By Richard Norman

Well, today is April 2nd the start of the Atlantic Canadian seal hunt. Currently I’m on the south shore of Nova Scotia, a couple hundred kilometers from the launch of this season’s much-misunderstood centuries-old enterprise. The industry is a bit less active this year. From the Canadian Press

CHARLOTTETOWN (CP) – The East Coast seal hunt quietly opened Monday in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence, where ice conditions were described as the worst seen in a decade.

Fisheries officials said they expect only a few boats from the Maritime provinces will take part in the first phase of the centuries-old hunt. About 40 boats from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island are eligible, with most of the early hunting focused on the Cape Breton coast, said Fisheries Department spokesman Roger Simon.

"There are a few seals scattered from Sydney towards Canso but they are very sparse and the ice is broken and deteriorated," he said.

"What seals were in that area may be swimming back north and we know a higher proportion drowned this year."

One fisheries observer said only two boats went out Monday.

Newborn seals cannot swim in the first weeks of life and need solid ice to survive.

The total quota for this year’s seal hunt is 270,000 animals. That’s 65,000 fewer seals than last year, a change that was made mainly because of the ice conditions.

By Richard Norman

For no particular reason, I thought it might be interesting to look at the very brief military campaign, Operation Praying Mantis, that occurred in April of 1988 in the Persian Gulf. 1988 was the eighth year of a catastrophic war between Iran and Iraq, that up until that point showed no signs of winding down. A year earlier, both countries had stepped up attacks on merchant ships in the Persian Gulf in an attempt to disrupt their opponent’s trade. With American support, the Iraqis did damage to facilities and ships at Khark Island, Iran’s main centre for petroleum exportation. (The Americans supported Iraq throughout the war, providing intelligence and arms). But as the Iranian navy increased its harassment of Kuwati oil tankers, the United States felt compelled for the first time to intervene directly against Iran with its own navy.
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By Richard Norman

Now for something completely different. (Or is it?) From the International edition of Der Spiegel:

By Otto Spijkers

This is a response to a previous post by my co-blogger, Richard Norman. It is about the ‘baby seal issue’; in other words: the discussion as to whether Europeans have a right to denunciate the seal hunt in Canada. I believe they have a duty to do so.
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By Richard Norman

A couple of articles are out today about American politics and efforts to harness youth-oriented online media. As we saw from last year’s campaigns, websites like YouTube can strongly influence public perception of candidates by feeding the enormous appetite of people everywhere to see public figures humiliated or treated with irreverence. Generally, I think this is a very bad thing. However, politicians, particularly those victimized by YouTube, the Comedy Central shows, etc, aren’t able to make this point without appearing humourless or, worse, as sore losermen.
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By Richard Norman

Few issues are as cloaked in ignorance and prejudice as the Canadian seal hunt. This vital means of income for Canada’s native people has evolved into a cruelty-free and completely sustainable enterprise; nevertheless, many in Europe continue, willfully, to see it as a "barbaric" and "inhumane" ritual that they must do everything in their powers to stop. This sort of cosmopolitanism-run-amok is a frequently observed attribute of much contemporary European thinking (for example, the recent controversy over French efforts to indict Paul Kagame, president of Rwanda). But this case is especially egregious as it targets the traditional way of life of a people who Europeans, over the centuries, have already done much to destroy. We might even think up a catchall -ism for the European position on this issue. How about Cute Baby Animal Neoconservativism?
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By Richard Norman

Last weekend I was in New York sitting around and reading in American newspapers and magazines the first reviews of Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s book Infidel. (For background on Hirsi Ali, former Dutch parliamentarian and colleague of Theo Van Gogh, click here). Each of the major reviews–Ian Buruma in the New York Times Book Review, John Leonard in Harper’s, and Lorraine Ali in Newsweek –were notable for their remarkably patronizing tone. While each reviewer applauded Hirsi Ali’s journey from the miserable margins of the world and her story of spectacular self-creation, each came to a screeching halt before her praise of reason, secularism, and Western values, and the pleasure she seems to take (after a life of extraordinary difficulties) in the ease and freedom of a new American life. Hirsi Ali’s view of the West has "an idealized, almost comic-book quality that sounds as naïve as those romantic novels she consumed as a young girl," (Buruma) her views on Islam are as "single-minded and reactionary as the zealots she’s worked so hard to oppose," (Lorraine Ali) are the conclusions reached in two representative reviews she received this week in the American press.
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by Jason Strother

One of the foremost scholars on North Korea, Andrei Lankov, recently addressed Condoleeza Rice on How To Topple Kim Jong il in the March-April edition of Foreign Policy. While the article is available for subscribers only, here are the recommendations that the St. Petersburg native made to Madame Secretary:
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By Richard Norman

Last week the United Nations Security Council extended by two months the mandate of MONUC, its Congo peacekeeping mission. Last year’s elections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo–the first free poll in more than forty years–produced a winner without resulting in a civil war, and so generally met the standards of success. But clearly, as MONUC’s extension shows, qualifications abound in the DRC these days.
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