http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/626460

Apr 29, 2009 08:54 PM
James Keller
THE CANADIAN PRESS

VANCOUVER–Robert Dziekanski would likely still be alive if he hadn’t been stunned multiple times with a Taser and restrained on the floor of Vancouver’s airport by four RCMP officers, says an expert pathologist.

Dr. John Butt, who has served as chief medical examiner in Alberta and Nova Scotia, told a public inquiry into Dziekanski’s death that the stress of the confrontation – including the use of the Taser – likely caused the Polish man’s heart to stop.

He said it was a death that could have been avoided.

“Is it fair to say that, in your opinion, had Mr. Dziekanski not been Tasered, not been restrained on the floor, that he would still be alive today?” asked Walter Kosteckyj, the lawyer for Dziekanski’s mother.

“I suspect that, yes,” Butt replied during his testimony Wednesday.

“Is that a strong opinion?” asked Kosteckyj.

“Yes,” replied Butt.

The inquiry has heard widely differing opinions on how much, if at all, the Taser is to blame for Dziekanski’s death.

Butt and the pathologist who conducted the autopsy on Dziekanski say the weapon may have contributed, while two experts paid by the company that makes Tasers insist it played no role at all.

Butt, who reviewed slides from Dziekanski’s autopsy, said the stress of his agitation, multiple Taser stuns and being restrained by police on the airport floor likely contributed to his heart stopping.

Still, he couldn’t say how significant a factor the Taser was.

Butt was called in to review several reports provided to the inquiry, and he agreed with the autopsy’s finding that Dziekanski’s cause of death could be described as “sudden death during restraint.”

It’s a little-understood term used for deaths in custody when there is no clear anatomical cause of the death.

Butt disagreed with several findings in the autopsy report and in other reports provided to the commission.

For example, he said he could find no evidence that Dziekanski’s heart was damaged due to chronic alcoholism. That’s a contributing factor listed in the autopsy report.

Butt said Dziekanski’s liver and brain showed classic signs of alcoholism, but the man’s heart didn’t appear to be affected.

“I just don’t agree with that,” said Butt. “I don’t think there is alcoholic heart disease so I don’t think that it has any role (in Dziekanski’s death).”

He acknowledged that he didn’t have an opportunity to examine the heart himself, but he said it would be a finding that could only be confirmed through microscopic slides, which he had access to.

The inquiry has heard that Dziekanski was prescribed heart medication several months before leaving for Canada after tests showed increased blood pressure and a slightly quickened heartbeat, attributed to stress over his pending trip.

The doctor who prescribed the medication later told RCMP investigators the findings were “borderline” normal and she wanted to “tune him up a little.” The prescription was for one month.

Butt said there was no indication of any heart problems in Dziekanski’s medical records, including a mandatory health exam required to immigrate to Canada.

Butt, who worked on a report about Tasers for the B.C. Police Complaints Commission four years ago, said he was also concerned the autopsy report barely mentions the fact that Dziekanski was stunned with a Taser.

Dr. Charles Lee, who conducted the autopsy, told the inquiry earlier in the week that the Taser may have contributed to Dziekanski’s death. But his report makes one mention of the weapon, only to explain marks on Dziekanski’s body.

“I don’t see how one could possibly not mention the Taser in the commentary in this case,” said Butt. “Whether or not that’s going to say that it’s hugely relevant to the cause of death, it’s enormously relevant to the events in this case.”

Lee has told the inquiry that while he knew Dziekanski had been shocked by a Taser, he was not aware he was shocked multiple times.

His autopsy report, along with two others provided to the commission, also mention excited delirium, a controversial term often used in in-custody deaths that has since been removed from RCMP training manuals.

Butt acknowledged the controversy surrounding the term, and also noted that in most cases where it is used, subjects are on drugs or suffering from mental illness such as paranoid schizophrenia.

Neither was the case with Dziekanski.

While he couldn’t say whether Dziekanski was suffering from any type of delirium, he said it’s not something that could be detected in an autopsy, and the video of the confrontation doesn’t provide enough information to make that determination.

http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/microfinance_misses_its_mark/

Stanford Social Innovation Review: Microfinance Misses Its Mark
Despite the hoopla over microfinance, it doesn’t cure poverty. But stable jobs do. If societies are serious about helping the poorest of the poor, they should stop investing in microfinance and start supporting large, labor-intensive industries. At the same time, governments must hold up their end of the deal, for market-based solutions will never be enough

By Aneel Karnani Summer 2007 32 comments | Comment on this article

Microcredit is the newest silver bullet for alleviating poverty. Wealthy philanthropists such as financier George Soros and eBay co-founder Pierre Omidyar are pledging hundreds of millions of dollars to the microcredit movement. Global commercial banks, such as Citigroup Inc. and Deutsche Bank AG, are establishing microfinance funds. Even people with just a few dollars to spare are going to microcredit Web sites and, with a click of the mouse, lending money to rice farmers in Ecuador and auto mechanics in Togo.

Wealthy philanthropists, banks, and online donors aren’t the only ones fascinated with microcredit. The United Nations designated 2005 as the International Year of Microcredit, explaining on its Web site that microentrepreneurs can use their small loans to “grow thriving business and, in turn, provide for their families, leading to strong and flourishing local economies.” The Nobel Committee awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize to Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank, declaring that microcredit is “an ever more important instrument in the fight against poverty.”

All this enthusiasm for microcredit has attracted untold billions of dollars.1 Grameen Bank alone disbursed $4 billion in microloans over the last 10 years, and it now has 7 million borrowers in Bangladesh. In India, about 1,000 microcredit organizations and 300 commercial banks lent $1.3 billion to 17.5 million people in 2006, says Sanjay Sinha, managing director of Micro-Credit Ratings International in India.2 Worldwide, 3,133 microcredit institutions provided loans to 113.3 million clients, finds the State of the Microcredit Summit Campaign Report 2006.3

This fervor suggests that microcredit really must help the poor. And many have made grand claims to this effect, including Yunus, who said, “We will make Bangladesh free from poverty by 2030.”4 Somewhat less ambitiously, the State of the Microcredit Summit Campaign Report 2006 states that “microcredit is one of the most powerful tools to address global poverty.”

Yet my analysis of the macroeconomic data suggests that although microcredit yields some noneconomic benefits, it does not significantly alleviate poverty. Indeed, in some instances microcredit makes life at the bottom of the pyramid worse. Contrary to the hype about microcredit, the best way to eradicate poverty is to create jobs and to increase worker productivity.

To understand why creating jobs, not offering microcredit, is the better solution to alleviating poverty, consider these two alternative scenarios: (1) A microfinancier lends $200 to each of 500 women so that each can buy a sewing machine and set up her own sewing microenterprise, or (2) a traditional financier lends $100,000 to one savvy entrepreneur and helps her set up a garment manufacturing business that employs 500 people. In the first case, the women must make enough money to pay off their usually high-interest loans while competing with each other in exactly the same market niche. Meanwhile the garment manufacturing business can exploit economies of scale and use modern manufacturing processes and organizational techniques to enrich not only its owners, but also its workers.

As these scenarios illustrate, a surer way to ending poverty is to create jobs and to increase worker productivity, rather than investing in microfinance. But before going into detail about why it is better for an underdeveloped country to promote large enterprises, not microenterprises, let’s examine the theory behind microcredit.

Microcredit 101

The microfinance movement addresses a basic yet devastating glitch in the formal banking system: Poor households cannot get capital from traditional banks because they do not have collateral to secure loans, and traditional banks do not want to take on the risks and costs of making small, uncollateralized loans. Without this capital, impoverished people cannot rise above subsistence. For example, a seamstress cannot buy the sewing machine that would allow her to sew more clothes than she could by hand, and thereby pull herself out of poverty.

Microfinanciers use innovative contractual practices and organizational forms to reduce the risks and costs of making loans, such as lending to groups, rather than just to one person. Some microcredit organizations give their clients more than loans, offering education, training, healthcare, and other social services. Typically, these organizations are not-for-profit or are owned by customers or investors who are more concerned about the economic and social development of the poor than they are with profits. The largest of these social purpose microfinanciers include Opportunity International, Finca International, Accion International, Oikocredit, and Grameen Bank.

In contrast to nonprofit organizations, commercial banks that make microloans typically provide only financial services. Indonesia’s Bank Rakyat, Ecuador’s Bank Pichincha, and Brazil’s Unibanco all directly target poor customers. Some large commercial banks, such as the Indian bank ICICI, do not lend directly to individual microcredit clients, but instead work through small microfinance organizations.

Another innovation that many nonprofit microfinance organizations have adopted is targeting women. At Grameen Bank, for example, 97 percent of clients are women because “women have longer vision [and] want to change their lives much more intensively,” says Yunus.5 On the other hand, “men are more callous with money.”6 Evidence indeed suggests that when women retain control of microloans, they spend more on the health, security, and welfare of their families.7

A major selling point of microfinance is its alleged ability to empower women. Research shows that microcredit increases women’s bargaining power within the home, centrality to the community, awareness of social and political issues, and mobility. It also increases their self-esteem and self-worth.8 Yet microcredit alone cannot overcome ingrained patriarchal systems of control. In spite of having access to credit, some female microcredit clients do not have control over the loans contracted or the income generated by the microenterprises.9 Overall, microcredit does empower women, but only in noneconomic ways.

