An extract from Hansard is in the extended entry, in case we were of the mistaken notion that the Liberal government takes the murder of 4 RCMP seriously enough to effect meaningful and immediate policy change towards dangerous offenders. And why would they? As they do each 11th of November, they’re just so much better at showing up for the cameras at national days of mourning to declare their “profound sympathy” and “deep gratitude for their sacrifice” .
It’s not as though they have to dress for these events often enough to become a nuisance – usually it’s just ordinary Canadians who are shot, beaten, stabbed or dragged to their deaths by dangerous juvenile offenders and habitual criminals. You won’t see Paul Martin or Irwin Cotler at any of those services.
Sometime in the future, after their return to Ottawa from the memorial service in Alberta, they’ll go through a compilation of prospective appointments and run fingers down the list looking for more appropriately left-leaning, socially sensitive, Liberal-friendly lawyers to enhance an entrenched Liberal-friendly justice system that recycles criminals like Jim Roszco back into the community as if they were so many empty pop bottles.
And why not? When it comes to election time, we’ll have the Canadian Media Party manning the microphones and chanting “give us gay marriage, or give us death!”. And true to their trained pony nature, Ontario voters will turn up to support them in sufficient numbers to ensure that we get both.

Continue reading →

Publius has been following protest worldwide.

After years and years of waiting, the Kuwaiti parliament is speeding up legislation for women’s suffrage. About 500 women demonstrated.

Demonstrators here [Egypt] are protesting against the new election law that would have Mubarak run against other candidates. The basis? They believe it will be rigged. I tend to agree.

[Nepal] Even after the declaration of a military dictatorship and the oppression of media, the democratic opposition to the king is preparing for a huge protest tomorrow.

Thousands of women rallied in eastern Pakistan on Monday to demand justice and protection for a woman who said she was gang-raped at the direction of a village council, after a court ordered the release of her alleged attackers

Lots more there.

Totten is right – the western media, pundits and the democratic left would do well pay more attention Victor Davis Hanson. They won’t of course – they’ve shown an unhealthy fondness for worse-case-scenerio wishful thinking punditry.

Ammar Abdulhamid is blogging from Damascus, Syria. I’m not in the habit of quoting entire posts, but on the chance that it disappears, I’m going to do so here.

Rumors, Facts and Heresies!
The City’s air is rife with all sorts of untoward rumors, everything is now possible: there is talk of arrests, purges, coup d��tats, assassinations, sanctions, invasions, anything and everything, except, of course, freedom. Everything is possible except freedom. Freedom is never mentioned. Freedom never comes to mind. Freedom remains a distant dream.
The world is changing around us, but we, Damascenes, Syrians, Sunnis, �Alawis, Muslims, Christians, Arabs, Kurds, Circassians, or however we define ourselves these days, including perhaps heretics, can�t feel any hope in that. Nothing has touched us so far. Nothing seems to loom in the air, except for rumors and hearsays, none of which particularly inspired or inspiring. The face of an ugly and malevolent god still stares down upon any possibility of hope within us.
A reported wave of arrests has already swept a variety of “low-key” dissidents, that is, those whose arrest is not likely to generate much notice abroad, or even here, no matter how terrible this may sound. But then, everything sounds terrible these days. Despairingly terrible. There is hope all around us, but somehow there always needs to be some pit of despair somewhere meant to serve as a continuous reminder of how things were or could again be. But those whose fate is to live in such a pit have themselves to blame as well. If history teaches anything it�s that such punishment is always earned somehow. We earned it with our long and studious silence.
Being a potentially high-profile case, not to mention, of course, a heretic, my punishment is doubled, tripled and quadrupled: I have to watch others arrested while I am spared, I have to live in the anticipation of a potentially worse fate when the “right” time finally comes, I have to face the look of sickly blame on my sullen wife’s face, and I have to come back home at the end of another long day feeling numb and defeated, regardless of any achievements made.
Khawla and I have indeed reconciled ourselves to the fact that things seem to be like a race against time now: our decision is not simply about leaving the country, but about leaving it before it’s too late, that is, before events catch up with us and prevent us from traveling, together, or at all�
All these years I spent abroad without ever trying to obtain if not another citizenship then simply another residency seem increasingly wasted to me now. All this misplaced love for and belonging to the homeland is coming back to haunt me.
But then, idealists never prosper, do they? Do they?
On the positive side though, I feel like I have enough materials for a quite a few bestselling novels. One day this should make us all rich. One day.

Hat tip – Michael Totten.

