On the job with ‘Hillary’s angels’

By Alex Ballingall - Thursday, December 22, 2011 at 11:00 AM - 0 Comments

No U.S. Secretary of state has travelled like Hillary Clinton does. As Barack Obama’s top diplomat, she clocked more than 354,000 km in 2010—enough to circle the globe nearly nine times. And as the woman who famously said she made “18 million cracks” in the “glass ceiling” during her 2008 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, Clinton also travels with a highly trained security contingent that includes more than a dozen women.

They were chosen from thousands of applicants to personally guard the secretary as she trots the globe touting American interests. Writing in Elle magazine, Laura Blumenfeld dubbed them “Hillary’s Angels.” Given that they’re trained to fire guns upside down, run for miles on end and take people down in hand-to-hand combat, the handle seems entirely appropriate.

A member of Clinton's security detail keeps watch as the secretary of state speaks in the United Arab Emirates last January.

Karen Grey takes part in training drills at a training facility in Summit Point, W. Va.

Brittany Cross on guard, also in the U.A.E.

Cross and Stacey Berg in combat training at the Summit Point facility.

More drills at Summit Point.

Human rights, the rule of law and the death of Gadhafi

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, October 23, 2011 at 3:18 PM - 23 Comments

A statement from the Prime Minister on the liberation of Libya.

“Today, Canadians join with the Libyan people in celebrating the liberation of their country. The Libyan people have courageously risen up against decades of tyranny. Canada’s involvement, as sanctioned by the United Nations and led by NATO, has supported their aspirations for the future. We join Libyans in welcoming the post-Gaddafi era and the transition of the country to a democratic society – one that respects human rights and the rule of law.

“We again commend the work of members of the Royal Canadian Navy and the Royal Canadian Air Force and the leadership of Canadian Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard. Their efforts have led to the success of NATO’s mission in Libya. NATO has taken a preliminary decision to conclude the mission at the end of October. Canada will continue to work with transitional leaders as the new Libya takes shape.”

Speaking of human rights and the rule of law, Liberal MP John McKay questioned Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird on Friday about the demise of Moammar Gadhadi. Continue…

Libby Davies’s French and angry New Brunswickers

By Mitchel Raphael - Monday, September 19, 2011 at 9:30 AM - 0 Comments

Photographed by Mitchel Raphael

Uncle Sam leans on New Brunswickers

John Williamson, a rookie Tory MP and Stephen Harper’s former director of communications, heard an earful this summer about American taxes. Many of the constituents in his large riding of New Brunswick Southwest (which shares a border with the U.S.) have been affected by Uncle Sam’s new zeal for enforcing overseas tax-reporting rules. For some, it’s easier to cut through Maine than to tackle the seasonal, inter-island ferry service; pregnant women sometimes go to Maine hospitals, which results in many dual citizens. Williamson says many of these constituents are being forced to pay accountants thousands of dollars to file years’ worth of returns, even though they will end up paying nothing to the U.S. government. It’s a crisis for those who do not have that kind of spare income. The border is something constituents have to deal with frequently. When Williamson himself recently attended a BBQ fundraiser to support volunteer firefighters on Campobello Island in his riding, he had to drive through the States to get there.

Continue…

Tanzania: land of constant complaints

By M.G. Vassanji - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 at 10:25 AM - 4 Comments

Marco Longari/AFP/Getty Images

In Tanzania, is it that they complain too much, or they expect too much? Since the beginnings of economic and political liberalization in the 1990s, the nation has charged forward; the print media is bold and vociferous in both of the national languages, English and Swahili—especially the latter. Paved roads connect every part of the country, reaching towns and villages previously cut off during the rains; cellphones are in evidence everywhere. The country is connected. It’s as if an engine turned on one day, and the once laid-back country, known as “the land of not yet,” woke up. So what are the complaints about? Or, as a slick, modern voice on the radio says in an angular Swahili, “Wapi ni beef?”

I’m sitting in a full minibus in the lush, hilly southern province of the country, heading from the provincial capital, Mbeya, down to Kyela on Lake Nyasa near the Malawi border. We pass areas growing wheat and corn, tea, banana, avocado, red beans and cocoa. We pass roadside markets selling vegetables, timber and locally made furniture. Finally we arrive at the market town, Kyela, known for its famous Mbeya rice. I can’t help observing that if one did not long for modern amenities such as a hot shower, one could simply lie under a tree all day, picking the occasional weed, and not starve.

