Grexitcan Standoff: How Syriza Dropped the Quick Draw Ball

Showdown in Athens

by Mike Whitney - CounterPunch

“Will the United States, Germany, the rest of the European Union, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund – collectively constituting the International Mafia – allow the new Greek leaders of the Syriza party to dictate the conditions of Greece’s rescue and salvation? The answer at the moment is a decided “No”.  — William Blum, The Greek Tragedy, CounterPunch

“The Greek economy is finished…. There is no power, no force within the Greek economy, within Greek society that can avert – it’s like – imagine if we were in Ohio in 1931 and we were to ask: What can Ohio politicians do to get Ohio out of the Great Depression? The answer is nothing.”  — Yanis Varoufakis, Greek Finance Minister

A disagreement over the terms of a deal to provide a bailout extension for Greece, has set the stage for a final clash between the Eurogroup and members of the Greek ruling party, Syriza. Although the agreement was approved on Tuesday when a list of reforms were submitted by Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis to the Eurogroup, Varoufakis believes that changes to the original program give him greater flexibility to implement policies that will end austerity, reduce the ailing country’s primary budget surplus, and ease the humanitarian crisis that has persisted for 6 years.

Regrettably, no one at the ECB, the European Commission or the IMF shares Varoufakis’s views on the subject. The so called “troika” thinks that Greece has signed on to essentially the same program that was in place before the negotiations, give or take a few cosmetic changes in the language. And because the program is the same, they think Varoufakis should stick with the same policies as his predecessor and ignore mounting public opposition to austerity. Given the irreconcilable differences between the two parties, there’s bound to be a violent confrontation in the near future that will lead to heated recriminations and, eventually, a Grexit.

To illustrate the widening chasm between Varoufakis and the members of the Eurogroup, consider the fact that, going into the negotiations, Varoufakis was determined to end the bailouts and secure a “bridge” loan that would shield Greece from default for a six month period of adjustment after which basic changes to the current austerity regime would be re-negotiated. While the Eurogroup agreed to change the term “program” to “agreement” and “troika” to “institutions”, in the minds of the EU finance minsters, the substance of the original deal, which was laid out in the hated Memorandum of Understanding, remained the same. Take a look at this excerpt from a letter from ECB president Mario Draghi and Eurogroup president Jeroen Dijsselbloem and you’ll see how this is playing out:

“I assume that it is clear, that the basis of concluding the current review, and also any future arrangements, will be the existing commitments in the current Memorandum of Understanding and The Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies (MEFP). In this context we note that the commitments outlined by the authorities differ from existing programme commitments in a number of areas. In such cases, we will have to assess during the review whether measures which are not accepted by the authorities are replaced with measures of equal or better quality in terms of achieving the objectives of the programme.” (Naked Capitalism)

What Draghi is saying is that Varoufakis’s changes will be put under a microscope to see if they conform with the memorandum which Varoufakis believes no longer applies. The way this will work on a practical basis, is that additional money will only be meted out incrementally depending on compliance with, you guessed it, the old agreement. In other words, Varoufakis will not have a 4 month grace period to experiment with his pro-growth, anti-austerity economic policies. He’ll be expected to toe the line from Day 1.

Varoufakis either doesn’t understand what he signed or thinks he can implement his own plan without too much interference from the Eurogroup. Either way, there’s probably going to be a confrontation given the vast disparity in the way the agreement is being interpreted. In a Tuesday interview with CNBC, Varoufakis said that the new deal is fundamentally different than the previous agreement. He said:

“Some people have been insisting that the program that we’ve been under must surely be the program that we shall remain under simply refuse to understand that this has changed. So they keep insisting that that program is still on-going. Let me give you a very simple number. The program that we challenged compelled to the Greek government to extract 4.5% of the primary surplus every year in a depressed economy. We’ve changed that. Now surely that is not dismissed as simply a non-event and it’s business as usual, so it’s not business as usual we have a fresh start and now what matters is to use the opportunity of that fresh start in order to build something good on top of it. And we will endeavor to do this.” (“CNBC Exclusive Interview: Greek Finance Minister, Yanis Varoufakis” , CNBC)

See? He sincerely believes that the old deal is history. But the troika, the Eurogroup, and the majority of people who have analyzed the new arrangement, disagree. They think everything is the same (which explains why critics on the right and left have repudiated the deal as a “climb-down, a capitulation and a sellout.)

In an interview with Nikos Hatzinikolaou on REAL FM, Greece, Varoufakis rejected the Memorandum while claiming that the new agreement represents “a huge success’ in ending the “recessionary measures” that are needlessly prolonging Greece’s Great Depression.

Here’s what he said:

Varoufakis: “The current government (Syriza) wants to say things with their name. I will explain it to you in very simple terms, Mr. Hatzinikolaou. As long as our debt is what it is, as long as Greece was bounded within this iron cage of primary surpluses that were impossible to achieve without killing whatever is left in the private sector, and as long we have a negative sign in investments (essentially, real investments), it was impossible to achieve this exit.

What we are trying to do – and have succeeded in doing so; it was a huge success, I’d say – is to create a four-month bridge during which we achieve the following:

First, the cancellation of the recessionary measures and the implementation of a transitional program we ourselves have made, one the Greek society will be able to withstand. This will help us negotiate during this four-month period a new contract between us and our partners with the goal of solving this system of three equations with three unknowns.

Hatzinikolaou: Thus, we are talking about a new Memorandum? …
Varoufakis: OK. Let us be careful with the words. What does the Memorandum mean? … Let me remind you of what it comprises. It comprises the logic of continuous domestic [or internal] devaluation, of huge primary surpluses in an economy that does not have a real credit system, where investments are negative, and at the same time where we have a series of measures that empower this recession. This is the MoU. It is the automation, the a-politicization, and the subjection to the crisis.” (“The juicy interview of Greek Finance Minister, Yanis Varoufakis“, Greek Analyst)

Varoufakis appears to be saying that, in his view, the new agreement constitutes a rejection of the memorandum and, thus, is a de facto repudiation of austerity. The question is whether Varoufakis is stretching the facts to give himself greater latitude to relieve Greece’s humanitarian crisis and to put Greece back on a sound path to growth. While those are worthy goals, they are not likely to win the Eurogroup’s support. Check out this excerpt from a letter from the IMF to Dijsselbloem concerning the vagueness of Varoufakis’s reform package:

“In quite a few areas, however, including perhaps the most important ones, the letter is not conveying clear assurances that the Government intends to undertake the reforms envisaged in the Memorandum on Economic and Financial Policies. We note in particular that there are neither clear commitments to design the envisaged comprehensive pension and VAT policy reforms, nor unequivocal undertakings to continue already-agreed policies for opening up closed sectors, for administrative reforms, for privatization, and for labor market reforms. As you know, we consider such commitments and undertakings to be critical for Greece’s ability to meet the basic objectives of its Fund-supported program, which is why these are the areas subject to most of the structural benchmarks agreed with the Fund.” (Excerpt IMF letter posted at Naked capitalism)

Repeat: “We consider such commitments and undertakings to be critical for Greece’s ability to meet the basic objectives of its Fund-supported program.” In other words, Greece should not expect to get its loan extension unless it follows the troika’s explicit orders on pensions, VAT (sales taxes), government cutbacks, privatization and labor market reforms.

So, what is Varoufakis’s approach to these benchmarks?

Let’s take a look at pension reform. In an interview with CNBC’s Julia Chatterley on Tuesday, Chatterley asked Varoufakis point blank, “So you’re ruling out pension cuts?”

Varoufakis: “Of course over the next four months there will be no such thing.” (CNBC)

How about raising the VAT tax?

Same thing. And in the interview on REAL FM Varoufakis covered the other policies that the troika sees as “critical”. Listen to this exchange:

Hatzinikolaou: My fundamental question about the e-mail is whether or not it entails layoffs in the public sector …, if it entails pension reductions … if it entails wage reductions?

Varoufakis: I will answer to all these questions, since these are very specific questions, and it is best that we speak forthrightly. My answer to all of these questions is NO, in NO WAY.”

Let’s summarize: No pension cuts, no higher VAT taxes, no lower wages for public workers, and no layoffs. While I admire what Varoufakis is suggesting, I can’t figure out how he’s going to convince the troika to give him more money. Apparently, he thinks that streamlining the government and aggressively pursuing tax cheats will do the trick. Or maybe he has something else up his sleeve, like ignoring the terms of the agreement long enough to generate growth in the economy, lower unemployment, and create an improved environment for foreign investment. He might think that that will force the troika to acknowledge that austerity has failed and that pro-growth Keynesian strategies actually produce positive results. Of course, that’s just a guess on my part. It’s impossible to know for sure.

Here’s more of the interview with CNBC:

Varoufakis: “The reason why we have this 4 month period is to re-establish bonds of trust between us and our European partners as well as the IMF in order to build a new, we call it, contract between us and our partners so as to put an end to this spiral, the debt inflationary spiral; reform Greece; and make sure that CNBC doesn’t care about Greece anymore, because we don’t want to be in the headlines for all the wrong reasons.” (“CNBC Exclusive Interview: Greek Finance Minister, Yanis Varoufakis”, CNBC)

The “bonds of trust” are going to put to the test if Varoufakis doesn’t comply with the troika’s diktats, that’s for sure.

