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To: teevee who wrote (10416)	4/18/2012 12:26:49 AM
From: average joe	1 Recommendation of 11046

Violent racist gang expands into Edmonton Adrian Humphreys Apr 17, 2012 – 11:25 PM ET \| Last Updated: Apr 17, 2012 11:52 PM ET Calgary Police Service handout Neo-Nazis Kyle McKee, left, and Nathan Touchette, right. Former National Post photographer Brett Gundlock says “violence is just politics” to McKee, who faces 15 weapons charges. Members of a Calgary neo-Nazi group, which forged a reputation as a violent racist gang, have worked for a year to replicate itself in Edmonton, and criminal charges revealed Tuesday suggest its tactics, too, have been transplanted. Kyle McKee, 26, a leadership figure with Calgary’s Blood and Honour who spearheaded its expansion into Edmonton, is among three men arrested after two Sikh men were attacked last month. When police searched his Calgary home on April 12, they found two shotguns, two rifles, ammunition, and numerous knives and machetes, police said. It is unlikely the stockpile took officers completely by surprise, as Mr. McKee often posed for photographs holding guns as he stands in front of large Nazi flags. “For a guy who weighs 130 pounds he carries a lot of weight,” said Constable Ken Smith of Edmonton police’s Hate Crimes Unit. Blood and Honour ‘white supremacists’ charged over string of assaults on minorities Brian Hutchinson: ‘Loathsome’ ideas find a voice with B.C. neo-Nazi groups “People allow him to be the leader because, even though he is 130 pounds, everybody believes he has the potential, as we have seen in the past, to be violent.” Mr. McKee is seen as a fanatic who often gives media interviews and seems happy to pose for pictures, modelling his skinhead chic and Nazi tattoos in front of a vast collection of Nazi regalia. “He’s a true believer. He believes that what he is doing is right. It is all politics — violence is just politics to him,” said Brett Gundlock, a former National Post photographer who worked on a photographic documentary on neo-Nazi groups and spent months with Mr. McKee and his friends. “He has always been the main voice and face of the movement in the area. He’s the leader, although he doesn’t officially take that title. He doesn’t like to say he’s the leader but his history shows he’s been the main, constant motivator out there.” ‘They had their march in Edmonton this year and that is where they are focusing all their efforts’ Mr. McKee has been travelling to Edmonton for more than a year bringing in new recruits. Four such acolytes were arrested in Edmonton a year ago after attacking people while out promoting a White Pride march held annually; three have since pleaded guilty. The new arrests also coincided with the annual march. On March 24, the rally was held in Edmonton instead of Calgary and, while waving banners and flags and most wearing face masks, members and associates of Blood and Honour marched through the city. They were confronted by anti-racist activists, who outnumbered them. It was later that evening that two Sikh men originally from India were attacked outside of an east Edmonton liquor store. “One of the victims, inside the store, had racial slurs directed at him. As he left the store he was confronted and assaulted. Then, during that assault, we allege one of the other accused came up and hit him in the back of the head with a full bottle of alcohol,” said Const. Smith. The broken glass was then used to stab the victim, who was also bitten, police allege. Mr. McKee faces 15 weapons charges and two assault-related charges. Bernard “Bernie” Miller, 20, of Edmonton, is charged with assault with a weapon and assault causing bodily harm. He is described by police as a leading member of Blood and Honour in Edmonton. Philip Badrock, 44, of St. Albert, an Edmonton suburb, is charged with criminal harassment and assault causing bodily harm. He is described as an associate of the group. “They had their march in Edmonton this year and that is where they are focusing all their efforts. Kyle has been focusing his efforts on Edmonton; to try to build their chapter up there,” said Mr. Gundlock. Mr. McKee has been involved in white pride or neo-Nazi groups for at least a decade and has often not been far from violence. “He grew up in a pretty rough childhood in foster care,” said Mr. Gundlock. “He has been in and out of jails.” ‘He grew up in a pretty rough childhood in foster care’ Originally from Ontario, he moved to Calgary and established Aryan Guard, a white supremacist group that splintered amid infighting. One of Mr. McKee’s old ideological comrades in the group, Tyler Sturrup, was the target of a bomb attack in 2009 for which Mr. McKee was charged with attempted murder. That charge was dropped when Mr. McKee pleaded guilty to making explosives. Mr. Sturrup, in turn, was charged with second-degree murder last June, accused with another neo-Nazi in the beating death of Mark Mariani, 47, of Calgary, who suffered chronic health problems. In December, Vancouver police arrested three B.C. men alleged to be Blood and Honour members, accused of have committed a string of physical attacks on non-whites. National Post ahumphreys@nationalpost.com news.nationalpost.com

