Asian Star - March 04, 2017

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www.theasianstar.com AsianStar logo Saturday, April 25, 2015 6:42:48 PM

Vol 16 - Issue 05

Saturday,, March 04, 2017

RCMP not charging asylum seekers for illegal entry The number of asylum seekers who are crossing into Canada by foot has been steadily increasing, but the RCMP

has yet to charge anyone for illegal entry into Canada this year, federal officials said. The asylum seekers are arrested as they enter into Canada, at which point

the RCMP conducts checks to see if they were engaged in criminal acts such as trafficking. So far this year, none of the hundreds of asylum seekers who have come to Canada have been charged for illegal entry, and they were all transferred to the Canada Border Services Agency. Their status will now be determined by the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, federal officials said at a background media briefing on Thursday.

The official added it is too early to determine if the levels of asylum seekers this year will go beyond normal fluctuations, although they insisted they are closely monitoring the situation.

Continued on Page 7...

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Reena Virk’s mother speaks out against killer’s escorted absence Reena Virk’s mother doesn’t believe the parole board that granted her daughter’s killer temporary escorted absences from prison would have been swayed by the Virk family’s opposition.

“The powers that be will do what they want to do regardless,” Suman Virk said.

Continued on Page 6...

Calls for investigation after Montreal imam gives anti-Semitic sermons

Top Indian athlete arrested in NY for sexual assault

A Montreal mosque where an imam had prayed for Jews to be killed “one by one” is facing fresh calls for an investigation after more videos surfaced online showing anti-Semitic preaching.

The Middle East Media Research Institute released a video on Tuesday of sermons in which an imam at the Al Andalous Islamic Centre conveyed conspiracy theories about Jews, their history and their origins. Sheikh Wael Al-Ghitawi is shown in the video clips claiming that Jews were “people who slayed the prophets, shed their blood and cursed the Lord,” reported MEMRI, which translated the Friday sermons.

The imam went on to say Jews were the descendants of “Turkish mongols” and had been “punished by Allah,” who made them “wander in the land.” He further said that Jews had no historical ties to Jerusalem or Palestine.

Continued on Page 6...

An Indian athlete who overcame a visa denial with the help of U.S. lawmakers and a local mayor to attend the World Snowshoe Championship in New York has been arrested on charges of the abuse of a minor.

The details of the alleged incident are sketchy, but the parents of the girl involved said it happened on Monday and reported the matter to local authorities, according to a report from the local newspaper, the Adirondack Daily Enterprise.

The athlete’s coach said he is innocent.Muddasir Mir, the president of the SnowShoe Federation of India, confirmed the arrest of Tanveer Hussain and said that the next court hearing is set for Monday.

Continued on Page 26...

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LOCAL

Saturday, March 04, 2017

Home prices in Greater Vancouver drop drastically

Prices for condos and townhomes are climbing in Greater Vancouver, despite tumbling sales.

Sales of detached houses, condos and townhomes fell to 2,425 transactions last month, down 41.9 per cent when compared with 4,172 deals a year earlier – a record high for the month of February.

Total sales volume last month rang in 7.7 per cent under the 10-year February average. But the number of residential transactions last month rose 59.2 per cent compared with January, marking the first time that sales have increased month over month since March, 2016.

Last August, the B.C. government implemented a 15-per-cent tax on foreign home buyers in the Vancouver region, contributing to the real estate market’s slowdown.

In January, the province’s new program aimed at making it easier for B.C. residents to come up with down payments for their firsttime purchase took effect. In the case of the Vancouver region, that initiative targets mostly condos and townhouses.

The price of detached houses sold in Greater Vancouver last month averaged $1.76-million, down 3.2 per cent compared with $1.82-million in February, 2016.

By contrast, average condo prices in the area over the past year have jumped 13.7 per cent to $603,737, while average townhome prices have risen 10.8 per cent to $827,893.

Vancouver real estate agent Steve Saretsky, who specializes in the condo market, said it is too early to determine the impact of provincial incentives for first-time buyers. But he pointed out that while bidding wars have largely disappeared for detached houses, they are a common sight in condo sales.

“The new program certainly isn’t going to help condo prices level out,” Mr. Saretsky said in an interview Thursday.

Under the program, the B.C. government matches down payments of up to $37,500 made by first-time buyers purchasing a property valued at up to $750,000.

Mr. Saretsky noted that fresh listings for various housing types in Greater Vancouver last month slid 36.9 per cent compared with February, 2016. “Condo demand isn’t crazy but new listings are low,” he said.

3

Sharp increase in asylum seekers in BC People who assist new refugees in B.C. are reporting a big jump in the number of new asylum seekers in recent months, and the vast majority are coming on foot across the U.S. border. Between April of last year and Feb. 15, Vancouver’s Welcome Centre dealt with 1,140 refugee claimants, compared to 801 in the 2015-2016 fiscal year. About 80 per cent of those came here by crossing through Peace Arch Park or nearby, avoiding the controlled border crossings where they would be refused entry. The facility, where refugees go to get support services like temporary housing and primary health care, had 99 new clients in January and another 84 the next month.

Those are unusually high numbers, according to Chris Friesen, settlement services director for the Immigrant Services Society, which operates the Welcome Centre. In December, there were 63 new clients.

“Our waiting room today is full of refugee

claimants,” Friesen said. “(The number) appears to be increasing due to a number of factors including ongoing directives by the Trump administration and the lifting of the Mexican visa requirements.”

Most of those walking across the border have been Kurdish-speaking Iraqis, including families and single men, but there have also been several young families from Afghanistan.

Iraqis make up the biggest overall portion of recent new arrivals, with at least 65 over the last phree months.

But Mexicans are making up a growing segment of the Welcome Centre’s clients.

Twenty-two got services there in February and seven the month before. In comparison, there were just 30 in the entire year leading up to Dec. 1, when Canada officially lifted the requirement for Mexican visitors to carry visas. Now that asylum seekers can arrive from Mexico as tourists, most make refugee

claims at Vancouver International Airport.

The surge in new arrivals over the last two months has caused participation in a weekly drop-in group for refugees to increase by nearly 50 per cent.

“It is stretching our resources. … Some of the pressure points that we’re trying to address in a number of different ways include the need for immediate housing, given the rental market,” Friesen said.

“The multilingual staff is, of course, being stretched because of the sheer number of refugee claimants that are accessing support through our facility.”

The large numbers of people running across the border in places like Surrey, Quebec, and Manitoba are part of an entirely new phenomenon, he added. Irregular crossings began in smaller numbers after Canada and the U.S. implemented the 2004 Safe Third Country.

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4

Saturday, March 04, 2017

Trudeau government looking at hiking capital gains tax

By Jason Clemens and Niels Veldhuis - The Fraser Institute The fact that capital gains taxes are, to some extent, voluntary is the explanation for one of the most damaging aspects of capital gains taxes - they create an incentive for people to hold on to low performing assets.

This “lock-in” effect, as it’s known, means that investors and entrepreneurs retain existing investments rather than selling them and investing in something new, such as an emerging business, in large part just to avoid the capital gains tax.

But that’s not all. Perhaps, one of the least understood economic effects of capital gains taxes is its impact on entrepreneurship and innovation. Entrepreneurs risk their own capital and time in the hopes of profiting from the creation of a new product, an unproven service, or the introduction of a new technology.

Entrepreneurs typically accept low pay in the early stages so that earnings can be reinvested to meet the needs of their growing business. In return, they expect to be compensated when the business matures

and is taken public or is bought by another company, or becomes profitable enough to afford higher wages.

The bottom line - capital gains taxes reduce the reward that entrepreneurs and investors receive from the sale of a business.

Lower the potential rewards and you’ll discourage entrepreneurs and investors.

But don’t take our word for it. Here’s what the Liberal government of thenPrime Minister Jean Chrétien and Finance Minister Paul Martin said about capital gains in their 2000 budget: “The high-technology sector and other fast-growing industries are particularly important to Canada’s future economic growth. Our tax system must be conducive to innovation, and must ensure that businesses have access to the capital they need in an economy that is becoming increasingly competitive and knowledge-based. An examination of the taxation of capital gains in Canada suggests that this objective would be better achieved with a reduction in the inclusion rate of capital gains” The Chrétien/Martin Liberals reduced

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the capital gains inclusion rate (i.e. the amount of capital gains subject to tax) from 75 per cent to 50 per cent as part of a larger initiative to improve Canada’s competitiveness and attractiveness to investors. They understood that a lower, more competitive capital gains tax rate was essential to attracting and retaining both investment and entrepreneurs.

In his 2000 budget address, Finance Minister Martin highlighted that: “A key factor contributing to the difficulty of raising capital by new start-ups is the fact that individuals who sell existing investments and reinvest in others must pay tax on any realized capital gains.”

However, despite the deduction in capital gains taxes by the previous Liberal government, Canada still maintains one of the highest capital gains tax rates among OECD countries. And what’s more, 11 of the 34 OECD countries do not impose a capital gains tax.

Other small, open economies such as Switzerland and New Zealand recognize the economic benefits of having no capital gain tax. Not only does the absence of the tax improve the allocation of investment in countries, it creates stronger incentives for entrepreneurship and investment, both of which are critical to improving any 100 economy.

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LOCAL

Saturday, March 04, 2017

Calls for investigation after Montreal imam gives anti-Semitic sermons Continued from Page 1...

The view conveyed by the imam has typically been used to deny that Jews have a connection to the land of Israel, said Rabbi Reuben Poupko, co-chair of the Quebec branch of the Centre fr Israel and Jewish Affairs.

“This is a bizarre strain of radical propaganda. It appears in the writings of Hamas and other groups like it and claims to debunk Jewish history,” said the rabbi, who said it was “unseemly” to use a religious service to propagate hate.

He said he did not believe such views, as well as the “deeply troubling” earlier calls to violence, were supported by the broader Muslim community “but its presence in this mosque needs to be investigated.”

The videos were posted on YouTube in November 2014. The centre was already in the spotlight over an August 2014 video that showed an imam asking Allah to “destroy the accursed Jews,” and “kill them one by one.”

In a press release last week concerning the August 2014 video, the mosque administration blamed “clumsy and unacceptable phrasing”

by a substitute imam, whose wording was “tainted by an abusive generalization.” The mosque could not be reached for comment about the most recent video.

“If you examine the annals of history you will see that the Jews do not have any historical right to Palestine,” Al-Ghitawi said in the latest video. He claimed there was “not a single Jew in Jerusalem and Palestine” for lengthy periods.

“Jerusalem is Arabic and Islamic,” he said at a separate sermon. “It is our land, the land of our fathers and forefathers. We are the people most entitled to it. We will not forsake a single inch of this land.”

On Monday the National Council of Canadian Muslims denounced the “incendiary speech” in the earlier AlAndalous video, as well as a 2016 sermon at a Toronto mosque about the “filth of the Jews.”

The Muslim Association of Canada, which is affiliated with the Toronto mosque, has apologized and said it had suspended the prayer leader in question and launched an internal investigation into the incident.

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An Indian immigrant’s success story A recent episode of Dragons’ Den turned the spotlight on immigrant entrepreneurs looking to make their Canadian dreams come true. Praveen Udagani immigrated from India to Canada in 2004 to deliver on a promise he had made himself: to create his own life, to build something completely new in a new country.

He had considered Australia and New Zealand before settling on Canada. Armed with a Master’s degree in pharmacy and one year of work experience in his field, Udagani, his wife and 21-month-old child made the move. “I always read that North America was the land of opportunity and that Canada was creating more opportunities for immigrants.”

The couple’s first jobs were at Tim Hortons. They worked alternating shifts so that someone was always home to care for their toddler. “We had no extra money for babysitting, so my wife worked during the day and I worked the night shift,” Udagani says. It was at Tim Hortons that Udagani hit on the idea for Flaxy, the Mississauga, Ont.-based flavoured flaxseed business he would launch in 2014.

“That’s where I first saw flaxseed bagels. At that point, I thought only people in India ate flaxseed,” he says. “I started to see more and more flaxseed but it wasn’t tasty. There were no flavours.”

After seven months at Tim Hortons, Udagani landed a job at a pharmaceutical company. He worked there until 2013, when a merger led to manufacturing being outsourced to India. “At that time, there weren’t many opportunities in the job market,” Udagani says. “The idea for Flaxy was always in my mind. I convinced my wife that we should start the business and she supported me.” It was also around this time that Health Canada approved a therapeutic claim that ground flaxseed can help lower blood cholesterol.

He developed 10 to 15 flavours based on his mom’s recipes, tested them with former colleagues of all demographics and pared his offerings down to three sweet flavours and two spice flavours. Chili garlic remains the most popular. Flaxy can be sprinkled on cereals, yogurt or smoothies or on rice, mashed potato or pasta. With limited capital of $28,000, he was resourceful.

Udagani made the most of training offered

by Ministry of Agriculture Food and Rural Affairs. He learned how to create a business

plan and about commercial kitchens, where he could rent space to make his product.

“You can pay as you go, or buy so many hours in advance.”

Udagani asked for $50,000 in exchange for a 20 per cent equity stake, with the money targerted largely to fund marketing and raising awareness. By that point, sales had

grown about 30 per cent year over year for the previous two years. He received three offers and accepted an on-air joint deal from Manjit Minhas and Michele Romanow for $50,000 in exchange for just 15 per cent equity. Talks continue and both sides are hopeful it will close. In the meantime, Udagani has tapped into his retirement savings to fund organic certification, which he believes will happen this spring. He is also working with a distributor that plans to take Flaxy national once certification is in place.

Michele Romanow is excited about the product and the entrepreneur. “I love the product and eat it every day. The entrepreneur is a genuine, hardworking guy. Organic certification is a critical piece in the health food category. Flaxseed is so important for a variety of reasons, and this should be in mainstream grocery stores, too.

Where I think we can help is in marketing and getting more retailers interested.”

John Cho, partner, KPMG Enterprise, agrees with Romanow that marketing and raising awareness will be key. “He has done really well building the business to this point on his own. The product is on trend. He needs to leverage social media to get people talking about Flaxy and recommending it.

As he gets ready to go national, he has to think about building infrastructure that will allow him to service greater volumes. He should be honest about his skill sets, focus on what he does best and bring in people to help him grow the business.”

Reena Virk’s mother speaks out against killer’s escorted absence from prison Continued from Page 1...

“There is not much you can say in these circumstances as a victim of crime because all the power lies with the parole board. As a victim, you’re completely helpless.”

Kelly Ellard was granted temporary escorted release from prison Monday to attend medical appointments and parenting programs for the baby she had in prison.

Ellard was convicted in 2005 in the 1997 beating and drowning death of 14-year-old Reena and was given a life sentence with no chance of parole for seven years.

Ellard will be allowed up to four escorted absences a month for up to four hours over a three-month period.

She made the same request for temporary absences last month but was rejected. But the parole board says Ellard, who was 15 at the time of her crime, has made strides since then.

“What seems to have happened is that

her attitude towards authority and towards abiding by rules has changed considerably.

She’s no longer challenging the staff, she’s co-operating, she’s participating actively in her correctional plan,” said Patrick Storey, a regional parole board spokesperson.

Parole board member Alex Dantzer told The Canadian Press that Ellard has not had a violent incident in more than seven years.

Virk says she’s disappointed that Ellard will be allowed to leave prison and that she was allowed to have a child while behind bars.

“It seems like Kelly’s getting everything she wants, you know, starting with getting a conjugal visit with her boyfriend and then now having a child.

I don’t understand the rationale of the parole board or the justice system as it is. I believe once you are a convicted killer, you should not have the same privileges as other members of society.”

LOCAL

Saturday, March 04, 2017

7

RCMP not charging asylum seekers for illegal entry Continued from Page 1...

One official said it would be “speculative” to state that the coming arrival of spring will lead to sharp rises in numbers this year.

Still, federal officials confirmed that numbers are on the rise. Between Jan. 1 and Feb. 21 of this year, the federal government dealt with nearly 4,000 asylum cases, compared to 2,500 in the same time frame in 2016. So far this year, 435 people were arrested at the border by the RCMP before being transferred to the CBSA. The federal officials, who spoke on condition that they would not be named, represented the key agencies involved in border issues, namely the RCMP, CBSA and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

They pointed out there have historically been large variations in the arrival of asylum seekers in Canada. In 2001, for example, there were nearly 45,000 cases, compared to 10,400 in 2013. Last year, the officials said Canada dealt with 24,000 asylum claims, including 2,500 people who were intercepted by the RCMP. “The government of Canada has always managed these fluctuations,” a federal official said.

A number of the recent claimants said they were fleeing a climate of intolerance in the United States and the threat of deportation stemming from U.S. President Donald Trump’s statements on illegal immigration.

Canadian officials said large numbers of recent asylum seekers have come from Somalia, Djibouti and the Middle East, in addition to countries such as Romania. The largest increase in illegal border crossings has been seen in Quebec, although there have been dramatic stories of people crossing into Manitoba in frigid and lifethreatening conditions.

One official said that Canada “does not encourage” anyone to illegally cross the border. Federal officials said the asylum seekers often arrive into Canada with legal visas from the United States, adding such facts will be considered in the determination of their status in Canada. The process will take between four and 12 months.

For now, the government has gathered biometric data on all individuals and conducted health assessments before releasing them. Ottawa still considers the U.S. a “safe third country,” as defined by an agreement that requires all asylum claimants to seek protection in the first safe country in which they arrive. However, the agreement “does not apply when someone enters Canada illegally between designated ports of entry,” the federal government said.

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Dhahan Prize for creative Punjabi writing for high school students Vancouver businessman Barj Dhahan’s desire to preserve and nurture his native tongue led to the establishment three years ago of the annual Dhahan Prize for Punjabi literature worth $25,000.

Now he is taking the campaign to B.C. high schools.

The Dhahan Prize Youth Award for creative writing in Punjabi is offering eight $500 prizes to Grade 11 and 12 students for short stories written in Gurmukhi or Shahmukhi.

The deadline for submissions is May 31 and the winners will be announced Oct. 28 at an awards ceremony.

“I am committed to advancing the Punjabi language,” Dhahan said to students and teachers in Surrey’s L. A. Matheson Secondary school, Tuesday, where details of the award were announced.

He told the students how he was moved to found the prizes when he watched his mother sleeping on the couch in their living room after dinner one evening.

“As I watched her breathe all of a sudden the thought occurred to me that one day my mother would leave her body and when she leaves the sound of her voice, her unique sayings, her Punjabi expressions that remind us of that rural, agricultural, villagetype community will leave with her,” said Dhahan.

“That was one of the inspirations I had.

Somehow, I along with my family and friends

want to make sure that the Punjabi language has a future not only in its homeland but also around the world.”

Dhahan, president of the Sandhurst Group of companies, is going to India and Pakistan this month to promote the Dhahan Prize which is open to Punjabi writers worldwide.

Last year’s winner was Jarnail Singh, a

Toronto writer, for his collection of short stories including Black Pages which is set in Prince George.

The youth awards will be sponsored this year by Coast Capital Savings.

Peter Roberts, Coast Capital Savings business VP, said the project fitted the company’s mandate for supporting B.C. youth. The company distributes about $6 million a year to various community programs.

Grade 12 student Sargun Kaur said she was excited to have the opportunity to write and tell “our stories in both Punjabi languages.”

“It will help our generation get to know more about our background,” she said.

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Former budget director for Abbotsford police embezzled $192,000

Abbotsford Police Chief Bob Rich, left, poses with Shelley Mickens at her retirement party in June 2016 The Abbotsford Police Board is suing its former finance director to reclaim nearly $200,000 she allegedly embezzled from law enforcement coffers.

Shelley Dallas Mickens, who also goes by the surnames Boyce or Bursill, spent 17 years in the role before retiring in June 2016.

During that time, she allegedly conned a small fortune by preparing petty cash vouchers with “false and misleading information,â€? according to a lawsuit filed less than a year after her departure. “She took at least $192,200 in cash‌ for her personal benefit,â€? reads the claim, which was filed in B.C. Supreme Court last week.

It’s unclear how many separate vouchers she’s accused of filling out.

The plaintiffs, the police department and the City of Abbotsford, allege Mickens covered her tracks by filing erroneous entries in the branch’s accounting recordkeeping system, and by misleading police employees who questioned her transactions.

The money was used to either purchase or care for at least one property in the city, according to the claim.

Mickens has not filed a statement of defence in the case, and none of the allegations against her have been proven in court.

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Major transit improvements proposed for Surrey Clayton Heights, which is one of Surrey’s fastest growing neighbourhoods, could soon be connected to the transit grid. A representative from TransLink stopped by Surrey City Hall this week to explain how the changes will work if all goes as planned. “Clayton will get a brand new service that we are going to overlay on the existing network, so there will be no changes to the existing network,� said TransLink senior planner Peter Klitz. “It will operate along 72nd Avenue in the Clayton Heights area.�

Klitz says if the proposed route goes forward as planned, many Clayton residents will be able to take the bus for the first time. “They have very few options because 72nd Avenue doesn’t currently have transit service, so right now they’re probably taking their car,� he said. TransLink is accepting public feedback on the route before any final decisions are made.

TransLink also plans to increase bus service to the Morgan Crossing neighbourhood of south Surrey as part of the first phase of its ten-year vision.

Klitz says if all goes as planned, about 2,000 people who don’t have access to transit will soon have the opportunity to take the bus.

TransLink will wait to hear back from the community on the proposals before any final decisions are made. TransLink is also proposing an express bus that would connect Langley residents to the SkyTrain. “We have a new B-Line proposed for Fraser Highway that is coming in 2019,� Klitz said. “We are still working on the specifics but, essentially, it would operate between Langley Centre and Surrey Central Station,� he said.

Klitz says it’s expected the bus will eventually be replaced by a proposed LRT line.

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Canadians prefer economic immigrants instead of refugees: poll A newly released federal survey on attitudes towards immigration suggests Canadians are somewhat more enthusiastic about accepting economic migrants than they are about refugees.

While 52 per cent of those polled in the Immigration Department’s annual tracking study felt the right number of immigrants were coming to Canada, 23 per cent thought it was too high.

Meanwhile, 40 per cent felt the right number of refugees was being admitted and 30 per cent thought that figure was too high.

The 2016 survey was done long before immigration and refugee policy became a centrepiece of the U.S. presidential campaign and the eventual new administration of Donald Trump, and before the question of what values immigrants to Canada ought to hold became a centrepiece of Conservative leadership politics here.

So while the data might not reflect how attitudes have shifted since those developments, it’s telling for what it was probing for in the first place, suggested Jack Jedwab, the executive vice president of the Association for Canadian Studies and cochairman of an upcoming conference on integration and immigration. “I think what the government is trying to get at is the issue of the extent to which people are more preoccupied by the increase in refugees that’s happening in a lot other places in the world,� he said.

While the survey did suggest some differences in viewpoints on refugees versus other classes of immigrants, Jedwab said they aren’t substantial. “Right now, we’re seeing globally an effort on the part of elected officials to try to make those distinctions – refugees bad, economic

migrants good, that’s the distinction that’s being made in the States to some extent,� he said. “And I don’t think, based on what we’re seeing now in this poll, that we’re seeing that idea take effect here.�

Pollsters were in field between August 11 to 31, 2016, asking 1,598 Canadians for their opinions on immigration. The survey has a margin of error of 2.45 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

The survey was done ahead of the release of the immigration levels plan, published in October, and also before the federal government received a report from its economic advisory council that would recommend a massive increase in the number of immigrants to Canada, from what had been about 260,000 a year to 450,000.

The survey did probe Canadians’ appetite for an increase. Respondents were asked to what extent they’d support boosting levels of economic immigration by 100,000 people over the next five years and 42 per cent exhibited some level of support for the idea.

If the number ratcheted up further to 200,000 over five years, support fell to 38 per cent.

The Liberals eventually nixed any major increase, going instead with a modest uptake in admissions to around 300,000.

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Halifax taxi driver’s sex charge acquittal renews debate over court rulings around alcohol and consent A Halifax taxi driver has been acquitted of sexually assaulting a young woman who was found drunk and unconscious in his cab, prompting a renewed debate over how Canadian courts react when the issue of consent is mixed with heavy drinking.

Judge Gregory Lenehan ruled the Crown failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the woman did not consent to sexual activity with driver Bassam Al-Rawi.

The 40-year-old man was charged after police found the woman, in her 20s, passed out and naked from the breasts down in his car in the early hours of May 23, 2015.

The woman testified she had no memory of what happened in the cab, and the provincial court judge concluded his decision Wednesday by saying, “a lack of memory does not equate to a lack of consent.”

Lenehan also bluntly stated: “Clearly, a drunk can consent.”

The ruling came days after a jury in St. John’s, N.L., acquitted police Const. Doug Snelgrove of sexually assaulting an inebriated woman he was driving home from a bar while on duty, in a case that sparked a protest outside police headquarters.

Now, Lenehan’s comments and the graphic details of the Halifax case have reignited a

spirited discussion about how the courts treat allegations of sexual assault when the complainants can’t recall what happened.

Kim Stanton, legal director at the Torontobased Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund, said consent is a key factor in such cases, but so is the victim’s level of incapacity.

“The Supreme Court of Canada has been very clear that a woman cannot consent to sex if she’s incapacitated, whether due to alcohol or otherwise, and that has been an important holding in our law,” she said in an interview Thursday.

“The law in Canada is that only yes means yes. That’s our standard of consent ... It must be affirmative and ongoing consent.”

Stanton said that standard is not being applied evenly in courtrooms across the country, which she said is why the cases in Halifax and St. John’s are undermining confidence in the judicial system.

“That’s why so few women report their sexual assaults to police in the first place.

Cases like this magnify the problem for the few women whose cases actually do proceed through to a trial.”

Nova Scotia Justice Minister Diana Whalen wouldn’t comment on the Halifax case but said the outcomes of some sexual assault cases “can be discouraging” to complainants.

“That’s why we have to work hard as a society, because government pronouncements alone don’t make the difference,” said Whalen on Thursday.

“We have to change our attitudes in society.”

The Canadian Judicial Council confirmed Thursday it has received multiple complaints about Lenehan, but the council does not review the conduct of provincial court judges.

Vancouver police investigating multiple stabbings Vancouver police are investigating four violent assaults that took place during the morning rush hour on Thursday.

