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…