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July 29, 2011

Punjabi woman killed in Canada, husband held


Ravinder Kaur Bhangu
Surrey, July 29
In a suspected case of honour killing, an Indian-origin woman working with a newspaper was butchered with a meat cleaver allegedly by her husband on the outskirts of Vancouver. The police has identified the victim as Ravinder Kaur Bhangu, 24, who worked with the weekly ‘Sach Di Awaaz’ in Surrey, the Vancouver Sun reported.
She was killed by her husband Sunny Bhangu yesterday, journalist Sukhminder Cheema said, quoting a witness. “He came to the newspaper office and pulled out a meat cleaver..., then he stabbed her with the meat cleaver,” said Cheema. She died on the spot. Sunny (26) was arrested from the crime site. Cheema said reportedly he made no effort to flee. Cheema said Sunny Bhangu met his wife in India and brought her to Canada less than three years ago. They had “some misunderstandings and differences,” and Ravinder moved out of their home in April. Cheema described Ravinder as “pretty, nice, soft-spoken and a very calm girl.”
The couple belonged to a village near Rajpura, said sources. Ravinder had moved in with her aunt about three months ago, her friends told the Vancouver Sun. “You can say that it was honour killing," said Cheema.
"So far nobody has heard that she had a boyfriend, or anything like that. Maybe he was angry because she left him," he added. Cheema is a British Columbia-based staff reporter for Punjabi Jagran in India. He said she started working at the newspaper last November. She worked from Tuesday to Thursday at the Punjabi weekly in Newton and taught Punjabi folk dance at a local community centre on Fridays. “This has shocked the whole community,” he said.

Indo-Canadian Woman killed in Surrey stabbing


Ravinder Kaur Bhangu, 24, was allegedly killed by her husband, Sunny Bhangu, 26, when he arrived at the Sach Di Awaaz newspaper at 8138-128th Street just before 11 a.m. on July 28, 2011, armed with an axe and a meat cleaver, journalist Sukhminder Cheema told The Province.
SURREY - Police aren't saying if the fatal stabbing of a woman at Surrey's Sach di Awaaz newspaper in Newton this morning was random or targeted.
Surrey RCMP arrested a man at the scene of the crime, in the 8100-block of 128th Street, after receiving an emergency 911 call at about 11:30 a.m. Thursday.
"He's refusing to provide his identification. He's not providing us with much information," said Sgt. Jennifer Pound, spokeswoman for the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team. The suspect is expected to appear in Surrey provincial court Friday morning.
"He will be attending court with charges of homicide."
Police haven't released names but newspaper reports are identifying the deceased as Ravinder Bhangu, an administrative assistant at the weekly English/Punjabi newspaper.
Pound said a man was injured while trying to help the woman. "He reacted on instinct, I'm guessing."
"He sustained minimal injuries - I believe he had some cuts and scratches. He did receive stitches," Pound said. He has since been released from hospital.
The deceased suffered multiple stab wounds.
Pound wouldn't say if a weapon was recovered from scene.
-- with files from the Vancouver Sun

Meet the countries with AAA ratings


Countries with the best debt ratings

There are only 17 nations that have a stamp of approval when it comes to how much they owe.
On Friday July 29, 2011, 7:55 am EDT
Amid the contentious debt ceiling debate, the United States is at risk of being booted out of a prestigious group of countries that boast a spotless credit rating.
Only 17 countries in the world -- currently including the U.S. -- hold the highly coveted triple-A rating from both Standard & Poor's and Moody's. (S&P rates an additional three countries as triple-A, that aren't featured on Moody's list).
Germany, Canada, France, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland are among those with the undisputed stamp of approval -- so is the Isle of Man, a country off Ireland's east coast, and Singapore (both of which are too small to see on our CNNMoney map above.)
Now, S&P and Moody's are questioning the United States' membership in this exclusive club.
The triple-A rating enables nations to borrow funds at a low cost, because their governments are considered stable and their bonds safe.
The U.S. for example, has seen its dollar become the world's No. 1 reserve currency because its bonds are held in such high regard by investors. They're backed by the "full faith and credit of the U.S. government" -- which until now, has never seriously been called into question.
Already, just the threat of a possible downgrade has taken a toll.
Prior to November 2007, the United States boasted some of the safest bonds in the world. That started to gradually change with the recession, and now the country's creditworthiness continues to be questioned amid the debt ceiling debates.
Investors can discern the "risk" associated with a country's debt, by looking at the cost to insure against a possible default -- through a financial instrument called a credit default swap. In the case of the U.S., that cost surged on Thursday to its highest level since 2009.
By that measure, U.S. bonds are no longer in the clear lead as a safe bet, compared to other triple-A rated countries.
By looking at the prices of 5-year credit default swaps, Norway's debt ranks the safest, followed by Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, the Netherlands and Australia.
Canada, Singapore and Germany also have safer bonds than the United States.
If lawmakers don't come through with a deal to raise the debt ceiling and lower the long term deficit, the U.S. could soon join the ranks of the lower-level, double-A rated countries like China, Spain, Japan, Saudi Arabia and even Kuwait.