Failures of Microfinance

Despite the hoopla surrounding microcredit, few have studied its impact.10 One of the most comprehensive studies reaches a surprising conclusion: Microloans are more beneficial to borrowers living above the poverty line than to borrowers living below the poverty line.11 This is because clients with more income are willing to take the risks, such as investing in new technologies, that will most likely increase income flows. Poor borrowers, on the other hand, tend to take out conservative loans that protect their subsistence, and rarely invest in new technology, fixed capital, or the hiring of labor.

Microloans sometimes even reduce cash flow to the poorest of the poor, observes Vijay Mahajan, the chief executive of Basix, an Indian rural finance institution. He concludes that microcredit “seems to do more harm than good to the poorest.”12 One reason could be the high interest rates charged by microcredit organizations. Acleda, a Cambodian commercial bank specializing in microcredit, charges interest rates of about 2 percent to 4.5 percent each month. Some other microlenders charge more, pushing most annual rates to between 30 percent and 60 percent.13 Microcredit proponents argue that these rates, although high, are still well below those charged by informal moneylenders. But if poor clients cannot earn a greater return on their investment than the interest they must pay, they will become poorer as a result of microcredit, not wealthier.

Another problem with microcredit is the businesses it is intended to fund. A microcredit client is an entrepreneur in the literal sense: She raises the capital, manages the business, and takes home the earnings. But the “entrepreneurs” who have become heroes in the developed world are usually visionaries who convert new ideas into successful business models. Although some microcredit clients have created visionary businesses, the vast majority are caught in subsistence activities. They usually have no specialized skills, and so must compete with all the other self-employed poor people in entry-level trades.14 Most have no paid staff, own few assets, and operate at too small a scale to achieve efficiencies, and so make very meager earnings. In other words, most microenterprises are small and many fail – contrary to the United Nations’ hype that microentrepreneurs will grow thriving businesses that lead to flourishing economies.

This should not be too surprising. Most people do not have the skills, vision, creativity, and persistence to be entrepreneurial. Even in developed countries with high levels of education and access to financial services, about 90 percent of the labor force is employees, not entrepreneurs.15

The reality of microcredit is less attractive than the promise.16 Even a stalwart proponent of neoliberal policies like The Economist is beginning to conclude that “the few studies that have been done suggest that small loans are beneficial, but not dramatically so.”17

Jobs, Not Microcredit

Microcredit is certainly a noble idea and a genuine innovation that has provided some positive impact to its clients, particularly to women’s noneconomic empowerment. It also helps the poor during cyclical or unexpected crises, and thus reduces their vulnerability.18 But the critical issue is whether microcredit helps eradicate poverty. And on that front, it falls short.

China, Vietnam, and South Korea have significantly reduced poverty in recent years with little microfinance activity. On the other hand, Bangladesh, Bolivia, and Indonesia haven’t been as successful at reducing poverty despite the influx of microcredit.

The fact is, most microcredit clients are not microentrepreneurs by choice. They would gladly take a factory job at reasonable wages if it were available. We should not romanticize the idea of the “poor as entrepreneurs.” The International Labour Organization (ILO) uses a more appropriate term for these people: “own-account workers.”

Creating opportunities for steady employment at reasonable wages is the best way to take people out of poverty. “Nothing is more fundamental to poverty reduction than employment,” states the ILO. And the United Nations Development Programme agrees: “Employment is a key link between economic growth and poverty reduction. Productive and remunerative employment can help ensure that poor people share in the benefits of economic growth.”

Consider the patterns of poverty and employment over time in China, India, and Africa, whose populations make up about three-quarters of the world’s poor (see graphs on p. 39). Each region has pursued a different path to economic development, and the results so far have been markedly different.

In China, a large and growing percentage of the population is employed in a job. At the same time, the percentage of people living in poverty has declined significantly in recent decades. In Africa, a small and shrinking fraction of the population is employed, and the incidence of poverty has remained unchanged during the same period. India’s performance lies somewhere between the two: The number of people in jobs has grown some, and the number of people in poverty has shrunk a little.

Many people who have jobs in these regions are still stuck below the poverty line – the working poor. Whether an employee is “poor” depends on her wages, the size of her household, and the income of other household members. Increased productivity leads to higher wages, which in turn lead to employees earning enough to rise above poverty. That is why it is not enough to create jobs; regions must also increase labor productivity through the use of new technology, management techniques, specialization, and the like.

When it comes to increasing labor productivity, India’s performance is mediocre and the situation in Africa is dismal. One reason for India’s poor productivity growth is that its enterprises are often too small. The average firm size in India is less than one-tenth the size of comparable firms in other emerging economies.19 The emphasis on microcredit and the creation of microenterprises will only make this problem worse.20

It is possible for an economy to invest in both microenterprises and larger enterprises. But governments need to prioritize development approaches that have a higher payoff. As Amar Bhide and Carl Schramm wrote in The Wall Street Journal: “Governments in fragile states have only so much political capital and capacity. So it is crucial to proceed in a disciplined sequence.”21

The State’s Responsibilities

Poverty alleviation cannot be defined only in economic terms; it is also about addressing a much broader set of needs. Amartya Sen, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, eloquently argues that development can be seen as a “process of expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy.”22 Social, cultural, and political freedoms are desirable in and of themselves, and they also enable individual income growth. Services such as public safety, basic education, public health, and infrastructure nurture these freedoms and increase the productivity and employability of the poor, and thus their income and well-being.

The governments of all developing countries claim to accept responsibility for these functions. Yet they have failed dismally to deliver on their promises. Consider the case of India: The economy is growing rapidly, the stock market is at an all-time high, Indian companies are expanding abroad, and a large middle class is emerging. It is, for many, the best of times.

Contrast this image with that of another India, where 79 percent of the population still lives on less than $2 per day, 39 percent of adults are illiterate, 31 percent of rural households and 9 percent of urban households do not have safe drinking water, 81 percent of rural households and 19 percent of urban households do not have a toilet, 10 percent of boys and 25 percent of girls do not attend primary school, 49 percent of children are underweight, 9 percent of children die in the first five years of their lives, and 400,000 children die of diarrhea every year.

The boom in India’s private sector has been accompanied by an outright failure of the state, and the poor have borne the brunt of this failure. The rich can purchase services from private enterprises, and the middle class are the main beneficiaries of limited public services. But the poor have little or no access to public services and cannot pay the high prices for private services. For instance, children of the rich go to exclusive private schools, children of the middle class use a mix of private and public schools, and children of the poor often do not go to school at all or go to low-quality public schools.

Markets Aren’t Enough

India isn’t the only country whose government is failing to meet its responsibilities. Much of the developing world is likewise missing a vibrant public sector. In response to these shortcomings, a growing number of people believe that markets would do a better job of providing these same services. That is one of the reasons why microcredit has such widespread appeal: It’s a market-based approach to eliminating poverty.23

Even those who advocate a market-based approach to providing basic services don’t argue that the state can totally abdicate its responsibilities. The late economist Milton Friedman, who advocated a school voucher system, did not want the state to withdraw totally from the field of education. The state must provide basic education for the sake of intergenerational equity. The state must also be responsible for providing services when there is a market failure. Free markets do not work well when economies of scale are very large and there is a natural monopoly, as in the case of piped water, and when the commodity is a “common good,” as in the case of public health. In such cases, the market might be a partial complement to the state, but it cannot be a total substitute. For example, if a region has a private water supply, the government must still regulate rates and ensure that the poor have enough purchasing power to buy water.

The business guru C.K. Prahalad says, “If people have no sewage and drinking water, should we also deny them televisions and cell phones?”24 Writing about the slums of Mumbai, he argues that the poor accept that access to running water is not a “realistic option” and therefore spend their income on things that they can get now and that will improve the quality of their lives.25 This opens up a market, and he urges private companies to make significant profits by selling to the “bottom of the pyramid” (BOP).

Yet the BOP proposition glosses over the real issue: Why do poor people accept that they cannot expect running water? Even if they do accept this bleak view, why should we? Instead, we should emphasize the failure of government and attempt to correct it. Giving a voice to the poor is a central aspect of the development process.

The business community, bureaucrats, politicians, and the media are very busy congratulating themselves on the booming private sector in India. Sure, more Indians have cell phones. But what many remember about India is not all the people using cell phones. It’s all the people defecating in public because they do not have toilets. Even in Mumbai, the business capital of India, about 50 percent of the people defecate outside. The current celebration of private sector successes should be met, and perhaps chastened, with anger at the failure of the state to provide basic services.

Overall, governments, businesses, and civil society would be well advised to reallocate their resources and energies away from microfinance and into supporting larger enterprises in labor-intensive industries. This is what is alleviating poverty in China, Korea, Taiwan, and other developing countries. At the same time, they should also provide basic services that improve the employability and productivity of the poor. Otherwise, they will miss the mark of lifting people out of poverty.

1 Tom Easton, “Hidden Wealth of the Poor,” The Economist (Nov. 3, 2005).

2 Claire Cane Miller, “Microcredit: Why India Is Failing,” Forbes (Nov. 10, 2006).

3 Sam Daley-Harris, “State of the Microcredit Summit Campaign Report 2006.” Available at http://www.microcreditsummit.org/pubs/reports/socr/2006.htm.

4 “Bangladesh Will Send Poverty to Museum by 2030: Yunus,” Financial Express (Feb. 18, 2007).

