Killer co-workers?

By Kate Lunau - Friday, August 26, 2011 at 11:25 AM - 0 Comments

Office workers often complain about bad bosses, but it turns out that having obnoxious co-workers might actually be worse. New research suggests that supportive relationships with peers in the workplace have a powerful impact on our health, affecting even how long we live. Similar support from these workers’ supervisors didn’t have the same effect.

In the new study, published in the American Psychological Association’s journal Health Psychology, a team from Tel Aviv University followed 820 adult workers over two decades, from 1988 to 2008. Drawn from some of Israel’s biggest firms in finance, public utilities and manufacturing (to name just a few sectors), the subjects worked an average of 8.8 hours a day; one-third were women and 80 per cent were married with kids.

The study’s findings were startling. Workers who felt they had strong peer social support—in other words, that their co-workers were friendly and helpful when it came to solving problems together—actually seemed to live longer than those who don’t have this kind of network. Having a supportive boss, meanwhile, didn’t have any impact on workers’ mortality. Next time co-workers are bonding over an after-hours drink, it seems that it might be wise to join them—even if it means skipping the gym.

Gaza militants injure 7 Israelis in rocket attacks

By macleans.ca - Friday, August 19, 2011 at 11:45 AM - 1 Comment

One person was critically injured and several others hurt following a Palestinian rocket attack on the Israeli town of Ashdod. Israeli officials say the missile launched from Gaza was one of 12 fired at Southern Israeli towns on Friday. The rocket attacks come after Israeli forces carried out airstrikes in Gaza, targeting the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) militants believed to be responsible for a terrorist attack that killed eight Israelis. Palestinians say at least seven people and a senior militant leader died in the Israeli airstrikes.

BBC News

Six dead, 12 wounded by attackers in southern Israel

By macleans.ca - Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 10:36 AM - 0 Comments

At least six people were killed and about a dozen wounded in three separate attacks Thursday near Israel’s southern border with Egypt. Armed with guns, explosives and anti-tank missiles, the attackers targeted a passenger bus, an Israeli military patrol and a private car, officials said, adding that a “large number” of assailants were working in multiple groups. The violence comes amid growing concerns over lawlessness and violence in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, which borders Israel. Israeli officials said the attack originated in Egypt. Last week, the Egyptian military sent thousands of troops into the area after a spate of attacks on police outposts and an oil pipeline in the Sinai. There is also a growing presence of Islamic radicals there, many of whom flocked to the area after breaking out of prison during Egypt’s revolution that overthrew the government of Hosni Mubarak. Egyptian officials, however, denied that the assailants in Israel came from Egypt.

Associated Press

Follow the money

By John Geddes - Thursday, July 28, 2011 at 5:00 PM - 102 Comments

Sean Kilpatrick/CP

When a group of Conservative, Liberal and NDP MPs formed the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism in 2009, they decided to work outside of the normal structures of Parliament and raise their own money to hold a conference and conduct an inquiry. But transparency would be crucial, they said, pledging on their website to “voluntarily disclose all sources of funding” and remain independent of the Conservative government, advocacy groups and “Jewish community organizations.” By the time they released their report this month, however—warning that anti-Semitism is on the rise in Canada—that vow of full disclosure seemed to be forgotten, and the coalition appeared closely tied to the government.

Conservative MP Scott Reid, chairman of the coalition’s inquiry steering committee, said the CPCCA promised anonymity to private donors, who contributed a total of $127,078. As for their relationship with the government, the coalition accepted $451,280 from the department of Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, who sat on the CPCCA’s inquiry steering committee as an ex officio member. The coalition’s key conclusion that a “new anti-Semitism” tends to focus on criticism of Israel echoes Kenney’s long-standing position.

Perhaps surprisingly, the MPs’ ethics code appears not to oblige them to reveal the names of their backers. The Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner didn’t comment specifically on the CPCCA, but told Maclean’s the “Conflict of Interest Code for Members of the House of Commons” requires only that individual MPs disclose money they receive—not MPs acting as a group. “There is no mechanism within the code for a group of MPs to disclose a collective gift,” the commissioner’s office said. The coalition knows the rules. “The ethics commissioner doesn’t cover [the CPCCA] because the donations went to an entity, not to an MP,” said Mike Firth, Reid’s executive assistant.

