RogueAnt wrote: ↑Sun Jan 14, 2018 12:57 pm

that genius wrote: ↑Sun Jan 14, 2018 12:29 pm Nobody is disputing they have a right to control their borders.

Nobody? You mean in this thread or generally? There are many who support open borders. Australia being an island nation doesn't have the problem of porous borders but instead has to patrol a vast amount of ocean, as I'm sure you're aware.

that genius wrote: ↑Sun Jan 14, 2018 12:29 pm Most don't care who runs the centres, with the possible exception of Australians who lost jobs to the Saudi/UK faction..

I'm not sure why you think that most people don't care. Australians didn't lose their jobs, they were employed by an outsourcing company instead of the government.

that genius wrote: ↑Sun Jan 14, 2018 12:29 pm Everyone except rednecks cares how they treat the people in these centres.

Indeed, people should be pointing the finger at SERCO and G4S - you know the companies that are in charge of running the detention centres.

1. Border control: I meant on the forum. I think everybody understands that there is little chance of going back to zero borders.

2. Re caring: Who cares who pays the salary? Really? They could resign, couldn't they? What difference does it make? Before they were employed by a Human Rights organisation and
only now have they been asked to be nasty?

3. I'm pretty certain the Australian govt knew what kind of people they were dealing with, and many of them are openly happy with a Nazi-style detention system. Not sure they can escape
responsibility by saying they expected a Sunday School with the contractors' previous records.

They could give him a million dollars, they've already spanked 50mil, one more's not going to make a difference. That'd sort out most of his problems. I bet his family are in one of those camps in Jordan.

Hunger strike looms for the refugee the Australian government sent to Cambodia
30 July 2018 — 12:58pm
Phnom Penh: Abdullah Zalghanah has made up his mind.

He lights another cigarette, pre-emptively taps it, and carefully chooses the English words for what he is trying to say.
Abdullah Zalghanah pictured in Phnom Pehn where he was resettled one year and nine months ago.

“After two weeks [if] my family not come, I close my restaurant, I leave everything, I come back to IOM [the International Organisation for Migration office], I stop eat, I stop drink.”

In a quiet back street of Phnom Penh, Fairfax Media tracked down Abdullah – one of just seven refugees sent by Australia to Cambodia, and one of only three who remains in the country – under a $40 million deal that has been branded a failure by critics.

In some respects, Abdullah contradicts the narrative that has sprung up around the Abbott government's Cambodia refugee swap deal.

He owns and runs a successful business, a restaurant called Middle East Feast which he set up with a loan from Australia, has made friends with locals and is settled in a country he had never heard of three years ago.

But all Abdullah wants now is to see his wife, Yasmin, and their four children.


Abdullah in front of his restaurant, Middle East Feast, in Phnom Penh.
Photo: Kate Geraghty

After six years, and what he says have been numerous broken promises by the Australian government, it's hard to blame him.

Abdullah says he may finally receive approval to be reunited with them in Phnom Penh in a couple of weeks' time.

That he is even contemplating a hunger strike if approval doesn't come through this time underscores how desperate he has become.

All up, Abdullah spent about $US15,000 ($20,000) in his attempt to get to Australia.

After being intercepted, Abdullah spent eight months on Christmas Island and two years and three months on Nauru.

One day, after the September 2014 refugee deal was announced with Cambodia, Australian government representatives told the refugees they could be re-settled in the south-east Asian nation.

"I speak to them, 'OK, I go to Cambodia, but can I meet with my family'?" he tells Fairfax Media. The response was that after three or four months, his family would be able to come from Lebanon and join him.

After six months, Abdullah spoke to the Australian government because his family still had not joined him.

“I say, 'What's problem? You say after three or four months'. The IOM speak to me, the government Australia need letter from government Cambodia."

That letter, which would clear the way for Abdullah's family to move to Cambodia as refugees, has now been secured.

“The government Cambodia agree, Abdullah have family, Abdullah have business, Abdullah good, not have any problem. If everything OK, what the problem [with] my family come?”
https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/hunge ... 4zudx.html

how does someone with $15,000 and enough money to open a restaurant,( even after almost 3 years of not working) end up listed as a refugee?

Since Ricketson will obviously receive a full pardon within minutes, I'm sure he'll want to help and advise poor Abdullah. Together they might even bring a complete end to the crisis in Syria. Now where did that drone go?

John Bingham wrote:

phuketrichard wrote: ↑Tue Jul 31, 2018 9:04 am how does someone with $15,000 and enough money to open a restaurant,( even after almost 3 years of not working) end up listed as a refugee?

Refugee status has nothing to do with whether you have money or not. It costs a lot to circumnavigate borders and the article states that he borrowed the money to open the restaurant.

This.
Sadly many in the world still have no idea what a refugee is.

Good news. His family have arrived in Cambodia at last.

