Tag: Featured
Canada’s Foreign Minister Stéphane Dion ‘It’s important to be an interlocutor for peace’
Stéphane Dion is an academic-turned-parliamentarian who was first elected to represent the Montreal riding of Saint-Laurent in 1996. He has served as president of the privy council, minister of intergovernmental affairs and minister of the environment and became leader of the Liberal party for two years, beginning in 2006 after then-prime minister Paul Martin’s electoral […]
China’s scientific rise
In May 2016, Chinese President Xi Jinping set a target for China to become a leading power in science and technology (S&T) by the middle of this century. As he stated at the time: “China should establish itself as one of the most innovative countries by 2020 and a leading innovator by 2030, and become […]
China’s troubling foreign policy
China’s Marxist-Leninist Communist Party came to power under chairman Mao Zedong on the promise of building a radically equal and just society in China. More broadly, the Chinese Communist Party promised to be the instrument of China’s national revitalization as a great power, drawing on its glorious ancient history as a magnificent civilization. In the […]
Globalization as a bad word
Globalization — defined as the free movement of goods, services, capital, people, ideas and information, which is supported by the values of neoliberal institutions — is under threat by the forces of virulent nationalism, xenophobia and protectionism. These forces are prevalent everywhere — in Europe, North America, Asia, Latin America and Africa. As countries erect […]
Organ harvesting in China
A team of doctors, lawyers, journalists and parliamentarians from Canada, the European Parliament and the U.S. House of Representatives has condemned China’s lucrative organ-transplant industry. They added up surgeries at 146 hospitals in China to total between 60,000 and 100,000 per year from 2000 to 2015 — many more than the Chinese yearly official total […]
Colombia’s stunning Rockcliffe renovation project
The pungent aroma of Colombian coffee fills the sunlit rooms of this Rockcliffe home, a comfortable, airy, modern residence that bears little resemblance to its actual age. Inside this seven-bedroom diplomatic residence, it’s hard to imagine that the house was actually built in 1934 with a stucco and stone exterior that fits in perfectly with […]
Unravelling New Zealand’s culinary history
Situated in the South Pacific Ocean, New Zealand consists of two larger islands (North Island and South Island) and further south, a tiny third, Stewart Island. The country is located just east of the southern part of Australia, across the Tasman Sea. Former Canadian high commissioner to New Zealand, Penny Readie, says New Zealand’s amazingly […]
A letter to the future president of the United States
Dear Candidates in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Race, American voters and foreign observers all search for substance in your stump speeches, trying to imagine their lives and the world at large under your leadership. Those of us who view the world through the prism of geopolitics remind ourselves that campaign rhetoric tends to diverge from […]
Brazil into Africa
As China’s growth engines sputter, Europe remains weak and India focuses inward, African economies correspondingly retrench severely. Where African nations once were growing at a steady five percent a year, thanks to Chinese demand, now much of sub-Saharan Africa is increasing its GDP per capita at only two and three percent a year, with South […]
Canada’s great auto slide
Since the recession of 2008 and 2009, increasing concern has been expressed by politicians, union leaders and analysts concerning the decline of manufacturing in Canada. Indeed, during the past half-century, the share of manufacturing as a percentage of Canadian GDP has declined from just under 25 percent to 10 percent. The declines are also recorded […]
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