Showing posts with label Nicaragua. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nicaragua. Show all posts

Sunday, September 09, 2007

Felix lll

So who does more in the region? USAID to Nicaragua is the price of a Starbuck's coffee. Ok an expensive one, but cheap is as cheap does. Luckily Cuba had medical missions in place since Hurricane Mitch. Rather than waiting for swift boat aid from the U.S.

In response to the Nicaraguan government’s request for international assistance, USAID provided an initial $150,000 to support the relief efforts, in addition to the $25,000 for hurricane preparedness provided prior to Felix’s landfall. As Felix approached the region, USAID's Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance deployed 23 disaster response experts in Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Belize, and Mexico, to support response wherever the storm made landfall.

As Washington raises the profile of its assistance to the region,
the U.S. military is helping victims of natural disasters. On Wednesday, it diverted the U.S. Navy amphibious ship USS Wasp from military exercises off Panama to help Nicaragua recover from Hurricane Felix. Venezuela also sent aid to Nicaragua, and 57 Cuban doctors and nurses already established on the Miskito coast on medical missions were helping as well.

Cuban doctors assist hurricane evacuees in Nicaragua

The head of the Cuban medical brigade, Luis Carlos Avila, said eight Cuban doctors along with their patients had been evacuated from Puerto Cabezas, capital city of the North Atlantic Autonomous Region(RAAN), located 536 kilometers from Managua.

Avila noted that some 57 Cuban doctors and nurses are serving in RAAN while a similar number are serving in the South Atlantic Autonomous Region as part of the cooperation agreements established between the island and Nicaragua.

He added that in Waspam to the north
and also a target for Hurricane Felix there is another 40 Cuban doctors. The arrival of Hurricane Felix forced the evacuation of some 10 000 people.

Along with Cuban doctors and local healthcare personnel, those working shoulder-to-shoulder with them in these improvised facilities include 20 young Nicaraguans in their fifth year of medical school at the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM, in Cuba).

The group is part of the 59 students who in the weeks previous to the disaster had been carrying out community work in remote areas of Nicaragua under the supervision of instructors in the Cuban medical brigade.

Cuban health cooperation benefits poorest hondurans


Cuban health cooperation benefits poorest hondurans
The Cuban Medical Brigades that arrived to Honduras on November 3, 1998, after the devastation caused by Hurricane Mitch, have assisted more than 1.6 million people and continue to offer care with a staff of 280 healthcare professionals.

PUERTO CABEZAS, Nicaragua: Thousands of people on Nicaragua's remote Caribbean coast urgently need food, water, medical supplies and tools to rebuild their communities following Hurricane Felix, residents and a U.N. official said.

Felix devastated remote jungle beaches and communities along the Miskito coastline when it struck Tuesday as a Category 5 hurricane, destroying crops, erasing homes and killing scores of people.

The U.N. representative in Nicaragua, Alfredo Missair, said Friday that more than 100,000 Nicaraguans were directly affected by the storm and the country will need US$43.5 million (€32 million) in aid over the next six months

Nicaraguan television reported that Canada offered US$1 million (€730,000) to Central American countries affected by Felix, and 10,000 blankets for Nicaragua. Taiwan and Japan also donated money and supplies, Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Samuel Santos said.

The U.S. Embassy in Managua said in a statement Saturday that it will donate US$1 million (€730,000) through the United States Agency for International Development to help an estimated 30,000 people.

The U.S. also sent four helicopters from the USS Wasp, rerouted to Nicaragua from Panama, and two helicopters and a reconnaissance plane from a military base in Honduras to help assess damage, rescue victims, and deliver supplies. Venezuela also sent aid and 57 Cuban doctors and nurses already established on the Miskito coast on medical missions were helping as well.


The dead from Hurricane Felix wash up on the beaches


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Felix II


Because something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

Carlos Fuller, the deputy director of the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre, described the southern hurricane activity as part of a "strange" weather pattern.

"About 10 years ago, we saw one develop in the south Atlantic where your professor would tell you that never occurs.

"Unfortunately, the two hurricanes have been Category Five hurricanes, they made landfall as Category Five hurricanes. It is the first time in history and we have data going back to 1885; this has never happened," the meteorologist said.

Fuller said a high-pressure system, known as the Bermuda High, kept both 'Dean' and 'Felix' on a westerly track.

