McGuinty faces major challenges

The Ontario Legislature resumes sitting today after a three-month recess. In the coming days, its order paper will be filled with earnest legislation like amendments to the Mining Act (to give First Nations more of a say in prospecting and mining on their traditional lands), a measure to limit toxic emissions by industries, and a ban on the use of hand-held cellphones by motorists.

There will also be an economic statement, likely in November, with some short-term fixes for the ailing provincial economy.

And in the daily question period in the Legislature, Premier Dalton McGuinty's government will come under attack for not doing enough to address the economic slump.

But McGuinty should be able to withstand the barrage, given the weakened state of the opposition, with one lame-duck leader (the NDP's Howard Hampton, who is stepping down next year) and the other on probation (the PC's John Tory, who was given a tepid endorsement by his party earlier this year).

Behind the scenes, however, McGuinty will be wrestling with two enormous decisions that will shape the province's future.

The first is whether to keep the budget balanced or to let it slide into deficit if, as expected, the current economic slump continues and significantly erodes the provincial revenue base.

The second is what kind of reactor to choose to replace the aging nuclear power plants at Pickering and Darlington.

On the deficit, even bank economists have said that, given the circumstances, it ought to be under consideration. But so far McGuinty has stuck doggedly to the goal of a balanced budget.

"Obviously if we anticipate that our revenues are going to slow down, as I've said many times in the past, we're going to have to do in government what families do at home," said McGuinty last week. "You've got to make some adjustments and you've got to make sure you're focusing on your priorities."

Thus, with one eye on the fiscal storm clouds, McGuinty has sought to dampen expectations of government assistance. He told municipalities last month not to expect instant relief from the downloading of provincial services onto their plates. And last week he suggested the timetable for his promise to reduce poverty will have to be stretched out.

So no new spending initiatives. But even existing spending – on schools, hospitals, roads, transit, courts, jails and so on – will come under pressure if the recession deepens and the treasury is further squeezed. It remains to be seen whether McGuinty's commitment to a balanced budget is sustainable in that circumstance.

As for the decision on a new nuclear reactor, in hot competition for the multi-billion-dollar contract are: Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL), the homegrown company whose design is now in place in the province's power plants; French-owned Areva; and U.S.-based Westinghouse.

The McGuinty government would like to give the nod to AECL, which is owned by the federal government. But Ontario wants Ottawa to back up any sale with guarantees to cover cost overruns. So far, those guarantees have not been forthcoming, as Stephen Harper's government has wrestled with its own decision whether to keep AECL or sell it.

Both these decisions are due to be made next spring (the deficit in the annual provincial budget, the reactor likely in a separate announcement). The behind-the-scenes struggles that precede the decisions will be more ferocious – and hugely more significant – than the daily battles on the floor of the Legislature between the government and the opposition parties.

Comments

Major Challenge is getting rid of McGuinty

At what point will Ontarions ever get choices for good government? The current system is only about getting votes and not doing anything that benefits us. Mr. McGuinty was a reckless promiser in opposition and his party had even tried to get rid of him. He has been elected by playing the game (twice now) with no real strategic plan. You got wonder at a guy who now wants to use a web based petition when many such as tax payers association, support for parents of autistic children and even the small business association have used similar tactics with him with absolutely zero positive results. Can you say PR?

Posted by Ignorance is Bliss

don't bite the hand...

McGuinty never thought about how he's going to pay for all his massive increases in civil servants and their salaries. A strong public sector always requires a strong private sector. Someone has to pay the bills.

Posted by scamper

Grow up and govern

Have you received your property assessment yet? Lets see some real leadership and halt this annual insanity courtesy of MPAC. Mr. McGuinty road the coattails of fear in the '07 election on the religious schooling issue. It was a non starter. Mr. Tory could have OVERNIGHT turned this entire platform 180 degrees by promising a total revamp of this insane, bully pulpit tax grab. He didn't. Where were the NDP and Howard Hampton? If they raised this issue , they allowed it to be muted. The middle class is being fleeced and all the while wooed with empty promises in this campaign. WAKE UP

Posted by Steve Canyon

Really?

