Alessandra Torresani Gets Inside Caprica’s Prime Cylon

By Hugh Hart

HOLLYWOOD — “I want to be the poster girl for engineers and computer nerds,” says actress Alessandra Torresani, and she’s off to a good start. That’s her with the apple in the ubiquitous billboard (pictured below) for new science fiction series Caprica, which debuts Friday at 9 p.m. on Syfy.

In the compelling Battlestar Galactica prequel, set on the planet Caprica 58 years before BSG’s journey begins, Torresani plays the feisty, 16-year-old daughter of billionaire computer genius Daniel Graystone, maker of the world’s first Cylon.

Following Battestar Galactica’s groundbreaking achievements, Caprica is trafficking in high expectations. Happily, the show lives up to the hype.

Assembling a sturdy cast of veteran actors yoked to a complex storyline that mixes soap opera-style family dysfunction with heady excursions into technology and religion, Caprica co-creator Ronald D. Moore and his team hurl a wild card into the mix with the casting of Torresani, whose memories are downloaded into her father’s Cylon prototype in the show’s pilot episode. Torresani’s gutsy presence kicks the show into intense gear while introducing a fresh talent ready for fanboy consumption.

To explain the craft of acting like a Cylon, Torresani hit the ground running at a cafe in Studio City, California, showing up in a black tank top and tight gray jeans with shades propped on her jet-black bangs. Over a glass of iced tea and a vegetarian panini, the 22-year-old actress power-chatted about her zany coming-of-age gigs, her excitement about doing a show that appeals to introverted geeks, and her own computer genius of a father — a Silicon Valley inventor who created a computer chip used by IBM.

Wired.com: Were you a fan of Battlestar Galactica before getting cast for Caprica?

Alessandra Torresani: I wasn’t really into sci-fi. When they asked me to read for Caprica, I’d had a tough day. I said no. Then I got the audition scenes and I went, “Holy shit. I’m doing this!”

Wired.com: It took seven auditions, but you got the part. At that point did you go back and watch Battlestar?

Torresani: I didn’t want to watch Battlestar Galactica on purpose. I’m the first Cylon, right, so I wanted it to be from a 16-year-old girl’s perspective: How would she create a Cylon? How would she act? I didn’t want to mimic Tricia Helfer, I didn’t want to mimic Grace Park. They’re beyond fabulous but I still wanted to create a new kind of Cylon.

Wired.com: But now you’ve seen the show, right?

Torresani: After we shot the pilot, I went back and watched it over and over again.

Wired.com: You start out as Zoe Graystone, daughter of this brilliant inventor millionaire guy played by Eric Stoltz. How did you approach Zoe?

Torresani: Original Zoe is the richest girl in the world. I don’t know if they establish how wealthy they actually are. Her father is supposedly the equivalent of Bill Gates, so she’s this spoiled brat.

Wired.com: And she’s been tinkering with this virtual world her dad invented …

Torresani: My dad created the holo-band and created V World. Then these kids hacked into it and made sex rooms and drug rooms and kill rooms where they sacrifice virgins, like all this superdecadent stuff. As Zoe, I was like a slut in the R room. I killed people, I did all that, but then I realize that, you know what? There should be only one god and things should be changed. I truly believe in this and I’m this changed woman.

(Spoiler alert: Minor plot points follow)

Wired.com: To help save the planet, Zoe downloads all her own memories into a virtual replica that will eventually become the first Cybnernetic Lifeform Node, aka Cylon. What’s the secret to playing a Cylon so she doesn’t seem too human?

Torresani: You have to totally zen out. Unlike natural Zoe, Zoe A is like a child. I see her as a newborn baby. She has no idea what’s going on. She has the memories that were put in her, so she knows how to talk and remembers her father and everything, but there’s no emotional connection.

Wired.com: So you’re flipping back and forth between the flesh-and-blood character and her virtual creation.

