Articles Posted in Global Immigration Stories

Prime Minster David Cameron announced that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office will be expanding its diplomatic presence in Canada by upgrading the UK Trade & Investment office in Calgary to a full Consulate-General next summer.

Speaking during his press conference in Ottawa, UK Prime Minister David Cameron said:
“Clearly in trade and investment, we are both massive investors in each other’s countries. The trade links are already very strong, but I always believe it’s with your best customers you can do even more business.”
Dr. Andrew Pocock, UK High Commissioner to Canada said:
“We are committed to refreshing and deepening our relationship with Canada, building on our existing close links. A clear indication of how highly we value the relationship is that we will be expanding our diplomatic presence there, upgrading the UKTI office in Calgary to a full Consulate-General. This will be our fourth Consulate-General in Canada – as well as the High Commission in Ottawa”.

Alberta is Canada’s third largest economy and has led Canadian growth for 20 years. Please note that consular services will continue to be provided for Alberta out of the Vancouver Consulate General.

Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov, who is visiting New York to attend the 66th session of UN General Assembly, and his Colombian counterpart Maria Angela Holguin Cuellar have signed a package of bilateral agreements.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan informs that the package composes an agreement on the exchange of visa requirements for holders of diplomatic, official and service passports as well as the memorandum on the introduction of a mechanism of political consultations between Foreign Affairs Ministries of Azerbaijan and Colombia.

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has approved an intergovernmental agreement between Ukraine and Serbia waiving mutual visa requirements for short-term stays in these countries.

The cabinet’s resolution is dated September 21, according to the government’s Web site.

The agreement between the governments of Ukraine and Serbia on visa-free travel for citizens of both countries was signed in Kyiv on May 31, 2011.

According to the document, citizens of Ukraine can stay in Serbia for up to 30 days without visas. The same applies to Serbs visiting Ukraine.

Reflecting the importance of the United States’ diplomatic relationship with Malta, Chargé Richard M. Mills, Jr. dedicated the new United States Embassy facility in Valletta today. Malta’s President, George Abela; Prime Minister, Lawrence Gonzi; and Office Director of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO), Patrick McNamara, participated in the ribbon cutting ceremony.

The new Embassy facility, located in the Ta’Qali neighborhood of Attard near Ta’Qali National Park, was designed to incorporate green building techniques and to meet the principles of the U.S. Green Building Council for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design green building rating system. The multi-building complex provides more than 125 U.S. embassy employees, both American and Maltese, with state-of-the-art work space that features a collection of contemporary Maltese, American, and Maltese-American art, curated by the Office of Art in Embassies.

A.I.C.I-SP of Arlington, Virginia constructed the facility, which was designed by the architectural firm Karn Charuhas Chapman Twohey (KCCT) of Washington, D.C. The $125 million project generated jobs in both the United States and Malta. The new facility was completed in May 2011 and, at times, involved more than 800 workers in its construction.

Since the 1999 enactment of the Secure Embassy Construction and Counterterrorism Act, the Department has moved more than 24,000 people into safer facilities. Including the new Embassy in Malta, OBO has completed 82 diplomatic facilities and has an additional 35 projects in design or construction.

Kenyans planning to travel to USA may soon be required to prove that they have basic knowledge of how life ‘actually’ is in America before they are issued with travel visas.

Proof, to be in the form of some kind of ‘certificate of induction’ issued after attending Basic Information sessions conducted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will be part of a retinue of requirements that must be presented to the US Embassy in Nairobi as part of qualifying documents when one is seeking to travel to America.

Currently, one has to show proof that they are financially able to sustain their stay in the USA without becoming a ‘public charge’. For those going to study, they must present financial bank statements from their sponsors either in Kenya or in the USA. The move that is bound to be received with mixed reactions by a public that is wary of the many complications around visa applications for traveling abroad, is being spearheaded by the Kenyan Embassy in the USA, more specifically Ambassador Elkanah Odembo.

Odembo who first proposed the requirement through a letter he sent to his Permanent Secretary in Nairobi, says the move is aimed at protecting the safety and integrity of Kenyans migrating to the USA. In the recent past, the Kenyan embassy in the DC has been inundated by calls and letters from Kenyans living in the USA seeking help for all manner of problems. “We are seeing too much suffering on the part of some Kenyans who came to this country with scanty information about how life actually is. We think part of the solution to this problem can be tackled when someone is still in Kenya and that is why we are proposing this initiative,” Odembo said.

He says proper information for those going to America is very key in helping them prepare financially and psychologically for the life they are bound to find there. Odembo, who was himself once a Diaspora student in the USA, said the embassy is in the process of developing a manual containing basic information about America. This will be part of the literature that will be given to those intending to travel to the USA for whatever reasons but especially for those choosing to study in America.

“When we came to America to study long time ago, this was part of the requirements. We had to prove that we knew what we were going to do in America. Of late, this is not happening,” he said, adding that the manual is a necessity and will contain not just the do’s and don’ts but also basic information about important contacts and help centers managed by the Diaspora in the USA. Odembo said he was working closely with the newly appointed USA ambassador to Kenya, Scott Gration, whom he described as someone who is very ‘conversant’ with these issues.

If approved and implemented by the Kenya government, this will be one of the measures aimed at tackling some of the immense challenges that the Diaspora is currently facing in the face of changing fortunes for USA, following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and the collapse of the financial markets.

