Will this Summit of the Americas be the last?

By macleans.ca - Friday, April 17, 2009 at 10:35 AM - 3 Comments

As Prime Minister Stephen Harper departs for the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago, some are wondering whether he may be attending the last of these gatherings. A failed free trade agreement, tensions between Venezuela and the United States and splits along regional and political lines are all undermining the summit, making this one potentially pivotal to the entire endeavour. “People are looking around and thinking, ‘I’m going to six to eight summits a year – why am I going to this one too? Just because the Americans are there, just to meet Obama?”‘ says Carlo Dade, executive director of the Canadian Foundation for the Americas. “This summit has to step up and start delivering something, show real progress.”

Canadian Press

Have you helmeted your kids today?

By macleans.ca - Friday, April 17, 2009 at 10:15 AM - 0 Comments

Ottawa kids may soon be required to wear helmets at the city’s skate parks, toboggan hills and arenas. City staff were directed to draft a bylaw that would make protective headgear mandatory at municipal sports and recreation facilities to reduce the risk of brain injury. According to Dr. Michael Vassilyadi, a neurosurgeon at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, 14 per cent of hospitalizations in children aged one to 14 years is caused by accidental brain injury, which is also the leading cause of death in this age group. He says helmets can avoid or mitigate 60 per cent of these injuries.

Ottawa Citizen

Some pirates can be caught

By macleans.ca - Friday, April 17, 2009 at 10:12 AM - 0 Comments

It maybe the biggest victory yet in the entertainment industry’s ongoing battle against file-sharers. A Swedish court today convicted four men of copyright infringement for running a massive site where some 20 million users were downloading music, films and video games. More important, the court handed each of the men a year in jail–a significant disincentive to anyone considering filling their shoes. The name of the site alone spoke to the defiance of online sharers: “Pirate Bay” was a deliberate poke at the likes of Sony and Time Warner, and the industry is predictably pleased with the outcome of the case. But they might want to hold the celebrations, as analysts say Internet users have found new ways to share copyrighted material, from streaming to messaging.

New York Times

Paging Ari Fleischer

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, April 17, 2009 at 10:09 AM - 18 Comments

Glen Pearson talks to Jeffrey Sachs.

Since he travels to 40-50 countries a year, I naturally asked him how Canada was viewed from an international perspective. His comments were insightful … and troubling:

• your country has lost its distinctive voice
• Canada should be the conscience of the continent, but instead we’re just a business partner
• his discussions with many world leaders revealed that Canada had lost its presence – the legacy of Lester Pearson is no more
• Canada has lost its brand
• leaders in Canada have become so enamored with financial markets that they have denied this country’s own historical DNA that saw it as a beacon of peace to the world

On the sustained use of torture by the United States government

By Paul Wells - Friday, April 17, 2009 at 9:22 AM - 75 Comments

I’m sorry to be blunt with the headline, but facts are facts and, as a quick scan of this morning’s Canadian newspaper front pages shows, denial is easy. One hardly knows where to begin. Here, maybe, with a memo from Steven Bradbury at the Office of the Legal Counsel. He points out that the State Department routinely decries as torture the very practices he and his colleagues are busy justifying, but only when other countries do it. And then he says it’s only torture if other countries do it.

Each year, in the State Department’s Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, the United States condemns coercive interrogation techniques and other practices employed by other countries. Certain of the techniques the United States has condemned appear to bear some resemblance to some of the CIA interrogation techniques. [A photo of the paragraph I'm quoting, with references to practices used in Indonesia, Egypt, Iran, Algeria and Syria, is here.]

We recognize that as a matter of diplomacy, the United States may for various reasons in various circumstances call another nation to account for practices that may in some respects resemble conduct in which the United States might in some circumstances engage, covertly or otherwise. Diplomatic relations with regard to foreign countries are not reliable evidence of United States executive practice and thus may be of only limited relevance here.