Torresani: I go from playing this know-it-all to this girl who doesn’t understand what the hell is going on around her. Everyone else has an avatar, but they take the holo-band off and go back to their normal lives but Zoe is stuck. She put her trust in this girl who died, but she does not know why, or how she died. It’s all just so confusing. Than when dad puts Zoe A into the robot and she falls apart halfway into it — he fucked it up, really.

Wired.com: And then you sort of inhabit a robot. Kind of weird to play as an actress, right?

Torresani: Originally we were going to take mime lessons, but I’m a dancer so I totally understand the movement of a robot. It needs to be very rough, very fast.

Wired.com: You grew up an only child in Palo Alto, California, where your dad ran startup tech companies and your mom worked as a CEO. You’ve taken a different route.

Torresani: I came out singing and dancing. Here’s my parents staring at their computers, figuring out math equations and running multimillion-dollar companies — they didn’t know where the hell I came from. Sometimes I think I’m adopted. I use my mathematics and everything but in a different way.

Wired.com: You got a big break hosting a TV show in San Francisco when you were 8 years old, right?

Torresani: On the WB network, in between cartoons they had 20-minute segments, and I interviewed everybody from the mayor to John Waters. I could quote every line from Serial Mom. He couldn’t understand how this 8-year-old knew about Pink Flamingos and Divine. I was a very special child. I did stand-up comedy. I did it all. My family didn’t understand. “Aren’t you tired?” I’m like, “No”. I’m like insomniac, I hardly sleep, I’m always on the move. We did that for two years — got bit by the camera bug and had to keep doing it.

Wired.com: So you moved to Los Angeles with your folks, made a bunch of pilots that never got picked up, did guest spots on sitcoms like Malcolm in the Middle, then, finally, here comes Caprica. From Star Wars‘ Princess Leia and Star Trek: Voyager’s Jeri Ryan to Tricia Helfer, the Cylon who came before you, sci-fi has a long tradition of heroines who have attracted a massive fanboy following. If Caprica takes off, are you prepared to deal with all that geek love?

Torresani: Everybody’s like, “These fans from the conventions are so strange,” but I’ve been to three now and I think they’re wonderful. They’re so smart, they’re so intellectual, they actually have real questions, not like, “Oh you’re so hot, would you ever be with me please?” No, they have real, intelligent questions. They know more about the show than I do, which can be really awkward.

Wired.com: So you’re psyched.

Torresani: Never in a million years did I think I’d be on a show that appealed to intelligent genius computer guys. I’m serious! Growing up, that’s how my mom and dad were. My dad could be beyond brilliant but totally introverted. If we’re talking about computers, he’s on. Otherwise, he’s a total recluse — he stays in the house and won’t leave, and I’m like that. If I’m not working, I’m locked up in my room.

Wired.com: Now, at age 22, you’re being seen everywhere on these racy Caprica posters. Were you comfortable doing the shoot?

Torresani: I’m a free spirit. I was walking around topless in a thong for the whole photo shoot. They had a closed set and I’m like, “Oh, hi, come on in!” I was the child who would leave school and take her clothes off the second I got into the house. I made my mom buy me lingerie when I was 5 years old. I was a sicko. My mother must have been mortified.

Wired.com: You’ve always been interested in attention?

Torresani: When I was 6, my dad had this huge business meeting, millionaire Asian businessmen came over to our house. I dressed up in this sexy bra, this big fur hat, the red lips, the fake eye lashes. I had my mom go, “Would you please join us in the living room?” and there I was laying on top of the baby grand piano and my 6-year-old neighbor Thomas started playing “Hello Dolly” and I started singing and lifting my legs, doing these kicks. Then I’d go around and sit on the men’s laps. Let me tell you, my dad closed every deal because of that — these men were fascinated that this little girl came out of this guy and this woman. It was the funniest thing.

Wired.com: If you weren’t really into sci-fi as a kid, who were your favorite entertainers growing up?

