Month: January 2014

Italy rescues 1,000 illegal migrants in 24 hours

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

What would we do without readers who help us do our work by finding good stories for us?  Again, ‘pungentpeppers’ has been busy reading.

Pretty much the same story we’ve been reporting for years except, of course, the pace has increased and the number of foundering boats and passengers seems to be growing exponentially.   I guess they didn’t hear about the 300 plus who drowned only a few months ago.

Ferrying migrants to Italian shores. AFP Photo

From The Telegraph:

 The Italian navy has rescued more than 1,000 migrants in the 24 hours to Friday from boats trying to reach Europe, as an immigration crisis that killed hundreds in the last year showed no signs of easing.

Navy helicopters spotted four overcrowded boats struggling to stay afloat south of Sicily on Thursday and ships were sent to save them, the navy said in a statement.

The 823 men, women and children aboard the four vessels were from countries including Egypt, Pakistan, Iraq and Tunisia.

The navy also rescued 233 migrants from Eritrea, Nigeria, Somalia, Zambia, Mali and Pakistan in a separate operation and took them to a port near Syracuse on Sicily’s eastern coast.

[….]

Over the past two decades, Italy, Greece and the Mediterranean island of Malta have the brunt of the migrant flows and have urged a coordinated European Union response.

Type ‘Malta’ into our search function and learn about how the Bush Administration, and now the Obama Administration, have helped make Malta a magnet for illegal aliens hoping to get a ticket to America as we have turned hundreds of mostly Somali economic migrants to Malta into legitimate refugees for America.

More on Minneapolis explosion in Somali apartment building

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Firefighters search frozen ruble in Cedar-Riverside neighborhood. Where is Farah? Photo: Star Tribune

Update January 5th:  Must-read post at Gates of Vienna. Lots of questions!  AP reports a third person has died.

Update January 4th:  There are a few more nuggets of information in the latest from the Star Tribune, here.   Could be weeks before the cause of the blast is determined.  Blogger Lee Stranahan has some answers and more questions.

Update:  Second body found an hour or so ago, assumed to be Farah, here.

The story gets stranger and stranger!

Sheesh, I thought I was done with this topic this morning, but reader ‘pungentpeppers’ commented that there is another version of the Star Tribune explosion story that has this paragraph in it regarding the supposedly unaccounted-for man (in red):

“Family members identified the two people not accounted for as Mrimri Farah, said to be about 60 years old, and Ahmad Ali, 57, who shared an apartment. ………

Farah previously served in the U.S. Army and at one point was stationed in Iraq, said Shareef Hassan, a friend. Farah had gone to live in Somalia and came back to live in Minneapolis a couple of months ago.”

The version of the story I posted this morning (which did not have this paragraph) was from 6:51 p.m. yesterday and the version ‘pungentpeppers’ found was from 9:31 p.m. also last night.

Where is Farah?

Centers for Disease Control attempts to keep Americans safe as refugees enter US

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

When I wrote the post yesterday about Syrian refugees carrying polio to surrounding countries, I went off on a google search of other medical problems relating to refugees (something we have written a lot about in previous posts in our health issues category).

I was especially interested in intestinal parasites as just the day before a friend told me how the presence of parasites can cause all sorts of other health problems not considered initially connected to the parasites.    I see that the Centers for Disease Control has an entire section of its website devoted to health issues involving refugees, here (Immigrant and Refugee Health).

The tapeworm diet—stay slim with intestinal parasites!

As for those parasites, the CDC has guidelines for treatment before the refugees even enter the US, but that they are not always followed:

These guidelines are recommendations for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) physicians and other panel physicians who administer overseas predeparture presumptive treatment for intestinal parasites. While most recommendations have been implemented, not all refugee populations listed in this document are receiving all recommended pre-departure medications, due to funding restrictions and logistical challenges.

I’m presuming that the federal refugee contractors (and their approximately 300 subcontractors) are training all of their volunteers about health safety precautions when dealing with newly arrived refugees who may have TB, HIV/AIDS, polio, or parasites to name just a few highly communicable health risks.

Obesity in Somali women noted in Swedish study

Unrelated to the CDC, but not worth a whole post on it’s own, is this medical news from Sweden. Somali women get fat on western diet, have low self-esteem, feel alienated from society and have a higher risk of heart attacks.

The last-decade incidence of myocardial infarction (MI) has diminished dramatically in most age groups but not in middle-aged women in Sweden. There has been a large influx of immigrants and it has been shown that immigrant women have a higher BMI and are less physically active than Swedish women.

[….]

The study revealed that Somali migrated women in Sweden had changed their diet and experienced weight increase. They reported low self-esteem and little motivation for physical activity. They understood that they had a higher risk for heart disease as compared to Swedish women and they had, in general, a preference for big body size. The women of this study are, in combination with other risk factors, at a high risk of myocardial infarction. They all revealed a general knowledge about the relationship between obesity and inactivity and enhanced risks for heart disease. They had a preference for a larger female body image. They expressed low self-esteem, loneliness, and alienation from society.

