Work stoppage possible as WestJet issues lockout notice to maintenance engineers' union
A lockout notice issued by WestJet to a union representing aircraft maintenance engineers could result in a work stoppage next week.
There is "no timeline" for restoring internet access to Ethiopia's embattled Tigray region, a senior government official said Tuesday.
The restoration of Tigray's internet service will be carried alongside the resumption of its phone and electricity services, though no date has been set for those goals, Ethiopia's Minister for Innovation and Technology Belete Molla said.
He was speaking at the UN's annual Internet Governance Forum being held this week in Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.
"The government of Ethiopia is designing a package that is not only about internet resumption but the resumption of everything, because this is what we need as a people, as a government," Belete said of the internet shutdown in Tigray. "There is no timeline."
Tigray, home to more than 5 million people, has been mostly without internet, telecommunications and banking since war broke out between federal government troops and forces led by the Tigray People's Liberation Front in November 2020.
A ceasefire deal signed between the warring sides in South Africa earlier this month commits the government to restoring Tigray's basic services, but the communications blackout has not yet been lifted.
Renewed fighting in August halted aid deliveries to Tigray, which is in the throes of a humanitarian crisis. Aid has now started reaching the region, but the World Food Program said last week that access to parts of Tigray remains "constrained."
With the Tigray blackout still in place, the UN's decision to hold its flagship event on internet access in Ethiopia has drawn criticism. This year's conference aims to build steps towards "universal, affordable and meaningful connectivity," especially in Africa where 60% of the continent's 1.3 billion people are offline.
Ethiopia has shut down the internet at least 22 times since 2016, according to internet rights group Access Now. The blackout affecting Tigray "is the world's longest uninterrupted shutdown," said Brett Solomon, Access Now's executive director.
Aid workers and rights groups say the communications blackout has hampered the delivery of aid to Tigray and fuelled human rights abuses by fostering a culture of impunity among armed actors. UN investigators have accused all sides of abuses, including killings, rape and torture.
Addressing the opening ceremony of the internet forum on Tuesday, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed appeared to defend the shutdown in Tigray, saying the internet has "supported the spread of disinformation as Ethiopia dealt with an armed rebellion in the northern part of the country."
This version has been corrected to show that Africa's population is 1.3 billion, not 3 billion.
A lockout notice issued by WestJet to a union representing aircraft maintenance engineers could result in a work stoppage next week.
A man accused of arson in a January Old Strathcona apartment fire is expected to be charged with manslaughter after a body was discovered in the burned building late last month.
A man was denied a $5,000 payout from his brother after a B.C. tribunal dismissed his claim disputing how many kittens were born in a litter.
Quebec provincial police handed out hundreds of fines to Hells Angels members and other supporting motorcycle clubs who met for their 'first run' in a small town near Sherbrooke, Que.
Auston Matthews was back on the ice with his teammates Saturday.
Three bodies recovered in an area of Baja California are likely to be those of the two Australians and an American who went missing last weekend during a camping and surfing trip, the state prosecutor’s office said Saturday.
Russia has put Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on its wanted list, Russian state media reported Saturday, citing the interior ministry’s database.
According to an X post by the Transportation Security Administration, officers at the Miami International Airport found the small bag of snakes hidden in a passenger's trousers on April 26 at a checkpoint.
A Chinese truck driver was praised in local media Saturday for parking his vehicle across a highway and preventing more cars from tumbling down a slope after a section of the road in the country's mountainous south collapsed and killed at least 48 people.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.