Peter Hasson reports: Leaked documents from left-wing financier George Soros’s Open Society Foundations continue to reveal the extent to which the group has influenced the political response to Europe’s refugee crisis. Internal documents show OSF used $600,000 in reserve funding in March 2016 to bring pro-refugee positions into the “political mainstream.”
Jordi Vaquer, OSF’s regional director for Europe, approved a $600,000 proposal entitled, “Countering the anti-migrant rhetoric and toxic narratives surrounding migration in Europe.”
According to OSF documents, half of the $600,000 would go towards lobbying efforts. All $600,000 came from OSF’s “Europe Reserve Fund.”
A summary of the proposal notes that “the proposed reserve fund allocation will allow for additional resources to be allocated towards countering xenophobic attitudes in Europe, move parts of the political mainstream towards more pro-refugee positions, and build constituencies around a more progressive approach to migration and asylum.” Read the rest of this entry »
In the U.S., some governors and other politicians have warned against moving fast to bring in the refugees, concerned that poor vetting could let in terrorists.
Despite promises of European Union member states to take in 160,000 refugees, a new report shows that they’ve accepted a fraction, 6,000, while the United States has embraced 8,000 of a planned 10,000 this year.
“As President Obama, backed by Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, has ramped up accepting refugees fleeing Syria and other war-torn nations, the EU has put the brakes on hard, apparently bowing to public outrage.”
As President Obama, backed by Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, has ramped up accepting refugees fleeing Syria and other war-torn nations, the EU has put the brakes on hard, apparently bowing to public outrage.
In the U.S., some governors and other politicians have warned against moving fast to bring in the refugees, concerned that poor vetting could let in terrorists.
“One year later, this commitment is far from being fulfilled. France is not the only ‘bad student.’ There is an obvious lack of solidarity.”
— Pierre Henry, director of an organization called France Terre d’Asile
After officials moved to stem the huge influx if immigrants, Europe had led the way in making promises to accept the additional refugees in camps in Italy and Greece. But a new report in France found that Paris had accepted just 1,300 of the 30,000 it promised to take from Greece and Italy by 2017.
State Department reports show that 2,340 Syrian refugees arrived last month in the United States. That’s more than what occurred during the entire seven months after President Obama directed his team to prepare for 10,000 admissions from the war-torn country.
The pace of Syrian refugees entering the U.S. has surged in recent weeks, government figures show, putting the Obama administration on track to meet its target of admitting 10,000 Syrian refugees before the end of September -– and reviving Republican concerns about the security implications.
State Department reports show that 2,340 Syrian refugees arrived last month in the United States.
That’s more than what occurred during the entire seven months after President Obama directed his team to prepare for 10,000 admissions from the war-torn country. Total admissions for the current budget year, which ends Sept. 30, now come to about 7,900, and the vast majority of them are Sunni Muslims, records show.
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said earlier this week the U.S. is on track to meet the 10,000-refugee goal.
If the pace from June and July continues this month, the target should be reached with a couple of weeks to spare, before Obama heads to the United Nations to urge world leaders to admit more refugees and increase funding for relief organizations.
But amid new predictions from FBI Director James Comey of a “terrorist diaspora out of Syria,” some Republicans are ramping up warnings that the flow of refugees poses a threat to America and Western Europe. Read the rest of this entry »
Perhaps they should put their faces on milk cartons.
Rick Moran writes: German authorities are searching for 12 refugees from Syria who entered the country using fake passports from the same source used by the Paris attackers. The passports were reportedly stolen from a passport office in Raqqa, the unofficial capital of Islamic State, in 2013 following the city’s capture.
The news comes a week after two men were arrested at a refugee center on suspicion of having links to the Paris attacks. The men entered the country at the same time as the Paris attackers and were also using false Syrian passports.
But Germany’s problems go far beyond a few potential terrorists with false passports. The German newspaper Bild is reporting that more than 250,000 of the refugees who have entered the country this year cannot be located because the system of registering refugees was so bad.
