Djibouti Call: A little love, please

In a recent career-advice article in the Toronto Sun, columnist Mike Strobel advised that it's okay to tell a few white lies on your résumé, especially if the lies are manipulations of facts too obscure for any employer to check.

His example: "Interviewers are so swamped these days, who has time to check facts? What's the diff if you add 'Honorary President, Republic of Djibouti, 1993-1994.' This will cleverly conceal the fact you've never been east of Brockville."

Indeed, this hypothetical liar assumes an acceptably low risk that his job-interviewer will actually be Hassan Gouled Aptidon--who in fact was the President of the Republic of Djibouti in 1993-1994--if for no reason more conspicuous than the fact that Aptidon is deceased. Yes, it seems likely that no potential employer will know Djibouti from an aardvark, hence the reference in the Sun column.

At the Tuque Souq, we don't condone lying in any form, but of course it is not really within our mandate to condemn it either. So lie, don't lie, it doesn't matter to us.

But nobody is pulling a fast one on us about supposedly obscure facts concerning former leaders, honorary or otherwise, of Djibouti or any other place for that matter. Nor should any employer fall for such chicanery.

The Tuque Souq does not have any job openings, but if we did, and you were to apply, and further you were to lie on your résumé about having been the president of Djibouti, and still further your white-lie claim to the presidency of Djibouti was not a parody of this blog post... you would not get the job. We check the facts. (If you were parodying us, obviously that would be grounds for your immediate hire.)

And we also object to the objectification of Djibouti as a subject of fact too obscure to verify. Take note Djibouti-bashers: Djibouti is larger than Connecticut, has more people than Iceland, and without its port landlocked Ethiopia would not be able to export 1.44 trillion* coffee beans each year.

Spread the love. Give Djibouti a call.

* - We arrived at this number by taking the latest available gross tonnage export figure of Ethiopian coffee and multiplying it by a fairly reliable estimate of the number of harvested, raw coffee beans per ton. But since we don't consider this a fact, we didn't check it.

The Tuque Souq Year in Review

Reporters sans frontières (RSF) recently released its sixth annual World Press Freedom Index for 2008.

The World Press Freedom Index measures press freedom in countries around the world by assessing such factors as censorship, self-censorship, harassment of journalists (or worse), intervention by governmental or extra-governmental parties, and the legal infrastructure for protecting the freedom of the press.

And for the sixth year in a row, Iceland has the world's freest press. (Can ya spot him?) Canada rose to the 13th spot this year (not that we deserve it), highest among G8 countries, but aside from us and New Zealand, the top 20 spots are occupied by European nations, mostly of the Nordic and Baltic variety.

As for the Middle East, well, you won't find these countries hobnobbing with the likes of Jamaica (#21), Ghana (#31), or Cape Verde (#36). So as a way of wrapping up the year with a glimpse at all the countries in the region, the Tuque Souq presents:

THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA PRESS UNFREEDOM INDEX
(listed in order from least unfree to most unfree)
(warning: may contain self-referencing links)

46. Israel (regular Israel*)
So, Israeli press that is reporting in Israel (not the Palestinian territories) is the freest press in the region. Not bad, but that's a pretty glaring asterisk, considering that "the territories" is what most of the news is generally concerned with.

61. Kuwait
69. United Arab Emirates
After remaining unchanged in the rankings for a couple of years, these 2 Gulf countries of similar size and demography have started to separate, with Kuwait rising 2 spots and U.A.E. falling 4 spots. This is probably because the Emirates suffer from what pressreference.com calls the "practice of self-censorship" by the media, whereby journalists willingly print just the happy news. Kuwaiti journalists, while apparently freer than Emiratis, are still not as free as us to poke fun at these pointy things.

66. Lebanon
Up an impressive 30 spots in the rankings after 2008 saw a huge drop in the number of high-profile killings of journalists and activists in Lebanon. Starting a food fight with Israel was also a step in the right direction.

74. Qatar
Home to gajillion-dollar media empire al-Jazeera, Qatar still ranks below Haiti and Burkina Faso in press freedom.

