Information
- Affiliation:
- The Ottawa Citizen
- Location:
- Ottawa, ON
Extended Info
My most recent column: My latest column is about the scary fact that the case against Abousfian Abdelrazik seems to rest on the testimony of a tortured man who might have been mentally ill.
About this page: Blog posts from The World Next Door show up on the right as Notes, and podcasts of me reading my weekly columns show up below in the Simply RSS feed. I'll link to my latest column every week in the space above.
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Sunday, September 14 at 7:30pm
India's decision to decriminalize homosexuality is big news any way you look at it. As this map shows (thanks to Cheryl Morgan for pointing it out), homosexuality is still illegal through most of Africa, the Middle East and parts of South Asia...
Kate Heartfield - The Ottawa Citizen updated its Extended Info.
My most recent column now includes My latest column is about the scary fact that the case against Abousfian Abdelrazik seems to rest on the testimony of a tortured man who might have been mentally ill.
It's funny how even international politics gets personal. Over the last few weeks, I find my mind going back to my Persian-Canadian friends, and wondering about the friends and family they left in Iran...
Kate Heartfield - The Ottawa Citizen updated its Extended Info.
My most recent column now includes My latest column is about Queen Rania of Jordan, and whether a woman with a highly functional personal life is necessarily a political powerhouse.
I was listening to CBC Radio in the car this evening, and was thrilled to hear an interview with Anab Issa (it was a rerun of an interview that ran on the Current earlier this week, but I missed it in its first incarnation.) Do have a listen...
I just got back from the Chateau Laurier in downtown Ottawa, where China's foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, gave a speech at a lunch hosted by the Canada China Business Council. I'm prepared to accept the argument that trade between our two countries is mutually beneficial...
It's a blow to read that Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari, who writes for Newsweek, is among those detained in Iran. After what they did to Zahra Kazemi, I worry that the regime there will stop at nothing...
When he says that because of Twitter: "You cannot have Rwanda again because information would come out far more quickly about what is actually going on and the public opinion would grow to the point where action would need to be taken...
It's worth reading the classified note about the United States attempt to get Canada to help it "put together a criminal case on Abdelrazik," now available on wikileaks. I wonder: Does this solve the mystery of why the Conservative government has been so stubborn about keeping Abdelrazik in Sudan...
Breaking news via Paul Dewar's Twitter stream: the Conservatives will comply with the court order and allow Abousfian Abdelrazik to come home. It seems petty that they didn't figure this out in time for him to get on a plane a few days ago, when he had a plane ticket ready to use...
One of the many things that bug me about Canada's system of human rights tribunals/commissions is the assumption, on the part of their defenders, that only they care about human rights, and that anyone who disagrees with them must have other, more sinister motives...
Over on the Ed Board blog, I've posted about the new geothermal heating/cooling project at my house, which will be hooked up and ready to go tomorrow.
This seems to be a signal that the government plans to appeal the Abdelrazik decision. My, but they're a tiresome bunch.
It's hard to look away from the constant stream of updates (200 a minute, by last count) filed under the #iranelection hashtag on Twitter...
Today's column is about the Abdelrazik case, and asks, what happens to the people screwed over by the Canadian government who don't get press attention and a Federal Court case? Audio version should be up soon at my podcast page.
Home video footage of Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb army chief, cooing over a baby.
Kate Heartfield - The Ottawa Citizen updated its Extended Info.
My most recent column now includes My latest column is about the disturbing pattern in the government's treatment of Canadians abroad.
Great. Gary Goodyear, the minister of state for science who had a hard time a while back explaining whether he believes in evolution or not, is now interfering in the funding decisions of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council...
Kate Heartfield - The Ottawa Citizen updated its Extended Info.
My most recent column now includes My latest column is about what happens to the people Canada deports to Haiti.
Today, Canada is being hauled before the United Nations Human Rights Council as part of the Universal Periodic Review, which is a unique process which involves a review of the human rights records of all 192 UN Member States once every four years. The UPR is a State-driven process, under the...
That is to say, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof is right about China in many ways, and he certainly has much more expertise than I do on the subject. When it comes to facts, I defer to him. But there's an element of his logic that's weak...
Today's column is about what happens to the people Canada deports to Haiti. According to a new report that will soon be presented to the UN Human Rights Council, deportees are immediately incarcerated. Given the conditions in Haitian prisons, that's something that should give Canadians pause...