Syrian refugee reunited with family in Cambodia after Nauru, Christmas Island detention
By Erin Handley

Posted about 9 hours ago

After almost seven years apart, Mr Zalghanah has finally been reunited with his family in Cambodia after opting to relocate from Nauru in 2016 under the Australian Government's $55 million deal to resettle refugees.

Mr Zalghanah said he made that decision based on a promise from the Government that he would be reunited with his family within four months.

Instead, it would be over two more years before he saw his family again.

Mr Zalghanah's wife and four children touched down in Cambodia late last month — a heartfelt reunion that left them lost for words.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-08/ ... a/10688506

Former Nauru detainee Abdullah Zalghani says Australia abandoned his family in Cambodia
By South-East Asia correspondent Liam Cochrane
2 May 2019
Three years ago, Abdullah Zalghani agreed to move from Nauru to Cambodia, as part of the Australia Government's $55 million deal with the South-East Asian nation.

Part of that agreement, according to documents obtained by the ABC, was that "school-aged children will be enrolled in local private schools in Phnom Penh … for up to four years after arrival".

Mr Zalghani's two sons and two daughters finally arrived in Phnom Penh in December, but when he tried to have them enrolled he was told Australia would not honour its promise.

The International Organisation for Migration, which was given $15.5 million by Australia to provide services to the refugees, broke the news to Mr Zalghani.

"They told me the program between IOM and the Government of Australia [is] finished," Mr Zalghani told the ABC.

The refugee resettlement agreement between Australia and Cambodia signed by then-immigration minister Scott Morrison in 2014, expired in September.

Australia's Department of Home Affairs said it would not comment on an individual case.

"Persons settled in Cambodia have each been provided comprehensive support, including financial support, health care, housing, family reunification and education," said a spokesperson for the department.

"After a lengthy period of comprehensive support, individuals are mutually agreed to have settled in Cambodia and no longer require, or have access to, these support measures."

The Zalghani children, aged between 10 and 16, have spent years in a Lebanese refugee camp and are desperate to get on with their lives.

"We don't have school and I'm [feeling] so bad about this," 16-year-old Nour said.

"Please help us, we cannot live here," she said.

Australia's promise to provide health insurance to the family for "up to five years" has also been retracted, according to Mr Zalghani.

Mr Zalghani is one of just three refugees who have permanently resettled in Cambodia, along with another Syrian man and a Rohingya man from Myanmar.

Four others moved to Cambodia temporarily before deciding to return to their home countries.

The IOM declined to comment on Mr Zalghani's case, citing privacy rules and the terms of its contract with the Australian Government.

However, the ABC has obtained an audio recording, made by Mr Zalghani, of a meeting on April 3 in which IOM project manager Brett Dickson told Mr Zalghani that the reference to "private education" was probably a "miscommunication" by Australia, despite the wording of the original agreement.

On April 26, the IOM closed its temporary accommodation centre in Phnom Penh, returning some of the Zalghani family's belongings to them in garbage bags.

The ABC understands that all IOM support services to the three "Nauru" refugees will end in June.

Mr Zalghani said he agreed to move to Cambodia after spending more than three years in immigration detention camps on Christmas Island and Nauru.

He was promised that he would be reunited with his wife and children within months of his arrival in Phnom Penh, though it took two years.

The Syrian signed his "Cambodian establishment package agreement" with the Australian Border Force in September 2016.

Documents Mr Zalghani provided to the ABC indicated the family had received $60,000 in payments, plus a range of support services from IOM.

But Mr Zalghani said Australia's written commitment to provide private school education and health insurance for his children were fundamental reasons he agreed to the resettlement package.

With the money Mr Zalghani received to restart his life in Cambodia, he opened a Middle Eastern restaurant in Phnom Penh.

But business has been tough and he sold it last month to a Cambodian for a "cheap price", staying on to work in the kitchen as a cook.

His monthly salary is $638, but after he pays rent for the living space above the restaurant he only takes home $350.

On the day the ABC visited the Zalghani family in the large room they all share, the children sat listlessly on their beds watching movies or surfing the internet.

Mr Zalghani said that he wants nothing more from the Australian Government, other than for Canberra to honour the agreement made in Nauru.

"Cambodia here, nice city, nice people. But for my kids, if [they don't] have school, not have health [insurance]. That's so bad," Mr Zalghani said.

The cost and quality of education varies hugely in Cambodia.

Many cheap local schools are renowned for poor quality teaching and corruption, while the top private schools are world class but expensive.

If Mr Zalghani sent his children to the International School of Phnom Penh — favoured by Australian diplomats and the Cambodian elite — it would cost between $26,000 and $31,000 per child.

The Zalghani family is now appealing to Canada to take them in.

"[I don't] need anything for me. I can work, I can do anything. But it's difficult here — my kids cannot go to school," Mr Zalghani told the ABC.
"Please Government of Canada, Prime Minister of Canada, please help us," he said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-02/ ... m/11051660

Canada!