Canada slaps new sanctions on Iran

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 2:48 PM - 0 Comments

Canada has imposed new economic sanctions against Iran, following both the U.S. and the U.K. in their escalating efforts to isolate the Islamic Republic. “We will do what it takes to isolate the regime and minimize the risk that it poses to global peace,” Government House Leader Peter Van Loan said on Monday. The fresh sanctions come in response to a recent report by the United Nation’s International Atomic Energy Agency, which suggested Iran is trying to gain nuclear weapons capability. The sanctions ban all financial transactions with Iran and its banks, including the central bank, except for already-existing contracts and personal remittances of up to $40,000 (the latter, according to the CBC is designed to allow Iranian-Canadians to transfer money to their relatives back home). The sanctions also prohibit any new deals with the Iranian oil and gas industry. Speaking to reporters on Monday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said the sanctions will have a significant impact. “We have dramatically reduced their access to the international financials system. Iranian banks are losing their ability to do business around the world.”

CBC

Should Ottawa reimburse the provinces for the cost of its crime legislation?

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 1:51 PM - 0 Comments

Nap time

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 1:43 PM - 0 Comments

That dozens of uninvolved MPs are made to sit through Question Period each afternoon solely for the purposes of clapping and filling out the cameraframe regularly strikes me as a terrible waste of their valuable time. Time that could, for instance, be put to use for the purposes of catching up on sleep.

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AG: Recurrent flaws in Canada’s visa system

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 1:36 PM - 0 Comments

Citizenship and Immigration Canada has once again failed to address persistent shortcomings, the fall report of the auditor general noted. “I find it disturbing that fundamental weaknesses still exist,” Interim Auditor General John Wiersema told reporters at a news conference. The audit highlighted a number of problems including security manuals for visa officers dating back to 1999, and an equally outdated focus of the medical screening process on syphilis and tuberculosis. It means that CIC and the Canada Border Services Agency “don’t know if a visa was issued to someone who was in fact inadmissible,” Wiersema said.

CBC

Cambodia: enjoying China’s long shadow

By Brendan Brady - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 1:07 PM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Brendan Brady

With per capita GDP well under a thousand dollars and a government dependent on foreign aid, Cambodia is among the poorest of the poor in Southeast Asia. But with workers in China, Thailand and Vietnam, demanding and obtaining heftier paychecks, Cambodians are getting a residual lift. Rising wages, labour unrest, as well as currency instability and political turmoil in some cases, elsewhere in the region’s traditional manufacturing centers are improving the prospects of Cambodia, an industrial minnow.

The country’s garment exports have soared in the past year, increasing by nearly 40 per cent, according to the government. Independent observers might put the figure lower, but they would agree with Ken Loo, the secretary general of the Garment Manufacturers Association of Cambodia, when he points to rising wages and work stoppages in China as one of the main causes of Cambodia’s increased share of the market. It’s an important boost in a sector that has been Cambodia’s main engine of growth since the late 1990s, when the country stabilized after years of debilitating civil strife. The garment and footwear industry employs some 400,000 people in this country of just over 14 million (the Gap, H&M and Nike are among the major brands that have suppliers in Cambodia) and account for more than two-thirds of Cambodia’s exports.

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Tories ignore Quebec’s last-minute plea on crime bill

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 1:00 PM - 0 Comments

A last-ditch attempt by Quebec to insert amendments into the Tories’ omnibus crime bill on Tuesday bore no fruit. Quebec’s Justice Minister Jean-Marc Fournier met with his counterpart in Ottawa, Rob Nicholson, today to ask once more that the Conservative government revise some parts of the bill that he fears will harm the province’s ability to pursue a rehabilitation-oriented approach to young offenders. “I came here today and the door was closed,” Fournier to reporters after the meeting.

The Globe and Mail

Well, there’s your problem

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 12:45 PM - 0 Comments

The fall report of the auditor general is here.

The concerns expressed there include defence procurement, tobacco farming compensation, drug safety, visa processing and assessing the results of the government’s economic stimulus.

