Will investors shell out cash for Egyptian citizenship?

2016/08/17 Leave a comment

The mark of desperation when a country decides to sell its citizenship:

The Egyptian government has recently proposed a draft law to amend the country’s nationality law. It would give investors the right to apply for citizenship after living and investing in Egypt for five years. The bill has caused controversy and dispute both within parliament and among the public. While some Egyptians argue it will encourage investment and help the country’s financial recovery, others maintain that nationality is not something that should be sold.

The draft law was submitted to the Cabinet by Egyptian economist Sameh Sidqi earlier this month. It would amend Presidential Decree No. 89 of 1960 on Entry, Residence and Exit of Foreigners and Law No. 26 of 1975 Concerning Egyptian Nationality. The government announced Aug. 2 that it was being discussed in the Egyptian State Council.

Speaking to Al-Monitor, Sidqi said, “The bill grants Egyptian nationality to foreigners who deposit $500,000 [in foreign currency] in an Egyptian bank. If nationality is granted, the sum may not be refunded. The foreigner shall obtain nationality within five years, but if the application is rejected, the sum may be retrieved.”

He said that approving this bill “requires amending the clause related to nationality in the Egyptian Constitution, as well as another clause of the Investment Law, so that any investor who deposits the required sum may be granted Egyptian nationality if he or she meets the conditions set by the Cabinet.”

Sidqi argued that more than 5 million expatriates now reside in Egypt, and they include Iraqis, Syrians and Libyans, in addition to 4 million Sudanese living in Egypt since the era of Sudanese President Gaafar Nimeiri. Like Egyptians, these expatriates benefit from subsidies on oil, electricity, bread and other food supplies.

“Such legislation is applied in many countries that encourage foreign investment, including the United States and Canada,” Sidqi added, indicating that he had previously presented this proposal to the Dubai government when working as an economic adviser during the international financial crisis a few years ago. Although the proposal was initially approved, he said, the number of expatriates that would be granted Emirati nationality exceeded the Emirate’s native population, leading the Dubai government to reject the proposal.

Sidqi pointed out that at least 100,000 of the foreigners living in Egypt with no criminal records wish to obtain Egyptian citizenship. This means that the state could potentially benefit from billions of dollars without recourse to loans subject to terms from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Egypt is currently negotiating a $5 billion loan with the IMF in order to cover growing budget deficits as a result of the decline in tourism and tourism revenues.

Sidqi further said that his proposal has already been approved by the Cabinet and has now been submitted to the State Council and parliament for ratification.

According to Sidqi, the opposition claims that the bill would grant citizenship to anybody in return for money. However, this not the case, he argued, as competent authorities shall conduct background checks on all applicants, including their relatives up to a fourth-degree kinship.

Sidqi added that to obtain Egyptian nationality, applicants must submit a certified list of all the countries they traveled to in the past 10 years, noting that the Egyptian government reserves the right to withdraw citizenship, without prior notice, from any applicant convicted of a crime against honor, spying for a foreign country against Egypt or if the applicant obtained another citizenship.

Source: Will investors shell out cash for Egyptian citizenship?

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Canada’s counter-radicalization efforts have ‘little national coherence,’ Public safety minister says

2016/08/16 Leave a comment

Apart from the Kanishka Project which funded some needed research, the previous government relatively under-invested in counter-radicalization given their reluctance to “commit sociology” and focus on hard security measures:

Canada’s counter-radicalization efforts have “little national coherence,” Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said Sunday in a statement reflecting on the killing last week of an ISIL supporter allegedly about to conduct an attack.

Saying the police response had “prevented a much more terrible outcome,” Goodale called for an improved response to the threat of extremism. While some work is underway in cities such as Montreal and Calgary, Canada has no national strategy.

“Our goal is to begin fixing that this year,” he said. “We need to get really good at this — ;to preserve our diversity and pluralism as unique national strengths. …We need to access the best global research.  We need to develop more of our own.

“We need to generate and co-ordinate talent and expertise. We need to mobilize and support community-based outreach agencies. We need to know how to identify those who could be vulnerable to insidious influences that draw certain people — especially young people — toward extremism leading to violence.

