[Majorityrights News] Trump will ‘arm Ukraine to the teeth’ if Putin won’t negotiate ceasefire Posted by Guessedworker on Tuesday, 12 November 2024 16:20.
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[Majorityrights Central] A couple of exchanges on the nature and meaning of Christianity’s origin Posted by Guessedworker on Tuesday, 25 July 2023 22:19.
[Majorityrights News] Is the Ukrainian counter-offensive for Bakhmut the counter-offensive for Ukraine? Posted by Guessedworker on Thursday, 18 May 2023 18:55.
Posted by DanielS on Monday, 18 December 2017 08:47.
Breitbart, “Anti-Mass Migration Central European Nations Volunteer €35 Million To Reinforce EU Borders”, 15 Dec 2017:
The four central nations that comprise the Visegrad group (V4) have set aside 35 million euros to help European Union (EU) member states protect the political bloc’s external borders against illegal mass migration.
The four countries that make up the Visegrad group, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia, have all agreed to donate the money to protect the EU external border in an announcement this week. All four countries are attending a EU conference to discuss migration issues beginning Thursday AP reports.
Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico commented on the move saying, “if we will see good projects in the future, first of all, projects that are effective, we are ready to spend even more money because we really want to show solidarity.”
Some of the countries in the V4 group have been accused of a lack of solidarity by some in EU leadership. The Hungarian government has been particularly critical of those in Brussels who have argued about solidarity.
Breitbart London @BreitbartLondon
EU Dismisses Hungarian Request for ‘Solidarity’ over Border Controls, ‘We Won’t Support Fences’http://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/09/04/eu-dismisses-request-border-securitty/ 10:00 PM - Sep 4, 2017
Hungarian government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs replied to the EU elites in September writing, “The distorted narrative that is spun from Brussels attempts to convince European citizens that somehow European solidarity should be connected to accepting migrants, many of whom have crossed illegally into the territory of the EU.”
Kovacs also argued that Hungary had funded EUR 883.2 million from its own budget in order to protect the EU external borders.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has consistently argued against mass migration, said Thursday that the new injection of cash will also go toward helping control illegal migration from Libya.
The EU, along with Italy have funnelled money into Libya to help train coastguard recruits and some allege that the Italians have even paid local warlords to stop the influx of migrants.
All four Visegrad group countries continue to refuse to participate in the EU’s migrant redistribution scheme with Prime Minister Fico noting, “Quotas do not work, they are ineffective, the decision on quotas really divided the European Union.”
Posted by DanielS on Monday, 20 November 2017 13:44.
Vancouver Sun, “The most ‘Asian’ city outside Asia.”
What is the significance of Metro Vancouver becoming the most “Asian” city outside Asia? Forty-three per cent of Metro Vancouver residents have an Asian heritage, which is a much higher proportion than any other major city outside the continent of Asia.
Based on Statistic Canada reports, the number of those with Asian roots in Metro Vancouver will continue to grow at a faster rate than the non-Asian population.
Around the globe, the only major cities outside Asia that come close to Metro Vancouver for their portion of residents with Asian backgrounds are San Francisco (33 per cent Asian), London, England (21 per cent), Metro Toronto (35 per cent), Calgary (23 per cent) and Sydney, Australia.
Vancouver Sun, “Three million people snap up Canada’s 10-year visas.”
The global appetite for Canada’s new 10-year visas appears insatiable, especially in China.
More than three million people from countries with which Canada has long had travel restrictions have obtained the 10-year, multiple-entry visas since the program began in 2014.
With almost half the 10-year visas being handed out in Mainland China, where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government this year opened seven new visa offices, the province of B.C., more than anywhere in Canada, has experienced a surge of visitors.
Immigration specialists say the 10-year visas are having multiple effects on Canada. They’ve markedly boosted tourism. And they’ve helped re-connect globally far-flung families for extended periods.
But they have also been vulnerable to abuse by rich trans-nationals with families in Canada who seek to avoid paying Canadian income taxes on their global income.
More than 1.4 million Mainland Chinese have gone through the vetting process to obtain Canada’s 10-year visa, which allows visits of up to six months at a time.
More than 716,000 people from India have also obtained multiple-entry visas, followed by 273,000 from Brazil and 140,000 from the Philippines.
The federal government says Mainland China visitors now spend $1 billion a year in Canada. Travel from that country has soared and China has become Canada’s third largest source of visitors after the U.S. and the U.K.
George Lee, a Burnaby immigration lawyer who was born in China, says Metro Vancouver hotels, retailers and restaurants are responding to the swelling stream of Chinese visitors by hiring more Mandarin-speaking employees and even making sure their staff “serve Coca-Cola warm,” the custom in China.
