. An ideal export to U.S., once perfected, to curb contribution that malpractice settlements make to spiralling healthcare costs.

THERE IS A GOD | Airlines finally fined for stranding passengers on aircraft. Culprits claimed they couldn't release passengers for lack of security in terminal. Irrelevant, say authorities, who correctly assert passengers could have been quarantined in terminal until security showed up.

An Andalusian horseman performs in front of a flamenco dancer during the opening show of Sicab the International Pre Horse Fair in Seville, devoted exclusively to Spanish thoroughbreds, Nov. 24, 2009. Photo: Marcelo del Pozo, Reuters.   

BABOON PLAGUE | Cape Town frets thieving critters will be a curse on World Cup next year. Natives know enough to roll up car windows, lock doors. But visitors will be gulled into feeding the "furry felons" whose proliferation and ransacking of cars whose unlocked doors they're able to open has become widespread nuisance.

YOUR R&D DOLLARS AT WORK | Australian researchers find that comfort food relieves anxiety in rats. Next step is to see if it works on humans. Oh, but wait - we already know it does. It's why my 7-Eleven restocks Doritos at five times the rate of Yoplait.

HONOURED SONGS | 25 tunes added to Grammy Hall of Fame. Latest inductees include Beach Boys' "California Girls," Louis Armstrong's "Lazy River" and the 1972 "Class Clown" album by George Carlin, who died last year. See complete list at www.grammy.com/Recording_Academy/Awards/Hall_Of_Fame. Oddly, despite list now numbering 851 in total, nothing from Celine Dion or the Dead Kennedys has made the cut.

QUOTE OF THE DAY | "Canada needs to dismantle its public health-care system and allow private enterprise to get involved and turn a profit." -Sarah Palin to Marg Delahunty (Mary Walsh), when "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" caught up with the twit at a book signing in Columbus, Ohio. I suppose you think this is funny. But recall that not long after George W. Bush sent his greetings to "Jean Poutine" via Rick Mercer, then also of "This Hour," Dubya became U.S. president and set about dismantling his country's constitution.

 

Courtesy: Politico.com. H/T: P.J. Dempsey.

 

Please consider joining me as an elf this holiday season by participating in the Toronto Star's Santa Claus Fund, a century-old Toronto tradition. The Star uses donations to assemble and distribute gift boxes to thousands of less-financially advantaged children throughout the GTA. Each box contains a book, clothing and a toy. You can read all about it, including first-hand accounts of Toronto families in need, at http://www.thestar.com/santaclausfund. I'm counting on your kindness to help put smiles on thousands of young faces this December 25th! Many thanks, David  

   

 

QuickNews, Tuesday, Nov. 24.

New feature: The Week Ahead, current events calendar for Nov. 23-29

 

AFGHAN QUAGMIRE | Obama to send as many as 35,000 more troops. In decision as early as Tuesday, Obama to announce deployment of additional troops, mostly to south and east, basically in line with Gen. McChrystal's original request 10 war council meetings ago. Will bring total U.S. troops in Afghanistan to about 100,000, a near tripling since Obama came to office. Long deliberations have mostly about devising an exit strategy. New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg, former speechwriter for Carter, is eloquent on how Afghanistan is becoming Obama's Vietnam: it's no longer the "war of necessity" Obama rightly called it in 2002 when denouncing looming U.S. invasion of Iraq.

SO, WHO DOES INDIA LIKE? | PM Manmohan Singh lashes out at China, Pakistan, Afghanistan. Soft-spoken PM, best known as father of economic liberalization under Indira Gandhi, using occasion of Obama's lavish first state dinner for a visiting head of state to fault economic rival China for lacking human-rights values, the abundance of which in India is not self-evident; Pakistan for the Mumbai massacre (the attack was hardly sanctioned by Islamabad), and Afghanistan as long-time refuge for anti-India elements. Not to leave out U.S., which dare not give up fight against Taliban or entire region explodes. What sacrifice India, population 1.2 billion, is making toward regional stability - in blood or treasure - I'd like to know.

H-P PROFITS DECEPTIVE | Real story of tech giant's 3Q is plummeting sales, not profit jump. Company's 14% profit gain is mostly from cost cutting, while its core businesses, apart from services, are in the dumps. Sales of PCs, servers, printers all down, matching miserable performance of rival Dell.

U.S HOUSING BOUNCE, TOO | 10.1% jump in sales attributed to government assistance programs. Actual strength of market exaggerated by U.S. help for "first-time" homebuyers, which in fact means anyone who hasn't bought a house in past three years.

ALSO U.S CAR SALES | Outlook for U.S. volume downgraded to about 11.1 million units. That's up from this year, but far below 16.5 million average annual volume, and not enough for most automakers to generate a profit in N.A. market.

CRIB RECALL | B.C.-based firm recalls about 2.1 million baby cribs tied to several infant deaths. Stork and other makers of "drop-down" cribs under pressure for years over faulty design, in which infants can easily become trapped in gap between mattress and crib's adjustable sides.

PLASTIC BOLT-ON | BMO buys corporate business of Citi's Diners Club. Also announces 16% profit surge. DC a non-core asset for troubled Citigroup, which is shedding peripheral businesses as quickly as market will allow. Adds about $7 billion (U.S.) to BMO's U.S. lending business, a neglible sum. Well into U.S. banking crisis, none of Canada's Big Five, by now renowned for getting through crisis relatively unscathed, have yet to take advantage of the buyer's market in government-assisted takeovers of troubled U.S. lenders. There's valuable U.S. market share for the taking, and opportunities for TD, RBC and BMO to bulk up their modest U.S. presence, but none seem willing to do the work of buying and fixing attractive U.S. banks.

B.C.'s SHAME | Province tops others in child poverty. Advocacy group rips Victoria for lack of poverty-assistance programs.

DOT-COM EXUBERANCE 2.0? | Twitter expects to be profitable by next year. Revenue-shy social networking phenom expects to start pulling in ads in 2010, poised for acquisitions now that it's valued at astounding $1 billion (U.S.) despite meagre cash flow and assets that don't extend much beyond its name. More likely fate is takeover bait for Google or Microsoft.

WHITE ELEPHANT SALE | Toronto developer buys Pontiac Silverdome for 1% of original cost. Suburban Detroit eyesore has no major-league tenant. Buyer Andreas Apostolopoulos hopes to lure a soccer team, and good luck with that in soccer-mad America. He should be able to recoup his $583,000 purchase outlay with sale of naming rights alone - for stadium built for $55.7 million in 1975 - but lacks background in arena management. He'll do nicely on real estate flip if shell--shocked Michigan economy ever recovers.

