Archive for March 2007

Australian Prime Minister John Howard has been accused of yielding to far-right groups who want a ‘white Australia’ after the Australian Senate passed the Australian Citizenship Bill of 2006 recently.

Australia has seen as the biggest revision of immigration laws in nearly 60 years. The Citizenship Bill will make it harder to become an Australian citizen by increasing the number of years immigrants must spend in Australia from two to four before being eligible for citizenship. The Bill also requires a test to evaluate an immigrant’s knowledge of English and ‘Australian values’, such as democracy, the rule of law and the equality of men and women.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard has been accused by some of curtailing to the far-right politics, and of promoting an a ‘white Australia’ immigration policy after the Australian Senate passed the Australian Citizenship Bill of 2006 recently.

Australian Democrats parliamentary leader Senator Lyn Allison said the new legislation is a way for the Prime Minister to demonise immigrants, particularly Muslims, and that many potential citizens will be put off by the tests for language and values.

About immigration2australia.com

Immigration 2 Australia (immigration2australia.com) has been launched as an essential guide to help the increasing number of people thinking of Australian immigration. The website provides information on Australian Visas, information on finding Australian jobs, somewhere to live and the Australian lifestyle you could expect. It has specific information on Greek Immigration to Australia, Jewish Immigration to Australia and Irish Immigration to Australia.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard has been accused of yielding to far-right groups who want a ‘white Australia’ after the Australian Senate passed the Australian Citizenship Bill of 2006 recently.

Australia has seen as the biggest revision of immigration laws in nearly 60 years. The Citizenship Bill will make it harder to become an Australian citizen by increasing the number of years immigrants must spend in Australia from two to four before being eligible for citizenship. The Bill also requires a test to evaluate an immigrant’s knowledge of English and ‘Australian values’, such as democracy, the rule of law and the equality of men and women.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard has been accused by some of curtailing to the far-right politics, and of promoting an a ‘white Australia’ immigration policy after the Australian Senate passed the Australian Citizenship Bill of 2006 recently.

Australian Democrats parliamentary leader Senator Lyn Allison said the new legislation is a way for the Prime Minister to demonise immigrants, particularly Muslims, and that many potential citizens will be put off by the tests for language and values.

About immigration2australia.com

Immigration 2 Australia (immigration2australia.com) has been launched as an essential guide to help the increasing number of people thinking of Australian immigration. The website provides information on Australian Visas, information on finding Australian jobs, somewhere to live and the Australian lifestyle you could expect. It has specific information on Greek Immigration to Australia, Jewish Immigration to Australia and Irish Immigration to Australia.

Like thousands of other Americans who have served in Iraq since the U.S. intervention began four years ago, Walter Zbryski came home in a coffin. Only his coffin was not draped in an American flag or accompanied by a military honor guard.

Instead, the 56-year-old retired firefighter from New York City was shipped back to his family in June 2004 in the bloodied clothes in which he died, with half of his head blown away, according to Zbryski’s brother Richard.

“They didn’t even clean him up for us.”

Zbryski’s death was not counted among the official tally of more than 3,200 American military personnel who have been killed in Iraq. That’s because he was not a soldier — he was a truck driver working in the private army of hundreds of thousands of contractors hired by the Pentagon to support the massive war effort in Iraq.

More than 770 civilian contractors working for U.S. companies have died in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion began on March 20, 2003, according to an obscure office inside the Department of Labor, which loosely tracks the figures.

Now the family members of some of those American workers killed and injured in Iraq are raising their voices. Some allege that the workers were put in harm’s way without adequate protection. Others charge that their own financial and psychological hardships have been ignored by the contracting companies that promised to help them.

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Two former Oklahoma Highway Patrol troopers have paid for a billboard in East Tulsa that is getting a lot of attention, and is sure to cause some controversy. News On 6 anchor Lori Fullbright reports the men are calling themselves outraged patriots, and say they’ve had enough of illegal immigrants.

The billboard asks drivers on Interstate-44, “Have you had enough?” Former troopers Dan Howard and Jack Horath believe illegal immigrants are creating a crisis in this country. They hope their billboard and website bring awareness to the issue.

“They’re turning criminals out early from prison on the grounds they leave the country, which means come up here,” billboard owner Dan Howard said. “Twenty-billion-dollars will leave the U.S. this year from illegals and that’s money we will not get back.”

Howard says the message is not aimed at the Hispanic race or legal citizens, but to the illegals he says are draining our economy and raising our crime rate. Howard and Horath also want Oklahomans to learn about State House Bill 1804, which involves sweeping immigration reform aimed at illegals.

“If we take off the incentive of working here without paying taxes, and getting a driver’s license and insurance, they will leave,” Howard said. “If landlords and businesses are fined for illegals, they will leave.”

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Circuit City Stores Inc. cut 3,400 sales employees and plans to replace them with newly hired employees who will earn lower, “current market” wages.

The move, announced yesterday, is part of a number of actions the electronics retailer is taking to cut costs to stay viable in a marketplace where more cost-efficient retailers have begun selling items, such as flat-screen televisions, that Circuit City specializes in.

Employees who lost their jobs yesterday “were paid well above the market-based salary range for their role,” Circuit City said in announcing the cuts.

Circuit City employs about 50 full- and part-time associates at each location, “including sales support personnel, such as customer service associates, product specialists and stockpersons; three sales managers; an operations manager; and a store director,” according to a regulatory filing.

