Correspondent Martin Himel reports from Canada.

Issues on the agenda included trade, the H1N1 flu pandemic and the battle against illegal drugs.

Shannon O’Neil, a fellow in Latin American studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, joins Martin Savidge to discuss the summit and the biggest challenges ahead for the U.S.-Mexico relationship.

An Afghani local works on the solar-powered streetlights built on the main road. Photo: Anup Kaphle

Anup Kaphle is embedded with British and Canadian forces in Afghanistan. He is reporting for Atlantic magazine, and is chronicling his experience on the “Dispatches from Afghanistan” blog. He describes local reconstruction efforts.

Listen to our webcast discussion on Canada’s role in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan’s fate would sound much like one of Aesop’s fables to someone who has been aloof from the horrors the country has been through in the last three decades. The country has been a playground for wars and left in a rubble every time it tries to pick up the shards from a gruesome conflict.

But as the United States prepares to ramp up its fight against the Taliban and al Qaeda, its neighbor to the north is utilizing their chance to stop kicking the doors and start focusing on rebuilding and challenging the local Afghans to rebuild their country, one community at a time.

A few of the most vibrant examples of Canada’s six stated priorities - mentoring security forces, basic services, humanitarian services, democratic development, political reconciliation and border security - can be witnessed in a small town of Dey-E-Bagh in Dand district, a few miles south of Kandahar.

Residents of this little town now have a few solar-paneled streetlights, new roads, small concrete buildings and a revamped irrigation system for their crops - all made possible by the Canadian dollars, technical assistance and major security enforcement. The plan is to provide as much of such assistance to the local communities so that they can rebuild themselves under the security of Canadian forces. That is hoped to push back the influx of Taliban into these towns from where they launch frequent attacks on NATO forces.

But the questions that quickly comes to mind are - What will the villagers do once the Canadians leave Afghanistan? How soon until the Taliban comes back into these villages, destroys the streetlights and irrigation system and executes the villagers for siding with their enemies? Whether these questions have been taken into consideration, no one knows. For now, it might be worth to notice the smiles on the faces of Deh-E-Bagh residents, happy about the new resources underway and menace from the Taliban far away.

The Canadians have plans to expand these kind of programs into broader communities in Kandahar province. And they have the support of the big guy in the province, Tooryalai Wesa, Kandahar’s governor since last December, and a man who himself spent over a decade in Canada.

At least in one town, it is encouraging to witness that the soldiers are no longer considering kicking doors and pointing guns at the local Afghans. However, given Taliban’s fanaticism for terror and the Canadian forces’ uncertainty to long-term commitment, Deh-E-Bagh could very likely end up being a new chapter in Aesop’s fables.

- Anup Kaphle

British and Canadian soldiers meet with their Afghan counterparts.

The marine brushing his teeth at the basin next to me was carrying his M-16 cross chest on his back. The gun stared right at my limbs. I rinsed my face and as I looked up, another soldier appeared to my right. He raised his arm to brush his teeth and his revolver peeked out of the case under his arm. I thought to myself, Where else in the world could I be rinsing my face in the presence of two no-bulls**t guys armed with weapons, and still be able to get out alive?

Call me stupid, but I might very well be on the safest place on earth right now.

At the base, it’s easy to witness a life far from the war. Sure, there are faces overrun by emotions — some who’ve lost their friends, some who’d just landed in a bizarre desert so far from home and some who’d seen it all and were ready to face it all. But these same fingers that are ready to pull the trigger are also seen scrolling their iPods, playing fussball, holding a non-alcoholic Beck’s or even swinging away their guitars.

Like any other profession, the soldiers here make it clear that to produce results, you have to stay sane. If anything is different, it’s how they choose to absorb that sanity.

My personal favorites are the bathroom doors. It almost seems like the first person updates their Facebook status and a serpent of comments follow it. The one that immediately comes to mind is from this morning. Someone started, “Chuck Norris is a coward.” Here is what followed:

[...]When Chuck does a push up, he doesn’t push himself up, he pushes the world down.

When the soldiers are not chatting about Chuck Norris in the “ablution room,” they go to one of the refreshment houses — and most member countries have one of these club-like lounges for their troops, where you can get everything from a haircut to a non-alcoholic beer to a ping pong table. The other lively place is known as the “Board Walk,” a mini version of a stadium, built with wooden planks. Inside, local Afghanis set up shops to sell paintings, arts and crafts.

But the best entertainment for some of these soldiers is us, the journalists. I could hardly claim a good sense of humor, but some of the Canadian journalists down here are hilarious. Immediately after finishing a briefing today, where we were told that the Afghan National Army and the Security Forces had a successful operation in Salavat, a fellow journalist offered a tactic to lure the Taliban next time around.

“Call the pizza place and tell them to deliver it to the Talibans,” he said. “We could call them Pie-EDs.”

- Anup Kaphle

Photo courtesy of Flickr user lafrancevi under a Creative Commons license.

Once considered a frigid wasteland, the Arctic is melting faster than any other region on earth and revealing its hidden treasures in the process, from oil to new shipping routes.

A race for control has broken out as the Arctic emerges as a region of vital economic and military importance. It is estimated that the Arctic holds nearly a quarter of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas reserves.

Nations are furiously mapping seabeds, vying for sections of continental shelf in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, set up to determine offshore boundaries. The U.S. has not ratified the Law of the Sea and therefore cannot file claims.

But in addition to nations’ self-interests, the complex environmental, business and governance questions surrounding the Arctic may also necessitate more international cooperation.

Worldfocus.org’s weekly radio show explored polar politics. Worldfocus anchor Martin Savidge hosted a panel of guests:

McKenzie Funk is a writer for National Geographic and Harper’s Magazine who has reported extensively from the Arctic region. His recent article, “Arctic Landgrab,” reported on an icebreaking mission that mapped a portion of the Arctic Ocean floor. His book about climate change, “Best Laid Plans,” will be published by The Penguin Press.

