How many Syrians has Emma Thompson ‘welcomed’ to her home?
Could it be that the government is slow because they have a better idea of who these people are than Emma Thompson does? Or, how many more poor people the economy can afford?
Speaking of who these people are, check out the list below of those “celebrities” who signed the letter to David Cameron (who are these people?).
And, more importantly how many refugees are they housing in their luxury homes?
This story is a couple of days old, but wanted to be sure to post it before I leave town tomorrow. By the way, if my alerts are any guide they got a lot of ink for the latest publicity stunt.
LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – A star-studded list of UK celebrities from Oscar-winning actress Emma Thompson, to musician Sting and designer Vivienne Westwood wrote to Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday, criticizing the government for not welcoming more Syrian refugees.
[….]
“Resettling ‘several hundred people’ just isn’t good enough for a global leader. This issue isn’t about migration statistics or party politics, it’s about people. It’s about the values that we in Britain hold dear; compassion and humanity.”
Other celebrities who lent their support were actresses Vanessa Redgrave, Juliet Stevenson and Michelle Dockery, artist Grayson Perry, and film directors Ken Loach and Stephen Frears. Television presenters Michael Palin and Dan Snow and fashion designer Bella Freud also signed the letter.
Leo Hohmann writing at World Net Daily today reports on the locations where Syrian (mostly Muslim) refugees will be resettling in America. Some of his news might not be new to regular readers of RRW (he quotes us), but he includes a long section on the plight of the Syrian Christians which I did not know much about.
Here is his introduction to the report entitled, Secret planting of up to 75,000 Syrian Muslims begins in U.S.:
“Up to 10,000 Syrian refugees, most of them Muslims, will be resettled in cities throughout the U.S. in 2015, with that figure expected to surge to near 75,000 over the next five years.
While some of the planned destinations for these refugees are starting to leak out, the big question is: where will they be going?
The U.S. State Department does not announce where it plans to send foreign refugees for resettlement within the United States, although the locations do eventually show up in a government database some weeks after they arrive in their host cities. Word of their anticipated arrivals will sometimes surface earlier in local media reports.
And that’s already happening in North Dakota, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio and Washington.”
I urge you to read it all. WND is one of the only national news outlets that tells the public who the federal resettlement contractors are that operate in 180 cities across America. See our archive, here, of other reports from WND.
“Islamic State militants have taken over practically the whole area from where migrant crossings are launched and are effectively running the whole show, a prominent Libyan politician has warned.
Speaking to Italian journalists during the Davos World Economic Forum, former Libyan Finance Minister Ali Tarhouni, who now serves as President of the Constituent Assembly of Libya, warned that the EU is underestimating the risk of IS militants infiltrating Europe’s shores hidden among refugees.”
Remember readers! The US State Department each year takes hundreds of the illegal alien boat people who arrive on Malta from Libya and other places in North Africa to the US as refugees. See the latesthere. See our entire seven-year-old Malta archive here.
Editor: The Malta Independent must be having some issues, be persistent, the link will eventually work!
There is a very informative article today about what is happening in Turkey where it is believed that the Paris ‘wife’ (Hayat Boumeddiene) of one of the recent Muslim killers easily slipped into Turkey and then equally easily crossed into the IS stronghold in Syria.
We previously heard that Obama’s only real pal in the world was Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. I wonder if they are still best buds? Here with their wives in 2009. Photo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Recep_Tayyip_Erdogan_with_Obamas.jpg
Compounding the terrorist detection problem is the deteriorating relationship of other European countries with Turkey.
The story is from an Australian paper called the Bega District News and written by Middle East Correspondent Ruth Pollard.
Here are some snips relating to the very real problem that the refugee population there surely harbors Islamic State infiltrators.
Setting the stage:
It is a conduit for money, weapons, oil and fighters – and it rarely discriminates.
Whether you’re a moderate rebel or an Islamic State jihadist, Turkey’s 900-kilometre border with Syria has long been a vital supply route for those fighting on the front lines of Syria’s brutal civil war. More than 1.5 million refugees have also fled across this border.
But Turkey’s hope that any fighter – no matter how extreme – would help opposition rebels bring down the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has proven unfounded.
Instead, Assad remains in power, while extremist groups such as the Islamic State and al-Qaeda backed Jabhat al-Nusra have gained significant ground at the expense of what’s left of the Free Syrian Army and the other groups fighting to overthrow the regime.
And all the while, the terror these extremist groups practise is creeping ever closer towards Turkey.
Then near the end:
It is naive to believe that all the refugees who cross from Syria into Turkey are genuinely fleeing the regime, Sadik (Assistant Professor Giray Sadik from the Yildirim Beyazit University) says.
“It is almost inevitable that there will be some fighters in the almost 2 million refugees we have hosted since the eruption of the Syrian crisis. There is a need for enhanced security cooperation and also emergency humanitarian cooperation with the EU – on both sides it is far from being satisfactory.”
One thing is certain, he says. Turkey, like Europe, is vulnerable to attack because of its borders and the presence of foreign fighters on its soil.
Back in September 2014 we reported that the US State Department sent Simon Henshaw to discuss taking Syrian refugees from Turkey, here. We haven’t resettled too many Syrians yet, only a few hundred, but I see in State Department statisticsthat we have processed 1,340 refugees through Turkey in only the first three months of this fiscal year (Oct-Dec 2014). I wonder who they are.
In those three months of FY2015 only three other processing countries supplied larger numbers of refugees to America than did Turkey: Iraq (2,881), Malaysia (2,130) and Thailand (1,390).
And, frankly, this is how it should be! Private groups should put their money where their mouths are!
The Reverend Loraine MacKenzie Shepherd is “disappointed” that private sponsors will have to foot the bill for the Syrian refugees.
In the US virtually 100% of the refugees are resettled with taxpayer money that is laundered through private groups masquerading as mostly “religious charities.” Our Refugee Resettlement Program was supposed to be a public/private partnership but gradually the public has come to be almost the sole source of funding as some “charities” are 90% and upwards funded from the US Treasury.
Groups that sponsor refugees welcome — and question — Canada’s latest commitment to resettle another 10,000 people forced to flee Syria and 3,000 from Iraq.
“The announcement was short on details,” said Brian Dyck, chairman of the Canadian Refugee Sponsorship Agreement Holders Association.
“We want to get more clarity.”
He said they hope to get some answers during a teleconference Wednesday with officials from Citizenship and Immigration Canada.
The federal government has agreed to assist 40 per cent of the refugees it has committed to take from Syria and Iraq. It will be up to private sponsors — individuals, faith groups and charitable organizations — to take responsibility for the other 60 per cent.
That means the federal government will pick up the tab for 4,000 of the 10,000 Syrians it’s pledged to resettle in the next three years.
“When you strip away the smoke and mirrors represented by talking big with that 10,000 number… you see that it’s really only 4,000 and the rest is ‘maybe,’ ” said Tom Denton, executive director of Hospitality House Refugee Ministry in Winnipeg.
Rev. Loraine MacKenzie Shepherd of Westworth United Church said she was happy to read about Canada stepping up to welcome another 10,000 Syrians but “disappointed” to learn private sponsors are expected to help most of them.
Maybe the good Reverend has a spare room or two at her house!
Leo Hohmann writing at 