Torresani: I love Howard Stern, Pee-wee Herman, John Waters — people who are so out of the box that people either love them or hate them. I don’t want everybody to love me. I want them to sometimes despise me or think I’m crazy, think I’m insane. Not like Lindsay, “Oooh, I’m going to drunk-drive.” No. I want smart reactions.

Wired.com: Caprica co-creator Ronald D. Moore has become a master at provoking strong responses with his stories. What’s it like to have him as your boss?

Torresani: If you don’t understand something in the script, he’ll pause and think about it for a minute and you go, “Oh God, he’s judging us, this is the stupidest question.” But he listens so well, and then he gives you this elaborate, detailed answer. Most writers don’t have time to deal with your bullshit, but he really is this soft-spoken genius and a great father, which is all expressed in his writing. He’s like a god.

Wired.com: Speaking of gods, religion plays a pretty major role in Caprica, just like in Battlestar Galactica. Your character, Zoe, is into the idea of one god, whereas the Caprica mainstream believes in many gods. What did you bring to the table as far as your own belief system?

Torresani: OK: I’m very witchy. I believe that everything you put out into the universe happens. A lot of people think that’s a joke, so that’s how I take Zoe’s point of view: “Oh, I believe in one true God”. Some people think I’m nuts, and some people agree with me. So that’s how I relate to that issue.

Wired.com: Friday nights is a tough slot for TV, but you’re optimistic about Caprica?

Torresani: I feel like this is going to start a huge trend: Sci-fi is coming back to bite everyone in the ass and say, “Hey, I’m here”.

Wired

China announces more assistance to Haiti

(Xinhua)

UNITED NATIONS: A senior Chinese diplomat announced here on Thursday that China has decided to contribute an additional $2.6 million in cash to quake-hit Haiti and send a 40-member medical care and epidemic prevention team to the Caribbean country.

The announcement came as Liu Zhenmin, China's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, was taking the floor at the second briefing/pledging conference of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) for Earthquake in Haiti, which opened here on Thursday afternoon.

A strong earthquake on Jan. 12 has left many people dead, including 61 UN staff members working in the island country, and a lot of buildings damaged or destroyed.

"At today's meeting, I am honored to announce that the Chinese government has decided to contribute an additional $2.6 million in cash to Haiti, send a 40-member medical care and epidemic prevention team to Haiti and provide additional medicine and medical equipment to the country," Liu said.

"We support the United Nations in playing an important coordinating role in disaster relief and reconstruction in Haiti," he said. "We hope that the Haitian people, with the help of the international community, will overcome the difficulties, rebuild their homes and achieve self-reliance at an early date".

The new Chinese contribution follows a Jan. 13 decision of the Red Society of China to donate $1 million in cash to Haiti, he said. "On Jan. 15, the Chinese government announced its decision to provide 30 million yuan ($4.4 million) worth of humanitarian emergency supplies to Haiti".

The first charter plane loaded with these supplies arrived in Haiti on Jan. 17, bringing to the local people medicine, tents, portable emergency lights, water purification equipment, food, drinking water and clothes, he said. "The second plane, which was delayed due to limited capacity of the Haitian airport, will arrive on Jan. 26".

Since Jan. 13, the 60-member emergency rescue team sent by the Chinese government has fully engaged in disaster relief in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, he said. "The team has carried out effective search and rescue operations at the headquarters of MINUSTAH (the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti), the prime minister's palace and other places, with a number of bodies found, including those of Special Representative Hedi Annabi of MINUSTAH and other UN staff".

"The medical team of the Chinese rescue team are providing medical support for several hundred local people everyday," he said. "At this very moment, the Chinese international rescue team is still working at this forefront of disaster relief in Haiti and doing its utmost to help more people affected by the earthquake".

Since the earthquake struck Haiti on Jan. 12, the international community has worked in solidarity to offer a helping hand to the Haitian people and government, he said. "At present, disaster relief in Haiti is in full swing".

