Category Archives: Migration

Viktor Orbán: no tax for Hungarian women with four or more children

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Growing families better than letting Muslim immigrants in, says prime minister

Hungary’s populist prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has promised that women who have four or more children will never pay income tax again, in a move aimed at boosting the country’s population.

Orbán, who has emerged as Europe’s loudest rightwing, anti-immigration voice in recent years, said getting Hungarian families to have more children was preferable to allowing immigrants from Muslim countries to enter.

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‘You’re lucky to get paid at all’: how African migrants are exploited in Italy | Hsiao-Hung Pai

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Under the baking sun, workers toil for €2 an hour. And the country’s hard-right authorities keep turning the screw

The dawn was about to break as I arrived, with a team of workers in the farmer’s van, at the vast fields that stretch out for miles around Campobello, the “handsome fields”, in western Sicily. Everyone got out, and immediately started to work on their line of olive trees. It would take the team several weeks to harvest them.

Related: ‘Migrants are more profitable than drugs’: how the mafia infiltrated Italy’s asylum system

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Hakeem-al Arabi: Thai cave diving heroes Harris and Challen call for footballer’s release

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The divers, who were named 2019 Australians of the Year, have written to the Thai prime minister to free the refugee

The Thailand cave rescue diving heroes and Australians of the Year, Dr Richard Harris and Dr Craig Challen, have joined the campaign to save the refugee footballer Hakeem-al Arabi, a Bahraini refugee and resident of Australia who is being detained in Bangkok.

Harris, an anaesthetist and diver from Adelaide, and Challen, a champion diver from Wangara, Western Australia, were part of the global team that freed the trapped Wild Boars football team in July 2018. They have been friends and cave diving partners for years.

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Man trying to enter France from Italy dies of hypothermia

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Derman Tamimou from Togo found lying unconscious on side of road between Piedmont and Hautes-Alpes

French magistrates have opened an inquiry into “involuntary manslaughter” after a man died of hypothermia after trying to cross into France from Italy.

A truck driver found Derman Tamimou from Togo on Thursday morning, lying unconscious on the side of a highway that links the northern Italian region of Piedmont with France’s Hautes-Alpes. He was taken to hospital in the French town of Briançon, but it is unclear whether he died there or was already dead at the scene. He was found between Briançon and Montgenèvre, an Alpine village about 6 miles from the Italian border.

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Fear and anger stalk thousands of Britons living on Costa del Sol

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For 300,000 UK citizens in Spain, which does not allow dual citizenship, pension and healthcare worries are hard to resolve

A couple of years ago, Michael Soffe seemed to have a charmed life. A gourmet tour guide and wedding planner, he’d made a home and built a business in sun-soaked Málaga, the increasingly hip city at the heart of Spain’s southern coast.

Now he fears that everything he’s worked for is hanging in the balance as heedless politicians push Brexit negotiations to the brink. His biggest worry is that his partner, a two-time cancer survivor still in treatment, could lose his right to public healthcare.

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What happened to the deal – and the refugees – surviving Australian and US politics? | Anne Richard

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I signed the agreement to resettle some of Australia’s refugees from Nauru and Manus Island in the US. I wanted to see how they are faring now

Two years ago, Australia’s then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull called to congratulate Donald Trump on his inauguration, and to elicit the new president’s support for continuing an agreement between Australia and the US. Australia had stopped thousands of asylum seekers from reaching its shores and had arranged to detain them on islands in the South Pacific; the US had agreed to resettle some in America. The transcript of the phone conversation makes clear that the deal was a top priority for Turnbull and an unwelcome surprise for Trump, who called it “a rotten deal”.

Related: US believed Australia would take more refugees in exchange for Nauru and Manus deal

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Can selling its homes for the price of an espresso save this Sicilian town?

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Buyers flocked to Sambuca last week when it put empty houses on sale at €1 each in a bid to reverse decline. We joined the queue…

Darkness falls on the small town of Sambuca di Sicilia, where the council offices on Corso Umberto have been closed for more than three hours. And yet the phones keep ringing, hour after hour.

“They’re calling from Sydney, London, New York,” says the exhausted deputy mayor, Giuseppe Cacioppo. A week after the town announced it was putting up abandoned homes for sale at a euro each, he has fielded requests for information from all over the globe. By Wednesday last week the council had received more than 300 calls and 94,000 emails. Many prospective buyers, not wanting to miss out, grabbed the first available flight to Palermo.

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Court in Italy rules Matteo Salvini should be tried for kidnapping

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Leader of far-right party under investigation after preventing 177 migrants from disembarking in Italy

Italy’s deputy prime minister and interior minister, Matteo Salvini, is one step away from facing trial after a surprise court ruling determined that he be tried for kidnapping.

In August, prosecutors in Agrigento, Sicily, placed Salvini, who is leader of the far-right party the League, under investigation for the alleged kidnapping and detention of 177 migrants whom he prevented from disembarking the Italian coastguard ship Ubaldo Diciotti.

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France summons Italian envoy over ‘hostile’ Africa remarks

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Italian deputy PM blames migrant crisis on France’s ‘colonisation’ of Africa

France’s foreign ministry has summoned the Italian ambassador in an escalating row over migrant arrivals in Europe that pits the centrist government of Emmanuel Macron against Italy’s far-right-populist coalition.

Teresa Castaldo was summoned over “hostile” remarks made by the Italian deputy prime minister, Luigi Di Maio.

