Meftih covers the powerful letter of Eritrean Catholic Churches that could arise the emotions of their followers, expose the wrong doings of the Eritrean regime etc.
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Transcript
Meftih The Life Line of Eritrean Community Award Winning Independent Monthly Newspaperwww.meftih.ca email: [email protected]
Volum 9 Issue 10 June 2014 መጀመርታ ዓርቢ ናይ ነፍስ-ወከፍ ወርሒ ትሕተም ወርሓዊት ጋዜጣ Printed the first Friday of every month Tel: 416-824-8124 Fax: 416-783-7850
In a modest Edmonton apart-ment, Wegahta Tesfamariam draws her slim hand across her cheek and explains how her native country is trying to make her a victim of a tax scam Canada thought it shut down a year ago.
The 28-year-old is a permanent resident of Canada, not yet a citizen, and had to renew her Eritrean passport back in Feb-ruary.
She was in for a nasty surprise. As she told CBC News, Eritrea demanded a share of her annual income in a levy some liken to extortion.
“There is a representative of the government in Edmonton. He asked me first I should pay two per cent.
“I was like, surprised. I know that paying two per cent stopped in Canada last year. He said, ‘If you need any service
from Eritrean government, that’s what you have to do.’ I clearly told him I don’t want to pay that.”
And no wonder. Tesfa-mariam’s bill would come to roughly $1,200, a lot of money for a newcomer to Canada just a few years into the workforce. Al-though as a trained draft-ing technologist, she’s in a better economic place than many Eritreans who work here at the bottom of the skills ladder.
Other countries also tax their nationals living abroad, but Eritrea’s has brought about a special degree of global condem-nation because of the sur-reptitious way it goes about collecting the money, and because it is a repressive regime that has been un-
Eritrea collecting ‘money for the dictator’ from ex-
der UN-imposed economic sanctions since 2009 for financing insurgent move-ments in the Horn of Af-rica.Canada subscribes to those UN sanctions, which gives them the force of law in this country, and Ottawa went a step further in May 2013, after CBC News re-vealed how Eritrea’s To-ronto-based consulate was orchestrating the so-called tax, sometimes adding in an additional defence fee controversially earmarked for the military.
At the time, Canada ex-pelled Eritrea’s senior dip-lomat in this country -- its Consul-General -- for ac-tivities inconsistent with the role of a diplomat, For-eign Minister John Baird said in a carefully worded statement.It was one of the strictest
diplomatic actions taken against Eritrea by any of the several countries where this controversial tax has been exposed, most recent-ly in Australia. And it held out some hope the tax col-lections might stop.
Yet 10 months later, when Tesfamariam got in touch with an official in the To-ronto consulate, it was as if nothing Canada had done really mattered.
As she later wrote to Citi-zenship and Immigration Canada: “He told [me] that I’ve to pay two per cent tax for the Eritrean govern-ment in Eritrea from the date I enter Canada to pres-ent, and he also asked me to mail my income tax pa-pers from Revenue Canada to consular office in Toron-to for him to calculate the amount I should be paying, and only then I can ask
about [passport] renewal.”
She was disgusted. “An embassy or a consulate should be representative of a people and a govern-ment,” she said.
“They should be here work-ing for us, not for the gov-ernment. They don’t care what kind of service they give. They’re just here to collect money for the dic-tator in Eritrea.”
Not alone
Tesfamariam is not alone in objecting to being treat-ed like a cash cow by her consulate.
An Eritrean activist who used to live in England and asked to remain anony-mous invited CBC News to listen as he telephoned the number of Ahmed Iman, the senior Eritrean consul-
ate official in Toronto.
The man inquired about ob-taining papers for a power of attorney. The Eritrean official immediately raised the matter of money.
“Did you fulfill all the other said things?” he asked, us-ing a euphemism for pay-ment.
“What shall I fulfill?” the man asked.
“This two from a hundred and things,” replied Iman.
“Two per cent?”
“Yes,” Iman said.
“How can I calculate it?” asked the activist.
“We write to those in Eng-land, and they will tell us he is paying this and this,”
Iman said.
The conversation then turned to the change in payment tactics.
“Everything is paid in Eri-trea,” said the official. “It is almost stopped here. It has been two years.”
“How am I going to pay it in Eritrea?” asked the ac-tivist.
“It is not necessary for you to go, but through some-one, or if there are people you know.”