The violent incidents took place just after 8:30 a.m. between West Broadway, Cambie Street, Main Street and East Second Avenue.

According to police, three victims were taken to hospital in serious condition with stab wounds. A fourth person was also assaulted.

At Cambie and Broadway, where the incidents began, police had yellow tape strung around the crime scene. A puddle of blood could be seen next to a pile of items, including sunglasses, a cell phone and a bag. A VPD sergeant at that scene said the victim was a courier.

An altercation between the first person and the 33-year-old suspect left the victim with stab wounds, said police. The suspect then headed east on Broadway, where another person was assaulted at Yukon Street.

The suspect continued to flee and stabbed another victim at Quebec Street and East Fourth Avenue. A final victim was stabbed at Main Street and East Second Avenue, according to police.

The suspect, a Vancouver man, was pointed out to officers by a witness of the East Second Avenue stabbing who had remained on scene.

The suspect, who police believe is responsible for all four attacks was arrested without incident and remains in custody.

Amy Deol, owner of a Blenz coffee shop on West Broadway near Cambie Street, said a nurse who was trying to stop the victim from bleeding out came into her shop to clean up.

“There was blood everywhere, so she needed to wash her hands, so I just took my key and opened the door for her, and she was kind of shaky. It is scary. Everybody who walked in this morning, everybody was talking about it,” said Deol.

Police are asking anyone who may have witnessed the attacks to contact detectives from the VPD’s Major Crime section at 604-

717-2541. VPD Const. Jason Doucette says they are looking for information on the attacks but would also like to offer the support of victims services. “Seeing something like this could be traumatic, and we want to make sure that we’re able to provide them support and any available resources that could be useful to them,” said Doucette.

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BC MP introduces private member’s bill to protect landlords whose tenants grow medical marijuana After receiving complaints from constituents, a Conservative British Columbia MP says landlords should be able to decide if tenants can grow medical marijuana.

Cathy McLeod has introduced a private member’s bill in the House of Commons requiring tenants in rental properties to get permission from their landlords if they want to grow medical marijuana.

“If someone’s got a couple hundred thousand of their hard earned money invested, I think

they have the right to provide permission or not,” McLeod said.

“For the last number of years, I’ve had a number of constituents that have phoned into the office and they’re landlords, and they’ve found out that there’s medical grow operations happening in their homes and they . . had no idea about it, their insurance becomes invalid and they worry about the long-term repercussions,” McLeod said.

“I’ve had people come into my office in tears,” she added.

Many have poured their life savings into rental property investments, she said, but the marijuana operations have jeopardized those investments.

“They’re worried about the smells, they’re worried about the damage, they’re worried about when they go to sell their property they have to claim is as a marijuana grow-op.

People are losing their life savings.”

Right now, tenants in a rental are not required to ask permission from the landlord to grow medical marijuana in the property.

If a tenant is growing medical marijuana in a rental home, the landlord’s insurance will be cancelled, because medical marijuana grow-ops are considered high-risk. In an email, Andrew McGrath from the Insurance Bureau said that “while regulations may allow for the legal growing of marijuana for medical purposes, it does not change the structural

risk grow-ops pose to homes and condos.”

“I don’t blame insurance companies for not wanting to insure when there’re no protections in place,” McLeod said.

She said she has a lot of support for the bill.

“I have a huge positive response from groups across the country, from fire departments to insurance companies to real estate agents to my Conservative colleagues,” McLeod said.

Even if the bill does not pass, it will have created a discussion around the issue, she said.

Ironworkers’ union throws support behind Christy Clark ahead of election A B.C. construction union has thrown its support behind Premier Christy Clark ahead of the coming B.C. election campaign, saying her government’s job plan is better than the NDP’s. Ironworkers’ International business manager Doug Parton says the NDP’s opposition to major projects that include the Site C dam, George Massey bridge and proposed LNG projects hurt the job prospects

for the union’s 1,800 members in B.C. “My members for years have been a labour party. What has happened in the past has made my members very concerned,” said Parton Wednesday. “We may not agree with Premier Christy Clark on every issue, or the B.C. Liberals, but we believe their plan for economic growth, for apprenticeship training and all the lunch bucket, kitchen table issues that affect our members are the right ones for us,” said Parton of the union’s Local 97.

Clark was at the Ironworkers’ announcement at a Victoria condominium construction site on Wednesday, wearing a hard hat and surrounded by about two dozen workers.“I support working people,” said Clark. “But the only way we can support working people is by supporting work in B.C. That means supporting LNG. It means supporting Site C.” Parton said the union never officially endorsed the Liberals in the past and the support does not mean individual members will vote for the party. NDP Leader John Horgan says the endorsement doesn’t faze him much, adding major unions and organizations including the building trades council still support the NDP. “The Local 97 didn’t endorse the NDP the last time around and campaigns matter and we are a long way from the campaign.”

Horgan said he supports LNG developments with conditions, and there’s not enough evidence that Site C or Massey replacement project should be built. When questioned, he wouldn’t elaborate more on the NDP’s position on the Massey Tunnel replacement,

adding only that the issue will be a focus in Question Period on Thursday.

Mark Leier, a history professor at Simon Fraser University who studies the labour movement in B.C., said the endorsement is not a particularly significant loss for the NDP. “The fact that the Ironworkers have 1,800 members means it’s not a large union,” he explained. “It`s not one of the large unions that the NDP would look to for massive funding.”

Leier said that it was a mistake to think the B.C. labour movement was a “monolith” that would fall in line to support the NDP, and pointed out it has been a particularly rough time for private sector unions. “They have been losing members. They’ve been losing contracts to non-union firms,” he said. “But the big question the labour movement needs to ask is not whether they’ll get some short-term jobs from one government or the other, but which party is more likely to pass legislation that makes it easier for them to organize, or legislation that would ensure public projects are unionized.”

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Metro Vancouver mayors want answers from BC’s political parties Metro Vancouver mayors want the four major B.C. political parties to ensure regional issues are on their agendas for the upcoming provincial election.

On March 1, Metro Vancouver sent letters to the leaders of the Conservatives, Green party, Liberals and New Democrats, inviting discussion and posing seven questions in four categories: affordable housing, transit, the environment and the province’s working relationship with the regional district.

The parties have until March 31 to answer, and responses will be posted on the Local Government Matters website.

“We want to highlight these issues as we move forward into the 2017 election,” said Greg Moore, chair of the Metro Vancouver board.

“For B.C. to be successful, we need a strong Metro Vancouver, and it’s local governments that are at the front line of everything we do for our citizens.”

The goal of the project is to have the major parties publicly clarify their platforms on what Metro Vancouver calls “critical issues facing the region” and explain those issues to voters.

One question relates to what the parties will do to help TransLink and the Mayors’ Council on Regional Transportation (which is partnering with Metro for the Local Government Matters initiative) deliver phase two of its 10-year transit plan for the region. The mayors have repeatedly called on the province and the federal government to commit to funding the second phase of the plan as soon as possible.

“Metro Vancouver residents support the plan and want the plan to be delivered,” Moore said.

Metro wants to know what the parties will do to support an expanded inventory of affordable

rental housing options, alleviate homelessness and support the recommendations recently made by the regional homelessness task force.

“We hope that the parties running in the provincial election share our concern and they’re putting forward solid platforms to address this,” said Mike Clay, chair of the housing committee.

The regional district also wants the provincial parties to commit to striking an ad hoc committee to discuss regional issues, to providing long-term, sustainable funding for major capital projects, and to change the homeowner grant program.

“We need a collaborative environment, and ultimately this is the way we can make the quality of life within our region better,” said Metro Vancouver board vice-chair Raymond Louie.

Metro Vancouver undertook a similar initiative in 2013, asking the parties 23 questions in six categories. Affordable housing, the environment and public transit were key issues then and remain so today.

Louie said the areas of concern and questions have been refined.

Richmond farmhouses have ‘gotten out of hand’ Perfectly legal farmhouses as large as 22,000 square feet are cropping up on Richmond farmland, among the largest homes allowed in Metro Vancouver.

But on Thursday the city begins a process to decide whether the mega-mansions are taking up too much space on land in the agricultural reserve and whether sizes should be capped the same as many other Lower Mainland cities.

“This has gotten out of hand. We’re got to do something to address it,” said Coun.

Bill McNulty. “The horse is out of the barn.

We’re trying to close the barn.”

An open house from 5 to 8 p.m. at city hall will set out the problem: Richmond is alone among Metro Vancouver municipalities in permitting 60 per cent lot coverage, meaning a farmhouse is allowed to cover 60 per cent of the size of the property. On a three-acre spread, that amounts to a pretty

big house, said Coun. Carol Day. Sizes are often capped elsewhere: According to Richmond staff, Delta’s limit is 5,000 square feet on eight hectares or more; Port Coquitlam’s maximum is 5,282 square feet and Maple Ridge’s is 3,000 square feet; Surrey does not specify a maximum house size. Ministry of Agriculture guidelines allow two houses of 3,339 and 4,305 square feet, the latter for seasonal farm labour.

Day said farmhouses have “quadrupled” in size in the last dozen years, growing from 5,000 square feet, to 7,500, 10,000, 12,000 and 22,000. There are six-car garages, 10 or 12 bedrooms and multimillion-dollar prices that no ordinary farmer could afford, she said; bedrooms have supplanted veggie beds. One application for a 41,000-squarefoot mansion featured 23 bathrooms and bedrooms; staff turned it down on the grounds it was a hotel, not a house.

Vancouver border bust nabs fentanyl bound for Ontario Two Windsor residents have been charged after Canada border officers in Vancouver seized a major shipment of fentanyl destined for Windsor, Ont. The fentanyl, which amounts to 140,000 standard medical doses, was discovered last week in a package being sent from China to an address in Windsor.

A joint investigation was conducted by the RCMP and the Canada Border Services Agency, resulting in an arrest Tuesday of a man and woman during the search of a home on Mitchell Crescent, near St. Clair College.

Cpl. Louise Savard, a spokesperson for the Mounties, said authorities on both sides

of the Canada-U.S. border are working together to combat shipment of illegal drugs between the two countries.

“Fentanyl is a very dangerous drug, and the RCMP is taking all the measures possible to prevent this drug from hitting the streets,” she said. The 25-year-old man and 27-year-old woman have been charged with importation and possession of a controlled substance for the purposes of trafficking, and conspiracy to import fentanyl.

“The RCMP is determined to reduce the total harmful effects caused by the opiate crisis by disrupting the supplies of illicit drugs,” said Insp. Kevin Keane of the RCMP detachment in Windsor.

Saturday, March 04, 2017

LOCAL

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Vancouver not a ‘sanctuary city’ says councillor Vancouver is not a sanctuary city, and one city councillor says that’s a good thing.

The term “sanctuary city” has no legal definition, but traditionally it’s been used to define a city that welcomes refugees and immigrants and does not devote municipal funds to target or arrest undocumented people.

The idea of a “sanctuary city” has grown stronger in recent months in reaction to U.S. President Donald Trump’s crackdown on undocumented workers and the increased number of reports of refugees crossing the U.S. border into Canada.

Toronto became the first sanctuary city in Canada in 2013. Last month, Montreal voted unanimously to become one, and approved a motion to ensure non-status migrants are able to obtain municipal services without fear of being deported. London, Ont. passed a similar motion earlier this year.

“A lot of people when they hear the term think of churches providing refuge to people who would otherwise be deported and so forth,” Meggs said.

But the city can’t legally overstep federal

immigration law, Meggs explained, and would not be able to provide that kind of security or shelter for undocumented people who come to the city.

“We felt, and this is what the settlement and newcomer services said as well, that we should not oversell what is happening.”

The City of Vancouver has an “access without fear” policy which it adopted in April.

Meggs says that policy allows people to access city services — like the library or a community recreation facility — without disclosing immigration status.

The policy also extends to city workers who are directed to leave status questions out of daily tasks when dealing with the public.

For example, Meggs said, if a city worker is doing a building inspection at a site with undocumented workers, they are encouraged to stick to the inspection, and leave immigration enforcement to Canada Borders Services Agency.

But Meggs admitted there are grey areas — particularly when it comes to Vancouver police, who have a duty to enforce the law.

“The police have relationships and obligations they have to uphold because it’s been a sensitive area,” he said.

Mario Ayala is a refugee services director for the Inland Refugee Society of B.C., an organization which provides support for undocumented individuals.

Ayala said the city has fewer powers than federal officials when it comes to immigration enforcement.

New West sanctuary policy to reduce immigrants’ fears New Westminster schools are now sanctuaries for children of families with precarious immigration status.

The district school board unanimously approved the sanctuary schools policy on Tuesday night, following a year of consultations with community stakeholders.

The policy aims to give all New Westminster school-aged children access to education without fear of their personal information being shared with immigration authorities, regardless of their immigration status. The families targeted with this policy may include anyone with less than full immigration status, such as temporary workers, undocumented entrants, and refugee applicants.

While the B.C. School Act permits all school-age residents to attend a school in their district, school board vice-chair Mark Gifford says some families still keep their children out of school from fear that they

will be forced out of the country or lose their children. “That message isn’t always clear to people with precarious status. It’s a little scary,” said Gifford. “I know as a parent, one of the scariest moments in my life was placing my son in school. And that was tough enough, but if I thought that that might have the consequence of creating family separation or not being able to maintain my home, that’s a whole other scale.”

Gifford says that while most school board meetings are boring affairs, the positive response from community members in attendance provided real validation for their community.

Sanctuary Health is one of the community groups that has been advocating for the approval of the policy.

Their goal is to make sure that all people have access to essential services regardless of immigration status.

Mahashivratri was celebrated all over BC last week including at Hindu Temple Burnaby and at Hindu Temple at 140 st. in Surrey. Pic by: Chandra Bodalia

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Saturday, March 04, 2017

BC announces 50-cent minimum-wage increase, starting in September The minimum wage in British Columbia will rise by 50 cents to $11.35 an hour in midSeptember. The ministry says there will be an identical increase of 50 cents to the minimum

wage for liquor servers, bringing it to $10.10 per hour in September.

The Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training Ministry says the new wages include a 20-cent

increase based on British Columbia’s 2016 Consumer Price Index, plus an additional 30 cents.

The minimum wage was raised to $10.85 an hour last September.

Irene Lanzinger, president of the B.C. Federation of Labour, said at the time that still left 500,000 workers earning poverty level wages of below $15 an hour.

In a news release, the ministry says when self-employed people are excluded, there were 93,800 workers earning the minimum wage last year in a workforce of just under two million people.

The ministry says it will announce more details later on increases in the daily rates for live-in home support

and camp leaders, monthly rates for resident caretakers and the pay rates affecting farm workers harvesting certain fruits and vegetables.

BC to review plans for two Surrey overdose-prevention sites British Columbia’s Health Minister has asked the chief executive officer of the Fraser Health Authority to review the plans for two “overdose-prevention sites” announced for Surrey.

It was reported earlier that rather than open the two sites, as ordered by Health Minister Terry Lake in early December, the Fraser Health Authority opted to expand services such as outreach and shelter hours at existing facilities.

Mr. Lake said on Monday that he contacted Fraser Health president and CEO Michael Marchbank that morning and asked that he look into potential barriers.

“I want him to look at whether or not there could be a barrier for people accessing [overdose-prevention services] and evaluate the effectiveness of the current [harm-reduction] sites,” the Health Minister said.

“We know there are supervised consumption sites that are being applied for, but until then, I

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think it’s important that we make sure there are no barriers to people in Surrey.”

An overdose-prevention site is a place where people can use illicit drugs while being monitored by staff or volunteers trained to resuscitate them if they overdose. The province announced in December it would open more than 20 such sites as a temporary, emergency

measure due to freezing temperatures and the province’s unprecedented number of overdose deaths while health authorities awaited federal approval to open official supervised injection sites. One was planned for Surrey’s Quibble Creek Sobering and Assessment Centre and another in a “mobile medical-support unit” on 135 A Street, more commonly known as the Surrey Strip.

Victoria Lee, chief medical health officer for Fraser Health, said the health authority instead enhanced services at the two locations, for example, expanding shelter hours, stationing a mobile medical unit on the Strip to respond to overdoses and hiring new staff members for a shelter and drop-in centre.

Suspected overdoses in the Fraser Health region have decreased from 5.5 a day in December to 4.5 a day in February, Dr. Lee said, suggesting these strategies are working.

But a person who picks up sterile supplies at one of the locations, for example, would still have to use elsewhere.

Vancouver opened five overdoseprevention sites in December. Between Dec. 8 and Jan. 22, they recorded more than 10,000 visits and 115 overdose reversals, according to Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH).

Mr. Lake made his comments to The Globe on Monday at the opening of the Connections clinic in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, a program about five years in the making. It is one of few clinics where drug users can access addiction treatment on demand; addictions physicians emphasize that it is crucial to capture this population in the moment they want help.

LOCAL

Saturday, March 04, 2017

Final approval in sale of retirement homes to Chinese conglomerate The sale of British Columbia’s largest provider of seniors’ care to a Chinese insurance conglomerate has cleared the last hurdles, sidestepping concerns about the company’s murky ownership.

B.C. health officials have granted all the required licences to allow the sale of Retirement Concepts to a subsidiary of Anbang Insurance in a deal believed to have exceeded $1-billion. The giant firm has faced questions in the United States over its ownership and possible ties to the Chinese state. It took a little more than a week after Ottawa approved the sale for the province to complete its “due diligence” reviews and issue the new licences for 20 seniors’ care facilities across the province. That timeline has raised concerns from public-health-care advocates.

“We are talking about the largest provider of residential care and assisted living in

Suspended Victoria police chief says he’s victim of pointed attacks

B.C. being handed over to a major offshore corporation. The province has a duty to look into it carefully,” Adam Lynes-Ford of the BC Health Coalition said.

“It’s not just money and business. It’s about inherent values in the way we provide care, it’s about taking care of the elders of our society, and providing the best possible care for their well-being – not profit. Handing that over to a multinational of which we know very little, with the province unconcerned about learning their ownership and their intentions, raises serious questions,” Mr. Lynes-Ford said.

The province received a commitment that the company will continue delivering existing services for a minimum of three years under the new ownership. That goes beyond existing provincial regulations which would have only demanded a one-year guarantee, but details of that agreement are shrouded in secrecy.

Brenda Butterworth-Carr named head of BC RCMP Yukon native is first Indigenous woman to head RCMP’s E Division The RCMP in British Columbia have named Assistant Commissioner Brenda Butterworth-Carr as the division’s new commanding officer.

Butterworth-Carr, from the Tr’ondek Hwech’in Han Nation in Yukon, will be the first Indigenous woman to hold the top RCMP job in the province, according to a spokesperson.

British Columbia’s E Division is the largest of the RCMP’s 15 divisions in Canada.

Butterworth-Carr, a Mountie since 1987, has been the officer in charge of criminal operations core policing in B.C. since August

15

2016, police said in a statement.

She also served as the commanding officer of Saskatchewan RCMP for five years. When she took the job in 2013, she became the first Indigenous woman to command an RCMP division.

She has also held a wide range of positions in police organizations at the provincial, federal and international level.

Butterworth-Carr takes over the position from deputy commissioner Craig Callens, who is retiring after holding the commanding officer position for five years.

The suspended head of Victoria’s police department says he is being targeted by a group of people who want him ousted from his position as chief constable.

In an affidavit filed in B.C. Supreme Court, Frank Elsner alleges that confidential notebooks that went missing after investigators raided his office identify those individuals who orchestrated his removal, as well as their motives.

Chief Elsner’s affidavit accompanies a petition asking the court to stop investigations initiated by the province’s police complaint commissioner into the police chief ’s conduct, citing unreasonable delays and bias on the part of the commissioner’s office.

The chief was suspended last April after allegations were made of improper conduct

on social media and harassment against four employees of the Victoria Police Department.

Chief Elsner describes in his affidavit how various policy decisions he made after being appointed to his “dream job” in 2013 proved unpopular with the Victoria City Police Union and other police unions throughout the province.

Union representatives could not be reached for comment.

Chief Elsner says in the court document that the legal proceedings have taken a toll on him and his family.

“I would like to resign as chief constable so I can take care of health and try to move on with my life,” he says in the document, dated Feb. 22. “As a result, I am forced to wait for the conclusion of what seems like a never-ending investigation.”

Gurdwara Dukh Nivaran Sahib, presented a cheque to Sophies Place for $18,000 and to Surrey School Board for $3,300 last week. Pic by: Chandra Bodalia

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Province facing pressure to ban pay-for-plasma clinics The B.C. government came under pressure today to prevent clinics that pay for blood products from launching new operations in the province.

NDP health critic Judy Darcy said only government intervention can ban the private plasma clinics from opening and draining the supply of blood at volunteer donor clinics.

“What we’re raising here, which the World Health Organization has said for years, is we need to move quickly toward a 100 per cent voluntary system,” she said. “This government is moving in the opposite direction.”

Darcy was joined at the legislature by members of the B.C. Health Coalition who collected more than 6,000 signatures on a petition calling for an immediate ban on the pay-for-plasma clinics.

Health Minister Terry Lake said he is not aware of any imminent arrival of a private clinic, and adds more than 80 per cent of B.C.’s current supply of plasma arrives from private facilities in the United States. Lake published an editorial last April in the Vancouver Sun entitled “Pay-for-plasma poses no threat,” in which he expressed openness toward such companies looking to establish themselves in B.C., as long as quality and safety are assured.

However, he says the government is more concerned with providing reliable blood services to patients than becoming embroiled in an ideological debate about who supplies blood products. “Without paid donations, paid plasma, we would not be able to meet the needs of Canadians and British Columbians,” he said.

About 4,000 people are homeless in Metro Vancouver A task force says there are more than 70 homeless camps in Metro Vancouver, as it estimates about 4,000 people are in immediate need of housing.

The region’s task force said Monday there

is a homeless crisis in every corner of Metro Vancouver, where the number of homeless people living outside shelters has jumped 26-per-cent annually since 2011.

The task force calculates five people become homeless across the region every week and a further 60,000 households are vulnerable to homelessness because more than half their income is spent on shelter.

The group, which includes Vancouver

Mayor Gregor Robertson, wants all provincial political parties to agree to open 1,000 units of transitional housing across the region this year and a further 1,000 units a year in 2018 and 2019.

It said the number of people who are homeless has increased steadily over the past 15 years. The crisis has been caused by gaps in social services for people with chronic health issues, mental illness or addictions, which have been exacerbated by rising in rents, house prices and the cost of living, the task force added.

“The homelessness crisis in Metro Vancouver has reached a state of emergency, and the status quo has failed to prevent growth in the number of homeless people year after year throughout the region,” Robertson said in a statement. Maple Ridge Mayor Nicole Read said research conducted by the group reveals a “complete system-wide failure” to assist the most vulnerable.

The task force said responding to the demands of a homeless person costs taxpayers $55,000 annually, compared with $37,000 per person to house them.

Federal judge overrules IRB decision to release violent refugee with 54 criminal convictions Five separate decisions by the Immigration and Refugee Board to release an imprisoned refugee — who is considered a danger for sexual assault and randomly attacking people on the street — have been overturned by the Chief Justice of the Federal Court, revealing growing conflict over how to handle violent refugees who cannot be deported.

In overruling release decisions for a man who has been in prison for more than three years because he won’t cooperate with his deportation, Chief Justice Paul S. Crampton issued a call to reconcile “the tensions in this court’s jurisprudence” on the thorny issue. He landed soundly on the side of detention.

To do otherwise, he wrote, “would have the perverse effect of rewarding the detainee for his failure to co-operate with his removal.”

Such immigration conundrums are emerging with increasing frequency, with each individual case appearing as a bizarre oddity where a refugee is ordered out of Canada but cannot be deported.

As the cases accumulate, however, the IRB and the Federal Court are grappling with how long an unremovable non-citizen can be incarcerated before the government throws in the towel and lets him out. The latest case, which drew Crampton into the fray, is that of Jacob Damiany Lunyamila, 40, of Vancouver.

Lunyamila arrived in Canada without any documentation after jumping off a ship and claiming refugee status in 1994 as a citizen of Rwanda. He was granted asylum in 1996.

If he were Canadian he would be free

today to roam the streets as he has served his sentences. However, he is not Canadian.

From 1999 to 2013, he amassed 54 criminal convictions; 10 of which are for assaults, four for uttering threats and 13 for failing to appear in court. His most recent conviction,

in 2014, is for sexual assault. Court heard how he was found carrying a concealed axe and attacking strangers on the street in downtown Vancouver without provocation. Vancouver police called him a chronic offender and a persistent criminal.

As Justice Sean Harrington said in an earlier Federal Court decision on his case: “If he were Canadian he would be free today to roam the streets as he has served his sentences.

However, he is not Canadian. He came here as a refugee from Rwanda.”

Because of his criminality, Lunyamila was deemed inadmissible to Canada by the Canada Border Services Agency. He was ordered deported but that has so far been impossible as he refuses to sign documentation required by the Rwandan government to re-enter Rwanda.

New report calls for curb on BC log exports If the amount of logs exported by B.C. forest companies in 2016 were milled into lumber, it would have been enough to build 134,000 single-family homes, according to a new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

The centre threw that statistic into a report to illustrate their argument about the impact of log exports, a hot-button political issue for B.C.’s coastal communities that have suffered the decline of lumber manufacturing over the last decade-and-a-half while exports of

unprocessed timber has soared.

“The troubling reality is that since 2003, the door has been wide open for companies to close mills and export logs instead,” said Ben Parfitt, the researcher who compiled the report, which was backed by major forestsector unions and environmental groups.

It is a long-standing complaint that runs against the industry’s argument that allowing exports is key to maintaining a flow of timber to remaining mills and that putting on more restrictions would wind up costing jobs for loggers.

Parfitt said his research of B.C.’s export statistics showed that exports have broken the typical pattern exports followed more than a decade ago, which saw most come off of privately owned timberland.

Now, that pattern has been “flipped on its head,” with the majority of exports coming out of Crown forests, Parfitt said, which means the province can act to encourage logging companies to reinvest in manufacturing on the coast.

Banning the export of old-growth logs should be the first step, Parfitt said, then taxes on the export of second-growth logs should be raised to the point that it would be more worthwhile for the timber licenses to reinvest in mills in B.C.

