International

Monday March 24, 2008

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Monday March 24, 2008

China reproaches foreign media

China has sharply criticized foreign reporters here over their coverage of the riots in Tibet, accusing them of biased reporting and preventing them from traveling to Tibet or neighboring provinces to report on the unrest.

The government has also increased its propaganda campaign aimed at convincing the Chinese public that the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader, instigated the violence in Tibet on March 14 and that China was a victim of separatist terrorist activity.

The campaign is the clearest sign of China’s concerns that the Tibet unrest, as well as anti-government protests over Darfur, could disrupt the Olympic Games this summer.

In a sign of the tension with the media, three members of the Athens chapter of Reporters Without Borders, a media-rights group based in Paris, disrupted the Olympic flame-lighting ceremony in Greece on Monday. The incident occurred as Liu Qi, president of the Beijing Organizing Committee, was addressing thousands of spectators, dignitaries and Olympics officials.

The government appears to be blocking foreign Web sites inside China and censoring foreign television broadcasts here about the situation in Tibet. Youtube.com was blocked after the riots began and CNN and BBC broadcasts regularly go black after any mention of Tibet. The New York Times Web site also appeared to have been blocked or censored in recent days. (Source: NYTimes) 

 

Tuesday December 4, 2007

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday December 4, 2007

Aus eager to ratify Kyoto protocol

About 180 nations are in Bali seeking a breakthrough for a new global pact to fight climate change by 2009 and they’re facing all the same old problems.

An ovation for Australia at the UN conference on Climate Change after the country’s new government agreed to immediately ratify the Kyoto Protocol ending Australia’s long-held opposition to the global climate agreement.

Now, the United States is isolated as the only developed nation, which has not agreed to the pact.

However, some say even Australia been too late in agreeing and whatever it will do now will be too little.

Under the Kyoto treaty developing nations have no fixed targets, but the US has been asking India and China to cut their emissions down to binding targets.

Something the two countries, along with other emerging economies like Brazil and South Africa say is unfair and unrealistic.

So, as the two week conference progresses in Bali much of what happens behind closed doors will revolve around nuances, with debates over words like ”commitment” and ”mandatory.” (Source: Toronto Sun) 

 

Friday September 23, 2005

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday September 23, 2005

Soaring gas prices cause lineups at the pumps

Soaring gas prices in the wake of Hurricane Rita, and rumours of the worst yet to come, caused long line-ups at gas stations across Canada Thursday over fears that major Texas oil refineries will be shut down.

Drivers in Chatham, Ont., flocked to the pumps to fill up after one station raised prices to nearly $1.75 for a litre of regular unleaded.

And there were huge line-ups at stations throughout Halifax, N.S., following rumours that prices in the area had climbed to $1.79 a litre.

Oil companies maintained that the price for gas in most major eastern Canadian cities was between $1.00 and $1.20 for most of Thursday. But the rumours were enough to send drivers scrambling.

Hurricane Katrina already took out more refining capacity in the U.S. than exists in all of Canada — according to Fred Scharf of PetroCanada. He added that supplies were already tight before Katrina hit.

But the industry is also insisting the fluctuations will settle down. That declaration is backed up by a new report from the Toronto-Dominion Bank, which predicts gas prices falling next year, but only to about 70 or 80 cents a litre. (CTV)

 

Tuesday May 31, 2005

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday May 31, 2005

Chirac surveys a field of ruins as he rebuilds his Government

Jacques Chirac was hammering together a new French Government yesterday in an attempt to repair the devastation that voters wreaked on the political landscape at home and abroad when they rejected the European constitution in Sunday’s referendum.

Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the Prime Minister, handed in his resignation at the Elysée Palace early yesterday, hours after 55 per cent of the electorate rose in revolt against the President, the Establishment and the European Union as defined in the constitutional treaty. 

M Chirac also spoke to Gerhard Schröder, the German Chancellor, and other leaders, assuring them that the vote would not halt France’s engagement in EU business and that other states must continue ratifying the treaty. 

The President, now in his eleventh year in office, had no obvious candidate for the job of giving the new impulse that he promised in response to the whipping from the electorate on Sunday. Potential prime ministers included Dominique de Villepin, 51, the Interior Minister and favourite protégé of the President, and Nicolas Sarkozy, 50, leader of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), the President’s party, and the chief rival to M Chirac. (Reuters)

 

Friday December 19, 2003

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday December 19, 2003

The religion of State

French President Jacques Chirac said today that a law is necessary to ban the Islamic headscarf and other religious insignia from the classroom.

“The Islamic veil – whatever name we give it – the kippa and a cross that is of manifestly excessive dimensions: these have no place in the precincts of state schools. State schools will remain secular. For that a law is necessary,” he told a selected audience at the Elysee palace. 

The president was giving his verdict on the findings of the so-called Stasi committee of experts which recommended last week a ban on “conspicuous” insignia in schools. 

He said the law should be in effect by the start of the next school year in September 2004. 

The president rejected a second committee recommendation under which the Muslim Eid el-Kebir and the Jewish Yom Kippur would be introduced as annual holidays in state schools. (CP)