Asylum-seekers are expected to register after their arrival in the country, but overburdened refugee offices mean many are left waiting for weeks or have to be taken hundreds of miles by bus to be registered in different cities.Thousands are disappearing after entering the country and never registering. Border officials do not even take fingerprints of arriving asylum-seekers, it has emerged.
Those who do not register have no entitlement to benefits, but there are concerns they may be disappearing into the black economy or other criminal activities…(read more)
That’s a lot of people to be “lost” in Europe. I suppose it doesn’t do any good to state the obvious; you have to wonder how many of those “refugees” have been infiltrated by any number of terror groups…(read more)
October 16, 2015, Dan Cadman writes: My colleague Nayla Rush has written a posting about the recent testimony of government witnesses at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the administration’s intent to admit at least 10,000 Syrian refugees fleeing the dissolution of their country.
What is happening in Syria is heart-rending, but the key question posed at the hearing was: How safe can Americans feel about the vetting processes in place to screen applicants? The question is sobering, given the Islamist extremism that predominates in Syria, where the United States futilely spent half of a billion dollars trying to find enough “moderate” fighters to combat the Assad regime, only to give up in disgust when the last batch surrendered their weapons, munitions, and equipment to the al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front in order to buy their way out of a jam.
The government witnesses (more like sacrificial lambs; none of them sit at the highest levels of agency or cabinet departments involved) did their best, obliged as they were to toe the White House party line on the issue, but frankly were unpersuasive and the assurances they gave rang hollow, as Rush has pointed out.
There are three critical ways in which our vetting procedures make us vulnerable:
“Flying under the radar”. As I have noted before, our vetting is heavily oriented toward electronic systems — databases with biographical information about known or suspected terrorists, sometimes with biometrics (fingerprints or photos). But what do you do if they aren’t known and have no fingerprints of record in any U.S. system? Why, then you look at the documents they present to you for clues.
What happens if they don’t have any documents to present? Media stories about the “migrant flood” are replete with articles about the hundreds of identity and travel documents discarded on the pathways these aliens are using in their trek toward Europe. The answer is that they will assume whatever identity and nationality they choose to provide to the refugee resettlement agencies responsible for developing, under UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) supervision, the queues of applicants our officers will be asked to vet.
Using bogus documents is easy and no disqualifier. Then there is the ease with which fraudulent documents are being procured throughout the migrant pathways into the heart of Europe right now — some of them legitimate, but altered to accommodate the new bearers; others excellent counterfeits. According to BBC News, they are being used with remarkable success to pass through border and airport checkpoints and are readily available, as one of their own undercover investigations revealed.
Although there is certainly some chance that such documents would be discovered by U.S. officers who have available to them an outstanding Forensic Document Laboratory (FDL), it may surprise readers that use of phony documents doesn’t make you ineligible for refugee or asylum status. This is something government officials don’t like to discuss in public forums such as the Judiciary Committee hearing, where they would have us think of the screening process as an impenetrable iron wall to national security threats.
The principle behind overlooking use of fake documents is firmly embedded in both international and domestic law, for the most noble of reasons. Think of Raoul Wallenberg, who saved many Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe by providing them Swedish passports without regard to their real nationality. Even so, the stakes for the American people are extraordinarily high if the individuals using those fake documents aren’t in fact refugees in distress, particularly since, according to the UNHCR, 68 percent of the nearly 600,000 who’ve made the journey as of October 2015 are adult males. Read the rest of this entry »
News Flash for Barack Obama: Americans are not afraid of terrorism. We’re afraid of you.
Andrew Malcolm writes: Your chronic diffidence, dismissal and downplaying terrorism — especially from radical jihadi extremists, in both word and deed — is scaring the hell out of your countrymen.
“Obama seems so dim, so unwilling and/or unable to grasp the international reality of terror beyond rhetoric that there’s now more fear about his military myopia. We expect arrogance from Harvard grads. But not stupidity.”