Saturday, March 04, 2017

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Saturday, March 04, 2017

Fentanyl trafficking presents new challenges for BC RCMP, experts say Illicit drugs have always been a problem in port cities, but experts say the emergence of highly potent synthetic opioids that are fuelling B.C.’s overdose crisis are slipping through borders in new ways, presenting challenges for law enforcement.

International regulations, online ordering and the potency of the drug are among the factors making it difficult to prevent the drug from slipping through Canada’s borders.

More than 1,000 people have died from illicit drug overdoses in B.C. since January 2016, many as a result of the powerful opioids fentanyl and carfentanil, which largely comes from China, police say.

Canada Border Services Agency says seizures of fentanyl at the Vancouver International Mail Centre have more than doubled to 54 last year from 23 in 2015.

But RCMP national drug program coordinator Sgt. Luc Chicoine said while lives are saved with every seizure, there’s no knowing how much of a dent every confiscation of drugs makes.

“For example, if we seize 100 kilos of a certain drug that’s coming into the country, was it only 100 kilos coming in or was it a million kilos?” he said. “We don’t have the capability of identifying what is the full scope.”

The high potency of fentanyl has allowed traffickers to transport smaller quantities with other imports, on individuals or through the mail, making it harder for agencies to detect.

Chicoine said people trafficking cocaine would need to bring in large quantities.

Three-quarters of a kilogram of pure cocaine once diluted would only produce one to two kilos for street distribution.

“While fentanyl, by bringing in 100 grams of it, you can cut it 10 to 15 times and you can have one to one and a half kilos of the substance,” he said.

He said the combination of high potency and today’s technology means users or dealers can now order illicit substances from China online and have it delivered straight to their door, making it harder for police to intercept.

Canada Border Services Agency said in a statement that detecting illicit substances is a priority, and all packages coming into Canada are opened and inspected if necessary before going through the mail system.

The agency said it’s waiting on legislative changes now before Parliament that would allow officials to open and inspect mail weighing less than 30 grams, a practice currently prohibited due to privacy concerns.

Chicoine said Vancouver’s proximity to China has made it the centre of Canada’s overdose crisis because it’s often the first landing point for opioids entering the country.

Green Party wants basic income in BC but welfare advocates hate it The B.C. Green Party has renewed its calls for the creation of a basic income for British Columbians following the release of the provincial budget, and citing the province’s rising costs of living and stagnant welfare rates.

Party leader Andrew Weaver says a guaranteed income for British Columbians would help combat growing unaffordability throughout the province.

“The idea is that you provide a minimum level of income, which is there as a safety net,” said Weaver, adding that it would only be provided to residents that need it. A basic income pilot project is currently underway in Ontario. The goal is to understand some of the economic and social consequences of the policy, as well as its effectiveness in reducing poverty.

The Oak Bay-Gordon Head MLA says it’s time B.C. jumped into the fray — and that the Greens would roll out a pilot if they took office.

“It eliminates the need for a lot of other services,” he said.

But the effectiveness of basic income policies has long been debated. According to economist Steeve Mongrain, when basic incomes go into practice, they often come at the expense of other social welfare programs like disability assistance.

“It’s basically grabbing all these types of programs and kind of folding them into one, reducing the administrative costs, and

also making it independent of your ability to work and all these types of conditions,” he said. While there are benefits in reducing

administrative costs, welfare advocate Jean Swanson, member of Raise the Rates, says guaranteed incomes can do more harm than good.

“A lot of the powerful people who want it ... their main goal is to collapse all the social programs we have into one, and to save money,” she said.

“We wouldn’t have old age pension.

We wouldn’t have guaranteed income supplement. We wouldn’t have social housing. Who knows what else we wouldn’t have. Some people could actually lose money.”

It remains to be seen how any basic income program would function at the provincial level. But Swanson stands by her cause for increasing programs that are currently in place, including B.C. welfare.

“The amount needs to be increased a lot, and the system needs to be respectful.”

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Despite calls from Manitoba premier, immigration minister not convinced of asylum trend Canada’s immigration minister says he’s not yet convinced a recent increase in the number of asylum seekers crossing the border illegally from the United States constitutes a growing trend, despite concerns raised

by Manitoba that the situation may be getting out of hand.

In the days and weeks that followed a move by President Donald Trump to ban travellers from seven Muslimmajority entering the U.S., Canada has seen an increase in the number of refugee claimants walking across the border to request asylum.

Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister has expressed worries that those numbers could rise further as the weather becomes warmer, and has called on Ottawa to provide more help in dealing with the influx.

For now, Ottawa is monitoring the situation, but it’s still too early to say whether even more asylum seekers will continue walking over Canada’s doorstep, Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen said in an interview.

“We need to see what happens over the next little while to see if this is a trend,” Hussen said. “We can’t really determine that this is a trend moving forward.”

Cpl. François Gagnon, a media spokesperson with the RCMP, told reporters this month that the increase in illegal border

crossings into Canada has been the greatest in Quebec. It has meant more work for patrol officers but not more than the force can handle, he emphasized.

The RCMP, the Canada Border Services Agency and public safety officials are analyzing the influx, added Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, who said most of the asylum seekers intended to eventually end up in Canada, rather than the U.S. “The vast majority . . . are actually transiting through the United States,” Goodale said in an interview on Global TV’s The West Block. “Their plan was not originally to be in the United States, but to come through the United States.” But the minister couldn’t say why people are choosing to cross illegally from the U.S. if their goal was always to end up on Canadian soil or elsewhere. Under the Safe Third Country Agreement between Canada and the U.S., refugee claimants in one country can’t make the same claim on the other side of the border. But that only applies when they make claims at official border crossings.

If asylum seekers reach Canadian territory, they are entitled to go through a claims process after being arrested because Canada is a signatory of the U.N Refugee Convention.

BC company given $230-million shipbuilding contract

also creating a sustainable shipbuilding industry on both the east and west coasts.

Foote declined comment Tuesday on the program’s total cost, saying the number won’t be known until all of the vessels have been built and that she doesn’t want to give out preliminary numbers.

“From the perspective of the government, what we need to do when we give out numbers is make sure that they’re real numbers.

Because that’s what we’re contending with as a result of what happened previously,” she said. “The numbers that were put forward were unrealistic numbers that we had to contend with.” Seaspan is building three coast guard ships in Vancouver under the national plan. Foote said those vessels will be used to research fish stocks and monitor changes in the ecosystem, but will also be equipped to respond to emergencies like search-andrescue operations.

A Vancouver-area shipyard has been handed a $230-million contract to help create the latest vessel in the federal government’s national shipbuilding plan.

The agreement will see shipbuilding company Seaspan develop and finalize plans to build two joint supply ships for the Royal Canadian Navy, with construction of the vessels expected to begin next year.

Judy Foote, minister of procurement and public services, announced the contract in North Vancouver on Tuesday, saying the deal will help create stable middle-class jobs.

Defence Minister Harjit Saajan says the ships will increase the “range, flexibility and duration” of Canada’s navy by resupplying vessels at sea with fuel, food, ammunition and more. The previous Conservative government originally launched the national shipbuilding strategy in 2010, budgeting $35 billion to rebuild the navy and coast guard fleets while

Canadians to ensure newcomers know the country’s values Participants in government-run focus groups on immigration issues told researchers last summer that they believe it’s up to Canadians to ensure newcomers are aware of the country’s values.

Those who took part in the focus groups described those values as things like gender equality, fairness, abiding by the law and being open to difference.

The focus groups were commissioned by the federal Immigration Department last year to help guide the plan for the number of

immigrants Canada would accept in 2017.

The meetings took place in five cities in July and August, well before the question of screening immigrants for “anti-Canadian values” became a subject of intense political debate. The issue was first raised by Conservative leadership candidate Kellie Leitch in September and continues to be a dominant theme in her campaign.

The Immigration Department report on the focus groups was published online this week.

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Punjabi Language Education Association (PLEA) of BC held it’s 14th annual international mother language day celebration in North Delta last week and also honoured Asa Singh Johal. Pic by: Chandra Bodalia

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Legalizing pot will take money from gangs: PM Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says regulating the sale of marijuana will protect young people and take money away from criminal gangs, but the government is drawing the line at pot when it comes to legalizing illicit drugs.

The federal government’s approach on marijuana has two goals, Trudeau said Thursday during a visit to Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt in the Victoria area.

“The first is to protect our kids. Right now we know that young people have easier access to marijuana than just about any other illicit substance. It’s easier to buy a joint for a teenager than it is to buy a bottle of beer.

That’s not right,” he said.

“Secondly, we know that criminal organizations and street gangs are making billions of dollars off of the sale of marijuana.

We feel that regulating it, controlling it will bring that revenue out of the pockets of criminals and put it into a system where we

can both monitor, tax it and ensure that we are supporting people who are facing challenges related or unrelated to drug use.”

But the government doesn’t plan to go any further than legalizing marijuana in legislation he hopes will be introduced by this summer.

“We are not planning on including any other illicit substances in the move towards legalizing and controlling and regulating,” he said.

Trudeau is scheduled to participate in a roundtable discussion with first responders and health-care workers on Friday in Vancouver on British Columbia’s opioid crisis, which killed 922 people last year.

A recent federal announcement giving $10 million to the provincial government to help fight overdose deaths is aimed at improving the response to the crisis, said Trudeau.

Although it is up to the province to decide how that money is spent, he says people in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside told him in December more money was needed to keep safe consumption sites open longer for drug users in the inner-city neighbourhood.

“This is an issue that we are taking very seriously and we will continue to engage in,” he said.

Trudeau spent Thursday morning on the naval base, where he went on a five-kilometre run with military personnel, met with sailors and toured the facility.

NDP holds slight BC election poll lead, but MSP, child-care issues could swing voters The NDP has opened up a slight edge on the governing Liberals in the latest poll numbers ahead of the May 9 provincial election, but issues like health care premiums and affordable child care could still swing either party into the lead.

That’s the conclusion of the Mainstreet/ Postmedia poll released Wednesday, which had the NDP polling at 30 per cent, five points ahead of the Liberals at 25 per cent. The Greens (11 per cent) and the Conservatives (10 per cent) are well behind, while 24 per cent remain undecided.

The poll results come from a random sample taken on Feb. 25 and 26 of 2,352 B.C. residents and confirmed eligible voters. The margin of error is 2.1 per cent, 19 times out of 20. Polling officials hesitate to call the results a definitive NDP lead, noting that the region outside of Metro Vancouver and Vancouver Island recently saw its undecided rate fall to 17 per cent — with the Liberals picking up the majority of the new support after its budget announcement last week.

“The NDP does have a lead at this point, (but) the only hesitation is because of what we see in the rest of B.C., where the undecided has given the Liberals a lead in that part of (the province),” said Quito Maggi, president of Mainstreet Research. “It may point to a similar break in the higher undecided in Vancouver and the Islands.”

What’s concerning for the Liberals, Maggi noted, is that the poll also revealed NDP and Green supporters overwhelmingly pick each others’ parties as a second choice. Maggi said it suggests the Liberals may have a harder

time gaining more votes if strategic voting comes into play.

One issue that may help the Liberals is Medical Services Plan premiums. The Liberals announced in their provincial budget a 50-per-cent reduction in premiums, while some have suggested eliminating them completely in favour of an increase in income taxes. On this last point — the suggestion of eliminating of MSP premiums and increasing income taxes — poll numbers indicate that 38 per cent of voters are against such a proposal (versus 36 per cent for and 26 per cent undecided). The strongest opposition comes from Conservative supporters and undecided voters — two groups the Liberals could look to for gains.

“I think this issue could push B.C. Conservative supporters and undecided voters towards the B.C. Liberals,” Maggi said.

Another emerging issue may be more advantageous to the NDP. Poll numbers show robust support for $10-a-day daycare — an idea floated by child-care advocates in the province. The proposal has 46 per cent support in B.C., close to doubling the opposition rate (29 per cent).

Trudeau touts pipeline approvals in Calgary Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is on Vancouver Island today, where he visits the Esquimalt military base and the mayor of Victoria. Later he meets with B.C. Premier Christy Clark.

More controversy is brewing as the Liberals pick candidates in two by-elections in Montreal and Markham, Ont.: One candidate, a rival of a woman taking leave from the Prime Minister’s Office to run for the seat north of Toronto, says Tamil-Canadians were shut out of taking part in the nomination vote.

In the event that Canada faced a Sept.

11-style attack in which a commercial aircraft

was hijacked to be used as a weapon, fighter jets would be dispatched to shoot the plane down, according to protocols received by the CBC through Access to Information. Many sections of the documents were improperly redacted by ATI bureaucrats, but the CBC does not indicate what extra information was revealed. Other documents obtained by the challenge the idea that Donald Trump’s election led so many Americans to look up Canada’s immigration website that the site crashed. In fact, it looks as though the crash might have been caused by a deadline for a different type of travel document.

Saturday, March 04, 2017

Retired RCAF generals roar in protest over the Super Hornet deal and the Liberals shrug Thirteen former RCAF commanders have written a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau calling for him to reconsider his purchase of interim Super Hornets and instead move immediately to a fighter jet competition.

Failing that the retired generals recommend that the Liberal government purchase legacy F-18s. In the U.S., if 13 former USAF commanders came out against a particular aircraft, there would have been lots of publicity.

My colleague John Ivison broke the news of the letter in a recent column but most everyone else, including the Liberals, have just shrugged at the letter from the generals.

Set aside the fact that two of the those signing the letter have previous links to Lockheed Martin, the builder of the F-35 and the main competitor against the Super Hornet in any future fighter competition (it was long ago but Larry Ashley is a former president of Lockheed Martin Canada and Paul Manson, a former chief of the defence staff, was chairman of Lockheed Martin Canada).

The main drawback with the letter, argue some inside National Defence headquarters, is that it doesn’t really come as a surprise.

The RCAF wants the F-35….and has always wanted the F-35….full-stop. So it isn’t a stretch that former RCAF commanders would attack a plan (the acquisition of Super Hornets) that could be potentially detrimental to the purchase of the F-35, they contend. (The worry is that once the interim Super Hornets are in place, the government will use that as an argument to buy more Super Hornets as a permanent replacement for the CF-18s….and the F-35 would be sidelined once again).

The generals who signed the letter, however,

point out that their motive is that they want what’s best for the defence and security of Canada.

But over the years, Angus Watt – who signed the letter – has written a number of articles supporting a Canadian purchase of the F-35.

Paul Manson has pumped out opinion pieces supporting the F-35.

Dumping the Super Hornet deal and going direct to a competition would certainly help the F-35….or at least give it a chance in the Canadian market.

Manson’s last column for the National Post in July 2016 was a particularly pointed attack on Trudeau, warning that comments by the prime minister about the F-35 were “absurd” and raised serious questions about the “factual knowledge” of the Liberal government on fighter jets. While this view might be widely shared, insulting the prime minister might not be the best way to make your point….. particularly if seven months later you write him to “respectfully” not proceed with the purchase of Super Hornets, a DND public affairs specialist suggested to Defence Watch.

Lockheed Martin Canada is certainly happy about the letter from the retired generals.

Former Conservative MP and retired fighter pilot Laurie Hawn has been promoting the letter on his Facebook page.

Readers can decide that. The Liberals are moving ahead with their proposed Super Hornet purchase. Jordan Owens, spokeswoman for Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan, told my colleague John Ivison that the Liberal government has no intention of reversing its decision on the interim Super Hornet purchase.

Tamil-Canadians shut out of Liberal nomination vote in Toronto-area riding One of the candidates competing against a senior Justin Trudeau staffer to win the Liberal nomination in a Toronto-area riding says Tamil-Canadians make up the vast majority of the 1,600 party members she’d signed up during her campaign and who have been declared ineligible to vote in this controversial contest.

Juanita Nathan, a school board trustee who is TamilCanadian herself, says this ethnic community is present in large numbers in the riding of Markham-Thornhill.

The electoral district is in need of a new Member of Parliament after incumbent John McCallum was named Canada’s next ambassador to China and by-elections for a number of ridings across the country are set for April 3.

The Liberal Party triggered accusations of favouritism in the Markham race by announcing Feb. 20 that the period to register new members for the nomination vote would be retroactively cut off as of Feb. 14.

“It’s pretty sketchy,” Ms. Nathan said of the move. She has accused the Liberals of favouring Mary Ng, director of appointments to Prime Minister Trudeau, and said the far-reaching retroactive cutoff benefited the Ottawa staffer. Ms. Ng’s campaign rejects this charge and said the membership cutoff hurt them too.

Ms. Nathan said that by Feb. 20 she had registered nearly 1,600 new members on party

rolls – all of whom are now disenfranchised from participating in the nomination vote set for March 4. She also had several hundred more memberships she had yet signed up but not registered on Liberal Party rolls. She said Liberal Party officials would have been able to detect a pattern among members she was registering before they backdated the cutoff for voting. “Our names stand out. You can tell,” she said of Tamil-Canadian names.

By comparison, Prime Minister’s Office staffer Mary Ng, whom rivals alleged is the Liberal Party’s “preferred” candidate, is targeting her message to ChineseCanadians in MarkhamThornhill, an even more significant ethnic group in this electoral district.

Ms. Ng’s campaign launched with Englishlanguage and Chinese-language news releases and the candidate bills herself as the “the highest ranking Chinese-Canadian to have ever served in the Prime Minister’s Office.”

Markham-Thornhill’s ethnic makeup is more than 35 per cent Chinese and more than 30 per cent South Asian, according to census data. However Ms. Nathan says a significant portion of that South Asian category – she estimates 12 percentage points – are Tamils.

The Markham-Thornhill nomination contest is one of two Liberal races where the governing party faces accusations of manipulating the results.

NATIONAL

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NRI

Saturday, March 04, 2017

Indian killing in Kansas was ‘racially motivated’ The White House has condemned the fatal attack on an Indian engineer in Kansas City last week by a US Navy veteran as “raciallymotivated hatred”.

“As more facts come to light,” Deputy White House Press Sarah Sanders told reporters that it looks like the Kansas shooting last week was a “racially motivated hatred”.

Sanders reiterated that US President Donald Trump “condemns these” and any other racially motivated attacks in strongest terms.

“They have no place in the country,” Sanders said at the top of her off camera briefing.

Srinivas Kuchibhotla, 32, was killed and

Alok Madasani, another Indian of the same age, was injured in the shooting by the navy veteran Adam Purinton, who yelled “terrorist” and “get out of my country” before opening fire on them.

A 24-year-old American named Ian Grillot who tried to defend the Indians received injuries in the firing.

Purinton, 51, apparently mistook the Indians for immigrants from the Middle East.

Yesterday, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer had said the incident was “disturbing”, but did not say whether the Trump administration believed it was a hate crime.

3 life terms for NRI man for killing wife, kids A 45-year-old Indian-origin man in South Africa has been sentenced to three life terms in prison for killing his wife and two children with a maces.

Mogamberry Rajan Kandasamy, from the sprawling Indian township of Chatsworth near Durban, escaped a death sentence only because it has been outlawed constitutionally in the post-apartheid democratic order, lawyers said.

Kandasamy was given three life sentences for the murder of his wife, Versha, 41, his son Megandran, 17, and his 18-year-old daughter,

Melarisa, whom he murdered at their home in Chatsworth in December 2013.

Kandasamy had attacked the family after he learnt his wife wanted a divorce because she wanted to marry another man.

“While she was on the floor, I hit her twice with the Hanuman stick on her head. On the third strike the stick broke,” Kandasamy had said in a confession submitted at the trial.

Captain Sathisiven Naidu said Kandasamy had made the confession of his own accord, although he claimed he had been coerced into doing this.

7 NRI students nominated for Truman scholarship

NEED WORKERS, PAY ACCORDING TO EXPERIENCE

Seven Indian-American students have been nominated for the prestigious Harry S Truman Scholarship, which is given to college juniors for demonstrating leadership potential and a commitment to public service.

The students will compete for the prestigious national awards, which provides up to $30,000 for graduate studies.

The awards are given to college students on their records of leadership, public service and academic achievement.

Only about 60 Truman Scholars are named nationwide each year.

The foundation reviewed 768 potential scholars from 315 institutions before settling on the 199 students from 136 institutions, according to a release.

Among the scholarship finalists were

Shreya Ganeshan of the University of Georgia, Anjali Misra of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Samarth Gupta of Harvard University, Megan Patel of Georgetown University, Maya Durvasula of Duke University, Manju Bangalore of the University of Oregon, and Anjana Murali of the University of Pittsburgh.

A foundation regional review panel will interview the finalists from March 3-April 7, with the scholars being announced April 21.

The Truman Scholarship Foundation was established by Congress in 1975 as the federal memorial to President Harry S Truman.

Each year, a selection committee reviews applications from more than 600 nominees for the Truman Foundation in Washington.

Youth kills parents, lives with bodies in South Africa An Indian-origin drug-addict youth in South Africa allegedly hacked his parents to death and lived with their decomposing bodies for a week in their house in Phoenix, north of Durban. The unnamed 21-year-old has been charged with murder after the grisly scene was discovered on Tuesday.

Police, who confirmed that a case of murder was being investigated, said the youth, who is the only child, apparently lived with his parents’ decomposing bodies for a week.

The youth lived normally for a week and when neighbours asked him about his parents, he said they had gone to a neighbouring town to visit family.

However, a suspicious family member

broke into the house and found the couple’s dead bodies.

The parents were named as Shoba Singh, 50, and Prakash Singh, 56.

“The youth was due to be sent to a drug rehabilitation centre by his mother,” a neighbour told the weekly Post.

Shocked neighbours described the youth as a “shy young man”.

“He never misbehaved and was also polite.

He was a friend of my children and was in and out of my house but in the past few months I noticed a change in him. From being a neat and tidy child he started looking untidy and unkempt,” said Raj Mayalal who lived next door to the family for almost 25 years.

SOUTH ASIA

Saturday, March 04, 2017

Taliban claim attacks in Afghan capital, 3 dead

the city as a car bomb was detonated near a police headquarters in the west of the city, the interior ministry said. The blast was followed immediately by gunfire between security forces and an unknown number of attackers.

Fighting at the police headquarters, not far from a military training school, lasted for several hours with gunmen barricaded inside the building.

Najib Danesh, a spokesman for the interior ministry, said the attack was suppressed by late afternoon and security forces were conducting checks of the area.

A separate attack appeared to have targeted an office of Afghanistan’s main intelligence agency, the National Directorate for Security (NDS), on the eastern outskirts of Kabul.

However a senior army official said that attack was quickly suppressed.

2 women to be charged with Kim Jong-Nam’s murder

“Two terrorists entered a building. One blew himself up and the second was shot by Afghan security forces,” said Abdul Nasir Ziaee, commander of 111th corps based in the east of the city.

A spokesman for the Taliban, who sometimes exaggerate the impact of their operations, sent a statement claiming responsibility for the attacks, which he said had caused heavy casualties.

An official from the ministry of public health said at least three people had been killed and at least 38 people had been wounded and transferred to hospital in the two attacks.

Last month, a suicide bomber killed at least 20 people outside the Supreme Court in Kabul. The Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility for that attack.

How Donald Trump’s immigration system might work President Donald Trump spent his first weeks in office vowing to crack down on illegal immigration+ with deportations and other get-tough proposals. But when he went before Congress on Tuesday to lay out his agenda, he offered a far broader plan that echoes an approach long favored by mainstream Republicans for reshaping the nation’s immigration laws.

Trump’s call for a “merit-based” immigration system+ — one that puts a priority on skills and employability over family ties — revived a central element of the broad immigration compromise sought in 2007 by President George W Bush, which paired stricter border enforcement with an eventual grant of legal status for many of the estimated 11 million immigrants illegally living in the United States. In a conversation with television news anchors at the White House on Tuesday, Trump said he would

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Two women arrested for the nerve agent assassination of Kim Jong-Nam are to be charged with his murder, Malaysia said Tuesday, as North Korea sent a senior diplomat to seek the return of the body.

The spectacular killing of Kim JongUn’s half-brother with VX, a fast-acting poison developed for warfare, sparked an international probe and lurid stories of Pyongyang’s Cold War-style tradecraft.

South Korea says its isolated neighbour was behind the assassination and claims the North’s agents engaged two outsiders to carry out the murder.

“They will be charged in court under Section 302 (murder) of the penal code,” Attorney General Mohamed Apandi Ali told AFP by text message, referring to the two suspects.

The women, from Indonesia and Vietnam, will appear in court on Wednesday. If convicted, they could face death by hanging.

Kim, a well-travelled polyglot who fell out of favour at home after a botched 2001 attempt to get into Japan on a false passport, died less than 20 minutes after he was set upon at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on February 13. CCTV footage shows two women approaching him and seemingly pushing something in his face.

Investigators say this was VX, a deadly poison classed as a weapon of mass destruction and banned around the world.

be open to such a deal, although he did not mention that in his speech to Congress.

Trump’s remarks in the speech focused instead on the merit-based system. “It’s a basic principle that those seeking to enter a country ought to be able to support themselves financially, yet in America, we do not enforce this rule, straining the very public resources that our poorest citizens rely upon,” Trump said. “Switching away from this current system of lower-skilled immigration, and instead adopting a merit-based system, we will have so many more benefits.”

“It sounds great just to bring the total brainiac, most skilled people here, but when you look at the economy, it’s not that simple — you need the brainiacs, but you need the low-skilled people as well,” said Tamar Jacoby, the president of ImmigrationWorks USA, who advises Republicans on immigration issues.

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INDIA

Saturday, March 04, 2017

NCP to stay away from Sena, BJP The NCP on Thursday said it would maintain a distance from both the Shiv Sena and BJP in the mayoral elections in the Mumbai Municipal Corporation, where the recent polls resulted in a hung house.

State NCP President Sunil Tatkare told reporters here that his party was clear right from the start of the campaign for the civic polls across Maharashtra that it would not enter into any understanding or friendly fight with either the Shiv Sena or BJP. The NCP leader, however, took a dig at the Congress which, he said, had struck an understanding with the Shiv Sena in some Zila Parishads.

“We kept our word while the Congress, which had also assured the same, tied up with the Sena in Osmanabad and Raigad Zila Parishads. While in many seats elsewhere, they were in a friendly fight,” he

said.

Tatkare said the party is yet to take a call on the Mumbai mayoral elections and will wait to see how the situation unfolds. “(However) under no circumstances, will our party support the Sena or BJP (in the BMC).

