It is going to be with my department and the programs and policies that we have to help you earn your livelihood. The Canadian Television Fund, the Feature Film Fund, Telefilm Canada, the CBC, the National Film Board and tax credits that allow you to ensure that Canadian stories and values are reflected in our movie theatres and on our television screens.

[. . . . ] Indeed, the story of The Flood bears remarkably similarity to current concerns about Climate Change. Bad behaviour (in the form of crass materialism and attendant greenhouse gas emissions) will lead to an inundation (caused by man-made global warming and a the melting of the ice caps) which requires an appointed custodian to preserve species (guarding "biodiversity" by fighting economic growth/selfishness, and building policy arks such as Kyoto).

Concerns based on alleged "greed" and the notion that developed nations consume more than their "fair share" of resources are examples of hunter-gatherer economics, which lie behind the mushy but appealing concept of "sustainability."

While allegedly based on a sophisticated concern for future generations, sustainability is likely rooted in fears of either missing out on your chunk of carcass and/or hunting-to-extinction. It betrays no comprehension of the processes whereby property rights, human ingenuity and extensive markets combine to perform the seeming miracle of not merely increasing the supply of "non-renewable" resources, but constantly finding new and better resources and methods. That's because hunter-gatherers had slim property rights, little ingenuity, and absolutely no extensive markets. That's why the fundamentals of modern economics are counterintuitive and/or unacceptable to most minds, including those of many popular economists.

Shortly after his selection as U.N. Secretary General, Kofi Annan told the Lehrer News Hour that Ingvar Carlsson and Shirdath Ramphal, co-chairs of the U.N. -funded Commission on Global Governance, would be among those asked to help him reform the sprawling, world-wide U.N. bureaucracy. His first choice, however, announced in the Washington Post on January 17, 1997, was none other than Maurice Strong, also a member of the Commission on Global Governance.

Strong's appointment as Senior Advisor, "to assist planning and executing a far-reaching reform of the world body," is seen by U.N. watchers to be a masterful strategic maneuver to avoid political opposition while empowering Strong to implement a global agenda he has been developing for years. More than 100 developing nations coordinated a "Draft Strong" movement in 1995 to replace Boutros Boutros-Ghali. But Strong's name was never presented publicly as a candidate. His appointment avoids the public scrutiny and the possibility of a veto. As a Senior Advisor to Kofi Annan, Strong will have a free hand to do what he wants while Annan takes the heat - or the praise. Strong prefers to operate in the background. He, perhaps more than any other single person, is responsible for the development of a global agenda now being implemented throughout the world. Although various components of the global agenda are associated with an assortment of individuals and institutions, Maurice Strong is, or has been, the driving force behind them. It is essential that Americans come to know this man who has been entrusted with the task of "reforming" the U.N. - this man Maurice F. Strong.

In a stunning development that even the United Nations' fiercest critics will surely hail as a turn for the better, Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced yesterday that he is "entirely disgusted" with the way the U.N. investigates itself. "It's a way of deflecting criticism, not solving problems," said Mr. Annan, adding that "The U.N. Secretariat has become a secret society, swathed in privilege and shielded by immunities. As secretary-general, tasked with upholding the integrity, values and moral authority of the United Nations, I am authorizing a new policy of complete transparency, financial and otherwise, in the workings of the Secretariat, starting with full disclosure of all internal debates, correspondence, memos, audits, expense accounts and cafeteria subsidies. Oh, and by the way, I apologize for presiding over the biggest swindle in the history of humanitarian relief, the Oil-for-Food program in Iraq."

Just kidding. This is raw fantasy; Mr. Annan never said any such thing. In the real world, in the best tradition of setting bureaucratic backfires, the U.N. has now labored mightily, in collaboration with Deloitte Consulting LLP, to add one more item to the recent series of U.N. self-investigations--this one an inquiry into the U.N. Secretariat's perception of its own integrity. The resulting public document, which runs to 90 pages but somehow omits what were reportedly some lurid individual responses, was posted recently on Mr. Annan's U.N. web page under the title "United Nations Organizational Integrity Survey 2004."

Though readers must slog through such U.N.-speak as "The U.N. wanted to operationalize integrity," this report has its intriguing moments. Somewhere under it simmers a certain candor.

