Canada’s ice road to diamonds

A late March blizzard has finished blowing over much of Canada’s Northwest Territories and Ron Near’s job just got more interesting.

A retired Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer, Near is in charge of the world’s longest ice road that connects Yellowknife, the territorial capital, to three diamond mines: Ekati, Diavik and Snap Lake.

Dreams made of diamonds

Matevos Harutyunyan has to fly across Canada from Yellowknife, the capital of Northwest Territories, to Montreal to do what he loves the most.
Harutyunyan is an expert diamond cutter and polisher but ever since the Arslanian Cutting Works factory in Yellowknife shut its doors two years ago, the only chance he gets to practice his beloved craft is during short visits to Montreal.

Sweet victory for Canadian police: maple syrup thieves caught

The largest known heist ever of sweet and expensive maple syrup oozed a step closer to solution on Tuesday as Canadian police arrested three suspects.
Sergeant Claude Denis, spokesman for the Quebec provincial police, said the hunt for an estimated 3 million kilograms of stolen syrup took police investigators to neighbouring Ontario, New Brunswick and north-eastern United States.

Canada downplays deal to share embassies with Britain

London/Ottawa (dpa) – Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird sought to downplay a deal with Britain to share diplomatic missions abroad amid a chorus of criticism of the plan from opposition parties and former diplomats. Speaking at a joint press conference with British Foreign Secretary William Hague, Baird called the deal with Britain an “administrative” agreement. The agreement is expected to involve countries where Britain has diplomatic missions and Canada does not or vice versa.

Remembering my fallen colleagues

On November 11, 2001, I survived an ambush that killed three of my colleagues. Johanne Sutton, Pierre Billaud and Volker Handloik were killed when the group of Northern Alliance soldiers we were traveling with was ambushed by Taliban fighters on a barren plateau near Dasht-e-Qala in Takhar Province, in northeastern Afghanistan. Jo, Pierre and Volker were the first journalists to be killed in that war. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, since September 2001 13 foreign journalists and six Afghan reporters have been killed…

Sisters in arms

Lt. Chantal Tétreault stood in the crew commander’s hatch of her Bison light armoured vehicle surveying the dusty road ahead. She gripped the handle of a loaded machine gun, ready to fire. From hatches behind her, two Canadian soldiers scanned the nearby fields and the village’s mudcaked walls, their fingers tense on the trigger guards of their rifles.

Clinging to life in Darfur

Reader’s Digest By Levon Sevunts July 2005 Hawa Bashi was sure that her son, Hari, would die soon. An emaciated two-year-old with the resigned gaze of a life-weary elder, Hari had lost his appetite. Even worse, he seemed to have lost the will to live. His bone-thin legs could no longer hold him up; his mother had to hold him as Hari sat slumped under the shade of a thorny tree near the village of Shegek Karo. Bashi’s own village, Bashimi, just a few kilometres…

Taliban rockets rain death

Montreal Gazette Sunday, November 11, 2001 Page: A1 / FRONT Section: News Byline: LEVON SEVUNTS Column: Levon Sevunts in Afghanistan Dateline: PUZE PULEKHOMRY, Afghanistan Source: The Gazette Anti-Taliban forces launched a ground offensive assisted by U.S. air strikes on the strategic Kala Kata hill in northern Afghanistan yesterday. The Taliban responded by sending salvos of Katusha rockets at the village of Dasht-e Qala. One rocket landed on a shop on the main road, killing one rebel soldier and injuring two civilians who were watching the…