COPENHAGEN, DENMARK — It is our lives being decided here in Copenhagen, and we are being shut out or brutally silenced from the negotiations. This is not an international negotiation, but a climate dictatorship in the making. Wednesday, thousands of activists who attempted to hold a “people’s assembly” in front of the conference centre were […] More »

[Editor’s note: Emily Hunter is in Copenhagen, Denmark for the next two weeks covering the Copenhagen Climate Summit, and will be sending us updates about what’s going on. Check back daily for her updates.] COPENHAGEN, DENMARK — The negotiations have begun over our climate future here in Copenhagen. Global leaders may decide in the next […] More »

Year by which G8 countries pledged “universal access” for HIV/AIDS treatment, prevention, and care: 2010 Estimated number of people, globally, currently receiving that care: 4,000,000 Estimated number of people, globally, still waiting on that pledge: 5,000,000 * Percentage of Canada’s population that is Aboriginal: 4% Percentage of new Canadian HIV/AIDS patients who are Aboriginal: 10% […] More »

One day’s salary might not mean much to most of us, but to Dr. Jane Philpott, founder of the Give a Day to World AIDS campaign, it might be just enough to save a life. In 2004, the Markham, Ont.-based family physician gave a presentation to her colleagues about the AIDS epidemic. Knowing that she […] More »

In the best example of Catch 22 that I can think of since, well, Catch 22, it seems our prime minister, Stephen Harper, will not be attending the international climate change talks in Copenhagen in December because it is unlikely any final deal on climate change will be met—though that is partly thanks to months […] More »

British Columbia’s adherence to the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) has been recently assessed by the West Coast Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) with disturbing results. West Coast LEAF’s first annual Report Card has assigned the B.C. government a grade of “D” when it […] More »

Make way, Homer Simpson—there’s a new Donut King in town: Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Choosing donuts over climate change deserves the title of King. King not only of donuts (as one critic called Harper) but the King of climate deniers. Last week, our Prime Minister skipped a day at the UN Climate Summit in New […] More »

“You know that here in Colombia, there are many human-rights violations,” says José Oney Valencia Llanos, who earns his living cutting sugar cane in Colombia’s fertile Cauca Valley. “Business people, through multinational and transnational corporations, have violated human rights and attacked workers, directly and indirectly.” Oney told me this on a humid afternoon in El […] More »