A follow-up to this post on the UN oil-for-food involvement by UN Deputy Secretary-General, Canadian Louise Frechette.
Canada Free Press

It appears the impartiality and credibility of the Volcker Committee’s Investigation into Oil-for-Food is growing grim, exacerbated by Fr�chette’s troubling actions during the Oil-for-Food Program, and her colliding work history with investigators and possible defendants.
According to Fox News, “When [Louise] Fr�chette served as Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations from 1992 to 1995, her boss during most of that time was Canadian Deputy Minister Reid Morden, who is now executive director of the Volcker team.” Fr�chette’s current boss, Kofi Annan appointed Paul Volcker, to investigate the UN’s Oil-for-Food Program. The Volcker committee and Reid Morden have “no comment” at this time concerning Fr�chette.
After leaving her first post at the United Nations, Louise Fr�chette returned to Canada serving from November 1994 to June 1995, under then Minister of Finance Paul Martin, as his Associate Deputy Minister. Paul Martin held Canada’s Minister of Finance position from November 1993 until June 2002, becoming Canada’s 21st Prime Minister on December 12, 2003. Together, in 1995, Martin and Fr�chette worked on several issues including the Halifax G-7 Summit, and participated in the “Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade.” Inquiries to Prime Minister Martin’s office were not answered as of press time.
Louise Fr�chette joins the illustrious Canadian connection in the UN Oil-for-Food Program, where there is her former boss, Prime Minister Martin who replaced Prime Minister Jean Chretien. Jean Chretien’s daughter, France is married to Andre Desmarais, the son of Paul Desmarais. Desmarais is the chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer of Canada’s Power Corporation, and the largest shareholder and director of France’s TotalFinalElf. TotalFinalElf was one of the largest benefactors of Oil-for-Food contracts. According to the Financial Post, “In 1974, Desmarais, Sr., made Martin president of Canada Steamship Lines and then in 1981, he made him spectacularly rich by selling the company to him and a partner for $180 million.” As CFP previously reported, Canada, the seventh largest contributor to the United Nations, will not investigate the Oil-for-Food Program.

Today, Kevin Libin at the Shotgun picks up the Desmarais meme;

On the China watch, we have the National People’s Congress passing “a new law that could provide the basis for an attack on the island [Taiwan].” Also note that Beijing Clamps Down as Parliament Delegates Gather. Then, China proposes massive military spending hike. Just days before we have the EU announcing their stance on ending the arms embargo with China.
So, for absolutely no reason, let’s flash back to Nov. 26, 2003 when we see BNP Paribas–European–officially opening in China as the first foreign-owned enterprise bank. (BNP Paribas, you might recall, is the bank that handled Saddam’s oil-for-food money, now under investigation for possible improprieties in that scam.)
So you’ve got potential domestic unrest, a possible nationalistic target for a fascist government to redirect that unrest, an arms build-up, a willing foreign arms supplier, and a bank the supplier and the buyer both trust. Let’s get down to business.

Kevin’s post is rich with links – I”ll send you there to check them out. From an earlier post here on BNP Paribas;

BNP Paribas bank is part of a holding company, Pargesa Holding, which is jointly owned and controlled by the Fr�re and Desmarais families. Paul Desmarais Sr. is the chairman of the group, while Albert Fr�re is the vice-chairman. Gerald Fr�re, Albert’s son, is one of three general managers who oversee day-to-day operations, and Paul Desmarais Jr. is also an officer.
Pargesa, and thus Power Corporation and the Canadian Desmarais family, holds a controlling significant stake in TotalFina Elf, the Belgian-French petroleum multinational corporation formed from the merger of Total and Petrofina.

Breaking CTV

At least four RCMP officers are not responding to their radios after conducting a raid on an alleged marijuana grow operation in northwestern Alberta, says Alberta Solicitor General Harvey Cenaiko.
“They don’t know whether that’s a malfunction of the equipment or what yet, but it’s a very serious situation,” said Cenaiko.
He added that gunfire was continuing.

And our marijuana decriminalizing legislators would have us believe that the safety of the public depends on arresting hotel owners for smoking violations, unhelmeted bicycle riders and dog owners.
Keep them in your prayers.
Update – 4:30pm reports are that all four are confirmed dead. Military is reported to have been called in.
update 2
CBC report
Background:
“The Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police estimates that the number of illegal grow-ops in this province has increased 250 per cent. Revenue could hit $12.7 billion.”
Realty Times – How can you tell if there’s a grow-op house in your neighbourhood.
More details are emerging – this was not a raid, per se, but the intentional killing of four junior officers who had been posted to guard the property until evidence gathering could be completed in the morning. The owner returned to the scene to, for all intents and purposes, execute them.
More on James Roszko from Cosh.

