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John and Adam discuss the news of the day from an international perspective

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No Agenda Archive

Running time: approx. 90 mins.

Trade Wars Brewing in Economic Malaise – washingtonpost.com — You can’t have NAFTA and this sort of thing going on simultaneously. Make up your mind!

Is this what the first trade war of the global economic crisis looks like?

Ordered by Congress to “buy American” when spending money from the $787 billion stimulus package, the town of Peru, Ind., stunned its Canadian supplier by rejecting sewage pumps made outside of Toronto. After a Navy official spotted Canadian pipe fittings in a construction project at Camp Pendleton, Calif., they were hauled out of the ground and replaced with American versions. In recent weeks, other Canadian manufacturers doing business with U.S. state and local governments say they have been besieged with requests to sign affidavits pledging that they will only supply materials made in the USA.

Outrage spread in Canada, with the Toronto Star last week bemoaning “a plague of protectionist measures in the U.S.” and Canadian companies openly fretting about having to shift jobs to the United States to meet made-in-the-USA requirements. This week, the Canadians fired back. A number of Ontario towns, with a collective population of nearly 500,000, retaliated with measures effectively barring U.S. companies from their municipal contracts — the first shot in a larger campaign that could shut U.S. companies out of billions of dollars worth of Canadian projects.

Found by Aric Mackey.

This crawler is native to parts of Asia.

Highly destructive emerald ash borer discovered in St. Paul — 900 million trees in Minnesota alone are at risk thanks to the marvel called globalization. This is extremely serious. This beetle apparently got here via an infested shipping container.

For the first time, the emerald ash borer, a highly destructive tree pest, has been found in Minnesota.

The state Department of Agriculture announced today that a tree care company discovered the infestation in St. Paul on Wednesday.

An unknown number of infected trees are located in St. Paul just northeast of the intersection of Interstate 94 and Highway 280.

After receiving the tree company’s report and conducting an initial inspection, state agriculture officials submitted larvae from the infested trees to their federal counterparts. The U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed the infestation this morning.

The tiny metallic-green beetle could devastate millions of ash trees in adjoining areas of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa.

Minnesota has about 900 million ash trees,

related links:
History of the pest which first appeared in 2002
Another weird beetle devastating Colorado

The Dutch government is planning to spend €4m (£3.6m) to pay the salaries of 60 young journalists to work on otherwise commercially funded regional and national newspapers across the Netherlands.

On a visit to Amsterdam today, Dutch media minister Ronald Plasterk outlined his
scheme to fund two “government journalists” to work on each of the Netherlands’ 30 or so daily newspapers.

Plasterk’s move has echoes of French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s pledge to provide €600m (£565m) in emergency aid to his nation’s failing press industry and supply every 18-year-old with a year’s free subscription to the paper of their choice to boost reading habits.

Found by Adam Curry.

U.S. Probes Whether Afghan Forces Colluded With Taliban in Deadly Attack – FOXNews.com — Interesting report.

Afghanistan — A pre-dawn attack by the Taliban that killed three American soldiers and six other coalition troops earlier this month is raising new questions about many of the Afghan soldiers who were supposed to be fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with them.

Officials are investigating whether the Afghan troops may have colluded with the Taliban in the brazen assault on the remote coalition outpost along the mountainous Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Their findings could complicate further the already difficult challenges U.S. trainers are having with the Afghan Army.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today will propose selling San Quentin Prison, the Los Angeles Coliseum and other state-owned properties in a bid to raise cash to counter the state’s daunting budget shortfall.

He also wants to accelerate the sale of Agnews Developmental Center, the 81-acre facility on the north edge of San Jose that closed its doors in March after 120 years. The proposal to sell off state assets is part of the governor’s revised budget plan being released today. Besides the Coliseum and San Quentin, the properties he’s eyeing for sale are the Cow Palace in Daly City, the Orange County Fairgrounds, Cal Expo in Sacramento, Del Mar Fairground, and the Ventura County Fair.

The sale of those properties would generate upward of $600 million and possibly more than $1 billion for the state, according to a copy of Schwarzenegger’s proposal. But proceeds from those sales would not arrive for another two to five years. Selling the Agnews property would be done within two years.

With its stunning views of the San Francisco Bay, San Quentin has long been eyed for a more lucrative use. Sen. Jeff Denham, R-Modesto, has proposed selling both San Quentin and the Coliseum to generate badly needed revenues for the state. If voters reject a slate of ballot propositions in a special election Tuesday, as polls indicate they will, the state will face a deficit of $21.3 billion through mid-2010.

Are the tenants included in this deal? If not it should make a great resort hotel……or the Feds could buy it and make it into a Gitmo West facilty!