Michaelle Jean did a little panda diplomacy yesterday in a bid to seal a deal that would see China send two Giant Pandas to Canada... China sends pandas only to its "friends," [Dr. Ming-Tat Cheung, chairman of the Panda Acquisition Task Force at the Toronto Zoo] said, and its "special friends" get a special price, too.

“Senior diplomats and other officials representing G-20 countries used the social networking platform to collaborate in the months prior to the June 26-27 event so that when the Summit got under way, issues and perspectives were shared over a secure network,” said Tom Jenkins, Executive Chairman and Chief Strategy Officer at Open Text.

Chinese President Hu Jintao's official visit to Ottawa on Wednesday is seen here as the next step — but not necessarily the final one — in restoring normalcy to Sino-Canadian relations...As its economic clout soars so far ahead of its political weight in the world, China professes to be aiming for "peaceful development internationally," and says it wants to pursue "soft power" initiatives to strengthen its global presence.

In the eyes of the world’s emerging powers Canada is a global player with enormous economic and political influence, but among its old friends in the G8, Canada is a veritable lightweight.

The leaders of 20 of the world’s important economies are coming to town, and the residents of this good city are not in a welcoming mood. How could they be? A sign of the hassles ahead is the security fence that snakes for more than two miles around several downtown city blocks, where the G20 leaders will meet June 26-27.

Six Taiwanese writers gathered in Toronto, Canada today to join the 11th International Conference on the Short Story in English (SSIE), an annual feast of literature joined by 42 international writers in the York University, according to the Central News Agency reports today.

A once-in-a-century shift in world power is opening up a place for Canada on the world stage, but it has to step up and take it, suggests a report released yesterday. The report, titled Open Canada: A Global Positioning Strategy for a Networked Age, points to a number of "game-changers" that have brought about that shift...

Canada's time to lead the world has come, according to a new report that suggests the confluence of global economic realignment and a networked world has created a "Suez Moment" of singular opportunity.