There is a lot of that sort of thing in these memos. It is not torture if it is not done by the right countries. It is not torture if done outside the U.S., which explains why the U.S. had to open black sites in Poland, Indonesia and a half-dozen other countries: because the UN Convention on Torture is limited to “territory under [U.S.] jurisdiction.” It is not torture if you take care to misread statutory interdictions against inflicting “pain or suffering” as “pain and suffering,” in an attempt to get yourself off the hook for treatment that “only” causes suffering.

No, it’s torture all right.

Barack Obama faced serious internal dissent over whether to release these memos and has taken care to exculpate CIA investigators who acted under their authority. But that does not begin to end this business. The next question is whether the lawyers who drafted these memos were living up to their profession’s standards or whether they were crackpots serving up a figleaf for settled policy. And the question after that is what to do to the people who settled the policy. People like Dick Cheney.

Barack Obama insists that his is a nation of laws, and as I wrote last month, if that’s so, then there are consequences, and even Obama has imperfect control over the legal and political proceedings that will produce those consequences.

Schreiber’s last stand – for now.

By kadyomalley - Friday, April 17, 2009 at 8:02 AM - 76 Comments

After three days on the stand, we’re still waiting for those seven scandals that the witness promised to deliver as he headed into the hearing room last Tuesday, but keep in mind that the final round of questions goes to Schreiber Schtrikeforce lead counsel Richard Auger, who will likely make every effort to ensure that Schreiber gets an opportunity to explain all those inconsistencies and contradictions that have cropped up between his past and present testimony.

Before Auger takes the floor, however, Team Mulroney’s Guy Pratte will get one more chance to grill his client’s former international business associate, and Robert Houston, who represents Fred Doucet, gave notice yesterday afternoon that he plans to spend a couple of hours on this witness — and then there’s Judge Oliphant himself, who may have a few as yet unanswered questions as well.

9:10:11 AM
You know you’re at the Oliphant Inquiry when the security guards are trading theories about Schreiber’s testimony between laments over the previous night’s hockey game.

Continue…

The bravest of talking points

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, April 17, 2009 at 1:22 AM - 29 Comments

Reacting on CBC this afternoon to the latest polling from Ekos, Conservative Jaime Watt offers offered an altogether profound spin.

So obviously these aren’t numbers that we’d be hoping to see. I think there’s a few explanations for why they are the way they are. First of all, we’ve got an almost three-point margin of error, which would possibly bring those numbers a bit closer.

Indeed. Or, by the very same logic, the gap might be even wider.

Better still, if a poll with a +/- 2.5 percentage point margin of error isn’t to be entirely trusted, perhaps all political polling is to be disqualified. The last similar surveys published, for instance, by Nanos, Ipsos Reid and the Strategic Counsel had margins of 3.3, 2.2 and 3.1 respectively.

This is a remarkable position for a political commentator to take publicly and Watt is surely to be commended on his bravery in doing so. May his rational and reasoned approach to politics be an example to us all.

Old-time patriotism

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, April 16, 2009 at 11:54 PM - 23 Comments

The Ottawa Citizen reviews Michael Ignatieff’s True Patriot Love.

“America and Canada are both free nations,” Ignatieff writes. “But our freedom is different: There is no right to bear arms north of the 49th parallel and no capital punishment either; we believe in collective rights to language and land, and, in our rights culture, these can trump individual rights. Not so south of the border. Rights that are still being fought for south of the border — public health care, for example — have been ours for a generation. These differences are major and George Grant’s conclusion that they were minor misunderstood Canadian history and our enduringly different political tradition.”

The latest issue of our magazine includes an interview with the Liberal leader and an excerpt.

Vacationers doused in wake of Conquest failure

By Bruce Parkinson, Takeoffeh.com - Thursday, April 16, 2009 at 10:45 PM - 2 Comments

What had seemed to be a relatively orderly closure of tour operator Conquest Vacations yesterday has taken a nasty turn for some travellers who are currently on their “fully paid” holidays. Travel agents are reporting to TakeOffeh.com that some resorts are demanding payment from Conquest customers on the spot, and at a considerably higher rate than the cost of their original trip, despite having accepted Conquest’s accommodation vouchers upon check-in.