Continue…

Netanyahu defends boycott law

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, July 13, 2011 at 2:28 PM - 0 Comments

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has defended a controversial law that bans calls for boycotts on Israel passed on Monday in the Knesset. The law allows any person or organization that calls for the boycott of Israel, including settlements, to be sued by the boycott’s targets without proof of damage. It’s up to the courts to decide how much compensation must be paid. The law also stipulates that a person or organization that calls for boycotts won’t be able to bid in government tenders. “I approved the law, and if I hadn’t approved it, it wouldn’t have passed.,” said Netanyahu Wednesday, who was absent from the vote. Opposition leader Tzipi Livni accused the prime minister of stoking tensions in Israel: “You are leading Israel into an abyss.”

Ha’aretz

Don’t call it a doctrine (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, July 11, 2011 at 5:08 PM - 19 Comments

John Baird dismisses a Palestinian bid to have statehood recognized by the United Nations.

“We think it’s distinctly unhelpful to seek a public-relations declaration within the UN General Assembly. Obviously, it would be without any meaning,” Baird said Monday … “We believe that statehood should be the product of a negotiated permanent peace with security for both the Palestinian and Israeli people.”

He said he’d be thrilled to welcome a new Palestinian state, but only after peaceful negotiations with Israel. Baird also affirmed the Harper government’s unwavering support for the Jewish state, which has sparked criticism in the past. ”Canada has taken strong, principled stands with respect to supporting liberal democracies, and with respect to this issue,” he said. ”There has been certainly a change under the leadership of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and I certainly wouldn’t see us changing on that regard.”

Good news, bad news: June 30 – July 7, 2011

By macleans.ca - Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 1:45 PM - 0 Comments

Good news

Taliban hostages for 18 months, two French TV journalists return home. (Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters)

Boots on the snow

Canada is planning its biggest summer military exercise in the far North. More than ever, a grand show of force in the Arctic is vitally important. Russia recently announced that it plans to send two new military brigades to the Arctic and is boasting of plans to build a year-round port there. Tensions between Arctic nations are on the rise over the drawing of borders in this resource-rich part of the world. And while flag-planting displays may seem trivial, when it comes to Arctic sovereignty, Canada needs to use it or risk losing it.

Adult intervention

The Greek government has prevented a likely tragedy by stopping a flotilla of pro-Palestinian protesters from embarking for Gaza. An attempt to break the Israeli blockade last summer ended in a confrontation on the high seas that left nine dead. With both sides bent for a repeat showdown, the results this year could have been even worse. The Greeks are offering to work with the UN to ferry the ship’s cargo—food, medicine and building materials—to the Gaza Strip’s many needy. A bit of reasonableness that should serve as an example to the radicals on both sides.

A liberating decision

Ottawa reversed course and approved trials for a controversial procedure used to treat multiple sclerosis called “liberation therapy,” which involves opening blocked neck veins. Canada, which has among the highest rates of MS in the world, said last year it would not fund the trials due to concerns about the procedure’s efficacy and safety. Advocates, though, argue it is life-saving. The trials may finally provide some much-needed answers.

Loose connections

Cellphones don’t cause cancer after all, according to a major academic review of research by experts in Britain, the U.S. and Sweden. The report comes two months after the World Health Organization said the devices should be classified as “possibly” carcinogenic (along with pickled vegetables and coffee). Such cancer scares haven’t curbed appetite for the technology. The last wireless patents held by Nortel were bought for US$4.5 billion by a consortium including RIM, Apple, Ericsson and Microsoft.

Bad news

Ongoing efforts to fight flooding in Manitoba will cost over $550 million. (Tim Smith/Brandon Sun/CP)

Crackdown

Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian dictatorship, one of the Middle East’s most repressive regimes, continues to plumb new depths as it confronts pro-democracy protesters. This week its security forces opened fire on peaceful crowds in several towns, wounding dozens and killing at least three. With the West focused on removing Moammar Gadhafi from power in Libya, Assad seems to feel untouchable. And to our collective shame, he appears to be right.