Where Canada ranks

Bond rating agency Moody's Investor Services is maintaining Canada's debt rating at triple-A, the highest possible.
The firm said Thursday the AAA rating was warranted, citing among other things, the country's "high degree of economic resiliency" and deficit-cutting efforts by the federal and provincial governments.
It based its assumption about resiliency on Canada's "high per capita income, the large scale of the economy and its diversity, including natural resource industries and a competitive manufacturing sector, as well as a well-developed and well-regulated financial market."
Moody's said there are risks posed by Canada's housing market — where many mortgages are insured by the federal Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation — and Quebec's sovereignty issues, but it rated those as low.
Moody's considered a major downturn of the housing market unlikely and, even in an extreme case, Ottawa's extra costs would be relatively small.
Similarly, Quebec's sovereignty movement doesn't seem to pose a significant risk since the issue doesn't appear high on the political agenda.
Some market watchers have warned that the U.S. is in danger of losing its triple-A rating, especially if the current debt ceiling talks fail to make a significant dent in the deficit.

Norway a country deeply divided on immigration


Norway, like Canada a country blessed with considerable wealth and a reputation for tolerance and generosity, is expected to continue struggling in un-Canadian fashion over immigration issues despite the massive show of solidarity after last week's mass murder.

Statistics indicate roughly one in three Norwegians are uneasy about the country's experience with rapid immigration growth. Close to one in four voters (23 per cent) in 2009 made the populist Progress Party, which is deeply critical of the Labour government's immigration policy, the country's second most popular party.

The emotional outpouring this week of solidarity and widespread disgust with the actions of admitted mass-murderer Anders Behring Breivik, who warns of "Muslim colonization" of Norway and Western Europe, can't mask these divisions.

"In the protest against this heinous crime we are united, but of course this unity hides a variety of opinion," said Oslo University College professor Lars Gule, a frequent commentator on multiculturalism issues.

He predicted that public debate will go "back to normal" this autumn when local elections take place.

"People will say of course that 'Breivik was a monster and I have nothing to do with him and his ideas, but there are too many Muslims, we cannot let them ruin our country.' "

In Canada any mainstream politician would be committing career suicide by adopting the position of people like Progress MPs Kent Andersen and Christian Tybring-Gjedde, who in 2010 wrote in a major newspaper a scathing critique of the ruling Labour Party's liberal policies on immigration and multiculturalism.

"What is the goal? To stab our own culture in the back?" they wrote.

Tybring-Gjedde has been particularly provocative, comparing the hijab to Ku Klux Klan outfits and proposing that Muslim students wear stars of David for one day each year as part of a program to discourage anti-Semitism.

So why the tensions in a tolerant, wealthy country where foreign-born residents make up about 10 per cent of the population, or half Canada's?

Canadian attitudes towards immigrants are more positive than those of other western countries, as noted in the annual German Marshall Fund poll released in February.

But the Canada-Norway analysis suggests that the different attitudes in Canada and Norway are driven less by political culture and more by hard policy choices by Canadian governments.

Vebjorn Aalandslid, a Statistics Norway analyst who has been seconded to work at the European Union's Eurostat agency in Luxembourg, lived in Canada for six months in 2008 while working out of Statistics Canada offices studying the two countries.

The study was commissioned because Canada is viewed by Norway and other European countries as a "model" in terms of its ability to integrate newcomers, he said.

The report, looking at statistics up to 2006, found numerous sharp differences in approach:

- Economic migrants to Canada, who are selected for their skills and ability to adapt to the Canadian economy, "massively outnumber" refugees by a five-to-one ratio. In Norway, for every economic migrant there were 1.5 refugees arriving in the country claiming they were fleeing persecution.

- The Canadian immigration system, which assesses points to applicants based on such assets as education and language, ensures greater adaptability. More than half of migrants to Canada from Africa and Asia have some form of post-secondary education, whereas less than one-quarter of Africans and Asians arriving in Norway have higher education.

- Canada also benefits because both economic migrants and refugees arrive with some knowledge of English or French. In Norway, it is presumed that very few, if any, migrants arrive as Norwegian-speakers.

"It's clear Canada has better results than the U.S. or almost any European Union country," Aalandslid said.

"The difference is that historically in Norway we have had a different model. We have attracted more and more family migrants and refugees, whereas in Canada it has been more and more labour migrants, which could influence the public perception of migrants."

But he said differences are narrowing as Norway moves closer to the Canadian model by trying to recruit more economic migrants while limiting refugees.

Now, Virginia varsity in immigration fraud

ANOTHER TRI-VALLEY SCARE?
Washington, July 29
Authorities in the US have raided offices of another university on the charges of fraud, this time in the suburbs of Washington, where 90 per cent of the 2,400 students are from India.
During the day-long exercise, dozens of officials from different federal agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the FBI, yesterday raided offices at the University of Northern Virginia’s Annandale (UNVA) campus and took away a large number of boxes full of documents and computer hard drives from the administrative division.
Earlier in January, US authorities had raided and shut down Tri-Valley University in California on charges of massive immigration fraud.
Officials from the ICE’s Student and Exchange Visitor Programme (SEVP) yesterday “served the UNVA with a Notice of Intent to Withdraw (NOIW) the university’s authorisation to admit foreign students,” ICE spokeswoman Cori W Bassett in a statement.
Based in Annandale, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, the university is believed to have 2,400 students of which 90 per cent are from India, with an overwhelming majority said to be from Andhra Pradesh.
The university declined to make any comment, neither did it communicate with its students and staff, except for posting a notice on its entrance informing that the university is still open, but students have the choice to move to other universities or look for other options if they want.
The university temporarily cannot accept any foreign students, reads the notice posted on the door of the offices.
UNVA students must leave the country immediately if they are unable “to continue to attend classes and maintain their active status in a manner required by federal government regulations,” the notice reads.