We feel the two saffron parties are likely to come together for power. The Shiv Sena has no guts to withdraw support to the state government,” he said.

In a sarcastic take at the Sena’s stance during the campaign that the BJP-led government in the state had been put on “notice period”, Tatkare said, “Only they (Sena) know where is the notice period for the government in the state and whether the resignation letters carried by its ministers in their pockets are still there or have been torn off.”

Pak national who married Indian girl to be deported for overstaying Akbar Durani from Okhri in Hyderabad province of Pakistan has been arrested and will be deported for overstaying in India in violation of visa norms. Earlier in 2011, the 31-year-old fell in love with an Indian girl, Sofia, who stays in Madhya Pradesh’s Dewas, through social media.

Durani, along with his mother, got visa and came to Dewas to meet Sofia’s family, who agreed to marriage but imposed a condition that Durani would have to settle down in India post marriage.

In 2013, their marriage was solemnised in Dewas and after a year they were blessed with a child. “At his first visit to India, he came on a visitor visa and stayed with us for three months. Later, he came on multi-entry visa.

But after expiry of the visa, he again applied for extension and also conveyed the status to the police department concerned but he was

not granted extension and was arrested,” Sofia said. She said she had approached External

Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj. She appealed to the government to grant him visa.

Durani, who taught in a school in Madhya Pradesh, was earlier in 2015 awarded oneyear imprisonment for his overstay in India and violation of visa norms.

Printing of Rs 2000 note started in August 2016 Bharatiya Reserve Bank Note Mudran Private Limited (BRBNMPL), an RBI subsidiary, started printing the Rs 2000 notes two and a half months before the November 8 demonetisation.

“A reply from BRBNMPL to my query under the Right To Information Act said the printing of Rs 2000 notes began on August 22, 2016, while printing of the new Rs 500 notes began on November 23, 2016,” said Chandrashekhar Gaud, resident of Neemuch district of Madhya Pradesh. BRBNMPL stopped printing the old Rs 500 note on October 27 while the printing

of the Rs 1,000 note ceased earlier, on July 28 last year, the reply said.

GST ‘peak rate’ 40%; slabs intact, for now The Goods and Services Tax (GST) may go up to 40 per cent after the GST Council proposed raising the peak rate in the Bill to 20 per cent, from the current 14 per cent, to obviate the need for approaching Parliament for any change in rates in future. The model Goods and Services Tax Bill will replace the clause that states the tax rate “not exceeding 14 per cent” with “not exceeding 20 per cent” when it comes up for debate in Parliament during the second phase of Budget Session beginning next week.

The change in the peak rate will not alter

the four-slab rate structure of 5, 12, 18 and 28 per cent agreed upon last year for the moment, but is only a provision being built to take care of contingencies, officials said.

The revised draft of the model GST law, made public in November 2016, provides for a maximum rate of tax under the new regime at 14 per cent (14 per cent central GST and an equal state GST, taking the total to 28 per cent). “There shall be levied a tax called the central/state goods and services tax (CGST/SG-ST) on all intrastate supplies of goods and/or services...,” the draft law states.

Supreme Court enhances sentence; gives life term to man for honour killing Sending out a strong message against honour killings, the Supreme Court has enhanced from 10-year jail term to life imprisonment the punishment given to a man from Karnataka for killing his pregnant daughter who had eloped with her lover from another caste. Noting that the convict deserved severe punishment for the heinous crime, a bench headed by Justice Kurian Joseph on Wednesday sent convict Gandi Doddabasappa aka Gandhi Basavaraj to jail for life. “It would necessarily follow that the accused committed murder of his daughter Shilpa who was in the advanced stage of pregnancy and for which he was liable to be punished with either imprisonment for life or death under Section 302 of IPC alone. In the peculiar factual background of this case, we do

not find it a fit case to impose death penalty,” the bench said. Deceased Shilpa–who hailed from the Lingayat community--fell in love with Ravi Kumar from the Naik community. The duo eloped and got married in court in 2002 and Shilpa started living with her in-laws. On October 3, 2003, her father Gandi went to her in-laws’ house and killed her in the bathroom.

Shilpa’s mother-in-law saw him fleeing the crime scene with a blood-stained sickle.

An FIR was registered and the accused was arrested 20 days later.

However, the trial court acquitted him citing want of sufficient evidence as crucial witnesses turned hostile and it refused to rely on the testimony of her mother-in-law– an eyewitness–saying there were discrepancies in her statements.

Saturday, March 04, 2017

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INDIA

Saturday, March 04, 2017

Railway starts RO-RO service to carry trucks Railways today launched Roll-on Roll-off (RO-RO) service from Gurugram to carry loaded trucks on wagons to decongest roads in the national capital region.

About 30 loaded trucks were transported on the flat wagons from Garhi Harsuru station in Gurugram for Muradnagar in Uttar Pradesh.

“The RO-RO is a boon for Delhi as it would have a direct impact on its air ambient quality and the capital would breathe clean air,” Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu said after launching the service here.

RO-RO service aims to reduce carbon emission and congestion on the roads of the national capital region (NCR) as about 66,000 diesel-guzzling trucks pass through Delhi and its adjoining areas in a day.

According to railways, there are about 20,000 trucks which are not meant for the NCR, but enter the region to travel further.

There are eight entry/exit routes in the NCR which will be utilised for RO-RO service to take trucks off the road.

It is a win-win situation for truckers as well as for railways as goods will be transported in safe and faster way, saving cost on diesel and man-days besides reducing the pollution level, he said.

Besides the Ro-RO service, a series of

initiatives were unveiled today to perk up railways revenue through increase in the freight share and passengers segment.

The business plan envisages commissioning 100 new freight terminals, introduction of double stack dwarf containers and firming up long term agreements with freight customers.

Prabhu said “The business plan-2017-18 was formulated to cater to the requirement of stakeholders and we have changed the policy after discussion with our customers.”

Taking note of railways falling share, he said “Normally a leaf from the tree does not fall like that. The process starts long before the fall. Similarly the decline in traffic has also started not now but much before.

“Once railway was only option for freight so it had the monopoly. But with the change of time railways share started declining.

There are various reasons like economic slowdown on global stage which affected Indian market also,” the minister said.

Freight earning is two-third of railways total revenue.

“However, despite challenging situation, we have managed to improve in the loadings. We have created capacity of 1.2 billion tonnes for cargo,” he noted.

The new plan envisages long-term agreement with various freight customers like manufacturers of cement, steel and fertilizer and food grains to attract more loadings.

“In last two years we have changed freight policy constantly. Our endeavour is to taking the stakeholders into consideration.

Man held for allegedly trying to extort Rs 50 lakh from Mahesh Bhatt Mumbai Police and Uttar Pradesh Police in a joint operation on Thursday arrested a man for allegedly trying to extort Rs 50 lakh from filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt.

Bhatt had filed a complaint with the Juhu police on Wednesday after receiving phone calls and WhatsApp messages demanding that the money be deposited in an account of a bank in Lucknow.

Sandeep Sahu, the man arrested, allegedly warned Bhatt that he would get his wife Soni Razdan and daughter, actress Alia Bhatt, killed if the money was not paid.

Bhatt was told that “several rounds of

bullets” would be fired on his family if the money was not paid.

Following the complaint by Bhatt, the Mumbai Police traced the origin of the threatening calls to UP. The police department from that state identified the caller as Sahu and took him into custody.

The filmmaker confirmed the threat and the arrest of the caller in a message on social networking site Twitter.

“A bolt from the blue in the form of an extortion call & threat to my family was nipped in the bud by the MH & UP police in tandem.

Gratitude!,” Bhatt tweeted.

Top Indian athlete arrested in NY for sexual assault

Continued from Page 1...

It was a long journey for Indian snowshoe champion Hussain and his coach to the World Snowshoe Championships in Saranac Lake, New York last weekend.

The pair were initially denied visas to travel to the U.S. in the chaotic days following the Trump administration’s travel ban, but with the help of Saranac’s mayor and — according to Mir — the office of Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer, the American Embassy in New Delhi reversed their decision Feb. 17 and allowed them to travel to the competition. They arrived Feb. 23.

After their ordeal, Hussain and coach Abid Khan were given a hero’s welcome in the bucolic town in the Adirondacks, besieged by locals offering congratulations and free lodgings at the Porcupine Inn, a heritage lodge that in the snow looked like a “fairy tale scene from a

movie,” Khan said in a Facebook post. The “fairy tale” came to an unhappy conclusion Thursday, when Hussain, 24, was arrested and charged with felony sexual abuse and child welfare endangerment.

Hussain hails from the Indian side of the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, which is predominantly Muslim. He is considered one of India’s best snowshoe competitors and placed in the top 50 at the World Snowshoe Championships last year in Italy, Mir said. He failed to place in the top 100 this time.

Although India is not one of the seven countries that was part of the initial travel ban, Hussain and Khan had alleged they were victims of it when their first attempt at procuring visas to travel to the United States were turned down in late January, the first business day after Trump’s travel ban was put in place.

INDIA

Saturday, March 04, 2017

F in iry against a an e t finis s n An inquiry for reported breach of discipline instituted against BSF jawan Tej Bahadur Yadav, who alleged bad quality food was given to soldiers, is in its final stage and a report would be submitted soon.

Officials said the Staff Court of Inquiry (SCoI) would soon wrap up its investigation and submit its recommendations to the Border Security Force DG here.

Meanwhile, the Home Ministry has taken strong exception to a fresh video of Yadav and has asked the BSF to look into it as part of the inquiry. A senior Ministry official said Yadav has crossed the line of discipline and broken service rules by posting the second video.

In the fresh video, Yadav alleges that he is being “mentally tortured” and that his attempt to post the first video was to bring to light the alleged prevailing corruption in his organisation.

“The Prime Minister had said so (eradication of corruption)...I was doing the

Congress demands PM’s apology for ‘coconut juice’ jibe at Rahul

The Congress on Thursday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of “misleading” the country with his “blatant lies” on various issues including the “coconut juice” jibe on Rahul Gandhi, for which it demanded his apology.

The opposition party hit out at Modi for not fulfilling any of the promises made to farmers, ex-servicemen and the poor and accused him of doing “treachery” with farmers.

“Blatant lies, jumlas and disinformation have become the hallmark of India’s Prime Minister. The truth is that Modi ji does not speak the truth,” Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala told reporters.

Showing a video of Rahul’s speech in Manipur and that of the Prime Minister at a rally in Uttar Pradesh, the Congress leader said it is more than apparent in the video that Modi is trying to mislead the nation and people of Uttar Pradesh.

Surjewala was referring to a remark made by the Congress vice president about progress made by a northeastern state which is essentially part of India’s growth story.

“Modi ji does not want people of Manipur and northeastern states to progress and participate in India’s growth story. So Modi ji must now apologise not only to the Congress party but to the entire nation. He should express regrets publicly for misleading people in UP as also the entire country by twisting and by falsifying the words of the leader of the principal opposition party,” he said.

“It does not behove of a Prime Minister.

Modi ji has lowered the dignity of the office of Prime Minister and he should be ashamed about it,” he added.

same. Is this (inquiry) what I should be getting in return?,” he said in the short video claiming he surrendered his phone to the authorities on January 10 and it has been “tampered with”.

In the earlier videos uploaded on social media, Yadav had alleged that while government procures essentials for the soldiers, the higher-ups and officers “sell them off ” in an “illegal” manner in the market and they have to suffer.

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Prez: No room for ‘intolerant Indian’ President Pranab Mukherjee today said there should be no room in the country for the “intolerant Indian” as this nation has been a bastion of free thought, speech and expression since ancient times.

Delivering the sixth KS Rajamony Memorial Lecture here, he said, “The society has always been characterised by the open contestation of diverse schools of thought and debate as well as discussion.”

His comments come in the backdrop of the ongoing tussle between the RSS-affiliate ABVP and the Left-backed AISA supporters in Delhi University and a raging debate over free speech and nationalism following

recent tweets of one of the varsity’s students, Gurmehar Kaur.

“It is tragic to see them (students) caught in the vortex of violence and disquiet,” he said.

Advocating free thinking on university campuses, he said students and faculties must engage in “reasoned discussion and debate rather than propagating a culture of unrest”.

Underlining ancient glorious culture of universities in the country, the President said, “Our premier institutions of higher education are the vehicles on which India has to propel itself into a knowledge society.” “These temples of learning must resound with creativity and free thinking,” Mukherjee said.

28

FIJI

Saturday, March 04, 2017

Naidu sentenced to life 44-year-old Sudesh Mani Naidu has been sentenced to life by High Court Judge Salesi Temo.

Naidu robbed 74-year-old Vidiya Wati of $2,200 worth of assorted jewellery and then murdered her on 13th January, 2013 at Johnson Road in Lautoka.

Justice Temo had earlier overturned the unanimous opinion of the three assessors who had found Naidu not guilty of murder and robbery.

Naidu has to serve 17 years in prison before a pardon may be considered by the President.

Justice Temo says this was a senseless killing and an unnecessary robbery.

He says Naidu was drunk and went to Wati’s house to ask for water.

Fund is for ‘generations within 99-year lease’

Meanwhile Justice Salesi Temo also told the court this afternoon why he overturned the unanimous not guilty opinion of the assessors last Friday. He said state’s case was based on Naidu’s confession to Police.

Justice Temo said that he accepts the two Police officers evidence in court that Naidu was treated well and was not assaulted or given false promises during the caution interview.

Justice Temo said if Naidu was beaten, then why the examining doctor did not find any injuries on his body.

The Judge added that Naidu also did not raise in his first appearance in the Lautoka Magistrates Court that he was assaulted by Police Officers.

Medical team from India to perform open heart surgeries this year in Fiji A team of medical personnel from India performed open heart and joint replacement surgeries at the two division hospitals in the country last week.

Director of Sahyadri Speciality Pacific Hospital Limited, Professor Manu Munibhargav says a team of 14 members performed 8 cardiac surgeries at the CWM Hospital while another team of 8 performed 2 joint replacement surgeries at the Lautoka Hospital.

He says the team of surgeons will perform about 45 open heart surgeries from 16th May at the CWM Hospital which will be for two weeks.

Munibhargav says they are looking at performing 20 joint replacement surgeries in May. He says the cost of an open heart surgery is $25,000 while the cost of the single joint replacement surgery is $21,500 and for bilateral surgery it is $31,000.

109 teenage pregnancies reported last year, youngest being 12-years-old There were 109 teenage pregnancies reported last year and the youngest girl to get pregnant was 12-years-old.

This has been revealed by the Assistant Director Child Services Unit, Ela Tukutukulevu at a workshop for Faith Based Organisations.

The Ministry of Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation has also highlighted that 1 in 10 girls are alienated by their families and in these cases, the Ministry has Homes of Hope that takes in the girls and their babies.

Homes of Hope then assists the girls with raising their child, while at the same time

providing these girls with skills training, to help them earn an income.

The Ministry has also encouraged the girls that there is a lot more to life, and to talk with their respective family members to encourage the children to complete their education if they can.

In cases where girls want to raise their own child, the Ministry has a Care and Protection Allowance of $50 vouchers a month under the Social Protection Assistance program that is provided to the girls to assist them in purchasing basic necessities for her child.

ONLY the three generations that emerge within the 99-year lease duration of the Nawailevu bauxite mining will be eligible for the Future Generation Fund.

This was confirmed by Minister for Lands Faiyaz Koya, who said the fund was meant for the future generations of the three landowning units of Noro, Nalutu, and Naicobo in Nawailevu.

Responding to questions from this newspaper on whether any members of the mataqali attaining the age of 18 had been issued their share of the fund, Mr Koya said it would only be used for investment purposes to benefit future generations.

“What government does is look after the three generations that live within the 99-year lease,” he said “The funds will not be used for the

$130m airport upgrade nears end THE $130 million Nadi International Airport terminal upgrade project will be completed by March or April this year, says Airports Fiji Ltd executive chairman Faiz Khan.

Passengers have already begun to get a taste of what Fiji’s biggest gateway looks like with the opening of the revamped departure terminal, immigration counters, shopping outlets in the airside departures area and expanded walkways.

A key focus of the entire upgrade project has been the use of more natural light.

“We now have facilities like a nondenominational prayer room and a smoker’s room which are open for our

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passengers. The Nadi International Airport terminal upgrade project is about creating new experiences for our customers,” Mr Khan said.

“We have opened the two-lane passenger drop off area which is under the terminal roof. We have plans to have self check-in kiosks in the departures terminal as well as WiFi.” Nadi International Airport welcomes more than 1.2 million international passengers and more than 450,000 domestic passengers through its gates annually.

It also handles more than 1.3 million tonnes of freight, services 20 airlines and connects Fiji to 14 international cities.

PM: No shortcuts The rush-hour mentality of past governments has cost Fiji exorbitant expenses, claims Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama.

In describing Government’s commitment towards rebuilding stronger schools that were destroyed

by Severe Tropical Cyclone Winston, Mr Bainimarama said Government would never take shortcuts for political gain.

“We are never prepared to risk the future hardship for our people,” he said.

“We are not here to build a Fiji that will stand for only a year or for a single term in office. “We are building a Fiji that will last,

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purchase of vehicles or to pay off vehicle parts or anything else for that matter.

“It is meant to be put aside to be invested in shares or other revenue-generating projects earning money for the future members of the landowning units.”

Despite earlier reiterations by the ministry that funds would not be released at any time, this newspaper was informed by deputy Director for Lands, Malakai Nalawa that they had already released part of the $600,000 to the three landowning units in Bua. Responding to questions sent to his office, Mr Nalawa said in January this year the partial release was to cater for payment of their outstanding vehicle payments.

Mr Nalawa said it was a one-off payment and any further request for additional partial withdrawal would not be entertained.

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schools that will stand for generations, homes that can be depended on to keep our people sheltered and infrastructure that can be relied upon in times of crisis.”

At the opening of the four teachers’ quarters at Niusawa Secondary School yesterday, Mr Bainimarama said with this as their mantra, Government already made tremendous progress to provide students the best classrooms and families good homes.

“Already, we have begun rebuilding 79 schools throughout the country, with plans to begin construction on 55 others soon,” he said.

PAKISTAN

Saturday, March 04, 2017

Pakistan Rangers arrest 600 terror suspects Pakistan Rangers have killed four terrorists and detained 600 terror suspects during over 200 search operations in Punjab province under the recently launched nation-wide military operation ‘Radd-ul-Fasaad’.

The Pakistan army last week launched ‘Operation Radd-ul-Fasaad’ an Arabic word which translates roughly to ‘elimination of discord’ - across the country, to eliminate terrorists and consolidate gains of its counterterrorism operations, days after a wave of suicide attacks that killed more than 125 people, including 91 at a Sufi shrine in Sindh.

An important part of the operation was deployment of paramilitary Rangers in Punjab province to counter terrorism.

The army’s media wing Inter-Services Public Relations said Punjab Rangers conducted over 200 search operations in various areas of Punjab including Karor, Layyah and Rawalpindi and arrested 600 suspects, including Afghan nationals.

Four suspected terrorists were killed in an exchange of fire with security personnel, it said in a statement.

During the operation, the paramilitary force searched suspected houses, seminaries and shops, the statement said.

Some suspects belonging to Jamat-u-Ahrar (JuA), believed to be facilitators in the recent terror attacks in the country, are also among the arrested suspects.

JuA had claimed responsibility for the bombing on the Mall Road Lahore and the suicide attack on a shrine in Sehwan Sharif Sindh this month.

Weapons and banned literature have been seized during the operation.

The Nawaz Sharif government has approved the deployment of the Rangers in Punjab province for 60 days after the Mall Road Lahore bombing.

akistan ig t takes e tra passengers allows them to stand in aisle The Pakistan International Airlines allowed seven passengers to travel standing in the aisles all the way to Saudi Arabia last month, prompting a probe into the serious breach of security regulations by Pakistan’s loss-making national carrier, according to media reports.

As many as seven passengers aboard the Boeing 777 Pakistan International Airlines flight PK-743 (Karachi-Madina) on January 20 were forced to stand throughout the over three-hour flight after the airline boarded

excess passengers, Dawn newspaper reported.

The PIA management appears to have taken this lightly as no action has been taken against those responsible for the bizarre incident, the paper said.

PIA spokesperson Danyal Gilani said the matter was being investigated.

Gilani told the BBC that an internal investigation had begun “and appropriate action will be taken once responsibility is fixed”.

Pakistan’s top diplomat in UN deletes tweet on Muslim Oscar winner Pakistan’s top diplomat in the UN Maleeha Lodhi on Monday deleted a congratulatory tweet about Oscar winner Muslim actor Mahershala Ali after being criticised for promoting an Ahmadi, considered to be non-Muslims in Pakistan.

The 43-year-old actor won the Oscar for his portrayal of a drug dealer in coming-of-age drama “Moonlight”, becoming the first Muslim actor ever to win the prestigious award.

Soon after her tweet, Lodhi came under fire for promoting an Ahmadi, who are considered non-Muslims in Pakistan. She later deleted her tweet as a response to the criticism.

Ali’s birth name is Mahershalalhashbaz and he converted to Islam in 1999. In 2001, he joined the Ahmadiyya Community.

Pakistan’s parliament had declared Ahmadis non-Muslims in 1974, and they

have repeatedly been targeted by Islamic extremists, who view them as heretics.

Article 260-3 of Pakistan’s Constitution declares Ahmadis “non-Muslims”.

In 1984, they were banned from calling themselves Muslim. They are banned from preaching and even from travelling to Saudi Arabia for pilgrimage. Several Ahmadi mosques were shut down at the time in Pakistan. Their publications are prohibited.

The minority Ahmadiyya Community members have also been taken to court on blasphemy charges.

Pakistan’s only Nobel laureate scientist Dr Abdus Salam, a major figure in the 20th century theoretical physics, was also an Ahmadi. Ahmedis were prosecuted by the fundamentalists and contribution of eminent people like Dr Salam was ignored.

Shrine to Islamist murderer reveals Pak’s challenges Pakistan has renewed its vow to root out extremism after a fresh wave of attacks, but a rose-covered shrine in Islamabad built by radicals to glorify an Islamist murderer sends a different message.

Followers of Mumtaz Qadri feted him as a hero at his tomb on Monday, the start of a three-day festival marking the anniversary of his hanging+ on February 29, 2016.

Qadri assassinated liberal Punjab governor Salman Taseer in 2011, angered by the politician’s reformist stance on Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy laws. The state’s

decision to execute him provoked uproar among Islamists.

“There could be 400,000 people,” Qadri’s father Malik Bashir Awan said as he supervised preparations for the commemoration from his plastic chair at the shrine. Up to 200 followers were praying and enjoying free food at the shrine on Monday, many coming and going through policemanned entry points, with more expected ahead of a conference Wednesday where clerics will make speeches about Qadri’s “sacrifice”.

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PUNJAB

Saturday, March 04, 2017

AAP protests Gurmehar’s trolling

Punjab: SYL is not executable

Maintaining that Punjab is a “very sensitive state”, the SAD-BJP government today asserted in the Supreme Court that the 2002 decree on the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal was not executable due to substantive decrease in availability of water and a variety of legal reasons.

Senior counsel RS Suri told a Bench headed by Justice PC Ghose that the 2004 Act passed by the state Assembly terminating the SYL canal water-sharing agreement with neighbouring states took away the very basis of the 2002 decree that went in favour of Haryana.

He said the 2004 Kaur. During the march that began from the Act was never declared Desh Bhagat Yadgaar Hall to the DC office unconstitutional and so long in Jalandhar, activists raised slogans against as it was there, the 2002 decree the ABVP and demanded arrest of those who could not be executed. He also threatened Gurmehar. pointed out that Haryana had Gurmehar Kaur’s grandfather Kamaljit not filed any petition under Singh also joined the AAP protest. Activists Article 131. held placards reading ‘ABVP khabhardar, sara Suri said even the court’s verdict on the desh Gurmehar de naal’ and ‘Desh lai kurbaan presidential reference was neither binding on hon vale khandaan di kadar karo, Gurmehar the President, nor the states in question. de naal kharo’. A letter was submitted to the He said Punjab was forced to pass the DC over the “rape threats” being issued to her.

2004 Act because its water complaint filed Gurmehar had recently uploaded a in January 2003 was not acted upon and Facebook picture holding a placard that read the Centre never set up a water tribunal to she wasn’t scared of the ABVP. Since then address its grievances.

The Bench, however, again clarified that it didn’t intend to revisit the facts and issues already adjudicated upon and asked the parties to spell out if the court’s verdict on the presidential reference was binding or not.

As Suri kept questioning the decree, (AN INDEPENDENT SCHOOL APPROVED AND FUNDED BY MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, B.C.) Justice Ghose said: “To my mind, the decree Activists of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and its youth wing as well as the Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti (CYSS) today held a march in protest against the “threats and abuses” hurled at Delhi University student Gurmehar

she has been at the centre of the storm in the virtual world.

AAP leaders Darshan Bhagat, Dr Ravjot, Dr Amarjit Thind, Hans Raj Rana, Gulshan Sharma among others were present.

Meanwhile, former NRI Commission chairman Jaswir Singh Gill lashed out at those terming Gurmehar anti-national.

He said, “There has been widespread condemnation of the trolling of Gurmehar.”

Lucknow: A large number of students, teachers and social activists gathered at Gandhi Pratima in Luckow today to express solidarity with 20-year-old Gurmehar Kaur, student of Delhi University (DU).

“Gurmehar is the daughter of a Kargil martyr. She has been harassed for raising her voice against the ABVP. This sends a wrong message to the youths, who stand up against injustice,” said Lucknow University’s former Vice-Chancellor Roop Rekha Verma.

Amarjot Singh from Gurdwara Yahiyaganj Sahib said threatening the daughter of a martyr with sexual assault and silencing her was an anti-national act. The protest was organised by the Lucknow Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee’s youth wing.

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which has been passed has to be executed.”

On behalf of the Haryana Government, senior counsel Shyam Divan contested Suri’s submission, saying it was fraught with serious consequences for the integrity of India. “If one state is forced to challenge the validity of a law passed by another state before the Supreme Court, then the Indian federation is not on a stable course,” Divan said.

Senior counsel Ram Jethmalani, who also represented Punjab, again requested the court to ask the Centre to try to mediate between the two states by bringing them to the negotiating table. As the arguments remained inconclusive, the Bench fixed March 28 for further hearing.

