In a historic first, on January 29, five Latin American Presidents addressed the 2009 World Social Forum (WSF) held in Belem, Brazil: Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Evo Morales of Bolivia, Rafael Correa of Ecuador, Lula da Silva of Brazil, and Fernando Lugo of Paraguay.
The WSF, the gathering of leftist social movements and activists, is held every two years, and the latest one was the most successful so far, attracting an astounding 133,000 participants from 150 countries.
International relations, peace and conflict
When President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Stephen Harper meet in Canada this Thursday, the growing economic crisis will be the main point of discussion.
And Harper could quickly find himself in a position he doesn’t like to be in: on the defensive.
Canada, as the smaller of the two trading partners, has become much more an exporter of raw and semi-processed resources in recent years — accounting for almost 60% of our exports — and it is deeply dependent on exports to the U.S.
OTTAWA—The Harper government is relying too heavily on U.S. fiscal stimulus measures to pull Canada out of recession, says a Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) report released today in advance of President Obama’s first official visit.
The net effect of Canada’s stimulus plan is equivalent to just 0.7% of GDP — only one-quarter of the U.S. package and less than half of the stimulus advocated by the International Monetary Fund.
Dark Days: The Story of Four Canadians Tortured in the Name of Fighting Terror, by Kerry Pither, Viking Canada, 460 pages, hard cover, $35.00.
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Much has been written about four Muslim Canadians who were falsely accused of terrorist links and imprisoned, tortured, and ultimately released without any charges.
During his three decades of military service, Canada’s new Chief of Defence--L.Gen Walter Natynczyk--has led soldiers in Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, and East Timor. But his fighting career reached a crescendo during his 2004 stint in Baghdad.
In the few days before this article was written in early June, another Canadian soldier—Captain Richard (Steve) Leary—was shot and killed in a gun battle with Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan. This happened just after four other Canadian soldiers were wounded, one “very seriously” and two “seriously.”
While European and North American governments wallow in right-wing militarism, Latin American states are leading the world in implementing progressive social change. They are doing this not just within countries, but also on a continental level now that 10 left-wing Latin American governments are in power: in Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Uruguay, Paraguay, Nicaragua, Chile. and Cuba.
As someone who worked as a journalist for many years, and later as a communicator for unions and now the CCPA, I’m aware of the power of the media to influence and even shape public opinion. For a long time, most people implicitly believed what they read in the newspapers. “It must be true,” they’d say, “because I saw it in print.”
Nowadays, the commercial press doesn’t command that kneejerk trust in its accuracy. Neither do the TV and radio networks. There have been enough exposures of media mendacity and distortion to make readers and viewers skeptical.
On Afghanistan’s northwest border lies Turkmenistan, a country with immense reserves of natural gas – the fourth largest in the world, according to the International Energy Agency. These gas reserves are of vital interest to the United States. Last January, three high-level Americans visited Turkmenistan’s President Berdimuhamedov. First came Senator Richard Lugar, senior Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Next was Admiral William J. Fallon, at that time in charge of U.S. Central Command. Then came Ambassador Steven Mann, Coordinator for Eurasian Energy Diplomacy.