Immigration woes around the world

[davkakach]

France urges EU immigration curbs
The BBC News (U.K.), September 29, 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5391920.stm

French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has called for EU nations to adopt a common, tough standard in dealing with illegal immigration.




One in eight pupils speaks English as second language
By Liz Lightfoot
The Telegraph (U.K.), September 29, 2006
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/09/29/nlanguage29.xml

One in eight primary school pupils now speaks English as a second language, according to figures published yesterday.





Immigrants drive up police bills for use of translators
By Helen Nugent and Matt Sandy
The Times (London), September 28, 2006
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,29389-2378527.html

Police in England and Wales spend £21 million a year on language interpreters, with some forces reporting rises of more than 2,000 per cent over the past five years.





Arrest of foreign suspects led to 400% rise in force's costs
By Helen Nugent
The Times (London), September 28, 2006
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,29389-2378528.html





Dull lessons fail to teach pupils how to be good citizens
By Alexandra Frean
The Times (London), September 28, 2006
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2378678.html

Compulsory citizenship classes covering subjects such as the law, the electoral system, human rights and economics are unsatisfactory in a quarter of all secondary schools — often because teachers do not know what they are talking about, research suggests.





Sex trafficking gang members jailed
The Guardian (U.K.), September 29, 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,1884268,00.html

Members of a gang that lured a Lithuanian woman to Britain and then sold her into prostitution were today jailed for up to nine years.

The woman, who risked her life when she jumped out of a 20 ft-high window to escape the gang, came to the UK from Lithuania after they promised her well-paid work. But what followed was sexual abuse as she was first raped and then forced into prostitution.

Albanian Riza Hoxha, 45, of Ilford, Essex, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring between April 24 and May 24 last year to 'traffic a person to the UK for sexual gain'.





MPs restrict residence permit applications
Expatica News, September 29, 2006
http://www.expatica.com/actual/article.asp?subchannel_id=1&story_id=33422

Amsterdam -- Immigrants will in future only be allowed to submit one application for a regular residence permit, either for work, study or family unification, the Dutch Parliament decided on Thursday.





Rightist election campaigns dismay Austria's Turks
By Karin Strohecker
The Boston Globe, September 28, 2006
http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2006/09/28/rightist_election_campaigns_dismay_austrias_turks/

...
Fighting for votes in the national election this Sunday, the Alliance for Austria's Future created by veteran firebrand Joerg Haider last year and his former Freedom Party have made immigrants, Turks in particular, their key campaigning issue.

Posters showing the parties' slick campaigners and sporting slogans like 'Home Sweet Home instead of Islam' from the Freedom Party, or 'Foreigners Minus 30 Percent' from the Alliance, beam down from billboards across Vienna, offending many of Turkish origin who have lived and worked here for years.





Greece Denies Dumping Illegal Immigrants into the Sea
The Spiegal Online (Germany), September 28, 2006
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,439761,00.html

Illegal migrants rescued by the Turkish Coast Guard in the Aegean Sea claimed Greek officials had thrown them overboard. If their story is true, it's an international scandal. It also calls attention to another hotspot for immigrants trying to reach Europe.





Amex warned off foreign workers plan
The Age (Melbourne), September 29, 2006
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/amex-warned-off-foreign-workers-plan/2006/09/29/1159337316281.html

Federal Workplace Relations Minister Kevin Andrews has warned companies they cannot bring foreign workers to Australia on 457 visas and pay them less than the minimum wage.






Biometrics in favour, poll shows
Canadians approve of checks such as eye scans to prevent immigration fraud
By Marina Jimenez
The Globe and Mail (Canada), October 2, 2006
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20061002.IMMIGRATION02/TPStory/National

Most Canadians do not understand what biometrics are, but think the government should use them to prevent prospective immigrants from using bogus identity documents to enter the country, according to a poll obtained by The Globe and Mail.





Davis vows to control immigration
By Brian Wheeler
The BBC News (U.K.), October 2, 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5398702.stm

David Davis has vowed to bring immigration under control in a speech to the Conservative Party's annual conference, in Bournemouth.

The shadow home secretary said he would publish an analysis of the benefits and costs of immigration - something Tony Blair refused to do earlier this year.





Center-Left Opposition Wins in Austria
By Veronika Oleksyn
The Associated Press, October 1, 2006

Vienna, Austria (AP) -- Austria's opposition Social Democrats won nationwide elections on Sunday, swinging the country to the center-left after more than six years of influence by the extreme right, final unofficial returns showed.





Russia Recalls Ambassador and Evacuates Officials From Tbilisi
By Michael Schwirtz
The New York Times, September 29, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/29/world/europe/29russiasumm.html

Amnesty For Illegal Immigrants -- The Federal Immigration Service in Russia plans to grant amnesty to the country’s illegal immigrants in January 2007. The amnesty will allow Russia’s nearly 10 million illegal immigrants to officially register for a permit to work and live in Russia regardless of how they entered the Russian Federation. The amnesty will be declared around the same time that a new, more liberal immigration law will take effect on January 15, 2007.





New Australian Immigration Policies Set to Operate Before the Elections
NewswireToday, October 2, 2006
http://www.newswiretoday.com/news/9084/

Prime Minister John Howard is still bent on imposing the proposed new changes in immigration policies before election time, adding that the government had made citizenship 'a little too easy' in the past.





Fine threat for bosses who rort work visas
By Michael Bachelard
The Age (Melbourne), October 2, 2006
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/fine-threat-for-bosses-who-rort-work-visas/2006/10/01/1159641213620.html

Employers who rort skilled migration visas face being fined for the first time as the Government scrambles to fix a system that has proved politically embarrassing.