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There is continuing disagreement in the UK Coalition Government between the more pro-immigration Liberal Democrat Government Ministers and Conservative Party Government Ministers. The Liberal Democrat Business Secretary Vince Cable has said that the interim immigration cap is doing “huge damage” to business.

Mr Cable is concerned that some companies may move jobs abroad because of the difficulty in obtaining Tier 2 visas and highly skilled Tier 1 visas for workers from overseas. Mr Cable says that he still wants a permanent cap from April 2011. However, he wants it to be more “flexible”.

The official view of the Conservative Party Prime Minister’s office is that the cap will still allow “the brightest and best to come to Britain”.The Home Secretary had previously announced that under the interim cap to April 2011 the number of non-EU workers allowed entry to the UK would be reduced by about 5% to 24,100.

The Business Secretary Vince Cable also had the following to say about the current problems in bringing in skilled professional staff into the UK:
I was talking to people in the City and there were two investment banks that recruit hundreds of people from the non-EU area, Indians and Americans. They were allowed only 30-40. They have moved some operations to Hong Kong. He added that he would still support the Coalition Government agreement on the cap. This will mean a permanent immigration cap on non-EU immigration from April 2011. Mr Cable went onto say that he wanted to have a flexible cap that will vary depending on the economic situation. During the General Election campaign the Conservative Party made a manifesto commitment to the immigration cap. The Liberal Democrats opposed the immigration cap.

It is hoped that the Liberal Democrat Government Ministers including the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg who supports Vince Cable vies on the immigration cap will have a moderating influence which will at the very least result in a more flexible immigration cap.

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Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian met with his Iraqi counterpart Hoshyar Zebari in the UN head-quarters in New York.

Nalbandian stressed Armenia attaches importance to the development of cooperation with Iraq. For this reason, a decision was made to reopen the embassy in Iraq. Zebari mentioned the Iraqi government also intends to establish diplomatic representation in Yerevan. He presented the Iraqi authorities’ efforts to establish stability in the country and the talks over the formation of a government after the parliamentary elections in the country.

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Hong Kong welcomed a record 3.4 million visitors in August, its highest-ever monthly figure, tourism officials said Thursday. The total was 21 per cent higher than the same month in 2009 and brought the total arrivals so far this year to 23.5 million, a year-on-year increase of 24 per cent.

Both the short and long-haul markets increased, according to figures from the Hong Kong Tourism Board. However, mainland China still accounted for the largest proportion of the influx. Of the total arrivals, 61 per cent, or 2.4 million visitors, were from mainland China, a 28-per-cent increase on August 2009.

The Tourism Board said the growth was fueled by the peak summer travel season and the implementation of a scheme for residents in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen that made it easier for them to come to Hong Kong.

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Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have signed yesterday an agreement allowing their nationals to use smart ID cards instead of passports to cross the joint borders. The deal will take force only one month after being signed by Kuwaiti Minister of Interior Lt-Gen (rtd) Sheikh Jaber Al-Khaled Al-Sabah and Saudi Arabia’s Second Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Prince Nayif Bin-Abdulaziz Al-Saud.

Sheikh Jaber said the agreement would give a strong impetus to the friendly exchanges between the two countries. Saudi Arabia is of strategic importance for Kuwait and constitutes a crucial link between Kuwait and the rest of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states. The deal will greatly facilitate the movement of citizens of the two sister countries and it sets example for what the ties between neighbors should be.

It is only a step which will be followed by other steps on road of cooperation in all domains,” Sheikh Jaber affirmed. Meanwhile, Director-General of Saudi Passports Directorate Salem Bin-Mohammad Al-Belhid said the document materializes the political will of GCC leaders for facilitating the movement of the GCC nationals. Echoing Sheikh Jaber’s remarks, Al-Belhid said: “The GCC interior ministers are determined to adopt a range of measures to bolster up integration particularly in the security field. The Kuwaiti and Saudi nationals will be able to use smart cards to enter each other’s country through the official crossing points in line with the travel laws and their executive statutes.

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Singapore is home to the largest proportion of high-earning expatriates compared to 24 other countries and cities, a new global survey shows. Nearly half the number of expats – 45 per cent – living and working here are earning more than US$200,000 (S$265,000) annually, compared to the worldwide average of 21 per cent, according to the Expat Explorer Survey conducted by HSBC Bank.

According to a paper on household income trends released by the Singapore Department of Statistics last month, the average annual income of the top 10 per cent of employed Singapore households from work was about $265,000. This means that less than 10 per cent of employed Singapore households earn $265,000 or more.

The HSBC figure puts expats in Singapore ahead of their counterparts in other countries and cities such as Russia, China, the Philippines, Malaysia and Hong Kong. The bank said the annual poll – which interviewed more than 4,217 respondents – is the world’s largest survey of expatriates. Last year, in the same survey, Singapore was ranked fourth out of 26 countries and cities when it came to expat income.

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On Sunday’s “Meet the Press”, former Secretary of State Colin Powell said, “illegal immigrants do essential work in the U.S. and that he has firsthand knowledge of that—because they fix his house.” Today, Colin Powell clarified his remarks by saying “I don’t hire illegal immigrants. On ‘Meet the Press’ yesterday, I referred to illegal immigrants working around my house. I was referring to the many service contractors who work in my neighborhood, using mostly immigrant workers, who do good work. Some may well be ‘illegal.’ There are 11 million illegal immigrants in this country and most are working somewhere in our economy.”
Colin Powell’s stance on immigration was further clarified in the interview when he stated, “We can’t be anti-immigration. Immigrants are fueling this country. Without immigrants, America would be like Europe or Japan with an aging population and no young people coming in to take care of it. We have to educate our immigrants. The DREAM Act is one way to do that.”
Powell also said Republicans should back immigration reform that would create a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, as Bush urged during his presidency.

