TORONTO – Common sense is sorely lacking in the media hoopla and political response to the latest failed attempt to bring down a civil airliner. Perhaps it’s time to look dispassionately at the challenge and identify some potential responses that might help.
Christmas Day Recap
For those of you living on Mars: On December […]
TORONTO — Canada’s minority Conservative government is slugging it out on multiple fronts with the country’s Official Opposition party (the Liberals) over whether or not the government is covering up something in Afghanistan. In an absurdity that could only happen in Canada, the alleged cover up appears to involve something that was (a) never done […]
TORONTO — First, let me say that my thoughts and prayers are with the families of those killed and wounded in yesterday’s horrific shooting incident at Fort Hood in the U.S. Second, let me say how disappointing it was watching the “insta-news” media machine grind through the day.
Much of what I’m going to cover in […]
DUBAI — I had an unusual chance on Wednesday to watch the back end of U.S. president Barack Obama’s press conference on health care. He answered a number of questions
with answers that were, for a politician, unusually lengthy and detailed. The last question was off-topic, asking for his opinion of the hoopla surrounding the arrest […]
ISLAMABAD — I returned last night from two and half days in Lahore, where I spent some time socially with a few well-educated business associates and asked their opinions on the war in Afghanistan, the one here in Pakistan and the political mindset of average Pakistanis.
But first, as I sit to eat a late afternoon […]
ISLAMABAD – On arrival in Islamabad I had to declare if I’d visited Africa or Europe in the past six days — just to make sure I was free of bird or swine flu, presumably. Naturally, I forgot that Egypt was in Africa… is it?
Now, if they’d asked me that question on arrival in Dubai […]
CAIRO — Egypt is gripped by swine flu. Well, as gripped as a country can be where there is not a single solitary case of the H1N1 virus. Yet.
On arrival at Cairo International Airport, which is slightly larger than the airport in Kelowna B.C., I was greeted after being disgorged like undercooked fish from the […]
Waiting… some more… in the KLM lounge at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport. Cairo flight is delayed another three hours… let’s see… how many drinks is that?
AMSTERDAM I left Toronto Monday evening about 9 PM on a KLM flight to Amsterdam… was supposed to leave at 6:05 pm but, well, we didn’t. At first, we couldn’t […]
A serviceable Soviet-era tank on a transporter outside Kabul.
KABUL — I started this post in Kabul a week ago and am just finishing it today, in Dushanbe.
An article in today’s New York Times by Michael R. Gordon outlines some of the challenges facing U.S. president-elect Barack Obama as he manouevres to live up to his promise […]
Sadly, the Canadian casualty count in Afghanistan may rise dramatically over the next six weeks if the “perfect storm” comes to pass.
TORONTO – Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper dropped the writ yesterday, calling a (federal) general election for October 14. This 37 day campaign will be far shorter, much less glamorous and considerably less expensive […]