Random Apologies

The Sudanese government had a nasty shock this week, when it read on a US Congress website that the Americans had conducted nuclear tests in the country.

A House of Representatives committee report mentioned tests conducted in Sudan between 1962 and 1970.

 

However, when alarmed Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail raised it with US officials in Khartoum, it turned out to be a typing error.

 

The report should have said Sedan, a test site in the US state of Nevada.

A Canadian member of Parliament charged with improving ties with the United States apologized on Thursday for saying “let’s embarrass the hell out of the Americans in front of other countries.”

 

The gaffe by Marlene Jennings came exactly two weeks after Canada’s Liberal government irritated Washington by refusing to join the U.S. missile defense system.

 

Jennings — the parliamentary secretary for Canada-U.S. relations — reports directly to Prime Minister Paul Martin, who came to power in December 2003 saying he wanted better relations with Washington.

 

“I would apologize to the members in this House that my comments were a little bit exaggerated. I apologize,” she told the House of Commons elected chamber of Parliament.

 

Jennings, who is herself half-American, accused the United States on Tuesday of refusing to adhere to trade treaties it had signed with Canada. One way to strike back, she suggested, was to shame Washington internationally.

 

“Let’s embarrass the hell out of the Americans in front of other countries that they are attempting to negotiate with on new binational trade agreements … let’s just do it on the public scene,” she told a parliamentary committee.