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News ItemsThis page was started in September 2005. It is intended for news items in any media (radio, newspapers, etc.) that are not going to be specifically dealt with on other pages, at least at the time concerned. Items will be progressively removed to the Archive page. 1st May 2008 For some years now anti–tuberculosis drug resistance (hencforth A–TDR) has been increasing globally. The UK is no exception to this general trend: while the level of both tuberculosis and of A–TDR still remain low in the the general population of the UK, in the period since 1987 the incidence of tuberculosis has increased significantly in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (in London prevalence is high amongst drug users and the homeless), and latterly there has been an increase in A–TDR. The rise in A–TDR with the drug isoniazid 1998–2005 comes about through an increase in the proportion of tuberculosis patients who were not born in the UK and who are from certain ethnic minority groups, but also because there has been inadequate control of transmission in London. There has also been a small increase in multi–drug resistance and rifampicin resistance. Now a new study also looks at the period of 1998–2005. The authors think the increase in isoniazid resistance comes from the increase in the number of patients with resistance who come from sub–Saharan Africa and the Indian subcontinent and who may have acquired the resistance abroad. And they also conclude that “the increase in cases from these parts of the world reflects, at least in part, a general change in the UK population resulting from ongoing migration”. 29th April 2008 A new report from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), a Labour–leaning British think tank, has provided estimates of the inflows to Britain from the new EU accession states (Poland and the other A8 countries together with the A2 countries, Bulgaria and Romania) and subsequent outflows. The IPPR estimates that about one million migrant workers from the A8 countries arrived in the UK since these countries joined the EU in May 2004. But they also estimate that roughly half of these migrants have already left the UK. Hence the title of the report “floodgates or turnstiles?”. The current number of A8 plus A2 nationals now resident in the UK is estimated to be 665,000, and by far the greatest number of these people come from Poland. The report says that the number of A8 migrants arriving in the UK has recently started to slow down considerably. And it forecasts that there will be fewer immigrants from accession states in future, for four reasons:
The report may be downloaded at: 17th April 2008 Almost two–thirds of people in Britain fear race relations are so poor tensions are likely to spill over into violence, a BBC poll has found. Of the 1,000 people asked, 60% said the UK had too many immigrants and half wanted foreigners encouraged to leave. But the proportion of people describing themselves as "racially prejudiced" was down to 20%, compared with 24%in 2005. Equality and Human Rights Commission head Trevor Phillips said the findings were “alarming”. Britain's last serious race riots — when violent clashes erupted between white and Asian youths in northern England — happened seven years ago. Despite this, the poll, carried out by Mori, found three out of four people thought there was now a great deal or a fair amount of tension between races and nationalities. And almost two in three feared tension was certain or likely to lead to violence, although it is not clear whether people are imagining full–blown street riots or minor scuffles. Mr Phillips told BBC News: “What worries me is if that friction starts to catch fire - if people do genuinely believe it's going to catch fire then we're in trouble. This finding may reflect not what is happening today but the story that's been told of the last 40 years — that if you get people of different kinds together then eventually there's going to be trouble”. The survey was commissioned to mark the 40th anniversary of Enoch Powell's infamous “rivers of blood” speech, in which he described the indigenous population's “sense of alarm and resentment” over immigration. Speaking of his foreboding, he said: “Like the Roman, I seem to see the river Tiber foaming with blood”. BBC home editor Mark Easton says Powell's words, spoken to a small gathering in Birmingham's Midland hotel, still echo down the decades. He says the effect of Powell's speech was in fact to force the issue of immigration off the political agenda, with any politician who ventured to broach the subject risking being accused of playing the race card. This situation still exists 40 years later, our correspondent says. Five months ago, a Tory candidate in Birmingham, Nigel Hastilow, was forced to step down by David Cameron for saying Powell was right that uncontrolled immigration would change Britain irrevocably. However, the BBC poll finds many people share that view. Asked if they thought immigration meant their local area didn't feel like Britain any more, a quarter of the sample agreed — double the amount who felt this three years ago. Six out of 10 said immigration had made parts of Britain feel like a foreign country. When Tory leader Michael Howard suggested communities couldn't cope with the pace of immigration during the 2005 general election campaign, he was accused of racism. However, our correspondent says immigration is now back on the political agenda. He says: “One reason politicians can debate it again, perhaps, is that the latest wave of immigration is different. The million Eastern Europeans who've come to the UK in the last three or four years are not looking to settle for good. Their motives are economic. And perhaps most importantly they are white. Forty years after Enoch Powell, the issues of race and immigration have been separated once more”. Immigration Minister Liam Byrne said the government knew immigration was a top concern among voters. He said: “That is why 2008 sees the biggest shake-up to immigration and border security in 45 years, with a points system like the one in Australia and new rules to make people earn their stay in the UK, including speaking English and abiding by our rules. That is what is going to make our immigration system fit for the future”. 