On the way, my companion Felix, a local investigative journalist, points out other places of interest: the modest headquarters of a yogourt maker whose product now reaches all over the country; the modest house of a local man who owns hotels in the capital; a downhill bend on the road that was formerly called Uwanja wa Ndege, or “Airport,” because—before the speed bumps came up—vehicles would fly off from this spot down into the valley below; a coal mine started by the Chinese. Felix also tells disturbing stories of abuses of village women by foreign mine workers.

Continue…

Shed a tear

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, August 15, 2011 at 2:30 PM - 4 Comments

Katrina Onstad considers the politics of emoting.

Crying men have a little more leeway. Bill Clinton knew how to work his tear ducts – or at least a quivering lip – to his advantage. Republican House Speaker John Boehner is a prodigious weeper. Perhaps because it’s still rare, a man displaying emotion can deepen his public image, gesturing toward reservoirs of feeling. But for Bill’s wife, one teary appearance in 2008 revealed a mass of confusing attitudes around women crying. While some female voters responded to a humanized Hillary Clinton, TV pundits jeered at the bawling chick who couldn’t take it in the big leagues. Her crying didn’t expand the public’s impression of her; it reduced it. In other words: “What is she – on her period?”

Michaelle Jean’s tearful statement after the earthquake Haiti was one of the defining moments of her term as Governor General and the residential schools apology in the House was an altogether emotional day—consider, for instance, Jack Layton’s speech—but otherwise there aren’t many (any?) recent displays of emotion in the Canadian context that come to mind.

During the 2008 campaign, the Prime Minister was accused of lacking empathy at the outset of that year’s financial crisis. In an interview at the time, he soundly dismissed the criticism. Continue…

Talk shops

By Paul Wells - Thursday, June 30, 2011 at 5:07 PM - 12 Comments

So there’s this thing called the Community of Democracies. It’s truth in labelling: it’s a loose international assembly of countries that at least claim to be democracies. It’s not perfect — Egypt and Yemen signed its founding declaration in 2000, apparently with a straight face — but it puts democratic freedom at the heart of its mission and makes that aspiration a guiding principle for its existence and action.

Every year the Community of Democracies has a ministerial meeting. Steven Fletcher, who was then the Minister of State for Democratic Reform, attended on the Harper government’s behalf in 2009. “I appreciated the opportunity to meet with experts on democracy assistance and government officials to share Canada’s commitment to take on a more active role in supporting democracy on the world stage,” he said at the time. Lawrence Cannon, then the Minister for Foreign Affairs, attended last year’s ministerial conference. “The Community of Democracies is an important forum for supporting and strengthening democracy around the world,” Cannon said then.

You know where this is going, don’t you. Continue…

Newsmakers: May 19-26

By Nancy Macdonald - Friday, June 3, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

Kevin Mazur/Wireimage/Getty

Laying it down with Beantown

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson’s Twitter plea for help in coming up with a friendly wager with Boston Mayor Thomas Menino prompted some great ideas. “There’s a good one: sushi versus clam chowder, and swapping our best beers from two great beer-drinking cities,” Robertson told reporters in Stanley Park, a few steps from the iron statue of Lord Stanley—which currently sports a Canucks jersey. “One that I really like, that I’m going to campaign for with the mayor of Boston, is that the loser buys season’s tickets for a couple of inner-city kids in the winning city,” he said. Another favourite, he joked, would see the loser “swimming with an Orca” or “wrestling a bear.”

Ending the IMF boys’ club?

The bid by France’s Finance Minister Christine Lagarde to become the first female head of the International Monetary Fund was pushed forward at the G8 meet-up in Deauville. She once famously complained there is “too much testosterone” in high-powered circles, a comment that now looks prescient. French President Nicolas Sarkozy talked her up to Barack Obama; Hillary Clinton hailed her candidacy. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev called her the near-consensus choice, though China and India want a non-European from a developing country.