As the remnants of powerful Hurricane Felix dissipate today over Central American mountains, some meteorologists are voicing concerns about the computer models that were meant to forecast the storm's intensification. "In general, computer models did very poorly in forecasting the development of this system," said Keith Blackwell, a hurricane researcher at the University of South Alabama's Coastal Weather Research Center in Mobile.

Felix set a record by strengthening from a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane—the category for the most destructive storms on the Saffir-Simpson scale—in only 51 hours.

"It strengthened more rapidly than any other storm on record, anywhere in the world," Blackwell said.


If the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season ended tomorrow, we would still call it extraordinary. The year's first two hurricanes, Dean and Felix, both reached Category 5 classification. That's a record, one among many that these two storms helped establish.

To begin with, in the archives (which go back to 1851, with varying degrees of completeness) only three other seasons - 1960, 1961 and 2005 - had more than one of these monster storms. And no season can rival this additional feat: Both Dean and Felix struck land at full Category 5 strength.

There hadn't been a Category 5 landfall in what hurricane experts call the Atlantic basin (the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic north of the equator) since 1992's Hurricane Andrew ravaged southern Florida. Now we've seen two in two weeks.

The scariest factoid, however, is this : We've now witnessed eight Category 5 hurricanes in the Atlantic basin in the past five years (Isabel, Ivan, Emily, Katrina, Rita, Wilma, Dean and Felix).

You have to go back to the 1960s, with six recorded Category 5s, to find another decade that even approaches the present one in this regard. (And if you look beyond the Atlantic? In June, Cyclone Gonu was a Category 5 and the strongest storm ever observed in the Arabian Sea.)

It's hard to keep up with the crazed weather. As I write, a heat wave has killed over 50 people in the Midwest and South, with temperatures reaching 112 degrees in Evening Shade, Arkansas. Torrential storms have flooded Ohio, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Missouri, Indiana, Iowa, and South Dakota. California has its second largest wildfire ever. Texas and Kansas are battening down for new storms, while still recovering from last month's floods, along with Oklahoma, which is now getting flooded again. A few weeks before, a massive rainstorm closed down the New York City subways. That doesn't count over 2,000 dead and millions displaced in India and Bangladesh floods, runaway forest fires in Greece, the hottest-ever temperature in Japan, or unprecedented melting of Arctic icecaps. Tomorrow the weather will ricochet off the charts someplace else.

This surge of weird weather offers a powerful warning. Placed in context, its lessons could also help us overcome the denial that's prevented the United States from taking action on global climate change. They could give courage to elected representatives who've wanted to act but have been hobbled by timidity. They could create a political opening to defeat prominent elected climate-change deniers whose seats used to seem unassailable and are running for reelection in hard-hit states. They could help the Senate leadership stand strong and call the bluff of those threatening a filibuster or a Bush veto. As Samuel Johnson wrote, knowing you’ll be hanged in two weeks concentrates one’s mind wonderfully. What's happening to our weather just might foreshadow that hanging.

A few years ago, global warming felt remote to most Americans. Although they heard it debated, it didn’t seem real. The media gave “equal time” to deniers and the most respected scientists. Now 84% of Americans view human activity as at least contributing to global climate change, and 70% demand greater government action. Responses have shifted in the wake of Katrina and the succession of local disasters; Gore's Inconvenient Truth; the international IPCC report and similar impeccably credentialed scientific studies; and the start of serious media coverage, from Parade and the AARP magazine to Vogue. Add the impact of so many ordinary citizens speaking out, and Americans are starting to link the disasters they're seeing around them with what's happening to the planet.

When people's communities are hit with exceptional floods, droughts, tornadoes, heat waves, or runaway wildfires, or they see these events on TV, even conservatives who would have once treated them as random "acts of God" start recognizing their deeper roots in the patterns of human action. In a May 2006 poll of South Carolina hunters and fishermen, for instance, 68% agreed that global warming was an urgent problem requiring immediate action, and a similar number said they'd seen the immediate impact of climate change on local fish and wildlife. Even before this summer's parade of calamities, 75% of all Americans said recent weather had been stranger than usual

So our national frame on the weather is beginning to shift. Each new "natural disaster" now reinforces the sense that just maybe not all these disasters are so natural after all. And if we fail to seriously address their roots, similar ones or worse will dominate our future.