5 George Negus, “Foreign Correspondent – Interview With Prof. Muhammad Yunus,” ABC Online (March 25, 1997).

6 Manfred Ertel and Padma Rao, “Women Are Better With Money,” Spiegel (Dec. 7, 2006).

7 Aminur Rahman, “Micro-credit Initiatives for Equitable and Sustainable Development: Who Pays?” World Development (1999); Naila Kabeer, “Money Can’t Buy Me Love? Re-evaluating Gender, Credit and Empowerment in Rural Bangladesh,” IDS Discussion Paper No. 363 (1998); Mark Pitt and Shahidur Khandker, “Household and Intrahousehold Impact of the Grameen Bank and Similar Credit Targeted Programs in Bangladesh” (Washington, D.C.: World Bank Publications, 1995).

8 Gita Sabharwal, “From the Margin to the Mainstream. Micro-Finance Programmes and Women’s Empowerment: The Bangladesh Experience,” University of Wales, Swansea (2000). Available at http://www.gdrc.org/icm/wind/geeta.pdf.

9 Jennefer Sebstad and Gregory Chen, “Overview of Studies on the Impact of Microenterprise Credit” (Washington, D.C.: USAID, 1996).

10 Aliya Khawari, “Microfinance: Does It Hold Its Promises?” Discussion Paper, Hamburg Institute of International Economics (2004).

11 David Hulme and Paul Mosley, Finance Against Poverty (London: Routledge, 1996).

12 Salil Tripathi, “Microcredit Won’t Make Poverty History,” Guardian Unlimited (Oct. 17, 2006).

13 Daniel Ten Kate and Van Rouen, “The Cycle of Debt – As Microcredit Institutions Grow, Some Question Their Effect on Poverty,” The Cambodia Daily (Feb. 21-22, 2004).

14 Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo, “The Economic Lives of the Poor,” Journal of Economic Perspectives (2006).

15 LABORSTA Internet database, available at http://laborsta.ilo.org , International Labour Organization.

16 Thomas W. Dichter, “Hype and Hope: The Worrisome State of the Microcredit Movement” (2006). Available at http://www.microfinancegateway.org/content/article/detail/31747.

17 “Macro credit,” The Economist (Oct. 21, 2006).

18 Jonathan Morduch, “Does Microfinance Really Help the Poor? New Evidence From Flagship Programs in Bangladesh,” Harvard Institute for International Development and Hoover Institution, Stanford University (1998). Available at http://www.wws.princeton.edu/~rpds/downloads/morduch_microfinance_poor.pdf.

19 Kalpana Kochhar et al., “India’s Pattern of Development: What Happened, What Follows?” Journal of Monetary Economics (2006).

20 Milford Bateman and David Ellerman, “Micro-Finance: Poverty Reduction Breakthrough or Neoliberal Dead-End?” Paper presented at UNDP Bosnia and Herzegovina and the BiH Economic Policy Planning Unit (EPPU), “Poverty Roundtable: Achieving MDG 1 (sustainable poverty reduction) in BiH” (June 16-17, 2005).

21 Amar Bhide and Carl Schramm, “Phelps’s Prize,” The Wall Street Journal (Jan. 29, 2007).

22 Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (New York: Anchor Books, 2000).

23 Bateman and Ellerman.

24 “Selling to the Poor,” Time (April 17, 2005).

25 C.K. Prahalad and Allen Hammond, “Serving the World’s Poor Profitably,” Harvard Business Review (2002)

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ANEEL KARNANI is an associate professor of strategy at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. Karnani’s research focuses on competitive advantage, strategies for growth, global competition, and emerging economies. He works with several companies to design and deliver executive development programs, and he is also actively involved in consulting to businesses.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/business/media/28abc.html?_r=1&hp

By BRIAN STELTER
Published: April 27, 2009

In late 2007, there was the first crack of daylight into the government’s use of waterboarding during interrogations of Al Qaeda detainees. On Dec. 10, John Kiriakou, a former C.I.A. officer who had participated in the capture of the suspected terrorist Abu Zubaydah in Pakistan in 2002, appeared on ABC News to say that while he considered waterboarding a form of torture, the technique worked and yielded results very quickly.

Mr. Zubaydah started to cooperate after being waterboarded for “probably 30, 35 seconds,” Mr. Kiriakou told the ABC reporter Brian Ross. “From that day on he answered every question.”

His claims — unverified at the time, but repeated by dozens of broadcasts, blogs and newspapers — have been sharply contradicted by a newly declassified Justice Department memo that said waterboarding had been used on Mr. Zubaydah “at least 83 times.”

Some critics say that the now-discredited information shared by Mr. Kiriakou and other sources heightened the public perception of waterboarding as an effective interrogation technique. “I think it was sanitized by the way it was described” in press accounts, said John Sifton, a former lawyer for Human Rights Watch, an advocacy group.

During the heated debate in 2007 over the use of waterboarding and other techniques, Mr. Kiriakou’s comments quickly ricocheted around the media. But lost in much of the coverage was the fact that Mr. Kiriakou had no firsthand knowledge of the waterboarding: He was not actually in the secret prison in Thailand where Mr. Zubaydah had been interrogated but in the C.I.A. headquarters in Northern Virginia. He learned about it only by reading accounts from the field.

On “World News,” ABC included only a caveat that Mr. Kiriakou himself “never carried out any of the waterboarding.” Still, he told ABC that the actions had “disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks.” A video of the interview was no longer on ABC’s website.

“It works, is the bottom line,” Rush Limbaugh exclaimed on his radio show the next day. “Thirty to 35 seconds, and it works.”

Mr. Kiriakou subsequently granted interviews to The Washington Post, The New York Times, National Public Radio, CBS, CNN, MSNBC and other media organizations. A CNN anchor called him “the man of the hour.”

Eight months after the interview, Mr. Kiriakou was hired as a paid consultant for ABC News. He resigned last month and now works for the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

His ABC interview came at an especially delicate juncture in the debate over the use of torture. Weeks earlier, the nomination of Michael Mukasey as attorney general was nearly derailed by his refusal to comment on the legality of waterboarding, and one day later, the C.I.A. director testified about the destruction of interrogation videotapes. Mr. Kiriakou told MSNBC that he was willing to talk in part because he thought the C.I.A. had “gotten a bum rap on waterboarding.”

At the time, Mr. Kiriakou appeared to lend credibility to the prior press reports that quoted anonymous former government employees who had implied that waterboarding was used sparingly. In late 2007, Mr. Ross began pursuing Mr. Kiriakou for an interview, “leaning on him pretty hard,” he recounted.

On Dec. 10, in the subsequent interview, Mr. Kiriakou told Mr. Ross that he believed the waterboarding was necessary in the months after the 9/11 attacks. “At the time I was so angry,” he told Mr. Ross. “I wanted so much to help disrupt future attacks on the United States that I felt it was the only thing we could do.”

Mr. Kiriakou was the only on-the-record source cited by ABC. In the televised portion of the interview, Mr. Ross did not ask Mr. Kiriakou specifically about what kind of reports he was privy to or how long he had access to the information. “It didn’t even occur to me that they’d keep doing” the waterboarding, Mr. Ross said last week. “It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

He added, “I didn’t give enough credit to the fiendishness of the C.I.A.”

Mr. Kiriakou refused an interview request last week. In a statement to ABC, he said he was aware only of Mr. Zubaydah’s being waterboarded “on one occasion.”

The C.I.A., which considered legal action against Mr. Kiriakou for divulging classified information, said last week that he “was not — and is not — authorized to speak on behalf of the CIA.”

Paul Gimigliano, a C.I.A. spokesman, said: “This agency did not publicly disclose the frequency with which the waterboard was used, noting only that it was employed with three detainees. If reporters got that wrong, they weren’t misled from here.”

In the days after Mr. Kiriakou’s media blitz, his claims were repeated by an array of other outlets. For instance, the Fox News anchor Chris Wallace cited the 35 seconds claim to ask a congressman whether the interrogation program was “really so bad.”

Months later the claims continued to be amplified; the National Review editor Jonah Goldberg used Mr. Kiriakou’s assertions in a column last year to argue that the waterboarding was “right and certainly defensible.”

Mark Danner, a journalist who has written extensively about the covert program for The New York Review of Books, said the news reports had fed the idea that brutal interrogations could instantly glean information about terrorist plans.

“There was a completely mistaken impression put about that this technique was not cruel because it could break detainees so quickly,” he said.

(An article in The New York Times on Dec. 13, 2007 described his comments to ABC and added a quotation from Mr. Kiriakou: “I think the second-guessing of 2002 decisions is unfair. What I think is fair is having a national debate over whether we should be waterboarding.”)

When Mr. Kiriakou was later hired by ABC to provide commentary on terrorism cases, Mr. Ross said that network officials had been concerned about the appearance of a tie between the interview and the job. For that reason, “I felt that we should sort of wait,” he said. “I didn’t want anyone to think that he was promised something for the interview. He was not.”

Mr. Ross, who received a George Polk Award for a series on interrogation, expressed no regret about the Kiriakou interview and praised him for speaking publicly. He said ABC was preparing a story that would address the previous reporting.

“Kiriakou stepped up and helped shine some light on what has happening,” Mr. Ross said. “It wasn’t the huge spotlight that was needed, but it was some light.”

As talk continues about possible prosecutions of people involved in the interrogations, waterboarding is once again a hot topic. Last week, Sean Hannity, a conservative Fox News host, said he would agree to be waterboarded (for charity) when a guest proposed that he experience it.