15th April 2008 Rumor has it that Pope Benedict may address climate change during his visit to the United Nations this week. Whether he does or not, his young papacy can claim to be the “greenest” ever. Benedict has identified extensive common ground between sustainability concerns and a Catholic worldview — adding weight to the argument that the world's religions could be instrumental in nudging policymakers and the public to embrace sustainability. Now, the Pope has the opportunity to further develop the links between sustainability and religious values, markedly advancing thinking in both arenas. As he embraces these themes, Benedict and the larger Catholic community could play an especially valuable role in helping to address two major influences on the environment that get too little attention today: consumption and population. (A third, technology, already receives high levels of policy focus). The consumption question should be comfortable ground for a modern Catholic pope, given the longstanding social and spiritual critique of consumerism in Catholic thought. For example, Pope Paul VI, in his 1967 encyclical Populorum Progressio, linked heavy consumption to injustice, declaring that, “No one may appropriate surplus goods solely for his own private use when others lack the bare necessities of life.... The earth belongs to everyone, not to the rich”. The other issue, population, is more difficult for a Catholic leader to tackle, especially one with Benedict's reputation for doctrinal strictness. For Benedict and most Catholics, human reproduction is a domain infused with questions of deep personal morality. But a pontiff who appreciates the epochal nature of the sustainability crisis must surely also recognize the moral challenges raised when human numbers grow exponentially in a finite world. How much of modern hunger, disease, poverty, and environmental degradation can be blamed on population sizes that have exceeded the carrying capacity of local, regional, and global environments? The share is unknowable, but surely not small. The challenge for Benedict will be to apply his formidable intellect to harmonize the personal and social ethics of population issues. Benedict's interest in sustainability issues comes not a moment too soon. The sustainability crisis is civilizational in scope and depth — and therefore a natural concern for a global institution like the Catholic Church. Should Benedict raise the twin issues of consumption and population to the level of theological and spiritual attention they deserve, he would not only advance thinking on religious ethics — but also on how to create just and environmentally sustainable societies. Extracts from an article by Gary Gardner that was published on the web by The WorldWatch Institute, an environmental research organization based in Washington, D.C., where Gary Gardner is a senior researcher. 14th April 2008 World Bank head Robert Zoellick has warned that 100 million people in poor countries could be pushed deeper into poverty by spiralling prices. And the leader of the International Monetary Fund last week said hundreds of thousands of people were at risk of starvation because of food shortages. Prices have risen sharply in recent months, driven by increased demand, poor weather in some countries that has ruined crops and reduced production area, thanks to an increase in the use of land to grow crops for transport fuels. The price of staple crops such as wheat, rice and corn have all risen, leading to an increase in overall food prices of 83% in the last three years, the World Bank has said. Importers such as Bangladesh, the Philippines and Afghanistan have been hit hard. The sharp rises have led to protests and unrest in many countries, including Egypt, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, the Philippines and Indonesia. In Haiti, protests last week turned violent, leading to the deaths of five people and the fall of the government. Restrictions on rice exports have been put in place in major producing countries such as India, China, Vietnam and Egypt. The World Bank has announced emergency measures to tackle rising food prices around the world. Emergency help would include an additional $10m (£5m) to Haiti, where several people were killed in food riots last week, and a doubling of agricultural loans to African farmers. Mr Zoellick's “New Deal for Global Food Policy” seeks to boost agricultural policy in poor countries in the longer–term. And Mr. Zoellick called for more aid to provide food to needy people in poor countries and help for small farmers. He said the World Bank was working to provide money for seeds for planting in the new season. He also urged wealthy donor countries to quickly fill the World Food Programme's estimated $500m (£250m) funding shortfall. We have been warning about the situation and pointing to possible dire consequences, for quite some time now: see out essay Population growth and environmental deterioration. Are things finally coming together for mankind's doom? posted on our web site early November 2007. And we note that while the above linked articles mention some causes of the present crisis, neither specifically mentions population growth as a cause! In our view it is the most fundamental of all the causes. 