The Travel Industry Council of Ontario (TICO) states that they are aware some consumers in destination are being asked to pay for hotel accommodation and transfer service (transportation) to the airport. TICO says they are attempting to resolve outstanding payments with hotels and transfer companies in various destinations, however, should Ontario consumers be charged for their accommodations and/or transfers, they are being advised to request a claim form from TICO against the Compensation Fund. Consumers should ensure they receive a receipt from the hotel and/or transfer company in exchange for payment to support their claim. The Compensation Fund reimburses consumers for the original travel services purchased and not provided (i.e the Conquest travel services). There is no precedent for reimbursing consumers who have been forced to pay their hotels again upon check-out. Continue…

‘Who knew what when and who reported what when to which?’ (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, April 16, 2009 at 10:22 PM - 0 Comments

Getting back to Bob Rae’s question of a couple weeks ago, Jessica Leeder traces the creation and awareness of Afghanistan’s so-called rape law.

The law that exploded Afghan women’s rights onto the world stage began in obscurity two years ago, when it was published as a proposal in a magazine for Shia clerics.

From there, it was circulated to the Ministry of Justice, where it began its bureaucratic progress into law.

At that point, few outside the Afghan government were paying attention. But inside the country, news of the legislation raised eyebrows. Months before President Hamid Karzai quietly signed it into law, legal activists in Kabul sounded alarms about its content to international stakeholders, but got nowhere, they say.

ADQ: Big Tent or Gong Show?

By Martin Patriquin - Thursday, April 16, 2009 at 7:04 PM - 7 Comments

Not too long ago, one half of Deux Maudits Anglais interviewed Action Democratique du Québec interim president Mario Charpentier. He was a nice enough fellow, aware of his party’s difficulties, which are many and legion, yet imbibed with a jarring optimistic streak that seems only to strike politicians and missionaries. Things we looking up for the ADQ, he said. The party was no longer shackled with the weight of high expectations; its core group of ground workers who made up the party’s vote-harvesting machine, so effective in the 2007 election, were showing signs of a return to the ADQ bosom; and, after years of Mario Dumont’s ambiguity on the constitutional file, Charpentier came out and said the ADQ was going unabashedly federalist. Charpentier himself was able to say the dreaded ‘C’ word without retching–with a certain pride, even. “I don’t know we need to be ashamed of the word,” he said of ‘Canada.’ 

Raymond Bréard might not be ashamed of the word but, as former Director-General of the PQ, as well as a close friend and former advisor to péquiste Premier Bernard Landry, he doesn’t have much time for it. Odd, then, that Mr. Bréard has returned to politics as an advisor to ADQ leadership hopeful Christian Lévesque. Bréard has already raised the ire of adéquistes–though mostly because of his involvement in a lobbying scandal some years ago, and not because he’s a nasty separatissssste. “As far as image is concerned, it might hurt a little bit,” said Lévesque’s opponent, Éric Caire. (Caire would be a hypocrite if he attacked Bréard’s PQ background. As La Presse‘s Tommy Chouinard helpfully points out, Caire himself employs a former bloquiste on his campaign team.)

 A Mari usque ad Mare this isn’t. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course: a large chunk of Quebec’s voting public has long had its foot out the door, and it only natural to have this reflected throughout the political class. What it suggests, though, is that the ADQ will continue to be as ambiguous as it has always been, despite the wishes of Charpentier’s red-and-white ilk. It also suggests a crise de coeur within the party at some point as the two sides engage in an inevitably long, drawn out hissy fit. Kind of like Quebec as a whole, come to think of it.

Don't stop the presses!

