Free Republic

MEXICO CITY -- Moving quickly to address mounting anger over crime, President Felipe Calderon promised Sunday to adopt several proposals from civic groups who led more than 100,000 Mexicans in marches against daily kidnappings and killings.

At least 25 African migrants have died from hunger, thirst and exposure after trying to reach Spain by boat. A cargo ship rescued 25 survivors off the coast of southern Spain's Almeria province. Five women and five children were reportedly among the survivors. A boat patrolling waters between Malaga and Melilla rescued the migrants from a half-submerged boat late on Monday. Every year, tens of thousands of Africans try to enter Spain by boat to find work in Europe. "We can never know the exact number," a Red Cross employee at the port of Malaga said, according to The Associated...

Awhile back I got an email from one of my readers who asked if I would write about the Somali Refugees of Lewiston Maine. In the late nineties the Somalis came to our state in search of services. Before that most of them had been relegated to Big cities such as New York and Boston. A larger concentration lived in Atlanta. They were unhappy with raising their families in neighborhoods with high crime rates and where hip hop culture turned other African Americans to immorality. In Somali culture, they would send scouts to find fertile land to raise cattle...

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan, Aug. 22, 2008 – Recent fighting between the Taliban and Pakistani forces in Pakistan’s Bajwar Agency has forced thousands of families – many of whom fled to Pakistan after the 1979 Soviet invasion – to cross the border into Afghanistan. Many arrived in Konar province seeking assistance from the local government. Gov. Sayed Wahidi, Konar's provincial governor, distributes humanitarian assistance to refugees from the Bajawar Agency, Pakistan, at the Shigal District Center in Afghanistan’s Konar province. Wahidi assigned a special committee to increase the emergency assistance available to refugees, many of whom are temporarily settled in...

Thousands in Africa Lied about Families To Gain U.S. Entry The State Department has suspended a humanitarian program to reunite thousands of African refugees with relatives in the U.S. after unprecedented DNA testing by the government revealed widespread fraud. The freeze affects refugees in Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Guinea and Ghana, many of whom have been waiting years to emigrate. The State Department says it began DNA testing with a pilot program launched in February to verify blood ties among African refugees. Tests found some applicants lied about belonging to the same family to gain a better chance at legal entry....

The crush of displaced people has proved more than the government or aid organizations can handle. Many who have taken shelter in the Georgian capital say they could not have survived if not for an impromptu outpouring of charity from fellow Georgians, who have opened their doors to strangers and shown up at shelters bearing food, bedding, soap and medicine.

Than Htay (pronounced Thon Tay), 24, who arrived in Hartford in June, is one of about 23,000 Burmese refugees who have legally immigrated to American cities in the past two years under a United Nations resettlement program. It is the U.N.'s largest such effort.

Labor Day Reinstated as Paid Holiday at Shelbyville, TN, Plant Tyson Foods Requested Change from Union ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Springdale, Arkansas - August 8, 2008 - Tyson Foods, Inc. announced today it has reached a new agreement with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), an American union, reinstating Labor Day as one of the designated paid holidays under the contract for covered employees in the Shelbyville, Tennessee, plant. Tyson made this request on behalf of its Shelbyville plant employees, some of whom had expressed concern about the new contract provisions relative to paid holidays. In an effort to be responsive,...

<p>WASHINGTON - The United States allowed in more than 2,300 Iraqi refugees last month, setting a record and putting the Bush administration on pace to surpass its goal of accepting 12,000 by the end of September.</p> <p>The State Department said Friday that 2,352 Iraqi refugees had arrived in the country in July, shattering the previous monthly record of 1,721 from June.</p>

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) ― Their colorful shops line the streets, catering to their own culture and drawing in ours. Beginning in 1993, Somali people began arriving in Minnesota from refugee camps in Kenya. By that time, Somalia's political chaos had led to the killing or starvation of many of its people. For refugees, Minneapolis offered a place to start a new life, a new business, or a new family. "Many things attracted Somalis to Minnesota to stay. Good health cover and good education," said Huda Farah. Farah works on refugee resettlement with the Minnesota Department of Health. It's through her work...

