UN Declaration, Regular, Constant Global Migration = Insurgency

Berlin A new series launched by the Global Migration Data Analysis Centre (GMDAC) of IOM, the UN Migration Agency, aims to summarize the existing evidence on migration in an accurate and accessible fashion, to support discussions and any follow-up activities of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration.

Note the words orderly and regular….if the United Nations and peacekeeping operations as well as the aid, education, construction and protection campaigns were successful, migration would not be required especially in non-war torn countries. Right? Or how about all these other global human interest organizations….they failing too? Those like the Clinton Foundation or hey how about the Gates Foundation, which is a private foundation founded by Bill and Melinda Gates. It was launched in 2000 and is said to be the largest private foundation in the US, holding $38 billion in assets, improving lives from Seattle to South Africa….ahem.

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Check here for the largest 10 organizations…. if all this work and money and resources were effective, then why the migration at all?

More here.

The New York Declaration

For the first time on 19 September 2016 Heads of State and Government came together to discuss, at the global level within the UN General Assembly, issues related to migration and refugees. This sent an important political message that migration and refugee matters have become major issues in the international agenda. In adopting the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, the 193 UN Member States recognized the need for a comprehensive approach to human mobility and enhanced cooperation at the global level.

What are the aims of the global compact for migration?

The global compact is framed consistent with target 10.7 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in which member States committed to cooperate internationally to facilitate safe, orderly and regular migration and its scope is defined in Annex II of the New York Declaration. It is intended to:

  • address all aspects of international migration, including the humanitarian, developmental, human rights-related and other aspects;
  • make an important contribution to global governance and enhance coordination on international migration;
  • present a framework for comprehensive international cooperation on migrants and human mobility;
  • set out a range of actionable commitments, means of implementation and a framework for follow-up and review among Member States regarding international migration in all its dimensions;
  • be guided by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda; and
  • be informed by the Declaration of the 2013 High-Level Dialogue on International Migration and Development.

The development of the global compact for migration – an open, transparent and inclusive process

The Modalities Resolution for the intergovernmental negotiations of the global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration outline the key elements and timeline of the process. The global compact will be developed through an open, transparent and inclusive process of consultations and negotiations and the effective participation of all relevant stakeholders, including civil society, the private sector, academic institutions, parliaments, diaspora communities, and migrant organizations in both the intergovernmental conference and its preparatory process.

 

Iran’s Supreme Leader, the Nuclear Deal, Protests and Boeing

It is the conglomerate that the Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Khamenei owns exclusively. “Setad Ejraiye Farmane Hazrate Emam,” or Setad.

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Setad was originally sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury in June 2013. The conglomerate “produces billions of dollars in profits for the Iranian regime each year,” said David Cohen, then the Treasury’s under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, at a Senate banking committee hearing that year.

Setad, Cohen said at the time, controls “massive off-the-books investments” hidden from the Iranian people and regulators.

All entities sanctioned for being part of the Iranian government are being taken off the SDN list as part of the nuclear deal, also called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), though U.S. persons and entities will still be banned from dealing with them.

In January of 2017, a review by Reuters noted: But a Reuters review of business accords reached since then shows that the Iranian winners so far are mostly companies owned or controlled by the state, including Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Of nearly 110 agreements worth at least $80 billion that have been struck since the deal was reached in July 2015, 90 have been with companies owned or controlled by Iranian state entities, the Reuters analysis shows.

In December of 2017: Treasury Department officials must publish a report chronicling the financial assets of Iran’s top leaders, under a bill that passed the House on Wednesday.

The legislation, which passed 289-135, must still clear the Senate before President Trump can sign it into law. It’s a potential boon to Iranian dissidents against the regime, who stand to gain insight into corruption by top officials.

Related:

Podcast – Upheaval in Iran: Causes and Consequences

Meanwhile, as the protests continue in Iran against the regime and rightly so, questions arise due to not only Senate votes on sanctions but staying with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, meaning the Iran nuclear deal.

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Why is there even a question based on additional facts surfacing in the last year? Well, the left and those that remain with John Kerry and Barack Obama are adding new pressures to stay in the JCPOA. Further, complications arise from those countries that are also part of the deal. They too want the deal sustained.