1st April 2008 Corporate Author: Great Britain Parliament House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs. Author: Lord Wakeham (chairman). Publisher: TSO (The Stationery Office) Immigration has become highly significant to the UK economy: immigrants comprise 12 per cent of the total workforce. The Committee found no evidence for the argument, made by the Government, business and others, that net immigration generates significant economic benefits for the existing UK population. The Committee criticises use of GDP as a criterion for assessing the economic impacts of immigration on the UK. The total size of an economy is not an index of prosperity. The focus of analysis should be on the effects of immigration on income per head of the resident population, and theory and the available empirical evidence indicate that these effects are small. The economic impacts of immigration depend critically on the skills of immigrants. The Committee does not support the general claims that net immigration is indispensable to fill labour and skills shortages, and also questions the Government's claim that immigration has generated fiscal benefits. Rising population density has potentially important economic consequences for the resident population, including impacts on housing, as well as wider welfare effects, especially where immigrants are most concentrated. Immigration does exert a significant impact on the housing market in particular areas. Data on immigration and immigrants in the UK, and those leaving the country, are inadequate. The Committee recommends the Government should: improve radically the immigration statistics; review immigration polices and explain the reasons and objectives; better enforce the minimum wage; clarify the objectives and implications of the new points–based immigration system; monitor immigration by publishing regular reports on the numbers and characteristics of immigrants; further consider which channels of immigration should lead to settlement and citizenship; review the implications of its projection of net immigration of 190,000 a year. TSO Online Bookshop 16th March 2008 Record Glacier Thinning Means No Time to Waste on Agreeing New International Climate Regime. Zurich/Nairobi, 16 March 2008 — The world's glaciers are continuing to melt away with the latest official figures showing record losses, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) announced today. Data from close to 30 reference glaciers in nine mountain ranges indicate that between the years 2004–2005 and 2005–2006 the average rate of melting and thinning more than doubled. The findings come from the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS), a centre based at the University of Zurich in Switzerland and that is supported by UNEP. It has been tracking the fate of glaciers for over a century. Continuous data series of annual mass balance, expressed as thickness change, are available for 30 reference glaciers since 1980. Prof. Dr. Wilfried Haeberli, Director of the Service said: “The latest figures are part of what appears to be an accelerating trend with no apparent end in sight”. The Service calculates thickening and thinning of glaciers in terms of 'water equivalent'. The estimates for the year 2006 indicate that further shrinking took place equal to around 1.4 metres of water equivalent compared to losses of half a metre in 2005. “This continues the trend in accelerated ice loss during the past two and a half decades and brings the total loss since 1980 to more than 10.5 metres of water equivalent”, said Professor Haberli. During 1980–1999, average loss rates had been 0.3 metres per year. Since the turn of the millennium, this rate had increased to about half a metre per year. The record loss during these two decades — 0.7 metres in 1998 — has now been exceeded by three out of the past six years: 2003, 2004 and 2006. On average, one metre water equivalent corresponds to 1.1 metres in ice thickness indicating a further shrinking in 2006 of 1.5 actual metres and since 1980 a total reduction in thickness of ice of just over 11.5 metres or almost 38 feet. (The Press Release goes on to give further details of glacier shrinkage, point to the importance of glaciers as natural water storage facilities and to emphasize the need for firm action to be agreed at the 2009 climate convention meeting in Copenhagen) 5th and 6th March 2008 The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has, 5th March, published its new report “OECD Environmental Outlook to 2030”. Global emissions of greenhouse gases are projected to grow by a further 37% to 2030, and 52% to 2050. This could result in an increase in global temperature over pre–industrial levels in the range of 1.7–2.4° Celsius by 2050, leading to increased heat waves, droughts, storms and floods, resulting in severe damage to key infrastructure and crops. A considerable number of today's known animal and plant species are likely to be extinct, largely due to expanding infrastructure and agriculture, as well as climate change. Food and biofuel production together will require