Since the study was so small, the recommendation is for a larger study.   I think we can assume, however, that parasites are not the primary cause of the women’s health problems in this case.

The cartoon is from this article about the dangers of tapeworm dieting!

Minneapolis explosion update: Fire chief says natural gas, gas company says no

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update:  New information added to this Star Tribune story, go here.

Also, one body was recovered yesterday from the scene of the explosion and fire in Cedar-Riverside neighborhood home to a large number of Somali refugees who have flocked to Minnesota over the last couple of decades.  See our earlier post here.

According to the Star Tribune, Rep. Keith Ellison stopped by the scene to offer his services. 2014 is an election year.

From the Minneapolis Star-Tribune thanks to Richard of Blue Ridge Forum:

A body was recovered Thursday afternoon from the wreckage of the three-story Minneapolis apartment building destroyed by a New Year’s Day explosion, fire officials confirmed.

“At approximately 1:55 p.m. Minneapolis Fire Department officials confirmed that one body was discovered in the structure at 516 Cedar Ave. S.,” said a statement by Assistant Fire Chief Chérie A. Penn.

Penn said the victim has been turned over to the Hennepin County medical examiner’s office. She said crews will continue to remove debris until dark and will resume their work Friday morning.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation. At a news conference Thursday afternoon, the Minneapolis fire chief said the fire in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood was most likely caused by a natural gas leak.

Gas company says they had no natural gas in the area.  Homeland Security has ruled out an explosive device.

Fire Chief John Fruetel said Thursday afternoon that witness accounts of a natural gas smell and the explosion strongly suggest that gas was involved.

Fruetel added that the fire began either on the second floor or third floor.

But Fruetel also said that investigators are not certain what caused the fire and they may never be certain. He said four or five investigators have been on the site around the clock, looking for evidence such as debris patterns.

A spokeswoman for the natural gas utility CenterPoint Energy strongly discounted natural gas as a likely cause.

“We had no natural gas in the area,” said Rebecca Virden, basing her information on CenterPoint’s own investigation and testing in the area.

If it were attributed to natural gas, Virden added, “the roof would come off, the walls would come out.”

She offered that if there was a gas involved, “it could be a different type of gas.”

She offered that if there was a gas involved, “it could be a different type of gas.”

Asked about CenterPoint’s denial, Fruetel said, “I’m just basing it on what my investigators say.”

He said officials haven’t determined it was natural gas, but said that is what they’re focused on.

The chief called the scene an active investigation that has early on ruled out any signs of an explosive device. Homeland Security personnel were on the scene in the aftermath of the fire that sent 14 people to hospitals, six in critical condition.

There is more, read it all!

Photo is from the Investigative Project on Terrorism, here.

South Africa: Now that Mandela is dead the foreign migrants must leave?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

As I read this one more story about “xenophobic” attacks in South Africa entitled ‘Six shot amid xenophobic mayhem,‘ I said to myself, ho-hum, nothing new here—the rainbow nation is crumbling (if it ever existed!).   Then near the end this line jumped out at me:

“People have been talking a lot lately, saying Mandela is dead so all the Zimbabweans and Mozambicans must leave now. But I think people are people. Everybody belongs,” she said.

So, is she admitting it was all a Leftist myth that black South Africans would “welcome” the stranger and as long as Mandela lived they had to keep up the front? And, although she appears “welcoming” her fellow black South Africans (it is not the white boys robbing the Somali shops) obviously want to keep South Africa for their kind of people.  In this case, the Somalis, Zimbabweans and Mozambicans, although the same race, are not their people and they want them to go back to where they came from!

In June Somalis protested xenophobic attacks against them in Cape Town.

Here is the news from Independent Online:

Johannesburg – At least six people, including a 6-year-old child, were shot in Munsieville, Krugersdorp, in a New Year’s Eve attack.

A woman who lived near a Somali shop said trouble started at about 4pm when a teenager entered the small shop, known in the area as the “family store”, with a knife and tried to steal some bread.

The shop was rebuilt recently, after being burnt down two months ago in an attack on Somali shopkeepers.

The woman, who did not want to be named because she feared reprisals from neighbours, said she heard shouting and saw a boy running down the road.

The eyewitness said the youth was shot by one of the shopowners and collapsed near a tree on the edge of a road.

“I heard it. I thought it was a cricket (firecracker), but I saw the teenager running and then he fell down. I think he was dead,” she said.

Police arrived after the shooting and made some arrests, leaving the shop open, she said.

Residents, many of them teenage boys, decided it would be a good opportunity to raid the shop. But there was resistance from the Somalis, who defended themselves by shooting at their attackers, witnesses said.

Read on as the mayhem continued.  And, the comments go on for pages!

Photo is from this story we reported over the summer.