* Hansard: Port Security, the Reality and the Perception
* Corruption and cover up
* RCMP, US DEA, London Nat'l Crime Squad, Police in Bogota, Money Laundering Colombian Drug Profits -- Montrealers accused of money laundering -- Colombian drug profits allegedly routed through Canada
* 56 boy slaves freed in Sudan -- Victims claim abuse, rape, death treats, forcible conversion
* US Guts vs Canada's -- Canada Votes YES to Sudan's Third Term on UN Human Rights Commission!
* A Good Start: Now, Stop Letting the Scum of the World Into Canada! -- Ottawa targets 86 war thugs -- Criticized for acting too slowly, officials now prepare to ramp up prosecutions
* Rex Murphy for the New Ethics Commissioner
* The Joke of the Day -- on Sudan and the UN
* Multiculturalism and the Death of National Character
* While You Were Sleeping -- South Africa
* The Word "hero", Debased Yet Again -- Also, tells of Beurling, WW2 ace pilot and hero
Hansard A Best Seller? -- Port Security, the Reality and the Perception
More Paperwork and Re-shuffling Bodies Temporarily?
Read the bafflegab answers; then ask yourself, what Hon. Tony Valeri (Minister of Transport, Lib.) actually SAID / PROMISED / DID / ADDED TO PUT BODIES AT THE PORTS FROM THE RCMP. Did he make port security any better? Any clearer to you? Do you feel any safer? No? Thought so.
This is all talk, no action, no hiring, (just reshuffled temporarily to leave the perception that something is being done) and yet, there is not much time left.
Mr. Kevin Sorenson (Crowfoot, CPC): Mr. Speaker, rather than close all security gaps, as recommended by the Auditor General in her report, the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness has in effect created a system of two tier security at our marine ports. The RCMP national ports enforcement teams will only be established at the three major ports.
Why is the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness failing to provide the same level of security at all our marine ports?
Hon. Tony Valeri (Minister of Transport, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the Government of Canada's six-point plan to strengthen marine security in fact illustrates our continued commitment to better detect, assess and respond to marine threats. This is working toward a North American solution on security which will ensure that our Canadian ports remain competitive with our U.S. neighbours.
As I said last week, in the coming days I will have the opportunity to announce a contribution plan [. . . . ]
Mr. Kevin Sorenson (Crowfoot, CPC): Mr. Speaker, the Canadian public wants to see more than six-point plans. They want to see action and we have not seen action from the government.
Without the same level of security at all ports, terrorists and organized crime will target the port of least resistance. Second class ports, those without the RCMP, will be their chosen port of entry. Not just some, but all marine ports must have RCMP presence.
Will the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness ensure that the RCMP national ports enforcement teams are established at all major marine ports?
Hon. Tony Valeri (Minister of Transport, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, on July 1 there is an international standard that we are expected to meet. We have gone further and have created a North American standard . . . . I will continue to work with the stakeholders . . . . We will announce a contribution plan in order to assist port authorities and facilities in meeting that international standard.
In the 1990s, before Hong Kong was reverted from British to Chinese control, [. . . . ]
Day after day, people lined up at the Canadian High Commission in Hong Kong, waiting to apply for visas. Many of those seeking landed immigrant status were people looking to come to Canada for the right reasons, but according to former Royal Hong Kong Police Chief Detective Inspector Sandy Boucher, Canada was also gaining a reputation in organized crime circles as a haven for those mixed up in shady dealings.
“We knew that many of our organized crime figures -- people with records, people without records but serious criminals – were looking to move to Canada,” says Boucher.
But while Canadian authorities are supposed to keep those kinds of people out, in Hong Kong, something appeared to be going very wrong. “Some applied (for visas) and were turned back, some applied and got in,” says Boucher. “It was no secret.”
