The Global Village
Les défis
By Alain-Michel Ayache on November 13, 2008
Il y a encore quelques mois, l’idée d’avoir un homme de race noire comme président des États-Unis était en soi un défi, d’autant plus que dans l’imaginaire populaire de l’Occident, l’Amérique était encore une entité où le racisme était plus vivace qu’en Europe. Or, voilà qu’aujourd’hui, les États-Unis d’Amérique prouvent encore une fois la grandeur de ce pays et la force de sa démocratie; de quoi constituer une leçon d’ouverture au monde entier...
It matters
By George Jonas on November 13, 2008
Yes, it matters. Just because you've seen one president, doesn't mean you've seen them all. If you got the president you always wanted for a neighbour, don't yet heave a sigh of relief. If you got the one you always feared, don't yet despair. Knowing who the president is doesn't tell you everything, or even half of it. Presidents aren't free to be what they are. A candidate may be his own person. But a President is his office. As a leader, he no longer belongs to himself. The Chinese might call him the creature of the three Ps: His people, his place and his period. A leader is a follower by definition...
Kristallnacht: Seventy years later
By The Hon. David Kilgour on November 13, 2008
It is a challenge to address the stark issues posed by the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht. One difficulty is that too many in my own spiritual community (Christian) stood by during the worst catastrophe in all of recorded history.There were exceptions-some famous, some virtually unknown—but most Christians in Europe and elsewhere, including Canada, did not do enough to love and care for our Jewish neighbours as ourselves. Another is drawing two effective lessons from the Holocaust of practical use today in Canada and elsewhere...
Everlasting debt
By Lawrence Rosenthal on November 13, 2008
Rêve est réalité
By Sébastien Dorélas on November 13, 2008
Ma couverture de cette campagne a commencé d’un drôle de manière. Nous (la délégation) étudiante du CIPUF avons eu droit à une escale forcée au bureau des douaniers au poste frontalier de Champlain. Le douanier en charge de l’inspection n’a pas apprécié que parmi la vingtaine d’étudiants de la délégation, certains avaient des passeports provenant de la France et de la Belgique...
“The glass ceiling has been shattered”
By Dan Delmar on November 13, 2008
The stakes were high on Nov. 4 for American Democrats, but also for members of Montreal’s Black community who expect to see the election of Barack Obama as a positive development for black youth in this country as well...
Catastrophe looms for Ashraf refugees
By The Hon. David Kilgour on October 30, 2008
The 3500 refugees in Camp Ashraf, located in Iraq about an hour's drive from both Baghdad and the Iranian border, are at serious risk. They are members and supporters of the main opposition in Iran, the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), formed in the 1960s in opposition to the Shah's absolute monarchy...
Butt Out
By David T. Jones on October 30, 2008
U.S. observers of the Canadian scene are well aware of the almost obsessive attention Canadians pay to the United States. It is almost as if you don't have a life of your own...
Visa to paradise
By Rouba al-Fattal on October 30, 2008
I stood for inspection at the gates of heaven
‘Passport and visa please’, a full armed angel demanded...
Why the U.S. credit crisis should never have happened
By Robert Borosage on October 16, 2008
How did it come to this? The banksters issue a threat: hand over $700 billion in taxpayers’ money–on top of the $600 billion already forked over–or we’ll take down the global economy. There will be a lot of obfuscation—fingers pointing every which way—but the story is very clear...
Du machiavélisme « Assadien » renouvelé !
By Alain-Michel Ayache on October 2, 2008
À en croire les nouvelles en provenance de Damas, la voiture piégée qui a explosé le samedi 27 septembre dernier serait le travail d’un terroriste irakien lié à Al-Qaïda. Ce « terroriste-suicidaire » se serait fait exploser avec sa voiture en plein milieu de la foule dans une région dense sur le chemin de l’aéroport...
Sarah Palin and exceeding expectations
By David T. Jones on September 18, 2008
On November 3, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin accepted the Republican nomination for Vice President. Her selection on August 31 by Senator John McCain had prompted a tsunami of "Sarah Who?" instant analysis...
