He must be stopped before he plunges Europe into another war
Vladimir Putin is once again threatening to invade Ukraine. The risk is real and Putin must be stopped before he plunges Europe into another war. Yet, as Russia amasses troops and equipment on the borders of Ukraine, the question in everyone’s mind is: what are Putin’s intentions? There are three broad, possible answers. First, Putin…
Rhea Clyman was the first western journalist to expose the forced famine that killed millions in Ukraine
She’s considered the first western journalist to expose the Soviet famine-genocide that killed millions of Ukrainians in the early 1930s. But although Rhea Clyman sent numerous accounts of Soviet and Nazi atrocities to North American newspapers as a foreign correspondent, she was soon largely forgotten. That is, until four years ago, when Jars Balan, director…
A growing number of Cubans are beginning to see through their government's lies. Why don't Canadians?
Canadians have travelled to Cuba as a vacation spot for decades. I doubt most of them ever considered that these excursions have aided its communist government in political and economic terms. CBC News senior reporter Evan Dyer recently pointed out this disturbing fact. “Cuban-Canadian activists say many Canadians are not aware of the extent to…
Stalin never lost his penchant for executing his officers. In the catastrophic early days of the German invasion, he shot eight generals
Adolf Hitler launched the German invasion of the Soviet Union – Operation Barbarossa – in the early hours of June 22, 1941. Initially, it looked like a triumph. The Soviets were caught flatfooted and German troops advanced 480 km into Soviet territory within the first week. It looked like an eastern version of the blitzkrieg…
He bitterly resented his exile to St. Helena, blaming it all on Wellington
A childhood history book included a reproduction of Jacques-Louis David’s famous portrait of Napoleon crossing the Alps. It’s an idealized representation, not a realistic one. Mounted on a rearing Marengo – his grey Arabian stallion – the man who became emperor of the French and conqueror of Europe gives off an invincible vibe. Two recent…
We’ve been taught in the West that democracy is the ideal form of government. But is it?
Looking at the world through the lens of the media, it’s difficult to gain a clear perspective on what type of government works and what doesn’t, who’s a good leader and who’s bad, and where people are happy and where they’re not. We’ve been taught in the West that democracy is the ideal form of…
Our 21st-century reliance on tech giants to supply us with information has resulted in fake news, clickbait and polarized societies
It’s not news to say that our consumption of media has changed dramatically in the 21st century. Perhaps it’s time to take a step back and look objectively at the impact of these changes and begin thinking about how our media can be improved. For most of the 20th century, the media was controlled by…
International power politics employed by the likes of Russia have resulted in many countries looking for new energy sources
By Mark Milke and Ven Venkatachalam Canadian Energy Centre Russia cut off the natural gas supply to Ukraine in mid-winter 2009, ostensibly over a pricing dispute. It was a reminder that energy can be used as an economic and political weapon by autocratic regimes – in this instance, Vladimir Putin’s Russia. We have more recent…
In a recent New York Times opinion piece, Regina Ip, a member of Hong Kong’s Executive Council (essentially the cabinet of Hong Kong’s government), defended the Chinese Communist Party’s attack on freedom in Hong Kong. In an apparent attempt to bolster her argument, she noted Hong Kong’s top rating in the Economic Freedom of the…
When a leader suggests he will subvert the democratic process, voters have recourse. We’ve seen it in the Philippines and elsewhere
An apocryphal story circulated in the Philippines in the early 1980s of a dinner party conversation between President Ferdinand Marcos and Catholic Bishop Jaime Sin. Marcos reportedly said, “I really admire those Americans. They know the results of their presidential elections the day of the election.” In response, Sin reportedly said, “Well how about us…