Canada is formally withdrawing from the Kyoto accord, Environment Minister Peter Kent said Monday.
The decision to do so will save the government an estimated $14 billion in penalties, Kent said. The Conservative government says it has no choice given the economic situation.
Blaming an "incompetent Liberal government" who signed the accord and then took little action to make the necessary greenhouse gas emission cuts, Kent said he was formalizing what the Conservative government has been saying for weeks.
It will be more than a month before we get final, official results of elections to Egypt’s lower house. But even partial results from the first round (runoff voting is still taking place) tell the story: Islamists have won a stunning mandate.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s coalition collected 37 per cent or so of votes, close to what many had predicted. The shocker is that the next-biggest bloc, with a quarter of the votes so far, is that of the Salafists – religious fundamentalists who back a rigid application of sharia.
Tens of thousands of Canadians have written to me in recent weeks to wish me well. I want to thank each and every one of you for your thoughtful, inspiring and often beautiful notes, cards and gifts. Your spirit and love have lit up my home, my spirit, and my determination.
Unfortunately my treatment has not worked out as I hoped. So I am giving this letter to my partner Olivia to share with you in the circumstance in which I cannot continue. ...
Meanwhile, in non-debtpocalypse news, I read today that a Canadian-led team of astronomers has discovered Earth's "First Asteroid Companion," the as-yet-unnamed 2010 TK7.
Fascinating -- except that the headline is totally wrong. None of the articles I scanned today mention it, but we've known about another "asteroid companion" for nearly a quarter-century. It's called Cruithne (pronounced KROOeee-nyuh), and it orbits the sun in a somewhat more elliptical version of Earth's path.
Wow! If you care about the media, and specifically the dangers of media concentration, today's news that Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. is shutting down its News of the World is huge news. The fact I had to use the word "news" four times in a single sentence tells you just how huge.
Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, newly re-elected and with his party finally holding a majority of seats in Parliament, announced his new cabinet today. Underlying message: “What were all you voters so scared of?”
After a week of defiance and bluster, Pakistan gives in to American demands that the U.S. be granted access to the three bin Laden wives left behind at the Abbottabad compound. No indication that it asked to question bin Laden's 12-year-old daughter. Time and place of interviews not revealed.
In other news, the CIA station chief in Islamabad will not be leaving his post despite the ISI leaking his identity to the Pakistani media. Score: 2-0 after the first period.
This is a huge victory for the Tahrir Square revolution -- and for justice. Former interior minister Habib al-Adly was convicted of corruption for skimming more than $1 million. He still faces a separate trial over the deaths of hundreds of anti-Mubarak demonstrators.
Dozens of other bigshots from the Mubarak regime are also under arrest or investigation, so this conviction and 12-year sentence sends a very welcome signal.
Fresh thread. Polls have closed across Canada, and it's finally legal to post election results nationwide. Counting has just begun in the western provinces, and voting in Quebec and Ontario ended only about half an hour ago. Too fragmentary to report for now.
So we're left to look at results from the Atlantic Provinces, and extrapolate (if we can) from that. I know quinn hates poll aggregator ThreeHundredEight.com, But I'm going to use its predictions as an arbitrary baseline, and try to weigh how real-time results vary from them.
Quinn's Tuesday post has almost slipped off the page, so consider this a new open thread.
The New Democratic tsunami rolls on, picking up almost one percentage point of support over the past 24 hours, and finally ThreeHundredEight.com is showing that translating into seats. Six new ones added overnight to the party's projected total, which now stands at 53.
We've been commemorating failed rebellions lately, so it's worth noting this is the 50th anniversary of the Bay of Pigs invasion. Or, as the sign at the entrance to the Playa Girón beach resort puts it (in Spanish): "First Defeat of Yanqui Imperialism in the Americas."
Seumas Milne argues that the Arab revolution must be made by Arabs or it won't be a revolution at all:
It's as if the bloodbaths of Iraq and Afghanistan had been a bad dream. The liberal interventionists are back. As insurrection and repression has split Libya in two and the death toll has mounted, the old Bush-and-Blair battle-cries have returned to haunt us.
New Prime Minister Essam Sharaf said all the right things as he addressed thousands in Tahrir Square today. I like the idea he chose to speak everyday Egyptian. From the New York Times:
As soldiers and civilians cart away the metal barricades and debris, Tahrir Square has begun to return to normal. But what's normal has forever changed. For Egyptians, Tahrir finally does mean Liberation.
Like many things in that country, Tahrir Square hasn't always been what it purports to be. At its core, it isn't even a square; it's a circle. An enormous traffic circle -- what the Brits call a roundabout.
Today's pair of speeches by Mubarak and Suleiman have left me speechless.
Ditto for President Obama. After optimistically predicting this afternoon the world was about to watch history unfold, he avoided appearing on camera to eat his words. But the White House's written statement conveyed a clear sense of disappointment, if not betrayal.
Sometimes, seemingly inconsequential things make me really, really angry. And by inconsequential things, I mean articles that appear in the Washington Post. Like this one:
Free, fair elections still distant prospect for Egypt
By Craig Whitlock and Mary Beth Sheridan Washington Post Staff Writers Tuesday, February 8, 2011; 9:21 PM
Hosni Mubarak had reportedly been preparing today's "concession" announcement for days. Man, does he need some new speechwriters! After the briefest nod to "the legitimate worries" of young Egyptians, he basically slammed the ongoing protests as the work of political agitators. Not a good start toward calming the waters and creating dialogue.
Interesting couple of weeks in the Middle East, no? Tunisians take to the streets to depose their country's long-entrenched dictator. WikiLeaks-type revelations destroy the last shreds of credibility Mahmoud Abbas's regime had with Palestinians. Hezbollah (acting entirely within Lebanon's constitution, BTW) installs its own choice for prime minister. George Bush's vision of Arab democracy on the march finally takes form!