Not apologetic
Eritrea has never been apol-ogetic about collecting the cash, believing it to be the right of a sovereign state. And it does have loyalists in Canada and around the
Please see page 10
Eritrea collecting ‘money for the dictator’ . . .From page 3
Editors: Grace CherianPhotographer: Mulugeta Zergaber Contributors: Mohamed Edris Naza HasebenebiMedhin Ghebreslasie, Amleset Tesfay, Bode Odetoy-inbo, Mimi Chandy, Ken NtiamoaSubscription Costs in Canada $39 for a year and $59 for two years. In USA, it costs $45 for a year and $69 for two years.Articles appearing in assorted columns of Meftih newspaper are intended to generate civil & informed public discussions. You don’t have to agree with opinions expressed by the writers. However, that should push you to express your own views. Through that way we generate lively & civil discussions in the community. Rejoinders are not forums for personal insults & we want readers to adhere to these principles.
world who publicly support the tax, and lobby against Canada’s opposition to Eri-treans here paying it.As recently as June 3, the Eritrean website Madote reported that the Coalition of Eritrean-Canadian Com-munities and Organisations appeared before the parlia-mentary sub-committee on human rights in Ottawa to say.
“We are being prevented from effectively exercising our dual citizenship rights, by paying the two per cent rehabilitation tax we vol-untary remit to Eritrea each year.
“This tax is what allows us to contribute to the devel-opment of the country and allows us to benefit from
access to important ser-vices and property rights in Eritrea.”
When CBC News contact-ed Ahmed Iman, the senior consulate official at the Er-itrean consulate in Toronto, he confirmed that Eritreans in Canada still have to pay the levy. The big difference is, they don’t pay the Con-sulate directly anymore. They pay in Eritrea.
“They have to pay the two per cent, too. But they don’t pay it in here,” Iman said. “We are not collecting the two per cent in Canada or at our office, our consulate-general. But we give them [Eritreans in Canada] the information.”
Asked how counselling people how to pay is any
different from soliciting, he said “No, no. We not soliciting. We are giving information.”
Pay in cash
A year ago, before Canada cracked down on the prac-tice, there were bureau-cratic forms to fill out, and funds were wired from branches of the Toronto Dominion Bank in Canada to the Deutsche Zentral-Genossenschaftsbank of Frankfurt.
From there, documents showed the funds were sent to the Housing and Com-merce Bank of Eritrea, ma-jority owned by the ruling regime, the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ).
But these days, no forms, and no banks.
Eritreans living here are in-structed to have the money hand-delivered to govern-ment offices in the capital city of Asmara.
And because it’s strapped for hard currency, the gov-ernment wants it in cash, in Canadian dollars in Wagha-ta Tesfamariam’s case.
That requirement just makes things worse for someone like her. Even if she could go to Eritrea with the money, she wouldn’t, describing it as a society that echoes apartheid-era South Africa.
“Well, you’re always hunt-
Eritrea collecting ‘money for the dictator’ from . . .
ed. You can’t go town to town. You need a permit. I would not be able to go anywhere. Sometimes they suddenly come and ask for papers in the streets.”
Stateless limbo
Known in some quarters as the North Korea of Africa, Eritrea has a bad reputa-tion, with human rights or-ganizations reporting that thousands of citizens have been imprisoned without cause.
Eritrea put Tesfamariam behind bars the first time she tried to flee the country, and pressed her into two years of unpaid national service.
She doesn’t want to risk that again, and doesn’t know anyone there who could pay or take the mon-ey in on her behalf.
So with her passport about to expire, and no prospect of getting a new one, she’s
about to go into an almost stateless limbo.
In the view of Winnipeg human rights lawyer David Matas, who represents Eri-trean activists in Canada, this new payment process is just as illegal as the old one.
“It’s not papered. You don’t get letters any more. You don’t get instructions about what bank to send it to. It’s done verbally now, but it’s the same violation.
“I would say they are more guilty, because not only are they violating the law, they are also being dishonest about it, which they weren’t before.”
Withholding services
Tesfamariam’s letter to Citizenship and Immi-
gration Canada suggests the Canadian government has been made aware that the controversial tax is still being collected by a differ-ent means. But she found the CIC reply unhelpful.
“If ... a request for the re-newal of your passport ... is refused, the letter of refusal should be forwarded to this office in order that your ap-plication for a Certificate of Identity can be reviewed,” says the reply, dated May 6, 2014. In other words, go back to the Eritrean con-sulate that won’t give you any information -- let alone a passport -- without a cash contribution, and ask it for a letter of refusal.
Tesfamariam is pretty sure she’ll never get any letter, especially now that she has gone public with her case.
“I am talking today be-cause I want to encourage
Eritrean people to speak out,” she says.
As a strategy, it is not with-out risk. The UN reports that families of activists overseas are often singled out for persecution back in Eritrea, which has infor-mants in Canada.
“If I talk on TV [here], the Eritrean government won’t know, but the agents will and they will transfer my case. Some of them came as a refugee, but are still servants of the govern-ment.
