Civil society groups urge Laos, Thailand to investigate enforced disappearances, reveal fate of Sombath Somphone and Od Sayavong Expand Sombath Somphone is still missing five years after he was forcibly disappeared in Vientiane, Laos.   © 2013 Stephen Sautter 15 December 2019: On the seventh anniversary of the enforced disappearance of Lao civil society leader Sombath Somphone, we, the undersigned organizations, urge the Lao and Thai governments to investigate enforced disappearances, and demand Vientiane finally reveal Sombath’s whereabouts and ensure justice for him and his family.… (Full Story)

Expand Students march to the Parliament House to demand the release of fellow students arrested for sedition, New Delhi, India, March 15, 2016. © 2016 AP Photo The fable of the emperor with no clothes is telling in these times of scared silence. Hans Christian Andersen never did say what happened to the boy that shouted the truth. But in India, today, we know that the boy would have been swiftly hushed.  An entrenched culture of dissent in India is hard to stamp down. So, whether it is the decision to revoke the special constitutional status of Jammu and Kashmir, or to bring in the discriminatory… (Full Story)

Liberalism has greatly influenced the nation because modern Britain is based on liberal values. The Liberal Party dates back to 1859 in Britain and this party promoted balanced budgets, low taxes, and free market. In the early 20^th century, Liberals made some progressive reforms by creating programs of health insurance, unemployment insurance, and pensions. These were the early times of the British welfare state. However, Liberals lost very much of their popularity after the Great War and the party merged with the Social Democratic Party in the early 1980s. Nevertheless, the Liberal Democrats did not have much success since their creation, except through different alliances with parties in government. There are several reasons for these political failures. For example, several Liberals vote for the Labour Party or for the Conservatives that welcomes Liberals and Social Democrats. Besides, a union between two different groups of political ideals might not be the best way to build a political organization. Liberals are in favour of individual rights while the Social Democrats prefer supporting collective rights. Nonetheless, Liberals have made significant political contributions to British society over the 19^th and 20^th century. Nowadays, the Liberal Democrats still are trying very hard to get in power, but with little success. However, Liberals and Social Democrats, as a merged party, seem incompatible because they often have to support some of the policies advocated by the Tories and the Labour Party. (Full Story)

By Ephraim Kam

Against the backdrop of its military involvement in Syria, Iran has taken a series of steps since 2014 to reinforce its standing in Syria and Lebanon and enhance its military preparedness there, as well as that of its proxies – first and foremost Hezbollah. These steps are of two types. One consists of steps designed to influence Syria’s internal situation and bind it to Iran for the long term, including economic agreements on reconstruction, resettlement of Shiites in Syria, introduction of Iranian religious and cultural values into the country, and establishment of Syrian Shiite militias modeled on Hezbollah in Lebanon. (Full Story)

Every year for several weeks before November 11, a field of scarlet poppies appears on coat lapels across Canada. This wearing of the poppy has a complex history ... (Full Story)

By Orna Mizrahi

A popular protest erupted in Lebanon on October 17, 2019 on a scale unprecedented in recent years. Mass demonstrations grew steadily stronger in successive days, and have so far numbered between tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of participants as they spread from Beirut to the country's other principal cities. For now, the protests continue. The trigger for the demonstrations - in the sense of "the straw that broke the camel's back" - was an unusual decision (rescinded immediately, one day after the protest erupted) to tax WhatsApp voice calls.  (Full Story)

New York - Southern (Inner) Mongolian poet Mr. Zhao Baahuu, who goes by the pennames Soliyoot Shulegchin (“Crazy Poet” in Mongolian) and Cao Yuan Nu Huo ( “Fury of Grassland” in Chinese), was detained and placed under house arrest after publishing poems online criticizing China’s ethnic policies toward Southern Mongolians, Tibetans and Uyghurs over the past 70 years.  (Full Story)

As Egypt formulates and implements its economic reform program, “the Chinese development model” is mentioned with increasing frequency in official Egyptian discourse as a supreme positive example. The Chinese model is identified in Egypt with modernization, scientific advances, foreign investments, integration into the global economy, and mega-projects that stand to yield high economic growth rates and enable a response to the challenges of a rapidly growing population and dire poverty. (Full Story)

There are nominated candidates of all races and religions in our Party. the PPC. With names like Salim Mansour, Rocky Dong, Jigna Jani, Tahir Gora, Jude Guerrier, Jing Lan Yang, Salomon Rayek, and many, many others. (Full Story)

Valentine’s Day rituals often begin in the classroom, where the holiday serves both as an enjoyable arts and crafts activity and as a pedagogical tool, teaching children about structuring love and friendship into a concrete, prescribed form. The ritualization of love continues throughout our lives, not only on Valentine’s Day, but through weddings, anniversaries, and Mother’s and Father’s Day. (Full Story)

Montreal Jews rely on non-Jewish academics, writers and filmmakers to present and even explain, in French, Jewish realities to the Quebecois public and within Francophone academia. The considerable number of publications on Jewish themes, both in fiction and non-fiction, written in French by non-Jews is certainly unequaled in the Francophone world and most likely in the West, contends writer Victor Teboul. But do these works encourage or dissuade critical assessment of Quebec and of Quebec–Jewish relations, asks Tolerance.ca’s editor, whose most recent book also questions Quebecois identity. (Full Story)

Despite his dedicated work on behalf of Jewish refugees in Europe during the 1930s and 1940s, James G. McDonald (1886-1964) is little known today. Come discover this highly unusual and outspoken maverick through Shuli Eshel’s inspiring documentary, “A Voice among the Silent,” followed by comments and discussion led by Neil Caplan. (Full Story)

The Canadian government's recent announcement that it will be providing more than CDN $600 million (USD $455 million) over the next five years to bail out the country's financially strapped media outlets -- as part of the fall fiscal update about the federal budget ahead of the 2019 federal election -- is not as innocent as it may seem. (Full Story)

By David Barzilay

The intriguing tale of the location and fate of a Jewish baby placed in the Municipal Foundling Home of Thessaloniki during WWII.

It is March 4th 2016 an email pops onto my screen from some unknown group of researchers based in Thessaloniki, Greece. They introduce themselves: “ We are a group of researchers in Thessaloniki working on a common academic project related to the Shoah. Aliki Arouh, genealogist and researcher archivist of the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki, , Aigli Brouskou, an anthropologist, researcher of the Municipal Foundling Home of Thessaloniki ‘Agios Stylianos’ and Areti Makri, archivist at the State Archives in Thessaloniki and a researcher”. (Full Story)

To many observers, the Jewish community in Quebec is highly integrated into Quebec society, yet to others it appears insular. How can this apparent contradiction be explained? How do religious groups, including Jews, deal with the trend towards secularization in Quebec? We raised these questions and others with Dr. Morton Weinfeld. Professor of Sociology at McGill University in Montréal, Dr Weinfeld holds the Chair in Canadian Ethnic Studies. He is the author of Like Everyone Else, but Different: The Paradoxical Success of Canadian Jews (McClelland & Stewart, 2001), a study of the Jewish community in Canada. Dr. Weinfeld is also a recognized authority on Quebec’s Jewish community. (Full Story)

On Thursday, April 19, 2018 at 7:00 pm at the Gelber Centre, veteran British journalist Ian Black will be speaking on “Israelis and Palestinians: Contested Past, Uncertain Future.” (Full Story)