Auckland Chinese Lantern Festival: Lighting up the controversy over boundaries and limits in living space.

There needs to be more thought and discussion given to fair quotas in living space and enclaves between Asians and Europeans. It’s piquing as an issue in New Zealand.

NZHerald.co.nz,  “Auckland too much like China says Chinese immigrant and real estate agent,  14 August 2017:

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters last week talked about an email he had received from a Chinese real estate agent in Auckland about immigration and the housing market. Peters said the agent backed up his claim that speculation was rife. The agent has worked in the industry for three years. He expands on his views here.

 

I am a Chinese property agent working in Auckland. Recently I emailed the New Zealand First leader Winston Peters expressing opinions on the housing crisis and immigration policy.

I thought as I am an immigrant, who happens to have been sitting in the box seat of Auckland’s real estate scene, the rest of the country might find relevancy in what I have to say.

My family moved to central Auckland in 2001 from mainland China. We came here with the hope of embracing a new lifestyle as well as for the younger generation to receive a superior education.

We remember Auckland as being a city with a unique blend of European and native cultures that is termed “Kiwi”, while the influx of migrants from different ethnicities steadily added vibrancy, colour and prosperity to the city.

Years went by and something curious happened.

Instead of seeing a balanced ethnic mix, Auckland started to acquire an unwholesomely Chinese flavour.

These are the supplement shops, internet cafes, restaurants plus a few seemingly dodgy places that are catering exclusively to Chinese customers.

Most of them have part time Chinese students as sole employees.

A recent encounter with two young Japanese professionals in Tokyo amused me.

“Going to Auckland is like going to China” they said.

“You don’t hear English, you don’t see Kiwis, there is just Chinese, Chinese and Chinese.”

They felt disillusioned and bewildered. Similar voices are heard among local international students, “Are we here to study English or Chinese?”

The same relates to the real estate scene.

While the statistics show there has been 3-5 per cent foreign buyers in the market, is it what we have been seeing across the auction rooms or at open homes for the past half decade?

I remember seeing young couples with their hands clenched and eyes glued to the auction screen, only to find their first dream house outbid by someone screaming in mandarin.

I shudder to imagine their feeling when they see the very house they missed out back on the market within months, this time, with 200k added on top; meanwhile, a champagne is uncorked at another New Zealand property expo in China.

During a recent interview with Newshub, I was asked whether I was worried about Chinese domination. No, it is not, and never has been about any race dominating another. Otherwise it would be blunt racism.

It is about how do you want your Auckland and your New Zealand to be? Do we want trained, skilled professionals to bring our economy to the next level or all we want to see is another Chinese restaurant around the corner, or foreign visitors mistaking Auckland for China?

When New Zealand First’s Winston Peters said many immigrants choose New Zealand when they have failed entering Canada, US, UK and Australia he is right.

At least it is a well perceived notion among my fellow Chinese that only the “less fortunate” choose New Zealand.

As a consequence, we have been absorbing lower quality immigrants who neither have the intention to assimilate to our culture nor the intention to set up all inclusive businesses that provide jobs for Kiwis.

In the event of any of the above-mentioned countries loosening their immigration policies, brace yourself for a downward ride: far fewer people will be willing to pay the same for your home or to lease your shop.

This is because while the property market has been reflecting an exhilarating population growth it is also fuelled by the widespread assumption that “the Chinese pay the most.” It is irrational exuberance at its worst.

It is time for us New Zealanders to rethink.

- NZ Herald

Reuters, “Unidentified attackers set fire to the car of Frauke Petry, the leader of Germany’s anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, police said on Saturday”, 17 September 2016:

“We are currently assuming it was arson,” a police spokeswoman in the eastern city of Leipzig said, adding that investigators were still collecting evidence at the scene.

The attack happened late on Friday and there has been no claim of responsibility so far, the police spokeswoman added.

Petry wrote on Twitter: “An arson attack was committed on my car yesterday. Is this what we have come to…”

Last year unknown attackers set fire to the car of AfD deputy leader Beatrix von Storch in Berlin.

The right-wing AfD has gained support as voters become uneasy with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door policy toward refugees. Around one million migrants arrived in Germany last year, many fleeing conflicts in the Middle East.

The AfD won a shock 20.8 percent in an election in the eastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern two weeks ago, knocking Merkel’s conservatives into third place.

Merkel’s party looks set to suffer a second electoral blow on Sunday in a Berlin city election.

Related story: The Guardian Newspaper is an archaic outfit whose propaganda operations will always be defeated.

TNO, [Jewish people and “communities”] in Britain who claim to be refugees from Nazi Germany are actively involved in bringing nonwhite invaders in the Calais Jungle over to the U.K., controlled media reports have revealed.

According to the [Red] Left Guardian newspaper, Jews who came over to Britain during the so-called Kinder-transport program are “raising funds” to help the “unaccompanied refugee children” in Calais enter the U.K.

The Guardian report said that “Britain’s Jewish community is raising funding to evacuate at least 120 child refugees identified as having the legal right to be reunited with their families in the U.K. but who remain trapped in northern France.”

