Upstream Journal

10/06/2025

About eight million Canadians are aged 65 and older, almost 20% of the total population. Single seniors, particularly women, are highly likely to be in poverty. One-third of the senior population, mostly the women, have a mobility disability. And loneliness is a significant issue for many seniors, and again this is affecting mostly women.
In this Upstream Journal articles and companion episode on the Human Rights Magazine podcast, Enid Kohler looks into these concerns, and possible solutions.
www.upstreamjournal.org

08/14/2025

Kurdistan is a region in western Asia where political, cultural and environmental concerns overlap to a significant degree. Control of water is of particular importance. In a new article and podcast episode, Selin Abali explores some aspects of the tensions that continue to arise as Kurdish people face challenges to how rivers are managed and to their overall relationship with the water that is central to their lives.
www.upstreamjournal.org

08/12/2025

The UJ is taking a new direction with the addition of a section that "welcomes thoughtful and informed contributions providing critical reflection on human rights and social justice"!
We've just launched this "Ideas and opinions" section with two thought-provoking articles that I invite you to check out:
The Artist as Preacher: James Baldwin’s Sacred Task. Yahia Lababidi considers the role of the artist as understood by James Baldwin. “To read Baldwin, today, is to uphold this time-honored task of the writer: to transform perception. For this reason, his words continue to pierce, console, and instruct. In a time when language is often twisted to conceal, Baldwin restores its capacity to illuminate. He summons us to see, to feel, to reckon, to recover our shared humanity.”
Israel’s crisis of identity, of purpose, of faith in the state itself. Valentine Matta looks at aspects of what she calls the country’s “existential inflection point”, and a society that has “learned to partition its moral concern—to grieve Jewish suffering while remaining largely indifferent to Palestinian pain”.

08/11/2025

Refugees from the world's worst humanitarian crisis face obstacles, limited support. A new article and podcast at Upstream Journal.

05/27/2025

Tibetan communities face a new challenge as people leave - a new article and podcast at www.upstreamjournal.org

Sixty-five years after the People’s Republic of China invaded Tibet, the diaspora is now shifting to the West. What are the advantages and disadvantages to a changing diaspora and why is it happening?

05/26/2025

International students in Canada can face considerable obstacles and sources of stress. There can be financial strain, including finding affordable accommodation. Finding meaningful part-time work can be difficult. There is also concern about exploitation by employers, landlords and criminals posing as immigration consultants.
Our podcast, Human Rights Magazine, looks into the issue in a new episode hosted by Napas Thein, with technical support and outreach by Jing Xiao.
https://upstreamjournal.org/humanrightsmagazine/

04/29/2025

Editor Derek MacCuish joins Stephen Rapp for a discussion in our podcast “Human Rights Magazine”. Mr. Rapp is widely respected for his decades of work for justice and accountability in areas of conflict and war crimes.
Mr. Rapp has been engaged in efforts for justice and accountability in dozens of countries, such as Rwanda and Sierra Leone, and most recently in Syria where, he said, the worst atrocities of the 21st century have been committed. They started the discussion by talking about how a condition of peace might be achieved in a place where people have suffered from extreme violence.

04/21/2025

03/28/2025

New article and podcast!

03/28/2025

03/17/2025

Every year, about 11,000 people who work in farming in India are listed as having killed themselves. The actual number is probably much higher, and in recent years the number of suicides is increasing. High levels of debt, the impacts of climate change and government policy are all factors in the despair of small-scale farmers. In a new articles and its companion podcast, Aditya Sathe explores the reasons behind the poverty of India’s famers, and possible solutions.