Thai Police Bust Multi-Million Baht Sex Toy Smuggling Ring

[webfact]

Australia defends alternative accommodation for asylum seekers against U.N. criticism

 

Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop addresses the 72nd United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., September 22, 2017. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

 

SYDNEY/GENEVA (Reuters) - Australia's foreign minister said on Wednesday that asylum seekers occupying an abandoned Australian-run detention camp in Papua New Guinea (PNG) can relocate to alternative accommodation, challenging United Nations claims that the substitute site is unfinished and inadequate.

 

Some 380 men have barricaded themselves into Manus Island centre for more than 20 days without regular food or water supplies, defying attempts by Australia and PNG to close the facility. The asylum seekers say they fear for their safety if moved to the transit centre, and risk being resettled in PNG or another developing nation permanently.

 

"There is accommodation that is perfectly acceptable," Australia's Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, said in an interview with Australian Broadcasting Corp radio on Wednesday.

 

"The stand-off on Manus Island can be ended if the men ... move from the regional processing centre to the alternative accommodation that is being offered."

 

Mostly from Afghanistan, Iran, Myanmar, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Syria, the men are held under Australia's strict "sovereign borders" immigration policy, under which it refuses to allow asylum seekers arriving by boat to reach its shores.

 

The stand-off has attracted the attention of the United Nations, which is a long-time critic of the conditions experienced by asylum seekers held in Australia's offshore camps.

 

Nai Jit Lam, a regional representative for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, told a U.N. briefing in Geneva on Tuesday that asylum seekers "are still not adequately provided for outside the centre".

 

"It's still under construction ... we saw for ourselves that they are trying to complete the site as quickly as possible but the fact remains that major work is still in progress," Lam said in a satellite phone call from Manus Island.

 

Australia says allowing asylum seekers arriving by boat to reach its shores would only encourage people smugglers in Asia and see more people risk their lives trying to make the perilous sea voyage. It rejected an offer from New Zealand to resettle 150 of the men to focus on sending up to 1,250 asylum seekers to the United States.

 

Conditions at the abandoned facility are getting worse each day, according to Lam, with rubbish and human waste building up and medical supplies already exhausted.

 

Papua New Guinea's Post-Courier newspaper reported on Tuesday that immigration officials would begin evicting the men on Wednesday, the fourth such deadline imposed on the refugees to leave since the camp's closure on Oct. 31.

 

Papua New Guinea's Immigration department did not respond to a request for comment.

 

(Reporting by Tom Westbrook in SYDNEY and Stephanie Ulmer-Nebehay in GENEVA; editing by Richard Pullin)

 

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-11-22

 

[thaibeachlovers]

It always amazes me that bodies such as the UN are so concerned about people that CHOOSE to board boats to illegally enter a country that has no obligation to allow them to enter, while ignoring far, far more outrageous examples of atrocities going on elsewhere.

[ezzra]

The hell with the UN, this bloated organisation of fat cats, who think

they have the right to admonish and criticize the world while living

on it's donations,

what has the UN done to stop the flood of refuges coming into Australia?

what have they done to arrest those people smuggles and anybody

connected to the vast network of refuges cross border runners and human

traffickers? fark all they did, and now they have the audacity to criticize

Australia....

[steven100]

No one listens to the UN anymore anyway .... they have been proven to be a bunch of useless nobodies in an outdated organization that should be dismantled.

[Briggsy]

23 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

It always amazes me that bodies such as the UN are so concerned about people that CHOOSE to board boats to illegally enter a country that has no obligation to allow them to enter, while ignoring far, far more outrageous examples of atrocities going on elsewhere.

Western countries - soft target.

[simple1]

33 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

It always amazes me that bodies such as the UN are so concerned about people that CHOOSE to board boats to illegally enter a country that has no obligation to allow them to enter, while ignoring far, far more outrageous examples of atrocities going on elsewhere.

It should be noted the PNG Supreme Court overruled the PNG Government and declared the Australian asylum seeker detention camps on its territory in breach of Human Rights; accordingly PNG demanded Australia close the camps and remove the refugees.

 

Australia signed and ratified the relevant UN Convention for Refugees which does not criminalise asylum seekers entry to a country to claim refugee status. Australia has since passed domestic legislation to criminalise entry by sea, but not nullified overall international obligations under the UN Refugee Convention/s. 

 

More asylum seekers have entered Australia by air, still do so, then claim refugee status, which has not been criminalised, than those who arrive by sea.

 

 

[BEVUP]

1 hour ago, Briggsy said:

Western countries - soft target.

Exactly 

& their not poor refugees - ? How much do you think they pay (I don't think it's going to be free ), then they ditch all travel Doc's claiming they had to flee at the last minute

Most probably funded by relatives that are already in