“Eritrean people don’t feel free, even though they’re living in a free country” she says, alluding to the fact that those who fled re-pression in Eritrea are still living in its shadow here.
Rick MacInnes-Rae, CBC News
From page 10Eritrea collecting ‘money for the dictator’ . . .
Meftih June 2014 Volume 9 Issue 10: page 18
Please see page 21
It’s true. We are fewer than 100 days away from the FIFA World Cup.
Brazil 2014 will be the highlight of the soccer calen-dar and, for many, the defining sports event of the year.
But it is not the only World Cup on the horizon. In fact, there are a total of three World Cups in 2014 -- all of them in the Americas -- including one on Canada’s own doorstep come August.
As Neymar, Messi, Ron-aldo et al gather in South America, Brazil will right-ly hog the lion’s share of the global spotlight. The other tournaments cannot compete in terms of star power but they are not without their own merits.
The first World Cup of 2014 is primed to launch. The FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup, staged every two years, kicks off its fourth edition on Saturday, with Canada playing Ger-many on opening day.
The 16-nation tournament takes place in the heat and humidity of Costa Rica -- the first time the Central American Republic has hosted a FIFA event.
Why should we care? There are no household names and the players’ technical ability is still evolving. If they stay in the game, and
it’s a big “if,” the peaks of their careers are years away. It begs the question -- should FIFA have even introduced a World Cup for this age group in 2008? The answer -- for the good of the game, as FIFA likes to say -- is unquestionably “yes.”
North Korea the favourite
The U-17 Women’s World Cup is a stepping stone. It is a learning process which cannot be simulated by simply staying at home. For the players it is part of the education process -- learning the true mean-ing of international soccer, competing in alien envi-ronments against the best of the best in one’s age group.
By definition, tournament soccer is an unforgiving taskmaster. The champi-on in Costa Rica may not win every game, but it will have played six matches in equatorial conditions
in the space of 20 days. Match fitness, recovery, plus physical and mental fatigue must all be man-aged professionally even though we will be watch-ing amateur teenagers.
Those who succeed are a reflection of their national youth programs. A glance at the history books shows where the time and money invested is producing tan-gible results. Forget Eu-rope or South America -- at this level Asia has quickly established itself as a dom-inant force.
Since its inception, ev-ery U-17 Women’s World Cup final has featured at least one Asian country. And whatever we may think about the politics of a dictatorship, the facts are undeniable: North Korea is hands down the team to beat. The inaugural 2008 champion was a semifinal-ist in 2010 and runner-up to France in 2012.
Its neighbour has also tast-ed glory. South Korea lift-ed the trophy in 2010, edg-ing out Japan for the gold medal only after a dramatic penalty shootout. The Jap-anese and North Koreans are back for more in 2014, with China completing the Asian representation.
Canada draws tough group
The Europeans are closing the gap. Germany -- twice a U-17 semifinalist -- has long been regarded as one of the pioneers of the women’s game and arrives as the reigning European champion. Spain is also making significant head-way and handed the Ger-mans a heavy beating in the qualifying group stages before ultimately losing the final on penalties.
France, the 2012 cham-pion, did not qualify this time around.
By contrast, North America is struggling to keep pace. The United States is the
FIFA’s World Cup year kicks off with U-17 tournament
No. 1 nation in women’s soccer, but apparently the Americans are late bloom-ers. For the second time they have failed to quali-fy for the U-17 Women’s World Cup and stumbled in the group stage in 2010.
Canada’s record is impres-sive by comparison. It has qualified for every edition of the tournament and has twice reached the quar-ter-finals. Most recently, in 2012, the Canadians reached the knockout phase only to lose narrowly to the powerful North Koreans.
There’s more where that came from. Canada has been drawn into a tough-looking group where, once again, North Korea will be among the opponents along with Germany and Ghana. All three nations made it to the semifinals two years ago.
Canadian coach Bev Priest-
Meftih June 2014 Volume 9 Issue 10: page 19DUFFERIN CUSTOM
UPHOLSTREY & DECORATIONWe do new custom made:- Sofa, Chair, Headboard,
Slip Cover & Window Seats.For your old furniture we do:- Re upholstery, Restyle, Restoration & Replace foam cushion
Editors: Grace CherianPhotographer: Mulugeta Zergaber Contributors: Mohamed Edris Naza HasebenebiMedhin Ghebreslasie, Amleset Tesfay, Bode Odetoy-inbo, Mimi Chandy, Ken NtiamoaSubscription Costs in Canada $39 for a year and $59 for two years. In USA, it costs $45 for a year and $69 for two years.Articles appearing in assorted columns of Meftih newspaper are intended to generate civil & informed public discussions. You don’t have to agree with opinions expressed by the writers. However, that should push you to express your own views. Through that way we generate lively & civil discussions in the community. Rejoinders are not forums for personal insults & we want readers to adhere to these principles.
