26/09/06, Dawn Walton, Alberta Mountie got off too lightly, judges rules

CALGARY -- A former Mountie who shot a prisoner to death was wrongly sentenced to two years under house arrest when he should have been sent to jail for twice as long, the Alberta Court of Appeal ruled yesterday.

It is the latest twist in a legal saga involving Mike Ferguson, a veteran Alberta RCMP officer. He was convicted in 2004 of manslaughter for killing Darren Varley, a 26-year-old truck driver who, in 1999, was in jail in Pincher Creek in southern Alberta after being picked up for public drunkenness.

"We're absolutely elated he's going to jail," said Connie Varley, Mr. Varley's sister-in-law.

Mr. Ferguson, 52, shot Mr. Varley twice -- first in the abdomen, then in the head -- during an altercation. He was tried three times for second-degree murder, but the first two trials ended with hung juries. The third jury returned with a guilty verdict on the lesser charge of manslaughter.

In December, 2004, Court of Queen's Bench Justice Ged Hawco ruled that incarceration would be "grossly disproportionate" to the crime. He granted a constitutional exemption to the mandatory minimum sentence of manslaughter with a firearm of four years in prison and ordered a conditional sentence of two years less a day.

"He erred in determining that the four-year mandatory sentence was cruel and unusual punishment for Ferguson's crime and that an individual constitutional exemption was available as a remedy," Madam Justice Adelle Fruman wrote for the majority of the three-judge appeal court.

But one appeal court judge disagreed, which Mr. Ferguson will likely present to the Supreme Court of Canada as a strong basis to hear an appeal, according to lawyer Don MacLeod, whose partner has been handling Mr. Ferguson's defence.

Mr. Ferguson, who had completed the original sentence, could not be reached yesterday at his home in Kamloops. He was making arrangements to turn himself in and will likely apply for bail pending appeal, Mr. MacLeod said.

Safia Ama Jan Bits & Pieces

26/09/2006, Kim Sengupta, The woman who defied the Taliban, and paid with her life, (Source).
26/09/2006, Afghana.org, Les femmes du sud afghan devront voter contre leurs peurs, (Source).
26/09/2006, Kansas City Star, Women’s affairs director slain in Kandahar attack, (Source).
26/09/2006, Noor Khan, Educator shot dead by militants in Kandahar, (Source).
25/09/2006, Aljazeera, Afghan woman activist shot dead, (Source).
25/09/2006, USA Today, Gunmen kill director of women's affairs in southern Afghanistan, (Source).
25/09/2006, Carlotta Gall, Gunmen Kill Afghan Women’s Advocate, (Source).
25/09/2006, BBC, Afghan women's official shot dead, (Source).
25/09/2006, Herald Tribune, Gunmen kill director of women's affairs for southern Afghanistan, (Source).
18/07/2005, Waheed, 23 Girls Graduate After 11 years, (Source).
05/07/2005, Saeed Zabuli, 23 girls complete school education after 11 years, (Source).
27/09/2004, Sabawoon, Southern Afghan women urged to vote despite threats, (Source).


26/09/06, Kim Sengupta, The woman who defied the Taliban, and paid with her life, (Back).

Women's rights campaigner in Afghanistan shot dead. One in two Afghan women a victim of violence. Suicide on the rise as Taliban's power increases.

Safia Amajan promoted women's education and work - a fairly ordinary job in most places - but in the Afghanistan of a resurgent Taliban it was a dangerous path to follow. She was a target, and yesterday she was gunned down outside her home.

Five years after the "liberation" of Afghanistan by the US and Britain, with promises of a new dawn for its downtrodden women, her murder was a bloody reminder of just how far the country is slipping back into a land of darkness.

Public figures, including the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, lined up to praise Ms Amajan.

Yet this support was signally lacking while she lived. The former teacher worked in Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban, and also the place where women have faced the most virulent discrimination and mistreatment. It is also where Nato forces are fighting a ferocious insurgency. Ms Amajan had asked for, and been refused, a protective vehicle, or bodyguards, despite repeated death threats.

She was in a battered taxi when two gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire with automatic rifles. Her nephew, Farhad Jan, said: "She died on the spot. There was no time to give her treatment." In a place of fear where one can sign one's death warrant with the wrong choice of words, Farhad was careful not to blame anyone for the killing. All he would say was: "We had no personal enmity with anyone."

A Taliban commander, Mullah Hayat Khan, declared that Ms Amajan had been "executed". He said: "We have told people again and again that anyone working for the government, and that includes women, will be killed."

Ms Amajan had taken over the post of women's welfare officer soon after Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, fled with the fall of his regime. With the return of the Taliban, as the "war on terror" moved on to Iraq, aid workers - foreign and Afghan, men and women - were intimidated into leaving the region.

Ms Amajan was one of the few who refused to flee. Her secretary, Abdullah Khan, said: "She was very brave. She was also very hard-working. She was always trying her best to improve education for women."

As well as defying the Taliban, Ms Amajan made the mistake of being successful in what she was doing. In Kandahar alone she had opened six schools where a thousand women had learnt how to make and then sell their goods at the market. She was also instrumental in setting up tailoring schools for women, with some of the products making their way to markets in the West.

At the official end of the Afghan war, America's first lady, Laura Bush, was among those who declared that one of the most important achievements of overthrowing the Taliban was emancipation of women. However, since then female social workers and teachers have been maimed and killed, girls' schools shut down and female workers forced to give up their jobs. The few women out in the streets in Kandahar and other places in the south are covered in burqas. A report by the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission spoke of the "systematic and violent campaign" directed against women.

Statistics paint a bleak picture of women's lives with 35 female suicides in Kandahar alone and nearly 200 attempted suicides in the Herat region - one third of which were successful. Rights groups estimate that between 60 and 80 per cent of marriages in the country are forced. And the majority of those marriages involve girls under the age of 16.

Ms Amajan's funeral yesterday, in a Shia ceremony, was attended by the provincial governor and hundreds of mourners, including tribal elders. In Kabul, President Karzai said: "The enemies of Afghanistan are trying to kill those people who are working for the peace and prosperity of Afghanistan. The enemies of Afghanistan must understand that we have millions of people like Amajan."

Fariba Ahmedi, a female member of parliament, who attended the burial, said: "Those enemies who have killed her should know it will not derail women from the path we are on. We will continue on our way."

Human rights groups point out, however, that the battle for women's rights is in serious danger of being lost. There are now entire provinces where there is no girls' education; of the 300 schools shut or burnt down, the majority were for girls. The death rate at childbirth is the second highest in the world, and the number of women who have committed suicide, mainly through self-immolation, has risen by 30 per cent in two years.

Life gets worse for Afghan women

Violence

* 50 per cent of Afghan women say they have been beaten, while 200 women in Kandahar ran away from domestic violence this year.

* In the past year, 150 cases of women resorting to self-immolation have been reported in western Afghanistan, 34 cases in the south-east.

* 197 women in Herat were reported to have attempted suicide last year, 69 successfully.

* 57 per cent of girls are married before the legal age of 16.

Education

* 85 per cent of women in Afghanistan are illiterate.

* The number of girls going to school in Afghanistan is half that of boys.

* 300 schools were set on fire across the country this year.

Health

* 70 per cent of tuberculosis deaths are among women.

* Death rate of mothers in labour is 60 in 1000 - (60 per cent higher than developed world).

* Only 5-7 per cent of women in Zabul and Helmand province have access to health care.

Voting

* 41 per cent of the 10.5 million registered voters are women. Women's registration rates in southern provinces were much lower than the national average: Zabul (9 per cent), Uruzgan (10 per cent) Helmand (16 per cent), and Kandahar (27 per cent)

Source: AIHRC, UNICEF, HRW


26/09/06, Afghana.org, Les femmes du sud afghan devront voter contre leurs peurs, (Back).

KANDAHAR (Afghanistan), 26 sept (AFP)
Les femmes du sud afghan devront voter contre leurs peurs

Les éducatrices de la commission électorale de Kandahar (sud de l'Afghanistan) sont obstinées: chaque jour, elles sillonnent la ville, bravant les menaces, pour convaincre les femmes de voter contre leurs peurs et leurs blocages.

"Ne passez pas à côté de cette chance. Nous sommes indépendantes, nous sommes des êtres humains, nous avons des droits, il y a une élection et c'est aussi à nous de décider qui sera le président": Shukria, 34 ans, s'adresse à un petit auditoire de boulangères mais semble haranguer une foule, tant sa conviction est forte.

Ses interlocutrices l'écoutent en se cachant derrière leur voile, car un homme s'est glissé dans la cour où elles sont réunies, à proximité du four à pain.

"Que se passe-t-il si l'on met des croix pour deux ou trois candidats ?", demande l'une. "Est-ce qu'une femme peut prendre plusieurs cartes (électorales) et voter pour les autres ?", interroge une autre.

Munie d'un bulletin de vote, Shukria explique patiemment.

Elle poursuit: "Si vous avez peur pour votre sécurité, sachez que le scrutin sera sûr. Le reste c'est de la propagande. N'ayez pas peur. Au nom de Dieu, c'est une chance en or, nous n'avons plus un régime taliban sous lequel vous ne pouviez même pas sortir en cas de maladie !"

C'est, ce matin-là, la principale question des futures électrices, attentives aux menaces de violence autour de la présidentielle du 9 octobre.

"Nous avons de grandes inquiétudes pour notre sûreté", avance l'une. "Nous sommes satisfaites par Karzaï: depuis qu'il est au pouvoir, les femmes peuvent travailler, se rendre à l'école... mais la sécurité, les attentats suicides nous inquiètent", explique une deuxième.

Certaines de ces femmes ont déjà fait un grand pas en allant chercher leur carte d'électrice, indispensable pour participer au vote.

Car, contrairement aux statistiques nationales (41,5% des détenteurs de cartes sont des femmes), les femmes pachtounes du sud ont souvent évité les centres d'enregistrement.

Dans les cinq provinces du sud afghan, dont Kandahar, à la mi-août, cinq jours avant la clôture du recensement, 1,2 million de cartes ont été distribuées, dont environ 230.OOO à des femmes, soit 20% des électeurs.

Pourtant, dans ce pays déchiré par les guerres, où les veuves sont nombreuses, les femmes sont largement majoritaires.

"Il y a eu 25 ans de conflits. Aussi bien les femmes que les hommes manquent d'éducation. Ils n'ont vu que des tueries, des obus, des mitraillettes, nous avons besoin de temps pour reconstruire leurs têtes", concède la représentante des femmes de Kandahar, Safia Amajan.

