US halts training 3000 Lankan youth in outsourcing - Hindustan Times

US halts training 3000 Lankan youth in outsourcing - Hindustan Times

Canada sending former spy chief to Sri Lanka to prevent human smugglingFri, Sep 10, 2010, 11:26 am SL Time, ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.
Sept 10, Ottawa: The Canadian government is sending a former head of an intelligence agency to Sri Lanka and other Asian countries as a special envoy on human smuggling to prevent illegal immigrants entering into the country, the Canadian Press reported Thursday.
According to the report, Canada's Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has said that the former Canadian Security Intelligence Service director Ward Elcock will visit Sri Lanka, Thailand and other countries to improve co-operation and information sharing.
Minister Kenney addressing the media has said that the government cannot eliminate the human smuggling but can reduce the frequency of those by cooperating with other countries.
"There's nothing that we can do to eliminate the possibility of human smuggling. There are some things we can probably do to decrease its frequency or its likelihood. One of those things is better co-operation with countries in the region," the Minister was quoted.
The Minister has said that Elcock's visit to Asian countries including Sri Lanka is part of that effort.
The Thai cargo ship MV Sun Sea, modified to carry human cargo, reached Vancouver In August with 492 Tamil asylum seekers on board.
Intelligence reports say another ship is being prepared in Thailand to take another load of migrants to Canada.
Canadian authorities have begun the process of confirming the identities of the migrants on board MV Sun Sea and evaluating their asylum claims. Identities of only 40 migrants have reportedly been verified so far. However, no one has been released yet from custody. One of the 492 immigrants is being held on suspicion of having links to the Tamil Tiger terrorist group LTTE.
Earlier this week, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews has launched a public awareness campaign to fight human trafficking.
According to the Immigration and Refugee Board most of the refugee claimants in Canada are from Sri Lanka's Tamil community and Sri Lankan Tamil refugees have the highest acceptance rate.
Sri Lankan authorities say the Tamil migrants are economic refugees who are taking advantage of Canada's relaxed immigration laws.
US$ 10mn BPO training programme suspended

US lawmaker scuttles opportunities for Lankan youth in the North
September 10, 2010, 12:00 pm
by Devan Daniel
A US$ 10 million programme, funded by United Sates Agency for International Development (USAID), to provide BPO training to 3,000 conflict affected youth in the North has been scuttled by an American lawmaker. But the agency said the programme had been suspended until it could be established that the new jobs created here would not take away jobs in the US due to outsourcing.
Congressman Tim Bishop earlier called on USAID to suspend the US$ 10 million BPO training programme saying it was outrageous.
"This is simply outrageous; this is perhaps the dumbest and most counter-productive use of taxpayer money that I have encountered in the eight years I have been in office. Whether its $10 million or one nickel, I will fight against any taxpayer funds being used to subsidise outsourcing," Bishop is quoted in a posting on his official website.
On Thursday (9) Bishop’s website said USAID had decided to suspend the training programme until a proper evaluation could be done on its impact on US jobs.
"USAID has suspended a job skills development project in Sri Lanka while we conduct a review to ensure the project will not take any jobs away from Americans," said a letter from USAID quoted by Bishop.
In July 30 USAID announced that it was teaming up with leading BPO and IT/English language training companies to establish professional IT and English skills development training centres in each of the five districts in the Northern Province. Courses in Business Process Outsourcing, Enterprise Java, and English Language Skills was to be offered at no charge to over 3,000 under- and unemployed students who will then participate in on-the-job training schemes with private firms.
"Everybody knows that outsourcing takes jobs away from American workers," Bishop said. "I am glad that USAID has finally seen the light. We need to be looking out for American jobs and American taxpayers and that means not one nickel of taxpayer money should support job-killing outsourcing."
Bishop condemned the programme claiming it was teaching foreign workers how to better take jobs from American workers.
The US is still recovering from the worst recession after the Great Depression of the ‘30s. According to AP newswire services, unemployment in the US rose to 9.6 percent last month from 9.5 percent the previous month.