Jessica Shadian is a senior research fellow at the the High North Center for Business and Governance in Bodo, Norway. Her research includes indigenous autonomy and Arctic governance as manifest in the work of the Inuit Circumpolar Council. She co-edited a forthcoming book entitled “Legacies and Change in Polar Science: Historical, Legal and Political Reflections on the International Polar Year.”

Oran Young is a professor at the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara and co-directs the Program on Governance for Sustainable Development. He specializes in governance and environmental Institutions. He also chairs the scientific steering committee of the international project on the Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change. He has written more than 20 books, including “Arctic Politics: Conflict and Cooperation in the Circumpolar North.”

Credits:
Host: Martin Savidge
Producers: Katie Combs and Nicole E. Foster

Worldfocus anchor Martin Savidge was embedded in Afghanistan when Canadian troops arrived in 2002 and writes about Canada’s sacrifices in the war there.

My neighbor just lost three sons in Afghanistan.

Warrant Officer Dennis Brown, Corporal Dany Fortin and Corporal Kenneth O’Quinn. All died together Tuesday when a roadside bomb exploded during a patrol in southern Afghanistan. No, they don’t all share the same last name…but all three were Canadian.

That brings the total number of Canadians killed in Afghanistan since 2002 to 111. Tragically, their deaths were announced only a few hours after our Worldfocus BlogTalkRadio program which, this week, focused on our neighbor to the north’s commitment to the war known in this country officially as “Operation Enduring Freedom.”

Many Americans are only vaguely aware — if at all — of the support Canada has given to the war in Afghanistan. Canada is more commonly associated with the role of peacekeeping. Afghanistan is the first time Canadian troops have gone into large-scale combat since the Korean War. And they have paid the price.

The 111 deaths may seem like a low number when compared to the 640 American military personnel killed in Afghanistan, but those figures don’t tell the whole story. The number of Canadians serving in Afghanistan is put at about 2,700, almost all of them based in the very violent south home to the Taliban in the Kandahar area.

During our program, Canadian freelance journalist Terry Glavin, who recently spent a month reporting in Afghanistan, points out that statistically, Canadian forces have paid an even higher price than American forces. He notes that the mortality rate of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan is two to three times the mortality rate of American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Canadian troops returning to Bagram Air Base from Operation Anaconda in March of 2002. Photo: Martin Savidge

Canada’s role in Afghanistan has been the source of some of the most divisive debate Canadians have seen in recent memory. The growing public outcry is part of the reason the Canadian Parliament voted to withdraw its combat troops from Afghanistan by 2011.

I was in Kandahar, Afghanistan in 2002 when the first Canadian soldiers stepped off the plane. As they walked into the air terminal, I remember how much older they looked than the American soldiers, who were at least a decade younger. For many Canadian soldiers, the military is a profession.

Less than a month later, I was embedded as the Canadians faced combat for the first time in Afghanistan during Operation Anaconda. For a while, I followed a Canadian sniper team who used a 50-caliber rifle. The distinctive crack of the heavy gun echoed through the Shahi Kot Valley. The Canadians were especially effective against one of the greatest threats to the operation, Taliban mortar teams. The Canadian sniper teams were credited with killing 20 Taliban or al-Qaeda members. Two of the sniper teams were recommended for the U.S. Bronze Star.

It was just a month later when the first Canadian casualties of the war were counted. They were killed not by Taliban or al-Qaeda militants, but by the very nation they came to support — the United States. A U.S. plane mistakenly attacked the Canadian troops as they took part in a live-fire training exercise, leaving four Canadian soldiers dead and eight others wounded.

It’s seven years later and Canada’ s deep commitment to its neighbor to the south is still measured by the flagged-draped coffins that come home bearing the red, white and maple leaf.

- Martin Savidge

Read more about Martin’s experience in Afghanistan: Embedded on a chopper in Afghanistan.

Three more Canadian soldiers were killed in Kandahar bringing the number of dead Canadian soldiers to 111 — a relatively high casualty rate given the size of Canada’s troop presence in Afghanistan.

Canadian troops have served alongside Americans and others in Afghanistan, with 2,700 currently posted primarily in Kandahar. See our Timeline: Canada in Afghanistan’s war zone (below).

But while some in the U.S. have labeled the war in Afghanistan “the right war,” the conflict has been a source of strong debate in Canada, amid concerns that Canada has abandoned a more traditional peacekeeping role. The combat in Afghanistan represents some of the most intense fighting Canadian forces have seen in decades, since the country fought in Korea.

Canada is scheduled to withdraw from Afghanistan by 2011, and about 65 percent of Canadians support the planned withdrawal.

Worldfocus.org’s weekly radio show explored Canada’s role in Afghanistan and the debate over Canada’s role in peacemaking versus peacekeeping.

Worldfocus anchor Martin Savidge hosted a panel of guests:

Nipa Banerjee worked for the Canadian International Development Agency for 33 years, heading aid efforts in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2006 and working in a number of other countries. Her research interests include reconstruction, development and aid effectiveness in post-conflict countries, with a special focus on Afghanistan, where she travels frequently. She is currently a professor at the University of Ottawa.

Terry Glavin is a freelance journalist, who recently spent a month reporting in Afghanistan. He is a co-founder of the Canada-Afghanistan Solidarity Committee, a multi-partisan group of Canadians dedicated to solidarity with the Afghan people. He is the editor of Transmontanus Books in Vancouver, and is an adjunct professor of creative writing at the University of British Columbia.

Ron Hoffmann is Canada’s Ambassador to Afghanistan. Prior to his appointment as ambassador in Sept. 2008, he was deputy head of mission at the Embassy of Canada in Kabul. He has also served abroad in The Hague, Johannesburg, Beijing and London.