One such immigrant was Lee Chau Ping, a notorious drug trafficker who is known as the Ice Queen. In 1992, after police raided her labs and one of her safe houses, the Ice Queen got on a plane headed for Canada. Not thinking that the Canadian government would let her stay, Boucher assumed the Ice Queen had headed oversees to wait for the heat on her gang to die down a little. So he was shocked when an RCMP officer told him she had been granted landed immigrant status.
“I said, ‘It can’t be – she’s got a criminal record. I know she’s known to Canadian authorities.’”
But apparently, Lee Chau Ping – who posed as a businesswoman ready to invest $170,000 in a Chicken Delight franchise in a tiny town in northern Saskatchewan – had slipped under the radar. And Brian McAdam, the immigration control officer at the High Commission in Hong Kong, soon learned that other criminals had too.
“I discovered that these Triad people (members of secret Chinese organized crime fraternities that have ties to members of the Hong Kong business community) were regulars at getting visas to visit their families or go on holidays as the case may be, and yet clearly on the file was intelligence information identifying who they were.”
Link for the rest.
Check my archives for a lengthy series of other background articles, from Feb. 24/25, Mar. 1, 04 and more.
Thanks to Jack for the above corruption article. Look at his site, at the top, and don't miss the link to this.
Jack's Latest Thought: "Paul Martin's wild-eyed chimps are thinking of using attack ads warning Canadians that 'Attila of Alberta'is dark and scary. They're right -- he is -- IF you're a wild-eyed chimp!"
The CBC is vicious now; every chance they get to tar Stephen Harper with negatives, they do. They are so amateurishly obvious. There is not a hint of balance nor trying to give Canadians the policies of each political party. Not the CBC! They know their bread is buttered with Liberal pork fat. NJC
Five Montreal residents were arrested yesterday in connection with an international crime ring that allegedly laundered Colombian drug profits through Canada and the United States.
The arrests were part of a massive multi-agency sweep that saw 34 people charged in cities around the globe.
The two-year joint investigation, which also recovered US$20-million worth of illicit drug profits, involved members of the RCMP, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, London's National Crime Squad and police in Bogota.
"Those who choose to help hide the proceeds of illicit drug trafficking are as much a part of the problem as those who bring the drugs into this country, and they will be dealt with accordingly," said John Ashcroft, the U.S. Attorney-General, who announced the arrests yesterday alongside numerous officials, including Superintendent Michel Cabana, the head of national and border security for the RCMP in Quebec.
Authorities yesterday also unsealed a 48-page indictment that outlines how the organization -- using banks in North America and Europe -- laundered cash through the Colombian Black Market Peso Exchange, an underground operation that allows Colombians, mainly business people, to purchase U.S. currency without having to pay taxes and transaction fees.
[. . . .] According to prosecutors, the five Montreal men implicated in the scheme worked for Colombian drug lords, gathering the cash in Canada that was eventually given to the "second-tier" peso brokers.
[. . . .] Charged with conspiring to launder the proceeds of crime are Juan Carlos Ellis, 42; Hugo Palma, 43; Yip Oi Man, 48; Giovanni Di Rienzo, 43; and Gerardo Palma, 32. All are facing extradition to the United States to face the charges in New York.
PARIS, May 4 — French police are scrambling to locate 1,100 pounds of fertilizer that could be used to make a powerful bomb after the material was discovered missing on Monday in northern France.
The fertilizer, ammonium nitrate, is believed to have been stolen over the Easter weekend from the port of Honfleur near the mouth of the Seine river, according to officials quoted by local media. The officials said large quantities of the fertilizer were stored at the port without any particular security measures.
Ammonium nitrate is highly explosive when mixed with diesel or fuel oil and has been used for some of the most destructive terrorist bombs in recent history, including the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the bombings that killed 62 in Istanbul last year.
[. . . .] While the Madrid bombs were not made with ammonium nitrate, two unexploded bombs found on French rail lines in recent months did contain the fertilizer. [. . . .]
In late March, British police seized more than half a ton of the fertilizer in West London in a raid on suspected Islamic terrorists. [. . . .]
