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Members of the Galicia Division were initially prohibited from entering Canada due to their membership in the SS. But in 1950, Britain made an appeal to the Commonwealth for volunteers to accept a total of 9,000 division members who were at that time residing in the UK after being disarmed by British troops at the war's end.See also:
When Canada's External Affairs Department, prompted by complaints from the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC), raised concerns about the division's ties to the Nazis and role in Nazi atrocities, the British government insisted that it had carried out background checks. "While in Italy these men were screened by Soviet and British missions and neither then nor subsequently has any evidence been brought to light which would suggest that any of them fought against the Western Allies or engaged in crimes against humanity," claimed the British Foreign Office. "Their behaviour since they came to this country," added London, "has been good and they have never indicated in any way that they are infected with any trace of Nazi ideology."
With this letter serving as political cover, Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent and his cabinet declared that Galicia Division members would be permitted to immigrate to Canada unless it could be proved that they had personally committed atrocities against civilian populations based on "race, religion or national origins." Simply having been a Galicia Division member would not be considered a valid reason to prevent entry, even though after the war all Waffen-SS members had been deemed complicit in war crimes.
The immigration of Nazi and Nazi-allied war criminals continued for more than a decade after the war and was a significant factor in Canada's emergence during the Cold War as a political-ideological centre of far-right Ukrainian nationalism.
Speaking to a CBS 60 Minutes programme in 1997, Canadian historian Irving Abella, who is currently Professor for Canadian Jewish history at York University, bluntly summed up the political climate of the time. "One way of getting into postwar Canada," he said "was by showing the SS tattoo. This proved that you were an anti-Communist."
According to a field report from western Aleppo, the Syrian Arab Army managed to capture the key town of Kafr Da'el after the jihadist rebels withdrew from the area this afternoon.And foiled an attack on central Syrian oil fields:
The report said the Syrian Arab Army is now pushing further north of Kafr Da'el as they attempt to besiege the remaining jihadists that are still holed up inside the Anadan Plain region.
According to the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), the engineering units of the Syrian Army "managed to disable and land 5 drones electronically" during their attempted attack on the oil facilities.In fact, they have retaken 23 villages west of Aleppo, a terrific achievement!
These attacks on Syria's oil facilities have become more frequent, as unknown groups attempt to further harm the Syrian economy.
In a statement issued in June of last year, the Ministry of Oil announced a sabotage operation targeting its oil installations in the coastal city of Baniyas, where the oil terminals linking the Baniyas refinery and the oil terminals located under the Mediterranean waters were bombed.
Homs refinery, founded in 1959, is one of the largest refineries in Syria and it consists of a number of distillation units of all kinds and naphtha improvement to raise octane.
The refinery produces domestic gas, premium and regular gasoline, aircraft kerosene, heavy and light diesel, fuels of all kinds, sulfur, hydrogen gas, oxygen, and others.
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