Below, explore a timeline of Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan by scrolling or pressing the play button. Also, click on the “video” icons to view scenes from on the ground.

Credits:
Host: Martin Savidge
Producers: Lisa Biagiotti, Katie Combs and Stephen Puschel

Canadian troops have served alongside Americans and others in Afghanistan for years, with 2,700 currently posted primarily in Kandahar.

The combat Afghanistan represents the most intense fighting Canadian forces have seen in decades, since the country fought in Korea. Since 2001, 111 Canadian soldiers have lost their lives in Afghanistan — a higher casualty rate than other international forces given the size of Canada’s force.

Canada is scheduled to withdraw its combat troops by 2011, a plan supported by about 65 percent of Canadians. The government estimates that the Afghanistan mission could cost $18.1 billion by 2011, or $1500 per Canadian household.

Below, explore a timeline of Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan by scrolling or pressing the play button. Also, click on the “video” icons to view scenes from on the ground.

Photos courtesy of Flickr users under a Creative Commons license. Footage courtesy of Canadian Forces Combat Camera.

Alison Smith, Washington correspondent for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, joins Martin Savidge to discuss trade between the two countries, Canada’s troop presence in Afghanistan and Obama’s popularity with Canadians.

Below, read what Canadian bloggers thought of Obama’s visit and trade developments.

Blogger “Tanveer” writes that Obama’s brief trip will not sufficiently address the trade issue, or any other:

How can any of us take such notions seriously when he’s only allocating six hours to discuss issues that are of high importance to the United States’ biggest trading partner? Can we really expect Harper and Obama to make any grounds regarding the “Buy American” clause featured in Obama’s much hyped stimulus package?

[...]Americans of course are welcome to rally around Obama; he is after all their president. However, Canadians are in need of a wake-up call to realize that what Obama does might be good for America, but that doesn’t mean it will be good for Canada as well.

Blogger “jayesswhy” points out that New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton has proposed a “Buy Canadian” measure in response to the “Buy American” provision, arguing against it:

So why, at this crucial moment when the US is considering a “buy American” policy that would shut out Canadian producers from their largest market, would Mr. Layton suggest an antagonistic policy like “buy Canadian”? How would we begin to convince our biggest trade partner not to institute a “buy American” policy, while we turn around an institute one of our own? This is the other side of the argument that ideological anti-free traders like Mr. Layton conveniently miss, and it is a point on which I think they are far too infrequently pressed on.

User “Rob” comments on a story about George W. Bush’s scheduled speech in Calgary, his first since leaving office:

It’s amazing that Canadians do not respect [Bush] more. He did a lot for this country from opening the borders for cattle, to ending the softwood lumber, to his energy policies. Look, [Obama] is in office for less then a month and we are already battling Democratic protectionist policies that would hurt Canada’s economy. We as Canadians need to wake up to the fact that the platform of the Democratic Party in the U.S. hurts Canada’s economy, and instead of hating the Republicans, we should hope their open trade policies win over the next 2 years.

But for many, Canada’s universal health care model comes with flaws — long lines have sent some Canadians to private clinics.

Worldfocus special correspondent Edie Magnus, producer Rebecca Haggerty and shooter Megan Thompson report from Montreal.

View an extended half-hour interview with economist Uwe Reinhardt: How the U.S. measures up to Canada’s health care system.

Those savings are already being realized in Canada, where basic health care is universal and, in most parts of that country, free — and where remarkably little paperwork is involved.

Each hospital in Canada gets a global budget, a set amount which is all they have to spend for the year. They don’t price things like bandages, drugs or even overnight stays individually. The cost for these things and for doctor service is negotiated in advance.

Worldfocus special correspondent Edie Magnus, producer Rebecca Haggerty and shooter Megan Thompson report from Montreal.

View an extended half-hour interview with economist Uwe Reinhardt: How the U.S. measures up to Canada’s health care system.

In this extended interview, Uwe Reinhardt, a leading adviser on health care economics and professor of political economy at Princeton University, compares the Canadian and American health care systems. Reinhardt criticizes the U.S. health care culture and expresses his optimism about the Obama administration.

As part of Worldfocus’ Health of Nations signature series, correspondent Edie Magnus conducted this half-hour interview with Uwe Reinhardt on January 20, 2008, the day of President Barack Obama’s inauguration.

Reinhardt blogs at The New York Times’ “Economix” blog. A transcript of the interview is below the video.

Edie Magnus: What do you think of Canada’s national health care system?

Uwe Reinhardt: I think it’s a high performer in the following sense: Canadians spend half as much per capita on health care as we do in the U.S., and yet if you go up there, sure you have to wait for some MRI image or for some heart procedures, but overall the system produces very good health outcomes. People are more satisfied there with their care than Americans are with theirs. So if you diagnosed it like a physician, you’d give that system an A and you’d have a hard time giving more than a B to ours.

Edie Magnus: Why do you think it is that most Americans don’t see it that way?

Uwe Reinhardt: Most Americans, first of all, are bombarded with propaganda. You don’t know how many think tanks are paid by certain industry — insurance, drug, organized medicine — to feed out negative stories about the Canadian health system. They do of course have mishaps, as do we, but there is a whole industry collecting them and beaming them out here. That is one.

Secondly, people are always more comfortable culturally with whatever they have than with some other system.

Third, people imagine having the worst illness, and if you are really very sick in the U.S., you generally do have more hope than in any other country if you are very sick, particularly if you are well insured. But if you sort of live the average life of Americans and have a Canadian system, they have better primary care, easier access to it. They would never go bankrupt over health care, because they don’t do that up there. They would realize what they are missing here.

Edie Magnus: We were in a hospital that was affiliated with McGill University, and it was a regional system that had six hospitals that were affiliated with one another, and they annually have some 39,000 inpatients, and they do about 34,000 surgeries and they deliver about 3,000 babies. And managing all of this is a staff of 12 people doing the billing, the administration. What would an equivalent hospital in the U.S. take to run administratively?