Upper-class twit(ters)

A couple of months back, Treasury Board President Tony Clement was criticized for tweeting a comment on a CRTC decision that was effectively a change in government telecom policy. Now he’s been caught out sharing photos of Will and Kate snapped at a private reception. Clement says he’s done nothing wrong, but clearly his desire to self-publicize is getting the better of him. Facing similar aggrandizers, the BBC is reportedly considering adding a clause to its contracts with its talent to prevent tweeted leaks and spoilers. But it all pales compared to the numbskull who hacked the Fox News Twitter account on July 4 and shared the “news” that Barack Obama had been assassinated. Can’t we all find better things to do with technology?

This case has no clothes

An Ontario court this week heard arguments about whether laws preventing public nudity are unconstitutional. Lawyers for Brian Coldin, who was arrested when he showed up naked at a Tim Hortons drive-through, argue police should have discretion when enforcing nudity laws. In Coldin’s case, restaurant employees testified they felt “uncomfortable” seeing his genitals on display. If anything, this case offers an all-too-clear example why nudity laws exist and shouldn’t be fiddled with.

Social ills

Researchers writing in the American Journal of Public Health say they have calculated how many deaths may be caused by poverty each year: 133,000 in the U.S. That’s not to say money guarantees good health. A Canadian study found low-income, urban children are more likely to walk or bike to school and are therefore in better shape than their more privileged counterparts.

On Israel

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 11:50 AM - 14 Comments

From his conversation with this magazine, the Prime Minister explains his support for Israel.

The Middle East question is more difficult in terms of the opinion of others. I wouldn’t go so far as to say isolated, but it is a difficult position. That said, in my mind, the stakes are very clear, the issue is very clear and the stakes are very important. We all recognize there has to be a two-state solution, but we have in Israel essentially a Western democratic country that is an ally of ours, who’s the only state in the United Nations whose very existence is significantly questioned internationally and opposed by many, including by the other side of that particular conflict—still, to a large degree—and when I look around the world at those who most oppose the existence of Israel and seek its extinction, they are the very people who, in a security sense, are immediate—long-term but also immediate—threats to our own country. So I think that’s a very clear choice. That doesn’t mean there aren’t individual issues that become quite complicated and nuanced, but I think it is important and I will continue to be very clear with other leaders the way I think we should see this problem.

Meanwhile, the NDP met with the Israeli ambassador to discuss the Gaza flotilla.

Cancellation of pro-Palestinian lecture sparks plenty of debate

By Cigdem Iltan - Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 8:05 AM - 0 Comments

The University of Regina was buzzing this month with talk of academic muzzling off-campus. Emily Eaton, an assistant professor of geography, was a week away from presenting “Solidarity with Palestine: The Case for Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions Against Israel,” the second of 12 lunchtime talks scheduled over the summer in Regina’s Victoria Park, when she says the coordinator of the series told her the topic was under scrutiny and asked to know more about it. The lecture series, titled “Profs in the Park,” was to be produced in partnership with the Regina Downtown Business Improvement District (RDBID).

The next day, she says, the university told her the RDBID had cancelled her event. “This is a clear case of a city-level administration stepping in and saying what its citizens should and shouldn’t be able to hear, and therefore defining the terrain of public debate,” says Eaton. All the professors scheduled to present—on everything from “Gardening with Native Plants” to “Current Trends in Policing”—withdrew from the series. “The profs and the dean collectively decided we’d rather pull all the presentations than be subject to censorship,” says Eaton. (The lecture series has since taken on a new name, “Profs in the City,” and has been relocated to a private space: Neutral Ground Contemporary Art Forum. Eaton presented her lecture to a packed house on June 14.)

Judith Veresuk, executive director of the RDBID, says her organization isn’t to blame for pulling the plug on the original series. She claims that RDBID contacted the university to clarify the content of the talk after the city and her organization received complaints about its subject matter. And instead of providing more info, says Veresuk, the university pulled the lecture. “The next thing I know,” she says, “the university is crying censorship and cancelled the series.”