Debbye has a lengthy post based on a Fox News report uncovering well buried information in the Volker report that there was “a systematic attempt by the Deputy Secretary-General, Canadian Louise Frechette, to block results of audits into the Oil-for-Food program from the Security Council”.

Four years into the seven-year Oil-for-Food program, with graft and mismanagement by then rampant, Frechette intervened directly by telephone to stop United Nations auditors from forwarding their investigations to the U.N. Security Council. This detail was buried on page 186 of the 219-page interim report Volcker’s Independent Inquiry Committee released Feb. 3.
This decision from within Annan’s office left only the Secretariat privy to the specifics of the waste, bungling and contractual breaches detailed by U.N. internal auditors in dozens of damning reports. The extent of what Annan�s office knew was not available either to the Security Council or the public until Congress finally forced the issue and the United Nations produced the reports in conjunction with a Volcker “briefing paper” in January.

For reasons unexplained, Volcker’s report did not mention Frechette by name.

The article mentions that although the Volcker Commission interviewed Frechette, the results as well as her name were not published. During her tenure as Canadian Ambassador to the U.N., current Volcker executive director Reid Morden was the Canadian Deputy Minister.

They say it’s a small world. Well, if that’s true, it’s a miniscule Canada. As we have come to expect, there are the usual connections from Canadian investigator Volker, the executive director Reid Morden and the omni-present Paul Desmarias.
Canadafreepress.com;

Continuing to join the dots on Volcker and potential conflicts of interest is Volcker�s number two man on the IIC, Reid Morden. Morden has connections to Desmarais in his role of selling nuclear plants to China and others for companies dominated by Desmarais.
Although he is Canada�s former intelligence chief, Morden does not answer to the Canadian government.
As CFP letter writer Peter Herberg puts it, “Can you imagine the uproar if a former CIA chief did this and took part in a UN investigation that refused to cooperate with congress?”
From all reports, Prime Minister Paul Martin has no problems with Morden�s arm�s length relationship with the Canadian government. But then again Martin�s senior adviser is Annan pointman, Maurice Strong.

Trivia: Frechette and Desmarias are both directors of the Trudeau Foundation. Frechette has a rich history in the upper echelons of the civil service. She also served as Deputy Defence Minister during the aborted Somalia Inquiry coverup.
From the site sisis.nativeweb.org;

Frechette’s appointment is believed to have come as a result of the influence of Canadian businessman and Trilateral Commissioner Maurice Strong. Strong has been acting as “executive co-ordinator of UN reform” to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Frechette stepped into a post that was created, it seems, especially for her.

The position of Deputy Secretary-General was created as part of the reform of the United Nations, to help manage Secretariat operations and to ensure the coherence of its activities and programmes. The purpose was also to elevate the UN’s profile and leadership in the economic and social spheres. In addition to assisting the Secretary-General in the full range of his responsibilities therefore, Ms Fr�chette also frequently represents the United Nations at conferences and official functions all over the world.

Go read all of Debbye’s post.

Christopher Hitchens is dead wrong that the “Arab Street” is a ” vanquished clich�” that should be put to rest.

The return of politics to Iraq has had many blissful secondary consequences, one of them apparently minor but nonetheless, I think, important. When was the last time you heard some glib pundit employing the phrase “The Arab Street”? I haven’t actually done a Nexis search on this, but my strong impression is that the term has been, without any formal interment, laid to rest. And not a minute too soon, either.

It’s only begun to stir.
Iraqis protest at the scene of yesterday’s car bombing.

More than 2,000 people held the impromptu demonstration on front of the clinic, chanting “No to terrorism!” and “No to Baathism and Wahhabism!”

Steyn argues that the world is witnessing the crumbling of the Arab wall. It’s hard not to agree.
Meanwhile, other miracles unfold…

The dominos continue to teeter towards democracy and reform in the Middle East.

BEIRUT, Feb 28 (AFP) – Two weeks after the assassination of ex-premier Rafiq Hariri, some 10,000 people massed in the streets of Beirut early Monday in defiance of a ban as the government faced a tough test in parliament where the opposition planned to present a censure motion to bring it down.
The Lebanese opposition vowed to defy the pro- Syrian regime on the streets and in parliament on Monday, amid claims of ministerial resignations, after a top US envoy upheld demands for an immediate Syrian troop pullout from Lebanon.
Waving the Lebanese flag and shouting “Syria out!” the protesters ignored a ban on demonstrations and converged on the central Martyrs’ Square as hundreds of heavily armed but good-natured troops aided by police deployed jeeps and trucks to the main crossroads leading to the square.

