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Perry Rhodan / Heft-Reihe
2. Auflage (3. Ausgabe)
Kurt Mahr / Schach dem Universum (1963)
(art: Johnny Bruck)
Pabel-Moewig Verlag
(München / Deutschland; September 1967)
ex libris MTP
www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?587826
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Rhodan

This year has been marked by the U.S. President Donald Trump’s aggressive approach to foreign policy. From the seizure of the Venezuelan president in January to the ongoing war in Iran, the U.S. government is unashamedly entering into a new era of American Imperialism.

Political scientist Gabriel De Roche, Madelaine Drohan, senior fellow at the Graduate School of Public and International Policy, University of Ottawa, politics and philosophy professor Thomas Ponniah and rabble’s own parliamentary reporter Karl Nerenberg discuss how progressives north and south of the border can respond to the so-called Donroe Doctrine.

About our guests

Gabriel De Roche is a political scientist and public opinion survey researcher working on global, national, and local projects with a particular focus on the politics of climate change and the clean energy transition. He holds a PhD in political science from the University of California, San Diego, and currently works at The 2035 Initiative at UC Santa Barbara where he is the Director of Polling and Survey Research and a Postdoctoral Fellow. He is also the founder and principal of a public opinion consultancy, Pluriel Research. Based in Santa Barbara, California, and Toronto, Ontario, he is the co-host of the Canadian podcast, Culture Lab, a show about how the zeitgeist shapes our political culture.

Madelaine Drohan is a senior fellow at the Graduate School of Public and International Policy, University of Ottawa. She is a former Canada correspondent for The Economist, and a former foreign correspondent for The Globe and Mail. During her long journalism career, she covered politics, economics, and business in Africa, Asia, Canada, and Europe. Her latest book is: He Did Not Conquer: Benjamin Franklin’s Failure to Annex Canada. She lives in Ottawa.

Thomas Ponniah is a co-writer of Unholy Trinity: the IMF, World Bank, and WTO, co-editor of Another World is Possible: World Social Forum proposals for an Alternative Globalization, co-editor of The Revolution in Venezuela: Social and Political Change Under Chávez, and contributor of 76 articles for rabble.ca.

Karl Nerenberg is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster and filmmaker, working in both English and French languages. He is rabble’s senior parliamentary reporter.

About Off the Hill

Since 2019, Off the Hill has been rabble.ca’s live political panel. Through this series, we break down important national and international news stories through a progressive lens.

This webinar series invites a rotating roster of guest activists, politicians, researchers and more to discuss how to mobilize and bring about progressive change in national politics — on and off Parliament Hill.

Our Off the Hill series has seen some changes in recent months! Check out those changes here.

The post Off the Hill (FULL VIDEO): A new era of American Imperialism appeared first on rabble.ca.

By Kang Jin-kyu

A Chinese dissident who has long been a thorn in Beijing’s side has escaped to South Korea on a rubber boat, his lawyer confirmed on Wednesday, after repeated attempts to flee China.

Dong Guangping, a former policeman who was imprisoned for his activism, was found by South Korean authorities on Monday night drifting off the country’s west coast on a 3.3-metre (11-foot) rubber boat with a 9.9-horsepower engine, according to police.

He was taken to shore for questioning on suspicion of violating immigration laws.

The man’s lawyer, Kim Joo-kwang, confirmed his identity to AFP.

Dong, 68, is known for his opposition to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and his advocacy for political reform and human rights.

He was dismissed from his work as a policeman after signing a petition a decade after Beijing’s 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, according to US-based advocacy group Human Rights in China.

He later spent about three years in prison from 2001 for “inciting subversion of state power”, United Nations experts said, and was detained again in 2014 over Tiananmen-related activities.

Dong fled to Thailand with his family, who later resettled in Canada as refugees, but Thai authorities handed him over to Chinese police in 2015 despite his UN-recognised refugee status.

He was released from prison after completing his sentence in 2019.

But faced with constant police surveillance, harassment and a lack of access to housing, work and financial resources, he decided to flee again in an attempt to reunite with his family, according to a UN report from 2022.

Before arriving in South Korea, Dong made several failed attempts to flee China.

In 2019, he tried to swim to the Kinmen archipelago, a Taiwanese territory, but nearly drowned at sea. In 2020, he crossed into Vietnam, but was detained by Vietnamese police.

Dong’s attorney told AFP his client’s current situation is “highly likely to be a political asylum case”.

Full protection

Chinese-Canadian journalist and human rights activist Sheng Xue, who described Dong as a friend, said in a post on X Wednesday that Dong set off from Weihai, in China’s Shandong province, after “meticulous inspection and preparation”.

“Last night, I spoke with him on the phone… He hadn’t slept for over fifty hours and had been at sea for more than thirty hours,” she said.

His rubber boat was spotted by the captain of a fishing boat at 9:30 pm (1230 GMT) on Monday, about 18 kilometres (11 miles) northwest of Taean County, South Chungcheong province, who then alerted the police, according to Sheng.

The Coast Guard dispatched a patrol vessel that arrived at the scene about an hour later, and Dong was detained, she added.

South Korea has granted political asylum to a relatively small number of applicants since it began formally processing refugee claims in 1994, with an overall recognition rate in the low single digits despite tens of thousands of applications.

Critics say the low approval rate reflects strict screening and lengthy procedures, while the government maintains that decisions are made on a case-by-case basis and take security considerations into account.

Seoul’s foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

The opposition People Power Party has called on the government to offer Dong “full protection”.

“It should take swift humanitarian measures to ensure that he can safely travel to Canada, where his family is anxiously awaiting him,” party spokesman Choo Hyun-chul said in a statement to AFP.

“This is a matter of a fundamental responsibility as a liberal democratic state.”

In August 2023, Kwon Pyong, a Chinese dissident, fled China on a jet ski to South Korea, where he was later convicted of illegal entry and given a suspended prison sentence.

Serendigity posted a photo:

Photographed in Barcaldine, Queensland, Australia.

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