Canada

Suspect in N.Y. terror plot has Canadian connection

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Saturday, September 26, 2009 – Globe and Mail
PAUL KORING, COLIN FREEZE AND ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY

WASHINGTON and TORONTO — Najibullah Zazi, the Afghan accused of plotting to plant terrorist bombs in New York, travelled back and forth to Canada and Pakistan, U.S. government prosecutors said yesterday.

The Globe and Mail has confirmed that Mr. Zazi travelled to Mississauga.

“Yeah, it’s the same guy,” said Maimoona Zazi, his aunt by marriage, who said she watched Mr. Zazi, a Denver bus driver, on television as federal marshals escorted him to a court appearance.

Last night, CSIS agents were knocking on the doors of homes of Mr. Zazi’s relatives in Mississauga, even as the government was refusing to say if its security forces were involved in the case.

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A father’s loss in Gaza, a major win for Canada

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Friday, September 18, 2009 – Globe and Mail
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY

TORONT and O — At his comfortable Toronto home, the star recruit of Canada’s most ambitious graduate public-health program is the perfect host: He pours tea and arranges chairs; his eldest children bring out plate after plate of food, and his youngest daughter entertains guests with living-room acrobatics.

Izzeldin Abuelaish, who made headlines around the world as a peacenik and vocal advocate of Israeli-Palestinian détente, starts teaching today at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health. It’s a hopeful new beginning nine months after a blast ripped his world asunder on the other side of the globe.

The Israeli shell that hit Dr. Abuelaish’s apartment and killed three of his daughters was one of innumerable human tragedies in the midst of Gaza’s bloody conflict last January, which elicited a United Nations report this week slamming both Israel and Hamas for war crimes.

But this particular incident caused a media firestorm that crystallized the conflict internationally.

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Canada in Afghanistan: Mission becoming impossible task

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Wednesday, September 16, 2009 – Globe and Mail
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY

Canada’s Afghanistan mission is falling short of its goals as violence and instability continue to worsen in Kandahar and across the country. Critics and military experts are questioning whether those goals can possibly be met by the time Canada ends its military commitment in 2011 – and whether they were realistic to begin with.

A quarterly report released yesterday detailing the progress of Canadian military operations in Afghanistan found Kandahar province becoming more violent, less stable and less secure, and attacks across the country becoming more frequent than at any time since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

Less than two years before the scheduled end of its military mission in Kandahar, Canada isn’t meeting the benchmarks it set coming out of the Manley commission.

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In Nunavut, the problems are familiar – and so are the solutions

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Tuesday, August 18, 2009 – Globe and Mail
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY

It took a photo of two boys sleeping on the pavement in Iqaluit to show Canada the face of a young population in crisis.

But the problems behind that crisis, and the steps needed to remedy them, were painstakingly laid out in a 92-page document released in 2006.

Three years later, little has changed. The problems the report outlines as urgent concerns are still prevalent. The steps it recommends to address them are in the early stages, if they exist at all.

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The search for a vision to match Arctic vastness

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Saturday, August 1, 2009 – Globe and Mail
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY

Aaju Peter laughs when she recalls the sight confronting her when she moved to Iqaluit in 1981: Houses. A landing strip. A few stores. A school.

Then she pauses. Almost 30 years later, not much has changed.

“We have more houses and more stores. But I don’t think we have very much of a longer-term plan.”

There are inukshuks in Paris and Inuktitut script on federal government websites – once again, Canada’s northern residents are at the forefront of Ottawa’s Arctic sovereignty campaign.

But Canada’s final frontier is also its most development-starved: Between the contested underwater continental shelf and the Radarsat-2 satellite lie dozens of largely isolated communities that lack the transportation, housing and communication infrastructure needed to back up Ottawa’s claims of an inhabited Canadian Arctic.

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