Selon elle, c'est paradoxalement les femmes aisées qui avanceront le plus lentement et n'iront pas voter. Les époux qui n'ont pas besoin d'un salaire d'appoint sont plus enclins à les enfermer, dit-elle: "Certains ne laissent même pas leurs femmes sortir au pas de la porte".

"Celles qui doivent travailler à l'extérieur sont celles qui se sont fait recenser", poursuit-elle.

Ainsi, sur quatre femmes d'une famille moyenne de la ville interrogées par l'AFP, aucune n'ira voter: l'une parce que son mari lui interdit de sortir, deux autres parce que leur mère ne veut pas les voir voter, et cette dernière car elle est opposée au scrutin.

Une autre fracture, plus évidente, est manifeste entre citadines et campagnardes, explique pour sa part Fatima Jailani, qui supervise l'éducation civique des femmes de Kandahar.

Dans le village de Loya Wala, aux portes de Kandahar, "il y a trois mois, une femme s'est vu remettre une carte d'électrice. Quand son mari est rentré, elle lui a montré. Il l'a battue et l'a renvoyée chez sa mère, avec leurs deux enfants", déplore-t-elle.

La peur gagne les Afghanes qui se risquent à travailler avec les étrangers

AFP - Samedi 25 septembre 2004
Faizabad - Elles étaient agent électoral ou médecin et travaillaient avec des organisations étrangères à Faizabad, mais depuis les émeutes de début septembre qui ont frappé cette ville de l'extrême-nord afghan d'habitude épargnée par les violences, la peur a gagné.
"Avant, je rendais souvent visite à Médecins sans Frontière, l'Unicef ou l'Organisation mondiale de la Santé, mais maintenant je ne peux plus, j'ai trop peur", explique à l'AFP la doctoresse Hajira Zia, chef du département de gynécologie et d'obstétrique de l'hôpital de Faizabad, à 500 km au nord-est de Kaboul.

Travaillant avec l'Onu aux opérations d'enregistrement des électeurs en vue de l'élection présidentielle du 9 octobre, la jeune Ghul Jan Harimya n'ose plus monter dans un véhicule frappé du logo bleu des Nations unies.

Il y a un mois, Faizabad, capitale de la province de Badakhshan, était réputée comme le "lieu le plus sûr d'Afghanistan" pour les organisations internationales.

Mais le 7 septembre, une rumeur de viols de quatre Afghanes dans une ONG a jeté la population dans la rue à l'assaut des organisations humanitaires employant des Afghanes.

Les locaux de Focus for Humanitarian Assistance, une ONG du réseau de l'Aga Khan, très actif dans le nord de l'Afghanistan, et l'organisation suisse Medair étaient attaqués et brûlés et une dizaine de leurs employés blessés.

"Les gens disaient +Nous sommes musulmans et pourquoi des étrangers viennent-ils violer nos femmes+", se souvient le chef de la police locale Ghulam Buharrudin Bahu.

Réalité ou rumeur, les habitants de Faizabad ont jugé que l'honneur de leurs femmes avait été touché et sont bien décidés à ce que cela ne se reproduise plus.

"Les gens m'insultent quand je pars travailler", explique à l'AFP Ghul Jan Harimya, qui préfère désormais marcher que prendre les véhicules de l'Onu.

Les leaders tribaux de Faizabad et des environs ont écrit aux autorités locales pour leur demander d'interdire le travail des Afghanes dans des organisations étrangères.

"Ils me demandent pourquoi faut-il que des femmes travaillent pour des étrangers alors qu'il y a de jeunes hommes intelligents qui parlent anglais", explique le chef de la police.

"L'Afghanistan est un pays où les gens n'aiment pas voir leurs femmes ou leurs filles travailler à l'extérieur. Nous essayons de leur parler des droits des femmes, mais la population n'a pas envie de les voir travailler pour des étrangers", poursuit le chef de la police.

L'exemple de Faizabad a fait tache d'huile dans d'autres régions.

"Il y a une montée de l'hostilité et des questions se posent dans d'autres provinces. On voit apparaître des tracts menaçants", note Nick Downie, de l'organisation Anso qui travaille sur les problèmes de sécurité pour les milliers d'ONG travaillant en Afghanistan.

D'autres Afghans ont appris plus de pragmatisme après des années de violence. A Baharak, un autre district du Badakhshan, Fausia, une mère de famille dans la quarantaine, reste désormais à la maison après avoir travaillé sur des projets de développement agricole.

"C'est dur de rester à la maison quand on a pris l'habitude de travailler", confie-t-elle. Mais, avec le soutien de son mari Ata Bhouri, elle est bien décidée à reprendre son travail lorsque l'orage sera passé.

"Pendant des années, les talibans ont empêché les femmes de travailler. On a attendu, puis elles ont repris le travail. Alors cette fois-ci, on va encore attendre quelques semaines, et puis les femmes retourneront travailler", explique le mari de Fausia.


27/09/2004, Sabawoon, Southern Afghan women urged to vote despite threats, (Back).

KANDAHAR - Female election commission educators in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar are persistent and brave, ignoring threats each day they criss-cross the city to convince women to vote.

"Don't miss this chance. We are independent, we are human beings, we have rights. There is an election and it is up to us to decide who should be president," Shukria, 34, tells a small audience of women bakers in this former stronghold of the Islamist Taliban regime.

They listen from behind their veils because a man has slipped into the courtyard where they have gathered near the bread oven.

"What happens if you put crosses for two or three candidates?" asks one of the women.

"Can one woman take several (voting) cards and vote for the others?" asks another.

Holding a ballot paper, Shukria patiently explains the voting system for the historic October 9 election in which President Hamid Karzai and 17 others are contesting the presidency.

This morning, the main question concerns threats of violence around the polls which Taliban militants have pledged to disrupt.

"We have great concerns about our security," says one woman. "We have small children, we are scared for them."

"We are happy with Karzai. Since he came to power women can work, go to school, but we are concerned about security and suicide attacks," explains another.

"If you are scared about security, we have security. It is just propaganda. Don't be afraid. Please, for God's sake, this is a golden chance. It is not a Taliban government where you could not go out even if you were sick," Shukria says.

Some of the women have already taken the major step of getting a voter registration card to take part in the election.

But contrary to national statistics which show 42 percent of registered voters are women, the Pashtun women of the south have often avoided the registration centres.

In the five southern provinces including Kandahar by mid-August, five days before registration ended, 1.2 million cards had been distributed with just 230,000, or 20 percent, going to women.

However, decades of conflict have left many widows, and women make up the majority of the population.

"This country has had two-and-a-half decades during which both males and females have been left uneducated. You cannot change their minds overnight," says Safia Amajan, a women's representative in Kandahar.

"They have not seen anything else but killing of people and mortars ... and machine-guns ... we need some time to reconstruct their minds."

Paradoxically, according to her, the better-off women are the ones who are least likely to vote.

"Those who have to work outside are the ones to register. Some people don't even like their wives to go outside," she says.

Of four average family women questioned by AFP in Kandahar who said they wouldn't vote, one said her husband prohibits her from leaving the house, two others because their mother does not want them to vote and the fourth said she was against the election.

Another, more obvious, division is displayed between urban and rural residents, explains Fatima Jailani, who supervises the civic education of the women of Kandahar.

In the village of Loya Wala, near Kandahar, "Three months ago, a woman was given a (registration) card.

"Her husband came home and she showed the card. She was beaten and sent back to her mother's house with the two children," she says.


26/09/06, Kansas City Star, Women’s affairs director slain in Kandahar attack, (Back).

Even under the Taliban, Safia Ahmed-jan ran schools to help the women in Afghanistan, from the Chicago Tribune.

KABUL, Afghanistan: The provincial head of the Women’s Affairs Ministry in Kandahar was gunned down in front of her house Monday morning as she was leaving for work.

Safia Ahmed-jan, who was known as Ama Jan or “dear aunt” by many in Kandahar, was the first female official killed by Taliban-led insurgents since the fall of the regime in late 2001.

Gunmen riding motorcycles shot her four times — once in the head — said Mohammad Nader, the head nurse at Kandahar’s main hospital. No one was arrested.

“The enemies of Afghanistan did this, the ones who do not want peace in Afghanistan,” said Zemeri Bashary, spokesman for the Interior Ministry. “They don’t even hesitate to kill women.”

Ahmed-jan, who was said to be in her 60s, ran vocational schools for women. Her son, Naqibullah, said she taught girls at an underground school she ran out of their home during the Taliban’s ultraconservative rule from 1996-2001.

Naqibullah, who goes by only one name, said his mother had not received any threats on her life, as far as he knew, but that he and his father tried to get her to quit her work because of the deteriorating security situation.

“She said, ‘It’s my country, I won’t quit my job. I want to do this work for our women, for our country. I want women to be able to work just like men,’ ” Naqibullah recalled.

In Kandahar alone, Ahmed-jan had opened six schools where almost 1,000 women learned how to bake and sell their goods at market. She also taught women how to use computers.

Ahmed-Jan’s husband was paralyzed, and she needed to work.

In her spare time, she read the Qur’an at a funeral home for women to earn extra money, said Daud Ahmadi, the spokesman for the Kandahar governor.


26/09/06, Noor Khan, Educator shot dead by militants in Kandahar, (Back).

Taliban takes credit for gunning down popular Afghan women's-rights activist, from Associated Press.

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN -- Gunmen on a motorbike have killed an Afghan women's-rights activist who ran an underground school for girls during the Taliban's rule, the latest victim of an increasingly brazen militant campaign against government officials and schools.

Safia Ama Jan, a provincial director for the Ministry of Women's Affairs, was slain outside her home in Kandahar yesterday while on her way to work, said Tawfiq ul-Ulhakim Parant, senior adviser to the ministry in Kabul.

"The enemy of Afghanistan killed her, but they should know it will not derail women from the path we are on. We will continue on our way," said Fariba Ahmedi, a female member of parliament from Kandahar who joined hundreds of men and women, including the provincial governor, for the funeral yesterday evening at a packed Shia mosque.

The two attackers fled after the shooting. Mullah Sadullah, a regional Taliban commander, claimed responsibility for the killing in a telephone call to Associated Press, but the claim could not be verified.

