Michigan, USA – Chaldeans are outraged at the city of Dearborn and the Dearborn police department.  “The police and city officials are cowards,” said a disgusted Yousif Salem.  “They are afraid to defend the rights of this great country and their weakness shames every real American.  I am an American citizen and my rights were stripped away because they are afraid.  The Dearborn police and city are cowards.  Arabs in Iraq and Iran are risking their lives for freedom and in Dearborn Michigan, American born wimps run and hide like cowards.”

Salem’s outrage comes on the heel of a court ruling prohibiting his friends from passing out Christian literature at the Dearborn Arab International festival.  The 14th annual Dearborn Arab International Festival is expected to draw tens of thousands of visitors Friday through Sunday to the city that has the Detroit area's greatest concentration of Arab-Americans.

“We are upset with festival organizers.  They have now tainted this once beautiful cultural festival as being un-American,” says Salem.  “They are hurting Islamic Arabs as well as Christian Arabs by having the group thrown out.  This is not good for Arab and American relations.  There is only so much more Americans will take from these radicals in their own country.” 

California, USA – Perhaps the older Chaldeans have trouble grasping the threats we face, but the first and second generation Chaldeans know it all too well, says Ann Bodagh.  The Californian community activist says that America’s immune system is under attack.  “American values are our country’s immune system.  Values that teach us that lying, stealing, killing, and adultery are wrong are being torn apart.  Now it is okay to routinely lie, steal worker’s pensions, kill the unborn or elderly, or sleep with anyone.  These sorts of behavior are bankrupting America, financially, morally, and socially.”

Bodagh says you can see the social virus make its way to our countries value centers.  “They have already taken over our public schools and now they want to close churches and silence religious teachers.  America is becoming a socialist communist nation if we don’t fight back.  All the Chaldeans that fled from countries that would not let you speak out when the government is doing something wrong better wise up.  Otherwise you might as well by another plane ticket and choose your next country to run to.”

Bodagh says California is fighting back.  The citizens of the golden state recently voted to cut spending and become more fiscally conservative.  Citizens also voted to amend the state constitution to protect marriage between a man and a woman.  “California has long been considered the land of fruits and nuts sees the writing on the wall.  We are trying to clean-up the moral pollution.  Unfortunately, the pollution is also growing in other states.”

Kirkuk, IRAQ – The disputed lands of Kirkuk continue to foster hostilities as the three major factions of Iraq pound Christian minorities in order to seize property and lay claim to the oil rich lands.  Although Iraq is the native home to the Chaldean Catholic Church, one of the oldest Christian churches in the world, hundreds of thousands of Christians have been forced to flee since the US-led invasion of March 2003.  “Our people are easy targets.  Iraqi Christians are the Tibetans of the Middle East.  We are peaceful,” says John Anwya.  “These cowards attack Iraq’s native people.”

In northern Iraq a Christian missionary and teacher Namir Nadhim Gourguis, has been freed after just over a week in captivity, according to the Catholic missionary news agency Asia news.

Gourguis was well known in the community and loved.  Mediation by tribal chiefs and local imams led to Gourguis' release just over a week after he was abducted by a gunmen last Thursday at an elementary school near the northern oil city of Kirkuk.

California, USA – United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) this week revised its guidelines about Iraqi refugees, scaling down the categories of Iraqis that it says should be granted asylum in all cases.  Central Iraq remains unstable, and refugees from those provinces should be granted asylum, the UNHCR said. Those provinces include Baghdad, Diyala and Ninevah.

Andrew Harper, who leads the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees operation in Iraq, says Chaldeans and other ethnic and religious minorities in Iraq should receive asylum from Western countries. 

Michigan, USA – “Isn’t it curious that they always move into areas where there is a high population of African Americans and the poor.  They don’t care about helping families.  They care about making sure that those they consider the leeches of society don’t reproduce,” says Mary Khami a member of Chaldeans4Life in Southfield.  

Planned Parenthood opened two new centers in minority dense areas of Detroit and Warren and now wishes to add a third center in Pontiac Michigan.  Planned Parenthood continues to face challenges after internal workers and undercover investigative reporters’ revealed Planned Parenthoods bias towards targeting the abortion of minority babies.  

www.BlackGenocide.org states on their website that “Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in America. 78% of their clinics are in minority communities. Blacks make up 12% of the population, but 35% of the abortions in America. Are we being targeted? Isn't that genocide? We are the only minority in America that is on the decline in population. If the current trend continues, by 2038 the black vote will be insignificant. Did you know that the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, was a devout racist who created the Negro Project designed to sterilize unknowing black women and others she deemed as undesirables of society? The founder of Planned Parenthood said, "Colored people are like human weeds and are to be exterminated." Is her vision being fulfilled today?”
 
Khami is outraged that Planned Parenthood is attempting to move into another minority dominated impoverished city in Michigan.  “They prey on weak minorities who are unable to defend themselves.  They spend a significant amount of money on buying politicians and spend practically nothing on offering alternative options to abortion.  This is a modern day holocaust.” 