Look at the other links on the site -- very interesting -- perhaps not politically correct, but . . . .
WINNIPEG - Wrongly convicted inmates across Canada, hoping to use DNA analysis to prove their innocence, may need to find other avenues after the RCMP yesterday confirmed a long-standing policy to destroy biological evidence from serious criminal investigations. The policy was in place until 2001.
In contrast to the approach used by most municipal police forces, the RCMP said it disposed of all exhibits, including such biological items as hair and blood samples, 30 days after a convict exhausted all avenues of appeal.
The policy led to the destruction of a hair sample used to convict Manitoban Kyle Unger of first-degree murder in 1990. A special committee struck by Manitoba Justice to review cases involving microscopic hair comparison evidence -- the standard technology used for scientific analysis before DNA was available -- had recommended the hair be subject to further analysis.
[. . . . ] Unger confessed to undercover RCMP officers, but later claimed he lied to impress two men he thought were drug dealers offering him a job. The only piece of physical evidence tying Unger to the murder was a single hair found on Grenier's clothing.
The hair was identified by microscopic comparison as belonging to Unger.
Over four dozen boy slaves have been freed from cattle camps near the border between northern and southern Sudan.
According to Christian Solidarity International, the operation to free the 56 boys was a joint effort of CSI and the Arab-Dinka Peace Committee. The boys had been abducted during jihad slave raids sanctioned by the Khartoum government that targeted non-Muslim communities in northern Bahr El Ghazal.
[. . . .] In the spring of 2002, a U.S. government-sponsored international Eminent Persons Group charged Sudan's Islamist regime of using slavery as a weapon of war against southern Sudan.
Now, check Canada's reaction to Sudan's bid to become part of the UN Human Rights Commission below which is shameful. It links to this story in the Guardian, UK
A Good Start; Now, Stop Allowing Any More Scum of the World Into Canada!
Speaking of jokes, note this second paragraph -- uttered with all seriousness, I would guess.
* Ottawa targets 86 war thugs -- Criticized for acting too slowly, officials now prepare to ramp up prosecutions
"Canada has a reputation world-wide for being a leader in ensuring that there is no safe haven for individuals involved in crimes against humanity or war crimes, regardless of when or where these crimes took place," said Irwin Cotler, the Minister of Justice, in a written statement.
Do you suppose Justice Minister Cotler really believes this? Or is he required to spout the Liberal government line?
The government has identified 86 credible cases of modern war crimes that could lead to criminal prosecution in Canada, including cases of Canadian citizens accused of recent wartime atrocities abroad, according to federal documents released yesterday.
[. . . .] The 86 possible contemporary criminal cases are in addition to the 75 people wanted by Canadian authorities for suspected war crimes who were ordered deported but instead disappeared, a figure the National Post revealed in March. The 75 outstanding arrest warrants against foreign nationals are confirmed in the annual report released yesterday, which covers the period April 1, 2002 to March 31, 2003.
"Some of the allegations referred to RCMP/DOJ for possible criminal investigation concern Canadian citizens," the report says.
[. . . . ] "Canada has a reputation world-wide for being a leader in ensuring that there is no safe haven for individuals involved in crimes against humanity or war crimes, regardless of when or where these crimes took place," said Irwin Cotler, the Minister of Justice, in a written statement.
I know I have been a hard case when it comes to the CBC. Their unbearable political correctness, their blatant political bias, and their vicious anti-Americanism are their defining news qualities. However, Rex Murphy is like a silk ribbon who ties up that sack of @#$%. Speaking with almost Shakespearean eloquence, he punctures their social and political spin. May 4 he again swiftly dismantled the Liberals' sly innuendo about the Auditor-General's competence. Corrupt politicians followed shady bureaucrats and ad men in the sponsorship probe, each one trying to plant the seed of doubt about Fraser's audit. At no time did Paul Martin seriously back her reputation. Well, Rex did, and with his rapier wit, he shamed them all. In a humourous aside, he even claimed she surpassed Don Cherry in the public's affections. Having watched many of the star witnesses try to wriggle away from their malfeasance, and being helped by Liberal members (e.g. Marlene Jennings) of the committee trying to nitpick the Auditor-General's condemnations, Murphy figured Fraser came out on top.