Powell reminded Americans that immigrants are hard workers: “They’re all over my house, doing things whenever I call for repairs, and I’m sure you’ve seen them at your house,” he said. “We’ve got to find a way to bring these people out of the darkness and give them some kind of status. ”
Colin Powell’s stance on immigration demonstrates how some moderate Republicans are seeking a way to change our immigration in a way that will have a positive impact on the U.S. As Gen. Powell noted above, the DREAM Act is one way that the American government can help alleviate the problems faced with illegal immigrants in America.

By embracing those who were brought here without even knowing they were here illegally, America is fulfilling its historical heritage by allowing them to become educated citizens and to contribute to our society through getting an education or joining the military. By nothing the differences between us and Europe or Japan, Gen. Powell emphasizes the importance it is to embrace our immigrants, be they legal or illegal, if they are here to help contribute to American society.

This is especially important right now, when the U.S. has been hit with a recession and is in need of an economic boost from the working population. Let us hope that there are more politicians like Colin Powell that will help move immigration reform forward.

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The UAE’s Ministry of Labor announced plans to use online filing system to speed up the application process for work permits across the country.

In the existing system, a representative from the company must go to the ministry’s physical location to apply for a work permit, a process that unnecessarily consumes time. The new system, on the other hand, will enable applicants to submit all documents electronically. Moreover, companies will be able to process the work permits through a software that they can buy, or use at selected service centers.

According to The National, Humaid bin Deemas, the executive director for Labour Affairs at the ministry, said we want to make sure that procedures will not form obstacles for any future changes in the criteria for the work permit and this move will work towards that end. It will also enable the ministry to concentrate more on formulating policies rather than spending time on mere procedures.

The system has been already introduced to companies that have more than fifty employees since the beginning of last year. However, the ministry plans to do a nationwide roll-out in the next period. Bin Deemas said in a press conference that the overall number of permits issued electronically until the end of August 2010 was 530,000 and the number of establishments that benefited from the service was 111,000. According to the Ministry of Labor, the move to an electronic system will reduce the time it takes to receive a primary application response from four days to four hours.

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On Monday in St. Petersburg Korea’s Finance Minister Yoon Jeung-hyun reached a temporary agreement with his Russian counterpart which will ease immigration restrictions on Korean
entrepreneurs working in Russia. The agreement will reportedly shorten the number of days it takes for Russia to issue a working visa as well as change the current rule that requires even short-term visitors to register a home address.

The understanding was reached during the Korean minister’s 12-day five-country tour of G20 member countries to fine-tune Korea’s plans for the November G20 summit.

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Bosnia is hopeful the EU will take a decision this December to exempt Bosnian citizens from needing a visa to enter the EU, the country’s deputy foreign minister has said. Speaking at Georgetown University in Washington DC, on 17 September, Ana Trisic-Babic said that while the formal decision by the European Parliament and EU Council of Ministers still had to be taken, she had learned informally that the visa waiver was likely to come soon. It will be a great relief to the country, which has fallen behind its Balkan neighbours in the race to join the EU due to disagreements between its constituent Bosniak, Serb and Croat communities over how the state should function. Trisic-Babic noted that only 700,000 out of Bosnia’s four million citizens relied solely on their Bosnian passports. Others manage to travel visa-free to the EU by using passports from Serbia, Croatia or other countries that are visa exempt.

“There is no alternative to us than joining the EU,” she stressed. Noting how preoccupied the EU has been with internal, constitutional issues, such as forging a common foreign policy, she suggested “we have been left behind a little” and was looking to the US once more for its support. She claimed “the EU is not a carrot anymore for us to do reforms because it is so far away”. Failure to reform its ethnically-based police force has been a notable obstacle hindering Bosnia’s path to the EU. Commenting on Turkey’s new involvement in Bosnia, she said Bosnians were split on this, with Muslim Bosniaks interested but Christian communities irritated. On Kosovo, she said Bosnia would not recognise its independence “for a long time” and would follow whatever Serbia and Kosovo agreed.

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UK Immigration Minister Damian Green spoke recently at the Royal Commonwealth Society in London about immigration. The Immigration Minister said that the Government wishes to “maximize” the benefits of immigration. This means that the unsustainable levels of net migration seen in recent years must be brought down. He added that we need to understand more clearly why a significant proportion of students are still here more than 5 years after their arrival. And we also need a system which can scrutinize effectively, and if necessary take action against, those whose long-term presence would be of little or no economic benefit.

UK Immigration has done research recently on immigration into the UK and has published a new report about immigration called “The migrant journey”. The immigration report looks at what has happened to immigrants who came into the UK in 2004. According to UK immigration the largest group of migrants were the 186,000 students on student visas. The immigration minister went onto say that more than twenty percent of migrants were still in the UK five years later.

Immigration Minister Damian Green also said that some Tier 1 highly skilled work route are not doing specialized jobs. I was also struck by some of the individual applications I saw under the [Tier 2] skilled worker category: people running takeaway restaurants and production-line workers on salaries in the low £20,000s. These are not the sort of jobs we talk about when we think of bringing in skilled immigrants who have talents not available among our own workforce or the unemployed.

The UK immigration minister also defended the controversial annual limit on immigration and said that we absolutely need sustainable immigration levels. This will relieve pressure on public services, and stop immigration being such a delicate political issue. UK immigration has provided enormous economic benefits to the UK economy. Many people have commented that recent changes which have made immigration to the UK more difficult and more expensive will caused harm in the long term to the UK economy.