In a story titled “U.S. security experts back Iran nuclear deal, as Trump faces deadlines,” Reuters reports that a coalition of national security experts want the president to continue the Iran deal. The report claims, without any context, that all of the people who signed a letter in favor of the deal are “national security experts.” Additionally, these “experts” are from an organization called the “National Coalition to Prevent an Iranian Nuclear Weapon.”

It turns out, however, that some of those listed on the document have severe conflicts of interests, none of which were disclosed in the letter.

It also turns out that the National Coalition to Prevent an Iranian Nuclear Weapon is not an actual organization. A Google search of the group turned up nothing before Monday. The group was created this week with the apparent purpose of garnering support for the nuclear deal. None of this is reported in the Reuters article. It is only revealed through the group’s statement provided on The National Interest website.

The outfit’s title also presumes its members are national security hawks, when this is far from the case.

Members of the “National Coalition” include a who’s who of the prominent organizers of the campaign to rally support for the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Tehran.

Included on the list is Joseph Cirincione, who served as the money man for President Obama’s Iran “echo chamber.” Cirincione has admitted to paying off a “network of 85 organizations and 200 individuals” who were “decisive in the battle for public opinion” over the Iran deal.

Gary Sick, another signee, was one of the chief organizers of the Iran echo chamber. According to the Washington Free Beacon, Sick created an invite-only listserv to distribute pro-Tehran talking points to Obama-friendly journalists and influential figures.

The coalition also includes Ambassador Thomas Pickering, who is a paid lobbyist for Boeing. The aviation company is attempting to secure a multi-billion-dollar jetliner deal with the Iranian regime. If the Iran deal falls through, so does Boeing’s deal.

Paul Pillar, a disgraced former CIA officer who was also on the letter, once drafted talking points arguing that it’s not a big deal if Iran is able to develop a nuclear weapon. “If Iran develops a nuclear weapon, the United States and the West could live with it, without important compromise to U.S. interests,” he wrote, according to Eli Lake of Bloomberg News.

It remains a mystery what President Trump will decide this time around. He has been troubled by Iran’s violent response to countrywide protests. The president has leveraged social media and several executive departments to raise awareness about the plight of Iranian protesters. He has also mulled enacting further sanctions against the regime.

As an aside, there too is pressure from Boeing, they want to protect the sale agreements of planes to Iran such that they have offered to ‘finance’ the payments, essentially layaway. Iran is looking for a method to make payments of $44B to both Air Bus and Boeing. Humm….but that Supreme leader has a major conglomerate remember?

 

 

200,000 Salvadorians Face Termination of Protected Status Program

Back in November of 2017, the Trump administration began dismantling a longstanding humanitarian program known as temporary protected status, leaving hundreds of thousands of Central American immigrants living in heightened fear of deportation.

The program grants temporary visas that allow immigrants to live and work in the U.S. and protects them from being forced to return to their home countries. The U.S. has granted TPS to immigrants from 10 countries, mostly in Central America, for decades. The countries gain the designation after being ravaged by war or natural disasters.

DHS in coordination with the State Department and Health and Human Services is the agency of record in this matter. DHS designates the native country TPS-eligible. The initial period provided is not less than six months and not more than 18 months, but DHS can extend this time if country conditions warrant it.

*** For more information and details on TPS by DHS, go here.

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The Trump administration is ending special protections for Salvadoran immigrants, forcing nearly 200,000 to leave the country or face deportation, officials said Monday.

El Salvador is the fourth country whose citizens have lost Temporary Protected Status under President Donald Trump, and they have been, by far, the largest beneficiaries of the program, which provides humanitarian relief for foreigners whose countries are hit with natural disasters or other strife.

Two U.S. officials discussed the decision on condition of anonymity with The Associated Press because they were not authorized to speak publicly ahead of the announcement. One official said Salvadorans will have until September 2019 to leave the country or adjust their legal status.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen’s decision, while not surprising, will send shivers through parts of Washington, Los Angeles, New York, Houston and other metropolitan areas that are home to large numbers of Salvadorans, who have enjoyed special protection since earthquakes struck the Central American country in 2001. Many have established deep roots in the U.S., starting families and businesses over decades.