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Ecuador targets Venezuelan migrants after woman’s death

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Crackdown announced amid outrage over killing as Venezuelan man is held

Ecuador has launched a crackdown on Venezuelan migrants after a pregnant Ecuadorian woman was killed on Saturday evening.

The police and Ecuador’s president, Lenín Moreno, have said that that Diana Carolina Ramírez’s killer was her boyfriend, a Venezuelan immigrant. His name was given as Yordy Rafael LG, who was said to be in custody.

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EU support for Libya contributes to ‘extreme abuse’ of refugees, says study

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Human Rights Watch accuses EU institutions of sustaining network of ‘inhuman and degrading’ migrant detention centres

The EU’s support for Libya’s anti-migrant policies is contributing to a cycle of “extreme abuse”, including arbitrary detention, torture, sexual violence, extortion and forced labour.

According to a report by Human Rights Watch, who interviewed 66 migrants and asylum seekers in Libya last year, EU institutions and member states are continuing to sustain a network of detention centres characterised by “inhuman and degrading” conditions where the risk of abuse is rife.

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More than 100 migrants missing after dinghy sinks in Med

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The vessel left Libya two days ago and started sinking after 10 to 11 hours at sea

About 117 migrants who left Libya in a rubber dinghy two days ago are unaccounted for, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has said, after three people were rescued from the sinking vessel in the Mediterranean.

“The three survivors told us they were 120 when they left Garabulli, in Libya, on Thursday night. After 10 to 11 hours at sea (the boat) started sinking and people started drowning,” IOM spokesman Flavio Di Giacomo said.

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Thousands march beside coffin of murdered Gdańsk mayor – video

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Carrying flags and candles through the streets, thousands of people walked in procession on Friday along with the coffin of Gdańsk's murdered mayor, Paweł  Adamowicz. He was stabbed on Sunday evening by a man who rushed the stage during a charity event. Adamowicz died the following day

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Paweł Adamowicz: thousands attend Gdańsk mayor’s funeral

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Poles mourn critic of ruling party’s anti-immigration policies who was stabbed at charity event

Polish and European officials joined thousands of people from across Poland on Saturday for the funeral of Paweł Adamowicz, the mayor of the northern city of Gdańsk, who died on Monday after being stabbed the night before at a charity event.

The European council president, Donald Tusk, a friend of Adamowicz, was among those attending the burial at the vast Gothic St Mary’s Basilica. Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, and the prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, also attended along with former leaders including Lech Wałęsa.

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‘Hatred is becoming more visible’: shocked Gdańsk mourns slain mayor

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Residents take part in vigils after stabbing of Paweł Adamowicz on stage at charity concert

The music has been switched off at the Red Light pub in the heart of the picturesque old town of Gdańsk. A single candle adorned with a black ribbon rests on the bar. The city is in mourning.

The people of Gdańsk are coming to terms with the death of their mayor, Paweł Adamowicz, who was stabbed on stage at a charity concert in front of thousands of people on Sunday. A public appeal led to crowds of people queueing for hours to donate blood to save their mayor, but he was pronounced dead on Monday afternoon.

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What exactly is Trump’s border wall and why does he want $5.7bn for it?

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The president backed away from his threat to declare a national emergency over the wall, but his preoccupation with it persists

Donald Trump may have backed away froma threat to declare a national emergency in order to bypass Congress and build a wall on the southern border, but his preoccupation with his 2016 campaign promise persists.

But what exactly is “the wall” and why is the president so intent on getting $5.7bn to fund it? Here are some answers to key questions:

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Rahaf al-Qunun: Labor says Saudi refugee should be resettled in Australia

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Bill Shorten urges Scott Morrison to accept Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun now that the UN has validated her refugee claim

Labor has said the Saudi teenager Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun should be resettled in Australia now that her refugee claim had been validated.

The party’s foreign affairs spokeswoman, Penny Wong, told ABC radio on Thursday Bill Shorten had written to Scott Morrison urging him to accept Qunun.

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Despair endangers Dadaab refugees as smugglers seize their moment

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Unsafe in Somalia and unwanted in Kenya, refugees increasingly risk abduction in search of a better life

Two months after he went missing from the Dadaab refugee complex, Abdullahi Mohamed called his mother, Ubah, from a detention centre in Libya where he was being been held by armed gangs. The men asked his mother to pay a ransom of up to $10,000 (£7,850) for the 19-year-old.

Relieved but distraught, Ubah started fundraising for his release, talking to family members in the diaspora and in Somalia.

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Rahaf al-Qunun: Saudi teenager given refugee status by the UN

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Australia to consider asylum request after home affairs minister says she would not get ‘special treatment’

Saudi teenager Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun has been found to be a refugee by the United Nations, and the Australian government will now consider her asylum request, according to the Department of Home Affairs.

The 18-year-old woman barricaded herself in a Bangkok airport hotel room on Sunday to prevent her forcible return to Saudi Arabia, where she claims her family will kill her because she has renounced Islam.

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Six key things to know about Trump’s border wall speech

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Fact check: what the US president got wrong in his primetime address on the border wall

In a primetime address from the Oval Office on Tuesday night, Donald Trump made his case for the US to expand its wall on the southern border.

The US president blamed criminal gangs and “vast quantities of illegal drugs” for “thousands of deaths”, described the situation at the border with Mexico as a humanitarian crisis and argued that the current immigration system allows “vicious coyotes and ruthless gangs” to prey on immigrants, especially women and children.

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