In addition, Lee said wealthy Mainland Chinese visitors are increasingly buying hotels, resorts and residential real estate in B.C., particularly in Metro Vancouver and on Vancouver Island.
“Vancouver has become a global village,” Lee said. “When we encounter a new trend … some, if not most, dislike it. They feel challenged and intimidated. But eventually people will get used to it.”
Posted by DanielS on Sunday, 29 October 2017 06:29.
Related story, DT, “Population to surge by four million due to mass immigration that will ‘change the face of England forever.” Credit: SPL/Barcroft Media
The population of the UK is projected to shoot up by 3.6 million or 5 and a half percent over the next ten years, with more than half of the growth due to mass migration. According to new data from The Office of National Statistics, or ONS, the population will pass 70 million by mid 2029 and be 72.9 million in mid 2041. The population boom is equivalent of more than three new cities the size of Birmingham appearing on the UK over a decade.
Separate ONS statistics reported two months ago suggest that over a third of babies born in England and Wales had at least one foreign born parent. In London it was two thirds.
DM, “Britain’s population will hit 70 million before 2030 and more than HALF the increase in the next decade will be from immigration”, 26 Oct 2017:
Britain’s population will surge past 70 million before the end of the next decade, new forecasts reveal today with more than half the increase caused by immigration.
The number of people living in Britain will rise by 3.6 million - 5.5 per cent - in a decade and the country will be home to 70 million by mid 2029.
The new forecast from the Office for National Statistics considers immigration, fertility and life expectancy.
It concluded that over the next ten years, 46 per cent of UK population growth is projected to result from more births than deaths, with 54 per cent attributed to net international migration.
Taking into account babies born to foreign parents in Britain, immigration will indirectly account for 77 per cent of the population growth.
[...]
Lord Green of Deddington, Chairman of Migration Watch UK, warned the projections were ‘extraordinarily low’ based on historical migration
Over the decade from mid-2016, the projections suggest that 7.7 million people will be born and 6.1 million will die, while 5.2 million people will immigrate on a long-term basis to the UK with 3.2 million emigrating from the country.
He said: ‘This is serious because it will lead to inadequate planning for housing, schools, hospitals and infrastructure – as, indeed, we have seen in recent years. Yet again the ONS have been much too cautious.
‘It is also of note that, on the principal projection, immigration, including the effect on births, will account for 77 per cent of population growth over the next 25 years.
‘If immigration continues at the ONS high migration assumption, which is roughly present levels, the population will grow by almost ten million, of which 82 per cent will be due to immigration – that is an additional eight million people.
‘This underlines the need for a successful Brexit which could substantially reduce recent levels of net EU migration, perhaps by 100,000 a year.’
Andrew Nash, of the ONS Population Projections Unit, said: ‘Over the period between mid-2016 and mid-2026 the population of the UK is projected to grow from 65.6 million to 69.2 million, reaching 70 million by mid-2029.
[...]
Over the decade from mid-2016 projected growth varies substantially between the four nations of the UK.
England’s population is projected to grow 5.9 per cent over this period. For Northern Ireland the figure is 4.2 per cent while for Scotland and Wales the figures are 3.2 per cent and 3.1 per cent respectively.
As well as the direct impact, international migration has an indirect effect on the population, statisticians said.
For example, women coming to the UK who subsequently have children will increase the numbers of births.
Conversely, women emigrating before they have children will decrease the number of births.
Once the indirect effect is taken into account, international migration accounts for more than three quarters (77 per cent) of the projected UK population growth over the 25 years from 2016, according to the ONS report.
Posted by DanielS on Tuesday, 03 October 2017 01:20.
The Local, “Marseille attacker released by police day before stabbing rampage”, 2 Oct 2017:
Tragic: The two victims of the Marseille knife attack were identified by their first names as cousins and best friends Mauranne (left) and Laura (right), both 20
The man who stabbed two young women to death in Marseille in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group used seven different identities and had been arrested just days earlier, French prosecutors said Monday.
The man who stabbed two young women to death in Marseille in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group used seven different identities and had been arrested just days earlier, French prosecutors said Monday.
Authorities said the man, who was shot dead by anti-terror troops after Sunday’s attack outside the southern city’s main train station, had previously used a Tunisian passport under the name Ahmed H., 29.
But investigators are seeking to confirm his identity as the attacker—who had a history of petty crime but was not on a jihadist watch list—used seven aliases, anti-terror prosecutor Francois Molins told reporters.