Uwe Reinhardt: You’d be talking 800, 900 people, just for the billing, with that many hospitals and being an academic health center. We were recently at a conference at Duke University and the president of Duke University, Bill Brody, said they are dealing with 700 distinct managed care contracts. Now think about this. When you deal with that many insurers you have to negotiate rates with each of them. In Baltimore, they are lucky. They have rate regulations, so they don’t have to do it. But take Duke University, for example, has more than 500,000 and I believe it’s 900 billing clerks for their system.

Edie Magnus: What are 800, 900 people doing?

Uwe Reinhardt: Well first of all there’s a contract. With each different managed care contract you have different rates. You have different things that need pre-authorization, not depending on the contract. You haggle over every bill. You submit the bill, the insurer rejects it, you haggle, and it may take 90 days to settle one bill. They don’t have that in Canada. You see, we spend in this country an enormous amount of money just administering claims. It’s a huge wrestling match over the payment.

Edie Magnus: When we pay a medical bill, how much of that bill goes to these kinds of administrative costs?

Uwe Reinhardt: Well, in general what you’ll find in our official statistics, we’re spending 7 percent on administration, but that only accounts for the insurers’ administrative costs and that includes Medicaid, which burns only two percent of its money throughput on administration. On the other hand, Medicare and Medicaid both cost the hospitals administrative costs that are booked as medical care, but it’s really administrative costs.

Steffie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein of Harvard did a study comparing Canada and the U.S. looking at what it costs employers, providers, doctors and hospitals and the insurance mechanism and compared Canada and the US, and they found that we in 1999, spent $300 billion on administration for all these three functions, and that was about 24 percent of national health spending there, but they say it was actually 31 percent because of the fraction of spending that they could actually identify and link to administrative costs. So they came to 31. So it’s somewhere between 25 and 30 percent that goes for administration and it doesn’t even include the patients’ time of billing. Anyone who has had anyone really sick in their family knows how much time you spend haggling over the bills and they have none of that in these systems.

Edie Magnus: I know that there’s some dispute about all those numbers, about what percentage of our spending the administrative costs represent, but you have said that with what America could be saving in administrative costs, that it could completely fund universal health care for all Americans.

Uwe Reinhardt: Oh yes, I’m totally convinced of that.

Edie Magnus: How is that possible?

Uwe Reinhardt: Well for one, many insurance companies have a nomenclature that when they issue a bill, when the hospital issues a bill, the insurance company can’t understand it. So there are entities, enterprises that translate that from the insurance companies’ nomenclature into the hospitals’ nomenclature and vice versa.

Edie Magnus: Alright, but tell us, I’m not sure my mother would understand this explanation…

Well I mean, just imagine a hospital sees a horse and it says I code that as H-O-R-S-E, and the insurance company uses French for that, C-H-E-V-A-L, and now the computers, they can’t mesh this unless there is a translator in between who says “Oh, horse for that insurance company means cheval.”

Edie Magnus: And this goes on every day between hospitals and insurers?

Uwe Reinhardt: This goes on every day. They don’t understand the way that they “code” things. So I hope Obama will come and say, “You guys had 30 years to figure it out and obviously you couldn’t. I’ll figure it out for you. Here’s a nomenclature. You must use it, and if you don’t, you don’t get paid, period.”

Edie Magnus: Can you talk about that and how it contributes to our administrative headaches?

Uwe Reinhardt: Well, I once did a dumb thing: I asked an insurance executive “What do you pay in New Jersey for a colonoscopy?”

And he just laughed at me and said, “What a silly question. There is no price for a colonoscopy. We have a different price for every hospital. And for the same hospital, we might have six prices depending on the insurance product, is it an HMO, etc.”

So I said, “This is mad. How many could there be?”

He says, “There could be 30, 40 for us, but then with Aetna, they could have another 30, and everyone has a different contract, so a hospital might receive 60, 80,100 different prices for a colonoscopy, depending on which insurance company and what contract it is. So when you say ‘What are the private market prices?’ there is no price.”

And I said, “Well how, when you have consumer-directed health care, where people are supposed to shop around, what are you going to tell them?”

And he said, “We can’t, really. What would you tell them?”

There is no real price, and every price has been negotiated and haggled over. So imagine what it costs compared to a system where a government negotiates with a physician association. Here’s the fee schedule, and that’s it, and everyone uses the same fee schedule. You can put that into a computer. You have a little card like an American Express card. The price list is already there. You swipe it through, the doctor keys what he or she did and here’s your bill. Well here you have to look at what contract was it and the coding turns out to be wrong, and the bill isn’t clean.

I know an entrepreneur who is a multi-zillionaire, and I said, “What did you do before to be so rich?”

And he said, “I can write clean bills for doctors.”

And I said, “What is your product?”

He said, “My computer knows every managed care contract in this area, hundreds and hundreds of them, and if the doctor tells me the product, the insurance contract, and I know what the doctor did, my machine can type a bill that the doctor never could get right, and submit it to insurance, and we get paid 30, 40 days faster and more accurately, and we split – the doctor doesn’t pay me – we just split the extra money and make the doctor.

I have another friend in Princeton. He gets all of these bills, his wife was ill and he says, “I don’t do the claiming, there is a company that specializes in claiming for you. You just turn over all your stuff and they submit the bills.” So you now have companies that help doctors bill, and then you have companies that help patients pay these bills.

There was a company, I think it was a subsidiary of United, that wrote software to help hospitals bill better and get every dime they could from insurance companies and sold other software to help insurance companies that helps them defend themselves against the doctors’ billing. It’s laughable. It’s hard to explain it without laughing, but we do.