"The Chinese government highly commends the timely and effective assistance provided to Haiti by the United Nations, which has won the wide acclaim of the international community and laid a good foundation for the next phase of reconstruction efforts," he said.

China View

U.S.-China Military Tensions Grow

by Rick Rozoff

Even though the U.S. military budget is almost ten times that of China's (with a population more than four times as large) and Washington plans a record $708 billion defense budget for next year compared to Russia spending less than $40 billion last year for the same, China and Russia are portrayed as threats to the U.S. and its allies. 

China has no troops outside its borders; Russia has a small handful in its former territories in Abkhazia, Armenia, South Ossetia and Transdniester. The U.S. has hundreds of thousands of troops stationed in six continents.

While Gates was in charge of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and responsible for almost half of international military spending he was offended that the world's most populous nation might desire to "deny others countries the ability to threaten it".

On December 23 of last year Raytheon Company announced that it had received a $1.1 billion contract with Taiwan for the purchase of 200 Patriot anti-ballistic missiles. In early January the U.S. Defense Department cleared the transaction "despite opposition from rival China, where a military official proposed sanctioning U.S. firms that sell arms to the island". [1]

The sale completes a $6.5 billion weapons package approved by the previous George W. Bush administration at the end of 2008. In the words of the Asia bureau chief of Defense News, "This is the last piece that Taiwan has been waiting on". [2]

Defense News first reported on the agreement and reminded its readers that "Raytheon already won smaller contracts for Taiwan in January 2009 and in 2008 for upgrades to the Patriot systems the country already had. Those contracts were to upgrade the systems to Configuration 3, the same upgrade the company is completing for the U.S. Army".

The source also described what the enhanced Patriot capacity consisted of: "Configuration 3 is Raytheon's most advanced Patriot system and allows the use of Lockheed Martin's Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missiles [and] Raytheon's Guidance Enhanced Missile-Tactical [Patriot-2 upgrade] missiles...." [3]

The PAC-3 is the latest, most advanced Patriot missile design and the first capable of shooting down tactical ballistic missiles. It is the initial tier of a layered missile shield system which also includes Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), Ground Based Interceptor (GBI), Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD), Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), ship-based Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense equipped with Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptors, Forward Based X-Band Radar (FBXB) and Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) components. An integrated network that ranges from the battlefield to the heavens. 

The system is modular and highly mobile and its batteries are thus more easily able to evade detection and attack. It also extends the range of previous Patriot versions several fold. 

"[T]he PAC-3 interceptors, enhanced by [an] advanced radar and command center, are capable of protecting an area approximately seven times greater than the original Patriot system". [4]

If like the rest of the world Chinese authorities anticipated a reduction if not halt in the pace of American global military expansion with the advent of a new administration in Washington a year ago, like everyone they else have been rudely disabused of the notion.

Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei urged the United States to reconsider the Taiwan arms package in the sixth official Chinese warning in a week earlier this month, telling his nation's Xinhua News Agency that "China had strongly protested the U.S. government's recent decision to allow Raytheon Company and Lockheed Martin Corp. to sell weapons to Taiwan" and "The U.S. arms sales to Taiwan undermine China's national security". [5]

Later information added to the inventory and to China's ire when it was revealed that "the Obama Administration would soon announce the sale to Taiwan of a package worth billions of U.S. dollars including Black Hawk helicopters, anti-missile systems and plans for diesel-powered submarines in a move likely to anger China". [6]

In addition, the China Times reported that Taiwan was to obtain eight second-hand Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates from the U.S. in addition to the 200 Patriot missiles. The warships were designed in the 1970s as comparatively inexpensive alternatives to World War II-era destroyers. The new deal will double the amount of U.S. Perry-class frigates that Taiwan already possesses to 16.