Get over it! It’s not cool. Nor is it presidentially-composed to disregard the palpable fear that permeates America today. Even if we’re all so ignorant, naive and unworldly as to elect you twice.
Leading from behind does not work as United States commander-in-chief.
Sunday night was only Obama’s third Oval Office address. (Scroll down for the C-SPAN video.) The first was also overdue, about the Gulf oil spill. The second was a victory lap about withdrawing all U.S. troops from Iraq, which created the inviting power vacuum for the current ISIS problem.
It’s one measure of the detached president’s willful public cluelessness about terrorism that the big news from Sunday evening’s 1,970 words was his admission that last week’s San Bernardino attack killing 14 was terrorism. Is there any sentient American who hadn’t figured that out? The clues were as abundant as empty shell casings. And a garage pipe-bomb factory did not speak of global warming.
In fact, such Obama condescension fuels our fears, that he feels the need to share with us the obvious, belatedly, from within his towering intellect and fortified residence.
“The threat from terrorism is real,” added President Sherlock Holmes. Imagine President Roosevelt informing the nation that Japan’s Pearl Harbor bombing 74 years ago this morning was an attack. And waiting four days to do so.
That’s the country’s core concern right now. Obama keeps saying accurately the top priority of any U.S. president is protecting the people. No sensible person wants war. All presidents should be reluctant warriors, never committing — or withdrawing — American volunteers for mere political purposes. Read the rest of this entry »
Monday CNS News reported that the vast majority of Syrian refugees that have been resettled in the U.S. are Sunni Muslim and very few are Christians or other religious minorities.
Caroline May reports: Since the start of the Syria’s civil war in the spring of 2011, the U.S. has admitted 2,311 Syrian refugees and resettled them in 36 different states.
According to data from the State Department’s Refugee Processing Center the top three destinations for Syrian refugees since the beginning of the conflict are California, Texas, and Michigan.
From March 15, 2011 through December 1, 2015, California received the most (261) Syrian refugees, Texas received the second most with 242, and Michigan has received the third most with 217.
Other states that have received Syrian refugees since March 2011 include: Arizona (182), Illinois (170), Pennsylvania (161), Florida (142), Kentucky (101), New Jersey (99), Ohio (89), Massachusetts (72), Georgia (69), North Carolina (56), New York (55), Connecticut (51), Maryland (43), Tennessee (42), Indiana (39), Washington (38), Idaho (37), Missouri (29), Virginia (26), Colorado (18), Louisiana (14), Utah (12), Kansas (8), Nevada (8), Minnesota (7), New Mexico (6), Oregon (6),New Hampshire (3), Oklahoma (3), Wisconsin (2), Arkansas (1), Maine (1), and West Virginia (1). Read the rest of this entry »
The Greek government has announced one of the terrorist gunmen who had a part in killing over 120 in Paris on Friday evening entered Europe while masquerading as a refugee just six weeks ago.
“The news will come as a major shock to the European establishment who have mocked and derided those who have warned that the migrant route into Europe would be exploited by those wishing to do harm to Europe.”
Reports early on Saturday that one of the gunmen was found to have been carrying a Syrian passport have been followed by an announcement by Greek minister for citizen protection Nikos Tosca that the individual was masquerading as a refugee, reports Greek Antenna news.
“Latest United Nations estimates show over 800,000 migrants have passed through the Mediterranean on their way to Europe this year, with 660,700 landing in Greece and 142,400 in Italy.”
The unnamed killer was registered on the Greek island of Leros in the southern Aegean sea on the third of October. The Island is just ten miles from the Turkish coast and has been a major point of ingress for so-called ‘refugees’ into Europe, alongside neighbour island Kos.
A large group of migrants walk down a a highway in Denmark, headed for the Swedish border. The Swedish Foreign Minister has claimed her country is facing collapse due to the mass influx of refugees
Margot Wallstrom has said that Sweden cannot cope with taking in refugees at its current level, without it affecting services.
