Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - July 30, 2006, Winnipeg, Manitoba Submissions to the Winnipeg free press editorial Board View from the West members Are Bob Cox Gerald flood Catherine Mitchell Tom Oleson Dave Obrien cartoonist Dale Cummings Are Welcome. Contact six month View from the West Archive available online at comment editor Gerald flood 697-7269 ? 2006 Winnipeg free press a division of up Canadian Andrew s. Ritchie / publisher newspapers limited partnership Bob Cox / editor Winnipeg free press est 1872 published seven Days a week at 1355 Mountain Avenue Patrick Flynn / Deputy editor Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 Winnipeg Manitoba r2x 3b6, pm 697-7000 View vol 134 no 236 a member of the Manitoba press Council a10 Winnipeg free press sunday july 30, 2006 Doha is dead the economist w Ith the Middle East ablaze Oil prices near record highs the american Economy Cooling and the climate warming it is hard to get excited about the beaching of Trade talks. After All globalization is unstoppable so what if a few technocrats in Switzerland packed up their briefcases and went Home so a lot. Such attitudes were behind the wrecking of the Doha round of Trade talks last week. This disaster born of complacency and neglect signals a defeat of the common Good by Spe Cial interest politics. If the wreck is terminal ? and after a five year stalemate that seems Likely ? everyone will be the poorer perhaps gravely so. It is not just the narrow business of the Doha round if narrow is a fit adjective for an ambition to lift millions out of poverty curb Rich countries ruinous farm support and open markets for countless goods and services that is at stake. The Lack of commitment to multilateral Trade will also Start to corrode the trading system As a whole. Old hands will find that alarmist. Trade talks always seem to break Down before they succeed the Uruguay round dragged on for eight years. Farm Trade the cause of last week s col lapse has always been particularly contentious. Old hands need to look with new eyes for last week s debacle constitutes the biggest threat yet to the postwar trading system. It marked the Trade diplomats surrender to the Confidence trick on which the system is founded. And it betrayed a reckless disregard for the value not just of the Doha round but also of the smooth working of world Trade. The benefits from free Trade come More from imports than from exports. Imports of cheaper or better goods give con Sumers More for their Money and through Competition raise Domestic productivity. Multilateral liberalization is a sort of Jujitsu that uses exporters determination to get into foreign markets to overwhelm Domestic lobbies that would sooner keep Home markets closed. The Trade diplomats incantation that to open his Market is a Concession granted in Exchange for an opening somewhere else is economic nonsense spouted for Domestic political Pur poses. But it is remarkably fruitful nonsense because within the lessons in democracy world Trade organization any Concession to one Trade partner is automatically extended to All members. This trick has helped the world enjoy decades of Prosperity. Election basics taught to those who be never seen a ballot Doha added a fiction All of its own with the idea of a development round seen As a Clever Way of giving Grubby Trade some moral Appeal. But both tricks have backfired by per Kinshasa ? after a lifetime in a shading Rich country participants that they were sacrificing country that has not held elec their National interests to those of foreigners. Tons in 40 years paty Konde at Many of the participants Are culpable. India wanted fewer last Learned the difference farm subsidies and lower tariffs but was unwilling to reduce Between dictatorship and democracy yes barriers to farm goods and Industrial products the eur would Ter Day afternoon. N t Cut its farm tariffs America declared that a bad Deal was in a stifling apartment without furniture worse than no Deal at All ? and meant it. In one of the roughest areas of Kinshasa the underlying rationale of unilateral Trade liberalization Konde and 30 others crowded a room and had been buried and forgotten Long ago. Which is Why Trade spilled onto the Verandah where they diplomats Are looking to regional agreements As a better Way to peered through rotting window screens ado business. Such deals Are certainly easier to pull off. A decade diagrams that showed them How to pick a ago they were a rarity but now just about every to member political candidate fill out a ballot and is part of at least one. Decide the future of their country a gov in narrow terms the Merit of such deals depends on whether Ern ment. They create Trade or divert it. But their broader effect May be id heard the word dictator before but i