Sure, lets bring more competition to the provision of hydro power. Remember when Mr. Eaves let the rates for electricity float after full deregulation, and everyone hand to pay market price? The government had to step in again to prevent the public outcry from becoming riots in the streets. If we are already so incensed by the collusion of the oil conglomerates, how will it be when the electricity generators and distributors do the same thing? But by all means, Mr. Jones, lets have more competition.

Posted by sobersecondthought

Econimic denials and foolishness

McGullible was too busy boasting of irrelevant issues like banning smoking and pitbulls - the real easy stuff - how proactive. Mr Flaherty urged McG to start cutting taxes across the board, including the health tax. Instead, McG sulked and felt he was victimised - now, Ontario is in a recession and all he can do is give the doctors a big raise and shuffle the cabinet - liberals are all alike - why face reality when you can blame your foolhardyness on someone else.

Posted by freebel

Cost Over Runs

Let's end the old boys club once and for all. Ontario is shy on competition: there's very very little in hydro and very very very very little in education. This results in complacency, lack of accountability, mediocrity, and inefficiency. As Bob Rae said, " We can do better" Ontario would thrive with an injection of competition into it's highly protected socialized public work force.

Posted by Templeton Jones


No Short Term Fixes

The crisis in manufacturing has been brewing for a long time. Expect to see many more small companies in Ontario close. In the globalized economy, consolidation is a critical trend. Mass is king. Our cpompanies are typically one tenth the size of American companies. Guess who closes first when the market contracts?

Posted by Herschell Hollywood

SPP update on power generation

Yesterday the "Making the Lakes Great" conference conclusions was posted on the H2O list by Dr. Gail Krantzberg, Director of the McMaster Univ. Dofasco Centre for Engineering and Public Policy, under the subject heading, "energy options to protect Great Lakes waters".
 
Here were the presentations, including the Canadian Nuclear Assoc., US Dept. of Energy, Suncor, Acelor Mittal, Hydro One.
 http://www.energy2100.ca/Presentations.html
 
check out the merged US-Canadian flags on slide 3 of
http://www.energy2100.ca/pdf/Energy2100_Scott%20Minos_U.S.%20Perspectives%20on%20Sustainable%20Energy.pdf
 
the rest of that slideshow is also instructive, eg. slides 21 and 22, and 55 (arms, and happy face nuke towers- seriously) !!!
 
or how about the rebranding of James Lovelock, author of "The Gaia Hypothesis" as nuclear advocate on slide 9 at:
http://www.energy2100.ca/pdf/Energy2100_Murray%20Elstons_Canada%92s%20Nuclear%20Industry%20-%20Preparing%20For%20The%20Future.pdf
 
And the conference conclusions, translated, mean a US-Canada integrated power grid, based on primarily carbon sequestered tar sands and coal sources, and nukes, with some wind, sun, and geothermal thrown in for PR. The dirty sources are to be heavily subsidized by government, with high consumer pricing supposedly for energy and water 'conservation' (of course while industry gets bulk reduced rates, and while shareholders make record gains). Measured by an integrated metred system with data collation, analysis, and all policy formulation to be carried out by a new 'government' structure, no doubt to be a P3 as other new federal and Ontario infrastructure boards are, heavily embedded with the same players that gathered at this conference.
 
We can do better.
 
Dust off the better studies sitting on the shelf that show there's enough wind and sun on the planet to fuel 6X our current use, and conserve by getting rid of dirty industries, with transition programs for unionized workers to build the renewables, rather than mainly the nonrenewables and nukes. Do all of the above with public power, not the exorbitant costs of privatized P3 power. Eliminate speculation, and pull self-governance from industry heads and investors. Roll-back NAFTA and put a moratorium on further entrenching of the SPP, TILMA, and bilateral deals.
 
Do not use 'renewable energy' to mean building more hydro dams and canals to channel more Hudson Bay Basin water down to the Great Lakes, killing what's left of our wild north for the sake of profiteers who don't have the smarts and humility to shift gears.
 
And above all, read beyond 'green' headlines to expose and reject policy which would entrench the problems.
 
Thanks to all activists for your work for real change, inspite of the kind of nonsense noted here, tossed from various quarters.
 
Our words and actions, of critique and substantive alternatives, are the change we want to see.
 
