Don't forget EU triumphs says former Slovakia PM

The European Union faces grave problems, problems to which solutions are urgently needed. But that shouldn’t make us forget the reasons that the European community was formed and its genuine accomplishments.

Iveta Radičová speaking in 2010. 

That was the message of Iveta Radičová, former prime minister of Slovakia, speaking yesterday to an audience at the University of Alberta. She was in Edmonton on a visit organized by the Wirth Insitute for Austrian and Central European Studies.
A sociologist by training, Radičová was appointed a professor of sociology at Comenius University in Bratislava and founded the Centre for Analysis of Social Policy, one of Slovakia's first NGOs.
Radičová began her political career in 1990 as a member of People Against Violence.  After being defeated in Slovakia's 2009 presidential campaign, in June of the following year she became the country's prime minister at the head of a centre-right coalition.
In October 2011 her government fell after losing a non-confidence motion and Radičová did not run in the subsequent election. Following a fellowship in Oxford University in 2013, she is now lecturing at Comenius University.
In her presentation Radičová pointed to the ongoing financial crisis, which cost Europe two trillion Euros between 2007 and 2010 and resulted in 23 million unemployed, and has provoked widespread protest across the continent.
Serious ongoing problems facing the European Union include relatively low education and skills levels among citizens, an information technology deficit, corruption, and the need for improved financial regulation structural reform of the community. 

There was criticism in 2012 when the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the European Union at a time of deep and widespread crisis,” Radičová noted.

“For what, the Nobel Prize?” she said. "At a time when there are protests in the streets, dissatisfied citizens, deficits and debt. For what, the Nobel Prize?”

Quoting reaction to that criticism by German philosopher Jürgen Habermas, Radičová said there are actually at least three good reasons for the prize: peace, democracy and welfare states.

“Don’t forget that the major reason for unification was the experience of the Second World War and trying to keep the peace on this continent," she stated, adding as an aside, “I hope we will have a chance to keep the peace on our own border with Ukraine.”

Just 40 years ago there were dictatorships in Southern Europe, 25 years ago in the Eastern European states that are now part of the EU.
“Democracy is a condition for success. We are trying to get our countries to become more participatory citizens”

The expansion of social benefits provided by states to their citizens has also been a major achievement of the EU.

“Human dignity is the main aim of all our efforts,” Radičová said. "It's said the present economic crisis is because the welfare state is too expensive. The opposite is that we can survive the crisis because of the welfare state.”

Improving education systems in the EU is a critical goal, she said.

“Education is the only way to get out of these problems.”

Rural post office closures hurting communities: survey

The closure of post offices is "another nail in the coffin of rural Canada," say respondents to a recent survey.

The survey of 1,635 mayors, reeves and band chiefs of rural locales where a post office has been closed examined the effects on the communities. 

Post offices are the heart of many rural communities.

The study was done by Anderson Consulting for the Canadian Postmasters and Assistants Association.
It found that while some communities saw their federally run post office replaced with a franchise outlet, 53 per cent of communities have no postal outlet of any kind. 

Satisfaction with postal service was fairly low and some 24 per cent of communities expressed very high levels of dissatisfaction.
"The closure of the post office has taken away the personal touch from the community," said David Shulist, Mayor of Wilno, Ontario. "It is hard to talk to a metal box. Bring back our post office! We have lost our identity." 
"The closure of a post office in a municipality always has a negative effect and it is the whole population which feels it," stated a respondent from St. Marcellin, Quebec. "Potential new residents are little inclined to settle in a municipality which offers few services."

The study pointed out that Canada Post has shut down more than 1,700 small town and rural post offices since the 1980s. 
In spite of a 1994 moratorium on rural closures, which was reiterated in a Canadian Postal Service Charter announced in September 2009, the shutdowns are continuing right up to the present. 

It concludes that in the internet era, where sending and receiving parcels has grown, and where many small business depend even more on reasonably priced, reliable, local postal service, the closing or cutting back on postal services is hurting the development of rural Canada. 

The survey study recommends an end to all postal outlet closures and setting up national and provincial panels to examine postal service needs.

The survey study is available at http://cpaa-acmpa.ca/pub/ . 

The Canadian Postmasters and Assistants Association, founded in 1902, represents more than 10,000 members comprising 5,651 full and part-time employees and 4,558 term employees of Canada Post, particularly in rural areas.