Publius is collecting reports, and Caveman In Beirut reports crowds could be as high as 200,000.
It’s going to be a rough ride, though, as evidenced by this report of a blogger’s arrest in Bahrain. Jeff Jarvis is watching Egyptian bloggers, who have justifiably mixed confidence in election reform under Mubarak.
Update – breaking reports that the Syrian-backed government has resigned.
Via Instapundit this email published at Belgravia Dispatch;

On Friday evening I headed down to the mosque where Hariri and his body guards are buried. A mosque still under construction, the outside protective walls of the site are covered with urban graffiti, people writing condolences and messages for freedom, truth and independence. At the grave site itself, the earth is still fresh over the coffins, and has become home to shrines, covered in flowers, images of christianity, verses of the koran, all of it alight with burning red and white candles. Throughout the evening and during the following day people have been streaming through paying their respects. At the foot of the mosque is the Place des Martyres, a Statue erected by the French. Since the 15th of February, the day after the assassination, a steady number of Lebanese have been setting up tents around the statue and now expanding outward in the square. Essentially a political squat, inhabited by activists making up the faces of the 8 anti-syrian coalition parties have congregated in a similar way to those involved in the Orange Revolution which just took place in the Ukraine.

Update: Photos here.

Europe welcomes George W. Bush;

Thousands of Slovaks defied swirling snow and a bitter wind to wait for several hours to hear Mr Bush speak in the heart of their capital, Bratislava.

“We love him,” said Arlena Turceanova, a 47-year-old lawyer, bursting with the pride felt by many Slovaks that Mr Bush chose their little country for his third and last stop. “He is president from a great country. It is wonderful that he comes here.”

The Slovak prime minister, Mikulas Dzurinda, set the tone when he introduced Mr Bush to the crowd with an implicit comparison to the late Ronald Reagan, who devoted much of his presidency to combating and denouncing the Soviet Union. For the White House, it was a reassuring reminder that Mr Bush’s stock remains high in New Europe, as Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, famously described the more recent East European members of the EU and Nato.

h/t Ezra Levant, who’s waiting for the CBC coverage.

Via a reader tip, Greg Weston has a tantalizing preview in today’s Toronto article that may help explain why Chretien went to such lengths – at obvious risk – to discredit Gomery. With the official prime ministerial “mea no culpa’s” on the record, the real testimony is yet to come.

SOMETIME OVER the next month, the Gomery commission of inquiry will hear the testimony of an extraordinary witness — a Montreal ad man whose key role in the sponsorship scandal arguably deserves a national standing ovation. He is the whistleblower of AdScam, one of the honest few on the inside of the sponsorship fiasco who saw wrongdoing and did something to stop it.
Over a period of almost five years, he has secretly steered select journalists, forensic auditors and now police investigators to many of the key needles in the AdScam haystack — the fraudulent deals, the money trails, the missing documents from hundreds of advertising and sponsorship contracts.
As he said to me with sincerity over lunch once: “At one point I looked at what was happening and decided I did not want my kids to grow up visiting me in Bordeaux prison.
“At the same time, I have no desire to become silt in the St. Lawrence, either. I have some real fears for my safety.”

Don’t be surprised if the Libranos turn up the heat to have the Inquiry terminated.

Almost 42 per cent of Canadian voters say they would bounce their MP from office in the next election if they do not reflect their view on the hot-button issue of same-sex marriage, according to a SES poll. The survey of 1,000 voters shows the country evenly split with 46.2 per cent favouring the traditional definition of marriage and 45 per cent who support extending marriage to gay and lesbian couples.
More than 54 per cent of Canadians say they want their MP to vote based on the views expressed in his or her riding. Only 21.8 per cent would respect an MP voting his or her conscience and slightly more than 16 per cent would agree to their MP voting the way their party tells them to.

This quote via Norm Spector;

In reply to federal Justice Minister Irwin Cotler’s statement that minority rights are never subjected to majority approval, Citizens Centre chairman Link Byfield commented, “That’s historically untrue and legally ridiculous. This issue, like all others, will be decided by a majority vote. The only question is whether it will be a majority vote of Supreme Court judges, Members of Parliament, or the citizens of Canada. This referendum campaign is just beginning.”