Of course global climate change doesn’t cause every extreme weather event. And not all our fellow citizens are quite ready to act on the full enormity of the climate crisis, still resisting much of what needs to be done, such as increasing gas taxes. But most Americans want someone to do something, even if they're ambivalent about paying the costs. The more our warnings resonate with what people see around them, the more they can draw broader links, and the more the Exxon-funded denials ring hollow.

This situation expands political possibilities. While memory of this summer of disasters is still fresh, why not begin now to make a major issue of the rabid global climate change denial of Senators like Oklahoma's James Inhofe, Texas’s John Cornyn, and Oregon's Gordon Smith. Inhofe, who's called global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people," has been considered to have a safe seat. But his approval rating, just after last November's election, was a lowly 46%, and Cornyn's 45%, both lower than just-defeated Virginia Senator George Allen. So they may already be more vulnerable than conventional wisdom suggests. Gordon Smith's race has long been forecast as tight. Instead of writing off the prime deniers as unbeatable, or dismissing global climate change as too complex to make an electoral difference, why not brand them with their stands, juxtaposing their dismissal of the crisis with images of flooded homes and farms?


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Saturday, September 08, 2007

Felix

No wall to wall coverage on America's 24/7 cable news networks in the aftermath of last weeks fatal double Hurricanes. Because of course they did not hit the U.S.

What might have happened if the hurricanes had veered north into the United States instead of churning on similar paths west through the Caribbean?


Instead they look out to the Atlantic.

Invest 99L - Possible tropical depression off the US east coast


The Miskito Indians were the excuse used by the American created the Contra's in their war against the current President of Nicaragua. But they seem to have forgotten them now.


Felix's dead wash ashore
PUERTO CABEZAS, Nicaragua–Bodies of Miskito Indians killed by Hurricane Felix floated in the Caribbean off Central America and washed up on beaches yesterday as the death toll from the storm rose to almost 100.

And then the numbers increased.

Hurricane death toll hits 130 on Nicaragua coast


Felix was as strong as Mitch which hit just nine years ago. Not a common hurricane but a force 5 massive damaging Hurricane not worthy of more than a mere mention between reports on missing people and Fred Thompson's announcement of running for President.

The disaster industry will so get underway reconstructing the devastated countries according to its neo-con agenda.

The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have been imposing shock therapy on countries in various states of shock for at least three decades, most notably after Latin America’s military coups and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Yet many observers say that today’s disaster capitalism really hit its stride with Hurricane Mitch. For a week in October 1998, Mitch parked itself over Central America, swallowing villages whole and killing more than 9,000. Already impoverished countries were desperate for reconstruction aid -- and it came, but with strings attached. In the two months after Mitch struck, with the country still knee-deep in rubble, corpses and mud, the Honduran congress initiated what the Financial Times called “speed sell-offs after the storm.” It passed laws allowing the privatization of airports, seaports and highways and fast-tracked plans to privatize the state telephone company, the national electric company and parts of the water sector. It overturned land-reform laws and made it easier for foreigners to buy and sell property. It was much the same in neighboring countries: In the same two months, Guatemala announced plans to sell off its phone system, and Nicaragua did likewise, along with its electric company and its petroleum sector.

All of the privatization plans were pushed aggressively by the usual suspects. According to the Wall Street Journal, “the World Bank and International Monetary Fund had thrown their weight behind the [telecom] sale, making it a condition for release of roughly $47 million in aid annually over three years and linking it to about $4.4 billion in foreign-debt relief for Nicaragua.”

Now the bank is using the December 26 tsunami to push through its cookie-cutter policies. The most devastated countries have seen almost no debt relief, and most of the World Bank’s emergency aid has come in the form of loans, not grants. Rather than emphasizing the need to help the small fishing communities -- more than 80 percent of the wave’s victims -- the bank is pushing for expansion of the tourism sector and industrial fish farms. As for the damaged public infrastructure, like roads and schools, bank documents recognize that re-building them “may strain public finances” and suggest that governments consider privatization (yes, they have only one idea). “For certain investments,” notes the bank’s tsunami-response plan, “it may be appropriate to utilize private financing.”




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Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Double Trouble

Two Hurricanes have hit Mexico and Nicaragua , but don't expect the folks at CNN and Fox who do their Wild Weather/Wicked Weather reports to make much about this since all they care about is their gulf coast. There will be no wall to wall coverage, just updates.