Continue…

Newsmakers: May 5-12, 2011

By Nancy Macdonald - Friday, May 13, 2011 at 11:15 AM - 0 Comments

EMPICS Entertainment/Keystone Press

Compassion for bin Laden

Angela Merkel’s remark that she was “glad” Osama bin Laden had been killed sparked a firestorm of controversy in Germany. Hamburg judge Heinz Uthmann even filed a criminal complaint, alleging the German chancellor broke a law barring the “rewarding and approving of crimes”—in this case, bin Laden’s “homicide.” Politicians denounced her, and 64 per cent of Germans agreed: bin Laden’s death was “no reason to rejoice.” In L.A., however, even the Dalai Lama—compassion incarnate—said he had it coming. “If something is serious and it is necessary to take counter-measures, you have to take counter-measures,” said the Tibetan spiritual leader.

Mother’s day miracle

After 49 days alone in a Chevy Astro van on a logging road in remote Nevada, Rita Chretien was found barely conscious, but clinging to life. The 56-year-old Penticton, B.C., native and her husband, Albert, were stranded en route to Las Vegas on March 19; Albert, who left two days later to find help, hasn’t been seen since. Rita’s faith, and a bit of trail mix, was all that kept her going until finally she was spotted by hunters on ATVs. “We were praying for a miracle and, boy, did we get one,” her son Raymond told reporters Sunday.

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Libya and the Clinton agenda

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Monday, April 4, 2011 at 10:00 AM - 2 Comments

Charles Eshelman/FilmMagic/Getty Images

When Barack Obama chose rival Hillary Rodham Clinton to be his secretary of state, he was praised for shrewdly uniting Democrats who had been divided by a bitter primary campaign. But he also picked a hawkish senator who had voted in favour of the use of force in Iraq. It was Clinton, after all, who ran campaign ads that implied Obama was not up to the task of handling foreign affairs: her infamous 3 a.m. telephone ad contrasted Clinton as more experienced, “tested and ready to lead in a dangerous world.”

Now that experience has left its mark. Yes, Clinton is denying reports that she persuaded Obama to enter into an unlikely intervention in Libya, while Defense Secretary Robert Gates, a veteran of the George W. Bush administration and its military misadventures, resisted. But while many Americans are drawing foreign policy lessons from Bush’s experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, Clinton is clearly drawing hers from having witnessed her husband’s administration deal with genocides in the Balkans and Rwanda, where the U.S. intervened late, or not at all.

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It's better with Coke

By Claire Ward - Thursday, February 17, 2011 at 11:17 AM - 0 Comments

In 1988, U.K.-born development worker Simon Berry, his wife, Jane, and their three children were stationed in northeast Zambia—a highly remote rural area where one in five children died before the age of five. “I was bouncing around in a Land Rover in this very remote place, yet wherever I went, it seemed I could get a Coca-Cola,” Berry explains. “I thought, if you can get Coca-Cola to these places, why can’t you do the same with basic medicines?” Today, the Berrys run their own organization, ColaLife, which aims to use Coca-Cola’s wide-reaching supply chain to distribute basic medical supplies to remote regions in Africa. The supplies, encased in wedge-shaped “AidPods,” fit snugly into the spaces between the bottles in the crates—five wedges per crate. Coke has recently sanctioned a pilot program in Zambia with local stakeholders; the Berrys are currently seeking funding and have their sights on the Bill & Melinda Gates and Clinton foundations.

While ColaLife has garnered support, some feel sending aid via Coke is like dealing with the devil. “There seems to be a potentially huge payoff [for Coca-Cola] in terms of PR and attitudes to Coke in rural areas,” warns Jonathan Crush, professor of development studies at Queen’s University. Berry’s view is more pragmatic. “In order for a partnership like this to work, there has to be something in it for all,” he says. “The 20 per cent child mortality has remained basically unchanged for decades. We need to try something a bit more innovative.” Berry stresses that Cola­Life wants to take its time to establish a sustainable process—not a one-off—and hopes to launch in June.

Newsmakers

By macleans.ca - Friday, December 10, 2010 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

Helena Bonham Carter, fashion plate
Her corsets, crinoline and frizzy hair have made her a constant on “worst dressed” lists over the years, so when the British actor, who counts Marie Antoinette as her style icon and claims a “f–k it attitude” to red-carpet dressing, heard she’d made Vanity Fair’s “best dressed” list, even she burst into laughter.

