Aftermath News

“They (The leaders) are doing this without consulting with the American people,” Thomas Anderson, a protester from Texas, told Xinhua, saying that they were calling for transparency from the meeting.

Anderson accused the leaders at the summit of ignoring the concerns of ordinary people and engaging in secrete discussions that violate the U.S. constitution and endanger the sovereignty of the United States.

Xinhua | Apr 22, 2008

NEW ORLEANS, THE UNITED STATES, April 21 (Xinhua) — The fourth annual summit of leaders of the United States, Canada and Mexico, dubbed the “Three Amigos summit,” got underway Monday in New Orleans, the city still marred by the 2005 Hurricane Katrina, amid tight security and sporadic protests.

During the two-day event, U.S. President George W. Bush will confer with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in promoting integrated trade and security arrangements under the framework of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP).

With street closures and traffic restrictions, security was tightest around in the Central Business District, where the North American leaders will engage in most of their summit-related activities.

But the morning scene inside the Gallier Hall, a historic building which used to serve as New Orleans’ city hall, was messy as workers were still in last-minute preparations for Bush’s arrival later in the day for a meeting with business executives.

Local police and secret service agents lined the streets surrounding the luxury Windsor-Court Hotel, where the three leaders will be staying during the summit, effectively blocking traffic and authorized personnel from getting too close.

Prior to the leaders’ arrival, under the watch of police officers, a small number of protesters gathered in front of the hotel, chanting anti-summit slogans and waving placards that read: “No North American Union”, “U.S. citizens say no to tyranny,” etc.

“They (The leaders) are doing this without consulting with the American people,” Thomas Anderson, a protester from Texas, told Xinhua, saying that they were calling for transparency from the meeting.

Anderson accused the leaders at the summit of ignoring the concerns of ordinary people and engaging in secrete discussions that violate the U.S. constitution and endanger the sovereignty of the United States.

Jim Stachowiak, a New Orleans native who operates an independent on-line radio station, said that through their protests, they wanted the American people to know that the “real enemies” are not in Iraq, but “in Washington D.C..”

“We are pleading, begging them to listen to the American people,” Stachowiak said.

The protesters demonstrated for several hours outside the hotel and later left peacefully in the afternoon. But elsewhere in the business district, small groups of demonstrators could still be seen sporadically.

Some activists said they expected protests of larger scale to take place on Tuesday when Bush, Harper and Calderon are due to have a more formal meeting before wrapping up the summit.

McClatchy | Apr 18, 2008

By Franco Ordonez

TEZIUTLAN, Mexico — As the U.S. economy heads south, Mexicans may have to head north.

That’s the fear of many workers here, where the slowdown in the United States already has cut production at manufacturing plants whose output is largely sold in the United States .

“If it’s bad there, it will be worse here,” said Bartolo Juarez , 35, who makes jeans for Levis and Guess at a Teziutlan factory and already has discussed moving to the United States if his job here vanishes. His 12-year-old daughter, Gabriela, has broken down in tears more than once after hearing her parents talk about her father leaving for the States, her mother said.

“It’s a sacrifice. I don’t want to go, but I know I can get a good-paying job in San Antonio ,” even in troubled economic times, Juarez said. It’s always easier to find work in the United States than in Mexico , he added, and for five times more money.

Economists say that U.S. recessions historically are tougher on Mexico than they are on the United States , and that while U.S. officials say that border security measures, such as building a wall along the Mexican border, have reduced illegal immigration in recent months, they won’t hold back the flood of workers that’s likely if Mexican factories close.

The majority of the 72,000 people who live in this rainy town tucked up in the cloud forests of the Sierra Norte mountains in central Mexico work in more than 30 factories that specialize in assembling pants for distribution in the United States .

Rodrigo Martinez , the coordinator of the National Job Service in Teziutlan , estimates that 10 percent of the community already has gone to the United States in search of work after losing jobs here or deciding to find better pay there.

As demand for Mexican-made pants declines in the United States , he expects more workers to go.

“This community is almost 100 percent maquiladora,” he said, using the Spanish word for factories that assemble goods for U.S. consumption. “Closing some of those shops would affect us greatly.”

Manufacturing is by far Mexico’s most vulnerable sector during a U.S. downturn, economists say. More than 80 percent of Mexican exports are destined to go north. A drop in U.S. demand would cut into Mexican production levels and employment.