She says that Stockholm will now have to pressure the European Union in a bid to force other member states to share the burden of those coming from the Middle East, mainly Syria.
Margot Wallstrom, pictured, has said that Sweden cannot cope with taking in refugees at its current level, without it affecting services
It is expected that Sweden will take in around 190,000 migrants by the end of 2015. In the first nine months of the year, more than 73,000 people applied for asylum in Sweden. Read the rest of this entry »
An old school building in Onsala ‘caught fire’ on Saturday evening, the third time in a week that prospective asylum accommodation has been badly damaged by a fire.
The fire was attended by 20 firefighters. The building, part of the otherwise demolished Furulidsskolan, was to be prepared to greet asylum seekers in the affluent area of Kungsbacka.
“Half the building has been damaged by fire,” said Mikael Lindgren, lead operator of the emergency services in Greater Gothenburg.
The cause of the fire is unclear but police will cordon off the area and carry out a technical examination when the emergency services have finished making the property secure.
The fire occurred just a day after a school, just south of Ljungby in Småland, was also destroyed by fire. The school building was to be used to accommodate refugees and had recently been decorated. Read the rest of this entry »
BRUSSELS – The EU said a controversial program to relocate 40,000 refugees within the bloc from overstretched front-line states would formally start on Friday when a group of Eritreans will travel to Sweden from Italy.
“The EU formally agreed the plan last month despite the opposition of some Eastern European states worried about a popular backlash to migrants.”
“First relocations within EU take place on Friday” following an agreement by interior ministers in September, the EU’s home affairs office said in a tweet. “Eritrean refugees will be relocated from Italy to Sweden.”
An EU source told AFP that a flight will leave Roma Ciampino airport in the morning and take the first refugees to Sweden.
“First relocations within EU take place on Friday…Eritrean refugees will be relocated from Italy to Sweden.”
EU Migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos is expected to give a press conference in Rome.
The number of refugees being moved on Friday was not revealed, but Sweden agreed on July 20 to take 821 refugees from Italy and 548 from Greece as part of the commission’s plan to relocate 40,000 refugees from the two front-line states over two years. Read the rest of this entry »
Few things will ruin a day faster than a flat tire. But what if you never had to break out that spare again? Scientists have developed a new type of rubber that can heal itself after a tear or break.
Amit Das and his colleagues at the Leibniz Institute for Polymer Research in Dresden, Germany published their research in ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces.
The researchers have modified commercial grade tire rubber with a carbon and nitrogen additive that lets rubber reform crucial bonds. When torn, their rubber can recover the durability and elasticity that vulcanization gives.
Lee Smith writes: The United States, President Obama said at the U.N. General Assembly last week, “worked with many nations in this assembly to prevent a third world war—by forging alliances with old adversaries.” Presumably, the president was not referring to his deeply flawed Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the recent agreement that the White House has marketed as the only alternative to war with a soon-to-be-nuclear Iran.
“Once you seize a position by force, as the Russians have. you are in the diplomatic driver’s seat. Putin is schooling the U.S. foreign policy establishment in foreign affairs. He has put his armed forces not at the service of Bashar al-Assad, but at the service of Russian interests.”
— Angelo Codevilla, professor emeritus of international relations at Boston University
Rather, it seems he was referring to the post-World War II period, when the United States created and presided over an international order that prevented an even larger, potentially nuclear, conflict with the Soviet Union. Now, that Pax Americana may be ending.
Not with a bang, but with Obama
Indeed, Russia’s airstrikes against CIA-vetted Syrian rebels last week looked like a punctuation mark. When the secretary of state holds a joint press conference with Moscow’s foreign minister after Russia has decimated American proxies bearing American arms, we are not witnessing anything like a return to the Cold War. Rather, we’re witnessing a new order being born. It is an order that is being designed by others, without any concern for American interests.
