Category: Africa

Minnesota dessert-maker to be sued by CAIR over Somali dress code dispute

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I sure hope this company has deep pockets (remember the Minnesota Gold & Plump chicken plant settlement?)  And to tell you the truth what would prompt any Minnesota company to hire Somalis—aren’t they following the Somali lawsuit history right there in their own state!

Here is the tale of woe to be visited on Dianne’s Desserts (I previously mentioned the controversy here):

The Council on American-Islamic Relations is preparing to file discrimination charges against Dianne’s Fine Desserts for allegedly mistreating Somali workers.

About 45 Somali workers walked off their work site because they refused to follow a new dress code mandating that workers roll up their skirts so they are “15 inches from the ground,” which some are calling a “burqa ban.” CAIR’s president says that new policy was merely a pretext for something more sinister.

“We have more going on here than just a new dress code,” Lori Saroya told the Faribault Daily News. “We’re hearing about an extremely hostile work environment that they’ve been dealing with. We’re hearing the dress code was created to target the Somali employees because the company knew they couldn’t comply with it so they could get rid of them. Many of these people are reporting being subjected to other forms of harassment, and it’s shocking.”

Then here is the kind of thinking that gets these people (owners and managers of companies) in trouble—we are keeping our demographics about the same!  Say what!  Is this what we have come to?  We have to have one of this race, and one of that race, and one of that religious group and one from this country and one from that country!

Knowles [Mike Knowles, owner of Dianne’s] said Dianne’s has hired people to replace at least a portion of the workers already while keeping the demographics about the same. Many have already been replaced, according to Knowles’s comments in the Daily News.

“We have hired a number of diverse workers who are willing to abide by the new safety rules. We’re continuing to run the plant and keep things going. We are getting new applicants every day,” Knowles said. He pledged full cooperation with the EEOC and said he looks forward “to the opportunity for the truth to come out.”

Meanwhile, we learned today that Norway is sending Somalis back to Somalia!

Vlad Tepes blog: Norway getting ready to return Somali migrants to Somalia (wow!)

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Well heck, why not!  It was only a few weeks ago we learned that Mogadishu is safe—read all about it here!

We have heard of Canada sending Somali criminals back, but this is amazing for Norway!

Vlad Tepes:

In deepest secrecy, the government has prepared a return accord with Somalia.

It means that asylum seekers from Mogadishu and other southern somali regions can be sent back by force.

Somalis are the biggest group of asylum seekers to Norway. All in all, 1422 asylum seekers from Somalia came to Norway in 2011.

Last week, hidden meetings were held among state secretary Pål Lønseth (Ap) [socialdemocrates] and Somalia’s home minister, Abdisamad Mo’allin Mohamud.

VG Nett [this paper] knew before about the meeting but chose, for reasons of security, to wait with publishing the information until the minister had left the country.

Be sure to read the comments.

Wall Street Journal finally gets around to the story about banks refusing to send money to Somalia

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This issue has been around for months (we first reported the “crisis” last December, here), but I see it finally made the big time just last week when The Wall Street Journal reported the hot (not!) news here.

Efforts by U.S. banks to avoid violating antiterrorism financing laws are crimping the ability of Somalis in the U.S. to send money home, prompting calls for Congress to revisit bank regulations on money transfers.

Somalis in the U.S. use money-transfer merchants, informally known as “hawalas,” to send about $100 million annually to Somalia, according to the U.S. Treasury Department. The East African country, where there is no formal banking system, has been without a functioning government since 1991, when civil war erupted and forced tens of thousands to flee.

U.S.-based Somali hawalas, which are federally licensed, rely on banks to wire funds to their counterparts in Africa, who deliver the money to the designated recipients. But increasingly, U.S. banks say they are severing ties with the informal and opaque system to avoid violating federal banking regulations, such as anti-money-laundering rules.

Read it all if you feel like it.

Don’t you just wonder where Somalis are getting $100 million annually to send out of the country! 

Criminals and terrorists wreaking havoc in refugee camps for Somalis in Kenya

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The place is infested!   More on the campaign to get them to your towns and cities ASAP?  But wait!  Didn’t we hear just ten days ago that Mogadishu is safe?

From Sabahi:

UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesman for Kenya Emmanuel Nyabera said security fears have greatly affected the provision of medical and food aid to the more than 500,000 refugees in the complex comprised of Hagadera, Ifo, Ifo II and Dagahaley camps.

“Everyone from the refugees, aid workers, law enforcers and the host community is affected by criminal activities of the al-Shabaab militants and other criminal elements in the camps,” Nyabera told Sabahi.

He said when aid workers are faced with the prospect of kidnappings, landmines and grenade attacks from the al-Qaeda-allied al-Shabaab movement, it affects morale at the camp.

Last year, al-Shabaab kidnapped three Doctors Without Borders aid workers in the camps. This was followed by a spate of landmine and grenade attacks that killed several Kenyan security officers and fatal shootings of some refugee leaders.

Getting ready for war in the “rainbow nation”

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

No time to do this story justice today, but I have written on many occasions about the myth of the “Rainbow Nation”—South Africa (please use our search function and type in ‘rainbow nation’ for the many stories).  I wonder will we in the civilized West be giving refugee status to whites escaping persecution by elements of the South African government (the ANC Youth League)—hmmm?

Here is the dreadful story from News 24 in Johannesburg:

Johannesburg – The son of a murdered farmer has challenged ANC Youth League statements that land should be taken without compensation, according to a report on Friday.

Hanno van Rensburg, son of the murdered farmer, Johan van Rensburg, 77, blamed the ANC Youth League for the crime in which his mother Gloudien, 65, was also critically wounded, reported Beeld newspaper.

“The ANC Youth League say they want to take our land by violent means and declare war. If they want war, they must come. I’ll fucking shoot them. My family’s blood has been spilt on this land.”

Ronald Lamola, deputy president of the ANC Youth League, called on Tuesday night at the Durban University of Technology for the expropriation of land without compensation.

“We need an act as forceful as war to bring it back to the Africans,” Lomola said.

Henry Geldenhuys, deputy president of the Transvaal Agricultural Union, said Lamola was inciting violence.

“There’s no option left for the farmers but to prepare for a war.“

American tourists were witnesses to the murder, here.