Nicely said.
I wonder how many other Canadians are as insulted as I am by the implication that ordinary citizens are too stupid and bigoted to be trusted with a question so fundamental to the fabric of society.
If this is the case, if the collective intelligence and wisdom of the Canadian people can be replaced by a handpicked panel of Liberal-appointed judges, if the majority of the electorate is so incompetent and ignorant that our views must be categorically rejected – then there really isn’t much argument remaining for preserving the Canadian democratic system.
Why not save ourselves a lot of trouble and money by just allowing the current Prime Minister to appoint future ones, and divest ourselves of the whole “representative government” charade.
They know better, my fellow Canadians. So just shut up and be told what’s good for you.

(Note: I’ve done a slight revision in construction, not content of the original post.)
Globe And Mail;

The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal has just finished hearing Ms. Chymyshyn and Ms. Smith’s claim that the Knights, a Roman Catholic men’s fraternal and philanthropic society, discriminated against the couple by refusing to rent the hall to them after learning it was for a same-sex wedding reception.
The Knights, adhering to church teaching, which is against homosexual marriage, cancelled a rental contract that had been signed, returned the couple’s deposit and paid for both the rental of a new hall and the reprinting of wedding invitations after Ms. Chymyshyn and Ms. Smith complained that invitations listing the hall’s address for their reception had been mailed.
That was in September, 2003. In October, the couple complained to the Human Rights Tribunal, which heard the case last week. A decision is not expected for months.

I like this part;

Both sides agreed that freedom of religion could be a “bona fide and reasonable justification to discriminate” but lawyer barbara findlay, representing Ms. Chymyshyn and Ms. Smith, says it wasn’t operable in this case.
Ms. findlay, who does not use capital letters in the spelling of her name…

(Sounds like Ms. findlay has some “issues” … is there some exotic pheromone that draws moonbats to argue these cases?)
I hold no particular religious beliefs. My support for preserving the traditional definition of marriage is rooted in basic anthropology and solidified by a suspicion that same-sex marriage has more to do with forwarding the agenda of the extreme left than it does with concerns about minority rights. If minority rights were truly the issue at stake, there would be full-out legislative war between the Federal Government and province of Quebec over minority language rights.
The secular left advancing same-sex marriage legislation in Canada purports to have a deep commitment to protecting religious freedom from erosion by homosexual rights advocacy. In reality, that commitment amounts to little more than a winking promise to allow people to “believe in something that doesn’t exist”.
So, when push comes to shove, the “truth” of state-defined equality rights will always trump the “false” God-defined morality. For those who are merely unconvinced of the existance of God, it’s a conclusion based on logic. For the left, however, the question of religion is much more problematic, for it strikes at the heart of their own belief system. Freedom of religion acknowledges the possible existance of an authority higher than that of the state, and as far as the left is concerned, that’s a notion dangerous to their own ideology.
When one views religious freedom as nothing more significant than “tolerance of those who believe in something that doesn’t exist”, it goes a long way in explaining why the secular left sees no contradiction in public policy makers who claim to be devout followers of their faith, and in the next breath declare it is possible – even preferable – to “set aside their personal religious convictions” to enact legislation that is in flat contradiction to the teachings of their church.
To a person who holds strong moral principles – be they based upon divine teachings, or be they based on a profound sense that certain principles are fundamental to a stable and just society – such a contradiction is not possible. One does not compromise on one’s core moral values. You either adhere to them, or you didn’t have them in the first place.
When an individual’s principles come into opposition with the demands of public office, one of two options are available. The honourable one is to fight to uphold them in the debate over public policy, and if the two prove to be incompatable – to step aside.
The dishonourable, and far more common solution is to declare that core principles are subject to a public policy time clock – that they can be punched out at the door and punched back in when you leave, that devotion to one’s religion can be toggled like the on/off switch of a church organ.
It is not by accident that we have in public office a preponderance of individuals of the latter variety, whose principles are conditional – conditional on the party whip, conditional on the latest polls and focus group findings, conditional to the pressure of lobby groups and party fundraisers.
Just some advice from this ambivalent atheist – it is folly to trust such people with your religious freedoms. If they’ll set aside their own fundamental beliefs for political gain – they’ll set aside yours.

First the great masterpieces began to disappear, followed by a renewed interest in nuke negotiation, and now ….

North Korean agents in Beijing and Ulan Bator are frantically selling assets to raise cash – an important sign, says one activist, because “the secret police can always smell the crisis coming before anybody else”.

Or marionettes!