A teacher for more than three decades, Ms. Ama Jan was known for being an active proponent of women's rights in this former Taliban stronghold. Although she was a women's activist, she always wore a burqa and was shot dead while wearing the traditional Islamic garment, her son said.

Her death comes at a time of rising Taliban violence against civilian targets. This month, a suicide bomber assassinated a provincial governor who was a close associate of President Hamid Karzai, and militants killed 19 construction workers riding on a bus in Kandahar province last week.

Last year, militants burned down or attacked 146 schools, and have already topped that this year with 158 hits, said Zuhoor Afghan, the top adviser to Afghanistan's Education Minister.

The school attacks appear motivated partly by Taliban opposition to education for girls -- they say it is against Islam -- but also as a strategy to undermine the already feeble reach of Mr. Karzai's U.S.-backed government. The government has tried, with mixed success, to promote women's rights enshrined under Afghanistan's post-Taliban constitution.

Mr. Karzai said he was deeply saddened by her death.

"The enemies of Afghanistan are trying to kill those people who are working for the peace and prosperity of Afghanistan," the President said in a statement. "The enemies of Afghanistan must understand that we have millions of people like [Ms. Ama Jan] who will continue to serve this great nation."

Ms. Ama Jan, who was reportedly in her 60s, ran vocational schools for women. Her son Naqibullah said she taught girls at an underground school she ran out of their home during the Taliban's ultraconservative rule from 1996 to 2001.

Naqibullah, who goes by only one name, said he had not known of any threats against his mother's life. But he said he and his father tried to get her to quit her work because of the deteriorating security situation.

"She said, 'It's my country; I won't quit my job. I want to do this work for our women, for our country. I want women to be able to work just like men,' " he recalled.

One of Ms. Ama Jan's most successful projects was running schools for women, her secretary Abdullah Khan said.

In Kandahar alone, Ms. Ama Jan had opened six schools where almost 1,000 women learned how to bake and sell their goods at market. She also taught women how to use computers.


18/07/2005, Waheed, 23 Girls Graduate After 11 years, (Back).

After 11 long years, the first group of 23 girls completed their high school education in the southern province of Kandahar last week. These 23 girls graduated from Zarghona High School in Kandahar City, a former stronghold of the Taliban who had banned female education in Afghanistan

These are the first girls to graduate Khandahar City, because during the civil war and Mujahideen government the girls school was closed, due to the unstable security situation in the Region. Safi Ama Jan, head of the Women Affairs Department, said this graduation of the girls was a great success, and is a new beginning for girls education after years of war and violence. She also said that she was very glad because these (female) graduates were now in a postition to apply for government jobs; and also able to pursue higher education at university level. Female education is still a problem in the conservative south.

Families have stated many reasons why their daughters cannot attend school. There are still no schools for girls in some districts, and is very difficult and expensive to transport their daughters from outlaying villages into cities. In other provinces such as Herat and Mazer-e-Sharif hundreds of girls attend school and graduate every year. In the capital city of Kabul thousands of girls attend school and graduate every year. In Kabul there are many schools for girls, and the bussing transportation for students is very good.

We hope that the govenment will build more schools in rural areas of Afghanistan so that a larger part of the population will have access to schools and education. The main key to our advancement as a country is to educate our people as much as possible.


25/09/2006, USA Today, Gunmen kill director of women's affairs in southern Afghanistan, (Back).

[photo AFP/Getty Images, Safia Ahmed-jan is shown last July during an official visit to Japan.]

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Two gunmen on a motorbike killed the provincial director of Afghanistan's Ministry of Women's Affairs outside her home Monday in apparent retribution for her efforts to help educate women, officials said.
Safia Ama Jan was slain outside the front gate of her Kandahar home as she was walking to her office, said Tawfiq ul-Ulhakim Parant, senior adviser to the women's ministry in Kabul.

Ama Jan was known for being an active proponent of women's rights and education in this former Taliban stronghold, a region where insurgents have turned increasingly violent in the last several months.

President Hamid Karzai said he was deeply saddened by her death.

"The enemies of Afghanistan are trying to kill those people who are working for the peace and prosperity of Afghanistan," Karzai said in a statement. "The enemies of Afghanistan must understand that we have millions of people like (Ama Jan) who will continue to serve this great nation."

Hundreds of mourners — including the provincial governor and tribal leaders — attended her funeral Monday evening at a packed Shiite mosque in Kandahar.

"The enemy of Afghanistan killed her, but they should know it will not derail women from the path we are on. We will continue on our way," said Fariba Ahmedi, a female member of parliament from Kandahar who attended.

Mullah Sadullah, a regional Taliban commander, claimed responsibility for the attack in a telephone call to The Associated Press. It was impossible to verify the claim.

One of Ama Jan's most successful projects was running vocational schools for women, said her secretary, Abdullah Khan. "She was always trying her best to improve education for women," Khan said.

In Kandahar alone, Ama Jan had opened six schools where almost 1,000 women learned how to bake and sell their goods at market. She had also opened tailoring schools for women, and clothes made there found their way to Western markets, Khan said.

During the Taliban's rule, Ama Jan, a former teacher, ran an underground school for girls out of her home, said Mohammed Asif, her nephew.

Taliban holdouts have launched an increasing number of attacks this year, particularly in the south, where dozens of schools have been destroyed. The fighters are also increasingly targeting civilians and government officials with suicide and roadside bombs.

The Taliban, which was ousted from power after a U.S.-led invasion in 2001, follows an ultraconservative ideology. When the regime ran the country, women were banned from schools and jobs and couldn't leave their homes without a male escort.

Aleem Sidique, spokesman for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, said the U.N. was "appalled at this senseless murder."

"What we need to see in Afghanistan is peace, development and progress," Sidique said. "We share the sentiment of the majority of Afghan people who are appalled at this killing."

In other violence, a police vehicle hit a roadside bomb Monday in eastern Afghanistan near the border between Khost and Paktia provinces, killing two police officers and wounding eight, said Khalil Amin Zada, commander of border police in Khost province.

A suicide bomber on foot targeted an Afghan army vehicle patrol in the same province, slightly wounding an American soldier who was training Afghan troops, said Lt. Col. Paul Fitzpatrick, a U.S. military spokesman.

The soldier received minor burns to his face and shoulder, while the bomber died in the blast, Fitzpatrick said.

U.S. forces killed 10 suspected Taliban insurgents in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, the U.S. military said. Troops backed by attack helicopters clashed with some 15 suspected insurgents in the Sharan district of Paktika province, the statement said. Ten suspected insurgents were believed killed while five fled, it said.

Two militants were killed just outside Khost city when a bomb they were carrying exploded prematurely in their car, said Gen. Mohammed Ayub, the provincial police chief. The two were planning to carry out a bombing in the town, he said. There were no other casualties.

Some 20 militants attacked the house of a district chief in neighboring Paktika province late Sunday, killing him, said Sayed Jamal, a spokesman for the provincial governor.

Authorities launched a search Monday for the perpetrators, recovering the district chief's vehicle and detaining nine people for questioning, Jamal said.

Suspected Taliban militants, meanwhile, attacked and destroyed a medical clinic in Yaqoubi district of the eastern Khost province Sunday, Ayub said.


25/09/2006, Carlotta Gall, Gunmen Kill Afghan Women’s Advocate, (Back).

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Sept. 25 — A senior Afghan official specializing in women’s rights was gunned down here on her way to work Monday morning by suspected Taliban gunmen. It was the highest-level assassination of a woman in Afghanistan in the five years since the Taliban were ousted from power.

Safia Amajan, 65, had served as chief of the Woman’s Affairs department in Kandahar for five years, working to improve women’s rights and opportunities for education and vocational training. A former teacher and high school principal, she was well known and much liked in Kandahar.

“It is a very tragic loss,” said Sonja Bachmann, a United Nations political officer who knew Ms. Amajan well. “She did a good job, she worked in a very low-key way and worked hard to raise awareness about women’s issues.”

A spokesman claiming to speak for the Taliban took responsibility for the killing in a telephone call, Reuters reported.

Hundreds of women gathered at the main Shiite mosque in the town, where her body lay wrapped in a white shroud decorated with golden Koranic script, to mourn her loss. “There is no security for anyone now in Kandahar,” one woman said, sobbing through her veil.

Ms. Amajan was shot as she was walking from her house up a narrow street to the main road shortly after 7 a.m. local time, shopkeepers along the road said. A gunman shot her four times with a pistol, said Muhammad Haidar, an official who worked in her office.

Her nephew, Muhammad Asif, 45, said no one reported seeing the gunmen. “A carpenter was close to the scene and heard the shots and he called people,” he said. Her husband also heard the shooting and came out of their house and found her lying in the street, Mr. Asif said.

The police were looking for two men, who escaped by motorcycle, said the provincial governor, Asadullah Khaled, who went to the crime scene himself. The police found tracks of the motorcycle driving away from the scene, he said.

Ms. Amajan preferred to take a taxi or public transport so as not to draw attention to herself, even though her office had cars and drivers, her nephew said. “She wanted to keep a low profile,” he said. “We wanted her to come and live with us in town, but she used to say, ‘If it’s God’s will, they will take me anywhere.’”

She had not received threats, Mr. Haidar said. but everyone in the office knew there was a threat from the Taliban, who have in the past attacked teachers and government officials. In another recent high-level assassination, a suicide bomber killed the governor of Paktia Province.

But to gun down a woman in the street, in this strictly conservative tribal society, is very rare and shocking to many people, and it has reinforced the fear in this southern city that was once the Taliban’s spiritual headquarters at the continuing violence and growing Taliban threats. A United Nations official noted that five people had been kidnapped in the city on Sunday.

“People are scared, of course,” said Mr. Haidar. “How can we fell secure when the head of our department is killed in front of her house?”

Ms. Amajan’s relatives and employees ruled out any personal enmity as a motive, saying that she was a religious woman, the mother of an 18-year-old son and a person of unimpeachable character.

“She was a poor woman, from a poor background and was very well connected to the local women’s networks in Kandahar,” Ms. Bachmann said. “In the south things are very difficult and she worked to improve things for women — and she worked very well with us in the United Nations.”

President Hamid Karzai, on a visit to the United States, condemned the killing. “The enemies of Afghanistan are trying to kill those people who are working for the peace and prosperity of Afghanistan,” he said in a statement released in Kabul.


25/09/2006, BBC, Afghan women's official shot dead, (Back).