The top court had on February 22 made it clear that the SYL canal had to be constructed and both the state governments must maintain law and order. Punjab has maintained that the water-sharing agreement was signed in 1981 and the quantity of water flow had significantly decreased since then.

Therefore, it wasn’t possible now to execute it.

But the Bench again today said: “We are at a stage where the decree has to be executed.”

The canal had to be constructed first.

Whether the water was there or not or it’ll be there only in the rainy season or how much quantity was being maintained could be sorted out later, it had noted last month.

94 villages pass resolution to shut down liquor vends Unlike the 2016-17 financial year, when 232 panchayats passed resolutions for shutting down liquor vends in their villages, only 94 panchayats have come forward for the next fiscal.

Of the 94 villages, 23 are from Sangrur district. Other villages are from Patiala (15), Barnala (10), Bathinda (4), Moga (4), Hoshiarpur (4) Ropar (3), Ludhiana (3), Ferozepur (3), Gurdaspur (3), Kapurthala (3) and Jalandhar (3), Fatehgarh Sahib (2), Mansa (2), Amritsar (2), Pathankot (2), Faridkot (1), and Muktsar (1).

Section 40 of the Punjab Panchayati Raj Act, 1994, empowers villages to ban the sale of liquor within the gram panchayat area. The Section also mentions that if within two years, preceding the date of passing of a resolution, illicit distillation or smuggling of alcohol has not been carried out in a village, the resolution would be binding upon the Excise and Taxation Commissioner.

Excise and Taxation

Commissioner Varun Roojam said the department would be inviting panchayats for a hearing soon.

“The resolution by a panchayat should be passed with two-thirds majority. The other condition is that a liquor smuggling case should not have been registered in a village that has passed the resolution.

We will look into all aspects and soon take a decision as to how many vends should be shut down,” he added.

Last year, liquor vends in 163 villages out of 232 that had passed the resolution were shut down.

PUNJAB

Saturday, March 04, 2017

ney la n ering The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has filed a complaint against 12 persons — three officers of the Public Works Department (PWD) and their relatives — under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, in a local court. It said the money laundering

scandal caused a loss of more than Rs 25 crore to the state exchequer.

The accused allegedly forged documents and released payments to contractors, who “did not complete any work”. They allegedly pocketed the money to the tune of crores and invested them through “benami” transactions.

The ED clubbed together nine FIRs — eight of them were registered by the Vigilance Bureau (VB), Bathinda Range, from 2011 to 2014, and another by the Bathinda police in September 2012.

In November 2014, the ED had registered a case, clubbing together all nine FIRs, under

1984 riots: Magistrate erred in ordering FIR The Delhi Police today told a city court that a magisterial court had erred in directing them to lodge an FIR to probe the cause of death of two persons during the 1984 antiSikh riots.

The probe agency sought the setting aside of the magisterial court order and claimed that Supreme Court guidelines were not followed by the complainant in filing the plea in the court.

After hearing arguments on a revision petition filed by the State, Special Judge Pitambur Dutt listed the matter for further arguments on March 27.

During the hearing, prosecutor Atul Shrivastava contended that as per the apex court’s guidelines, a person had to first approach the SHO or DCP of the area with a complaint and move the court if no action is taken.

However, in this case, complainant Amrik Singh directly approached the court with his complaint. This was also in the knowledge of additional chief metropolitan magistrate who had ordered lodging of an FIR in the matter, the prosecutor said.

“The magisterial court has erred in directing the police to lodge an FIR. The complaint is pre-mature and infructuous. Magistrate should have asked the complainant to comply with the Supreme Court guidelines and then file the complaint,” the prosecutor said.

The magisterial court’s order had come on a complaint filed by Amrik Singh of Tilak Nagar in West Delhi, seeking lodging of an FIR against then DCP of Delhi Police Amod Kanth and former ACP SS Menon.

Amrik, who lost two of his family members during the riots, alleged that the two senior police officers violated the constitutional right of the complainant and his family and misused the powers conferred on them.

er es in n

fficers

the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. According to the FIR registered by the ED, PWD (B&R) Executive Engineer (XEN) Joginder Singh, Junior Engineer Sarabjit Singh and Superintendent Satpal Bansal allegedly siphoned off government funds and later invested the money through “benami” transactions through their relatives.

The other accused are XEN Joginder’s wife Kamaljeet Kaur; father-in-law Joginder Singh; mother-in-law Gurcharan Kaur; Junior Engineer Sarabjit’s mother Karnail Kaur, who is a partner in Sidhu Fort Marriage Palace, Sangrur; Superintendent Bansal’s wife Raj Rani; Sukhwinder Singh; Balwinder Singh; Jagjit Singh, a partner in the marriage place; and other partner of Sidhu Fort. On September 1, 2012, the Bathinda police had seized Rs 16.93 lakh, 4,094 gm of gold biscuits and 500 gm of opium from the house of Joginder’s relative.

31

State’s child undernutrition rate alarming India’s latest health statistics paint a grim picture of child under nutrition, revealing a rise in the number under-five children suffering from acute under nutrition called wasting.

The National Family Health Survey-4 (2015-16) says that the number of wasted children, with low weight in accordance with to their height, increased from 19.8 per cent in 2005-06 to 21 per cent in 2015-16.

This means one in every five children below five years has a lower weight for his or her height.

The increase in the number of wasted children has been one of the highest for Punjab, where the percentage of such kids has increased dramatically from 9.2 per cent in 2005 to 15.6 per cent in 2015.

Severe wasting (much lower weight for height) rose from 6.4 per cent to 7.5 per cent over the decade under study, indicating a massive overlay of diseases among children and the health sector’s inability to prevent illnesses known to exacerbate wasting, such as measles, diarrhoea, severe pneumonia and

even HIV. The rise in severe wasting has also been high in Punjab. As against 2.1 per cent under-5 children, who were severely wasted in the state in 2005-06, today 5.6 per cent are in this category.

On the other two indicators of child under nutrition —underweight children and stunted children — the NFHS-4 reports marginal gains but not enough. For instance, the percentage of underweight children below 5 years of age decreased about 10 percentage points in a decade from 48 per cent to 38.4 per cent. Today, almost two in five Indian children below five years have low weight for their age.

The number of stunted children (kids with lower height for their age) fell only seven percentage points from 42.5 per cent to 35.7 per cent between 2005 and 2015.

Public health experts are worried about India’s child under nutrition burden. Speaking to The Tribune, Dr Vinod Paul, Head, Paediatrics, AIIMS, said, “Lack of progress against wasting, which indicates acute under nutrition, is worrisome.

32

FRUITICANA

Saturday, March 04, 2017

1

Saturday, March 04, 2017 Saturday, March 04, 2017

Action-packed birthday! This is how Tiger Shroff celebrated his big day Pre-production for Ahmed Khan’s upcoming Tiger Shroff-starrer, Baaghi 2, kicked off yesterday, coinciding with the actor’s 27th birthday.

The thriller is a sequel to Tiger’s 2016 film with Shraddha Kapoor. On his big day, Tiger did what he enjoys the most — action.

He shot for an intense stunt sequence on the Vasai highway for his upcoming film, Munna

Michael, and ended the day by cutting a cake.

Actress Sonam Kapoor has instructed her image consultants, or so we are told, to project her more as a serious actor than a ‘fashionista’— an epithet that has become synonymous with her name.

Her daring sartorial turn at an event last night had us rushing to the corner (as you can see), and wondering, well, she is a fashionista first, after all!

Amitabh & Abhishek Bachchan At Suniel Shetty’s Father Veerappa’s Funeral Suniel Shetty’s father Veerappa Shetty passed away yesterday at 1:30 am at the Breach Candy hospital in Mumbai. He was 93.

Suniel’s father was a self-made hotelier and Suniel was handling the

business aspect of it amidst his movies.

The funeral took place this morning.

Amitabh Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan were the first ones to reach at the funeral ground for the cremation.

Other celebs who attended the funeral were Sonu Sood, Jackie Shroff, Sooraj Pancholi and director Priyadarshan. amitabh and abhishek at funeral Suniel’s son, Aahan Shetty, is seen

Bollywood fashionista Sonam Kapoor dares to bare at an event in Mumbai

standing by the side of his father.

However, daughter Athiya Shetty couldn’t be present as she is out of the country shooting for her next film, Mubarakan in London.

On the other hand, Shah Rukh Khan went personally to Suniel’s house yesterday to offer condolences to the family.

According to the reports, Veerappa Shetty suffered a massive paralytic stroke in 2013, after which an ICU was set up at his South Mumbai residence.

Suniel let his film career take a backseat during this time and helped take care of his father as well as of the hotel business, which Suniel has taken to booming heights.

Back in 2013, when Suniel Shetty was launching his new interior decoration showroom in Worli, he shared a sweet incident about his father with the media. Suniel had a special connection with the building in which the store was unveiled He had said, “This is where my father, Veerappa Shetty, used to work.

Pakistani actress Rabi Pirzada blames Bollywood and Salman for ruining youth At a press conference for her film in Lahore, Pakistani singer and actress Rabi Pirzada claimed that Bollywood, especially movies of Salman Khan, are ruining their youth and promoting crime. A report quoted the actress as saying, “Every other film released in Bollywood happens to be about crime or some criminal activities, especially films of Salman Khan. My question is, what are Indian film-makers teaching the youth? It seems like they are just promoting crime.”

“There was a time when Pakistani cinema was at its peak, making films with moral lessons and plots highlighting social ethics. We were educating the society through our films but Bollywood has changed all of that,” added Rabi Pirzada.

In February, an old video of Pakistani actress Saba Qamar, who is all set to make her Bollywood debut opposite Irrfan Khan in ‘Hindi Medium’, had gone viral. In the clip, she can be seen mocking Salman Khan, Hrithik Roshan, Emraan Hashmi and Riteish Deshmukh.In December last year, Pakistani actress Mahira Khan’s

video, where she can be seen mocking Bollywood, had gone viral days before ‘Raees’ release.

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mid-day

Wednesday, March 1, 2017 | www.mid-day.com | twitter.com/mid_day | epaper.mid-day.com

have you heard?

Vidya Balan was2017 asked about her rumoured collaboration Saturday, March 04, MUM’S with Rajinikanth at an event, but she remained tight-lipped

Bollywood

THE WORD

Did Shekhar attack Kangana?

No cameo in Sallu’s next

On Monday, a war between Kangana Ranaut fans and Shekhar Suman broke out on Twitter after the latter posted, “One cocained actress was carrying the burden of her non-existent stardom. She has fallen flat on her face and how. Guess this is poetic justice.” While Shekhar named no one, it was sort of evident that the tweet was directed at Kangana, whose latest outing, Rangoon, hasn’t fared well at the box office. The veteran actor’s son,

Adhyayan Suman, who had opened up about an abusive relationship with Kangana last year, retweeted the post. The actress’ fans were, however, far from amused. One of them wrote, “Hi, sir, where do you and your superstar son Adhyayan Suman keep your National awards?” Shekhar then tweeted, “I’m horrified at the paid lackeys and sycophants who have jumped in defence of a lumpen so-called star. Shame on you, you paid Twitterati.” Kangana, your turn.

Busybee Ranveer Ranveer Singh is known for his dedication — be it films, brand shoots or onstage acts. A source says the actor hasn’t taken a single day off this month to be able to fulfil his work commitments. Ranveer shot for an ad before leaving for Switzerland.

After returning to India, brand shoots and Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s upcoming film have kept him on his toes. “As the financial year comes to a close, most brands want to wrap up their campaigns. Ranveer has been working every day, even at odd hours, to complete his shoots,” said the source.

Bipasha Basu and her husband, Karan Singh Grover, have lost their pet dog, Poshto. “We lost a family member today. Lost our Poshto. He gave us happiness. Pray for his soul,” tweeted Bips. Colleaguefriend Abhishek Bachchan replied to the actress’ emotional post. “I remember him running through the corridors of YRF during the shoot of Dhoom 2,” he wrote.

The Ghazi Attack *ing: Rana Daggubati, Taapsee Pannu

Feb

17

Runningshaadi *ing: Amit Sadh, Taapsee Pannu

Priyanka Chopra turned heads when she sashayed the red carpet at the Oscars yesterday. Looks like Hollywood is warming up to her and their adoration for PeeCee is apparent. Kelly Ripa, host of Live With Kelly, interviewed winners, presenters and celebs backstage. When Priyanka and Chrissy Teigen joined her for an interview, it turned into a hilarious session. A video of the chat has gone viral, and it shows Priyanka and Kelly downing tequila shots, and PeeCee exclaiming, “I don’t think I am going home after this.”

Dance to the beat, please

In fond memory

17

Tipsy PeeCee

TELLY TATTLE

Katrina Kaif has scotched rumours of making a special appearance in Salman Khanstarrer Tubelight.

Reports claimed that Salman insisted on Kat’s cameo in the film, leading to a tiff with director Kabir Khan. But Kat has put speculation to rest with a firm ‘no’. The ex-flames will reunite for Tiger Zinda Hai, a sequel to their 2012 film, Ek Tha Tiger.

Feb

about it. “We’ll know in a while,” she said. Is that a yes or no?

New Released Bollywood Films Feb

24

Rangoon

*ing: Shahid Kapoor, Kangana, Saif AliKhan

Bhabhi Ji Ghar Par Hain will soon get its own single, which has been written, composed and sung by Anmol Malik.

Raftaar has also rapped certain portions of the special track.

While the song is touted to be one-of-a-kind musically, the same can’t be said about the moves of actors featuring in it.

The channel had roped in Mudassar Khan to choreograph the number, but he had a tough time, given that most cast members have two left feet and no prior training in dance.

Bahu to mem

The ex-lead of Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai, Hina Khan seems to have had enough of her desi avatar. The actress has got a makeover and boy, are we digging the new look! With her modern transformation, she has been flooded with various offers. She says, “Yes, I am getting offers from TV and films, but I am waiting for that right script that touches my heart and entertains my audience at the same time. Right now, I am reading multiple scripts and working on myself. I can assure fans that I won’t disappoint them and will soon be back.”

Feb

24

Aagaya Hero *ing: Govinda Richa Sharma

Mar

03

Commando

*ing: Vidyut Jammwal, Esha Gupta

Saturday, March 04, 2017

Bollywood

3

UPDATE ON KADER KHAN’S HEALTH: Son Sarfraz Speaks From Canada this has not gone well with Kader saab’s family members. Anyway.

Talking further, Sarfraz recounted the knee surgery which Kader saab had a few years ago.

He explained, “The surgery did not go wrong.

It was just that my father refused to get up afte the surgery. We were told that he has to make an effort and try to start walking from the next day. He just didn’t do that and...,” he trailed off.

“But I must say that he is otherwise absolutely okay. There is nothing to worry

We got a call last night from Kader Khan’s elder son in Canada. “This is Sarfraz speaking and I am Kader Khan’s son,” the voice at the other end identified himself.

“I have called to talk about my father.

People have been calling us after you guys broke the story about he barely able to walk,” he began.

Sarfraz continued, “Yes, my dad is facing difficulty in walking. We have to provide him support from both sides. After a few steps, he demands that he wants to sit again. He is scared that he will fall.” Recently Hogaya Dimaagh Ka Dahi (where KK was seen in an important portrayal) producer Fauzia Arshi has been talking on behalf of Kader saab and

Govinda: I never belonged to any camps but I think it was a wrong move Govinda says the film industry has big camps and feels it was a wrong move on his part to not get into any. The 53-year-old actor had a successful career in the 90s but it slowed down after he joined politics in mid2000s. Though he made a comeback of sorts with Partner, his recent outings like “Happy Ending” and “Kill Dill” couldn’t do wonders at the box office.

Govinda says the backing of a particular camp boosts an actor’s career, which he realised much later. “There are massive camps in Bollywood. I never belonged to any camps but I think it was a wrong move.

I should have had. It affects your career. It’s one big family,” Govinda told PTI. “In that one family, if you create harmony and build good relations, it works. If you are a part of it, if you are blessed, you will do very well.” The actor says during his low phase, people made his journey more difficult and that is when he looked up to megastar Amitabh Bachchan, who had battled his away through financial difficulties.

“I have struggled a lot, let me tell you, it is not so easy. When I was struggling, people didn’t make my way easy. I heard and saw what had happened to Bachchan sir, but didn’t know it will happen with me. He could do it, come out of it, that was inspiring.”

Govinda says his financial struggle was “daunting” and he found immense difficulty in even getting his films made. “It (financial struggle) is tiring. It is daunting, people misbehave, they don’t write (movies) for you properly, some even ask for money again and again, saying they get paid better writing for TV.” “Industry was always money-oriented but now it has become very costly. It is very tough for an actor to make a film and release.”

about. He is leading a very happy and luxurious life with me, my wife and our kids,” he quickly added.

Any chances of Kader saab returning to India and doing a film or two, we asked? “My father is a Canadian citizen and he is being well- looked-after in Canada. Inshallah, we will definitely come for few days- but I don’t think that he’ll do any film hereafter. He was quite disillusioned with the industry and took a step back, long ago.”

What was Kader saab disillusionment

about, we asked? “Well, the industry started functioning quite differently. The corporates came in, dosti-yaari sab khatam ho gayi, and it was just kaam se kaam. This put him off completely. Many of his well-wishers reasoned with him- but he was adamant.”

And how is Kader saab’s memory? Does he remember his friends- Govinda and Shakti Kapoor? “It’s fine. He does remember them,” and then Sarfraz concluded to say, “Lekin haan, bolne mein woh aajkal bahut slow bolte hain.”

4

Saturday, March 04, 2017

Bollywood HOROSCOPE Aries

Libra

March 21 - April 20

Sept. 24 - Oct 22

You might find added popularity with those around you this week. Get out and experience the spice of life. You should spend your day trying to get things completed at work. Use your energy wisely.

Your lucky day this week will be Sunday.

Your mate may not be too sure about your intentions. Your need to get away could lead you into greater debt. You can gain valuable cultural knowledge through dealing with foreigners. You have a lot to offer.

Your lucky day this week will be Saturday.

Taurus

Scorpio

April 21 - May 20

Oct 23 - Nov 22

Romance will develop through work related activities. Look into any educational activities involving the whole family. Don’t let the erratic behavior of someone you live with interfere with your professional performance. This is a great day to mingle with people you would like to impress.

Your lucky day this week will be Saturday.

Over spending or unexpected bills could set you back. Take your time be fore making personal decisions. Discord may arise with someone you’re close to. Keep important information to yourself.

Your lucky day this week will be Monday.

Gemini

Sagitarius

May 20 - June 21

Nov 23 - Dec 22

Don’t let them blame you. Your diplomacy will be of utmost importance this week. Spend time by yourself to avoid any conflicts with family members. Don’t cause a scene, but when you get home let your partner know how you feel and why.

Your lucky day this week will be Wednesday.

Don’t bother complaining, do the work yourself. Don’t be too open or put your faith in unreliable coworkers. Don’t be too quick to judge partners or those you work with. You will find that friends or relatives may not understand your needs.

Your lucky day this week will be Wednesday.

Cancer

Capricorn

June 22 - July 23

Dec 23 - Jan 20

Don’t push your opinions on others this week or you may find yourself in the doghouse. Business conducted in your own office will proceed smoothly. You will communicate easily and should be able to develop new friendships. Make decisions about your professional objectives.

Your lucky day this week will be Wednesday.

Leo

Opportunities to make financial gains through investments look promising. You can ferret out secret information if you just listen to what others have to say. Keep your mind on your work and stay away from situations that could ruin your reputation.

Your creative ability will surface, giving you good ideas for ways of making money.

Lucky day this week will be Thursday.

Aquarius

June 24 - August 23

Jan 21 - Feb 19

You need time to rejuvenate. Focus on your domestic scene. Get together with friends or relatives. A series of misunderstandings may be at fault. Your lover may disappoint you in such a way that estrangement will follow.

Your lucky day this week will be Saturday.

Virgo

You may have taken on a little too much, but you will enjoy every minute of it. You may be emotional if you allow your lover to take advantage of your good nature. Avoid functions that will bring you in contact with those you find difficult to get along with.

You can stabilize your personal relationship if you’re willing to communicate honestly.

Your lucky day this week will be Sunday.

Pisces

August 24 - Sept 24

Feb 20 - March 20

Offer consolation, but don’t give them any direction. Don’t gamble unless you can afford to lose. You can make changes to your living quarters that should please family members.

You can expand your circle of friends if you get out and socialize.

Your lucky day this week will be Thursday.

Brunch, a long walk, or a quiet dinner will secure your position in the relationship.

Short trips will prove to be more fruitful than you imagined. Losses are evident.

Dealing with foreigners will be most enlightening.

Your lucky day this week will be Monday

Sunny Leone to shake a leg with Justin Bieber?

It is now a known fact that Justin Bieber is gonna perform live in India on May 10, 2017. And to make the concert more exciting makers have approached Sunny Leone. Yes, according to a report by mid-day, the makers are now in talks with Sunny Leone to join the likes of Varun Dhawan, Alia Bhatt and Sidharth Malhotra, who were roped in earlier, to perform alongside Justin Bieber. A source close to the organisers told mid-day, “Sunny is one of the celebs keen to perform at the concert.

Her involvement should not come as a surprise, given that she is popular in India and overseas. In fact a lot of big names are being considered.”

Earlier it was reported by mid-day, that organisers have also approached Student Of The Year trio to perform at the concert. A source had told the tabloid then, “White Fox India, promoters of Bieber’s World Purpose Tour, have had a word with the actors already, but they are not allowed to talk about it until the terms are finalised. We thought of Varun, Sidharth and Alia since they represent youth.

The plan is to make them dance and mimic as well.”

Arjun Jain, the man behind bringing JB to

India, had stated, “We have already received confirmation from some of the biggest celebrities in India for the concert and will try to definitely integrate indigenous elements

into the event. We are considering bringing Alia, Sidharth and Varun on stage like they did in their first film. However, things are in the planning stage now.”

Now with Sunny Leone too more or less confirmed to join the likes of Varun Dhawan, Alia Bhatt and Sidharth Malhotra for the Justin Bieber’s ‘Purpose World Tour’, it’s gonna be grander than ever.

The concert will take place at Navi Mumbai’s DY Patil stadium.

We know what Salman Khan’s calendar looks like for the next 3 years A lot has been speculated about Salman Khan’s forthcoming films. Tubelight directed

by Kabir Khan is releasing this Eid 2017 followed by Tiger Zinda Hai that’s aiming for a December 2017 release.

However, not much has been confirmed about his films thereafter. Some say he’s in talks for Kick 2 while a few are also anticipating Dabbang 3 in the making. In fact, there’s even this strange buzz around Salman being finalised for Dhoom 4. But is Salman even in talks for all these films? Well, here are all your answers!

‘Salman special calendar‘ that’ll give a complete gist of what are his confirmed films coming up in the next three years. Salman’s

dates are booked until the end of 2019 with not just two or three but five films in his kitty already. And as if we had any doubts on

Salman being the ‘most sought after actors’ in the industry, his calendar further reflects a blend of not just different filmmakers but also a variety of genres right from action, romance to comedy.

BOLLYWOOD PERSONALITIES’ BIRTHDAYS

ANUPAM KHER MARCH 7

FARDEEN KHAN MARCH 8

KIARA ADVANI MARCH 8

POONAM PANDEY MARCH 11

Saturday, March 04, 2017

Eshwar Shakti

5

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Saturday, March 04, 2017

Movie Review

‘Logan’ ‘Logan’ gives Hugh ‘Wolverine’ Jackman the closure he asked for and it runs so close to home that it could well be considered autobiographical in its expanse. Writer/ Director James Mangold’s curtain call for the celebrated comic-book hero riffs through real, reel and comic strip legends to fashion this wonderfully sublime finale to a celebrated super heroic life.

Wolverine has aged and is almost counting his days on earth-plagued as he is by a

relentlessly foraging illness that’s eating away on the inside. But before he can call it a day (whichever way you look at it) he has to grudgingly take up one last chore - of setting a gaggle of X cubs on the path to safety. There are barely three known survivors from the X men brigade, including Wolverine - the other two, Professor X (Patrick Stewart) telepath so powerful that his brain has been

classified as a weapon of mass destruction, has seizures and Caliban (Stephen Merchant) is battling his own brand of survivor guilt and health issues unique to his kind. The seizure happy Professor is being cared for by Caliban while Logan drives his 24 Chrysler as chauffeur for the rich and flamboyant.

Then Gabriela (Elizabeth Rodriguez) shows up begging him to take her across the border to Canada, with her charge, a young girl with a ferocious gaze, Laura (Dafne Keen). But Logan, not perceptive enough as Professor X, as to his connection with the young girl, is not about to get bogged down with yet another responsibility. Until, of course, things get out of hand with the arrival of Donald Pierce (Boyd Holbrook) and his paramilitary cyborg Reavers, another creation of Dr. Rice (Richard E. Grant), who heads Transigen, the nefarious bioengineering program that created lab-rat mutants and cyborgs.

Mangold’s script pays homage to comic book lore even as Logan’s skepticism regarding the envisioned Eden, threatens to derail the hopes of survival for a future generation of X possibles. The escape of the X cubs doesn’t quite rate as terrific because here the director chooses to get them on the run rather than use their collective might to stop their tormentors.

Mangold and his CGI team get us close in to the action and there’s no cutting away from the devastation of each hit, pop or chop.

For the most part the action comes across as organic - there are valid reasons for what’s happening out there. This one is a road show actioner where the entire movie is a sort of chase one way or another and the most vital of it all is against Time. Time is literally running out on the heroes here.

India’s most successful choreographer, Shiamak Davar, meeting the Queen at Buckingham Palace for the 2017 UK-India Year of Culture, on February 28.

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mid-day Thursday 02.03.2017

Saturday, March 04, 2017

‘Social media users should be prepared for trolls’

‘Warm welcome left me overwhelmed’

Amitabh Bachchan says he enjoys confronting haters on virtual platforms, but maintains stoic silence on Gurmehar Kaur Twitter controversy AS someone active on social media, Amitabh Bachchan feels one should be prepared for trolls and abuses on public platforms. The actor, while interacting with the media at an event yesterday, was responding to questions on Delhi University student Gurmehar Kaur. The 24-yearold has been caught up in a Twitter war after her social media campaign against the ABVP went viral.