“We need to understand what positive messages can counteract that poison. We need to know how to intervene with the right tools at the right time in the right way — all to head off tragedies before they happen, as much as humanly possible.”

A fast-paced RCMP investigation into a martyrdom video recorded by a masked man who vowed to attack Canada led police Wednesday to the Strathroy, Ont., home of Aaron Driver, a radicalized Muslim convert and ardent supporter of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

….Goodale said the his top concerns were “lone wolves who get sucked into perverse and extreme ideologies that promote violence.” The Liberals were “committed to meaningful national security consultations” that would intensify in the fall, he said.

Source: Canada’s counter-radicalization efforts have ‘little national coherence,’ Public safety minister says | National Post

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Ontario considering further changes to how gender is displayed on government documents

2016/08/16 Leave a comment

These consultations should not only be with Ontario stakeholders but the federal government also needs to be involved given the implications across a series of programs (see earlier New gender-neutral Ontario health cards make it harder to get a passport illustrating the need):

Ontario is considering more changes to the collection and display of gender information on government documents, not long after announcing gender-neutral driver’s licences and health cards.

Public consultations launched earlier this month look at how gender information is treated on government forms and identification documents, including birth and marriage certificates.

A preamble to an online survey says “people with transgender and non-binary gender identity may face barriers and other negative outcomes when trying to access services” so the government wants to ensure its policies are inclusive.

Ontario has already announced that starting in early 2017, drivers will be able to select an X instead of an M for male or F for female on their licences.

People can also now obtain health cards without sex information displayed on the front of the card.

“There’s more work to be done on this, so we’re reaching out to Ontarians to make sure we develop good policy that the government can use to make appropriate decisions about when and how to collect, retain, use and display information about persons sex and gender,” Christine Burke, a spokeswoman for the government and consumer services minister, said in a statement.

Trans advocate Susan Gapka would like to see sex and gender not displayed on birth certificates. The type of changes the government is contemplating are relatively easy and low-cost to achieve, but mean so much to the community, she said.

“I was born again, so to speak, 20 years ago,” Gapka said. “Now I have to renew my health card and having the correct or the accurate way that I feel best describes me, as female, is really, really important to me. In fact, I had to change laws. We had to change laws and change society’s opinions so I could have that.”

The consultation survey says the government is proposing to collect gender information as the default and sex information only if needed. For example, sex is necessary for the Ontario Health Insurance Program, it says.

Greater use of X as a gender identifier is also possible on other identification, such as photo ID cards for people who do not have driver’s licences. And, the consultation document says, the government wants to see a consistent process for people who identify as trans or non-binary — defined as people who don’t identify exclusively as male or female.

Source: Ontario considering further changes to how gender is displayed on government documents | National Post

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Anti-Islam group storms Anglican church in Australia – BBC News

2016/08/16 Leave a comment

More ugliness in Australia:

Right-wing protestors dressed in mock Muslim outfits and chanting anti-Islamic slogans have stormed a church service on Australia’s east coast.

The protestors interrupted a service held at Gosford Anglican Church on the Central Coast of New South Wales state.

A group of about 10 people entered the church and pretended to pray while playing Muslim prayers over a loudspeaker.

Local police are investigating what the church described as a “racist stunt”.

The Party for Freedom posted photos and video of the incident on social media, claiming it was a demonstration against the church’s support for Islamic leaders and multiculturalism.

The organisation has ties to Senator Pauline Hanson’s anti-immigration One Nation party, which has won four seats in Australia’s Senate.

“We want to share Islam with you, this is the future,” one of the protesters said in the footage.

“This is cultural diversity, mate. The rich tapestry of Islam that we’d like to share with Father Rod, and the congregation, and the social justice agenda we hear all the time.”

More than 24 hours after the altercation, One Nation released a statement saying that it did not have any official affiliation with the Party For Freedom.

‘Traumatised’

Father Rod Bower said the incident at his church terrorised the congregation.

“They were shocked,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

“I worked out who it was fairly quickly. Some of the congregation was quite traumatised.”

The church is known for spreading pro-immigration messages on its billboard and in services.

The far-right nationalist group warned the congregation not to promote Islam.

“[The protest] was simply because we support the Muslim community, we try and build bridges,” Fr Bower said.