Ms Amajan had been a fierce critic of the Taleban
A leading Afghan official working on women's rights has been shot dead in the southern province of Kandahar.
Safia Amajan, head of the province's women's department, was leaving her home for work when a gunman on a motorcycle opened fire, police said.

She may have been targeted by Taleban militants because of their opposition to women taking part in politics and education, the BBC's Dan Isaacs says.

Hundreds have died in clashes between troops and Taleban fighters this year.

Nato-led forces have been battling a resurgent Taleban militia, with some of the fiercest fighting taking place in the south of the country.

Taleban critic

Nobody has claimed responsibility for the attack on Safia Amajan.

She had served as head of women's affairs in Kandahar's provincial government since the Taleban government was toppled by US-led forces in 2001.

An eloquent public speaker, Safia Amajan was fierce in her criticism of what she saw as the Taleban's repression of women.

After the US-led invasion in 2001, the former teacher took charge of women's affairs in Kandahar's provincial government.

In a conservative region where most families keep wives and daughters cloistered indoors, she was able to attract hundreds of women to schools and vocational courses.

Her requests for secure official transport and personal bodyguards had not been granted by the government.

At the time of the attack, she was travelling in a taxi.

A spokesman for the UN agency overseeing development in Afghanistan condemned the "senseless murder of a woman who was simply working to ensure that all Afghan women play a full and equal part in the future of Afghanistan".

Earlier this month, a suicide bomber killed the governor of eastern Afghanistan's Paktia province - the highest-ranking official to die in the insurgency.

Abdul Hakim Taniwal was attacked outside his office. The Taleban said it carried out the attack.


25/09/2006, Herald Tribune, Gunmen kill director of women's affairs for southern Afghanistan, (Back).

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan Two gunmen on a motorbike killed the southern provincial head of Afghanistan's Ministry of Women's Affairs outside her home Monday in apparent retribution for her efforts to help educate women, officials said.

Safia Ama Jan was slain outside the front gate of her home in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar as she was walking to her office, said Tawfiq ul-Ulhakim Parant, senior adviser to the women's ministry in Kabul.

Ama Jan was known for being an active proponent of women's rights and education in this former Taliban stronghold, a region where insurgents have turned increasingly violent over the last several months.

President Hamid Karzai said he was deeply saddened by her death.

"The enemies of Afghanistan are trying to kill those people who are working for the peace and prosperity of Afghanistan," Karzai said in a statement. "The enemies of Afghanistan must understand that we have millions of people like (Ama Jan) who will continue to serve this great nation."

Hundreds of mourners — including the provincial governor and tribal leaders — attended her funeral Monday evening at a packed Shiite mosque in Kandahar.

"The enemy of Afghanistan killed her, but they should know it will not derail women from the path we are on. We will continue on our way," said Fariba Ahmedi, a female member of parliament from Kandahar who attended the ceremony.

Mullah Sadullah, a regional Taliban commander, claimed responsibility for the attack in a telephone call to The Associated Press. It was impossible to verify the claim.

One of Ama Jan's most successful projects was running vocational schools for women, her secretary Abdullah Khan said. "She was always trying her best to improve education for women," Khan said.

In Kandahar alone, Ama Jan had opened six schools where almost 1,000 women learned how to bake and sell their goods at market. She had also opened tailoring schools for women, and clothes made there found their way to Western markets, Khan said.

During the Taliban's rule, Ama Jan, a former teacher, ran an underground school for girls out of her home, said Mohammed Asif, her nephew.

Taliban holdouts have launched an increasing number of attacks this year, particularly in the country's south, where dozens of schools have been destroyed. The fighters are also increasingly targeting civilians and government officials with suicide and roadside bombs.

The Taliban, which was ousted from power after a U.S.-led invasion in 2001, follows an ultraconservative ideology. When the regime ran the country, women were banned from schools and jobs and couldn't leave their homes without a male escort.

Aleem Sidique, spokesman for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, said the U.N. was "appalled at this senseless murder."

"What we need to see in Afghanistan is peace, development and progress," Sidique said. "We share the sentiment of the majority of Afghan people who are appalled at this killing."

In other violence, a police vehicle hit a roadside bomb Monday in eastern Afghanistan near the border between Khost and Paktia provinces, killing two police officers and wounding eight, said Khalil Amin Zada, commander of border police in Khost province.

A suicide bomber on foot targeted an Afghan National army vehicle patrol in the same province, slightly wounding an American soldier who was training Afghan troops, said Lt. Col. Paul Fitzpatrick, a U.S. military spokesman.

The soldier received minor burns to his face and shoulder while the bomber died in the blast, Fitzpatrick said.

U.S. forces killed 10 suspected Taliban insurgents in eastern Afghanistan Monday, the U.S. military said. Troops backed by attack helicopters clashed with some 15 suspected insurgents in Sharan district of Paktika province, the statement said. Ten suspected insurgents were believed killed while five fled, it said.

Two militants were killed just outside Khost city when a bomb they were carrying exploded prematurely in their car, said Gen. Mohammed Ayub, the provincial police chief. The two were planning to carry out a bombing in the town, he said. There were no other casualties.

Some 20 militants attacked the house of a district chief in neighboring Paktika province late Sunday, killing him, said Sayed Jamal, spokesman for the provincial governor.

Authorities launched a search for the perpetrators Monday, recovering the district chief's vehicle and detaining nine people for questioning, Jamal said.

Suspected Taliban militants, meanwhile, attacked and destroyed a medical clinic in Yaqoubi district of the eastern Khost province on Sunday, Ayub said.


05/07/2005, Saeed Zabuli, 23 girls complete school education after 11 years, (Back).

KANDAHAR, July 5 (Pajhwok Afghan News): After a lapse of more than a decade, the first batch of 23 girls Tuesday completed their high school education in the southern Kandahar province, a former stronghold of Taliban who had banned female literacy in Afghanistan.

Kandahar Education Department chief Hayatullah Rafiqi told Pajhwok Afghan News after the passage of 11 long years, the girls graduated from the Zarghona Ana High School in Kandahar City. He appeared upbeat about the event seen as a watershed in female education.

Girls were barred from going to school during the Taliban rule, with Kandahar serving as their bastion. And during the civil war and the mujahideen government, girl schools remained closed owing to an instable security situation.

Head of Women Affairs Department Safi Ama Jan described the success of the school's outgoing girls as a new beginning after a crippling war and subsequent bouts of violence.

She was glad that the girl students were now in a position to apply for government jobs or pursue higher education at the university level. She viewed it as big stride because female education is still in a phase of infancy in the conservative south.


25/09/06, Aljazeera, Afghan woman activist shot dead, (Back).

A resurgent Taliban have claimed a number of recent attacks

A senior Afghan women's affairs official has been shot dead in an attack in Kandahar that was claimed by the Taliban.

Safia Ana Jan, head of the women's affairs department in the province of Kandahar, was killed by armed men on motorbikes as she got into her car outside her home on Monday, her nephew said.

A Taliban commander, Mullah Hayat Khan, said Ama Jan was killed because she worked for the government.

"We have told people time and time again that anyone working for the government - including women - will be killed," Khan said by telephone from an undisclosed location.

Ama Jan had served as the head of the province's women's affairs department since 2002, and was well known as a teacher and women's rights activist.

Witness account

A witness to the murder said he had seen the two men on motorbikes position themselves on the road and wait for her.

"After she arrived, they attacked," said the man, who gave his name as Allaudin.

The shooting seemed to go on for about three minutes, he said.

The car was marked with bullet holes from both sides and its windows were shattered.

An Afghan security official said no arrests had been made and an investigation had been started.

Condemnation

The UN condemned the killing. Aleem Siddique, a spokesman for the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, said: "Unama is appalled by this senseless murder of a woman who was simply working to ensure that all Afghan women play a full and equal part in the future of Afghanistan."

Also on Monday, police in the eastern town of Khost said two apparent suicide bombers had been killed in a blast.

Residents said a US military convoy had been attacked, but there was no word on casualties among the troops.

(Back)

24/09/06, Ivan Morgan, Rant & Reason, The flaw in our collective psyche

A nation defines itself — at least in part — through its collective history. The Japanese, for example, don’t teach their children much about the more unpleasant aspects of Japanese actions in the Second World War. Nations such as Germany wrestle with how to account for the Holocaust.

In Spain, a new generation of young people are trying to learn the truth about the Spanish Civil War. Seventy years later, young Spaniards are facing conflict with the oldest of Spain’s citizens, who have lived for decades with unspoken truths of neighbours killing neighbours. In Rwanda, the memories of atrocities are still fresh — one wonders how Rwandans will ever be able to face each other.

Luckily in our little neck of the woods we don’t have such great scars in our history. The treatment Beothuks received at the hands of the earliest settlers is not our proudest moment, but we know of it, we teach it to our young people, and it is discussed and debated.

Yet many Newfoundlanders and Labradorians have a collective trait that I have always thought odd. I refer to theretro self-loathing so many of our fellow citizens indulge in. What is it about our collective psyche that so many of us feel the need to blame ourselves for our troubles?

I went to school in Ontario for five years, where I studied Ontario history. While boring, it was presented in history books as a logical progression of hardworking, thrifty and sensible people, deserving in their rise to great prosperity. They love themselves and it
showed.

People from Ontario I knew spoke of their politics and history with pride and, when they talked to me, with a certain condescension. We were taught Newfoundlanders and Labradorians were “brought into” Confederation “for their own good.” I can still recall not just the words, but the tone, of my Grade 10 geography teacher, who wasnot very good at, or interested in, geography.

I remember sitting in class simmering with resentment as he made the other students snicker at the pathetic shape Newfoundland was in when we (meaning they) “let us” join. I didn’t speak up because I knew he was right. That was how I thought.

That weird collective self-loathing — which I have long since cured myself of — still rears its head in Newfoundland politics. You don’t have to go too far when talking about
Newfoundland’s past, as we have been doing lately about the Terms of Union, before you get a lecture on how pathetic, desperate and miserable we were, and how lucky we were to join Confederation.

It’s like a real life version of Monty Python’s Four Yorkshiremen sketch, where four cigar smoking men sit around in tuxedos sipping brandy and trying to out-do each other’s tales of hardship growing up.

How bad was it?

The Great Depression was bad for almost everyone — there was global misery and suffering. It left a scar on the conscience of many cultures, but —and this is only my impression — Newfoundlanders seem more inclined to tie all the woes of the province to that collective memory.

