Diplomat
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Pushtuns aren’t stateless
Re: “Strong stateless minorities” Oct.-Dec. 2016 The basic criteria to determine stateless nations are that they do not have a sovereign state of their own, do not form a majority in any sovereign state and are part of one or more autonomist or secessionist movements. None of this is true for the Pushtuns living in […]
New Arrivals – Fall 2016
New arrivals Mizanur Rahman High Commissioner for Bangladesh High Commissioner Rahman holds a science degree from Sylhet Degree College; and a master’s in physics from Dhaka University. He joined the foreign service in 1988, first as second secretary at the embassy in Sri Lanka, then as first secretary and counsellor in Russia, and as assistant […]
Canada’s Foreign Minister Stéphane Dion ‘It’s important to be an interlocutor for peace’
Stéphane Dion is an academic-turned-parliamentarian who was first elected to represent the Montreal riding of Saint-Laurent in 1996. He has served as president of the privy council, minister of intergovernmental affairs and minister of the environment and became leader of the Liberal party for two years, beginning in 2006 after then-prime minister Paul Martin’s electoral […]
Organ harvesting in China
A team of doctors, lawyers, journalists and parliamentarians from Canada, the European Parliament and the U.S. House of Representatives has condemned China’s lucrative organ-transplant industry. They added up surgeries at 146 hospitals in China to total between 60,000 and 100,000 per year from 2000 to 2015 — many more than the Chinese yearly official total […]
A ’fête accompli‘ at the French Embassy
This year’s Fête Champêtre, an annual spring fundraiser for the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra, took place at the striking Art Deco building that houses the embassy of France, overlooking the Ottawa River and next to the prime minister’s official residence at 24 Sussex Drive. The ambassador agreed to host the fête for several reasons, not least […]
New Arrivals – Summer 2016
New arrivals Ermal Muça Ambassador of Albania Ermal Muça joined Albania’s foreign service in 2002. Since then, he has held different positions at the Albanian foreign ministry. He worked in the regional bilateral relations department at headquarters and did a posting abroad, as deputy head of mission in Turkey. He was also consul general in […]
HOMSA funds science studies for northern students
Thanks to the daughter of an ambassador — a graduate student at the University of Ottawa — the Heads of Mission Spouses Association (HOMSA) helped out a science learning initiative as part of its big annual fundraiser. The charity, known as Science Travels, runs a University of Ottawa science outreach program that aims to expose […]
From Abu Ghraib to the ambassador’s office
From a prison cell in Abu Ghraib to the ambassador’s office in Ottawa, Abdul Kareem Kaab has had a tremendous career path. A civil engineer by trade, he was jailed and tortured for political protesting during his undergraduate studies and then again after he’d finished his schooling, spending two years in Abu Ghraib. After being […]
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