Leigh Thompson

Uranium Producer Warns Of Lake Ontario Pollution

Cameco, the world’s largest uranium producer, has told the Canadian nuclear regulator that its refinery might have leaked uranium, arsenic and fluorides into Lake Ontario.

The plant at Port Hope, Ontario, across the lake from Rochester, New York, and down the shore from Toronto, first refined uranium for the Manhattan Project during World War II. It has been temporarily closed since July to remove contaminated soil.

A spokesman for Cameco, Lyle Krahn, said Wednesday that a computer model created for the cleanup, which is several months behind schedule, indicated that the radioactive and toxic materials have been polluting a harbor adjacent to the factory. The harbor leads directly to the lake.

The company notified the regulatory agency, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, about the finding at a meeting last week and now plans drilling tests to confirm the contamination and to measure its extent.

“We’re anticipating that material may have been entering the harbor,” said Krahn, adding that Cameco did not know how long it would take to confirm any possible pollution.

A spokesman for the agency, Aurele Gervais, said: “The Port Hope UF6 plant matter has been ongoing for some time and the harbor issue is a recent development,” using the chemical formula for uranium hexafluoride.

In a background paper prepared for the agency’s commissioners last week, its staff concluded that the potential remained for continued water pollution from the plant.

Cameco in general and the aging Port Hope refinery, which transforms mined uranium into forms suitable for electrical power reactors, have long been targets of environmental groups and the regulatory agency.

After a flood last year closed one of the company’s mines, which produces about 10 percent of the world’s uranium, Linda J. Keen, then the head of the regulatory agency, said her commissioners and staff had a “lack of confidence” in Cameco and its management.

Gordon Edwards, the president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, an environmental group in Montreal, said that contamination of the lake had been assumed, given the plant’s age, history and location.

“There’s a long history of contamination at Port Hope,” he said. “The whole siting of this refinery is absurd. It’s right in the center of town, it’s on flood plain and right on the lakefront.”

The plant was opened in the 1930s by Eldorado Mining and Refining to process radium and has undergone several cleanups.

The most recent effort began in July when a construction project at the factory uncovered soil contamination that led to the plant’s closing. At the time, the company said that the shutdown and cleanup would take about two months. Krahn said the 18 million-Canadian-dollar project, which involves removing soil under the plant and constructing a leakproof floor, will be finished by the third quarter.

If drilling confirms lake pollution, Krahn said that Cameco did not expect that would delay the plant’s reopening.

Maybe this is why the Rothschild's have been screaming at EXXON MOBIL about the lack of investment of alternative energies?

The plot was to get uranium out of Ontario, just up the river from Port Hope!

The Mohawk's were right. Why should we all be turned into glow worms because Dalton McGuinty says so?

Hm wonder how old Dalton is sleeping tonight, anyway.

Check my archives on Mohawk resistance!

Now read this:

More Charges Laid: Clampdown Intensifies
Support Tyendinaga Mohawks!

(May 20, 2008)

In the wake of recent road closures, OPP intimidation, and jailing of Mohawk community members, charges have now been laid by the OPP against at least 9 additional Tyendinaga Mohawks. These charges, according to police, stem from "events that occurred in and around Deseronto," between April 21 and 26. According to the OPP, the investigations are ongoing and additional charges may be laid against other Mohawks. While none of the 9 people recently charged were forced to remain in police custody, and are free to go home to their families, all carry conditions of 'no protests' and 'not to be present at the quarry site'.

Three men remain in custody at this time, awaiting trial - Clint Brant, Matt Kunkel, and Shawn Brant. Shawn Brant's trial date has been set for mid-June.

The current situation in Tyendinaga is developing into a sweeping crack-down on community members, the stifling of resistance to increased policing and further development of the Culbertson Tract, while federal monies are being poured into the Territory for policing matters and an RCMP report is released, citing federal government intentions to dedicate police "to fighting contraband, which he [Stockwell Day] said is funding organized crime and possibly even terrorists" in three Mohawk communities, including Tyendinaga.

