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Central Asia

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Refers mostly to the former Soviet Union from the Caspian Sea to China, including Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kazhakstan, Turmenistan, et alia. Known by the US State Department as the "arc of instability".
February 7, 2011 Foreign Policy

Canada Gets Cuddly with Mining Companies

Unconditional love for extractive industry costs taxpayers, say C-300 supporters

June 27, 2010 Features

Preemptive Lockdown

Briefly, the G8 summit in St. Petersburg, 2006

February 19, 2010 Foreign Policy

Murders in Mining Country

Canadian mining companies at the scene of the crimes

May 29, 2009 Weblog:

The ongoing outsourcing in Afghanistan

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The ongoing outsourcing in Afghanistan

Canada’s Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Kandahar, Afghanistan will not be put in harms way, despite the oft-repeated political promise that all of Canada’s ground troops will be withdrawn by 2011. The responsibility of the security of these specialists-contractors themselves- will instead be provided by private companies, who will need to go through a selection process, according to Canada’s Ambassador to Afghanistan Ron Hoffmann who spoke to journalists via video-conference, earlier this week.

This is not the first time that the Canadian government has decided to hire private security companies in Afghanistan. The British based firm, Saladin Security , has been protecting the Canadian Embassy in Kabul for many years, while many Afghan contractors including warlords, have been hired to protects convoys of Canadian personnel or provide a "security cordon" for high risk situations, such as roadside bombs going off.

» continue reading "The ongoing outsourcing in Afghanistan"

April 24, 2009 Media Analysis

Forced Off-Air

ECHR rebukes Georgia for Soviet-style repression of independent TV station

April 11, 2009 Baby Animals

Hoglet

March 4, 2008 Weblog:

Malalai Joya on Canada's Afghan Mission

Rabble.ca's Derrick O'Keefe recently gathered a significant statement by Malalai Joya, one of the more courageous and heroic political figures in Afghanistan today. She makes the memorable statement below about the billions of dollars in military spending and aid money which has effectively been squandered in Afghanistan by the run-away corruption of the Karzai government.

The Congressional Budget Office says that the U.S. will spend $2.4 trillion over the next ten years on the "war on terror." If they instead spent this money properly and honestly, not only would Iraq and Afghanistan be made into heaven but, also, world poverty would be eliminated.

Definitely worth the read!

February 12, 2008 Weblog:

Afghanistan social development still going backwards

Now, I usually have some quibbles with these kind of reports. The Human Development Index is a sketch only, a calculation of a country's GDP per capita, its gross enrollment rate, literacy rates, and life expectancy at birth. There's a lot left out of the "development" picture by this index, and far too often, the index is used by the richest nations on earth to identify the oft-scapegoated "failed states" nations which tend to fall at the bottom of this scale.

That said, you have to sit back in amazement when a country as poor as Afghanistan can STILL see its ranking on the HDI fall during the exact period in which Canadian, US, and European aid disbursements are at their highest point.

Interestingly, the HDI report finds that Afghanistan has experienced significant economic growth in recent years (no doubt fuelled at least in part by the opium trade) though, as with many other regions throughout the global south, this growth effectively serves to mask the widening of economic inequality.

Although Afghanistan has maintained double-digit economic growth over the past several years, it has failed to reduce extreme and prevalent poverty and hunger significantly, the report says.

» continue reading "Afghanistan social development still going backwards"

August 2, 2007 Foreign Policy

Canadians Run Amok in Azerbaijan

Mining, oil undermines central Asian diplomacy and trade

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The Dominion is a monthly paper published by an incipient network of independent journalists in Canada. It aims to provide accurate, critical coverage that is accountable to its readers and the subjects it tackles. Taking its name from Canada's official status as both a colony and a colonial force, the Dominion examines politics, culture and daily life with a view to understanding the exercise of power.

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