QUOTE OF THE DAY | "Two things only the people anxiously desire, bread and the Circus games." -Juvenal.

 

Courtesy The New Yorker, Nov. 16 edition.

 

Please consider joining me as an elf this holiday season by participating in the Toronto Star's Santa Claus Fund, a century-old Toronto tradition. The Star uses donations to assemble and distribute gift boxes to thousands of less-financially advantaged children throughout the GTA. Each box contains a book, clothing and a toy. You can read all about it, including first-hand accounts of Toronto families in need, at http://www.thestar.com/santaclausfund. I'm counting on your kindness to help put smiles on thousands of young faces this December 25th! Many thanks, David  

 

  

QuickNews, Monday, Nov. 23.

CHINA MINE EXPLOSION | At least 92 dead in coal mine disaster in northeast China. Gas explosion on weekend claims scores of lives at Xinxing Coal Mine in Hegang, Heilongjiang province. (Photo below: Relatives of miners await news from mine officials. Aly Song, Reuters.)

 

CAPSIZED INDONESIAN FERRY CLAIMS 26 LIVES | Another 17 passengers still missing. Overloading is common in ferries serving Indonesia's thousands of islands. Ferry off Sumatra had 296 passengers and crew but capacity of only 273 people.

ROSY CANADIAN BANK FORECAST | Big Five will finish out year with strong 4Q numbers. Banks begin reporting this week. Their capital ratios are among world's best. Collectively, will come close to matching last year's profits. Loan losses expected to peak 1Q or 2Q of fiscal 2010. (Photo: "Centre ice," King and Bay Streets in Toronto, head office location of Canada's Big Five banks.)

ENCOURAGING U.S. ECONOMIC OUTLOOK | Economists upgrade forecast for 2010. Chicago Fed chief sees jobless rate peaking early next year, at 10.5%, a bit higher than current 10.2%. Small businesses, whose job creation usually leads employment recovery, are borrowing again. NYT reports Obama's stimulus package has done more good than it gets credit for - pushing U.S. GDP into positive territory by 3Q, for instance, less than half a year after his inauguration.  

AFGHAN QUAGMIRE | Two unnamed Karzai ministers target of embezzlement probe. Actually, almost all of Karzai's ministers are under suspicion, probably including the defense minister who impressed Globe and Mail's editorial board - in that paper's lead story this morning - with complaint that Obama is dragging his heels on more troops. CP has rather horrifying report on how Afghan detainee abuse has been routine for decades. Corrupt government, sadistic police force, army culturally allied with Taliban, and women treated even worse under Karzai than Taliban - this is what we're fighting and dying for in propping up Afghan government whose legitimacy is recognized by few locals or ISAF troop-contributing nations. Damned right Obama's thinking twice about more troops.

"PUBLIC OPTION" NOW CENTRE STAGE IN U.S. HEALTHCARE DEBATE | Dems win first Senate vote. But Saturday's 60-40 vote, with all Republicans opposed, is only "end of the beginning." Lieberman of Connecticut vows he will vote against a final Senate bill that includes the public option. But minus the new government-run "public option" insurer, reform largely amounts to a windfall for private insurers and Big Pharma. (Photo: Senators Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) debate healthcare reforms yesterday on "Meet the Press.")

FUTILITY OF MICROSOFT TRYING TO "BUY" NEWS | In talks with Murdoch to take WSJ off Google. Rumoured deal would have Murdoch demand Google drop WSJ, New York Post and other News Corp. properties, with Microsoft's rival Bing engine getting exclusive access. But "exclusive" content migrates within 30 seconds, by most estimates. I noticed last night, for instance, that Reuters carried a rewritten Sunday New York Post exclusive that Jamie Dimon is tipped as Geithner's replacement, and a detailed synopsis of a Sunday NYT editorial calling on Goldman Sachs to turn over its bonus pool to Treasury to retire national debt.

SWINE FLU PEAK? | CDC reports H1N1, like most outbreaks, shifting east to Mideast, Central Europe. May have peaked in North America, but flu levels still far higher than usual at this point in flu season. Vaccine continues to be in shorter supply in U.S. than Canada.

 

One of the estimated 14,000 to 25,000 vacant homes in once-flourishing Buffalo, N.Y.  

BLIGHT ON BUFFALO | Decay of Rust Belt city "a slow-moving Katrina," says local official. Former industrial powerhouse has lost half its population, or 300,000 people, since 1950. In some recession-hit neighbourhoods, only 20% of the houses are occupied.

CLIMATE-CHANGE COST | Experts say $28 trillion (U.S.) in property damage to port cities by 2050. That would be result of expected 0.5%-metre rise in ocean levels as Greenland ice pack melts.

WIKI EXODUS | Thousands of Wikipedia contributors are quitting. All of the most important, most easily researched topics have been done. And remaining contributors are alienated by accumulation of rules restricting new entries and editing/updating of existing ones.

McDONALD'S LOSING LUSTRE | U.S. same-store sales down in October. Recession has finally caught up with Golden Arches, victim of high unemployment that has curbed out-of-home meals. Also, its McCafe concept has not been the blockbuster it expected. In Canada and at its U.S. outlets, Tim Hortons acted quickly on the McCafe threat, matching Mickey D in ubiquity and diverse menu offerings.

Honda Insight and Ford Escape. Which would you choose for your motor trip from Toronto to the Laurentians? On poor sales of small cars: "This doesn't mean Americans don't want fuel economy," writes auto critic Jerry Flint. "It may mean that vehicles that were small, unappealing, underpowered and uncomfortable are still small, unappealing, underpowered and uncomfortable."