I tell you, if you gave a keg or two of beer to six Princeton undergraduates and said “Drink till you fall over, and then design something really mischievous,” they couldn’t come up with what we adults have come up with being sober, or seeming to be sober. This is a totally insane system.

Edie Magnus: And if we could save those administrative dollars, is there an amount that you think we would save?

Uwe Reinhardt: I think we should be able to cut it in half, what we spend. That would still be more than most other nations spend, but we should use other nations as a benchmark and say, “They can do it for this, so let’s at least cut ours in half.” We would still be spending more than these other nations, but Obama should simply set a goal. Like Kennedy said we’ll go to the moon in so many years, Obama said in so many years we’re going to save that much on administration and I’m going to put someone in charge of it and we’re going to keep books.

Edie Magnus: And to the person who hears that and thinks, “Yeah, but you know, sometime I’m going to be in a jam, I’m going to want some care, and if we go to this other system it might not be available to me…“

Uwe Reinhardt: Mind you, I’m not advocating the Canadian system. It works well for them. I’m not saying we need to have this, but I’m saying whatever we have, if you have government saying there is going to be one computer system, that doesn’t mean one manufacturer, but whatever they make has to interoperable. Whatever language they use has to be the same. We’re going to speak English, so to speak. One nomenclature. You have to call this operation by one code, no matter who it is. There have to be common billing forms. Not every company has its own incomprehensible explanation of benefits, you know. Every hospital bill is just a living insult, when you actually get one as a patient. There has to be something people understand.

And it turns out that after giving it to the industry for 30 years to straighten out and they didn’t, it will have to be the Obama government that says, “Guys we’re going to rig this for you. You can have all the machines you want, all the software. You can buy it from whomever, but it has to obey these rules.”

Just like electric plugs. No matter who makes the stuff, there has to be one plug. But for some reason, the electric industry has been able to settle on one plug. The Cell phone industry has still not settled on one charger. You have to have chargers that vary by thing. The earplugs for the cell phones are different depending on the model. This is nonsense. You give the industry time and if you can’t figure it out, kids, we’ll figure it out for you.

Edie Magnus: Why do you think it is that Canadians are, in large percentages, so much more satisfied with their health care system?

Uwe Reinhardt: I think, for one, you don’t have this constant fear when you go to bed, if whether tomorrow you have health insurance. You know you will. You almost feel it when you go to the airport and you ask these people. That’s not something they worry about. Here you ask any waitress “Are you insured?” Half the time they’re not even insured. If they have it, they don’t know if they have it tomorrow.

One of the interesting things is 250 finance people have been laid off. That industry is going to be small in the future. They’re not going to have health insurance. I think a lot of those people who hated the Canadian system and socialized medicine and so on will discover it might not be a bad idea to have a safety net for some things — education for your kids, health care when you get sick, justice when you are in the courts — and for some reason to think that rugged individualism can cope with this is nonsense.

Edie Magnus: Would national health care work in the United States?

Uwe Reinhardt: Yes.

Edie Magnus: Would Canada’s plan work in the United States?

Uwe Reinhardt: Well, it works. We have a Canadian health plan in America. It’s called Medicare. It works. Don’t tell me medicare doesn’t work. Tell that to the elderly. One way to test it is to say “Let’s take it away.”

Edie Magnus: But it is running out of money.

Uwe Reinhardt: No, it’s not, no way. It’s not running out of money. I mean we still have a surplus in that account. At some point in the future it will run out of money unless we raise premiums, that is, payroll contributions. We’ll have to do this. But the idea that that it runs out of money and General Motors, which is almost bankrupt, doesn’t, tell me about who is running out of money. GM is living on taxpayers’ blood transfusions. Why? Over health care. They ran out of money, not Medicare. I think this is a myth.

Of course, if you keep payroll tax where it is, it will run out money. But the elderly could contribute more to it and they will. Payroll taxes can be raised a little bit. Higher income recipients probably have to contribute more to it. These are really solvable problems, but Medicare is a Canadian style heath care system.

Edie Magnus: If it seems such long odds that we will ever have a single payer system for all of the United States, what’s the point of comparing us to Canada?

Uwe Reinhardt: You have to have benchmarks. You can’t just say, “We’re unique therefore we can simply spend the whole GDP on health care.” You do have to ask how does Canada do it. How does Germany do it? How does Taiwan do it? How do other nations do it? And if you think you are way out of line, if you’re spending twice as much as the people who are culturally similar to us — their income is somewhat lower but not that much lower than ours, we’re really one North America — you’d really have to ask yourself. Now mind you, you could also look within the US. Utah and Oregon are much, much cheaper than Massachusetts or Miami. So you could look at Canada, but you could also look within the U.S. where you have these variations. But why should you not be able to learn from other countries, particularly when you run a huge single payer system, and Obama is going to put in another single payer system, this public “Medicare light” plan for people under 65? So yeah, we can learn something from Canada. They can learn a lot from us.

Edie Magnus: If you don’t have all the free market forces in health care, would you have as much competition, innovation?

Uwe Reinhardt: Innovation, in the pharmaceutical products and devices, maybe not, because the money wouldn’t be as generous. I mean, we’ve had an unbelievable generous… I mean, if you spend twice as much, you will fund a lot of innovation with it and you’ll fund a lot of waste with it, both. We’ve had both, waste galore and innovation galore. You might have less innovation, but I think a good science policy could contravene that.

In other words, you could fund and support drug companies, not through the price of the drugs, but by giving them grants, government grants. We need a drug for Alzheimer’s, and like the defense contractors — we need a jet that can do these missions -– we need a drug that does Alzheimers. And the government is going to lend research contracts to the pharma. industry, and you get your cost reimbursed, but the winner who has the best product — you have a fly by like you do with jets — and the winner gets the contract. So there are other ways of funding devices and of funding drugs and other innovations than just through the price, you know? We have to think of other ways to do this. There is no reason why we couldn’t have a flourishing innovative high tech industry, even if we stepped down on prices, which the private sector will too.