It also represents a serious challenge for El Salvador, a country of 6.2 million people whose economy depends on remittances from wage earners in the U.S. Over the last decade, growing numbers of Salvadorans — many coming as families or unaccompanied children — have entered the United States illegally through Mexico, fleeing violence and poverty.

In September 2016, the Obama administration extended protections for 18 months, saying El Salvador suffered lingering harm from the 2001 earthquakes that killed more than 1,000 people and was temporarily unable to absorb such a large number of people. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen faced a Monday deadline to decide whether to grant another extension.

El Salvador President Salvador Sanchez Ceren spoke by phone Friday with Nielsen to renew his plea to extend status for 190,000 Salvadorans and allow more time for Congress to deliver a long-term fix for them to stay in the U.S.

The decision comes amid intensifying talks between the White House and Congress on an immigration package that may include protections for hundreds of thousands of young immigrants who came to the country as children and were temporarily shielded from deportation under an Obama-era program. Trump said in September that he was ending Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, but gave Congress until March to act.

The U.S. created Temporary Protected Status in 1990 to provide a safe haven from countries affected by earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, war and other disasters, and it currently shields nearly 320,000 people from 10 countries. There are nearly 440,000 beneficiaries from the 10 countries, including 263,000 from El Salvador, but many have obtained legal status other ways.

The benefit, which includes work authorization, can be renewed up to 18 months at a time by the Homeland Security secretary. Critics say it has proved anything but temporary — with many beneficiaries staying years after the initial justification applies.

Nielsen said last week that short-term extensions are not the answer.

“Getting them to a permanent solution is a much better plan than having them live six months to 12 months to 18 months,” she told the AP.

In November, Nielsen’s predecessor, acting Secretary Elaine Duke, ended the protection for Haitians, requiring about 50,000 to leave or adjust their legal status by July 22, 2019, and for Nicaraguans, giving about 2,500 until Jan. 5, 2019. She delayed a decision affecting more than 50,000 Hondurans, foisting the decision onto Nielsen.

Last year, the Trump administration extended status for South Sudan and ended it for Sudan. Other countries covered are Nepal, Somalia, Syria and Yemen.

UNRWA De-Funded by the United States, Finally, Sorta

Primer: April – August 1948: More than 700,000 Palestine refugees are displaced as a result of the Arab-Israeli War. Per the United Nations Relief and Works Agency website. So, we have a generational refugee condition, where they are refugees in essentially their own land…let that sink in.

UNRWA human development and humanitarian services encompass primary and vocational education, primary health care, relief and social services, infrastructure and camp improvement, microfinance and emergency response, including in situations of armed conflict.

Bleh…..after 70 years….it still has to be funded? Did you catch that set of words ‘armed conflict’? Even the left leaning Huffington Post agrees, the Palestinians DON’T want peace.

The Palestinians not only have rejected one offer after another for a peaceful settlement in the past nearly 70 years, but also, tragically, their misguided actions now make any chance of an accord going forward still less likely.

Friday’s UN Security Council resolution is a case in point.

If the goal was to increase the chance of Palestinian statehood alongside Israel (and not in its place!), it was an abysmal failure, despite the lopsided vote. Those diplomats who rushed to applaud the outcome – and I’ll set aside thuggish countries like Venezuela that don’t bring a shred of good will to the UN table – should think twice about what they actually achieved.

If they wanted to excoriate Israel, a longstanding vocation of too many UN member states, then they can thump their chests, even if, alas, they habitually reserve such scrutiny for the only democratic nation in the Middle East. But for those truly committed to advancing prospects for peace, they took a big step backwards, once again falling into the Palestinian trap.

*** The Palestinians have a capital it is called Ramallah. Image result for ramallah palestinians

And Israel has a capital, Jerusalem. Image result for jerusalem photo

The Palestinians want peace, just not with Jews.