Syrian refugees wait to cross into Turkey at the border on Monday near the town of Suruc, Turkey, which has been overwhelmed as thousands flee to escape a militant advance.G Getty Images
“At what point does the Syrian conflict create political instability in places like Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing states in the Persian Gulf? As long as nothing is happening to block the oil flow, it’s the refugee flow that makes Syria an international issue.”
— Walter Russell Mead, professor of foreign policy and humanities at Bard College
Its cradle is not the conference rooms of the U.N., but the killing fields of Syria. After four and a half years, the Syrian civil war and the refugee crisis it has spawned threaten to disrupt two zones of American vital interest, the Persian Gulf and Europe.
America’s Cold War prosperity depended on our ability to trade with the rest of the world across both oceans. The United States built a powerful blue-water navy and far-flung bases as tokens of our willingness to protect our allies and stand up to their, and our, adversaries. What facilitates both trade and the movement of a military as large as America’s is access to affordable sources of energy, which is why the security of the Persian Gulf has been a vital American interest for 70 years.
“There already is a third world war underway. It’s the war between Sunnis and Shiites. It’s a world war because it engages people all around the world who happen to be Muslims.”
— Angelo Codevilla
The nuclear agreement with Iran signals that Obama doesn’t see things this way. From his perspective, no core American interest would be threatened by either the domination of the Gulf by revolutionary Iran or the likelihood that other regional powers will go nuclear. The JCPOA told American partners in the Middle East that the old alliance system was finished. Israel and Saudi Arabia would get stiff-armed, and Iran would get to call plays in the huddle. What Obama sought, as he said in a New Yorker interview, was a “new geopolitical equilibrium.” Read the rest of this entry »
Now, with gangs of men roaming the streets and young German women being told to cover up, the mood’s changing.
Sue Reid In Giessen, Germany: On the busy shopping street in Giessen, a German university town twinned with Winchester, migrant Atif Zahoor tucks into a chicken dish with his brother and cousin at the curry restaurant Chillie To Go.
“We paid a trafficking agent for false visas to fly here to Germany. We claimed asylum and came to Giessen camp with other migrants. Three weeks ago, because we had families, they gave us a proper home.”
They have left good jobs back in Karachi, Pakistan, and now want to be Europeans.
In late July the three slipped into Germany with their wives and children, using illegal documents. They live together in a five-bedroom house, rented for them by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government, a 40-minute drive away from Giessen, which is home to the biggest migrants’ camp in the country.
Scroll down for video
Migrants and refugees pictured waiting for a bus outside the Migrant Receiving Camp on the outskirts of the German city of Giessen. Social workers and women’s groups warned that facilities were hopelessly inadequate and security was a problem for female residents
“Mrs. Merkel’s offer last month to accept all refugees from war-ravaged Syria opened the floodgates. More than a million migrants are expected this year alone, the bulk of them far from genuine asylum seekers.”
Migrants and refugees queue at the compound outside the Berlin Office of Health and Social Affairs as they wait for their registration. But there are warnings that millions more newcomers should be expected in the current migrant crisis
‘We paid a trafficking agent for false visas to fly here to Germany,’ says 34-year-old Atif. ‘We claimed asylum and came to Giessen camp with other migrants. Three weeks ago, because we had families, they gave us a proper home.’
Atif is well-dressed and speaks perfect English. He used to be a transport manager at Karachi airport and is from a well-to-do family. Between mouthfuls of curry, he adds: ‘But there is violence between political gangs in Karachi. Lots of people are leaving for Europe. The trafficker decided that Germany was the place for us because it is welcoming refugees.’
There is violence between political gangs in Karachi. Lots of people are leaving for Europe.
Migrants and refugees queue at the compound outside the Berlin Office of Health and Social Affairs as they wait for their registration. But there are warnings that millions more newcomers should be expected in the current migrant crisis
“There is now deepening disquiet in this Christian country, dotted with churches, that it is being overwhelmed by people of a different religion and culture.”