When nature’s in your path . . .
Vancouver’s organic breakfast moguls, Ratana and Arran Stephens, may have cast their professional lot with the environment—their cereal company, Nature’s Path, aspires to “advance the cause of people and planet along the path of sustainability.” But this week they came under fire for razing 25 trees from their lawn in tony Point Grey: a violation of the city’s famously strict tree-protection bylaw, and a major no-no in Lotusland. Their sins made headline news in Vancouver, which bars homeowners from removing trees from their property, prompting the pair to apologize profusely and repeatedly, even writing a letter to Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson insisting that they be heavily fined.

Continue…

Wherryleaks

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, December 1, 2010 at 4:11 PM - 17 Comments

The Globe reports that, according to a memo released by Wikileaks, French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner pressed the matter of Omar Khadr with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during a meeting in February 2009.

Loyal readers will recall that this blog uncovered the French news release that announced this intervention more than a year and a half ago.

It gets better

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 at 12:31 PM - 90 Comments

Michael Ignatieff adds his contribution to Dan Savage’s It Gets Better project.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have also contributed. The project has also made famous a city councillor for Fort Worth by the name of Joel Burns. Continue…

Hillary’s loss was Mama Grizzlies’ gain

By macleans.ca - Thursday, November 4, 2010 at 9:40 AM - 0 Comments

Mark Wilson/Getty Images

BIG GIRLS DON’T CRY: THE ELECTION THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING FOR AMERICAN WOMEN
Rebecca Traister

Few sound bites from the 2008 U.S. presidential race received the sort of scrutiny given Hillary Clinton’s voice cracking with emotion as she explained why she was running: “I just don’t want to see us fall backwards,” she said. “I see what’s happening and we have to reverse it.” What she was alluding to is writ large in Big Girls Don’t Cry, Rebecca Traister’s trenchant, entertaining analysis of the historic campaign. “It cried,” one commentator sneered at Clinton’s rare show of vulnerability, ignoring the fact tears weren’t shed. Traister, who covered the election for Salon.com, sees the landmark moment reflecting the campaign’s bizarro reversal of traditional gender roles: Clinton downplayed her “femaleness” and focused on policy, while the Oprah-endorsed Barack Obama scored points exploiting the touchy-feely language of women’s magazines.
Such astute observations elevate what could have been a history lesson to must-read cultural criticism. Traister, an Edwards-turned- Obama-turned-Clinton supporter, argues, not always convincingly, that an election filled with identity politics was good for women: “What was once called the women’s liberation movement found thrilling new life.”

Overt sexism directed at Clinton (the “F–k Hillary, God Knows She Needs It” signs, the $19.95 Hillary “nutcracker”) galvanized women, Traister points out. As did Michelle Obama’s transformation from an outspoken, reluctant political wife to a smiling, unthreatening “Stepford-ized” first lady. More, though, a campaign focused on identity politics revealed the diversity of female opinion, reflected in the generational divide in feminist support for Clinton and a new vibrant younger feminist wave. This detonated the myth of a “feminist monolith,” or as Traister drolly puts it, “some accredited synod that takes away your disposable razor and issues you a gift card for two free abortions.”

Traister is at her most compelling musing over her conflicted feelings about how Clinton’s run paved the way for Sarah Palin. And how, in turn, Palin’s “retro” femininity then gave way to “Mama Grizzlies” harnessing gender as a new force in the GOP. If you want to know how they did it, this is the book to read.
- ANNE KINGSTON

Continue…

Newsmakers

By macleans.ca - Friday, October 1, 2010 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

A big week for Hillary’s hair
“Oh Hillary, that hairstyle just doesn’t cut it,” carped the U.K.’s Daily Mail, bemoaning U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s “lanky locks.” “Hillary Clinton wears hair clip to the UN: ‘Do or don’t?” asked the Huffington Post. Hill’s hair, object of fascination throughout Bill’s presidency, had the fashion police on high alert at the UN. Meanwhile, its owner quietly intensified U.S. efforts in the fledgling Mideast peace process.