As the old adage goes, “When Uncle Sam sneezes, Mexico catches a cold.”

Jaime Ros , an economics professor at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at Notre Dame , said the Mexican manufacturing industry already was experiencing a pinch from the U.S. economic downturn. Those who lose their jobs will “certainly add to the supply of immigrants” heading north, he said.

Ros, who formerly taught at Mexico City’s Center of Investigation and Economic Studies , is skeptical that U.S. border-security measures will have a significant impact when so many desperate immigrants see the U.S. as their only option for work.

While the crash of the U.S. housing market has reduced demand for immigrant workers in construction, immigrants are likely to find jobs at hotels, restaurants and other services that won’t be as affected by a U.S. recession.

The U.S. learned how closely Mexico’s fate is tied to its economy in 2001. At the time, Mexico’s maquiladora industry was at its peak, with more than 3,000 companies employing about 1.2 million workers. Then the U.S. went into a recession after the dot-com crash. Hundreds of maquiladora plants closed as a result from 2001 to 2004 and more than 200,000 people lost their jobs.

Maquiladora workers who lose their jobs are more likely than other Mexicans to move north, said Kathy Kopinak , a senior fellow at the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at University of California San Diego .

Because many maquiladoras have been set up in border towns, Kopinak said, workers have family members and friends on both sides of the border who can assist in labor migration.

Mexico hasn’t fallen into a recession, but several economists say that’s the direction the country is going if the U.S. recession is deeper than expected.

Mexico’s economy grew 3.3 percent last year. Wachovia Corp. forecasts this year’s growth to slow to 2.5 percent. Others are less optimistic: The Economist Intelligence Unit forecast that Mexico’s growth would be just 1.9 percent this year.

“The risk is that if we have a deeper, darker, longer recession than what we are expecting, then Mexico is going to catch a pretty bad cold and it could pull Mexico into a recession itself,” said Jay Bryson , a global economist at Wachovia Corp. in Charlotte .

Mexican officials say their economy is more resilient now than in it was in 2001. They say that a pickup in automobile exports to Europe and Asia will help offset decreased demand from the United States . Central bank Governor Guillermo Ortiz said last month that Mexican exports to countries other than the U.S were growing by 30 percent a year.

President Felipe Calderon has announced several initiatives intended to weather a U.S. economic slowdown.

Last month, he announced a $5.6 billion stimulus package of tax breaks, discounts and bank loans. Last week, he called for sweeping changes in Pemex , Mexico’s ailing oil company and the country’s largest source of foreign exchange.

Calderon’s initiatives may never be approved, however. Opposition legislators have seized control of Mexico’s Congress , some spending the night in sleeping bags, to protest the bill, which they claim is an effort to privatize the state oil company.

Over drinks after their shift at an auto parts company that feeds the giant Volkswagen plant in Puebla, Mexico , Antonio Paredes , 24, and Jaime Galicia Alonso , 23, were discussing the likelihood of an economic downturn.

Paredes said he’d already talked to his wife about accompanying him to the United States . He’s also talked with a co-worker about getting in touch with his son in Chicago , where Paredes is considering moving.

Galicia said he’d do whatever he could to stay in Mexico , but he acknowledged that it will be tough. Many people from his village already have left for the United States .

“If you lose your job and you can find another job, you stay in Mexico ,” Galicia said. “Otherwise you’re almost obligated to go to the United States .”

State Department talks open borders, EU links

WorldNetDaily | Mar 13, 2008

By Jerome R. Corsi

WASHINGTON — A largely unreported meeting held at the State Department discussed integration of the U.S., Mexico and Canada in concert with a move toward a transatlantic union, linking a North American community with the European Union.

The meeting was held Monday under the auspices of the Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy, or ACIEP. WND obtained press credentials and attended as an observer. The meeting was held under “Chatham House” rules that prohibit reporters from attributing specific comments to individual participants.

The State Department website noted the meeting was opened by Assistant Secretary of State for Economic, Energy and Business Affairs Daniel S. Sullivan and ACIEP Chairman Michael Gadbaw, vice president and senior counsel for General Electric’s International Law & Policy group since December 1990.

WND observed about 25 ACIEP members, including U.S. corporations involved in international trade, prominent U.S. business trade groups, law firms involved with international business law, international investment firms and other international trade consultants.

No members of Congress attended the meeting.