But the recent Justice Department memo has led some commentators to revisit their earlier impressions about the technique.

“I’ve always been on the fence about whether waterboarding constituted torture,” Mr. Goldberg of the National Review wrote last week, but if the figures are true, “then I think the threshold has been met.”

He added: “Debating whether it was worth it still seems open to debate, depending on the facts.”

Scott Shane contributed reporting from Washington.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/20/world/20detain.html

Waterboarding Used 266 Times on 2 Suspects

By SCOTT SHANE
Published: April 19, 2009

C.I.A. interrogators used waterboarding, the near-drowning technique that top Obama administration officials have described as illegal torture, 266 times on two key prisoners from Al Qaeda, far more than had been previously reported.

The C.I.A. officers used waterboarding at least 83 times in August 2002 against Abu Zubaydah, according to a 2005 Justice Department legal memorandum. Abu Zubaydah has been described as a Qaeda operative.

A former C.I.A. officer, John Kiriakou, told ABC News and other news media organizations in 2007 that Abu Zubaydah had undergone waterboarding for only 35 seconds before agreeing to tell everything he knew.

The 2005 memo also says that the C.I.A. used waterboarding 183 times in March 2003 against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described planner of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The New York Times reported in 2007 that Mr. Mohammed had been barraged more than 100 times with harsh interrogation methods, causing C.I.A. officers to worry that they might have crossed legal limits and to halt his questioning. But the precise number and the exact nature of the interrogation method was not previously known.

The release of the numbers is likely to become part of the debate about the morality and efficacy of interrogation methods that the Justice Department under the Bush administration declared legal even though the United States had historically treated them as torture.

President Obama plans to visit C.I.A. headquarters Monday and make public remarks to employees, as well as meet privately with officials, an agency spokesman said Sunday night. It will be his first visit to the agency, whose use of harsh interrogation methods he often condemned during the presidential campaign and whose secret prisons he ordered closed on the second full day of his presidency.

C.I.A. officials had opposed the release of the interrogation memo, dated May 30, 2005, which was one of four secret legal memos on interrogation that Mr. Obama ordered to be released last Thursday.

Mr. Obama said C.I.A. officers who had used waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods with the approval of the Justice Department would not be prosecuted. He has repeatedly suggested that he opposes Congressional proposals for a “truth commission” to examine Bush administration counterterrorism programs, including interrogation and warrantless eavesdropping.

The Senate Intelligence Committee has begun a yearlong, closed-door investigation of the C.I.A. interrogation program, in part to assess claims of Bush administration officials that brutal treatment, including slamming prisoners into walls, shackling them in standing positions for days and confining them in small boxes, was necessary to get information.

The fact that waterboarding was repeated so many times may raise questions about its effectiveness, as well as about assertions by Bush administration officials that their methods were used under strict guidelines.

A footnote to another 2005 Justice Department memo released Thursday said waterboarding was used both more frequently and with a greater volume of water than the C.I.A. rules permitted.

The new information on the number of waterboarding episodes came out over the weekend when a number of bloggers, including Marcy Wheeler of the blog emptywheel, discovered it in the May 30, 2005, memo.

The sentences in the memo containing that information appear to have been redacted from some copies but are visible in others. Initial news reports about the memos in The New York Times and other publications did not include the numbers.

Michael V. Hayden, director of the C.I.A. for the last two years of the Bush administration, would not comment when asked on the program “Fox News Sunday” if Mr. Mohammed had been waterboarded 183 times. He said he believed that that information was still classified.

A C.I.A. spokesman, reached Sunday night, also would not comment on the new information.

Mr. Hayden said he had opposed the release of the memos, even though President Obama has said the techniques will never be used again, because they would tell Al Qaeda “the outer limits that any American would ever go in terms of interrogating an Al Qaeda terrorist.”

He also disputed an article in The New York Times on Saturday that said Abu Zubaydah had revealed nothing new after being waterboarded, saying that he believed that after unspecified “techniques” were used, Abu Zubaydah revealed information that led to the capture of another terrorist suspect, Ramzi Binalshibh.

The Times article, based on information from former intelligence officers who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Abu Zubaydah had revealed a great deal of information before harsh methods were used and after his captors stripped him of clothes, kept him in a cold cell and kept him awake at night. The article said interrogators at the secret prison in Thailand believed he had given up all the information he had, but officials at headquarters ordered them to use waterboarding.

He revealed no new information after being waterboarded, the article said, a conclusion that appears to be supported by a footnote to a 2005 Justice Department memo saying the use of the harshest methods appeared to have been “unnecessary” in his case.

CNN Fortune’s Green Wombat blog reports that the US wind industry now employs more people than coal mining.

http://greenwombat.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/01/28/wind-jobs-outstrip-the-coal-industry/

January 28, 2009, 11:27 am

Here’s a talking point in the green jobs debate: The wind industry now employs more people than coal mining in the United States.

Wind industry jobs jumped to 85,000 in 2008, a 70% increase from the previous year, according to a report released Tuesday from the American Wind Energy Association. In contrast, the coal industry mining employs about 81,000 workers. (Those figures are from a 2007 U.S. Department of Energy report but coal employment has remained steady in recent years though it’s down by nearly 50% since 1986.) Wind industry employment includes 13,000 manufacturing jobs concentrated in regions of the country hard hit by the deindustrialization of the past two decades.

The big spike in wind jobs was a result of a record-setting 50% increase in installed wind capacity, with 8,358 megawatts coming online in 2008 (enough to power some 2 million homes). That’s a third of the nation’s total 25,170 megawatts of wind power generation. Wind farms generating more than 4,000 megawatts of electricity were completed in the last three months of 2008 alone.

Another sign that wind power is no longer a niche green energy play: Wind accounted for 42% of all new electricity generation installed last year in the U.S. Power, literally, is shifting from the east to west, to the wind belt of the Midwest, west Texas and the West Coast. Texas continues to lead the country, with 7,116 megawatts of wind capacity but Iowa in 2008 overtook California for the No. 2 spot, with 2,790 megawatts of wind generation. Other new wind powers include Oregon, Minnesota, Colorado and Washington state.

But last year’s record is unlikely to be repeated in 2009 as the global credit crisis delays or scuttles new projects because developers are unable to secure financing for wind farms. Layoffs have already hit turbine makers like Clipper Windpower and Gamesa as well as companies that produce turbine towers, blades and other components.

The Obama administration’s $825 billion stimulus package includes a three-year extension of a key production tax credit that has spurred the wind industry’s expansion. But given the dearth of investors with tax liabilities willing to invest in wind projects in exchange for the credits, the stimulus is unlikely to be stimulating to the industry unless the tax credit is made refundable to developers.

The U.S. wind industry is dominated by European wind developers and turbine makers – General Electric (GE) and Clipper are the only two domestic turbine manufacturers – and those companies’ fortunes rise and fall with the global economy. As the U.S. market has boomed, European companies have been moving production close to their customers – the percentage of domestically manufactured wind turbine components rose from 30% to 50% between 2005 and 2008, according to the American Wind Energy Association.

—————————————————

http://greenwombat.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/

April 24, 2009, 4:33 pm
Tailwinds for the wind industry
The wind industry has been getting a lot of love of late from the Obama administration.

The president spent Earth Day at an Iowa factory that makes wind turbine towers and announced new regulations for offshore wind farms. Meanwhile, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has been talking up the potential of offshore wind to generate as much as 20% of the eastern seaboard’s electricity that is now provided by coal-fired power plants.

But such scenarios won’t come to pass unless the administration seriously tackles the transmission grid problems that are keeping wind from becoming a nationwide source of green energy, according to panel of wind industry executives who spoke at Fortune Magazine’s Brainstorm Green panel this week.

“The real challenge is to connect wind farms in the Great Plains with the population centers of the Midwest,” said Bob Gates, senior vice president of commercial operations for Clipper Windpower. California-based Clipper is one of two U.S.-owned wind turbine makers (the other being General Electric (GE) ).

For instance, Clipper and BP (BP) have signed an agreement to build a 5,000-megawatt wind farm – the nation’s largest – in South Dakota. But the deal is more a dream at this stage because there are no power lines to transmit such massive amounts of electricity to Chicago and other Midwestern cities. (Gates said there is enough transmission available to begin construction this summer of a small 25-megawatt portion of the wind farm.)

The Obama administration has devoted billions of dollars in stimulus package funding to transmission projects and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last week approved incentives for a company planning to build a $12 billion “Green Power Express” transmission project to bring wind to Midwest metropolises.

Gates and the other panelists — Andris Cukurs, CEO of Indian turbine maker Suzlon’s North American operations; Don Furman, a transmission executive with Spanish wind developer Iberdrola Renewables, and James Walker, vice chairman of French-owned wind developer enXco – said the development of wind offshore from East Coast cities would ease transmission bottlenecks.

“Connecting offshore wind to cities is relatively cheap and easy compared to bringing wind power from the Dakotas to New York City,” Gates said. Another way to work around transmission gridlock would be to develop highly efficient small turbines that could be placed near cities and existing power lines, said Gates.

Despite Obama’s embrace of wind, the executives said they don’t see the industry resuming its record growth in 2008 – when U.S. wind capacity more than doubled – until 2010 or later. The credit crunch delayed or scuttled numerous wind farms and turbine orders have fallen dramatically.

