• Levons-Ice-Road-Pictures-026-1024x682_FEAT

    Canada’s ice road to diamonds

    Wednesday, February 20, 2013

    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.

  • Matos-diamond-cutting-feat2

    Dreams made of diamonds

    Wednesday, February 20, 2013

    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.

  • Maple-syrup-feat1

    Sweet victory for Canadian police: maple syrup thieves caught

    Tuesday, December 18, 2012

    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.

  • Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird takes part in a press conference with Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague in the foyer of the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Monday, September 24, 2012. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean

    Canada downplays deal to share embassies with Britain

    Tuesday, September 25, 2012

    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.

  • Johanne-Sutton feat

    Remembering my fallen colleagues

    Friday, November 11, 2011

    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…

  • Lt. Chantal Tetreault (centre) from Petawawa, Ont., and Canadian Combat Engineers from Task Force Kabul (TFK), look over ordnance scheduled for destruction near Nazer Kala, Afghanistan. Photo: Sgt Frank Hudec, Canadian Forces Combat Camera

    Sisters in arms

    Sunday, April 1, 2007

    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.

  • Sudanese displaced women at the Zam Zam refugee camp just outside the town of El-Fashir in the Darfour region of Sudan, Thursday, July 1, 2004. (AP Photo/Karel Prinsloo)

    Clinging to life in Darfur

    Thursday, July 28, 2005

    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…

  • Northern-Alliance-troops-near-Chaghatay feat

    Taliban rockets rain death

    Sunday, November 11, 2001

    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…

Blog

Eye on the Arctic is nominated for a Webby

Today nominees for the 16th annual Webby Awards were announced. We here at Eye on the Arctic found out that our Arctic Health Series: Bridging the Divide has been nominated for an award in the News and Politics: Series category. The Webby Awards is the leading international award honouring excellence on the Internet. The health crisis in the Arctic has become one of the most pressing issues in the world’s circumpolar countries but receives relatively little media and political attention next to issues like climate change and Arctic sovereignty. When Radio Canada International set…

My interview with CBC’s Mike Finnerty on Russian parliamentary elections

This morning (Dec 5, 2011), I got an unexpected call from my colleagues at CBC Radio in Montreal. They were looking for some quick analysis of Russia’s parliamentary elections. Here’s what came out of my conversation with Mike Finnerty, the host of Daybreak, CBC Montreal’s morning show. Listen to my interview with Daybreak about Russian elections

I’m a Webby Award Honoree

My short documentary Seal Ban: Inuit Impact has been named Official Honoree in the News & Politics: Individual Episode category of the 15th Annual Webby Awards.

Featured

Levons-Ice-Road-Pictures-026-1024x682_FEAT

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.

Matos-diamond-cutting-feat2

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.

Maple-syrup-feat1

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.

Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird takes part in a press conference with Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague in the foyer of the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Monday, September 24, 2012. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean

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.

Johanne-Sutton feat

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…

Lt. Chantal Tetreault (centre) from Petawawa, Ont., and Canadian Combat Engineers from Task Force Kabul (TFK), look over ordnance scheduled for destruction near Nazer Kala, Afghanistan. Photo: Sgt Frank Hudec, Canadian Forces Combat Camera

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.

Magazine Articles Portfolio

Lt. Chantal Tetreault (centre) from Petawawa, Ont., and Canadian Combat Engineers from Task Force Kabul (TFK), look over ordnance scheduled for destruction near Nazer Kala, Afghanistan. Photo: Sgt Frank Hudec, Canadian Forces Combat Camera

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.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan

How safe is Canada’s energy infrastructure?

HOMELAND SECURITY SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2005 SINCE SEPT. 11, 2001, CANADA HAS TAKEN NUMEROUS STEPS TO BOLSTER ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE SECURITY. BUT HAS ENOUGH BEEN DONE? By Levon Sevunts Christian Latreille couldn’t believe his eyes as he entered one of the world’s largest hydroelectric stations, the LG-2, a sprawling underground facility 600 feet beneath the frozen wilderness in Quebec. Latreille, a hard-hitting journalist with the French-language public broadcaster Radio-Canada, and his cameraman had just literally walked into what should have been a secure facility. Yet to their astonishment,…

(AP Photo/Musadeq Sadeq)

Wireless Wonder: How a Canadian telco exec brought cellphones to war-torn Afghanistan.

Canadian Business by Levon Sevunts | In Kabul 2005-08-15 Karim Khoja knew that operating a wireless phone company in Afghanistan would require negotiating some tricky political, business and cultural minefields. But he wasn’t counting on finding himself in the middle of a real one. Soon after arriving here from Vancouver three years ago, Khoja, the Canadian CEO of Roshan, Afghanistan’s largest telecommunications company, learned the meaning of the ubiquitous red and white painted rocks. “I was driving from Kabul to Mazar,” recalls Khoja. “We had…

Sudanese displaced women at the Zam Zam refugee camp just outside the town of El-Fashir in the Darfour region of Sudan, Thursday, July 1, 2004. (AP Photo/Karel Prinsloo)

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…

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