Good morning,
These are the top stories:
A long-awaited visit not realized: A Brampton family of six was lost in the Ethiopian Airlines disaster
Kosha Vaidya hadn’t been back to Kenya in decades. That was supposed to change over March Break on a family vacation with her husband Prerit, teenaged daughters Anushka and Ashka, and Vaidya’s parents Pannagesh and Hansini. Instead, they were among the 18 Canadians who died in the plane crash that claimed a total of 157 lives. Relatives in Canada are experiencing “an emotional breakdown” over the news and have yet to start making funeral or memorial arrangements.
Here’s a look at the other Canadians identified yesterday
Jessica Hyba: The 43-year-old mother of two had recently begun a new posting in Mogadishu with the UN High Commission for Refugees after seven years in refugee camps in the Middle East.
Darcy Belanger: The former Edmonton resident was the founding member of Parvati.org, a conservation non-profit group.
Stéphanie Lacroix: Only three years out of university, the 25-year-old had recently been hired on as a project co-ordinator with the UN Association in Canada after a series of volunteer internships in Africa. She was headed to the UN Environmental Assembly in Nairobi with a group that included three other young Canadians, among them:
Angela Rehhorn: The 24-year-old Dalhousie graduate was a member of Canadian Conservation Corps at the Canadian Wildlife Federation, a program training future conservationists.
Micah Messent: A member of the Red River Métis Nation in Manitoba, Messent grew up in B.C.’s Comox Valley and worked for BC Parks and planned to go to law school.
More on the Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft
Most global airlines, including Air Canada and WestJet, will continue to fly the model that was involved in the Ethiopian crash as well as October’s Lion Air disaster in Indonesia. Some carriers in China, Indonesia, Morocco and South Africa took the rare step of grounding the plane. Australia and Singapore also suspended the plane’s service on Tuesday.
Transport Minister Marc Garneau said he believes the plane is safe and that he will keep a close eye on a U.S.-led investigation of the aircraft.
For its part, Boeing said it would soon deploy a Max 8 software upgrade to “make an already safe aircraft even safer.”
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The OECD says potential job losses are no reason to shelve prosecution of SNC-Lavalin
A top anti-bribery official at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development is expressing concerns about “allegations of political interference” raised by former attorney-general Jody Wilson-Raybould. (for subscribers)
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other officials have cited job losses and economic consequences as the motive for pressing Wilson-Raybould to pursue a settlement. “We are saying this is not good enough to justify interference with prosecutorial autonomy,” said the OECD’s Drago Kos. “This is the decision that the prosecution has to make and the prosecution has to make that decision autonomously.”
David Lametti, who took over as Attorney-General, has not ruled out a deferred prosecution agreement with SNC-Lavalin.
Here’s Campbell Clark’s view: “So what does Mr. Lametti do now? Does he intervene and make people think that he’s bowed to his political master in a criminal prosecution? Or does he stay out of it, confirming Ms. Wilson-Raybould’s choice, and implicitly deflating the Prime Minister’s suggestion that there was a risk to jobs that had to come first?” (for subscribers)
Will Theresa May’s Brexit deal survive a vote in Parliament today?
The British Prime Minister secured some last-minute revisions, including legal changes to a backstop provision to ensure there is no hard Irish border. But it’s not clear if that will be enough to save the plan. If it’s rejected, MPs will vote on whether to leave the European Union without an agreement or look to extend the March 29 deadline.
EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker issued a warning to British MPs: “In politics sometimes you get a second chance. It is what we do with this second chance that counts because there will be no third chance. There will be no further interpretations and no further assurances.”
A rights activist who helped reveal China’s detention of Muslims has been placed on house arrest in Kazakhstan
Serikzhan Bilash – who’s been called a hero by families who’ve sought his help to advocate for relatives who vanished into Chinese political indoctrination camps – was taken from a hotel in the middle of the night over the weekend before being released on house arrest for two months, pending trial.
Bilash is an ethnic Kazakh born in China and supporters worry that his detention was a result of Beijing putting pressure on trade-reliant Kazakhstan. He has provided some of the only views inside the secretive “re-education” centres by publishing video interviews with people released from detention in Xinjiang.
The newly named OPP commissioner says he has ‘no relationship whatsoever’ with Doug Ford
Thomas Carrique, Deputy Chief of the York Regional Police, was revealed as the next head of the provincial force only days after Ford friend Ron Taverner backed out of the job amid accusations of political interference in the hiring process.
Carrique did not apply for the job and said he was “surprised” when deputy minister Mario Di Tommaso approached him about the position. Di Tommaso was responsible for last week’s firing of Brad Blair, the veteran OPP commander who was in a legal battle with the province over Taverner’s appointment.
