WORLD NEWS – Outside China, the largest coronavirus outbreaks have been in South Korea and Japan. The number of cases in South Korea has soared, from 28 a week ago to at least 156 as of Friday morning. The South Korean outbreak is centered around the southern city of Daegu. The majority of new cases…
Once Upon a Time in Iran
Is Donald Trump to blame for the downing of Ukrainian Airlines Flight 752 shortly after the aircraft took off from Tehran’s International Airport? Or does the blame lie solely with the Iranian regime and its Revolutionary Guard unit that fired the deadly missiles? As with most issues these days, there are hard, irreconcilable opinions held…
A Poppy for Intolerance
In Flanders Field is the most poignant piece of poetry I have ever come across. As much for the sacrifice it invokes as for the solemn responsibility it passes on to generations like ours who were tasked with holding the torch high. Those who once were, implored us never to break faith with that oath.…
Greta Thunberg’s Wager
There is a raging debate on whether climate change is caused by humans. A decade ago, Al Gore was the leading bell ringer warning of pending doom. Today, Greta Thunberg is the most recognizable climate change activist. She is the face of a global movement that demands action now to head off catastrophic climate change…
The Ugliest American
Last week, Donald Trump, claiming to have “great and unmatched wisdom”, tweeted an empty, toothless threat to “destroy Turkey” if it did anything Trump considered off limits. Trump sounded more a wise guy hoodlum or a deranged, narcissistic megalomaniac than wise. But let’s set that aside for a moment and consider the broader implications and…
America’s Next Civil War
Thoughts and prayers. Those three words invariably follow the tragedy of gun violence in America. As soon as one hears an elected official utter these words, one can be certain there has been another shooting. Thoughts and prayers have become a synonym for indifference. They are meaningless words. They are words of inaction that simply…
No Country for White Men
History is full of cruelty, oppression, war, conquest and colonization. As soon as humans learned to wield crude clubs and organized themselves into clans and tribes, they began using power and violence to assert their will over other humans. There really aren’t any humans who were immune from the infection of violence. Regardless of culture,…
Tragic Notre Dame Fire Touched People Everywhere
TORONTO — The Archbishop of Toronto said Monday the fire that heavily damaged Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris is a tragic event that has touched people everywhere. “All around the world, all of us feel a certain sadness in our hearts at the thought of the people of Paris losing not only such an astonishing,…
Theresa May’s Ides of March
March 2019 has proven to be an interesting time to visit England. The political drama of Brexit is everywhere. I mean everywhere! Forget TV, newspapers and the radio, you can’t step into a pub or a restaurant without overhearing at least one discussion on the issue. For a political junkie from Canada, it has been…
Research Links Shrinking Sea Ice to Less Rain in South
Research has uncovered powerful evidence linking shrinking sea ice in the Arctic to snow and rain in central North America. A study published Wednesday in the journal Nature suggests that a long dry period about 8,000 years ago through the centre of the continent was influenced by disappearing sea ice — the same mechanism that…