“I think if you are on social media, you should be pre-

pared for trolls and abuses. I enjoy it,” Big B said at the event. The 73-year-old superstar regularly engages with fans and followers on Twitter and Facebook, calling them his ‘extended family’.

Bachchan, however, sidestepped a direct question on Gurmehar, saying, “My opinion on the matter is personal and if I share it with you, it will become public.”

Shilpa Shetty on her hit tracks making for Google HQ’s cafe menu

Delhi University student Gurmehar Kaur; (left) Amitabh Bachchan

Swara’s producers lodge FIR post leak

SHILPA Shetty, who is currently in the US, visited the Google headquarters earlier this week. She was taken by surprise when she checked out the lunch menu at the cafeteria. To ensure a memorable welcome for her, the dishes had been named after her hit songs — Baras ja ae baadal rice (Baras ja from Fareb, 2005), Tum lasooni dal tadke mein rehte ho (Tum dil ki dhadkan mein rehte ho from Dhadkan, 2000) and Kadai chhole da karar lootne (Dilwalon ke dil ka karaar lootne, Shool, 1999).

CBFC clipped scenes go viral online; Delhi cops investigating case THE makers of Swara Bhaskar-starrer Anarkali of Aarah had anticipated trouble with the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) over certain scenes and dialogues, but they hadn’t expected that the deleted portions would make their way online.

Among the leaked scenes is one that shows Swara being groped and abused, apart from a shot of her bare back. Yesterday, the film’s makers lodged an FIR with the

7

Malviya Nagar police station in Delhi.

Producer Sandip Kapur says, “When a film leaks online after its release, it makes a dent in business. So you can imagine what happens to a film that has not even hit theatres. We have lodged a police complaint. I will not

‘The CBFC has never had anything to do with the leaks. I don’t blame the producers.

But CBFC has become a soft target’ Pahlaj Nihalani, CBFC chief

spare anyone responsible for this, even if they are part of my crew.”

A furious Swara, who plays a folk singer in the film, tells mid-day, “As an artiste, it is particularly upsetting that such scenes should surface out of context because then they seem sensationalist and gimmicky, giving a wrong impression about the film.

These scenes were integral and we shot them with respect. This is a courageous and important film that tells a story that must be seen and heard by everyone. These scenes shouldn’t be taken out of context to demean either the film or the people involved in it.”

While Twitterati was quick to suspect the leak happened from the CBFC’s end, Board chief Pahlaj Nihalani maintains, “Before being the CBFC chairperson, I am an industry man. The Board has never had anything to do with the leaks. I don’t blame the producers, but the CBFC has become a soft target.”

Coconut and ghee were used generously in all dishes since the actress always talks about their health benefits Shilpa Shetty; (top) the menu at Google HQ

This menu was designed just for a day, keeping in mind Shilpa’s love for Indian food.

Coconut and ghee were used generously in all dishes since the actress always talks about their health benefits. Says Shilpa, “It was really cute. The warm welcome left me overwhelmed.”

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Saturday, March 04, 2017

Spotlight

Pose like a real man, not like Urmila Matondkar: Ram Gopal Varma tells Tiger

Despite his last film ‘A Flying Jatt’ not doing In a series of tweets, RGV told Tiger how well at the box office, there is no denying the Bruce Lee would have never become what fact that Tiger Shroff is here to stay. The actor he was if he posed like a bikini babe and that dances and does action like no one else and real men never pose in the Urmilaish (Urmila already has his distinct fan following and Matondkar) way. films in his kitty like ‘Munna Michael’ ‘Baaghi RGV, who has worked with Tiger’s father Jackie in films like ‘Rangeela’ and the recent 2’ and ‘Student of the Year 2’.

The actor celebrated his birthday on ‘Sarkar 3’, added that he needed to learn Thursday and while numerous stars took to ‘machoism’ from his father and that he might PICS Humjoli group (Better at Home, Surrey-Whalley’s) social group initiative Twitter to wish him, Ram Gopal Varma had not have the six-packs like his son but his eyes recently thanked seniors in the community for raising funds for PICS Diversity Village. a message for the youngster on the occasion. and body language had far more groups.

They presented a cheque to PICS at a Valentines Day Gala called “Ek Shaam Pyaar kemid-day Friday, March 3, 2017 | www.mid-day.com | twitter.com/mid_day | epaper.mid-day.com He also tells Jackie (@bindasbhidu) that The filmmaker posted a picture on Twitter Naam”. Please find attached a media release in regards to this event and a few pictures of the scene from 'Baaghi' where Tiger comes all these tweets were purely because he was as well. Pictures are courtesy of Chandra Bodalia who was presented a gift basket by the The Lunchbox (2013)advice director Ritesh The his out of the DATE water,ISand had some serious Jackie'sBatra’s fan next and directorial asked himventure, to convey senior ladies at the event as well.

Sense of An Ending, releases onthoughts March 24. adaptation JulianAyesha.

Barnes’ on offer. toAn Tiger and his of mother

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have you heard?

What a colourful life

Action-packed birthday Pre-production for Ahmed Khan’s upcoming Tiger Shroffstarrer, Baaghi 2, kicked off yesterday, coinciding with the actor’s 27th birthday. The thriller is a sequel to Tiger’s 2016 film with Shraddha Kapoor. On his big day, Tiger did what he enjoys the most — action. He shot for an intense stunt sequence on the Vasai highway for his upcoming film, Munna Michael, and ended the day by cutting a cake.

Twinkle Khanna just added colour to her life. The actress-turnedentrepreneur-turned writer was named brand ambassador of a hair colouring product yesterday. In the past, leading actresses have endorsed the product. Mrs Funnybones tweeted, “Just as I was about to begin sprouting 50 shades of grey....” Looks like Tina’s sense of humour has overtaken the need for star value.

FIXED Booker Prize-winning novel, it stars Academy Award winner Jim Broadbent

Culture connect Anil Kapoor visited the British Film Institute as a special guest for the India On Film event in London as part of the UK-India Year of Culture 2017.

He spoke about his upcoming film, Mubarakan, for which he is shooting in London now.

Musician Anoushka Shankar, who was also present, could not conceal her excitement on meeting Mr Jhakaas.

Different view

‘Bollywood promoting crime’ Let’s dance Back to the floorboards Pakistani singer-actor Rabi Pirzada thinks Salman Khan’s films are ruining the mindset of Pakistani youngsters. She has an issue with Pakistani cinegoers, who prefer watching Hindi films. Pirzada has reportedly said, “Every other film released in Bollywood happens to be about crime or some criminal activities, especially films of Salman Khan. My question is, what are Indian filmmakers

teaching the youth? It seems like they are just promoting crime. There was a time when Pakistani cinema was at its peak, making films with moral lessons and plots highlighting social ethics.

We were educating the society through our films, but Bollywood has changed all of that.” Has Pirzada considered how cinemas in Pakistan go bankrupt when they don’t screen Indian stuff? Ahem.

He started his acting career by performing in theatre productions, so the stage remains special to Ali Fazal. He returns to the floorboards with Q Theatre’s Crab which takes a look at entangled relationships. It will be staged in Mumbai, Chennai and Bengaluru. Ali says, “I am kicked to have an opportunity to be on stage yet again.” Last seen in White Rabbit Red Rabbit, which was staged in April 2016, Ali has just wrapped up the shoot of Fukrey Returns.

Yeh Hai Mohabbatein star Divyanka Tripathi and telly actor Vivek Dahiya, who recently tied the knot, have confirmed their participation in the upcoming season of Nach Baliye. Rehearsals have also begun in earnest. Vivek says, “It will be a good opportunity for us to connect at various levels and go through highs and lows together.” Talking about putting her dance skills to test, Divyanka says, “I have been doing Yeh Hai... for three years and wanted to challenge myself with something different, otherwise monotony could have set in. People might think it’s a PDA platform, but as far as I know, it’s a stage for serious dancing.”

Zareen Khan, Salman Khan’s discovery, had to struggle to gain acceptance in Bollywood due to weight issues. She has been a victim of body shaming in the past too. But, now the Hate Story 3 (2015) actress feels life has come a full circle now since she will be a judge at a beauty pageant in Dubai. She knows what she is looking for — not exactly a svelte figure, but confidence, for sure.

Saturday, March 04, 2017

PICS CEO Charan Gill with BC’s Lieutenant Governor , The Honourable Judith Guichon and BC’s Seniors Advocate Isobel Mackenzie.

Mr. Gill was recently honored by BC’s Lieutenant Governor , The Honourable Judith Guichon and BC’s Seniors Advocate Isobel Mackenzie at the former’s residence, upon completion of a two year term as an advisor on the council of advisors of BC’s Senior Advocate. In his two year term, Mr. Gill managed to convince the seniors advocate to include the importance of culturally sensitive services for the well-being of our seniors in the annual seniors report. “I am very excited that seventy five percent of the language we advocated for has been incorporated into the annual seniors report. This is a big step forward for our ethnic seniors,” said Mr. Gill.

You’ll never know until that moment comes: Katrina Kaif on venturing into Hollywood

Bollywood actors and their association with Hollywood projects is not new. From Amitabh BachchanIrrfan Khan to Priyanka ChopraDeepika Padukone, Indian actors have made it big in the West and how! So, is Katrina Kaif planning on venturing into that territory?

Recently, a Dubai-based daily asked Kats if her starring in a Hollywood film is a possibility. Replying in her usual graceful way, the stunning actress neither dismissed the idea nor accepted it.

Kats reportedly said, “You never know where your path can take you, I never say no to anything in life.

You’ll never know until that moment comes.”

While Deepika’s ‘xXx: Return of Xander Cage’ is doing exceptionally well in countries like China, Priyanka’s big Hollywood debut movie, ‘Baywatch’, alongside Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron is slated to release on May 27.

Katrina, on the other hand, is busy with two of her much-awaited Bollywood films- ‘Jagga Jasoos’ and ‘Tiger Zinda Hai’.

Spotlight

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Saturday, March 04, 2017

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LOOKING FOR CLASS 1 TRUCK DRIVER Bus Driver required urgently Gobind Sarvar School, located at 8820 – 168 Street, Surrey, B.C. is looking for a school bus driver living in Abbotsford area.

If you are licensed to drive a school bus, please email your resume and driver’s abstract to: info@gobindsarvar.ca or call Jaspreet at 604-930-2122 for further details.

Name Change I, Jasneet Kaur resident of # 2019 West 46th Ave, Vancouver BC V6M 2K8 have changed my name from Jasneet Kaur to Jasneet Kaur Marwaha.

A trucking company, Planet Pride Logistics, located at 11411 Shell Road, Richmond BC V7A3W7 has immediate vacancies for 5 Long Haul Truck Drivers.

Term of employment: Full time, Permanent Position Shifts: Weekdays, Weekends, Evenings Salary: $23.50 per hour for 50 hours per week, overtime after 60 hours of the rate of 1.5 times with Vacation pay of 4%.

Requirement: Class 1 driving license with Air brake endorsement

Duties: Drive and operate company’s long haul trucks within all over Canada, receive and relay information to central dispatcher, maintain log book, bill of landing. Do pre-trip, en-route, posttrip inspection for any mechanical or body defect, reports incidents to the manager immediately and accurately.

Please send your resume at planetpride.logistics@ gmail.com or fax at 778-297-4402 Gill to Furmaan Kaur Gill

Saturday, March 04, 2017 South Asian Seniors - Filing Income Tax Returns Free From February 26th 2017 to May 2nd 2017.

Vedic Seniors Parivar Centre of Vedic Hindu Cultural Society Surrey informs South Asian Seniors that during the Tax filing period we can help you to file your Income Tax Returns for the year 2016 free of cost, through the community volunteer program of Canada Revenue Agency, from February 26th 2017 to May 2nd 2017. If you are living in Surrey / Delta. The eligibility Criteria are as follows 1.Single individual with annual income limit up to $ 30,000.

2. Couples with annual income up to $ 40,000. 3.

Adult with one child annual income up to $ 35,000, add the income limit by $ 2,500 for each dependent child. Interest income not over $ 1,000.00 and this income will be included as total eligibility. With no investment income, no rental income , no business or partnership income and no capital gain or loss.

Sin# card and photo identity will be required to prove the documents. Project funded by Government of Canada’s New Horizons for Seniors Program for Hindi speaking seniors. If you are eligible then please contact Surendra Handa Coordinator Tel. 604 - 507 9945 for further information.

-----------------------------------------South Asian Seniors - Healthy & Happy Living at Home- Forum, By iCON UBC ON 5th March 2017 from 11.00 am to 3.30 pm.

Vedic Seniors Parivar of Vedic Hindu Cultural Society Surrey requests all the members to support and attend the iCON South Asian Health Forum - Healthy and Happy Living at Home - organized by iCON Team of Experts Faculty of Medicine UBC Vancouver, on 5th March 2017 from 11.00 am to 3.30 pm at Grand Taj Banquet Hall # 6 - 8388 - 128th street Surrey BC. Booth Exhibitions will be there & Light refreshments will be provided. Your questions regarding health issues will be answered by iCON Panel of Doctors.

Please do attend this health Forum and please call Surendra Handa Coordinator Tel. 604 - 507 - 9945 for further information.

------------------------------------------

South Asian Seniors - Bingo On The House January 15th 2017 ( Sunday ) from 2.00 pm to 3.30 pm.

Vedic Seniors Parivar Centre of Vedic Hindu Cultural Society Surrey invites South Asian Adults/ Senior members and non members also to come and play Bingo for the sake of fun during and make some new friends, on January 15th 2017( Sunday ) from 2.00 pm to 3.30 pm at Shanti Niketan hall 8321 140th street Surrey B.C. Please bring only two dollars with you to play 2 games, do not worry if you do not know how to play, members will explain you the game just for the sake of fun. Tea & light snacks will be served after the game is over. Please contact Surendra Handa Coordinator at 604 - 507 - 9945 for further details. Project funded by Government of Canada’s New Horizons for Seniors Program for Hindi speaking Seniors.

-----------------------------------------Free Self Employment Program offered by PICS Are you unemployed or working less than 20 hours per week? Are you thinking of launching your own business?

Join PICS for an information session on PICS’ Self Employment Program at one of PICS Offices: Suite 205, 12725 80th Ave, Surrey – Every 2nd Wednesday of the month OR 8153 Main St (near Marine Dr), Vancouver – Every 3rd Wednesday of the month All info sessions are from 2:30 PM - 3:30 PM This program offers • Business Start-Up Training • Business Plan Writing • Business Advisor Support • Networking Events • Support During Business Launch Period Seating is limited. To attend a session, please preregister at Katarina.Low@pics.bc.ca or 604-5967722 Ext 150 ------------------------------------------

FOR LEASE Two retail units 3000sqft #130/140 - 304785 Cardinal Ave Abbotsford

(604) 725-6734 / (604) 595-1445

Community News Dear Devotees and Well Wishers of Sri Ganesh Temple, Please be advised that due to prevailing weather conditions, the temple administration has decided to alter the start time of Thiruvempavai to 7 am instead of 5 am, every day.

The Abishekam for tomorrow has also been moved to 6 am instead of 4:30 am.

On behalf of Sri Ganesh Temple Society of BC, Shankar Velupillai, Secretary -----------------------------------------South Asian Seniors are planning to visit Australia & New Zealand through 13 days cruise and 2 days extra tour of Sydney (Australia) total 16 days including travel time. The cruise itinerary starts from Sydney (Australia) on November 17th 2017, one day visit at each of these ports, Melbourne (Australia), Burnie (Tasmania- Australia), Wellington (New Zealand), Napier (New Zealand), Tauranga (New Zealand), Auckland (New Zealand), Bay of Islands (New Zealand) and back to Sydney (Australia). Every port the ship Norwegian Jewel will stop, all seniors will go for city tour by bus. All arrangements will be made for your air travel from Vancouver to Sydney (Australia) and return from Sydney to Vancouver, Cruise bookings, all port city excursions, city visits of Sydney (Australia), hotel stay in Sydney, food ( Pure Vegetarian or Non Vegetarian as per your choice) during Sydney City visits, also local bus pick up from Lakshmi Narayan Hindu Temple Surrey to Vancouver airport & back to Temple on return from Vancouver airport. The total tour will be of 16/ 17 days including travel time from 14th November 2017 to 2nd December 2017.

The travel insurance with Medical Coverage, Cancellation, Interruption and Baggage loss is a must, which you can arrange yourself or get the one we arrange for the whole group Insurance at a

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reasonable price to cover Basic Medical Coverage, Cancellation, Interruption, & Baggage Loss etc. The maximum cost for the whole trip to cover everything including return air tickets will be approximately $ 4,500.00 US Dollars per person. All staterooms are Double occupancy, so you should select your partner to share the stateroom with you on the ship. If you are interested to join South Asian group of Seniors, you should be in good health to walk independently, can afford the Luxury in life for 16/ 17 days, then only call. The entire amount $ 4,500.00 US Dollars or Equal ant Canadian Dollars as per present Bank rates will be spent on you only and will be taken from you in 4 installments with intervals. You will have to pay me $ 750.00 US Dollars per person for Cruise deposit to confirm your stateroom, and if you don’t have your travel insurance as mentioned above then you have to pay me $ 205.00 US Dollars per person for group travel Insurance in addition to cruise deposit.

Please remember the Travel insurance once purchased can not be cancelled or transferred to somebody else. The final payment for the cruise is due by 20th June 2017 and you will be able to pay through your credit card directly to Cruise Web. For the other payments for Air Travel, Port City Excursions and hotel stay & food expenses etc. you will be informed time to time. The prices I have negotiated for the cruise are the rock bottom prices which can not be held for long and we are getting two amenities free, Gratuity for 13 days Cruise is Free and Cocktail Drinks are free for 13 days of Cruise for Ocean view cabins and above.

Inside cabins will have only one Amenity Free of your choice. I have only room for two more couples or 4 friends to share two cabins on the ship, So don’t miss the chance of enjoying the Luxury in life for 16/ 17 days to visit Australia & New Zealand and call Surendra Handa Organizer/ Tel. 604 - 507 - 9945.

17

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mid-day

have you heard?

Hitlist

A film just for the music Movie-making almost always follows a series of set steps — scripting, casting and music. But in case of ’90s hit Aashiqui, filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt wrote a story when he heard compositions

by Kumar Sanu, and Nadeem-Shravan. In an episode of My Life, My Story, the singer revealed Aashiqui’s music was ready before the film was conceptualised.

When he invited Bhatt for the album preview, the director said the songs belonged in a film. “When asked who’ll make the film, Bhatt saab said he will weave a story around it. He took the rights to all songs, wrote a story and cast fresh faces (Rahul Roy and Anu Aggarwal). He made one of the most romantic classics of all time,” said Kumar.

Bereaved Athiya flies back home

Suniel Shetty’s father, Verappa Shetty (93), breathed his last on late Tuesday night. Daughter Athiya Shetty, who left for London on Saturday to shoot for Mubarakan with Anil Kapoor and Arjun Kapoor, took the first flight back home on receiving the news. The funeral will be held today as Athiya lands in Mumbai.

Love, actually Looks like things are getting serious between Sonam Kapoor and rumoured beau, entrepreneur Anand Ahuja. Over the last few months, the actress has shared a good number of snaps with Anand on social media, including those from their Amsterdam vacay and Anil Kapoor’s 60th birthday bash. At a recent event in Delhi, the duo stepped out together and even posed for the flashbulbs. Now, in an interview with a fashion glossy, Anand has admitted to have a crush on the Neerja star — well, almost. Asked who his millennial style crush is, he named (who else?) Sonam Kapoor. We are now waiting for Sonam to reciprocate the love.

Thursday, March 2, 2017 | www.mid-day.com | twitter.com/mid_day | epaper.mid-day.com

Sushant Singh Rajput and Jacqueline Fernandez have begun shooting for ZIP, ZAP, Karan Saturday, 04, 2017 Johar’s newMarch film franchise.

The movie titled Drive is the first film in the ZOOM series and is being helmed by Tarun Mansukhani (of Dostana fame).

Kajol keeps her date with Manish She might have fallen out with Karan Johar, her friend of more than two decades, but Kajol’s equation with their common friend, designer Manish Malhotra, remains unaffected.

The actress has accepted Manish’s invitation to the Mijwan fashion show,

which is scheduled to take place on Sunday. The fashion gala is hosted by Shabana Azmi every year in memory of her father, poet and social activist late Kaifi Azmi, who grew up in Mijwan near Azamgarh. While Shah Rukh Khan and Anushka Sharma will be the showstoppers for the evening, one can probably hope to see some SRK-Kajol camaraderie at the event. Also on the guest list are Sridevi, Konkona Sensharma, Sushmita Sen, Farah Khan, Huma Qureshi, Sooraj Pancholi and Kartik Aaryan. We are keeping our eyes peeled for this one.

Another journey begins Ayushmann Khurrana and Bhumi Pednekar have started shooting for their next venture, Shubh Mangal Saavdhan, in Delhi.

The duo is teaming up for the second time after Dum Laga Ke Haisha (2015), which completed two

years on Monday. They had also shot some portions for Aanand L Rai’s Manmarziyan, but the project was shelved after director Ashwini Iyer Tiwari apparently backed out. Now, Anurag Kashyap is on board and he has apparently zeroed in on Sanya Malhotra as the female lead.

TELLY TATTLE

Hitched!

Drop the fashionista tag While Sonam Kapoor was in Dubai attending a family wedding, she happened to glance through a local tabloid which had written about the Kapoors. Since she is better known for making fashion statements, the paper had taken the liberty of branding her a bonafide fashionista. Usually, Sonam wears the tag with pride, but after earning critical acclaim for Neerja (2016), she doesn’t want to be known just for her sartorial sense. We hear her social media team and brand managers have been instructed to work harder on establishing her as a ‘thinking, opinionated actress’.

Pooja Banerjee of Nagarjuna — Ek Yoddha fame tied the knot with boyfriend, Asian Games medallist Sandeep Sejwal, on Tuesday. The couple had a Bengali-Punjabi wedding. Pooja’s industry friends were in attendance and kept posting selfies on social media to keep fans engaged. Pooja, we hear, will take a short break from work to concentrate on her personal life.

Small wonder Singer Ananya Birla, 22, who released her debut single, Livin’ The Life, last year, is collaborating with popular Dutch DJ Afrojack. They will come up with an official remixed version of the song.

There will also be a new video for the track, which releases on March 3. “It’s an artiste’s dream to get their work remixed by Afrojack.

I hope this song gets people up on their feet,” says Ananya.

‘My dad never gave me an opportunity to panic’: Alia Bhatt on death threats Reacting to the ‘death threats’ Bhatt family faced recently, Alia Bhatt said that her father Mahesh Bhatt and the police did not give her a chance to panic and added that all are safe and happy now.

“My father (Mahesh Bhatt) and the police did not give me a chance to panic. They just took over. But things have resolved now.

Everyone is safe and happy,” she told media here, when quizzed on the same.

Adding, “With my father (Mahesh Bhatt) by my side, there is no reason to get scared.”

Meanwhile, based on the complaint registered by filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt, the Anti Extortion Cell (AEC) has, with the help of Special Task Force (STF) UP Police, identified and detained one person in connection to the threats, yesterday.

The caller had demanded Rs. 50 lakh from Bhatt and threatened to kill his daughter Alia and wife Soni Razdan, if the amount was not given.

Bhatt later took to Twitter and confirmed the news.

“A bolt from the blue in the form of an extortion call and threat to my family was nipped in the bud by the MH & UP police in tandem. Gratitude!” he posted.

Earlier in November 2014, 13 people belonging to a certain D gang were arrested, who had plotted to eliminate Bhatt and his whole family.

On the work front, Alia is on a promotional spree for her upcoming movie ‘Badrinath Ki Dulhania,’ alongside Varun Dhawan, set to release on March 10.

Saturday, April 2, 2016

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Saturday, 2, 2016 Saturday, April April 2, 2016 i 5i 5

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Vol.66No. No.31 31 - Saturday Saturday - April 2016 - Tel: - Tel: 604-591-5423 -E-mail: E-mail: ads@theasianstar.com Vol. - April 2, 2, 2016 ads@theasianstar.com at r ay - arc el 604-591-5423 ail a s t easianstar c Vol. 6 No. 31

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Saturday - April 2, 2016

- Tel: 604-591-5423 -

E-mail: ads@theasianstar.com

Vancouver’sskyline skylinetotorise riseamid amid office-tower building boom to Vancouver’s anan office-tower building boom BC ministers won’t force municipalities Soaring rents still cheaper than owning a house Vancouver’s skyline to expect rise amid anyears office-tower building boom next two due to competition. it Suisse is optimistic his building tower tower is optimistic his building will will he $240-million $240-million Credit CreditSuisse/ Suisse/ Mr.Mr. Shokri others expectnext two years due to competition. it Suisse he Shokri andand others say say theythey The landlords who will likely suffer The landlords who will likely suffer next two years due to competition. start to fill as the completion date gets closer. start to fill as the completion date gets closer. it Suisse tower is optimistic his building will SwissReal tower theanswer heart of many many of the new towers to start signing inin the heart ofto of the new towers to start signing tenant increase building around transit lines he not $240-million Credit Suisse/ Mr. Shokri and others say tenant they expect BuyingSwissReal a home tower is the per month on improvements like this. a result oflandlords the current are ownas aasresult of the current boom are ownThe who boom will likely suffer Franz Gehriger, the of CEO ofgets SwissReal Franzstart Gehriger, CEO SwissReal to fill as the the completion date closer.

T T

downtown Vancouver will leases as they getof to completion. downtown Vancouver will be heart leases ascost they get closer toour completion.

Thattenant SwissReal tower inbethe of many ofcloser the new towers tohypothetical startThat signing insanely expensive rent.

Total renting sales tax failed massively two years killing ’s older two top ministers housing ers of older Mr. Shokri said.

As ersB.C. ofas buildings, Mr.handling Shokri As abuildings, result of the current boomsaid. are ownGroup who bought the the original historic Group who bought the original historic Franz Gehriger, CEO of ago, SwissReal completed ininless than a ayear, sosocases far,far, will is two-bedroom partly in Vancouver, completed less than year, but is partly because companies in In Toronto, rents are in but some apartment: $2,000 pluswell, downtown Vancouver be because leases ascompanies they get closer toVancouver, completion.

