News roundup, 19 Feb 2024

- Sio Silica is exploring their legal options following the Manitoba government's decision to disallow the sand mine in Springfield. The government, however, may well come out ahead because of their handling of the issue.

- A resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza will be voted on by the UN Security Council tomorrow; the US is expected to veto it, however. Meanwhile Israel has been accused of opening fire on civilians rushing towards aid trucks, while Egypt seems to be building containment facilities for potential refugees. And the International Court of Justice is now looking at the broader question of the consequences of the half-century long occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

- Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is facing what could be his last shot at avoiding extradition to the US; the UK's High Court will hear arguments tomorrow on whether he can ask an appeals court to block his extradition; his wife claims that he would not survive incarceration. Not sure what his chances are given the fabled "special relationship" between the US and UK.

- Volodymyr Zelensky is in a rather tight spot, since Ukraine's summer offensive produced no significant gains and the Russians have a numerical advantage that favours them in a war of attrition. Gwynne Dyer suggests that the calculation Zelensky has to make is "how much more territory Ukraine would lose in a ceasefire in 2025 than it would lose by making some kind of peace right now." Not an easy judgment to make.

- The new Polish government is trying to undo years of far-right control of the country's public broadcaster, TVP. It won't be easy or clean. 

- A man in Cumberland, BC was killed in a hit and run while cycling last week; now a suspect has been charged, not only with failure to remain at the scene but with first degree murder. The details of why this charge was laid have not been stated so far, but a charge like that normally means that the death was intentional and preplanned. Even a typical road rage incident would likely only have led to a charge of manslaughter, or second degree murder at most.

- When Jake Moffatt's grandmother died, he asked the chatbot on Air Canada's website about bereavement rates for such travel, and was advised that he should pay the full fare for the ticket and claim reimbursement after the fact, contrary to Air Canada's actual policy. The airline tried to argue before a small claims tribunal that the chatbot was a separate entity and thus not their responsibility, but the tribunal wasn't having any of it and ordered them to pay Moffatt the difference.

What's the real story with Saudi Arabia's oil reserves?

A very good question. It's recently been reported (via Wikileaks, once again) that there are serious concerns about this:

The US fears that Saudi Arabia, the world's largest crude oil exporter, may not have enough reserves to prevent oil prices escalating, confidential cables from its embassy in Riyadh show.

The cables, released by WikiLeaks, urge Washington to take seriously a warning from a senior Saudi government oil executive that the kingdom's crude oil reserves may have been overstated by as much as 300bn barrels – nearly 40%.

Interesting. On the other hand, others argue that this is a faulty interpretation:

Asked by the American diplomats what he thought of Mr. al-Saif’s statements, he made what appeared an extraordinary statement: that the reserves figure was inflated by 300 billion barrels. Deducting that figure from the 716 billion barrels created the idea that Saudi reserves were 40% less than it officially said.

As it turns out, however, Mr. al-Husseini’s memory of that conversation is rather different.

He says he has no dispute with Aramco’s official reserves data, but disagrees with Mr. al-Saif’s projection for the future and with the diplomats’ characterization of its existing 716 billion barrels as “reserves”.

In fact, he says, that figure refers to “oil in place” which includes both recoverable and non-recoverable oil.

The kingdom’s “proven reserves”, the oil Saudi Aramco believes it can extract, are officially given as 260 billion barrels (Mr. al-Saif said the actual figure was probably more like 51% of the “oil in place” –- around 358 billion barrels).

So it seems this particular report may have been overstated. However, before one gets too complacent, it's worth considering the bigger picture, which is precisely what Gail the Actuary is attempting to do in this post at The Oil Drum. It sure looks like the overall trend for Saudi is downwards...

Gillard hangs Assange out to dry

Usually, if you get in trouble in a foreign country there is an understanding that your country will do what it can to help you. In Canada we've seen this principle flouted (Maher Arar, or the even worse example of Omar Khadr) but it doesn't particularly shock or surprise me any more coming from Stephen Harper. I'd have expected more of Julia Gillard though:

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has been accused of possibly prejudicing any future case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange by claiming he is "guilty of illegality" for leaking US diplomatic cables.

Mr Assange is expected to meet with British police sometime in the next 24 hours after Swedish authorities issued a fresh warrant for his arrest over alleged sexual offences.

From the ABC. Giving her the benefit of the doubt, perhaps she's afraid for the stability of her minority government (especially given that she's of an age to remember the infamous dismissal of Gough Whitlam's government). I guess all governments make such calculations sometimes, but it always seems like a letdown coming from a progressive government.

Europe doubts Afghan war winnable: Wikileaks

It seems that one of those leaked diplomatic communications suggests that European Union officials suspect what many of us have believed for years -- namely, that there's little hope of success in Afghanistan:

Leaked diplomatic memos said that European Union President Herman Van Rompuy told America's ambassador that the EU no longer believes in success in Afghanistan, and that European troops are still there “out of deference to the United States.”

U.S. Ambassador to Belgium Howard Gutman, in the memo released by WikiLeaks, quotes Mr. Van Rompuy as saying in December 2009 that the EU will wait until the end of 2010 to see progress.

Mr. Van Rompuy, the former Belgian prime minister who at the time was EU president-designate, reportedly said that “if it doesn't work, that will be it, because it is the last chance.”

From the Globe. Will this hasten the end of the war? I don't know, but possibly. After all, with this going public, a lot of European governments will face hard questions from their citizens about why they're still throwing money and lives at a cause that they know is probably hopeless.

