Ottawa
Americans study up north: The recession is spurring American high school seniors to choose Canadian universities over much more expensive U.S. colleges, the Toronto Globe and Mail reported this week. About 9,000 Americans studied at Canadian colleges and universities last year, up from 2,300 in 1996. At McGill University in Montreal, Americans make up 12 percent of this year’s freshman class. And next year may bring even more: Many Canadian schools said applications from U.S. citizens were up sharply this year. Even though foreign students must pay higher tuition fees than Canadians do, a year of college in Canada costs about one-third as much as it does in the U.S.
Havana
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Gay conga line: Mariela Castro, daughter of President Raúl Castro, led hundreds of Cubans in a street dance last week to promote gay rights. “We’re calling on the Cuban people to participate so that the revolution can be deeper and include all the needs of the human being,” said Mariela, director of the Cuban National Center for Sex Education. Mariela, a married mother of two, is an outspoken advocate for gay and transgender issues who has worked to change Cuban attitudes toward homosexuality. In the 1960s, just after Fidel Castro came to power in a communist revolution, his regime sent gays to work camps. Homosexuality was decriminalized in 1979, although discrimination is still widespread.
Port au Prince, Haiti
U.N. picks Bill Clinton: Former President Bill Clinton was tapped this week to serve as the U.N.’s special envoy to Haiti. The island nation, which is the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country, was brutalized last year by four successive storms that killed hundreds of people and decimated the economy. Clinton said he wanted to help Haitians attract economic aid and investment, “not just to repair the damage done but to lay the foundations for the long-term sustainable development that has eluded them for so long.” The Haitian government said it was pleased that the U.N. had chosen “such a friend of Haiti” for the role. As president, Clinton was instrumental in restoring Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to office; it was his first foreign intervention.
Lima, Peru
Troops called in: Peru sent the military into the Amazon Basin this week to break up indigenous groups’ protests over oil drilling in the region. The protests have been growing since last year, when the government opened much of the rain forest to oil exploration by foreign companies. Protesters have blocked traffic on roads and bridges to call attention to their cause. Last week, Alberto Pizango, the leader of a movement of 65 indigenous groups, said protesters had agreed “to declare our peoples in insurgency against the government of President Alan García.” García responded by declaring a state of emergency and deploying troops. Pizango now says he didn’t intend an armed insurrection, but simply “the mobilization of the Amazon people.”
