Donna Jacobs
Donna Jacobs is Diplomat's publisher
Donna Jacobs's Latest Posts
The floating university: excerpts from the experts
Their first-hand stories are funny, vivid, scientific, sometimes distressing — another kind of exploration. Dylan White, wilderness and wildlife guide, has worked on 150 projects for government, academia and private groups. His Arctic mammal talk included black bears, grizzly and polar bears, all of which can interbreed to produce, in the case of the latter […]
Of humpbacks and humans
People say that absolutely nothing compares to swimming eye-to-eye with a 30,000-kilogram humpback whale with a body as long as a rail box-car. They’re right. The humans call her Canopy. She is famous among snorkellers for her friendly, relaxed and trusting way with humans and her affectionate behaviour towards her male calf. Today, she is […]
Creating community with an international buffet
More than 25 diplomatic missions provided food for an international buffet at Rockcliffe Park’s Grand Village Fête to mark the 90th anniversary of the village’s creation. “It was a very special event for the community,” said Liz Heatherington, who co-ordinated the diplomatic portion. Heads of mission from the German, Thai, Japanese, Indonesian, Turkish, Czech and […]
Ukraine’s quest towards the west
The streets of downtown Kyiv keep the memory alive that fewer than four years ago, under president Viktor Yanukovych’s regime, this capital city of Europe’s second largest country was on fire. Ukrainian protesters were bludgeoned and shot by soldiers, police, secret service and even civilians called “titushky,” who were hired to support the police. Protesters […]
On Ukrainian defence
Diplomat contacted Ukraine’s defence ministry’s military intelligence, press service and public affairs office, which provided these answers in late August. 1. Could you supply up-to-date figures on war deaths and injuries in 2015 and 2016? 2,504 Ukrainian soldiers, within the Ukrainian armed forces, the National Guard, Border Guard and various law enforcement agencies have been […]
Emphasizing the positive
His first year as U.S. ambassador has just passed. How has former investment banker and Goldman Sachs executive Bruce Heyman adapted to highly public life in his new job? “I guess you just do,” he says. “It’s the Bruce Heyman world of Darwinian thought: It’s not the smartest that survive. It’s not strongest that survive. […]
Swimming with the spawning salmon
Pull on a wetsuit and snorkel gear and step into a fast-running river. Float effortlessly for kilometres in your buoyant lifejacket down the current, while 20,000 salmon are swimming under you in the opposite direction. It is a thrill ride at five kilometres an hour down the swift-moving Campbell River on Vancouver Island’s east coast. […]
For the love of the salmon
Atlantic salmon have benefactors in Ottawa. Deputy Minister of Fisheries Matt King, MPs, diplomats, fishers, business people and civil servants turned out to support these iconic creatures that swim 3,000 kilometres from northern Europe to spawn in the rivers of their birth in Eastern Canada and the U.S. The 250 people who attended the Atlantic […]
Towering Taiwan
The tour guide in Taiwan stops next to a tiny marker along a park path. It has a design that features a small box with hard edges inside a larger box that has rounded corners. The 20 journalists, invited from almost every continent to Taiwan by its foreign affairs department, look at the simple image […]
Azerbaijan moves toward the limelight
“Azerbaijan — moderate, secular and with a majority of its population Muslim — lives in a tough neighbourhood. We should give whatever encouragement we can in terms of [this emerging] democracy.” — Barry Devolin, a Conservative MP who was commenting on the merits of opening a Canadian embassy in Azerbaijan. Preparing to vist Azerbaijan always […]
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