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France’s Marine Le Pen Would Leave Euro and Slash Immigration

EU Times — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 22:40:44 +0000

The charismatic Marine Le Pen has campaigned hard against free trade and the European Union, and has pushed the party’s traditional tough line on crime and immigration.

Marine Le Pen said she would balance France’s books if elected president by leaving the euro, slashing immigration, taxing imports and tapping the central bank for cheap loans instead of the debt markets.

The National Front leader, who ranks third in opinion polls, spelt out the financial planning behind her campaign promises just over three months before the first round of the presidential contest on April 22.

Exploiting discontent over globalization and the debt crisis in Europe, Le Pen has sought to lure voters by detailing her plan to knock the country’s bloated public deficit to zero by the end of 2017.

She said she would raise 200 billion euros ($260 billion) over five-years, in large part by restoring the autonomy of the French central bank and getting it to lend to the government at cheap rates in order to slash debt costs.

Her economic nationalism has seen her continue to closing the gap with incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy. The Ifop poll for Paris Match showed that in the first round, to be held April 22, Socialist candidate Francois Hollande would finish first with 27 percent, followed by Sarkozy with 23.5 percent and National Front candidate Le Pen on 21.5 percent, the poll published today showed today. Another poll however found that Marine Le Pen is more popular than Nicolas Sarkozy which ranks Le Pen as second instead of third.

Mr Hollande is staking out his position as a more reliable, more caring reincarnation of the late President François Mitterrand – without the eloquence or, so far, any clear program.

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Want to pursue the American Dream? Move to Canada or Europe!

EU Times — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 17:28:00 +0000

Long gone are the days of Cinderella stories in America. Rags-to-riches tales may have at one point been part of the American Dream for those aspiring for success in the states.

New statistics show that moving up the social ladder is no longer a dream as obtainable as before.

According to recent studies, the New York Times reveals this week that economic mobility in America is nowhere near as easy to accomplish as in decades past. Instead, immigrants searching for a new chance at prosperity are better off pursuing options in locales as close away as Canada.

“It’s becoming conventional wisdom that the US does not have as much mobility as most other advanced countries,” Isabel V. Sawhill of the Brookings Institution tells the Times. “I don’t think you’ll find too many people who will argue with that.”

Data from the 2010 Census has previously led analysts to uncover that the inequality gap in America is at its greatest in decades. The middle class has been shrinking in recent years, with more and more Americans finding themselves impoverished or in what the government considers simply “low-income” or poor. Roughly one-in-two Americans fall into those categories, while the richest of the rich in the country see sky-rocketing salaries and bank account receipts.

According to recent data from the Congressional Budget Office, the richest one percent of Americans saw their income, adjusted for inflation, balloon up by 275 percent between in 1979 and 2007. Meanwhile, however, the bottom 20 percent of the United States saw their income increase by only a staggering 18 percent.

“The bottom fifth in the US looks very different from the bottom fifth in other countries,” researcher Scott Winship of the Brookings Institution adds to the National Review. “Poor Americans have to work their way up from a lower floor.”

Staggering unemployment and worsening economic conditions are making the fight one many feel isn’t worth waging. In the month of October, for example, the US economy spawned around 120,000 jobs last month, at the same time, around 315,000 Americans left the labor force — that is, they simply gave up.

Although those chosen few are sitting pretty on billions upon billions, for aspiring entrepreneurs with high hopes for the futures, statistics largely allay any aspirations of success. What was once the American dream has been usurped by the United States’ own competitors, and the National Review notes that in terms of climbing the ladder of economic success, “most Western European and English-speaking nations have higher rates of mobility.”

As such, the entire notion of the American Dream is being eradicated as a new nightmare emerges of the average everybody being unlikely to rise through the system.

Swedish economist Markus Jantti found that 42 percent of males in America that are raised in the bottom 20 percent, income-wise, are destined to remain there for life. In Britain, a nation previously considered a place of stringent class structures, only 30 percent of men find themselves statistically in such restraints.

Experts say that the worsening poverty level in America is creating a hole much too large to escape.

Only 8 percent of those men in the bottom fifth sector are able to climb to the top of the ranks, while that figure resembles 12 percent in Britain and 14 percent among Danes. Similarly, a separate study carried out by the Economic Mobility Project of the Pew Charitable Trusts reveals that those in the top fifth are 62 percent likely to stay there, and 65 percent from the bottom two-fifths in America will remain in that standing as well.

Not even across the pond, people are finding increased chances at bettering their lives only miles away in Canada. To the north, University of Ottawa economist Miles Corak writes in a report that while 16 percent of Canadian men raised in the bottom tenth of incomes will stay there as results, such stays true for 22 percent of Americans.

Corak’s study, which required research dating back to 2006, found that through 50 separate studies, economic mobility was greatest in Canada, Norway, Finland and Denmark. America was towards the bottom.

