✞✞✞ May Our Holy Mother of God wrap him in the mantle of Her Love, and may he rest in peace. ✞✞✞
A prominent Los Angeles Catholic official, who served the community for over four decades, was fatally shot Saturday in a California suburb.
David O’Connell, the Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, was found inside a Hacienda Heights home with a severe gunshot wound to his upper torso and pronounced dead, according to CBS Los Angeles.
He was 69 years old.
Archbishop José H. Gomez released a statement on O’Connell’s death early Saturday morning, saying he had “passed away unexpectedly.”
“He was a peacemaker with a heart for the poor and the immigrant, and he had a passion for building a community where the sanctity and dignity of every human life was honored and protected,” Gomez said.
“He was also a good friend, and I will miss him greatly. I know we all will.”
Detectives are investigating the shooting as a suspicious death and have not yet released any information on the suspect or suspects involved, according to the outlet.
“It’s very early in the investigation,” said LASD Homicide Bureau Detective Michael Modica. “We got a lot more steps we have to take to make more determination to what’s happening.”
O’Connell had been a part of the LA Catholic community for 45 years when he first became a priest. Pope Francis appointed O’Connell Auxiliary Bishop in 2015.
Born in Ireland, O’Connell studied for the priesthood at All Hallows College in Dublin before moving to California in 1979. After he was ordained, he was an associate pastor at several LA parishes.
The Bishop was heavily involved in aiding immigration in California. He was chairman of the Interdiocesan Southern California Immigration Task Force, which helps children and families who immigrated from Central America.
💭 The populist Sweden Democrats (SD) have called for the repatriation of Syrians, Afghans, and Somalis, noting their rate of unemployment and high numbers who have not integrated.
Party leader Jimmie Åkesson and migration policy spokesman Ludvig Aspling have said the Swedish government needs to do more to return migrants to their homelands if they rely on state benefits and do not integrate.
“Since 2010, Sweden has granted over 1.2 million residence permits, equivalent to more than a brand new Stockholm. Unemployment is almost five times higher among foreign-born compared to native-born,” the pair wrote in a debate article for the newspaper Aftonbladet.
The pair add that among Syrians, Afghans, and Somalis, half of the adults earn incomes less than 100,000 Swedish kronor (£8,189/$10,235) per year, and that among foreign-born residents in general some 600,000 are not self-sufficient.
“Remigration is not a miracle solution, but the failures of recent decades show that it must be an option – a solution for all those who live in long-term exclusion,” they said, noting that while Sweden does have a subsidy for those wishing to return to their home countries it is seldom used.
“Incentive structures and the welfare system must be reformed, so that people in exclusion cannot get caught up in welfare dependency, but are either forced into society or encouraged to remigrate,” they wrote.
Åkesson and Aspling also cited the Danish approach to repatriating migrants, quoting Danish government minister Mattias Tesfaye, who has previously stated his goal is that Denmark would receive zero asylum seekers.
The concept of remigration was also used by former French presidential candidate Eric Zemmour during his campaign earlier this year. The populist said that he wished to create a new government ministry specifically to deal with the issue.
Zemmour proposed to send at least a million migrants back to their countries over a period of five years. A poll released in late March revealed that around two-thirds of French people supported a mass remigration of illegals, foreigners on terrorist watchlists, and foreign criminals.
The UN’s migration agency has put its Ethiopia chief on administrative leave, citing “unauthorised interviews” in which she complained of being sidelined by UN higher-ups she claimed were sympathetic to Tigrayan rebels.
The departure of Maureen Achieng, confirmed in a letter dated Monday and seen by AFP, risks further undermining an aid response still shaken by Ethiopia’s decision last month to expel seven other senior UN officials for allegedly “meddling” in its affairs.
It comes more than 11 months into a brutal war in northern Ethiopia that, according to UN estimates, has driven hundreds of thousands of people into famine-like conditions.
Last week, multiple recordings surfaced online of Achieng and another senior UN official granting a lengthy interview to Jeff Pearce, a writer who has published multiple articles defending the government’s conduct of the war against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).
In the recordings, Achieng, the International Organization for Migration’s Chief of Mission to Ethiopia, tears into colleagues who “descended on” Addis Ababa after the war broke out last November and, in her telling, sidelined officials on the ground.
She also calls the TPLF “dirty” and “vicious”.
At one point she accuses the rebels of plotting to have Tigrayan migrant workers facing deportation from Saudi Arabia sent to Rwanda.
