OTTAWA — Results of a taxpayer-funded poll that suggest there is wide support for the Conservative position on banning veils during citizenship ceremonies were publicly released Thursday ahead of a federal election debate where the niqab is expected to be an issue. Read more
BERLIN — The Obama administration will increase the number of worldwide refugees the United States accepts each year to 100,000 by 2017, a significant increase over the current annual cap of 70,000, Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday.
“This step that I am announcing today, I believe, is in keeping with the best tradition of America as a land of second chances and a beacon of hope,” Mr. Kerry said, adding that it “will be accompanied by additional financial contributions” for the relief effort.
When Mohamed and Zeinab first moved to Seattle 14 years ago buying a home was not high on their priorities. Two children and three promotions later and the couple has turned into a family of four. Seattle’s effort to introduce Islamic banking has renewed the family’s hope that they may soon be able to own a new property. ″It is a pretty amazing feeling to know that we can seriously begin to consider a home that we own for our family in the city that we have come to love,″ said Mohamed. ″Back in Jordan, this wouldn’t have been an issue, but here, because of the interest rates, we just decided not to.″
Financial institutions in the area have flagged more than 8,200 suspicious transactions since January, 2012, the year China began cracking down on citizens they suspect of corruption.
Following the European summit on the crisis this week, Hungary has announced the removal of razor wire from a section of its border with Slovenia, while the border between Croatia and Serbia has reopened.
Hungary’s closure of its border with Serbia on 15 September triggered a series of responses that resulted in refugees moving from one border to the next as they tried to reach Germany, Austriaand other European countries that have offered asylum.
Croatia first welcomed the migrants on the assumption they would transit through Slovenia, into Austria and on to Germany. But Slovenia refused to let the people pass, leaving Croatia, one of the poorest EU nations, responsible for them. The government in Zagreb then accused Serbia of shunting the refugees into its territory and closed the cargo crossing in retaliation.
Stephen Harper may not think a Muslim woman should be allowed to take her citizenship oath wearing a niqab, but one of his young party volunteers in Sarnia, Ont., thinks it would be fine…
PARIS – France will not welcome more refugees than the 30,000 it has pledged to host within the next two years as part of a broader European Union plan, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said on Thursday.
“It won’t be more,” Valls said on France 2 television. “We cannot welcome to Europe all those who flee Syria’s dictatorship.”
The 28-country EU plans to take a total 160,000 refugees. Read more
The commission says it also welcomes additional promises from the premiers to ensure support is provided to refugees after they arrive in their respective jurisdictions.
“UNHCR is sincerely grateful to all Canadians across the country who are mobilizing and working with their respective municipal and provincial authorities as well as the federal government to lay groundwork for the resettlement of Syrian refugees and to raise funding in support of emergency operations,” the statement said.
The commission says it will continue to advocate for the resettlement of Syrians around the world and to appeal for financial support.
VIENNA — Moving among the tens of thousands of Syrian war refugees passing through the train stations of Europe are many who are neither Syrian nor refugees, but hoping to blend into the mass migration and find a back door to the West.
There are well-dressed Iranians speaking Farsi who insist they are members of the persecuted Yazidis of Iraq. There are Indians who don’t speak Arabic but say they are from Damascus. There are Pakistanis, Albanians, Egyptians, Kosovars, Somalis and Tunisians from countries with plenty of poverty and violence, but no war.
It should come as no surprise that many migrants seem to be pretending they are someone else. The prize, after all, is the possibility of benefits, residency and work in Europe.
Slovakia will only grant asylum to Christian immigrants from Syria. As part of aEuropean Union plan to relocate 40,000 immigrants, the country will take in 200 people from refugee camps in Greece, Italy and Turkey.
Ivan Netik, a spokesperson for Slovakia’s interior ministry, said: “Muslims will not be granted asylum because they wouldn’t feel at home.”
However, the UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR) branded the decision ‘outrageous’, saying that Slovakia and other countries with similar attitudes should adopt a more ‘inclusive approach’ to the relocation of immigrants.
MONTREAL — The Bloc Québécois produces an attack ad depicting oil from a pipeline transforming into a black niqab and warns things have “gone too far.” A Conservative candidate running south of Montreal urges people to vote wearing ski masks to show their disapproval of the Muslim face-covering. The campaign poster of a Montreal NDP candidate is vandalized to obscure her face as if she is wearing a niqab.
The election campaign in Quebec has turned nasty since the Federal Court of Appeal ruled last week a Toronto woman should be allowed to take the oath of citizenship wearing a niqab, and it is the NDP that is feeling the pinch the most. Read more
Thomas de Maiziere has said there is a limit to the number of migrants European Union member states can take – claiming they “can’t take every refugee”.
In the latest admission of the country’s excessively generous policy towards the migrant crisis, he said: “We cannot accept all the people who are fleeing conflict zones or poverty and want to come to Europe or Germany.”
The interior minister proposed that the EU creates legal routes of passage into Europe that would precisely count the arrivals of migrants and introduce strict quotas.