60%*

Even in Falluja, the Sunni city west of Baghdad that was a militant stronghold until a U.S. assault in November, a steady stream of people turned out, confounding expectations. Lines of veiled women clutching their papers waited to vote.
“We want to be like other Iraqis, we don’t want to always be in opposition,” said Ahmed Jassim, smiling after he voted.
In Baquba, a rebellious city northeast of Baghdad, spirited crowds clapped and cheered at one voting station. In Mosul, scene of some of the worst insurgent attacks in recent months,
U.S. and local officials said turnout was surprisingly high.
One of the first to vote was President Ghazi al-Yawar, a Sunni Muslim Arab with a large tribal following, who cast his ballot inside Baghdad’s fortress-like Green Zone.
“Thanks be to God,” he told reporters, emerging from the booth with his right index finger stained with bright blue ink to show he had voted. “I hope everyone will go out and vote.”
[…]
Baghdad’s mayor was overcome with emotion by the turnout of voters at City Hall, where he said thousands were celebrating. “I cannot describe what I am seeing. It is incredible. This is a vote for the future, for the children, for the rule of law, for humanity, for love,” Alaa al-Tamimi told Reuters.

Husayn writes at his newly renamed blog, Democracy In Iraq (Is Here!) ;

What a day it has been. I am very tired, but I am at peace, something I havn’t felt in this regard before. I am happy to report that I found very few people during my post-voting trip through Baghdad who had not voted. I even got a few to “convert” and go out and vote. When confronted with the fact that staying away from voting was futile, some who had opposed the election relented, and went and made their mark.
Even now, I have no idea who is going to win, but it really isn’t important. It is enough for me to know that our new government won’t be the result of a sham election, that it will be the will of the people. We will not know who won for a few days, maybe weeks, but this is just a minor headache, and should not be taken by anyone to attack the election or it’s validity. We don’t have the machinery or technology available in the United States or other countries where you can find the result of elections overnight. We will one day though, and today is the first step on that path.
Let me end today’s posts with a picture I found of a woman who was so overcome with emotion at voting that she cried. I believe this picture symbolizes every Iraqi’s feelings today.

Jarvis has a fabulous roundup of quotes and links from bloggers in Iraq. Instapundit has lots, too.
Meanwhile, the networks are scrambling through the archives for material to fill the timeslots reserved for election bloodbath coverage. Jonah Goldberg, ” I just walked over to my computer after seeing that the Today Show was offering viewers a segment on new shaving technologies for men.”

Guardian;

Kosovo is fast becoming “the black hole of Europe” and could descend into renewed violence within weeks unless the EU takes urgent action, senior diplomats and international experts warned in Brussels this week.
But continuing EU indecision over the breakaway province’s demand for independence from Serbia, coupled with the ethnic Albanian majority’s failure to embrace reform and respect Serb minority rights, are paralysing plans to launch “final status” talks this year.
Five years after Nato ejected Serbian forces and imposed an international administration, the UN and the US are still lacking an exit strategy. Serbia, meanwhile, wants its territory back.
In an attempt to show willing, Olli Rehn, the EU’s enlargement commissioner, met Kosovan leaders in Pristina this week. Mr Rehn said the EU would raise the issue when President George Bush visits Europe next month. But according to Erhard Busek, who heads the international stability pact set up after the 1990s Balkan wars to promote democracy and development in south-east Europe, the EU must take the lead.
“Kosovo is a European issue and we Europeans have to get our act together,” Mr Busek said. “If Kosovo goes wrong, we in Europe will be first to face the consequences of migration and organised crime.”
With unemployment approaching 60%, a disastrous lack of foreign investment, and with 50% of the population aged 25 or under, “there is a huge social problem – a timebomb in the making”.

Of course, this is getting wall to wall coverage from the Quagmire Watch Set.
Doug Hanson, at the American Thinker, “The prediction of EU impotence in the face of renewed violence and “payback” in the Balkans once US forces were withdrawn have, unfortunately, come true.”

I was going to start looking for updates on the slaughter of the Armanious family in New Jersey, but Michelle Malkin has already taken care of it. She makes some pointed observations in her link-rich post;

The brutal murders of the Armanious family, whose members were devout and outspoken Coptic Christians from Egypt, are getting scant MSM attention. The stories that do get published have a P.C., “can’t we all just get along?” bias:
“Killing of family shatters religious harmony,” reads one headline. What about the family that was shattered?
“Jersey City slayings spur new wave of anti-Muslim bias,” reads another headline. Yet, the anti- Christian bias that may reportedly be at the center of the slayings has been downplayed in favor of other motives and, some argue, whitewashed.

I’d like to know why this has received zero coverage by Canadian media.
What’s that you say? Oh. It’s just a local story.
As opposed to the “Canadian interests” served by the coverage of the Scott Peterson case?