They will also factor into missile defense and at a higher level, as "The island hopes to arm them with a version of the advanced Aegis Combat System (see above), which uses computers and radar to take out multiple targets, as well as sophisticated missile launch technology...." [7]

While both Washington and Taipei will present the weapons transactions as strictly defensive in nature, it is worth recalling that last autumn Taiwan conducted its "largest-ever missile test...launched from a secretive and tightly guarded base in southern Taiwan" with missiles "capable of reaching major Chinese cities". [8]

President Ma Ying-jeou observed the missile launches which "included the test-firing of a top secret, newly developed medium-range surface-to-surface missile with a range of 3,000 kilometres, capable of striking major cities in central, northern and southern China". [9]

The Patriot Advanced Capability and SM-3 interceptor missiles the U.S. is providing Taiwan could well be employed to counter a mainland Chinese counterattack or at the least protect the launch sites of Taiwanese medium range missiles which, as noted above, are capable of hitting most of China's major cities.

Beijing responded on January 11 by conducting a ground-based midcourse interceptor missile test over its territory.

Professor Tan Kaijia of the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) National Defense University told Xinhua "If the ballistic missile is regarded as a spear, now we have succeeded in building a shield for self-defense". [10]

Time Magazine characterized the significance of the test in writing: "There's no chance China's gambit will deter the U.S. from backing Taiwan....But the test does signal a ratcheting up of tensions between Beijing and Washington...." [11]

Both China and the U.S., the first in 2007 and the second the following year, with a Standard Missile-3 fired from an Aegis-class frigate in the Pacific Ocean in the American case, destroyed satellites in orbit. The dawn of space war had begun.

A January 15 feature on a Russian website titled "Possible space wars in the near future" provided background information. "It is hard to overestimate the role played by military satellite systems. Since the 1970s, an increasingly greater number of troop-control, telecommunications, target-acquisition, navigation and other processes depend on spacecraft which are therefore becoming more important...The space echelon's role is directly proportional to the development level of any given nation and its armed forces". [12]

China and Russia for years have been advocating a ban on the use of space for military purposes, annually raising the issue in the United Nations. The U.S. has just as persistently opposed the initiatives.

To comprehend the context in which recent developments have occurred, Washington has for three years increasingly and tenaciously included China and Russia with Iran and North Korea as belligerents in prospective future conflicts.

The campaign began in earnest in February of 2007 when then and still Pentagon chief Robert Gates testified before the U.S. House Armed Services Committee on the Defense Department Fiscal Year 2008 Budget Request and said among other matters:

"In addition to fighting the global war on terror, we also face the danger posed by Iran and North Korea's nuclear ambitions and the threat they pose not only to their neighbors, but globally because of their record of proliferation; the uncertain paths of China and Russia, which are both pursuing sophisticated military modernization programs; and a range of other flashpoints and challenges....We need both the ability for regular force-on-force conflicts because we don't know what's going to develop in places like Russia and China, in North Korea, in Iran and elsewhere". [13]

  

If it be objected that Gates was only alluding to general contingency plans, ones that could apply to any major nation, neither his comments nor any by U.S. defense officials since have mentioned fellow nuclear powers Britain, France, India and Israel in a similar vein, but have reiterated concerns about Russia and China with an alarming consistency. In fact China and Russia have been substituted for Iraq in the former axis of evil category.

Even though the U.S. military budget is almost ten times that of China's (with a population more than four times as large) and Washington plans a record $708 billion defense budget for next year compared to Russia spending less than $40 billion last year for the same, China and Russia are portrayed as threats to the U.S. and its allies. China has no troops outside its borders; Russia has a small handful in its former territories in Abkhazia, Armenia, South Ossetia and Transdniester. The U.S. has hundreds of thousands of troops stationed in six continents.

Russia and China both reacted harshly to Gates' statements in February of 2007 and only three days afterward, with Gates in the audience, Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a speech at the annual Munich Security Conference in which he warned:

"[W]hat is a unipolar world? However one might embellish this term, at the end of the day it refers to one type of situation, namely one centre of authority, one centre of force, one centre of decision-making. 