By Brian D. Johnson - Thursday, April 16, 2009 at 6:15 PM - 0 Comments

The newspaper is dead! Long live the newspaper! That message that rings as loud and clear as a banner headline in two new movies that make heroes of crusading newspapermen: State of Play and The Soloist, both opening this month. In the real world, everywhere you look, daily papers are ailing, expiring, or making a calculated leap from the burning building of newsprint into the safety net of cyberspace. But that hasn’t dimmed Hollywood’s faith in the hoary romance of the noble reporter. You’d think it would start to wear thin. But in fact, the endangered status of print only seems to have enhanced the glory of men who dispense the kind of noir truth that rubs off on your hands. The heroes of both State of Play and The Soloist are old-fashioned journalists, i.e. hard-working cynics with hearts of gold, who feel their serious talents are being passed over by a new media industrial complex, which cares only for celebrity gossip while pandering to a readership that does not read. State of Play is a conspiracy thriller starring a grungy, plumped-up Russell Crowe as the last good investigative journalist in Washington; Rachel McAdams gives Lois Lane a cyber makeover as a frisky online blogger who becomes his cub reporter; and Ben Affleck is surprisingly well-cast as a well-coiffed, weak-willed congressman who’s plunged into a sex scandal, a murder and a multi-billion-dollar military boondoggle. The story is fiction and it behaves like it: it’s ferociously entertaining and wildly preposterous, as it tries to compress the eight-hour Brit miniseries on which it’s based into a two-hour thriller.

The Soloist is based on a true story, about Los Angeles times columnist Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr.) who types to the rescue of Nathaniel Ayers (Jamie Foxx), a homeless, schizophrenic, classically trained street musician.The filmmakers can’t resist fictionalizing Lopez to make him conform to the Hollywood stereotype of a hard-bitten newspaperman (the better to redeem him with), so the drama is not strict realism. But it comes by its inspirational message more honestly. To read my piece in this week’s magazine about The Soloist, which includes an interview with director Joe Wright, go to: Writer discovers homeless virtuoso.

Both these movies are rather high-minded. There are plenty of ideas being flung around about the world (and the press) going to hell in a hand basket—driven home in snatches of dialogue that play like screenwriter solos. But in both cases, the film’s real crusade is over the fate of the writer, the old-school journalist defending the embattled virtue of a good story. And in that sense, Hollywood’s revival of the newspaper romance is perhaps just a thinly veiled revival of Hollywood’s romance with its own mythology.

State of Play

Unlike at least two editors at this magazine, I haven’t found the eight hours to watch the British mini-series on which the movie is based, but I’m told it’s terrific. Had I seen it, I would probably have a more jaundiced view of the film than I do. You can see certainly glimmers of a larger story behind through the narrative freight train of this compressed version, which barrels along at a relentless pace, freighted with more story than the frame can bear. Along the way, some of the plot shifts are too quick and crisp, and credibility gets derailed. On the whole, however, screenwriter Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton, The Bourne Ultimatum) has written a smart, pithy script, and director Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland, Touching the Void) injects every scene with a fierce, kinetic tension. And despite the eye-rolling newspaper clichés, or to a perverse measure, because of them, I enjoyed myself immensely. But then I have some nostalgia for the genre, even when it doesn’t correspond to reality. I cut my teeth in a ’70s newsroom, pounding out triple-spaced stories on flimsy green sheets of carbon-layered paper, which an editor would mark up with a pencil like a tailor hemming a suit, then hand to a copy boy, who would roll it into a pneumatic tube that would rocket to the composing room through a pipe, sealing the end of my daily mission with a satisfying suuuuuck. It was like working in a submarine. Crowe is . . . well, younger. Sure, he plays a caricature of a journalist from the Rolodex age, a sleuth who knows all the cops by their first names and works in a rat-pack hovel of paper debris, a mickey of scotch at the ready in his desk, but his most arcane affectation is that he still uses a clunky old computer with a flashing cursor.

