Oil is the life-giver of current human societies’ modern economy and lifestyle. Thus, access to oil is essential for that lifestyle to be achieved.

(Audio Podcast Available)

Enter Hugo Chavez, leftist President of Venezuela. He controls the 5th largest oil exporting economy in the world, and as such has the power to influence many many lives.

Yesterday, he took a step to increase his, and his countrys’ influence in the Western Hemisphere.

Chavez has proposed setting up an initiative to deliver oil to the poor Caribbean nations at a heavily discounted price. Thus allowing them to spend less of their money on oil imports and more on improving the lifestyle and situation of their citizens.

His stated goal is of course much different from his real one… which is to make Venezuela more influential and limit its’ dependance on the United States for import of it’s fuel.

The one major stipulation Chavez has put on this deal has been this…

” all this new business must be between governments, … the region could not hand any more over to Texaco and other private companies.”

It will be interesting to see how the lobby groups in the United States would react to this actually happening. Certainly Chavez will have the support of the poor in the caribbean, and of certain leaders like Casto… but others may be less willing to go along with his plans.

The question is, when will they be ready?

(Audio Podcast Available)

According to the Washington Times (free reg required), an anonymous US official who “has spent months in Iraq” and has spoken to many “fence sitting” Sunnis, says the Sunnis will turn against the foreigners when they’re political demands are satisfied.

The official also said the Sunnis are demanding that Shi’ite security forces cease what the Sunnis consider harassing search-and-seizure measures that target innocent Iraqis.

“We’re getting a lot of bad guys,” the official said. “Are non-bad guys being killed? Absolutely. … A civil war has started to a degree.”

These discussions with Sunni groups has apparently been officially OK’ed by Condeleeza Rice and the Administration as a new tactic to beat the insurgency.

I have to say, it’s the first smart tactic I’ve heard since the start of the invasion. We can only hope it works… and that the number of Iraqis and American soldiers killed between now and the supposed time of uprising by Sunnis against the foreigners is kept to a minimum.

According to the Washington Times (free reg required) and the BBC, the UN is set to launch an investigation that the US is secretly using “prison ships” based in the Indian Ocean to hold suspected terrorists.

(Audio Podcast Available)

The BBC reports:

The special rapporteur on torture, Manfred Nowak, said the claims were rumours at this stage, but urged the US to co-operate with an investigation.

He said the UN wants lists of the places of detention and those held.

…

He told the BBC there were a number of allegations from reliable sources that the US was holding terrorist suspects in secret places of detention, including vessels abroad.

Mr Nowak said the charges of secret detention camps were very serious, amounting to enforced disappearances.

These are indeed serious allegations that, if true, clearly violate the Geneva Conventions. Rumours or not, they must be investigated.

If found to be true, or if the United States refuses to prove them to be false (as they have done at Gitmo), it will only add more fuel to the US Military Detention system fire.

This also comes only days after we learned that the a UN team has been trying to gain access to Guantanamo for the past year, but has yet to receive a response from the United States.

One has to wonder why the United States is opening itself up to these sorts of allegations when just a touch more honesty would go a long way toward dispel these allegations as the simple rumours that they hopefully are.

Farshid Faraji is an Iranian documentary filmmaker that has been travelling around the Middle East working on his latest project titled “In Search of Cyrus the Great”.

(Audio Podcast Available)

His final destination was Babylon in the heart of Iraq. Unfortunately, after only a week in Iraq, he was arrested by US Forces and has effectively “disappeared”. There has been no word of him since his producer, who was also arrested, contacted his own family and informed them of what happened. Farajis family has not heard from him for nearly two months.

If you are American, I urge you to contact your Senator or Congressman and compel them to have the US Forces release more information on the whereabouts and conditions of Faraji and the many other men, Iraqi or otherwise, who have simply “disappeared” after being arrested by US or Iraqi forces.

There is a new online database at www.mafqud.org of names of people who have “disappeared” in Iraq since the invasion. Mafqud is Arabic for “Disappeared”.

These are people who are not on any US, Iraqi or ICRC list. They have simply vanished, and it seems that it is up to us to find them.

Finally, after years of heated debate, we have some closure on the Same Sex Marriage debate in Canada.

(Audio Podcast Available)

Last night, June 28, 2005 MPs in Canadas’ House of Commons passed Bill C-38, the bill legalizing Same Sex Marriage by a vote of 158-133. The debate was vigorous on all sides. The Conservatives, NDP and Liberals all had MPs who voted against the official party line. The Liberals even had one member of Cabinet, Joe Comuzzi the Minister of Northern Ontario, resign his post so that he could vote against the legislation.

I will not expand too much on the implications and reasons behind this vote because I think it has been debated enough.. but suffice it to say that our Members of Parliament in the House of Commons are elected to represent the wishes of the People of Canada.

This was a free vote in the House of Commons, meaning all MPs, save those in the Liberal Cabinet were technically free to vote against their party if they felt compelled to do so. And indeed, dozens of MPs did just that, on both sides of the floor.

In the end the result mirrored the position of Canadians.

It is my hope that as we move on from this and same-sex marriage becomes a reality across our great country, those who are opposed will come to understand that this was not about threatening the institutions that we know and value, but rather extending and strengthening them so that all Canadians can share their benefits.

Canadians should be proud of this accomplishment.