David Akin’s On The Hill

India's Kamalesh Sharma was just named the new Secretary General of the Commonwealth, replacing New Zealand's Don McKinnon. McKinnon is wrapping up and eight-year term.
Sharma becomes the fifth Secretary General of the organization. The first one, incidentally, was Canada's Arnold Smith, who held office from 1965 to 1975.
Sharma takes over from McKinnon on April 1, 2008 and his term will run until March 31, 2012.
“It's a tough job I'm taking over but I do so with confidence and enthusiasm,” Sharma said. “The Commonwealth is a great global good.”
Sharma's last posting was India's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom.
 

The Commonwealth Summit got underway this morning with an elaborate colourful ceremony of song and dance and then leaders got down to discussing the issues of the day. Reporters were not allowed in to either of these events so, in the meantime, we went to cover a visit by Secretary of State Helena Guergis and Edmonton MP Rahim Jaffer to a the Kawempe slum here in Kampala.

This is a tremendously poor area – with makeshift homes with no running water and no indoor plumbing — with a population of 332,000, roughly the size of metropolitan Windsor, Ont. The people we saw there were mostly children (left) who were very friendly abd curious about us and all of our gear and women. We saw only a handful of men over 20.

Guergis and Jaffer first visited the Little Stars school, a school of 400 students between 6 and 12 were they mostly learn about sanitation and the importance of sexual abstinence to prevent the spread of HIV and AIDs (bottom). The children, in fact, sang a song about washing hands for us. The African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF), a Nairobi-based organization with a strong presence in Canada, provides some funding to the water and sanitation projects that help the school and the community it serves. The Canadian International Development Agency, the federal government department, provides some funding to AMREF.

Jaffer, who is engaged to Guergis (right, Guergis in red, Jaffer to her left), was born in Uganda but came to Canada when he was one-year-old after his family fled during Idi Amin’s reign. Jaffer told the schoolchildren how pleased he was that his country, Canada, was able to provide some help to his birth country. Jaffer still has some uncles who live in Kampala and visited some of them while he was here.

Guergis took some questions about Canada’s commitment to African aid. The Conservatives, in the last budget, committed to doubling Canada’s overall international assistance budget by 2010 compared to the 2001 level of $2.4–billion.

That commitment, though, sounds less impressive when looked at as a percentage of the country’s wealth. With government coffers overflowing with windfall revenues from high commodity prices, aid critics say we ought to be able to afford to do more. In 2005, the ratio of Official Development Assistance (ODA) to Gross National Income (GNI) was 0.35 per cent. You’ll remember Bono and others were trying to exhort Canada to raise that to 0.7 per cent. But even though the aid budget will double by 2010, the ODA/GNI ratio will actually drop to less than 0.29 per cent.

Whether it is Montebello for the Three Amigos summit, Brussels for a NATO heads of state meeting, or, this week, Kampala for the Commonwealth Heads of Government, a large multinational meeting can be a big headache for the local population. Roads and facilities here are shut down for security purposes creating tremendous traffic tie-ups and long delays.

To try and alleviate some of the downtown congestion in Kampala, the Ugandan government declared a two-day national holiday today and Friday.

Canadian Press’ Alex Panetta, who is among the journalists travelling with the PM this week in Uganda, picked up on a fun story that made the front page of a Kampala paper. A local governor ordered sex trade workers to stay away from the Commonwealth hotels and, even though prostitution is illegal in Uganda, the government set up what were dubbed ‘love zones’ in another part of the city.

The paper quoted one “girl of the night” who complained that it was unfair. She told the paper that “these are the politicians we elected — and sometime serve at night” and they ought to have let them participate in the economic windfall of the Commonwealth.

One woman said she hoped to make enough money during the few days of the summit to be able to start up her own business.

 

The Canadian Forces Polaris carrying the Prime Minister, his aides, and reporters to the Commonwealth Summit left Nice, France after refueling just before 7 a.m. local time and we landed at Entebbe, Uganda around 4 pm local time. (left)We’d left the first snowfall of the year 18 hours earlier in Ottawa and walked into bright sunshine and 27 C weather in Entebbe. Entebbe, of course, was the scene of the famous raid by Israeli forces to rescue Jewish hostages in 1976. You can still see bullet holes on the flight tower at the airport (bottom right).

Most of us slept from Nice to  Entebbe, the PM included, I assume. We don’t know, of course, what the PM was up to at the front of the plane in the spartan cabin, once jokingly nicknamed the ‘Taj Mahal’ by Prime Minister Chretien. Harper did not come back to talk to reporters nor did we expect him to.

In fact, the only time we saw Harper at all this day was when he got off the plane and got into a car to take him to the Kampala resort that all the leaders are staying in.

The rest of us piled in a bus and headed to our hotel in Kampala, a 40–minute drive north of Entebbe.

Uganda is a verdant, hilly country. It is a poor country but not, as Canadian Press reporter Alex Panetta told us on the bus ride in, as poor as many other African countries. Alex has travelled to other African countries with other prime ministers and, in his view, Uganda looked relatively wealthy so far as sub-Saharan nations go.

The hotel we are in is called the Imperial. We are its first customers. The carpet, PMO advance staff told us, had literally been installed in our rooms that day. The hotel is new but not yet completely built. Only one elevator bank is working; the place has an odour of curing cement; some exterior and interior walls have not yet been finished and, perhaps most disconcertingly for someone who has been up in transit for 36 hours, there are no mattresses on the beds — only box springs. Oh well, at this point, I’m just happy to be sleeping in a bed.