[. . . . ] There is also a lot of discussion about such details as the differences between answers in English and French, including the whimsically delightful detail that "unfortunately and unbeknownst to Deloitte Consulting, the French language questionnaire file was corrupted." A portion of the data was thus irretrievably lost--a footnote that might be of some interest to those concerned about U.N. handling of data vis-à-vis Oil-for-Food.

MELFORT, SASK. -- The tough girls of Melfort don't seem so intimidating when they're giggling in the bathroom, putting on their makeup. In their sweatshirts and blue jeans, they look like any other attractive teens, chewing gum and occasionally twirling it around their fingers.

Federal law forbids more description that might identify these five girls because of the crimes they discussed when they sat down for an interview on a recent Sunday afternoon.

Besides talking about their own misdeeds -- punching, kicking and stomping other girls -- they described this farm town about 175 kilometres northeast of Saskatoon as a place where the ordinary assumptions about youth violence have been turned upside-down. Girls aren't more gentle than boys in Melfort, they say. Just the opposite: It's the teenaged girls who start the majority of the fistfights, swarmings and beatings.

That kind of talk has attracted keen interest from researchers, who began studying the Melfort girls last month to record their stories and find ways of curbing their behaviour. The girls' eagerness to discuss the problem opens a window to a world normally kept secret from adults, they say, and offers insights into the driving forces behind Canada's increase in violence among young females over the past two decades. [. . . . ]

* child care, whether to work or remain at home to raise children (taxes) -- the effects on society? Should taxation support the two parent family for the good of the offspring?

* schooling -- Is it too centrally controlled at the provincial level which prevents experimentation? Should we have more freedom of choice?

* education funding -- Would young people be better served by not receiving huge university loans, by working, saving, and then going to university? (The greatest service ever done for me was NOT being funded to attend university; I had to learn, save, make wiser choices--and learn through failure, do without, wait for the gratification of learning in an academic setting -- and much more. I would advise it for any young person.)

Departed US Central Intelligence Agency director George Tenet tried to ascertain whether available intelligence justified a war, I observed last week. The late president Ronald Reagan's CIA chief, Bill Casey, knew that if you want intelligence, first you start a war.

If you ask the wrong question, you will get the wrong answer. Reagan's people had the courage to ask the right question to begin with, namely whether the Soviet system could keep pace with America's drive for strategic superiority. The diplomatic and academic establishment asked the wrong question, that is, how detente might be perpetuated with a seemingly eternal Russian empire. Was communism merely a somewhat obstreperous partner, or an enemy to be defeated?

Every US intelligence assessment of Soviet military strength and morale available in 1981 was dead wrong. Washington learned better by putting Moscow under stress. How adaptable was Russian weapons technology? Start a high-tech arms race with the Strategic Defense Initiative and find out. How good were Russian avionics? Help the Israeli air force engage Syria's MiGs in the Bekaa Valley in 1982, and the destruction with impunity of Russian-built fighters and surface-to-air missile sites would provide a data point. How solid was Russian fighting morale? Instigate irregular warfare against the Russian army in Afghanistan and learn.

[. . . . ] The United States lacks the aptitude and inclination to penetrate the mind of adversary cultures Why America is losing the intelligence war, November 11, 2003

[. . . . ] Even communal prayer in Islam has at its center the alignment of the individual believer to jihad Does Islam have a prayer? , May 18).

"To conclude, the plenary titled 'The future of risk' brought together eminent British scientist Professor Sir Colin Berry, Frank Furedi, author of "The Culture of Fear", and Geoff Mulgan, head of the UK government's Performance and Innovation Unit, to discuss the consequences of risk aversion for society now and in the future."

We live longer, healthier and safer lives than ever before. Yet society is becoming more and more anxious about exaggerated risks, about everything from SARS to bioterrorism to transport safety.

There has never been a more important time to challenge the unfounded scares that hold such sway over our society. This was the message of Panic Attack: interrogating our obsession with risk, a London conference organised by spiked with the Royal Institution of Great Britain and Tech Central Station, Europe, on Friday 9 May.