Oh yes and remember last year when the hurricane season was milder and all the climate change deniers rejoiced at how wrong predictions were for a nasty hurricane season. Well this year it is a nasty hurricane season as predicted due to climate change. However since they have not hit the U.S. corporate America could care less.

The U.S. still has not paid up its funding obligations to Nicaragua after Hurricane Mitch.
Hurricanes swept ashore in Nicaragua and Mexico within hours of each other Tuesday, the first time Atlantic and Pacific hurricanes have made landfall on the same day since the National Hurricane Center began keeping records in the 1940s.

Felix arrived first, punishing sparsely populated northern Nicaragua with 160 mph winds before dawn, then plowing inland across Honduras, threatening floods and mudslides in a region still recovering from Hurricane Mitch, which killed nearly 11,000 people in 1998.

More than 1,900 miles away, Henriette swelled to hurricane strength Tuesday afternoon and roared onto the southern tip of Mexico's Baja Peninsula, an area thick with some of Latin America's swankiest hotels and vacation homes.

Tuesday was historic for two reasons: It was the first time on record that two Category 5 Atlantic hurricanes made landfall in the same year, with Felix coming two weeks after Hurricane Dean slammed into southern Mexico.

And Atlantic and Pacific hurricanes had never made landfall on the same date, according to records that began in 1949.

Image

A NOAA map on Tuesday shows hurricanes Henriette, left center, and Felix. There were no reports of serious damage from Henriette, but Felix cut a swath of destruction as it headed into Honduras.

This storm will now be true test of the Harpers Development Agenda with his new found interest in Latin America and the Caribbean. Lets see how quick he responds to this disaster.

As they say there is always a silver lining in every storm cloud this case
Alvaro Orozco who has gone into hiding, may not be deported to Nicaragua since his home may not be there anymore. Wishful thinking.




SEE:

Hurricane and Howard Dean

Mother Prevails

Remember Katrina and Rita?


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Saturday, August 11, 2007

Not Queer Enough To Be Canadian


The story of Alvaro Orozco, a young Nicaraguan man who has claimed refugee status for being gay is a story of the stupidity of the social conservatives both in his home country and in Canada.

As I posted here in February when this story first surfaced; the Refugee Board in Calgary refused his request saying he didn't look/act gay.

Unlike our PM who occasionally looks like one of the Village People. Or that famous Conservative Cabinet Minister who is still in the closet.

And since Nicaragua is such a progressive country, having recently reelected Daniel Ortega as President, the refugee board figures that he would be safe from harm in that most Catholic of countries. A country that recently totally banned abortion.


Many LGBT Nicaraguans held prominent roles during the Sandinista Revolution, however, LGBT rights were not of any priority to the Sandinista government due to an overwhelming Roman Catholic population and was thought to be a huge political risk sure to be met with hostility from the Roman Catholic church.[1]

After the United States lifted the economic embargo against Nicaragua many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) promoting LGBT rights began to operate in the country due to the absence of pressure from the United States. As a result, Nicaragua hosted in first public gay pride festival in 1991.[1] The annual Gay Pride celebration in Managua, held around June 28, in still in motion and is used to commemorate the uprising of the Stonewall riots in New York City.[2]

After gaining support the LGBT community suffered a huge setback when a bill formerly written to protect women from rape and sexual abuse was changed by the Social Christians.[1] The change imposed a sentence of up to three years in prison for "anyone who induces, promotes, propagandizes, or practices sex among persons of the same sex in a scandalous manner." Activist did not keep quiet and along with their allies they protested in Nicaragua and at embassies abroad, however, no change occurred and former President Violeta Chamorro signed the bill into a law in July 1992 under Article 205 of the penal code.[3] In November 1992 a coalition known as the Campaign for Sexuality without Prejudices, comprising, amongst others, lawyers and lesbian and gay activists, presented an appeal to the Supreme Court of Justice, challenging the law as unconstitutional. However, the Supreme Court rejected the appeal in March 1994.[4]

A country that refuses to recognize a womans right to choose is not about to recognize the right to sexual orientation. And in that macho Catholic country declaring yourself gay is tantamount to a jail sentence. A damn good reason not to deport Alvaro Orozco.

A Nicaraguan national who fears persecution in his homeland because of his sexual orientation was ordered deported yesterday by Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board -- a decision his lawyer said came as a "huge surprise."

Alvaro Orozco, 21, says he was just 12 when he fled Nicaragua -- a country where homosexuality is considered a crime punishable by up to four years in prison -- because his father beat him for being gay.