Yet the raw truth is that Atif is not fleeing war or persecution. He is one of thousands of economic migrants getting into Germany as the EU’s immigration crisis grows bigger each day.
This week, David Cameron said Europe must send failed asylum claimants back to their own countries, while European Council president Donald Tusk has warned that millions more migrants are on their way and ‘the policy of open doors and windows’ must be scrapped.
David Cameron said Europe must send failed asylum claimants back to their own countries, while European Council president Donald Tusk has warned that millions more migrants are on their way and ‘the policy of open doors and windows’ must be scrapped
“Many women have felt the need to sleep in their clothes… they won’t go to the toilet at night because rapes and assaults have taken place on their way to, or from, there. Even in daylight, a walk through the camp is fraught with fear.”
They are tough words, but it’s action that is needed. As Jens Spahn, a deputy finance minister in Chancellor Merkel’s government, said this week: ‘Not everyone can stay in Germany, or in Europe. If people are coming for poverty reasons… we have to send them back.’
Mrs Merkel’s offer last month to accept all refugees from war-ravaged Syria opened the floodgates. More than a million migrants are expected this year alone, the bulk of them far from genuine asylum seekers. There is now deepening disquiet in this Christian country, dotted with churches, that it is being overwhelmed by people of a different religion and culture.
Refugees from Afghanistan and Pakistan inside a tent shared by more than 60 men at the refugee registration center for the German state of Hesse in Giessen, 40km southwest of Frankfurt
Yesterday, the Mail reported how social workers and women’s groups in Giessen wrote a letter to the local state parliament claiming that rape and child abuse were rife in the refugee camp. The allegations were corroborated by Atif over his curry. ‘The camp is dangerous,’ he agreed. ‘Men of different nationalities fight and women are attacked.’ Read the rest of this entry »
Hungry’s parliament has authorised its army to shoot rubber bullets, pyrotechnical devices, (flashbangs), net guns and tear gas grenades at migrants.
They say that the use of the so-called non-lethal weapons will help Hungary’s military handle the migrant crisis.
As Hungary rushes to finish building a fence along its border with Croatia, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said that the police needed the army’s help to secure Hungary’s borders with Serbia and Croatia.
“The migrants are not only banging on our doors but they are breaking them down. Not a few hundred, not a few thousand but hundreds of thousands, even millions besiege the borders of Hungary and the European Union,” said Orban before lawmakers voted on the controversial measures. “We cannot see where the end is. There are plenty more coming, millions are setting out on the journey.”
Amnesty International said in a statement that “Hungary is violating the human rights of refugees by blocking their access to a meaningful asylum procedure on its territory. Amendments of the law criminalizing the ‘illegal’ entry of refugees and migrants and intended to shift Hungary’s responsibility towards those in need of international protection must be repealed.”
Estimates predict up to 35 million refugees could head for Europe due to hugely unstable situations across the world.
Rob Virtue and Agnes Kegel report:The huge figure was revealed today by Hungary’s minister for foreign affairs and trade Peter Szijjártó.
Speaking as the country begins work on its second fence to stop migrants heading across its border he predicted the current crisis will continue for years.
Mr Szijjártó told the Hungarian Times: “The name of the fence is ‘Temporary Security Border Fence’ but I think there is no question that in this case temporary means years.
“It’s a self delusion to call this situation a migration crisis; it is a massive migration of nations, with inexhaustible reserves.
“I don’t think that the analysis results, stating that 30-35 million people out there could possibly become migrants, would be an exaggeration.
“Libya, Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan are all countries with a huge population and an extremely unstable situation.”
The Hungarian government also defended itself from criticism over its fences.
It comes as a ten-year-old migrant boy with a severe lung condition died in Hungary.
His mother and siblings successfully made the journey to Germany but his father stayed behind with the poorly youngster, who was buried on Friday.
