By Anna Bachmann
Voices in the Wilderness

Dr. Khammo Awshalim is going back to the UK. A former Agriculture professor with the Universities in Baghdad and Basra, he has been working for over a year for the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) as an advisor to the new Ministry of Agriculture. He helped develop numerous programs and projects to increase agriculture production, provide assistance to farmers, and restore the date palms, the national symbol of Iraq. Nearly all have come to naught and Dr. Awshalim is fed up and leaving the land of his birth to return to his adopted country where he lived for 14 years before returning to Iraq after the war to help with the reconstruction.

Dr. Awshalim rubbed his fingers together. “No money.” They seem to have plenty of money for security, he complained. Hundreds of thousands are being spent on concrete blast walls, armored vehicles, and security guards. “Tell me,” he said, “When the Americans finally leave, what will we do with all these concrete blast walls? Of what help will they be to the Iraqis?” For months now, Dr. Awshalim has been sending out email missives addressing these and many other issues that point to a lack of real reconstruction, huge wastes in spending and dubious environmental practices.

By Jo Wilding
May 29th

“Welcome to Canada,” said the sign at the border. “Not quite as bad as the USA.”

OK, it didn’t but the Canadians who looked after us in Vancouver said it ought to, given how much of their country’s economy and foreign policy had become bound up with theirs next door. Though Canada has troops in Afghanistan, it declined to send any to Iraq but the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE) is pressing the federal government for closer economic integration with the US.

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) came into effect in 1994 between Canada, Mexico and the US, forcing among other things large scale restructuring of Canada’s social programmes, not unlike the “structural adjustment policies” foisted on indebted countries by the IMF and World Bank. It gave corporations the right to sue governments for anything which interfered with their profits, even for legislation to protect citizens from harmful chemicals or for public opposition to the building of a factory in a given area.

Negotiations continue over the controversial Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) to tighten economic ties but there are also plans in process to co-operate with the US on the National Missile Defence system, to develop a North American identity document giving business people greater mobility, unite the two customs systems, increase US access to Canadian energy and water resources and align Canada more closely with the US on refugee and immigration rules, ‘homeland security’ and regulatory standards, for example on drugs and agricultural chemicals and hormones.