Good news, bad news: June 2-9, 2011

By macleans.ca - Thursday, June 9, 2011 at 12:40 PM - 1 Comment

Good News

Wrongfully convicted in her son's death, Tammy Marquardt is freed. (Lucas Leniuk/Toronto Star)

Boots on the ground

Canada’s combat tour in Afghanistan is entering its final few weeks, but the military is already preparing for its next deployment—wherever it may be. Months after being forced out of their secret staging base in Dubai because of a diplomatic spat, the Canadian Forces have reportedly reached deals to open new bases in Germany and Jamaica, and are in talks with Senegal, South Korea, Kenya and Singapore. As Defence Minister Peter MacKay said, Canada has become a “go-to nation” when it comes to responding to natural disasters and other NATO missions—requiring a much bigger bootprint on foreign soil.

A revamped battle plan

Forty years after Richard Nixon declared a “war on drugs,” a new report has confirmed what police, prosecutors—and traffickers—have long known: we’re losing. Released by a consortium of world leaders, including Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary-general, the report says it’s time to start treating drug abuse as a public health problem, not a criminal one, and consider legalizing certain substances to undercut criminal gangs. The war on drugs has cost billions of dollars and countless lives. But, to borrow a phrase, admitting the old strategy is broken is the first step to recovery.

Continue…

'Based on the '67 border'

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, June 2, 2011 at 7:53 AM - 11 Comments

Amid all else last week, Israel’s foreign minister called to thank Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird and opined publicly that “Canada is a true friend of Israel … It understands that the 1967 borders do not conform to Israel’s security needs and with the current demographic reality.”

But yesterday, Mr. Baird apparently stated the following.

“We support, obviously, that that solution has to be based on the ’67 border, with mutually agreed upon swaps, as President (Barack) Obama said,” Baird said Wednesday.

Stephen and Bibi

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, May 30, 2011 at 8:56 AM - 95 Comments

The Israeli foreign minister calls John Baird to thank Canada for its support and a senior Israeli government official says Benjamin Netanyahu asked Stephen Harper to help exclude any mention of 1967 from the G8′s final statement. Mr. Harper’s office says the two leaders spoke, but the G8 summit was not discussed. Mr. Netanyahu’s office concurs, but the Israeli government thanks the Canadian government all the same.

In cabinet Sunday, Mr. Netanyahu made a point of stating the importance of Israel’s friends. “We have friends around the world, more than many think,” said the Israeli Prime Minister, “and I am pleased to see that on various continents, in various meetings, they rebuffed matters that were not desirable to us.”

“It would not be a mistake to conclude he was referring to Canada,” the Israeli official said. “There is no doubt we view Canada as a great friend of Israel.”

Stephen Harper's diplomacy

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, May 27, 2011 at 3:23 PM - 29 Comments

The Prime Minister commends President Barack Obama’s comments on Israel in their “totality,” but blocks any mention of 1967 from appearing in the G8′s communique.

Diplomats involved in Middle East discussions at the G8 summit said Ottawa had insisted that no mention of Israel’s pre-1967 borders be made in the leaders’ final communique, even though most of the other leaders wanted a mention.

President Barack Obama last week laid out a vision for peace in the Middle East, saying pre-1967 borders should be a basis of talks to achieve a negotiated settlement. Israel quickly dismissed the idea as unworkable. ”The Canadians were really very adamant, even though Obama expressly referred to 1967 borders in his speech last week,” one European diplomat said.

Obama's gamble on the Middle East

By John Parisella - Monday, May 23, 2011 at 12:42 PM - 92 Comments

After the killing of Osama bin Laden, Barack Obama could have been forgiven for taking a few victory laps and reveling in his bump in the polls. Instead, he chose to deliver a speech on the Arab Spring and closed it by touching on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. By all accounts, it was a gamble.

Judging by the meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that followed the speech, it was a needless and unproductive gamble. Potential Republican challengers chastized the president for delivering what they called an anti-Israel speech. Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni, however, took a more reflective view, as did Israeli Defense Minister and former PM Ehud Barak, who seemed to welcome Obama’s speech and saw it as a restating of the policy parameters in use since the Clinton Administration. Regardless, the speech delivered on Sunday by Obama at AIPAC (the largest pro-Israel lobby group in the US) had all the makings of a showdown with the U.S. president. Continue…

The first major foreign policy challenge of the Baird era

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, May 20, 2011 at 3:55 PM - 21 Comments

The Harper government apparently won’t second Barack Obama’s parameters for Middle East negotiations.

