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Saudi team after Post writer included soldiers, royal guards

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ISTANBUL — Saudi royal guards, intelligence officers, soldiers and an autopsy expert were part of a 15-member team from the kingdom that targeted missing writer Jamal Khashoggi, Turkish media said Thursday. The Washington Post contributor vanished last week while visiting the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.

The reported details, coupled with more-direct comments from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, appear aimed at gradually pressuring Saudi Arabia to reveal what happened to Khashoggi, while also balancing Ankara’s need to maintain the kingdom’s investments in Turkey and relations on other issues.

In Washington, President Donald Trump expressed reservations over withholding American arm sales over the writer, even as prominent American lawmakers increasingly criticize Saudi Arabia — America’s longtime security ally in the region.

Turkish officials say they fear Saudi Arabia killed and dismembered Khashoggi, without offering evidence explaining why they believe that. Khashoggi contributed columns to the Post, including some critical of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Saudi Arabia, before going silent in recent days, called the allegation it abducted or harmed Khashoggi “baseless.” However, it too has offered no evidence to support its claim the writer simply walked out of its consulate and vanished despite his fiancée waiting outside for him.

Information continues to trickle out through Turkish media about the 15-man Saudi team previously described as an “assassination squad.” These leaks, largely matching across Turkey’s state-run media and private Erdogan-linked outlets, likely come from the country’s security services as another means to pressure the kingdom over Khashoggi’s Oct. 2 disappearance.

The first plane of nine Saudis arrived from Riyadh around 3:30 a.m. that day, and included an individual described as a forensics official, according to the Sabah newspaper. One Turkish official, speaking on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press to discuss an ongoing police investigation, previously described that official as an “autopsy expert.”

The other six flew in on commercial flights, according to a list obtained by Sabah, which also published their names and faces. Local media described the Saudis being military and intelligence officers, as well as several “royal guards.”

Around the time Khashoggi entered the consulate, a second private plane from Riyadh took off for Istanbul. About two hours after he entered the consulate, video released by state media in Turkey shows several vehicles with diplomatic license plates, leave the consulate and drive some 2 kilometres (1.2 miles) away to the consul’s residence.

The Hurriyet newspaper and other media alleged that the consulate’s 28 local staff were given the day off because a “diplomats’ meeting” would be held there. The reports did not cite a source and there was no official confirmation.

By 7 p.m., six of the Saudis left by the newly arrived private plane, flying onto Cairo and remaining overnight until heading back to Riyadh, according to Sabah and other media reports. By 11 p.m., another seven left by the other private plane, heading to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, similarly remaining there overnight and then flying on to Riyadh the next day, according to reports. Two others flew out commercially, Sabah said.

While the reports provide nothing definitive, they darken the picture surrounding Khashoggi’s disappearance.

Erdogan was quoted by Turkish media on Thursday as telling journalists flying with him back home from a visit to Hungary that “we cannot remain silent to such an incident.”

“How is it possible for a consulate, an embassy not to have security camera systems? Is it possible for the Saudi Arabian consulate where the incident occurred not to have camera systems?” Erdogan asked. “If a bird flew, if a mosquito appeared, these systems would catch them and (I believe) they (the Saudis) would have the most advanced of systems.”

Meanwhile, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he has a call in to Khashoggi’s fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, who has appealed to the president and first lady Melania Trump for help.

Trump said he had spoken with the Saudis about what he called a “bad situation,” but he did not disclose details of his conversations. He also said the U.S. was working “very closely” with Turkey, “and I think we’ll get to the bottom of it.”

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said national security adviser John Bolton and presidential senior adviser Jared Kushner spoke on Tuesday to Crown Prince Mohammed about Khashoggi.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo then had a follow-up call with the crown prince to reiterate the U.S. request for information and a thorough, transparent investigation.

In an interview later Wednesday with “Fox News @ Night,” Trump said he wanted to find out what happened to Khashoggi but appeared reluctant to consider blocking arms sales, citing economic reasons.

“I think that would be hurting us,” Trump said. “We have jobs, we have a lot of things happening in this country. We have a country that’s doing probably better economically than it’s ever done before.”

“Part of that is what we’re doing with our defence systems and everybody’s wanting them,” he continued. “And frankly, I think that that would be a very, very tough pill to swallow for our country. I mean, you’re affecting us and, you know, they’re always quick to jump that way.”