One bright spot: Growing interest from well-capitalized utilities in directly investing in wind farms.

“Utility ownership is about 15% of the U.S. turbine fleet,” said Furman of Iberdrola Renewables. “I see more utility ownership in the coming years,, perhaps up to a third of the fleet.”

http://www.thehilltimes.ca/html/index.php?display=story&full_path=2009/april/27/legislation/&c=2

The Hill Times, April 27, 2009

Government moves ahead on gun control, crime and justice agenda
Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police calls Bill C-301 ‘retrogressive’ and won’t benefit safety, security of Canadians.
By Bea Vongdouangchanh
The Conservative government is committed to repealing the Long Gun Registry and will not comply with a Bloc Québécois motion passed last week to maintain the gun registry for all firearms and end the amnesty for gun owners to register their weapons, says the government.

“The gun registry in itself is, frankly, a useless piece of government bureaucracy right now. It’s completely wasteful, it’s cost taxpayers well over a billion dollars since it was first introduced back in 1995. We will continue to oppose it. We will continue to do whatever we can to remove the long guns from the gun registry because we think it’s the wrong approach to take,” Conservative MP Tom Lukiwski (Regina-Lumsden-Lake Centre, Sask.), Parliamentary secretary to the government House leader, told The Hill Times last week. “It’s only a motion. It gives some direction to the government as the intent of the House, it’s not a bill, it’s not a private member’s bill and we’ll see how things play out.”

Bloc Québécois MP and justice critic Serge Ménard (Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, Que.), Quebec former public safety minister and minister of justice and attorney general, introduced a motion last week stating the government “should not extend the amnesty on gun control requirements set to expire on May 16, 2009, and should maintain the registration of all types of firearms in its entirety.”

The motion passed 143-136, with all of the Conservatives voting against it, and one Liberal MP, Larry Bagnell (Yukon).

During debate on the motion, Mr. Ménard said it is costing the RCMP $9.1-million to register firearms, two-thirds of which goes toward registering hunting rifles. Spending $6-million to maintain the long gun registry is worth the lives that will be saved, Mr. Menard said.

“The registry drew a lot of criticism. It was said to be a waste of money. I admit that establishing the gun registry was very costly. I will even admit that it was a fiscal scandal. But it is there and it is used every day. It would truly be a waste not to use it fully,” he said. “Would anyone think of destroying a bridge that cost 10 times the initial estimate, even if a scandal were involved, to build another one at a lower cost? Of course not. Now that we have it, let us use it.”

There are seven million guns registered, and estimates state that there could be as many as 20 million guns in the country.

When the Conservatives gained power in 2006, it waived the licensing and registration fees for gun owners and extended the amnesty to register guns introduced in an amendment to original legislation to allow people to comply with the law on time. The Conservatives extended it twice and have indicated that they will extend it again.

“Clearly we oppose that. We think that’s the wrong approach,” Mr. Lukiwski said. “We feel by extending the gun amnesty it would actually encourage more gun owners who failed to relicense their guns to come forward and be compliant with the law again.”

Mr. Lukiwski said removing the amnesty provisions “would have the unintended consequence of having firearm owners continue to refuse their license and not come forward and be compliant with the law.”

NDP MP Joe Comartin (Windsor-Tecumseh, Ont.), his party’s justice critic, said, however, that this is the Conservatives’ way of not enforcing the law.

“I’ve always felt that the amnesty is grossly improper. I don’t think it’s at all in keeping with what the amnesty provisions of the Code are there for. It never was intended as a blanket amnesty,” he said. “That would really go a long distance in undermining the rule of law because in effect it allows the government of the day on a whim to decide whether laws will be enforced or not. That’s a really dangerous road to go down.”

Mr. Comartin also said if the government is concerned with the cost of the registry, it should reinstate the fees that were eliminated in order to recover the administrative costs of the registry. He noted people who own cars or dogs pay to be licensed and register their vehicles or pets and it should be the same for gun owners. In addition, he said the savings to the government would be “minimal” if the long gun registry was scrapped, considering the hand gun registry would still be in place.

The government introduced Bill S-5, the Long-Gun Registry Repeal Bill in the Senate on April 1. It has not yet been debated at second reading. The bill would repeal the long gun portion of the gun registry, but would still maintain a registry of prohibited and restricted firearms, such as hand guns.

Mr. Comartin said last week he believes the gun control issue is “iconic” for the Conservatives and they simply introduced the bill to give the appearance of wanting to make changes, but have no intention of doing so.

The government introduced the bill in the Senate so that it could blame the Liberal Senators for not letting it pass, Mr. Comartin said, also criticizing the Bloc Québécois for introducing its motion and re-politicizing the issue.

Mr. Lukiwski said, however, that the government introduced Bill S-5 as a response to Conservative MP Garry Breitkreuz’s (Yorkton-Melville, Sask.) more detailed private member’s bill, C-301, on repealing the long gun registry that they didn’t believe could get passed.

“Our information from what we’re hearing from the opposition parties is that they’re not prepared to vote in favour of that. If that is the case, then we would’ve wanted to introduce another bill strictly dealing with the repeal of the long gun registry in the hope that that would pass,” he said. “There’s no hidden agenda here. There’s no intent to try to divert attention from our true objectives, which is to repeal the long gun registry. That is our stated objective and that has not changed.”

Bill C-301, would repeal the long gun registry but also maintain the registration of prohibited and restricted firearms, similar to the government bill. However, C-301 would also reduce the regulations on importing, exporting and transporting fully automatic and semi-automatic weapons to public shooting ranges. Licenses would also be extended to 10 to 12 years and would allow people to possess as many firearms as they want, including restricted ones, once they have a license. Bill C-301 would also require the Auditor General to audit the program every five years.

NDP MP Charlie Angus (Timmins-James Bay, Ont.), said while there are issues about the long gun registry in his rural riding, Bill C-301 does not address them and only opens up gun use.

“Residents in my riding are certainly horrified to see a bill that would allow machine guns to be transported, making it easier for prohibited arms to be carried around, and allowing individuals with the illegal possession of prohibitive handguns to keep them, which is under clause 8,” Mr. Angus said during debate on the opposition day motion last week. “This bill is a Trojan Horse allowing people in urban areas to drive around with Berettas in their SUVs.”

Mr. Angus said if passed, Bill C-301 would “allow gangbangers in Vancouver to have a field day.”

The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police wrote in a March 9 letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) that Bill C-301 would be “a retrogressive proposal that cannot in any way benefit the safety and security of Canadians.”

During Question Period last week, Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan (York-Simcoe, Ont.) said the government was committed to eliminating the long gun registry but would address crime and safety in other measures.

“We do not believe it provides any particular benefits in terms of law enforcement,” he said. “In fact, we have chosen to approach these matters differently, with mandatory prison sentences for crimes committed with guns, provide more resources to our police and more police officers on the street, with over 1,500 new RCMP officers so far.”

Mr. Comartin said while the Bloc and the Conservatives were politicizing the registry, there needs to be a review of the Firearms Act to address concerns of those in rural areas, First Nations people and hunters and trappers in the North.

“There should be a review and there probably should be some amendments and some loosening up. One of the suggestions is why is it a criminal offence to breach this? Should we be making it a lesser, sort of what people think of a ticketed offence?” he said. “It’s organized crime we’re trying to get at in terms of reducing the number of illegal guns in the country. That review should be done and I would think coming out of that we would hear specific amendments that would in fact make it more tolerable for the hunters.”

Mr. Lukiwski said the government’s crime and justice agenda will remain a focus in the House this session. “We’ve been very active on all law and order initiatives since we were first elected in 2006. That will not change,” he said, noting that critics who say the government’s crime agenda is an attempt to “change the channel” on the economy is nonsense. “We’ve been introducing the justice bills continuously since we were first elected and we will continue to do.”

The government introduced two justice-related bills recently. Bill C-25, Limiting Credit for Time Spent in Pre-sentencing Custody, is now in committee, and Bill C-26, Auto Theft and Trafficking in Property Obtained by Crime was introduced last week and currently at second reading.

bvongdou@hilltimes.com

The Hill Times

http://www.thehilltimes.ca/html/index.php

The Hill Times, April 27, 2009

Ignatieff calls Liberal policy convention ‘about plenty’
Grit Leader Michael Ignatieff says the Grit convention, where he will be crowned leader, will reform the party’s constitution, and end delegated conventions.
By Harris MacLeod
The Liberal Party national convention that will be held from April 30 to May 2 in Vancouver has been called the convention about nothing, but Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff says it’s “a convention about plenty.”

“It’s a convention about constitutional reform for the party. We’re making an important series of constitutional changes including a weighted one-person-one-vote to select a leader. That’s a very important change in a party. It’s not a detail, it’s not housecleaning; it changes the way the party works. It says to everybody who want s to join our party, ‘If you join our party you get to vote for the man or woman who may be the prime minister of your country—so join the party.’ That’s why one-man-one-vote is so important and why it means an end to delegated conventions,” Mr. Ignatieff (Etobicoke-Lakeshore, Ont.) told The Hill Times last week.

The one-member-one-vote proposal for choosing a party leader was narrowly defeated at the 2006 Liberal convention in Montreal, in 2006, however it’s expected that it will be adopted this time around. The national executive has put forward a proposal whereby each riding association will be assigned 100 points and individual party members will rank their choices for leader on a single transferable ballot.