The agenda for the ACIEP meeting was not published, and State Department officials in attendance could not give WND permission under Chatham House rules to publish the agenda.

The meeting agenda included topics reviewing the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, or SPP, and the U.S.-EU Transatlantic Economic Council, or TEC.

The SPP, declared by the U.S., Canada and Mexico at a summit meeting in 2005, has 20 trilateral bureaucratic working groups that seek to “integrate and harmonize” administrative rules and regulations on a continental basis.

Several participants said the premise of the SPP is to create a North American business platform to benefit North America-based multi-national companies the way the European Union benefits its own.

Others noted the premise of the TEC is to create a convergence of administrative rules and regulations between Europe and North America, anticipating the creation of a “Transatlantic Economic Union” between the European Union and North America.

Participants pointed out that transatlantic trade is currently 40 percent of all world trade. They argue that trade and non-trade barriers need to be further reduced to maintain that market share as a framework is put in place to advance transatlantic economic integration.

Still, some participants argued that many corporations in North America already have moved beyond a North American focus to adopt a global perspective that transcends even the Transatlantic market.

“Supply chains and markets are everywhere,” one participant asserted. “What’s to stop global corporations from going after the cheapest labor available globally, wherever they can find it, provided the cost of transporting goods globally can be managed economically?”

Other participants argued regional alliances were still important, if only to put in place the institutional bases that ultimately would lead to global governance on uniform global administrative regulations favorable to multi-national corporations.

“North America should be a premiere platform to establish continental institutions,” a participant said. “That’s why we need to move the security perimeters to include the whole continent, especially as we open the borders between North American countries for expanding free trade.”

One presentation on the agenda identified four reasons why administrative rules and regulations need to be integrated by SPP in North America and by the Transatlantic Economic Council, bridging together European Union and North American markets:
Standardization – to keep prices low and productivity high;

Investment – for every $1 traded, $4 is invested; right now 75 percent of investment in the U.S. comes from the EU, and 52 percent of the investment in the EU comes from the U.S.;

Productivity Improvements – to lower production costs and stimulate trade; and

Open Borders – to facilitate the free movement of labor to markets where employment opportunities are available.

The discussion pointed out the SPP trilateral working groups and the Transatlantic Economic Council were being supported by top-level Cabinet officers and the heads of state in both the EU and in North America.

Progress in EU-U.S. regulatory integration was noted in financial market coordination, investment rule cohesion, trade security measures and efforts undertaken recently to preserve intellectual property rights.

Before the meeting began, concerns were raised informally by participants worried that the Ohio Democratic Party primary had prompted both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to talk of renegotiating NAFTA.

Participants at the State Department meeting pointed out U.S. political candidates could be expected to argue “protectionist themes opposed to global economic integration” as a tactic, without necessarily being committed to taking aggressive steps once in office.

“The political dialogue misses the point of economic reality,” one participant argued. “There is a J-curve correlation between when a currency like the U.S. dollar depreciates and when exports kick in to increase. We should accelerate the J-curve and our discussion about it, to help the local politics catch up with the international reality.”

Part of the discussion was devoted to concerns that national regulators in North America and Europe were too reluctant to abandon provincial regulatory advantages.

“Regulators by nature are advocates, and they are hard to move,” one participant grumbled. “What we need is more diplomats and negotiators to identify solutions, otherwise the bureaucrats will bog down the progress we need to see coming out of the SPP and TEC.”

“North America is already an integrated continental economy and a continental-wide business platform,” another said. “What we need now is more regulatory convergence. ‘Harmonized’ should mean that once approved, the same set of administrative regulations and procedures ought to be ready throughout NAFTA, SPP and the TEC.”

As WND previously reported, the Transatlantic Economic Council, or TEC, was created by President Bush at an April 30 summit meeting at the White House with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the current president of the European Council, and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.

WND also reported the Transatlantic Policy Network, a non-governmental organization headquartered in Washington and Brussels and advised by a bi-partisan congressional policy group chaired by Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, has called for the creation of a Transatlantic Common Market between the U.S. and the European Union by 2015.

A complete membership list of the current 60-person Advisory Committee on International Policy is published on the State Department website.

ACIEP members include corporate officers from General Electric, Exxon Mobil, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Archer Daniels Midland, United Parcel Service, Citibank, Proctor & Gamble, Hunt Oil, CMS Energy, Boeing, 3M, Goldman Sachs and Cargill.