Source: Anti-Islam group storms Anglican church in Australia – BBC News

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Helping College-Bound Native Americans Beat The Odds : NPR

2016/08/16 Leave a comment

Not as familiar with similar initiatives in Canada as I should be, but university graduation rates for Indigenous peoples in Canada are 13 percent, half of the average rate for all Canadians:

Native American students make up only 1.1 percent of the nation’s high school population. And in college, the number is even smaller. More than any other ethnic or racial group, they’re the least likely to have access to college prep or advanced placement courses. Many get any little or no college counseling at all. In 1998, College Horizons, a small nonprofit based in New Mexico, set out to change that through five-day summer workshops on admissions, financial aid and the unique challenges they’ll face on campus. Its director, Carmen Lopez, sat down with NPR to talk about the obstacles that bright, talented Native students face.
You say there’s an implicit bias among college admissions officials who seldom, if ever, deal with Native American students. Is that why you’ve partnered with 50 top-tier institutions, to “educate them” by inviting them to the student retreats?

Something happens when you’re sitting face to face with a teenage native student and you’re hearing their story.

We give counselors an appreciation for what Native students experience, the inequities they face. Admissions counselors realize, “My gosh, you have only two AP classes you’ve been offered! Your school has never offered any test preparation or you’re not getting any advising!”
After spending time at one of your retreats, I noticed that you repeatedly told students: “You are desirable. Colleges want you. You’re not a number.” But don’t admissions officers rely heavily on GPA, class ranking and standardized test scores?

I want you to want my students because they’re going to contribute to your institution.

A test score, the GPA, the ranking, are things that an admissions officer doesn’t remember. l’m not just looking for a diamond in the rough or the hard-knock life. They’re not always in crisis. They’re doing beautiful, amazing things. And I want colleges to recognize that.

Source: Helping College-Bound Native Americans Beat The Odds : NPR Ed : NPR

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ICYMI: Indigenous people overrepresented in justice system a ‘sad reality’: Jody Wilson-Raybould

2016/08/16 Leave a comment

The numbers are indeed shocking – our equivalent of US incarceration rates for Blacks:

The overrepresentation of Indigenous people in Canada’s justice system, both as offenders and victims, is a “sad reality,” Attorney General and Justice Minister Wilson-Raybould said in a speech at a Canadian Bar Association conference in Ottawa on Friday.

While Indigenous people in Canada make-up 4.3 per cent of the population, they represent more than 25 per cent of inmates, Wilson-Raybould said of the most recent findings by Canada’s prison watchdog.

“This is totally unacceptable,” she said.

The justice minister also pointed to the following findings:

  • Between 2005 and 2015, the Indigenous inmate population grew by 50 per cent compared to the overall growth rate of 10 per cent.
  • Indigenous women comprise 37 per cent of all women serving a sentence of more than two years.
  • Incarceration rates for Indigenous people in some parts of Canada are up to 33 times higher than for non-Indigenous peoples.

She called the statistics “shocking.”

Source: Indigenous people overrepresented in justice system a ‘sad reality’: Jody Wilson-Raybould – Politics – CBC News

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John McCallum wants to ‘substantially increase’ immigration to fill Canada’s labour needs

2016/08/15 1 Comment

Does suggest that the on-line consultations exercise, launched this summer, was more cosmetic than substantive.

I find the call for increased immigration levels has a bit of “field of dreams” quality, rather than being evidence-based:

If Immigration Minister John McCallum gets his way, Canada will significantly increase immigration beyond its current record level as a way to fill the country’s labour needs.

Pointing to an aging population and looming labour shortages, McCallum made the pitch in Manila during a speech to the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines on Friday.

“So why not substantially increase the number of immigrants coming to Canada? And that is, I think, I hope, what we are about to do,” McCallum said, according to a transcript of his remarks obtained by CBC News.

Earlier in the week, McCallum was in Beijing, where he sought to open more offices where Chinese can apply for visas, in the hope of attracting more high-skilled workers.

The Trudeau government is already seeking to admit between 280,000 and 305,000 new permanent residents in 2016 — a record increase from the 260,000 to 285,000 newcomers the previous Conservative government had planned to welcome by the end of 2015.