The Harper government is refusing to join the United States in calling for a return to 1967 borders as a starting point for Mideast peace, a position that has drawn sharp criticism from Canada’s staunch ally Israel … Pressed by reporters, federal officials said both the Israelis and the Palestinians have to decide on their bottom lines, which the Israelis have said will not include a return to the 1967 border. “If the two parties are of the view that this is a starting point, that is fine for them,” said the federal official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg appears to have this particular dispute extensively covered.

This week: Good news, bad news

By macleans.ca - Friday, April 8, 2011 at 11:02 AM - 0 Comments

Good news

This dog was found drifting on a rooftop 1.8 km off the coast of Japan Japan Coast Guard/AP

A Canuck Cup fave?

The Vancouver Canucks captured the President’s Trophy, awarded to the NHL’s top regular-season team, despite playing in the superior conference and suffering an unearthly skein of injuries to its defence corps. This marks the first time Vancouver has won the trophy, introduced in 1985. The Canucks dominated impressively in 2010-11, surrendering far fewer goals than any other team, running the best power play, and ranking second in overall scoring and penalty-killing.

African denouement

Laurent Gbagbo, the strongman clinging to the presidency of Ivory Coast, faced a reckoning as UN and French armies intervened in support of forces loyal to Alassane Ouattara, recognized internationally as the winner of a 2010 election. Peacekeepers entered Ivorian borders and airspace after Gbagbo’s militia began targeting civilian Ouattara supporters. The capture of the capital, Abidjan, soon followed. Gbagbo, trapped within a small perimeter around a personal bunker, was said to be negotiating a surrender.

Lessons learned

A Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 landed safely at an airport in Yuma, Ariz., after a panel tore open and depressurized the cabin at 36,000 feet. Southwest, whose short-hop business model, say experts, is hard on airframes, inspected its fleet for metal fatigue after the mercifully inexpensive warning. Meanwhile, underwater robot vehicles operating off Brazil’s coast found wreckage from Air France Flight 447, promising new clues to a mysterious 2009 crash that killed 228 people.

Fries with that recovery?

In a gesture of faith in the U.S. economy, fast-food giant McDonald’s will hire 50,000 American personnel in a single day (April 19), expanding its U.S. workforce to 700,000. (McDonald’s Canada will add 4,000 workers the same day.) Of the 8.7 million jobs lost in the U.S. during the recession, only 1.5 million have been regained since 2009. “McJobs” is a byword for tenuous, low-paying work, but McDonald’s U.S.A. observes that half of its franchise owners and 75 per cent of managers started behind the counter.

Bad news

Afghans stage a deadly protest after a Florida pastor burned the Quran Rahmat Gul/AP

The troublemaker

Violence wracked Afghanistan after Terry Jones, the Florida pastor who backed down on threats to burn the Quran last year, followed through and immolated the holy book after a webcasted mock trial. Protesters stormed a UN facility in Mazar-e-Sharif, killing three staff and four Nepalese Gurkha guards; at least 17 more people, mostly Afghan civilians, died in further riots. The White House denounced Jones’s action as “un-American,” as did U.S. Gen. David Petraeus, who says his forces now face “an additional serious security challenge.”

A referee’s regrets

South African judge Richard Goldstone, who led a UN investigation into the 2008-09 Israeli invasion of Gaza, added a postscript to his 2009 report criticizing Israel and Hamas for war crimes. In the Washington Post, Goldstone wrote that he had hoped his report would introduce “a new era of even-handedness” at the often anti-Zionist UN. But he found that only the Israeli side followed up the report and investigated its own conduct; Hamas, meanwhile, continued unlawful attacks on Israeli civilians.

The scribbler

A nurse in Dartmouth, N.S., was reprimanded for poor handwriting, sparking a national debate about hospital records. Wilfred Gordon’s illegible scrawls on charts had been a problem “for many years,” declared a disciplinary panel of the province’s College of Registered Nurses, but he “had not successfully addressed the issue.” Gordon was ordered to take a course in documentation and will face penmanship reviews by a manager.

It’s bad for your arteries, too

Another mess in Nova Scotia emerged when a sewer backup in a Bedford neighbourhood proved to have been caused, in part, by bacon grease. A Halifax Water investigation into flooded basements in the Ridgevale subdivision revealed that clogs of fat and oil, accumulating at levels “more often associated with commercially zoned areas,” played a role in damage to five homes. Local homeowners were sceptical, and a councillor noted that in at least one case, it was steamers used by sewer workers to melt the grease that sent sewage blasting upward into a Ridgevale domicile.