“The method of the attacker, a knife attack at a train station, responded to a permanent call from the terrorist group Daesh,” Molins said, using another name for IS.
The jihadist group’s propaganda agency Amaq claimed the killer was one of its “soldiers”, while a source close to the investigation told AFP no solid evidence linked him to IS.
The attack in France’s second biggest city followed a string of stabbings around Europe claimed by or blamed on Islamist radicals.
The man killed two 20-year-old cousins from the eastern city of Lyon. One was studying in Marseille and the other was visiting her for the weekend.
Molins confirmed that witnesses heard the attacker shout “Allahu Akbar” (God is Greatest) as he lunged at the women with a 20-centimetre (eight-inch) knife before threatening soldiers, who shot him dead.
The attacker’s fingerprints showed he had had seven brushes with the law since 2005—most recently when he was arrested last week in Lyon.
He presented the Tunisian passport to police, saying he was divorced, used “hard drugs”, and had no fixed address.
The shoplifting charges were dropped for lack of evidence, and local authorities “were not able to take a decision to deport him,” Molins added. He was released on Saturday.
‘Barbaric act’
Police evacuated Marseille’s ornate Saint Charles station after the attack, temporarily halting all train traffic on some of France’s busiest lines.
“I was on the esplanade just in front of the station,” Melanie Petit, an 18-year-old student, told AFP. “I heard someone shout ‘Allahu Akbar’ and I saw a man who seemed to be dressed all in black.”
French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted Sunday that he was “deeply angered by this barbaric act”.
The attack comes as parliament prepares Tuesday to vote on a controversial anti-terror bill that transfers some of the exceptional powers granted to police under a 22-month-old state of emergency into national law.
France has been under a state of emergency since the IS gun and bomb attacks in Paris in November 2015—part of a string of jihadist assaults that have left more than 240 people dead over the past two years.
But rights groups warn that making parts of the state of emergency permanent would give police too much free rein in handling terrorism suspects.
Knives have been the weapon of choice in a string of smaller-scale attacks, in recent months, mainly targeting troops from the 7,000-strong Sentinelle anti-terror force set up to patrol the streets and vulnerable sites such as stations and tourist attractions.
In most cases, the attackers were shot dead at the start of their rampage, before they could kill others.
The Marseille attack came only days after IS released a recording of what it said was its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi urging his followers to strike their enemies in the West.
The French government has deployed troops and its air force to the Middle East and is a leading partner in the US-led international coalition fighting IS in Iraq and Syria.
DM: The man, who was aged between 30 and 35, has not been formally identified.
On Friday the attacker – who was a North African of either Algerian or Tunisian origin – was arrested in Lyon for shoplifting.
He had no papers on him and was in ‘an irregular situation in Europe’, so giving the authorities a chance to place him under judicial control.
During the summer of 2015, in the context of the largest refugee crisis since World War II, the flow of migrants reaching Italy by boat and headed overland for northern Europe is abruptly interrupted by the closure of the French border on June the 8th 2015. Within a few days, near the Italian border town of Ventimiliglia, a crowd of 200-300 migrants is formed. On June the 11th the Italian police attempts to forcibly deport them. Many resist and take shelter on the rocks, creating a makeshift camp a few meters from the posh French Riviera town of Menton.
Among infinite dreams, stories, hopes and uncertainties, one thing is clear above all: nobody is going back.
This image of a pregnant African woman is Not by Marco Panzetti… but he begins his photo essay at The BBC similarly, with a silhouette of an African woman at a north Italian refugee camp….
The BBC sets an image here, beginning a series of them by Panzetti, showing Africans in a north Italy migrant camp…
Caption, “Life goes on: Mohamed Fatima from Mali, who is pregnant, is waiting for her case to be processed so she can move on from Fenoglio camp.”
BBC, “The waiting game: Life in a north Italy migrant camp”, 16 Sept 2017:
About 100,000 people have arrived on Italian shores this year, after making the perilous journey across the Mediterranean from Libya.
They are joining many thousands more asylum seekers and migrants already in the country - many stuck there after other European countries closed their borders.
About 450 of them can be found in the Fenoglio camp, outside Turin, which is run by the Italian Red Cross.
It is supposed to be a transit camp, from where migrants are quickly transferred to reception centres - but the logjam in the system means many end up spending months here.
Related story, DT, “Population to surge by four million due to mass immigration that will ‘change the face of England forever.” Credit: SPL/Barcroft Media
Mayor 
Tragic: The two victims of the Marseille knife attack were identified by their first names as cousins and best friends Mauranne (left) and Laura (right), both 20
