Wednesday-Night

July 31, 2008
(FT) Russia plans to form a state grain trading company to control up to half of the country’s cereal exports, intensifying fears that Moscow wants to use food exports as a diplomatic weapon in the same way as Gazprom has manipulated natural gas sales.
The move by Moscow, the world’s fifth-biggest exporter of cereals, […]

Zimbabwe Must Fight for Itself

David Jones,

Citizen Special

It is time to tell some truth — cruel truth. Words, even the most hectoring or denunciatory, are not going to lever President Robert Mugabe out of power in Zimbabwe. Nor are condemnations from the United Nations or elsewhere or sanctions of one ilk or […]

Taxing the Poor
Edward Gresser (Foreign Affairs) … most imports arrive not under FTAs but through the permanent tariff system, which receives far less attention in Congress. Rather than raising money and protecting jobs, permanent tariffs tend to increase clothing and shoe prices at home while creating especially high trade barriers that deter goods from approximately […]

More on oil See also Wednesday-Night.com Alberta and Oil Notes
July 31
Stepping up efforts to win over oil sands critics
(FP) CALGARY - Faced with an unflattering image as a global environmental disaster area, the oil sands sector is stepping up its offensive to counteract critics.
The sector has re-branded the Oil Sands Developers Group, a Fort […]

July 31
Thomas Friedman in the NYT
…. Anyone who looks at the growth of middle classes around the world and their rising demands for natural resources, plus the dangers of climate change driven by our addiction to fossil fuels, can see that clean renewable energy — wind, solar, nuclear and stuff we haven’t yet invented — […]

World Hunger and WTO News on Wednesday-night.com
July 31
Seeking a trade deal
(Globe & Mail) The Canadians who participated in the Doha process, including Trade Minister Michael Fortier, say they will now turn to negotiating bilateral agreements with individual countries. That is a smart decision, and a first priority should be to get an agreement in […]

Nasa reaches 50 with pioneer spirit lost
By Clive Cookson
Media commentary on the 50th anniversary (dated either to July 29, when President Eisenhower signed the law setting up Nasa or October 1, when the agency formally started work) shows a widespread feeling that Nasa has been in decline for almost 40 years.
Nasa, the US space […]

See photos and more
Starting this Wednesday Night on a different note (!), our very special diva, Susanna Eyton-Jones, and Shem Guibbory will give a brief performance as a warm-up to their in-studio recording the following week. They will present a 13-minute chamber piece for violin and soprano entitled ‘Iglesia Abandonado’, by […]

July 30
Canada’s forestry industry is missing the boat on China
Jason (Guangyu) Wang, Canadian International Council
(The Gazette) Today’s China has a ravenous appetite for imported wood that knows no bounds. But here, our wood associations and governments have, while spending considerable sums on creating a united market for Canadian wood there, missed the basics taught […]

China’s missed understanding
Scientists, not government, should lead efforts to explain the benefits and risks of modern technology, says Li Daguang.
(SciDev.net) Controversies over the health and environmental impact of the Xiamen PX chemical plant and Three Gorges Dam projects have exposed the failings of China’s top-down approach to explaining science, writes Li […]