This ‘news’ is all over our alerts today along with ‘news’ of Angelina Jolie visiting Syrian refugees as a special envoy for the UN. Looks like a stepped-up PR campaign!
Watch for it!—The announcement of how many Syrians the US will take this year should be out soon (or maybe it’s out already?). Will it be the 2,000 discussed previously or the 12,000-15,000 the contractors want? Remember also that the Obama Administration has lifted the ‘terrorism bar’ primarily for the Syrians. ***Update*** Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society calls for 75,000 Syrians, here.
From Iran English Radio:
The United Nations has warned that the influx of Syrian refugees into Lebanon poses a serious threat to the country’s stability and the region.
According to the reports, Ninette Kelley, regional representative for Lebanon for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees on Friday said: “There is not a single country in the world today that is shouldering as much in proportion to its size as Lebanon.”
Kelley said the influx of one million Syrian refugees into neighboring Lebanon has pushed up the country’s population by one-fourth.
This inflicts a major strain on Lebanon’s public infrastructure as people fleeing violence in Syria seek housing, food, and healthcare at a time of economic slowdown in the country.
The UN official described the influx as a threat to the country’s economy and warned that it would also make a spillover of the conflict in Syria into Lebanon more likely.
Kelley made comments on his visit to Washington and a week after Lebanese Foreign Minister GebranBassil said the crisis in Syria is threatening the existence of Lebanon, which has gone through a year-long political crisis.
Meanwhile a Reuters story tells us that the US is the single largest donor of humanitarian aid in the Syrian situation. But for the ‘human rights’ gang this will not be enough—thousands of the Syrians need to be living in American cities and towns to satisfy them.
The United States has been the largest single donor of assistance related to the conflict in Syria. The U.S. State Department says that U.S. humanitarian assistance across the region related to the conflict amounts to $1.7 billion to date.
If you see the big announcement before we do—please let us know!