SAN DIEGO -- San Diego Republican Congressman, Duncan Hunter's name was popping up in blogs and cable news shows Thursday. Hunter's staff was reported to have contacted the U.S. embassy in the African country of Chad to see if Hunter could distribute food at a refugee camp. Hunter also wanted to hunt Wildebeest in Chad and distribute the meat to refugees. The embassy staff reportedly said they were happy to hear about the Congressman's interest in helping refugees, but as far as hunting goes, there are no Wildebeest to hunt in Chad and the government there does not permit the...

<p>FORMER immigration minister Kevin Andrews instructed his department to lift the intake of Christian refugees from the Middle East in response to what he saw as a pro-Muslim bias created by corrupt local case officers.</p> <p>Opposition immigration spokesman Chris Ellison said yesterday this remains Coalition policy.</p>

Meretz MK Yossi Beilin on Thursday called on European countries to declare how many Palestinian refugees and their descendants they would be willing to absorb as part of any future peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. "It is important that we know now how many Palestinian refugees [third] countries are willing to absorb, so that when we get to the critical moment [of a peace agreement] we will be prepared for such an eventuality, and be able to carry it out," Beilin said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post. The dovish lawmaker made the remarks one day after...

Imagine yourself to be the PM of the PC kingdom of Sweden, Northern Europe. You'd face a situation of non-european mass immigration gone out of hand, while you simultaneously dispose of government vaults bulging with money donated by/stolen from humane and well educated/obedient and brainwashed Swedish tax payers. What would your decision be? Bribery is immoral, but sometimes it's just too tempting. The article (the source is SR/SVT, Sweden's equivalent to BBC): "Few refugees here are taking advantage of money from the Swedish government to subsidize returns home. Individual asylum-seekers from Iraq, Afghanistan or Somalia can get more than 3000...

WASHINGTON — During World War II, more than 25,000 European Jews became citizens of El Salvador, a country most had never visited and few ever would. The country, roughly the size of Israel, would come to justify its Spanish name as "the savior" thanks to bogus certificates that made thousands of Jews citizens of El Salvador and kept them from being deported to concentration camps. The signature on nearly all the certificates was that of George Mandel-Mantello, a Romanian Jewish refugee who in the early 1940s sought help from a Salvadoran acquaintance in Switzerland. The El Salvador consul general in...

SALT LAKE CITY - University of Utah geneticist Mario Capecchi got a bonus after winning the Nobel Prize for medicine last fall: He learned he has a younger sister. Capecchi, 70, and half-sister Marlene Bonelli, 69, met last month in northern Italy. It was technically a reunion, but really more of an introduction; they were too young to remember when they were separated in the early days of World War II. Bonelli had long believed that Capecchi and their mother had died in the war, he told The Salt Lake Tribune. Capecchi's mother gave birth to Bonelli in 1939, when...

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- More than 1,000 refugees from Iraq arrived in the United States in May, the most in recent months, bringing the fiscal-year total to 4,742 so far, the State Department reported June 3. But with just four months left in the fiscal year, the administration's objective of resettling 12,000 Iraqis in the U.S. by October is far from being reached, said Anastasia Brown, director of refugee programs for Migration and Refugee Services of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. She added that even that goal is an inadequate fraction of the estimated 4.9 million Iraqis who have been...

300 Iraqi citizens left Sweden in the first four months of 2008. This represents an increase on the 233 Iraqis who returned home in the corresponding period of 2007. Migration minister Tobias Billström responded positively to the development. "Experience has shown that otherwise their situation could have become very bad. The situation in Södertälje and my home town Malmö is such that people live on mattresses," Billström told the Swedish public radio news programme Ekot. Billström interprets the trend as that people are starting to consider the security situation in Iraq to have improved, and that they have realised that...

Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats on Wednesday said they would like to see Germany take on thousands of refugees from Iraq. The hitch? They only want the Christians. AFP If the CDU has its way, Iraqi Christians like this family may soon be on their way to Germany. For months, ethnic violence has been on the ebb in war-torn Iraq. But that has done little to ease the pressure of over 2 million refugees seeking shelter in neighboring Syria and Jordan. Indeed, for many of them -- particularly those once part of Iraq's Christian minority -- going back may never...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE KALSU — Two years ago, al-Qaeda destroyed the Chalabi village in the Sayafiyah region. A Shia tribe in a predominately Sunni area, the Chalabis fled to Mahmudiyah, Baghdad and other surrounding areas. About four months ago, Coalition forces entered the area and set up Sons of Iraq security and Iraqi Army checkpoints. Soon after, Soldiers from Company C, 1st Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), discovered residents had returned to the area. “These families had heard from word of mouth that the area was now secure so now they are...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE KALSU — Approximately 120 men of the Chalabi tribe returned to their homes recently in the Sayafiyah region, about 25 kilometers southeast of Baghdad, more than a year after being driven out by al-Qaeda in Iraq extremists. Escorted by Sons of Iraq leader Jumah al-Kazarji and Soldiers of 1st Platoon, Company C, 1st Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), a large convoy of cars and trucks ushered the Chalabi men back to their abandoned village. Their reclamation of homes signaled the hopeful beginning of a new era of peace and...

4/29/2008 - MOODY AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. (AFPN) -- Airmen from the 23rd Wing at Moody AFB performed a maritime rescue in the Gulf of Mexico April 25 that saved six lives. Moody Airmen responded by providing two HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters from the 41st Rescue Squadron, a 71st RQS HC-130P King and pararescue assets from the 38th RQS. The wing received the support request from the Joint Personnel Recovery Center at Tyndall AFB, Fla., around 11 a.m. The request was in response to a report the Coast Guard received from the Eos, an 800-foot Panamanian-flagged tanker ship operating in...

North Korean Refugees End Hunger Strike April 18, 2008 SEOUL, South Korea -- A group of North Korean refugees being held in Thailand has ended a weeklong hunger strike after the U.S. Embassy promised to speak with them about their request for asylum in the United States, a leader of the group said Friday. But the prospect of the promised interview, set for Wednesday, was thrown into doubt later when the refugee leader said Thai authorities were moving him and 15 other North Koreans from a Bangkok detention center to another facility north of the capital. The leader, who requested...

In an apparent lack of confidence in the leadership of Raul Castro, the number of Cubans leaving the island illegally by sea has been rising, according to U.S. officials. The number of people attempting the perilous voyage across of the Florida Straits has risen 21 percent compared to the same period last year. The number intercepted by the Coast Guard increased 65 percent. Since the beginning of October 2007, some 2,891 Cubans have attempted the journey across the straits. While 1,697 successfully reached the United States, 1,194 were intercepted at sea and returned to Cuba. Nearly ten times the number...

SODERTALJE, Sweden -- Behind the wheel of his old Ford Escort, Oshin Merzoian puttered happily along snowy streets. Back home in Baghdad, he said, he always drove at crazy speeds to avoid killers and kidnappers. But here in "Little Baghdad," as this city that has accepted roughly as many Iraqi refugees as the entire United States is called, Merzoian is enjoying the luxuries of living in peace. He doesn't strap on a gun for protection, and he notes that Swedish police worry more about seat belts than roadside bombs. "Even if they remake Iraq from gold and diamonds, I wouldn't...

Racism and Historical Truth: Jewish Refugees from Arab Lands UN Watch (press release), Switzerland - Mar 19, 2008 We thank the Special Rapporteur for his work against racism, and address two areas of his report... http://www.unwatch.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=bdKKISNqEmG&b=1313923&ct=5118137

First speaker in series focuses on domestic violence among the Chinese Hmong Between 14,000 and 17,500 people are trafficked annually, and an estimated 200,000 American children are at high risk of being part of this modern-day form of slavery, Saejung Lee said while speaking in Eggers Hall Wednesday. Lee, an immigration attorney at the Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence (WCADV), gave a presentation called the "Intersection of Human Trafficking and Domestic Violence," subtitled, "Experiences of Hmong Victims in the Heartland." Approximately 15 graduate students and faculty gathered to hear Lee explain the intricacies and difficulties of dealing with human trafficking...