The most recent “Summary of Discussions” published on the Department of State website was for the Dec. 18 ACIEP meeting.

A published article on the State Department website includes photographs of the Dec. 18 ACIEP meeting, listing by name several participants who were photographed in attendance.

A triumphant President Bush (framed by two Roman fasces, symbolic of Fascism), delivers the final State of the Union address of his presidency to a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol building in Washington January 28, 2008 as Vice President Dick Cheney (2nd L) and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (R) applaud.

BayouBuzz | Jan 28, 2008

President Bush (this year, unlike last year) mentioned the Gulf Coast and New Orleans during his final State of the Union Speech.

Bush said, “Tonight the armies of compassion continue the march to a new day in the Gulf Coast. America honors the strength and resilience of the people of this region. We reaffirm our pledge to help them build stronger and better than before. And tonight I am pleased to announce that in April we will host this year’s North American Summit of Canada, Mexico, and the United States in the great city of New Orleans.

President Bush initially made that pledge in Jackson Square in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.  During his speech, the President also announced the upcoming Summit in New Orleans.

In response, Louisiana Recovery Authority (LRA) Chairman Dr. Norman C. Francis issued the following statement regarding President George W. Bush’s announcement: “This is an historic time for our city and state, a time of unprecedented hope and confidence in Louisiana’s recovery. Tonight’s announcement certainly sends that message, and underscores the fact that Louisiana is once again open for business.

“While much remains to be done, Louisiana has made significant recovery progress since the 2005 storms. Federal recovery funds are flowing, neighborhoods are re-awakening and the sound of hammers and construction can be heard throughout the most impacted areas of South Louisiana. Over the last two years, New Orleans has also played host to many large gatherings, conventions, music festivals and major sporting events since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, including this year’s BCS National Championship game, which brought tens of thousands of visitors to the Crescent City.

“I applaud President Bush for his commitment to the people of New Orleans and Louisiana. His pledge and support of federal dollars ensure that Louisiana’s recovery will be successful. We are most grateful for this opportunity to highlight both our progress and our remaining needs to the nation and world.”

. . .

Related

Bush’s plan to hold a North American summit in New Orleans cheered by business-hungry leaders

WorldNetDaily.com | Jan 25, 2008

By Jerome R. Corsi

The Hispanic outreach director for Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign is a dual American-Mexican citizen known for his “Mexico first” declarations to immigrants in the U.S., WND has confirmed.

Word of the appointment, made in November, spread across the Internet last night, sparking reaction from secure-border activists who charge Juan Hernandez’s position in the campaign belies the Republican candidate’s attempt to position himself as an advocate of border security.

McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers emphasized to WND that Hernandez is “a non-paid volunteer to the campaign, and he does not play a policy role.”

“Juan works with us to reach out to the Hispanic community to meet with the folks in the various states,” Rogers said.

Asked if the McCain campaign has repudiated Hernandez’s “Mexico first” declarations, Rogers did not give a direct answer.

Twice he referred WND to McCain’s immigration position on the campaign presidential website arguing for border security.

In an appearance on ABC’s Nightline in 2001, Hernandez said, referring to Mexican immigrants in the U.S., “I want the third generation, the seventh generation, I want them all to think ‘Mexico first.’”

Hernandez told the Associated Press the same year, “I never knew the border as a limitation. I’d be delighted if all of us could come and go between these two marvelous countries.”

Last August, Hernandez published a book entitled “The New American Pioneers: Why Are We Afraid of Mexican Immigrants?” in which he argued Mexican immigrants, both legal and illegal, were at the forefront of establishing a new North American market combining the U.S. with Mexico.

Mark Krikorian, director for the Center for Immigration Studies, asked last night on a National Review Online blog, “Has McCain offered Hernandez, a former high-level foreign government official who presumably swore an oath to uphold the Mexican constitution, a place on a future McCain Administration? That’s not a rhetorical question.”

Columnist Michelle Malkin posted equally critical comments this morning on her blog HotAir.com.

Noting that McCain has attempted to distance himself from the comprehensive immigration reform bill he co-sponsored with Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy, Malkin said the appointment of Hernandez “tells me that John McCain is as weak on border security now as he ever was.”

While McCain is now emphasizing border security, the policy posted on his website repeats many of the “flexible labor market” arguments advanced in the Kennedy-McCain comprehensive immigration reform bills, arguing for the necessity of a guest-worker program.

