World of opinion
On complacency on offshore drilling: It’s hard to feel reassured by a Senate committee that set out to study our offshore drilling regime – after the BP oil disaster – and then announced that Canada is virtually faultless. But it shouldn’t come as a complete surprise, given the committee’s stated objectives.
“The purpose of our study was to allay the fears of Canadians,” proclaimed the committee’s Conservative chairman, David Angus. If one sets out to allay fears, the outcome is a foregone conclusion. Little wonder Angus blithely announced that drilling off Canada’s East Coast is undergoing “very careful supervision and so forth.”
And so forth?
“Canadians should be quite comfortable with the state of play,” Angus said, echoing the report’s conclusion that the industry “is in good hands.”
Pro-drilling politicians in the U.S. sang the same complacent tune in the years before the the BP blowout gushed as much as 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. But when the Canadian Senators assessed the sole deepwater exploration rig off Canada’s East Coast, they echoed the American refrain.
No matter that the new Chevron rig is 2.6 kilometres deep – a full kilometre deeper than the BP rig. The committee drew comfort from Chevron’s reassurance that any spill would cause minimal damage to any ecologically sensitive fishing grounds – because it is 430 kilometres off the coast of Newfoundland. “The escaping crude will disperse, probably without ever affecting any sensitive areas,” Angus said confidently.
Industry watchdogs are calling the report a whitewash because it listened to all the big oil industry representatives and regulators, while hearing only from the World Wildlife Fund, which calls the final report “a scandal.”
The committee did recommend the obvious – lifting a paltry liability cap of $30 million on offshore operators. But its gushing embrace of the industry’s view – “over-regulation and excessively rigid safety requirements could potentially discourage the petroleum industry” – is over the top.
The Toronto Star
On Israel’s rejectionist stance:
Come September and the Middle East will be in the eye of the storm. President Barack Obama is to meet the Israeli and Palestinian leaders as well as the Jordanian and Egyptian leadership to launch the next phase of direct talks.
There is inevitable scepticism regarding these talks and the end objective of achieving peace. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems to think that peace is “possible” albeit “difficult.” He, who himself strongly opposed any pre-condition for Israel, has laid one for the Palestinians. According to the Israeli leader, the success of these negotiations is dependent on how Israel’s interests are protected. That would entail the Palestinians accepting Israel as the state of the Jewish people and ensuring it’s security.
Conveniently, the bigger issues of borders, the fate of Jerusalem, Israeli settlements and return of Palestinian refugees have been circumvented totally. …
At present the U.S. is pushing the efforts aimed at achieving the impossible within a one-year time frame binding the direct talks. With Obama personally involved in these talks, the idea is to push through some sort of resolution for the decades-old conflict that has spawned the worst conflict in the region. The consensus among the Arab states and the wiser counsels in Europe and beyond is that a two-state solution is the only way out. …
While Obama has vowed to restart the peace process and achieve some sort of resolution, the looming negotiations are hardly going to be easy. It is hoped that the US exerts the much-needed pressure on Tel Aviv to give up its obdurate stance and make a real commitment to achieving the proposed two-state solution. It means making those sacrifices the Israelis have been loathe to make so far.
Khaleej Times, Dubai
On China-U.S. confrontation:
In its annual report to Congress, the U.S. Department of Defense warned that the People’s Liberation Army is looking to acquire new military capabilities to expand its sphere of activities and deal with pending issues in the East China Sea and the South China Sea. The report, published recently under the title of “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2010,” also said China’s military buildup could tip the balance of military power in East Asia.
The People’s Daily, mouthpiece of the Communist Party of China, reacted by criticizing the Pentagon for “ignoring the fact that China is developing its limited military capabilities purely for defense purposes.”
However, it is a fact that China has continued to surprise its neighboring countries with a series of actions designed to protect its maritime interests. …
The Pentagon report warned that China’s increased military capabilities, including the planned construction of aircraft carriers, have the potential to change the fragile balance of power in the region.
Perhaps because of this fear, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, after attending the ASEAN Regional Forum meeting in Vietnam last month, said the United States has a national interest in freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. Clinton also expressed her support for ASEAN members in favor of multilateral negotiations in resolving territorial disputes. This effectively served as a warning to China, which is calling for bilateral talks.
China has suspended military dialogue and exchanges with the United States in retaliation for Washington’s decision to sell weapons to Taiwan. If China has complaints against the United States, it should first resume the dialogue and exchanges to express its views.
Japan has unresolved issues with China in the East China Sea. To transform Asia’s troubled waters into seas of peace and prosperity, Japan must cooperate not only with the United States but also with ASEAN members to seek detente with China.
The Asahi Shimbun, Tokyo