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To: kumar rangan who wrote (10417)	4/18/2012 5:47:12 PM
From: kumar rangan	of 11046

Saeed goes to court for ‘protection’ Press Trust of India Posted online: Thu Apr 19 2012, 00:22 hrs indianexpress.com Lahore : Lashkar-e-Toiba founder Hafiz Saeed has moved the Lahore High Court, asking it to stop Pakistani authorities from taking any “adverse action” against him under pressure from the US, and to provide security to him as his life was “not safe” and any “mishap” could happen. Acting on the petition, Lahore High Court Chief Justice Azmat Saeed Sheikh on Wednesday issued notices to the federal government, the Interior Ministry and the Punjab Home Ministry, asking them to file their replies by April 25. Saeed filed the petition along with brother-in-law Hafiz Abdur Rehman Makki. While the US has offered a $10 million bounty for information leading to Saeed’s arrest and conviction, for Makki the bounty is $2 million. Saeed and Makki contended in the petition that under Articles 4 and 9 of the Pakistani constitution, they were free citizens, and the federal and provincial governments should be stopped from taking any “adverse action” against them under pressure from the US. They also want the Pakistani government to ask the US to withdraw the bounty. Saeed’s lawyer A K Dogar said Pakistan should ask the US to provide evidence against Saeed, the Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief, before acting against him. Pakistan has sought “concrete evidence” against the two men from the US, saying this was necessary to “proceed legally”. While India provided Pakistan several dossiers with evidence against Saeed following the 26/11 attacks, Pakistan has maintained that the evidence was inadequate. The JuD chief was detained for nearly six months after the Mumbai incident before being freed on the orders of the Lahore High Court. “Arresting anyone without evidence is an open violation of the law,” Dogar said. Unlike other terrorists sought by the US, Saeed lives openly in Pakistan and has mocked the bounty offered for him, saying he is ready to face “any American court” to answer charges.

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From: TimF	4/21/2012 8:36:07 PM
	3 Recommendations of 11046