"It is world in which there is one master, one sovereign. And at the end of the day this is pernicious not only for all those within this system, but also for the sovereign itself because it destroys itself from within".

"Unilateral and frequently illegitimate actions have not resolved any problems. Moreover, they have caused new human tragedies and created new centres of tension. Judge for yourselves: wars as well as local and regional conflicts have not diminished....And no less people perish in these conflicts - even more are dying than before. Significantly more, significantly more!

"Today we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force - military force - in international relations, force that is plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts".

"One state and, of course, first and foremost the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way. This is visible in the economic, political, cultural and educational policies it imposes on other nations...." [14] 

The warning was not heeded in Washington.

Three months later the Pentagon chief resumed his earlier accusations. In May of 2007 the Defense Department issued its annual report on China’s military capability, citing "continuing efforts to project Chinese power beyond its immediate region and to develop high-technology systems that can challenge the best in the world".

"U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says some of China’s efforts cause him concern".

The report said "China is pursuing long-term, comprehensive transformation of its military forces” to "enable it to project power and deny other countries the ability to threaten it." [15]  While Gates was in charge of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and responsible for almost half of international military spending he was offended that the world's most populous nation might desire to "deny others countries the ability to threaten it".

A year after Gates linked China and Russia with surviving "axis of evil" suspects Iran and North Korea, National Director of Intelligence Michael McConnell singled out China, Russia and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) as the main threats to the United States, even more than al-Qaeda.

The Voice of Russia responded to McDonnell's accusations in a commentary that included these excerpts:

"Russia has demanded an explanation from America over a report by the Director of American national intelligence in which Russia, China, Iraq, Iran, North Korea and al-Qaida are described as sources of strategic threats to the U.S....Quite possibly, the report by the U.S intelligence community amounts to accounting for the staggering sums of money that is allocated yearly for its upkeep. There could be other reasons to explain why Russia has been included among states posing a threat to America". [16]

Gates has remained as defense secretary for the new American administration and so has the anti-Chinese and anti-Russian rhetoric.

On May 1 of last year Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that "The Obama administration is working to improve deteriorating U.S. relations with a number of Latin American nations to counter growing Iranian, Chinese and Russian influence in the Western Hemisphere...." [17] The month after she spoke those words a military coup was staged in Honduras and two weeks after that the U.S. secured the use of seven military bases in Colombia.

In September Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair issued the U.S.'s quadrennial National Intelligence Strategy report which said "Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea pose the greatest challenges to the United States' national interests". [18]

Agence France-Presse said that "The United States on [September 15] put emerging superpower China and former Cold War foe Russia alongside Iran and North Korea on a list of the four main nations challenging American interests" and quoted from Blair's report:

China was fingered for its "increasing natural resource-focused diplomacy and military modernization".

"Russia is a US partner in important initiatives such as securing fissile material and combating nuclear terrorism, but it may continue to seek avenues for reasserting power and influence in ways that complicate US interests". [19]

China is not allowed to deny other nations the ability to threaten it and Russia is not permitted to complicate U.S. interests.

The trend, ominous in its relentlessness, continues into this year.

The vice president of Lockheed Martin's Missile Defense Systems, John Holly, touted his company's role in the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System - components of which are being delivered to Taiwan - as "the shining star" of Lockheed's interceptor missile portfolio, and according to a newspaper in the city which hosts the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency "Pointing to missile programs in North Korea, Iran, Russia and China, Holly said, 'the world is not a very safe world ... and it is incumbent upon us in industry to provide [the Pentagon] with the best capabilities'". [20]

Three days afterward the Pentagon's Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs Wallace Gregson "voiced doubts about China's insistence that its use of space is for peaceful means" and stated "The Chinese have stated that they oppose the militarization of space. Their actions seem to indicate the contrary intention". [21]

The next day Admiral Robert Willard, head of the U.S. Pacific Command, stated in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee that China's "powerful economic engine is also funding a military modernization program that has raised concerns in the region — a concern also shared by the U.S. Pacific Command". [22]

The U.S. Navy has six fleets and eleven aircraft carrier strike groups in or available for deployment to all parts of the world, but China with only a "brown water" navy off its own coast is a cause for concern to the U.S.

