Sandro Contenta writes a weekly column on Canada for GlobalPost. Contenta has been a staff reporter with the Toronto Star, Canada’s biggest circulation daily since 1981. In 1998, he was appointed its Middle East bureau chief, covered the second Palestinian intifada and reported regularly from Iran, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq. In 2002, Contenta was appointed the paper’s London-based, European bureau chief and wrote extensively about the challenges the continent faces integrating its largely marginalized Muslim population. He has covered wars in Kosovo, Iraq and Lebanon, conflicts in Yemen, and bloodless revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia. As the Star’s Montreal correspondent throughout the 1990s, he covered Quebec’s separatist movement and the 1995 referendum that almost triggered the breakup of Canada. A former education beat reporter, Contenta is the author of the book, "Rituals of Failure: What Schools Really Teach."