89. Comoros
Tiny archipelago nation with an Arab government nabs nondescript 89th place in the rankings, and this hereby fulfills the Tuque Souq's pledge to write something about Comoros before the year is up. Actually, according to the democracy watchgroup Freedom House, Comoros is the only real "electoral democracy" in the Arab world, although one of its islands, Anjouan, questionably re-elected its president recently.

96. Bahrain
Little island with big football dreams is up 22 spots this year.

105. Mauritania
Having risen an impressive 88 spots between 2004-2007 to a high of #50 last year (which was highest among all Arab states), Mauritania plummeted 55 spots this year after a nasty coup put a plug in democratization in this Saharan nation.

121. Algeria
122. Morocco
123. Oman
Arch press-unfreedom rivals Algeria and Morocco battled to a near draw, with Algeria edging out its neighbour at the tape. The on-again, off-again Algerian civil war remains one of the deadliest for journalists in history. Monarchical Morocco doesn't always approve of journalists criticising the king. Meanwhile, Oman is debuting on the index this year, which can only mean that Omanis just got press this year.

128. Jordan
King Abdullah II of Jordan, fresh off his YouTube campaign, recently met with Jordan's media community to promise more reform and more freedom. We have to applaud His Excellency for once again circumventing the bureaucracy of democracy and simply decreeing more freedom.

134. Djibouti
The country whose appellation makes it an easy target for unquestionably urbane puns, Djibouti is always a tough call for World Press Index gamblers. From a high of 96 in 2002 to a low of 145 three years ago, there seems to be an awful lot of scrutiny for a country whose president likes to be referred to only by his initials.

135. Sudan
Sudan, a country with a north vs. south civil war and and east vs. west civil war (that one's more of a genocide), and a country consistently rated as having one of the world's most corrupt governments, is actually rising in the rankings. Sudan now ranks better than Mexico (#140).

149. Israel (extra-territorial)
Referring to Israeli press freedom in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, this 'second Israel' fell 46 spots from last year thanks to increased Israeli military harassment of journalists. Hmm, if only there were strings attached.

155. Yemen
Sure, having near-total state control over the media might seem blasé to some autocracies, but Yemen is known for being a bit retro.

143. Tunisia
159. Syria
160. Libya
161. Saudi Arabia
From the 2008 report: "In Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali’s Tunisia, Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya, [and] Bashar el-Assad’s Syria, the leader’s ubiquitous portrait on the streets and front pages of the newspapers is enough to dispel any doubt about the lack of press freedom. Other dictatorships do without a personality cult but are just as suffocating. Nothing is possible [for the press] in... Saudi Arabia if it does not accord with government policy."

146. Egypt
Egypt languished in 146th place as the report made special note of that country's crackdown on bloggers, including Kareem Amer, who was imprisoned for blogging negatively about Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. Egyptian bloggers are an important part of the newsgathering in that country, while even high-profile editors are not immune from government crackdown.

153. Somalia
Unprecedented access to Somalia's pirate community probably contributed to this country's 6-point gain in the index.

158. Iraq
Iraq actually outranks a number of seemingly better-off countries. Though climbing to 158th place on the list, Iraq is singled out for the fact that over 200 journalists have been killed since the U.S.-led war and occupation began in 2003.

163. Palestine
About Palestine, last year's WPF index report had this to say: "The battle raging between Hamas and Fatah is the main cause of the large number of serious press freedom violations in the Palestinian Territories. Hostage-taking, arrests, physical attacks and ransacking of news organisations - the Palestinian media and the few visiting journalist are threatened from all sides." This year, with Hamas fully in control of Gaza, Palestine dropped another 5 spots, as journalists are harassed and accused of taking political sides or of being spies.

So that makes Palestine, which of course is not a country, the most unfree Arab country for the press. But we're still missing someone in the general area...

166. Iran
First off, the countries whose press is more unfree than Iran: China, Vietnam, Cuba, Burma, Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea. Secondly, one must wonder why the Ahmedinejad government spends so much time harassing bloggers when Iran's own clerics are bloggers. Thirdly, you have to reserve some respect for the achievement of a government so cunning that it has succeeded in convincing much of its public to be wary of its own media.