Jaramana, SYRIA – The conditions in Iraq are vastly improving, but ignored in the up-beat news of Iraq’s road to recovery is the struggling plight of Iraqi Christians that remain targets and disenfranchised minority.  Iraqi refugees throughout the region have become increasingly desperate. Despite a decline in violence in Iraq, only a small number have gone home, often because their resources are exhausted. Of those who returned to Iraq, many found their property occupied and suffered secondary displacement.

The international community has been largely in denial over the disastrous humanitarian situation in Iraq, and has until recently seen Iraq through the prism of reconstruction and development, and failed to address urgent needs. Only recently has the United Nations issued a common humanitarian appeal for Iraq, recognizing the nature of the situation and the need for all agencies to address humanitarian needs. Nonetheless, the call by the U.N. remains largely ignored.

The vulnerable displaced Iraqis who have fled their homes for safer locations are unable to access their food rations and often unemployed, they live in squalid conditions, have run out of resources and find it extremely difficult to access essential services. “The US, the government of Iraq and the international community must begin to address the consequences of leaving Iraqis’ humanitarian needs unmet,” says Talal Lazar, a Chaldean advisor to the Jordanian embassy on Middle Eastern Christians.  

As a result of the vacuum created by the failure of both the Iraqi Government and the international community to act in a timely and adequate manner, individuals will play a major role in providing assistance to vulnerable Iraqis.

Baghdad, IRAQ – What many Chaldeans have feared in the U.S. Presidential debate has come true.  “We know if America leaves they will come and kill us.  They think we have something to do with them and they think we have money.  The Iraqi government is happy if all Christians leave.  They say they want us to stay, but they don’t mean it.  If they mean it, then they would protect us more,” says Masoud Gallozi. 

In the past few days Iraq Christians have been targeted for slaughter.  The murder of four Christians across Iraq in just two days is raising concern among churches there that another round of religious cleansing has begun. 

Chaldean Monsignor Sako warns that US troop pullout is likely to plunge the country in a “civil war.” Between 31 March and 4 April five Christians are murdered in Kirkuk, Baghdad and Mosul. The prelate calls on the faithful to pray during Holy Week so “that the blood of our martyrs may restore peace.”

Chaldeans in America are frustrated over President Obama’s handling of the Middle East issues.  “There were many Chaldeans fooled into believing the new administration would pressure the Iraqi government to get serious about properly protecting Chaldeans.  These Chaldeans sent an e-mail of a letter by Obama and his people showing he was concerned.  It was just another lie from this man.  A lie that is leaving our people vulnerable.  Those who supported him are partly to blame,” a frustrated James Selmu declares. 

GERMANY - Germany has long fought for the protection of war refugees and has taken their cases to the EU on numerous occasions.  Germany has agreed to resettle 2,500 Iraqi refugees, said the Amman office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on Tuesday, March 10, adding that 2,000 would come from Syria and 500 from Jordan.
 
The first batch of refugees will be soon leaving Jordan for resettlement in Germany, Dana Bajjali, a spokeswoman for the UNHCR office in Amman told DPA news agency without indicating the precise date of their departure. Around 120 Christian refugees from Iraq arrived in Germany on Thursday in search of a better and safer future away from the turmoil of their home country.
 
Amnesty International's Julia Duchrow explains that the successful asylum applicants have a clean criminal record and can not have been members of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's Baath party.  Single mothers, those suffering from post-traumatic stress and people with ties to Germany also had a greater chance of having their application for asylum approved, she added. 

Michigan, USA – “In Iraq if you show any Christian religious symbol in front of your home they send you a letter or take you to court.  How is this management company any different than those that threaten and oppress Christians in third world, communist, and fascist countries,” says Andrew Abdel.

Abdel is incensed at the Tolgate Woods Homeowners association in Novi who has sent a letter asking the Samona family to remove a virgin statue from their front lawn.  A statue that has adorned the home since 2004.  The Samona family is well known in the Chaldean community.  Farouk Samona is a deacon (Shamasha) at the Chaldean Cathedral in Michigan and both his wife and son are active parishioners in women and youth ministry. 

This is the second time the family has been harassed by the homeowner association for their faith.  The first time was back in 2004 during Christmas when the family was sent a letter demanding the removal of their nativity scene. 

California, USA – Local convenient store owners in the El Cajon and the San Diego area feel safer.  Jeda Athra, a mother of three teenagers works long hours with her husband at a corner retail store says she is happy to see the police and prosecuting attorneys taking a stronger stance against crime.  “They need to clean-up the criminals from the streets and let everyone know that holding-up a store in our town means you will go to jail.”

Athra’s husband adds, “Our state is bankrupt which means more crime and more problems.  We need police to scare bad people away from here before they kill anyone else.  Look at those two evil criminals that now face the death penalty.  It does not pay to hurt people in our city.”

The convenient store couple refer to the Thanksgiving bandits.  Franko “Dopes” Bernal and Samuel Thomas “Tommy” McCauley, 21 face a death sentence or life in prison for gunning down store workers in 2006.