No fence

Hernandez has appeared on various cable news talk shows aggressively arguing against building any fence on the Mexican border, insisting the frontier need to remain wide open so illegal immigrants can easily cross into the U.S.

Hernandez was the first U.S.-born cabinet member to serve President Vicente Fox, operating from Los Pinos, the Mexican White House. Hernandez represented the 24 million Mexicans living abroad whom Fox then called “heroes” for representing Mexico in the foreign nations in which they lived.

In 1996, Hernandez was responsible for inviting Fox, then governor of the Mexican state of Guanajuanto, to speak at the University of Texas, Dallas, where he met George W. Bush, then governor of Texas, for the first time.

The North American Union is being implemented gradually by stealth without the consent of the American people as part of the secret agenda for global government. The North American passcard is essentially the NAU ID.

Passport card with chatty RFID chip draws privacy ire

Computerworld | Jan 8, 2008

New chipped passcards are unencrypted and readable up to 30 feet away

by Jaikumar Vijayan

January 08, 2008  (Computerworld) — A proposed new RFID-enabled passport card intended for use by Americans frequently travelling to Canada, Mexico. Bermuda and the Caribbean poses serious security and privacy risks for users, the Centers for Democracy and Technology (CDT) warned this week.

Among the concerns are the potential for the card to be used for location tracking by government and private entities and the relative ease with which it can be manipulated for identity theft purposes, the CDT said.

The Washington-based think tank’s warning was prompted by a final ruling in the Federal Register from the U.S. Department of State on Dec. 31 calling for the use of so-called “vicinity read” radio frequency identification technology on proposed new passport cards. The department first announced plans to use RFID chips for new passport cards back in October 2006 and has been going through a process of collecting and responding to comments on its plans.

The identification cards would be needed by residents who don’t have passports for verifying their identity at land, air and sea border crossings and are to be issued as part of the Departments of State and Homeland Security’s Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, or WHTI. The credit-card sized passport cards will use vicinity-read RFID technology that allow them to be read from at least 20 to 30 feet away by customs and border-protection officials. The goal is to substantially reduce wait times at the border by allowing officials to access and queue up a border crosser’s information even before they reach the official.

The approach is substantially different from the proximity-read technology being used in U.S. electronic passports, and it offers fewer protections, according to Ari Schwartz, deputy director at the CDT. Electronic passports contain all of the same identification data that appears on the first page of a passport, and includes a digital photograph and a digital signature. But the information on those chips is encrypted at all times and can only be accessed by physically swiping the card through a reader at the border crossing.

In contrast, said Schwartz, the proposed RFID-enabled passport cards can be read from a distance, and without user notice, consent or control over when the information is collected. Additionally, information from the card is transmitted in the clear — that is, without encryption. The RFID technology itself is also more susceptible to electronic eavesdropping and hacking, which makes the cards less tamper resistant compared to electronic passports, he said.

“So you have a situation where you are sending out identity information in the clear over a long distance,” using a less-than-secure technology, Schwartz said.

The State Department itself has said that the passport cards will not contain any identity information such as name, date of birth, social security number, or place of birth.

LA Times | Jan 4, 2008.

MEXICO CITY — Farmers in this country organized scattered protests Tuesday and Wednesday as the final trade barriers on U.S. corn, beans, sugar and milk fell with the full implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement on New Year’s Day.

Corn and beans are staples of the Mexican diet and subsistence crops for millions of farmers. Opponents of NAFTA said the free entry of relatively cheap U.S. corn would devastate rural Mexico and help spur more immigration.

But the government of President Felipe Calderon celebrated the end of the trade barriers, whose gradual elimination began in 1994 when the treaty among the U.S., Mexican and Canadian governments took effect.

Agriculture Secretary Alberto Cardenas said that 90% of the imports affected by the final barriers already entered the country free of tariffs in 2006, and that the effect on local producers would be minimal.

Still, about 100 Mexican farmers partially blocked the border crossing between El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juarez, carrying signs that read “Without Corn There Is No Country.”

Protesters blocked several of the traffic lanes entering Mexico for much of Tuesday and part of Wednesday, according to news reports.

Miguel Colunga Martinez, leader of a local peasant group, told the El Paso newspaper El Diario that protesters would “inspect” all trucks crossing the border and stop any carrying farm goods. “Up to now, not a single trailer has passed,” he said.