Last year my brother James and I, cousin Sanjiv and his son Sanford, went to India to visit Mom’s three
brothers and their families. Since then we’ve been corresponding steadily by email and getting to know each other better.
My cousin Teena and I write to each other very regularly. She’s young enough to be my daughter. So it’s hardly surprising that I feel quite maternal towards her. She often asks me for counsel and I pray for all my relatives in India each morning.
Today I received an email from Teena, saying Dad had written to her father, Uncle Publius. The last time they had contacted each other was five decades ago! This is a remarkable milestone in both their lives. Dad’s reaching out to Uncle Pub-lius is cause for great re-joicing.
Uncle Publius fell ill some months ago. His older daughter Irene, who had
been working in Dubai, came home to spend time with her elderly father as she didn’t know the ex-tent or nature of his ill-ness. Since then Uncle
has recuperated and Irene has returned to Dubai. But because she had spent so much time away with her father in Trivandrum, she doesn’t have a job to go back to in Dubai. Irene will have to start hunting for a job now.
Teena meanwhile has al-ways stayed at home with her mom and dad and worked from home. Work-ing from home allowed her to be there for her parents as they’re both elderly. But her father’s illness seems to have taken a terrible toll on Teena. She feels very anxious most of the time and so is ill-equipped to look for work. Now nei-ther daughter works.
Dad and I had discussed their situation. He asked me to get all of Teena’s banking information. Tee-na told me in her email that
Great Cause For Great Rejoicing
Thierry Henry has seen and done it all with France. The only Frenchman to have taken part in four FIFA World Cup™ tour-naments, he experienced a massive high on home soil in 1998, a huge disap-pointment at Korea/Japan 2002, an unexpected re-vival at Germany 2006 and an inexplicable debacle at South Africa 2010.
Alongside those ventures, the graceful forward was part of the golden genera-tion that enjoyed a glori-ous triumph at UEFA Euro 2000. He also scored 51 goals in 123 appearances
for Les Bleus, making him the country’s top scorer and second most capped player of all time.
In Rio de Janeiro to anal-yse Brazil 2014 matches for television, the 36-year-old New York Red Bulls star took time out of his busy schedule to grant an in-depth interview to FIFA.com, during which he re-counted his long-lasting love affair with the French national football team.
FIFA.com: Do you remem-ber the first time you saw France play?Thierry Henry: My earli-
est memory of watching France is Marius Tresor’s goal against Germany at the 1982 World Cup in Spain. It’s just a brief flashback. I was in the West Indies at the time, and there was an explosion of joy in my house – I didn’t really un-derstand what was happen-ing. I turned around and saw the replay of Tresor’s volley. Everyone knows what happened next.
Was it right then that you were won over by the French national side?I was just five then, so it was the only image I had
Henry: This generation can lift trophies
Meftih June 2014 Volume 9 Issue 10: page 21
Dad mentioned in his mes-sage that he had sent her fa-ther a bank draft by regis-tered mail. This is indeed a first. Dad has never helped Mom’s relatives before. I truly rejoice to see Dad’s heart softening towards those in financial need—especially those related to him only by marriage—and
the compassion he’s show-ing for Uncle Publius and his family. If Mom could look down from Heaven, her heart would overflow with gratitude because of Dad’s generosity.
I see Dad’s actions as a great cause for celebra-tion.
Great Cause . . .From page 20
man needs no reminding that her team has probably fallen into the Group of Death. She can, however, call upon the relative ex-perience of captain Jesse Fleming and defender Sura Yekka, both of whom have already been capped at the senior international level.
Priestman will also be counting on her three-pronged strike force of Emily Borgmann, Marie-Mychele Metivier and Ma-rie Levasseur to deliver the goals they found so easy to come by during the quali-fying campaign. In Costa
Rica the chances will be fewer and farther between.
So then, the first of three FIFA World Cups in the space of five months. A long, hot summer of soc-cer lies ahead. What’s not to love?
FIFA’s World Cup year . . .From page 18
of them. But Mexico 1986 definitely did trigger some-thing. Les Bleus had a great run, knocking out Brazil along the way. That’s when I really started to take an interest. There was Euro 1984 too. As a supporter, it was easy to fall in love with that team.
At what point did you think that the feeling was mutual?That was also easy to tell, because it helps when you play in a World Cup that your country is host-ing. That coincided with my debut. The victory in 1998 was the high point – you dream about that as a young boy, you tell your-self that one day you’ll win the World Cup, but at the same time a small part of you knows that it’s a fanta-sy that’ll never become re-ality. And then, in the end, we did it, and the fact that we did so just along the road from where I grew up was truly incredible.