NOT SO FAST | Forbes columnist breaks with consensus that small cars are next battleground. Notes that among heaviest casualties of current auto slump have been small cars. Industry volume is down 27% to September. Meanwhile, Yaris sales are down 40%, Aveo down 30%, Accent down 40%, VW New Beetle down 50%, Scion 1C down 60%. Meanwhile, sales are off only 10% as a group for small crossover SUVs: Honda CR-V and Pilot, Toyota RAV 4 and Venza, Ford Escape, Chevy Equinox and Dodge Journey.  "Americans drive more than Europeans and Asians," writes Jerry Flint, auto writer since 1958. "And thus it's reasonable that we want cars to be more powerful and more comfortable since we spend a lot of time in them. Larger vehicles are as a rule safer than smaller ones (another important topic on which government candour is lacking). Large vehicles carry more people, groceries and vacation stuff. What good does it do to move people into subcompacts if that kills carpooling? Cars will get smaller. How well they sell is another question." Flint also notes the up to $10,000 (U.S.) higher cost for going from gasoline to hybrid version of same vehicle (you're buying a car with two engines, after all; only plug-ins are all-electric) - one reason Honda's Insight, its smallest hybrid, sold just 16,000 cars YTD, about half what Honda expected.  

SNOOKERED | Travel website names ROM "Crystal" among world's 10 ugliest buildings. Joins "Beehive" in Wellington, N.Z. and Paris' Center Georges Pompidou. ROM head William Thorsell sold board and donors on what turned out to be inferior knock-off of celebrity architect Daniel Libeskind's own recent addition to the Denver Art Museum, which actually is mostly glass. For engineering and cost reasons, ROM "Crystal" is just a few strips of glass on metal cladding that has the allure of a construction-site outbuilding. Libeskind is pictured below in Denver; his ROM monstrosity at Inright.

  

INDIA LABOUR WOES | "Social contract," strong unions and GDP slump bring rampant labour unrest. Has sometimes turned to violence as strikes up 48% over last year at factories attempting layoffs, which go against Indian culture. Foreign employers hit by labour disruptions this year include Nestle, Nokia, Honda and Hyundai Motor.

CANDY WAR | Nestle joins Hershey, Ferrero and Kraft in pondering takeover bid for Cadbury. Kraft bid is hostile but would have easiest time with regulators. Nestle might try to play white knight. But candy giant Nestle (Kit Kat, Aero, Coffee Crisp, Smarties) would be forced to shed some of its own and Cadbury's brands to satisfy EU anti-trust authorities, maybe Canadian and American, as well.

CARCASS PICKED CLEAN | Ciena to pay bargain $769 million (U.S.) for core Nortel assets. Former pipsqueak rival to Nortel beats out bid by Nokia Siemens for bankrupt Nortel's optical networking and carrier ethernet business. Nortel once had a market cap north of $200 billion (U.S.). This one is up there with the Avro Arrow as a Canadian industrial tragedy.

Kate Moss in promotion shot for her Topshop collection. 

KATE MOSS GIVES COMFORT TO "PRO-ANOREXIC" MOVEMENT | Being a waif trumps eating. Moss endorsement last week of anorexics' motto raises new questions about how widespread is anorexia. Incredibly, so-called "pro-anorexic" websites outnumber by 5 to 1 sites for recovering anorexics and healthy dieting.

FRAIL MAIL | U.S. Postal Service in crisis after posting $11.6 billion (U.S.) in losses 2007-09. Volume of mail carried fell 13% in fiscal 2009. USPS wants to cut employer pension contributions and drop cherished Saturday service, eliminated eons ago by much healthier Canada Post.

QUOTE OF THE DAY | "Let's make cars people want to make out in again." -Chrysler turnaround tagline, as announced at a presentation for analysts and the auto press earlier this month, reported in current Business Week. And couldn't be further from the truth, except for the gymnastically adept, since the "new Chrysler" is to be built around Fiat minicars.

Courtesy The New Yorker, Nov. 16 edition.

Please consider joining me as an elf this holiday season by participating in the Toronto Star's Santa Claus Fund, a century-old Toronto tradition. The Star uses donations to assemble and distribute gift boxes to thousands of less-financially advantaged children throughout the GTA. Each box contains a book, clothing and a toy. You can read all about it, including first-hand accounts of Toronto families in need, at http://www.thestar.com/santaclausfund. I'm counting on your kindness to help put smiles on thousands of young faces this December 25th! Many thanks, David 

  

The week ahead, Nov. 23-29.

               
  
 

Key events of the week ahead.

 

Summary: Wednesday data dump in Washington will gauge state of U.S. joblessness and consumer spending, along with bargain-shopping melee of Black Friday lasting through weekend. Big Five Canadian banks begin reporting what are expected to be strong results. Widespread talk, from U.N. to EU to Australia, about global warming in lead-up to Copenhagen climate-change summit in December. In a U.S. Thanksgiving-shortened week, stock prices are bound to be volatile. In sports, Vanier and Grey Cup championships decided this weekend.

 

MONDAY

 

  Oz PM Kevin Rudd and BofE chief Mervyn King.

 

General

 

Canada: Former Toronto lawyer Stan Grvmovsek, first person to be sentenced for insider trading under the criminal code (39 months), is in Manhattan court today asking that his Canadian prison term cover his offenses in U.S. as well.

 

U.S.: 37th Emmy awards for television tonight.

 

Eurozone: EU environment ministers meet to finalize negotiating position going into Copenhagen climate-change summit.

 

Australia: Parliamentary votes begin on controversial climate-change laws, through to Thursday. PM Kevin Rudd hoping for a victory to take to Copenhagen climate-change talks in December.

 

Economy

 

Canada: Statscan releases September retail sales report, outlook on labour and incomes, and quality of employment in immigrant labour market. 

 

U.S: Ken Feinberg, Obama's "pay czar," speaks at National Press Club, D.C., at noon.

 

Britain: CBI, the U.K. employer group, hosts luminaries including IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, FSA chairman Lord Adair Turner, French finance minister Christine Lagarde and U.K. Conservative Party Leader David Cameron. Interesting mix of British and Continental leaders will talk economic outlook and progress on global financial-market reforms. Also, Mervyn King, caustic chief of the Bank of England, has a speech today. With luck King will continue pressuring global banks to stop resisting needed reform.

 

Eurozone: Manufacturing surveys will show strength of Eurozone's emergence from recession over the summer.

 

India: Reuters summit boasts who's who of Indian business, including reps from industrial giants Tata, Reliance, Wipro, Mahindra Satyam, and the country heads of Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and Ford. Talk will be durability of Indian economic recovery, financial-sector reforms, political risk (corruption), and prospects for India's export-driven software-services sector.

 

Australia: New vehicle sales and other leading indicator reports.

 

Mexico: Expect 3.5% drop in September retail sales, following 5.5% drop in previous month.

 

Earnings reports: Campbell Soup, Hewlett-Packard, Tyson Foods, Sun-Times Media. 

