Wednesday Night #2067

Who’s who in Justin Trudeau’s 2021 cabinet
Some good picks, some wait-and-sees and … Melanie Joly Minister of Global Affairs – Really?
Garneau’s departure means Trudeau will have had five foreign affairs ministers in six years. That’s a travesty Or,  as one seasoned diplomat points out: 15 foreign ministers in 21 years.  One of several reasons that explain why we are out of the game.  With the long tenures of Pearson and Clark, we were players (a few other factors, but tenure was central).
Happy to see David Lametti continuing in Justice; Marc Miller’s well-deserved promotion to Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations; the duo of Jonathan Wilkinson: Minister of Natural Resources and Steven Guilbeault: Minister of Environment and Climate Change should work well; Jean-Yves Duclos, as Minister of Health will have challenges from his native Quebec.
Surprise: Sean Fraser: Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship – wouldn’t it be wonderful if he would pick the department up by the scruff of the neck, shake it hard and make sure all the well-meaning incompetents and poorly designed procedures fall out.
Not to mention dealing with this story:
Government data breach exposes Afghans to more danger
The Afghans in question fear reprisals from the Taliban, who took over the country in August. Some are in hiding because of past roles in the Afghan government, armed forces, judiciary, or as human rights or women’s rights activists.
One email seen by CBC News listed 200 names. Not only did names and emails appear but also, in some cases, faces could be seen. The risks of such a release are serious. It would only be necessary for the Taliban to see a single copy of the email to obtain all 200 names.
More on Canada: government & governance March 2021-

On the Climate Change COP26 cusp (could not resist the alliteration), media coverage of all sorts has intensified.
But, first The Rome G20 – Multilateral Stress Test or Last Call at the Star Wars Cantina? Colin Robertson highlights its importance as part of the international community’s ongoing pandemic and economic recovery response; in setting the tone for the COP26 Glasgow climate summit that immediately follows it; as well as for the World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial in Geneva at the end of November.

The Economist does not mince words: Broken promises, energy shortages and covid-19 will hamper COP26 – It is the most important climate conference in years
Climate change is a risk to national security, the Pentagon says
In a report last week, the Pentagon found that “increasing temperatures; changing precipitation patterns; and more frequent, intense, and unpredictable extreme weather conditions caused by climate change are exacerbating existing risks” for the U.S.
Jeremy Kinsman and Larry Haas citing the recent report of the UN World Meteorological Organization recognize the inevitable trade-offs that each nation must face.
4 key issues to watch as world leaders prepare for the Glasgow climate summit
Rachel Kyte, Dean of the Fletcher School, Tufts University
John Buchanan and Gerald Ratzer have renewed their attack on the IPCC [JB: The IPCC does not debate. It dictates, based on surveys, ignoring its scientific failures.] , championing the arguments presented by Professor Judith Curry Challenges of the clean energy transition

Move over Pandora Papers
What Is Being Leaked in the Facebook Papers? A guide to the biggest revelations
On Friday evening, multiple media organizations began reporting revelations from a trove of leaked internal documents from Facebook. Most of the redacted company documents were provided to Congress, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and a consortium of news organizations by lawyers representing Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen.
See also: The massive Facebook leak shows how investigative journalism is changing

The Next Leader of Europe Will Be No One
The reality, starkly stated, is that neither the German chancellor nor the French government can lead Europe. The compromises their predecessors made with each other are no longer available. And in the absence of leadership, Europe is headed for one thing — stasis.
Heather Cox Richardson worries about the power struggle between politico-social ideologies (U.S. Government & governance August 2021-) in the U.S. “in this era, democracies die more often through the ballot box than at gunpoint”, and draws parallels to the situation in Hungary

Montreal mayoral debate in English to take place Oct. 28
The three leading candidates for mayor of Montreal will be taking part in an English municipal election debate on Oct. 28.
The event is being organized by Montreal’s main media outlets, including the CBC, and will be broadcast live from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. on radio, television and online.
Valérie Plante (Projet Montréal), Denis Coderre (Ensemble Montréal) and Balarama Holness (Mouvement Montréal) will participate.
CBC Montreal, The Montreal Gazette, Global News Montreal, CJAD 800, CityNews Montreal and CTV News Montreal are jointly producing the event which is the only English-language debate to be held during the campaign.

Varia
Under threat of poaching, African elephants evolved tusklessness amazingly fast
The First Thing We Do, Let’s Kill All the Leaf Blowers
…the gasoline-powered leaf blower exists in a category of environmental hell all its own, spewing pollutants — carbon monoxide, smog-forming nitrous oxides, carcinogenic hydrocarbons — into the atmosphere at a literally breathtaking rate.

Upcoming events
Canadian International Council/Montreal Branch
Wed, November 10, 2021
12:30 PM – 1:15 PM EST
Le Canada à la recherche d’une identité internationale
discussion avec Jocelyn Coulon, chercheur au Centre d’études et de recherches de l’Université de Montréal (CÉRIUM). Il a été membre du groupe des conseillers de politique étrangère de Justin Trudeau en 2014-2015 et conseiller politique du ministre des Affaires étrangères en 2016-2017.
Mon, November 15, 2021
12:00 PM – 12:45 PM EST
Should Canada take a different approach in dealing with a rising authoritarian China?
In-depth discussion with former Ambassador David Mulroney, Distinguished Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. He served as Ambassador of Canada to the People’s Republic of China from 2009 to 2012.

Long reads
Primer: The G20 Rome Meeting: October 30-31, 2021
With Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi in the chair, most leaders from the G20 will meet in Rome’s convention centre, ‘La Nuvola’, on Saturday and Sunday, October 30-31 to chart a path around the themes People, Planet, Prosperity designed to take the world “beyond the crisis” caused by the ongoing pandemic.
Whose Promised Land? A Journey Into a Divided Israel
Two Times journalists drive the length of Israel to discover what it means to be Israeli today. They meet a kaleidoscope of people, searching for belonging but far apart on how to find it.
How to make fragile global supply chains stronger and more sustainable
The pursuit of financial efficiency has shifted global production to low-cost regions, increased the flows of freights, caused port congestion and eroded the resilience of supply chains. Cutting costs above all else became a race to the bottom. It resulted in global economies with limited redundancies, contingencies and safeguards.
‘Definitely not the results we want’: Facebook staff lamented ‘perverse incentives’ for media
In documents, employees fretted about ‘darker, more divisive content’ and boosting far-right sites
In November 2018, the staff of Facebook’s fledgling Civic Integrity department got a look at some eye-opening internal research — presented under an image of two goats locking horns.
The report examined articles shared on Facebook from the New York Times, BuzzFeed, Fox News and a dozen other media outlets and found that the more negative-slanting comments a story drew, the more likely Facebook’s algorithms were to promote it widely.

A long listen
Neuroscientist argues the left side of our brains have taken over our minds
Scottish psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist argues evidence shows the right and left hemispheres actually amount to two brains. The right and left brains perform the same basic functions, but in very different ways. How we interpret and experience the world depends on whether those two brains are working in balance, or whether one is dominant or damaged. That, in turn, shapes the world we live in.