We joined Canada because … Yes, we sold out to Confederation, but we had to because … Sure Joey was a crook, but he brought us … We have all heard excuses for our province’s condition that start like this.

In the face of Japan’s calculated historical denial, Spanish generational confrontation or the self-satisfied recount of victories that was the history of Britain and Canada that I was raised on, the Newfoundlander’s penchant for wallowing in self-loathing has always been odd to me.

I have heard prominent Newfoundlanders say the most outrageously negative things about their home and fellow citizens. Paradoxically, all of them claim to be passionate Newfoundlanders. Many would have you believe that it is their passion for this place that
breeds their poor opinion of their collective history. Go figure.

The lessons of history are what we infer from what we know. There are no immutable moral lessons in history, history just is. To quote Homer Simpson: “It’s just a bunch of stuff that happened.”

How people view their past colours how they view their future. Not that I want to pick on any group, but the Newfoundland New Democrats constantly applaud and honour their predecessors. One could look at their political history and see decade after decade of humiliating loss and stagnation at the bottom of the political barrel. That’s not how they see it.

Was life hard in Newfoundland in 1949? You bet. It was tough in northern Ontario too. Four years after the war, life was no party in most of Europe either. Is it me, or do Newfoundlanders seem to think themselves, because of their imagined humble beginnings, somehow beholden to Canada for the prosperity the rest of the world also enjoyed in the latter part of the 20th century?

Rex Murphy Bits & Pieces

23/09/06, Rex Murphy, Adrienne Clarkson: the personal and the political, (Source).
22/09/06, Rex Murphy, Tolerance must flow two ways, (Source).


23/09/06, Rex Murphy, Adrienne Clarkson: the personal and the political, (Back).

Heart Matters by Adrienne Clarkson
Viking Canada, 257 pages, $38

But what are kings, when regiment is gone,

The quotation is from Christopher Marlowe, and the word "regiment," on which it turns, here carries a meaning of "authority," "sway," " rule" and, quite possibly, something close to our modern terms "status" and "prestige." Regiment in this context is a constellation of all of these meanings. The authority of a real king was always a fasces of tangible power -- command over life and death, the control of armies, unquestioned rule -- and the invisible but equally mighty influences of dread and reverence.

It's no news that kings (or queens) aren't what they used to be. Their regiment has decayed and vanished. Modern-day royals, most emphatically the set at Buckingham Palace with which Canada has historical and constitutional associations, exist in a twilight of anachronistic significance, tabloid-feeding celebrity and lower-rank pop-star acclaim.

All of which may be disappointing to those who struggle to hold the monarchy in esteem, and may be poignant, too, but none of it is news to the least-engaged consciousness. It raises the question now, more forcefully than at any other period, about our "ties" to the monarchy, of the value of those ties, particularly the utility and prestige of the one office in our country still bearing the imprimatur of its royal origins: the governor-general.

The case for the governor-general is what I take to be the burden of Adrienne Clarkson's Heart Matters. It is a divided book. It is a memoir of Clarkson's interesting and distinguished life. Its earlier pages are at times an affecting recounting of her family's progress from difficult beginnings and wartime peril, their arrival in Canada, her growing up, the complex, painful yet always affectionate relationship with her mother, her pride in her father, and his in her.

But from the moment the book takes up her adult career, the days of CBC's Take Thirty all the way through to Adrienne Clarkson Presents (to my mind, a real foreshadowing of how she saw herself in the governor-general's office), the book takes on a drier, brisker tone. We depart from subdued recollection and memoir to more bristling justification and defence.

In the old days of luxuriant titles, this section of Heart Matters might have carried the scroll: An Apology for the Office of the Governor-General of Canada and My Contributions to It, Together with Some Observations on the Worth of Politicians, the Male of the Species, the Conduct of Some Others in Lesser Office, and a Return of Fire to the Last Prime Minister But One, Mr. Paul Martin. for His Imperfect Treatment of the G-G.

Clarkson thinks very highly of the office of governor-general, an opinion that any reading of Heart Matters will confirm is not entirely unhinged from the fact that she held it. She seems to believe that this last echo of Canada's colonial beginnings under an imperial flag has a merit and vitality crucial to the understanding, perhaps even the survival, of the glorious experiment we call Canada. This is a high-voltage estimation of what is at best a decorative, expensive, ceremonial survival.

In the 21st century, royalty has been decanted of all its mystique, seriousness and point. Insofar as the office of the G-G is presumed to be a surrogate representation of the "real thing" in Great Britain, of what possible value can it be? The British royals have become vessels of the most ordinary clay, and set an almost Alpine standard of dysfunction, vulgarity, selfishness and self-absorption. All regiment is gone. So the office of G-G is only a second-hand, down-market edition of something that has lost its function and place. We have the shadow of the tattered shadow.

Clarkson romanticizes both the life and function of Rideau Hall, and seems to think its pious protocols and dusty duties are of real power, that the advice of a G-G to a prime minister, or where a cabinet should be sworn in, are matters on which the edifice of the modern state may depend.

All the hymns, I suppose, however boring, are lovely if you're the bishop of the cathedral. And a five-year stint at the top of the social order -- one area in which the charisma of royal surrogacy still has cogency -- must be a very pleasant interlude. Rideau Hall is still an address to conjure with, and the position of governor-general has the considerable charm of being the cynosure of a continuous garden party. The governor-general gets to open Parliament, drive around in a barouche, host literati and distribute medals, meet the interesting of foreign nations, and take first rank at every occasion of national ceremony.

There is not one of these duties or recreations that would be diminished one whit, jot or tittle were it to be performed or exercised by a ceremonial head of state who owed nothing to the Crown or its by-now very mixed traditions..

Heart Matters offers some not encouraging illustrations of Clarkson's judgment. The first is that there is a Heart Matters at all. So much of the argument stands on the importance of certain traditions and codes that adhere to the office of governor-general -- from the vital secrecy imposed on those invited to hold the office until the invitation is confirmed, to the necessity of swearing in cabinet officers at Rideau Hall, and the propriety of consultations by a given prime minister with the G-G herself -- that it is a shock that Clarkson has violated the deepest sanction of them all. She has turned publicist while her imprint is still warm on those vice-regal cushions.

Does not discretion adhere to the office so late venerated and vacated? Nannies to Donald Trump may write tell-alls in the age of faux-celebrity (and I think they should be encouraged to do so). I applaud "personal assistants" to tyrannous and mouth-breathing rock stars who launch rockets of steamy prose at the bottoms they so ravenously kissed. Politicians who have been "passed over" by their leaders may strike deadly blows in return.

We now know how highly she thinks of Jean Chrétien and his wife Aline, and begrudge her none of that obliging warmth. But the gratitude describes a self-serving loop. Chrétien appointed her, and it would be a rude doyenne of Rideau Hall who did not see the wisdom of the man who set her there. I wonder, now that an ex-governor-general has set the illustrious example, how long we shall have to wait for the aides, valets, caterers and assorted functionaries of Rideau Hall to oil up their laptops and give us the view from below the stairs of the Clarkson-Ralston Saul era.

The loyalty to Chrétien wanders into something like an outright attack on his successor. It is evident that Clarkson does not like Paul Martin, and I am wondering why all of Canada should know this now. She obviously sees him, and those who assisted him, as tacky and vulgar. They want a different venue for their swearing-in. Clarkson will have none of it. And when the G-G's wishes prevail over the elected prime minister's, some of these rubes show up at Rideau Hall in sneakers and T-shirts.

Clarkson has great confidence in herself as an observer. This may be a byproduct of her time as a journalist. I am not sure that confidence is buttressed by a passage in which she speaks of her ability to see the large view of things "in the way that Tolstoy saw the whole field in describing the Battle of Borodino in War and Peace." This passage comes at the tail end of an account of the great PR difficulties that surrounded the expensive and crowded "circumpolar junket" of the G-G and 35 or so Canadian worthies. Whatever may have been at stake in that ruckus, I feel it's less in the territory of Tolstoy than of P. G. Wodehouse.

I find my faith in her judgment further estranged by the near-risible certitude of a few of her observations on politicians and men. She adverts at one point to the clotted speculations of Carl Jung, and I feared for a paragraph of two we were on a Ferris wheel of outdated misogyny. If Clarkson believes what she thinks she understands from this Jungian mush, I fear for us all -- men, I mean. Apparently, she does. "My personal view is that the world of politics is like this because it is a male world, with male values -- the worship of triumphalism, contempt for weakness, and distrust of compassion. All of these are male feelings and attributes . . ." There goes half the country. This isn't the world of politics, or the world of journalism, or commerce, or science. It's a five-cent version of adolescent feminism.

It might have been useful to have something a little closer to reality and experience, some reflections on politics and journalism, the showbiz quotient of both, and what advantages those who know the media give and take from each other. What did Chrétien receive from Clarkson? Among other gifts, her celebrity. Canadian celebrity may be low-voltage compared to its U.S. archetype, but there is some virtue for the politician who can call upon someone already known to Canadians.

Clarkson, however, emphatically says, "I despise the idea of celebrity." Coming from one of our most famous people, this is a curious turn. I may offer it as a personal axiom that people do not choose television for a career because they wish to consolidate their anonymity. Before she became G-G, Adrienne Clarkson was a very big name. She was almost as famous as Don Cherry.

As governor-general, she refused to give autographs because, "I could not see giving a movie-star kind of quality to an office that should inspire respect." I fear she freighted the office with a more austere conception of its dignity than it can bear. Authors give autographs and literature staggers on.

And the "movie star quality" of the G-G's office may be the only real lever to extending its decaying impact in a media age. Clarkson's successor, Michaëlle Jean, is going to be a powerful presence simply by virtue of the fact that her innate "star quality" now has a stage on which to exert itself.

Finally, Heart Matters itself will not suffer at the bookstores because it is something of a tell-all written by a celebrity who occupied the nation's highest constitutional office.

Heart Matters is, as I have said, a divided affair. The portion of it that is family and personal memoir has considerable charm. It shows those qualities of confidence, application, ambition, intelligence and familial affection that established Adrienne Clarkson as a successful broadcaster and made her a national presence admired by many.

Its other half, on the significance of Rideau Hall as a fulcrum for national enlightenment, with its laboured esteem for the prime minister who awarded her with placement within its gilded walls, and her aggressive broadsides against the less enlightened one who succeeded him, is a disappointment and a contradiction.

Rex Murphy is a commentator with CBC-TV's The National and host of CBC Radio One's Cross-Country Checkup.