Varoufakis assumes that the troika doesn’t understand the impact of its belt-tightening policies. He seems to think that the punishment that’s being inflicted on Greece is just the unfortunate byproduct of debt reduction policy and not a deliberate attempt to crush the unions, roll back progressive reforms, decimate the welfare state, and reduce the country to a condition of “permanent colonial dependency.” But that viewpoint is shockingly naïve, after all, the IMF has been in the looting biz for a long time and has a pretty good grasp of the effects its toxic policies. They know what they’re doing, just like know that austerity is just a refinement of the “shock doctrine” which is the traditional way the elites exploit crises by imposing harsh, economy-demolishing reforms that only benefit themselves and their class. The men who conjure up these thieving schemes aren’t likely to be hoodwinked by Varoufakis’s vague reforms. They’re going to force Varoufakis to jump through all their respective hoops before he gets one dime of their precious money. Here’s Varoufakis again:

“There is going to be a great deal of toing and froing between us and the institutions and our partners but what we have established through stubborn refusal to succumb to the notion that elections change nothing over the past couple of months or weeks I should say is the notion that this government deserves to have a degree of room for policy-making that allows us to reform Greece and to carry the great multitude out there with us. This is the government for the first time in Greece that has the people behind it and it would be a terrible waste not just for us but for our partners to allow this wave of support to dissipate through non-action.” (CNBC)

Does Varoufakis really think he can pull this off? Does he really think he can out-fox the slimy, authoritarian brigands and leg-breakers who run these extortionist institutions and who will use every means possible to extract the last drop of blood from their victim be he an aspiring, but penniless student at the university or a destitute pensioner huddling homeless and frozen in an abandoned doorway in downtown Athens?

This isn’t going to end well. Varoufakis had one card to play–the threat of leaving the Euro–and he failed to play it. Now his leverage is gone and the roof is about to cave in. Just wait and see.

The troika isn’t going to convene another dreary round of negotiations to rehash the same old nonsense. Those days are over. They’re simply going to withhold the money, curtail liquidity assistance, and torpedo the Greek banking system. Kaboom! That’s the way this thing is going to go down. The mood among the EZ finance ministers has soured considerably since the last meeting. They want to put this whole thing behind them. They’re sick of it. They want closure. They’re not going to quibble over issues they’ve already gone over and clarified a million times. Varoufakis will either have to get with the program or face the consequences. That’s the way it works in Mafia-land; you either pay the piper or you find yourself in the East River in cement booties.

Who knows: maybe this is what Varoufakis wanted from the beginning, a ferocious clash ending in banishment, a Grexit. Well, he won’t have to wait long now.

Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition. He can be reached at fergiewhitney@msn.com.

Bill C-51: A Legal Opinion

Bill C-51: A Legal Primer: Overly broad and unnecessary anti-terrorism reforms could criminalize free speech

by Clayton Ruby and Nader R. Hasan - Policy Alternatives

February 17, 2015

Six Muslim young adults stand in front of a mosque late at night in heated discussion in some foreign language. They may be debating the merits of a new Drake album. They may be talking about video games, or sports, or girls, or advocating the overthrow of the Harper government. Who knows? There is no evidence one way or the other. Just stereotypes. But the new standard for arrest and detention—reason to suspect that they may commit an act—is so low that an officer may be inclined to arrest and detain them in order to investigate further. And now, officers will no longer need to ask themselves whether the arrest is necessary. They could act on mere suspicion that an arrest is likely to prevent any terrorist activity. Yesterday, the Muslim men were freely exercising constitutional rights to freedom of expression and assembly. Today they are arrestable.

Overview: The Anti-Terrorism Act

Bill C-51,the Anti-Terrorism Act, 2015, would expand the powers of Canada’s spy agency, allow Canadians to be arrested on mere suspicion of future criminal activity, allow the Minister of Public Safety to add Canadians to a “no-fly list” with illusory rights of judicial review, and, perhaps most alarmingly, create a new speech-related criminal offence of “promoting” or “advocating” terrorism. These proposed laws are misguided, and many of them are likely also unconstitutional. The bill ought to be rejected as a whole. Repair is impossible.

New offence of promoting terrorism

Bill C-51 creates a new criminal offence that likely violates s. 2(b) of the Charter. Newly proposed s. 83.221 of the Criminal Code provides as follows:

Every person who, by communicating statements, knowingly advocates or promotes the commission of terrorism offences in general—other than an offence under this section—while knowing that any of those offences will be committed or being reckless as to whether any of those offences may be committed, as a result of such communication, is guilty of an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than five years.

The new offence will bring within its ambit all kinds of innocent speech, some of which no doubt lies at the core of freedom of expression values that the Charter was meant to protect. As Professors Kent Roach and Craig Forcese point out, the new offence would sweep within its net the following scenario:

Take just one hypothetical: An academic or foreign affairs columnists opines “we should provide resources to Ukrainian insurgencies who are targeting Russian oil infrastructure, in an effort to increase the political cost of Russian intervention in Ukraine.” The speaker says this knowing that her audience includes support groups who may be sending money to those opposing Russian intervention.[1]

Providing resources to a group, one of whose purposes is a “terrorist activity,” is a terrorism offence. And causing substantial property damage or serious interference with an essential service or system for a political reason and in a way that endangers life, to compel a government to do something, is a “terrorist activity.” This is so even if it takes place abroad. So a criminal prosecution of the columnist in the hypothetical situation described above is a real possibility under the new law. It is constitutionally unacceptable and dangerous.

The new offence is broader than existing terrorism offences in the Criminal Code in that it does not require an actual terrorist purpose. So someone can be guilty of this offence—like the columnist—despite completely innocent purposes, such as attempting to provoke democratic debate, or proposing a solution to an intractable international conflict. The speaker’s purpose does not matter; they are liable if they are reckless as to the risk that a listener “may” thereafter commit an unspecified terrorism offence.

Criminal culpability would extend beyond the speaker of the impugned words. Like all criminal offences, a person can be guilty if they aid or abet the individual who actually commits the offence. Not only the columnist, but also their editors, publishers and research assistants become criminals.

It should be noted that there are other “promoting” and “advocating” offences in the Criminal Code. The Code contains a prohibition on willful promotion of hatred.[2] It also contains a prohibition on advocating sexual activity with underage children.[3] But hate propaganda and sexual activity with underage children are much narrower than the vague reference to “terrorism offences in general.” In addition, unlike willful promotion of hatred, which contains an express exception for communications made in private, the proposed new offence can be applied to statements made in private. This is all the more concerning given the Canadian Security Intelligence Service’s (CSIS) expansive anti-terror wiretap and surveillance powers.[4]

Another truly bizarre aspect of the new offence is the use of the term “terrorism offences in general—other than an offence under this section.” The Criminal Code already contains 14 broadly worded terrorism-related offences. “Terrorism activity” is a defined term under s. 83.01 of the Criminal Code, but this is broader. It applies to more speech than speech advocating or promoting terrorist activity, or the 14 terrorism offences in the Criminal Code. The new offence is meant to include speech promoting and advocating “terrorism in general,” a deliberately opaque and unknowable term.

Even if the government exercises restraint in laying charges and arresting people, the result is an inevitable chill on speech. Students will think twice before posting an article on Facebook questioning military action against insurgents overseas. Journalists will be wary of questioning government decisions to add groups to Canada’s list of terrorist entities.

New CSIS powers

CSIS was created in 1984 by an Act of Parliament. To that point, security intelligence in Canada was the purview of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Security Service.[5] However, in the 1970s there were allegations that the RCMP Security Service had been involved in numerous illegal activities. In 1977, as a result of these allegations, Justice David McDonald was appointed to investigate. The McDonald Commission published its final report in 1981, with its main recommendation being that security intelligence work should be separated from policing, and that a civilian intelligence agency should be created to take over from the RCMP Security Service.[6] CSIS was created to be that civilian intelligence agency. At the time of its creation, CSIS was subject to general oversight review by a new body, the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC), which has been starved of resources, as well as by the Office of the Inspector General, which was abolished and disbanded in 2012.

The idea behind CSIS was that abuses of power were less likely to occur if intelligence gathering was separated from law enforcement. Bill C-51 erodes the distinction between CSIS’s traditional intelligence gathering role by giving it broad new powers to engage in law enforcement–type activities. Under Bill C-51, CSIS would be able to take “measures” to reduce threats to the security of Canada. For example, s. 12.1(1) of the proposed act states,

If there are reasonable grounds to believe that a particular activity constitutes a threat to the security of Canada, the Service may take measures, within or outside Canada, to reduce the threat.

The power under s. 12.1 is broadly defined, giving CSIS virtually unfettered authority to conduct any operation it thinks is in the interest of Canadian security. The definitions are so broad that they could apply to almost anything, including measures to disrupt or interfere with non-violent civil disobedience. Only the following activities are explicitly excluded from these new powers, as per s. 12.2(1) of the act:

In taking measures to reduce a threat to the security of Canada, the Service shall not

(a) cause, intentionally or by criminal negligence, death or bodily harm to an individual;

(b) wilfully attempt in any manner to obstruct, pervert or defeat the course of justice; or

(c) violate the sexual integrity of an individual.