Gingrich goes to New Hampshire while Palin heads for India and Israel

By John Parisella - Monday, March 21, 2011 at 5:44 PM - 11 Comments

This is a tale of two potential front line candidates for the Republican nomination in 2012: Newt Gingrich, who may be announcing soon, and Sarah Palin, who may not announce at all. It is an illuminating story because it illustrates the current pitfalls facing the Republicans and the effect Gingrich and Palin are having on the early stages of the race by dominating news coverage of the GOP.

What it also shows is how the approach most often adopted by the Republicans is not to offer an alternative and or a compelling vision. Rather, it is behave in a way that works to the advantage of the White House incumbent.

Continue…

Like a mini star wars

By Tom Henheffer - Thursday, March 17, 2011 at 3:09 PM - 1 Comment

Sunday Alamba/AP

When insurgents launched a rocket-propelled grenade at an Israeli tank in the southern Gaza Strip last Tuesday, they had no idea they were about to make battlefield history. Within a heartbeat of the trigger pull, a smaller rocket was automatically launched from the vehicle and detonated in mid-air, wiping out the RPG before it could cause any damage.

The event marks the first time the new Israeli Trophy system, a vehicle-mounted defence mechanism that identifies, tracks and destroys anti-tank missiles, has eliminated a projectile in active combat. Developed by Israeli weapons firm Rafael, it has only been in limited deployment for two months, but is now poised to be widely integrated over the next year. “The system will significantly reduce the anti-tank injuries in the next confrontation,” said Brig.-Gen. Agay Yechezkel, a spokesman for the Israeli military.

The system isn’t cheap—it costs about $1 million per unit—but is so advanced that it can even track projectiles back to their origin, alerting soldiers to the location of insurgents. Considering it also saved the Israeli tank crew’s lives, Trophy may be well worth the price.

Why the revolts in Egypt and Tunisia are just the beginning

By Michael Petrou - Friday, February 18, 2011 at 9:01 AM - 11 Comments

AP; Khaled Abdullah/REUTERS

An old Syrian joke tells the story of a man who gets in a traffic accident involving his own beat-up car and an immense and shining limousine. The poor man leaps from his vehicle and begins hurling obscene and colourful abuse at the limousine’s driver and its unseen occupant. After several minutes of this, the limousine’s back window slides open a crack and a voice speaks from the darkness inside: “Do you know who I am?”

When the man says he does not, the occupant pushes a card through the window identifying himself as Hafez al-Assad, the late dictator of Syria, who has since been replaced by his son, Bashar.

The man glances at the card for a moment and then replies: “Do you know who I am?”

Puzzled, the dictator admits he does not. “Thank God,” says the man, and flees into the surrounding crowds as fast as he can.

The joke works in societies where citizens are crippled by fear of those who rule them. Egypt, until days ago, was like that. So was most of the Middle East. But this, with the overthrow of two dictators in less than a month, is changing. Fear is ebbing away, and its absence will transform the region.

The old order of authoritarian strongmen suppressing a population that is resentful but too afraid to revolt is over. Some dictators will fall. Others will redouble their repression. And some will scramble to enact enough reforms to placate newly emboldened citizens, likely diluting their power base and weakening their hold on power in the process. The region will not look the same in five years. Egypt and Tunisia are just the beginning.

Continue…

Why Egypt worries Israel

By Paul Wells - Friday, February 11, 2011 at 10:01 AM - 71 Comments

Photograph by Uriel Sinai/Getty Images

By Monday Ephraim Sneh had heard quite enough talk about democracy in Egypt.
“I am not interested in democracy in this region,” the former Israeli deputy minister of defence told a conference room full of dignitaries at the annual security conference in Herzliya, a Mediterranean Sea resort north of Tel Aviv. “Personally I prefer to have stability.”

Sentiments like Sneh’s are easy to find in Israel these days, although the wiry 66-year-old expressed them more bluntly than most. Just look around, he said. Everywhere Israel’s neighbours get the vote, things get worse. Take Gaza, or as Sneh called it, “Hamastan,” after the ruling Hamas party’s 2006 election victory. “Based on a democratic, free election, we are facing now some of the worst terrorists.”