“If you put more money into the hands of people, they’re going to spend it. And that will create demand, it will create economic growth and it will create jobs,” Moveon.org’s Robert Applebaum told RT recently. Instead, however, the only people in America seeing an increase in income lately are those who have long held the ranks within the top-tier of money makers.

Former George W Bush strategist Matthew Dowd added to ABC recently, that the less fortunate “watch Wall Street, government bailouts and feel like the rich play by different rules. They think, ‘Here I am, trying to make payments on my house with my own small business, trying to make ends meet, but if I need help, no one will help me.’”

“They don’t feel any ability to move up. They feel stuck and don’t feel there’s a lottery ticket to take them to a higher class,” he adds.

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Americans Leaving US in Record Numbers

EU Times — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 13:43:03 +0000

Americans leaving US in record numbers

Ever dream of leaving it all behind and heading out of America? You’re not the only one. A new study shows that more US citizens than ever before are living outside of the country.

According to statistics from the US State Department, around 6.4 million Americans are either working or studying overseas, which Gallup says is the largest number ever for such statistic.

The polling organization came across the number after conducting surveys in 135 outside nations and the information behind the numbers reveal that this isn’t exactly a longtime coming either — numbers have skyrocketed only in recent years. In the 24 months before polling began, the number of Americans between the ages of 25 and 34 living abroad managed to surge from barely 1 percent to over 5.1 percent. For those under the age span wishing to move overseas, the percentage has jumped in the same amount of time from 15 percent to 40.

While the United States of America was at one point (and largely still is) a magnet for foreigners in search of work, the statistics makes it clear that an opposite trend is quickly picking up steam.

“There’s a feeling among more entrepreneurial Americans that if you really want to get anything done, you have to get out of country and away from the depressing atmosphere,” Bob Adams of America Wave tells Reuters. “There’s a sense of lost direction, so more people are looking for locations that offer more hope about the future.”

Many of those leaving the US have job skills that would transfer quite well in the American market. Instead, however, they chose to bring those out of the States, attracted instead to opportunities elsewhere.

While America offers some employment opportunities unmatched outside of the United States, the country has also seen dire economic statistics since the dawn of the Obama administration, with jobless benefit claims soaring in recent months, and only last week did the Department of Labor reveal an unemployment statistic below 9 percent. On the contrary, the number of Americans that want full-time work and have given up on finding it or unable to locate it is closer to double that figure, while at the same time many of America’s largest employers have outsourced positions across the globe. Banking giant Goldman Sachs announced earlier this year that in the wake of a recession, they would finally be creating 1,000 new positions, yet making them available only to workers in Singapore. Other industries, significantly American, have been relocated as well; the ending of NASA’s space shuttle program this year left many intelligent US citizens with little choice but to continue in their field outside of the States.

“We’ve pretty much outsourced everything else,” aerospace technician Giovanni Pinzon tells RT. He was left scrambling for a job after years working in America’s space program.

America Wave’s Adams adds to Reuters that the statistics prove surprising to him, but noted that it doesn’t exactly make sense to think that it is a fluke.

“They’re looking for work because of the sluggish economy, and they’ve lost confidence that the U.S. is going anywhere,” says Adams.

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Girl Gang Freed after Attacking Couple because They Weren’t Used to Drinking

EU Times — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 11:01:57 +0000

Attack: Three of the young women can be seen setting upon Rhea Page, 22, in the centre of Leicester. Despite leaving her traumatised, they were handed suspended sentences

A gang of Muslim women who attacked a passer-by in a city centre walked free from court after a judge heard they were ‘not used to being drunk’ because of their religion.

The group – three sisters and a cousin – allegedly screamed ‘kill the white slag’ as they set upon Rhea Page as she waited for a taxi with her boyfriend.

Miss Page, 22, was left with a bald patch where her hair was pulled out in the attack and was left ‘black and blue’ after suffering a flurry of kicks to the head, back, arms and legs while motionless on the pavement.

Ambaro Maxamed, 24, students Ayan Maxamed, 28, and Hibo Maxamed, 24, and their 28-year-old cousin Ifrah Nur each admitted actual bodily harm, which carries a maximum sentence of five years’ imprisonment.

But Judge Robert Brown gave them suspended jail terms after hearing mitigation that as Muslims, the women were not used to being drunk. The Koran prohibits Muslims from consuming alcohol, although Islamic teachings permit its use for medicinal purposes.

After the sentencing, Ambaro Maxamed wrote on her Twitter account: ‘Happy happy happy!’, ‘I’m so going out’, and ‘Today has been such a great day’.

Yesterday Miss Page, a care worker, called the sentence ‘disgusting’ and said the gang deserved ‘immediate custody’.