a 10% increase in farmland worldwide with a further loss of wildlife habitat. Continued loss of biodiversity is likely to limit the Earth's capacity to provide the valuable ecosystem services that support economic growth and human well–being. Water scarcity will worsen due to unsustainable use and management of the resource as well as climate change; the number of people living in areas affected by severe water stress is expected to increase by another 1 billion to over 3.9 billion. Health impacts of air pollution will increase worldwide, with the number of premature deaths linked to ground-level ozone quadrupling and those linked to particulate matter more than doubling. Chemical production volumes in non–OECD countries are rapidly increasing, and there is insufficient information to fully assess the risks of chemicals in the environment and in products. The greatest environmental impacts will be felt by developing countries, which are less equipped to manage and adapt. But the economic and social costs of policy inaction or delaying action in these areas are significant and are already affecting economies — including in OECD countries — directly (e.g. through public health service costs) as well as indirectly (e.g. through reduced labour productivity). The costs of policy inaction for biodiversity loss (e.g. fisheries) and climate change could be considerable. The report claims that, by combining specific policy actions, some of the key environmental challenges can be addressed at a cost of just over 1% of world GDP in 2030, or about 0.03 percentage points lower average annual GDP growth to 2030. The Daily Express newspaper's take on this report (6th March), comes under the headline “Water ration Britain threat”. The paper points to the growing human population and increasing demand for water as seriously threatening the ability to provide adequate water supplies in the future; it writes for example, that the government plans to build three million more homes by 2020, over half a million of these in what it describes as the most drought–threatened and overcrowded areas. 21st February 2008 “...the first scientific evidence that emerging diseases are on the rise and that zoonoses — diseases from wildlife — are the prime threat, due to encroachment of wild areas by human population growth and related impacts” (our bold text). So states the brief report by the Center for International Earth Science Information Network, Columbia University (CIESIN), on a newly published paper. The paper, “Global Trends in Emerging Infectious Diseases”, comes from an international research team, and is published in the journal 'Nature', issue of February 21st. The authors built a predictive model by correlating population data from the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN with analysis of emerging diseases from 1940 to 2004. “Overlaying maps of where the zoonotic diseases have occurred, with population maps, allows a pattern of relationships to emerge”, says Levy, one of the authors of the paper and deputy director of CIESIN, “and is a first step in prediction”. The result is a global map of emerging disease “hotspots” that shows a pattern of growing vulnerability to new diseases in rich as well as poor nations, with implications for further prediction and prevention. We now give some details from the paper: The authors write about 335 emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) between 1940 and 2004, using the term ' EID event', that is the original case or cluster of cases of an infectious disease. They divide the pathogens into three categories. (i) newly evolved strains such as multi–drug–resistant tuberculosis; (ii) pathogens that have for the first time entered human populations (e.g. HIV–1); (iii) pathogens that have probably been present in mankind historically, but have recently shown an increased incidence (e.g. Lyme disease). The majority (54.3%) of EID event pathogens are bacteria or rickettsia; this reflects the importance of drug resistant microbes. 60.3% of EID events are caused by non–human animal sources ('zoonotic pathogens'), of which 71.8% were caused by pathogens of wildlife origin (for example, the emergence of SARS in Guangdong Province, China). The incidence of EID events has increased since 1940, reaching a maximum in the 1980s. Now while human pathogen species richness increases towards the equator, as with many other taxonomic groups of organisms, EID events are concentrated in higher latitudes, the highest concentrations being found between 30 and 60 degrees north and between 30 and 40 degrees south. But within these areas, there were 'hotspots'. The main hotspots were northeastern USA, western Europe, Japan, and southeastern Australia, as a map included in the paper shows. From their studies the authors conclude: CIESIN 15th February 2008 Defence and security need to be overseen in parallel by Government and by Parliament, an influential group of former military chiefs, diplomats, analysts and academics claim. Writing in the Journal of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), published today, Professor Gwyn Prins at the London School of Economics and Lord Salisbury, Privy Councillor, have suggested that “flabby and bogus strategic thinking” is a fundamental source of danger to the security of the United Kingdom. The article notes that the “electorate is uncertain and anxious” about “military adventures overseas”, worried about security in Britain. The authors note that “latent risks can become patent threats. What marks the change of a risk into a threat is