Listen to the Rain on the Roof

By Jaime Weinman - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 12:38 PM - 0 Comments

I actually don’t fully understand the business model behind offering a complete album for free online. But I guess it helps get us away from the pirates and builds interest in actually buying the album. So NPR, which had the complete album of The Book of Mormon for free, now has the complete recording of the current Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Follies. It’ll be available on the website for a week, and then we’ll have to pay money to hear it.

I have only listened once, not enough to decide what I think about it, though I know I’ll be buying it. Every version of Follies is a problem, because the show is so huge and difficult to cast, because it has certain built-in structural problems that can’t be solved (though the 1987 London rewrite, which the writers later disowned as too compromised, did apparently add more of a story element to the show, and – not coincidentally, I think – was the only version that ever made money). And because the original cast recording was cut to pieces – almost every song had internal cuts made to it because the producer was under orders to get it all on one LP – there’s no “definitive” recording: the best cast is the original, but you can’t recommend a recording of the original cast except bootlegs made in the theatre.

This one has advantages that the other two complete recordings don’t have. The 1985 concert recording was a glamorous event, but a lot of the people in it were cast for name recognition rather than appropriateness. And the 1998 recording sounds very studio-bound even though it was based on a production at the Paper Mill Playhouse. This new recording is based on a real theatre production and sounds like it, and the theatrical feel is important to a show that is almost purely a theatre piece (it has no plot, and musical theatre itself is one of its main subjects). I haven’t made up my mind whether I think Bernadette Peters is right for this, granted that my thoughts on it are coloured by Dorothy Collins from the original cast recording and Victoria Clark, who I thought was one of the highlights of the Encores! concert version: this part and its songs work best for me when they’re delivered in a simple, un-mannered way. But as a complete statement of the score, this is certainly a recording I’m already glad to have. It’s just that any recording of Follies is, more even than for most musicals, a supplement to the memory of seeing it. It was a show that already seemed like a legendary show from the past when it was still in its first run.

Canada, Syria, and Suncor Energy

By Michael Petrou - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 12:07 PM - 0 Comments

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird says Canada has not blocked Suncor Energy Inc.’s operations in Syria because the natural gas it extracts is used solely to generate electricity for civilian use. It would be “negative, not positive” to cut off hospitals and families, he added.

This is, at best, is a dubious claim. Suncor’s partnership in Syria is with a state-owned company. Revenues go to the regime. Some of those revenues may be used to keep the lights on in hospitals. Some may be used to massacre peaceful protesters. Canada isn’t allowing Suncor to continue working in Syria out of humanitarian concerns.  Continue…

Talking shop

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 12:01 PM - 0 Comments

On the occasion of his winning the prize for parliamentarian of the year, I sat down last Thursday with Bob Rae in his corner office on the fifth floor of Centre Block. Here’s a transcript of our conversation (only slightly abridged).

How do you now look back on the parliamentarian you were at that point when you first showed up?

I had a kind of a very lucky start because I was elected in a by-election and it was sort of the last six months of the Trudeau government and the NDP caucus was very small, it was like 15 or 16 people, and there were lots of opportunities for me to speak, to kind of get in and do stuff. I got to ask a question my first day and I did a late night debate.

The House was a much more congenial place. There were a number of Conservatives who were there who were very friendly—Ray Hnatyshyn, Lincoln Alexander and Steve Paproski. They all stayed for my maiden speech and they all heckled during the speech. You could tell it was a kind of very modest kind of hazing process—Well, we’ll see how this kid does.

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Details emerge on how police infiltrated G20 protests

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 11:15 AM - 0 Comments

RCMP agents gathering intelligence on potential threats to the G20 summit in Toronto last year went so far as sharing a residential unit with their “targets” in one case and letting a potential would-be protester shuttle one officer’s cancer-stricken mother to and from the hospital during her dying days, the Globe and Mail reports. The probe, carried out by undercover police officers from the Joint Intelligence Group, an RCMP-led squad, lasted a year and a half and lead to charges of conspiracy to commit mischief for 17 people.