In each round of vote-counting, the candidate with the lowest number of points, which will be allotted according to percentage so that urban ridings with more members don’t get more influence than rural ridings, will be dropped from the ballot and everyone who put that person as their first choice will then have their second choice counted. The vote-counting process continues until one candidate gets a majority of points nationally, and then that person becomes the leader.

In the past, the party has chosen leaders by electing delegates at the riding association level that then vote on a leader at the convention. This was to be the plan for the Vancouver convention as well, however, because the two other challengers for the leadership of the party, MPs Bob Rae (Toronto Centre, Ont.), and Dominic LeBlanc (Beauséjour, N.B.), dropped off the ballot way back in December to make room for Mr. Ignatieff, all that will result from convention on the leadership front is dropping the cursory “interim” from Mr. Ignatieff’s title.

Mr. Ignatieff said that while he’s looking forward to having his leadership made official, the convention will be about more than that. He said that in addition to debating policy, it would be a morale booster and an opportunity for the Liberals to show that after years of infighting they are truly united.

“Canadians won’t vote for a party that’s divided and we have united the party in a pretty magnificent way in the last six months. So it will be a chance to show off our unity, a change to show that we’re a party that has reformed ourselves and a party that’s prepared to debate ideas out in the open. So it is not a convention about nothing, it’s a convention about something,” said Mr. Ignatieff.

The switch to the one-member-one-vote system could also mean that this convention could be the last of its kind, as in the future party members might not have to leave the comfort of their own homes to vote for a leader. It’s been suggested that there may be regional gatherings to boost morale when it comes time to vote for a new leader, however it’s likely that the legendary blowout conventions of the past will remain there.

The three-day Liberal love-in will bring about 1,500 Liberal Party members, MPs, Senators, and staffers to the Vancouver Convention Centre where they will talk policy, party at hospitality suites, and pay tribute to their former leader, Stéphane Dion (Saint-Laurent-Cartierville, Que.).

The last convention in Montreal was one of the most dramatic in the party’s long history and it concluded when Mr. Dion defeated Mr. Ignatieff for the leadership of the party. In the past, the whole point of having a convention has been to choose a new leader, and often a new party president as well.

But with both Mr. Ignatieff and Liberal organizer Alfred Apps, who is expected to be crowned party president, running uncontested, some critics have labelled it the “Seinfeld convention,” about nothing.

Liberal MP Justin Trudeau (Papineau, Que.), who is co-chairing the convention with fellow Grit MP Ujjal Dosanjh (Vancouver South, B.C.), said the absence of intrigue that comes with choosing a leader doesn’t make the convention pointless. He pointed to the workshops being put on for delegates, where rank and file Liberals will learn about things like how to run a successful campaign, and about the party’s efforts to boot up its formerly moribund fundraising machine. There will also be “policy think-tank sessions” where Liberals will discuss topical issues, such as a debate on energy and the environment that will be broadcast on CPAC on May 1.

“The Americans never have conventions in which they go into it and don’t know what the outcome is going to be in terms of who gets picked [to be the leader], and they manage to have extraordinarily interesting conventions nonetheless. So the people who say this is about nothing because it’s uncontested need to rethink their end result. The end result of the convention isn’t to have compelling TV competitions like a reality show, the end result of a convention is to have strong ideas, and a sense of having grappled with some tough issues,” Mr. Trudeau said.

Some of the “tough issues” that will be debated at the policy think-tanks are derived from resolutions that were put forward by the various provincial wings of the federal party, as well as the four party commissions, the National Liberal Women’s Commission, the Young Liberals, the Aboriginal Peoples’ Commission, and the Senior Liberals Commission. In an effort to reach out to the Liberal grassroots, the party changed the format for selecting resolutions to be voted on at the plenary session the last day of the convention.

In the past, delegates at workshops at a national convention debated policy resolutions and would then vote to select one policy that would be sent from each workshop to the main plenary for voting by all delegates. In the lead up to this convention, however, a website called En Famille was created whereby members could logon to debate policy in online forums, and then vote on which resolutions to send to the plenary.

The move was intended to open up the policy development process to all party members, as opposed to just elected delegates, however some members complained that the votes from En Famille were purely “consultative,” and that only riding and commission presidents would get to vote on which resolutions are sent to the plenary session.

NDP MP Peter Julian (Burnaby-New Westminster, B.C.), who attended the 2006 convention as an observer and will be watching in Vancouver as well, said the Liberal Party has always made choosing their policies a strictly backroom activity reserved for party elites, and he doesn’t expect this convention to be any different.

“I’ve grown up in the Liberal Party, my father is a life long liberal so I’ve observed liberal conventions first hand for many years and there is some grassroots chance to discuss but that’s it, there’s no real influence over policy. So people can talk occasionally at microphones but it’s meaningless,” Mr. Julian said.

Mr. Trudeau told The Hill Times recently that the party’s current constitution puts restrictions on what they were able to do in terms of including the rank and file in the policy development process, and creating En Famille was the best compromise.

“We got ourselves in a situation where we couldn’t have [the online votes] be anything more than consultative votes,” said Mr. Trudeau. “But the symbolic and concrete importance of opening it up to a broad membership vote on this online tool means that we’ve had greater consultation than we’ve had in the past on the narrowing down and the selection of which elements to send to the plenary.”

Of the dozens of resolutions that will be debated at the convention, some call on “the next Liberal government” to implement policies of past Liberal governments, such as the $5-billion Kelowna Accord for Aboriginal peoples, and a national childcare program, that were both promises of former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin. Others are an eclectic mix of new proposals, such as establishing a “Department of Rural Affairs,” and ending the ban on gay men donating organs that has been in effect since 1977.

The one everyone will be watching for is a resolution by the Quebec-wing of the party that calls on a future Liberal government to meets its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol by bringing in legislation “including but not limited to establishing a carbon tax, a cap and trade system, or a combination of both.”

The carbon tax idea was the central plank of Mr. Dion’s campaign platform and it played a major part in his undoing. And though the governing Conservatives and the media are likely to pounce on its inclusion in the policy think tanks, Mr. Ignatieff has already said the party has turfed the carbon tax idea and it’s unlikely it will make it to the plenary, and even if it did it almost certainly would not be part of a future Liberal campaign platform.

Mr. Ignatieff described the last convention, where he went in the front-runner and finished in second place, as an “incredible experience,” but he said he’s looking forward to finally getting his party’s seal of approval.

“This convention will be important to me because it’s the party saying, ‘You’re our guy,’ so that’s very meaningful to me, it’s important to me. [The Liberal Party] is a great national institution and I’m very conscious of the history here. This is the party of Laurier, this is the party of Pearson, this is the party of Trudeau, this is the party of all the leaders we’ve offered to the country. Emotionally it’s a big moment for me, I’m kind of excited.”

The Hill Times

http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/article/622140

LAYOFFS
Suddenly, more dads are running the household
April 25, 2009

Comments on this story (4)

Barbara Turnbull
LIVING REPORTER

Alex Burke’s January layoff blindsided him.

After weeks of fruitless job searching outside the home, he realized he had a job – running the house – but had no clue how to do it.

With a 4-year-old daughter and a son nearly 1, the Beach resident knew he had a lot to learn. He started slowly but, eventually, became adept at juggling meals, maintaining order and focusing on the kids.

“I transitioned from mommy assistant to full-fledged parent,” he says.

He thought he had helped his wife before but now – given how much he has changed – he realizes those efforts barely scratched the surface.

Running a household, he says, “is a much more difficult job than one would even imagine.”

It’s also a reality for more fathers, because men are taking heavier hits from this recession than women. The adult male unemployment rate is 7.5 per cent, almost two points higher than that of women of a similar age.

“Layoffs really need a whole kind of redefinition and reframing of stereotypical and gender-specific roles,” says Tom Triantafillou, who is with Family Services of Peel.

“I think this economic meltdown also means a sort of social revolution in terms of how we view work and how we view relationships.”

Kathleen Deck, a counsellor for Family Services’ Employment Assistance Program in Toronto, says almost every laid-off person goes through a period of shock and intense emotion and they experience hurt, anger, anxiety, fear and, for the lucky ones, relief and excitement.

But for families already on shaky ground, she cautions, large cracks can quickly appear.

“Oftentimes, not only is there the difficulty of seeing meaning in making breakfast but also, if people are struggling with the transition, they may behave in ways they don’t feel very proud of.”

Triantafillou says Peel family services is seeing more men and, although manufacturing and construction sectors are the hardest hit in Ontario, plenty of their new clients are professionals with degrees and pink slips. Those who strongly identified themselves by their career are having the hardest time.

“They don’t feel they are living up to their manly, breadwinner duties.”

Initially, that was the experience of Oakville resident Peter Kolisnyk, who was cut out a year ago as middleman for a Chinese manufacturer of women’s sports clothing after a successful 25-year career, mostly as an executive.

“It is so humiliating and humbling to have something like this happen,” he says. “It is a shock to the male ego.”

But his wife’s real estate career took off at the same time, so he became househusband to the blended family of his son and three stepdaughters.

Like Burke, Kolisnyk is grateful for how his life has changed and that he now has a stronger family unit.

Experts believe it’s an adjustment anyone can make with the right attitude and some help, but some fear that most men who find themselves in this situation are getting stuck in negativity.

“There is a lack of hope and great sadness,” says Hannah Esmaili, lead counsellor in Peel’s Family Services’ Working to Your Full Potential program.