That that as a possible source.

Then, the Trudeau and transit insist that they will not force or new developments in the suburbs, well, ers new developments suburbs, building in 2002 partof older buildings, in Mr. the Shokri said.stock-exchange As stock-exchange building 2002 before partGroup who bought theinbefore original historic only tenant up to in.in.butwhich want to be in energy-efficient heading thehas same zone asupthan the mortgage utilities.

Total cost of new, ownership: onlyone oneinto tenant hassigned signed tomove move which want to benew, in energy-efficient completed in less a year, so far,do do is partly because companies in$2,100 Vancouver, government swept totopower promising huge threaten municipalities to addinhigher even more which have already experienced nering with Credit Suisse develop it, said which have already experienced higher well, new developments the suburbs, The has committed forfor aora10th buildings, tend to operate on short timelines. nering with Credit Suisseinto2002 develop said stock-exchange building beforeit,partpayment ononly ahasmodest house condo. plus $1,000, give or take.

Youvacancy Thetenant tenant committed 10th of move buildings, tend to operate on timelines. one tenant has signed upof to in.an additional which do want to be inshort new, energy-efficient transit investments, which has put pressure density around rapid-bus SkyTrain rates inhave recent years,or may have lines the main group interested in leasing Vancouvacancy rates in recent years, may have which already experienced higher the square – –leaving a state offorof a 10th AsAs he he said, prices in in the newnew thenering mainwith group interested in Credit Suisse to leasing developVancouit, said Renting a condo afeet prime location might might spend less iftend you’re really ortrouble the370,000 370,000 square leaving a state well, said, the Theinfeet tenant has committed ofwell, buildings, toprices operate onfrugal, short timelines. as they compete with each other. than what already in plans. on the provincial andis regional governments ver office space these days the technology vacancy ratescompete in growth recent years, may have trouble asis they with each other. emptiness unusualthan for an office skybuildings willspend come down intothe i Saturday, Julymore 25, 2015 main group interested in Vancouverthe office space these days isleasing the technology even costthat you more based you might ifsaid, you want theisis370,000 square feet – leaving of Aslikely well, prices inmake emptiness that unusual forbuying an office sky- a 4state buildings will likely come down in the new 4 i Saturday, Julyhe 25, 2015 In Vancouver, the co-developer of the Cred- and to figure out who will pay which part of the But Housing Minister Rich Coleman sector.

Those companies make their deciscraper in this city. Even so, a and huge mortgage shift in trouble as they compete with each other. sector.

In Vancouver, the co-developer of the Credver office space these days is the technology on a comparison of rents substantial upgrades or you get hit with Those companies make their deciemptiness thatso, is unusual for aninoffice sky- buildings will likely come scraper in this city. Even a huge shift 4 i Saturday, July 25, 2015down in the TransLink Minister Peter Fassbender say remaining share. The mayors recently asked business tenancy is expected as the region In Vancouver, the co-developer of the Cred- sector. Those companies make their decipayments. a special assessment for the cost of a big scraperisinexpected this city.not Even a huge shift in they plan to have energetic, collaborative the province to permit them to charge a business tenancy as theso,region experiences it has to seen beThere are something no easy answers the question project in your condo that can’t be covered conversations with cities and the public to new kind of development cost levy on new business tenancy is expected as the region experiences something it has not seen before: an to office-tower building much of how live in Toronto in boom 2017itwithout from get everyone to see how important it is to pay construction, with the money – an estimated experiences something not seen be-regular condo fees. fore: an office-tower building boomhas much of which is speculative construction blowing up your personal finances.rathMore For years, I’ve suggested that people rent for expensive transit by encouraging more $15- to $20-million a year – going to a fore: an office-tower building boom much of which is speculative construction rather than for will specific committed tenants. millennials be moving back home, if they can’t afford to buy. But renting, while building alongside lines. dedicated fund for transit. which is committed speculative construction rather“This than forofofspecific tenants. kind uncharted territory for Van-in not even if isthey’re working.

Some will rent as expensive as owning, can still be toxic Mr. Fassbender said recently he has been “If we’ve got to make multibillion-dollar er than for specific committed tenants. couver, ” said Mehdi Shokri, a principal with “This is kind of uncharted territory for Van- to your personal finances. There’s a rough a godforsaken suburb or find roommates. investments, you need density along the line, ” holding meetings with developers, business “Thisteam isShokri, kindatofAvison uncharted territory the capital markets Young. couver, ” said Mehdi a principal with for Vanrule that rent should be said Mr. Coleman, speaking in a joint call with groups and cities to discuss the idea of a couver, said Mehdi Shokri, a principal with “But I don’t markets see a ”big disaster occurring. ” the capital team at Avison Young. no more than 30 per cent Mr. Fassbender this weekend. Mr. Fassbender new “transit-supporting levy.” As well, some The Credit Suisse tower is only the most the capital markets team at Avison Young.

“But I don’t see a big disaster occurring.” of your gross income, but added that, “We’re encouraging everybody to people at those meetings have raised the idea visible and furthest of aasecond I along don’t see big disaster that’s a stretch today. It think out of the box. But we’re not threatening of having the province step in and mandate The Credit“But Suisse tower is only thewave mostoccurring.” of new office towers planned fortower VancouThe Credit only the most would take an income of local governments. It’s how can we work higher densities along transit, a move that visible and furthest alongSuisse of a secondiswave ver and somevisible key suburbs.

A first cluster and planned furthest along of a second wave $80,000 per year to make together to increase the density and supply.” of new office towers for Vancouwould generate more money for that levy. of towers – some twooffice million square feet –for Vancouof new towers planned that $2,000 monthly rent ver and some key suburbs.

A first cluster It’s an idea that has been percolating in many The whole question of how to pay for was built downtown in the past three years. ver andtwo some key suburbs.

A first cluster in Toronto affordable over the billions of dollars worth of transit places after California Governor Jerry Brown ofAnother towers – 11 some square feet office million developments are – of towers in – some twothree million square feet – a year. improvements needed in the region has been a proposed last year that the state create a new was built downtown theofpast proposed within blocks Credit years.

Suwas built downtown in the past three years.

This leaves renters contentious topic for years, but it has especially law granting developers the automatic right to Another 11 tower officeat developments isse’s Exchange Howe and Westare in the same position as heated up in the last two years.

Another 11 office developments are approval for housing projects that included a Pender streets, evenblocks while the office-va-Suproposed within of Credit prospective buyers – proposed within blocks of Credit SuFirst, a plebiscite that local mayors certain percentage of affordable housing and cancy in the tower region atcontinues to inch isse’s rate Exchange Howe and West making compromises approved asking for a 0.5-per-cent regional were near transit lines. isse’s Exchange tower at Howe and West up as a result of the firstwhile wave of building.

Pender streets, even the office-valike finding smaller Penderbrokers streets, say eventhewhile the But commercial city is office-vacancy rate in the region continues to inch accommodations or rate in the ghost region continues to inch not to cancy be of populated up about as a result the first by wave of towers. building. moving further away from up as a result of the first wave of building.

Butsome commercial brokerswhether saybrokers theowning city is city city And willBut investigate commercial say the the is centre. Renters used to be able to say not actually about tobe be populated by ghost towers. can cheaper than renting. that not about to be populated by ghost towers.if they couldn’t afford to own, at least It’s not. Owning a home or condo is they could live in a desirable part of the city Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. has a The federal government created new rules a higher league of expensive if you look and not the suburbs. But expensive housing beyond just the cost of a mortgage and rent. pushes people into renting, and that in turn new how-to guidebook on buying a home and last year that forced all consumers with loans one of the more intriguing bits of advice is not backed by Ottawa to qualify based on the This applies not just to Toronto, but any city causes rents to soar. with expensive housing.

Under Ontario’s rent control laws, to take on as large a loan as you might qualify Bank of Canada five-year posted rate which is now 4.64 per cent. The site ratesupermarket.ca Estimates of average rental costs in buildings that opened before November, for from your financial institution.

CMHC, which provides policy advice for says consumers can borrow as low as 2.39 per Toronto vary a lot – from roughly $1,500 1991, can only raise their rents each year by on average for two-bedroom apartments of an amount influenced by the inflation rate the federal government on housing, takes it cent for that term.

The higher rate results in a larger monthly all types to $2,400 or so for two-bedroom (1.5 per cent for 2017). Newer buildings, one step further in its House Buying Step by rentals in condo buildings. Let’s use $2,000 notably rented condos, are not bound by Step guide, saying you don’t need to take out payment and makes it harder to qualify for a loan under a formula that says your monthly for this comparison because it’s not far this. That’s the background behind a story a loan for the entire amount being suggested.

“Qualifying is one part of the equation but housing costs should be no more than 32 per off the $2,100 per month payment on a told in my e-mail newsletter last week about mortgage for a $500,000 property made a Toronto woman who moved out of her tiny that doesn’t mean I can really afford it,” says cent of your gross monthly income. Housing with a 10 per cent down payment, a five-year condo after her landlord jacked her rent to Ina Wielinga, knowledge transfer consultant costs include mortgage payment, principal fixed mortgage rate of 2.7 per cent and a 25- by $950 a month to $2,600. She ended up with CMHC. “When you go to a bank and and interest, property taxes, heating costs and year amortization. “couch surfing,” or staying with friends and qualify for that mortgage, they’ll (give you 50 per cent of condo fees. the debt qualification) calculations but you The other key affordability rule, also Let’s make that property a condo – there family. are some two-bedroom condos in the We’ll have to be careful not to apply the have to go back home and look at your impacted by qualifying on the higher posted Toronto area for that much. Now, let’s look failure-to-launch label on millennials who personal circumstances and see if this fits rate, is that your debt load should be no at condo maintenance fees. A quick browse react to high rents by making the rational in your budget.” That advice comes against more than 40 per cent of your monthly gross of the Condos.ca website showed $500,000, decision to move home. In fact, doing the backdrop of soaring prices that saw the income. In addition to housing costs, car two-bedroom condos with maintenance so might offer the most efficient route to aggregate price of a home across the country loans or leases, credit card and lines of credit fees as low as $369 and as high as $986. home ownership. Even if a young adult reach $551,400 in January, up 15.03 per cent payments and other loans are calculated into Condo fees vary according to factors like a pays modest rent to parents or help with from a year ago, according to the Canadian that formula.

“The bank qualifies you based on rigorous building’s age, condition and amenities, and household expenses, there should still be Real Estate Association. Greater Vancouver the utilities costs included. Let’s estimate money left over to save for a house down and the Greater Toronto Area, where prices standards that we all support but how much were up 22.6 per in January from a year ago, you want to dedicate of your personal budget $600 per month. payment. is a function of your other preferences,” says Property taxes might run you $2,500 It may turn out that rental insanity means continue to drive the national numbers.

The revision of the guide, first published Bob Dugan chief economist with CMHC, per year in a two-bedroom condo, or $208 some young adults never rent. They’ll go monthly. As an owner, you’ probably want right from their parent’s homes into their in 1998, has been in the works for about 18 suggesting people might want to budget more to personalize or upgrade your condo. On own place, after an extended period of months and isn’t specifically aimed at soaring money for dining out, leisure activities or house prices today. vacations. average, we’ll estimate that you spend $200 saving.

says in ne g i e k ay e t at l an is actually a little too large for you

Saturda

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Saturday, March 04, 2017

Real Estate

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ps

st rey anc er t 63 storeys

The Trump International Hotel & Tower, which held its grand opening today in downtown Vancouver, isn’t as tall as the company claims in its marketing materials.

“The twisting $360-million tower ... is one of the tallest buildings in the city at 69 storeys high,” a news release from Trump Hotels says.

However, the development permit issued by the city in May 2008 for the address says otherwise — the tower is only 63 storeys above ground. Trump Hotels’ media contact for the Vancouver grand opening confirmed the building is only 63 storeys above ground.

The company is counting the belowground floors, which are primarily parking, to get to the publicized count of 69, said Chantel Cassar of Talk Shop Media.

“Only in the Trump era can you have a debate about how many floors there are,” said former Vancouver chief city planner Brent Toderian, who is now a planning consultant. “It’s extremely uncommon if not unprecedented to count below-grade floors.

er is nly

I’ve never heard that before.”

The City of Vancouver’s zoning and development bylaw stipulates, “a storey shall not include a basement or cellar.”

Inside the Vancouver Trump Hotel, the upper penthouse is labelled as “Tower Floor 69,” according to the building plan filed with the Land Title and Survey Authority of B.C. The developer skipped floor 13, and each floor ending in four (4, 14, 24, and so on), following a practice that was not uncommon in Vancouver. The word four in Cantonese sounds like words and phrases involving death.

That numbering “had nothing to do with Trump, and everything to do with Eastern and Western superstitions,” said Chris Cryderman, president of Underhill & Underhill, the B.C. land surveyors on the residential part of the project. “This has been common practice in Vancouver for quite a number of years,” said Cryderman, who noted the city put an end to it in 2015.

Trump Hotels is also claiming the Vancouver Trump hotel is the “first hotel to open in the city in over six years,” which is not the case. For example, Hotel Blu on Robson Street opened in 2014.

Inflating the height of a building is not a new thing for the Trump Organization, or U.S. President Donald Trump, according to media reports in the U.S. According to the New York Times, the Trump Tower in New York City is built to 58 floors — but marketed as 68.

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Indian real estate market moving towards T consolidation: Indiaproperty.com Vol. 6 No. 31

-

Saturday - April 2, 2016

- Tel: 604-591-5423 -

E-mail: ads@the

Vancouver’s skyline to rise amid an office-tower building

It is India’s first online assisted property buying portal that introduced 3D interactive virtual property tour feature in as early as 2014 something which their competitors are showcasing now. It also introduced India’s first augmented reality based real estate mobile application and is ranked the no. 1 portal in the real estate space by Nasdaqlisted comScore Inc. BWDisrupt talks to CEO, Mr. Ganesh Vasudevan, Indiaproperty.com to know more about its evolving business model.

Excerpts from a Exclusive Interview: Tell us about your property site and its inception?

Ans. Indiaproperty was founded in 2012 as a digital real estate marketing platform and has today evolved into a full stack player in residential real estate marketing, with monetised products on both the demand and supply side of the marketplace. We have over 8000 builders, 20000 projects advertised and over 700,000 properties listed on the site, and a monthly traffic of over 5 million hits.

Indiaproperty is very strong in all four South Indian states, with a dominant revenue share, and has a presence in the west market. Over revenue has grown at a CAGR of 30% plus over the last 3 years, despite the challenges in sales that the real estate industry has been going through for the last few years.

We pioneerd the first “Virtual Property Tours”, “Augmented Reality mobile app” and recently launched “Smart” point of sale terminals for experiential marketing of real estate. The full stack approach has helped us scale revenues in a very capital efficient manner and we are on track to breaking even operationally in the next 2-3 quarters.Our investors include JP Morgan Asset Management, Mayfield Fund and Bertelsmann India Investment the company has raised USD 29 million to date.

These tools are add-ons to listings and significantly enhance marketing ROI for the developer, and help us garner a larger share of the developers marketing wallet. Our ARPU per developer is more than 3x of some of our competitors in the south, and our solution ecosystem approach creates sticky relationships, resulting in 70%+ renewal rates with developers.

For buyers, we provide assisted buying as a paid subscription. This product significantly lowers the effort and time involved in buying homes. We are the only player to have built revenue streams on both the buy and sell side of the marketplace.

How will the technology and internet influence online real estate?

Ans. Technology is transforming the way people search for properties and is converting the whole buying process into an experience.

From simple classified listings now buyers can get all the possible information about the property, location etc. online. There are many online tools available today like online virtual tours, augmented reality search, virtual reality experiences linked to print media, smart terminals based experience centers etc. –which have minimized or eliminated the friction involved in the offline leg of the buyer’s purchase journey, bringing in efficiency and transparency in the system.

Some of these innovations have become industry benchmarks today.

he $240-million Credit Suisse/ SwissReal tower in the heart of downtown Vancouver will be completed in less than a year, but so far, only one tenant has signed up to move in.

The tenant has committed for a 10th of the 370,000 square feet – leaving a state of emptiness that is unusual for an office skyscraper in this city. Even so, a huge shift in business tenancy is expected as the region experiences something it has not seen before: an office-tower building boom much of which is speculative construction rather than for specific committed tenants.

“This is kind of uncharted territory for Vancouver,” said Mehdi Shokri, a principal with the capital markets team at Avison Young.

“But I don’t see a big disaster occurring.”

The Credit Suisse tower is only the most visible and furthest along of a second wave of new office towers planned for Vancouver and some key suburbs. A first cluster of towers – some two million square feet – was built downtown in the past three years.

Another 11 office developments are proposed within blocks of Credit Suisse’s Exchange tower at Howe and West Pender streets, even while the office-vacancy rate in the region continues to inch up as a result of the first wave of building.

But commercial brokers say the city is not about to be populated by ghost towers.

Mr. Shokri and others say they expect many of the new towers to start signing tenant leases as they get closer to completion. That is partly because companies in Vancouver, which do want to be in new, energy-efficient buildings, tend to operate on short timelines.

As well, he said, prices in the new buildings will likely come 4 i Saturday, July 25, 2015down in the

next two years due to competition.

The landlords who will likely suffer as a result of the current boom are owners of older buildings, Mr. Shokri said. As well, new developments in the suburbs, which have already experienced higher vacancy rates in recent years, may have trouble as they compete with each other.

In Vancouver, the co-developer of the Cred-

For the builders digital is the most efficient marketing medium today. A print ad generates 15 to 20 enquiries and has a limited shelf life. However, an online ad has a longer shelf life, which means more exposure and leads which translates into more ROI. The cost of acquisition per prospect through digital is one-tenth of what it costs in print.

Besides this, the digital medium proffers many creative and contextual opportunities for builders to start engaging conversations with prospective buyers, enhancing their brand messaging manifold.

These are the prime drivers propelling the shift of real estate advertising spends from traditional media to digital media.

What is your current revenue and future growth plans?

Ans. Developers account for nearly 70% of our revenues and the rest comes from brokers and individuals.

We have over 20000 projects from about 8000 developers listed with us but this is just 25% of the universe of developers in the top 10 markets in India. Our focus will continue to be to drive category growth by getting more builders online, and increasing the share of digital in the total marketing spend of builders. A large part of our listings are paid and from south India, where we have the highest market share by revenue. We are also on track to being profitable in FY18.

Once we achieve this, we intend expanding into other markets to replicate our full stack success.

What’s trending in India’s online property market?

Virtual reality technologies and the experiences that can be built using them in the real estate context is trending. We have significant technology investments in building a scalable virtual experience platform and this feeds our omni-channel touchpoint experience- desktop, mobile and offline smart terminals. We pioneered in bringing in the first virtual property tours and augmented reality experiences way back in 2012-13, and have been successful in monetising these as products used by developers and agents in selling real estate.

We intend to continue with these investments to enhance buyer and seller experience on the platform.

What are the new tech areas that IP is working on against competition?

Ans. On the buyer experience side, we have launched “smart terminals” which are internet connected, remote experience centres, which developers can use to create digital touch points in an offline context.

These terminals have been developed in house and we are working on gesture based technologies to drive the virtual reality experience.

On the discovery side, we have built advanced algorithims to deliver a personalized and device agnostic experience for buyers. Our thinking here is to develop a deep understanding of the “soft aspects” of a buyer’s residential requirement using AI and Machine learning, and then sending out relevant answers to the buyer for use at his leisure. That is, the answers come to you as a buyer instead of you going out to seek them. We use the latest tools and a scalable tech stack that is used by leading consumer internet companies worldwide.

it Suisse tow start to fill a Franz G Group wh stock-excha nering with the main gr ver office sp sector. Tho

31

Saturday, April 2, 2016

i 5

Saturday, March 04, 2017 -

Saturday - April 2, 2016

- Tel: 604-591-5423 -

E-mail: ads@theasianstar.com

couver’s skyline to rise amid an office-tower building boom

edit Suisse/ he heart of er will be , but so far, to move in. or a 10th of ng a state of n office skyhuge shift in s the region not seen beboom much uction rathted tenants. tory for Vanrincipal with vison Young. r occurring.” nly the most second wave for Vancoufirst cluster square feet – three years. pments are Credit Sue and West he office-vanues to inch of building. y the city is host towers.

Mr. Shokri and others say they expect many of the new towers to start signing tenant leases as they get closer to completion. That is partly because companies in Vancouver, which do want to be in new, energy-efficient buildings, tend to operate on short timelines.

As well, he said, prices in the new buildings will likely come 4 i Saturday, July 25, 2015down in the

next two years due to competition.

The landlords who will likely suffer as a result of the current boom are owners of older buildings, Mr. Shokri said. As well, new developments in the suburbs, which have already experienced higher vacancy rates in recent years, may have trouble as they compete with each other.

In Vancouver, the co-developer of the Cred-

it Suisse tower is optimistic his building will start to fill as the completion date gets closer.

Franz Gehriger, the CEO of SwissReal Group who bought the original historic stock-exchange building in 2002 before partnering with Credit Suisse to develop it, said the main group interested in leasing Vancouver office space these days is the technology sector. Those companies make their deci-

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., has updated its free guide to the process of buying a home, with an emphasis on encouraging Canadians to think long term about what kind of home they should buy — or whether they would be better off renting.

The national housing agency first released the guide, called Homebuying Step by Step, in 1998, but has updated it over the years. The latest version streamlines the document, splitting off workbook content and making it available online as a series of interactive printable checklists and questionnaires.

The previous iteration of the guide received almost eight million unique page views in 2016 alone, according to CMHC. Sean Cooper wiped out his mortgage in 3 years — and now offers advice in new book The guide is meant for any prospective homebuyer, but first-time buyers could particularly benefit from reading it, said Ina Wielinga, a consultant at CMHC who updated the guide. She said the new version puts a greater focus on calculating the true cost of owning a home over time, emphasizing costs like taxes, utilities and repairs.

“This used to be peppered through the document, but we’re bringing it up front because people often get focused on acquisition,” said Wielinga.

The new guide also encourages readers to reflect on what kind of home suits their lifestyle, and whether or not homeownership is a better financial choice than renting.

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“It’s not just buying that house that’s brick and mortar,” said Wielinga. “There’s a lifestyle that goes with it also.”

By asking would-be homeowners to consider how a home will fit into their lives over the long term, Wielinga said, the guide could help users feel more confident about their purchase.

The most confusing concept in the guide is also one of the most important ideas to understand before buying a home, according to Wielinga: calculating your gross debt service ratio (also known as the gross debtto-income ratio) and total debt service ratio (also known as the total debtto-income ratio).

The gross debt service ratio includes total monthly housing costs, which CMHC says should be no more than 32 per cent of average gross monthly income. The total debt service ratio covers all monthly debt payments, including housing costs. CMHC recommends that ratio not exceed 40 per cent of average gross monthly income.

“You have to understand that, even if you’re the best person in the world and you know you can afford it, you have to follow that kind of guideline,” said Wielinga.

Financial axioms like these are often

left unexplained to potential homebuyers, said Wielinga.

“Honestly, it’s not talked about enough,” she said. “I think when we do explain it to people, then they do get it.”

The rules for Canadian homebuyers have been changing quickly, especially as the government tries different policies to

mitigate risk in the real estate market.

For that reason, the guide avoids getting into the details of certain aspects of homebuying, like calculating mortgage loan insurance. Instead, it refers readers to the CMHC website, where the details of mortgage rules can be quickly updated as the government changes them.

Lauren Haw, CEO of online real estate brokerage Zoocasa, lauded CMHC for

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its interactive workbook for prospective homebuyers, although she’s skeptical that many people will actually take the time to sit down and read the guide in full.

“People like to have it and hold it, but most first-time homebuyers don’t seem to ingest the information in this format very well,” said Haw. “Because even if you give

change 5 years fixed rate to 3.29% (30 days quick close, Hi ratio only

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#106 - 7565 132 St. Surrey, BC 604.572.3005 3 Year Fixed

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5 years fixed @ 2.64% 2 years fixed @ 2.24% 3 years fixed @ 2.49%

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them these documents, very few people are the personality type that will read it and really truly understand it.”

Haw said real estate brokers often end up explaining these concepts to their clients as they go through the buying process.

“If everybody would sit down and read one of these things, I think we’d have much more informed buyers,” she said.

Saturda

16

Saturday, March 04, 2017

Garry Grewal

Vol. 6 No. 31

T

DIAMOND AWARD

Sutton Group - West Coast Realty

CLUB MEMBERAWARDS WINNERCOMMERCIAL OF FVREB’sMEDALLION TOP ACHIEVEMENT - Highest Dollar Volume Award - Commercial Top Sales Award

PLATINUM AWARD

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Spectacular! Estate home on 14.827 Acres of high yield blueberry farm. Luxury NEW regal unfolds with the stunning front foyer, dual staircases, and elevated catwalk.

LIS The TIN& walk great room is situated next to a gourmet chef kitchen w/ separate wok kitchen G Beautiful 800 sq.ft 1 bedroom apartment in media a highly desirable and room, beautifully in pantry. A room, yoga/ area exercise 8 bedrooms & multiple entertaining round outand thisdoor spectacular out upon south views of Mt. Baker or the maintained complex! Great floor rooms plan with patio off livinghome. roomGaze overlooking north views of the North Shore Mountains from outdoor patios situated both upstairs stunning courtyard, ponds and waterfall.

LargeThis openiskitchen with great Radiant in and down. true luxury at itsstorage. best! The farm features healthy mature blueberry Duke, and Reca fee. ensuring crops throughout the season. Fully floor h/w heating and gas fireplacevarieties are included in Elliott, the maintenance In-suitesteady laundry, automated irrigation. Too much to list! Book a showing today! Asking $4,999,900

FOR LEASE PREMIUM OFFICE ACE SP HOTEL WITH 32 ROOMS FOR SALE FOR ALE S Picturesque location in the heart of beautiful British

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2011, 2012 2006-2007 2011, 2012

E-mail: ads@the

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next two years due to competition.

The landlords who will likely suffer as a result of the current boom are owners of older buildings, Mr. Shokri said. As well, new developments in the suburbs, which have already experienced higher vacancy rates in recent years, may have trouble as they compete with each other.