In this man’s world, the female characters are rather thinly drawn, although Helen Mirren makes a meal of her role as the editor-in-chief trying to impose her corporate bosses new world order on her stubborn star reporter. She’s like Judy Dench’s M wrangling James Bond. As the online firecracker, McAdams comes on strong at first, like a Washington version of our own Kady O’Malley. As Mirren’s character describes her, “She’s young, she’s cheap and she turns out copy every hour.” Unlike Crowe’s veteran, who describes himself as “overpaid, old and slow.” Ouch. But the stand-off between hard-hitting print journalism and blog gossip doesn’t last long, as McAdams soon falls into line, serving as handmaiden to the paternalistic Crowe in the big boys’ clubhouse. “This is a real story,” he tells her. “It’s not open to opinion.” And he’s the one who types the final draft of the big scoop on an absurdly over-extended deadline, while the others actually watch him work—as if he’s engaged in a piece of performance art. By the end, and I’m not giving anything away, any semblance of journalistic reality has been jettisoned. He pushes the send button on his keyboard, and off the story goes to the press, without an trace of editing. A writer’s wet dream; or worst nightmare.

I know it sounds like I’m trashing this movie, but the story has real juice and complexity, the performances have muscle, and the political backdrop is ripped from the headlines. I wasn’t bored for a second. I even stuck around for the closing credits, which roll along with the most rhapsodic sequence of newspapers rolling through a printing press that’s ever been filmed—consummating a retro romance between the big screen and the front page.

I’ll review The Soloist online when it opens next week.

Obama releases secret interrogation memos from the Bush era

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Thursday, April 16, 2009 at 5:23 PM - 9 Comments

The ACLU has them here. The descriptions of the allowable techniques are quite detailed and clinical — see in particular the Aug. 1, 2002 memo and the May 10, 2005 memo. Some techniques discussed: sleep deprivation of up to 11 days, “walling”, various types of “slapping,” the use of nudity and diapers, and putting Abu Zubaydah, who was apparently afraid of bugs, in a cramped “confinement box” with an insect.

The fact that these memos are coming out shows that Attorney General Eric Holder and White House Counsel Greg Craig won an internal battle against the CIA. This could also lead to calls for more investigations.

Obama says his administration will not prosecute interrogators involved in waterboarding who followed the legal advice. But the WaPo notes: “Today’s carefully worded statement left open the possibility, however, that agents and higher-level officials who may have ventured beyond the strategies approved by Bush lawyers could face legal jeopardy for their actions”

Obama’s statement is below.

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'Western democracies do not engage in torture to gather information'

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, April 16, 2009 at 5:05 PM - 11 Comments

In between casting aspersions on Michael Ignatieff, that’s what Peter Van Loan told the public safety committee two weeks ago: “Information that has been obtained by torture is not reliable. It should not be relied upon. There is ample understanding in the world that this is the case. That’s why western democracies do not engage in torture to gather information, because it is not reliable. It’s also because it’s a fundamental violation of human rights, but the probative value is limited as well.” 

To that effect, a little over a year ago, Maxime Bernier ordered that mention of the United States be removed from a Foreign Affairs manual that cautioned diplomats about countries that were known to have engaged in torture. ”I regret the embarrassment caused by the public disclosure of the manual used in the department’s torture awareness training,” Bernier said. ”It contains a list that wrongly includes some of our closest allies. I have directed that the manual be reviewed and rewritten.”

Unfortunately, here is the latest round of Bush-era torture memos, a carefully laid out explanation of what the previous American administration said could be done to detainees under the guise of information gathering.

Why isn't Maher Arar welcome in the United States?

By Michael Petrou - Thursday, April 16, 2009 at 4:36 PM - 0 Comments

President Barack Obama’s new administration has gone to some lengths to differentiate the methods it uses to combat terrorism from those employed during the presidency of George W. Bush. Obama has ordered the closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention centre in Cuba and pledged that the United States will not engage in torture. Even the “war on terror” has disappeared from the talking points of most American officials.

But American policy regarding Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen who, in 2002, was detained on suspicion of links to terrorism during stopover in the United States and deported to Syria, has not changed. Arar says he was tortured during his year-long Syrian imprisonment–a claim that is supported by the conclusions of a 2006 Canadian commission of inquiry. That same commission, chaired by Dennis O’Connor, cleared Arar of any links to terrorism, leading the Canadian government to apologize for the role Canada played in his arrest and deportation and to award Arar more than $10 million in compensation.

