MEDIA ROOTS-  When it comes to foreign policy and trade, it’s common to see profits and revenue at the forefront of the discussion. For both Canada and the United States, the choice to put profit and revenue first is leaving people in developing countries with an increased chance of health risks.

The use of asbestos was common for many decades. It was regarded positively as a versatile product used for insulation and clothing material. Now, asbestos is recognized as the cause of major health problems like asbestosis and mesothelioma. The material was banned by the European Union, Japan, and Australia for any future construction projects after it was found to be connected to health risks. Now it can only be found in older buildings and structures.

Although asbestos isn’t used as a building material in most places anymore, both the United States and Canada continue to export it to developing countries such as India, which uses the material for construction purposes due to its low price. Canada is the fourth largest asbestos exporter behind, Russia, China, and Kazakhstan. Even though the US doesn’t mine and export this material directly the country does export and re-export asbestos fibers and asbestos based products. Throughout the past decade, the United States has sent hundreds of large vessels to India and other Asian countries to be scrapped. Most of these older vessels contain asbestos creating a high risk of exposure throughout Asian countries.

Certainly neither country should be sending asbestos out anywhere; they should instead be destroying these fibers, especially considering that both countries do not support use of asbestos within their own boarders. Many citizens of the US and Canada, as well as their medical communities, disagree with the exportation of this toxic material, yet businesses in both countries continue this unfortunate practice.

What makes this an extremely dangerous practice is that most of the countries that import asbestos are often poor, developing nations scattered throughout Asia and Africa. Given the correlation between asbestos and mesothelioma, the use of asbestos puts the people in these countries in risk of major health problems while they simultaneously lack the medical resources needed to treat such diseases. Without the type of medical care necessary for patients of these asbestos related diseases, the consequences in these countries could include people’s lives. The severe and low mesothelioma life expectancy proves further the danger facing these developing countries and their people.

It’s hypocritical that business leaders in the US and Canada export asbestos products to developing countries, while refusing their use for any domestic construction purposes due to health concerns. Both countries expend large amounts of resources every year through environmental initiatives aimed at removing asbestos from populated areas, yet promulgate its use elsewhere. It’s surely ridiculous that the product is seen as too dangerous to be used within the borders of either country, yet the threats it poses to developing countries are disregarded.

Canada, specifically, has come under extreme criticism for their practices involving asbestos. Awareness and disagreement are coming to the forefront through a number of media outlets. Hopefully this increased criticism will lead to changes regarding the hypocritical policy of exporting asbestos.

Written by Eric Stevenson

Photo by flickr user Marcin Wichary

MEDIA ROOTS– Barack Obama is fighting wars on multiple fronts: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and now Libya. His cabinet just approved the biggest military budget since WW2 to fight the global “War on Terror”, and at this rate he will have spent over $8 trillion on defense alone if he serves a full eight year term (including the hidden costs of the war economy). Half of all US tax dollars is spent on US military actions, and the American government spends more on national defense than every other country’s military budget in the world combined.

Every American should ask themselves why it is necessary to spend such an outrageous amount of money on national defense. Is this government really trying to protect the people of this country from the ominous threat of terrorism, or could policy makers be more invested in resource control and profit maximization for their corporate financeers?

 

This video breaks down how Barack Obama is accelerating America’s descent into a war economy.

For more information and resources, please watch the brilliant film Lifting the Veil about Barack Obama and the failure of capitalist “democracy”: http://bit.ly/hH2BCH

Photo by flickr user Ethan

CNN– CIA operatives are providing intelligence from Libya, where opposition forces are on the run and the defiant government suffered the embarrassing defection of its foreign minister Wednesday.

The NATO-led coalition, which is enforcing a no-fly zone and protecting civilians from the intense fighting, got no help from the weather in its ongoing efforts to protect the fragile opposition movement.

“The weather conditions did not allow close combat support by aircraft in the last couple of days,” said Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Moammar Gadhafi’s government, for its part, kept up the war of words. State-run Libyan TV late Wednesday quoted a military source as saying a “civilian location was shelled tonight in the city of Tripoli by the colonizing crusader aggression.”

Amid debate on whether the allies will arm the retreating and undertrained rebels, a U.S. intelligence source told CNN the CIA is in the country to increase the “military and political understanding” of the situation. “Yes, we are gathering intel firsthand and we are in contact with some opposition entities,” said the source.