Key to the Liberal government’s larger plan to promote innovation and grow the economy is McCallum’s three-year immigration plan, which he plans to unveil this fall.

McCallum said no final decision on immigration has been made and that he has to get his cabinet colleagues on board with his new plan and convince Canadians it’s the right thing to do.

“But the direction in which I would like to go is to increase substantially the number of immigrants,” McCallum said Friday.

Reducing ‘barriers’ to immigration

The express entry system launched under the previous Conservative government promised transformative changes to Canada’s economic immigration policy.

McCallum will ease some of the rules to make it easier for international students to come to Canada and become permanent residents.

He is also going to eliminate what is known as a labour market impact assessment (LMIA) —  a document all employers need to hire foreign nationals over Canadian workers.

Businesses have said it is the biggest flaw with express entry, a requirement the previous government borrowed from the temporary foreign worker program.

The Liberal government also tasked a parliamentary committee with a review of the controversial foreign worker program, but Parliament adjourned before the report was tabled. It will now be made public in the fall.

“So we’re going to make it easier for international students, we’re going to reduce some of the barriers in our immigration system … we don’t think that every immigrant needs to go through what we call a labour market impact assessment process. We think it can be simplified. We think there are some rules which are no longer necessary,” McCallum said.

“Now, we have to convince Canadians of this. But I think it’s a good idea.”

Source: John McCallum wants to ‘substantially increase’ immigration to fill Canada’s labour needs – Politics – CBC News

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Collacott: Birth citizenship makes no sense

2016/08/15 Leave a comment

Martin is silent on the previous government’s effort to abolish birthright citizenship, which failed due to provincial opposition as the numbers were too small to justify the cost of such a major change to vital statistics and other identity systems. See my earlier What happened to Kenney’s cracking down on birth tourism? Feds couldn’t do it alone | hilltimes.com.

Again, a more practical and realizable measure is to collect better and regular data, and regulate or ban birthright citizenship consulting services:

Acquisition of citizenship simply by virtue of having been born on the soil of a country, in fact, makes such little sense that all developed nations where it has been available except Canada and the United States have abolished it in recent years.

The U.S. had originally put it in place after the Civil War, when some southern states tried to deny former slaves the right to become American citizens. Today, the issue of whether to continue with birth citizenship revolves largely around the question of what to do with the millions of illegal migrants and their children who were born in the U.S. and therefore have an automatic right to citizenship. In general, the Democratic Party wants to keep birth citizenship in place since those who benefit from it can be expected to vote for that party when they are old enough to do so. In the circumstances, this has made it difficult to abolish despite the fact that it goes against the interests of Americans in general.

 On our side of the border, a petition has been launched by Richmond resident Kerry Starchuk to do away with birth citizenship and therefore birth tourism. The petition is on the Parliamentary website under the sponsorship of MP Alice Wong. While sponsorship does not necessarily mean that the MP agrees with the petition, it can be assumed that he or she considers it to be a legitimate subject for discussion. To date more than 6,700 people have signed it — more than 13 times the number required for it to be tabled before the House of Commons.

The federal government’s reaction to attempts to abolish birth citizenship has been puzzling to say the least.

Earlier this month, federal government spokespeople made it clear that their main concern with birth tourists was that they pay their hospital bills — which in some cases involve deposits that are three times what the hospital requires from local residents. Curiously, however, the spokespeople made no mention of the fact that when the newborns get older they will be able to use their citizenship to incur substantial costs on Canadian taxpayers because of the benefits they will be eligible to claim.

One of the issues raised in relation to doing away with birth citizenship is that it would be costly to do so. The extent of such costs, however, is open to debate and must be weighed against those incurred when the birth citizenship babies get older.

What is clear is that birth citizenship works against the interests of Canadians in general and that a good number are now aware of this and want it done away with.

Whether the federal government is prepared to act accordingly remains to be seen.

Source: Opinion: Birth citizenship makes no sense | Vancouver Sun

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Don Macpherson: Tweeting a revival of identity politics in Quebec

2016/08/15 Leave a comment

Sigh:

It’s become apparent in the PQ leadership campaign. When the PQ is not in a position to achieve its founding objective of Quebec independence, it usually falls back on its strongest issue, the defence of the identity of French-speaking Quebecers.