Domestic, international criticism follows open-arms policy
Bertrand Benoit in Berlin and Nicholas Winning in London report: Praise for Germany’s handling of the thousands of refugees pouring into the country is giving way to domestic and international criticism of Berlin’s open-arms policy.
“A welcoming culture is an expression of naive and illusory thinking. What we need, instead, is realism and a sense of proportion. We shouldn’t go beyond providing the basics for asylum seekers, like food and shelter, because it will attract more people.”
— A spokesman for Alfa, a recently founded opposition party in Germany
The criticism, though still muted, could spell trouble for German Chancellor Angela Merkel once the outpouring of sympathy that has greeted the migrants since late last week subsides and Berlin resumes its push to distribute them more broadly across Europe.
The chancellor’s decision on Friday night to let thousands of migrants traveling through Hungary into the country “sends a completely wrong signal in Europe,” Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann told public television Saturday. “This must be corrected.”
“Germany has a heavy responsibility for inciting at the level of the European Union a passive acceptance of this crisis. Germany is probably thinking about its declining demography. It is probably looking to lower salaries again and recruit slaves through mass immigration.”
— National Front leader Marine Le Pen
Leaders of the Christian Social Union, Bavaria’s ruling party and an ally of Ms. Merkel’s Christian Democrats, unanimously criticized the decision as wrongheaded during a telephone conference on Saturday, Andreas Scheuer, the party’s secretary-general said.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, seen here in Brussels in July, could face trouble when the sympathy that has greeted migrants since late last week subsides and Berlin resumes its push to distribute them more broadly across Europe.Photo: Reuters
Anti-immigration politicians in Germany, France and the U.K. also assailed the policy, saying that it was pulling even more refugees toward the continent and that German plans to divert some to other countries in Europe should be resisted. By Sunday afternoon, some 13,000 migrants had crossed from Hungary into Austria in the 36 hours since German and Austrian authorities bowed to pressure to grant entry to the crowds of asylum seekers stranded in Hungary. Read the rest of this entry »
Growing public support to cut all ties with Brussels came as it was revealed the Prime Minister told Merkel to her face: ‘I could walk away from the EU.’
Simon Walters and Glen Owen report: A majority of British people would vote to leave the European Union in the wake of the migrant crisis engulfing the continent, a shock new Mail on Sunday poll has found.
If a referendum were to be held tomorrow on whether to remain a member of the EU, 51 per cent of British people would vote ‘No’.
It follows a string of polls over recent years which have given comfortable leads to the pro-European camp. Significantly, it is the first measure of public opinion since the Government changed the wording of the referendum question, lending weight to claims that the new phrasing boosts the chances of victory for the ‘Out’ campaign.
The survey also found strong backing for David Cameron’s stance in standing up to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who wants the UK to take in a greater share of migrants.
Growing public support to cut all ties with Brussels came as it was revealed the Prime Minister told Merkel to her face: ‘I could walk away from the EU.’
At a private dinner in Downing Street, Merkel accused him of being ‘too forceful’ in demanding concessions from the rest of the EU. That was why ‘we all hate you and isolate you,’ she said.
Any way you look at it, the post-World War II era has never seen a refugee crisis on the scale of 2014
According to the U.N. Refugee Agency’s annual report, last year saw the total number of forcibly displaced persons rise to 59.5 million, an all-time high. That figure includes 38.2 million were displaced internally due to conflict, general violence, and human rights violations — also a record figure since such data began to be recorded in 1989. In 2014 alone, 13.9 million people were displaced due to conflict or persecution alone. More than half of refugees worldwide are children.
The primary driver of this nearly unprecedented level of human suffering was the civil war in Syria, now in its fifth year. For more than 30 years, Afghanistan had been the world’s largest source of refugees, but in 2014 Syria overtook it to claim the top spot. By year’s end, 7.6 million Syrians had been displaced within the country’s borders. In 2014 alone, 1.55 million Syrians fled the country, bringing the total number of Syrian refugees to 3.9 million. Today, one out of every four refugees is Syrian.