usually the emergence of a factor which has been misjudged. It has been the reduction of traditional threats (aggression from nation states) combined with the increase of possible risk factors (most notably, Islamist terrorism, but there are many others) which has so destabilised world affairs and increased uncertainty. But linked to these changes is a loss in the United Kingdom of confidence in our own identity, values, constitution and institutions”. “Islamist terrorism is where people tend to begin. The United Kingdom presents itself as a target, as a fragmenting, post–Christian society, increasingly divided about interpretations of its history, about its national aims, its values and in its political identity. That fragmentation is worsened by the firm self–image of those elements within it who refuse to integrate. This is a problem worsened by the lack of leadership from the majority which in mis–placed deference to 'multiculturalism' failed to lay down the line to immigrant communities, thus under–cutting those within them trying to fight extremism. The country's lack of self–confidence is in stark contrast to the implacability of its Islamist terrorist enemy, within and without”. The authors identify various categories of risk and write that “Any one of these may ignite the powder trails in and between any of the others”: Trade routes are potential choke–points for the UK, yet with the navy, failure to maintain construction and establishment means the navy will shrink in size and capability. Further, our security requires that arrangements with the continent do not encroach on our basic freedoms, strengthen rather than sap our strengths, and do not go beyond public consent. There are new sources of both moral and material power. The authors mention jihadists with the power of their conviction and their power to use the internet; they are not “state–bound” so that home and abroad are “seemlessly interlinked” and they can take over part or the whole of a state (as did happen in Afghanistan and Somalia,and could now happen in Pakistan). There is increasing competition for resources (energy, food, water), causing more difficult markets and vulnerability to supply interruptions. Climate change will increase the problems. In Russia a new nationalism is being promoted that shows contempt for the West, with willingness to break contracts and the possibility of energy blackmail. The authors express the view that multilateral institutions, so important to security, are weakening. “Originally intended as alliances to support agreed ends, they have lost their way and no longer offer their members the benefits once covenanted. What are the essential features of alliances worthy of that name? Shared essential values; shared culture, and especially military culture; shared interests; and, most basic of all, trust...”. The report goes on to make proposals to government to deal with the situation. Read the article at RUSI. 14th February 2008 Only about 4% of the world's oceans remain undamaged by human activity, according to the first detailed global map of human impacts on the seas. A study in Science journal says climate change, fishing, pollution and other human factors have exacted a heavy toll on almost half of the marine waters. Only remote icy areas near the poles are relatively pristine, but they face threats as ice sheets melt, it warns. The authors say the data is a “wake–up call” to policymakers. The international team of 20 scientists in the US, Canada and UK built a complex model to handle large amounts of information on 17 different human threats.The researchers divided the world's oceans into 1km–square sections and examined all real data available on how humankind is influencing the marine environment.They then calculated “human impact scores” for each location, presenting this as a global map of the toll people have exacted on the seas. The scientists say they were shocked by the findings. “I think the big surprise from all of this was seeing what the complete coverage of human impacts was”, said Dr Spalding, senior marine scientist for international conservation group The Nature Conservancy. “There's nowhere really that escaped. It's quite a shocking map to see”. He said the two biggest drivers in destroying marine habitats were climate change and over–fishing. 13th February 2008 Lord Turner, former CBI Director General, submitted written evidence to the House of Lords Economic Affairs Commitee on the Economic Impact of Immigration. He began his lecture as follows: “The purpose of this lecture is to consider the issue of optimal population growth and population density in general and in the UK in particular. My starting point is the often heard assertion that the rich developed world faces a problem of population slowdown and population aging, and that in the face of it we need either an increase in the birth rate — more babies perhaps stimulated by new pro–natalist policies — or more immigrants. Two closely related but still distinguishable arguments are made in support of that assertion:
I will consider these assertions, and also consider the wider issue of whether we can say anything in general about optimal population density or optimal population growth. And to give away the punch lines up front, I believe in relation to the UK that these often–made assertions are broadly untrue, and to make that case I will consider four sets of issues in turn.
At the end of his lecture Lord Turner stated his conclusions as follows: “... to return to the question I initially asked 'Do we need more immigrants and babies?' my summary conclusions are as follows.