The United Nations Today: A Case Study in Failure The United Nations is being flouted and ignored more often than usual these days — and the consequences are, as usual, nil. In Syria, arriving UN ceasefire monitors are greeted with artillery barrages. Iran continues to ignore resolutions on opening its nuclear facilities to inspectors. And North Korea merrily flouts UN resolutions as it fires rockets and tests nukes pretty much at will. The reality is that the UN today is less prestigious and influential than it was in the 1940s and 1950s. There used to be a time when General Assembly votes actually meant something. Newspapers used to report its resolutions on the front page. And the Security Council, on those rare occasions during the Cold War when it could actually agree on something, was seen as laying down the basic principles along which an issue would be resolved. The increasing feebleness of the UN reflects several developments. The first is experience; as more and more actors figure out how toothless it is and how little its resolutions actually matter, more and more governments simply ignore it. And as that happens, it looks even more toothless, and even more governments conclude that they don’t have to worry much about it. The second is incoherence. The General Assembly is based on an absurdity: the patently false idea that the governments of the world are equal in some real (as opposed to formulaic) sense to each other. India has as many votes in the General Assembly as Chad. As the number of weak states and irrelevant states grow, the political importance of the General Assembly declines to the vanishing point. Nobody cares what a collection of micro states, weak states and corrupt, shambolic states thinks about anything. The absurd and inconsequential nature of the General Assembly is reflected in the bodies and commissions that depend on it. Groups like the Commission on Human Rights are international laughingstocks and rightly so. At best they are irrelevant; at worse they actively undermine the causes they were, theoretically, established to advance. The third is outdatedness. The Security Council represents a 1945 compromise between power realities and political correctness. That is, the UK, the US and the USSR were great powers in 1945. China and France weren’t, but it was convenient to pretend otherwise. Today, a majority of permanent Security Council members aren’t great powers, and there are significant powers (like India and Japan) who aren’t permanent members. A majority of the Security Council’s permanent members are European states and ex-great powers to boot. This is farcical, and the Security Council’s growing weakness is the natural and inevitable result. Finally, the UN punches below its weight because it is so badly run. Corrupt and incompetent governments insist on placing political favorites in UN jobs because, well, because they can. Despite commendable efforts at reform, UN bureaucracies remain notoriously poorly managed, inefficient and the whiff of scandal is never far away. The UN designs its objectives badly and spends money inefficiently in pursuit of them. The picture of course is not all bleak. While most UN peacekeeping operations seem to be corruptly run and poorly managed, they do help tamp down on the violence in some of the places where blue helmets are deployed. And when the great powers really do want to do something together, the UN framework is a useful one for joint action. I don’t favor abolishing the UN, but unless it figures out how to reform and restructure itself, it will continue to diminish as a force in international life. That is sad; while the world doesn’t need a world government, we could use an effective international body that facilitated international cooperation. blogs.the-american-interest.com

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From: teevee	4/22/2012 12:33:58 PM
	of 11046

Below is a humdinger of a paper that bears heavily on foreign policy. I highly recommend taking the time to review a presentation on four great global challenges: iwp.edu Links to Part I and Part II at the bottom bring up pdf slides. Both leave one with much to cogitate on. Mr. David Archibald on four great global challengesPosted: Monday, March 12, 2012 PAST EVENTS Publication Date: March 12, 2012 On Tuesday, 28 February, Mr. David Archibald - an Australian-based climate scientist and oil exploration expert - delivered a two-part guest presentation at the Institute entitled "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse." The four horsemen, i.e. great challenges the world will soon have to face, are: a decreasing extraction of oil, causing growing prices of energy and, by extension, food; Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, which threatens proliferation and, perhaps, even a nuclear war in the region; rapid population growth in the Middle East and North Africa coupled with higher food imports in those regions, which spells mass starvation; and a 210-year climate cooling cycle. Mr. Archibald suggests a three-pronged solution to tackle the energy crisis: replacing declining oil production with coal liquefaction and compressed natural gas for automotive use; employing nuclear power, rather than coal, for electric power generation; and developing much safer thorium reactors to replace uranium in nuclear energy. It should be noted that China is already actively pursuing these options. Many Middle Eastern and North African countries have exported oil to cover their food imports. Yet, falling oil production and a brisk population growth outpacing domestic grain-growing capabilities points to a doomsday scenario in which starvation leads to conflict and general political, economic, and cultural destabilization. Mr. Archibald - who has been recognized as "the first to realize that the length of the previous sunspot cycle (PSCL) has a predictive power for the temperature in the next sunspot cycle" - also argued that the warming of the last 150 years will be reversed as the Earth's temperature begins to cool sharply due to lower solar activity. Contrary to the Jeremiads of the global warming alarmists, the sea levels are also falling. Global cooling may well jeopardize grain production and threaten potential famines, which will certainly impact significantly the international situation. To view Mr. Archibald's slideshow in its entirety, please see: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse Part 1 - Conquest and War Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse Part 2 - Famine and Death

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From: kumar rangan	4/24/2012 5:53:47 PM
	of 11046