The news editors must have read his commentary; because they included an expose of Gagliano's trip to Italy to launch a new mint coin. However dubious that launch appears, it pointed out the absurd expenses he and his coterie racked up. They billed for two weeks expenses; yet only performed two days work--if that. One member of the entourage was only a personal friend of Gagliano. It is this kind of in-your-face-arrogance that drives Rex crazy. Nobody at the Mint thought of challenging this Louis X!V extravagance. It is symptomatic of how the Liberals have been operating on your dime for the last ten years. It is time to drain the swamp in the next election. Small wonder Martin dithers about dropping the writ. Maybe Canadians will forget the multiple scandals -- HRDC, gun control, Shawinigate, 40,000 villainous deportees who have escaped their sentences, etc. -- or, horror of horrors, new scandals will just keep surfacing weekly. The man has a real problem.
The Joke of the Day -- US Guts vs Canada's Canada Votes YES to Sudan's Third Term on Human Rights Commission!
The UN Human Rights Committee has, for a second time, appointed Sudan to its commission. The last time Sudan was on it, the Muslim leadership was murdering hundreds of thousand of their Christian blacks. Now they are murdering, raping, and driving into exile hundreds of thousands of black Muslims in the Danfur region. Slaughtering black Christians and Muslims at least shows they are equal opportunity monsters. And while the Third World dictatorships wring their hands about abused Iraqi prisoners, they cannot muster a word of dissent about Sudan. Oh, other noteworthy members of the UNHRC are Vietnam and Pakistan. I am sure if Pol Pot's Cambodia were to have applied it would have been accepted too. Come to think of it, the UN in toto might be the joke of the last half century.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The United States walked out of a U.N. meeting Tuesday to protest its decision minutes later to give Sudan a third term on the Human Rights Commission, the world body's human rights watchdog.
U.S. Ambassador Sichan Siv called the vote an "absurdity" and accused Sudan of massive human rights violations and ``ethnic cleansing'' in the western Darfur region before getting up from his chair and walking out of the Economic and Social Council chamber.
[. . . . ] Three other African countries - Kenya, Guinea and Togo - were also elected by consensus to represent Africa. Armenia and Romania representing Eastern Europe and Ecuador and Mexico representing Latin America also faced no opposition.
In the contested race among Western nations, Canada, Finland and France won seats, defeating Spain. And in the contested Asian race, Malaysia, Pakistan and South Korea defeated Vietnam.
[. . . . ] Last year, the United States also walked out to protest Cuba's re-election to the Human Rights Commission, which it called "an outrage." Russia, Saudi Arabia and several African countries with poor human rights records also won seats, and Libya chaired the commission in 2003.
Multiculturalism and the Death of National Character
I was drawn to this theme by an article I read in that English magazine of thoughtfulness, The Spectator, written by Ferdinand Mount and entitled, One Nation under her Majesty. Mount laments the decline of any definable national character in favour of the polyglot cultures of the globe. He points out that there is a disconnect between the British intellegentsia and patriotism. The left, which has control not only of the government, but also of many of its purveyors of culture, has retreated into a nihilistic vendetta against much of traditional English social culture. As Mount puts it, "As the spirit went out of socialism in the ordinary sense, the left groped about for another means of expressing itself. If it were no longer possible to purify the nation by abolishing the capitalist system and seize the commanding heights of the economy, then at least one could purify the atmosphere. The national culture could be bleached and leached, leaving more or less a blank space where any citizen was able to write his or her own preferences. The nation could become one giant cultural mall."