22/09/06, Rex Murphy, Tolerance must flow two ways, (Back).

It is not often that lectures on the finer points of theology and philosophy, delivered from so retired a venue as the University of Regensburg, turn the world, or at least a good part of it, on its ear. But it must be said as well that not every lecturer is the Bishop of Rome.

In Pope Benedict XIV's lecture, one that may be fairly characterized as both subtle and erudite, we have a talk whose explosiveness was almost entirely determined by a few words in it, and the fact it was the Pope who gave it.

Most of the Pope's address was a nuanced exploration of the relations between reason and faith. A good sense of the tone and nature of his talk, which is readily available in full on the Internet, may be taken from this sentence, which contains, as I see it, its central thesis: “Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God's nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true?”

Hardly a red-flag item, even for the most excitable bull.

It was a few words of that address, which were cited by His Holiness to assist in the illustration of an elegant argument, a quotation from a 14th-century Byzantine emperor, that ignited, or at least has been the occasion for igniting, a great storm across parts of the Muslim world. The quotation and the words leading to it are these: “he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness, a brusqueness which leaves us astounded, on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: ‘Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

That one-sentence quotation of an ancient emperor, from an otherwise quiescent address, has set off a fury of anger and outrage. Churches were attacked in the West Bank, there have been demonstrations, and the Pope reviled as another Hitler or Mussolini.

Pope Benedict has invited Muslim envoys for talks, and has twice expressed his regret for the reaction to his lecture, but — and this is not the same thing — he has not apologized for his talk. Nor should he.

The fury in the Muslim world following the Pope's talk seems similar in two respects to the greater fury that followed the publication of those now famous Danish cartoons. The first similarity is that the volume and spread of outraged response gives every evidence of having been mobilized or concerted. That there is here, in other words, a “determination” to display outrage, less as evidence of profoundly wounded religious sensibility, than as political leverage against the West.

Not that I question some Muslims may well have taken deep offence in both instances, but that the offence taken has been magnified, and perhaps manipulated, for secondary motives.

The second point uniting these episodes, the point that I think the more consequential, is the expectation from some Muslim authorities that their sensibilities and beliefs are owed, as of right, a singular respect and immunity from all negative comment and remark. It is more than curious that those who don't believe in Islam should be expected to uphold the same codes of respect as those who do.

There attends this expectation, sometimes phrased as a demand, a further one: that should “offence” be taken, then whatever violence should ensue — be it rioting, the burning of churches, or death threats — must be laid at the door of the parties who “insult” Islam, not those who undertake violence in response.

These considerations are troubling. First, because the respect and privilege claimed by some Muslims is not afforded religions other than their own in their societies. There is a magnificent mosque in Rome close to the Vatican. Do I need to say there is no basilica in Mecca? One religion should not claim rights it will not afford to all others. In too many Muslim countries, Christianity is institutionally — and this is a kind word — disadvantaged.

Secondly, the rhetorical violence visited on Christianity and Judaism (“apes,” “pigs,” “crusaders,” “infidels”) by various Muslim spokespeople is both fervid and frequent, and in some of its expression, utterly eclipses in its ferocity and deliberateness either the bywords of the Pope here, or the famous cartoons.

Tolerance, like its elder, respect, is very much an equal current that flows between two parties. I cannot see how burning churches — as happened in the West Bank — or crude attacks upon, and threats against, the Pope, provide a foundation to calls for “greater sensitivity toward Islam.”

There are precious things in the West, too, two of which are freedom of speech and critical analysis. Storms of outrage, and almost predictable violence after every perceived slight, leaves me feeling that the cardinal values of the West will wait a long time for a portion of that respect that parts of the Muslim world insist upon, immediately and in full, as their due.

Rex Murphy is a commentator with CBC-TV's The National and host of CBC Radio One's Cross-Country Checkup.

(Back)

21/09/06, Russell Smith, 'What's up Doc?' or did you mean 'What's up, Doc?'

On grammar:

British writer Lynne Truss argued pretty much that the fate of Western civilization lies in the correct use of the apostrophe, and made a million bucks on the surprising welling of support for such a conservative position. She talked about commas too; the joke of her book's title, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, turns on a misplaced comma. It's easy to agree with Truss when she gives examples of the ludicrous changes of meaning that an odd piece of punctuation can effect.

But most of the debates over punctuation that take place among writers and editors -- and believe me, prickly debates they are -- are over subtler differences in usage. We argue over commas between dependent and independent clauses, commas with appositives, commas in lists, commas between adjectives, commas after conjunctions and interjections . . . there are seven densely written pages on the comma in The Chicago Manual of Style, four in Editing Canadian English. There are exceptions and variations among journals and publishers.

In other words, Truss's construction of a correct world and an incorrect world is unreal. The style manuals, and the stroppy writers who argue with their copy editors, are not arguing about what is correct and what is incorrect: They are arguing about shades of meaning and, largely, about aesthetics.

I, for example, tend to want to minimize commas, purely for aesthetic reasons. Take a sentence like: "I could get by on freelance fashion writing and whatever other form of prostitution comes my way." I would resist a comma after "writing"; some editors might automatically shove one in, after some rule they learned in a list of rules that can never be varied. Similarly, they like to put them in between adjectives when I describe, say, a big red car. It is correct to write "big, red car," yes. But it just doesn't sound as slick. Here's a better example: How does "vast Republican conspiracy" sound when corrected by an adjective-separating comma? Not quite as coherent, I think.

What is at stake here? Is this really a battle about meaning? Is it a battle, as Truss would have it, between precision and laxity, between an old world of order and politeness, in which the educated were powerful and respected, and a brash new world of proletarian rule?

Well, I'm pretty polite most of the time, so I don't think that's it.

In fact, the major style guides agree that a slow shift is taking place in punctuation practices.

Fewer commas are being used in contemporary writing. (In technical terms, there has long been a schism between "open punctuation," which uses punctuation only as necessary to prevent misinterpretation, and the more traditional "closed punctuation," which is meticulous in matching every grammatical situation with its appropriate markings. Most magazines use open punctuation now.) This, again, is just a question of modern tastes -- once again, it comes down to aesthetics. Generations raised on Hemingwayesque stylistic flair ("On this side there was no shade and no trees and the station was between two lines of rails in the sun.") are impatient with sentences hiccupping with commas. It's a modernist thing: We like our buildings and our prose streamlined.

My point is that not all changes to standard written English are mistakes, nor are they evidence of societal decline.

Some are, of course: I cringe when I read misuses of commas that lead to ambiguity or to grammatical dissonance -- for example, in the infamous "comma splice," in which a comma substitutes for a period or a conjunction ("I write about fashion, I am a prostitute"), or when completely unnecessary ("Acclaimed writer, Chantal Kreviazuk, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for journalism"). Perhaps the best example of confusion created by a missing comma that a copy editor has ever given me is the comical gulf in meaning between "What's up, Doc?" and "What's up Doc?"

But this is the troublesome question, isn't it: Why do I insist on strict grammatical convention in some cases and plead for modernity in others? Which of my bugbears is really about clarity and which is merely about clinging pedantically to some outdated and probably classist set of impenetrable conventions? And that's precisely the sort of question I hope to address in the coming weeks.

Russell Smith is the author of the novel Muriella Pent. This summer, he was the host of the CBC Radio program And Sometimes Y, which dealt with language.

22/09/06, Rick Salutin, A priest, a rabbi and an imam ...

The Middle Ages were way ahead of us when it came to inter-religious discussions. There were debates between leaders of the three monotheistic faiths, as well as invented, literary ones. In a 12th-century Jewish text, The Kuzari, by Judah Halevi (he was also a heart-rending Hebrew poet), a king invites a Catholic, a Muslim and a Jew, plus a philosopher, to persuade him of the best path to follow. The other three get a page or two each, while the rabbi has about 300. That was the nature of those encounters. They weren't real dialogues, and not interested in reconciliation at all. They were about which religion was right or, at least, superior. In The Kuzari, which has some historical basis, the king converts to

Judaism.

The Pope's recent, controversial speech falls into this stream. It's true he now says, "I wanted to invite a dialogue between the religions of the modern world." But it's the same purpose that the king of the Khazars had in mind: Find out who's right, or rightest. Remember: This is the former cardinal who got his edge in the race for pope by kicking off the conclave with a diatribe against "a dictatorship of relativism, which does not recognize anything as for certain." The theme echoes through his career.

His recent speech implies that only Catholicism has an intrinsic relation to Greek philosophy, which largely inoculates it against the kind of fanatical violence that can emerge in other religions, such as Islam, since they lack a deep respect for human reason. It's a questionable thesis: Think of the Crusades, or the Inquisition. And anyway, the church received most of its Greek philosophy via Arabic translations and interpretations. But what the hey, it's what you'd expect from most (though not all) conventional religious leaders, and spots him squarely at the centre of medieval times.

Those debates over who's right were impressive for their era. But, today, what's appropriate is something else: genuine attempts to reconcile different faiths. That's because in an era like ours, with so much human and intellectual interconnection and hybridity, and with an awareness of historical flows and origins, it seems ludicrous to many of us to claim that one major religion is inherently superior to others.

Reconciliation also matters because religious stresses have become political and military ones; and in a nuclear context, such conflicts are scary. A warning about this came, oddly, from a recent gathering of world religious leaders in Kazakhstan. I pause to note that this is the same nation ridiculed as barbaric and hate-filled in one of the Toronto Film Festival's hits: Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. The clerics gathered in that benighted place "expressed concern over mounting inter-religious and inter-ethnic tension worldwide." An Israeli chief rabbi present worried about "the prevailing tendency in the world today to associate events with religious issues."

I want to emphasize that any efforts at genuine dialogue and reconciliation must show real respect for other faiths, not just token phrases. Such a thing is doable. In the 1920s, German-Jewish thinker Franz Rosenzweig managed to find a place for both Judaism and Christianity in his scheme of things, without subordinating either to the other. Today, with a "Judeo-Christian tradition" taken for granted, that kind of project may not seem necessary. But it's interesting that Franz Rosenzweig didn't even bother to include Islam in his schema. The omission would be unthinkable now.

It's like those jokes that begin: A priest, a minister and a rabbi walk into a bar. They basically functioned to defuse and explore tensions. Currently, you'd have to add an imam, a Buddhist priest and others. Don't expect too much from the Pope in this regard. He weighed in on Buddhism a decade ago, calling it "auto-erotic spirituality," which one critic paraphrased as "a form of masturbation for the mind." I suppose what one could say to the arch-foe of relativism is: A little well-considered religious relativism might be exactly what our poor stressed-out planet needs.