‘It’s no punishment at all,’ she said. ‘And for them to say they did it because they were not used to alcohol is no excuse. If they were not supposed to be drinking then they shouldn’t have been out in bars at that time of night.

‘Even after the police came and they all ran away, one of them came running back to kick me in the head one last time.

‘I honestly think they attacked me just because I am white. I can’t think of any other reason.’

Miss Page was treated for bruises and grazes after the attack in June last year as she walked to a taxi rank with boyfriend Lewis Moore, 23, in Leicester city centre.

At the time she worked caring for people with autism and learning difficulties but gave up the job after repeated absences because of stress and flashbacks.

She is still having counselling and suffers panic attacks.

She said: ‘We were just minding our own business but they kept shouting “white bitch” and “white slag” at me. When I turned around one of them grabbed my hair then threw me on the ground.

‘They were taking turns to kick me over and over. I thought they were going to kill me.’

Yobs: Sisters Hibo and Ambaro Maxamed, both 24, who attacked Rhea. They were both given six month suspended jail sentences

Girl gang: Ayan Maxamad, 28, left, and her cousin Ifrah Nur, 28, who were also involved in the attack in Leicester

None of the defendants was charged with racial aggravation. Nur claimed Mr Moore, a fence builder, had been racially abusive, but this was not accepted by the prosecution.

Gary Short, mitigating for Ambaro Maxamed, said the attack was down to alcohol. He said: ‘Although Miss Page’s partner used violence, it doesn’t justify their behaviour.

‘They’re Somalian Muslims and alcohol or drugs isn’t something they’re used to.’

The four women, who all live in Leicester, were each sentenced to six-month jail terms, suspended for 12 months, at Leicester Crown Court last month.

Hibo Maxamed also received a four-month curfew between 9pm and 6am, while the others were ordered to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work.

Judge Brown said that ‘those who knock someone to the floor and kick them in the head can expect to go inside’.

But he said he accepted the women may have felt they were the victims of unreasonable force from Mr Moore as he tried to defend his girlfriend, and handed the defendants a suspended sentence.

Speaking at her home, Hibo Maxamed said: ‘I’m not proud of it, it’s not something I want to talk about. I just want to get on with my life.’

When asked if she wanted to apologise, she replied: “What, to the public? I really don’t care.”

Victims: Rhea, 22, was with her partner Lewis Moore, 23, when she was attacked. He tried to defend her, the court was told

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Protests Erupt in Serbian town against immigrants after Gang Rape

EU Times — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 14:06:11 +0000

The brutal gang rape of a British woman by five Afghan refugees has sparked a massive protest against illegal immigrants in a Serbian spa town.

The 38-year-old woman – who bravely managed to film the attack on her mobile phone – was repeatedly raped after befriending a group of Afghan men in a park in Banja Koviljaca.

Despite handing the video footage to police, only one alleged attacker – identified by police only as Abdurashid D., 25 – has been arrested.

Now local mothers have told police they are boycotting local schools from next week (nov 7) unless they clear out a local refugee centre containing more than 2,500 illegal immigrants which was built to hold just 120.

“These people are always hanging around the parks and streets during the day causing trouble,” said one mum.

“They have no respect for us, no respect for women and we want them gone because they have no right to be here.

“My daughter isn’t going to school again while four refugee rapists are still on the streets,” she added.

The British victim had travelled to Serbia after striking up a Facebook friendship with a man who told her he lived in a town called Lozinca.

When she couldn’t find him, the woman flew on to the spa resort Banja Koviljaca where she began chatting to three Afghan men in a local park.

But when they invited her for a drink at a local hotel, they met up with two other men and she was dragged behind the building and raped repeatedly.

Her harrowing phone video footage of the attack – which was handed to the police – is said by local media to show the faces of three of her attackers clearly.

Police said that Abdurashid D. has admitted sex with the woman, but claims it was consensual, although he was unable to explain medical evidence showing injuries suffered by the woman.

The rape occurred last week (27 Oct), but police only revealed the details after the woman had returned to the UK on Monday.

The case has shocked locals in the region, which is the most popular spa resort in the country and regarded as one of the mainstays of Serbia’s tourism business.

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Thousands protest in Russia against Immigration

EU Times — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 11:15:42 +0000

Held back: A police barrier stops the chanting 5,000-strong mob of mostly young men from going any further

Thousands of far-right nationalists marched in Moscow today in a ‘Take Back Russia’ protest at Muslim migrants.

Resentment is growing over the migrants from Russia’s Caucasus and the money the Kremlin sends to those troubled regions.

Chanting ‘Russia for Russians’ and ‘Migrants today, occupiers tomorrow,’ about 5,000 demonstrators, mostly young men, marched through a working-class neighbourhood on the outskirts of the capital.

Police stood shoulder-to-shoulder along the street, which was blocked to traffic.

