23 July 2012

ANGOLAN FRIDAYS

Later in August the Angolan Embassy will be dramatically changing their service delivery times. The processing times will remain roughly the same as before.

The big change is that all visas will be handed over only on FRIDAY at noon.

Yes, Angola will store all visas, even those completed on Monday, until the end of the week when they will hand out everything all at once.

How this will work in practice remains to be seen. However, oil company workers should prepare to be in Ottawa on Fridays to pick up their passports and then to catch the Friday night flight to Heathrow (AC888).

Click here for Angolan visa forms.

19 July 2012

LIFE AND HOPE ASSOCIATION

We at Visa Services Canada are pleased to support the Life & Hope Association in Siem Reap (the home of Angkor Wat), Cambodia. LHA helps orphans and vulnerable children, and landmine victims.

Every year VSC gives a few tonnes of rice to the Life & Hope Association. The rice is purchased locally in Cambodia, so the money goes to rice farmers and local producers, as well as the food going to needy locals.

The LHA is a non-profit, non-governmental and non-political organization, established in 2005 by the young monks of Wat Damnak, Young Khmer Youths and generous friends. These people saw the urgent needs of orphans, vulnerable children, poor children, street Children, (also called Rubbish Children and beggar children) etc, who are living miserable lives. LHA is dedicated and committed to alleviate the poverty and ignorance of Cambodians and to encourage their equal treatment in Cambodian society by providing physical and moral support.

LHA works with several active villages in and surrounding the Siem Reap and Bakong District, with aim to alleviate poverty/difficulty of poor families, especially Cambodian Children by supporting them with basic needs such as foods, clothing, school supplies, health services, education, accommodation etc.
 
LHA, as well as running a food programme and a sewing school and a mine victim village, also runs an orphanage on the edge of Siem Reap. I have personally been to this orphanage and know that LHA will continue the good works here.

Click here to help LHA help Cambodians who are living on less than $2 per day.

RAMADAN AND SLOWER SERVICE


We extend greatings to our Muslim customers on the occassion of Ramadan.

Please note that due to the fasting and other religeous requirements of the faith, many embassies will have shorter working hours. This means visas will be delayed during Ramadan which runs for the next few weeks.

Please budget extra processing time when applying for a visa at any Muslim or Arab country during the Ramadan period.

QATAR IN CANADA

The State of Qatar has moved its embassy to Canada into Canada! This is great news. In the past the Qatari Embassy to Canada was located in the USA and acted as a dual-hatted embassy to two countries.

Now, Canadians needing visas to Qatar can get served right here in the nation's capital.

Canadian tourists do not need a visa, but people on business are required to have a visa prior to travel to Qatar.

Click here for Qatar visa forms.

SIGNATURES ARE NECESSARY

Please sign your forms. Please sign your passports.

So many applications arrive without signatures. These cannot and will not be accepted by the embassies. Your application forms must be signed.

In addition, all of your supporting documents must be signed. We get a lot of letters of invitation which have no signature. A letter of invitation or letter of support must be signed by the invitor. Embassies do not accept unsigned letters as the letetrs just look fake.

So in closing, if the document is not signed, it is not legal. Sign it or have it signed by your supporter or invitor.

CANADA POST SERVICE AWFUL

As of Monday 16 July 2012 Canada Post has been withdrawing regular services from parts of downtown Ottawa.

Our building, a 21 story office block continaing four embassies and numerous business, now gets postal deliveries at the end of the business day, or even later. A couple of days ago the post arrived at 17:10 after the facility was locked. Canada Post tells us this will be in palce on an irregular basis for the next two weeks, and will then become engraved in stone.

So if you want your passports to arrive on time, or you want fast services, please use PUROLATOR or FEDEX courier systems.

13 July 2012

NEW CHINA PRICES

The Chinese Embassy in Ottawa has changed the overall fees charged for all visas, with an increase of about $30 per visa.

There is no change in processing or forms. Carry on as before, but be aware that prices have risen.

Click here for Chinese visa forms.