 

 

TUESDAY

 

Al Gore in Toronto; Indian PM Singh visits White House.
 

General

Canada: Al Gore in Toronto on climate-change implications for business, at Allstream Centre at Exhibition Place, 8 p.m., proceeds to David Suzuki Foundation. 

U:S.: Indian PM Manmohan Singh visits Barack Obama at the White House. Former finance minister, father of India's economic liberalization, hopes to finalize Bush deal whereby India gains access to U.S. civilian nuclear tech and fuel in return for inspections of its civilian, but not military, nuclear facilities. Singh also urging U.S. to keep fighting Taliban in Afghanistan, and pressure neighbouring Pakistan to crack down on its militants. "We have been the victims of Pakistan-aided, abetted and inspired terrorism for nearly 25 years," PM told Washington Post ahead of meeting with Obama. "We would like the United States to use all its influence with Pakistan to desist from that path."

Britain: Public inquiry into U.K. role in lead-up to Iraq war begins, in London.

Economy

Canada: Statscan releases September employment insurance claims.

U.S.: Revised 3Q GDP will likely show growth of only 2.9% in that period, when U.S. officially emerged from recession, down from initial report of 3.5%, accounting for last week's report of larger-than-expected trade deficit. Also, closely watched University of Michigan consumer confidence survey, and S&P/Case-Shiller September and 3Q index of new-home prices. Conference Board releases its consumer confidence index for November. Plus weekly crude oil inventory numbers.

Germany: Ifo Institute's November business climate survey, expecting slight rise from October.

Brazil: Expect $2.8-billion (U.S.) deficit, following $2.3-billion deficit previous month.

Mexico: Forecast October jobless rate of 6.2%, down slightly from previous month's 6.4%.

Earnings reports: Bank of Montreal, George Weston 3Q earnings call, Zale (U.S. #1 jewellery chain), Heinz, Hormel (Spam), Medtronic, Barnes & Noble, Borders Group, Dollar Tree, J. Crew, American Eagle Outfitters, Brocade, TiVo, Warner Music, Hillenbrand (caskets), Eaton Vance. Also, Agnico-Eagle's CFO on raising capital in tough times.

Diversions

TV: "Frontline: The Card Game." Documentary on dubious practices in the credit-card industry. PBS, 9 p.m. Film Noir night on Turner Classic Movies (TCM). The Big Sleep, 1946 (Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall) 2 p.m.; Gaslight, 1944 (Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman), 11 p.m.

WEDNESDAY

 Bellwether Deere & Co. reports earnings today.

 

General

U.N.: Yvo de Boer, U.N. climate chief, gives webcast news conference on his expectations for Copenhagen climate-change summit.  

Economy

Canada: Statscan releases 3Q financial corporate performance. OLRB hearing on whether Vale Inco's use of non-striking workers is legal. Shareholders of Calgary-based EnCana will approve today a split-up of the firm into separate natural gas and integrated oil companies. No wonder new Sir Norman Foster-designed HQ tower not named for EnCana, but called Bow Tower - tallest in Western Canada. Move calculated to boost share value of separate firms - "unlock shareholder value" is the usual term - but will make the two widely held firms more vulnerable to takeover.

U.S.: Busy day for key stats: Closely watched initial claims for jobless benefits from Labor Department expected to show slight dip to about 500,000. Commerce Department releases durable goods orders, personal income and spending, and new-home sales volume for October. Fed releases minutes from Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting of Oct. 3-4. Fed watchers expect gloomy downgrade of earlier jobless forecast for 2010, up from low- to mid-9% range. Fed has already forecast higher-than-usual unemployment through to 2011, and will want to see several quarters of robust GDP growth and easing of jobless claims and unemployment rate before abandoning its near-zero key lending rate.

Japan: Export and small-business confidence figures will gauge strength of nascent recovery. Also Bank of Japan deputy governor Yamaguchi has speech today.

China: Longyuan, China's biggest wind power generator, kicks off roadshow for $2.2-billion (U.S.) initial public offering - a test of global investors' belief in alternative energy's profit prospects.

Germany: GfK consumer confidence index.

Britain: Revised GDP to show 3Q contraction was not as severe as initially reported. But laggard U.K. economy, still a holdout to positive GDP growth, will keep pressure on Bank of England to spur recovery.

Italy: Consumer confidence for November, retail sales for September.

Mexico: 3Q $2.47-billion (U.S.) deficit expected, following $454-billion (U.S.) deficit previous month. Move to deficit caused by lower remittances, seasonal tourism weakness, slip in trade figures.

Earnings reports: Tiffany & Co., Delphi Corp. (U.S. #1 auto parts), Deere & Co.

Diversions

 

TV: "Geologic Journey: The Great Lakes," CBC documentary, 9 p.m. Naomi Klein (Shock Doctrine) guest on CBC's "The Hour," 11:05 p.m.

 

THURSDAY

Hajj piligrimage begins today through to Nov. 30

General

Canada: CFL Player Awards announced. Honourary degree recipients Eleanor Wachtel and Richard Pound speak at McGill convocation.

Saudi Arabia: Annual Hajj pilgrimage, one of the five pillars of Islam, begins today in Saudi cities of Mecca and Medina. (Until Nov. 30.)

China: Omega World Cup of Golf at Mission Hills, near Shenzhen, hosts teams from 28 nations. (Until Nov. 29.)

Economy

Canada: Statscan releases report on September payroll employment, earnings and hours, and international travel stats.

U.S.: Thanksgiving national holiday; markets closed. Eighty-third annual Macy's Day Thanksgiving Parade (9 a.m., CBS, NBC) alters route from Broadway onto 7th Avenue.

Germany: Consumer price index (CPI).

Japan: Employment, consumer prices and retail-sales stats.

Brazil: October jobless rate expected to be 7.5%, easing from previous month's 7.7%. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Friday he expects economy to add 1.3 million payroll jobs by year-end.

New Zealand: Business confidence and trade stats. 

Earnings reports: Mosaid Technologies, Gottschalks Inc.

Diversions

TV: "Doc Zone: Carbon Hunters." CBC documentary on carbon trading market: It's worth billions, but will it curb global warming? 8 p.m. Michael Moore (Capitalism: A Love Story) guests on "The Hour," 11:05 p.m. Grace Kelly night on TCM: To Catch A Thief, 1955 (Cary Grant), 8 p.m.; High Society, 1956 (Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra), 10 p.m.; The Swan, 1956 (Alec Guinness, Louis Jordan), 12 a.m.; Wedding in Monaco, 1956 (documentary footage of Kelly's marriage to Prince Rainer of Monaco), 2 a.m.
 