Incident, ou Meurtre prémédité avec message à l’appui?
By Alain-Michel Ayache on September 4, 2008
Lorsque l’information est tombée, ma première réaction était de la vérifier pour voir si les agences de presse ne s’étaient pas trompées – bien que rares sont les erreurs de ces dernières, voire impossible – en annonçant qu’un hélicoptère de l’Armée libanaise avait été abattu au dessus d’une zone contrôlée par le Hezbollah au Sud Liban...
Ideas before identities
By Anthony Philbin on September 4, 2008
Historic moments have a way of sneaking up on us...
La vision israélienne
By Alain-Michel Ayache on August 21, 2008
Il fallait s’y attendre, la décision du Premier ministre israélien, Ehud Olmert, de démissionner, sonne le glas d’une courte ère aux conséquences néfastes pour l’image de marque d’Israël...
La réaction arabe
By Alain-Michel Ayache on August 21, 2008
Il y a quelques semaines, suite à l’accord conclut avec Israël par l'intermédiaire de la médiation allemande pour libérer les prisonniers libanais et palestiniens des prisons israéliennes en échange des corps des deux soldats israéliens, le Secrétaire général du Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, déclarait publiquement devant des dizaines de milliers de partisans « chose promise, chose due! »...
Why McCain can't let Obama run against Bush
By Prof. Thomas Velk on August 21, 2008
George Bush is not running for President, but Barack Obama is running against him anyway. With every call for change, the charismatic young Senator reminds the electorate that he is not merely anti-Bush, but The Anti-Bush...
Procrustean History
By David Solway on August 7, 2008
The crisis in which the West now finds itself is largely one of its own making and is rooted primarily in the false relation it has entered into with history...
L'humanitaire versus le terrorisme
By Alain-Michel Ayache on August 7, 2008
Deux ans après, presque jour pour jour, le Hezbollah remet les corps des deux soldats israéliens qu'il avait kidnappés lors de son attaque par delà la ligne bleue, en territoire israélien. Une attaque qui avait été à l'origine de la « seconde guerre du Liban » de juillet 2006...
Iran: Time to support existing opposition to Mullah tyranny
By The Hon. David Kilgour on August 7, 2008
The international community appears to be increasingly aware that Iran's theocracy constitutes one of the world's most oppressive governments. It continues to persecute minorities (Arabs, Azeri's, Kurds, Turks, Baha'is, Jews and Christians) and women in a species of gender apartheid (The life of a woman is worth half that of a man in Iran)..
Jamais plus!
By l'Hon. Irwin Cotler on July 10, 2008
Cette année c’est la soixantième anniversaire de l’adoption de deux instruments cruciaux dans notre histoire, soit la Convention pour la prévention et la répression du crime de génocide (la « Convention sur le génocide »)—connue comme la Convention « plus jamais »—et la Déclaration universelle des droits de la personne—reconnue comme étant la « magna carta » de l’humanité...
Global Conflict and North American Integration
By Prof. Thomas Velk on July 10, 2008
Cooperation with the United States earns Canada economic gains and gives it a discrete national identity. Meaningful cooperation is always possible, but international conflicts that shift the U.S. balance of power toward the executive branch represent unique opportunities for Canada to extend her national interest...
Third parties, first ideas
By Tom Lamberti on July 10, 2008
As we approach the 2008 U.S. Election, we see many familiar signs. Now that Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama have just about clinched the nomination of their parties, they will be looking to sure up their core supporters, as well as try and appeal to the independent voters who will ultimately decide who the next president of the United States will be...
Antiaméricanisme et élections présidentielles
By Hubert Villeneuve on July 10, 2008
Affirmer que l’hostilité internationale face aux États-Unis fut forte au cours des dernières années relèverait de l’euphémisme. Ce phénomène multiforme a connu depuis la venue au pouvoir de pouvoir de l’administration Bush et, surtout, de l’invasion malheureuse de l’Irak, une immanquable virulence...