For more information, read CIA Operating in Libya, in Consultation with Opposition.

© Copyright CNN 2011

LIBERTY UNDERGROUND– The Former CIA Counter-terrorism analyst Michael Scheuer strongly opposed the Obama’s administration actions in Libya on CNN this morning. Scheuer believes that there isn’t a strong case for America’s intervention especially at a time when the country hasn’t even recovered from the recession. Also, Scheuer had doubts if the rebels that we are arming would really be any better than the Gadaffi regime: “I’m not sure that that the opposition, if it takes power, is going to be much better than was Gadaffi.” Moreover, Scheuer argues that the US involvement in Libya would serve as a recruitment tool for extremists. “In the muslim world, this is Americans killing Muslims again, and it looks like its for oil.”

Scheuer also suggested the rationale behind US involvement in yet another war “at a time when we’re nearly bankrupt.” to which the CNN host, Christine Romans, expressed disagreement suggesting that Libya and US economy are two distinct issues. Scheuer protested “they are not separate issues, ma’am, you’re just carrying the water for Mr. Obama.”

NATIONAL JOURNAL– With U.N. coalition forces bombarding Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi from the sea and air, the United States’ part in the operation could ultimately hit several billion dollars — and require the Pentagon to request emergency funding from Congress to pay for it.

The first day of Operation Odyssey Dawn had a price tag that was well over $100 million for the U.S. in missiles alone. And the U.S. military, which remains in the lead now in its third day, has pumped millions more into air- and sea-launched strikes targeting air-defense sites and ground-force positions along Libya’s coastline.

The ultimate total that the United States spends will hinge on the length and scope of the strikes as well as on the contributions of its coalition allies. But Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said on Monday that the U.S. costs could “easily pass the $1 billion mark on this operation, regardless of how well things go.”

Read more on the Cost of Libya Bombing Piling Up.

© 2011 National Journal

photo by flickr user mshamma

PROGRESSIVE– Our founders would be appalled that a President of the United States could launch the country into an armed conflict half a world away without a formal declaration of war by Congress, much less barely any discussion of it by the House or by the Senate.

Article 1, Section 8, of our Constitution is unambiguous: Only Congress has the authority “to declare war.” James Madison warned that allowing the President to take the country into war would be “too much of a temptation for one man.”

At this point in the warping of our system of checks and balances, a President can wage war almost whenever he feels like it — or at least whenever he can cobble together some “broad coalition,” as Obama put it, or a “coalition of the willing,” as his predecessor put it.

Sounding just like George W. Bush when he attacked Iraq exactly eight years ago to the day, Obama said that military action against Libya was not our first resort.

Well, it may not have been the first resort, but it sure is Washington’s favorite resort.

We, as Americans, need to face facts: We have a runaway Executive Branch when it comes to warmaking.

And Obama appears naïve in the extreme on this one.

It is naïve to expect U.S. involvement in this war to be over in “days, not weeks,” as he said.

It is naïve to expect that he can carry this out without using ground troops.

It is naïve to wage war that is not in response to a direct threat to the U.S. national security.

It is naïve to expect millions of Libyans to cheer as their own country is being attacked by Western powers.

It is naïve to expect civilian casualties not to mount as a result of his actions, which he said were designed “to protect Libyan civilians.”

And it is naïve to expect the world to go along with the ruse that this is not a U.S.-led act of aggression.

Finally, Obama’s stated reasons for this war, which he refuses to call by its proper name, are hypocritical and incoherent.

He said “innocent men and women face brutality and death at the hands of their own government.”

That’s true of the people of Yemen, our ally, which just mowed down dozens of peaceful protesters.

That’s true of the people of Bahrain, our ally, which also just mowed down dozens of peaceful protesters.

Then there’s the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, our chief Arab ally and a repressive government in its own right, which just rolled its tanks into Bahrain.

In the Ivory Coast today, another country on good terms with Washington, a dictatorial government is brutalizing its people.

And a brutal junta has ruled the people of Burma for decades now.

There is no consistent humanitarian standard for Obama’s war against Libya. None whatsoever.

Obama has now pushed the United States to a place where we are now engaged in three wars simultaneously.

He’s a man, and we’re a country, that has gone crazy on war.”

by Matthew Rothschild