FRIDAY

  Summiteer Harper; Black Friday shopping spree.
  
General

Canada: Stephen Harper at Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.

Economy

Canada: Statscan releases 3Q balance of international payments.

U.S.: "Black Friday," traditional first day of holiday season sales. Wal-Mart will be open 24 hours through weekend to prevent repeat of crowding that killed one employee last year, rival discounters Target, Best Buy and others to open at 5 a.m. today. Expect 77 million U.S. shoppers today alone and $43 billion in sales - about 6% of total holiday-season sales over the three days. Obviously analysts, who expect rise or fall of about 1% from last year, are monitoring consumer buying power. But last year was misleading - Black Friday-weekend sales were up 7%, but entire season sales were down more than 3%, the worst showing since records were kept. In 2008-09, 45 U.S. retail chains have gone bankrupt. (The Black Friday term refers to the period of the year when retailers' books finally start showing black ink, or a profit.)

Eurozone: Consumer and business confidence data, plus inflation expectations.

Germany: Import price stats.

France: Consumer confidence for November.

Italy: Wages report.

Japan: CPI figures will confirm deflationary trend warned of by government last week, likely a 2.2% decline in prices in October. This will pressure a reluctant Bank of Japan to buy government bonds. Also, key jobs and household consumption figures released for the sluggish Japanese economy.

Switzerland: KOF industrial sentiment index.

New Zealand: Inflation forecast.

Diversions

TV: John Irving, Morgan Freeman and U.S. political satirist David Cross guest on "The Hour," CBC, 11 p.m.

 

SATURDAY

Canada: Queen's University Golden Gaels and University of Calgary Dinos compete for Vanier Cup, championship of Canadian university football.

Diversions

Steely Dan at Place des Arts, Montreal.

SUNDAY

Manuel Zelaya, hoping to be reinstated as Honduran president.

General

Canada: Montreal Alouettes and Saskatchewan Roughriders compete for Grey Cup, CFL championship, at McMahon Stadium in Calgary, 6:30 p.m.

Honduras: Emergency presidential election to end crisis that began with June military coup that ousted Manuel Zelaya, now holed up in Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa. Brazil and Argentina say they won't recognize election results unless Zelaya is first returned to power. U.S. has insisted Honduras' Congress should vote on Zelaya's reinstatement, but it won't do so until after the election. Zelaya has urged supporters to boycott the vote.  

Equatorial Guinea: Voters in tiny, oil-rich West African nation will re-elect Teodoro Obiang Nguema, president for 30 years since coming to power in a coup. He is doubtless hoping to improve on his 2002 outing, when he captured 97.1% of the vote.

 

 

Sources: Canadian Press, Reuters, Financial Times (U.K.), Forbes.

 

Click on images to enlarge.

Weekend reading.

OU EST LA VIE DU NUIT?

Paris struggles to reverse new reputation for dull nightlife. (Der Spiegel)

 

TURNING A HEALTH-CARE EDICT UPSIDE-DOWN

The Breast Brouhaha (Gail Collins, New York Times)

Somewhere between the reports that Pap smears and tests for prostate cancer aren’t all they were cracked up to be and the news that a high fiber diet doesn’t do anything to prevent cancer, the health establishment began looking decidedly nonomniscient. Then this week, a federal task force reported that most women don’t need annual mammograms.

Even more fascinating, they suggested that doctors stop telling their female patients to self-examine their breasts for lumps.

If you happen to be a woman, particularly a somewhat obsessive woman, this is huge news. The to-do list just got one item shorter. Now if dentists would just decide to withdraw the flossing directive, we may have enough additional spare time to learn Spanish.

GENDER AND CLIMATE CHANGE

Poor women bear the brunt of climate change. (Der Spiegel)

Living in the most marginalized areas and dependent on agriculture to survive, it is the poor who are in the front line of climate change. Given that most of the 1.5 billion people living on $1 a day or less are women, they are in the most vulnerable position, said the United Nations Population Fund report, The State of World Population 2009.

In addition, women are more likely than men to die in natural disasters, especially among poorer people. "With the possibility of a climate catastrophe on the horizon, we cannot relegate the world's 3.4 billion women and girls to the role of victim," a report co-author said.

Celebration earlier this year of 60th anniversary of People's Republic of China, Polishing nation's world image a priority for President Hu Jintao (pictured above). -AFP 

IMAGE MAKEOVER

Beijing's great PR offensive. (Der Spiegel)

China's E4.4-billion global media plan includes a continued crackdown on "subversive" Internet bloggers but also using the Internet to broadcast the state-run CCTV-9 worldwide; new English-language editions of party newspapers to enhance regime's image; and development of global conventional TV networks.

 

WHO KNEW?

Marilyn Monroe's determined role in boosting Ella Fitzgerald's career. (Times of London)

Seattle skyline.

NASCENT BOOMTOWNS?

Five U.S. cities that will rise in the New Economy:

They are Boston; Houston; Huntsville, Ala.; Fort Collins, Colo; and Seattle. They have in common high-skilled workers, focus on clean tech, and above-average quality of life. (Christian Science Monitor)

REVOLUTIONS TRANQUILLE

Can we make a model of Czechoslovakia's 1989 non-violent "Velvet Revolution"? (Timothy Garten Ash, New York Review of Books)

Across the intervening years [since 1989], dramatic events in places including Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, South Africa, Chile, Slovakia, Croatia, Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, and Burma were tagged with variants of adjective + revolution. Thus we have read about singing (Baltic states), peaceful, negotiated (South Africa, Chile), rose (Georgia), orange (Ukraine), color (widely used, post-orange), cedar (Lebanon), tulip (Kyrgyzstan), electoral (generic), saffron (Burma), and most recently, in Iran, green revolution. Often, as in the original Czechoslovak case, the catchy labeling has been popularized through the interplay of foreign journalists and political activists in the countries concerned.

These events could, with widely varying degrees of plausibility, be described as attempts—by no means all of them successful—to make a 1989 kind of peaceful, negotiated regime change, including elements of mass protest, social mobilization, and nonviolent action. Velvet revolution, it seems, has not just a past but also a present and perhaps a future. Starting as the moniker for a single historical event—the velvet revolution in Czechoslovakia in 1989—it has cast off the definite article to become simply "velvet revolution": the genus VR.