The company operates more than 650 retail outlets in the United States, including four lower Hudson Valley locations in White Plains, Yonkers, West Nyack and Cortlandt, where 13 workers were fired, according to Circuit City spokesman Bill Cimino.

In the seven-county Hudson Valley region, retail salespeople earn a median salary of $21,450 a year. But Cimino said the criteria Circuit City used for determining the cuts also looked at wages for similar jobs within the market.

Cimino said that if any of those workers wanted to reapply for those jobs at the new lower wage they would be eligible to do so, “but after a period of time.” Employees have been given severance and wouldn’t be eligible to reapply for about two months, he said. The severance amounts were dependent upon several factors including length of time employed, Cimino said.

In addition to the 3,400 sales employees, Circuit City said it eliminated 130 corporate associates, 50 of whom will transition to jobs at IBM Corp. but will remain on-site. The job reassignments are part of a $775 million pact that Circuit City estimates will trim more than 16 percent from its costs during the length of the seven-year contract.

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RIOTING at a major Paris train station, triggered by a ticket check, thrust security on to centre stage in France’s presidential campaign yesterday.
French police were bracing for fresh outbreaks of violence after hundreds of youths rioted over the arrest of an illegal immigrant at the Gare du Nord.
Rampaging youths, many apparently of African or North African origin, wielded metal bars, smashed windows, looted stores, set rubbish bins alight and smashed shop windows.

The violence erupted on Tuesday, during the evening rush hour, after ticket inspectors stopped a 33-year-old man for jumping over a barrier at the Gare du Nord Metro station. The man, described as an illegal immigrant with 22 convictions, allegedly head-butted an inspector.

Witnesses described holidaymakers cowering in fear after stepping off trains from London, Brussels and Amsterdam.

The violence was reminiscent of the riots that flared in Paris’s poor suburbs in 2005 when Nicolas Sarkozy, now a presidential candidate, was interior minister. Francois Baroin, who succeeded Mr Sarkozy this week, said that the rioters had used “urban guerilla” tactics.

A crime expert said it would take time to determine whether the looting and clashes would spark more widespread violence.

Eight train agents and a police officer were injured and 13 people were arrested.

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A young conservative populist sometimes described as Quebec’s Jean-Marie Le Pen is likely in today’s election to throw a spanner into the separatist versus federalist competition that has dominated Quebec politics for decades.

Polls indicate Mario Dumont’s Action démocratique du Québec (ADQ), a small fringe party for the past three elections, is about to seize the balance of power in the first minority parliament in 129 years.

The ADQ has side-swiped the separatist Parti Quebecois and the ruling federalist Liberals, led by Jean Charest, by exploiting a backlash against multiculturism, especially Muslims.

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The recent murders of two young white people in Knoxville, TN, allegedly committed by black assailants, have angered some whites who plan to rally in Knoxville in memory of the victims.

Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom were killed in January after being kidnapped, raped, dismembered and tortured by at least four black perpetrators.

According to several websites frequented by whites who are unhappy with what they say is a lack of national media coverage of the case, the rally may be held sometime in the spring.

Their Purpose

The rally organizers hope to bring attention to what they say is a disproportionate amount of black-on-white violence in the U.S.

Alex Linder, Editor of Vanguard News Network, says, “Our purpose in calling this rally is to draw attention to the genocidal System ultimately responsible for the horrendous murders of these two lovely young White people.”

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THE British National Party is to put forward a record number of candidates in Blackpool’s local elections, it emerged today.

Seven BNP candidates – including a former school governor and a married couple – are to stand in May’s local elections in Blackpool.

James Clayton – who is just 18 – will also fight for a seat in Cleveleys.

The BNP has never put forward more than one candidate in Blackpool before.

Roy Goodwin, fighting for power in Highfield Ward, South Shore, told The Gazette: “We are getting stronger in Blackpool and the other parties know it.

“People are saying ‘What is happening to our country?’ and they see it right here on their doorstep in Blackpool.

“English people are tolerant people but if you rub their noses in the dirt, they will get up like a bulldog and bite you.”

Four of the BNP candidates will fight for seats in the north of Blackpool, while three will stand in wards in southern Blackpool.

Mr Goodwin refused to reveal some of the seats his colleagues would fight for in fear of a “dirty tricks” campaign by opponents.

Taxi driver Irene Cain battles for power in Hawes Side while Susan Kelly – a former Norbreck Primary School governor – is the candidate for Bispham.

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WASHINGTON (AP) - Teams assigned to make sure foreigners ordered out of the United States actually leave have a backlog of more than 600,000 cases and can’t accurately account for the fugitives’ whereabouts, the government reported Monday.

The report by the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general found that the effectiveness of teams assigned to find the fugitives was hampered by “insufficient detention capacity, limitations of an immigration database and inadequate working space.”

Even though more than $204 million was allocated for 52 fugitive operations teams since 2003, a backlog of 623,292 cases existed as of August of 2006, the report said.

The number of illegal immigrants in the United States has been estimated at between 11.5 million and 12 million. About 5.4 percent of them are believed to be “fugitive aliens,” those who have failed to leave the country after being ordered out.

The inspector general found there is not enough bed space available to detain such fugitives and that agents are hampered by an inaccurate database. Other factors that limit the teams’ effectiveness are insufficient staffing, the report said.

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