As almost everyone who watches newscasts knows, Donald Sterling, the elderly and foolish billionaire who is owner of the Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Association, has become the object of intense – many would say excessive – media coverage. Sometimes it seems that the story is getting more airtime on American networks like […]
On August 22, 1939, when planning the invasion of Poland and contemplating the destruction of European Jewry, Adolf Hitler was reported as having said to his Wehrmacht commanders, “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?” Well, people certainly remember it now, despite continued denials or rationalizations by Turkish authorities. The slaughter of […]
Canada’s first Jewish federal cabinet minister, Herb Gray, has died at the age of 82. In a way, his career is the story of the coming of age of the Canadian Jewish community in the political life of the country. Many Jewish politicians have been more exciting and flamboyant – David Lewis, the long time […]
It had no fewer than three official themes, “Man’s Achievements on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe,” “Peace Through Understanding,” and “A Millennium of Progress.” Its symbol was a 12-story high, stainless-steel model of the earth, the Unisphere, which still can be seen in Queens, New York, where it was held. The New York World’s Fair […]
The April 7 Quebec provincial election saw Pauline Marois’ Parti Québécois suffer a shellacking. After 19 months of running a minority government, the sovereigntist PQ fell to 30 seats, a full 40 below the Liberals, who won 70 of the 125 seats in the National Assembly. Liberal leader Philippe Couillard will become the next premier of […]
The ideological rivalry between the western world and the Communist bloc may have ended a quarter-century ago, but national interests and realpolitik are with us still. Indeed, the antagonistic relationship between U.S. President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, is arguably more intense these days than it was between President George H.W. Bush […]
Are Russia’s actions in the Crimea and elsewhere in Ukraine illegitimate, or did Moscow have cause to intercede? Demography and history suggest that Russian President Vladimir Putin has more of a case than North American media and politicians would like to believe. In his March 4 press conference Putin provided his own interpretation of what […]
If you think the struggle between the ousted pro-Russian president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, and his pro-European opponents has been going on for months, think again. This is actually the second go-around. The first time was during the so-called Orange Revolution in 2004, when then Prime Minister Yanukovych faced off in a presidential election against […]
The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) Special Rapporteur on “the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967” has issued his annual report, accusing Israel of “inhuman acts” and “apartheid,” and has called on the UN to support a “legitimacy war” against the country. That shouldn’t surprise anyone. First, because the 47-member council, which […]
The Michigan State University geographer Harm de Blij, in the 2012 edition of his book, Why Geography Matters, writes about an “Islamic Front” in sub-Saharan Africa that stretches from Sudan, bordering the Red Sea in the east, to Sierra Leone on the Atlantic Ocean in the west. And the line cuts many countries, including Nigeria, Africa’s […]