Features

MOOCs could revolutionize education

Jul 082013

Massive Open Online Courses available globally without cost.

by Richard Solash

WASHINGTON DC, July 06, 2013 — It's more than 11,000 kilometers from Shakargarh, a city in northeastern Pakistan, to the venerated halls of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the top universities in the United States.Twenty-five-year-old Khalid Raza lives in Shakargarh but is taking "The Challenges of Global Poverty," a course taught by a former adviser to the World Bank and a professor of international economics at MIT.

Not even charged but facing extradition

Jul 082013

Features

France requests Lebanon-born Canadian for interrogation, on dubious grounds.

by John Baglow

Hassan Diab is in the news again. He’s a Canadian citizen whom the Conservative Minister of Justice, Rob Nicholson, wants to extradite to France to face — what, exactly? Widely reported as being a suspect in the bombing of a Paris synagogue more than forty years ago, Diab isn’t even facing charges there, as it turns out. But here in his own country, Diab has faced a massive railroading by the judicial system, including prosecutorial and even judicial bias.

Walking to heal the tar sands wounds

Jul 082013

Features

Native elders to lead a spiritual gathering ito heal land, air, water and the web of life.

by Stephen Leahy

FORT MACMURRAY, July 1, 2013 — Native elders from all over North America will lead people past lakes of tailings wastewater and massive infrastructure of the tar sands industry along the Athabasca River in Fort McMurray, Alberta. Organisers say the event, dubbed the Healing Walk, will be a spiritual gathering focused on healing the land, air, water and all living things harmed by the expansion of what is already the world's largest industrial project.
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Wild weather dominated decade: WMO

Jul 042013

Features

World Meterological Organization report offers alarming statistics.

from the World Meterological Organization

GENEVA, July 3, 2013 — The world experienced unprecedented high-impact climate extremes during the 2001-2010 decade, which was the warmest since the start of modern measurements in 1850 and continued an extended period of pronounced global warming. More national temperature records were reported broken than in any previous decade, according to a new report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

Prescription drug checker

Jul 042013

Features

RxISK list collects, shares information about adverse reactions.

from RxISK.org

In mid-May, the medical team behind RxISK.org, published a checklist to help patients and their health care professionals assess the risks and benefits of prescription medications. RxISK is the first free, independent website where patients, doctors, and pharmacists can research prescription drugs and easily report a drug side effect. RxISK provides an individualized causality report for drug side effects enabling the health care team to act sooner.

If your government allows it, your doctor prescribed it, and your pharmacist dispensed it, then it must be safe. Right? Not necessarily! This assumption is wrong. People die because of this wrong assumption.

Corporations vs environment

Jul 022013

Features

UN no longer able to move on climate change as it once did on ozone.

by Linda McQuaig

Perhaps the only thing more stunning than Alberta’s ruinous flooding has been the realization that not even a disaster of this magnitude, right in the heart of oil country, seems sufficient to break the torpor surrounding climate change. Indeed, federal and Alberta authorities seem undeterred in their dream of turning Canada into an energy superpower, even if it means immersing the country neck-deep in water. Continue reading »

Treaty cards for non-Natives

Jun 272013

Features

The government doesn’t issue them, so I made my own.

By Carolyn Pogue

A few years ago, I noticed a clever back cover on Briarpatch magazine. It showed a First Nations warrior with a caption, “Where’s your treaty card, Pilgrim?” It was at once funny and arresting. Where, indeed, was my treaty card? Since the government doesn’t issue treaty cards to non-Natives, I figured I should make my own. I knew my treaty area and generally what that 1877 agreement says. I could start there.

Canada underreports emissions: scientists

Jun 272013

Features

Obliged to report emissions, Canada lowballs, omits leaks.

by Stephen Leahy

Scientists warned last week that failure by Canada, the US and other industrialized countries to act on their promises to reduce climate-heating emissions has put us on the very dangerous path to 4C of global warming. So concluded an update at the UN climate treaty talks in Bonn, Germany that ended last week.
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Minorities face higher unemployment rates

Jun 272013

Features

New National Household Survey reveals racialized persons less likely to be hired.

by Andrew Jackson

The Census — replaced by the National Household Survey in 2011 — is our key source of information for “visible minority” persons, best known as racialized persons (since race is a social rather than biological concept) and since “minorities” make up close to the majority of the population in the large urban centres of Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.

In 2011, one in five (19.1 percent) of all Canadians belonged to visible minority groups, up from one in six (16.2 percent) in 2006. Almost one quarter of young people age 20 to 24 belong to a visible minority group.

We can meet the climate change challenge

Jun 242013

Features

Tune in, speak up, and renounce consumer-driven lifestyles.

by Sarah van Gelder

"The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere just hit 400 parts per million," I told Alex, my 23-year-old son, as we were catching up on news.

"So that's it, huh?" he asked.

I couldn't think what to say. Alex had just returned from college, a new graduate, ready to start his life as an adult. Like many members of his age group, Alex knows that 350 parts per million is the threshold for safe levels of carbon in the atmosphere.

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