Mount could have been talking about Canada. As I have mentioned previously in another blog, a correspondent has informed me that in one area of the Maritimes, the 6 o'clock news is now dominated by an all female, all Asian-Canadian line-up. The whites, who once ran the show, have all been sent to NB's hinterland to give their reports. The CBC does not consider this odd, even though visible minorities don't make up 1% of that province. Every Christmas, principals get in a tizzy about whether to have Christmas pageants. Ironically, it is rarely the visible minorites who complain; rather it is the loonie left. Muslims and Hindus can barely imagine this religious disenfranchising happening in their own native countries. If it weren't for Adrienne Clarkson being 1. Chinese-Canadian, 2. a gold-plated member of the left intellegensia, and 3. a former CBC host, then the left would try to abolish her office, as it reeks of Euro-centrism.
As for the television lineup of presenters, Bud, they're softening up the underpopulated areas of Canada for a massive influx of refugees / immigrants, I would guess -- and they won't be from Europe. Of course, that would spread the economic drain on the sytem that cities like Toronto are experiencing around Canada -- to the schools, for example.
As for Adrienne Clarkson and abolishing the office of Governor General, that will come, Bud. I honestly think the ultimate object of not reigning in quickly our pseudo queen's extravagance, along with that of her champagne socialist husband, was to allow it full flower and then Canadians would become so angry, they would be happy to support the abolition of the office of the Queen's representative as an utter waste. NJC
The tenth anniversary of post-apartheid South Africa was celebrated, in glowing terms, by much of the world's media. From the CBC and the left-wing media you would think that the ANC controlled country was a mini-paradise. Think again. While in comparison to the rest of Africa it is still the economic champ, it is quickly disintegrating into chaos and commercial decline. A few of the reasons why follow.
1. Perhaps nothing illustrates this erosion better than the crime statistics. Last year there were over 15,000 carjackings. This type of crime is so tied to blacks that South Africans refer to it as "affirmative driving". Late at night in the large cities nobody stops for red lights for fear of robbers assaulting them.
2. The overall crime rate is astronomical, but the most chilling is the murder rate -- arguably the highest in the world, or at least equal to, Colombia's. It is estimated that since the Iraqi invasion, between 7,000 and 10,000 civilians have been killed; however, the total for that time period in South Africa is 15,000. Since the ANC has taken power, over a 1,000 white farmers have been murdered. Most appalling is that many of these killings have come after the victims have been raped and brutally tortured. The ANC has tried to portray these deeds as the result of disaffected criminal gangs. The white farmers see it as a deliberate reign of terror to force whites off the land. In contrast, while Mugabe's thugs are forcing white to leave their farms, only 11 cases have involved whites being murdered. The average murder rate in SA is 58 per 100,000 (compared to 1.3 in England and Wales) -- but the murder rate for white farmer is 313 per 100,000. The middle class--white or black--is forced to live in what amount to fortresses, with guard dogs and razor wire walls. The truly wealthy have increasingly fled the country, taking their wealth with them. Imagine Kubrick's movie, A Clockwork Orange done in blackface and you have it.
3. The uneasy peace between the Zulus and the Xoshas is unravelling. Before apartheid ended, these two major tribes exchanged bloody massacres, leading to a death toll in the tens of thousands. With the ANC's massive victory this month, President Mbeki has reduced the power of the Zulus. Peter Goodspeed wrote in this Saturday's National Post about the consequences of this move. When Zulu chief, Buthelezi was fired as Home Affairs minister, the powerful Inkatha Party withdrew from the 10 year old national unity movement. The stage is now set for a continuation of tribal warfare.
4. AIDS is ravaging the black population. While the statistic of 1 in 5 adults infected is a bit suspect, the numbers are still extremely high. On top of the hundreds of thousands of former youths who are uneducated and unemployable, you will see vast numbers of orphaned childred who will swell their ranks. President Mbeki has gone on record as saying that the cause is not HIV infection from sex, but rather it is caused by poverty. With such enlightened leadership, the problem can only grow worse.