On his first international trip as president, Trump visited Saudi Arabia and announced $110 billion in proposed arms sales. The administration also relies on Saudi support for its Middle East agenda to counter Iranian influence, fight extremism and support an expected peace plan between Israel and the Palestinians.

Khashoggi had gone to the consulate on Tuesday last week to get paperwork he needed for his upcoming marriage. His Turkish fiancee waited outside.

The Post reported Wednesday evening that U.S. intelligence intercepts outlined a Saudi plan to detain Khashoggi. The Post, citing anonymous U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence, said Prince Mohammed ordered an operation to lure Khashoggi from his home in Virginia, where he lived most recently, to Saudi Arabia and then detain him.

___

Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey, and Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Ayse Wieting, Suzan Fraser And Jon Gambrell, The Associated Press





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What is ‘productivity’ and how can we improve it

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From the Fraser Institute

By Jock Finlayson

Earlier this year, a senior Bank of Canada official caused a stir by describing Canada’s pattern of declining productivity as an “emergency,” confirming that the issue of productivity is now in the spotlight. That’s encouraging. Boosting productivity is the only way to improve living standards, particularly in the long term. Today, Canada ranks 18th globally on the most common measure of productivity, with our position dropping steadily over the last several years.

Productivity is the amount of gross domestic product (GDP) or “output” the economy produces using a given quantity and mix of “inputs.” Labour is a key input in the production process, and most discussions of productivity focus on labour productivity. Productivity can be estimated for the entire economy or for individual industries.

In 2023, labour productivity in Canada was $63.60 per hour (in 2017 dollars). Industries with above average productivity include mining, oil and gas, pipelines, utilities, most parts of manufacturing, and telecommunications. Those with comparatively low productivity levels include accommodation and food services, construction, retail trade, personal and household services, and much of the government sector. Due to the lack of market-determined prices, it’s difficult to gauge productivity in the government and non-profit sectors. Instead, analysts often estimate productivity in these parts of the economy by valuing the inputs they use, of which labour is the most important one.

Within the private sector, there’s a positive linkage between productivity and employee wages and benefits. The most productive industries (on average) pay their workers more. As noted in a February 2024 RBC Economics report, productivity growth is “essentially the only way that business profits and worker wages can sustainably rise at the same time.”

Since the early 2000s, Canada has been losing ground vis-à-vis the United States and other advanced economies on productivity. By 2022, our labour productivity stood at just 70 per cent of the U.S. benchmark. What does this mean for Canadians?

Chronically lagging productivity acts as a drag on the growth of inflation-adjusted wages and incomes. According to a recent study, after adjusting for differences in the purchasing power of a dollar of income in the two countries, GDP per person (an indicator of incomes and living standards) in Canada was only 72 per cent of the U.S. level in 2022, down from 80 per cent a decade earlier. Our performance has continued to deteriorate since 2022. Mainly because of the widening cross-border productivity gap, GDP per person in the U.S. is now $22,000 higher than in Canada.

Addressing Canada’s “productivity crisis” should be a top priority for policymakers and business leaders. While there’s no short-term fix, the following steps can help to put the country on a better productivity growth path.

  • Increase business investment in productive assets and activities. Canada scores poorly compared to peer economies in investment in machinery, equipment, advanced technology products and intellectual property. We also must invest more in trade-enabling infrastructure such as ports, highways and other transportation assets that link Canada with global markets and facilitate the movement of goods and services within the country.
  • Overhaul federal and provincial tax policies to strengthen incentives for capital formation, innovation, entrepreneurship and business growth.
  • Streamline and reduce the cost and complexity of government regulation affecting all sectors of the economy.
  • Foster greater competition in local markets and scale back government monopolies and government-sanctioned oligopolies.
  • Eliminate interprovincial barriers to trade, investment and labour mobility to bolster Canada’s common market.
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COP29 was a waste of time

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From Canadians For Affordable Energy

Dan McTeague

Written By Dan McTeague

The twenty-ninth edition of the U.N. Climate Change Committee’s annual “Conference of the Parties,” also known as COP29, wrapped up recently, and I must say, it seemed a much gloomier affair than the previous twenty-eight. It’s hard to imagine a more downcast gathering of elitists and activists. You almost felt sorry for them.