21/09/06, Christian Wüst, The Fuels of the Future

Farming the World's Energy

Agriculture offers the first serious alternatives to fossil fuels: Diesel, natural gas, and petroleum could give way in the future to "biomass" energy. As development continues apace, so too do concerns about the farmed fuels' effectiveness.

Six years ago, Germany's Volkswagen opened Autostadt, or "Motor City," in the western city of Wolfsburg. It's the most impressive park the German automobile industry has ever created to celebrate its product.

The temple of car worship offers its visitors cinemas, museums and educational installations. But the most interesting exhibition piece is probably also the most significant for the automobile's future. It's a transparent plastic case. Inside the case is a vegetable garden.

Visitors can use a remote-controlled robot arm to sow watercress -- and pick up the results eight weeks later: a drop of diesel oil that the company's scientists produce from what other people use to garnish their salad.

A tractor can drive two meters (6.6 feet) with one such drop, VW says. It's not much for an agricultural machine -- but it represents a glimmer of hope for a highly mobile society that is eyeing the world's fuel gauge with growing concern.

Engines can handle vegetable oil just as well as gasoline, as the pioneers of machine construction already knew. "It's turned out that diesel engines can run on peanut oil without any difficulty," the ingenious inventor Rudolf Diesel explained in 1912. But Diesel's contemporaries paid little attention to such questions. It was hard for them to imagine that cars would ever be associated with anything like issues of disappearing resources.

Roughly 100 years later, though, there are half as many cars in the world as there were human beings alive back then. Some 800 million motor vehicles make up a vast army of gas-guzzlers. Every day motor vehicles consume about 10 million tons of oil -- more than half of what is produced worldwide -- on a daily basis. Finding a way to power these vehicles on a renewable fuel will be one of the Herculean tasks of the new millennium. Peanut oil simply won't be enough.

Rapeseed and sunflower stalks

The German rapeseed oil industry has undertaken the most sustained effort yet to replace fossil fuels with a botanical product. And over the last decade, what started as an association of independent-minded small businessmen has grown into an economic sector to be taken seriously. In 2005, 1.7 million tons of rapeseed methyl ester, derived from the seeds of the yellow-flowered plant, were used to feed the engines of German cars.

Sometimes biodiesel -- as the product is officially known -- is mixed into conventional fuel; sometimes it's distributed in a pure form. Available at some 2,000 gas stations, the fuel is cheaper than regular gasoline.

Comparable amounts of biodiesel haven't been produced anywhere else in the world. In this sense, the German rapeseed experiment is also indicative of the limits to ecologically clean economic growth. About a million hectares -- roughly a tenth of Germany's agricultural terrain -- are now used to plant rapeseed. Experts believe expansion by a further 1.5 million hectares is possible.

In other words, in the best possible scenario, German soil could yield about 2 million tons of biodiesel every year. Compare that to the 130 million tons of petroleum the German population consumes every year, and it becomes clear that rapeseed will never be able to liberate an industrial society from its dependence on petroleum.

Scarcity isn't the only problem with biodiesel. Fertilizing the fields and processing the harvest is highly energy-intensive, thus eliminating much of the potential for savings.

Moreover, biodiesel's suitability for use with modern engines is limited at best. Its chemical composition complicates efforts to achieve clean combustion and filter emissions. In fact, modern diesel engines with fine-tuned fuel injectors and particle filters are generally not approved for use with rapeseed methyl ester.

Researchers at the Shell Corporation consider rapeseed diesel a "first generation" fuel -- one in which only the seeds or buds of the plant are used. "First of all, the result is not a top-quality fuel," says Wolfgang Warnecke, the man in charge of global fuel development at Shell. "Second, its production competes directly with that of foodstuffs. We're not interested in either of those two things."

Shell is therefore betting mainly on the development of second-generation fuels. These are produced from those parts of plants that were considered agricultural waste until today, such as straw from grain crops or sunflower stalks. "These production processes don't threaten to involve us in any ethical dilemmas," Warnecke says, "and the carbon dioxide balance is virtually neutral."

Driving on alcohol?

One of the first biofuels whose production process is on the verge of proceeding from the first to the second generation is a substance that human beings have used as an intoxicant for millennia -- alcohol.

Around 1860, Nikolaus August Otto created a prototype of an engine fueled with different types of spirits available for consumer purchase. One was ethyl alcohol, then widely used as lamp fuel.

American automobile pioneers Henry Ford and Charles Kettering (then General Motor's chief researcher) already saw an enormous potential in alcoholic fuel during the 1930s and wanted to power their cars with the fermented products of American farms.

Francis Garvan, president of the Chemical Foundation at the time, wrote a fierce appeal for alcoholic fuel instead of oil from abroad: "They say we have foreign oil," Garvan explained during a conference in Ford's hometown of Dearborn near Detroit in 1936. "It is in Venezuela ... It is out in the East, in Persia and it is in Russia. Do you think that is much defense for your children?"

But the alcohol lobby failed to prevail. New oil fields were discovered too quickly -- especially in Arab lands. Fossil fuels turned out to be the cheaper option -- and Western industrial nations marched steadfastly into total dependence on imports.

Only one country followed a path of its own and opted for alcohol: Brazil. Today the South American country covers about 40 percent of its fuel needs with bioethanol, a form of alcohol.

The tropical climate in Brazil allows for growing vast amounts of sugar cane -- a raw material used in the production of ethanol. Yet what may sound like a blessing isn't necessarily one for the local environment -- millions of hectares of rainforest have been cleared for car fuel plantations.

In Europe and North America, ethanol is obtained mainly from cereals such as wheat, rye or corn. In Germany, companies such as Südzucker have started running alcohol refineries. All of these companies are still working with first-generation production methods. Their output would never be sufficient to adequately replace gasoline. Researchers have only been working on efficient methods for converting straw and wood to ethanol for a few years.

Factories where these methods can be put into practice are still in the research stage and are being developed partly with the support of the large oil corporations. Shell has invested in the Canadian ethanol producer Iogen, one of the pioneers of this young business sector.

Politicians and engineers from all industrial nations are now equally intoxicated by the idea of powering cars with alcohol that is mainly produced from waste products. In fact, Sweden even sees bioethanol as the key to its efforts to completely liberate itself from petroleum dependence by 2020.

The US government also considers bioethanol to be one of the fuels of the future, one that will allow for the definitive transition to energy autonomy. President George W. Bush recently announced: "We want people to drive with fuel that grows in America."

One of the great advantages of alcohol is its similarity to gasoline. Conventional fuel can contain up to 5 percent alcohol without creating a need to modify engines.

In Europe, mixtures of alcohol and conventional fuel are available with an alcohol content of up to 85 percent. Ford and the Swedish car manufacturers Volvo and Saab are already offering vehicles whose engines run on the new fuel, known as E85. The changes made to the engine control system are minimal; the price increase is no higher than a few hundred euros.

In South America cars are already running on pure ethanol. However, the greater the alcohol content in the tank, the more the engine's fuel consumption rises -- because alcohol contains only about two-thirds as much energy as gasoline.

So far, German ethanol producers remain weak contenders in the global fuel business. While Brazil is already producing 10 million tons of bioethanol per year, the three production plants in Germany produce only about half a million tons. "The great challenge will be producing a genuinely viable substitute," says Shell researcher Wolfgang Lüke.

But what is the true potential of the alcoholic fuel that so many are pinning their hopes on? According to calculations by the Agency of Renewable Resources (FNR), the German Ministry of Agriculture's unit specializing in biofuel, 2,500 liters of ethanol can be obtained from the grain harvest of one hectare (2.5 acres) of German agricultural terrain. Because one liter of the fuel replaces 0.66 liters of conventional gasoline, production on that one hectare represents real substitution for only 1,650 liters.

Oil is solar energy, too

Another new technology, which is still being developed, is far more promising. It's called "SunDiesel" and is currently being tested in Freiberg in the German state of Saxony.

There, the visionary Bodo Wolf -- who was trained as a coal miner and later became an engineer -- has developed a method that allows for high-speed replication of the process by which fossil fuels are formed from wood and other organic substances.

The key insight that allowed him to develop his method in East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall is contained in a simple truth: "Oil, gas and coal -- they're all solar energy."

All the fossil fuels central to the industrial age are the product of prehistoric vegetable and animal life that disappeared under the earth before it could rot. Forests became coal; dry lagoons full of algae and water animals became oil and gas fields. Exposed to enormous pressure and high temperatures, the former organisms were transformed into the solid, fluid and gaseous energy sources of today.

Wolf has developed a method that replicates this very process and speeds it up dramatically. Wolf's patented "Carbo-V method" accomplishes in a few hours what nature took millennia to achieve: wood, straw and every other form of dehydrated organic matter is converted into a synthetic gas in a system of burners and catalysts. Diesel fuel is then extracted from this gas by means of a Fischer-Tropsch reactor, a piece of equipment already used to liquefy coal and natural gas.

The company Wolf founded is called Choren. The first three letters of the name stand for carbon (C), hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O) -- the building blocks of organic life and of every conventional fuel; the last three letters of the name are short for "renewable."

The founder of Choren is now retired, but a host of powerful companies has staked a claim to his legacy. Daimler Chrysler and Volkswagen have been Choren's development partners for three years. And Shell invested in the company last year.

The expectations are high, even though Freiberg's diesel producers are still a long way from going commercial. So far, only a small research plant has been set up. Next year -- much later than originally planned -- a second, larger plant is scheduled to go into operation; it will produce 15,000 tons of SunDiesel every year. Eventually, a major refinery will be built in the town of Lubmin in the eastern German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania to produce an annual output of 200,000 tons.

The most dangerous opponent on the path to that goal may well turn out to be the German government. The rising production of biofuel already has cash-strapped fiscal authorities looking for new ways to tax it. German Finance Minister Peter Steinbrück of the Social Democrat Party (SPD) has already announced that biofuels will soon be taxed just like gasoline. The extra costs that would result might mean that only the cheap option of rapeseed oil survives. More promising methods that are still in development may have to be abandoned before they reach the market.

Nevertheless, the European automobile industry has tremendous hopes for SunDiesel. Because they consume so little fuel, diesel engines are one of the trump cards of the industry -- despite the blemish of being associated with worse emissions. The problem of soot particles has been partly solved thanks to new particle filtering techniques. What remains is the unusually high level of nitrous oxide emissions, a problem that can only be solved with new investment into technologies like urea-based catalytic converters.