Many Kenyans living in the USA have not only lost their jobs in the recent past but also their homes and investments as a result of the economic recession. Some of the measures aimed at checking illegal immigrants to the USA include tightening rules for foreign students. Many foreign students can’t find jobs within the campuses and if they drop some classes to find work to supplement their upkeep, their student visas are revoked. Frustrations arising out of this have led to increased social ills such as domestic violence, suicides and drug and alcohol abuse.

Hardest hit are those who are migrating on the lottery visa commonly known as Green Card. Many are staying for months on end and sometimes years without finding employment.

Spain, Europe’s second-most visited country after France, aims to welcome one million Chinese tourists in 2020, the government said recently. The country received 89,523 Chinese tourists in 2009, the last year for which figures are available, and Tourism Minister Miguel Sebastian said this figure should rise to 300,000 in 2012.

To increase the number of visitors from China, Spain plans to ease visa requirements for Chinese nationals, encourage more direct flights between the two countries and open more tourist offices in the Asian giant, he added. The government also plans to publish guides about Spain in mandarin and encourage restaurants and hotels to offer foods and opening hours that are more suited to Chinese tastes.

“This increase in the flow of tourists will increase knowledge about Spain in China and knowledge of China in Spain,” Sebastian said at a China-Spain business forum in Barcelona.

Spain has just two tourist offices in China, in Beijing and Guangzhou and Air China, China’s only national flag carrier, is currently the sole airline to offer direct flights between the two nations. The minister will present the government’s plan to boost tourist arrivals from China, the world’s most populous country, in Beijing on July 27.

Here are few significant changes to the Tier 4 student route of the points-based system have come into effect from July 4, 2011:
– restrict work entitlements, by only allowing students sponsored by higher education institutions (HEIs) and publicly funded further education colleges to work part-time during term time and full-time during vacations;
– restrict sponsorship of dependants to those of students sponsored by HEIs on postgraduate courses lasting 12 months or longer, and of government-sponsored students on courses lasting longer than 6 months;
– require institutions to confirm that courses represent genuine academic progression from any previous courses studied by the student in the UK; and
– create a streamlined application process for low-risk nationals sponsored by Highly Trusted sponsors.

These changes are aimed at delivering a strong migration system which tackles immigration abuse while allowing genuine students to study at genuine colleges.

The Embassy of Indonesia in Baghdad is getting reopened. The Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister, Labib Abbawi, welcomed the Indonesian reactivation team’s visit on 29 June 2011. The team delivered a Letter of Introduction (LOI) from the Indonesian Foreign Minister to the Iraqi Foreign Minister. The LOI constitutes the appointment of Minister Counselor Dharmakirty SP as the Charge d’Affaires Ad Interim until the arrival of the Indonesian Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Iraq.

Reactivating the Indonesian Embassy is a part of the two countries’ commitment to enhance their bilateral relations in the field of politics, economy as well as social and culture, as quoted from the press release of the Indonesian Embassy in Baghdad.

Till date, Indonesia and Iraq have ratified a total of 15 agreements and had a bilateral cooperation mechanism of Joint Commission Meeting. In the economic field, the trade between both countries has reached the value of US$ 83 million from January-March 2011. Indonesia-Iraq diplomatic relations officially started in 1950. In 1961, the two countries respectively opened their embassy in Jakarta and Baghdad.

The Indonesian Embassy in Baghdad has officially resumed its duty and function as the diplomatic and consular representative after being suspended from any activity in middle of March 2003.

The number of visitors to Russia from European countries fell by up to 24 percent in the first quarter as tour operators blamed visa costs and red tape, an industry union said. It has fallen noticeably.

The number of tourists from neighboring Finland – recently linked to Saint Petersburg by high-speed train – fell by 24 percent in the first quarter, year on year, the union said, citing official statistics.

The numbers of German visitors fell by 10 percent in the same period and French and Spanish by 14 percent.

However the total number of tourists to Russia, which includes large groups such as the Chinese, rose by five percent.

The tour operators’ union said almost all the international tour operators it questioned blamed falling European visitor numbers on “the high cost of tourist visas and the complexity of the visa process for foreigners.”
In Spain, the introduction of visa centers to process applications has seen the cost of a tourist visa rise by 30 percent and the time taken from a maximum of 10 days to 21 days, it said.

People wishing to travel to Russia have to acquire an invitation from a hotel, an organization or a personal friend. Once in Russia, they are required to register with local police.

Russia has insistently called on the European Union to lift visa restrictions on its citizens and President Dmitry Medvedev recently hailed preliminary concessions at a Russia-EU summit.

While Russians can obtain long-term multi-entry tourist visas to Europe, Russia offers only single or double entry tourist visas that cannot stretch beyond booked travel dates.

Citing statistics that any simplification of visa rules increases tourism by up to 30 percent, the tourism union deputy president Yury Barzykin called for the Russian government to ensure its strategy was a “two-way street.”

In a major relief to Sri Lankans traveller, the Indian High Commission said recently that Lankans who apply for a visa to travel to India on a particular day, will receive it the next day, if it happens to be a working day. If a person submits a visa application form to the Indian High Commission, the visa will be issued on the next working day.

“Earlier, there was a delay in issuing visas due to the war situation in the country. Since there is no security threat, the Indian High Commission has taken a decision to accelerate the process of issuing visas,” sources said. Visa applicants were earlier referred to New Delhi and once the green light was given from New Delhi, visa was issued by the Colombo office.

A senior official of the Indian High Commission said that considering the normality in the country, the Indian government has relaxed rules on issuing visas to Sri Lankan applicants. He said that if the situation improves further, issuing of visas will be carried out over the counter.