Oh, there was all the usual nutty Net-Zero-by-2050 proposals, which would make life harder and more expensive in developed countries, and be absolutely disastrous for developing countries, if they were even partially implemented. But a lot of the roughly 65,000 attendees seemed to realize they were just spewing hot air.

Why were they so down? It couldn’t be that they were feeling guilty about their own hypocrisy, since they had flown in, many aboard private jets, to the Middle Eastern petrostate of Azerbaijan, where fossil fuels count for two-thirds of national GDP and 90% of export revenues, to lecture the world on the evils of flying in planes and prospering from the extraction of oil and natural gas. Afterall, they did the same last year in Dubai and there was no noticeable pang of guilt there.

It’s likely that Donald Trump’s recent reelection had a lot to do with it. Living as they do in a media bubble, our governing class was completely blindsided by the American people’s decision to return their 45th president to the White House. And the fact that he won the popular vote this time made it harder to deny his legitimacy. (Note that they’ve never questioned the legitimacy of Justin Trudeau, even though his party has lost the popular vote in the past two federal elections. What’s the saying about the modern Left? “If they didn’t have double standards, they’d have no standards at all.”)

Come January, Trump is committed to (once again) pulling the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accords, to rolling back the Biden Administration’s anti-fracking and pro-EV regulations, and to giving oil companies the green light to extract as much “liquid gold” (his phrase) as possible, with an eye towards making energy more affordable for American consumers and businesses alike. The chance that they’ll be able to leech billions in taxpayer dollars from the U.S. Treasury while he’s running the show is basically zero.

But it wasn’t just the return of Trump which has gotten the climate brigade down. After a few years on top, environmentalists have been having one setback after another. Green parties saw a huge drop off in support in the E.U. parliament’s elections this past June, losing one-third of their seats in Brussels.

And wherever they’ve actually been in government, in Germany and Ireland for instance, the Greens have dragged down the popularity of the coalitions they were part of. That’s largely because their policies have been like an arrow to the heart of those nations’ economies – see the former industrial titan Germany, where major companies like Volkswagen, Siemens, and the chemical giant BASF are frantically shifting production to China and the U.S. to escape high energy costs.

But while voters around the world are kicking climate ideologues to the curb, there are still a few places where they’re managing to cling to power for dear life.

Here in Canada, for instance, Justin Trudeau and Steven Guilbeault steadfastly refuse to consider revisiting their ruinous Net Zero policies, from their ever-increasing Carbon Tax, to their huge investments in Electric Vehicles and the mandates which will force all of us to buy pricey, unreliable EVs in just over a decade, and to the emissions caps which seek to strangle the natural resource sector on which our economy depends.

Minister Guilbeault was all-in on COP29, heading the Canadian delegation, which “hosted 65 events showcasing Canada’s leadership on climate action, nature-based solutions, sustainable finance, and Canadian clean technologies—while discussing gender equality, youth perspectives, and the critical role of Indigenous knowledge and climate leadership” and stood up for Canadian values such as “2SLGBTQI+” and “gender inclusivity.” Once again, in Azerbaijan, which has been denounced for its human rights abuses.

And no word yet on the cost of all of this – for last year’s COP28 the government – or should I say the taxpayers – spent $1.4M on travel and accommodations alone for the 633 member delegation. That number, not counting the above mentioned events, are sure to be higher, as Azerbaijan is much less of a travel destination than Dubai, and so has fewer flights in and available hotel rooms.

At the same time all of this was going on, Trudeau was 12,000 kms away in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil,  telling an audience that carbon taxation is a “moral obligation” which is more important than the cost of living: “It’s really, really easy when you’re in a short-term survive, [to say] I gotta be able to pay the rent this month, I’ve gotta be able to buy groceries for my kids, to say, OK, let’s put climate change as a slightly lower priority.”

This is madness, and it underscores how tone-deaf the prime minister is, and also why current polling looks so good for the Conservatives that Pierre Poilievre might as well start measuring the drapes at the PMO.

He has the Trudeau Liberals’ obsessive pursuit of Net Zero policies in large part to thank for that.

The world is waking up to the true cost of the Net Zero ideology, and leaving it behind. That doesn’t mean the fight is over – the activists and their allies in government are going to squeeze as many tax dollars out of this as they possibly can. But the writing is on the wall, and their window is rapidly closing.

Dan McTeague is President of Canadians for Affordable Energy.

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