So, when the United States suspended funding to UNRWA….it was not all the funding, don’t be fooled. The United States gives an estimated $390,000,000 to UNRWA each year. Add that to the collection of other nations’ contributions and UNRWA is hardly out of business.

The United States administration froze a $125 million grant to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the UN’s agency for “Palestinian refugees”, which was supposed to be delivered on January 1, Channel 10 News reported on Friday, citing three Western diplomats.

The amount frozen is one-third of the annual funding the United States provides the organization, according to the report.

The three diplomats, who asked to remain anonymous because of the political sensitivity of the issue, told Channel 10 the grant had been frozen until the end of the reexamination of U.S. aid to the Palestinians, which began in recent days. According to the diplomats, officials in the administration have informed UN officials in the past two days that President Donald Trump is considering cutting this amount completely and could even increase the cut to $180 million, which would be half the total U.S. funding for UNRWA.

The cutting in the UN funding to UNRWA is a U.S. sanction against the organization, which has come under strong criticized from both the United States and Israel, as well as against the Palestinian Arabs, in an attempt to pressure them to renew peace talks with Israel.

News of the freezing of the grant came as a meeting took place in the White House discussing the cutting of aid to the Palestinian Authority and to UNRWA.

The meeting followed Trump’s tweets earlier this week in which he expressed doubt over the usefulness of American aid to the Palestinians, given their refusal to resume peace talks with Israel.

The United States is the largest single donor to UNRWA, providing approximately a fourth of the organization’s budget.

Reports in Israel on Thursday indicated that the Israeli Foreign Ministry is opposed to Trump’s planned cut in the aid to UNRWA, but on Friday Jewish Home chairman Naftali Bennett said that cutting aid to UNRWA is the correct move.

For years, UNRWA has been a target for criticism in light of Hamas’s activity in its educational institutions and the use of its facilities by Palestinian Arab terrorist organizations in Gaza.

UNRWA was documented storing Hamas rockets and weapons “designed to kill Israeli citizens” in its schools, a fact which the UNRWA chief admitted himself.

In addition, the organization has actively taken part in inciting anti-Semitic violence.

By the way, it is called a global diaspora regarding where and how many Palestinians live across the globe.

The countries outside the Palestinian territories with significant Palestinian populations are:

Taking Names and Dollars at the UN on the Jerusalem Capital Vote

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The U.S. will hold a reception for countries that did not vote last month to approve a United Nations (U.N.) resolution condemning the Trump administration’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley said Tuesday.

“As I said in December, we won’t forget the Jerusalem vote,” Haley said at a news conference. “To that end, tomorrow night, we are having a reception for the countries who chose not to oppose the U.S. position [on Jerusalem].”

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The resolution, while not legally binding, amounted to an international effort to pressure the Trump administration to reconsider its Jerusalem decision, which reversed decades of U.S. policy in the region.

Among the countries to vote in favor of the resolution were key U.S. allies, like the United Kingdom, France and Germany. Other allies, like Canada, Australia and Mexico, abstained from the vote.

Among the nine countries to vote against the resolution were the U.S., Israel, Honduras, Guatemala and Palau, among others.

The Hill has reached out to the State Department for comment.

Jerusalem is considered sacred by Jews, Christians and Muslims, and Israel considers the city its eternal capital. But the Palestinians have long desired to establish east Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state. More here.

*** So, beyond this…what about money to opposition countries?

Nikki Haley said that the United States would be “taking note” of the countries that “disrespected” America by voting in favor of the resolution, and President Trump said bluntly that the countries who don’t vote with the U.S. will have their funding cut.

So what if Trump actually gutted funding for those 128 countries? Well, The Daily Caller did the math.

According to USAid.gov, which catalogs all country-by-country financial obligations the U.S. holds with the rest of the world, Trump’s threat would save the United States more than $24 billion — in just one year.

The numbers below are based on what the U.S. was obligated to pay in 2016 to each of the countries that voted against us in the UN vote last week. Obligations are defined as the amount the United States is legally bound to pony up either in that year or the future.

The obligations may differ from the actual cash disbursements given in any given year, but they best reflect our financial obligations to the country in question.

