Civil disobedience in Sodom – A letter to Xu Zhiyong

(September 18, 2013) Guo Yushan, a longtime friend and colleague of high-profile Chinese human rights activist Xu Zhiyong, penned a grand and robust entreaty to Xu in late July (translated here into English), urging Xu to stand his ground as he awaits trial for “assembling a crowd to disrupt order in a public place.” In reality, Xu, a well-known lawyer and founder of China’s fledgling “New Citizens’ Movement”, had called on officials to disclose their financial assets as it is thought assets disclosure will reveal the true level of corruption among government officials who exploit their political power for personal gain. In his letter, Guo likens Xu to Socrates facing the wrath of Athens and China to the disgraced biblical city of Sodom, and exhorts Xu to rise to his fate as an idealist, unrepentant — “let them charge you, let them torture you”.

Business as usual for SNC-Lavalin subsidiary

(August 20, 2013) The World Bank and Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development have banned Canadian engineering giant SNC-Lavalin from bidding on aid contracts. But that hasn’t deterred the Canadian federal department of Public Works from awarding a lucrative defence contract to a subsidiary of the corruption-plagued SNC-Lavalin company.