Not so big in Iran, then
When Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stirs trouble abroad, it’s a safe bet he faces problems back home. This week, the Iranian president was in full diversionary mode, suggesting the U.S. played a role in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, then mocking Western media for spotlighting cases like that of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman sentenced to death for adultery. (Hossein Derakhshan, an Iranian-Canadian blogger, also faces the death sentence for creating online forums Tehran considered a political threat; a similar campaign is building in his favour.) The uproar over Ashtiani, complained Ahmadinejad, is far greater than that over the plight of Teresa Lewis, a borderline mentally challenged woman executed in Virginia on Thursday. His remarks didn’t stop U.S. media from looking past the bluster to the real story: growing divisions among Iran’s conservatives over the election 15 months ago that gave Ahmadinejad his second term. No wonder he wants to change the channel.

C’aan the man do no wrong?
What does K’naan have to do to be criticized? After organizers of a Vancouver-area charity concert fell short of his $40,000 fee, the Somali-Canadian musician refused to take the stage, leaving fans and the charity in the lurch; Simon Fraser University, where the benefit was being held, reportedly offered to pay the difference, to no avail. Yet event organizers, including charity chief Clement Apaak, fell on their swords, accepting full blame, and offering refunds. The Teflon star’s cred is unblemished by even a summer spent touring for Coke, to whom he sold his hit, Wavin’ Flag, for its World Cup marketing campaign, the corporate giant’s biggest ever.

A homer odyssey
If you hadn’t heard the name Jose Bautista before this fall, don’t feel bad. The Toronto Blue Jays slugger had hit fewer home runs in his three previous seasons combined than he has in 2010, and there was nothing to presage the power surge that this week lifted him into the company of legends like Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle. Having surpassed the Jays’ team record of 47 dingers, Bautista cracked his 51st and 52nd over the weekend, giving rise to inevitable questions about the source of his unaccustomed power. Bautista swatted aside queries like so many hanging curve balls. “I understand because of the [sport’s] history,” he said when asked if he’d used performance-enhancing drugs. “But those days are gone.”

The devil is in the details
With his bald head, sinister black Van Dyke beard and dark sunken eyes, it’s hard to forget that Scott Robb, who’s running for Edmonton’s city council, is a practising Satanist. Still, religious issues aren’t a big part of the message for the founder of the Darkside Collective. Rather, the 31-year-old security guard’s platform focuses on opposing a plan to shutter Edmonton’s City Centre Airport, and proposes to run downtown light-rail transit lines underground. Robb eschews political donations and is spending his own money—$400 so far—on his campaign. Which would mean his name isn’t the only eerie similarity he bears to Toronto mayoral candidate Rob Ford.

Close Sesame
Elmo loves Katy Perry—but not inappropriately. “We had a good time,” the Sesame Street puppet told Good Morning America. Elmo’s talk-show appearance was meant to help defuse reaction to his onscreen play date with the pop singer, whose low-cut, cleavage-revealing costume irked parents and led the show to cut the segment. “We’ll have another play date,” Elmo told host George Stephanopoulos, who until recently hosted ABC’s Sunday political show This Week, where he interviewed powerful world leaders. In other news Perry- and puppet-related, the pop queen will appear in a special live-action episode of The Simpsons this Christmas. “In the wake of Elmo’s terrible betrayal, the Simpsons puppets wish to announce they stand felt-shoulder-to-shoulder with Katy Perry,” said Simpsons executive producer Al Jean.

How many women does it take to make a cabinet?
With the election of Simonetta Sommaruga to the Swiss cabinet, the conservative country crossed an unlikely threshold: with Sommaruga, a Social Democrat, as transport minister, Switzerland, which until 1971 barred women from voting, now has a majority-female cabinet—three men, four women—what Social Democrat chair Christian Levrat called an “essential, decisive step.”

A real guitar hero
Vancouver’s Don Alder entered the sixth annual Guitar Superstar competition on a whim—the top 10 finalists, he’d heard, get a nod in Guitar Player magazine, the enthusiast’s bible. Not only did the 54-year-old win, he earned the night’s only standing ovation. Judges deemed his performance “flawless” and “transcendental,” with one adding: “The world needs to hear you.” Alder took up the guitar at the urging of Rick Hansen, a childhood friend (they were together when Hansen was injured after being thrown from the back of a pickup). They were out fishing eight years ago when Hansen said, “Why don’t you get back to your music?” Alder told the Vancouver Sun. “He told me failure is not trying—ever since it’s taken me down this amazing journey.”

