Friday, September 13, 2013

September 12, 2013 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday, September 13, 2013

Syria will give up control of chemical weapons

Syria will cede control of its chemical weapons to the international community, the country’s president, Bashar al-Assad, has said in a yet-to-be-aired interview on Russian television.

In what is believed to be his first public acknowledgement of the country’s chemical weapon stockpile, Interfax news agency quoted the president as saying the move had not been prompted by US military threats but Russian diplomatic efforts.

“Syria is placing its chemical weapons under international control because of Russia. The US threats did not influence the decision,” Interfax said, quoting the state-run Rossiya-24 channel’s yet-to-be-aired interview.

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Assad also told Rossiya-24 that Syria would submit documents to the United Nations for an agreement governing the handover of its chemical arsenal.

The reports came hours before the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and US secretary of state, John Kerry, were due to meet in Geneva to discuss the proposal, which Lavrov announced on Monday along with Moscow’s plan for implementing it.

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has said the initiative will not succeed unless Washington abandons plans for potential air strikes to punish Assad for a poison gas attack on 21 August that the US president, Barack Obama, blames on Syrian government forces. (Source: The Guardian)

Double Take ‘Toons: Putin Peacemonger?

FEEDBACK

This cartoon was posted to NPR’s Double Take, with lots of commentary from supporters and detractors.

Friday September 7, 2013

September 6, 2013 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday September 6, 2013

Obama Arrives In Russia For G20 Summit

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) — President Barack Obama is heading into the lion’s den of Russia, confronting Syria’s key patron as well as foreign leaders skeptical of his call for an international military strike against Bashar Assad’s government.

Obama on Thursday began a two-day visit to St. Petersburg for the Group of 20 economic summit, putting him in the same country as Edward Snowden for the first time since the American fugitive fled to Moscow earlier this year. Both Syria and Snowden have been sore points in an already strained U.S.-Russian relationship, fueling the notion that Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin just can’t get along.

The White House went out of its way to say Obama, who arrived Thursday after a quick flight from Stockholm, would not meet one-on-one with the Russian leader while in St. Petersburg. But officials predicted the two would still have a chance to interact when they cross paths at various meetings.

Still struggling to persuade dubious lawmakers at home on Syria, Obama in Russia will seek to win over world leaders reluctant to get drawn in to yet another U.S.-led sortie in a Mideast nation. Although Syria wasn’t formally on the agenda for the economy-focused summit, U.S. officials were resigned to the fact that the bloody civil war there surely would overwhelm any talks about global economics. (Source: Huffington Post)
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Friday, August 2, 2013

August 2, 2013 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday, August 2, 2013

Russia grants Snowden temporary asylum, angering Washington

Brushing aside pleas and warnings from President Barack Obama and other senior American officials, Russia granted Edward Snowden temporary asylum and allowed him to walk free out of a Moscow airport transit zone on Thursday, ending his legal limbo there after more than five weeks.

Mr. Snowden thanked Russia in a statement issued by WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy organization that has been assisting him. He accused the United States of disregarding the law in its global manhunt to arrest him and said that “in the end, the law is winning.”

Russia’s decision, which infuriated U.S. officials, significantly alters the legal status of Mr. Snowden, the former intelligence analyst wanted by the United States for leaking details of the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs. Mr. Snowden now has legal permission to live – and conceivably even work – anywhere in Russia for as long as a year, safely out of the reach of U.S. prosecutors.

Mr. Snowden, 30, departed Sheremetyevo Airport unexpectedly at 3:30 p.m. after his lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, delivered to him a passport-like document issued by the Federal Migration Service, valid until July 31, 2014.

Mr. Snowden left the airport’s transit zone alone, an airport official said, but WikiLeaks later announced that he had left accompanied by one of the organization’s representatives, Sarah Harrison, who apparently had remained with him since his flight began in Hong Kong in June.

“We are extremely disappointed that the Russian Federation would take this step,” the White House press secretary, Jay Carney, said in Washington. “Obviously, this is not a positive development.” (Source: The Globe & Mail)

Tuesday June 18, 2013

June 18, 2013 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday June 18, 2013

‘Thugs’ vs. cannibals as Putin and Harper Trade Barbs

This week’s G8 summit at Lough Erne, Northern Ireland, got off to the worst possible start as talks between the two leaders immediately stalled.

Putin refused to stop providing arms to Bashar al-Assad and rebuked Cameron and U.S. President Barack Obama for aiding the rebels fighting the Syrian leader.

“You will not deny that one does not really need to support the people who not only kill their enemies, but open up their bodies, eat their intestines in front of the public and cameras,” Putin said at a press conference. “Are these the people you want to support?”

Meanwhile, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper was equally blunt ahead of the G8 meeting, saying that Putin, Assad’s only big-power ally at the G8 table, was supporting thugs.

“We are not, unless there is a big shift in position on his part, going to get a common position with him at the G8.”

The United States said last week it would step up military aid to Syrian rebels — a move which officials said would involve supplying the Western-backed Supreme Military Council with automatic weapons, light mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.

The European Union has also dropped its arms embargo on Syria, allowing France and Britain to arm the rebels, though the two countries say they have no immediate plans to do so. (Source: The National Post)

Monday February 27, 2012

February 27, 2012 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Monday February 27, 2012

Canada claims win in EU oilsands vote

The Conservative government and Canadian energy sector are girding for several more months of intense lobbying after European Union officials Thursday blocked a draft fuel law that would label the oilsands a dirtier form of crude.

The Canadian government is trumpeting the outcome – which saw more EU officials reject the fuel directive than support it – as a temporary victory in its ongoing efforts to persuade European Union countries not to slap a higher carbonemissions rating on oilsands crude compared to conventional oil.

It also means Canada’s threats of launching a trade war with the European Union and taking the proposal to the World Trade Organization are on hold for now.

But the result has environmental groups digging in their heels in the “dirty oil” fight and even more determined to prevent bitumen-derived fuels from being used in Europe.

With many of Canada’s allies abstaining from the vote, European Union countries supporting the proposed Fuel Quality Directive failed to win enough support at a Thursday committee meeting of technical experts to have it pass.

However, there also wasn’t enough support to kill the measure, so a council of EU ministers will now vote on the fuel directive, likely in June – but not before the Conservative government and petroleum producers ratchet up their efforts to quash it outright.

“There was a sound win,” federal Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver said in an interview. “We will continue to advocate our position. It has obviously resonated.” (Source: Ottawa Citizen)