They are referring growing numbers of laid-off men for psychological assessments and treatment for anxiety and depression.

Deck says many clients acknowledge they would have benefited from the help long ago, but didn’t recognize the importance.

Family services in most regions provide counselling, family-life education, employment support, group workshops and opportunities to be heard by – and hear others – in the same boat. They can make referrals and are a critical resource for thousands. Workplace employee assistance programs serve the same purpose.

Unemployment can lead to tension at home, feelings of anger, irritability, impatience and helplessness, sleep problems and difficulty concentrating, all of which can turn into a vicious cycle of hopelessness.

But some laid-off men have embraced their new opportunities. Oshawa father of three Joe Ferron is one of them.

“It’s awesome. I love being home,” he says, reached by phone while changing the bedsheets and sounding downright cheerful.

He wasn’t expecting the layoff from Lear in December but he took on all house duties when his wife started a new job in January. “I don’t expect her to do anything,” he says.

“I do the homework, I do the cooking, cleaning, shopping, volunteer at the school,” he says. “(I’m) just being home 100 per cent with the kids.”

He starts school in September to learn security and law enforcement.

Esmaili says a lay-off can mean sink or swim to a two-parent family’s relationship.

“The strength of the couple really shines at this time…and it is a really strong factor in determining how they will be able to make it through the situation.”

Experts say the key to not just surviving, but thriving, is to gather as much support as possible, talk about feelings and remain active. And family members should coach and encourage.

Celebrate small accomplishments, Deck says. Learn to feel grateful, find ways to be positive.

“The more you work on your mind frame, the more you are energized to seek out and find those resources,” she says. “Don’t get stuck in looking back or wishing for what you don’t have.”

Burke does see meaning in menial chores and says he has become a genuine partner, one that the children now turn to as easily as mom. He says he has gained patience and learned about early childhood development, resulting in a relationship with his kids that never would have developed without a solid stretch of time.

Kolisnyk marvels at how useful he has been to his kids. “The bonding through this has been tremendous.”

Instead of trips to China every few weeks, Kolisnyk wants to focus on what he can contribute to Canada.

He turned to an industrial psychologist, crafted a 10-year plan and realized he wants more meaning and satisfaction for his time and effort. He has five potential career paths, and will continue as chief cook and bottle washer until something pans out.

Burke says his eyes are now open and this difficult job is not one he would choose. After speaking about his lay-off with the Star, he called to say he started a new sales job this week. But Burke swears he’ll retain his new-found domestic skills.

“Going into the office will always be less taxing than running a household,” he says.
Toronto Star

http://www.thestar.com/News/Insight/article/624527

Fiery and controversial as ever, the head of Ontario’s largest union is watching closely as the City of Toronto and its workers try to hammer out a contract

Apr 26, 2009 04:30 AM
Comments on this story (10)
Kenneth Kidd
Feature Writer

Sid Ryan is peering into the television camera through fashionably narrow glasses, his face aglow with light. A half-dozen digital recorders are being thrust toward his face, forming a kind of electronic necklace.

With his turquoise dress shirt and blue, pinstriped suit, the Ryan persona is, on this day, one of measured respectability. His grey hair is clipped short, and retreating from his forehead.

Ryan’s words are as forceful as ever, but their delivery is restrained, as if muted by the august surroundings of the Ontario Legislature lobby, or maybe by recent controversy.

“If I’m unemployed and looking for a job,” says the head of the Canadian Union of Public Employees Ontario, “there’s nothing in this budget that’s going to give me any hope.

“We’re going to see thousands of layoffs in hospitals, thousands of layoffs of child-care workers and thousands of layoffs in the broader public sector.

“Barack Obama is leading a different parade,” concludes Ryan, his Dublin accent still mostly unacquainted with the letter “h” after decades in Ontario.

It’s been years since the pugnacious Ryan railed and rallied against Bob Rae’s Social Contract, and then helped thousands of workers stage Days of Action to protest the subsequent government of Mike Harris.

And it’s been seemingly as long since the last of his five failed bids to win election to Parliament or Queen’s Park for the NDP, a couple of those losses wafer thin.

Of late, Ryan’s notoriety has mostly stemmed from incendiary remarks and union resolutions aimed at Israel, for which he’s been widely condemned, even winning a public rebuke from CUPE’s national president.

It didn’t help that he called the Israeli bombing of Palestinian lands “acts of genocide” comparable to “what the Nazis did.” He wound up apologizing, saying he’d been “caught up in the emotion.”

This is not the Ryan who now stands in the Legislature lobby, composed, rhyming off estimates of economic growth.

But which Ryan will emerge in the coming weeks, as the City of Toronto tries to hammer out a contract with two CUPE locals amid a financial crunch, only the fates can tell.

Even to the likes of fellow unionist Buzz Hargrove, late of the Canadian Auto Workers, Ryan can sometimes seem unpredictable. Or “off the wall,” to use Hargrove’s term. “You never know where he’s going to come from or when.

“He speaks a lot of times without really thinking through the issues. He does it from the heart.”

When the camera lights dim, Ryan steps to one side, off the central carpet. A more private conversation soon strays far from the budget. “It was a brilliant series,” he says.

He means Strumpet City, the 1980 television drama about the 1913 Dublin Lockout, a violent labour uprising led by James Larkin, played in the series by Peter O’Toole. The story is based on a 1969 novel by James Plunkett. Ryan went to school with Plunkett’s son.

The Lockout, which W.B. Yeats immortalized in “September 1913,” has long loomed in the Irish imagination, not least for those who, like Ryan, were raised in working-class poverty.

Patrick Cyril Ryan was born in a Dublin council house on July 26, 1952. He likes to note how his birthday offers an agreeable symmetry, since it also happens to mark the anniversary of the Cuban revolution and the death of Eva (Evita) Peron. He was third eldest in a brood of 10, with six brothers and three sisters, all crammed into a two-storey, two-bedroom home with a lavatory off the scullery in the back. Ryan joined a union when at 16 he apprenticed as a plumber, but he wasn’t an active member. On one of his first jobs, he and a journeyman were sent up to Belfast to work on central heating systems. They stayed in “digs,” essentially a bed and breakfast, in a Protestant area as the sectarian “Troubles” were heating up.

The local shipyard workers weren’t keen on the newcomers. “They called us Fenian bastards, and `What the effing hell are you doing up here taking our jobs?’” recalls Ryan. “They were quite scary, these guys.”

Those divisions had scarcely dissipated when he returned to Belfast in the late 1990s as part of a delegation working toward peace. And it’s telling that Ryan believes the moderates could never have resolved the strife on their own. “Probably we wouldn’t have had peace in Northern Ireland if the two hard men (Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams) hadn’t come to power. The moderates didn’t appear able to do it because they didn’t have the support of the militants behind the scenes on both sides.”

In the spring of 1975, Ryan arrived in Toronto, a refugee of the constant Irish drizzle and cramped quarters. He’d still been living with his family. The idea of Canada came from older brother Noel, who was fascinated by the Calgary Stampede and planned on emigrating, though never did.

Ryan landed a maintenance job at Curity Products, makers of medical gauzes, in East York. After only a couple of months, a group of plant workers asked him for help organizing a union. “I guess they figured, coming from Ireland, the Irish know about unions.”

The union drive succeeded, the Steelworkers were in, but by that fall Ryan had won a job with Ontario Hydro and was off to Deep River for training. He bought a white Camaro to celebrate, and not long afterwards returned briefly to Dublin to marry wife Sheila. Their three daughters would become the first in the Ryan family ever to attend university.

It wasn’t until several years later, after he’d transferred to the Pickering facility, that his union career took flight. Asked to do some repairs to a large vacuum duct – the one through which radioactive steam would rush if there was ever a mishap with the reactor – Ryan refused, saying it was unsafe.

The standoff lasted weeks, until the arrival of an official from the Ontario Ministry of Labour. Ryan smiles. “This fellow walks in with the broadest Dublin accent you’ve ever heard and sits down and he says, `Jesus, what part of Dublin are you from?’ The plant manager’s sitting there, steam coming out of his ears.”

Other battles ensued, and Ryan rose to plant chairperson, the top elected position with the union local, overseeing 2,500 workers. By 1992, he’d be elected president of CUPE Ontario, the position he’s held, often volubly, ever since.

Do his emotions sometimes get the better of him? He insists not.

“I’m passionate, there’s no question about it, but, no, I’m always in control,” says Ryan. “I know where I’m heading, what I want to do. I’ve learned over the years to use passion to good advantage.

“I’ve led the most difficult union in the province to lead for 17 years now. You don’t get elected into the leadership of a union like CUPE if you’re not in control of your message.”

Ryan likens the job to being president of the old Yugoslavia, since CUPE Ontario’s 195,000 members cover everything from health care and municipal workers to school-board employees and Hydro workers. “You have to be a little like Tito to run CUPE,” he says. “I’ve got about six balls up in the air on different fights in different sectors.”

Yet for all Ryan’s unionist passion, “he likes to leave it behind when he comes home from work,” says wife Sheila. “He knows I’m not terribly interested in politics.” She can’t, however, escape involvement in Ryan’s other abiding love: English soccer’s Liverpool F.C. “Every week I have to tape the games.”

Last month, Ryan organized a little-publicized summit of union leaders from the private and public sectors. It was a bid to start pooling knowledge and power at a time when the labour movement is under enormous pressure, not just to curtail demands but also to offer concessions to cash-strapped employers.