These limited exclusions leave CSIS with incredibly expansive powers, including water boarding, inflicting pain (torture) or causing psychological harm to an individual. The government has pointed out that in order for CSIS to take measures under s. 12.1, CSIS must first apply for a warrant. Under the warrant provision, a judge may issue a warrant if satisfied that there are reasonable grounds to justify the belief that the requested measures are required to enable CSIS “to reduce a threat to the security of Canada,” and are “reasonabl[e] and proportiona[te].”[7]

This is an odd standard, which judges will find difficult, if not impossible, to apply. The ordinary standard for issuance of a warrant is based on reasonable grounds to believe that a criminal offence has been committed (in the case of a warrant to arrest)[8] or reasonable grounds to believe that the search of a place will afford evidence of an offence (in the case of a search pursuant to judicial warrant).[9] These are determinations that can be made objectively, based on the evidence, by an impartial judicial officer. By contrast, whether a given measure would proportionately “reduce the threat to the security of Canada” is not like these other tests. It amounts to asking judges to look into a crystal ball to determine if Canada will be safer in the future if a CSIS officer takes some measure. This is not a determination that judges are equipped to make. The limits will vary with the judges chosen by CSIS, not with the evidence.

The expansion of CSIS’s powers is troubling given the RCMP’s notorious history of commingling intelligence gathering and law enforcement. It is also troubling for the additional reason that there is very little oversight of CSIS activities. At present, CSIS is accountable only to the SIRC. CSIS has a budget of over $500 million annually.[10] SIRC has an annual budget of $3 million and is staffed by four part-time committee members.[11] It no longer has a director general who watches the watchers. By contrast, spy agencies in other countries are supervised by powerful parliamentary or congressional committees. The sweeping new powers, coupled with the woeful lack of oversight, risks turning CSIS into a dangerous “secret police force.”

Preventive arrest powers

The current anti-terrorism sections of the Criminal Code already contain provisions for preventive arrest, preventive detention and preventive restraints on liberty. Preventive detention is at odds with our legal tradition of only prosecuting and punishing crimes that have been committed already, and only after those offences have been proven by the prosecution beyond a reasonable doubt. Preventive detention—i.e., detention on the suspicion that someone may or will commit a crime at some point in the future—is the opposite of that legal tradition and is inconsistent with the constitutionally protected right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.[12]

Prior to the enactment of the 2001 anti-terrorism provisions, the only other preventive detention scheme in the Criminal Code was the dangerous offender regime.[13] But to be found a dangerous offender or a long-term offender under Part XXIV of the Criminal Code, an offender must have been already convicted of a serious personal injury offence, and there must be evidence that the individual constitutes a threat to the life, safety, or physical and mental well-being of other persons based on evidence of repetitive or persistent serious criminal behaviour.[14] By contrast, the anti-terrorism Criminal Code provisions permit the arrest and detention of individuals, who have not been convicted or even charged with any offence, based on what they might do.

The current preventive detention scheme is already constitutionally suspect. The proposed amendments in Bill C-51 will further lower the threshold for preventive arrest and detention, increasing the risk that entirely innocent people will be swept up on mere suspicion. Under the current s. 83.3(2) of the Criminal Code, a peace officer is empowered to lay an information and bring an individual before a provincial court judge if the officer:

(a) believes on reasonable grounds that a terrorist activity will be carried out; and

(b) suspects on reasonable grounds that the imposition of a recognizance with conditions on a person, or the arrest of a person, is necessary to prevent the carrying out of the terrorist activity.[15]

Where exigent circumstances exist, or where laying the information would be impractical, the individual may be arrested without a warrant.[16]

The new measures would allow law enforcement agencies to arrest somebody if they suspect that a terrorist act “may be carried out,” instead of the current standard of “will be carried out.” Bill C-51 also substitutes “likely” for “necessary” such that s. 83.3(2) would now enable a peace officer to lay an information or effect a warrantless arrest if the officer:

(a) believes on reasonable grounds that a terrorist activity will may be carried out; and

(b) suspects on reasonable grounds that the imposition of a recognizance with conditions on a person, or the arrest of a person, is necessary likely to prevent the carrying out of the terrorist activity.[17]

Both changes result in a significant lowering of the standard for arrest and detention.

The changes to the law are significant in two respects. The substitution of “may”where it currently says “will” is a significant watering down of the standard. “Will,” when coupled with “reasonable grounds to believe,” denotes evidence-based probability,[18] whereas “may” denotes mere possibility.

The shift from “necessary” to “likely” is equally important. Necessity in this context suggests that the police officer suspects that no measure other than arrest will prevent a terrorist act. Likelihood is not necessity. Under the new provision, the police officer need only suspect that the arrest is more likely than not to prevent terrorist activity.

Canadians do not want government to arrest individuals based on religious and ethnic stereotypes. But under the new standard, it will be nearly impossible to challenge their decisions.

No-fly list powers

Bill C-51 codifies the Minister of Public Safety’s power to put Canadians on a so-called no-fly list, which prevents them from getting on an airplane. The minister can add anyone to the no-fly list on mere suspicion that he or she will engage in an act that would threaten transportation security or travel by air for the purpose of committing an act of terrorism.[19]

Putting someone on the no-fly list is a significant restraint on liberty. And once on the no-fly list, the procedure to have one’s name removed from the list is complex and difficult. Someone on the no-fly list has the right to appeal the minister’s decision to a judge of the Federal Court, but it is a very narrow and futile appeal. It is not nearly enough for the individual to show that the minister was wrong to put them on the no-fly list; they must also show that the minister has acted unreasonably.[20]

Moreover, the review procedures in Bill C-51 for challenging the no-fly list designation incorporates the procedure from the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act’s byzantine security certificate regime. This means the minister can ask the Court to hold part of the hearing in secret—the individual challenging his or her no-fly list designation, their lawyer and the public are excluded from the courtroom when the government presents its case.[21] The judge hearing the appeal can base his or her entire decision on evidence that was presented during the secret portion of the hearing.

In 2007, the Supreme Court held that this procedure was unconstitutional under s. 7 of the Charter when applied to the judicial review of the detention of a non-citizen detained pursuant to a security certificate.[22] Although being put on the no-fly list is a less serious restraint on liberty than being subject to a security certificate, s. 7 of the Charter is still triggered, and thus the core protections of s. 7, such as the right to know the case to meet, should apply. The currently proposed procedure unequivocally violates that right.[23]

Clayton C. Ruby is one of Canada’s leading lawyers, an outspoken proponent of freedom of the press, a prominent member of the environmental community and a member of the Order of Canada. Nader R. Hasan practises criminal and constitutional law at both the trial and appellate levels and is also an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law. They are partners at Ruby Shiller Chan Hasan Barristers.

Endnotes

[1] Roach, Kent and Forcese, Craig, “Bill C-51 Backgrounder #1: The New Advocating or Promoting Terrorism Offence” (February 3, 2015). Available at SSRN: .

[2] Criminal Code, R.S.C., 1985, c. C-46, s. 319(2).

[3] Criminal Code, s. 163.1(b).

[4] Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act, R.S.C., 1985, c. C-23, s. 21.

[5] Government of Canada, Canadian Security Intelligence Service, “History of CSIS”, online: .

[6] Ibid.

[7] ATA, s. 21.1(2).

[8] Criminal Code, s. 504.

[9] Criminal Code, s. 487.

[10] Government of Canada, Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Public Report 2011-2013, online
[11] Government of Canada, Security Intelligence Review Committee, “SIRC at a Glance”, online: .

[12] Charter of Rights and Freedoms, s. 7 and s. 11(d).

[13] Criminal Code, Part XXIV.

[14] Criminal Code, s. 753.

[15] Criminal Code, section 83.3(2).

[16] Criminal Code, S. 82.3(4).

[17] ATA, s. 17.

[18] See R. v. Brown (2012), 92 C.R. (6th) 375 (Ont. C.A.) (for discussion of “reasonable grounds”).

[19] ATA, s. 8.

[20] ATA, s. 16(5).

[21] ATA, 16(6)(a).

[22] Charkaoui v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), [2007] 1 S.C.R. 350 at paras. 53-64.

[23] Ibid.

This Week in the Politics of Energy and Conflict

Politics, Geopolitics & Conflict: Global Energy Advisory

via OilPrice.com

27th February 2015

Al-Shabaab Reaches for Stature

The Somali militant group Al-Shabaab—pushed back in Somalia largely by African Union (AU) forces and forced to regroup—has released a video calling on jihadists to attack shopping centers in Western countries, most specifically the US, UK and Canada, and is threatening more terrorist attacks in neighboring Kenya, an emerging East African oil giant. Specific Western targets are listed as the Mall of America in Minnesota, the West Edmonton Mall in Canada and the Westfield Mall in Stratford, UK.

The FBI says there is no evidence supporting an imminent attack on the Mall of America, but intelligence-sharing is not exactly the forte of US intelligence agencies. At this point we would view the threat against Kenya as the most viable and investors on this oil scene should be on full alert. The Western mall threats are likely two-pronged, with the primary goal of winning new recruits by harnessing the momentum of the Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq. Keep in mind, though, that while Al-Shabaab may not be a large group and it has been dispersed and had many of its power bases destroyed, it has a formidable intelligence unit of its own that has strategically taken over since the AU hit out at the group’s key positions.

Another High-Profile Kazakh Drama

There has been an interesting development in the murky world of the Kazakh elite. Rakhot Aliev, the former son-in-law of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev who turned harsh critic of the president, has been found dead in his jail cell in Vienna, Austria. The death is being reported as a suicide.

Aliyev turned himself in to Austrian authorities in June last year. He was wanted on murder charges and charges of attempting to overthrow Nazarbaev—charges he claimed were politically motivated, and the Austrians had refused to extradite him to Kazakhstan. Aliev’s lawyer said he seriously doubted his client had killed himself.

