Thursday, December 27, 2007

Birth, Death

Welcome back to Jesus. Merry Christmas to all.

Remembering Oscar Peterson, Canadian, piano player...not louie Armstrong

Sublime is the word that comes to mind



They killed Benazir Bhutto. What a mess!

Pakistan's Bhutto assassinated

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Who is this technorati person

Technorati Profile

World Economic Forum - Who? What?


This image summarizes the essence of the WEF: Famous rocker, President, UN Secretary General and some guy from Africa. Their hearts are in the right place, right:
The World Economic Forum is an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging leaders in partnerships to shape global, regional and industry agendas.


But a forum of unelected leaders...getting together to shape agendas...no. Don't go all conspiracy theory Tim. Noooo!

Perhaps, the recent WEF call for video submissions by world citizens will lead to more transparency and more open dialog on contentious social, political and environmental issues.

Members
Members and Partners

Our members represent the world’s 1,000 leading companies. Partners are select member companies who are actively involved in the organization's activities and contribute their expertise and resources.


Membership
strategic partners includes: Coca Cola, Microsoft, Nestle and Unilever.

There are loads of women leaders too...

What would happen if an organization like the WEF actually embraced the Kyoto Protocol or Human Rights obligations and took action?

Davos, Secret Elites and Videos

Have your say on the Davos Question:
"What one thing do you think that countries, companies or individuals must do to make the world a better place in 2008?"




By submitting a video at http://www.youtube.com/thedavosquestion

Brilliant cross marketing, promotion and green washing - or - way to promote global democracy through online activism?

You decide? Stay tuned for my answer to this question. I have a feeling it will combine fair trade and a call for recognition of collective universal human obligations.

Friday, December 14, 2007

Ripples on the pond...


Drop some pebbles on the internet and see if fair trade sweeps beyond activist ponds.

Critical report about the challenges and risks of fair trade as a production and trade approach:

Fair to the Last Drop:
The Corporate Challenges to Fair Trade Coffee


-By Eric Holt-Giménez, Ian Bailey, and Devon Sampson of Food First - Institute of Food and Development Policy

download PDF


...At this year's United Students for Fair Trade (USFT) convergence in Boston, Massachusetts, students asked, "How will the involvement of large corporations change fair trade standards?" and "How do you get the scale and keep the values?" The activists who have been pushing Fairtrade products into their campus dining halls and cafés are now asking: how fair is Fairtrade?

Many ethical consumers and Fairtrade activists are also uncomfortable selling Fairtrade products through multinational corporations with unfair labor practices and monopolistic market power. Is Fairtrade providing a public relations cover for globalization's race to the bottom?


Well I hope fair trade is helping in Argentina, Sri Lanka, and in Dominican Republic, Peru, Paraguay and Costa Rica.

An example of a green site pushing for hope, delicious fair trade change and a greener world.

Thursday, December 06, 2007

Refugees seek a different port if you've visited the USA - Canada's Closed

If a refugee claimant passes through the US on the way to Canada they may be denied a right to apply for refugee status in Canada. This is because the USA is considered a "Safe third country", a country with high human rights standards that affords approximately equal protection for those fleeing persecution. But what happens if the third country is not as safe as it used to be? What if it becomes a sender of refugees?

This is a concern raised in today's Globe and Mail:

The safe-country dilemma: why offering asylum is an obligation

JANET DENCH and KAREN HAMILTON AND ALEX NEVE

Special to Globe and Mail Update

December 6, 2007 at 12:33 AM EST
Last week, Mr. Justice Michael Phelan of the Federal Court of Canada ruled that, when all of the evidence is considered, it is not reasonably possible to conclude that the United States is a safe country for refugees. As a result, he found that Canada is wrong to force refugee claimants back to the U.S. without giving them a hearing in this country. It was bound to be an unpopular decision, for all the reasons that make refugees among the most vulnerable and abused people in the world.

The Globe and Mail editorial Moving To Reject The Refugee Pact (Dec. 1) illustrates what refugee claimants are up against — in Canada and in other countries. Refugees are seen as an inconvenience: a challenge to border control and immigration management. They are also faceless non-citizens, making it easy to minimize the harsh realities of persecution they face if we disregard their right to asylum. They are frequently presented as nothing more than numbers: the numbers of claimants at the border, the numbers of claimants in the backlog.

But refugees are not just numbers: They are human beings.

Judge Phelan's decision is also doomed to be unpopular because it faces the reality that the U.S. violates human rights. Refugees often find themselves victims of the unwillingness of governments to imply criticism of other countries by acknowledging the shortcomings in their human-rights records or their refugee protection systems. This is particularly the case when the other country is large, powerful and very close by. As noted in the decision, the federal cabinet has failed to review the status of the U.S. as a safe third country, as required by law, despite significant developments, including important changes to the U.S. asylum law that cried out for review. Perhaps the cabinet held off because it knew that only one conclusion could be reached following such a review, and it didn't have the courage to declare the U.S. in violation of its human-rights obligations.

Janet Dench is executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees. Karen Hamilton is general secretary of the Canadian Council of Churches. Alex Neve is secretary-general of Amnesty International Canada. The three organizations, along with John Doe, launched the legal action that resulted in Judge Phelan's decision.

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Multi-Lingual Canada

Having lived for almost three years in Ottawa, I was getting used to signs and websites being in French and English. On return to Toronto, the city seems bigger and better than ever with more and more languages and communities represented.
Education that can adapt to these multi-lingual capabilities of Canadians could make us an economic power house. The question is whether we can come up with a more palatable way to teach Hindi and Mandarin than the way I was taught French in elementary school.


Canada's tenuous French connection

BRODIE FENLON

Globe and Mail Update

December 4, 2007 at 11:04 AM EST
...
• One in five Canadians – 19.8 per cent of the total population – was born outside the country, a rate not matched since 1931, when the percentage of foreign-born citizens peaked at 22.2 per cent. Only Australia has more foreign-born residents.

• More than 60 per cent of immigrants live in the large urban centres of Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver; only about 5 per cent live in rural parts of Canada.

• Most of the recent newcomers to Canada are from Asia – 58 per cent when those from the Middle East are included. Europeans, the dominant immigrant group for most of the 20th century, represented only 16 per cent of those who moved to Canada between 2001 and 2006.

• Canada's foreign-born population increased by 13.6 per cent, four times greater than the growth rate of 3.3 per cent for the Canadian-born population.

...
For the first time, allophones – those who speak neither English nor French as their first language – represent fully one-fifth of the population. The numbers jumped to 20.1 per cent from 18 per cent in the last census, driven primarily by immigration. Conversely, the proportion of francophones and anglophones decreased slightly after population growth is taken into account.

Monday, December 03, 2007

S.A. Miners on strike ... dance...

Costs of safety? What a surprise...but what about the benefits of safety?

Rockin out as a dancer. Yes I often find myself saying, "I think I can Dance"