Mexico’s tortilla producer association said the final implementation of the treaty would reduce the number of Mexican corn producers and could lead to a 20% to 30% increase in the price of tortillas. It gave no details.

“We will not have the weapons to compete with the growers of the United States and Canada, who will sell corn cheaper than it’s produced here,” said Lorenzo Mejia Morales, president of the National Union of Mills and Tortilla Producers.

Mexican agricultural officials say NAFTA benefits their country by allowing Mexican farm products into the United States.

“We have become the principal supplier of fruits and vegetables into the United States,” Cardenas said in a news release, citing onions, avocados, mangoes and watermelons as examples of successful Mexican exports.

At the same time, Mexican imports of U.S. corn have risen from less than 1 million metric tons in 1993 to 9.9 million metric tons in the 2006-07 marketing year that ended in July, according to statistics from the U.S. Agriculture Department.

The majority of the imports are of yellow corn, which is used to feed livestock and to make corn syrup. There are about 1.5 million corn farmers in Mexico and most grow white corn, which is used to make tortillas.

NAFTA critics say Mexican farmers cannot compete with their American counterparts because the government subsidies they receive are paltry compared with those given to U.S. farmers.

 
Atlantic-Pacific route would allow cross-continental goods deliveries

WorldNetDaily.com | Dec 18, 2007

North-of-border link finishes NAFTA superhighway grid

By Jerome R. Corsi

Canada has announced a plan to extend the NAFTA Superhighway network north in a way that would finish a continental grid designed to accommodate an anticipated tsunami of containers from China and the Far East.

The Canadian Intelligent Super Corridor, or CISCOR, is a national transportation route designed to reach from the West Coast ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert to Montreal and Halifax.

As WND has documented, recent articles published in The Nation and Newsweek magazines have attempted to characterize the NAFTA Superhighway as a “conspiracy theory.”

Yet, the CISCOR case study provides strong evidence that the continent’s ports, highways and rail lines are being reconfigured into an inter-modal system emphasizing technological logistics and “inland smart ports” designed to meet the demands of world trade, largely driven by the relocation of North American manufacturing to China.

Inter-modal is a transportation economics reference to containers that can be transported on several different modes of transportation, including container ships, trucks and trains, without having to be unloaded or repacked.

According to the CISCOR website, the Saskatchewan-based CISCOR Inland Port Network of the cities of Regina, Saskatoon and Moose Jaw is designed to serve “as the central logistics and coordination hub, creating a Canadian east-west land bridge connecting three major North American north-south corridors: North America’s SuperCorridor, or NASCO, the Canada-America-Mexico Corridor, or CANAMEX, and the River of Trade Corridor Coalition.”

A multi-color North American continental map on the CISCOR website leaves no doubt the Canadian super corridor is designed to interface with the NAFTA Superhighway, extending down into Mexico.

The CISCOR map strongly models the continental map displayed by NASCO on the trade group’s website in 2005.

The CISCOR website confirms an earlier WND report documenting the Canadian national transportation plan to open Prince Rupert and Vancouver as deep-water ports capable of handling the new class of 12,500 container-capacity post-Panamax ships now being built for China.

The CISCOR strategy falls under the umbrella of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Asia-Pacific Gateway and Corridor Initiative as defined by Transport Canada, the Canadian counterpart to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

WND previously documented how the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific railroads are included in Canada’s Asia-Pacific Gateway and Corridor Initiative, positioned to operate as NAFTA railroads.

Under the CISCOR plan, the Saskatchewan cities are defined as an “inland smart port,” as are Kansas City, San Antonio and Denver in the U.S.

The CISCOR website cites the University of Texas Center for Transportation research to define an inland port as follows: “An Inland Port is a physical site located away from traditional land, air and coastal borders with the vision to facilitate and process international trade through strategic investment in multi-modal transportation assets and by promoting value-added services as goods move through the supply chain.”

The plan to make the Saskatchewan cities an inland port centers on utilizing the West Coast deep-water ports in British Columbia as the input point for millions of containers from China and the Far East.

Full Story

Cox News | Dec 20, 2007

By JEREMY SCHWARTZ

MEXICO CITY — Farmers and activists here are planning a series of protests as NAFTA enters its final stage on New Years Day, when the last tariffs and quotas on corn, beans, milk and sugar melt away.

