Last fall, I invited Hugo Salvatierra, a founder of the MAS, to speak in Toronto at a relatively small meeting of committed left-wing activists. I in particular felt that it was really important to introduce Hugo Salvatierra to the left here in Toronto. because Hugo is, I think, one of the most articulate translators if you want, or spokespeople, of the Bolivian process. He was a founder of the MAS along with Evo Morales.

The history of IWD is a history of the struggle of ordinary women to throw off the burden of the oppression and discrimination they faced. In 1908, 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter hours, better pay and voting rights. The first National Women’s Day was celebrated in 1909 to demand right to vote, be trained, hold office and an end to discrimination on March 19.

It was an extraordinary election. Both Stephen Harper and Jack Layton got the results they were aiming for. Stephen Harper got his majority and Jack Layton replaced the Liberal Party not only as the Official Opposition but quite possibly as the only federal alternatives to the Harperites. Canada now looks like so many other countries with one party on the Right and one on the Left. So why do I feel so bad?

Last Friday I walked along the security fence and felt like I was in a concentration camp and that was before thousands of police officers occupied our city. That's how it feels now, a city under occupation. No-one has rights now. Two friends from Vancouver were having a snooze in the park at 9 am in Kensington Market and woke up surrounded by 10 cops searching their bags. When they asked what the cops thought they were doing, the reply was "you are sleeping in the park. That's illegal." At 9 am?

They had a huge art mural with them.

My heart was breaking this morning reading the report on Omar Khadr's decision to fire his lawyers in protest over the horrors he is being subject to in what he considers to be a rigged trial. "He is a young man who has lost all faith in the process," said Dennis Edney, one of his Canadian lawyers. And no wonder. Tortured as a teenager, imprisoned without conviction for years, the sole remaining prisoner in the disgraced Guantanamo Bay prison camp, and still there even after the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that his rights were violated.

Nancy Ruth is a great pro-choice supporter but she is also a Conservative Senator. Her advice to feminist leaders to "shut the fuck up about abortion" so as not to threaten Harper's initiative on maternal health is no doubt her honest opinion about how best to advance women's rights under this profoundly anti-feminist, anti-choice government, but she is very very wrong.

Nancy Ruth is a great pro-choice supporter but she is also a Conservative Senator. Her advice to feminist leaders to "shut the fuck up about abortion" so as not to threaten Harper's initiative on maternal health is no doubt her honest opinion about how best to advance women's rights under this profoundly anti-feminist, anti-choice government, but she is very very wrong.

I am starting to blog again after a month’s absence. I needed time off from everything to recharge. It has been a very intense six months starting with the occupation of Jewish women of the Israeli consulate to protest the assault on Gaza ,   going through the launch and tour of Transforming Power , and ending with the launch of Fierce Light, my friend Velcrow Ripper’s new film, in which I play a small part.   By the time it was all over, not counting my work at Ryerson, the solidarit

Felipe Stuart is an old friend and comrade who went to Nicaragua in the 1980's but unlike many revolutionary solidarity activists, he stayed and became a citizen and a member of the FSLN.  He is writing with considerable knowledge about the coup in Honduras