The Globe and Mail

Egyptian cabinet offers resignations

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 10:56 AM - 0 Comments

Egypt’s ruling army council called for crisis talks involving the country’s political parties and other public figures on Tuesday, after Prime Minister Essam Sharaf tendered the resignation of his government on Monday. The country faces extreme political volatility as mass protests erupted last weekend in Cairo with demonstrators demanding that the military exit politics. The unrest is casting a shadow on a series of parliamentary elections due to start next Monday. The majority of Egyptian politicians, however, asked the ruling council to call Egyptians to the poll as scheduled, despite the protests, Reuters reports.

Reuters

Police blotter

By Alex Ballingall - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 10:45 AM - 0 Comments

British Columbia: RCMP in North Vancouver arrested an 18-year-old man they found in the trunk of a car he allegedly broke into. After receiving reports of a smashed car window, the Mounties searched the area with a canine unit, but didn’t come up with anything. It wasn’t until police brought the car back to its owner that they opened the trunk and found the man hiding inside.

Manitoba: A 37-year-old man was arrested in Winnipeg after he allegedly conned six families out of a total of $5,000. Police say he posed as a furnace repairman, making cold calls to offer his services. In most instances he didn’t do any tinkering and simply took people’s money. But in one case, police say he installed a faulty valve that could have caused a carbon monoxide leak.

Ontario: A 24-year-old Toronto drug smuggler was banished from Windsor and surrounding Essex County after he was convicted of travelling with crack cocaine shoved into his rectum. A judge in Windsor concluded that her city doesn’t need any more drug mules. “Drugs, guns—we have it up to here,” she said.

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Made in China, even then

By Nicholas Köhler - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 10:35 AM - 0 Comments

This summer, archaeologists clearing the way for a new mining project deep in the Yukon interior unearthed a 17th-century Chinese coin—providing further tantalizing proof of a trade route hundreds of years old linking First Nations peoples with Chinese markets and seagoing Russian merchants.

Dug up at a traditional lookout spot high above a valley some 200 km north of Whitehorse, the coin was minted between 1667 and 1671 at the Xuanhua garrison, northwest of Beijing, during the reign of the Emperor Sheng Zu of the Qing dynasty. It subsequently travelled across the Pacific, then through mountain passes controlled at the time by the Tlingit First Nations, a passage that offers a fascinating glimpse into the business relations binding Russian traders with both China and Canada’s pre-colonial North. Those visiting Russians offered First Nations traders such goods as tobacco, glass beads, tea, kettles and coins in exchange for sea otter, fox, beaver and other pelts, furs that in turn appeared for sale in China, says James Mooney, an archaeologist with Ecofor Consulting, who was on the dig that uncovered the coin.

Indeed, these coins were common on the northwest coast by the 18th century—this is the third found in Yukon—and were often sewn into armour worn by Tlingit warriors. That may explain this coin’s unusual punctures, at each corner of a central square hole, which may have been made to ensure a securer fit on a tunic. Russian traders may not have been the first to arrive here, either: Mooney describes old indigenous accounts of arrivals wearing long “many-coloured silk” robes, their heads shaved in the front, the hair on the back “plaited into tresses”—perhaps the Chinese themselves.

Playing for Jeeps

By Chris Sorensen - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 10:30 AM - 0 Comments

Chrysler

Chrysler is hoping to cash in on the stampede to buy the latest version of the Call of Duty video game series, Modern Warfare 3. At the same time the game went on sale, it released a 2012 Jeep Wrangler Call of Duty: MW3 Special Edition vehicle (complete with graphics on the front fenders, spare tire cover and logos on the seats, dashboard and floor mats).

It’s the second time Jeep’s marketing team has partnered with the video game’s publisher to have its vehicles appear in one of Call of Duty’s virtual worlds, while having elements of the game appear in the real-life vehicle. Whether there are enough Dorito-eating Call of Duty fans with an extra $36,495 lying around to move the needle on Chrysler’s sales is doubtful, but at least the MW3 special edition is cooler looking than Jeep’s 2003 effort: a Wrangler Rubicon plastered with bright orange Tomb Raider decals.