The Bush administration has granted Somalis living in the United States under temporary protected status an extra 18 months in this country. It's the second such extension granted by the Department of Homeland Security in the last two years. The first one was granted in 2006 and expires later this month. The new extension will apply through September of next year. Generally, those eligible for temporary protected status are unable to safely return to their home countries because of armed conflict, environmental disasters or other extraordinary conditions. Senator Norm Coleman pushed for the latest extension. Minnesota is believed to have...

BAGHDAD, March 4, 2008 – With the security situation here improving every day, Iraqi and coalition forces increasingly are helping displaced families move back into their old neighborhoods. A sheik addresses displaced Iraqi families returning to their homes, appealing for adherence to the local reconciliation agreement, during a ceremony welcoming families back to Baghdad’s Aamel neighborhood, Feb. 9, 2008. U.S. Army photo  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Soldiers from the 1st Infantry Division’s Company A, 1st Battalion, 28th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, in cooperation with Iraqi security forces, the local reconciliation committee, and local and civic...

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan, Feb. 19, 2008 – Harsh winter weather, coupled with rising food and fuel prices, has created a burgeoning humanitarian crisis in some areas of Herat province, in western Afghanistan near the Iran border. Village elders from Ala Udin, Jamali and Amma Sakina in Herat province sought help from the Afghan government to ease the suffering of villagers and avoid disaster in their villages. The commander of the Afghan National Army’s 207th Kandak met with the village elders, who presented him with a list of 327 families who were on the brink of starvation and needed immediate...

Cairo, Egypt (AHN) - Egyptian border police shot and killed an Eritrean refugee on Saturday who was attempting to sneak into Israel, security officials said. According to initial reports, the woman had been attempting to smuggle herself and her two children across the border when Egyptian soldiers, who said she disobeyed orders before opening fire, caught her, according to reports. Security officials in the Sinai Peninsula have said that the woman's' daughters, aged 8 and 10, have been taken into custody. In recent months, Israel has continually called on Cairo to do a better job at stemming the tide of...

The Bush administration apparently hasn't given consideration to the Jewish refugees who were displaced from Arab nations when Israel was launched as a nation six decades ago, according to a White House spokesman. The question came up as a result of Bush's trip to the Middle East, and a Washington Post report that the president was lobbying for compensation for the Palestinian refugees who lost homes or property. Les Kinsolving, WND's correspondent at the White House, raised the issue. "The top of page one of The Washington Post reported from Jerusalem the president saying that Palestinian refugees in 1948 should...

As was highlighted in this space on Sunday, US President George W. Bush displayed a critical understanding of the real obstacle to peace when he stressed last week that an agreement "must establish Palestine as a homeland for the Palestinian people, just as Israel is a homeland for the Jewish people." This language is the clearest US rejection to date of the Palestinian demand of "return," which is a backdoor method of denying Israel's right to exist. It is difficult to overstate the importance of repeating this formula and, even better, explaining what is behind it, namely that mutual recognition...

US President George W. Bush is "very conscious" that Jewish refugees fled to Israel from Arab lands after the 1947-49 war, and this came up in his discussions on the Palestinian refugee issue last week in Jerusalem, a senior Western diplomatic source said Tuesday. Jewish organizations have been trying for years to underline the similarities between the plight of Jewish and Arab refugees, and this was a clear indication that the narrative has begun to seep into US administration thinking. According to the official, "One of the points that came up in this [Bush's] discussion was the number of Jewish...

46,000 Iraqis Have Left Syria Returns Reflect Security Gains, Aid Workers Say By Amit R. Paley Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, January 5, 2008 BAGHDAD, Jan. 4 -- Nearly 50,000 Iraqi refugees returned home from Syria in the final 3 1/2 months of 2007, the latest sign of diminishing violence in this war-pocked country, according to new data from relief workers. "Security has definitely improved, and improved by far," said Said I. Hakki, president of the Iraqi Red Crescent Organization, the aid group that compiled the statistics. "And yet the return is really not that dramatic, when you consider that...