Yesterday's decision places Orozco's safety at risk, his lawyer, El-Farouk Khaki, told a news conference.

And I like this; the Minister responsible for Orozco's deportation is NOT taking phone calls!!

Thursday August 9, 2007
Urgent Press Conference – Stop the Deportation of Alvaro Orozco

6 months after community action and national media coverage resulted in the deferral of Alvaro Orozco’s deportation order – Alvaro received today, August 9th, 2007, a completely shocking negative response to his Pre-Removal Risk Assessment, which means that his deportation is now imminent. His last resort is for the Minister of Immigration, Diane Finley, to intervene.

NDP Member of Parliament Olivia Chow (Trinity-Spadina), as well as many other prominent supporters, have already called for the minister of immigration to allow Alvaro to stay in Canada.


Contact the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Diane Finley.
Important note: The Minister of Immigration, Diane Finely, has the final say on deportation matters. She has the authority to give me permission to stay in Canada.
IMPORTANT NOTICE:
Despite the deferral, supporters should keep contacting Minister Diane Finley's office to keep the pressure and attention up. At this point, the CIC/IRB can reopen his case, grant my H&C (Humanitarian and Compassionate grounds stay), or accept my PRRA (preremoval risk assessment) (once we file the latter two). Now it's up to her. PLEASE keep sending in your support. It's only the beginning! I still has a removal date for mid August and no status yet.

NOTE: THE MINSTER'S OFFICES ARE NOT TAKING ANY PHONE CALLS. YOU NEED TO SEND AN EMAIL OR A FAX

Click Here for a Sample Letter to Minister Finley
- Word Doc.

Minister Diane Finley
Immigration Office: 613-954-1064


Parliament Hill
Room 707, Confederation Bldg House of Commons
Ottawa, ON
K1A 0A6
Ph:(613) 996-4974
Toll Free:None
Fx:(613) 996-9749
E-mail:
Finley.D@parl.gc.ca




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Saturday, March 31, 2007

Gildan Sweat Wear


As I have reported Gildan Active Wear, North America's largest T-Shirt manufacturer , based in Quebec, has spent the last few years moving its operations to Occupied Haiti under the protection of Canadian/American/French and UN forces.

This week ,despite a two year tax break for manufacturers from the Conservative government, Gildan announced it is moving more of its operations to Haiti, Nicaragua and the Honduras. In fact the irony here is that because of NAFTA this move will mean that the largest impact of plant closings will be felt by Mexico.

Approximately 465 employees in Canada and the U.S. and 1,365 employees in Mexico will be affected by the manufacturing restructuring. The Company will make every effort to alleviate the impact of the closures on all of its employees in all of the communities affected. In addition, the Company will work closely with the Fair Labor Association and both North American and Mexican NGO’s to ensure that best practices are followed in managing the closure of its Mexican sewing operations. Gildan recognizes that the employees in the operations which are being closed have contributed significantly to the Company’s growth and success in recent years, and regrets that the relocation of its production capacity to its offshore manufacturing hubs is unavoidable in order to be globally cost-competitive in the intensely competitive North American apparel industry.



The demand of Fair Labour Practices and unionization campaigns for worker justice have made Mexico less attractive than Haiti where such practices are non existent. And the newly emerging Maquiladora's, Free Trade Zones, in the Honduras and Nicaragua are still relatively union free, meaning that the Fair Labour Standards are toothless. And even when there are unions Gildan subcontractors still violate their rights.

Five fired union leaders from the Nicotex factory in Sébaco, Nicaragua, a supplier of Gildan Activewear (t-shirts etc) have been reinstated at the factory following strong union action and an international campaign which followed their sackings in November 2004. NSCAG took part in this campaign.


But the crocodile tears shed by Gildan over it's need to move, are a bit much. As their bottom line shows, they have made mucho dinero over the last four years as they off shored more of their operations.

FISCAL
(in millions of $)
Sales

2006 $773.2
2005 $653.9
2004 $533.4
2003 $431.2
2002 $382.3
2001 $329.1

EBITDA
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.
2006 $147.3
2005 $117.7
2004 $ 91.8
2003 $ 81.5
2002 $ 66.8
2001 $ 19.9

Net earnings
2006 $ 106.8
2005 $ 86.0
2004 $ 60.2
2003 $53.2
2002 $ 42.4
2001 $ 0.7

They are not being forced by globalization to do this, they are actively doing this in order to increase their bottom line.