damaging. Bilateral deals Are Complex and tend to be bad for did to know what it meant explained poor countries. In multilateral deals poor countries can pig Konde through my translator when asked Gyback on powerful countries negotiating clout in bilateral what he found most useful in the one hour deals they re on their own. And the More bilateral deals the lecture by a Volunteer civil education it is to pull off a multilateral one. The presentation by a local medical Stu is Doha s collapse just a failure to Advance rather than a Dent trained by the country a electoral reversal probably not. True the seas of world Trade Are Calm. Commission to teach people How to vote Trade has been growing much faster than global Gap. High touched on concepts taken for granted by commodity prices and robust growth mean that the Call for pro westerners ? a gift of a Campaign Ball Cap Section is Low. But although the system will not fall apart or Money from a candidate does to mean overnight with the years the rust will set in. You should vote for them. Next year the american president will lose the Power that but As Basic As that might be it was con Congress has granted him to negotiate Trade deals without them Side red to be groundbreaking by the being picked to pieces by the legislature. That will make it hard youths who be grown up in a City where to revive Doha. Homes Are routinely pillaged in political the ill will evident this week could spread if american and uprisings or demonstrators die in Skir european manufacturers Start to shed jobs in a downturn. Mishes with police at political rallies. What s More the to s Trade disputes procedure could easily the democratic Republic of Congo a come unstuck. After this failure next time the to rules country wracked by civil strife that a left against America Congress will not take the offence kindly. Put four million dead in the last decade is to All of these together and its easy to see How the whole system experience its first internationally Moni not just one round of talks could be wrecked. Stored elections today with the support of the Doha round was launched after 9-11attacks As proof that the largest standing United nations Force a prosperous and United world could Rise above islamist Ter in the world ? 17,000 people. Dorism. Last week faced once again with violence that they but for Konde at least yesterday the seem powerless to halt political leaders had it within their scope to make the world better off. They failed. Election want about the country a Nasty past but himself. Forget about obliterating dictator Mobutu a tyrannical legacy Konde 26, wants Cash. Gulping a cold soda Given As a treat after the presentation he said his Post election dream is to live in a country where he can work As an electrician an option which seems impossible now. Even with his education at a local technical College the student said he want sure if he will Ever escape the economic Strait jacket worn by most of his friends ? working occasional Odd jobs for a few Congo Laise francs. Perhaps with the elections we can have Good leadership who can provide jobs he said. For people like Konde the elections Are not about deciding the merits of a Politi Cian who accepts donations from 11-year?olds or who receives a bloated compensation package after exiting office ? they re about the tiny Sliver of Hope that things Here might change in their life times. The Drc a a country that a been ruined by corrupt dictators ethnic wars and a brutal colonial history the Chicotte a whip made of Hippo hide was used to mete out punishment by belgian officials to unpaid slaves Here until Well into the 1940s. To hear men older than i am say they re just beginning to understand democracy is at once heart breaking and exhilarating. While Konde might have been playing it Cool with female attendees in the flashy Button Down shirt he hand washes to keep it in mint condition he and his Macho friends were Earnest about their dreams for the future. And hopefully said organizers this earnestness wont turn to violence if their candidates Don twin. We re not Here to Tell them who they vote for we re Here to show them How to behave when they re voting said one workshop organizer who works for the government and did not want to be named. She along with other volunteers have no Public funds to run their five year old group ? citizen action ? but scraped together their own Money to rent the Bare apartment space in this poor and often Vio Lent part of town. We wanted to be near our people she said. This is where they needed us a gulp of soda and a Little education clearly goes a Long Way in this Corner of Kinshasa. I might be Able to get a Job at the drink factory Deva Lela also 26 and jobless says of free beverages. But Lela a not joking which is Why he and Konde will