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What the neighbours are saying

The coalition battle is a big story here, but how is it playing overseas? A scan of international media suggests we’re not interesting the rest of the world very much.

Al Jazeera does give the prorogation of Parliament a careful treatment, but Israel’s two major English-language papers, the Jerusalem Post and Ha’aretz, don’t say a word. Neither does The Daily Star in Lebanon.

Xinhuanet, the online Chinese press agency, does cover both the prorogation and the recent rallies for and against the coalition.

France 24 also covers the story, with some attention to the blogosphere -- especial Quebec bloggers who are willing to back Gilles Duceppe’s participation in the coalition.

In Australia, where coalition governments are an old story, the Canberra Times buries the story, which it cobbled together from American and British sources.

In Latin America, Canada’s political uproar is a total non-story, but in South Africa it does get some attention in The Times and News24.

And in India, the Hindustan Times has a story from the ancient world of last Tuesday, but no follow-up on the prorogation.

Faced with worldwide apathy, Canadians will have to admit that we are still in the Little League of political upheaval. If we want to compete with the real juntas and strongmen, we’ll just have to try harder.

Crawford Kilian is a contributing editor of The Tyee.

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