Violently xenophobic groups have flourished in Russia over the past two decades, killing and beating non-Slavs and anti-racism activists, and crudely denouncing the influx of immigrants from the Caucasus and from central Asian countries that were once part of the Soviet Union.

They have drawn moral support from nationalism that has been encouraged by Vladimir Putin’s rule as part of the Kremlin’s attempts to rebuild a strong Russian state.

After a clash last December between police and thousands of football fans and other extremists just outside the Kremlin walls, and an unprecedented outbreak of hate crimes, the government has taken a tougher line against the groups.

But their virulent hatred is proving hard to combat for many Russians share the anti-migrant sentiments and even those who would not describe themselves as racist are increasingly resentful of the hefty subsidies sent to the Caucasus, particularly to Chechnya.

The money is intended to bring stability after years of war, but the region remains deeply impoverished while Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov flaunts his wealth.

Among the banners carried today was one reading, ‘Stop feeding the Caucasus.’

‘All Russian people are on the march — football fans, skinheads, national socialists,’ Dmitry Demushkin, who leads a banned group called Russkiye, or Russians, shouted to the crowd: ‘We have to show what our nation is demanding.’

The so-called Russian March has been held annually since 2005 on a new national holiday created to replace celebrations of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.

The new holiday was usurped by far-right nationalists, whose first rally in 2005 led to the shocking sight of thousands of skinheads marching through central Moscow with their hands raised in a Nazi salute and shouting obscene racist slogans.

The following year the march was banned, but nationalists marched anyway and clashed violently with police. Since 2007, the Russian March has been relegated to areas outside of the capital’s centre

Meanwhile, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin attended a National Unity Day ceremony 400 miles from the capital.

They laid flowers at the monument of Minin and Pozharsky, the leaders of a liberation struggle against foreign invaders in 1612 in the historic city of Nizhny Novgorod.

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Switzerland against immigration and EU membership

EU Times — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:39:54 +0000

On October 23, Switzerland elected the lower chamber of the parliament – the National Council. The favorite of the election was considered the ultra-right People’s Party. It stands for the drastic restriction of immigration and is against joining the EU.

Its program is best characterized by the pre-election poster: three white sheep standing on the Swiss flag are kicking a black one. The three white sheep symbolize the German, French and Italian- speaking indigenous people. The black one represents the people from Asia, Africa and south-east Europe. Or another poster: a Muslim woman wrapped in a veil from head to toe against minarets made in the form of launched rockets.

The far-right can be given credit for the result of the referendum in 2009 that resonated nearly in the entire world. Then most people in Switzerland were in favor of a ban on minarets. Subsequently, through the efforts of the People’s Party a law on expulsion from the country of migrant workers who have committed crimes on Swiss territory was adopted. In addition, the lower house of the parliament passed a law banning wearing of the burqa, but the upper (Council of States) rejected it.

Once, the People’s Party has caused a rustle. Four years ago, it won a landslide victory, gaining just over 29 percent of the vote. This time the result was more modest – 25.9 percent, and for the first time in 20 years, the support for the “populists” has diminished. Accordingly, they would get 55 out of 200 seats in the National Council (it used to be seven more). At the same time, the next candidates were significantly behind, therefore the victory is still quite convincing.

The runner-up, the Social Democratic Party, gained the support of 18.1 percent of voters, the liberal Free Democratic Party – 15.3 percent, the conservative Christian Democrats – 13.1 percent. The Green Party, the Liberal Green Party and Bourgeois-democratic party also made it to the Parliament. The last three parties secured from five to eight percent.

It would be wrong to consider the results of the current right-wing voting a failure also because many other parties in recent years too abruptly turned “right”. The conservatives supported the People’s Party when voting to ban the burqa. The need to tighten immigration policies was discussed by many other parties, and the question of joining the European Union is no longer on the agenda. There was a partial overlap of the slogans of the far right, which led to a drop in their rankings.

In no other country in Europe the far-right could win elections, while in Switzerland it has happened twice already. This is largely explained by the specificity of the country. It is difficult today in the Old World to find another country where such a high percentage of the population lives in rural areas. Residents of the Alpine mountain villages are completely integrated in the modern life and keep up with the times, but they cherish the tradition stronger than in other places.

All major political forces in the country have to take into account the desire of its people to hold on to traditional ways and resist newcomers trying to break it. (Switzerland is the country of direct democracy, where every year several referenda on a variety of issues take place). Accordingly, the rules for obtaining citizenship in the Alpine Confederation are perhaps the toughest in Europe. First you have to obtain citizenship in the community, then – in the canton and only then – on the country level.

Despite all the obstacles, the number of migrant workers in Switzerland is over 20 percent of the population, but in absolute terms there is half million people. Immigrants work in construction, hotels, and all kinds of menial work. However, highly skilled engineers and programmers are also welcomed. The level of education among the indigenous Swiss is relatively low (due to the large number of people living in rural areas), but it still is higher than that of the newcomers.