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When Bad Things Happen To Good Theme Songs

By Jaime Weinman - Thursday, April 16, 2009 at 3:49 PM - 9 Comments

One other thing about theme songs (and they still exist, sort of!) is that if the show runs long enough, the theme song will probably be re-recorded and re-arranged, and when that happens, it will often change in a really disappointing way. I understand the reasons behind the final-season remix of “We Used To Be Friends” on Veronica Mars. I do not have to like it.

What are some examples of theme songs that you liked that were re-arranged in ways you didn’t like?

Here’s one example. That Girl started out with a fine theme song by Earle Hagen, an instrumental that fit perfectly with the story of a single girl trying to make it in New York City:

The song was then rearranged several times, never sounding as good as the first version. But it never really got bad until the last season (just out on DVD), when they added lyrics to the song, gave it a late ’60s MOR pop arrangement, and ended it with the male chorus shouting the show’s title in unison. Not good.

And then there was the unfortunate transformation of The Bob Newhart Show theme by Lorenzo and Henrietta Music. (The original intro is not on YouTube, so here’s someone’s re-enactment of it.)

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Ignatieff on Iran

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, April 16, 2009 at 3:33 PM - 2 Comments

The Liberal leader talks to a Canadian-Iranian outlet in three parts—here, here and here.

Writer discovers homeless virtuoso

By Brian D. Johnson - Thursday, April 16, 2009 at 3:30 PM - 1 Comment

Sometimes a story takes on a life of its own, like a runaway solo in the hands of a crazed musician. Three years ago, Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez stumbled across a homeless, middle-aged schizophrenic on skid row who was drawing remarkable music from a shabby violin with just two strings. His name was Nathaniel Ayers, and when Lopez discovered he’d once been a student at Juilliard, he knew he had a story. But after his column about Ayers appeared, the story didn’t stop. Readers sent Lopez violins and a cello to give to Ayers. And the journalist found himself cast as a reluctant guardian angel, on a mission to save a deranged street person who did not want to be saved. A relationship grew. More columns ensued, then a bestselling book called The Soloist—and now a movie starring Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr.

That’s an incredible progression. A shattered artist sleeps on the pavement and carries his entire world in an overstuffed shopping cart. He plays arpeggios for pigeons, sounds that sift through the noisy squalor of the street, catch a journalist’s ear, and end up generating a Hollywood movie. When a homeless man is turned into an entertainment property, it makes you wonder about the ethical line between salvation and exploitation. But that issue serves as a central theme in both the book and the film, which treads carefully on terrain for which there is no real precedent. The movie Shine (1996) comes to mind. But its real-life subject, mentally ill piano prodigy David Helfgott, was nowhere near as destitute or deranged as Ayers.

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Chávez: the seizure spree continues

By Patricia Treble - Thursday, April 16, 2009 at 3:20 PM - 8 Comments

In a nationalization spree that shows no sign of abating, Venezuela officially expropriated a Cargill rice processing plant last Thursday. The American-owned plant had allegedly produced a pre-cooked variety as a way to escape government-imposed price controls on ordinary rice. In the past few years, the government has seized oil fields, the largest telecommunications firm, a major power producer, cement plants, a steel mill and a eucalyptis plantation as part of President Hugo Chávez’s plan to transform his oil-rich nation into a socialist paradise. Last week, days after the military took control of Venezuela’s ports and airports, Chávez announced he was taking over Aeropostal, the private airline.

Yet there are signs that the profligate government is running out of cash. In the aftermath of the plunge in oil prices, one bank economist predicted a US$50-billion budget deficit this year, and the government is past due on bills to the tune of more than US$7 billion, causing suppliers to stop deliveries to the critically important energy sector. On top of those dismal statistics, the government’s unpaid tab for compensating firms for all those nationalizations sits at US$10 billion. So last month, Chávez raised the spectre of not paying cash for takeovers when he warned the nation’s largest food producer, Polar, that, if seized, “we’ll pay you in bonds.” Miguel Carpio, a Banco Federal CA economist, told Bloomberg that “the message is that he’s going to pay with something that isn’t worth anything.”

