Tag: UN

It’s all about those damn Saudis!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Obama in the famous butt shot bowing to King Abdullah (“yes massah”)!

Update:  Here is more—good riddance to bad rubbish!

I saw this story in my small-city newspaper the other day and it frosted me—‘Saudi withdrawal stuns UN Security Council‘ about how the “Kingdom” turned down a seat at the UN Security Council (good!) because they are p*****-off at Washington for not starting more wars in the Middle East with Syria and with Iran.  Who the hell do they think they are?

Are we starting costly wars to protect Saudi Arabia?  And, in the wake of those wars, we get the Muslim refugees (the Saudis take none!) who come to America where Saudi Arabia builds them mosques and schools and we pay for their welfare.  What do we get out of this deal?

From AFP at Yahoo News (emphasis mine):

UNITED NATIONS (United States) (AFP) – Saudi Arabia angrily rejected a UN Security Council seat Friday, accusing the UN body of “double standards” over the Syria war and other trouble spots in an unprecedented diplomatic broadside.

The Saudi snub sparked disarray at the Security Council. The oil-rich Gulf monarchy had only won the seat on Thursday at a UN General Assembly election.

World peace and security—blah! blah! blah!

But senior UN envoys said they did not expect the Saudi government to reverse the decision, which was announced in an outspoken foreign ministry statement.

“Work mechanisms and double-standards on the Security Council prevent it from carrying out its duties and assuming its responsibilities in keeping world peace,” the ministry said.

Saudi Arabia “has no other option but to turn down Security Council membership until it is reformed and given the means to accomplish its duties and assume its responsiblities in preserving the world’s peace and security.”

The government said “allowing the ruling regime in Syria to kill and burn its people” with chemical weapons is “irrefutable evidence and proof of the inability of the Security Council to carry out its duties and responsibilities.”

Diplomats and analysts said the Saudi gesture was mainly directed at the United States, which first threatened a military strike against Syria then backed down and which has started a dialogue with Riyadh’s arch-foe Iran.

By the way, we have been following the Syrian “refugee crisis” closely and have not seen one word about Saudi Arabia offering to take a single Syrian “refugee” in response to the UN’s call for countries “with the means” to step up and offer third-country resettlement.   I have not seen the UN call them out on it either!   Shouldn’t Samantha Power be lecturing them on the ‘responsibility to protect?’

Japanese refugee resettlement program falling apart already

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

A few years ago, and after much pressure from the United Nations and the international humanitarian cabal, Japan reluctantly agreed to take some refugees.  Seems things aren’t working out so well as the 16 they planned to take this year backed out (Did they hear that the work was hard in Japan?).

As the program collapses and with a straight face, supporters of bringing the joys of diversity to Japan say ‘Japan will be left behind the international society!’

First consider visiting some of our older posts about Japan being dragged kicking and screaming into diluting its unique culture by typing ‘Japan’ into our search function.  Here is one story you might start with.  One of my favorite stories about Japan was this one where a blogger says he thinks Somalis would get along very well in Japan, and I don’t think he is kidding!

Now here is the latest news from Mainichi:

This year, the third since Japan launched a refugee resettlement system for refugees forced out of their homelands, it appears that the number of refugees applying to come and settle in Japan will sink to zero.

Supporters of these refugees warn that if nothing is done to improve the situation, Japan will be left behind by international society. This prodded me into thinking about what stance the nation should take on the refugees who fill the world.

Since 2010, 45 Myanmar refugees who had resided in refugee camps in Thailand have come to Japan to live under the nation’s refugee resettlement system. In September this year, Japan was due to accept 16 refugees from three families in its third round of the resettlement program. But before they left Thailand, relatives of one of the three families pleaded with them not to go, and that family subsequently made a turnabout and remained in Thailand. Another related family joined them in staying behind, and the remaining family felt uneasy about moving to Japan alone, so gave up on the idea. In the end, the number of applicants is said to have fallen to zero.

No applicants want to come this year!

In 2010, the United States accepted 54,077 refugees for resettlement. The corresponding figures for Canada and Australia were 6,706, and 5,636, respectively. Japan, on the other hand, accepted a mere 27 in its resettlement system. International society, which realized that Japan is not a country built on immigration, hoped that Japan could give birth to a small system that would grow into a large one. In March this year, Japan decided to extend the system for another two years, but the shock of having no applicants is rocking the system’s foundations.

Yikes!  Hard work!  And, this after they have had a “mere” six months of language and cultural orientation training (Imagine that, in the US the volags give refugees the ol’ heave-ho at well under six months and then we are giving publically-funded language and cultural training to Somalis on their culture and language!).

Improvements in the way refugees are accepted once they arrive in Japan are also vital. Two families from the first round of Myanmar refugees that arrived in Japan the year before last underwent workplace adaption training at an agricultural corporation in Chiba Prefecture, but claimed they were forced to work for long hours, contrary to what they had been told, and so they refused to work for the corporation and moved to Tokyo instead. The possibility cannot be ruled out that news of the commotion surrounding these two families eventually made its way to the refugee camp in Thailand, prompting other families to refrain from applying for the refugee resettlement program.

Read it all.  Will the UN pounce on Japan?  Watch for it!