Until certain time Switzerland drove people rather close in terms of culture. After the war, people of southern Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece came here to work. Since the 1960s the former Yugoslavia residents – Serbs, Croats, Bosnian Muslims, and Albanians began to emerge. Gradually the Turks began to move to the German part of Switzerland (there are many of them in Germany), and the Arabs and immigrants from Africa – to the French. Colonies of the Kosovo Albanians since the early 1960s were in German and Italian regions. To date, Muslim immigrants make up about a quarter of all visitors (400,000). The most numerous of them are Albanians, Turks, Arabs, and the Bosnian Muslims. Practicing Muslims account for not more than 50 thousand, but Switzerland has some 170 mosques – even if only four have a minaret. Women wearing the hijab and burqa have long been an integral part of the urban landscape in Geneva and Zurich.

Many indigenous Swiss simply shudder at their national soccer team. Among its leaders are Turk Gokhan Inler, Eren Derdiyok, Hakan Yakin, Albanian Valon Behrami and Dzherdana Shakira, Black Johan Djourou and Gelson Fernandes. The image is complete with the Spaniards and the Croats. It may seem that already half of the Swiss population is newcomers. Yet, it is still not the case.

It should also be borne in mind that the Swiss had suffered for their present peace and prosperity after going through many wars and conflicts. They came up with such a government in which members of one linguistic group have their own mono-ethnic area (Canton), but ultimately different cantons form a government with three state languages (German, French, Italian), and one official (Romansh).

The emergence of new ethnic groups will certainly upset the balance. Hence the success enjoyed by the People’s Party. Incidentally, the Swiss far-right differ from their colleagues in Europe because they represent different linguistic and religious groups. They defend the Swiss idea, and the German, French- and Italian Swiss, Catholics and Protestants vote for them. All of them (albeit in somewhat different degrees) would like to keep the way of life that led to the prosperity of Switzerland.

In addition to the issue of immigration, the Swiss see that things in the neighboring European Union are not that great. The Euro (in contrast to the Swiss franc) fluctuates significantly. And if we talk about business immigrant, now EU leaders one by one accept that the policy of integration into the society (especially of the Muslims, but not only them) has failed. The desire for relative isolation in Switzerland is strong. It is reflected in the outcome of the elections.

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Obama sets all-time deportation record

EU Times — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 21:53:25 +0000

President Barack Obama just guaranteed himself a place in the record books. Under his watch, the United States deported more immigrants than ever before last year.

For the fiscal year ending September 2011, the Obama administration sent nearly 400,000 illegal immigrants out of the United States, a statistic more than triple the figure for the year 2000.

In total, 396,906 non-citizens were evicted from the great American melting pot during the last 12 months; the figure for 2000 was only 116,782.

To some lawmakers, nearly 400,000 isn’t good enough, however. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has questioned Obama’s criteria for kicking illegal immigrants out of the country. The president’s latest deportation initiative focuses largely on eliminating America of convicted criminals without citizenship, but Smith says that the president shouldn’t be so particular.

“It’s disappointing that the Obama administration continues to put illegal immigrants before the American people,” Smith said. “We could free up millions of jobs for citizens and legal immigrants if we simply enforced our immigration laws.”

New rules for the Department of Homeland Security’s deportation procedures under Obama’s insistence aims to focus on criminals, security threats and repeated border-crossers. Of the nearly 400,000 sent home last year, 55 percent fell into that category. Around 36,000 of those deported were convicted of driving under the influence and just over 1,100 were convicted of homicide.

For the over 200,000 kicked-out, however, nearly the same number of deported aliens last year were booted from America for simply being un-American. “For billions of dollars to be spent so that 45 percent of the people we’re deporting are not convicted criminals is not a good use of our enforcement dollars,” Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, tells USA Today.

Rallies are being held today in cities across America, including San Francisco, New York, Boston, Atlanta, Dallas, Charlotte, Houston, Miami, Milwaukee and Tucson, to protest President Obama’s immigration policies.

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Lukashenko set to build “Qatari island” in Belarus

EU Times — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 22:26:29 +0000

In addition to the so-called “Qatari island”, the new Belarus’ friends from the East would be given Kastrychnitskae and Petrykauskae potassium salts deposit, an iron ore deposit, land and much more.

Charter97.org website has got at its disposal a protocol of Lukashenka’s instructions following his visit to Qatar on August 15-16. The document is intended for the “Official Use Only”.

Thus, until October 31 2011 the borders of the land parcels for “Qatari Island” in Belarus should be defined, and a memorandum of understanding on realization of this project should be prepared. The project is supervised by the National bank and a private unitary enterprise “Tekhnologii upravleniya” (“Management techniques”), who are ordered to prepare a legal framework for setting up for set up zones “with maximally favourable regime for functioning financial and banking centres, including Islamic structures.”