Canadian Arctic Expedition of 1913-1918 commemorated

The Mary Sachs, one of the expedition vessels.

From 1913 to 1918 the Canadian Arctic Expedition located and mapped unoccupied islands in the far north and studied the Western Arctic and Victoria island.

Yesterday, this first major Canadian government research study undertaken in the North was commemorated at a ceremony at the  Vancouver Maritime Museum.

The ceremony included the unveiling of a Historic Sites and Monuments Board plaque marking the expedition as an event of national historic significance. 

The expedition, organized by Vihjalmur Stefansson, set out from Esquimalt Harbour on June 17, 1913. It was divided into the Northern Party, commanded by Stephansson, and a Southern Party led by zoologist Rudolph Anderson.

The expedition ships were headed for Herschel Island, but as a result of unusually harsh conditions all were frozen in before reaching their destination.

Eleven crew members died after the principal ship of the expedition, the Karluk, was carried off and eventually crushed by the ice. Six others died during the course of the expedition, which continued with newly purchased ships the North Star and the Polar Bear. 

As well as discovering land previously unknown even to the Inuit, including Brock, Mackenzie King, Borden, Meighen and Lougheed Islands, the expedition collected many animal, plant and rock specimens, cultural objects, and film and photographic records of Inuit life. The mission's legacy is reflected in the name of Sachs Harbour, named for the expedition's abandoned ship, the Mary Sachs.

A champion of Arctic development, Stephansson became known as the "prophet of the North," but was considered arrogant and a charlatan in some quarters. He later became widely discredited over a failed scheme to raise reindeer in the North, and his unauthorized claiming of Wrangel Island, north of Siberia, for Canada in 1921, which caused an international incident.

Another expedition participant was celebrated anthropologist Diamond Jenness, who took part in the traditional life of the Copper Inuit around Coronation Gulf.

The commemorative plaque was unveiled by Dr. Colin Carrie, parliamentary secretary to environment minister Leonna Aglukkaq. 

Two examples of the plaque will be installed, one at Fort Rodd Hill and Fisgard Lighthouse national historic sites, overlooking Esquimalt Harbour in British Columbia, and one in Sachs Harbour, Northwest Territories.

The Government of Canada originally recognized the historic significance of the Canadian Arctic Expedition in 1925 and a plaque was originally erected in Ottawa.

Truth and Reconciliation event kicks off in Edmonton

To compelling drumbeats and singing, a grand procession wended its way around a packed Hall A of the Shaw Conference Centre this morning, part of the opening ceremonies of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Alberta National Event.
The procession included tribal chiefs in full headresses, RCMP and military personnel, young dancers, provincial politicians, members of the clergy and more.
It opened the seventh and last of a series of national public events organized by the commission, which is looking into the history of Canadian residential schools, which some 150,000 Aboriginal children were forced to leave their families to attend, and where many suffered physical and sexual abuse.
Allowing residential school survivors to relate their own experiences, either in open sessions of the commission or privately, is the main focus of the four-day event. There are also film showings, a free concert, reconciliation lunches, a talent show and displays and artisans.
"We must all at some point get together and reconcile -- and that means all of us," said Chief Cameron Alexis, regional chief of Alberta Assembly of First Nations, following a prayer in Cree by Elder Bob Cardinal.
"We all have to keep working together as First Nations, Aboriginal people, Albertans, Canadians to make this country what the creator meant it to be."
Mayor Don Iveson received received the first of several rounds of hearty applause when he opened his remarks with the Cree greeting "Tansi."
Iveson acknowledged that the meeting was taking place on Treaty Six traditional land, and noted that the location now known as Edmonton has been special place for a very long time, a place of exchange.
"This is not a 200-year-old place," he said. "It's a 10,000-year-old place. And we celebrate that for the richness it conveys."
The mayor noted that Edmonton has an Aboriginal population of 60,000, of whom 12,000 are residential school survivors, and will soon the largest urban Aboriginal community in Canada.
Some people have reacted to that fear, but it is time to stop that, he said. "Indigenous people are welcome."
Justice Murray Sinclair, one of the three members of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, pointed out that it came about as part of the settlement of claims made against the federal government by residential school survivors.
"A national memory was created for this country to ensure this could never happen again."
Sinclair said that purpose of the schools, particularly earlier on, was not education so much as to force Indigenous children out of their own culture and assimilate them to the dominant culture.
Though it was realized shortly after it was put into effect some 130 years ago that the residential school system was not working as a tool of assimilation, the government remained committed to it.
"It took that long for people to realize that wasn't going to happen. Indigenous people are resilient people."
Young indigenous people are beginning to seek out their cultural heritage, he indicated.
"We must first of all ensure our children and grandchildren haves a strong sense of self respect.
The way to reconciliation is to put an end to disrespect, disrespect that is far too prevalent among our leaders.
"What we need to know is to understand the importance of teaching our children and grandchildren to be respectful. It is through involving our leadership in this conversation we know that we can move toward reconciliation and we can stop being so disrespectful to one another."
Reconciliation won't happen in our lifetimes, Sinclair said, but it is possible if we commit to it and it is necessary.
"We are not going to allow the current situation and the situation of the historical past to continue any more."
He added, "This experience of residential schools is not an Aboriginal problem, it's a Canadian problem."
For further information go to www.trc.ca.

