At least 20 people are dead and hundreds more injured after a series of explosions at a military base in Equatorial Guinea. A party official in Myanmar tells VOA’s Burmese Service that a member from ousted de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party has died in police custody. Swiss citizens have narrowly approved a proposal that would prohibit women from wearing full facial coverings in public. (Full Story)

Early childhood is the critical time in which the foundations of life-long habits are built. Developing healthy sleep habits can set children on the right path for better future health and wellbeing. (Full Story)

Ronald Reagan warned that government craves for power at the expense of individual liberty. President Reagan, a famous defender of classical liberalism, once said. ¨As government expands, liberty contracts.¨ Nowadays, governments from around the World have used national emergency powers to go beyond their constitutional duties. A constitution is the supreme law of a nation; it cannot be infringed unless extraordinary circumstances push a government to go beyond the constitutional limits. For that reason, every constitution has loopholes to allow government to get extra powers to deal with national and regional emergencies. These exceptional powers are provided by invoking a state of emergency which allows a government to implement measures and actions that are normally unconstitutional to respond to a regional or national emergency. The purpose of a state of emergency is to protect the lives of people. Nevertheless, some governments might use a state of emergency to suspend constitutional rights for the need of the ruling party. The COVID pandemic has lasted for more than a year now, governments have had enough time to end the pandemic. Unfortunately, several governments still impose several radical lockdown measures on their citizens. Vaccines and masks are now available and global data show that new COVID cases are dropping which could be a proof that the pandemic will end soon. Thus, we can now question the legitimacy of lockdown measures because most of these measures cannot stop the novel pathogen. Several Canadian lockdown measures turned out to be arbitrary and irrational. On the other hand, South African and U.S. Courts claim that COVID measures are unconstitutional and they infringe the rights and freedoms of people. The best way to end the pandemic is that governments trust people, educate them about to prevent SARS COV 2 infections, to provide them PPEs, and to adapt the social and economic activities to the new, but temporally, normal. People need to be empowered to follow public health measures that have been recognized to work, but these measures ought to respect rights and freedoms while being effective at stopping the spread of the novel coronavirus. Humankind will be victorious over SARS COV 2 if everyone participates in war against the novel pathogen, but this victory can still be possible by respecting everyone’s rights and freedoms; public trust is at the core of the end of the pandemic. (Full Story)

Many countries are looking to the COVID-19 vaccines with the hope of overcoming the pandemic and beginning economic recovery. While the drug companies in the West operate as independent for-profit businesses, in China the government directs the research and development efforts of both state and privately owned companies, and uses them as a tool in its policy through official visits in the international theater, cooperation agreements, commitments to supply vaccines, and the provision of loans and other financial assistance. (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)

A national coalition today wrote to Foreign Minister Marc Garneau pleading for Canada to act urgently for the Rohingya and other ethnic minorities now under direct threat from the military following the coup d'état in Myanmar, and to renew the Canadian funding for the Rohingya set to expire this March. (Full Story)

By Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE)

Dr. Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE), underscores the role of antisemitic concepts and rhetoric in the ideology and activities of major far-right groups in the United States, just after extreme right-wing groups, stormed Capitol Hill the day Congress certified Joe Biden as President-Elect. Dr. Beirich outlines the theoretical and organizational evolution of antisemitism amid the ranks of America's right-wing extremists. (Full Story)

While the world is at war with a deadly, infectious strain of SARS-CoV-2, a more overt, insidious virus has gone largely unaddressed by the world community. That virus is anti-Semitism.  

Two days have passed since the vandalization and attempted arson of the Shaa’r Shamayim Congregation in Montreal, yet not a word of reassurance, comfort or sympathy was said to the Jewish community. 

 It is with great dismay and utter horror as I,  a Jewish woman in a so-called progressive, multicultural Canada, witnesses as our non-Jewish government leaders, NGOs, and citizens fail once again to acknowledge the violent re-emergence of the old, but omnipresent virus of anti-Semitism.  (Full Story)

By Noa Shusterman, Research Assistant and Israel-Palestinian Research Program Coordinator

Nickolay Mladenov served as UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process for nearly six years and earned the trust of Israel and the Palestinians alike – an achievement not reached by many before him. How was he able to do this, and what challenges face his successor? (Full Story)

By Shlomo Brom and Shimon Stein

Beyond the political issues surrounding the assassination of the “father of the Iranian bomb,” there are also questions regarding the action’s necessity and value. Will it slow down Iran’s nuclear program to a significant degree? Was it worth the angry reactions throughout the world and the revenge that is expected from the Islamic Republic? Consider these questions from a “less popular” perspective (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)

During the last fifteen years, Tolerance.ca organized several panel discussions.  To mark International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Tolerance.ca® organized two panel discussions on religious diversity featuring several distinguished panellists. The first meeting was held at Vanier College. The second, on which a report follows, was held at the Maison des écrivains under the theme “Education, Religion and Diversity: Enrichment or Source of Conflict?” (Full Story)

As part of a series of articles on major personalities who have furthered the cause of tolerance in Canada, Tolerance.ca® presents the world-renowned Montreal philosopher Charles Taylor, 2007 winner of the prestigious Templeton Prize. Mr Taylor co-chairs the Québec Commission on reasonable accommodations created by the Charest government in February 2007. (Full Story)

By Udi Dekel and Noa Shusterman

The Abraham Accords will ostensibly serve to inspire peace and normalization agreements between Israel and additional Arab states. Indeed? Which issues are included in the agreement, and why? Why did the UAE and Bahrain decide to establish official relations at this time? What are the implications for the Palestinian arena? And what new challenges are likely to emerge? Insights from a discussion of experts held following the festive signing ceremony at the White House (Full Story)

On the morning of September 4, 2020, Ms. Surnaa, a Mongolian employee of the Alshaa Left Banner Chinese Communist Party Committee in western Southern Mongolia, jumped from her residential building to her death in protest of the Chinese authorities’ new language policy called the “second generation bilingual education”. (Full Story)

Is Diversity about empowering people who have been victims of exclusion or an expression of resentment? Resentment, argues McGill University professor Marc Angenot in his  most recent Senior College Lecture, inspires defeatist behavior by pretending  to march towards the future, to avenge the real or mythical wrongs undergone in the past. (Full Story)