The Qatari have been promised a share in the new enterprises for potash fertilizers mining in Kastrychnitskae and Petrykauskae potassium salts deposit, as well as development of iron ore deposits in Belarus.

Until October 31 the companies Qatar Holding and Qatar Airways are to be offered a variant of buying or placing in their management “Brest” airport, as well as a possibility of organising a direct air flight between Minsk and Doha.

The so-called ruling family of Qatar, which is to be given land parcels “for possible construction of residences and organising hunting lands there”, has not been neglected as well.

The National Academy of Sciences of Belarus in cooperation with the Qatari Fund of Education, Science and Social Development, are ordered among other things to create a certain “Excellence Centre”.

The seriousness of intentions is supported by participation in joint projects of the symbolic figure, the “purse” of Lukashenka’s family, Vladimir Peftiev (Uladzimir Peftsiyeu). His private unitary enterprise “BT Telecommunications” subjected to the EU sanctions, is to take part in the project on establishing of a joint venture between Belarus and Qatar for manufacturing complex fertilizers in Qatar, as well as a joint venture manufacturing complex fertilizers in Belarus.

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£2.5 billion benefits bill for EU migrants

EU Times — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 22:06:52 +0000

The UK could face an extra £2.5bn benefits bill for EU migrants.

Eurocrats have ordered Britain to pay up to £2.5 billion more a year in handouts to people from across the EU, sparking fears of an explosion in “benefit tourism”.

The European Commission has accused the UK of breaking EU laws giving foreigners access to our multi-billion-pound welfare system – and has set a two-month deadline for Britain to open up access or face court action.

If the commission gets its way, people from the 26 other EU states will be able to travel to Britain, claim they are now living here and immediately qualify for a range of benefits without ever having paid into the system.

The Eurocrats’ “reasoned opinion”, issued yesterday, said: “The UK has two months to inform the Commission of measures it has taken to bring its legislation into line with EU law.

“Once again we see the European Commission telling us how to run our country and people are becoming sick and tired of it” said UKIP leader Nigel Farage.

“Otherwise, the Commission may decide to refer the UK to the EU’s Court of Justice.”

Estimates of the cost to British taxpayers of the extra benefits have ranged between £700million and £2.5billion a year.

But critics savaged the latest intrusion into Britain’s domestic affairs by unelected bureaucrats.

UKIP leader Nigel Farage said: “Once again we see the European Commission telling us how to run our country and people are becoming sick and tired of it.

“If the EC gets its way then there will be a far greater burden on the British taxpayer as more money will need to be found for the social security system.’’

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Swedish police to learn polite Arabic

EU Times — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 08:44:33 +0000

Police who patrol Malmö’s Rosengård district are being offered a special Arabic language class to help them better understand and communicate with local residents in the predominantly immigrant area.

So far 45 officers have signed up for voluntary twelve-week class, which will provide training on a number of common greetings and pleasantries in Arabic, the local Skånska Dagbladet newspaper reports.

“It’s about dealing with immigrants in a more dignified and little more civil manner,” local police chief Bengt Hersler told the newspaper.

According to Hersler, the course was arranged at the request of officers who have pushed the department to provide them with the tools to better communicate with Rosengård’s residents, many of whom are immigrants and have Swedish as a second language.

In addition to teachings in basic Arabic, the tailor-made course will also offer lessons on Muslim culture and traditions to help officers better understand some of the cultural differences that can lead to misunderstandings in dealings with local residents.

“We’re looking to broaden our knowledge, Said Hersler.

“Ever time we speak, we express ourselves from within our own culture. Even if you speak the same language, there’s no guarantee that people understand each other.”

The tailor-made course, arranged by studieförbundet Vuxenskolan, will be held during participants’ free time and will focus on phrases that officers would likely be able to use in their everyday work.

“They obviously aren’t going to learn the whole language,” Lena Gustafsson from Studieförbundet Vuxenskolan told the newspaper.

While no follow up course is currently planned, Hersler told the newspaper that, if the Arabic language and culture class proves successful, a follow-on may be arranged.

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Australian PM Julia Gillard hits out at asylum ruling

EU Times — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 20:12:22 +0000

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has hit out at a High Court decision that ruled an asylum deal with Malaysia was unlawful.

Ms Gillard called the ruling “deeply disappointing” and said the court had “rewritten the Migration Act”.

Under the deal, Australia would have sent 800 asylum-seekers to Malaysia and would have received 4,000 refugees in return over four years.

But the court ruled Malaysia did not offer adequate protection for refugees.

The decision was an embarrassment for Ms Gillard’s government, which had sought to appear tough on asylum.

But human rights activists in both Malaysia and Australia have welcomed the news.

