• How solar power could help save world heritage
• More Canadians looking to invest ethically
• Canada aboriginals score huge win in land title court case

• Cape Verde: Children feel nourished by Consciousness-Based Education
• Cape Verde: Students enjoy Consciousness-Based Education

• Medical residents yield to doctors' orders even when they're wrong - and patients suffer, study suggests
• Cape Verde: Urban crime, violence multiplies

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Positive Trends
Short Summaries of Top Stories

How solar power could help save world heritage
10 August 2015 - It was sweaty and sticky when a group of librarians and archivists went to Kerala in humid southwest India last fall. And if the librarians were feeling the heat, just imagine the impact on centuries-old delicate papers. One of them, Hamilton-based Colin Clarke, didn't have to imagine; he saw for himself. Mr Clarke called up a couple of friends, and pitched an idea to them: what if we made a solar-powered dehumidifier? Now, Clarke and engineers Harrison King-McBain and Michael Cino, who graduated with engineering degrees from McMaster University, are working on a prototype. (more)

More Canadians looking to invest ethically
13 March 2015 - A growing number of Canadian investors are looking to earn profits without padding the wallets of companies with shoddy environmental and poor human rights track records. Socially responsible investing, the marriage of investing and personal ethics, has been growing in popularity over the past few years, as investors look to build portfolios that reflect their values. (more)

Canada aboriginals score huge win in land title court case
26 June 2014 - Aboriginals in British Columbia can stake a broad claim to their traditional territory in a landmark victory at the Supreme Court of Canada under a decision that natural resource companies had warned would create investor uncertainty. The case involved a claim to 1,750 sq km (676 sq miles) of land in central part of the Pacific province of British Columbia. The Supreme Court ruled that aboriginal groups were entitled to prevent forestry in this particular tract. It marked the first time the Supreme Court of Canada recognized aboriginal title to a specific piece of land, and would have application predominantly in resource-rich British Columbia, where there are unresolved land claims. (more)

Canada's Alice Munro wins Nobel literature prize
10 October 2013 - Short story master Alice Munro, who captured everyday lives and epiphanies in rural Canada with elegant and precise prose, won the Nobel Prize in literature on Thursday. Munro is the first Canadian writer to receive the prestigious $1.2 million award from the Swedish Academy since Saul Bellow, who left for the US as a boy and won in 1976. Seen as a contemporary Chekhov for her warmth, insight, and compassion, she delves into a wide range of lives and personalities without passing judgment on her characters, often girls and women. Her stories are acclaimed for their unique and piercing insight into the ordinary personal dramas in the towns and farming communities of her home region of southwestern Ontario. (more)

Schulich leads Canada's green wave
27 September 2013 - Seven Canadian business schools scored well in a new top-30 global ranking of sustainable graduate business education, with Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto taking first place over all. The Global Green MBA Survey is published by Corporate Knights, a Toronto-based magazine that promotes social, economic, and environmental thinking in corporate decision-making. This year, the magazine expanded its previously Canada-focused survey to 17 countries. (more)

Canada: Yukon First Nations social studies units to be required in schools
16 April 2013 - Yukon First Nations social studies materials will become part of the required curriculum for all Grade 5 classes beginning in the 2013/14 school year. 'Incorporating Yukon-based materials into curriculum is essential to ensuring that all students learn about local First Nations' history, language, and cultural traditions,' Education Minister Scott Kent said. 'These locally developed materials meet British Columbia Grade 5 social studies curriculum requirements and will allow teachers to use Yukon-based resources to meet prescribed learning outcomes.' (more)

Canada: Quebec, Cree sign historic pact to create new regional government
24 July 2012 - The Quebec government and Quebec's Grand Council of the Crees have signed what both are calling a historic agreement which gives the Cree more power over the James Bay territory and its resources. Premier Jean Charest and Grand Chief Matthew Coon Come signed the agreement on what is to be known as the Eeyou Istchee James Bay territory in the national assembly Tuesday. Under the deal, which covers a territory the size of Italy, the municipality of James Bay ceases to exist - replaced by a regional authority to be governed jointly by the Cree and non-natives living in the territory. (more)

Cape Verde's Pires wins African governance award
10 October 2011 - Former Cape Verde President Pedro Verona Pires won the $5 million Mo Ibrahim award for African leadership on Monday for shepherding his tiny Atlantic Ocean island state from autocracy to prosperous democracy. Previous winners of the prize include Mozambique's Joaquim Chissano and Botswana's Festus Mogae. (more)

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Success of Maharishi's Programmes
Short Summaries of Top Stories

Cape Verde: Children feel nourished by Consciousness-Based Education
1 May 2014 - Consciousness-Based Education is becoming increasing popular around the world, including in Cape Verde, a nation of 10 islands located about 570 kilometres (350 miles) off the coast of West Africa. Teachers in Consciousness-Based Education schools find that students, eager to develop their full mental potential, readily participate in the programme, resulting in remarkable changes in their behaviour and academic performance. Consciousness-Based Education programmes have been underway in three Cape Verde schools since 2013. The combined number of students practising Transcendental Meditation, a central element of Consciousness-Based Education, is equivalent to one per cent of the Cape Verde population--enough to create the 'Maharishi Effect' of increased social coherence and harmony and an improved quality of life for the people of the country. (more)

Cape Verde: Students enjoy Consciousness-Based Education
18 July 2013 - Students and teachers in several schools in the Republic of Cape Verde are enjoying the benefits of Consciousness-Based Education programmes. Cape Verde is a country spanning 10 islands in the central Atlantic Ocean, 350 miles (563 kilometres) off the coast of West Africa. Consciousness-Based Education enlivens the full creative potential and inner happiness of students and teachers by developing optimal brain functioning and reducing stress. (more)

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Flops
Short Summaries of Top Stories

Medical residents yield to doctors' orders even when they're wrong - and patients suffer, study suggests
29 March 2015 - A revealing new study suggests the pressure to bow to authority still weighs heavily on medical residents and can sometimes put patients at risk. Anesthesia trainees told researchers that fear and intimidation kept them from questioning doctors and that some specialists 'took pride' in abusing them. The study has the potential to be something of a landmark, drawing the curtain on a reality often discussed in staff rooms but rarely made public, said Susan O'Leary, president of the Canadian Anesthesiology Society. (more)

Cape Verde: Urban crime, violence multiplies
1 December 2008 - In Cape Verde violent crimes were five times higher in 2007 than over the past 10 years combined, according to the country's investigative police. Residents, police, and the government are grappling with the increase, pointing to drug trafficking, criminal deportees, unemployment, and even television as potential causes. In a 2007 UN study on corruption and crime in Cape Verde, police respondents ranked drug use as the number one cause of crime, followed by unemployment. Over the past decade, the archipelago has had a steady traffic of drugs transiting from Latin America to sub-Saharan Africa and Europe. Justice Minister Morais said the growing phenomenon of street gangs, locally called 'thugs', is due in part to Brazilian and US television shows that depict urban gangs, which Cape Verdean youths imitate -- down to the dress, speech, and graffiti. (more)