As the Citizen said today in this editorial, the blocking of Twitter and other popular websites in China was a really dumb move on the part of the Chinese government — what better way to draw attention to the Tiananmen anniversary today...
And surprise surprise, it says the government is violating his rights, and must issue a travel document and arrange a flight. Pretty hard to see how a reasonable person could come to any other conclusion.
The Sri Lankan government's explusion of international aid workers — using the predictable excuse that they're Tamil Tiger sympathizers — is despicable. It smacks of the starvation tactics used in Zimbabwe, Burma and Sudan, and is clearly meant to keep the Tamil people suffering and desperate...
Al-Qaeda in Islamic North Africa says it has killed Edwin Dyer, and the British prime minister seems to confirm it, according to this Globe story.
Over on her newish Citizen blog Notebook: China, the peripatetic Katie Lewis has a very interesting blog post about Internet censorship in Beijing (it's not as pervasive as we think, apparently) and contemporary Chinese denial about the 1989 massacre around Tiananmen Square...
I bet lots of people in the Ottawa area know the name Ray Zahab, know that he's an ultra-runner — might even know that he ran across the Sahara. But we don't know the whole story of what happened on that journey, and what Ray and his two co-runners learned on their 111 days...
My column today is about the closing of the Sam Jakes Inn in Merrickville, and the reasons why businesses like that are so important to Eastern Ontario towns. The audio version should be up shortly on my podcast page.
Yesterday, the editorial board met with Alex Neve, secretary general of Amnesty International Canada. We spoke mainly about corporate social responsibility, and the failure of the Canadian government to implement or encourage standards for Canadian companies that do business overseas...
Yesterday, I had a chat at the Bank and Albert Bridgehead in downtown Ottawa with Michel Forst, the UN independent expert on human rights in Haiti, who is reporting to the Human Rights Council in June. I'm working on a column about our conversation...
According to the New York Times, the closing of Times Square to vehicular traffic is a success: Cities as diverse as London, Copenhagen and Melbourne have managed to reduce the number of cars in the city center without losing their urban character.… Conceived by the city’s transportation...
The Citizen's main editorial today is about the Conservative government's attempts to make foreign aid more effective...
In the first Canadian war-crimes trial. Details here.
My column today explains why single-sex education makes me nervous, despite the growing evidence that it can improve academic performance...
From the Obama security speech: The fourth category of cases involves detainees who we have determined can be transferred safely to another country. So far, our review team has approved 50 detainees for transfer...
It sounds like this will be quite the summer for museums in Ottawa. I can't wait to check out the mythical creatures exhibit at the Museum of Civilization...
I'm going to be away from work, and probably not blogging, until Thursday. I'll be moving a whole lot of topsoil and pulling many weeds. In the meantime, my column for Sunday is about Ottawa's annoying lack of WiFi access, and is now online. The audio version is posted on my podcast page...
Happy to see the Canadian government, a little belatedly, issue a statement about the incarceration and impending trial of Aung San Suu Kyi...
The Economist has a good overview of the latest outrage perpetrated against Burmese democratic politician, and winner of the Nobel peace prize, Aung San Suu Kyi. She's been under house arrest for much of the past two decades...
Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of the Sichuan earthquake. I got a chance to chat with Yunhong Zhang, the China program manager for the Canadian Red Cross. She's based in Ottawa, but recently got back from a visit to the earthquake-affected zone in China...
My column for Sunday, which is up on the website now, is about the fascinating tale of Ernest Reid, a Canadian filmmaker who travelled to Tibet in 1947. His son, daughter and wife recently went to New York to meet the Dalai Lama and present him with some of Reid's photographs from the trip...
Kate Heartfield - The Ottawa Citizen updated its Extended Info.
My most recent column now includes My latest column is about a Canadian filmmaker's journey to Tibet in 1947, and the way his son found to finish the trip this week.
The Harper government has sent its lawyers to the Federal Court today to defend its indefensible exiling of Abousfian Abdelrazik, who's been stuck in Khartoum for more than six years and is now holed up in the Canadian embassy there...
It's been nearly five months since the departure of David Wilkins, the most recent U.S. ambassador to Canada...
Yesterday I saw a documentary callled Burma VJ: Reporting From a Closed Country. It's won a pile of awards, and premiered to a packed house at the Hot Docs film festival in Toronto. It's not hard to see why. If you get a chance to see this movie, see it...
Kate Heartfield - The Ottawa Citizen