Newfoundland's Beef, Allowing Violent Tactics by Sikhs, BC-Indo-Cdn. Gangs-Drugs, Rethinking Doomsday, Legal History & Economy

Our beef with Canada -- from Newfoundlander and ex Cabinet Minister, John Crosbie

Our beef with Canada John Crosbie, Toronto Sun, Jan. 9, 05

[. . . . ] In addition to our strategic geographical position essential to the defence of Canada, we Newfoundlanders brought with us a claim to most of the Atlantic Continental Shelf, comprising millions of square miles later recognized by the UN as part of the Canadian 200-mile economic zone.

If Newfoundland had not joined Canada, Newfoundland would have controlled the fish resources and the oil and gas and mineral resources in that huge area, as well as the iron ore and hydro power resources of Labrador.

The 56 years since 1949 have seen the vital interests of Newfoundland and Labrador ignored by Canada, with the resources either poorly administered and depleted -- as in the case of the cod and other fish species -- or with the province's economic and revenue needs ignored, as in the development of the offshore and hydro power resources. [. . . . ]

Do read the details -- this matters to all of us.

I was shocked and infuriated by Michael Bliss who published an article in the National Post this weekend in which he suggested Newfoundlanders matter less, culturally, to Canada than do Quebeckers. The nerve! He does not speak for me -- nor for most Canadians, I would guess.




UK: I'm disgusted ministers did nothing as Sikhs forced play's closure, says Rushdie -- "Mr Rushdie, who was born in India, said that the Sikh protestors had adopted the violent tactics used by Hindu nationalists on the sub-Continent."

I'm disgusted ministers did nothing as Sikhs forced play's closure, says Rushdie Rajeev Syal, Dec. 26, 04

Salman Rushdie, the author given a death sentence by Muslim clerics for writing the novel The Satanic Verses, has expressed outrage at the Government's refusal to criticise last week's violent protests by Sikhs that led to the closure of a play in Birmingham.

The author told The Telegraph that ministers should have stepped in to prevent the closure of Behzti, which had been staged at Birmingham's Repertory Theatre, and accused them of helping to endanger Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, the play's author.

[. . . . ] "The minister is sending entirely the wrong message," Mr Rushdie said. "It should be quite clear that, in this country, it is the liberty of any artist to express their view of their own society and their own community. Frankly, bookshops and theatres are full of things that would upset an interest group."

Mr Rushdie, 57, was sentenced to death by Iranian clerics in 1989 after he portrayed Mohammed, the Islamic prophet, as a man with sexual urges in The Satanic Verses. He went into hiding and was given protection by Special Branch. The fatwa was finally lifted in 1998. [. . . . ]

BC, Canada: He ran a death squad -- "Former gangster Bal Buttar reveals how he arranged the murders of Indo-Canadian rivals in a brutal, drug-fuelled underworld that has claimed dozens of young lives."

He ran a death squad Kim Bolan, published originally in the Vancouver Sun, Sept. 17, 04. Note the date but this is the first time I have found the whole article online and it is of interest.

[. . . . ] Just four months after he was shot, his mother and older brother Manny came to his hospital bed and told them that Kelly, the family baby, had been murdered in a targeted hit. The body of his 22-year-old brother was just a few floors below in the same hospital. That was Buttar's darkest hour. For a time, he wished that he had also died.

After the grief subsided, he made sure there was revenge.

But the more he kept hearing of the continuing violence plaguing his community, the more Buttar began to regret his contributions to the problem. He now thinks God allowed him to survive two bullets to the head to help youths stay away from violent gangs that have been glamourized for years.

"It's because of the easy money. We have marijuana here and people say it is a beautiful drug," he said. "But when people deal big quantities of that, there is murder. All of this violence is caused by marijuana. A lot happens with marijuana."

Buttar thinks he was attracted to the criminal world because he struggled with attention deficit disorder in school and was often bullied and teased. He also wore a turban and other kids would taunt him in the school yard, calling him names.
He compensated by getting tough -- instilling fear in others around him.

"I learned how to give attention to people by giving them fear. And then with fear, they would listen to me. Whatever I would tell them to do, they would do," he said. [. . . . ]

Lengthy and detailed. Scroll down and don't miss "Inside the Indo-Canadian Mafia" on the same site.




Rethinking Doomsday -- the things we fear

Rethinking Doomsday Volume 51, Number 20, Dec. 16, 04

This year, beginning with the January/ February 2004 issue, the Bulletin began a series of articles we dubbed "Rethinking Doomsday." The effort was in direct response to the remarkable proliferation of potential death-and-destruction scenarios about which so much has been made since 9/11.

There is no doubt that the attacks of September 11, 2001 made clear that Americans faced very real dangers at home that few had foreseen and even fewer had taken seriously. Three years later, many, if not most, of us remain frightened.

But so many doomsday scenarios have been paraded on TV, in the newspapers, and in the course of political campaigns, that we can't help asking: How many possible terrorist attacks with how many possible weapons can there be? Must we, while worrying about nuclear holocaust or about terrorists commandeering airplanes or detonating conventional explosives, also worry that tomorrow we will come in contact with an evildoer bearing live smallpox stolen from somewhere in Siberia, with which he intends to infect the entire unsuspecting United States? (Government officials blithely assure us that we are all safer than we were before 9/11, but also say a smallpox epidemic is a case of "not if, but when.") How much time should we have devoted to the idea that the United States faced a gathering threat from Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons? About a plot to poison the food supply? Or should we worry if foreign visitors are seen taking snapshots of the Flatiron Building? [. . . . ]

There are sections on: chemical weapons, biological weapons, nanotechnology, dangerous proliferation, the many nuclear maybes, getting the core material, dirty bombs, and the "ultimate dirty bombs", the sum of all fears? and ending with boo-boo nukes. Check the list of articles in the sidebar for some idea of content.




Common Denominator -- Using sophisticated mathematical models, a group of four economists has proven that a country's legal history greatly affects its economy. At least they think they've proven it. How their sweeping theory has roiled the legal academy.

Common Denominator

MALAYSIA AND INDONESIA COULDN'T BE CALLED TWINS, but they might be called siblings. The adjacent Southeast Asian nations possess similar natural resources and their citizens speak similar languages and follow similar strains of Islam. But Malaysia's economy is prospering while Indonesia's is floundering. Malaysia's stock market is far more vibrant than its neighbor's, and its average resident is three times richer.

Economists might explain these divergent paths by pointing to the countries' different responses to the Asian financial crisis of the mid-1990s. Sociologists might find a cultural explanation in the close-knit community of Chinese immigrants who are the most powerful force in Malaysia's business community. Historians might point out that Malaysia's struggle for independence was much less bloody than Indonesia's.

Another explanation lies in the countries' legal systems, however. [. . . . ]

The most compelling theory they've developed has to do with the power both systems afford their judiciaries. Common law judges are, on balance, far more powerful than their counterparts in civil law countries. Since judges tend to be a country's most reliable check on the other parts of its government, common law countries grant less power to their executives than civil law countries do. And in developing nations, corruption is generally perpetuated from the top. [. . . . ]

I can appreciate the point about judges but in Canada, we could stand less activism from unelected justices.