According to the report, “Campaigners said their predecessors had relied on Britain’s generosity to flee the Nazis and that a sense of gratitude had motivated them to help vulnerable unaccompanied child refugees, many of whom are fleeing persecution.”

Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg, whose parents claimed to have fled Nazi-occupied Europe and who has been instrumental in galvanizing support for modern “child refugees,” was quoted as saying, “Both my parents were refugees at the age of 16: both fled Germany.”

His 93-year-old mother, Isca Salzberger-Wittenberg, who arrived in the UK months before the Second World War began, said: “I owe my survival to the generosity of those who gave the financial guarantees for me and my family to escape to Britain. I feel deeply concerned about refugees now, especially the children and young people.”

Within the Jungle camp in Calais, around 220 invaders pretending to be “unaccompanied children” have been identified as having the “legal right” to be reunited with families in the U.K.

Britain’s Jewish community now hopes to raise enough to “rescue” them all, and bring them to the U.K., the newspaper said.

Their campaign, launched last Sunday on Facebook, has raised more than £50,000, with £15,000 more pledged. The overall cost per invader for the “legal process, transport and support requirements” is £2,000.

TNO, “World’s Oldest Snowshoe Found”, 16 September 2016:

The world’s oldest snowshoe, made in the late Neolithic age, over 5,800 years old— made of birch wood and twine, has been discovered at an altitude of 3,134 meters (10,280ft) on the Gurgler Eisjoch glacier, close to Italy’s border with Austria.

“It is the oldest snowshoe in the world so far discovered, dating to around 5,800 years ago,” scientists said in a statement.

   

According to a report on the Archaeology News Network, the ice and freezing temperatures of the glacier had provided “ideal conditions for the preservation of organic material.”

The shoe, which consists of an oval-shaped frame with strands of twine tied across it, was found by Simone Bartolini, a cartographer from Italy’s Military Geographical Institute, who was mapping the border with Austria.

He came across it in 2003 but for the next 12 years kept it in his office in Florence as a curiosity.

“At first I thought it was maybe 100 years old and was a snowshoe that belonged to a farmer who lost it while driving cattle. I kept it in my office as a keepsake,” Dr. Bartolini said at a press conference this week in Bolzano, the capital of the autonomous, Germany-speaking province of South Tyrol.

It was only last year that it dawned on him that it could be much older and more significant. He gave it to archaeologists to study.

The discovery was made close to where the frozen, mummified remains of a Neolithic hunter, nicknamed “Otzi,” were found by two German hikers 25 years ago.

That mummified corpse has revealed a wealth of information on what people of the period wore and ate, how they hunted and armed themselves and how they traveled.

Scientists at the press conference said the discovery of the snowshoe was “exceptional.”

“The shoe is evidence that people in the Neolithic period were living in the Alps area and had equipped themselves accordingly,” said Dr. Catrin Marzoli, the director of the province’s cultural heritage department.

It was unclear why people were traveling through such an inhospitable region, she said.  They may have been hunting animals, fleeing enemies from a rival tribe, or visiting ancient pre-Christian sites of worship.

Visigrad Post, “The Baltic Way”

By Dace Kalniņa.

Every year in August, the Baltic people are remembering the so called “Baltic way”. Almost every family has some memories of this moving event, which took place on 23rd of August 1989. This year on a 23rd of August in Rīga the Latvian, Estonian and Lithuanian flags and maidens stood together with Ukrainian and Polish representatives in front of monument of Freedom in Rīga, thus commemorating the Baltic way and showing the unity in spirit for the Intermarium region today and in the future.

       

On 23rd of August 1989 more than two millions of Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians (or approximately 1/3 of entire Baltic population) made alive chain from Tompea castle in Tallinn, crossing Rīga, till Gediminas tower in Vilnius through all three countries to demand Independence for their countries. This is one of the biggest and most impressive political manifestations, which has ever occurred in the world, and can be perceived as culmination of “Awakening process” in Baltic states, which already began few years earlier and resulted in the collapse of USSR. Baltic way action was organized by the Estonian Rahvarinne, the Popular front of Latvia and the Lithuanian Sajūdis.

       

The date – 23rd August – was a symbolic one, it was chosen to remind the whole world, that illegal occupation of the Baltic countries was a result of so called Molotov – Ribbentrop Pact of 23rd of August, 1939, when USSR and Nazi Germany secretly divided influence spheres, leaving Baltic countries in the hands of Stalin. As it is widely known, after World War II the Soviets denied the existence of this Pact and according to the official propaganda, all three Baltic States had joined USSR voluntarily. Already in 1987 and 1988 the 23rd of August was a day, which made headache for KGB officials. One of the first mass demonstrations in 1987 has been brutally repressed by the Soviets. They took place in all three capitals, and mass protests took place in 1988, as well. The very beginning of these protests has been inspired by the former political prisoners of Latvia and their first open political group Helsinki-86.