What advice would you give to the new generation of French internationals? The two pieces of advice that I would give them is to make the most of it, and to understand that experi-
ence comes from playing in tournaments like these. They’ll learn a lot, and it won’t always be easy, but this generation really does have the quality to do well and lift trophies. I hope they do it quite quickly. When you play in a World Cup, you never know if you’ll get the chance to do it again. I had the op-portunity to play in four, so it probably seems a bit strange to say that, but you have to approach each one as if it’s your last.
Which current French players are you most im-pressed with?There are a few. We lost Franck Ribery ahead of the World Cup, but he’s an amazing player. And then there’s Karim Benze-ma, Paul Pogba, Raphael Varane and so on. The guys in the midfield and up front are getting a lot of praise, but Varane is an extraor-dinary player. He’s com-posed, and already plays like a defender with a ten-year career under his belt. I don’t think people are talking about him enough. It’s quite unusual to be so mature at such a young age, although playing at Real Madrid has clearly
helped him. We had Lau-rent Blanc; Varane has a similar style, but with dif-ferent qualities. It’s pretty easy to spot a defence that has a player who remains calm no matter what.
It seems that the French public has fallen in love with Les Bleus again.Well, in football, I think love is generated by win-ning matches. When you’re not winning, the bond isn’t quite so strong, if it exists at all. There are highs and lows, and it’s up to you to perform well and thereby ensure that those feelings remain intact.
Do you think that all love affairs end badly?It’s not just about love. Happy endings don’t re-ally exist, except in Holly-wood. But things become much tougher when love is involved. When it’s work-related, or something like that, things normally have a way of sorting them-selves out. But love is dif-ferent, as it can transform into hate. But that’s life.
Have you been able to come to terms with the cir-cumstances surrounding the end of your interna-
tional career?I’ve got no problem with it. It’s not a question of com-ing to terms with it – that’s football.
It was your goal in 2006 that eliminated Brazil in the quarter-finals. With that in mind, how have you been welcomed here? Very well, actually; it’s an extremely welcoming country. I already visited last year. People like to chat, and ask you where you’re from. Some recog-nise me and some don’t, but generally they all know a bit about football. What surprises me about the peo-ple here is their generos-ity, their good humour and their desire to have fun. Of course they talk about my goal in 2006, but as I often say, at the end of the day, we didn’t win that tourna-ment either. There can only be one team who returns home completely satisfied, and that’s the winner.
You rubbed shoulders with Lionel Messi at Barcelona. Do you think he is going to have a successful World Cup?Messi doesn’t play all by himself. Let’s talk about Argentina. It’s clear that if
Argentina win, Messi will play well. At some point, the guys around him will have to help him out. Has Argentina’s time come? They haven’t won the World Cup in quite some time. So it’s not really a ‘Messi problem’. The team has to play as a unit, work hard, and only then will you see Messi performing at the top of his game – it’s as simple as that.
Which attack-minded play-ers have caught your eye recently? Luis Suarez, of course, Robin Van Persie and Ar-jen Robben, for starters. And then there are play-ers like Thomas Muller, who doesn’t get talked about as much, but keeps finding a way to stick the ball in the net. If there’s a loose ball or deflected shot, he’s ready to pounce. Even when he’s not trying to score, he scores. There are lots of attackers I could mention, but what’s more important is teams’ overall approach. It’s always bet-ter when they try to attack rather than defend.
Nutrition key to delivering on Canada’s top development priority, saving the lives of women and children across the developing world
May 28, 2014 – Toronto, On-tario - Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada
Today, the Honourable Rona Ambrose, Minister of Health, along with Ertharin Cousin, Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), visited SickKids Hospital ahead of the Prime Minister’s Saving Every Woman, Every Child: Within Arm’s Reach Sum-mit.
“Canada is proud to be a global leader in supporting nutrition around the world. Increasing food security and ensuring access to nutritious food are at the heart of pov-erty reduction, and is a fun-damental pillar of Canada’s maternal, newborn and child health initiative,” said Min-ister Ambrose. “Mothers and children are often the most at risk during a crisis and have special food and nutrition needs. Canada will continue to work with the World Food Programme to help deliver concrete results for those in need.”
Following the visit, Minister Ambrose announced on be-half of the Honourable Chris-tian Paradis, Minister of In-ternational Development and La Francophonie, $98 million in humanitarian assistance funding to the WFP, Canada’s largest humanitarian partner. The WFP is the United Na-tions’ frontline agency in the fight against hunger.
The WFP responds to emer-gencies and saves lives by getting food to the hungry quickly, while also working to prevent hunger in the fu-ture; as such they are ideally positioned to help Canada deliver on its top develop-ment priority, that of improv-ing maternal, newborn and child health. Improving nu-trition and ensuring access
to nutritious food are key to Canada’s strategy to help lift millions of people out of pov-erty around the world.