Early presidential elections will be held in Kazakhstan this year, and Aliev was a thorn in the side of Nazarbaev—threatening to disclose damaging information about the president’s dealings. Nazarbaev has been in power since the Soviet era, and Aliev—previously married to Nazarbaev’s daughter, Darigha, formerly served as the deputy chief of the National Security Committee. He certainly has information from his work at the committee and his marriage into the family that could damage Nazarbaev.

In 2007, Aliev was targeted in the investigation into the abduction and execution of two Kazakh bankers, at which point he fled to Austria, where he had previously served as ambassador. The Austrian authorities investigated the abductions and executions on their own in 2011, and in December 2014 charged him with the murders. In 2008, a Kazakh court had sentenced him to 40 years in prison for allegedly plotting to overthrow the government and, in connection to this plot, to being behind an organized group orchestrating abductions. Then in 2013, he was charged (in absentia) for ordering the assassination of an opposition leader and his two associates.

Russia-Iran Deal Hits Dead End

Negotiations between Russia and Iran over a swap of oil for industrial goods have been blocked because Moscow is having a hard time finding buyers for the oil. There is fear among potential buyers of what the response in Washington would be given sanctions on both Iran and Russia. There has been a lot of talk recently about the potential for Russia-Iran relations to tighten, but we see no evidence that this is actually happening, nor are we convinced that Iran actually views this as beneficial at this time.

It is easy to say that Washington’s moves against Moscow since it annexed Crimea in March last year would push it closer to Iran. But there are two sides to this relationship, and Iran does not seem to be pursuing this whole-heartedly. At the end of the day, the only real deal the two were working on was the oil-for-industrial goods deal, which now seems to have been stopped in its tracks.

Regulations, Legislation & Arbitration

• The Ohio Supreme Court has ruled in a 4-3 decision that cities and towns in the state cannot enact fracking bans through their zoning laws. This means that the court has effectively overturned a Munroe Falls ordinance that banned Beck Energy from fracking in the town. Beck Energy had sought to drill on residential property in Munroe Falls with the owner's permission and with a permit from Ohio's Department of Natural Resources. The back and forth rulings stem from residents’ concerns surrounding a recent study indicating that fracking had triggered 400 small earthquakes in 2013, and the potential for methane gas to leak from fracking wells close to residential communities. A flash incident that caused 25 families in eastern Ohio to be evacuated after a nearby fracking well sprung a leak fueled these concerns.

• The state of New York’s decision to ban fracking in December has led to 15 Southern Tier towns threatening to secede and join Pennsylvania. Presently, these towns—represented by a group calling itself the Upstate New York Towns Association--are conducting studies to determine whether it would be economically feasible to join Pennsylvania, where natural gas drilling is booming and there is no ban on fracking. The group is also comparing tax rates, business expenses and costs of living between the two states. The study is scheduled to be released in a matter of weeks. This puts a new spin on the fracking debate if the issue can actually lead to the reshaping of the US.

• The US Interior Department has proposed the first-ever federal regulations for oil and natural-gas drilling in the Arctic Ocean. The proposed regulations would require companies to prepare extensive contingency plans for swift responses to potential oil spills. The proposal shortens the drilling season and requires nearby backup rigs.

• A Russian court has refused to grant Rosneft access to a gas pipeline which is part of the Far East Sakhalin 2 project's infrastructure. Rosneft plans to appeal the decision. Rosneft had requested access to the pipeline to reduce spending on its LNG project with ExxonMobil. State-run Gazprom owns 50% plus one share in Sakhalin Energy, had turned down Rosneft’s request before it went to court, saying that it planned to expand its own LNG plant within the Sakhalin-II project.

Discoveries, Deals, Mergers & Acquisitions

• Murphy Cameroon Ntem Oil has agreed to transfer its 50% interest and operatorship of the Ntem Concession, offshore Cameroon, to Sterling Energy. Sterling will not pay any consideration for the stake and the transaction is subject to Cameroon Ministerial approval. Sterling Cameroon will operate and hold 100% of the Ntem concession after completion of the transaction. The Ntem Concession is a large under-explored block in water depths ranging from 400 to 2,000 meters in the prospective southern Douala – Rio Muni Basin. The minimum work obligation for the current phase of the Ntem Concession was met by the drilling of the Bamboo-1 well in 2014. The well was drilled in 1,600 meters of water and discovered no commercial hydrocarbons.

• Connected to the above (because both Sterling and Gulfsands are Waterford Group investments) UK-based Gulfsands Petroleum has announced that drilling operations on the Douar Ouled Balkhair 1 gas exploration well in Northern Morocco have now concluded with the DOB-1 well being confirmed as a gas discovery. DOB-1 is located within the Rharb Centre permit and it has flowed gas to the surface at a rate in excess of 10mln cubic feet per day. Analysis has indicated a gas bearing sandstone reservoir section with excellent quality. The primary reservoir target was found to have 4.2 meters of gross thickness - 3.7 meters net – with average gas saturation of 70% and porosity of 34%. This comes after Waterford tried to remove the CEO in an early February EGM in opposition to the company’s strategy in Morocco.

• Russia's Eurasia Drilling is delaying a deal to sell a stake to Schlumberger as it awaits approval from Russia's Federal Anti-Monopoly Service. In January, Schlumberger said it planned to buy a 45.65% stake in Eurasia for about $1.7 billion. Eurasia Drilling Company’s share price has dropped over 14% since it announced the delay.

• Anadarko’s Kifaru-1 well in the onshore Rovuma Block in Mozambique has been drilled to a final total depth of 3,100 meters but has failed to find commercial levels of hydrocarbons. The consortium on this block also includes Wentworth (11.59%). Anadarko is the operator with 35.7% interest. Last week, Anadarko said it was negotiating the annual supply of more than 8 million tons of natural gas from Mozambique to Asian customers. The World Bank recently said Mozambique has the largest natural gas deposits in Sub-Saharan Africa with over 20 billion barrels reserves of natural gas in deep waters.

• A Russian-led consortium has been chosen to build and operate Uganda’s $2.5 billion Hoima oil refinery project. Russian RT Global Resources is a subsidiary of Russian defense company Rostec. The RT Global consortium outbid a group led by SK Engineering and Construction Co. of South Korea. Final offers were submitted in January. The refinery will be in western Uganda, near Alberta Lake. Initial refining capacity will be 30,000 barrels per day. The government of Uganda will have a 40% interest in the project, with the Russian-led consortium holding 60%. There is some suspicion that the deal was won with promises of arms deals attached, particularly given the connection here to Rostec. Rostec CEO Sergei Chemezov is on the list of Russians subject to sanctions imposed by the European Union because of Moscow’s actions in Ukraine.

• Shareholders in Canada’s Talisman Energy have voted to approve an $8.3 billion offer from Spain’s Repsol under which a wholly-owned subsidiary of Repsol will acquire all of Talisman’s outstanding shares. 99% of shareholders voted in favor of the agreement. Repsol will also assume Talisman's $4.7 billion long-term debt.

• Kenya will begin work landmark work next month on a massive regional infrastructure project--the Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) project—that stands to turn the country into THE East African energy hub. The project will include a port, new roads, a railway and a pipeline by 2030 that will give landlocked South Sudan and Ethiopia access to the Indian Ocean. The price tag on the project is in the neighborhood of $25.5 billion. In 2013, officials said a consortium led by China Communications Construction Co Ltd had won a $449 million contract to build the first three berths of the port. Kenya could start exporting oil as soon as next year, led by UK-based Tullow, which is trying to fast-track production plans in the Lokichar basin.

Just Why Would Young Canadians Go Off to Fight in Syria?

Not Difficult to Figure Out Why Young People Join ISIS

by Sandra Finley - The Battles

Please forward this to anyone you know who is an RCMP or police officer, or who works in security forces. Thanks!

It is not difficult to put forward a likely reason why some young Canadians are going to Syria to join the “terrorists”.

In 2010 I was contacted through social media by a young sister of Omar Khadr’s who had read a posting of mine. She was desperate, using facebook to raise awareness, getting help to bring her brother home.

My posting contained reports from the pre-trial hearing in 2010 of the depraved and highly illegal torture of 15-year-old Omar Khadr at offshore American prisons. (If my son had been treated the same I would hate the perpetrators.)

So figure it out. Lots of young Canadians KNOW what happened to Omar Khadr at the hands of we ourselves – “Westerners”. It was truly gross, unimaginable that humans can do these things to any living creature, let alone a 15-year-old boy.

I don’t know the number of young people who are “in the know”; a large number joined the support groups for Omar Khadr. People became well-informed through the sharing of information. There is lots in the public domain about the failure of the Canadian Government to get Khadr out of Guatanamo, a known place of torture – all of the Western nations, except Canada, arranged for their citizens to be removed. We joined the evil-doers.

Injustice is not forgotten

I can see young people, altruistic and idealistic, going off to help fight “the demons” (depraved Westerners).
 

. . . Something else, let’s see how much media coverage this gets: it is now known that the leader of ISIS was imprisoned by the Americans in 2004 and later released. See 2015-02-19 One year in US custody as ‘civilian detainee’: Declassified files shed light on mysterious ISIS leader

Who knows what he was subjected to? He was not in Bagram or Abu Ghraib. Even IF (best case scenario) he did not receive the torture inflicted on others, he would have known about the torture being done to his countrymen.

If you, a young man, had done to your manhood what was done to prisoners, my understanding of human behaviour leads me to believe that you would be so full of hatred, you would be out for revenge, big time. 

 

What goes around comes around.

As Pogo said, “I have seen the enemy and he is us.” Sad but true.

Kids going off to Syria are as likely to be idealists as they are to be “terrorists”.