And with the U.S. eliminating trade quotas on foreign-made socks as of January 1, 2006, Gildan is spending some $500 billion through 2010 partly to expand sock production facilities in Central America. Of two new Honduran factories, one will be able to make 20-million dozen pair a year making it the world's largest sock-making plant.
Resulting in the latest offshoring announcement from Gildan. One they have been planning for since last year.

``It's an indication that things are going very well for the company offshore,'' Jessy Hayem, an analyst with Desjardins Securities Inc. in Montreal. ``The extent of the savings is very positive news in terms of 2008. The $45 million figure seems very substantial,'' Hayem said.

By March 2008, Gildan will have spent about $400 million since 2002 to shift production to new plants primarily in Honduras and the Dominican Republic, Chief Financial Officer Laurence Sellyn said in a telephone interview.


And the plants they are closing in Canada are their only unionized facilities.

Gildan respects all laws, including those relating to freedom of association in Canada and elsewhere. Our internal Code of Conduct ensures the right to associate and it is furthermore a key element of WRAP and FLA's Codes of Conduct. In Canada, two of our plants are unionized.


The irony is that when Gildan went public it was supported by union dollars.


The Quebec Federation of Labour invested $6 million in Gildan in 1996

And while they give lip service to workers rights the reality is quite different. They fail to protect their workers abroad. Instead they avoid compliance with voluntary labour codes they agree too. When they finally do it is too late for the workers.

Final update report on gildan activewear honduras


To:
WRC Affiliate Colleges and Universities
From:
Scott Nova (WRC), Lynda Yanz (MSN), and Maritza Paredes (EMIH)
Date:
September 27, 2006

Re:
Update on Gildan Activewear (Honduras)
This memo is the second and final update on the verification of Gildan Activewear’s compliance with an agreement reached in January 2005 with the WRC and the Maquila Solidarity Network (MSN) aimed at remedying code of conduct violations related to a mass termination of workers that accompanied the closure of Gildan’s El Progreso facility in Honduras. Central to the agreement was Gildan’s commitment to providing priority hiring opportunities to former El Progreso workers.

The investigation found, in short, that Gildan did not comply with the agreement during a key early stage of implementation, though Gildan’s compliance with the accord improved in later stages and was accompanied by other constructive measures. Generally speaking, we must report that the agreement did not lead to substantial remediation of the wrongful terminations that the agreement was motivated to address. As discussed below, given the difficulties posed by the mass termination and the time that had elapsed between the closure and the agreement’s adoption, it is unlikely that the harm done to the workers involved would have been fully remediated even if the agreement had been fully adhered to.


Just like it is too late for their unionized workers in Canada. Despite the Conservatives corporate tax breaks and the Bloc's moaning and groaning about the harm this does to Quebec's textile industry.

Gildan is a capitalist success story. For Quebec, for Canada, the corporation Head Quarters and finances stay here while it ships production abroad. It is not a success for workers in North America, Mexico or at it's new sweat shops abroad.

While the Conservatives brag about closing loopholes for corporations using offshore tax havens, they have done nothing about Gildan offshoring production.


Also See:

Boom Times For Canadian Capitalism

Haiti Atrocities

Gilden

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Thursday, February 08, 2007

Prove You Are Gay


File this under Catch 22. You are only gay if you can prove you have had gay sex. Unless you have had gay sex you are not gay.

Wait a minute what about heterosexuals who are celibate or abstain till marriage. How do we know they are really straight?

Only someone from Brokeback Alberta, homophobic home to closeted cowboys, could come up with this logic.


"The (refugee) judge just didn't think I was gay enough and I didn't qualify to be gay."

IRB adjudicator Deborah Lamont, who heard the case from Calgary via videoconference, questioned his lack of same-sex relationships while he lived in the U.S.

"I found the claimant's many explanations unsatisfactory for why he chose not to pursue same-sex relationships in the U.S. as he alleged it was his intention to do so and he wanted to do so," she wrote in her decision.

Instead, she concluded: "...he is not a homosexual... and fabricated the sexual orientation component to support a non-existent claim for protection in Canada."


Gee and how was he supposed to PROVE he had gay sex.

And if he did would it end up on Fox News;
Boys willingly submitted to rape according to O’Reilly

See

homosexual

gay


immigration


refugee



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