Why the Liberals are yesterday’s party

By Peter C. Newman - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 10:30 AM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Cole Garside

Peter C. Newman’s latest political book was supposed to be a close observer’s inside account of the rise of Michael Ignatieff from novelist and Harvard professor to prime minister of Canada, with barely a stop in between. Instead, as Newman followed Ignatieff during his climb to the Liberal leadership and the party’s catastrophic federal election campaign last spring, it became clear that he was chronicling the destruction of the Liberal party. In this excerpt from When the Gods Changed: The Death of Liberal Canada, Newman describes the Liberals’ abject failure to respond to the Conservatives’ devastating anti-Ignatieff ads and the Liberal leader’s hapless debate performance:

The attack ads defined Ignatieff in a way the Liberals did not—it turned out, could not—answer. Not because the accusations were true, but because they were repeated with brainwashing frequency.

How that lapse happened is the great untold story of the campaign. There was, during the 2011 election, no public proof that anything positive was stirring inside the Liberal camp, but in fact nearly $5 million quietly trickled into Liberal headquarters. Those voluntary contributions were greater than the totals mailed in during the last three elections. The Liberal party’s fundraising was actually quite good, much better than that of the NDP or Bloc. The problem for the Liberals was that the power brokers divided the spoils. The Grits had the highest infrastructure costs of all the political parties—every federal-provincial association demanded their own office budgets and staff, plus there was a commission for every special interest within the party, each with its own budget. The Liberals’ rotten internal culture meant that the power brokers would rather the party die than lose their little fiefdoms. The party thus left its leader helpless to defend himself. Too busy dividing what remained of fundraising dollars and the public subsidy between its fiefdoms and power brokers, the party was unable to save any for the response to the negative advertising that Ignatieff so desperately needed.

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Sport Chek’s plan to be a ‘cool’ brand

By Chris Sorensen - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 10:20 AM - 0 Comments

Jeff McIntosh/CP

Landing Sidney Crosby as a pitchman is only the start of Sport Chek’s plan to be a ‘cool’ brand

With its black facade and red-slash logo, Sport Chek is a familiar sight in malls across the country. As Canada’s only big-box sporting goods retailer, it’s a convenient place for consumers to find everything from hockey skates and bicycles to running shoes and golf clubs. But, as its new owner is the first to admit, Sport Chek isn’t exactly known for being a “cool” place to shop—although snagging hockey superstar Sidney Crosby as a pitchman was a step in the right direction.

With competition from U.S.-based retailers on the rise, Canadian Tire (which purchased Sport Chek’s parent company, Forzani Group Ltd., for $771 million earlier this year) has tapped Montreal ad agency Sid Lee to do a complete brand overhaul of FGL’s flagship 139-store Sport Chek chain. “Our goal is to inspire our customers and define the purpose that Sport Chek has in their life,” says Duncan Fulton, the chief marketing officer of FGL. “And hopefully it’s more than a box in the mall where you can buy some stuff and then go out and be passionate about your sport.”

Sid Lee is the ad agency behind Adidas’s latest global brand campaign, its biggest ever, featuring soccer superstars Lionel Messi and David Beckham, the NBA’s Derrick Rose and singer Katy Perry. Amid pounding beats, the spots weave together heroic action from the soccer pitch and basketball court with gritty street-oriented sports like skateboarding and BMX, with a dose of fashion and music thrown in for good measure—basically all of the sports and “lifestyle” categories where Adidas wants to be recognized.

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Payday loans go high-tech

By Richard Warnica - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 10:10 AM - 0 Comments

When the Jenga tower of the American housing market toppled in 2008, subprime loans became a dirty concept. But the subprime lending sector was never just about risky mortgages. And the business of getting money to the less-than-middle class remains robust.

One of the newer entrants to that field is ZestCash, an online American start-up that aims to get small loans to borrowers with poor credit. Founded by Douglas Merrill, a former chief information officer at Google, ZestCash defines itself by what it claims not to be, a payday loan company. Payday loan merchants don’t usually discriminate. Built into their business model is the idea that many borrowers will default. ZestCash, which currently operates in four states but may expand in the new year, has a different model. They aim to judge potential customers by their online signatures. In the same way Amazon recommends books and Google orders search results, ZestCash computers can figure out if you’re a good bet to pay back your loan. Sonya Boralv, Merrill’s wife and the communications chief for the company, says even the amount of time a customer spends on the ZestCash website—testing different options, toying with different rates—can be a signal of how likely they are to default.