 

US, UK, Poland and Canada Promise Ukraine Military Gear and "Trainers" Despite Minsk Agreement

UK joins US, Poland in sending military trainers to Ukraine

by Jean Shaoul - WSWS

26 February 2015

Prime Minister David Cameron announced that Britain is to send military “advisors” and “nonlethal aid” to Ukraine. The purpose, according to defence sources, is to “improve the survivability” of Ukrainian troops who have taken a beating from separatist forces in the east of the country.

The move is widely seen as a bid by Cameron in the run up-to the general election in May to counter criticism from the military and political establishment that Britain has become virtually invisible on the international arena. A parliamentary committee denounced the government for not being “active or visible enough” in dealing with the situation in Ukraine.

More crucially, it signifies that Washington and London are determined to arm Ukraine, up the ante against Russia, and further undermine the ceasefire agreed between Russia, France, Germany and the Ukrainian regime at Minsk earlier this month.

Britain’s deployment of a training force coincides with the deployment of a US battalion to train Ukrainian battalions, and expectations that other NATO countries will follow suit.

After the US announcement that it could directly arm the right-wing regime in Kiev at the beginning of the month, leading European officials publicly acknowledged that the world was on the verge of “total” war between NATO and Russia. London is joining the US and Polish governments in aggressively arming Ukraine and stoking the risk of world war.

Polish Defence Ministry official Boguslaw Pacek announced yesterday that Warsaw would send military advisors to help train Ukrainian non-commissioned officers.

The Ukrainian government is also trying to obtain military support from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a key US ally in the Middle East.

US Secretary of State John Kerry accused Russia of backing the separatists and failing to abide by the Minsk ceasefire, though he admitted that there had been a lull in the fighting. “To date, neither Russia nor the forces it is supporting have come close to complying with their commitments,” he said, renewing warnings that Moscow would face further sanctions.

Cameron promised, “What we need to do now is deliver the strongest possible message to Putin and to Russia that what has happened is unacceptable. These ceasefires need to hold and if they don’t, there’ll be more consequences, more sanctions, more measures.”

Shortly afterwards, Royal Air Force jets were scrambled to escort two Russian military aircraft seen off the Cornwall coast, although both the prime minister and Defence Secretary Michael Fallon acknowledged that they had not entered British airspace.

Britain will be sending 75 trainers to western Ukraine in the next few weeks to provide instruction in command procedures, tactical intelligence, battlefield first aid, logistics, and the planning and execution of urban operations. They will also assess the training needs of the army’s infantry.

While Britain has deployed troops as part of NATO exercises in Ukraine, this is the first explicit British mission there.

Fallon denied that this was the beginning of a wider deployment of troops and claimed that there would be no mission creep. “We are not deploying combat troops to Ukraine and we will not do so,” he said, adding: “We should come to the help of a friend in need.”

In the next breath, however, he acknowledged that his officials were looking at what other training might be needed, in addition to that announced on Tuesday.

He also said that the Ukrainian government had requested all kinds of military equipment, but insisted that “at this stage” any British military supplies would be “nonlethal,” an indication that heavy weaponry as well as “nonlethal” supplies are indeed being actively considered.

Cameron called on the European Union to examine wide-ranging sanctions on Russia’s economy, which is already on the rocks due to the fall in oil prices.

His move to send British troops to Ukraine has the Labour Party’s support, according to Shadow Defence Minister Kevan Jones. In what amounted to a call for stepped-up intervention, he asked how the plan accorded with “broader NATO strategy” on Ukraine, and “what the overall objective of the deployment is and how long has it been in the planning.”

On Tuesday, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko also signed a deal with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for military and technical cooperation while attending the IDEX military trade fair in Abu Dhabi.

In the wake of the virtual secession of the eastern manufacturing belt of the country following the Berlin and Washington-backed fascist-led coup a year ago, Ukraine has been forced to find new suppliers for its armed forces. Poroshenko said that Ukrainian companies had signed contracts worth tens of millions of dollars to accelerate the modernisation of its armed forces.

The UAE is the fourth-largest arms purchaser in the world, buying mainly from the US and to a lesser extent, France. Thus, any military deal between Ukraine and the UAE must have US approval.

The semi-feudal Gulf monarchy that presides over a migrant labour force forced to live in slave-like conditions is—in terms of arms per capita—the most heavily armed country on the planet. It has tried to build up its own defence manufacturing capacity and taken an increasingly open military role, sending forces to Kosovo and Afghanistan, and carrying out airstrikes in Libya, Iraq and Syria.

Speaking to reporters at the IDEX trade show, Poroshenko said that he hoped that Washington would agree to provide arms to Ukraine. He had reportedly planned to meet chief Pentagon weapons buyer Frank Kendall at the show.

He said of his talks with Washington, “We are in a very practical dialogue, and we hope in the very near future, we have a decision to help us attain defensive weapons.”

Framing the Mullahs: Planting False Evidence on Iran

Planting False Evidence on Iran

by Norman Solomon - Consortium News

February 26, 2015 

Prior to the U.S. intelligence community’s 2007 assessment that Iran was not working on a nuclear weapons program, there was a scramble among U.S. and Israeli officials to show that it was.

The CIA’s Operation Merlin also revealed that U.S. officials were not above planting false evidence, writes Norman Solomon.

Iranian women attending a speech by Iran’s 
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. (Iranian gov't photo)

A month after former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling was convicted on nine felony counts with circumstantial metadata, the zealous prosecution is now having potentially major consequences — casting doubt on the credibility of claims by the U.S. government that Iran has work on a nuclear weapons program.

With negotiations between Iran and the United States at a pivotal stage, fallout from the trial’s revelations about the CIA’s Operation Merlin is likely to cause the International Atomic Energy Agency to re-examine U.S. assertions that Iran has pursued nuclear weapons.

In its zeal to prosecute Sterling for allegedly leaking classified information about Operation Merlin — which provided flawed nuclear weapon design information to Iran in 2000 — the U.S. government has damaged its own standing with the IAEA. The trial made public a treasure trove of information about the Merlin operation.

Last week Bloomberg News reported from Vienna, where IAEA is headquartered, that the agency “will probably review intelligence they received about Iran as a result of the revelations, said the two diplomats who are familiar with the IAEA’s Iran file and asked not to be named because the details are confidential.”

The Bloomberg dispatch, which matter-of-factly referred to Merlin as a “sting” operation, quoted a former British envoy to the IAEA, Peter Jenkins, saying: “This story suggests a possibility that hostile intelligence agencies could decide to plant a ‘smoking gun’ in Iran for the IAEA to find. That looks like a big problem.”

After sitting through the seven-day Sterling trial, I don’t recall that the government or any of its witnesses — including 23 from the CIA as well as former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice — ever referred to Operation Merlin as a “sting.” Instead, it was consistently portrayed as an effort to send Iran down the wrong technical path. In fact, over the years, Operation Merlin may have been both.

Near the end of the Clinton administration, CIA documents released at the trial show, Merlin was a botched effort to screw up Iran’s nuclear program. (There is no evidence that Iran’s government took the bait.) But documents also show that Merlin continued for years, with the CIA considering plans to widen the operation beyond Iran.

As a matter of fact, one CIA document was not redacted sufficiently to hide evident interest in also trying a similar tactic against Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq. History certainly tells us that the Bush-Cheney administration would be capable of seeking to cite fabricated evidence in a push to justify military action against a targeted country.

Investigative journalist Marcy Wheeler, my colleague at ExposeFacts, has written an extensive analysis of the latest developments. The article on her EmptyWheel blog raises key questions beginning with the headline “What Was the CIA Really Doing with Merlin by 2003?”

An emerging big irony of United States of America v. Jeffrey Alexander Sterling is that the government has harmed itself in the process of gunning for the defendant. While the prosecution used innuendos and weak circumstantial evidence to obtain guilty verdicts on multiple felonies, the trial produced no actual evidence that Sterling leaked classified information. But the trial did provide abundant evidence that the U.S. government’s nuclear-related claims about Iran should not be trusted.

In the courtroom, one CIA witness after another described Operation Merlin as a vitally important program requiring strict secrecy. Yet the government revealed a great deal of information about Operation Merlin during the trial — including CIA documents that showed the U.S. government to be committed to deception about the Iranian nuclear program.

If, as a result, the International Atomic Energy Agency concludes that U.S. assertions about an alleged Iranian nuclear weapons program lack credibility, top officials in Washington will have themselves to blame.

Norman Solomon is the executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy and the author of War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. He is a co-founder of RootsAction.org.

Chicago's Own Gitmo: A Black Site in ChiTown

A Black Site in Chicago? Police Accused of Running Secret Compound for Detentions & Interrogations

by DemocracyNow!

An explosive new report in The Guardian claims the Chicago police are operating a secret compound for detentions and interrogations, often with abusive methods. According to The Guardian, detainees as young as 15 years old have been taken to a nondescript warehouse known as Homan Square. Some are calling it the domestic equivalent of a CIA "black site" overseas.

Prisoners were denied access to their attorneys, beaten and held for up to 24 hours without any official record of their detention. Two former senior officials in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice are calling on their colleagues to launch a probe into allegations of excessive use of force, denial of right to counsel and coercive interrogations. We speak to Spencer Ackerman, national security editor at The Guardian. We are also joined by Victoria Suter, who was held at Homan Square after being arrested at the NATO protests in Chicago in 2012.

Spencer Ackerman, national security editor at The Guardian, where he has published a two-part series on police abuse in Chicago.

