An alarming new report warns the next year “could be even more troublesome” for Canada than 2012 in terms of global trouble spots and economic worries.
“The Middle East is in worse shape than at the beginning of the Arab Spring; Iran looms ever more ominously … North Korea threatens the U.S. with nuclear weapons; the tone between China and Japan and other players of the region over islands dotting the South and East China Seas has become harsher,” said the Conference of Defence Associations Institute (CDAI) in its latest strategic outlook. Read more…
It’s not often you hear anyone with ties to the New Democratic Party agreeing with the always colourful Ezra Levant. That’s why it is remarkable that Canadian Ambassador to the U.S. Gary Doer Read more…
On Tuesday, Ottawa announced it was tightening its sanctions against Iran, adding three members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps to the list of people under and asset freeze prohibition of dealings. Five businesses were also added to the list.
If you haven’t already seen the story about Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney trying to keep Hamas members from participating in an international conference in Quebec City this fall, check it out here.
Meantime, the long and short of it is the International Parliamentary Union, a body in existence since 1889, has accepted Hamas as a member even though that organization is a banned terrorist group in Canada and is perhaps best known for rocket attacks on Israeli civilians. Read more…
I sat down with Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird earlier this month for a year-end one-on-one interview on 2011 and the year ahead. I wasn’t able to fit everything of the wide-ranging interview into the print piece published Wednesday, so here’s some of what was interesting but didn’t make the cut.
On the Arab Spring and democracy:
Baird – “I don’t think the spark of the Arab Spring was necessarily a push for Liberal democracy. What it was is a lot of young people, particularly young men, unemployed, no hope, no opportunity. Janice Gross Stein (director of the Munk School of global affairs at the University of Toronto) says that’s the biggest challenge in the region, the tremendous number of young, unemployed men Read more…
