Nov 30 2022 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — In 2002, my wife and I were invited to speak to congressional leaders in Washington D.C. and to address the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the civil war between north and south Sudan. We had just returned from the region, and the Americans held great interest in the unfolding conflict. While meeting with the Democratic […]
Nov 15 2022 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — The Red Wave that became a tentative ripple came as a surprise to most and prompted countless observations. One of the unseen consequences of the American mid-term results has been on foreign governments and how they will now view the effects. The most immediate and obvious will be the new hopes raised in the global […]
Nov 1 2022 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — Our federal politics got a chance to look in the mirror this week and what was revealed wasn’t pretty. In fact, it was almost tragic. When Government House Leader Mark Holland talked about his “dark place” during committee testimony this past week, the session went silent, as though someone had let humanity into the room […]
Oct 26 2022 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — “Beyond shame there is politics,” noted Gerard de Marigny in an unfiltered moment. Most of us now feel we are living in such an age. Politics always had the element of the unpredictable and disruptive, but this era has revealed a new willingness to venture as close as possible to the political edge without falling […]
Oct 10 2022 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — We wish it to be over so we might get on with business as usual. Sometimes politicians assist us in moving in that direction, as when American president Joe Biden recently noted that “the pandemic is over” – something Dr. Anthony Fauci wisely observed was a “matter of semantics.” Canadian politicians are primarily in the […]
Sep 23 2022 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — It was a touching journey reading through the various tributes to Trevor Harrison, the former young Liberal staffer who passed away following a lengthy battle with brain cancer this week. Michael Ignatieff’s reflection of Harrison in the Globe and Mail was perfectly fitting. The Ignatieff era ushered in many young keen minds to Ottawa in […]
Sep 19 2022 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — Having passed the 200-day mark in the Ukraine-Russia conflict, the dynamics are changing daily, most often with the defenders gaining the upper hand. Unthinkable even a month ago, vast tracks of land have now been retaken, and the Russian military looks weaker now than at any other time in the conflict. The passion, inspiration, and […]
Sep 6 2022 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — Ronald Brownstein, senior editor of The Atlantic, made a prescient observation in an interview this past week. Speaking not only of American Republicans but conservatives across the globe, Brownstein noted that right-of-centre conservatives are increasingly running out of room in the political world. The rise of extremist ideologies on the Right has taken on more […]
Aug 23 2022 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — Polling in the United Kingdom at the end of May revealed that support for Ukrainian refugees was already waning. Two months earlier (March), three-quarters of respondents supported the settlement of Ukrainians in Britain, and 42% were calling for them to be settled in the tens of thousands. So, it was a bit of surprise when […]
Aug 9 2022 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — There will be an abundance of responses and memories shared this week prompted by the passing of former Liberal interim leader Bill Graham. They will be honest, heartfelt, and uniquely welcome in a season where politics has become something Graham himself would have never been suited for. As a humble contribution to all the tributes […]
Jul 28 2022 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — The contrasts grow starker as Europeans increasingly complain about the stringencies the war between Russia and Ukraine has caused, while Ukrainian refugees wonder if the country they knew intimately will still exist should they ever return. The uncertainty of inflationary costs driven by rising energy prices has the European continent on edge, leaving governments to […]
Jul 14 2022 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — So much is going on in British politics that the political realm itself frequently gathers more interest than the UK entertainment industry. The great stories and dramas that really matter – Ukraine, poverty, immigration, the European Union, and the demise of British democracy – are repeatedly overshadowed by the lunacy of PM Boris Johnson’s final […]
Jun 28 2022 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — American political analyst Michael Podhorzer laid out a frightening scenario last week in a newsletter penned for activists. He suggests that the time might have arrived when the United States is not one country but two nations that happen to share the same geography. Ronald Brownstein, the senior writer for the Atlantic, wrote about Podhorzer’s […]
Jun 16 2022 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — The very thought of it carries the vestiges of something inhumane, which is likely why the European human rights court imposed a legal injunction against it. Nevertheless, the intent of Boris Johnson’s government to ship asylum seekers to Rwanda from Britain to be processed and fend for themselves in an African land thousands of miles […]
Jun 9 2022 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — When the war in Ukraine began on February 24, there was an immediate sense that it would get bigger, Putin would get angrier, and the West would be increasingly drawn into the conflict. All of these occurred and kept the world transfixed. Yet, in the last four months, we’ve witnessed political chaos in the UK, […]