Staying well below the media radar is another European state struggling with illegal immigration. I don’t know enough about Malta or the political climate to offer any opinion. But, I will offer that there is a pattern in the non-coverage given to these problems by western media. The issues facing the Dutch in the wake of the Van Gogh murder, “Action Sweep Out” in Germany and this incident all share a common theme. Times of Malta, Jan.19;

Malta came under intense international criticism yesterday following last week’s incidents between army personnel and illegal immigrants at the Safi Barracks.
Speaking to The Times while accompanying the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Ruud Lubbers, in talks with the European Commission in Brussels, Raymond Hall, the UNHCR’s European Bureau director, said the UN agency was “deeply concerned about the apparent use of excessive force by Maltese soldiers when breaking up a peaceful demonstration by asylum seekers and irregular immigrants last week”.
[…]
Mr Hall said the UNHCR was shocked with the incidents especially since people had to be hospitalised following a peaceful protest. In the context of what happened, the UNHCR reiterates its advice that Malta should re-examine its detention policy, which involves mandatory detention for as long as 18 months and is by far the strictest in Europe.
He said: “The UNHCR is strongly opposed to the practice of mandatory detention, whereby asylum seekers are routinely detained until such time as they are recognised as refugees”.
[…] “The UNHCR has discussed Malta’s detention policies and conditions with the authorities on a number of occasions over the past couple of years. Last June, the UNHCR submitted a detailed report to the authorities which outlined a wide range of shortcomings in the four detention centres and contained numerous recommendations for changes.
“Despite a number of official letters requesting further dialogue, the UNHCR has to date received no official written response from the Maltese authorities.”
The UNHCR spokesman said his organisation fully appreciates Malta’s concerns that, given its proximity to major smuggling routes from North Africa, it risks being overburdened with asylum seekers and irregular migrants. However, he added, the High Commission does not believe such concerns warrant detention as a deterrent.

Keeping in mind my aforementioned disclaimer, I think that a country only 8 miles wide and 15 miles long, and within rafting distance of northern Africa, might be extended the benefit of the doubt for creating strong deterents to illegal immigration. CIA Factbook: Malta

Not that everyone is rushing to apologize;

Norman Lowell the fiery leader of the far-right Imperium Europa, said yesterday that illegal immigrants not only threatened Malta’s security, but also posed a “sanitary, cultural and genetic” threat to the country.
Mr Lowell was addressing a 200-strong crowd who gathered on Safi’s main square yesterday afternoon to “express solidarity” with the Armed Forces following the incidents at Safi Barracks on January 13, in which 26 irregular immigrants and two soldiers were reportedly injured.
Around 15 policemen placed barriers around the square before people gathered in front of St Paul’s band club, adjacent to the church, where electricity for the loudspeakers was provided. While it was evident that a few turned up out of curiosity, others seemed to be paying attention to Mr Lowell as he spoke. Mr Lowell started his speech by attacking the media for being “against the army and the boys in blue”. Waving a stick in the air from time to time, he said the media were controlled by “those who know where true power lies”.
“It’s the media which control and twist public opinion,” Mr Lowell claimed, adding that the media were responsible for painting a negative picture of him. “I am a libertarian and not a Nazi or a Fascist,” he said.
Mr Lowell said Malta is the only country that still had a “homogenous” race. The rest of Europe, from Ireland to Poland, was “contaminated” and it would not be long before Europeans would want to come here to experience the “real spirituality”.
“This is why we have to annihilate the black coal,” Mr Lowell said.
A group of men, who all wore sunglasses and caps, the collars of their jackets covering their chins, clapped heartily when Mr Lowell mentioned the Brigadier of the Armed Forces. Mr Lowell said that at this point, the AFM commander should not resign “even if he had the gravest of personal problems”.
Mr Lowell said the authorities were secretly going to change the law so that illegal immigrants would have a renewable visa to stay in Malta. He attacked Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini who said recently that an immigrants’ centre should be set up in Malta. “I will find Mr Frattini in Brussels and he will have to apologise publicly,” Mr Lowell shouted.
Immigrants entering Malta on boats should be stopped 14 miles offshore and warned not to come ashore, Mr Lowell said. The upcoming conference on illegal immigration would turn out to be yet another farce, with Government and Opposition on one side and the NGOs, who “have nothing better to do”, on the other, he said.
Mr Lowell finished his speech by raising his stick in the air and crying “Ave!”

Yeow.
More at the Maltese blogs Immanuel Mifsud and Toni Sant.