So far, according to the company, the model is working. ZestCash default rates are about half those in the payday loan market generally, says Boralv. Annualized, the company’s interest rates still far exceed those offered by credit cards or bank loans. But the lower default rate lets ZestCash offer better terms and a more forgiving structure than traditional payday loan houses. (Borrowers spread payments on loans over a set term.) Overall, the cost of a ZestCash loan can be as much as 50 per cent less than a similar payday loan, says Boralv.

Continue…

The next man on the moon may well be Chinese

By Kate Lunau - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 10:10 AM - 0 Comments

Qin Xian’an/Xinhua/Corbis

On Sept. 29, at a remote location in the Gobi Desert, China launched its Tiangong-1 space module into the night sky. With President Hu Jintao and other dignitaries looking on, China’s Long March rocket blasted off just after 9 p.m.; 10 minutes later, Tiangong-1 (the name translates as “Heavenly Palace”) broke away from the rocket, deploying solar panels for power, and continued into orbit.

In terms of technology, Tiangong-1 isn’t a major step forward. The Chinese spacelab, currently unmanned, has a small compartment where up to three astronauts can stay for short periods; it’s been compared to NASA’s Skylab, launched in 1973, or Russia’s first space station, launched in 1971. But China isn’t dallying: since its manned space program was approved in 1992, it has moved at breathtaking speed. China launched an astronaut into space in 2003, becoming one of just three nations with its own human space flight capabilities (the U.S. and Russia are the other two). Last year, for the first time, it launched more satellites than the U.S., and it’s the only country building a space station by itself. After 2020, China hopes to put a man on the moon. “They’re trying to place themselves in the category of superpower,” says Swansea University’s Michael Sheenan, who studies international space politics. “The Tiangong-1 launch is a step in that direction.”

What China’s space program lacks in technology and experience, it makes up for in financial resources and political will. “It’s very hard to do manned space flight in democracies,” says Joan Johnson-Freese, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College. The Chinese space program is closely linked to its government, which—without an electorate to worry about—has been able to push ahead with its ambitious goals.

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Buddy, can you spare a deer?

By Richard Warnica - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 10:10 AM - 0 Comments

Sussex, N.B.’s Mike and Caroline Trueman love to shoot deer. They usually bag a pair every season. But a few years ago, with their five kids grown and out of the home, the avid hunters had a problem: what were they supposed to do with all that meat?

Their answer: give it to the needy. In 2008, the Truemans called local food banks and soup kitchens to ask, “Can you take our deer?” The meat, they figured, would be a good change from the mac and cheese that fills most food hampers. But they couldn’t find any takers. “Everybody kept saying, nope, you can’t do that in Canada. It’s not available. It’s not legal,” Caroline Trueman says.

But the Truemans didn’t give up. They went to Fredericton, hired a lawyer, and in 2009 had their hunted-meat-for-the-hungry scheme declared legal. That year, the Truemans launched Farmers and Hunters Feeding the Hungry Canada, an offshoot of an American organization. In the 2010 season alone, Caroline says, the group fed nutritious and, depending on your tastes, delicious venison to 1,600 needy New Brunswickers. Now the Truemans are hoping to expand. Their website already lists volunteer coordinators in B.C., Ontario and Quebec. They’re hoping more come on board soon.

The program works like this: the organization provides a list of participating, provincially licensed butchers. All the hunters have to do is hunt, then drop the meat off. (“Do what you love to do,” Caroline says.) The organization pays for cleaning and butchering costs with donations.

Since local media first reported on the program, Caroline has been swamped with offers and advice on how to expand the operation. But she says it’s all a bit beyond her. “I don’t know how to do a marketing plan,” she says. “All I know how to do is feed the hungry and hunt.”