Peter Handke wins 2014 International Ibsen Award

Peter Handke in younger days

"Tense, unnerved, and close to madness before writing—and when I read what I’ve written it looks so calm." 

-- Peter Handke, "The Weight of the World"

Controversial author Peter Handke has been awarded the International Ibsen Award, which goes to individuals or institutions that have made a significant contribution to the development of theatre as an art form. 

The award was established by the Norwegian government in 2007 and and is awarded every second year on the birthday of celebrated playwright Henrik Ibsen, born in 1828 in Skien, Norway.

Previous recipients have been Peter Brook, Ariane Mnouchkine, Jon Fosse and Heiner Goebbels. The winner receives 2.5 million Norwegian kroner ($C463,000).

Handke, 71, was born in Austrian state of Kärnten and studied law at the University of Graz from 1961 to 1965, but dropped out when the manuscript of his first novel Die  Hornissen (The Hornets) was accepted for publication. In the same year, the avant-garde play Publikumsbeschimpfung (Offending  the  Audience) was put on in Frankfurt, directed by Claus Peymann. 

Handke has since published more than thirty novels and works of prose, and has written a number of plays and screenplays. Perhaps his widely known work is Die Angst des Tormanns beim Elfmeter, (The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick), novel and screenplay of a 1972 film. He also wrote the screenplay for Wim Wenders' award winning Der  Himmel  über  Berlin  (Wings  of  Desire  or  The  Sky  Above  Berlin,  1987). 

Handke's previous awards include the 1973 Georg Buchner Prize, 2002 America Award, 2009 Franz Kafka Prize and 2012 Mulheimer Dramatikerpreis. In 2006 he was also nominated  with the Heinrich Heine Prize but the award was withdrawn as a result of opposition to his views on Serbia's role in the Yugoslav wars.

In 1996 Handke produced Eine winterliche Reise zu den Flüssen Donau, Save, Morawa und Drina oder Gerechtigkeit für Serbien (A Journey to the Rivers: Justice for Serbia), a film combining travelogue and essay in which he expresses his view of Serbia as among the among the victims of the wars. He also attacked Western media for misrepresenting the causes and consequences of the conflict. In in March 2006, Handke spoke at the funeral of Serbian wartime leader Slobodan Milošević. 

The jury's citation states that the 2014 International Ibsen Award is being awarded to Peter Handke for "a body of work that is unparalleled in its formal beauty and brilliant reflection", and continues: "If Ibsen was the model playwright of the bourgeois epoch, which has yet to end, Peter Handke is undoubtedly theatre's most eminent epic poet." The citation is available at http://www.internationalibsenaward.com.