‘Different interpretation’

Speaking in Brisbane, Ms Gillard said that the court ruling “turns on its head the understanding of the law in this country”, ABC News reported.

“Yesterday the asylum-seeker and refugee law of this country changed – changed from how it had been known and understood before with a different interpretation,” she said.

She said that the government would await advice from Solicitor-General Stephen Gageler before proceeding, but warned of a possible spike in asylum-seekers arriving by sea in the wake of the ruling.

The “Malaysian Solution” would have seen up to 800 people arriving “irregularly” in Australia by boat after 25 July transferred to Malaysia for “refugee status determination”.

There they would join a queue of refugees already seeking resettlement.

Meanwhile, Australia would have expanded its intake of refugees to include a further 4,000 refugees who entered Malaysia before 25 July.

This was supposed to send a tough message to boat people that they would not be processed in Australia and they would not receive “preferential treatment” over other asylum-seekers.

But the court ruled that the exchange was illegal as Malaysia, which is not a signatory to the UN convention on refugees, offered inadequate legal protections for asylum seekers.

It said Australia would fail to meet its international obligations under the terms of the deal.

‘Expensive and harmful’

Ms Gillard said that the ruling could impact on Australian proposals to send asylum-seekers to re-opened processing camps in Papua New Guinea or on the Pacific island of Nauru.

“It is far from clear whether the court’s ruling would, practically speaking, permit the operation of offshore processing in other locations, even in locations where offshore processing has been conducted in the past,” she said.

The Greens – on whom Ms Gillard’s minority government depends for support – have welcomed the ruling, with Senator Sarah Hanson-Young urging the government to move away from “expensive, harmful and illegal” offshore processing.

Malaysian activists have also praised it, calling on Kuala Lumpur to sign the UN convention on refugees and raise accommodation standards.

Refugee advocates in Australia, meanwhile, have called on the government to accelerate processing of detainees’ asylum claims.

Australia currently detains all asylum-seekers arriving by boat, including several hundred in a centre on Christmas Island which has seen riots in recent months.

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Arrests in Moscow as nationalists protest the Mirzayev case

EU Times — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 21:45:07 +0000

More than 30 people have been arrested in Moscow and St. Petersburg as ultra-nationalists staged rallies over the death of Ivan Agafonov.

Agafonov, 19, died after a scuffle outside a Moscow nightclub on Aug. 13 and Dagestan-born martial arts champion Rasul Mirzayev is accused of throwing the fatal punch.

That has angered right-wing groups, who are planning a wave of protests against “Caucasian lawlessness”.

And even the reversal of a decision to release Mirzayev on bail was not enough to prevent unauthorized rallies taking place in Russia’s two biggest cities.

‘It could be you’

Nationalist groups gathered outside Moscow’s Zamoskvoretsky Court, with representatives of “Russky obraz”, “Russky grazhdansky soyuz” and “Russkoye obshchestvennoye dvizheniye” claiming more than 300 people joined the protest.

Organizers claimed that the protest could not be cancelled because Mirzayev had been remanded in custody: “We know he is being held once more, we do not know that he will be punished and thrown in jail. In place of the murdered boy could be you or your loved ones,” read a message which spread on internet forums.

Police were pelted with stones and paving slabs as they tried to arrest young women who had joined the demonstration, Komsomolskaya Pravda reported.

Officers later said about 50 people took part in the rally, most of them football fans. Twelve people were detained, the police press service told Life News, adding that they were believed to be the organizers.

A similar demonstration in St. Petersburg saw about 15 people detained, mostly for being drunk in public and using abusive language.

Tensions remain high, with police on alert for further trouble in Moscow at the weekend – perhaps coinciding with the Spartak vs CSKA football match on Sunday evening.

Mirzayev’s defense

Speaking in court prior to being remanded in custody, Mirzayev himself admitted throwing the punch which caused Agafonov to fall, hitting his head and sustaining the injuries which ultimately killed him.

But he said that Agafonov was no mere “boy”. “He is almost two meters tall and weighs just under 100 kg. Should I stand there and wait for him to hit me?” he said in court, Itar-Tass reported.

And Moskovsky Komsomolets reported that the student was also under investigation for alleged involvement in two aggravated robberies of couriers.

His mother and his girlfriend both denied that Agafonov had committed any crime.

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Europeans overwhelmingly against immigration

EU Times — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 22:54:16 +0000

An international survey of 23 countries by Ipsos has found opposition to immigration in numerous countries across the world, with majorities often considering its effects to be negative and its scale excessive. European nations were typical of this trend.

Majorities in countries as diverse as Germany, South Africa, Russia, Turkey and the United States were found to consider immigration to have a “very or fairly negative impact”.

Anti-immigration sentiment was particularly strong in Europe, with over 65% of Spaniards, Italians and British polled strongly or partly agreeing that “there are too many immigrants in our country”.