As Alan Mackinnon, the chairman of the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, wrote last September:

"The world of war is today dominated by a single superpower. In military terms the United States sits astride the world like a giant Colossus. As a country with only five per cent of the world's population it accounts for almost 50 per cent of global arms spending.

"Its 11 naval carrier fleets patrol every ocean and its 909 military bases are scattered strategically across every continent. No other country has reciprocal bases on US territory - it would be unthinkable and unconstitutional. It is 20 years since the end of the Cold War and the United States and its allies face no significant military threat today. Why then have we not had the hoped-for peace dividend? 

Why does the world's most powerful nation continue to increase its military budget, now over $1.2 trillion a year in real terms? 

What threat is all this supposed to counter?

"The US response has been largely military - the expansion of NATO and the encirclement of Russia and China in a ring of hostile bases and alliances. And continuing pressure to isolate and weaken Iran". [23]

Observations to be kept in the forefront of people's minds as China is increasingly presented as a security challenge - and a strategic threat - to the world's sole military superpower.

Related articles: U.S. Expands Asian NATO Against China, Russia Stop NATO, October 16, 2009 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/u-s-expands-asian-nato-against-china-russia Broader Strategy: West’s Afghan War Targets Russia, China, Iran Stop NATO, September 8, 2009 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/08/broader-strategy-wests-afghan-war-targets-russia-china-iran U.S. Accelerates First Strike Global Missile Shield System Stop NATO, August 19, 2009 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/u-s-accelerates-first-strike-global-missile-shield-system Australian Military Buildup And The Rise Of Asian NATO Stop NATO, May 6, 2009 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/28/australian-military-buildup-and-the-rise-of-asian-nato Notes 1) Reuters, January 7, 2010 2) Ibid 3) Defense News, December 23, 2009 4) http://www.missilethreat.com/missiledefensesystems/id.41/system_detail.asp 5) Russian Information Agency Novosti, January 9, 2010 6) Taiwan News, January 4, 2010 7) Agence France-Presse, January 11, 2010 8) Radio Taiwan International, October 14, 2009 9) Deutsche Presse-Agentur, October 14, 2009 10) Asian Times, January 20, 2010 11) Time, January 13, 2010 12) Russian Information Agency Novosti, January 15, 2010 13) http://www.sras.org/news2.phtml?m=908 14) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/12/AR2007021200555.html 15) Voice of America News, May 26, 2007 16) Voice of Russia, February 8, 2008 17) Associated Press, May 1, 2009 18) Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, September 16, 2009 19) Agence France-Presse, September 15, 2009 20) Huntsville Times, January 10, 2010 21) Agence France-Presse, January 13, 2010 22) Washington Post, January 14, 2010 23) Scottish Left Review, November 17, 2009

Rick Rozoff is a frequent contributor to Global Research Global Research Articles by Rick Rozoff Global Research

Anxious Quebec parents told to expect adopted children on weekend

'It makes you crazy,' says one parent of delays in getting previously processed orphans out of danger and into new homes

Ingrid Peritz

Montreal — From Friday's Globe and Mail

The boots and snowsuits are ready, the car seats installed. Dozens of Quebec parents remained in a state of high anxiety Thursday night as they awaited news about the arrival of the first planeload of adopted children heading to Canadian homes from Haiti.

An official at a Quebec agency responsible for 42 of the adoptions said she feared further delays in getting the children out of the quake-ravaged nation could put their lives at risk. Countries such as the United States and the Netherlands have already airlifted groups of Haitian orphans out.

