GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Canadian Justice Minister Rob Nicholson’s office has not publicly reacted to a call from Amnesty International 12 October to arrest former US President George W Bush when he visits Canada next week. The group filed what Alex Neve, its secretary-general, calls a lengthy brief with the justice ministry detailing Bush’s admissions of having authorized torture on terror suspects.
“Neve said many will argue that arresting Mr Bush is unrealistic because the United States is a close and powerful ally or that the crisis after 9/11 required extraordinary measures,” reports The Globe & Mail. “‘None of those arguments justify inaction under international law,’ he said.”
The Star reports that Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has accused Amnesty of “‘cherry picking’ its accusations against Bush, and mounting an ideologically motivated ‘stunt’ that ‘helps explain why so many respected human rights advocates have abandoned Amnesty International,’” but the Toronto paper goes on to list a number of other groups that are encouraging Canada to do what similar groups in the US have failed to do, to call Bush to account for torture. Canada has “ratified the United Nations Convention Against Torture, and the Canadian Criminal Code says that anyone suspected of torture can be arrested and subject to criminal investigation when he enters the country,” The Star points out.
US President Barack Obama will present his “Nuclear Posture Review” (NPR) Tuesday 6 April, a document Congress asks each president to prepare, which outlines the government’s stance and programme on nuclear weapons. Obama’s review is expected to show deep cuts in the US nuclear arsenal and will be a dramatic shift away from the armaments programme of former President George W Bush. Two key components, according to US media that have spoken to unnamed US officials, appear to be reductions of thousands of warheads and more restrictions on when they may be used. The details are being published two days ahead of the US-Russian meeting in Prague, Czech Republic, to sign a new Start Treaty, negotiated in Geneva, Switzerland. The treaty signing will be followed by a Washington summit on nuclear proliferation.
Links to other sites: Business Week/Bloomberg, Los Angeles Times, US NPR 2009 terms of reference published in June 2009 by the US Dep’t of Defense
It was a size ten shoe
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Iraqi journalist who spent nine months in prison for throwing his shoes at former President George W. Bush has been granted a three-month tourist visa from the Swiss embassy in Beirut, Lebanon.
Muntadar al-Zaidi was convicted of attacking a foreign leader and sentenced to three years in prison. This was reduced to one year on appeal and he was released early for good behaviour. Al-Zaidi claims to have been tortured in prison, and has said that he cannot live in Iraq.
Links to other sites:Le Temps, Romandie News
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - An empty desk in Geneva is receiving more than normal attention: that of the US ambassador, whose unwieldy title is US Permanent Representative to the United Nations and Other International Organizations. The post has been empty since January 2009 when Warren Tichenor left. Tichenor, a Texan and George W Bush appointment, may not have been a household name, but the new US ambassador could well quickly become one, thanks to sharper interest in how the US will work with other countries on several issues, many of them through international organizations based in Geneva.
This is the era of the Obama administration, with its promise of new relationships, and the period of Hillary Clinton at the helm of the US State Department, re-booting the Start talks with her Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in Geneva in March 2009. Obama told a group of ambassadors in Washington Wednesday 29 July that “I came into office with a strong commitment to renew American diplomacy, and to start a new era of engagement with the world. This must be a moment when we engage on the basis of mutual interest and mutual respect, so that we can build new partnerships for progress.”
Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe (image: Cisac, Stanford University)
One name being bandied about for the Geneva ambassador’s job is that of Obama fundraiser Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe. Le Temps wrote some weeks ago that she will be named, basing the information on “sources close” to President Obama, and IP Watch, an intellectual property industry newsletter, named her as the likely candidate in a 29 July article.
US President Barack Obama released classified government information on the use of torture as an interrogation technique on al-Qaeda suspects and Tuesday former Vice-President Dick Cheney replied saying that the CIA should release memos showing waterboarding works. BBC Obama told CIA employees that he released legal memos because the contents had already been publicly acknowledged. “Now, I have put an end to the interrogation techniques described in those OLC memos, and I want to be very clear and very blunt. I’ve done so for a simple reason: because I believe that our nation is stronger and more secure when we deploy the full measure of both our power and the power of our values.” The documents include memos from the Justice Department in 2002 and 2005 approving the use of waterboarding which simulates the sensation of drowning. Obama has banned the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques that were legal under George W Bush. Related: Al Jazeera, Obama speech to CIA employees
Former US President George W Bush embarks on a 10-a-year speaking tour in March with his first stop at a convention hall in Calgary, Canada. According to Britain’s Times, he will be well paid, but may find it difficult to match the $40 million made by the end of 2007 by another former president, Bill Clinton. Times
(GenevaLunch) – Impossible to avoid George W Bush in the news worldwide, including in Switzerland, this week, as the US president gives his final press conference, takes his last flight on Airforce One, the presidential airplane, and starts to give interviews about his eight years in the White House. Patrick Chappatte, offers his view of those years (see GL interview, in two parts, with Chappatte).
George Bush’s legacy