What l accept entirely is that my third conclusion — that congestion and environmental detriments outweigh dependency ratio and comparative advantage benefits — is judgemental. It depends on the weight we attach to these congestion and environmental detriments, and different people with different preferences will attach different weights. But the fact that there is a trade–off to be struck is not disputable: nor the fact that any dependency ratio and comparative advantage benefits are sufficiently minor that it is perfectly feasible for a rich developed country to manage with a stable rather than growing population. The simple answer to the question 'Do we need more immigrants and babies?' is therefore No.” The Daily Mail Newspaper gives usefull key points from Lord Turner's lecture, together with the reaction of the Shadow Home Secretary and Sir Andrew Green of Migrationwatch UK Daily Mail. See also the report by the Telegraph. A very different view of the lecture is given by the Guardian Newspaper! Guardian You can read Lord Turner's lecture by clicking on the following link then scroll down to “Lecture by Lord Turner” nearly at the bottom of the page 4th February 2008 'Tipping points' could come this century. The University of East Anglia (UEA) has produced a News Release on climate change. We give this release here, followed by a comment of ours. The Release ‘Tipping points’ could come this century A number of key components of the earth’s climate system could pass their ‘tipping Published today by the prestigious international journal Proceedings of the National The term ‘tipping point’ is used to describe a critical threshold at which a small In this new research, lead author Prof Tim Lenton of the University of East Anglia The nine tipping elements and the time it will take them to undergo a major transition The paper also demonstrates how, in principle, early warning systems could be “Society must not be lulled into a false sense of security by smooth projections of “Our findings suggest that a variety of tipping elements could reach their critical point ‘Tipping elements in the Earth’s climate system’ by Tim Lenton (UEA and Tyndall The findings are based on a critical review of the literature, the results of a recent Ends Comment We were surprised to see that the news release claims that the present researchers have coined a new term, 'tipping elements', in relation to the term 'tipping point' . Perhaps they are technically correct, but we would like to point out that the term 'tipping point' was used by James Lovelock in his 2006 book "The Revenge of Gaia", that we reviewed on our Book Reviews page, and he used it in the same sense that these present researchers use the term. Lovelock wrote, page 6: Lovelock went on to discuss 'positive feed back' mechanisms: “...the evidence from the Earth that nearly all the systems known to affect climate are now in positive feedback. Any addition of heat from any source will be amplifed, not resisted, as would be expected on a healthy Earth” (pages 33–34). Lovelock may not have used the term 'tipping elements' but the whole idea of tipping points and what are in effect tipping elements were explored in detail by Lovelock. While we have not yet been able to read the full article in the journal, which may then acknowledge Lovelock's contribution, we feel that the press release should have itself acknowledged the significant contribution of James Lovelock. 29th January 2008 The NHS is spending £350m a year to provide maternity services for foreign–born mothers, £200m more than a decade ago, the BBC has found. Immigration has raised the birth rate so fast that some units have closed, so that midwives could be moved to areas of urgent need. Other maternity units have turned expectant mothers away because they could not cope with unprecedented increases in the local birth rate. When Labour came to power, the NHS spent around £1bn a year on maternity services, with one baby in eight delivered to a foreign–born mother. Ten years on, spending has risen to £1.6bn, with almost one baby in four delivered to a mother born overseas. While the number of babies born to British mothers has fallen by 44,000 a year since the mid–1990s, the figure for babies born to foreign mothers has risen by 64,000 — a 77% increase which has pushed the overall birth–rate to its highest level for 26 years. In central London, where six out of every 10 babies born has a foreign–born mother, senior consultants and health managers blame the lack of resources to deal with the pressures of migration for unacceptably poor standards. Professor Philip Steer, editor of the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, said: “The Department of Health has been taken by surprise. The demographic change, the sheer numbers, has in some areas increased very substantially without there being any forward planning really to allow for that”. According to figures from the Office for National Statistics, in 2006 there were 15,000 more Eastern European babies born here than a decade earlier. The statistics go on to show that 11,000 more babies were born to a mother from the Indian sub–continent, while 8,000 extra babies had mothers born in Africa. Peterborough has seen a huge increase in births from Eastern Europeans. There were just three such babies in 2000, but almost 200 in 2006. In parts of Greater London, seven out of 10 babies are now delivered to mothers born overseas. The Strategic Health Authority argues that this partly explains why maternity services in the capital performed so poorly in last week's Healthcare Commission report. Births within migrant groups can often be more difficult, more dangerous and more expensive — with much higher rates of type 2 diabetes, tuberculosis and HIV among mothers who often turn up very late in their pregnancy. 