be out voting today. Winnipeg free press reporter Gabrielle Giro Day in the democratic Republic of Congo to observe the first free election in 40 years. Kinshasa time is seven hours ahead of Winnipeg time life a a bit of a Lark for sparrows in the summer t he House sparrows Start arrive and of How they flit ? into the Ivy had to before they started doing it in the House Sparrow neighbourhood which i immigrants pining for a chirp off the old ing at about 7 30 each evening then out again to this tree to that tree to Ivy a few years ago. Think explains Why you Are either famil Block. They now can be found most alone in pairs in fours and Sixes the roof Back to the Ivy where each i wondered what this was All about and car with their nocturnal habits or not ? everywhere in North America or at and More. Fresh Landing causes an explosion of so asked Rudolf Koes a birder and the they Are either in your Yard and you Are least most everywhere that is built up some alight in the Trees around the takeoffs and burst of chatter. I have not go to Guy with the Manitoba naturalist aware of them or they Are a couple of ? they Are not nature lovers so much As Yard others swoop up to the eaves rough seen them land on the Lawn but i have society. Blocks away and you Are not aware of City slickers. Where they hop seen a cat there waiting ? hoping. And this is what i Learned. Them that is. And while they Are cute and Sweet and and skitter from in an out round and round cheerful House sparrows Roost communally they eat mostly seeds although they harmless they also Are Pushy. Since Side to Side peer and playful and fun. Every night of their lives except for also eat insects which is what they feed their introduction the populations of ing Here and there by 9, it is quite dark on the East facing those Brief periods when they Are raising their Young. Bluebirds and tree swallows have and everywhere. Wall and the sparrows begin to Settle their broods in nests that Are usually out while summer is the time when the declined sharply. Sparrows might be some Fly Down. But they do it like children at a sized but not particularly tidy. Living is easy it is especially so for spar tiny but they Are tenacious competitors straight into the slumber party. Some go off to the land of pairs stay together Only As Long As it rows. In the summer seeds Are plentiful for perches which again tonight i Hope thick Ivy that Cov nod Early exhausted perhaps by All the takes to raise their broods and then they and easy to find. But More to the Point in will be my East facing Ivy. Ers the East Wall play. Some Don to chattering defiantly or go their separate ways. But they Don to the summer they Are not constant of our two Storey bursting out of the leaves for one last go far. House sparrows live their lives House. From a Dis peer Down from the Eav trough. And within a radius of a few Hundred metres because their demands for Tance it looks then finally silence. Which Means that if you see a Sparrow Energy to stay warm Are dangerous As they i Don to know How Many there Are. I that looks familiar it just might be. Vastly reduced com crash into the Wall of leaves creating a once rushed up to the Ivy shouting after the communal Roost has two Clear pared to demands in flutter of Green that gapes open and they had settled to startle them into advantages Over going out on a limb to Winter. Closed in an instant. Flight. Yes i know it want Nice but i sleep alone ? More eyes and ears on its a cruel trick from their Birds Eye View however it wanted to know their numbers. Alert for predators and greater Odds of probably looks not the least dangerous ? i thought they would explode out As one not being the one Sparrow that Falls in they can see through the Forest of leaves but they did to. Instead like tourists in any Given attack. And identify the Trees inside on which to Lebanon perhaps they left in Waves ? they typically Roost in dense conifers land. The leaves they flutter must feel an initial startled wave then a wave after ornamental Cedars and Ivy covered like feathers on their stiff Little wings. A period of circumspection and finally Walls. As the gloaming comes on their num after seeing they were being abandoned the Ivy on my Wall is the Engelman Stion at about 15,000. Bers increase As does their chatter a the final holdouts. It was impossible to variety. It is dense so dense that it Gay cacophony of chirps and peeps that count. I estimate there were Between 50 remains dry inside even in heavy rain is somehow As heartwarming As is the and 100 House sparrows in the Ivy. Falls. House sparrows it seems like to sight of All these tidy Little creatures flit i Don to know if you have witnessed have a roof Over their Heads. Ting about. Sparrows going to Roost in the evening. I there is usually Only one Roost per ;