Opponents of the free trade agreement warn that the final lifting of trade barriers could spark even more migration from Mexico’s devastated countryside and leave Mexico dependant on the United States for corn and beans, staple dishes since the age of the Aztecs.

At least one peasant group has said the NAFTA expansion could spark armed rebellion in the countryside if President Felipe Calderon’s government doesn’t do more to protect small farmers.

Corn and beans were considered especially sensitive to the Mexican economy when the free trade agreement was signed in 1993, and officials buffered them with 15 years of gradually dwindling protections.

Government officials insist the Jan. 1 opening is largely symbolic since corn and bean tariffs have mostly been phased in already.

NAFTA supporters in Mexico say protesters are trying to wrest more government aid by exaggerating the impact of the opening.

“It’s an important date because it marks the end of the process,” said Luis de la Calle, a Mexico City economist who helped negotiate the original agreement in the early 1990s. “But in terms of the market there will be very little impact.”

But members of Mexico’s left-leaning Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, the second largest party in Congress, have called on Calderon to renegotiate the final opening and remove corn and beans from the list of unprotected trade goods.

Calderon however, has shown no inclination to tinker with the free trade agreement.

“The government is scared of renegotiating (corn and bean tariffs) because renegotiating part could mean renegotiating the whole thing,” said Jose Romero, a NAFTA expert at the College of Mexico. “And they worry renegotiating could send bad signals to international financial markets.”

Mexican farm associations say Mexican farmers are woefully unprepared to face an onslaught of American corn, and decry the large subsidies that American corn farmers receive.

This week the World Trade Organization launched an investigation into whether the United States has surpassed international limits on so-called trade distorting subsidies for its farmers by billions of dollars since 1999.

And American farmers are far more productive than their Mexican counterparts. According to the Mexican Institute of Competition, American farms produce an average of 22 tons of corn per acre, compared to just six tons on Mexican farms.

Cruz Lopez, president of the National Farmers Confederation, said domestic corn producers fear they will go out of business, unable to compete with American imports, and leave Mexico dependant on the United States for its basic food needs.

“There is an abyss between the (subsidies) that we receive and those of the Canadian and U.S. farmers,” he said. “For us, it is very important to guarantee to the Mexican people that we can produce corn and beans.”

Mexico imports about 10 million tons of corn annually, compared to the 22 million tons it produces domestically.

Mexican farmers are pushing for more subsidies from the Mexican government, and predicting dire consequences if they aren’t helped.

“If this refusal to protect the national producers continues on the part of the government ././. the countryside could take the path of weapons and the guerrilla,” Max Correa, leader of the Central Campesina Cardenista Peasant, a farmers’ advocacy group, told the Mexican press recently. “It’s not a catastrophic vision, it’s a reality.”

Since Mexico entered into NAFTA, it has lost nearly 3 million farm jobs and seen a massive migration from the countryside to the United States. An estimated 80 percent of the 400,000 Mexicans who annually migrate to the United States are from rural areas.

Many experts say that the great bet of NAFTA - that peasant farmers would find jobs in a burgeoning Mexican manufacturing industry - hasn’t been realized.

“The U.S. doesn’t want them, the manufacturing industry can’t absorb them, so where do they go?” Romero said. “They don’t have the political strength to influence policies.”

Experts say the high worldwide price of corn, driven by increased ethanol production, should provide a buffer for Mexican farmers, but that could prove temporary.

The end of sugar tariffs, however, should benefit Mexican producers by opening up the lucrative American market, de la Calle said.

But Mexican sugar producers fret that high production costs in Mexico could slow exports to the United States.

Among the protest actions planned are street rallies in various Mexican cities and a human chain along the U.S.-Mexico border. Protesters have already staged a week-long hunger strike in downtown Mexico City.

But with the Mexican Congress on holiday recess and Calderon uninterested in renegotiating, experts say the chances of heading off the Jan. 1 opening are non-existent.

NDP Premier Gary Doer [Left] and NDP leader Jack Layton [Right] are demonstrating themselves to be politically invasive “fifth column” collaborators of a U.S. military expansionist agenda into Canada.