Do as he draws, not as he does
What began as a campaign against plagiarism ended as a lesson in irony. Taiwan’s “Protect Copyright” contest launched last year, soliciting entries for a poster campaign. Judges were particularly fond of Wu Chih-wei’s dramatic entry, “Work—Shattered,” featuring a plunging paper plane, words trailing its wings like smoke. The entry earned him a medal and a cash prize, and his poster went up all over Taiwan. Only problem: he’d ripped off Dutch artist Dennis Sibeijn. Wu was stripped of his prize and faced up to three years in jail, but Sibeijn declined to press charges. He would like an apology, though.

Aafia got her gun
Aafia Siddiqui is a 38-year-old Pakistani neuroscientist with degrees from MIT and Brandeis University. Arrested in Afghanistan in 2008, she was found to carry bomb-making recipes and a list of American tourist attractions. When U.S. officials visited her for questioning in jail, Siddiqui grabbed a discarded rifle and began shooting, saying in exquisite English: “I want to kill Americans.” The FBI called her a terrorist. Yet during her trial Siddiqui’s lawyer argued she’s mentally ill. Siddiqui disagreed. So did the judge, who gave her 86 years in prison. That led to riotous protests in Pakistan, where PM Yousaf Raza Gilani called her a “daughter of the nation.”

He hasn’t got a wife to spare
Maybe Ndumiso Mamba figured a man with 14 wives would take a philosophical view of infidelity. But Mamba lost his job as justice minister of Swaziland this week after he was found under a hotel room bed with his king’s 12th wife. Rumours of an affair between Mamba and Nothando Dube, a former Miss Teen Swaziland, had run rampant in the royal court for weeks. Dube reportedly disguised herself as a soldier to sneak out for their trysts, but officials loyal to King Mswati III cottoned on and set up a sting operation to catch the pair. Some predicted Mamba would be allowed to flee. But a long prison term seems more likely. “Mamba knows too much,” said one expert. “If he flees into exile with the royal secrets, that would be a major problem.”

Too mad for Mad Men?
He’s still a contender for Hollywood’s greatest train wreck, but things are looking up for Mel Gibson. News that he’s in danger of losing his house—and his church—to unpaid construction bills didn’t stop Jodie Foster from rising to his defence. “When you love a friend, you don’t abandon them,” she said. Her vote of confidence came as details of Gibson’s ugly split with wife Oksana Grigorieva trickled out: he was apparently willing to cough up $1 million for tapes of his foul-mouthed tirades. But some were buzzing about a comeback. Last week’s hot rumour from Liz Smith had him signing on for a role in the hit series Mad Men, though she retracted after producers demurred.

Catch and release
Captains of Chinese fishing trawlers don’t often trigger diplomatic crises. But that’s what 41-year-old Zhan Qixiong did when, on Sept. 8, while poking around islands claimed by both Beijing and Tokyo, he allegedly rammed Japanese coast guard cutters—twice. Arrested and jailed in Okinawa, he sparked the most serious standoff between China and Japan in recent memory, a dispute closely watched by a world concerned about a rising China. The incident sparked nationalist fervour in both countries, with some in Japan complaining after Qixiong was released on Saturday. Japanese PM Naoto Kan maintained that Tokyo would issue no apologies.

Buck stops here
Last week, Linda Buck, a Nobel Prize-winning biologist who studies how the brain processes odour, retracted two journal articles because they don’t pass the smell test. That makes three times Buck has disavowed papers co-authored with her one-time post-doc Zhihua Zou (who conducted the experiments), because she couldn’t duplicate the findings. Zou, who has reportedly returned to his native China, agreed to the first retraction, but not to last week’s.

On the Gores’ breakup, the Clintons’ survival, and the marital toll of a lost election

By Kate Fillion - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 2 Comments

Yoray Liberman/Getty Images

A professor of history at McGill and a visiting scholar affiliated with the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, Gil Troy is the author of several books on the U.S. presidency, including an examination of Hillary Clinton’s tenure as first lady and Mr. and Mrs. President, a study of presidential marriages in the modern era. Continue…

The Commons: Lawrence Cannon explains everything

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, June 10, 2010 at 6:19 PM - 47 Comments

The Scene. This is surely not the worst of times, but it is perhaps nearly the dumbest. For sure, this is a time of witless woe.