 

Nice, I'm told, is a wonderful place to visit. Sadly, I won't get to see
much of it. It's 5 a.m. here and raining. We are in a holding room at the
airport while the Prime Minister's plane gets gassed up for the final 7-hour
ride to Uganda and the Commonwealth Summit.
The flight from Ottawa to Nice was an uneventful ride. No scrum on the plane
with Harper nor is there likely to be one when we get back in the air to
Uganda.
Harper is travelling without his family on this trip but is accompanied by
several aides and diplomats.
Senator Mobina Jaffer (check spelling) (B.C.- Liberal) is also on board.
She, like Conservative Edmonton MP Rahim Jaffer, was born in Uganda. Rahim
Jaffer is also on board.
On this leg of the flight, from Ottawa to Nice, the inflight movies included
Transformers, Oceans 13, and Live Free or Die.
Dinner was a choice of beef medallions with garlic or chicken.
(Media, by the way, pay their own way on these trips.)
In a few hours, the Commonwealth foreign ministers will convene in Uganda to
decide if Pakistan ought to be suspended from the organization.
Canada is represented at these meetings by Secretary of State Helena
Guergis. Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier is busy at La Francophonie. Canada
assumes the chairmanship of that organization next year.
Harper will get a briefing on those meetings from Guergis when we land at
about 3 pm local time.
DAVID AKIN
————-
CTV NEWS
————-
Cell: +1 613 220 7935
http://www.davidakin.com

I've just about finished packing for my first trip to Africa. I and other reporters will be boarding the Canadian Forces CC-150 Polaris tomorrow afternoon for a very long ride with Prime Minister Harper on our way to his (and my) first Commonwealth Summit to be held in Kampala, Uganda. The summit will run Thursday through Sunday. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will be there — and that's always kind of cool. For those counting, it will be the third time the Prime Minister has met the Queen. The Queen hosted Prime Minister and Mrs. Harper at Buckingham Palace in July, 2006 and then, earlier this year, the Queen travelled to Vimy Ridge to join the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister of France to mark the 90th anniversary of the famous First World War battle. Not sure how long the Queen is staying with us in Uganda. My guess is overnight.

On Monday, we depart Kampala for a quick day trip to Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania. We fly home Monday night and land in Ottawa very early on Tuesday morning.

We are staying in a hotel that, the PMO advance staff tell us, was still under construction just a few weeks ago. In fact, local critics of this Summit say they “pray” that all the hotels have running water by the time we arrive. For the record, I'm praying for the same thing.

I'm informed that my BlackBerry should be working in Uganda (CTV's BlackBerry service provider is Rogers as the network Rogers uses seems to work in Europe, Asia, Africa and more places around the world than the service from Bell or Telus) so I should be able to send along some posts as we're travelling.

PMO officials say we'll get a more detailed itinerary as we board the plane — I'll post it as I'm able — but here's the schedule as we know it so far:

(All times local)

WED NOV 21

OTTAWA (GMT -5)

1330 – Reporters to arrive at Canada Reception Centre at Ottawa International Airport

1530 – Wheels Up

THU NOV 22

NICE, France (GMT +2 )

0430 – Wheels down.

– Refuel

0630 – Wheels up

ENTEBBE, Uganda (GMT +3)

1500 – Wheels down

1930 – Reception for Commonwealth Summit Heads of State

FRI NOV 23

KAMPALA, Uganda

SAT NOV 24

KAMPALA, Uganda

1000 – 1300 – Leaders Retreat

1500 – 1730 – Leaders Retreat

SUN NOV 25

KAMPALA, Uganda

1000 – 1200 – Leaders Retreat

MON NOV 26

ENTEBBE, Uganda

0815 – Wheels up

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania

1000 – Wheels down

1800 – Wheels up

TUE NOV 27

OTTAWA (GMT -5)

0515 – Wheels down

I'm embarrassed to say I didn't even know we were in the market for these things but, there you go — The Canadian Army just became the first international customer for Raytheon's 'Bunker Buster' missiles. Canada will be spending $17-million US ($16.75 million CDN at today's rates) to buy 462 TOW (Tube-Launched, Optically-Tracked, Wire-Guided) Bunker Buster missiles. The TOW weapon system — you probably knew — is “the world's premier long-range precision anti-armor, anti-fortification, anti-amphibious landing weapon.”

Assuming a kill rate of 100 per cent, it will cost about one Lexus IS 250 or $37,000 US every time a TOW blows something up on behalf of Canada.

I’ve always told anyone who asked that Martin Newland is one of the best newspaper editors I’ve ever worked for. Newland was the number two to Ken Whyte at National Post where I was a day oner (actually, it was more a day one minus 120, as I started in mid-summer and the paper launched on October 28, 1998).

As a reporter on his staff, I can say that Newland makes writers feel good about their work. He wants and encourages to write with authority and to write with a robust energy. So, it’s no surprise to hear that Martin is attracting top talent for his new project: Starting up a government-funded (?!) national newspaper in the United Arab Emirates:

The UAE-based media website Communicate.ae reports that he will have a total editorial staff of between 180 and 200 people. Newland told Communicate: “We need reporters. It will be a big content operation. Anyone who wants to come and work for us, please give us a call. We will consider every CV gratefully.”

He has received many CVs from British journalists made redundant in recent staff-cutting exercises at News International and at the Telegraph titles. Those already on board include Colin Randall, a former Daily Telegraph news editor and Paris correspondent, who is writing the style book and is the project's executive news editor . . . [Read the rest of the story]

Good luck, Martin!

Lance Morrow reviews Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance — and Why They Fall by Yale Law School professor Amy Chua (left). It sounds like a fascinating read with a thesis that ought to agree with the West:

Chua argues that all of the world-dominant powers in history — among them, Achaemenid Persia, imperial Rome, Tang Dynasty China, the Mongol empire, the Dutch commercial empire of the 17th century, the British Empire and hegemonic America — prospered by a strategy of tolerance and inclusion, the embrace (and exploitation) of diversity and difference.