In Vancouver, the co-developer of the Cred-

it Suisse tow start to fill a Franz G Group wh stock-excha nering with the main gr ver office sp sector. Tho

MASTER AWARD

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2010

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FOR 4020SALE 272 T, S/ LEASE LANGLEY OFFICE FOR LEASE IN PAYAL BUSINESS CENTRE

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Office for lease: Located in the heart of Surrey in Payal Business Centre , this office is professionally designed. 5 offices, reception area, separate lunch room and full washroom. 1200 Sq ft. $2000 per month + GST

8318 oadof R eringconsists is ofmedical off and Columbia;cott this Streasure a business 32 rooms other ofessionals pr opportunity o t with the potential to expand up toan50 rooms. Its also includes purchase emium pr of�ice space ey, in Sur a 110 seat pub, fully licensed resaturant and a Liquor store BC. o Set beed t y allcomplet b f 2016, this his and hers closet. PLUS 2 underground secured parking stalls with loads of visitor parking. with lot size close to 45,000ifsqft.

PNP or run yourart Storage locker on main floor for added convenience. Close to shopping, schools, restaurants state eelIdeal for BC the and ete concr st own business and and easy access to Hwy 99, 91 and Hwy 10. Asking $250,000 building willachieve er your offentrepreneurial ae etaildreams! mixtur of and r A very rare opportunity to own a beautiful Parisian feel Salon/Café in Contact for morespace details.

Askingt $2,599,000 of�ice o ofessionals pr lookingor f a Historic Abbotsford.

Wellspace established, with overlooking a loyal client this Spacious 2 bedroom and 2 bath condo with over 1300 sq. ft.establishment of living with a beautiful viewfollowing of the inside home or ftheir business. Space beautiful ers offy all brunch,da ea.

Lunch long erm and t Afternoon T courtyard and pond! Well maintained property with laminate floors, crown moulding and neutral paint.

This open floor In addition, this beautiful café offers so much more! Reservations for is ed. limit oday Callor et f &mor details.

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Saturday - April 2, 2016

he $240-million Credit Suisse/ Mr. Shokri and others say they expect SwissReal tower in the heart of many of the new towers to start signing tenant downtown Vancouver will be leases as they get closer to completion. That completed in less than a year, but so far, is partly because companies in Vancouver, only one tenant has signed up to move in. which do want to be in new, energy-efficient The tenant has committed for a 10th of buildings, tend to operate on short timelines. the 370,000 square feet – leaving a state of As well, he said, prices in the new emptiness that is unusual for an office sky- buildings will likely come 4 i Saturday, July 25, 2015down in the scraper in this city. Even so, a huge shift in business tenancy is expected as the region experiences something it has not seen before: an office-tower building boom much of which is speculative construction rather than for specific committed tenants.

“This is kind of uncharted territory for Vancouver,” said Mehdi Shokri, a principal with the capital markets team at Avison Young.

“But I don’t see a big disaster occurring.”

The Credit Suisse tower is only the most visible and furthest along of a MASTER second wave PLATINUM of new office towers planned for VancouAWARD AWARD ver and some key suburbs. A first cluster of towers – some two million square feet – was built downtown in the past three years.

Another 11 office developments are proposed within blocks of Credit Suisse’s Exchange tower at Howe and West Pender streets, even while the office-vacancy rate in the region continues to inch up as a result of the first wave of building.

But commercial brokers say the city is not about to be populated by ghost towers.

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Vancouver’s skyline to rise amid an office-tower building

BUSINESS OR ALE S F

ATTENTION TRUCKERS!

PITA PIT FRANCHISE

Magni�icent luxury estate situate don 8.5 acres with over 8100 sq. ft of living space. Home includes 6 bdrms, 8 washrooms, a separate guest house and fruit 5 acres Pita has blueberry plants as well. This Wellstand. established Pit stunning home possesses every luxury possible with high ceilings, crown molding, stainless steel Franchise in rapid growing appliances,Granite counter tops, open �loor plan, large gym room, grand patio, sundecks, built in vacuum, top of the line security system, separate wok kitchen and much more! gorgeous home is situated in the Brentwood area ofThis Burnaby! middle of serene farmland yet only two minutes away from Aldergrove Town centre and with quick access R are oppor tunit y to to Hwy #1. The second house is rented as well as fruit stall.Rare opportunity to advantage of this stunning purchase a well established home! Call today for a personal viewing.

Attention Truckers! Permitted use for Transportation Industry and more. IL zoned The perfect turn key operation for those with a flair for fashion and wanting to run their own business!

Located in the uptownOR DistrictFofALE New West busyGINA commercialRE area.Take advantage ACREAGE S in theIN ASKATCHEWAN - of 3 businesses S in land available. Two side by side lots that are one: 1. One year established Ladies Apparel & accessories Boutique 2. Complete professional alteration to be sold together. House is since franchise surrounded by highrises, residences, new established with love and a business owners delight don't miss this ATGRE INVES TMENT ORTUNITY! OPP in the same premises but segregated from the boutique. 3. Full website with two demolished. Commercial Land only. Please developments, commercial businesses and more. This opportunity!

Please oach do staff, not ealtor contact orappry f business listing an with full workshop r location does school hot lunches and a large amount of info required. es, and acr el Hot velopment and PRIME OFFICE SPACE FOR LEASEAsking $75,000 INDIAN RESTAURANT FOR SALE online stores, social media presence and first page SEO4for alterations five star reviews.

Owner selling duede contact for more details. Asking $649,000 catering ordering as well! Do not approach staff please site vailable a to the in next level withthe egina, of R this turn key business your ideas! City Prime office space on street level available for lease. Excellent location prime area Indian cuisine to health issues this is the perfect opportunity to take contact listing realtor for more details. Asking $209,000 each. not Saskatchewan.

Prime location, Price is excluding inventory. Please contact for more details on this unique business. Asking $109,900 Perfect for a variety of usessteel including daycare, and take Lowf lease high traffic Established custom abrication and dine in business. aluminum eatout.Gr opportunity our area to own run y to be missed! or e Contact mor f martial arts Church use. with welding business withorservices that Central include:location aluminum custom and stock trailers, NEW LEASING OPPORTUNITY Contractand forrepair, more details.

Asking $109,000 details.

GROCERY STORE FOR SALE IN DOWNTOWN AREA mobile welding service, crane fabrication, fabrication of residential gates, security bars and much The Mann Corporate Centre is comprised of 23,000 square feet of 'A' Class office/retail space great exposure to Scott Rd. Contact for more details. more! Mon– Fri operation closed on weekends. Please contact me for more details on this hard to MORE 1000 Oa custom open floor 12,000 . forTyour preference.

AIL S.F The & RET ACEOFFICE SP Ideal business opportunity well established Grocery and convenience store in busy downtown over three floors.

A brand new facility with plan come by opportunity! Asking $149,000 FOR flexibility ALEandSallowsASE & LE designed to provide maximum for area. Excellent sales and profit. Full service store including UPS, cigarettes, world wide money Mann Corporate centre has beenAVAILABLE PRIME OFFICE SPACE FOR LEASE many types of professional users who are seeking a high quality facility with great exposure.

For sale Prime 1489 Sq ft office space for sale in busy retail/office complex in Surrey. transfers withDream Western union, slushies, Pizza or alehot dogs, FS fruits, vegetables, halal meats, atm, general Highlights include: State of the art facility with modern finishes, Underground secured Ideal for a variety office types.

Visible from business 152 and centrally Established IndianofSweets and Restaurant locatedlocated. in high Asking traf�ic area of Scott Rd, Surrey.

Perfect opportunity o andour own t excellent y lease bossterms surrounded by tons of parking provided. Free on site surface parking, more than 3 parking stalls per 1000 Sq ft. 24/7 groceries,vcleaning supplies more.be Low rent, Wide ariety egetarian v v menu eets. with xpanded Can sw tobe egetarian add e dishes non to the $350,000 with ell this and established w Pizza & turn key Indian 13737 96 ve, Central location entre A with City HD recording privilege. easy access to allCmajor routes. menu. Catering services provided regular clientele. Seating for 50. Complete turn key restaurant residential buildings commercial businesses.

Perfect opportunity grab this security with Cuisine in y. unning Langle R successfull y or f FOB access and intercom. Please contact listing realtor for details on remaining space, square footage and pricing details. great business opportunity! Asking $129,000 #705 $465,000, #706 $335,000 PHARMASAVE FRANCHISE money making business it is gone! Contact details. Asking $189,900 the veLast ears before y�ixcellent with yedailfor more sales.

Special occasions and even Private plan includes a large living room with gasShowers, f/p which Birthdays, open up ton Anniversaries, the spacious eating area. Extra large kitchen with lots of Wedding ceremonies. Wait...there's more! This beautiful treasure of a cabinets and counter space. Large laundrybusiness room, inoffers floor radiant heat,select extra shelving closets, 2 parking stallslinens, and storage gorgeous apparel,infurnishings, jewelry, gifts, locker. Great location with easy access tovintage shopping,treasures transit & Highway 91 & 99.

PleaseA call listing realtor for more info. and home décor. beautiful, breathtaking turnkey operation this is a chance to own a niche business created and Asking $329,900

PAYAL BUSINESS CENTRE - 82 Ave & 128 St

CUSTOM TEELS &ABRICATION F BUSINESSOR ALEFS BUSINESS OR F SALE

PIZZA

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INDIAN

Asset Sale- DBA "Pharmasave" well established franchise operating since June 2012. Increasing annual script count of approx 12,000/annum. Approx 2400 sq ft of ground floor space leased space w/5 year, 5yr, 5 yr lease + 1 st right refusal to tenant option to purchase the building. Open six days/week (6) doctor offices, High end Fantastic opportunity to run your own Pizza & Indian Cuisine Kroll software, and Oscarfood, CRM software use. Lease area of 2,400 sq.ft.

Customized improvements. business!

Excellent rated in4.5/5 by customers open 7 daystenancy a Business is runbusy professionally by atake Healthout Carewith Groupavailability Company- enormous expansionifpotential! Owner will week, very location for seating desired.

Tons of tourists central to major sites in Hope provide training.

Contact me foryear moreround, details. Asking $899,000

BUSINESS OR F SALE

N LIS EW TIN G

CUISINE

and integral area near grocery stores, city hall, local police station, motels and cinema. Well established, great sales and a complete turn key operation that will not last long! Asking $199,000

UNITS OR F SALE &

BUSINESS PIZZA & CURRY RESTAURANT FOR SALE

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COLLECTION / CREDIT COMPANY FOR SALE- ONE IN A MILLION OPPORTUNITY! delivery service.Reasonable parking for space. Onlinesale ordering, Hair lease alonand S ample Business 23 years Established Credit Company for sale. Retail and Commercial collections, Located on media , Hwy verdale F Cloea,all ell arin place w for established business, y your o full website, raser social presence you! Make maintain, higher monthl y evenue. Asking r $69,900 CONVENIENCE & MINI MAR T entrepreneurial Judgments, Tenancy Order Collection, loansTORE andSoutstanding invoices.Take dreams come true.

Contact for more details.

Asking $109,000 Don't miss this to run yourbusiness own buyopportunity.

ConvenienceAsking store/Mini advantage of chance this unique niche $229,000

mart! This well established business is well or-ganized, excellent set up, with all your essential sundries for sale as well as lottery AND the licensing to sell Pizza at this location! Busy area near parks, schools, residences it is the perfect small business! Ample of Well known and established Lighthouse Franchise on King George & 80th in Surrey. Take out opportunity to add your ideas to an already turn key operation! establishment andgreat Partysmall Orders are also handled.

The website for all franchise locations is www.lighthouse.menu and they are on Facebook Don't miss this business prospect!

Asking $149,000

BUSINESS FOR SALE

LIGHTHOUSE

INDIAN

CUISINE

as well. This business has been established in 2009 and has been run by the same owner since this time. As it is a take out and delivery.

Establishment there is not a liquor license at this location. Asking $549,000

SIGNAGE & PRINTING BUSINESS FOR SALE

8321

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ATTENTION FOREIGN MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS!!!

2 BABY ULTRASOUNDUNITS FRANCHISES FOR SALE! OR ALE F S

$349,000

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Well established .Babyvestment UltrasoundinFranchise, 3D/4D ultrasound (not diagnostic), Private clinic for pregnant moms.ey Excellent opportunity o etail twefront r stor units in al Plaza Full turn key operation this easy to run niche market business e,is perfectStor for oindividuals or couples with is sale. Gr$899,000 Currently ocery leased to this or a Asking units f tw Medical/Health industry backgrounds. Beautifully set up office, low lease rate, excellent hours and easy to run with low overhead expenses. Professionals and New Immigrants with a healthcare background this is a perfect opportunity! Burnaby and Abbotsford locations available. Asking $125,000 each location

INVESTOR Of�ic NEWNG I LIST

Don't miss this rare opportunity to own your own busy Lighthouse Indian Cuisine Franchise! Prime location in Brickyard Station Plaza this fantastic business has Take out and dine in, beautiful décor, quality kitchen, Full Liquor license and full Indian Cuisine 95Menu.

AveComplete & 152 940 sqft. is available for franchise. Contact me today for further turnSt., key operation enablesof�ice you to bespace your own boss with this established lease 2nd �loor including 3 small of�ices, meeting room info. on Asking $389,000 and reception. Also available 9400 sqft. space for lease.

LOTS OF EXPOSURE.

UNIT FOR SALE

In Mughal Garden plaza 2 units available, approx 4875 sqft.Already leased to long term tenants, to be sold together. Asking $1.25 million

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Contact for more info on this opportunity. Asking Only $69,000

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SURREY VERAS BURGER FRANCHISE FOR SALE

building

to be your own boss! Contact listing realtor for more details. Price : $339,000

J.J AINI S

PLAZA

VERAS BURGER FRANCHISE

8077 eas t KING GEORGE BLVD. The perfect retail

corner unit in busy plaza move in ready. Approx 1200 sq ft perfect for fast food, of�ice or retail Looking close for the perfect franchise well look no more! Established and award space. Easy access to highway, to all winning Vera's in busy Meadow Town Center with major anchors like amenities on Busy King George Hwy.Burgers Great Opportunity contact me today. Superstore, Cineplex Odeon, and many major Financial Institutions and major

retailers. Fully turn key operation with extra large patio, good lease, low franchise fees and beer licence. Current absentee owner this business is a great opportunity to be your own boss and take it to the next level! Asking $229,900

AUTO

BOD Y SHOPOR FSALE

Established auto y or bod shop our sale f own y! be boss y toda L NE IST W Well established ell anduto equipped e w Car A Center which IN G offers complete car &epair. truck inspection, service The ect perf opportunity our to own run businessy with a well ecognized r and established ve . automoti center Contact realtor or ef mor Askingdetails. $139,000

AUTO /TRANSMISSION/CAR REPAIR IN LOWER MAINLAND

Over 37 year well established Auto repair / Transmission Repair / car repair in

NEW G IN LIST

OFFICE ACE SP Large OR shop, ASE F3 Bays, LEample storage space available. the Lower Mainland.

8927

St Currently . 1100 of�ice or sqftand models vailable space lease inf a transmissions, services all makes of re manufactured automatic and standard, clutches, This is a confidential listing ar on eet 152nsd ey. in str differentials.

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152 .,Approx.

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and NDA will be VErequired. Please T&contact for more details.

120 Asking $229,000 S

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Appr St t o120 750 . 1700 , main second �loor �loor . eady o and Rve t mobasement in!

PAYAL BUSINESS CENTRE - 82 Ave & 128 St Approx.

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ara small of�ice, oom andlunch designed and �inished.

growing area makes this an ideal location for your office. Contact listing realtor NEWNG I LIST

Station, restaurant and Public Transit. This space has 2 offices inside and lunch room as well as washroom. Perfect for Accountants, Notary, Great opportunity to get into a Franchised and or other consulting or Lawyer. The space can also be Immigration Located in a busy commercial plaza in the NE ED easy to operate CandyL business!

This established IST W DUCuses as well. 1260 Sq. ft. converted INGPark Shopping heart of Surrey. Lots of traf�ic and close to franchise is located in Ocean Centerfor various REretail

NEW FRANCHISE

OFFICE SPACE FOR LEASE

J.J SAINI PLAZA

BEAUTIFUL TURN KEY A SPALON / OR FSALES

Investment Opportunity in Hope.

7200 Sq. ft large Lot Fully near major anchor Safeway. This rapidly growing franchise currently has 22 locations within BC and Located in the heart in Payal Business Centre, this office is professionally designed. 5 offices, renovated home closeof Surrey to the Alberta. With unique product Imported from the US and UK this franchise is completely turn –key Downtown core.area, 2 separate bed, 2lunch bath reception room and full washroom. 1200 Sq ft Gross lease +gst. This easy to run and $20.00/sq full trainingftprovided. business is perfect for a couple and for those 850 sq.ft home to use as a rental Established auto body shop for sale be your own boss today! wanting to try their hand at being an entrepreneur.

Asking $79,900 property. Asking $349,000 Well established and well equipped Auto Care Center which offers complete car &

OFFICE SPACE FOR SALE QUIZNOS FRANCHISE FOR SALE

Excellent opportunity to own your own franchise! Well established and recognized

Established Indian Sweets and Restaurant business located in high Quiznos Subs in Port Coquitlam will enable you to achieve your entrepreneurial traffic area of Scott Rd, Surrey. Wide variety vegetarian menu with dreams! Busy plaza with Earls, Safeway, Scotiabank, McDonalds, Bosley Pet Valu and much more! Residences and commercial businesses all around sweets. Can be expanded to add non vegetarian dishes to the menu. makes this an ideal location. Owners have run it for several years Catering services provided regular clientele. Seating for 50. Complete and are now ready to retire. Contact me for more details regarding turn key restaurant great business opportunity! Asking $129,000 this business opportunity. Asking $119,000

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UNIT OR FASE LE ON T 72 & 132 Available for lease. Opp JR Furniture. Good mix of warehouse and of�ice space. Centrally can be run from home or elsewhere. The exclusive Franchise territory for Maple Ridge, Pitt plaza Banquet in Halls, Surr DONAIR BUSINESS located in light industrial zoning.

APARTMENT Meadows and Mission is for sale. Fantastic recession proof business that enable children Of�ice for eat vestment sale! In Gr from 3-13+ learn and build withALE Lego bricks.

FOR S Teach the fundamentals of S.T.E.M. (science, FOR ALE S #1 1016 Sq cellent xposure, Ft e 12,000 op S.F. ExRETAIL t �loor of�ice y space Khalsa within the MORE 1000 TO & OFFICE SPACE technology, engineering & mathematics).

This unique business offers in School Workshops, Amazing opportunity to be your own boss! ,6960ey Surr 120 St Cent er x. comple ull ea F ar eddesignat or oom f classr space and addition Established After Schoolving EnrichmentliClasses, Week long Summer camps, Birthday Parties, preDonair School food outlet in prime busy Business AVAILABLE FOR SALE & LEASE Perfect space with of�ice space. ake vantage T ad ons of ofxposure t om visual fr . 128th e af�ic High st tr area in Langley.

Already steady clientele from Classes and the Kidz Night1000 out programs.

Realtor for128 more info2 on this cornerPlease of listing ft and 84.

CD zoning allows v over sq contact gr in opportunity . $325,000.00 the ous numer businesses ounding, surr tons complexof eat vestment unique opportunity. Asking $79,000 bedroom with den 2traf�ic and lots of opportunity to expand the #2. 1920 sq ft of second vate �loor of�ices, droom,of�iceboar space. bath corned unit in business further. Low lease, and great area reception ea,ar chenette. kit cellent Ex xposure, e op t �loor of�ice y space wit Harleen dens.

Gar make this the perfect turn key operation to own Khalsa Business er Cent x. comple ake vantage T ad ons of of xposure t visual fr e om 8077 KING GEORGE BLVD. Great unit available for lease facing King Asking location. centr busy $289,900 Surr your own business today!

Asking $99,000 The perfect second floor office space for lease Within busy Triton Centre. Busy and 128th af�ic xcomple eat tr tovestment gr inGas opportunity . $550,000 George Blvd.. Greatstvisual and High retail exposure.

Close shopping,

forORTUNITY more details. 1985 Sq.ft.

OPP

Approx. 3100 SF of office space available for sale in the busiest plaza in Surrey. Close to Banquet Halls, retailshops & offices. Asking $749,000

BUSINESS FOR SALE

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Two adjoining of�ices in a new across om fr SMH. ht Can or be boug Wellleased established Vera's busy Fraser ogether t Burger orfFranchise otal located a onspace t Highway of in an Cloverdale. Well maintained. establishment full turn key operation ready for you 1600 sqft ate. or separ

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CENTRE oom/of�ice showr r Center

2590 sqft . etail R ande CUISINE space for LIGHTHOUSE sale INDIAN Asking $649,000

N LIS EW TIN G

LEARNING CENTRE FOR SALE

ACE VAILABLE SP A

., Surrey.

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ITALIAN

units long

Unique and established opportunity to make your entrepreneurial dream come true! This beautiful Café in the heart of White OFFICE Rock is a small business owners ACE SP OR ALE F S dream!

Tastefully decorated 3100 excellent breakfast and lunch fmenu ofandsalerarely Approx. vailableSFor of�ice in ey. found…Liquor license as well! Outdoor seating back and front of premises, retailshops & Asking tons ofof�ices. $749,000 parking and many, many more high rises coming in the area currently make this a business owners dream come true.UNIT Turn keyORbusiness you! BUSINESS ALE Fready T and S waiting AA forKHALS Confidentiality agreement to be signed beforeopportunity! viewing the Take vantage ad will eat of have vestment in this gr business. ound Ideal etail/�loor Gr high $149,900 ceilings eys in busy Surr Khalsa Business Asking

OPPOR

Large loading door at the back of the unit. name with two locations in Whistler and one in Squamish this turn key operation will enable you to develop your passion into a profitable career. With excellent Fully carpeted office space lots windows support from the founders, this BC based company is looking for individuals who allowing plenty of light, security alarm believe in health and are community driven and are wanting to utilize that to let Entrepreneurial juices Contact cuisine for more details on the Green Moustache Atheir treasure gem offlow!

Italian tucked away and 2 bathrooms. Contact for NEmore W info. term in tenants, to be sold Franchise and joining the Green Moustache family on W.4th!

Asking $99,000 Hope! Open for lunch and dinner this quaint LISTING restaurant serves traditional Italian classics in a fantastic atmosphere and ambiance. Perfect casual dining for locals as well as tourist traf�ic.

Attention centers,ready Early Childhood related businesses, Teachers and others with Educational backgrounds that Turn keylearning operation for youEducation to implement plaza. enjoy dreams working with Your dream to own your business has arrived. Reputable and your as children! a restaurant owner!

Asking $219,000 established Bricks 4Kidz Franchise has over 320 franchises worldwide! This unique business

TOWING COMPANYOR FORFSALES UNIT ALE

Established and reputable towing company that serves clients throughout In den Mughal plaza Gar 2 theavailable, Lower Mainland. to run your ownsqft turn key business to oxIdeal opportunity appr .Already 4875 leased AskingAsking $279,900 $1.25 million in a niche market. Contacttogether. for more details.

FRANCHISE TUNITY

PIZZA BUSINESS FORDSALE SOL LD

GREEN MOUSTACHE FRANCHISE FOR UNIT AT 83tAVE & 130 ST Fully �inished y sideata sideSALE b orunits str otalFORaLEASE f Are you passionate healthy lifestyle? you ready to takesqft of ox.about appr 5540 . Arevailable A or f sale. o unit in anClose t Ample Corner excellent location. your passion and belief in healthy organic foods and juices to the Port K and joinIndustrial y Eas o access t and in the warehouse. next level??ells Look no further The Greenea.

Moustache ar Family space bothboth office with their latest franchise locationaci�ic on 1 W. 4th in Vancouver.

Already an established ossing.

Highway hway Hig and Ptruck cr

N LIS EW TIN G

Don't miss this rare opportunity to own your own busy Lighthouse Indian Cuisine Franchise! Prime location in Brickyard Station Plaza this fantastic business has Take out and dine in, beautiful décor, quality Great opportunity to run your own signage and printing business! This established turn key operation offers all kitchen, Full Liquor license and full Indian Cuisine Menu. Complete varieties banners and signs, vehicle wraps, lettering LED Channel & 3D letters and awning turn keyof operation enables you window to be graphics your &own boss with this canopies and window graphics.

Establishedme for five years,for low lease, built upinfo. clientele make this a great business established franchise.

Contact today further Asking opportunity! Contact me for more details. Asking $99,000 $389,000

RETAIL

GREAT

Great ranchise F opportunity ed! yjust Bus list Coquitlam Cent er Mall or location oss Chop N Be your own boss!

Established Pizza business for sale. Excellent location fin South Surrey withont tons to expand andlong! grow.

Only $69,000.00!

Franchise!

W of opportunity last Asking $158,800

LE ASE

ITALIAN RESTAURANT FOR SALE

A treasure gem of Italian cuisine tucked away in Hope! Open for lunch and dinner this quaint restaurant serves traditional Italian classics in a fantastic atmosphere and ambiance. Perfect casual dining for locals as well as tourist traffic. Turn key operation ready for you to implement your dreams as a restaurant owner! Asking $219,000

INVESTOR OPPORTUNITY

Investment Opportunity in Hope. 7200 Sq. ft large Lot Fully renovated home close to the Downtown core. 2 bed, 2 bath 850 sq.ft home to use as a rental property. Asking $349,000

public transportation, restaurants, of�ice and retail shops. Established recently the spa and salon offers modern décor up to date equipment/furnishings. Excellent turn key operation. Asking R $60,000

AUTO BODY SHOP FOR SALE

truck inspection, service and repair. The perfect opportunity to run your own business with a well recognized and established automotive center. Contact realtor for more details. Asking $109,000

EDUCED29/07

Office for sale! Great Investment #1 1016 Sq Ft Excellent exposure, top floor office space within the busy Khalsa Business Center complex. Full area designated for classroom space and additional office space. Take advantage of tons of visual exposure from 128th st. High traffic complex great investment opportunity. $325,000 #2. 1920 sq ft of second floor office space. Includes 10 private offices, boardroom, reception area, kitchenette.

Excellent exposure, top floor office space within the busy Khalsa Business Center complex. Take advantage of tons of visual exposure from 128th st. High traffic complex great investment opportunity. $550,000

27/01