BRIAN BRENNAN: BRIEF ENCOUNTERS June, 2015 At age 18, Debbie Lori Kaye became the youngest performer in history to have her own variety special on CBC TV. A tiny singer with a big voice, her star had been rising steadily
Read More →
JONATHAN MANTHORPEMay 7, 2014 If North Korea’s young and unpredictable leader Kim Jong-un nursed any doubts about his need for nuclear weapons, recent events in Ukraine and Syria will have dismissed them. With American and other spy satellites showing that North Korea
CHRIS WOOD: NATURAL SECURITYPublished May 2, 2014 Acidifying oceans. Desertifying fields. Liquifying glaciers and icecaps. Toxifying lakes and rivers. Our species has a nature problem. Or to put it another way: nature has a human economy problem. Before this century is over
JONATHAN MANTHORPEMay 2, 2014. It offers a glimpse into the dark recesses of Robert Mugabe’s soul that he has remained in power in Zimbabwe for over three decades by the masterful manipulation of his opponents’ weaknesses. Some have been bought off. Others
JONATHAN MANTHORPEApril 30, 2014 There is probably little hope that when Terence James “Jim” O’Neill heard the news on Tuesday he buried his head under a pillow and groaned with embarrassment. But perhaps he should have done. It was O’Neill, who as
JONATHAN MANTHORPEApril 25, 2014 As the West fixates on what Vladimir Putin is doing in eastern Ukraine, perhaps not enough attention is being paid to his other hand, which is hovering greedily over neighbouring Moldova. Moldova and its three-and-a-half million people, sandwiched
JONATHAN MANTHORPEApril 23, 2014 Scotland’s First Minister and Nationalist Party leader Alex Salmond is generally reckoned to be the canniest politician in the British Isles. So it was entirely in keeping that he chose today, the day when the English patron saint
CHRIS WOOD: NATURAL SECURITYPublished April 18, 2014 It is Good Friday where I live, in the most Catholic part of old Mexico. The entire week and weekend to come are turned over to a passionate mix of Christian and not-so-Christian rituals: an
JONATHAN MANTHORPEApril 18, 2014 The sacking of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, is public acknowledgement that the strategy for ousting Syrian President Bashar Assad has not only failed, but spawned a new generation of skilled Islamic terrorists. The departure
JONATHAN MANTHORPEApril 16, 2014 A crisis is fast approaching in the relations between Beijing and the people of Hong Kong, a relationship which has been on a downhill slide since the territory was returned to China in 1997. Within the next few
JONATHAN MANTHORPEApril 9, 2014 For months the political life of Indonesia has been throbbing with the expectation that the hugely popular mayor of Jakarta, Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, was all set to become the country’s saviour and President in July elections. But in