Romania overtakes India as UK's biggest migrant population

December 1, 2016

London, Dec 1: Immigration into the UK from within the European Union (EU) has officially overtaken the rest of the world, with Romania replacing India at the top of the table in official figures released today.

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Romanians accounted for 10 per cent of all immigration in 2015 with 54,000 people coming to live in Britain – more than any other nationality, according to the Office of National Statistics (ONS).

China contributed 44,000 immigrants, followed by Poland with 38,000 tally, and India was third with 36,000.

"Immigration levels are now among the highest estimates recorded – the inflow of EU citizens is also at historically high levels and similar to the inflow of non-EU citizens," said Nicola White, ONS head of international migration statistics.

"These long-term immigration figures run up to the end of June, so it is too early to say what effect, if any, the EU referendum has had on long-term international migration," she said.

Immigration was one of the key issues that is believed to have swung the vote in favour of an exit from the EU in the June 23rd referendum.

Annual net migration to Britain in the 12 months to June 2016, or before the Brexit referendum, continued at a record level of 335,000.

This remains far from the UK government's target to reduce net migration levels to the "tens of thousands".

However, Downing Street insisted Prime Minister Theresa May remains committed to that target.

"She remains absolutely committed to bringing net immigration down to sustainable levels, which means tens of thousands, but we have made clear it will take time," a spokesperson said.

UK Immigration Minister Robert Goodwill hinted at further tightening of immigration measures for non-EU nationals, which will include India, as their hands remain tied on internal European migration until the EU's freedom of movement rules can be addressed once official Brexit negotiations kick off.

"We continue to reform non-EU immigration routes to ensure we attract the best and brightest, who benefit and contribute to this country. But there is more to do as we build an immigration system that delivers the control we need," Goodwill said.

This year's migration was largely fuelled by the highest- ever influx of EU nationals in the 12 months before June's referendum.

Europeans came to Britain for work, from countries like Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, the Republic of Ireland, Spain and Sweden.

The overall 650,000 level of immigration for the year until June 2016 was made up of 284,000 EU citizens coming to live and work in Britain, 289,000 coming from outside Europe and 77,000 Britons returning to live in the UK.

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News Network
April 28,2024

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Campuses of several US Universities have been witnessing massive protests with the students seeking a ceasefire in Israel's war with Hamas. Police have arrested over 550 protesters and some universities are witnessing violent crackdown of protests by the ruthless cops. 

Law enforcement officials at the behest of college administrators have deployed tasers and tear gas against students protesters at Atlanta's Emory University, even though the protests have been largely peaceful, say activists and media personnel present at the spot.

Emil' Keme, professor of English and Indigenous studies, at the University said that the scene reminded him of the civil war in Guatemala as a teenager.

"Police immediately began to force people to move. I felt like I was in a war zone, with all the police and their weapons, the rubber bullets. We were pushed away," Mr Keme told the Guardian describing what happened as soon as cops entered the Emory campus.

“Police took the student next to me, pushed an older lady nearby and then pushed me.”

Student protesters say they are expressing solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, where the confirmed death toll has topped 34,305, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry. They want universities to cut their investments in everything tied to Israel and weapons that fuel the war in Gaza. That means funds run by BlackRock, Google as well as Amazon's cloud service, Lockheed Martin and even Airbnb.

Video circulated widely on social media shows two women who identified themselves as professors being detained, with one of them slammed to the ground by one officer as a second officer then pushes her chest and face onto a concrete sidewalk.

Atlanta police and Georgia troopers are leading a joint operation within the campus to dismantle the tents and camps the activists have set up at the school's quadrangle. Within minutes of the authorities entering the campus, 28 people, 20 of whom were "Emory community members", had been arrested, the institute said in a statement.

The school president said that the videos of police clashing with the students "are shocking" and that he is "horrified horrified that members of our community had to experience and witness such interactions."

The university's response was likely the quickest show of police force in response to a divestment protest among the dozens nationwide that have occurred in recent weeks. It was also probably the only one where pepper balls, stun guns and rubber bullets were used.

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News Network
May 5,2024

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Iran has urged Muslim countries to cut all relations with the Israeli regime as means of pressuring Tel Aviv to end its ongoing genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.

Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian made the remarks on Saturday, addressing the 15th Heads of State and Government Summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Gambia’s capital Banjul.

“Beyond doubt, this time period will also pass by, despite all its hardships and adversities for the Palestinian nation,” he said.

“However, the manner and quality of the role that is played by us, Muslim states, in the face of this crisis will go down in history,” the top diplomat added.

“Undoubtedly, severance of diplomatic and economic ties and [imposition of] practical arms and trade embargo [on Israel] serves as an important means of cessation of its genocide in Gaza and atrocities in the West Bank and the Noble al-Quds.”

At least 34,654 people have died in Gaza since October 7, when the Israeli regime began the war in response to al-Aqsa Storm, a retaliatory operation by the coastal sliver’s resistance groups.

Despite the unabated campaign of bloodshed and destruction, the regime has so far fallen short of realizing its goals, including defeating Gaza’s resistance, causing forced displacement of the territory’s entire population to neighboring Egypt, and enabling the release of those who were taken captive during al-Aqsa Storm.

Amir-Abdollahian said Gaza’s developments proved that elimination of the Palestinian resistance “was nothing but an illusion.”

“Because the Israeli regime is not a legitimate government. It is only an occupying apartheid power,” he said, adding, “Passage of time is not going to lend legitimacy to an occupying power.”

The foreign minister asserted that realization of sustainable peace and security in the region was only possible through cessation of the regime’s occupation of Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon, return of the Palestinian refugees to their homeland, and manifestation of Palestinians’ right to self-determination.

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April 28,2024

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Students in Paris blocked access to a campus building at a French university on Friday, as pro-Palestine demonstrations reach Europe.

The students occupied the central campus building of the Paris Institute of Political Studies, known as Sciences Po, and dozens of others blocked its entrance, echoing protest action at American universities.

Students inspired by Gaza solidarity encampments at campuses in the United States blocked access to a campus building at the prestigious French university on Friday.

They blocked the entrance with trash cans, wooden platforms and other items.

The occupation of the Paris university campus came after police broke up a separate protest at the university’s amphitheater outside one of its Paris campuses.

Scores of student protesters gathered at the building’s windows, chanting slogans and holding placards reading “We are all Palestinians,” in defiance of administrators who students say called the police on their peers two days earlier.

Pro-Palestinian student protesters had occupied the amphitheater outside one of the university’s Paris campuses on Wednesday evening.

The US-style student protests, which began over the months-long Israeli regime’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip, kicked off in the United States and have now spread to European capitals as well as Australia.

In the German capital Berlin, several people were arrested as police violently cleared a camp of Gaza war protesters at the German parliament.

Pro-Palestinian activists are demanding a permanent ceasefire, an end to the Israeli atrocities, and an arms embargo of the Tel Aviv regime.

The Israeli regime launched the war on Gaza on October 7 last year. The genocidal war has killed more than 34,356 Palestinians, most of them women and children.

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