Passing along an Iraq election broadcast, via INDC; entitled “Heroes of Iraq”. (There’s also a transcript at the link.)
Milblogger “Adventures of Chester” looks at predictions by George Friedman (Stratfor) for post-election Iraq and the implications for the “insurgency”;

The Shia understand they cannot simply remain in a defensive mode. They have been passive in the run-up to the election, but after the election their credibility as the government of Irraq will depend on how they deal with the guerrillas. They must either suppress the guerrillas or negotiate a deal with them. Since a deal is hard to imagine at this time, they will have to act to suppress them. If they don’t, the government will either be destroyed by the insurgents, or Iraq will split into two or three countries, an evolution unacceptable to the Shia or to Iran.
Therefore, the Shia will fight. The Shiite leadership has made it clear it wants the United States to remain in Iraq for the time being. This does not mean it wants a long-term American presence. It means it wants US forces to carry the main battle against the Sunnis on its behalf. In the same way that al-Sistani wanted the Americans to deal with Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr during the An Najaf affair, he wants the Americans to carry the main burden now.
The United States is prepared to carry a burden, but it is not prepared to single-handedly deal with the Sunnis any longer. The Shi hav substantial armed militias. It is these forces — not the failed Iraqi army the US has tried to invent — that will be the mainstay of the regime. The Shia don’t want this force ground up because it is the guarantor of their security. The United States is not going to protect the regime without these forces engaged.
At this point, something interesting happens. The Shia have a greater vested interest in the viability of this government than even the Americans. The Americans can leave. The Shia aren’t going anywhere. For the first time, the United States has a potential ally with capabilities and motivation. Most important, it is an ally that is not blind on the ground. Its intelligence capability is not perfct among the Sunnis, but it is better than what the Americans have.

Chester considers the capabilities and challenges of incorporating existing and disbanded militias, and the implications for Syria – “if the Iraqis have good intelligence of Syria’s involvement, harboring, or support of the terrorist insurgency, it is entirely possible that the Iraqis will tell the US that Iraq will do something about Syria with or without the Americans . . .”.

Paul! Say it isn’t so!

One of those who made out like a bandit is a rich Canadian whose bank made millions and whose Paris-based holding companies include the originally French-Belgian oil company TotalFina Elf, which cut lucrative deals with Saddam’s Iraq and is currently operating in war-torn Sudan.

(I hope that someone notices that the UN’s own oil-for-blood investigator Paul Volcker has ties to Power Corporation…)

Top among these is the European-based BNP Paribas bank, which the U.N. chose to administer the program and which reportedly received nearly $1 billion for its efforts.
Congressional investigators reviewing the bank’s actions have discovered broken rules, missing documents and improper transfers by BNP Paribas, which up until now has been assumed to be a French bank.
In fact, BNP Paribas is actually controlled by Power Corporation, an appropriately named Canadian company that has a shocking track record of ‘business’ relationships with the worst gangsters and tyrannical regimes in the world.
BNP Paribas also has one other distinguishing feature: a direct corporate and familial relationship with the persons running the government of Canada for the last 20 years.
The truth about BNP Paribas and Power Corp. sheds a new light on Canada’s seemingly bizarre anti-American foreign policy in the Middle East, in China and elsewhere.
BNP Paribas bank is part of a holding company, Pargesa Holding, which is jointly owned and controlled by the Fr�re and Desmarais families. Paul Desmarais Sr. is the chairman of the group, while Albert Fr�re is the vice-chairman. Gerald Fr�re, Albert’s son, is one of three general managers who oversee day-to-day operations, and Paul Desmarais Jr. is also an officer.
Pargesa, and thus Power Corporation and the Canadian Desmarais family, holds a controlling significant stake in TotalFina Elf, the Belgian-French petroleum multinational corporation formed from the merger of Total and Petrofina.

Read on
My head is still spinning. Desmarais … Power Corp … Paribas … Chretien… Martin …. Canada’s No-War-for-Oil-for-food foreign policy? Who would have thunk it….

Update on the slaying of the Armanious family;

ABC News has learned that a cousin of the slain family has been a translator working for the prosecution in the trial of Lynne Stewart. She is the radical lawyer accused of smuggling messages from imprisoned Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, to terrorist cell members and associates.

Previous post here.
(via Powerline)
update, via Malkin. All I can say, is that I hope this isn’t related.

A gruesome discovery in New Jersey, as a severed head and body are found near a movie theater in Monmouth County.

Hazlet is only 31 miles from Jersey City. *
Jan.18 update – The Hazlet incident is apparently a bizarre suicide.