Victoria Suter, traveled to Chicago on May 12th, 2012 to attend the NATO protest. On May 16th, she and 11 others were taken to Homan Square in Chicago after police raided the apartment where they were staying. Sutor spent 18 hours in solitary confinement before being allowed to speak to a lawyer.

TorStar and Ukraine's Nazis: Why Is Canada's "Left" Daily Promoting Right Wing Extremists?

Toronto Star Promoting the Extreme Right in Ukraine

by Roger Annis - New Cold War

Feb 20, 2015

The three conglomerates that dominate print media in Canada—Torstar, which publishes the Toronto Star, the country’s largest daily newspaper; Woodbridge, which publishes The Globe and Mail, the largest national daily; and Postmedia, which controls the daily newspapers of most cities in English Canada–speak on Ukraine as though they all attended the same indoctrination sessions.

Insignia of Army SOS, one of the far right
projects promoted by Toronto Star writers

Viewed through their prism, Ukraine is topsy-turvy and bears little resemblance to reality. Human rights, moral standards and the concerns of the people of the east of the country are given no standing, no voice and no sympathy.

Among the three, the Star has distinguished itself in that three of its writers have used their column and article space to vaunt the fundraising projects of Ukraine’s extreme-right parties and militias and the Ukraine army. These are the forces which have been shelling towns and cities in eastern Ukraine and otherwise committing countless war crimes for the better part of the past year.

I raised a hue about the fundraising in an article dated January 30. It was published in CounterPunch and Rabble.ca, drawing attention to two articles in the preceding six weeks, including one by seasoned Star Foreign Affairs Reporter Olivia Ward, which promoted pro-war fundraising. I accused the Star of “running with the extreme right in Ukraine”.

Earlier, on December 29, I published a letter responding to a December 23 article by Star writer Tanya Talaga which first introduced Star readers to ‘Patriot Defense. Its campaign, I explained, funds ‘first aid’ kits and training “being provided to members of the special Battalions, the National Guard, the Army and the Border Service and other security agencies. We are working together with Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence”. Note the “working together” language indicating this is a straight-up effort of the rightist battalions (which tolerate Ukraine’s elected institutions at the best of times and are known to threaten to overthrow them if the extreme right is not given its political way). I complained to the writer and to the Star editors, to no avail.

Counterpunch and Rabble.ca are widely read, so I thought it safe to assume that my January 30 article came to the attention of the Star‘s editors, if not its writers. In point of fact, for the past year, I have sent many e-mails and copies of articles to Star editors and columnists, pointing out the newspaper’s one-sided and simplistic ‘blame Russia’ interpretations of events in Ukraine.

So how did the Star respond to my January 30 article? Why, it came back with two more fundraising appeals!

On January 31, it published an article promoting a stage play in Toronto which is raising funds for the ‘Patriot Defense’ fundraising campaign of extremist battalions. Star writer Leslie Ferenc provided a description of the play and the seemingly noble and heroic aims of ‘Patriot Defense’. She cited the playwright’s description of the origin of the political conflict and war in Ukraine as “an atrocity against humanity which became a full-blown Russian invasion”.

On Saturday, February 7, the Star published a front-page article by Olivia Ward which advocates fundraising for ‘SOS Army’ in Ukraine. This outfit has been providing arms and equipment to the Ukraine army, to the Ukrainian National Guard (which is largely composed of volunteers from the extremist parties in Ukraine), and to the battalions that are the militias of the extreme right.

The most shocking part of the Olivia Ward riposte is that among the items funded by ‘SOS Army‘ is technology for improved artillery sighting.

The Ukraine army and militias have been conducting war crimes against the civilians of eastern Ukraine during the past nine months through indiscriminate artillery and rocket attacks against towns and cities. These are the war crimes of which the mainstream media dares not speak or write. The crimes have included the use of cluster weapons, as documented by the New York Times, by Human Rights Watch and, most recently, by the observer mission in Ukraine of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Human Rights Watch has been obliged to speak out a second time against the use of cluster weapons because it was ignored by Kyiv the first time. That was in October, when the rights agency and the Times published separate investigations, each concluding that Kyiv is using cluster weapons. Human Rights Watch returned to the subject on February 4, 2015 because, it says, the Ukraine government failed to explain itself back in October and, worse, continues to use the weapons. Cluster weapons are banned in an international treaty, but Ukraine and the United States are among the countries that have refused to sign it. (Canada has signed the treaty but has failed to adopt an implementation process. Treaty statuses by country here.)

A Ukrainian language blog report encourages financial donations to ‘SOS Army’ by describing the benefits of more accurate artillery shelling. “For the price of a few sleepless nights, a computer technology team created an artillery sighting calculator that allows to quickly calculate and fire. Ballistic tables for all types of weapons help our gunners immediately calculate and adjust their shooting, dramatically improving their accuracy and avoiding mistakes.

“Fighters in the front are very pleased to no longer lug around bulky books, heavy iron plates and old topographic maps.”

It’s hard to know what “mistakes” this promotion material is citing. There have been way too many—tens of thousands—of artillery strikes in eastern Ukraine in the past nine months on houses, apartment buildings, workplaces, buses, hospitals, schools and kindergartens, among other locations, to believe for a nanosecond that any of these are cases of “mistakes”.

Another improvement for artillery against enemy fighters, not to speak of civilians and infrastructure, is provided by drone technology. Here too, SOS Army fundraising helps to equip the Ukraine army, not to speak of fascist paramilitary battalions. Here is a YouTube video promoting that effort.

And for a donation to ‘SOS Army’, you, too, can have your very own t-shirt carrying the stirring message, ‘Putin is a fucker’.

The blog report claims that SOS Army is a registered charitable foundation in the United States, United Kingdom and Spain.

So let’s pause here to see if we have this right. Canada’s largest newspaper, the only one still known to employ many writers and columnists with liberal and socially progressive views, is somehow caught up in fundraising for the armed forces of a neo-conservative government in Ukraine and its allied fascist extremists, who are bombing and shelling civilians in the east of the country. How could this be?

Sadly, the direction comes from the top. The Toronto Star has vigorously editorialized in favour of the war–oops, pardon me, I should say the ‘Anti-Terrorist Operation’, as Kyiv calls it—in eastern Ukraine since it was launched last April. No dissenting voice from that course is permitted in the newspaper’s pages. Its fundraising pitches on behalf of the war date back to at least September 11 of last year when the right-wing Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) staged a gala fundraising event featuring Prime Minister Stephen Harper and professional hockey legend Wayne Gretzky. The Star wrote a glowing review of that event (timed on the anniversary of the world’s most publicized terrorist attack, and I don’t mean Hiroshima or Nagasaki). It took place only a few weeks after the Star ignored the news, reported on the CBC and some other mainstream outlets, of the UCC-organized Ukraine Independence Day event in Toronto that was attended by a federal cabinet minister and the premier of the province. It prominently featured a fundraising booth of the Right Sector fascist paramilitaries of Ukraine.

The latest Star editorial gives voice to the continued war course, saying, “Russian President Vladimir Putin has been the aggressor all along and, if this latest effort at peace fails, it’s important that he pay an escalating price for his deadly bellicosity.” But it goes further than sanctions by holding out the option of military escalation:

In the run-up to the latest round of peace talks, both U.S. President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Stephen Harper held open the possibility of supplying Ukraine with high-tech defensive weapons. That option requires further analysis given that key allies, including Merkel and France’s President François Hollande, remain opposed.

But it may soon prove necessary if Putin remains immune to arguments based on reason, economic pressure, and simple decency.

It is shocking to think that the ideological heirs in today’s Ukraine of the dark forces of Nazi Germany and other fascist regimes of that era are today’s heroes in the pages of the likes of the Toronto Star.[1] All the more shocking when one considers that NATO’s threats and escalations in eastern Europe raise the nightmare specter of a horror some may mistakenly believe no longer haunts humanity—nuclear war.

There is an urgency in Canada as well as in other NATO countries of seizing the occasion of the ceasefire in Ukraine to promote more discussion and debate about the high stakes in the Ukraine war. Antiwar protest is needed. Indeed, a wholesale rejuvenation of an antiwar movement is in order, including to oppose the economic sanctions against Russia. Sanctions serve to set the stage for escalating military threats.

Following the encouraging victory of the Syriza Party in the recent Greek election, and with the climate emergency becoming ever more urgent, this is not the time to be leaving the destiny of the Earth in the hands of crazed warmongers.

Roger Annis is a frequent writer on the war in Ukraine. He is an editor of the website New Cold War: Ukraine and beyond. The website publishes daily news and analysis by its editors and contributors and it reprints articles from other sources. This article first appeared in Counterpunch on Feb. 20, 2015.

Notes:

To be fair to the Star, it is not alone in covering up the role of the extreme right in Ukraine and otherwise disseminating confusion and disarray. The Globe and Mail editors are just about as bellicose (stopping short of calling for arms shipments to Kyiv in their Feb. 13 editorial). And last December, the Globe and Mail‘s European correspondent, Mark MacKinnon, wrote a substantial article summing up the situation in Ukraine. He expressed befuddlement over Ukraine’s painful experience during World War Two, specifically the collaboration of large numbers of right-wing Ukrainians with Nazi Germany. I wrote a rejoinder to his article at the time. MacKinnon described the deeply divisive historical debate in Ukraine over the war as “an angry argument about whose grandfathers were on the right side of the Second World War, when Hitler fought Stalin in Ukraine”. Aha, it seems that in light of more recent events, World War Two was not a war against fascism after all, as I was taught in my school years in Canada and as my family members who served in the war believed. It was a war where, in Ukraine at least, “Hitler fought against Stalin”. And Germany did not invade the Soviet Union and kill upwards of 20 million people; no, “Hitler fought Stalin”. (By the way, this reads like a version of the rising, revisionist “double genocide” school of World War two history which posits that Hitler’s crimes may be explained, at least in part, by equal, or perhaps worse, crimes attributed to the leaders of the Soviet Union.)