The new fuel might offer a solution: SunDiesel is cleaner than conventional diesel. It's non-toxic and free of aromatics. Substituting SunDiesel for regular fuel would lead to a strong reduction in emission levels without requiring any additional processing of the emissions.

What is more, synthetic fuels like the one developed by Choren, which are also known as BtL ("biomass to liquid") promise marvellous efficiency -- even if they haven't yet been commercially tested. German government experts with the FNR estimate that an annual output of 4,000 liters (1,057 gallons) per hectare could be achieved with SunDiesel -- three times as much as with rapeseed oil and about one-and-a-half times as much as with ethanol.

But still more can be gotten out of biomass. As a raw material, wood is a first-class energy supplier -- especially when it isn't used to power cars, but rather to produce electricity and heat.

Thomas Nussbauer, an expert on resources at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich, flatly declares tree-based biofuel unsuitable for use in road transportation. In an article for the Holz-Zentralblatt journal for the timber and forestry industry, he makes a plea for putting the remains of trees into furnaces rather than into fuel tanks. According to Nussbauer, wood provides heat as efficiently as fossil fuels, but yields only three-fourths of their output when used as engine fuel.

Michael Deutmeyer, who is responsible for biomass management at Choren, doesn't doubt the validity of Nussbauer's calculation, but argues that it misses the main point. Deutmeyer argues that there are already many alternatives to fossil fuel energy sources in the areas of heat and electricity production: "Geothermal and solar energy production, improved insulation, as well as wind and water power represent a broad variety of techniques that can already be put to use," he says. "But when it comes to transportation, there is still no viable alternative to fossil fuel energy sources." For better or for worse, the car still depends on petroleum. Attempts to power cars with electricity have effectively failed.

Nor do the current improvements in battery technology for hybrid vehicles promise to make electric car engines suitable for serial production anytime soon. A full gasoline tank, which can power an engine for hundreds of kilometers and can be refilled in a matter of minutes, is still far superior to every alternative developed so far.

Natural gas, like from cows

Still, the contents of the tank don't need to be liquid. So far, the best alternative to fossil fuels like gasoline and diesel has come in the form of gas, not liquid. It, too, comes from plouwing the fields, and it's already being produced by a technique as simple as it is well-proven.

According to calculations by the FNR experts, methanol from fermented biomass has the greatest potential. An annual 3,560 kilograms (7,849 pounds) of methanol can be obtained from one hectare. That would be enough to replace 5,000 liters (1,320 gallons) of gasoline -- the best result yet.

On the surface, the technique resembles that used in ethanol production; both are much simpler than the highly complex techniques involved in BtL production. The harvest doesn't have to be dehydrated, but automatically turns into the desired fuel after it's placed into a large vat filled with moist sludge.

The designers of the technique were inspired by the digestive system of cows and other herbivores -- and by the natural cycle of growth, ingestion, excretion and fertilization. "Biogas" can be developed from a wide variety of plant types and this diversity is also beneficial to the soil. The process also results in its own fertilizer -- the waste products can be used as fertilizer just like dung.

So far, the biogas sector has concentrated mainly on electricity production. The gas obtained in the production process drives generators that create energy for the power grid. The average output is far lower than that of windmills or solar panels, in terms of space needed for electricity production. But energy farms have an advantage that the administrators of the electricity grid value highly: They provide energy constantly -- even at night or when the wind isn't blowing.

Inside the small power plants, the biomethanol does exactly what it would do inside a car: It powers engines. It's also perfectly suited for fuelling natural-gas-powered cars.

Oil Rigs to Plowshares

But the industry has been slow to adapt the fuel for transportation. Biogas fuelling stations have opened only in scattered locations -- in Germany and Sweden, for example. The problem is a lack of customers. Even the use of natural gas as engine fuel is hardly advancing. For years, the gas producers and the producers of natural-gas-powered cars -- Opel, Volvo and FIAT are the leading manufacturers in the sector -- have been fighting for acceptance, but with little success. Their projects have been stalled due to the expenses involved in making the necessary changes to existing cars and to transportation infrastructure.

A natural gas fuelling station complete with the required pressurized storage unit costs about €200,000 ($254,602) -- about four times as much as a gasoline or diesel station. The car producers in the sector charge surcharges of between €2,000 ($2,545) and €4,000 ($5,090) for cars with engines equipped to handle natural gas, partly because of the additional cost of equipping a car with a pressurized tank.

What is more, only a few of the natural-gas-powered cars currently available on the market can drive an acceptable distance before they need to be refuelled. Installing a sufficient number of pressurized gas containers is not yet technically feasible in most cars. The result is that the state-subsidized -- and therefore extremely cheap -- alternative fuel has yet to make the breakthrough into the mainstream. Barely 30,000 natural-gas-powered cars are in use in Germany, where some 650 fuelling stations have been set up -- perhaps somewhat too optimistically.

Experts employed by large oil corporations also disagree about the alternative fuel's chances of success. Aral, a subsidiary of BP, has consistently sponsored the expansion of the network of fuelling stations -- particularly due to the tremendous regenerative potential of biogas. The experts at Shell, on the other hand, believe natural gas will never be more than a niche market (for companies with their own fleets of vehicles, for example) and prefer to focus on the conversion of natural gas to liquid fuel.

"The greatest mistakes we can make during the search for alternatives are overhasty experiments with infrastructure," Shell researcher Wolfgang Lüke warns. In his view, the only alternative fuels with potential are the ones that can be mixed with conventional fuels. Ethanol and SunDiesel meet this criterion.

Lüke predicts that the liquids that will provide energy in the post fossil fuel age will be mixed with conventional fuels in gradually increasing quantities, ending the era of petroleum drop by drop -- a comfortably slow process that has already begun and that consumers hardly notice, aside from the occasional ineffectual political debate.

It seems advisable, on the other hand, not to overestimate the speed at which this development is taking place. Sparsely populated countries such as Sweden, which is striving for independence from oil, or the US, an oil-junkie well aware of the problems involved in oil dependence, do dispose of agricultural areas large enough to provide a substantial chunk of their industry with biomass. But in central Europe, producing sufficient amounts of car fuel on an organic basis isn't even remotely feasible.

According to a prediction by the FNR, some 3.5 million hectares of German agricultural terrain will be available for biomass production in 2020. If one takes an optimistic view of future technological development, this terrain could provide about one-fourth of the vehicle fuel consumed in Germany.

Globally, however, "the potential of biomass is enormous," says FNR expert Birger Kerckow. And Konrad Scheffer, a professor at the Institute of Crop Science at the University of Kassel in western Germany, claims that the energy content of the vegetation that is constantly reproducing itself on the Earth's surface exceeds humanity's current energy needs by a factor of between eight and 10. In the scenarios developed by the agricultural industry, plowshares will replace oil drills. Former Agricultural Minister Renate Künast, a member of Germany's Green Party, has already dubbed farmers the "oil sheikhs of tomorrow."

Hydrogen, the last frontier

The magic gas that some car companies like to evoke as the future elixir of guiltless mobility isn't much talked about today -- hydrogen.

Engineers long considered the lightest of the elements in the periodic table the universal energy source of the post fossil fuel age. Produced from water by solar or wind energy, the explosive gas was to be used as an unlimited energy source -- perfectly clean and infinitely reproducible.

Car companies invested billions in the development of prototypes. Vans and cars with combustion units that transform hydrogen into energy highly efficiently and without producing significant emissions can still be found in many places.

Combustion engines can be powered with hydrogen too. BMW developed a hydrogen-fueled 12-cylinder race car that broke the 300 km/h (186 mph) barrier in an entertaining "green" car race. Mercedes even planned to begin selling cars with hydrogen combustion units by as early as 2004.

But no one is talking about the new technology anymore. Daimler Chrysler is now aiming for 2015 -- and will probably have to revise this goal as well. There are plenty of cars that could run on hydrogen -- what's missing is the hydrogen itself.

Nowhere in the world can one even find the beginnings of a project for producing the ecologically clean gas on an industrial scale. Even Shell, one of the most open-minded companies in the petroleum business, is tentative when it comes to making statements on hydrogen fuel: "Hydrogen could be the ultimate fuel," reads the caption on one of the images that research and development director Warnecke likes to hand out.

According to Warnecke, one of the greatest obstacles is hydrogen's incompatibility with existing fuels: "Ethanol and BtL can just be mixed in with conventional fuel. Hydrogen requires a shift to a completely new infrastructure."

And this infrastructure would be many times more complicated and costly than that required by natural-gas-powered cars. Hydrogen needs to either be cooled down to minus 253 degrees Celsius (minus 423 degrees Fahrenheit) or pressurized at 700 bar (three times the level of pressurization for natural gas) before a car can use the fuel to drive a reasonable distance. The existing petroleum-oriented infrastructure is therefore completely inadequate.

Apart from economic obstacles, even experts without close ties to the oil industry are also sceptical about the environmental benefits of hydrogen. The ecologically "clean" production of hydrogen requires a tremendous surplus of electricity from ecologically viable sources. Such a surplus exists only in a few locations, such as the geothermal paradise Iceland (where thermal heat can be used to produce energy) or Paraguay (where water power is plentiful).

The Wuppertal Institute, a respected German institute that studies the environment, climate and energy, examined the risks and opportunities of a forced transition to a hydrogen economy. The sobering conclusion was that such a transition "won't make ecological sense anytime during the next 30 to 40 years." It would be much more effective to introduce the energy produced from ecologically viable sources directly into the electricity grid, rather than to use it to produce hydrogen.

If, however, the clean and large-scale production of hydrogen did begin in the middle of the 21st century, then the gas wouldn't likely end up in the fuel tanks of hydrogen-powered cars.

The producers of botanical-based fuels would likely turn out to be eager purchasers of hydrogen. The production of BtL-diesel is suffering from an acute lack of hydrogen. Introducing the highly reactive substance into the Choren production process could double the total output of BtL-diesel plants.

The result would be a fully sustainable production chain, one that follows the example of millennia of natural history. Hydrogen is an element that likes to bond with other elements. Only when it is combined with carbon does the basic building block of organic life result -- and with it the energy resources petroleum and natural gas.

"Nowhere in nature does hydrogen appear in a pure form," says Choren-founder Wolf. "Why should it do so in industry?"