One of the more interesting things to come out of the latest batch from Wikileaks

It seems the US did some serious arm-twisting to avoid the prosecution of some of their agents in Germany:

The messages also reveal some of the diplomatic pitfalls of America's so-called "war on terror". In 2007, the US fell out with Germany over arrest warrants that were issued for CIA agents accused of being involved in rendition. A senior US diplomat told a German official "our intention was not to threaten Germany, but rather to urge that the German government weigh carefully at every step of the way the implications for relations with the US".

From the Independent. I wonder what those "implications" would have been? Perhaps new regulations such that BMW, Mercedes, and VW don't meet new safety and emission standards?

Columnist calls for the assassination of Julian Assange

Naturally, American right wingers like Jonah Goldberg really dislike Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, and would like something done about this. But what Goldberg says in this National Review article (h/t Ezra at Popehat) is quite disturbing:

So again, I ask: Why wasn’t Assange garroted in his hotel room years ago?

It’s a serious question.

Yeah. What the heck is the CIA for, if not for rubbing out people who embarrass the US?

Another twist in the Assange case

Sweden has reopened the rape investigation against him:

The case was dismissed last week by Eva Finne, chief prosecutor in Stockholm, who overruled a lower-ranked prosecutor and said there was no reason to suspect that Mr. Assange had raped a Swedish woman who had reported him to police.

The woman's lawyer appealed the decision and Director of Public Prosecution Marianne Ny on Wednesday decided to reopen the case.

From the Globe.

Assange vows to fight remaining charges

Although the rape charge against him was dropped, the WikiLeaks founder still faces charges of the lesser offense of molestation. Assange says he will fight those charges if Sweden decides to proceed (so far they seem not to have made a decision). Assange also makes an interesting allegation:

He said that he had been forewarned by Australian intelligence on August 11 to expect a campaign against him, though it was unclear who was behind it.

"It is clearly a smear campaign ... the only question is who was involved," Assange, who is an Australian national, said.

"We can have some suspicions about who would benefit, but without direct evidence I would not be willing to make a direct allegation."

From Al Jazeera. The prosecutor says that she'll be deciding what to do later this week; my money's on the remaining charges being dropped, but we'll have to see.

A curious twist in the WikiLeaks saga

As you've no doubt heard, the founder, Julian Assange, was charged with rape in Sweden, then the charge was withdrawn within hours:

The preliminary allegation, made on Friday night, and not further investigated at that stage, was apparently leaked by police to a tabloid in Stockholm, which published dramatic claims on Saturday morning that Assange was to be arrested.

The Swedish Prosecution Authority todaysaid an "on-call" prosecutor issued an arrest warrant for Assange late on Friday, only to see it revoked the next day by a higher-ranked prosecutor who found no grounds to suspect him of rape.

"The prosecutor who took over the case had more information, and that is why she made a different assessment than the on-call prosecutor," said Karin Rosander, a spokeswoman for the authority.

From the Guardian. The timing of this is rather peculiar, no? After all, remember how Blake's 7 opens?

WikiLeaks and the Harper government

Buried in James Travers' latest column in the Star is this fascinating tidbit (h/t skdadl in a comment to this post at pogge):

More subtle is the potential impact on the prisoner abuse controversy Stephen Harper has fought long and hard to contain. Exposed to closer scrutiny are the targeted assassinations that military and other informed observers believe are among the ugly truths this government is determined to hide.

Flowing from the leaks are reports that U.S. elite army and navy units use capture-or-kill lists neutralizing or eliminating enemy leaders. Canada’s elite JTF2 special forces work seamlessly with U.S. counterparts in Afghanistan, reporting through a unique chain of command directly to the Chief of Defence Staff, the country’s top soldier.

Special forces operations are so secret that even defence ministers are excluded from the information loop. But earlier this year a source familiar with JTF2 told the Star the unit works side-by-side with American counterparts to “pick up or pick off” high-value Taliban and Al Qaeda targets.

So perhaps the truth about this will see the light of day after all.

Wikileaks sheds more light on Afghan war

This one looks big:

A huge cache of secret US military files today provides a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and Nato commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fuelling the insurgency.

The disclosures come from more than 90,000 records of incidents and intelligence reports about the conflict obtained by the whistleblowers' website Wikileaks in one of the biggest leaks in US military history. The files, which were made available to the Guardian, the New York Times and the German weekly Der Spiegel, give a blow-by-blow account of the fighting over the last six years, which has so far cost the lives of more than 320 British and more than 1,000 US troops.

From the Guardian. Of course the Americans aren't happy:

The White House also criticised the publication of the files by Wikileaks: "We strongly condemn the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organisations, which puts the lives of the US and partner service members at risk and threatens our national security. Wikileaks made no effort to contact the US government about these documents, which may contain information that endanger the lives of Americans, our partners, and local populations who co-operate with us."

Jay Rosen at New York University's journalism school has this to say about the official reaction:

• This leak will harm national security. (As if those words still had some kind of magical power, after all the abuse they have been party to.)
• There's nothing new here. (Then how could the release harm national security?)
• Wikileaks is irresponsible; they didn't even try to contact us! (Hold on: you're hunting the guy down and you're outraged that he didn't contact you?)
• Wikileaks is against the war in Afghanistan; they're not an objective news source. (So does that mean the documents they published are fake?)
• "The period of time covered in these documents … is before the president announced his new strategy. Some of the disconcerting things reported are exactly why the president ordered a three month policy review and a change in strategy." (Okay, so now that we too know the basis for the President's decision, that's a bad thing?)

Originally from here (that server seems to be down at the moment, but the comments are mirrored here).