Section: Canadian Dimension (Canada)
The Refugee Crisis in Context
Photo by Rachel Unkovic A report issued by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) this week provided a jarring statistical glimpse at the unprecedented crisis facing 59.5 million people who are currently displaced. With ongoing wars and sectarian conflicts raging in Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, South Sudan and Somalia, and record numbers moving...
The Harper Doctrine in Red? Justin Trudeau’s Foreign Policy
Photo by Alex Guibord With its legacy of peacekeeping and respect for the United Nations, one notable feature of Pierre Elliot Trudeau’s foreign policy was his willingness to disagree openly with our southern neighbour. In his memoir, PET lambasted “the rigidly anti-Soviet stance taken by Reagan and his ideological soulmate [sic] Margaret...
Wars and displaced persons camps, in Ukraine and in Haiti
Separatist commander Arseny Pavlov • Photo by Andrew Butko While in Moscow three weeks ago, following a media tour to Donetsk, eastern Ukraine in which I participated, I had the pleasure of meeting Jon Hellevig, a regular writer at Russia Insider. Jon was in Donetsk a few weeks before our group, thanks to the efforts of the same Russian/German...
A Nation of Snitches
Graphic created by EFF Senior Designer Hugh D’Andrade. A totalitarian state is only as strong as its informants. And the United States has a lot of them. They read our emails. They listen to, download and store our phone calls. They photograph us on street corners, on subway platforms, in stores, on highways and in public and private...
Welcome Back, Omar Khadr: Demonized No More
Photo by Khadr family When torture survivor Omar Khadr was granted bail last week, the Harper government actually did something logical: it argued in an emergency hearing that releasing someone who, since the age of 15, has never known life outside of the world’s worst detention facilities, would cause irreparable harm. Indeed, it already...
Why is the West Spoiling for a Fight with Russia?
Photo by Kremlin.ru What are the consequences when elected governments make policy based on faith and imperial hubris instead of science and expertise? It’s a question that is forcing itself on the world as we watch the United States, Britain, NATO and the Harper government continue to up the ante in the confrontation with Russia over the...
A Fly’s View of America’s War Against Vietnam, Part One
Photo from National Archives The US invaded Vietnam publicly in the “wake” of the so-called Tonkin Gulf Resolution in 1964. Since then this action by the US regime is customarily dignified by the term “intervention”. Although the pretext for the congressional resolution was at least suspicious then and long since discredited as fraudulent, the...
Toronto Symphony cancels performances by Ukrainian-born pianist for anti-war views
Photo by elPadawan The following statement was released on Facebook on April 6 by the renowned Ukrainian-born classical pianist Valentina Lisitsa. It is in response to the decision of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra to cancel two performances by her with the symphony planned for April 8 and 9 of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto #2. The TSO said...
Lies and Deceptions on the Left: The Politics of Self-Destruction
Buzludzha • Photo by Stanislav Traykov Introduction Over the past year, what appeared as hopeful signs, that Left governments were emerging as powerful alternatives to right-wing pro-US regimes, is turning into a historic rout, which will relegate them to the dustbin of history for many years to come. The rise and rapid decay of left-wing...
Oil Imperialism and Monetary Policy
Illustration from Public Domain In important ways the world is an eternal mystery and in significant ways it isn’t. On the side of mystery are pre and post cognitive understanding, being of and in the world and all of the irreducible relations these entail. On the other side is narrative form, the way that the world is understandable in a...