Les réalités propres à Israël
By Jean Ouellette on July 10, 2008
À vingt-quatre heures d’intervalle, au son lugubre des mêmes sirènes qui annoncent la chute probable d’un missile ennemi, les Israéliens, à onze heures du matin, et dans tout le pays, se mettent au garde-à-vous et observent deux minutes de silence. La première alarme marque le souvenir des soldats tombés au combat.
UAVs: Changing the face of modern warfare
By Robert J. Galbraith on July 10, 2008
On January 29th in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan, the commander of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terror network in Afghanistan, Abu Laith al-Libi, was killed by a US missile strike launched from what was believed to be an MQ-1 Predator, an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)...
Kissinger à Montréal
By Alain-Michel Ayache on June 26, 2008
À 85 ans, l’ancien Secrétaire d’État américain, Henry Kissinger, n’a pas manqué d’impressionner les quelques huit cents convives—ou dois-je dire privilégiés—qui ont assisté à son allocution dans le cadre de la quatorzième édition du Forum économique des Amériques, de la Conférence de Montréal au Hilton Bonaventure...
China indicted: Human dignity is indivisible
By The Hon. David Kilgour on June 26, 2008
In recent weeks, the world has witnessed catastrophes of nature in China and Burma beyond the ability of mostof us to comprehend. For what happened in Sichuan province, the thoughts, sympathies and prayers of all of us go unreservedly to all families of the victims and survivors...
Le protectionnisme agricole
By Prof. Ian Irvine on June 26, 2008
e monde a une énorme capacité de production de nourriture en réserve pour dénouer la crise alimentaire mondiale. Mais ce potentiel a été bridé depuis trop longtemps par le protectionnisme agricole dans les économies développées et, plus récemment, par les restrictions imposées aux exportations dans les pays moins développés...
RFK: “A tiny ripple of hope…”
By Beryl Wajsman on June 12, 2008
Last week we commemorated the fortieth anniversary of the assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. He was shot on June 5th, 1968 at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles as he was celebrating the California primary victory that would have led him to the Democratic Presidential nomination. He died the next day. For many of us who were coming to political maturity in that turbulent time hope seemed to die with him...
La politique étrangère du Québec: un passage obligé
By Alain-Michel Ayache on June 12, 2008
Il y a quelques années, je me battais encore pour l’indépendance du Québec car j’y croyais… Je croyais et crois toujours que le Québec est une nation distincte et qu’elle mérite d’avoir son propre pays… Mais aujourd’hui je me pose de sérieuses questions sur la nature même d’un tel État québécois lorsqu’il s’agit de mettre de l’avant sa politique étrangère, et pour cause!..
Ô Jérusalem !
By Amb. Fred Eytan on June 12, 2008
ÉRUSALEM - Au moment où nous célébrons la réunification de Jérusalem, des questions se posent dans le monde arabe et dans les capitales occidentales sur l'avenir de la capitale légitime de l'État d'Israël et du peuple juif...
Bernier-Couillard: A little southern sympathy
By David T. Jones on June 12, 2008
Sex sells. And a good sex scandal generates 360 degree, "24/7" attention. Thus Canadians (and Canada watchers around the world) have found the Bernier-Couillard saga a perfect foil for all sorts of analysis both light and ostensibly deep—certainly more than that accorded whatever serious issue a serious commentator would select for public attention...
International security, trade and governance
By The Hon. David Kilgour on May 29, 2008
According to a legend, in creating the world, God gave to Canada British Columbia, the Gulf Islands, the Rockies and many other natural wonders. Someone asked, "Why are so many good things going to Canadians?" God replied, "Wait till you see the neighbours I'm giving them." You'll recall the similar Mexican cri de coeur, "Oh Mexico! So far from God; so close to the United States!"..
Remembering Bobby
By John Parisella on May 29, 2008
He was not a great speaker and he occasionally stammered in public, yet he moved millions with his words. His record as Attorney General of the United States during the Kennedy Administration was considered mixed, yet he is remembered for his courage and his integrity...