It is a measure of the moment that even the heads of two unions that are historically hostile to one another – the Canadian Auto Workers and the Steelworkers – showed up, posing with Ryan for a three amigos snapshot.

In the coming weeks, CUPE itself will face a major test as contract talks covering more than 23,000 City of Toronto workers head toward the finish line. The stakes are potentially high.

Several city councillors have already been calling for wage restraint, but CUPE professes itself determined to win the 3-per-cent pay hike awarded months ago to firefighters and police officers.

“What we’re faced with is some right-wing councillors playing politics with the lowest-paid workers in the system,” says Ryan. “It’s the mayor of the city they’re after. They’re trying to embarrass David Miller and paint this picture that he’s in the back pocket of the union movement.”

But concessions are in bad odour around union halls these days. Ryan, for one, insists they never really save jobs. “If we were to give concessions in the City of Toronto, Hamilton or Kingston or Sault Ste. Marie would be knocking on our door in a nanosecond.”

Ryan himself won’t be at the bargaining table. He almost never is, since CUPE’s provincial bodies are effectively the political wings of the national union. But Ryan’s involvement could still blossom, even though neither of the two City of Toronto locals is technically tethered to CUPE Ontario.

Union locals might all be chartered by CUPE’s national office, but their affiliation with CUPE Ontario is voluntary. The biggest city local, representing 17,000 inside workers, cut formal ties to Ryan’s group several years ago. The reason: CUPE Ontario’s long-running stance against Israel.

If Ryan has an elephant following him around these days, it’s his periodic entanglements in the Middle East.

In a news release at the start of this year, Ryan said his union “was ready to say Israeli academics should not be on our campuses unless they explicitly condemn the (Islamic) university bombing and the assault on Gaza in general.”

Under a barrage of condemnation from Jewish groups, editorialists and even the head of CUPE’s national office, the resolution eventually passed by the university sector of CUPE Ontario was altered to target Israeli academic institutions, not individuals.

But even the slight retreat didn’t allay the critics. As Bernie M. Farber, chief executive of the Canadian Jewish Congress, told the Star: “Here we have a situation where a once-proud union has sunk so low as to have a small group put forward a motion that is, on its face, bigoted and discriminatory and anti-Jewish.”

So why not pass a parallel resolution condemning Hamas, or suicide bombers and rocket attacks on Israel?

“In what regards?” Ryan protests. “You’ve got one group is the oppressor and one group is the oppressed.

“I come at it from a humanitarian standpoint. I believe the rockets going into Israel is a war crime. There’s no doubt in my mind about that. It’s completely wrong and I’ve said that a hundred times.”

But he dismisses any comparison with the centuries-old sectarianism that plagued Northern Ireland. “You’ve got an illegal occupation taking place of Palestinian lands. There’s stealing of Palestinian land with this wall that they’ve built, illegal settlements being built.

“When the IRA set off bombs in London and killed hundreds of people, you didn’t see the United Kingdom go into Catholic areas of Belfast and say, `You’re to blame because you’re Catholic.’” It’s the sort of argument that easily animates Ryan, who freely admits his attraction to the cut and thrust of politics, to the sometime chagrin of his family. So, after his many defeats, would he once again run for public office?

He says he isn’t sure, though he insists, with a hint of mischief, that there’s no shame in losing. “Stanley Knowles, probably the most revered Member of Parliament in our time, he lost six times before he got elected.”

——————————————-

SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF RYAN
In the late 1950s, Sid Ryan’s father, Danny, left to find work at an auto parts factory in Birmingham. He’d send money home by telegram, but it often ran out or didn’t arrive in time. The electricity would be cut off.

But if you didn’t have a shilling to put in the gas meter, at least you could forge one out of cardboard and hope it didn’t get caught in the gears. At the end of the month, the gasman would come round and count the pieces of cardboard, then demand payment. “If you didn’t have the money, they’d give you so many days to pay and then they’d cut the gas off again.”

His parents shared one room with the girls, drapes separating them. The boys shared two beds in the other room.

The bathtub was in the scullery, with a wooden counter that folded down over it to form a workspace, although there was never enough hot water to take anything you’d recognize as a bath.

Yet Ryan’s memories are, mostly romantic. “We had an amazing childhood,” he says, sitting in the breakfast nook of his home in an Oshawa-area subdivision. “We didn’t realize we were living in poverty.”

When he was eight or nine, Sid Ryan and his friends would sneak into the Church of Ireland Christ Church Cathedral and slap the face on the sculpted likeness of Strongbow, the Norman who’d claimed Dublin for the English crown.

“We thought we were striking a blow for the Catholics,” he laughs even though they’d been taught that merely entering a Protestant church was a mortal sin. At school, from a second-floor classroom, they could look out over the playground wall to a Jewish cemetery, a wall that was about as high as the cedar hedge that now envelopes the kidney-shaped pool in Ryan’s backyard. “So we’d be looking down at the funerals and the Christian brothers would be telling us to pull those blinds and not be looking at those heathens out there.”

His father returned from Birmingham to work at a Volkswagen plant in Dublin when Ryan was 12. Soon dad was leading a strike. “It was pretty brutal, six weeks,” recalls Ryan. “Our house, our kitchen table, became the strike headquarters. You’d hear all the arguments, all the battles going on around the table. Occasionally my mother would be crying, `There’s no money.’”

Kenneth Kidd

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090426/harper_isotope_260409/20090426?hub=TopStories

PM inflamed isotope crisis, says government document
Updated Sun. Apr. 26 2009 3:39 PM ET

The Canadian Press

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper inflamed the Chalk River isotope crisis by calling Canada’s nuclear safety watchdog a “Liberal-appointee,” says a government document.

Harper’s remarks turned a few days of bad press into a full-blown saga akin to the Mulroney-Schreiber affair, says a briefing note prepared for Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt.

“It is clear that what might have been a relatively low-profile, or at least short-lived, medical isotope supply story became much more than that by political events, specifically, the prime minister’s characterization of Linda Keen as a `Liberal-appointee,’ and the subsequent demotion of Ms. Keen,” it says.

Natural Resources prepared the briefing note to acquaint Raitt with her new portfolio when Harper appointed her to cabinet last fall.

The Canadian Press obtained the document under the Access to Information Act.

It analysed media coverage of the shutdown of an aging Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. reactor in Chalk River, Ont., which sparked a critical global shortage of medical isotopes used in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer and heart ailments.

The 52-year-old reactor was closed for a few days in November 2007 for routine maintenance. During that time, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission discovered emergency backup power wasn’t connected to two pumps which prevent a meltdown.

The shutdown lasted nearly a month until Parliament voted to bypass the regulator’s order.

The prime minister insisted there was no risk of a nuclear accident.

“The government has independent advice indicating there is no safety concern with the reactor,” Harper told the Commons in December 2007.

“On the contrary, what we do know is that the continuing actions of the Liberal-appointed Nuclear Safety Commission will jeopardize the health and safety and lives of tens of thousands of Canadians.”

Atomic Energy’s then-chairman, Michael Burns, resigned after the fiasco, and the Conservative government later fired commission head Keen for her refusal to authorize the restart.

Keen later sued the federal government over her dismissal.

“The issue of Ms. Keen’s demotion became the catalyst for media commentary on the issue of the prime minister’s relationship with the public service, an issue — along with the prime minister’s politicization of the affair — that underpinned much of the Chalk River affair,” the briefing note says.

The news analysis said the isotope crisis was “comparable in volume to the Mulroney-Schreiber affair.”

Dimitri Soudas, a spokesman for Harper, said the prime minister was simply stating a fact when he referred to Keen as being appointed by the previous Liberal government.

“The government pointing out facts does not change anything in the severity of the situation, which was a shortage of isotopes,” he said.

“Pointing out facts does not change the fact that the government was going through a health crisis, and Ms. Keen’s inability to effectively manage and lead the commission resulted in the government removing her designation as president. That was what’s at stake here.”

He also played down the document’s significance.

“I don’t have the privilege to write those briefing notes. I guess whoever wrote it can comment on his position, his opinion, whatever the case may be,” Soudas said.

The briefing note didn’t surprise Keen.

“That was one of the things in my affidavit, was the fact that we felt that the prime minister had prejudiced the file by — to the shock of everybody — naming me in the House,” she said in an interview.

She stands by her decision.

“I think what I did was right,” Keen said. “No one wants to go through that. But I think you have to decide when you become a regulator, are you standing up for what you believe, or not.”

Apparently the affair didn’t shift Canadians’ opinions on nuclear power or seriously hurt the Tories.

The note says survey research in January 2008 by Ipsos-Reid for the Canadian Nuclear Association showed 29 per cent of Canadians had less confidence in the nuclear industry than they did the previous year, and only a quarter of those people said it was because of Chalk River.

Another poll by Environics from December 2007 to early January 2008 found overall satisfaction with the government increased to 65 per cent, up eight percentage points from October 2007.

——————————————————————————–

You should read this (short, 250 pages) book if you are..

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Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago
Eric Klinenberg
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Winner of the 2003 Robert E. Park award and the 2003 Best Book in Urban Affairs award of the Urban Affairs Association…

In July 1995, Chicagoans suffered a blistering week long heat wave that buckled streets and downed portions of the city’s power grid. It also left over 700 people dead. In this alarming book, Eric Klinenberg tells us how such fatalities could have happened in a modern American City.

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