G20 Summit Should Focus On More Than Just Economic Issues, Says Expert

By Linn Grubbstrom
Talk Radio News Service

The G8 and G20 summits taking place in Toronto, Canada later this week will mark the fourth G20 meeting held in less than two years. However, at this summit, the 20 nations that comprise the group should focus more on big-picture issues than just trying to bring their economies back from recession, said economic expert David Shorr on Monday.

"When they had their first summit meeting it was right in the middle of the financial meltdown and that was sort of an emergency meeting," Shorr told Talk Radio News Service. "What will be interesting is to see how they make the transition from emergency response to dealing with things not immediately in crisis, but dealing with more of the structural problems."

The main focus during this summer's G20 summit will be solving the debt crisis in Europe, and the global financial crisis in general. Meanwhile, the G8 summit figures to center on security issues, economic development in less developed countries and the nuclear situation in Iran. According to Shorr, an official with the Stanley Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank based in Iowa, the security issue is something that should be addressed by the G20 as well.

"I think that it is important for the larger group that brings together the old and new powers to deal not just with the economy but also with political and security matters. Because the logic that pushes the old and new powers together on the global economy is in someway no different from the need for them to be together on these other challenges of international security," he said.

Protesters Urge D.C. Drivers To Boycott BP

By Linn Grubbstrom - Talk Radio News Service

After protests outside BP's D.C. headquarters and the White House in recent weeks, the organization Code Pink staged a demonstration in front of a D.C. based BP gas station Saturday with the goal of encouraging drivers to support a boycott against the company responsible for the oil spill in the Gulf Coast. Armed with banners and signs, the demonstrators blocked the driveway in to the station.

"One thing we're trying to do is to get people to stop from going in here," said Diane Wilson, a shrimper from Texas who co-found Code Pink. "There was a fellow just trying to turn in a little while ago and ... I was saying boycott BP and he shook his head, yelled ... squirreled around and left."

Added Wilson, "I hope he went to a different gas station."

During the last two weeks, Wilson has been arrested twice, most recently while disrupting BP CEO Tony Hayward's testimony before Congress. This time she and Code Pink hope that the local protest will do more to hurt BP's pocketbook.

"We are hoping to economically impact BP. That is the way these guys ... listen to reason," said Wilson. "You impact them economically and then it kind of registers in their heads."

Virginia Politician Urging State To Adopt Arizona Immigration Law

By Linn Grubbstrom
Talk Radio News Service

The top elected official of a Northern Virginia county located less than 40 miles from the nation's capital says he wants his state to pass a very similar version of the anti-illegal immigration law passed earlier this year in Arizona.

Corey Stewart, the chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, says he will lobby Virginia lawmakers this year in an effort to persuade them to pass a measure that would increase the power of state and local law enforcement to capture, detain and deport illegal immigrants. The plan Stewart is pushing would also outlaw day laborer centers, places where illegals are known to gather.

Stewart, who earned national notoriety in 2007 for instituting a county-wide crackdown on illegals, told Talk Radio News Service that adopting the Arizona bill would drastically decrease Virginia's crime rate.

"The first two years after the crackdown on illegal immigration in Prince William we had a 37 % drop in the violent crime rate," he said. "Based upon that experience we believe that we would have similar results in the rest of the Commonwealth of Virginia."

In fact, of the 2,000 people arrested last year for major crimes -- including violence -- in Prince William County, only 121 were found to be living in the state illegally. That figure represents a significant decline from the level recorded before Stewart initiated the crackdown two years ago.

However, on a statewide level, over 17% of those arrested in Virginia last year for violent crime offenses were found to be non-residents: A frightening statistic in Stewart's view.

"We need to bring the rule of law to all of Virginia," he told the Washington Post in an interview this week.

Though Arizona has faced mounting threats of economic boycotts by cities and businesses in neighboring states, Stewart insists that enacting such a bill in Virginia would have minimal negative impacts on the state's economy.

"Businesses do even better, because when you crack down on illegal immigration, the quality of life improves and the crime rate goes down and that's the type of environment that businesses want to move to."

Stewart said he expects to encounter push-back on the effort from federal officials, but added that a lack of federal enforcement of the nation's immigration laws has created a need for action on the local level.

"In their typical political fashion I would expect that the Obama administration will try to intimidate the Commonwealth of Virginia, try to sue the Commonwealth of Virginia. But we have to do what is right precisely because the federal government has refused to do anything about illegal immigration."

Spill Response Plans Require Tight Review, Says MMS Official

By Linn Grubbstrom
Talk Radio News Service

Bob Abbey, acting head of the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service (MMS), told lawmakers on Thursday that the federal government must deeply probe how prepared it and oil companies are to handle massive oil spills.

"There is no doubt that the spill response plans that have been previously submitted by the operators in the outer continental shelf will need to be reviewed and amended based upon the lessons that we now have learned," Abbey told members of a House Natural Resources Subcommittee.

Due to BP's inability to cap an oil spill that has flowed from one of its sunken rigs in the Gulf for nearly two months, the oil industry has been heavily criticized of late for not being prepared to combat a deepwater spill of large magnitude.

"The leases and the operators will be required to go back, revisit their spill response plans and come in with something that will give, not only those of us who are now working in the Mineral Management Service but, the American public a little more confidence about their abilities to control or contain a future spill," said Abbey.

Abbey also suggested the federal government allocate more inspectors to check for safety violations on the thousands of deep water rigs located in the Gulf.

Protesters' Message To Obama: Get Tough On BP

By Linn Grubbstrom - Talk Radio News Service

While President Barack Obama met with officials from BP Wednesday, a handful of demonstrators gathered outside the White House to urge the President to take stronger action against the oil giant responsible for the massive spill in the Gulf Coast.

"[The White House has] yet to start talking about a criminal prosecution," said Diane Wilson, a shrimper and activist from Texas who last week poured what appeared to be oil on herself during a hearing with BP executives.

Mahdi Bray, the executive director of the Muslim American Society, also participated in the protest and joined the call for a tougher response.

"We want to apply more pressure on the White House and our public officials," Bray told Talk Radio News. "They really need to seize the assets of BP before they find some kind of financial loophole, possibly bankruptcy."