Continue…

Rae on Ignatieff

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, April 16, 2009 at 3:01 PM - 2 Comments

The Real News Network—seemingly a response to the Onion News Network—has posted the first part of its three-part interview with Bob Rae. This first segment covers the rise of the coalition and the change in Liberal leadership.

"So I guess we could describe that meeting as not having gone particularly well"

By Paul Wells - Thursday, April 16, 2009 at 2:55 PM - 24 Comments

A few hardy souls show up on Steve Paikin’s TVO show (click on the “SCIENCE IN PERIL?” tab when the page opens) to talk about science funding. Parts of the segment are funny. Other parts are really not funny. Near the end of the segment Steve says a lot of people turned down a chance to talk about science funding on teevee. I’ve since learned a bit more about those individuals and groups who got cold feet, and while my lips are sealed, I’ll say this much: it was a long list.

Women's Rights: The Human Rights Issue of the Century

By John Parisella - Thursday, April 16, 2009 at 2:53 PM - 11 Comments

The video depicting the abhorrent flogging of a Pakistani teenage girl by the Taliban in the Swat region has sent shockwaves around the world. Rightly so. The recent controversy over a law that was passed (and is now under review) by the Karzai government in Afghanistan illustrates that, eight years after the fall of the Taliban, there is still a long way to go for women’s rights in the region. We now know that Karzai is far from the patriot the Bush administration would have had us believe. Fortunately, Barack Obama has distinguished between his new Afghan strategy and the issue of women’s rights in that part of the world.

It would be tragic if the progress made to advance women’s rights, minimal as it is, was abandoned as part of a political deal to keep “American allies” in power. When we observe the atrocities that many women still face in many parts of the world—too often in countries where Islam reigns—it is time to state loud and clear that women’s rights is the human rights issue of the 21st century. Continue…

Moscow gays find a new way to party

By Jen Cutts - Thursday, April 16, 2009 at 2:40 PM - 0 Comments

Russian gay rights activists are planning to bring some extra drama to a popular European pop music competition. Moscow Pride organizers have scheduled a pride parade to coincide with the live TV finale of the 54th Eurovision Song Contest on May 16. Thousands of fans are expected for the show—most famous for launching ABBA’s career in 1974—and activists see Moscow’s hosting of the contest as an opportunity to build support for gays in Russia.

Gay rights marches in Moscow have been repeatedly banned by Mayor Yuri Luzhkov. The city’s first ever, held in 2006 despite being banned, led to violent clashes between activists and anti-gay demonstrators. At a Eurovision press conference in December, Luzhkov advised gay visitors to the city: “Entertain yourself, no problem, but not on the streets, squares, marches and demonstrations. We do not allow gay parades.” Homosexuality has only been legal in Russia since 1993, and the influential Russian Orthodox Church still strongly disapproves.

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Canada’s own medical marvel

By Lianne George - Thursday, April 16, 2009 at 2:40 PM - 4 Comments

Toronto Star

On March 31, 1938, Mao Zedong, a young Communist revolutionary destined to bring about generations of social trauma, invited Dr. Norman Bethune to visit him in his quarters in Yan’an, China, for a conversation that lasted until early morning. In the weeks leading up to this visit—now forever enshrined in Chinese lore—Bethune, a brilliant and intrepid Canadian surgeon, traveled great distances, often on foot and under attack, helping Mao’s Communists fight fascism by tending to wounded soldiers and civilians, the only foreign doctor among 13 million Chinese.

After Bethune’s death a year later (he cut his finger on a patient’s bone shard and the wound became infected), Mao eulogized Bethune in a lengthy letter that schoolchildren would be required to memorize, word for word, for decades. In her new biography, Extraordinary Canadians: Norman Bethune, Adrienne Clarkson, Canada’s former governor general and a veteran journalist, revisits the story of the man a billion and a half Chinese came to know as Pai-Chu-En—White One Sent.

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