Archive - Jul 26, 2003

Urquhart Family Reunion, by Heather Meek

A historian credited with predicting the downfall of the Soviet Union in the 1970s now says that the US has been on its way out for the last decade

The power and influence of the United States is being overestimated, claims French historian and demographer Emmanuel Todd. "There will be no American Empire." "The world is too large and dynamic to be controlled by one power." According to Todd, whose 1976 book predicted the fall of the Soviet Union, there is no question: the decline of America the Superpower has already begun.

NZZ: Mr. Todd, you write that America is economically, militarily, and ideologically too weak to actually control the world. This would gladden many anti-Americans. But how is this anything but the wishful thinking of an intellectual who is the product of the French US critical tradition?

ET: This is neither wishful thinking nor anti-Americanism. Why would I have been so prominently criticised by the left? The French career anti-American paper "Le Monde diplomatique", was the only major paper that remained conspicuously silent on my book. The over-estimation of America is fundamental to these people. It is on this topic that they agree with the American ultra-conservatives: the former to demonize, the latter to aggrandize. - by Martin A. Senn and Felix Lautenschlager -

Generally I am not a person who plans elaborate activities of merriment on calendar holidays. But, once and a while, an opportunity to celebrate gives me that tingling feeling and I am compelled to go out and join the party. It was that kind of crazed motivation that got me out of bed at 3:15 a.m. on July 1 to watch A Midsummer Night's Dream on the wharf of Casino Nova Scotia in Halifax. - by Sylvia Nickerson -

Every year, Toronto's High Park hosts the Canadian Stage's Dream in High Park. This year, they presented Twelfth Night or What You Will. This is one of my favourite plays (Shakespeare or other), so it was with extra enthusiasm that I joined all of the glowing friends, lovers and families this Canada Day before dusk. - by Erin Brubacher -

HydroQuebec plans diversion of multiple rivers near James BayAs part of continuing hydroelectric development on James Bay, HydroQuebec has begun the paper work, table talk, and preparatory construction to dam and divert the Rupert River. During a consultation meeting in the Cree community of Chisibi on June 11th, community members spoke out against a plan and process that they feel fails to respect the environment and traditional knowledge of the community. - by Carole Ferrari -