You look at what the Bush administration has done with drugs, turning the Medicare Part D to private industry, and what did they do? They persuaded millions of the elderly to switch out of brand name drugs into generics, totally devastating the drug industry. This wasn’t done by the government. It was done by private enterprise, by private, competitive enterprise.

Edie Magnus: You’ve sort of alluded to this, but are you optimistic that America, starting today with a new president, can get it right with health care?

Uwe Reinhardt: Well, “get it right…” that’s partly an ideological thing, but get it done in this sense… You could say there are certain requirements we have of our health system. An American family where a member is stricken with cancer shouldn’t go broke. That’s easy to achieve. Do you have to do it the Canadian way? No. We can do it our way, even if it’s a little pricier.

A requirement that when somebody thinks they have major illness they should able to get access and not have to worry about whether they can pay the bill. There are certain things you can write down that health systems should achieve, and you say “We’re going to go there our own way. We’re not going to copy Germany, we’re not going to copy Canada, but we want to end at the same point,” and that is that you can go to bed and not worry about losing your health insurance when you lose your job. And those things are achievable, and the Obama plan, if you look at it, has all that in it. It says we keep the system we have, but we put some new things in, like this government program for the people under 65 such that when you lose your job, you don’t lose your family’s insurance, and we can do this. I’m optimistic.

Now a year ago I would have said we’ll never do it, because we’re a bunch of spoiled children.

Edie Magnus: Now we’ve been slapped upside the head…

Uwe Reinhardt: We’ve been slapped upside the head, and in fact people are talking about it, T-shirts, “Grow up America.” I’ve always told my wife “I never understood Americans till our kids became teenagers, and then I understood this whole culture.” It’s a teenage culture. That’s all I really know about Americans, people who want the best health care, they don’t want to pay high premiums, don’t want to pay taxes – this is juvenile. And I think Obama’s inauguration speech was basically very serious, saying, “You know, we have to grow up. We now have to grow up.” I’m much more hopeful now that children in distress will rediscover the virtue of mothers.

In fact I wrote a piece, “I hate Mom and the Government Too,” and I say that it’s amazing, given how teenagers curse mothers, that mothers somehow, that evolution didn’t do away with them, that the reason evolution kept them there is that when the kids get in trouble they run to Mom. And look at what happens now. GM driving overnight, begging mom, that is, government, to help them. The bankers of New York, you know, who used to sit in their golf carts cursing government regulation, running to Washington, to Mom, “Please help us.” And I think, like teenagers at some point discover the virtue of moms who can give them help, the American people will discover, “You know what, there are good things about government, like there are about moms. When you get in trouble they’re really cool to have around.” And I think we’re at that moment, and that is why I believe health reform has a hope. We could literally get this done this year.

Edie Magnus: And just to be clear, Obama’s plan is not national health care, right? It’s not a single payer system…

Uwe Reinhardt: If you mean a nationalized health care with a single…

Edie Magnus: Yes. Government funded, government run, the taxpayers pay, everyone gets it…

Uwe Reinhardt: No. It’s not that. It says you keep whatever you have as long as they’ll give it to you, but if they don’t give it to you anymore, Mom is here for you. You can go out there. You can ride your bike, but if you get hurt you can come here. If the private sector has not sold you a private health insurance policy, we will.

I can’t see what could be fairer that to say to everyone you can play all these games, but there are certain rules. You have to, in the end, cover people. And if you, the private health insurance agency, are not able to do it, we can do it. The government can do it.

And we’ll discover this more and more. Our banking system, you’d be surprised what that’ll look like. It will be highly regulated, like a utility. It’ll be small. It’ll do what it was supposed to do rather than being a gambling casino, which is what it became. You know, they too behaved like teenagers. In fact, this piece I just wrote, it’s actually only for the student newspaper, “I Hate Mom and the Government Too,” the Financial Times printed it, the German Zeit printed it, because everyone understood that that’s what it really was. We had all become teenagers, irresponsible, naughty, and so on, and I think we will become a much better nation because of this calamity.

Liberal leader Stéphane Dion, who would become the interim prime minister if the coalition gains power.

Canada’s major opposition parties signed an agreement to form a coalition on Monday and now sit poised to overthrow Stephen Harper’s conservative minority government. The coalition members cite government inaction on Canada’s suffering economy as a motivator for their mobilization.

Harper argues that installing a coalition government without electoral approval would be undemocratic. On Thursday, he won approval to suspend parliament from Governor General Michaëlle Jean, who holds the power to call for elections, dissolve parliament or appoint a new government.

The last national election was a mere six weeks ago.

Canadian bloggers have voiced their opinions about what the “Unambiguously Ambidextrous” blog calls “one of most interesting times in Canadian history.”

That blogger also argues that if the coalition were to take power, it would be undemocratic.

The “World Politics News” blog provides an overview of Canada’s political upheaval.

Blogger “Polly” argues that while liberal leader Stéphane Dion may not make a strong leader, the coalition movement is democratic — a result of Canadian votes at work, since Harper’s government is a minority.

Canadian conservatives have set up a virtual campaign office that asks visitors to “stand up for Canada” and reject the coalition.

A conservative blogger at “Angry in the Great White North” writes about a proposal that conservatives members of parliament resign if the coalition takes power, assessing the effectiveness of the plan.

Scott of “Scott’s DiaTribes” writes that he has joined a coalition of bloggers from several opposition parties in support of the coalition’s efforts.

The “Deliberative Dialogue” blog supports the coalition, claiming that it has a real plan for economic leadership.

A blogger at “NowPublic” writes that the argument has now moved to Facebook, where people may join groups supporting either side.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user BM Design under a Creative Commons license.

Algae.

“Another day, another algae company,” says Michael Kanellos of Greentech Media.