The Canadian | Dec 19, 2007

NAU-NAFTA Superhighway agenda: Manitoba Premier Gary Doer exposes NDP leader Jack Layton’s campaign of mass-deception

by Bill Lavigne

The federal NDP advertises on its website that it is against the Security and Prosperity Partnership North American Union (SPP-NAU) agenda. However, it appears that the NDP merely advertises such opposition to placate and deceive its activist supporters, while Mr. Layton and his political party elite colleagues substantively capitulate.

Indeed, in spite of the alleged opposition of the NDP to the SPP-NAU agenda, Manitoba’s NDP Premier Gary Doer, in his government’s Throne Speech 20 November 2007, endorsed the so-called “Mid Continental Corridor” North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Superhighway.

While Mr. Harper professes to stand for “integrity in government”, the Stephen Harper government has officially denied the existence of any such “NAFTA Superhighway” project, in the face of ample proof that it does exist.

Rest assured, Mr. Doer as an NDP Premier, within the constitutional modus operandi of the NDP, would not have provided that SPP-related endorsement, without having consultation and agreement with Jack Layton, his federal party leader. That type of high level “executive-political” non-consultation is not how the NDP works.

Victor Fletcher, the editor of Toronto Street News, regales us with a story about NDP leader Jack Layton: “I met Jack Layton two Saturdays ago and asked him why the NDP was supporting the NAFTA highway in the NDP Manitoba Throne Speech. He said “Manitoba needs the Churchill jobs.” I agreed but further asked: “Why then, do they have to issue Mexican drivers licenses for fall of 2008?” He then RAN AWAY!”

“He took off with his aide and never answered after taking a copy of Toronto Street News which a headline I pointed to saying: “Harper’s Police State Union With Bush Moving Fast! Manitoba Throne Speech Announces U.S. Union!”

This is not the action of someone who is substantively against the SPP-NAU agenda. Mr. Layton as a “Quisling”-like collaborator, along with Mr. Dion and the Bloc Quebecois leader have indeed turned Opposition Party politics in Canada into facile political theatre aimed at deceiving Canadians.

The Norwegian Prime Minister Vidkun Quisling co-operated with Adolf Hitler to deliver that country to the Nazis; and these Canadians are similarly cooperating to deliver Canada to Neo-Nazi military expansionist interests. Indeed, both former German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler, and the U.S. Bush administration embrace disturbingly similar pre-emptive military strike foreign policy and national security legitimated doctrines.

The NDP grassroots in particular, are being lulled into a stupor that ‘Jack’ is out fighting against the SPP, while his operatives like Gary Doer betray the apparent true allegiances of NDP political party elites.

The NAU-NAFTA Superhighway is an apparent scheme designed to faciliate the bringing into Manitoba (and other parts of Canada) exploited Mexican slave labour; and bringing out of Canadian resources.

Victor Fletcher also states: “Jack Layton is an old customer of mine from the late 1970’s when he ran for municipal politics and I ran a union typesetting company designing election literature and arranging union printing for customers.” Therefore, Mr. Fletcher provides his comments as someone who has been very supportive of Mr. Layton and the NDP.

Mr. Fletcher as elaborates that: “I was a supporter of his [Mr. Layton] over the years and he did help us with the Toronto Street News sold by the homeless. So I have known Jack for many years and he was the only politician who ever wrote a book about the homeless situation.”

“I was deeply saddened when he confirmed the NDP government of Doer and their Throne Speech also confirmed the NAFTA highway was coming from Mexico to deliver exploited Mexican labour to Canada as well as Chinese goods.”

Indeed, the so-called NAFTA Superhighway, is an agenda of Big Business interests, that have sought to use the secretive arrangement of the SPP-NAU created by elites, to import slave labour from Mexico and goods created from the slave labour of Communist China.

In the view of Big Business NAFTA Superhighway backers, why should corporations move to Mexico and build new factories to employ cheap Mexican labour, when you can bring cheap Mexican labour into the U.S. and Canada through a NAFTA Superhighway corridor? Imagine cheap Mexican and other exploited labour being brought to work in existing manufacturing plants into Canadian cities like Winnipeg, Vancouver, Hamilton, and Toronto, where these Mexicans (and other exploited labour) would be paid the same wage as if they were still in Mexico, Communist China, India or a “Third World” country.

An integral part of the NAU agenda is to replace existing Canadian and U.S. immigration law, with edicts that have been secretly created by Big Business interests, and that can move cheap labour, like livestock, around North America, along a elite constructed Continental Highway and Inland Port System.

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