GLOBAL HUNGER'S LAND RUSH

Is there such a thing as agro-imperialism? (Andrew Rice, New York Times Magazine)

Because much of the world’s arable land is already in use — almost 90 percent, according to one estimate, if you take out forests and fragile ecosystems — the search has led to the countries least touched by development, in Africa. According to a recent study by the World Bankand the United NationsFood and Agriculture Organization, one of the earth’s last large reserves of underused land is the billion-acre Guinea Savannah zone, a crescent-shaped swath that runs east across Africa all the way to Ethiopia, and southward to Congo and Angola.

Foreign investors — some of them representing governments, some of them private interests — are promising to construct infrastructure, bring new technologies, create jobs and boost the productivity of underused land so that it not only feeds overseas markets but also feeds more Africans. (More than a third of the continent’s population is malnourished.) They’ve found that impoverished governments are often only too welcoming, offering land at giveaway prices. A few transactions have received significant publicity, like Kenya’s deal to lease nearly 100,000 acres to the Qatari government in return for financing a new port, or South Korea’s agreement to develop almost 400 square miles in Tanzania. But many other land deals, of near-unprecedented size, have been sealed with little fanfare. (Photo: Farm worker on Indian-owned rice and corn farm in Western Ethipoia. By Simon Norfolk,New York Times.)

SHOPPING PSYCHOLOGY AND THE CASHIER'S LIFE

Please enter your PIN. (Rachel Bowlby, London Review of Books)

When self-service came along, this supplanted scene looked different depending on how you regarded the new practice. For one side it became a spectacle of old-fashioned dirt, disorder and rip-offs. Now, thankfully, the customer was in control and could pick out the things she wanted, in her own time: no shoddy goods slipped in, no waiting about, no grubby hands on her potatoes and no intrusively personal attention to what she was buying. For defenders of the old procedure, the same story spun itself the other way round. Self-service meant the blandness of plastic packaging and the loss of human familiarity, of the shopkeeper who knew and cared about his stock and his customers. It also meant that you were doing the work yourself.

SPYING FOR THE STATE

It began with opening other people's mail: A history of MI5. (Bernard Porter, London Review of Books) Photo: Richard Burton in The Spy Who Came in From The Cold, 1965.

For most of the 19th century, espionage was thought to be a low and foreign practice that the British – or at any rate the English – should not stoop to in any circumstances. This was for a number of reasons: because it used deception, which was immoral; because the state could not always be relied on not to abuse it; and because it was counter-productive, since foreign espionage was often claimed as a cause of war, and domestic surveillance was considered intrinsically damaging to the trust people needed to have in their governments, and in each other, if they were to be content and thus politically stable.

 

DUNCE-CAP ECONOMISTS

Economists chronically fail by discounting human behaviour. (John Gray, London Review of Books)

Each of these manifestations of animal spirits shows behaviour being driven by forces other than reason. None of them offers rational grounds for action in any sense that most economists would recognise. Even so, the authors insist, these responses must enter into any account of how economies actually work. If economists have failed to explain repeated crises, it is because they have interpreted economic activity through an unreal model of rational decision-making. Thinking of human behaviour in this way allows them to claim a high degree of precision for their discipline, which is presented as a kind of applied mathematics. But they have left psychology out of their equations.

 

Left to right: Timothy Geithner, treasury secretary; Christina Romer, head of the Council of Economic Advisors; Barack Obama; and Lawrence Summers, chief economic adviser.

DEBATE

Obama's economic team rescued the global financial system, with remarkable finesse. (David Brooks, New York Times)

Obama's economic team, attuned only to what Wall Street wants, is worsening the economic crisis by failing to grasp Main Street's pain. (Paul Krugman, New York Times)

 

 

THE IRREPRESIBLE GOURMAND

Our fixation with cookbooks. (Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker)

Vicarious pleasure? More like deferred frustration. Anyone who cooks knows that it is in following recipes that one first learns the anticlimax of the actual, the perpetual disappointment of the thing achieved. I learned it as I learned to bake. When I was in my early teens, the sick yearning for sweets that adolescents suffer drove me, in afternoons taken off from school, to bake, which, miraculously, meant just doing what the books said and hoping to get what they promised to yield. I followed the recipes as closely as I could: dense Boston cream pie, Rigó Jansci slices, Sacher Torte with apricot jam between the layers. The potential miracle of the cookbook was immediately apparent: you start with a feeling of greed, find a list of rules, assemble a bunch of ingredients, and then you have something to be greedy about. You begin with the ache and end with the object, where in most of the life of appetites—courtship, marriage—you start with the object and end with the ache.

THE SPLENDID TABLE - CHRISTMAS EDITION

21 tips for for Christmas from Britain's most acclaimed foodies.

The art of carving, Italian treats, Christmas breakfast, the perfect cheese board, and Roast Pheasant with Chestnut Dumplings and other recipes galore. (Times of London)

 

 

THE END IS NIGH (NOT)

Six 2012 end-of-the-world myths debunked. (National Geographic)

 

FEASTS FOR THE EYES

The AGO spotlights work of trailblazing photographer Edward Steichen.

"High Fashion - The Conde Nast Years, 1923-1937." (Until Jan 3.) More than 200 photographs from Steichen's fashion photography work for Vogue and Vanity Fair.

  

Actress Joan Bennett, 1928. Vogue cover, 1923.

 

MoMA celebrates "Bauhaus 1919-1933: Workshops for Modernity." (Until Jan. 25.)

Features more than 400 works reflecting the school's productions, including industrial design, furniture, architecture, graphics, photography, textiles, ceramics, theater design, painting, and sculpture, including works by Walter Gropius, Vasily Kandinsky and Paul Klee. Also see excerpt of New Yorker exhibit review. And Time on the impact of Bauhaus.

Oskar Schlemmer, Bauhaus Stairway, 1932.

 

 

 

Our Afghan disgrace.

Afghan prisoners.

Torture is beyond the pale for Canadians. It's what other countries do.

The high-water mark in anti-American sentiment in Canada was the Abu Ghraib revelations, and subsequent reports of torture - "coerced interrogation" - at Gitmo that so tarnished America's reputation worldwide. What the Bush administration did was not just a recruiting tool for terrorists, not only a justification for race-based murder by others from the Golan Heights to Darfur. It undercut America's ability to project moral authority when the world needed it, as it so often has in the past.