WASHINGTON - U.S. admissions of Iraqi refugees are nose-diving amid bureaucratic in-fighting despite the Bush administration's pledge to boost them to roughly 1,000 per month, according to State Department statistics obtained by The Associated Press. For the third straight month since the United States said it would improve processing and resettle 12,000 Iraqis by the end of the current budget year on Sept. 30., the number admitted has actually slid, the figures show. The steady decline -- from 450 in October to 362 in November and 245 in December -- means the administration will have to allow in 10,943 Iraqis...

When he was 11, True Thao was running with the chickens and pigs in his village in Laos. He had never seen a telephone or a flush toilet. He didn't speak English. He had never heard of Minnesota. He certainly didn't know that Cedarhurst Mansion, a 26-room jewel of history, was quietly rotting half a world away in a place called Cottage Grove. But in a bizarre only-in-America story, True Thao and his family became the refugees that rescued the mansion.

BAGHDAD, Jan. 4 - Nearly 50,000 Iraqi refugees returned home from Syria in the final 3 1/2 months of 2007, the latest sign of diminishing violence in this war-pocked country, according to new data from relief workers. "Security has definitely improved, and improved by far," said Said I. Hakki, president of the Iraqi Red Crescent Organization, the aid group that compiled the statistics. "And yet the return is really not that dramatic, when you consider that there are almost 2 million Iraqi refugees out of the country." The new figures, contained in a report scheduled for release Monday, are significantly...

Since 1976, more than 2.6 million new citizens have entered America as legal humanitarian refugees according to reports of the US State Department. Humanitarian refugees have literally won the proverbial lottery. Typically, they receive green cards as resident aliens within a year of arrival and are eligible to become full US citizens within five years, unless they violate our immigration laws, commit a felony or are deported. In the process they are provided with cash stipend and social services assistance from federal, state, NGO’s and voluntary agency contractors. The irony is the mandate of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 2, 2008 – Security has improved so much in Afghanistan’s Khowst province that Pakistani families are taking refuge there, officials said today. A year ago, the province -- on Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan -- was one of the most dangerous in the country. Now, between 300 and 400 Pakistani families fleeing violence in Pakistan following former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s assassination Dec. 27 have taken refuge in Khowst, Gov. Arsala Jamal said today. Jamal and Army Col. Martin Schweitzer, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division’s 4th Brigade Combat Team, spoke to Pentagon reporters via video teleconference from Forward...

Sweden's Migration Board ruling has rejected the asylum application of a 20-year-old from Mogadishu on the grounds that the situation in the Somali capital does not constitute an armed conflict. The board's ruling, which is expected to set the standard for future applications, goes against UN recommendations, Dagens Nyheter reports. The 20-year-old Somali, who arrived in Sweden in May, will now be sent back to his home country. Under the new guidelines, refugees from Mogadishu must be able to show that there is a specific threat against them if they are to be considered eligible for permanent residency. This was...

Quiz yourself on the Israeli Arab ["Palestinian"] conflict       1) When was the Arab immigration to [the historic Jewish land of] Israel -"Palestine" boosted?   A When they wanted to see Jewish holy sites. B When [anti French and anti British] Arab nationalism spread across the middle east. C When the Zionists Jews came and cultivated the deserted land.     2) What's [Arab "Palestinian" highest "national" icon] Yasser Arafat's country of origin?   A Israel ["Palestine"]. B Jordan. C Egypt.     3) Why were there --initially-- more Arab immigrants ["residents"] than Jewish immigrants (Arab majority)?   A Because...

Following years of persecution and not being able to attend Mass because of the threat of terrorism, Huzni Hermez and his family left their war-torn homeland of Iraq and found a place where they could freely practice their Catholic faith. With the cooperation of St. Anthony Maronite Catholic Church in Springfield, Springfield-based Jewish Family Service of Western Massachusetts and the Diocese of Springfield, Hermez and his family -- including wife Muntha Sooloka; children Yusif Yusuf, 6, Raymon Yusuf, 4, and Eleana Yusuf, 3; and Hermez's mother, Sarra Khoshaba -- arrived in Springfield Nov. 15. They are Chaldean Catholics, members of...