Finally, shouldn't any country that bans The DaVinci Code get an automatic ten-point bump in the index?

Ladies and gentlemen, your 2008 Middle East and North Africa press!

See you in 2009.

Canada versus Somali Pirates

Another pirate attack - the minimum 49th this year off the coast of Somalia - has left a Hong Kong chemical tanker in the clutches of armed Somali privateers.

The Associated Press also reported today that French Special Forces had rescued a family whose sailboat had been hijacked by pirates earlier this month.

Since June, Canada has held the command of the Combined Task Force (CTF) 150, a multi-nation joint naval patrol force, based in Djibouti, created to monitor shipping in the Indian Ocean as a part of the so-called War on Terror. (Denmark takes over command of CTF-150 this month.)

However, because CTF-150's main target is al Qaeda, not Somali pirates, and because shipping companies often quietly pay the hefty ransoms to get their boats back, combating piracy in the region has been a tough task.

An article from today's Globe and Mail describes Canada's role in tackling pirates:
"The three [Canadian] ships - the Iroquois, along with HMCS Calgary, a frigate, and HMCS Protecteur, a supply and refuelling ship - spent the past 3½ months serving in a multinational force known as Combined Task Force 150, with the Iroquois serving as the flagship of what is usually a 15-ship group. Their mandate stretched from the tense waters of the Strait of Hormuz, where coalition warships were often in close quarters with the Iranian navy, to the Egypt's Suez Canal.

"[Canadian] Cmdre. Davidson admits that 15 ships can do little to halt piracy among the 20,000 ships that annually travel in the Gulf of Aden, especially when CTF-150 had other tasks as well. He said the flotilla's main goal was just to make its presence felt in those otherwise lawless waters."

Earlier this year the UN Security Council passed resolution 1816, proposed by the UN's International Maritime Organization (IMO), which allows CTF-150 to operate within the territorial waters of Somalia in order to race down pirates before they can escape.

According to the Kenya-based East African Seafarers' Assistance Programme, there are at least 160 pirate groups operating in the waters off of Somalia and the Gulf of Aden, with an estimated 1200 pirates.

For a rundown of some of the pirate attacks in the world's waters this year, see this site.

For further reading on the world of modern piracy, the Tuque Souq recommends "The Outlaw Sea: A World of Freedom, Chaos & Crime" by William Langewiesche.

[The Tuque Souq wants you to know that we resisted all urges to use "Aargh, matey" in this posting.]

Djibouti Calling

Although this is a few months old, it nonetheless caught the Tuque Souq's attention: The tiny nation of Djibouti is pitching its nascent tourist industry to Canadians. The Tuque Souq is sold!

An official delegation led by the Djiboutian Minister of Sports, Recreation & Tourism Hassan Farah Miguil visited Ottawa and Montreal last winter.

[Fast facts Djibouti: Located on the horn of Africa between Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somaliland; Population 500,000; Independence from France in 1977; Member of the League of Arab States; Governed by a very delicate power share between ethnic groups; Canadian exports in 2006 totalled $2.8m; And since 2001 home to a US Naval Base.]

"Tourism is one of our economic priorities and we are investing heavily in its growth by building strong partnerships with the private sector," said Omar Moussa, Pesident of Djibouti's International Chamber of Commerce and Industry. "Djibouti has a solid tourism infrastructure and our airport is one of the best in the region."

Apparently the jewel of Djiboutian tourism is the Djibouti Kempinski Palace Hotel [PICTURED], the first 7-star hotel in Africa.

According to the above article from the Africa Trade Association, Ottawa and Montreal are home to communities of the "Djibouti Diaspora." The Tuque Souq will try to investigate - any Djiboutians out there?

No numbers are readily available as to how many Canadians have holidayed in Djibouti. Air Canada's website does not recognize Djibouti as a destination. According to Expedia.com, you can get to Djibouti from Toronto via London and Addis Ababa in a little under 30 hours for $2500.