It is important to remember that the feds' concern with Native-made smokes and sales go much deeper than their own pocket book. It is not simply the lost tax revenue that they suffer, but the fact that the lost dollars go to sustain Mohawk families and other services and allows for the Mohawk Nation to stand, as it always has, as a clear and organized force of resistance against the Canadian government's practices of assimilation and control of First Nations peoples.

It is the efforts to strengthen Mohawk Nations' economies and sovereignty that threatens the implementation of Canada's colonial agenda. The policing agendas of the Canadian government aim to crack down on this assertion of self-sufficiency and strength, not, as they claim, "organized crime".

OPP Weaponry and Escalation:

Update on the Struggle for the Culbertson Tract

Update from the Tyendinaga Support Committee (May 13, 2008)

While the quarry site, part of the disputed Culbertson Tract, has remained under Mohawk reclamation since March 2007, the Mohawks of Tyendinaga recently successfully halted another non-Native development effort on the Tract – this successful action led to a series of alarming and serious events.

In late April, a Kingston realtor, Emile Nibourg, made loud public plans to begin construction on the Culbertson Tract, culminating in a written commitment to bring a crew of "25 to 30 guys" to the site. The Mohawks of Tyendinaga responded by closing roads immediately adjacent to the proposed site, which they held for several days. While the OPP swat team was eventually brought in to remove the Mohawks from the roads, no confrontation ensued, and Nibourg backed away from his plans to build on stolen land.

Several days later, after the roads had been reopened, Mohawk spokesperson Shawn Brant was arrested during an interview he was conducting with APTN. Shawn's final words during his arrest on Friday were "This is it, justice for first nations communities: lock us up. Anybody who speaks out, lock-em up. KI6, Bob Lovelace: lock-em up...Don't fix the problems, lock-em up."

Despite the reporting in mainstream press, Shawn Brant's arrest on Friday, April 25th stemmed from an incident that took place days before. Specifically, Shawn Brant has been charged for his role in preventing further attacks on two Mohawk woman and a young child by racist rednecks from the town of Deseronto (see below for more on Shawn's arrest).

Supporters rushed to the quarry after watching or hearing of Shawn's arrest. His arrest sparked off police actions that led to the jailing of four other Mohawks, the OPP pulling their weapons on community members at the reclaimed quarry site, and a weekend of tense stand-offs and road blockades. Psychological warfare on the part of the police resulted in a tense face-off between the OPP and community members that lasted for days.

The same weekend, Six Nations community members erected a blockade of the Highway 6 bypass, near Caledonia, in support of the Tyendinaga Mohawks. This blockade was not removed until Six Nations received confirmation that the OPP had withdrawn from the Mohawks of Tyendinaga.

Following Shawn's arrest, Matt Kunkel, Clint Brant, Dan Doreen, and Steve Chartrand were charged and jailed. Dan, spokesperson for the earlier Mohawk road closures on Highway 2, and Steve have since been released with strict conditions. A couple from the community who were also arrested by the OPP were later were released unconditionally. Matt and Clint, along with Shawn, remain in maximum-security pre-trial custody in Quinte Regional Detention Centre in Napanee, until trial.

Ontario has opted for the incarceration of First Nations people over the resolution of outstanding land issues as their status quo. As for the Ontario Provincial Police, it appears the adoption of Justice Linden's Ipperwash Inquiry recommendations is experiencing some delay. During the road closures in Deseronto, an OPP officer on the scene audibly commented to her colleagues, "We should just shoot them (Mohawks) all." Following the arrests of the 5 Mohawks, the OPP claimed to have seen 'one long gun' at the quarry site, prompting the officers on the scene to pull their weapons out. The Mohawks at the quarry were not armed. The memories of Dudley George have not faded. And while in custody at the Napanee OPP Detachment, several different officers repeatedly informed Shawn Brant that they were going to "slit his throat".

Once again, for his role as a spokesperson in the community, Shawn Brant is facing trumped-up charges. These new charges were laid less than two weeks after Shawn Brant was acquitted of charges alleging that he threatened Canadian Forces soldiers during a demonstration to prevent development of the Culbertson Tract in 2006. Shawn is now forced to remain in jail at least until his trial on these latest charges, which is to take place in mid-June. Further updates on those charged will be coming soon.