Sweden and Poland were the only European countries surveyed that did not have majorities who considered immigration to have a negative impact. In no country did a majority consider immigration to have been beneficial.

Majorities in most EU countries surveyed agreed that immigration had made it more difficult for citizens to find employment and “placed too much pressure on public services,” such as health care and education.

Anti-immigrant sentiment has put significant strain on freedom of movement within the EU. On 11 August, the European Commission approved Spain’s measures to exclude Romanian workers from its labour market. The Spanish unemployment rate is by far the highest in the EU at 21%. Bulgaria and Romania recently saw their accession to the Schengen border-free area postponed.

The Dutch and Danish governments, whose parliamentary majorities are dependent on the support of far-right anti-immigrant parties, have pushed particularly hard to limit immigration. In the case of Denmark, the unilateral imposition of new border controls was harshly criticised by the European Commission and Germany.

Immigration in Europe: Declining and uneven

The number of migrants in the world has increased dramatically over the past decade, according to the International Organisation for Migration, soaring from 150 million in 2000 to 214 million today. Immigration to the European Union, however, has dropped somewhat in recent years due to the economic recession.

A major study published last month by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) found that immigration to most European nations declined in 2009, including in France (7%), Germany (13%), Spain (18%) and Italy (25%). Immigration rates to Ireland and the Czech Republic virtually halved over the course of that year.

Similarly the EU’s own statistical service, Eurostat, found that immigration to EU member states dropped by 6% in 2008, while emigration increased by 13%. But Eurostat also indicates that the number of foreign residents in various EU countries has nonetheless been on the rise, increasing from approximately 28,913,000 in 2007 to 32,493,000 today (including EU citizens residing in another member state).

While anti-immigration sentiment, according to the poll, is broadly shared across Europe, there are significant national differences. The number of foreigners in some countries, particularly Belgium, France and Germany, has grown relatively slowly over the past decade or has even declined.

Other countries, often traditionally lands of emigration, have seen spectacular increases in foreign residents. According to Eurostat, between 1999 and 2010 their numbers increased from 1.2 million to 4.2 million in Italy, from less than 120,000 to 420,000 in Ireland, and from 650,000 to 5.7 million in Spain.

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EU allows crisis-hit Spain to restrict Romanian workers

EU Times — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 16:19:45 +0000

Romanian Workers

Spain has been given the green light by the EU executive to tighten restrictions on Romanian workers as it struggles with the highest unemployment in the 27-nation block.

Spain will now require Romanians to have a work contract before settling in Spain and reverses a two and a half year moratorium that gave Romanian workers unrestricted access as fellow members of the European Union.

The EU commission recognised that the measure was necessary “due to serious disturbances on the labour market in crisis hit Spain,” said a statement released by Brussels, Thursday.

The approval running to the end of 2012 marks the first time the “safe-guard clause” to restrict freedom of movement by EU member citizens has been invoked.

Spain suffers from the EU’s highest jobless rate, running at over 20 per cent since May last year and rising to more than 30 per cent among Romanian nationals currently settled there.

The free movement of citizens from a new member state can only be restricted under certain conditions and Spain was asked to provide data to justify the implementation of the emergency curb.

Announcing the decision, László Andor, European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, said: “The Commission understands why, at this particular juncture – because of the dramatic employment situation and the very complex financial environment – the Spanish authorities wish to step back from full free movement.”

But he added: “We hope this move will be limited in time as much as possible and an overall positive attitude towards free movement in Europe will continue to prevail.”

Spain’s government has said it supports the free circulation of citizens within the EU but was no longer able to absorb new inflows of workers.

“The temporary measure will not affect Romanians who are already part of the labour force in Spain,” said Jose Blanco, spokesman for the socialist government, adding: “It will not affect the free circulation of citizens within the European Union, a principle that Spain has always defended.”

When Romania and Bulgaria entered the EU in 2007, their treaties of accession stipulated a seven-year transition period during which other members could limit access to their labour markets.

Spain lifted this restriction in January 2009, but warned at the time that it could re-impose it at a later date if the economy worsened.

Romania’s government has two weeks to request an annulment of the EU’s decision to approve Spain’s request.

The number of Romanians in Spain has quadrupled in the past five years to more than 800,000, making them Spain’s biggest foreign community.

Initially attracted by opportunities in Spain’s booming construction industry and for seasonal agricultural work, many are now returning home as what few jobs available are claimed by Spanish workers.

Romania itself has an unemployment rate of only seven per cent.

At the start of the downturn Spain’s government offered non-European immigrants a cash incentive to return home to their own countries but few accepted the offer.

The economic crisis gripping Europe and the influx of refugees escaping the turmoil of North Africa has brought freedom of movement commitments within Europe into question.

The Schengen Agreement has come under pressure with both President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy calling for a revision after France stopped migrants crossing over from Italy by train.

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