“And then you don’t know what guerrilla movement starts from Rwanda. I mean, it’s dirty,” she says.
She also vows never to return to Tigray.
In an internal note to colleagues last week, also seen by AFP, Achieng said she was “deeply disturbed and disappointed” by the audio, which she said had been “surreptitiously recorded and selectively edited.”
However at several points during the interview the participants openly discuss that it is being recorded.
On Monday Antonio Vitorino, director general of IOM, wrote a letter distancing the agency from Achieng’s comments.
“The opinions attributed in the audio recordings to the staff member do not correspond to IOM’s principles and values and should not in any way be considered as expressing IOM’s positions,” it said.
The letter, which does not refer to Achieng by name, says she was “immediately recalled” and “put on administrative leave” pending an investigation.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on August 3, 2018
Nearly one in four residents in Germany now come from migrant backgrounds, as almost 200,000 migrants gain the right to reunite with their families through chain migration.
According to new figures released by the Germany Federal Statistical Office, the number of Germans with a migration background increased by 4.4 percent in 2017 to a total of 19.3 million people — or 23.6 percent of the total population of the country, Die Weltreports.
The German government recognises anyone as having at least one non-German parent as coming from a migration background. It released further details showing that 49 percent do not carry a German passport, up from 42 percent in 2011.
The largest ethnic group of the 19.3 million people are those from a Turkish background at 2.8 million, followed by 2.1 million individuals of Polish background, and 1.4 million Russians.
Another study of languages spoken in the home showed that over 10 percent of the 24 million multi-person households in Germany spoke a first language that was not German. The most spoken language, 17 percent of the total, was Turkish, followed by Russian, Polish, and Arabic.
As of August 1st, the new family reunification laws in Germany will come into effect, opening up the possibility for some 192,000 asylum seekers, 133,000 of which are Syrian nationals, to bring their family members to Germany.
In the case of underage asylum seekers, they will be able to bring their parents; in the case of adults, they will be eligible to bring their wives or husbands as well as any underage children.
While many migrants may be eligible for the programme, they may have to wait to bring their families to Germany as the government has only established 5,000 candidates for reunification by the end of the year and a further 1,000 per month from January of 2019.
The demographics of Germany have rapidly changed, largely due to mass migration, in many areas of the country like the city of Frankfurt where it was revealed last year that native Germans had become an ethnic minority for the first time.
In 2016, figures showed that the number of migration-background residents in Germany was even more pronounced in younger age groups, with 40 percent of under-fives having migrant origins.
In the same year, the German population grew by 346,000, driven primarily by mass migration.
Tests conducted on the skeleton of an ancient human ancestor who lived in England show he had “dark to black” skin, researchers said.
Racist all over the country are going crazy over this news. They are livid about it! I knew more truths would be coming….. i predict suicide rates may start to rise among the woods in Europe and beyond.
How Cheddar Man Shatters Accepted Views Of Immigration
The discovery that the 10,000-year-old original Briton is dark-skinned absolutely has bearing on contemporary debates on race and migration
You’ve got to confess it’s worthy of chuckles and cackles.
A made-for-Internet scientific discoverythat at the same time strikes at the core of modern racial strife. An announcement Wednesday that DNA tests on the oldest complete skeleton in Britain, that heart and ancestral home of many white people around the world, suggest that the first modern Briton was blue-eyed, yes, but very dark-skinned and curly-haired.
The Cheddar Man, named thus for the English village of Cheddar where his skeleton was discovered in 1903, is about 10,000 years old.
To add salt to a supremacist’s wound, scientists said that the genes for lighter skin likely came from, you got it, immigrants from the Middle East.
Oh snap.
Dark-skinned native Britons and light-skinned immigrants.
It’s like reaching into the eye of a storm and fitting it with sunglasses.
Disorienting.
Those brave lads and fair maidens on glorious historical British dramas on TV — descendents of immigrants.
The image of God himself, majestic, kindly old white guy in white robes with flowing white beard — fashioned on immigrants.
Imagine being Nigel Farage, the former leader of the U.K. Independence Party, who proudly stood in front of a Nazi-era-like poster with the slogan, “Breaking point: the EU has failed us all,” and a photo of a winding lineup of migrants of colour.
Now he would have to change that slogan to “Breaking point: I come from them. I am them.” Such horror.