“Children who get enough food are less likely to get sick or die. They are more likely to stay in school, con-tribute to their families and communities, and reach their full potential,” said Minister Paradis. “Canada’s focus on maternal and child health re-flects the values of millions of Canadians who believe that we cannot stand idly by while the poorest and most vulnerable suffer deaths that are easily and inexpensive-ly prevented. Canada will continue to partner with the World Food Programme, to deliver real results.”
“On behalf of the millions of vulnerable people WFP reaches each year, Canadian government and taxpayer support is immensely appre-ciated,” said WFP Executive Director Ertharin Cousin. “The WFP enjoys a long and productive partnership with the Government of Canada, working towards achieving our mutual goal of ending hunger. Eliminating hunger fits hand-in-glove with the Muskoka objective of reduc-ing child mortality. We rec-ognize and applaud Canada’s global leadership in maternal, newborn and child health. I am certain that together, we will reach our goal of ‘Sav-ing Every Woman, Every Child.’”
Improving the health of mothers, newborns and chil-dren is Canada’s top devel-opment priority. Following the significant progress made through 2010’s Muskoka Initiative, the Prime Minis-ter is once again taking ac-tion to mobilize the world to maintain maternal, newborn and child health as a top de-velopment priority. On May 28 to 30, 2014, in Toronto, Canada is hosting Saving Every Woman, Every Child: Within Arm’s Reach, an in-ternational Summit that will build on Canada’s leadership
and shape the future of global action on maternal and child health issues.
Quick Facts
· On April 28, 2014, the Prime Minister announced that Canada will host Saving Every Woman, Every Child: Within Arm’s Reach, an in-ternational Summit on Ma-ternal, Newborn and Child Health issues.
· The Summit, to be held from May 28 to 30, 2014, in Toronto, will build on Can-ada’s leadership and bring together Canadian and inter-national leaders and experts, Canadian civil society, busi-nesses, scientists, developed and developing countries, in-ternational organizations and global foundations to ensure that maternal, newborn and child health remains a prior-ity of the global development agenda.
· In 2013, Canada was the WFP’s third largest donor, contributing over $370 mil-lion to its operations.
· In 2013, the WFP pro-vided food assistance to more than 80 million people in 75 of the world’s poorest coun-tries.
· Canada is providing $2.85 billion in funding be-tween 2010 and 2015 under the Muskoka Initiative to save the lives of women and children in developing coun-tries.
· Canada is on track to meeting its Muskoka commit-ment, with 80 percent of the funding already disbursed.
Related Products
· Backgrounder – Can-ada’s 2014 Humanitarian As-sistance to WFP
· Address by Minister of Health Rona Ambrose: Press Conference with Ertharin Cousin, Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme
Canada Continuing Global Leadership in Nu-trition, Providing Humanitarian Assistance
Support to the World Food Programme
Satellite images sharp enough to show details such as manhole covers, stop signs and lamp posts will soon be available in Canada and around the world, after the U.S. loos-ened limits put in place years ago due to national security concerns.
Starting early next year, the U.S. government will allow the commercial sale of black-and-white images with a resolution of up to 25 centimetres and colour images of up to a metre, confirmed Tahara Dawk-ins, director of the Com-mercial Remote Sensing Regulatory Affairs for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administra-tion (NOAA), in an email to CBC News.
Starting earlier this month, satellite imagery compa-nies have been allowed to sell black-and-white imag-es with a resolution of up to 40 centimetres and colour images with a resolution of 1.6 metres.
Before now, satellite image providers weren’t allowed to sell black-and-white images with a resolution higher than 50 centime-tres or colour images with a resolution better than 2.0 metres even though at least one U.S. satellite im-age provider, Longmont, Colo.-based DigitalGlobe Inc., was technologically
capable of collecting high-er resolution images. At the allowable resolutions, it’s possible to see cars and houses, but not always de-tails such as manhole cov-ers or mailboxes.
“Once you start looking at the difference between 30 to 50 [centimetres resolu-tion], then you’re getting into a very considerable difference and the types of things that you can see in the imagery are consider-ably different,” said Sam Lieff, general manager for Lethbridge, Alta.-based BlackBridge Geomatics, which distributes images from DigitalGlobe along-side images from its own RapidEye satellites.
“What’s really interesting about that is once we get into this really high resolu-tion imagery, we become competitive with aerial photography.”
That means companies like his will soon have access to a wider range of clients who are looking for im-ages for applications rang-ing from city planning to forestry management, he said.
The previous ban on sharp-er images affected satellite image distributors around the world, including Black-Bridge Geomatics.
