The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world's largest scientific society, chose Vancouver to hold its prestigious annual conference. This is no small matter. The scientists of the AAAS lead the way on issues of the highest importance to humanity. The health, wealth and indeed the future of our planet depend on their expertise.

Heidi Boghosian and I just returned from a very moving visit with Mumia. We visited on Thursday, February 2. This was Mumia's second contact visit in over 30 years, since his transfer to General Population last Friday, Jan 27. His first contact visit was with his wife, Wadiya, on Monday, January 30.

Hassan Diab, a Canadian citizen and former University of Ottawa professor, faces the possibility of life imprisonment in France for his alleged role in a 1980 Paris bombing that killed four people. Diab's finger and palm prints do not match those of the suspect, nor does his handwriting. The suspect's physical description is unlike what Diab looked like in 1980, and Diab denies being in France and emphatically condemns the bombing. He's being sought based on secret intelligence, the source of which even French officials are unaware, that may have been extracted under torture. Nevertheless, Canada's draconian Extradition Act may provide legal grounds for Canada to send Diab to France to stand trial.

Protests voicing opposition to the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines Project are quickly expanding.

Public hearings on the controversial tar sands oil transport route -- attracting hundreds of participants on the first day and igniting incendiary statements by Conservative politicians -- provide evidence that political battles over the Northern Gateway will come to shape contemporary debates on environmental justice in Canada.

What happened to Canada? It used to be the country we would flee to if life in the United States became unpalatable. No nuclear weapons. No huge military-industrial complex. Universal health care. Funding for the arts. A good record on the environment.

A text originally published in edition 12 of Four Minutes to Midnight, launched in November at Expozine in Montreal. Ideas expressed in this article largely are linked to and inspire the work of the Howl! arts collective in Montreal.

In Montreal, art is a key element of the intensely complex collective identity that stretches across this beautiful island city.

Investment banker Goldman Sachs has famously been described by Rolling Stone's business writer Matt Taibbi (July 2009) as "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money." So it's a good idea to take notice whenever that Vampire Squid moves its blood funnel towards something. Having profited handsomely from the Wall Street bailouts, the Squid has smelled money in a new direction: water privatization.