It was the U.S. that pushed for the U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (and for the creation of the U.N. itself, of course). America was the driving force behind the creation of the Geneva Accords. The official field manuals of every branch of the U.S. armed services counsels against torture, because (a) it doesn't work, (b) it invites retribution by the enemy on one's own captured comrades, and (c) it denies you the high moral ground, the place you want to be in negotiating the hoped-for peace.

Well, it turns out that Canada - squeaky clean Canada - is complicit in torture, as well. International law and custom finds guilty not just those who torture but who deliver people into the hands of those known to commit torture. And this, from well-informed sources including one of our most accomplished diplomats, is what we did in Afghanistan roughly in the years 2004-07. We handed over suspected Taliban fighters and other Afghans - some of them innocent civilians swept up in raids - into the hands of the Afghan National Army, known in London, Amsterdam, Washington, Oslo and everywhere geopolitics is studied and practiced to be inveterate torturers.

This is an Afghan army, recall, that Canadians are training and equipping even now. This same army is characterized as cutting and running, going AWOL in order to murder political enemies, that is complicit in the world's biggest opium trade, that is a branch of the corrupt Karzai regime, and that switches sides and kills Canadians and other ISAF forces on receipt of higher pay from Taliban insurgents than what Kabul pays them.

The Afghan army is no army at all. Yet a key part of our Afghan mission has been, and remains, to train it.

We peel the layers off the onion and learn that Richard Colvin, one our top envoys in Afghanistan, in scores of private dispatches to his superiors at Foreign Affairs and to foreign policy advisors reporting directly to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the PMO, warned that we were condemning our Afghan detainees to torture in routinely handing them over to the Afghan "army."

We learn that back in 2007, Amnesty International and a B.C. civil rights group worked valiantly but in vain to get full disclosure of what our government knew about this intolerable practice in the field. We learn that Canada's current Chinese envoy was employed by Harper to keep Colvin's revelations from reaching the Canadian public. And we know, as Chantel Hebert reports, that only a cover-up conspiracy among the PM and other MPs who simply had to know about this inexcusable conduct has kept under covers an outrage that lowers Canada's moral standing to the same depths as America's since the initial Abu Ghraib revelations.

Not that Harper has ever been effective in hectoring the Chinese about their civil-rights abuses. But he's become a laughingstock on that score, not only in Beijing but globally. What we as everyday Canadians are just beginning to learn about our effective "renditioning" of suspected Taliban insurgents to the tender mercies of an underpaid, undertrained and undersupervised Afghan army that occupies its many spare hours in the abuse and torture of others is a stain on Canadian civility long known in world diplomatic and military circles. And of course in Ottawa, too, busily covering up the truth rather than confronting it and eradicating unspeakable practices committed in the name of our country.

Richard Nixon was driven from office not for bugging the Watergate or ransacking a psychiatrist's files, but for covering up those and other breaches of his oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution that he ordered or condoned. I'm having great difficulty making a distinction between the actions of the paranoid Nixon and the transparency-phobic Harper. 

It so happens, in a very unfortunate turn, that our misbegotten military mission in Afghanistan was launched by the opposition Liberals when they were last in power. Dressed up as a humanitarian mission, in which it was made clear to Canadians that fellow Canadians were likely to die, it was in fact a self-interested fence-mending exercise with the Bush administration, penance for our failure to join the "coalition of the willing" in Iraq. These same Liberals are currently led by a self-styled civil-rights champion who argued passionately for an unprovoked invasion of an Iraq, hoodwinked by the lies about Saddam's non-existent weapons of mass destruction. And Ignatieff also argued that there are occasions when forms of "torture light" are sadly necessary.

There is no "torture light," just as there is no "pregnancy light." Torture is torture. Ignatieff condoned it. Like the disgraced James Peter Galbraith, he was among those muddled liberals naive enough to think that toppling Saddam would bring about peace in the Middle East, rather than lifting the lid, Balkans' style, on centuries of mutual hatreds. And playing to his U.S. audience as a Harvard professor, Ignatieff argued for inhumane methods of interrogation at a time of heightened U.S. alarm about national security post-9/11. That was music to the ears of the Bush administration, and Dick Cheney in particular, who cited this unsolicited but welcome endorsement of their foulest deeds by misguided liberals. Apart from Ignatieff's addled everyday botching of his current job, his cluelessness about geopolitics - traditionally an era of strength for Canada, dating at least since Lester Pearson was at External Affairs - disqualifies him to lead a major national party of a G-8 nation. There's too much at stake for Canada in this new century to have the office of the official opposition occupied by this intellectual poseur.  

So that leaves the NDP to lead a charge to get the whole sordid truth of Canadian prisoner abuse into public view, so that those who betrayed Canadian values and then elaborately covered up what they were doing is revealed in every detail. Why the NDP (and perhaps the Bloc, which also has usefully demanded a public inquiry)? Because only the NDP has been right about Afghanistan all along, objecting to a military deployment with no clear sense of mission, and bound to do more damage than good. Which is how it has manifestly turned out, with Canadian complicity in torture added to the mix of the ISAF's utter inability to contain, much less weaken, the Taliban now in evidence throughout Afghanistan.

We're at a decisive point in our history. As citizens we can demand a full public inquiry into our detainee practices, and how exactly the Harper government responded to the constant flow of internal reports warning it of what was being done in Canada's name.

Or we can let it pass. "War is hell" and all that.

The only thing at stake is our values as Canadians. Or reverence for civility and human rights. If we let this pass, it will happen again. And again. Attention must be paid, and the malefactors brought to justice. If the Harper government can cover up its knowledge and tacit approval of torture, it can and will lie to us about every lesser thing.

Related

* Chantel Hebert (Toronto Star): Impossible for MPs to be out of the loop on torture allegations.

* Rick Hillier denies receiving Afghan abuse alerts.

* Richard Colvin's affidavit on Afghan prisoner abuse, Oct. 5, 2009.

* Joint Amnesty International / B.C. Civil Liberties Association demand for Ottawa disclosure, 2007. 

* Rick Salutin (Globe and Mail): Our own little Abu Ghraib.

QuickNews, Friday, Nov. 20.

Everybody's Business is a Sarah Palin-free zone.