Sharper satellite images allowed, as U.S. loosen rules
Meftih June 2014 Volume 9 Issue 10: page 23
The Honourable Lisa Raitt, Minister of Transport, to-day announced an impor-tant change that will ben-efit travellers flying with Canadian air operators, as well as the aviation indus-try. Passengers will soon be able to use portable electronic devices such as cameras, electronic games, tablets and computers dur-ing all phases of flight. This includes while an aircraft takes off, climbs, descends and lands, provided the de-vice is in non-transmitting, or flight mode, and that their airline has met certain safety conditions outlined by Transport Canada.
Previously, passengers could not use their devic-es at their leisure during
take off and landing. This change, which is made pos-sible through an exemption to the Canadian Aviation Regulations, means that passengers will soon be able to work or play when-ever they please on flights in Canada. It strikes the ap-propriate balance between safety and passenger com-fort that Transport Canada and airlines always strive to achieve. The use of elec-tronic devices on any flight will be at the discretion of the air operators, who must demonstrate that their air-craft are not affected by the use of the devices and that during critical phases of flight and during emer-gencies, all passengers are aware of and able to follow crew instructions.
The Harper government to allow passengers to use por-table electronic devices dur-
ing all phases of flight
“As commercial distribu-tor, we’ve never been able to sell the imagery at its highest resolution until now,” said Lieff. He ac-knowledged that could be frustrating for clients.
14-year-old rules
The previous rules were put in place by the U.S. Department of Commerce 14 years ago.
“The whole basis of it is really … security and mili-tary reasons,” Lieff said. “The U.S. military doesn’t want precision imagery getting into the hands of a terrorist organization.”
However, DigitalGlobe petitioned the government to loosen the rules ahead
of the launch of its World-view-3 satellite, which will collect images with a reso-lution of up to 31 centime-tres. The satellite launch is scheduled for August.
DigitalGlobe announced on June 11 that it had re-ceived notice of the new resolution rules, including one that would allow reso-lutions of up to 25 centi-metres starting six months after its Worldview-3 sat-ellites are operational. The company declined to be in-terviewed.
Dawkins said the national security community was fully involved in the deci-sion to loosen the rules and the changes “do not curtail our authority to limit data collection and distribu-tion of imagery in certain
circumstances to address national security concerns, foreign policy interests, and international obliga-tions.”
However, she noted that given the advances in re-mote sensing and commer-cial imagery, NOAA also has a national security in-terest in “seeing that U.S. companies are competitive in the growing commercial imagery marketplace.”
Lieff said since 2008, satel-lite image distributors have had to disclose all their us-ers to the U.S. government so it can be checked against lists of terrorists. He added, “There just haven’t been any bad issues that have happened.”
Rules relaxed
He forsees that the relaxed rules will provide oppor-tunities to sell satellite imagery for applications that would have once re-lied more heavily on aerial photography, such as mu-nicipal planning, oil and gas pipeline placement, mapping the kinds of trees in a forest, or mapping ele-vation changes for mining.
Satellite mapping is faster and easier than aerial pho-tography, Lieff said.
However, he noted that aerial photography can take images with resolu-tions much higher than 25 centimetres, and will re-main the only option for clients who need that kind of detail.
While the new rules ap-ply to all U.S. commercial satellite operators, NOAA says DigitalGlobe is the only U.S. satellite provider capable of providing imag-es with a resolution close to 25 centimetres by next year.
But Lieff says the rule change opens new doors for other companies “in-cluding ourselves.”
“There’s new satellites coming up that will defi-nitely breach the 50-centi-metre resolution,” he said. “We’re just looking a few years out, really.”
Emily Chung, CBC News
From page 22
Sharper satellite images allowed, as U.S. . . .
The government of Canada, on the day that one of its citi-zens was sentenced to a long prison term in Egypt for the crime of commit-ting journalism, was moved to note that Egyptians are, after all, “progressing to-ward democracy.”
And, added our prime minister’s parliamentary secre-tary, “We don’t want to insult them.”
Because, you know, that would just be rude.Instead, the government in Ottawa, which runs around the world, chin out and el-bows up, lecturing other governments about re-specting human rights and democratic self-determi-nation, prefers soft-spoken diplomacy toward the re-gime in Cairo, which has:
Attacked and toppled the country’s first democrati-cally elected government.Crushed, imprisoned, tortured and slaughtered members and supporters of that government.Criminalized criticism of its rule and stamped out what little press freedom Egyptians enjoyed.Installed a general as pres-ident in a rigged election without real opponents.It’s probably best, the
Harper government has apparently concluded, to remain largely silent as a journalist who carries a Canadian passport is sent off to some hellishly vio-lent Egyptian prison for doing his job.