Algae-based energy may not share the popularity of corn-based or sugar-based biofuels, but it is projected to be in commercial production within three years.

Along with green revolution trends like natural gas, nuclear power and ethanol fuel blends, people around the world are exploring a host of other “alternative” alternative fuels.

In Canada, a new cellulosic ethanol plant will make use of beetle-killed wood.

Blogger Patrick Kiger of “Is This a Good Idea?” weighs the idea of using artificial tornadoes to generate electricity.

Blogger “Naija Pundit” of “My Nigeria” excerpts a report from a Nigerian man using his septic tank as a bioreactor to generate electricity, provocatively joking that the success of this practice could put national power companies out of business.

In Patagonia, South America, plant scientist Gary Strobel has discovered a forest fungus that produces many of the same hydrocarbons found in diesel. Strobel proposes that it might be genetically combined with faster-reproducing bacteria to develop new energy sources.

In the arena of consumer vehicles, an air-powered CityCat car is schedule to arrive in the U.S. by early 2010. A version of the car was supposed to be in production in India in July, and the “Xtreme Machines” blog provides an overview of the machine.  Yet reports say that the technology is still in development.

Blogger Noel of “Green Stumbler” showcases other air-powered cars including South Africa’s Air Car, the South Korean Energine engine, and the French K’Airmobile.

Michael Kanellos at “Greentech Media” reports that Japanese car manufacturer Nissan is now developing a car that charges itself.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Olfert under a Creative Commons license.

For more on oil and other resources, see our interactive map: The world according to energy.

A Polish soldier salutes at an Independence Day ceremony.

It may go by many names — Veterans Day, Remembrance Day, Poppy Day, Armistice Day and even Independence Day in some countries — but every November, nations around the world commemorate those who have served in the the military and particularly in World War I (WWI).

This year marks the 90th anniversary of the end of WWI.

The conflict — fueled by the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian-Hungarian throne –  pitted Germany and Austria-Hungary against the Allied Powers (the United Kingdom, France, Belgium and several others), branching out from Europe and impacting the globe.

After the Allied victory, world leaders met in Versailles to negotiate peace. As a result, Germany disarmed and lost much of its prewar territory.

Poland regained its independence as a result of the Treaty of Versailles. Blogger “Annalise” describes the festivities at Polish Independence Day on Nov. 11.

“Experiences of an English Soldier” is a blog by an English soldier in WWI, whose grandson now posts his diary entries in real time.

An Irish blogger at “For the Fainthearted” tells the story of Percy Horner, one of the Irishmen who fought in WWI voluntarily.

Blogger “Kristie” wonders if Remembrance Day should be a national holiday in Canada. At the time of WWI, Canada was still under the British Empire.

Australia was also part of the British Empire during the war, but Australian and Kiwi soldiers in WWI made a name for themselves and brought great national pride. Today, Australia celebrates Australian and New Zealand Army Corps Day (ANZAC) on April 25.

Blogger “Karena” writes from France about Armistice Day’s celebration of les poilus, as French soldiers in WWI were called.

Germany holds a national day of mourning, the Volkstrauertag, later in the month, but today marks the beginning of the German carnival season.

Photo courtesy of włodi under a Creative Commons license.

Internet censorship and surveillance are contentious issues around the world.

In Malaysia, blogging remains one of the few ways to exercise free speech, although the government has begun to crack down on sites and bloggers, blocking malaysia-today.net (since redirected) and jailing its publisher.

Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad joins his country’s bloggers in criticizing the government under Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, his chosen successor.

The EU recently criticized Turkey for its free speech violations, when the government blocked 850 sites, including Blogger and YouTube. The blockage of wordpress.com last August met a firestorm of criticism, as documented by “Global Voices” blogger Sami Ben Gharbia.

Australia is making headlines for its new Internet censorship legislation, which is being criticized by both bloggers and traditional journalists. Blogger “Stilgherrian” leads a discussion about the new laws that includes a direct reply from a member of Parliament defending the laws.

Egypt faces its own free speech struggles, as explored by a Worldfocus signature story and an interview with blogger Hossam el-Hamalawy, who claims that online free speech rights are severely limited by the government. He also started a debate at Flickr, where he feels his photos of Egyptian political demonstrations have been censored.

Bi Yantao of the “Fool’s Mountain” blog reports that China – perhaps the country most famous for Internet censorship and its “great firewall” — tightened its Internet censorship as the Beijing Olympics finished and foreigners left.

Fred Stopsky of “The Impudent Observor” shares a Finnish report stating that older Finns accept Internet censorship to prevent the spread of violence and “certain ideas.”

British blogger “Charlotte Gore” responds to member of Parliament Hazel Blears’ attack on political bloggers by insisting that “the blogosphere does not answer to the government.”

“DailyBits” provides a succinct top-ten rundown of Internet censorship, and the OpenNet Initiative provides in-depth tracking and analysis of Internet filtration and censorship around the globe.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user wolfcat_aus under a Creative Commons license.

A chart detailing public opinion in Afghanistan. Source: The Asia Foundation Children gathered in Afghanistan.

Only 38 percent of Afghans believe their country is headed in the right direction. U.S. headlines about Afghanistan also reflect this surge of pessimism and defeatism.

Security and employment issues weighed on Afghan’s sense of optimism and pessimism, according to the Asia Foundation’s new report.

Carl Montgomery, a traveler in Afghanistan, writes at his blog that “Despite what you see in the news, not everyone is in lock down quivering in their sandals,” outlining a few success stories that have been overlooked.

Judah Grunstein of World Politics Review writes that the U.S. has militarized fighting-age men and “left the rest to their own devices” — a faulty strategy given the relationship between unemployment and insurgency.

“The Torch” blog says the numbers are encouraging, but not the trends. The author, who writes about the Canadian military, argues that withdrawing from the country would be a mistake. Canada has committed to remaining in Afghanistan through at least 2011 despite growing costs.