Who Catches in the Rye Anymore?

The Grand Illusion

by John Chuckman - ICH 

In the years since 9/11, American police alone have killed at least twice as many Americans as died in that single large event, the annual toll of police killings being somewhere between 500 and 1,000, the variation owing to many such events going inaccurately reported by police.

Each year, somewhere between 30 and 40 thousand Americans are killed in automobiles, the level having declined in recent years. Each year about 15,000 Americans are murdered, down from about 25,000 not too many years ago. Each year about 100,000 Americans are killed by medical malpractice. About 40,000 Americans commit suicide annually. These are just a few causes of death in America, not the largest ones but some of the more interesting.

Let’s get a rough total estimate of what has happened to Americans from these causes in the time since 9/11. Just using the low number in each case for fourteen years, 7,000 Americans were killed by their own police, 420,000 were killed by something parked in their garage, 210,000 were murdered by fellow citizens, 1,400,000 were killed by friendly family doctors, and there were 560,000 who just decided to pack it in for one reason or another. The total of these various causes of death rounds to 2, 600,000 deaths, nearly 867 times the number of Americans killed in 9/11, 867 collapsed sets of twin towers, nearly 62 collapsed sets of towers per year.

So why are we spending countless billions of dollars fighting terror, an almost insignificant threat to our well-being? We spend a total by various estimates of between 1 and 5 trillion dollars (yes, that’s trillion with a “t”), although such totals can never accurately be given owing to secrecy, false accounting, and the immense waste that is an inherent part of all military and intelligence operations. Even in the crudest military terms of “bang for the buck,” ignoring all the death and destruction and ethical issues, just as the military routinely does in its grim work, the War on Terror has to be the greatest misdirection of resources in all of human history.

Or is it? Perhaps there are other reasons for the War on Terror, reasons never discussed in newspapers or on news broadcasts, reasons which make the expenditure of such colossal amounts against such an insignificant risk acceptable to those doing the spending? Unless American leaders are all lunatics, I think there must be.

Most people are aware that the War on Drugs has been a stupendous flop, with a great deal of resources having bought nothing except a general diminishment of personal freedoms, construction of new prisons, and make-work employment for many unnecessary police and prison guards. But each year the War on Terror spends many, many times the amount spent on the War on Drugs, and what has it bought us? A far greater debasement of freedoms, almost wiping clean parts of the Bill of Rights, raising to a high status in our society such dark and anti-democratic forces as security agents of every kind and the military, increasing exponentially the secrecy of government and thus giving voters no hope for an informed ballot, making countless future enemies in the world, and causing Americans willy-nilly to support filthy acts identical to the hateful work of military juntas who made tens of thousands of civilians disappear.

I think there are only a couple of explanations for this waste of resources which otherwise employed could have made the world an immeasurably better place. They are assisted greatly by what I’ll call the “crime in the news” effect, although I might just as well call it the “advertising effect,” because advertising works on people’s minds through its seeming omnipresence and repetition planting suggestions, suggestions not entirely different to those planted by the stage-performer hypnotist in the minds of his volunteers from the audience.

It has been demonstrated many times that daily reports of violent crime, even when the crimes occur outside a listening community, cause people to become apprehensive about many ordinary activities such as letting kids walk to school or go to the park to play. And no advertising campaign in history could begin to compare to the complete audience saturation of “terror this or that” in our newspapers, magazines, and on-air. Surely, no totalitarian government ever more completely blanketed its people with fearful suggestions than does America’s “free press” today. You literally cannot hear a news broadcast or read a newspaper with the word terror missing, a fact which keeps most people in an unquestioning frame of mind about what properly should be regarded as sinfully immense expenditures to no useful purpose, at the same time conditioning them to surrender precious freedoms. For most people, the fact is that fear overcomes both logic and courage.

Americans, along with people in other lands heavily under American influence, have voluntarily given up claims to what we believed were well-established rights. Yes, there is some controversy over the high-tech equivalent of Big Brother’s telescreens, over the construction of immense new or expanded agencies such as the TSA and NSA, and even some over a seemingly-endless set or wars, but much less than you might have expected. There has been relatively little controversy over America’s smashing its adherence to everything from the Geneva Conventions to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the complete disregard for established basic principles of common law in America’s international behavior goes largely unremarked, at least in America.

In a very real sense, America’s establishment, its government within the government consisting of leaders in security and the military and of its great corporations, has been given licence to create a kind of Frankenstein monster which now stands ready with terrible powers to do its bidding. It certainly isn’t just terrorists who need fear, it is every person with the impulse in his or her breast for justice, fairness, and human decency, and it is every country which has an impulse for independence from America’s imperious declarations of how they should carry on their affairs. I don’t like the expression New World Order, but it does in fact communicate something of what has been pursued relentlessly by America’s establishment since 9/11 with an unbounded sense of its entitlement and privilege. The awesome creature it has brought to life - which already runs secret prisons, tortures, conducts non-judicial killings, and supports horrible governments in many places - is no respecter of principles or human rights or even basic decency. We all know from history and common experience that over time any well-funded, established, and privileged institution grows, altering the terms of its charter and spreading its influence always farther, just as today American intelligence, bound by charter not to spy on Americans, spies on them all the time through various technical arrangements effectively going around its charter.

This monster serves ambitions abroad – crush democracy anywhere it proves inconvenient or a barrier to the interests of America’s establishment, as in Ukraine and in Egypt and as attempted in Venezuela, but also crush old arrangements which have produced advancing societies in other lands, even though they are not yet democratic, as in Syria, Iraq, or Libya.

In a relatively short time the monster has made a chaotic wasteland of such previously prosperous lands as Iraq and Libya, and it is now hard at work doing the same to the lovely, ancient land of Syria where it is allied in its efforts with some of the ugliest violent fanatics you could hope to find anywhere. Its acts have resulted in many hundreds of thousands of deaths in these places, countless refugees and injuries, the destruction of much precious infrastructure, and left people to wallow in chaos for years to come.

It created a coup, and thereby a civil war, in Ukraine, reducing that impoverished land still further, and it allied itself for the effort with the kind of stormfront militia trash that even the pathetic FBI surely would infiltrate and investigate were they active in the United States. It did all this just to gain temporary psychological advantages over Russia, a country whose leadership today far better represents principles of international peace and good order – not without some distant echo of irony for those of us raised on a steady diet of Cold War propaganda - than those in Washington who never stop mouthing slogans about rights and democracy which they routinely ignore. We all have an immense investment in America’s reckless game of “playing chicken” with Russia, the only country on the planet capable of obliterating most of Western civilization. I’ve never liked frat-boy pranks and humor, but in this case the overgrown frat-boys at the CIA are guffawing over stupidities which risk most of what we hold precious.

But the monster serves also to intimidate America’s own population. Don’t hold big or noisy demonstrations against injustice, don’t complain too much about authorities and truly abusive police, don’t communicate with others who may be viewed as undesirables for whatever reasons by the government, and don’t describe any group which has been arbitrarily-declared terrorist as being merely freedom fighters – any of these acts or many others risks arbitrary powers that never formally existed before.

Homeland Security has stocked huge amounts of crowd-control equipment and weapons, and it was a military general who quietly announced a few years back that the Pentagon was prepared should martial law became necessary in America. America’s local police forces, long ago having earned an international reputation for violent, militaristic behavior, have been given surplus military-grade crowd-control equipment. The FBI seeks new authorities and capabilities regularly, the same FBI with such a sorry record, going back to its origins, of abusing authority.

In my mind, and I think in the minds of many, America’s posture towards the world resembles a pug-ugly bully confronting you on the street, someone who just will not let you pass until you give him what he demands. The bully is the country’s immensely wealthy and influential privileged establishment, having the country’s general population now completely in tow, fearful and intimidated, quite apart from being in large part underemployed or unemployed. The bully naturally pays no attention to international organizations and agreements, believing himself above the rules and constraints to which others hold. The organizations are either simply ignored or, as in the case of the UN, coerced into behaving along acceptable lines, America having spent some years recently refusing to pay its legally-required dues just to prove a point as well as having been involved in more than one cabal to unseat a disliked Secretary General.

And I fear this gives us just a hint of what is likely to come because, as we should never stop reminding ourselves, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

The world’s hope for relief from a form of international tyranny comes from the growth of countries like Russia, China, India, and Brazil. I wish I could add the EU to the list, but it seems almost as supine and voiceless as America’s own general population or Canada’s present government. Only forces capable of saying “no” to America’s establishment and building interest blocs to oppose its excesses offer redress and relief in future, and it is only through political contention that new international organizations are likely to emerge, ones with some power and effect. Americans all give lip service to competition in economics, but the concept applies no less to the spheres of politics and world affairs. And Americans all give lip service to democracy, not realizing that its governing elites represent the tiniest fraction of the world’s population and resemble in their acts abroad about as aristocratic a government as ever existed.