We have no doubt been sliding for some time, but when we got to Guergis we should have realized we had taken a wrong turn, crossed some threshold. Now here we are, stuck in this place with this fake lake and a phoney merger and a theoretical coalition. The threats are only ever exaggerated, the questions are facetious, the crises are manufactured. There is flailing and wailing, faux outrage and bad acting, adult human beings reduced to live-action press releases or made to demonstrate like the characters of professional wrestling. Hearsay leads the news. Bad jokes carry the day. Everyone claims patriotism. Everyone is accused of treason. All seemingly see intellectual dishonesty as the path to power. Few looking on seem to find anything here to believe in.

And so here today was a spectacle for this era, the Foreign Affairs Minister rising in the House of Commons to explain at length the government’s choice of wallpaper. Continue…

Newsmakers

By macleans.ca - Friday, May 21, 2010 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

The Bill comes due
For US$5 you can spend a day in New York with Bill Clinton. The former president is raffling himself off in a bid to clear “a few vestiges of debt” left over from his wife Hillary Clinton’s failed 2008 presidential bid. The vestige is US$771,000 in unpaid bills. The innovative idea has drawn much interest and, it being the Clintons, much rebuke. Critics point to another big number: US$109 million, the estimated amount the two have earned since leaving the White House.

A wrinkle in time
Portuguese film director Manoel de Oliveira, a hale 101-year-old, cut a dashing figure at the Cannes Film Festival last week as he plugged his latest work, The Strange Case of Angelica, about a young Jewish photographer. De Oliveira made his first film in 1931, and has grown more productive as he ages. He’s set a high standard for 74-year-old Woody Allen, at the festival to promote You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger. Allen laments it’s “frustrating” he’s too old to get the girl in his movies, in this case Naomi Watts. Still, he’d happily work at 101, if he’s fit, he said. “My relationship with death remains the same. I’m strongly against it.”

Continue…

The Commons: Ah yes, the lives that are at stake

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, May 5, 2010 at 6:20 PM - 44 Comments

The Scene. The Prime Minister’s empty chair did not seem likely to answer, but Michael Ignatieff went ahead anyway and wondered whether Mr. Harper might commit to restoring the funding of 11 women’s groups whose cuts came a day after a Conservative senator profanely advised an audience of aggrieved advocates to mind their p’s and q’s.

John Baird stood in Mr. Harper’s place to claim both facts and platitudes. ”Mr. Speaker, let me be very clear,” he said, “this government is giving a record amount of funding to support women’s groups. We do have one big criteria, we want less talk and more action.”

The House was left to judge the applicability of this. Mr. Ignatieff was not satisfied and rose again to expand on his exposition.

“Mr. Speaker, when women’s groups speak out, they get their funding cut,” he reviewed. “When public servants like Richard Colvin testify, they get smeared. When independent watchdogs try to do their job, they get fired. When Parliament asks tough questions, the Conservatives shut the Parliament down. When will the Conservative Party and the government stop intimidating their critics and start listening to them?”

There was much whining and yapping from the government side. Continue…

The Commons: A question of maturity

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 at 6:43 PM - 63 Comments

The Scene. “Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Prime Minister,” Bob Rae said quite matter-of-factly. And this being Question Period, the Speaker allowed him to proceed.

“What was supposed to be the Canadian signature initiative on maternal health has been described as completely inadequate by the two major allies, that could get to a microphone, both the United States and the United Kingdom,” Mr. Rae continued. “I wonder if the Prime Minister can explain how such a major diplomatic setback could be occurring in the build up to the G8 which Canada is hosting.”

The Prime Minister stood to put Mr. Rae at ease.

“On the contrary, Mr. Speaker, the initiative on maternal a child health is supported throughout the G8. Of course G8 countries will have different priorities in terms of the specific things they fund. Particularly on the issue of abortion a number of G8 countries have a different position,” Mr. Harper said, without actually saying what his government’s position is.

“Whether it comes to our role in Afghanistan, our sovereignty over our Arctic or ultimately our foreign aid priorities,” Mr. Harper declared, “it is Canada and Canadians who will make Canadian decisions.”

Happy Conservatives leapt to their feet to applaud their leader’s coming-of-age. Indeed, the Prime Minister has surely matured greatly in the seven years since he felt Canada should stand with the Brits and Americans and go charging into war. Continue…

Just saying

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 at 10:41 PM - 60 Comments

On her way out of town, Hillary Clinton makes clear what she’s talking about when she talks about maternal health.

