For the fifth year in a row, global internet freedom continued its downward trend in 2015, with more governments censoring information of public interest while simultaneously expanding surveillance and thwarting privacy tools, according to the annual assessment by the U.S.-based Freedom House released Wednesday. Since June 2014, 32 of the 65 countries assessed in (pdf) […]
After President Barack Obama agreed on Tuesday to sign a $607 billion “defense” bill that undermines his own plan to shutter the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay, media outlets sounded the death knell for hopes that the facility will close before his term ends in 2017. But Omar Shakir, a Bertha fellow at the […]
A grand jury in Texas, which was created to investigate Planned Parenthood’s Houston affiliate following the August 2014 release of an undercover video taken inside the clinic, cleared Planned Parenthood of any wrongdoing on Monday, and, instead indicted the anti-abortion activists who made the video. Two secret videographers were indicted: David Daleiden, founder of the […]
New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu (D) is pushing back on a New York Times report that said he may consider running for president in 2020, calling the newspaper’s mention “hysterical.” “I thought it was interesting,” Landrieu told BuzzFeed News about the article. “It’s always nice to have your name mentioned, and it’s nice when people recognize what the city […]
Economic inequality has soared in Canada amid the pandemic, a new analysis from CIBC shows. Canada’s job market will take until 2022 to recover the jobs lost in pandemic, according to a report published Monday by economists Benjamin Tal and Katherine Judge. Tal and Judge described the country’s labour market as “asymmetrical” ― some parts […]
ANKARA — Turkey on Tuesday accused Canada of double standards after Ottawa suspended arms exports to the country as it investigates the use of Canadian technology in the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the Caucasus region. Canadian Foreign Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne announced Monday that he has suspended export permits to Turkey, which is backing Azerbaijan […]
Newly minted Green Party Leader Annamie Paul says she isn’t surprised she won’t receive the same “leader’s courtesy” her party gave to NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh when he was first seeking a seat in Parliament. “It certainly doesn’t surprise me. I’m a first,” Paul told reporters in Ottawa Monday when asked about how the NDP […]
TORONTO ― It was the best September on record for Toronto home sales, with 42.3 per cent more sales closing last month than in September 2019. The Toronto Regional Real Estate Board says 11,083 existing homes were sold in September, at an average price of $960,772. The board says the 14 per cent year-over-year price […]
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is gearing up for a series of raids that would target for deportation hundreds of families who crossed the border from Central America since the beginning of last year, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday. The nationwide sweep, a controversial proposal which comes after months of discussion within […]
A new investigative report on Monday sheds light on the United States’ modernization of its nuclear arsenal and the details are troubling: weapons that are smaller, more accurate, and potentially more likely to be used—and a president who, critics say, has turned his back on hope for a global weapons ban. Under President Obama, the […]