[. . . . ]Panic Attack raised a number of important questions, and pointed to ways in which our obsession with risk could be challenged: both at the level of getting the facts right about specific panics, and unravelling the broader cultural assumptions that lie behind particular scares. [. . . . ]

Almost every day, it seems, we are confronted with fresh evidence of how far the obsession with risk and risk-aversion has gone. It all goes to reinforce our view on spiked, that this has now become the major barrier to social, scientific and technological advance. It is humanity's most powerful self-imposed constraint on its own potential liberation. A century or more ago, we might have said that organised religion played that role. Half a century or more ago, it might have been right-wing nationalism or Stalinism, depending on the circumstances. Now it is risk aversion and the culture of fear.

As the old political and religious systems have lost their purchase on society in recent times, risk and precaution have emerged as the focus for an attempt to create a new kind of morality to guide human behaviour. Safety-first has become a virtue for its own sake, to be repeated like a religious mantra, regardless of the practical consequences. And especially since 9/11 brought these underlying trends to the surface of society, Organised Paranoia has now become a policy principle guiding government planning and discussion. [. . . . ]

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Biotechnology research used to find new cures for disease could instead be harnessed for use as a weapon of terror, a prominent European think-tank warned.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in its annual yearbook, said that biotechnology, including advancements in mapping the human genome, could result in new biological weapons that could cause harm to a specific ethnic group or a large swath of a country's population.

"The free access to genetic sequence data for the human genome and a large number of other genomes, including for pathogenic micro-organisms, is a great scientific resource, but it could pose a significant threat if misused," said the report, which was unveiled in Stockholm Wednesday.

Researcher Richard Guthrie said developments in mapping the human genome, which could lead to improved medicines and vaccines for heart and neurological problems, also could be used by terrorists.

"There have been numerous claims that al-Qaida and the Taliban have demonstrated an interest in acquiring and using biological weapons, but such reports are ambiguous," the report's author, Roger Roffey, wrote.

BAGHDAD - The suicide bomber spent half an hour looking for his target. Parked on one of the main roads leading from the U.S. headquarters in Baghdad yesterday, he would have had his pick: U.S. tanks and Humvees, or Iraqis working for the coalition.

Instead he chased after three white sport-utility vehicles, the transport of choice for Western contractors, government officials -- and, in recent months, suicide bombers. In Iraq, riding in an SUV has become tantamount to driving around the country with a U.S. flag painted on the hood. In other words, it's very dangerous.
Dozens of Western contractors and government officials have been killed, most, if not all, of them travelling in SUVs. [. . . . ]

WASHINGTON - A Somali man who reportedly lived for a number of years in Ontario has been charged with plotting to bomb an Ohio shopping mall.

The four-count indictment returned by a grand jury in Columbus, Ohio, alleges that Nuradin Abdi conspired with convicted al-Qaeda member Iyman Faris -- an al-Qaeda operative who sought to sabotage the Brooklyn Bridge -- and others to detonate explosives at an unidentified mall in the Columbus area.

[. . . . ] He was granted asylum in the United States as a refugee in January 1999 after giving false information to immigration officials. [. . . . ]

TORONTO - A well-regarded Toronto lawyer, who "led the charge" to have Julian Fantino appointed chief of Toronto's police force, was arrested by the RCMP yesterday as part of a sweeping probe of organized crime.

Peter Shoniker, who is often seen hobnobbing with some of the province's best-known powerbrokers, was arrested near his home yesterday as he returned from a business trip. He faces multiple charges, including laundering the proceeds of crime, RCMP said at a news conference yesterday. [. . . . ]

MORE CRIMINAL charges are likely in an alleged night club protection scandal that has embroiled the head of the Toronto Police union and a former chief's son, sources say. Toronto Police Service's internal affairs detectives are probing further bar owner allegations that police officers either demanded or accepted cash for help with liquor licenses and for tips on upcoming police sweeps, sources say.

But, at the same time, sources say, some bar owner allegations of influence-peddling are not supported by evidence.

Four cops are already before the courts on 26 criminal charges, most relating to alleged kickbacks in the entertainment district. [. . . . ]

SAFE SEX is a little out of practice in Toronto. Since 1998, the number of sexually transmitted diseases in the city, including HIV, syphilis, chlamydia and gonorrhea have soared.

HIV infections are up 49% in Toronto since 1998, hitting 608 cases in 2002, primarily in gay men, and women from countries where the diseases are widespread.
Chlamydia and gonorrhea cases have been on the rise since 1997, increasing more than 50% in the last five years, especially in heterosexual teens and those in their early 20s.