No wonder there were hopeful comments online about Cheddar Man such as, “Who’s to say the person’s not a foreign visitor” or a call to index this as “fake news,” or the insistence that this was a finding driven by a social justice agenda to force poor victimized British people into accepting mass migration.
The Cheddar Man, 10,000 years old though he may be, absolutely has bearing on contemporary debates on race and migration.
This discovery of a dark-skinned original Briton doesn’t put the race genie back into the bottle in an equalizing “we’re all immigrants” kind of way.
On the contrary, in exposing the racial fluidity of Britons, Cheddar Man delivers a sucker punch to toxic ideas that drive the white power mobs who in turn fuel xenophobic policies.It reveals the basis of their quick codes equating skin colour to valour or danger as nothing but fear-based fiction.
Scientists have long argued that race is not a biological concept. People of one race — or at least people who can be grouped together with similar physical traits — are not genetically homogenous.
The concept of races evolved as a way of justifying slavery and to maintain an economy founded on slave labour; it was easier to rationalize the brutalization of the “savage” than to face the unconscionable alternative.
From then on, it continues to be a favoured tool to demonize “the other.”
Around the world, oppressor groups have always found identity a useful tool with which to assert themselves as inherently superior, as “natural” holders of power, be it on the basis of race, gender, sexual identity, religious identity, tribal identity or caste.
That race isn’t real does not mean racism isn’t real.
Anti-Black racism is so widespread and global in scope, that I wish scientists would hurry up and create a bust out of the fossils of the 750,000-year old Peking Man, for instance, and in keeping with the Out of Africa theory, definitively establish Blackness as the root ancestry of Chinese people.
Such knowledge might have given the Hubei Provincial Museum in Wuhan pause before it displayed a photography exhibit that juxtaposed wild African animals with Black African people.
I wish they were able create a bust that would depict an original “Indian Man,” one who existed before the Aryans and Dravidians did 5,000 years ago, as black-skinned — darker the better. Such knowledge might inject a modicum of humility before privileged Indians wreak racist violence on African students and caste-related violence on Dalits.
When nations look to figure out where they’re going next, it makes sense sometimes to turn back and look at the past for clues.
Being reminded of a shared heritage with people they consider coming from “s—hole” countries, might give Western leaders, including a certain U.S. president, a few pointers as they ponder immigration policies.
These leaders might read data helpfully put forward by Arvind Magesan, associate professor of economics, University of Calgary, in The Conversation. That might help them discover that although their own policies play a part in making those countries “s—holes,” those immigrants continue to be better educated, better employed (although lower-paid) than those of, shall we say, “Norway-like” countries.
This is one way the discovery of Cheddar Man’s skin colour could have the power to force aside the ahistorical lens with which we view our fellow humans.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on January 30, 2018
We interviewed German journalist and model Anabel Schunke. She studied political science and history and is one of Germany’s most well-known criticasters of the country’s migration policy. This interview is part one of two. Anabel is active on Twitter and Facebook
How did the admission of so many migrants change your country?
Germany is no longer the same country compared with before 2015. There’s now only one topic: The migration crisis. Of course this is also connected with the discussion about Islam and its “excesses” that we have been experiencing for years in this country through Muslim migrants and those that will come in the future.
This leads to a fatal consequence: We are no longer talking about topics appropriate for a civilised Western society. For example, I’m watching the news and see a report on China and the latest technical and digital innovations which they want to compete with Silicon Valley, and so on.
Meanwhile, in Germany we are discussing wearing headscarves, banning pork in canteens, and Islamic studies in schools. We are clearly missing out on the connection to the top of the world and let us drag ourselves from the migration of mostly deeply backward Islamic countries into the abyss. This should not be allowed by a country whose resources are education, German diligence, recognition abroad and the technical innovations of companies like Siemens.
For Germany, migration is an absolute “backward business”. It divides the country; it shifts the social discourse of the future into the medieval past. The question is no longer: How do we want to live here as Germans in the future and defend our position in the world, but how can we make it as comfortable as possible for Muslims in the name of tolerance? Not to mention the daily attacks, the increase of violent and sexual offenses.
According to German media there were fewer women on the streets of Hamburg during NYE. Is that an effect of migrant (sex) crimes?
Of course, that is an immediate effect of the massive increase in sexual offenses against German women. You know, after each terrorist attack, a mantra is repeated that we will not let our way of life be taken away from us, that we should not be afraid.