Acapulco: where inmates run the prison

By Patricia Treble - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 10:05 AM - 0 Comments

Prisoners at Acapulco’s penitentiary didn’t have time to clean house when more than 500 Mexican police officers paid their residence an unannounced pre-dawn visit last week in order to move 60 inmates to other correctional facilities. In addition to 100 plasma TVs, video games and two bags stuffed with marijuana, the officials also discovered 19 prostitutes, two peacocks and six female inmates in the men’s section. As if the place wasn’t crowded enough, more than 100 cockerels, used for popular cockfights, were found on the premises, as well as two peacocks—described as “pets” by Guerrero state spokesman Arturo Martinez.

Acapulco is in the midst of a violent crime wave as rival drug gangs battle for control of the area. Recently, a human rights commission accused the prison, along with others in the state, of being controlled by inmates. It isn’t alone. In July, detainees in the Cereso Hermosillo jail in Sonora state were caught selling $15 raffle tickets for a one-in-200 chance of using a cell fitted out with air conditioning, a full kitchen including appliances, as well as a comfortable bed and even a private toilet.

You’ve changed

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments

The New Democrats sent up backbencher Dan Harris just before Question Period yesterday with the following.

Mr. Speaker, when in opposition the Conservatives were outraged by an arrogant government that hid from the opposition by invoking closure. Now they have done it nine times since the election. The Minister of Public Safety once said: “For the government to bring in closure and time allocation is wrong. It sends out the wrong message to the people of Canada. It tells the people of Canada that the government is afraid.” The Minister of Canadian Heritage decried: “…the arrogance of the government in invoking closure again.” The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration once called it “…yet more unfortunate evidence of the government’s growing arrogance.” One more quote. “The government is simply increasingly embarrassed by the state of the debate and it needs to move on.” That one was from the Prime Minister himself. These out of touch Conservatives came here to change Ottawa. Instead, Ottawa changed them. In six short years they have become everything they used to oppose.

See previously: Like a young Pat Martin, No time for debate and If he were here to see this, Stephen Harper would be so disappointed

Kobo’s coming-out party

By Alex Ballingall - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments

E-readers, with their dull black and white screens, have typically been outshone by their flashier, shinier cousins in the tablet market—think iPads and Samsung Galaxies. Kobo, created in 2009 by Toronto-based Indigo Books & Music, Inc., was no different. It was largely overlooked in the Canadian tech industry as a very unsexy bit player.

Not anymore. Earlier this month, Kobo was purchased by Japan’s Rakuten, Inc. for $315 million, and now the Canadian start-up is suddenly being seen in a new light. “Being taken over shouldn’t be seen as a sign that Kobo is anything less than a great Canadian success story,” notes tech analyst Carmi Levy. “It should be seen as a sign that the already successful belle of the ball has been noticed, and has been asked to dance.”

Last quarter, Kobo sales jumped 219 per cent, while the company reports it has five million users worldwide. Kobo already controls more than 50 per cent of the Canadian e-reader market, and has a foothold of around 10 per cent in the U.S. Through Rakuten, the hope is that Kobo will gain access to markets in Europe, South America and Asia so it can further compete with industry heavyweights Amazon, Google and Apple. As Levy says, the time has come for the Canadian start-up to dance with the big boys.

Turning swords into ploughshares

By Alex Ballingall - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 9:40 AM - 0 Comments

The enterprising police chief of one of India’s most crime-ridden states has come up with a new idea intended to free up storage space and create thousands of tools for the working population. Abhyamand, police chief of Bihar in northern India, has spearheaded an initiative to melt down more than 60,000 guns seized from criminals, currently gathering dust in hundreds of malkhanas, or police station storage units. Their metal is already being used for farming tools. “Can we keep the dead bodies of criminals for long? Only the post-mortem is preserved. The same should apply with unwanted weapons,” said the police chief, recently sharing his logic with the BBC.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau, Bihar had more than 3,000 violent killings last year. To combat this, Abhyamand has introduced fast-track trials and enabled police to seize unclaimed private property in Bihar. For his latest initiative—which he refers to as the “cannibalization of Bihar’s weapons”—Abhyamand took advantage of a provision in the Bihar Police Manual that allows him to destroy any “unserviceable or unusable” weapons. “The weapons in police station malkhanas are of no use,” he recently told the BBC. “They stink like dead bodies.”