Month: July 2008

Speaking the hard truth about Africa

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update:  You might want to see comments on Myers article at American Renaissance here.

It’s almost a year since I wrote about an article by Kevin Myers from Ireland.   And, I thought about Ireland the other day when I saw a puff piece about some new batch of refugees arriving there.  (I didn’t post on it because it was the same old-same old).   Then today, a reader, sent me this article from Ireland’s  Independent by Myers.   Thanks Josh.

Myers doesn’t pull his punches does he?   This is how it begins, but please read the whole article: 

No. It will not do. Even as we see African states refusing to take action to restore something resembling civilisation in Zimbabwe, the begging bowl for Ethiopia is being passed around to us, yet again. It is nearly 25 years since Ethiopia’s (and Bob Geldof’s) famous Feed The World campaign, and in that time Ethiopia’s population has grown from 33.5 million to 78 million today.

So why on earth should I do anything to encourage further catastrophic demographic growth in that country? Where is the logic? There is none. To be sure, there are two things saying that logic doesn’t count.

One is my conscience, and the other is the picture, yet again, of another wide-eyed child, yet again, gazing, yet again, at the camera, which yet again, captures the tragedy of . . .

Sorry. My conscience has toured this territory on foot and financially. Unlike most of you, I have been to Ethiopia; like most of you, I have stumped up the loot to charities to stop starvation there. The wide-eyed boy-child we saved, 20 years or so ago, is now a priapic, Kalashnikov-bearing hearty, siring children whenever the whim takes him.

And then he says about Somalia:

Alas, that wretched country is not alone in its madness. Somewhere, over the rainbow, lies Somalia, another fine land of violent, Kalashnikov-toting, khat-chewing, girl-circumcising, permanently tumescent layabouts.

Indeed, we now have almost an entire continent of sexually hyperactive indigents, with tens of millions of people who only survive because of help from the outside world.

Write to Mr. Myers:   kmyers@independent.ie

You may wish to write a letter to the editor at the Independent here:  letters@independent.ie

See our coverage of the recent anti-immigrant riots in South Africa here.  And, Somalis in America here.

I need some computer geek to tell me what is up!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I admit I am completely ignorant about the inner workings of the internet.   Would someone please tell me why I cannot access any link at the Office of Refugee Resettlement?   Every time I try to get to one of the databases or reports there, or in fact even the main page for ORR, I get an error message.    This has gone on for weeks and I even get the error message coming from google.  Am I just incompetent or paranoid (or both!)

I don’t see how it is possible, but tell me, is it possible for someone to block me?   Are any of the rest of you having problems accessing the Office of Refugee Resettlement?

Catholic Charities off the hook in abortion case

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We told you previously about how a Catholic Charities employee in Virginia helped an immigrant girl get an abortion.  Technically the underage girl was in the legal charge of the Office of Refugee Resettlement because the whereabouts of her parents is unknown. 

Local Catholic Charities offices that help with refugee resettlement and who take care of minors like this Guatemalan girl are under the umbrella of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, one of the 10 major volags contracted by the federal government to do this type of work.

The story is being widely covered but here is an update this morning from a Catholic publication:

RICHMOND, Virginia, July 9, 2008 The Attorney for the Commonwealth of Virginia says he will investigate, but has no intentions of prosecuting, Commonwealth Catholic Charities of Richmond (CCR) for their involvement in procuring an illegal abortion for a 16-year-old Guatemalan girl in their care.

Only the CCR staffer who forged the consent form for the girl’s abortion will be the subject of Commonwealth Attorney Michael N. Herring’s investigation. The staffer would face a Class 3 misdemeanor punishable by a $500 fine for signing a consent form without authority to do so under Virginia law.

“That’s the only possible criminal angle,” Herring told the Richmond Times-Dispatch. “I’m not investigating Catholic Charities. I’m looking into the execution of the consent form.”

Here is our original story from last month.

More on North Korean refugees possibly coming to the US

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

At the end of June I wrote a post in which I said that the drumbeats had begun to bring North Korean refugees to the United States.  I wondered why they couldn’t just go to South Korea—they are all Koreans afterall!  A reader named simply  “R” told me I didn’t know what I was talking about.   That is o.k.  I admit I don’t know everything.  It is not my job to be an expert on every refugee “crisis” in the world.   I see my job as bringing information, even incomplete information, to the average citizen who has a right to know what government bureaucrats and elitist NGO types are doing.

My blood is boiling because this touches on my driving force.  I get furious at those oh-so-smart people who have plans that affect ordinary people (affect refugees too) who keep their secrets (whoever has the information has the power in Washington) because somehow the rest of us are not smart enough to understand what is good for us.  It is that patronizing attitude that makes me want to scream!

I’m getting away from the subject, but I would never have started writing this blog or asking my original questions last year in Hagerstown, MD if I felt we were being told the truth and not being treated like we, regular people, were too stupid to understand the big picture—that someone sharper than we were was planning for what was good for us.  They know they can’t win—promote their plans—if the rest of us are equally informed.

So, I asked “R” to tell us all what was going on, but he/she hasn’t been back.  It’s easy to jump in with a comment about how I’m wrong and then disappear.  Well, if I am wrong then tell us where I am wrong!

Thankfully another reader, Mark, submitted additional comments and sent the following information.  Eventually, “R”, we will put it together.

This is an interesting proposal from writers at the American Enterprise Institute suggesting the US create a kind of underground railroad to freedom for North Koreans through China.   O.K. sounds like a plan as long as the last stop on the line is South Korea.    Apparently South Korea is constitutionally obliged to take North Korean refugees.

Some will worry loudly about international resettlement for tens (never mind hundreds) of thousands of North Korean refugees, but the logistical issues are basically solved in advance: as a matter of national law, South Korea is obliged to welcome them all. Under Articles 2 and 3 of the Republic of Korea’s Constitution, as reaffirmed by the country’s Supreme Court in 1996, every North Korean refugee has the right to resettle in South Korea. Commitments by Washington and other free governments to take in North Korean refugees are desirable and commendable (the United States is already committed to doing so under the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004), but it is natural and fitting that South Korea should be the destination for the overwhelming majority of North Korea’s freedom-seekers.

I don’t agree with the part about us taking Korean “refugees” as “desireable and commendable”, but the concept sounds like a generally good plan assuming we have government people brave enough and tough enough to buck the Chinese.

Apparently there is legislation in Congress involving North Korean Human Rights here.  And, then here is an older post at VDARE (Is America the World’s Kleenex) about this issue indicating that its been around for awhile.

Readers:  Please continue to send us links to your research on the North Korean refugee issue.

Good summary of the Bhutanese situation

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We have written about the Bhutanese refugees on many many occasions and this article has nothing new.  However, I am posting it because it is a good summary of what the situation is at a time when some of you have Bhutanese refugees coming into your communities.    Also, some of our newest readers may be unfamiliar with the fact that the US will be bringing 60,000 refugees from camps in Nepal over the next few years.

According to the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Nepal, seven western governments — the United States, the Netherlands, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Norway and Denmark — have offered to resettle nearly 90 thousand refugees.

The United States said it was ready to pick up 60,000 initially, followed by as many as wishing, in the next five years.

That last sentence is a little confusing because our Presidential determination for FY 2008 has set the ceiling for the total number of refugees from around the world at 80,000.  It is extremely unlikely that 60,000 would come from one country alone.

Please read the article because you should know that some Bhutanese do not want to be sent to another country and it has caused conflicts in the camps and splits in families as well.