5. There is perhaps no more ominous sign of South Africa's descent than the suspicious support that Mbeki and the ANC has lent to Zimbabwe's Mugabe -- Mugabe, who has beggared his country. When Mbeki allows an ANC leader to stand before a cheering crowd and rant, "Kill the Boer! Kill the farmers!", then the handwriting on the wall is writ large. The whites who are left often would leave SA, but who would want to buy their homes and farms? [More to the point, Bud, would Canada allow white South Africans in?]
I cringe at how words can be stripped of their initial meaning to add "colour" to media commentary. The original sense of the word hero which described one who performs valiant deeds, often at risk to his or her own life, has degenerated into one who simply survives an ordeal, i.e. famously, the little girl who fell into a well in Texas and didn't die before being rescued. In point of fact, she did nothing heroic. If anyone was a hero, it was the rescuer who risked his life bringing her out. The National Post (May 4, 04) shows how the word can be even further devalued, when the cowardly ambush of a pregnant Israeli woman and her four children can be described by Fatah terrorists as a "heroic" attack.
Co-incidentally, I happened to be watching the History Channel's account of the greatest Canadian WW11 ace, George "Buzz" Beurling. Beurling downed 29 Italian and German planes during the seige of Malta, while so sick with malaria and dysentery that he had lost 85 pounds. This amazing feat was done in the space of a couple of months. He was the master of the deflective shot. In an marksman's way, he understood exactly the way the enemy plane would move. So accurate was he that, in one day's combat, he shot down two planes with only 15 bullets. A hunting friend in Canada before the war, said he shot two peasants in three seconds from a gun on his shoulder position, with each bird flying in opposite directions, When finally shot down and losing his left heel, he was evacuated to Gibraltar. Upon landing, he instinctively realized the plane was going to slip off the runway and crash into the sea. He hurled himself out of the plane at the last moment. He was the only one to survive.
Back in Canada he was feted as a hero and put on the war bonds drive. He was tall, athletic, and with an uncanny resemblance to Steve McQueen. Mackenzie King, the Liberal PM, used him extensively for political gain. The press first adored him, but, when Beurling described his delight at blowing the head off an Italian fighter pilot, he became "a savage beast" -- practically a psychopath. While Beurling could have rested on his laurels, he chose to go back to Britain to fight again. During his hoopla advancment to officer status, he turned up unshaven, drunk, and refusing to accept the promotion. He was forced to accept the new position. Beurling was such a maverick that he never fitted in with a more controlled environment than Malta's. After downing three more Germans, he was sent home. He had relentlessly pushed for a "lone wolf" patrol of fighter planes that would rove the skies for German fighters and neutralize them. This concept alarmed the airforce bureaucracy mightily. They had never encountered his type before. He was the one who had to be neutralized.
Unable to stand the staid life of the non-combatant, he volunteered to fight for the Israelis in the 1948 war. He turned down a $5,000 a month offer from the Arabs. "That would be fighting for the wrong side," he told a friend. He accepted an offer from the Israelis of next to nothing. His plane exploded on landing at the Rome airport under highly suspicious circumstances. He was days away from flying into Palestine. The greatest Canadian war ace was ignored by his own government, who wouldn't even fly his corpse back to Canada for a desent burial. His lover, Vivian Stokes had to pay to have him buried in a Jerusalem Protestant cemetery. To the military brass, he had served his purpose and he could be discarded.
Why should I spend my time on this man? I suppose it has to do with what heroism truly is, and what our new generation knows nothing about. CBC, which I have to watch because it is the enemy of so much that is irreparably lost in our culture, would have rubbished Beurling even worse. Mansbridge would arch his eyebrow and sarcastically intone, "Well, this magnificent killer has finally passed to his Valhallah". Perhaps I am alone in honouring Buzz Beurling with the title "hero".