As well as dealing with five of their community members now facing charges, the people of Tyendinaga are also facing another serious challenge. The OPP has struck a deal with the Band Council to build a new police station on Tyendinaga territory, ostensibly for the Tyendinaga Reserve Police force (employed by the OPP). Community members have questioned why the four-man force needs a bullet-proof, 5,000-square-foot facility. An identical structure on Mohawk land the Akwesasne Reserve in Quebec is now home not only to the local Reserve cops, but also to the OPP and the RCMP. The deal between the Band Council and the OPP, in which the Band will spend $1.2 million on the new station, with an additional $1 million contributed by the Province of Ontario and Stockwell Day's Federal Ministry of Public Safety, was made without proper consultation with the community. The Men's and Youth Councils, who meet at the recently constructed community longhouse, have openly voiced their opposition to the station, saying the money is needed more urgently elsewhere on the reserve. Meanwhile, construction on the new station has, as of printing time, now begun.

The Province of Ontario refuses to take responsibility for the actions of its police force, the OPP, while also continuing to abdicate responsibility for their role in the licensing of the non-Native quarry operations. The quarry itself now sits partially flooded, while the Mohawks continue their reclamation of the site until government acts to return it to them. The federal government continues to languish at the negotiation table, while making noise in the mainstream press about crackdowns on the Native cigarette industry, and the land – long acknowledged as belonging to the Mohawks – remains unreturned.

The Tyendinaga Support Committee

Activism - Physicians for Social Responsibility

Dr Helen Caldicott: The Earth is in the Intensive Care Unit

Posted on March 28, 2008 by dandelionsalad

Dandelion Salad

IndymediaPresents

from www.youtube.com posted with vodpod

.

This week we devote the entire episode to Dr. Helen Caldicott, one of the founders of Physicians For Social Responsibility (PSR).

In this piece, edited by PepperSpray’s Patricia Boiko, Dr. Caldicott talks of the nuclear issues and the health of the earth from the perspective of a healer/physician.

Dr. Caldicott was in Seattle a few months back and PepperSpray collective members rallied around with her to radio stations and to the Washington meeting of PSR where she was the keynote speaker.

Physicians for Social Responsibility an organization of 23,000 doctors committed to educating their colleagues and the public about the dangers of nuclear power, nuclear weapons and nuclear war.http://www.psr.org

After being instrumental in the formation of PSR in the US, Dr. Caldecott helped start similar medical organizations in many other countries.

The international umbrella group (International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War) won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985.

http://www.ippnw.org

She also founded the Women’s Action for Nuclear Disarmament, now Women’s Action for New Directions (WAND) in the US in 1980.

http://www.wand.org

Other professions took up the challenge of “social responsibility,” and the 1980s and 90s saw an array of organizations such as Computer Professionals For Social Responsibility, each with their own focus.

http://www.cpsr.org

Books by Helen Caldicott referenced in the video:

Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer

http://books.google.com/books?id=iEVb…

The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bush’s Military-Industrial Complex

http://books.google.com/books?id=Diy9…

War in Heaven: The Arms Race in Outer Space

http://books.google.com/books?id=FoJu…

“Indymedia Presents” is a weekly public access program produced on behalf of the Seattle Independent Media Center (IMC) by PepperSpray Productions… now also a weekly podcast available at:

http://indymediapresents.blip.tv

http://miroguide.com/channels/1786

Pubic Access producers, community screeners, and IMCs are encouraged to screen or air “Indymedia Presents.” To obtain the show on a regular basis, please contact us at pepperspray@riseup.net.

Related Free Speech Websites:

Independent Media Center
http://www.indymedia.org/en/index.shtml

Indymedia NewsReal
http://www.newsreal.indymedia.org

Free Speech TV:
http://www.freespeech.org

Democracy Now!
http://www.democracynow.org

see

War in Heaven – The Arms Race in Outer Space

Nuclear Madness - Interview with Dr. Helen Caldicott (must see video)

Encore entente cordiale?