DAMASCUS, Syria—If only Iraqi refugees were returning to their homeland because they believed it is now safe. If only the reported boom in crossings at the Syrian-Iraqi border really meant that relieved returnees were eagerly going home. Alas, while some Iraqis decided to end their forced exile this fall, their decision had at least as much to do with the deteriorating situation in their host country as with improved conditions in their homeland. The phenomenon seems to affect only those Iraqis stranded in Syria. I spent most of November in the Middle East; among Iraqi refugees in Jordan and among...

http://boortz.com/nuze/index.html CANADIANS ON U.S. TERROR POLICY A Canadian judge has ruled against America's policies on torture and refugees. Canada can no longer turn away refugees from the U.S. because America is no longer safe for refugees. http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/12/canadian-judge.html This judge believes that the U.S. does not protect refugees fleeing political persecution and torture, which is required by international conventions. Therefore Canada is willing to take them off our hands. This nullifies an existing agreement between the U.S. and Canada, which is meant to prevent "asylum shopping" for immigrants attempting to obtain asylum from multiple countries. Now ... let's see if Canada...

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) - Hundreds of Iraqi refugees boarded buses for home on Tuesday in the first convoy from an Iraqi-funded effort to speed the return of families that fled the country's violence and insecurity. Many Iraqis have headed back on own their own from Syria and elsewhere as extremist attacks have fallen sharply in Baghdad and other areas. But now the Iraqi government is hoping to accelerate the flow - and draw more attention to the recent drop in violence - by offering to pay for trips home. The program also seeks to win favor from neighboring countries such...

NEW YORK Since October, proponents of the "surge" of U.S. troops in Iraq have pointed to a relative decline in death and violence in Baghdad and a huge movement of Iraqis who have fled the country and now are allegedly returning home. But numbers have been funny in the war in the past, and may be twisted again, New York Times correspondent Damien Cave suggests today. "A half-dozen owners of Iraqi travel agencies and drivers who regularly travel to Syria agreed that the numbers misrepresented reality," Cave reports. "They said that the flow of returnees peaked last month, with more...

Iraqis who fled their country because of the war are returning by the hundreds of thousands to Iraq from Syria, Egypt and Jordan because of the improved security.  Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is providing the free bus and flight travel: Residents welcome their relatives who have just returned from Syria after arriving in Baghdad November 21, 2007.   REUTERS/Mahmoud Raouf Mahmoud (IRAQ) The return is dramatic. Baghdad has been transformed:  Iraqi refugees are returning home in dramatic numbers, concluding that security in Baghdad has been transformed. Thousands have left their refuge in Syria in recent months, according to some estimates. The Iraqi Embassy is organising...

BAGHDAD -- Outside the Damascus Transport Co. in Baghdad's Salhiyah neighborhood Monday, a dozen or so people sat on their suitcases, looking tired and slightly confused as the bus that had brought them from Syria pulled out for its return run, practically empty. Not long ago, the opposite would have been the case. ''Before,'' said Ali Abbas, who runs Damascus Transport, ``you would find large numbers of Iraqis headed out, with all their belongings. Most carried mattresses, blankets and pieces of furniture. Now the trend has turned: The Iraqis coming back are returning with their furniture and everything they can...

ISRAEL - PEACE - SURVIVAL, NOT GENOCIDE! In the beginning...Israel has always faced genocide, from the moment the Islamo Arab fascist leader, the infamous [later on exposed as Hitler's buddy] Mufti Haj Amin Al Husseini has called, incited, led to "kill the Jews" in the 1920s. The Mufti, that prior to inciting to "kill the Yahud [Jews]" & leading massacres such as Hebron 1929 and the Farhud in 1941, has participated in the massacres and genocide of Christians, the Armenian Genocide that is [http://Armenian-Genocide.org], where 1.5 Million Christians were brutally murdered. An ally of the Nazi "Fuhrer": Adolph Hitler,...