Canada Asia CURRENTS
Periodical profile published 1979

Publisher:  Canada Asia Working Group, Toronto, Canada
Year Published:  1979
Pages:  16pp   Price:  .50   Resource Type:  Serial Publication (Periodical)
Cx Number:  CX923

The Canada Asia Working Group (CAWG), a volunteer collective whose aim is to fill a need for public awareness of the situations which link Canada to Asia, offers, in its first issue of a quarterly newspaper, articles exposing the absence of social justice in Asia and the denial of human rights in this far-flung continent.

Abstract: 
The Canada Asia Working Group (CAWG), a volunteer collective whose aim is to fill a need for public awareness of the situations which link Canada to Asia, offers, in its first issue of a quarterly newspaper, articles exposing the absence of social justice in Asia and the denial of human rights in this far-flung continent.

Asia is described in the editorial as being "both dungeon for the oppressed and a f haven for the oppressor". The latter is often the Western world. This continent is, at the same time, often the scene of may important struggles of people to fee themselves from the chains of poverty and oppression. It is, therefore, in order to support such struggles, as well as to help Canadians respond in a more positive manner to such realities, that the CAWG collective is performing its research and is publishing Canada Asia Currents.

A sample article reflecting western world oppression is the lead story "Asian workers who make Barbie dolls not happy". It points out that while Barbie dolls bring joy to children in Canada and around the world, the Asian employees of the American company, Mattel Inc., which has just completed a mammoth $800 million nickel-mining project on the island of Sulawesi, P.T. International Nickel Indonesia, which is supported by Canadian government loans will employ a maximum of 4,000 people. Slated to export Indonesian nickel to Japan, the Inco project is cited as a classic case of foreign investment doing little to meet the development needs of that country's own people.