China off shores manufacturing to the US money.cnn.com NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Chinese conglomerates, on a mission to expand their global footprint and avoid "anti-dumping" tariffs, are shifting more of their production to America. In the United States, cash-strapped states desperate for revenue and jobs, are rolling out the welcome mat for foreign companies that can guarantee both. More Chinese manufacturers have been launching their own U.S. facilities in the last five years, said Thilo Hanemann, research director at Rhodium Group, a New York-based economic advisory group. The biggest investments are being made by Chinese firms with products that have been slapped with hefty anti-dumping tariffs, he said. The United States imposes these financial penalties on imported products that it believes are being sold cheaper than the cost it takes to produce them. Dumping creates an unfair advantage in the marketplace, according to the Department of Commerce. Alabama's sweet manufacturing boom In recent years, the agency has imposed these fines on solar technology and heavy industrial products from China, including steel pipes, copper tubing and aluminum extrusions. Xinxiang, China-based Golden Dragon Precise Copper Tube Group, Inc., the world's largest producer of copper tubing used in air conditioning, refrigeration and autos, broke ground last month on a $100 million plant in Thomasville, Ala. It's the first Chinese owned-and-operated plant to enter the state. The 400,000-square-foot facility is expected to create 300 American jobs when it's up and running in 2014. Golden Dragon filed for an IPO in China last month and is in a quiet period. It declined to comment for the story. Raymond Cheng, CEO of Hong Kong-based consulting firm SoZo Group, helped coordinate the deal for Golden Dragon and is working with 30 large Chinese manufacturers that want a presence in the United States. "For many of these companies, their biggest customers are in the United States," Cheng said. "It's a tactical advantage to be next door to your biggest client." Opening up a plant in the United States allows Chinese producers to save on transportation and fuel costs. For instance, Golden Dragon's Alabama facility will be right next door to its largest customer Goodman Manufacturing in Houston, said Cheng. Half of the 30 companies Cheng's working with also cited anti-dumping duties as a catalyst for coming to America. They can avoid these fines if they manufacture the products in the United States. Golden Dragon will still have to pay the penalties until its Alabama plant is operational in 2014. Until then, Alabama is offering special tax credits to companies to offset their anti-dumping duties. "[It] gives Alabama a leg up against other states in attracting big businesses," said Linda Swann, Alabama assistant secretary of commerce. Daniel Rosen, a China expert and partner with Rhodium Group, said Chinese investments in the United States can create domestic jobs and spur economic growth. "There is precedent for this," he said. "Japanese companies came here in the 1980s for the same reasons, including finding a way around anti-dumping duties." States to manufacturers: We want you ASAP! "There was skepticism when they came," said Rosen. "But today, there are more than 700,000 Americans working for Japanese affiliates in the United States," he said. Mark Stevens, a partner with manufacturing consulting firm Wipfli, is working with six Chinese manufacturers that are scouting for factory locations in the United States. He agreed with Cheng about why his clients are eager to come to America. "The U.S. is an untapped market," he said. "If they want to play here, they have to be here." Nanshan America, a subsidiary of China's Nanshan Group, is aiming to have its first U.S. plant in Lafayette, Ind., open for business in July. The 600,000-square-foot-plant will make aluminum components -- a category that faces anti-dumping fines. The facility expects to create as many as 200 local jobs by 2013, said Nanshan America president Lijun Du. The company picked Indiana because 60% of its market is in the Midwest. Du said avoiding tariffs was also a factor in the company's decision to come to the state. "When the U.S. imposed those fines in 2010, 95% of exports from China of aluminum extrusion products stopped," he said.Nanshan wasn't a big exporter to the United States at the time. Said Cheng, "It is a natural evolution that as Chinese companies grow into global brands, they will come to the U.S., the largest consumer market in the world."

