Fredericton Peace Coalition

Did you ever wonder why Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, and Palestine are so important to our politicians and corporations? These maps show some of the world’s largest oil and gas reserves and pipeline routes through the Middle East. It appears our soldiers are placed along pipeline routes primarily to fight on behalf of US, Canadian, and allied companies profiting from the extraction of fossil fuels. The construction, defense, and control of the actual pipelines are key goals of profiteers. Check out the existing and proposed routes linking reserves in the Caspian Basin, Iraq and Iran, through Afghanistan, Lebanon, Israel and Palestine.

July 2, 2007

It is interesting that the Suzuki Foundation released a report claiming many Canadians are poisoned every year by pesticides at the exact time CanTox released its report on defoliant spraying at CFB Gagetown.

The Suzuki Foundation tells us chemicals are very dangerous while CanTox tells us that beefed up military formulations of herbicides, including Agent Orange, are totally innocuous.

Who do you believe? CanTox, owned by a chemical company and is paid by a government under siege for the large scale poisoning of its citizens? Or the Suzuki Foundation which has
no comment on Gagetown?

Harper knows Canada is liable for a world-class calamity and is paying your taxes to people willing to minimize the impact. We’re not talking about spraying lawns. The whole countryside of a piece of New Brunswick was hosed with military-grade herbicides for decades and hundreds of thousands of people had their health stolen, their lives ruined. Many have died.

Tell Harper he must deal with this or our country cannot survive.
Kelly Porter Franklin, Nanaimo B.C.

Armed Mohawk protesters got an early start to the Canada-wide aboriginal day of action on Friday, barricading a major rail line and a highway in eastern Ontario before one of the busiest travel weekends of the year.

Fredericton and other New Brunswick communities are including activities aimed at showing support for Canada’s troops in their Canada Day celebrations — but a minister in the capital says he disagrees with the move.

On Friday, June 29 a collective of folks from NB and NS will temporarily shut down the NB-NS border from 10am until noon. (We be meeting at the Irving Big Stop in Aulac, NB at 9:30 am) We will be stopping traffic to handout information regarding current Native issues of which the Government of Canada fails to adequately address or resolve.

The federal government plans to give an unspecified number of American police agents carte blanche to carry guns in Canada. It insists that in the post-9/11 world it is just being sensible. It is not.

It feels strange to discuss possible solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Do we prefer a one-state formula or two states, one next to the other? Which of the two solutions is more possible? These questions sound so remote from the harsh reality on the ground, where a resolution of the conflict never seemed so distant.

Taliban fighters attack U.S. or NATO forces in populated areas, then retreat to civilian homes. Western forces respond with massive firepower or an airstrike. That increasingly common pattern of clashes has led to a climbing number of civilian deaths and rising anger among Afghan officials and ordinary people. While militants killed 178 civilians in attacks through June 23, Western forces killed 203, according to an Associated Press count based on figures from Afghan and international officials.