Coming soon to California: a consulate of Iraq. To take the strain off the Iraqi embassy in Washington, D.C., and help expatriates scattered around the United States, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry plans to place consulates in Detroit and San Diego. Detroit and San Diego? “Yes, there’s quite a big community in Detroit,” Labid Abbawi, Iraqi foreign undersecretary, said. “Also we have quite a big number in San Diego as well,” Abbawi said. “There are also in Los Angeles a lot, but we thought San Diego was more suitable.” There were 3,705 Iraqis in Detroit, 2,039 in Los Angeles and 822 in San Diego, according to the 2000 U.S. Census.

But there are also Iraqi communities in east San Diego County, particularly Christian Chaldeans. Many small market owners and professionals in the area are Iraqi. Some estimate that, including second generation, there are 25,000 Iraqis in the county. Those numbers are likely to increase as the U.S. State Department gears up its post-war refugee program. The Bush administration set a goal of admitting 12,000 Iraqi refugees this year.

The San Diego consulate should open before the end of the year, Abbawi said. It will assist Iraqis with documentation, passports, visas and other consular services. Americans flying from the West Coast to Iraq will also find it convenient. Now they will be able to pick up their visas in San Diego, which could be preferable to waiting a day or two in Amman, Jordan, to get the necessary papers. For now, it may be only reporters and military contractors who would care, but Abbawi thinks wider need could be coming soon. If Iraq has turned the corner on security, as Abbawi believes, tourism should follow.

“We hope the day will not be too long where you’ll be able to come and have a walk in Baghdad quite freely,” Abbawi said. “I hope this will not be long.”

According to a press release from the Governor’s office, the first MOU was signed by officials from the Republic of Chile’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and California’s Environmental Protection Agency, Resources Agency and Department of Food and Agriculture. It is an agreement establishing a California-Chile “Partnership for the 21st Century” that is based on the desire of both parties to open collaboration between their institutions, organizations, universities, research centers, companies and citizens.

Schwarzenegger, in a prepared statement, said that Chile and California are “natural partners, given our longstanding history of educational exchange, our excellence in agriculture and our similar geography and climate.”

“President Bachelet’s visit marks a continuation of our efforts to promote collaboration through cooperative actions and initiatives focused on issues of mutual interest, including education and workforce development, environmental protection, clean energy, agriculture, information technology and trade,” Schwarzenegger said.

California’s top environmental official on Tuesday plans to sign an agreement with the United Nations to help China reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. The memorandum of understanding drafted by the U.N. Development Programme pairs California with one of the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases. California produces more greenhouse gases than any other state but also has taken strides to significantly reduce its output. That includes attempts to roll back auto and factory emissions, while trying to institute an emissions-trading system for industry.

California promises to share policy ideas and research for curbing greenhouse gas emissions, according to the four-page agreement to be signed on Earth Day in Beijing. The state also would mobilize public agencies and encourage private entities in California to support climate change projects in China.

“I think it will help show them they can indeed reach set targets and move forward on environmental protection and maintain a strong economy as California has,” Linda Adams, California’s Environmental Protection Agency secretary, said…

California’s agreement with the development program, a subsidiary of the U.N. that promotes economic development, follows several years of international outreach by the state. In 2005, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed an environmental agreement with the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau to help improve air quality and water quality. The agreement was amended in 2007 to further bolster California’s support of Beijing’s air quality programs.

Schwarzenegger also has entered agreements with other states and parts of Canada to implement a carbon-trading program. The governor has said those agreements will help California meet the goals of a 2006 law seeking to cut greenhouse gases roughly a quarter by 2020.

On Monday, Schwarzenegger said the state’s agreement with China recognizes that climate change requires a global solution. “America has to lead, and we are doing so with or without Washington,” Schwarzenegger said in a statement. “California is not waiting for the federal government to take action.”… While California is pursuing its climate change goals, state regulators and politicians are bickering over how best to implement the landmark 2006 greenhouse gas law.

The campaign, which promotes ideal scenarios under the slogan “In an Absolut World,” showed a 1830s-era map when Mexico included California, Texas and other southwestern states. Mexico still resents losing that territory in the 1848 Mexican-American War and the fight for Texas independence.

But the ads, which ran only in Mexico and have since ended, were less than ideal for Americans undergoing a border buildup and embroiled in an emotional debate over illegal immigration from their southern neighbor. .. Absolut said the ad was designed for a Mexican audience and intended to recall “a time which the population of Mexico might feel was more ideal.”

“As a global company, we recognize that people in different parts of the world may lend different perspectives or interpret our ads in a different way than was intended in that market, and for that we apologize.” Vin & Sprit, Absolut’s Sweden-based parent company, will be acquired by French spirit maker Pernod Ricard SA under a deal reached last week.

In a presentation Monday to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative in Washington, the San Rafael, Calif.-based California First Amendment Coalition argued that China’s blatant and sophisticated censorship of the Internet violates China’s obligations under the World Trade Organization.

The nonprofit group wants the U.S. Trade Representative to file a petition with the WTO alleging that China has breached agreements that WTO members must adhere to. China became a member of the WTO in 2001. The WTO has never addressed whether e-commerce and Internet access are covered by the organization’s bylaws — but activists say the CFAC initiative could become a test case.

According to CFAC attorneys, WTO agreements give members “rights of market access” for bilateral trade — but many electronic retailers cannot have fully operable Web sites for Chinese consumers because of government censorship. “China’s censorship of the Internet, while fundamentally an issue of free speech and individual liberty, is also a significant barrier to U.S.-China commerce and, therefore, very much a trade issue,” said Peter Scheer, executive director of San Rafael, Calif.-based CFAC.

China’s government uses software to root out offensive keywords and block blacklisted Web sites. Government censors, known as Net nannies, surf the Web looking for pornography, subversive political content or other illegal material. China — which has 162 million Web users — is among a handful of countries that have extensive filters for political sites. Iran, Myanmar, Syria, Tunisia and Vietnam also believed to block political content.I

The case involved Shi Tao who was jailed for allegedly providing state secrets to foreigners after he sent an e-mail that contained notes about government media restrictions, and Wang Xiaoning who was arrested in 2002 in connection with anonymous e-mails and other political writings he posted online. Both journalists were arrested after Yahoo turned over information about their online activities and both were given harsh 10 year prison terms. Family members of Shi and Wang in April sued Yahoo and the Chinese company Alibaba.com, which took over Yahoo’s mainland China operations in 2005.

In a dramatic moment during the hearing, Yahoo Chief executive Jerry Yang and General Counsel Michael Callahaner were prompted to apologize to Shi’s mother, who was sitting behind them, and both turned to her and bowed deeply. “After meeting with the families, it was clear to me what we had to do to make this right for them, for Yahoo and for the future,” Yang said later in a statement. “We are committed to making sure our actions match our values around the world.” Yang also said the company also was establishing a “human rights fund to provide humanitarian and legal aid to dissidents who have been imprisoned for expressing their views online.”

Let’s hope that is sincere- it sounds like it is. Yahoo was born here in California- and while we wish them great success in all their foreign ventures, we hope they don’t forget that they are an American company Now it is up to the Chinese authorities to release Shi Tao and Wang Xiaoning, and anyone else who has been jailed on such ridiculous charges. This will be a thorn in U.S. China relations, and an unnecessary one that alienates the very people likely to be most friendly towards China.