The Euromaidan Project and Taras Shevchenko's 200th

While the physical conflicts that lead to the flight of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych were begin fought in Kyiv's Independence Square with stones and Molotov cocktails, a battle of ideas was also taking place.
In the struggle against the Yanukovych on what became known as the Euromaidan one of the major weapons was graphic art -- posters that expressed rejection of the regime and aspirations for a different kind of Ukraine.
Fifty of the the posters that went up around the square and elsewhere can now be seen as part of The Euromaidan Project: The Art of Revolution, an exhibition now on at the St. John's Institute Culture and Arts Centre in Edmonton.
"The 50 posters displayed here circulated widely on the Maidan," said curator Dr. Bohdan Kordan, a professor at St. Thomas More College in Saskatoon.
"Designed and created for mass distribution through the medium of the private, they testify to a deep desire for change and are symbolic of the best impulses of a society mobilizing for it's own defense."
With their striking graphics and vibrant color, predominantly the yellow and blue of the Ukrainian, these creations are reminiscent of Cuban revolutionary posters and the imagery of the May-June 1968 revolt in France. Many incorporate a single drop, meant to symbolize that the convictionss of each individual collectively make up an ocean of protest.
The Euromaidan Project can be seen at St. John's Institute, 11024-82 Avenue, until Sunday, March 16. The institute is largely a residence, so visitors have to ring to be buzzed in.
From Edmonton the exhibition organized by the St. Thomas More Prairie Centre for the Study of Ukrainian will travel to Winnipeg, Toronto and Yorkton.
Bicentennial of Taras Shevchenko, Ukraine's national poet
"Ukraine, O my dear Ukraine,
My dearest!
When I think of you, my homeland,
My heart can only cry…"
-- Taras Shevchenko, Night of Taras, November 6, 1838. (Translated by Peter Fedynsky.)
Although in Night of Taras Taras Shevchenko, Ukraine's most renowned bard, was speaking of an earlier period of the country's history when it was oppressed by Poles and Russians, one can imagine that those would also be his sentiments today.
This month marks the 200th anniversary of the poet's birth in Simferopol in the Crimea, currently torn apart by a crisis in Ukraine-Russia relations and ethnic conflict between their respective groups in the territory.
However, planned celebrations in Sebastapol to mark Shevchenko's March 9 birthday were disrupted by clashes between Russians and Ukrainians, although a celebration in his hometown went smoothly.
The Shevchenko bicentennial is being celebrated with an exhibition at the University of Alberta's  Rutherford Library. The small display of books and artwork reproductions is located in the Galleria, just outside Rutherford South.
Also commemorating the bicentennial will be a concert put on by Ukrainian Art Song Project in the city on Friday, March 15. Part of a series of concerts taking place in North America and Ukraine, the concert will include a choral cantata, The Raging Rivers, by Mykola Lysenko, and Testament, by Mykhailo Verbytksyj.
Sponsored locally by the Ukrainian, Music Society of Alberta, The concert will be held at 7 p.m.  at the West End Christian Reformed Church, 10015-149th Street. Tickets are available at Orbit, Meest and at the door.
In addition to the concerts, the Ukrainian Art Song Project is celebrating the bicentennial with the release of a featuring art songs based on Shevchenko poems. Further information is available at http://www.musicaleopolis.com.

Eating fesikh at Shamm El-Nessim?

Shamm El-Nessim, the Egyptian national holiday marking the beginning of spring, falls on May 6 this year.

But if you’re planning to observe the holiday, be aware of a Health Canada warning about the fish preparation “fesikh.”

Egyptian’s celebrate by visiting parks and zoos, going on picnics, colouring eggs and eating fesikh.

Fesikh is a traditional Egyptian dish consisting of gray mullet prepared by drying the fish in the sun before preserving it in salt. The elaborate process of preparing fesikh has been a heritary occupation, known as fasakhani. Egyptians in the West have used whitefish and shad as an alternative.

However, in a recent advisory Health Canada warns that that the way fesikh is prepared make it botulism risk.

The fish used to make it not gutted before the ripening and salting process. This provides an opportunity for Clostridium botulinum bacteria that may be in the gut of the fish to grow and produce the toxins that cause botulism.

These toxins are not eliminated by any smoking or drying of the end product. Refrigeration, freezing, washing, and open air or vacuum packaging will not make the fish safe. This applies to whole fish, fillets or parts.

According to Health Canada, the most recent botulism outbreak in Canada caused by the consumption of fesikh was in 2012, when three people became ill. Internationally, the consumption of ungutted salted fish, including fesikh, has been linked to many cases of botulism, the agency states.

Food contaminated with Clostridium botulinum toxin may not look or smell spoiled. Symptoms of botulism can include nausea and/or vomiting followed by one or more of: double vision, blurred vision, drooping eyelids, dry mouth, difficulty speaking, difficulty swallowing, weakness, respiratory failure and paralysis. In severe cases, death can occur. Symptoms generally begin 12 to 36 hours after eating a contaminated food, but they can occur as early as six hours or as late as 10 days after eating.

So you may want to hold off on the fesikh. But then Health Canada doesn’t want you to raw oysters either. They’re not even keen on unpasteurized cheese. And fugu? Don’t ask.