Latest

Manthorpe: pirates and mercenaries

Writes International Affairs columnist Jonathan Manthorpe: Piracy and ship hijackings have spawned a worrying boom in largely-unregulated security companies offering armed mercenaries to protect merchant ships plying dangerous waters. However, the perils of having freelance guns-for-hire roaming the high seas have been again brought to the fore since the Indian Coast Guard last week arrested an American-operated ship off the southern Tamil Nadu coast with a crew of 35, including 25 heavily-armed mercenaries. Log in first to read the column, available to subscribers or with a $1 day pass to Facts and Opinions.   

Naheed Nenshi’s unlikely stardom

There are strange doings in Alberta, the Canadian province that’s often compared to America’s state of Texas. Alberta has been characterized by its Go-Get-‘Em attitude, cowboy hats, and an economy based on oil and gas extraction, especially the oil sands in its north. It’s widely associated with the full-throated call for unfettered markets by its neo-liberal “Calgary School” of economics. Alberta is home to Canada’s Bible Belt. Its Wildest and Westest city is dubbed Cowtown for its famous Calgary Stampede, but has developed into one of the world’s great modern energy headquarters. In short, Alberta has been fertile territory for Canada’s version

The Facts Behind Fracking

Public debates and heated controversies over hydraulic fracturing have become a constant, currently including in South Africa,  Europe and even the meatpacking district in New York. But it was a protest against fracking in eastern Canada that made world news this month: Five police vehicles were burned, a police crack-down led to numerous arrests, and Canada-wide rallies were held in support of the protesters and to protest police behaviour near the rural Elsipogtog First Nation in the province of New Brunswick. On Monday, a court rejected  a bid by the company,  SWN Resources, to continue a court injunction against the protests, while the provincial Assembly of First

Carpe diem? Not for long.

In the perpetual debate about whether humans are good, greed scored another point. Researchers in Europe and North America invented a game in which players had to cooperate to receive both individual cash and a reward for achieving a public-good  – the example used was avoiding climate change. The longer players were willing to wait for their pay-off, the bigger the reward. But their research report, published in the peer-reveiewed journal Nature Climate Change, shows that while many individual players opted for the generational reward, achieving it required cooperation – and none of the groups met that goal. Log in first

Manthorpe on the Commonwealth summit boycott in Sri Lanka

Writes International Affairs analyst Jonathan Manthorpe in today’s column: Canada’s Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, does not come across as a man who is much concerned whether or not he has allies for his political stands. However, Harper may not welcome India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh coming to stand shoulder to shoulder with him in boycotting the Commonwealth Heads of Government (CHOGM) summit in Sri Lanka in mid November. If Singh does join Harper in staying away from the Colombo summit to protest the human rights record of the Sri Lankan government, it will tend to confirm the criticism of the

1 … 118 119 120 121 122 … 130