Well, I’m not going to speak for what Canada decides, but I will say that I’ve worked in this area for many years. And if we’re talking about maternal health, you cannot have maternal health without reproductive health. And reproductive health includes contraception and family planning and access to legal, safe abortion.

Obviously, the extraordinary rate of maternal deaths that still occur in our world in countries where women do not have access to family planning remains a great tragedy. I’ve also been very involved in promoting family planning and contraception as a way to prevent abortion. If you are concerned about abortion, then women should have access to family planning.

British Foreign Minister David Miliband apparently concurs.

The Commons: Just visiting

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 at 6:31 PM - 7 Comments

The Scene. As lovely as it is to be visited, it is always, at least for the conscientious host, a cause of some anxiety. Is the house clean enough? Is the fridge well-stocked? Are the guests sufficiently comfortable and entertained? Will they approve of our choice of wallpaper? And what, heavens, will they think of our approach to Arctic sovereignty and the war in Afghanistan?

“Mr. Speaker, last week, the Minister of Foreign Affairs told the House that there would be no request from the Americans to extend Canada’s mission in Afghanistan, but yesterday, Hillary Clinton came to town and blew the government’s cover,” Michael Ignatieff offered with his opportunity.

The Conservative side groaned.

“It is perfectly obvious the request had either been made or was just about to be made,” he continued. “It is perfectly obvious the government knew the request had either been made or was coming. The question is simple. Why did the Conservatives mislead Canadians last week?”

Whatever was perfectly obvious to the Liberal leader was apparently quite confusing to the Prime Minister. “Mr. Speaker,” he sighed, “I really do not know what the leader of the opposition is talking about.”
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This just in: nothing has changed

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 at 10:42 AM - 4 Comments

At least since the Defence Minister and Prime Minister’s press secretary mused last October about some amount of soldiers remaining in Afghanistan, the government has been fairly steadfast in its stance that no soldiers will remain in Afghanistan after 2011.

Asked about the matter, a few days after his press secretary’s comments, the Prime Minister promised a “civilian, development, humanitarian mission.” In January, he said “we will not be undertaking any activities that require any kind of military presence, other than the odd guard guarding an embassy.” Last week, in regards to the military mission, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said “in 2011, we will no longer be there.”

Last night’s reaction to Ms. Clinton’s remarks and this morning’s official response should perhaps not come then as any surprise.

The Battle for Okinawa

By Katie Engelhart - Thursday, March 18, 2010 at 11:00 AM - 7 Comments

Photograph by Shizuo Kambayashi/ Associated Press

It’s tradition to celebrate 50 years of marriage with gold. But in January, the golden anniversary of the U.S.-Japan military nuptials—the landmark 1960 Treaty of Mutual Co-operation and Security that united the two nations in holy (armed) matrimony—was celebrated not with precious metals or affectionate toasts, but with mounting tension and a growing unease about the future of the U.S.-Japan security alliance.

It’s all come to a head in Okinawa, a southern Japanese prefecture made up of dozens of tiny islands. Ever since the area fell to the Allies in the 1945 Battle of Okinawa, the U.S. military has used the islands as a stronghold in the Pacific. Today, about half of the almost 50,000 U.S. troops in Japan are concentrated here, in an area that represents just one per cent of Japan’s land mass. It is also here that the pugnacious new Japanese PM is making his first stand: threatening, with broad Japanese support behind him, to boot the Americans off the island.

Calls for the U.S. to reduce its military footprint in Japan have been building. In 2006, the U.S. answered those calls head-on: signing a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) deal with Tokyo that would relocate some 8,000 troops to Guam by 2014 and move the bustling Futenma air base to a less populated part of Okinawa. For a while, the situation calmed. But last September, Japan held a general election—and the Liberal Democratic Party, which ruled the country for 54 of the last 55 years, lost. Now, Yukio Hatoyama, leader of the Democratic Party of Japan, who ran in part on a platform of distancing Japan from the U.S., is at the helm. And while his wife steals headlines with bizarre claims that her “soul rode on a triangular-shaped UFO and went to Venus,” Hatoyama has been working more quietly to erode Japan’s relationship with the U.S.

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