By John Busby

Mar/27/2008

The state visit of France's President Sarkozy will culminate in an agreement with Prime Minister Brown to jointly develop a new generation of nuclear power plants and to export the technology to the rest of the world. See Entente Cordiale Sanders Research, August 7th 2006. The state visit of France's President Sarkozy will culminate in an agreement with Prime Minister Brown to jointly develop a new generation of nuclear power plants and to export the technology to the rest of the world. Concurrently to the meeting in Arsenal's Emirates football stadium Sarkozy is offering to decommission some of his arsenal of nuclear warheads. The recent UK government consultation on nuclear power has ended with an invitation to the private sector to invest in a replacement fleet of reactors, while putting finance in place "up front" to avoid future decommissioning and waste management liabilities passing to the taxpayer. The designs of three out of four reactor candidates are to be examined by safety inspectors, culminating in the approvals for the new build in 2012. With an anticipated construction period of five years, new nuclear generation would commence at the earliest in 2017. It now appears that this is not big enough or fast enough for Gordon Brown. His industry minister John Hutton wants more than just replacement and is arguing for a "significantly higher proportion" of nuclear generation than at present. The competing designs submitted for scrutiny are those of Toshiba (Westinghouse in the US), GE (US), Candu (Canada) and Areva (France). The agency involved in the task has in the past has taken much time and has insisted on modifications for increased safety, which in the case of the Sizewell B station added to the cost and the delay. Cooperation with France for nuclear power means working with Areva, the station builder and fuel provider, which is 90% French state owned. Already electricity is generated and distributed in Britain by EdF, another French company, 85% state owned. Other potential nuclear generators in the UK include German E.On and RWE, Spanish Iberdrola and the UK's Centrica and would presumably be obliged to purchase an Areva reactor. There seems little point in studying the rival designs, but cutting them out risks infringing anti-competition laws. It seems that the Brownian "clunking fist" is impatient with the birth pangs of a nuclear "renaissance" unlikely to be financed by the private sector without subsidy and disincentivised by the need to meet waste management obligations "up front". He wants to lay the foundation stone of Sizewell C right now and that means building an Areva station (or two) there without scrutiny or waiting until the prototype being built in Finland has been satisfactorily commissioned. The Arsenal agreement represents a return to the corporate state – if we ever left it! If EdF is the keenest developer it is because, as a state company, it needs no subsidy and leads to a re-nationalisation of part of the UK electricity industry, albeit by the French state. The flaw is Areva's declining supply of uranium needed to make the nuclear fuel for its reactors in France, China, Belgium, Finland and others. Half of the US nuclear generation is fuelled from Russian ex-weapons highly enriched uranium diluted to a reactor grade by Rosatom. France supplies some enrichment tails for this program and it may be surmised that Sarkozy is planning to fill the looming gap in France's uranium supplies by sending some of its ex-weapons material to Russia for dilution. The Entente Cordiale in the football ground concludes the Blair-Chirac agreement in June 2006 (See RRR's "Entente Cordiale?"). The original Entente Cordiale was between Britain and France in 1904, worried about the German navy, but in 1907 it was to become the Triple Entente when Russia joined in to defend Serbia against Austro-Hungarian expansion. Maybe the Arsenal meeting is not just Encore Entente Cordiale but presages a Triple Entente to keep the lights on in France.

The BBC reported (1) on 30 June 2006:

Hain sceptical on nuclear power

Mr Blair has raised the prospect of new nuclear power stations

Peter Hain has broken rank with the Cabinet to express doubts about building new nuclear power stations.

---

Source: [1]

On 22 January 2008 in an interview with The New Statesman[2] Hain was quoted as saying "I've never hidden the fact that I've never been a fan of nuclear power." The interview referred to his support for the Dublin government in its lobbying to keep the island of Ireland nuclear-free and his arguements in cabinet to increase the emphasis on renewable sources in the past energy review.

The Wylfa nuclear power station is due to be decommissioned in 2010, putting the jobs of the workers at the neighbouring electricity-hungry aluminium works in jeopardy. In January in 2007, Hain appeared to have weakened his opposition to nuclear power when he accepted that Wylfa was a likely place for a new nuclear station, but only because, although he accepted the cabinet's decision to allow companies to bid for new nuclear power stations, he remains sceptical it will happen. "Let's see if anyone wants to build one of these things, you know. I remain doubtful about that. But I'm also clear that it's government's responsibility to keep the lights on and keep energy supply secure."[3]

As Secretary of State for Wales, his lack of enthusiasm for nuclear power might well have put off a nuclear developer not wishing to invest in a planning application for the Wylfa replacement to see it turned down by the Welsh Assembly. His support would have been crucial in the end game.