Joshua Foust of “Registan” writes that media coverage of Afghanistan may have been misrepresented, pointing out that on a day-to-day basis, Afghans fear crime more than insurgency.

The U.S. has recently considered a policy shift towards discussion with members of the Taliban in Afghanistan, as attacks reach a six-year high.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user fieldmedic under a Creative Commons license.

Below, international bloggers voice their opinions about the debate and the candidates.

Explore Worldfocus partner LinkTV’s “Dear American Voter” project, which encourages citizens from around the world to submit videos about the U.S. elections.

Included are video testimonials from Ghana, Syria, Greece, Denmark, Spain, Italy and Jordan.

Read our previous post on global reactions to the second U.S. presidential debate.

Some comments from international bloggers about the U.S. elections:

“Politically Incorrect” blog, Kenya

Watching [the debate], I began nightdreaming about the possibilities it held for African countries . [...] What if we started seeing elections as a platform for allowing citizens to decide on what they wanted, rather than using it as an opportunity to bribe, cheat, humiliate, fight, be abusive, or whatever else African leaders are always up to during such times? It is still a dream in Africa that we will achieve the state that [the U.S.] takes for granted, where election campaigns are organized and the battles do not have to involve or bruise the public, where citizens still have a large amount of power, and where presidents (potential) are taken to task about their manifestos.

“Mexico Monitor” blog, Mexico

Undocumented immigration remains a political hot potato in the campaign for the U.S. presidency. Neither McCain nor Obama mentioned the issue during their third and final presidential debate. But on more than 20 occasions they did talk about “Joe Plumber,” a name for the generic working man now suffering the consequences of the global financial crisis. During a Facebook chat, a friend told me that she thinks the candidates were really talking about “Jose el Plomero, un migrante indocumentado” — José Plumber, an undocumented Mexican migrant worker who lives in the shadows of the broken U.S. immigration system and is waiting to see if the next U.S. president will be bold enough to propose meaningful immigration reform legislation.

“Cas Cas the Explorer” blog, France

Being an American in Paris is an uphill battle—I even speak French pretty well. From the moment I touched down at Charles de Gaulle, politics have remained the focal point of almost every discussion. With three suitcases in tow, my cab driver asked the address of my destination, and after hearing my accent, asked of my origin. After stating, “Etat-Unis”, a glimmer appeared in his eye in the rearview mirror. No questions on “what brings you to Paris” or “How long are you going to be here”. His words were simple, “Obama où McCain?” This scene has been played repeatedly with most interactions between the French and I. Once they know you are American, the only issue of concern becomes the election and the reasoning behind your choice. [...] With each upcoming question I am bound to face regarding “Obama où McCain,” I’ll smile and answer, praying that this one conversation might have a domino effect—however slight it may be—so that America can regain the prestige and respect abroad she once had.

“Two Chicks Nest” blog, Canada

I’m calling myself out. I’ve lived in Canada for a year and I don’t understand Canadian politics. I follow U.S. politics like it’s my (part time) job, but I barely even notice what’s going on in the country that I am living in. Tsk tsk. Canadians are very interested in U.S. politics. The Canadian news broadcasts the vice presidential debates, for god’s sake! How is it that we have 24-hour news cycles in the U.S., but we barely ever mention anything beyond the U.S. border? Americans, have you heard anything about the Canadian national election that took place yesterday?

“Boquete Panama Guide” blog, Panama

I realize that Latin American politics seem remote from the current problems in the U.S. but they are not. There are huge numbers of Latin American voters in the U.S. These immigrants [...] have families in Latin America families incuding the Cubans in Miami that know what will happen if Chavez is successful emulating Castro’s Cuba. [...] People in all the world are [a]ffected by the U.S. election. I did a totally unscientific poll conducted with people in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Guatemala, Panama, Mexico, Venezuela, Cuba, Peru and Columbia. The people I spoke with are watching with great interest and 100% of those I chatted with would, if they could, vote for Barack Obama and hope for change, so would I.

Anti-gay graffiti on a Jamaican wall.

Gays living in Jamaica face difficulty reconciling two parts of themselves—being gay and being Jamaican.

Homosexuality is illegal in Jamaica, and considered a sin by church-going Jamaicans. Pastors rail against homosexuality from the pulpit, reggae lyrics glamorize gay killings and sodomy laws make homosexuality punishable by a 10-year prison sentence of hard labor.

A Current.tv video captures the story of a gay Jamaican police officer and his search for asylum in Canada.

The “Jamaica Views blog” questions whether discrimination is getting worse and suggests that the situation can only improve when churches, schools and society as a whole reform their teachings.

Last May, Jamaica’s prime minister said he would not allow homosexuals into his cabinet. Jamaicans reacted to the prime minister’s public anti-gay declaration.

According to Immigration Equality, a New York-based national organization that works to seek asylum for persecuted gays, each month brings new stories and different versions of the same crimes — murder, attacks, beatings — against gays by Jamaican citizens and police. There has also been little effort by the government to outlaw the “buggery” or sodomy laws.

Jamaica’s intolerance for homosexuals and severe anti-gay record have proven to be grounds for gays to seek asylum in Britain, Canada and the U.S. Gays make up a small percentage of 12,000 asylum cases won in the U.S. every year.

October is LGBT [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender] month in the U.S. To celebrate, “Sunshine Cathedral Jamaica: LGBT Blog” remembers Brian Williamson, a gay activist and J-FLAG founder, who was murdered in 2004.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Chrysaora under a Creative Commons license.

• Watch all the Worldfocus In the Shadows video signature series
• Listen to Worldfocus Radio on LGBT politics and gay asylum
• For more information on homophobia and HIV in Jamaica, visit The Glass Closet, a multimedia project produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting