The Toronto Star's Nicholas Keung describes how at least part of the wrong done by Canada's deportation of Roma refugee claimants under Harper is being undone.

When they were last on Canadian soil, the Pusuma family took sanctuary in a Toronto church as they fought to avoid being sent back to their native Hungary ( Read more... )

• The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly talks about her favourite things in New York City.
  
• Centauri Dreams features an essay by Nick Nielsen arguing in favour of manned spaceflight.
• The Dragon's Gaze notes the unusual chemical composition of the debris disk of HD 34700.
• The Dragon's Tales notes Finland's interest in a guaranteed minimum income.
• Language ( Read more... )

Science's Elizabeth Pennisi wrote about a fascinating study that, by comparing the genes of ethnic Romanians with Roma residents of that country, determined that the black death had left an imprint on European populations absent elsewhere.

The Black Death didn’t just wipe out millions of Europeans during the 14th century. It left a mark on the ( Read more... )

Metro Toronto carries a Torstar News Service on the subject of the much-belated need to save refugees in Ontario from incompetent lawyers. I've read elsewhere that this is particularly a problem for Roma fleeing central Europe, but I'm sure other groups are also vulnerable.

Torstar News Service Raoul Boulakia of the Refugee Lawyers Association of ( Read more... )

Sylvie Lauder's article describing the near-complete genocide of the Roma of what is now the Czech Republic, published at Transitions Online, makes for chilling reading.

Seventy years ago Czech and Slovak Roma embarked on a grim path to nearly complete annihilation. In the spring and summer of 1943, 4,500 Roma were shipped off to the so-called ( Read more... )

I've accumulated more than a few links in the past couple of weeks. I wanted to share them, in two posts, before I left Toronto on a week-long vacation in Prince Edward Island.

• Acts of Minor Treason's Andrew Barton shares a vintage photo of Toronto's Union Station from 2010, before the massive construction on Front Street that transformed the ( Read more... )

• BlogTO's Ed Conroy rights about the golden age of video stores in Toronto. (Apparently Toronto was the first city to have a video store, the Video Station on Eglinton Avenue, in 1977.)
• Eastern Approaches describes how the European Union is building up a viable relationship with Moldova. Is the possibility of Moldova being tracked for EU membership ( Read more... )

• 80 Beats' Andrew Moseman reports that U.S. Army doctors have come up with a new effective treatment against Ebola, at least based on the new class of drugs' use in monkeys.
• Castrovalva refers to an interesting study of fascism as it relates to consumerism in a disenchanted world in J.G. Ballard's novels.
• Eastern approaches' V.P. is not happy with ( Read more... )

The recent Canadian government decision to impose visa restrictions on Czech citizens as a result of a flood of Roma refugees may be reversed, as they are complicating Canadian-European Union trade negotiations. New restrictive refugee legislation can be thanked for this.

Ottawa hopes to strike an even more comprehensive deal than the North ( Read more... )

Reporting from the Hungarian village of Tatarszentgyorgy, the Globe and Mail's Doug Saunders writes about the vicious anti-Roma bigotry in Hungary that seems set to start a mass migration of Hungarian Roma to Canada. If the Canadian governments permits this migration, of course, which, it seems, it won't.

Once or twice a month, three-year-old Mate ( Read more... )