Especially for us women, the many reports about violent and sexual offenses have a certain influence
The truth is that the majority of the population does not want to admit that they are afraid and that they don’t do certain things out of fear. The fear of being called a racist is still greater than admitting that you are avoiding these people and certain events.
It’s the same with terror and the massive sexual assaults since 2015 by migrants. You read the news and, especially for us women, the many reports about violent and sexual offenses have a certain influence. More and more women have unpleasant experiences with male migrants. You have to imagine that, according to statistics, of the over 1.5 million migrants 80% are men. During a walk in the city, it doesn’t matter where or when, you will encounter them.
There are no more “safe spaces”. It can happen to you anytime, anywhere
The effects of immigration are now shaping many cityscapes. Almost every woman now experiences how different the looks at them are and the feelings that result from it. It’s like being a piece of cattle.
In addition, there are actual attacks. Of course, there have always been rapes in every country, but the quality and quantity of the attacks have changed completely. It makes no difference to the victim whether she is raped at home by an acquaintance or in public in broad daylight by a migrant stranger, but for society and women’s overall thinking in this country, it has its effects.
That means that the state already calculates that sexual assaults on women will happen
There are no more “safe spaces”. It can happen to you anytime, anywhere, even if you celebrate New Year’s Eve in a large group. The risk of becoming a victim of a sexual offense has become too big and many women have simply withdrawn from public space in order to avoid these risky situations.
Look: On New Year’s Eve so-called “women’s safety areas” were set up in big cities such as Berlin. There were tents where women had the ability to retreat if they were victims of a sex attack or felt threatened and wanted to breathe deeply. That means that the state already calculates that sexual assaults on women will happen: Like there are “zones” now in this country where women are safe and “zones” where they are not safe.
That’s a bankruptcy declaration in matters of state security. Which woman would still leave her house during New Year’s Eve when the state is quasi calculating that she could get sexually assaulted?
Do you still feel safe as a woman in your country and how did, what happened in Cologne, affect you?
Like many other women in Germany, I no longer feel safe. The number of women, who visit me or send me messages on Facebook about their fears or concrete experiences with migrants, is growing continuously.
The problem is that instead of publicly communicating their criticisms or protesting on the street against this policy, most people prefer private “solutions”. You do not celebrate anymore or only in male company, you don’t get dressed any more, avoid certain places etc.
It is cruel to see how women keep silent and are unnoticed by the majority of society, while much of the media attention disappears as well. It is in a weakened form what happened in many Islamic countries after the revitalization of conservative Islam.
The woman becomes invisible. Cologne was the point at which I became really aware of what this particular kind of immigration means, especially for us women, but also for society as a whole. I mean, apart from sexual assaults on women, there was a situation in which the state totally lost control in Cologne for hours.
These men have learned nothing and they are not interested in learning from it
The only reason why such things don’t happen on New Year’s Eve now, is because a massive police presence is preventing it. With the same situation as in the years 2015/16, every year the same riots and sexual assaults would happen.
These men have learned nothing and they are not interested in learning from it. It is their culture. Unveiled Western women, who are having a party and drink alcohol, are according to their understanding sluts who do not want it otherwise.
That shows only one thing: Without a large police force, these men can create anarchy when they want to. They already showed that they can, when thousands gathered in Cologne. They could do that for sexual assaults, thefts or for attacks on “infidels”.
Immigration in this country is a “security catastrophe”, to which we have little to oppose. After Cologne came the moment that I got myself pepper spray and a pocket alarm. It made me realise that we can no longer be protected by the state here, but of course I know that in case of doubt, this will not help.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on January 12, 2018
The incident occurred in Dresden, Saxony. The African woman suffered minor bites and was in shock, according to reports.
Saxony’s Minister of Integration Petra Köpping has condemned the allegedly racially motivated dog attack on an Ethiopian woman in Dresden, the German Die Zeit newspaper reported.
In her opinion, despite the incident there are still no “no-go areas” for people with migrant background in the federal state of Saxony.
“The passers-by who saw the attack intervened, they did not look the other way,” Köpping said Thursday.
The Ethiopian woman was first verbally abused by a group of people at a tram stop last Tuesday. According to reports, one of the women in the group had a dog. She unleashed the animal and incited it against the African.
When the latter attempted to run away, the dog attacked her from behind and made her fall to the ground.
Only when a passerby forced the dog owner to take the animal away was the Ethiopian woman able to stand up. She suffered from some minor bites and was in shock.
After the attack, two witnesses reported the case to the police. The investigation is underway.
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