“Others have moved quickly and we're still waiting. It's getting late,” said Ginette Gauvreau, head of the Haiti section for the Soleil des Nationsadoption agency.

“I understand that we don't want to give the impression we're kidnapping children. But the orphanages are running out of food and water. The children's lives are at risk,” said Ms. Gauvreau, who was in Haiti during the earthquake and visited the orphanages. “These children should have left already”.

The fate of orphaned Haitian children has surfaced as a contentious issue in post-earthquake Haiti. Groups such as UNICEF say children left parentless by the earthquake should be reunited with extended family, and foreign adoptions should be considered a last resort.

But the children expected in Canada were already in the process of being adopted before the disaster – in many cases, the parents' efforts began years ago.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said Thursday that Ottawa had identified 150 adoption cases being processed before the quake, and Canada was working with the Haitian government to accelerate them.

He said Canada has determined that all the children had survived the quake, although some are “ill and have health concerns”. The first group of adoptees should be in Canada by Saturday or Sunday, he said.

The days since last Tuesday have turned into an agonizing wait for people like Stéphanie Clément-Lapointe and Sylvain Mallette, adoptive parents of a brother and sister from Haiti named Scheneider and Naïka.

“It's been horrendous. We see the misery on TV; when it's your own children and you're thinking they may lack for things, it makes you crazy,” said Ms. Clément-Lapointe, who lives in the Montreal area and visited the children in Haiti last September. “Are they safe? Do they have shelter? All these questions go through your head”.

Corporal Julie Légaré and Captain Pascal Croteau, both soldiers based at CFB Valcartier, have volunteered to fly down to Haiti as civilians to help airlift the group of adopted Haitian children.

Theirs is a personal mission as well. Their own 30-month-old daughter, Lisa, is among the adopted children waiting to leave.

“In a way it's like I'm giving birth,” Cpl. Légaré said from Quebec City. Her husband, who served in Afghanistan, was touched by the plight of Afghans who brought their injured children to Canadian bases to be treated.

“I entered the armed forces to be useful and do concrete things. To bring children home from Haiti in a lightning mission is something special,” Cpl. Légaré said.

ASK US: THE GLOBE FINDS ANSWERS TO YOUR PRESSING QUESTIONS

Question: I heard federal Immigration Minister Jason Kenney say on television that, after the 2004 tsunami “we saw confirmed cases of kidnapping, of child trafficking, of terrible things happening”. His fear was that children orphaned by the Haitian earthquake would be put in similar danger. But is it that true that children were kidnapped and sold after the tsunami?

Answer: It's not that cut and dried.

According to a September 2005 report by David A. Feingold, the international co-ordinator for HIV/AIDS and trafficking projects for UNESCO Bangkok: “Although the devastation wrought by the tsunami certainly rendered people vulnerable – mostly through economic disruption – investigations by the United Nations have yet to identify a single confirmed case of sex trafficking”.

A columnist for the London Times who looked into reports of child abductions in January, 2005 – shortly after the tsunami hit – concluded that they were urban legends. “The only report to date of a named child being abducted was revealed as untrue,” Mick Hume wrote.

And aid groups contacted by The Globe could not provide specific details of any such incident.

On the other hand, there was a famous case of an infant survivor of that disaster who was claimed by no fewer than nine sets of parents.

A U.S. State department spokesman said at the time that “there are sufficient credible reports to lead us to the conclusion that a real and present threat exists” that orphaned children in Sri Lanka were being co-opted to fight for guerrilla groups.

And experts say it is clear that children left parentless by calamity would be more vulnerable to child trafficking.

To buttress the Minister's apprehensions, Haiti is not a signatory to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, which seeks to protect children from the harmful effects of abduction and retention across international boundaries.

“We are concerned,” said David Morley, the president of Save the Children Canada. “A time like this when things are so chaotic is a time when children are really at risk. … There are those who would view children as a valuable commodity”.

– Gloria Galloway

The Globe and Mail