CANADA'S AFGHAN DETAINEE SCANDAL

OTTAWA CHOOSES TO SHOOT MESSENGER

SIMILAR ALLEGATIONS BY NGOS DATE BACK TO 2007

 

Top photo: Canadian Afghan detainees. Below, right: Richard Colvin, former Canadian diplomat in Afghanistan, since reassigned to the U.S., who testified this week that Canada is complicit in abuse, even torture, of detainees handed over to the Afghan National Army, and that Canada's highest military and diplomatic officials have known this for years. Below, right, Peter MacKay, defense minister during the period of abusive treatment described by Colvin, sought yesterday to discredit Colvin. "His entire testimony is suspect," MacKay said. Yet in harsh Commons questionning, MacKay acknowledged it was Colvin's many secret cables warning of abuse that triggered Ottawa overhaul of hand-over procedures.

AFGHAN DETAINEE SCANDAL | Ottawa rejects widespread calls for public inquiry. Ex-diplomat Colvin's explosive allegations touch MacKay, former chief of defense staff Rick Hillier, top Foreign Affairs department mandarins. Tories better hope Colvin is a fantasist, as they yesterday depicted him, otherwise we have a government-defeating cover-up conspiracy on our hands. This is not a new development. Canadian officials discussed torture issue as early as 2006. Amnesty International among NGOs sounding early alarms, back in 2007, about abusive treatment of ISAF detainees, including those handed over to Afghan army by Canadian forces.

Harry Reid, Senate majority leader, and Nancy Pelosi, House Speaker. The House has narrowly passed a healthcare reform bill. Now it's the Senate's turn. 

CLIFFHANGER | Historic U.S. Senate healthcare reform vote set for tomorrow. Will be a close thing. First vote scheduled for 8 p.m. Reid is recounting heads every few hours as blue-dog Dems and moderate Republicans waver. Dem pollster Mark Mellman, in session with Senate Dems, reminds them of Dem loss of Senate after 1994 healthcare initiative died. Quoting Ben Franklin, Mellman says: "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately." Call for party unity hasn't worked so far, not likely to this time either, even in rebuke to party's leader, Obama. Will come down to individual conscience - a chance to make history, or set back healthcare reform another 15 years.

OPRAH TO QUIT SHOW | Will announce today end of talk show in 2011, 25th year. World's first African-American woman billionaire wants to focus on entrepreneurial interests. LA Times has speculation on biggest winners and losers from long-rumoured decision. If nothing else - and she's done a great deal of good - Oprah will be remembered for popularizing reading with Book Club. And GM will miss her for all those free Pontiacs she gave away to entire first-day audience awhile back.

EUROPE'S FIRST FULL-TIME PRESIDENT | Meet Herman Van Rompuy, Belgian PM. EU chooses obscure figures for first president and first European foreign minister. Drives me nuts. Tony Blair's a lightening rod, I get that. But these two compromise candidates - neither of them widely known in Europe, never mind world stage - won't be the dynamic figures to rally Europe as a scold on Darfur or Iranian nukes, to create first pan-European armed forces so America needn't intervene in Balkans and other parts of Europe's backyard, or to contend with strong egos of a Sarkozy or Merkel.  

OBAMA REJECTS MAMMOGRAM REPORT | Will still fund tests for 40+. Government-appointed panel had recommended no mammograms for under-50s, finding them - and even self-examination - a pointless source of anxiety. Panel has since backed off own counsel, buckling under controversy. WaPo columnist bemoans missed chance to cut healthcare costs. NYT column on ritual of self-examination. Meanwhile, pap smears should begin at 21, OB-GYN group says.

SWINE FLU SNAFUS | Americans annoyed about vaccine distribution. So Canadian media not alone in playing up alleged Canadian concern about line-ups. Complaints flooding into CDC HQ in Atlanta.

CHINA BUBBLE | U.S. bond maven Bill Gross warns China economy overheating. Stimulus and rapid infrastructure spending will drive up prices, already triggering irrational exuberance. Consumer spending a disconnect with real incomes.

SACRAMENTO, NEW CAPITAL OF ONTARIO | Energy-hog big-screen TVs to be discouraged here too. Once green-conscious California does it, Ontario officials acknowledge, we're obliged to follow suit.

HIZZONER'S HIGHER AMBITIONS | Rudy to run for U.S. Senate. Will he represent Empire State or War on Terror State?

WHO KNEW? | New Yorker's Calvin Trillin on "Canada's national dish," poutine. Huh? Okay, the goopy mess is migrating west from Quebec, but Timbits still rule, no? Magazine also spends quality time with hyper-picky Michelin arbiter of restaurants and hotels.

QUOTE OF THE DAY | "The English instinctively admire any man who has no talent and is modest about it." -James Agate, British theatre critic.

Courtesy The New Yorker.

 

Please consider joining me as an elf this holiday season by participating in the Toronto Star's Santa Claus Fund, a century-old Toronto tradition. The Star uses donations to assemble and distribute gift boxes to thousands of less-financially advantaged children throughout the GTA. Each box contains a book, clothing and a toy. You can read all about it, including first-hand accounts of Toronto families in need, at http://www.thestar.com/santaclausfund. I'm counting on your kindness to help put smiles on thousands of young faces this December 25th! Many thanks, David 

The 9/11 trials: Bring them back to the scene of their crime.

WaPo's Ezra Klein makes a succinct, convincing case for trying the mass murderers in NYC rather than Gitmo:

A poll today shows that New Yorkers narrowly favor trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in their city, and this is being treated as a surprise in some quarters. New York sure is brave! More baffling were the lawmakers who cowered when faced with the prospect of holding terrorists in Supermax prisons in the continental United States, as if hatred of America gave men super strength.

These guys took down a plane with box cutters. They used crude weapons to attack a far more sophisticated and effective fighting force. The most fearsome of them was captured at home, in his pajamas. It's not like we're putting Magneto on trial and need to keep him away from metal filings...

Trying these murderers in open court in America will properly strip them of their dignity and mystique. It will also reinforce the great strength of the U.S. as upholder of the rule of law, the most-cherished of American values, lost in the eight years prior to Nov. 4, 2008.

Trying these guys publicly, as well as holding them in normal prisons like common criminals, is good public relations. Being a terrorist is a more appealing prospect if the world's sole superpower appears to cower before your might than it is if you end up trapped in the American legal system, forced to submit to endless cross-examination and consultation with attorneys and other bureaucratic humiliations. Lots of people want to be super villains. But who wants to be a henchman? Being held on a fortified military island and tortured by a country that can't seem to get you to talk is a much more glorious finish than a long and dull trial that ends with you serving time in central New Jersey.