[LINK] "He survived fire, dynamite and depredation to achieve peace among the Doukhobors"

The Globe and Mail has a fascinating obituary for John J. Verigin, a leader of Canada's Doukhobors who secured a future for his community in modern Canada while fending off internal violence (including dynamite terrorism) and external repression. Go, read.

[LINK] "Greenland votes massively in favour of self-rule"

Canada's northern neighbour, Greenland, has reached another political milestone almost unnoticed by us.

Greenland voted massively in favour of self-rule in a referendum that paves the way for independence from Denmark and gives it rights to lucrative Arctic resources, final results showed.

A total of 75.54 percent voted "yes" to greater autonomy, while 23.57 percent said "no."

A self-rule proposal hammered out with Denmark earlier this year gives Greenland, which was granted semi-autonomy from Copenhagen in 1979, rights to potentially lucrative Arctic resources, as well as control over justice and police affairs and, to a certain extent, foreign affairs.

The new status will take effect on June 21, 2009.

The head of the local government Hans Enoksen hailed the outcome in an emotional televised address.

"I say thank you to the people of Greenland for this overwhelming result. Greenland has been given a mandate to take another step" toward independence, he said.

In Nuuk, the capital that is home to a quarter of the island's 57,000-strong population, fireworks lit up the night sky even before the final results were announced.

Opinion polls prior to the referendum had suggested the result would be a clear "yes."

Anne Sofie Fisker, a voter in her 60s, was prophetic as she left a Nuuk polling station earlier in the day. "It's a day to celebrate, a historic day, one that I have waited for for years and years," she told AFP.

"It was time for us for to regain our rights and freedoms that were stolen from our ancestors, a people of free and proud hunters whose lands were colonised" by Denmark 300 years ago, said David Brandt, a former fisherman.

Others however, including Johannes Mathiassen, feared the self-rule "is too early, and the country is not ready to assume these new responsibilities."

There are potentially lucrative revenues from natural resources under Greenland's seabed, which according to international experts is home to large oil and gas deposits.

Melting ice in the Arctic owing to climate change could make the region more accessible to exploration in the future.

The countries ringing the Arctic Ocean -- Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the United States -- are currently competing over territorial claims in the region and Greenland is keen to garner its share.

A Danish-Greenlandic commission that studied which policy fields would be transferred to the local government in Nuuk in the event of self-rule proposed among other things that "the revenues from activities related to raw materials be distributed to Greenland" in return for reducing annual subsidies from Copenhagen.

"Self-rule will bring with it only good things for Greenland," said Lars-Emil Johansen, who was prime minister of the island from 1991 to 1997 and who helped bring about its semi-autonomous status in 1979.

Home to the US Thule radar base, Greenland will also with its new status be consulted on foreign and defence policy, which are now decided by Copenhagen, but Nuuk would not have the final say and little is expected to change in that area.

Greenlanders, who voted to withdraw from the European Union in a 1982 referendum, will be also be recognised as a distinct people in line with international law, and Greenlandic will be recognised as the official language.

See Der Spiegel, here, for a critical perspective on the vote's negative and positive consequences for Greenland.

[LINK] "Vintage Toronto Ads: Come Be Pampered"

Torontoist has a brief note on Toronto's first Japanese restaurant.

Toronto's first Japanese restaurant was House of Fuji-Matsu, which began a three-year run at 17 Elm Street (now home to the Fraternal Order of Eagles) in December 1955. The Star covered opening night and enjoyed "12 Japanese hostesses who will teach customers how to handle chopsticks, will cook a traditional sukiyaki Japanese shrimp or beef-base dish right on the foot-high tables and will act as 'baby-sitters' while parents enjoy the cuisine." Curious diners dropped by, but the hospitality and child-watching service was not enough to keep the restaurant afloat. Among the reasons owner Richard Tanaka later blamed for its demise were blocked attempts to secure a liquor license, possibly due to a YWCA located across the street. "One day I called my accountant," he noted in a 1972 interview, "and asked if we were still losing money. When the answer was yes, I said only two words: 'Close it.'"

The ad, hosted at the original post, has to be seen to be believed.

[LINK] "Around the Revolution"

Over at The Power and the Fury, Noel Maurer takes a look at the economic and political situation in Latin America's radical nations, starting with Venezuela and continuing through Central America and the Andes to Argentina. Suffice it to say that they have problems, not the least of which are the increasingly low prices commanded by Venezuelan (or any nation's) oil.