Or consider Lebanon, where a Hezbollah-backed candidate became prime minister in January. “Lebanon is democracy, so-called,” he said. “Lebanon is a constitution without a state. But it’s very democratic. You have an elected president, you have an elected prime minister, you have a speaker of Parliament, you have all these institutions. But the country is losing itself. We call it Hezbollahstan.”

Continue…

Losing is in the eye of the beholder

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 18, 2011 at 11:30 AM - 39 Comments

In his chat with Mr. Mansbridge, the Prime Minister again asserts a rule for coalition government.

Of course, and David Cameron’s an interesting example because they had that debate there, and what I think the public concluded was undemocratic and not really legitimate was the coalition of parties that lost an election. Mr. Cameron won the election. And then was able to form a coalition.

It’s unclear if Mr. Harper intends this judgment of legitimacy to be applied to the governments of Israel, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, not to mention the Liberal government that oversaw the province of Ontario between 1985 and 1987.

Draft dodging and Facebook don't mix

By macleans.ca - Monday, December 20, 2010 at 10:20 AM - 5 Comments

Nir Kafri/backyard/Redux

Drunken Facebook photos have spoiled the chances of job candidates all over the world. In Israel, though, much-too-revealing profile updates are spelling even more serious trouble. The Israel Defense Forces announced last week they used the social networking site to spot around 1,000 female draft dodgers who appear to have falsely declared themselves to be religious in order to avoid the country’s mandatory military service. Tip-offs, an IDF officer said, included pictures of the women in skimpy clothing, eating at non-kosher restaurants, and posting updates on the Sabbath, when Orthodox Jews aren’t allowed to use equipment such as cameras and computers.

Military service, which lasts two years for women, is compulsory for Israelis from the age of 18, but observant Jews can opt out of it by signing a declaration stating that they follow a strictly religious lifestyle. Many Israelis suspected this rule created an easy loophole for secular women to avoid joining the army. According to IDF figures, 42 per cent of women avoid the draft, and 35 per cent do so on religious grounds. Facebook is the latest tool the IDF has resorted to in order to unmask false claims of piety. Those who’ve been caught will now have to “rephrase their religious declarations,” and may be charged with committing a criminal offence, though it’s unlikely that they will be convicted, sources said.

'It is time to earn back our place in the world'

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 2, 2010 at 1:55 PM - 0 Comments

Michael Ignatieff lays out his foreign policy vision to an audience in Montreal.

But none of this will be possible without the talents of every Canadian. Foreign policy is no longer reserved for diplomats, development workers, and soldiers. We used to talk about a “whole-of-government” approach. Our Global Networks Strategy requires a “whole-of-Canada” approach instead.

The next generation of Canadians will be the most international ever. Young people studying and working abroad will be Canada’s best ambassadors, and their experiences will shape the future of our country. We must rebuild our leadership in the world so that our young people can be proud again to live in a country that helps to improve our world.

And we must always support the youth of this country, when they go abroad to serve Canada. They are our finest representatives.

In the centre of our engagement with the world, we must restore our finest Canadian traditions, inspired by peace, justice, and mutual aid. We must show the world – and ourselves – that Canada can inspire us again.

Foreign Affairs Clue

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 at 9:45 PM - 0 Comments

While the Harper government blames Michael Ignatieff, ambassadors interviewed by Canadian Press don’t mention the opposition leader. Instead, African ambassadors tell Canadian Press it was the Harper government’s positions on debt relief and the UN Relief and Works Agency.

But “senior African officials” tell Postmedia Africa does not feel negatively. Instead, “officials based at the UN” say it was the Harper government’s position on Israel that upset members of the Organization of Islamic Conference, while one “senior Islamic official” says the OIC felt snubbed when Canada didn’t address the conference like Portugal did. Don Martin says “some” say the United Arab Emirates lobbied other Arab counties to vote against Canada after the Harper government refused to open runways in Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary, but a “senior government official” says Canada got a “good chunk” of the Arab vote.

Meanwhile, “government insiders” were preemptively guessing it might be Peter Van Loan, in Israel, with the new trade deal.