The Progressive Policies Forum (PPF) was set up just over a year ago - three months after Hain declared his candidacy for the deputy leadership of the Labour party. John Underwood, who was a key figure in the Hain campaign and is thought to be a driving force behind the PPF, issued a statement saying that the think-tank had been set up to "advance progressive policies through research and other political activities".[4]

After it became clear that the Labour deputy leadership campaign “Hain4Labour” had significantly overspent, it was decided that contributions made to PPF should be used to help meet this overspend. It appears that without Hain’s knowledge his campaign manager spent an inordinate sum in promoting him for the deputy leadership and then drew on the PPF funds and other sources to “help” Hain meet the debts of which he apparently had no knowledge.

Here’s a conspiracy theory! Was this overspend a deliberate character assassination designed to give the impression of an over-weaning self esteem on the part of Hain and to bring him into conflict with the Electoral Commission and the Parliamentary Standards and Privileges Committee putting him in jeopardy for non-compliance of House of Commons rules? He denies he knew of the overspend or the means of paying the campaign debts.

In 1976, Hain was tried and acquitted for bank robbery, allegedly framed by South African intelligence. Maybe this inspired those worried about his potential hindrance to a nuclear renaissance in Wales to plot his downfall. The police investigation may well clear him once again — but fail to uncover a plot.

But in his stead is Paul Murphy as the new Secretary of State for Wales with an enthusiasm for nuclear power. If it was a conspiracy to oust Peter Hain, it has for the moment succeeded — but may end up as Gordon Brown’s “Wylfagate”, though perhaps, as appears to be the case for Hain, without his knowledge.

[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5134692.stm

[2] http://www.newstatesman.com/200701220013

[3] http://www.newstatesman.com/200701220013

[4] http://politics.guardian.co.uk/funding/story/0,,2239604,00.html

DEBKAfile reports: Russians employed at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactor suddenly depart

DEBKAfile reports: Russians employed at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactor suddenly depart

DEBKAfile reports: Russians employed at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactor suddenly depart in a body, according to local Arab sources

October 1, 2007, 11:01 AM (GMT+02:00)

The Khorramshar News Agency, which is published by the ethnic Arab underground of Iran’s oil-rich Khuzestan, reported early Oct. 1 that the entire staff of Russian nuclear engineers and experts employed in building the nuclear reactor at Bushehr had abruptly packed their bags Friday, Sept. 28, and flew back to Russia. The agency’s one-liner offers no source or explanation. DEBKAfile have obtained no corroboration of its report from any other source.

The story appears to have originated with the ethnic Arabs who live near the reactor or who come in contact with its Russian staff. If true, DEBKAfile can offer three hypothetical scenarios to account for the Russians’ precipitate departure:

1. Another crisis has cropped up in the patchy Russian-Iranian dealings over the Bushehr reactor. This is unlikely because Russian president Vladimar Putin is due for a high-profile visit to Tehran on Oct. 16, when he plans to sign a series of nuclear accords with the Islamic Republic. Furthermore, Moscow, like Beijing, stands foursquare behind Iran’s efforts to delay harsher sanctions for its continued uranium enrichment. Only this week, the two powers gained Iran two to three months’ grace by forcing a delay in the UN Security Council session that was to have approved a third round of sanctions.

2. Moscow or Tehran has been tipped off that a US or Israeli attack is imminent on the Bushehr plant and Iran’s other nuclear installations and acted to whip Russian personnel out of harm’s way.

3. Moscow has learned that an Iranian pre-emptive attack is imminent against American targets in Iraq and the Persian Gulf and/or Israel.

Aside from these hypothetical scenarios, DEBKAfile’s Iranian sources report that the Khorramshar News Agency keeps its ear to the ground on happenings in Bushehr, because it is claimed by Khuzistan separatists as Arab land which they will fight to liberate from Iranian “occupation.”