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The UN votes today on making clean water a human right—and Canada's voting no

jesse mintz

UPDATE: Wednesday, July 28, 12:14 — The Council of Canadians reports that the United Nations general assembly has voted in favour of the resolution to recognize water and sanitation as basic human rights. The still-unofficial vote count was 124 votes in favour, zero votes against, and 42 abstentions. We’ll update with the official vote when […] More »

The 5 most important photos from the G20 Summit in Toronto

Graham F. Scott

Jonas Naimark took one of the most striking photos from Sunday, showing the demonstrators and bystanders hemmed in by riot police at the corner of Queen and Spadina. This is just a small portion of the image; click to see the remarkable full-size photo on Naimark’s website. One of the most notorious images from Saturday […] More »

Interview: Kay Roesslein of the AIDS Candlelight Vigil

natalie samson

Although Pride Toronto decided to reschedule its week-long festivities in light of the G20 circus coming to town, the committee for the AIDS Candlelight Vigil, an event associated with Pride Week, decided it would take advantage of the politically charged atmosphere. We took the opportunity to speak with Kay Roesslein, co-chair of the AIDS Candlelight […] More »

6 alternative summits you can attend (since you're not invited to the G20)

claudia calabro

While the prime minister has been trying to do damage control for his G20 agenda, activists and organizers of all stripes have been busy building social justice movements. Sometimes movement-building involves bickering over listservs about who gets to the carry the banner, but sometimes it also involves holding massive, multi-day, multi-issue summits. Left Forum might […] More »

Why You Should Give a Damn: 5 Reasons to Care About the G8/G20

jesse mintz

Unless you have been living under a fake rock beside a fake lake, chances are you’ve heard about this G8/G20 business in some way, shape, or form. The reasons why many people are protesting, however, may not be as clear. That’s probably because there isn’t any single issue uniting all protesters. And, despite what you […] More »

Video of last night's "Speak the F**k up" panel discussion

Graham F. Scott

Last night we had a great turnout for the Speak the F**k Up! panel talk we put on in partnership with rabble.ca. Unfortunately, we had technical difficulties — no internet access — that made streaming the video live impossible. But the brave souls at RabbleTV pressed on and recorded the talk for posterity, so we […] More »

Canadian Water Summit 2010: On Canadian reserves, don't drink the water

Alixandra GouldWebsite

[Editor’s note: Alixandra Gould is attending the 2010 Canadian Water Summit on Thursday, June 17. In advance of that, she interviewed a few of the experts who will be speaking at the event about some of the key issues in current Canadian water policy. Today we bring you her report on the sorry state of […] More »

Recommended links for news on the Gaza flotilla

Graham F. Scott

Today will see lots of breaking news and commentary related to the Israeli military’s raid on humanitarian aid ships bound for Gaza. We’ll update this list of notable links as we see them. Email your suggestions to editor at this dot org or leave them in the comments section below. We’ll update periodically throughout the […] More »

Checking in with Abdelkader Belaouni a year after leaving church sanctuary

Morgan Dunlop

Free at last. After three years and nine months thwarting a deportation order in the sanctuary of a Montreal church, Abdelkader Belaouni became a Canadian citizen in October 2009. Belaouni was one of the refugees I spoke to for my article “Gimme Shelter” in This Magazine’s July-August 2009 issue. At the time, he was living […] More »

Canadians have no reason to be smug about Arizona's racial profiling law

Graham F. Scott

Canadians like to feel good about our official policy of multiculturalism, and in general there’s plenty to feel good about. But as the introduction of the ominous new law SB 1070 in Arizona in April swept the news—a law that allows police in that state to demand proof of citizenship from people in public and […] More »

Interview: Dave Zirin, The Nation sports editor and "Edge of Sports" host

Graham F. Scott

Today in Verbatim, This contributing editor Andrew Wallace interviews Dave Zirin, sports editor of U.S. progressive weekly The Nation and host of Edgeofsports.com, a blog and radio show that examines the collision of politics and sports. He’s the author of several canonical books on that topic, most recently of A People’s History of Sports in the United States, […] More »