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ALSO IN THE NEWS
Adam Capay has been charged with sexual assault with a weapon and mischief. The new charges come after a judge issued a stay in the first-degree murder case against the 26-year-old from Lac Seul First Nation, citing multiple breaches of Capay’s Charter rights over his 1,647 days in solitary confinement.
Algeria’s President and dictator announced the end of his 20-year rule. After weeks of largely peaceful mass protests, 82-year-old Abdelaziz Bouteflika reversed his plan to seek a fifth term in office. But it’s not all good news: Elections scheduled for the spring are now likely on hold until 2020 as the constitution is rewritten – and Bouteflika may stick around until the next vote.
MORNING MARKETS
Stocks rise
Last-minute tweaks to Britain’s deal to leave the European Union triggered gains across global stocks and propelled sterling higher on Tuesday, soothing investor worries about a possible no-deal exit that has unnerved financial markets in recent months. Tokyo’s Nikkei gained 1.8 per cent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng 1.5 per cent, and the Shanghai Composite 1.1 per cent. In Europe, where Brexit issues are playing out, London’s FTSE 100 was down 0.5 per cent by about 6 a.m. ET, with Germany’s DAX and the Paris CAC 40 up by between 0.2 and 0.5 per cent. New York futures were up. The Canadian dollar was at about 74.5 US cents.
WHAT EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT
Venezuelan support for Maduro is rooted in the Bolivarian Revolution
John Duncan: “As the crisis in Venezuela deepens, with nationwide blackouts, food, water and medicine shortages, hyperinflation and political uncertainty, media reports make little mention of the Bolivarian Revolution. Its legacy plays an important role in the current situation in the country. Initiated by the late former president Hugo Chavez 20 years ago, the socialist movement’s central mission was to direct more benefits of the economy to the poor majority.” John Duncan is director of the Ethics, Society and Law Program at Trinity College in the University of Toronto.
Fixing the pipeline bill while it’s still in the pipeline
Globe editorial: “Trans Mountain is in limbo, and these days you have to wonder whether Canada can ever get another pipeline built that crosses a provincial border. The approvals process is broken. And the Trudeau government’s proposed reform appears to make this terrible system a bit worse. What’s needed? Less politicization of the regulatory process. More certainty. And decisions, whether thumbs up or down, rendered within a reasonable amount of time. Unfortunately, Bill C-69 does not not appear to deliver.”
Why the demonization of Fox News and Tucker Carlson is a very big deal
John Doyle: “You can tell another election is looming in the United States. It’s more than a year away and yet it feels like it’s looming. And the evidence for that is not just the number of obscure Democrats who have already declared they are running for president. The key evidence is the fixation on Fox News.” (for subscribers)
TODAY’S EDITORIAL CARTOON
(Brian Gable/The Globe and Mail)TGAM
LIVING BETTER
To Infinity War and beyond: All 21 Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, ranked
On Friday, Captain Marvel was released as the 21st film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So where does it rank on editor Barry Hertz’s list? No. 17. He writes: “It took 11 years and 20 preceding films for the MCU to focus on a female superhero, and the results are about as underwhelming as that unforgivable lag suggests.” Here are his top three:
1. Iron Man 3: Shane Black’s Tony Stark tale didn’t reinvent the creaky superhero wheel, but it is one of the few MCU films to feel like it was made by a real-deal, flesh-and-blood filmmaker, and not by the collective voice of a Marvel Studios board meeting.
2. Black Panther: Ryan Coogler’s at times incendiary and bracing film will be talked about and admired as a generational touchstone long after we’re done discussing the finer points of Infinity Stones or whatever.
3. Thor: Ragnarok: Director Taika Waititi’s effort was colourful, deadpan and zippy, even when it found itself ground up by the MCU’s continuity obligations.
MOMENT IN TIME
Birth of the World Wide Web
(CERN/Novapix/Bridgeman Images)CERN / Novapix / Bridgeman Images
March 12, 1989: In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee was a 33-year-old software engineer based at the European particle physics laboratory, CERN. His challenge was to find a way for people there to access the ocean of data and documents that was stored on assorted computers all around the vast facility. “I would have to create a system with common rules that would be acceptable to everyone,” he later wrote. “This meant as close as possible to no rules at all." The solution was to abandon the idea of a centralized system and create a network of independent nodes all speaking a common language called hypertext that could link anything to anything. It would take another year before Berners-Lee got the chance develop the proposal into what he ambitiously dubbed the “World Wide Web.” The name proved prophetic. Soon the web began linking to computers outside CERN via the nascent digital exchange known as the internet. Others began creating browsers to make the web easier to access, followed by search engines to help users navigate the growing digital landscape. What began as a modest proposal for managing information had become civilization’s central nervous system, transforming work, commerce and media, and giving rise to new ways of defining community. – Ivan Semeniuk
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