       

The participants of the Baltic way carried a votive candles tied around with a black ribbon and held posters reminding the criminal agreement of 1939, showing that 50 years of brainwashing and propaganda has not deleted memories and knowledge of once independent countries and the fact of violent occupation. The participants demanded freedom for the Baltic countries as well as to stop the communist genocide against Baltic people. The action caught quite a wide attention also in Western media. Amongst others, newspapers as “The Times”, “Daily Express”, “Daily Mail”, “Independent” reflected the events of that day on their front pages. The spirit of that day is fully expressed in a great trilingual song “The Baltics Are Waking Up!” :

Visigrad Post, “Asselborn’s remarks dismissed by Hungary and Austria”, 15 September 2016:

Hungary – After Luxembourg’s Foreign Minister Asselborn asked for Hungary’s expulsion of the European Union, the Hungarian Foreign Minister dismissed his remarks by saying that his counterpart Jean Asselborn is a “lightweight” politician “bent to destroy Europe’s security and culture”. And the Austrian Foreign Minister also reacted in favor of Hungary.

Asselborn told Germany’s Die Welt on Tuesday that the EU could not maintain its unity unless the community excluded Hungary, a country which seriously violated European values by “building a fence against refugees of war”. He also accused Hungary of curbing the freedom of the press and the independence of the judiciary, wrote Daily News Hungary.

But the Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó dismissed these remarks. “Patronizing and frustrated”, Asselborn had “long excluded himself from among politicians to be taken seriously”. He then added that on October 2, day of the referendum about the mandatory quotas in Hungary, Hungarians will give their opinion on “illegal migration, Brussels’ quota system, and on figures like Asselborn”.

The Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz disavowed his Luxembourgian counterpart remarks and said these comments are unacceptable. He explained that maybe some serious discussion might take place within the Union but messaging through the media does not contribute to the common work. He ended his comment by stating that respect is needed if we want to preserve the European peace.

Visigrad Post, Dubrovnik, Croatia – A two-day forum was attended by Croatia with heads of state and officials from twelve countries of Central and Eastern Europe, all members of the European Union, to discuss common challenges to strengthen economically and politically the area between the three seas – the Adriatic, the Baltic and the Black Sea. This was the Three Seas Initiative.

“The area between the Adriatic, the Baltic and the Black Sea is the lifeblood of Europe,” said the host of the forum, Croatian President Grabar-Kitarović. Thursday, August 25, a round table gathered in Dubrovnik, on the cost of the Adriatic Sea, the presidents of Croatia, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Lithuania and Slovenia, as well as ministers and deputy ministers of Austria, Czechia, Estonia, Latvia, Romania and Slovakia.

The region (BABS: Baltic – Adriatic – Black Sea) accounts for 28% of EU territory, 22% of its population but only for 10% of its GDP. Discussions about the economy have focused on the need to improve the infrastructure of the whole region and in particular energetic cooperation, mainly to promote the plurality of energy sources and reduce energy dependence. According to the Croatian President, 50 billion euros are needed to overcome the current shortcomings. However, she also drew attention to the major challenges of the region, namely the demographic decline and emigration.

Polish President Duda for his part stressed that cooperation should be extended to other areas to be sufficiently strong: culture and science as well as student exchanges must come to reinforce this cooperation. But the heart of this cooperation is the creation of a true north-south European axis, stressed the Polish president. In conclusion for his speech, Andrzej Duda announced that the next summit would be held in Poland in Wroclaw in June 2017.

Chinese and American speakers were also present. Chinese Ministerial Assistant for Foreign Affairs Liu Haixing in charge of Central and Eastern Europe region recalled that China was very interested in the development of the area. China believes it will serve her project of New Silk Road.

American General James L. Jones, president of Jones Group International and former adviser for the National Security of President Obama said that the development of the Three Seas Initiative must be an element not only for European development but also for security. General Jones stressed the use by Russia of her position as an energy supplier to increase her economic influence and to strengthen her geopolitical goals.

Visigrad Post, “Viktor Orbán: it is at the Bulgarian-Turkish border that the future of Europe will be decided”, 14 September 2016:

Bulgaria, Lesovo – Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán visited this Wednesday, 13 the Bulgarian-Turkish border, where he was awaited by his Bulgarian counterpart Boyko Borisov to join together the barbed wire fence that will soon cover the 259 kilometers of border with Turkey.

Bulgarian Prime Minister had asked the European Commission an emergency aid of EUR 160 M to protect the border. Boyko Borisov would welcome a positive response from the Commission by Friday 16, day of the summit of the 27 in Bratislava. Orbán added that if the European Union could find EUR 3 B to ensure the assistance of Turkey in managing the migration crisis, it could perhaps give some to Bulgaria…

About 13,000 migrants have been recorded in Bulgaria since the beginning of the year, 4,000 illegal migrants have been arrested, with a influx that has doubled in August. Regularly illegal migrants cross Bulgaria, without being arrested. The Hungarian Prime Minister recalled how “naive” the Brussels EU wants to welcome migrants.

Also, Borisov jousted that the fence is not a protection against Turkey, whose men are cooperative on the ground and face the same problems, but against illegal migrants, and no solution in the long term could be envisaged without the joint efforts of all EU members. Orbán assured: “Borissov can count on us in Bratislava. Europe’s future is not decided in Brussels but here.”