In this Jan. 31, 2014, file photo released by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), residents of the besieged Yarmouk refugee camp near Damascus, Syria, queue to receive food supplies. Conditions in the camp have deteriorated since Islamic State militants muscled their way into it in early April 2015. The militants are trying to consolidate their hold on the camp. (AP Photo/UNRWA, File)
The Syrian crisis contributed to another milestone: Turkey is now home to the world’s single largest refugee population of 1.59 million. Pakistan had previously held that distinction but slipped to second place in 2014, with 1.51 refugees. The Syrian civil war has placed an enormous strain on surrounding countries, which have absorbed 95 percent of those who have fled. The war has also contributed to Europe’s foremost refugee crisis: Of the 219,000 who attempted to cross the Mediterranean, nearly half were Syrians.
Moreover, as fighting in Syria has continued and the Islamic State militant group has established a foothold there and expanded east, Iraq has seen its own refugee numbers worsen. In 2014, another 2.6 million Iraqis were displaced, bringing the total to 3.6 million.
Elsewhere in the world, the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine between Russian-backed separatists and government forces saw just short of 230,000 Ukrainians take refuge in Russia. Renewed fighting in South Sudan displaced 1.5 million within that country. Half a million South Sudanese fled the country in 2014. Fighting in Congo displaced another million people there. With the government of Pakistan carrying out an offensive in the tribal areas against Islamist militants, some 283,500 people fled into Afghanistan.
And even as the government in Colombia carried out peace talks with the FARC rebel group to end a half-century civil war, another 137,000 Colombians were displaced, bringing the country’s total of internally displaced persons to 6 million. Read the rest of this entry »
The idea at the heart of this policy is not controversial. In fact, it’s one that the majority of the American public already supports. And is supported even more passionately by new U.S. citizens, those who immigrated here legally. It’s the enforcement apparatus required that’s controversial.
“These people that were coming were seen as queue-jumpers, and it’s not fair to the genuine refugees.”
Exactly. What about those who waited in line, and followed the rules? Many feel betrayed, and resent that their respect for the process is being undermined by pro-amnesty activists. Not just radical groups protesting at the border, but pro-amnesty activists in all three branches of government. Often the loudest voices are the ones with the most questionable motives.
Australian-born political commentator Nick Adams joined Bill O’Reilly to share his country’s approach towards illegal immigration. Part of the policy includes the national Navy physically intercepting boats of immigrants trying to enter the country illegally and denying them the ability to land on Australian shores.
A moat? Nations like Japan, and Australia, have a natural geographical protection–surrounded by deep water–from millions of immigrants crossing borders illegally to “live in the shadows”. The U.S. Mexico border is 1,989 long.
Though, to be fair, as critics of the pro-border control argument remind us, the majority of the U.S.’s illegal immigrants don’t enter by crossing borders illegally. They do it by applying for temporary visas, then violate their visas by overstaying. Then exploiting pro-amnesty sentiment to justify never returning to their native residence. Or, you know–not unlike getting distracted and neglecting to get a haircut–being busy, and forgetting to return home for ten or twenty years when the visa is up.
Nick Adams noted that not implementing such preventative measures was encouraging people to take the life-risking journey across the ocean…(read more)
Over the past 12 months, the number of refugees fleeing the two-year-old civil war in Syria has increased ten-fold, with more than 2 million now seeking sanctuary abroad, according to the U.N. refugee agency.
By year’s end, another million could be added with no sign of the flood abating, say officials. Combined with the 4.25 million people displaced within the country’s borders, more people have now been forced from their homes in Syria than in any other country.
attacks. The men entered the country at the same time as the Paris attackers and were also using false Syrian passports.
extremism that predominates in Syria, where the United States futilely spent half of a billion dollars trying to find enough “moderate” fighters to combat the Assad regime, only to 
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