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From: TimF	4/24/2012 8:53:34 PM
	of 11046

Terrorists Exchanged for Shalit Take up Terrorism Again Ilya Somin • April 18, 2012 2:26 pm When the Israeli government exchanged over 1000 captured terrorists for captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit last fall, I pointed out that the deal was likely to cost a lot more innocent lives than it saved, because many of the freed terrorists are likely to go back to their old ways. Sure enough at least two of them have already done just that . And they are apparently not the first Shalit exchangees to have done so. Given that there are 1000 more where these two came from, this is likely to be just the tip of the iceberg. As I explained in my original post on this subject, the likelihood that freed terrorists will commit further atrocities is just one of several grave flaws with these types of deals. They also incentivize future terrorism and hostage taking by showing the terrorists that such tactics work. In addition, endangering innocent civilians in order to save a captured soldier who volunteered for combat duty is a wrongheaded inversion of moral priorities. Still, the high likelihood of recidivism by released terrorists is a sufficiently grave risk that it by itself outweighs any possible benefits of such deals, especially if the ratio of released terrorists to freed prisoners is so absurdly lopsided that it becomes nearly certain that the exchange will cause more harm to innocent people than it prevents. This conclusion is inescapable on utilitarian consequentialist grounds. But it is also compelling in terms of theories of natural rights. After all, every time the freed terrorists kill or injure innocent civilians, they violate their victims’ rights to life, liberty, or bodily integrity. And the release is likely to cause far more such rights violations than it prevents. UPDATE: I advanced some additional criticisms of the Shalit deal in this post, which also includes a response to a critique of my position by economist Tyler Cowen. volokh.com

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From: teevee

4/25/2012 9:39:42 AM

of 11046

Pakistan conducts ballistic missile test

Military says test of intermediate range missile capable of carrying nuclear weapons was successful.

Last Modified: 25 Apr 2012 12:06

aljazeera.com

Pakistan has successfully conducted a test of an intermediate range ballistic missile, the country's military has said.

The Hatf-IV Shaheen-1A missile is capable of carrying both nuclear and conventional warheads, a statement from the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) department said on Wednesday.

The missile test was aimed at a target in the Indian Ocean. The ISPR said the new design implemented "improvements in range and technical parameters", but declined to provide specific details.

Previous versions of the missile are believed to have an approximate range of about 750km. Pakistan's longest range successfully tested ballistic missile, the Shaheen 2, has a range of 2,000km.

General Khalid Kidwai, the director-general of the Pakistan army's Strategic Plans Division, witnessed the test, saying "the improved version of Shaheen 1A will further consolidate and strengthen Pakistan's deterrence abilities", according to the ISPR statement.

On April 19, India, Pakistan's neighbour and regional rival, announced that it had successfully launched its first intercontinental ballistic missile, with a range of 5,000km.

India and Pakistan have fought three full-scale wars since they achieved independence from the British Empire in 1947. They conduct missile tests regularly and inform each other in advance.

'No disquiet'

Al Jazeera's Imtiaz Tyab, reporting from Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, said that the trading of missile tests came at a time when the often tense relationship between India and Pakistan had begun to thaw.

"It comes at a very interesting time. Over the past few months ... this very tense relationship between India and Pakistan has started to thaw a little bit," he said.

"You have Pakistan offering India 'Most Favoured Nation' status.

"As a result, India opened a key border post, allowing goods to flow between India and Pakistan, and of course not very long ago you had Pakistan's president, Asif Ali Zardari, travel to New Delhi, where he also met the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh."

Dipankar Banerjee, a retired major-general in the Indian army, currently at the New Delhi-based Institute of Peace and Conflict, said: "Pakistan had informed India two days earlier" of the test, and that "there should be no disquiet [in the region] on [the matter of these tests] at all".

"As far as India is concerned, and looking at it from Delhi, we are not at all concerned about this development," he told Al Jazeera.

Pakistan's last missile test came last month with the launch of the short-range nuclear-capable Abdali.

India and Pakistan have both routinely carried out missile tests since they demonstrated nuclear weapons capability in 1998.

"This is what has been happening over the past few years,'' said Talat Masood, a Pakistani defense analyst and retired army general. "The tests by Pakistan and India follow each other to show that their programs are robust."

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