Liu Institute for Global Issues

Canada turns its back on victims

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 11:37:51

'If you compare what the U.S. is doing to what Canada is doing, it's shameful'

Former Afghani ambassador speaks to students

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 11:42:14

Lalani defends Canada’s continued involvement in war-torn country.

Seed farming: The sesame solution

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 09:18:37

Santos Machado takes off his baseball cap and wipes the sweat off his brow. It’s early August and Machado is lying on his back on the dirt driveway of his 3½-hectare farm in León, Nicaragua, halfway underneath his sembrador – a large seed and fertilizer dispenser meant to be hitched behind a pair of oxen.

What more will it take to clean up Beijing?

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 15:14:07

As officials ban cars, construction and even certain clouds, those pesky particulates still threaten to wreck Chinese ambitions for the best Summer Games ever. John Allemang reports

Africa's Unjust Deserts

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 11:11:42

The world has spent billions in its attempt to punish those who have perpetrated horrendous crimes against their fellow Africans. But is this effort paying off? Globe and Mail correspondent Stephanie Nolen finds that not only is international justice a Catch-22, prompting unwanted leaders to cling to power, the redress it offers isn't even what the people really want.

Former LRA fighters to rejoin rebels

Wed, 28 May 2008 11:02:10

Posted in: Regional Special

Rebel army resumes campaign of abducting child fighters in Africa

Mon, 12 May 2008 10:30:49

The rebel Lord's Resistance Army appears to have begun a new campaign of abducting child fighters in central Africa, after balking at signing a peace deal earlier this month. The move raises fears that the group is planning to renew its decades-long insurgency and expand it beyond the borders of Uganda.

More than peace needed in north - report

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 14:15:07

AS calm slowly returns to war affected northern Uganda, a new report suggests that focus should not only be on peace, but on reconciliation and justice which will come with that peace.

Experts comment on the report's recommendations

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 11:20:24

MICHAEL BYERS - "The most striking thing for me is the second last paragraph of Mr. Manley's introduction - 'We like to talk about Canada's role in the world. Well, we have a meaningful one in Afghanistan.' That language is remarkably similar to the concluding paragraph in an article he published in Policy Options magazine last October.

Uganda: Joseph Kony's Killing Fields in Northern Region

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 15:41:57

FRANK NYAKAIRU looks at the major incidents of death during the Lord's Resistance Army's rebellion led by Mr Joseph Kony in part four of this series.

Policy wonks latch onto Bernier's 'realism'

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 14:39:12

When Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier said this week that Canadian diplomacy centered on "international realism," ears perked up among foreign policy experts. "International realism" has gained more traction in academia in recent years, said UBC political science professor Michael Byers. "From an intellectual perspective, this is encouraging and reflects a certain contemporary linkage between thinking on foreign policy in Ottawa and where academics are, in terms of having a more complex and nuanced approach to these issues," Byers said.

2010 will make city a magnet for human trafficking

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 14:28:38

UBC law professor Benjamin Perrin spoke in a Vancouver Sun column on a proposal to legalize prostitution for the 2010 Olympic Games. "The Olympics is not a time to test a social experiment like this that has already failed in other countries," Perrin said. Perrin's recent report on trafficking, prostitution and the 2010 Games for the anti-trafficking Future Group concluded that putting sex on sale during the Olympics will only increase exploitation of Canadian women and increase trafficking from abroad.

The Mission: Halfway To Nowhere?

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 14:21:24

Michael Byers holds a Canada Research Chair in global politics and international law. He teaches at the University of British Columbia, and is the author, most recently, of Intent for a Nation: What is Canada For? Sally Armstrong is a journalist, activist and humanitarian. She first visited Afghanistan in 1997, shortly after the Taliban seized power, and is the author of Veiled Threat: The Hidden Power of Women in Afghanistan. In an e-mail exchange,they talked about the state of Afghanistan, the merits of the mission, and what would happen if we left.

Canadian accused of Thai sex crimes released on bail

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 14:09:32

UBC law professor Ben Perrin participated in a CTV panel on how to stop sexual tourism. "Canada's record really speaks for itself," Perrin said. "In ten years, we've only had one successful conviction under our child sex tourism law. We've had a hundred and ten Canadians who we know have been either investigated or charged under a local law, and that's just the tip of the iceberg." "One segment of offenders that we haven't talked about are backpackers," Perrin adds. Those engaging in [child sex] in a one-shot deal because they think they can get away with it. I've seen backpacks with maple leafs on them walking through the brothel districts of Cambodia. Those are people we need to deter."

Warning issued about human trafficking and sex trade at 2010 Olympics

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 11:19:43

A report by an organization that combats human trafficking is warning that the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver could be exploited by those trying to profit from prostitution.

MP takes aim at pedophiles with bill

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 10:47:42

Conservative MP Joy Smith will introduce a private members bill that targets human trafficking, the lucrative organized-crime racket that typically lures boys, girls and women from small towns and turns them into sex slaves.

Time to herald our northern coast?

Sun, 28 Oct 2007 10:31:42

Advocates say new words on Canada's coat of arms would help the cause of Arctic sovereignty

South Pole Politics Starting to Heat Up

Sat, 20 Oct 2007 16:08:18

Two of Canada's top experts on polar politics are sounding an alarm over Britain's plan to claim more than one million square kilometres of seabed territory off the coast of Antarctica - and questioning Canada's official indifference toward the controversial proposal.

Treading on Thin Ice

Sat, 20 Oct 2007 16:01:30

Stephen Harper is beefing up Canada's claims on the Arctic, but it's not clear who owns the northern sea and the potential resource windfall beneath it.

Hunt continues for B.C. man in overseas sex case

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 15:54:31

UBC law professor Benjamin Perrin comments on legal scenarios facing Christopher Paul Neil, the Canadian subject of an international manhunt for the alleged rape of dozen boys in Asia. Perrin, who has worked in Cambodia with victims of child sex tourism, said Canada has a long way to go to convince foreign countries it means business when it comes to dealing with child sexual predators. "We have only successfully convicted one person in 10 years... so [foreign] governments may be reticent to turn this individual over to us," he said.