In the PQ campaign, Jean-François Lisée moved quickly to lay claim to that issue by proposing policies on identity and official secularism.

The former promotes a one-way “cultural concordance” requiring newcomers to adapt to the French-speaking majority, while the latter would allow public bodies to discriminate in hiring new employees against job-seekers wearing religious symbols such as the Muslim hijab.

When Alexandre Cloutier, believed to be the front-runner in the PQ race, tweeted best wishes to Quebec Muslims at the end of the Ramadan fast, Lisée saw an opportunity to portray Cloutier as soft on secularism and, by extension, identity.

Lisée responded with a tweet of his own, criticizing Cloutier for marking a religious holiday. When Cloutier pointed out that Lisée himself has tweeted Christmas and Easter wishes, the latter replied that those are statutory holidays. But that’s because they were originally religious holidays of the majority.

And Lisée followed up with a blog post linking Cloutier with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his “multiculturalism,” both of which are anathema to PQ members.

Halfway through the PQ leadership campaign, which concludes Oct. 7, Lisée appears to have outflanked the other four candidates on identity, and his efforts to establish himself as the “identity candidate” may be paying off.

Lisée is willing to “take on the identity questions,” well-known nationalist historian Éric Bédard, a promoter of the “charter of values,” told La Presse.

And while PQ leadership candidates tweetfight over the identity issue, yet another tweet signals that the Coalition Avenir Québec party is competing for it with the PQ.

Tweeted by a pro-CAQ account, it drew attention to a newspaper report on a campaign-like summer tour of key ridings by Coalition leader François Legault, which began this week.

The theme of the tour is “Debout pour le Québec”—Standing Up for Quebec. Legault said identity will be a major issue in the tour. And he said that when the National Assembly resumes sitting next month, the CAQ will press the governing Liberals to keep their election promise to pass legislation limiting religious accommodations.

This follows Legault’s announcement last November of a new strategy of competing with the PQ for nationalist votes on issues including language and immigration.

“With what’s been happening in recent years in Quebec,” Legault told L’actualité magazine this year, “immigration has become an issue almost as important as language.”

It’s not only in Quebec. The Brexit vote in Great Britain and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in the United States show the potential power of the immigration issue.

And in Quebec, with two years remaining until the next general election is due, the competition among politicians over identity has time to escalate.

Source: Don Macpherson: Tweeting a revival of identity politics in Quebec | Montreal Gazette

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The head of Google’s Brain team is more worried about the lack of diversity in artificial intelligence than an AI apocalypse – Recode

2016/08/15 Leave a comment

The next frontier of diversity?

As some would have it, robots are poised to take over the world in about 3 … 2 … 1 …

But one machine-learning expert — who is, after all, in a position to know — thinks that’s not the biggest issue facing artificial intelligence. In fact, it’s not an issue at all.

“I am personally not worried about an AI apocalypse, as I consider that a completely made-up fear,” Jeff Dean, a senior fellow at Google, wrote during a Reddit AMA on Aug. 11. “I am concerned about the lack of diversity in the AI research community and in computer science more generally.” (Emphasis his.)

Ding, ding, ding. The issue that the tech industry is trying to maneuver their way around, for better or worse, is the same issue that can stunt the progress of “humanistic thinking” in the development of artificial intelligence, according to Dean.

For the optimists in the audience, Google Brain wants to improve lives, Dean wrote. And how can you improve lives without people with diverse perspectives and backgrounds helping to build and develop the technology you hope will impact positive change? (Answer: You can’t.)

“One of the things I really like about our Brain Residency program is that the residents bring a wide range of backgrounds, areas of expertise (e.g. we have physicists, mathematicians, biologists, neuroscientists, electrical engineers, as well as computer scientists), and other kinds of diversity to our research efforts,” Dean wrote.

“In my experience, whenever you bring people together with different kinds of expertise, different perspectives, etc., you end up achieving things that none of you could do individually, because no one person has the entire skills and perspective necessary.”

Source: The head of Google’s Brain team is more worried about the lack of diversity in artificial intelligence than an AI apocalypse – Recode

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