Here are the countries that voted against the U.S., listed alphabetically, along with America’s 2016 financial obligation to each country:

Afghanistan — $5,060,306,050

Albania — $27,479,989

Algeria — $17,807,222

Andorra — $0

Angola — $64,489,547

Armenia — $22,239,896

Austria — $310,536

Azerbaijan — $15,312,389

Bahrain — $6,573,352

Bangladesh — $263,396,621

Barbados — $5,442,370

Belarus — $11,166,107

Belgium — $3,101,636

Belize — $8,613,838

Bolivia — $1,378,654

Botswana — $57,252,922

Brazil — $14,899,949

Brunei — $354,829

Bulgaria — $20,066,715

Burkina Faso — $74,469,144

Burundi — $70,507,528

Cabo Verde — $5,044,716

Cambodia — $103,194,295

Chad — $117,425,683

Chile — $2,266,071

China — $42,263,025

Comoros — $1,057,063

Congo — $8,439,457

Costa Rica — $14,650,552

Cote d’Ivoire — $161,860,737

Cuba — $15,776,924

Cyprus — $0

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) — $2,142,161

Denmark — $3,455

Djibouti — $24,299,878

Dominica — $616,000

Ecuador — $26,014,579

Egypt — $1,239,291,240

Eritrea — $119,364

Estonia — $15,937,295

Ethiopia — $1,111,152,703

Finland — $33,492

France — $4,660,356

Gabon — $31,442,404

Gambia — $3,197,858

Germany — $5,484,317

Ghana — $724,133,065

Greece — $8,508,639

Grenada — $690,300

Guinea — $87,630,410

Guyana — $9,691,030

Iceland — $0

India — $179,688,851

Indonesia — $222,431,738

Iran — $3,350,327

Iraq — $5,280,379,380

Ireland — $0

Italy — $454,613

Japan — $20,804,795

Jordan — $1,214,093,785

Kazakhstan — $80,418,203

Kuwait — $112,000

Kyrgyzstan — $41,262,984

Laos — $57,174,076

Lebanon — $416,553,311

Liberia — $473,677,614

Libya — $26,612,087

Liechtenstein — $0

Lithuania — $15,709,304

Luxembourg — $0

Madagascar — $102,823,791

Malaysia — $10,439,368

Maldives — $1,511,931

Mali — $257,152,020

Malta — $137,945

Mauritania — $12,743,363

Mauritius — $791,133

Monaco — $0

Montenegro — $2,118,108

Morocco — $82,023,514

Mozambique — $514,007,619

Namibia — $53,691,093

Nepal — $194,286,218

Netherlands — $0

New Zealand — $0

Nicaragua — $31,318,397

Niger — $144,122,239

Nigeria — $718,236,917

Norway — $100,000

Oman — $5,753,829

Pakistan — $777,504,870

Papua New Guinea — $14,836,598

Peru — $95,803,112

Portugal — $207,600

Qatar — $95,097

Republic of Korea (South Korea) — $3,032,086

Russia — $17,195,004

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines — $612,000

Saudi Arabia — $732,875

Senegal — $99,599,642

Serbia — $33,062,589

Seychelles — $223,002

Singapore — $468,118

Slovakia — $2,585,685

Slovenia — $715,716

Somalia — $274,784,535

South Africa — $597,218,298

Spain — $81,231

Sri Lanka — $27,192,841

Sudan — $137,878,835

Suriname — $232,672

Sweden — $1,269

Switzerland — $1,168,960

Syria — $916,426,147

Tajikistan — $47,789,686

Thailand — $68,182,970

The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia — $31,755,240

Tunisia — $117,490,639

Turkey — $154,594,512

United Arab Emirates — $1,140,659

United Kingdom — $3,877,820

United Republic of Tanzania — $628,785,614

Uruguay — $836,850

Uzbekistan — $20,067,933

Venezuela — $9,178,148

Vietnam — $157,611,276

Yemen — $305,054,784

Zimbabwe — $261,181,770

TOTAL — $24,485,383,599

AVERAGE PER COUNTRY — $205,795,526