Best to have cabinet mem-bers avoid cameras on this sensitive and unsettling
Mohamed Fahmy, Egyptian injustice and Can-ada’s spineless response: Neil Macdonald
Please see page 24
Meftih June 2014 Volume 9 Issue 10: page 24
day, instead sending out Harper’s parliamentary secretary, Paul Callandra, to advise against giving any insult to Cairo.
Well, not entirely silent. Lynne Yelich, who is actu-ally a junior minister (of consular affairs) in Ste-phen Harper’s cabinet, did post a written statement in which she declared Canada “is concerned that the judi-cial process that led to his verdict is inconsistent with Egypt’s democratic aspira-tions.”
“Judicial process.” Seri-ously.
What evidence?
To be quite clear: Egyptian prosecutors didn’t bother introducing, or even trump-ing up, any real evidence against Canadian citizen Mohamed Fahmy, along with Australian citizen Peter Greste and Egyptian citizen Baher Mohamed. (Fahmy also has Egyptian citizenship.)
They didn’t need to. Trivi-alities like evidence are unnecessary; what the mil-itary wants is what’s im-
portant. One presumes, for example, that rigorous evi-dence was not introduced in the trial of 183 people whose death sentences were confirmed a few days ago for attacking a police station during a single in-cident. (A judge had origi-nally ordered nearly 700 people executed.)
No, it was enough for the regime to simply allege the journalists had “falsified news” and aided the Mus-lim Brotherhood, the prin-cipal target of the Egyptian military’s campaign of per-secution.
In reality, of course, the three are going to prison for being employees of the Al Jazeera TV net-work, which is owned by the government of Qatar, which generally supported the elected Brotherhood government, and which the Egyptian generals (along with many other Middle Eastern despots) utterly despise.
Calling the trial a “judicial process” is the sort of pu-sillanimous drivel conser-vatives scorn when they hear it from the mouths
of liberals expressing pa-tience with oppressive Arab regimes elsewhere in the Middle East.
So why such forbearance for the likes of Abdel-Fatah el-Sissi and the rest of the junta in Cairo? Especially when other world leaders are expressing unqualified disgust? (British Prime Minister David Cameron set aside his English re-serve to declare himself “completely appalled.”)
The most charitable expla-nation is one offered by a Canadian I know with deep diplomatic expertise in the Middle East.
He posited that the govern-ment of Canada, lacking the raw power of Washing-ton — which ensured that American citizens facing charges were quietly al-lowed to leave Egypt — has perhaps been conduct-ing back-channel talks with the Egyptians, and has secured some sort of face-saving deal to free Fahmy once the uproar has died down.
If that is the case, good for Canada. The current government was a tremen-dous help when CBC jour-nalist Mellissa Fung was kidnapped in Afghanistan back in 2008, and that was all behind the scenes, too.
If this is happening again, it might explain the bit of
praise Fahmy’s brother had for the Canadian gov-ernment’s efforts after the verdict was delivered.
The other possibility my diplomatic acquaintance suggested was less palat-able: that Canada’s gov-ernment, like the far-right American politicians who cheered as the Egyptian generals grabbed power, has concluded that military oppression is greatly pref-erable to any governance by Islamic fundamental-ists, even elected ones, and the regime’s excesses are the price to be paid.
‘Chilling and draconian’
Like the U.S., Canada’s primary concern in the Middle East is Israel’s se-curity. That is the anchor of Canada’s Middle East policy.
The deposed government of Egypt’s Muslim Broth-erhood was sympathetic towards and helpful to the Hamas government in Gaza. The current re-gime in Cairo has pleased Washington, and Canada, by blowing up the tunnels into Egypt used by Hamas in Gaza and has generally cracked down on Muslim extremists within Egypt.
Hence the visit to Cairo last week of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who met with el-Sissi.
Kerry basically declared that Washington’s reserva-tions about el-Sissi have evaporated now that he’s taken off his military uni-form and won what can only loosely be described as an election (not a dif-ficult feat when you’ve jailed all your opponents).
U.S. military aid, partially withheld out of concern over human rights viola-tions, will resume, Kerry announced. The regime will be getting all those Apache helicopters and other hardware it wants so badly, the better to keep its citizens obedient.
But Kerry at least had the bottle to stand before a mi-crophone Monday and de-nounce the sentencing of the journalists as “chilling and draconian.” As soon as he heard about it, he said, he made an angry call to Egypt’s foreign minister.
And none of the journalists is even an American citi-zen.
Canada’s Yelich, mean-while, used a press release to “call on the Egyptian government to protect the rights of all individuals, in-cluding journalists.”
I suppose members of my craft should be grateful we merit inclusion in that broad category. But you’d think Canada could do bet-ter for one of its citizens.
Neil Macdonald, CBC News
Lynne Yelich, Canadian Minister of State (Foreign Affairs and Consular),