John Chuckman is former chief economist for a large Canadian oil company. He has many interests and is a lifelong student of history. He writes with a passionate desire for honesty, the rule of reason, and concern for human decency. http://chuckman.blog.ca/

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Kim Ives, Janine Bandcroft, 25th Women's Memorial March Feb. 25th, 2015

This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

Next week marks another of Haiti's too many "days that live in infamy." Before the February 29th, 2004 sun rose on Port-au-Prince, soldiers sat in the shadow waiting for the signal to overthrow a president.

As the sun set, Jean Bertrand Aristide, the most popular of all popularly elected presidents in the Americas, would be a prisoner on a plane high above the Atlantic Ocean; destination unknown.  

 Kim Ives is founder of, and contributing editor to, Haiti Liberté, a newspaper with offices in Haiti and New York. The Haitian-born Ives also has more than twenty years experience reporting with the paper, Haiti Progrès, and currently hosts the weekly WBAI New York radio program, 'Haiti: The Struggle Continues.' 

Listen. Hear.

Ives is too a filmmaker who has collaborated on many films documenting human rights abuses, trade struggles, and conflicts between the island's peasant farmers and corrupt State enterprise. He's contributed to the books: 'Dangerous Crossroads,' 'The Haiti Files,' and Haiti: A Slave Revolution,' and appeared on many international news programs promoting the cause of Haiti's disenfranchised, travelling Canada and the U.S to deliver lectures on the persistently dire situation there.

Kim Ives in the first half.

And; Valentine's Day has for the last 25 years marked a more sombre remembrance than romance; it's the day Canadian women and their supporters march in memory of those afflicted by physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual violence. These women are the killed and disappeared and the march is an effort to bring to them "courage and committment to end the violence."

Sounds from the 25th Annual Women’s Memorial March in the second half.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher emeritus and CFUV broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will join us at the bottom of the hour to bring us up to speed with some of what's going on in and around our city in the coming week. But first, Haiti eleven years after Aristide.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Wednesday, 1-2pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.uvic.ca. And now heard at Simon Fraser University's http://www.cjsf.ca . He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

G-Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community, and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in the corporate media.  

West Turns South on Israel

Israel's new Asian allies

by Jonathan Cook

It was another difficult week for Israel.

In Britain, 700 artists, including many household names, pledged a cultural boycott of Israel, and a leader of the Board of Deputies, the representative body of UK Jews, quit, saying he could no longer abide by its ban on criticising Israel.

Across the Atlantic, the student body of one of the most prestigious US universities, Stanford, voted to withdraw investments from companies implicated in Israel’s occupation, giving a significant boost to the growing international boycott (BDS) movement.

Meanwhile, a CNN poll found that two-thirds of Americans, and three-quarters of those under 50, believed the US foreign policy should be neutral between Israel and Palestine.

This drip-drip of bad news, as American and European popular opinion shifts against Israel, is gradually changing the west’s political culture and forcing Israel to rethink its historic alliances.

The deterioration in relations between Israel and the White House is now impossible to dismiss, as Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama lock horns, this time over negotiations with Iran.

The US was reported last week to be refusing to share with Israel sensitive information on the talks, fearful it will be misused. A senior Israeli official described it as like being evicted from the “deluxe guest suite” in Washington. “Astonishing doesn’t begin to describe it,” he said.

The fall-out is spreading to the US Congress, where for the first time Israel is becoming a partisan issue. A growing number of Democrats have declared they will boycott Netanyahu’s address to the Congress next month, when he is expected to try to undermine the Iran talks.

Things are more precarious still in Europe. Several leading parliaments have called on their governments to recognise Palestinian statehood, and France rocked Israel by backing just such a resolution recently in the UN Security Council.

Europe has also begun punishing Israel for its intransigence towards the Palestinians. It is labelling settlement products and is expected to start demanding compensation for its projects in the occupied territories the Israeli army destroys.

This month 63 members of the European Parliament went further, urging the European Union to suspend its “association agreement”, which allows Israel unrestricted trade and access to special funding.

None of this has gone unnoticed in Israel. A classified report by the foreign ministry leaked last month paints a dark future. It concludes that western support for the Palestinians will increase, the threat of European sanctions will grow, and the US might even refuse to “protect Israel with its veto” at the UN.

Israel is particularly concerned about the economic impact, given that Europe is its largest trading partner. Serious sanctions could ravage the economy.

One might assume that, faced with these drastic calculations, Israel would reconsider its obstructive approach to peace negotiations and Palestinian statehood. Not a bit of it.

Netanyahu’s officials blame the crisis with Washington on Obama, implying that they will wait out his presidency for better times to return.

As for Europe, Netanyahu blames the shift there on what he calls “Islamisation”, suggesting that Europe’s growing Muslim population is holding the region’s politicians to ransom. On this view, the price paid for the recent terror attacks in Paris and Copenhagen is Europe’s support for Israel.

Instead, Netanyahu has begun looking elsewhere for economic – and ultimately political – patrons.

In doing so, he is returning to an early Israeli tradition. The state’s founders were inspired by the collectivist ideals of the Soviet Union, not US individualism. And in return for attacking Egypt in 1956, Israel was secretly helped by Britain and France to build nuclear weapons over stiff US opposition.

In response to recent developments, Netanyahu announced last month that he was courting trade with China, India and Japan – comprising nearly 40 per cent of the planet’s population.

Last year, for the first time, Israel did more trade with these Asian giants than with the US. Much of it focused on the burgeoning arms market, with Israel supplying nearly $4 billion worth of weapons in 2013. A region once implacably hostile to Israel is throwing open its doors.

India, plagued by border tensions with Pakistan and China, is now Israel’s largest arms purchaser – and such trade is expected to expand further following the election last year of Narendra Modi, known for his anti-Muslim views.

He has lifted the veil off India’s growing defence cooperation with Israel, one reason why Moshe Yaalon last week became the first Israeli defence minister to make an official visit.

Ties between Israel and China are deepening rapidly too. Beijing has become Israel’s third largest trading partner, while Israel is China’s second biggest supplier of military technology after Russia.

Last month the two signed a three-year cooperation plan, with China keen to exploit – in addition to Israel’s military hardware – its innovations on solar energy, irrigation and desalination.

Emmanuel Navon, an international relations expert at Tel Aviv University, claims that, despite its poor public image, Israel now enjoys a “global clout” unprecedented in its history.

Israel’s immediate goal is to future-proof itself economically against mounting popular pressure in Europe and the US to act in favour of the Palestinian cause.

But longer term Israel hopes to convert Chinese and Indian dependency on Israeli armaments – based on technology it tests and refines on a captive Palestinian population – into diplomatic cover. One day Israel may be relying on a Chinese veto at the UN, not a US one.

Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net .

A version of this article first appeared in the National, Abu Dhabi.

New Zealand Enviro. Group Calls for Seismic Testing Hold in Wake of Whale Strandings

Put All Seismic Testing on Hold and Launch an Independent Study

by SumOfUs

More than 100 pilot whales have died following a series of tragic mass strandings on New Zealand’s coast.
And for weeks, oil companies have been firing deafening shocks to the seafloor in the same area -- potentially interfering with the whales' ability to navigate.

Tell the New Zealand government to put all seismic testing on hold and launch an independent study.

More than 100 distressed pilot whales have stranded and died on New Zealand's beaches in recent weeks.

And nearby, oil exploration companies have been ceaselessly firing sonic booms to map the seafloor.Local conservationists are calling for urgent research into the impact of the exploration on the whales -- something the government should have done before granting licenses to the oil companies in the first place.

The New Zealand government is sticking by its oily friends for now. But we know the government monitors New Zealand's green image closely, and relies heavily on it for tourism and exports. That’s why an international outcry could tip the government in favor of the whales.

Tell the New Zealand government to halt all seismic testing and launch an independent study on its effects.

Whales and dolphins rely on sound for navigating. But the seismic surveying methods used during oil and gas exploration generate loud sounds which can travel large distances through water.

The New Zealand government has allowed an unprecedented amount of seismic testing for deep sea oil to take place in its waters this year, particularly by Norwegian company Statoil. It has happily granted permits to test in marine mammal reserves -- including off the West Coast of the North Island, inside a sanctuary intended to protect the highly-endangered Maui's dolphin.

Seismic testing is the first step of oil exploration. It is done from a ship firing off repeated sound blasts every few seconds, day and night, and sometimes over weeks or months.

The blasts, created by large underwater air guns, generate a pressure wave that penetrates the seafloor and the reflected sound waves are then recorded by an array of sensors dragged on long cables after the ship. The seismic explosions can be heard over 100kms away.

This must stop. We know we need to leave 80% of known fossil fuels in the ground if we are to prevent dangerous runaway climate change. There is absolutely no justification for exploring for new sources of oil -- especially when they could contribute to putting at risk the health of whales and dolphins who are already struggling to survive in our changing climate.

We only have one planet, so we need to look after it together. That’s why we’re supporting local resistance against corporate destruction from the tar sands of Canada to the shores of New Zealand.

Sign the petition to halt seismic testing for deep sea oil off the New Zealand coast.


Thanks for all you do,

Paul, Angus, Cami, and the team at SumOfUs


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More information:

Calls for more seismic testing research after whale strandings, TVNZ, January 24 2015

Did seismic testing for oil contribute to the mass whale stranding on Farewell Spit?, Greenpeace New Zealand, February 14 2015

Terrifying and Destructive to Whales and Dolphins: A Glimpse Into the Reality of Seismic Exploration, Huffington Post, December 11 2013

SumOfUs is a worldwide movement of people like you, working together to hold corporations accountable for their actions and forge a new, sustainable path for our global economy. Please help keep SumOfUs strong by chipping in $3.