2nd January 2008 The figures were released by the Office for National Statistics in a House of Commons written answer. Crowding in England is almost double that of Germany and quadruple the population density in France. The number of people crammed into each square mile is due to overtake levels in Holland and Belgium - and may already have done so. Holland had 393 people for every square kilometre in 2005 while the corresponding figure for England was 387 people and this rose to 390 per square kilometre in 2006. By 2031, the ONS forecasts, England will have 464 people per square kilometre. Tory MP James Clappison, whose questioning secured the release of the figures, said: “These figures show that England, if not the most crowded already, will very soon be so”. Around 70 per cent of population growth is a result of immigration, and much of the rest is accounted for by higher birthrates among recent immigrants. The figures are likely to increase concern over Labour's plans to build hundreds of thousands of homes, mainly in southern England. The homes are needed to cope with the increasing population and there are fears that many will end up on green belt land that is currently protected. Clappison commented: “This is more evidence of the impact of immigration, and if present patterns of migration continue we are going to get much more crowded. There will be a big impact on quality of life”. 23rd December 2007 “Britain's Increasing Plurality” is an 18–page briefing document prepared by the Barrow Cadbury Trust, based on statistical and graphical research produced by Danny Dorling and Bethan Thomas, SASI group, Department of Geography, University of Sheffield. Here is a brief summary of the main findings and a detailed note about the city of Leicester. Britain is becoming ever more plural; our diversity ever more diverse. In the 1930s, the proportion of people living in Britain who were born in foreign countries stood at around 2.5%. By 2006, that figure rose to over 10%. In the 1930s, people living in Britain who were born oversees typically emigrated from one of 15 countries. The vast majority of foreign–born people came from Ireland or the Indian Empire. By 2006, however, no one ethnic group dominates: people born abroad come from a plethora of different countries and continents. Britain is becoming, in the words of academic Steven Vertovec, “super-diverse”. The country's immigrant and ethnic population can no longer be characterized by large, well organized African–Caribbean and South Asian communities. Rather, immigrants increasingly come from countries scattered all over the world: from Germany to Ghana; from Sri Lanka to Singapore. Maps in the report show how Britain's diversity is changing over time. Britain' increasing plurality is most evident in its cities. Plural cities — where no one ethnic group makes up more than 50% of the population — are set to become common across Western Europe and North America. Cities with a history of large scale immigration, such as Marseille, are being transformed by demographic change. But other cities not normally associated with high levels of diversity, such as Malmo, Sweden, are also becoming cities in transition. Britain is not exempt from the trend towards plurality. Leicester could become Britain's first plural city within a decade. Birmingham is due to follow a few years later. Some London boroughs have already reached plurality. More urban areas are predicted to follow. Leicester In 1991, Leicester 's population was 70.1% white. In 2006, the proportion of whites fell to 59.5%. By 2016, the white population is predicted to make up 52.2% of the population. By 2026, Leicester 's population is expected to be just 44.5% white. Between 1991 and 2026, Leicester's second largest ethnic group, Indian, is due to rise from 22.9% of the population to 26%. Over the same time period, the city's Pakistani population is predicted to increase from 1.1% of the total population to 3.3%. The largest ethnic minority population changes occur amongst Africans and the 'other' category. Africans made up 0.4% of Leicester's population in 1991. That figure is predicted to rise to 11.2% of the population by 2026. The 'other' category, comprising numerous minority and 'mixed' groups, is due to increase from 3% of the population in 1991 to 11.7% of the population by 2026. 15th December 2007 Delegates at the UN summit in Bali have agreed a deal on curbing climate change after days of bitter wrangling. Agreement was reached after a U–turn from the US, which had wanted firmer commitments from developing countries. Environment groups said they were disappointed by the lack of firm targets for reducing emissions. The “Bali roadmap” initiates a two–year process of negotiations designed to agree a new set of emissions targets to replace those in the Kyoto Protocol. The EU had pressed for a commitment that industrialised nations should commit to cuts of 25–40% by 2020, a bid that was implacably opposed by a bloc containing the US, Canada and Japan. The final text does not mention specific emissions targets, but does acknowledge that “deep cuts in global emissions will be required to achieve the ultimate objective” of avoiding dangerous climate change. It also says that a delay in reducing emissions will make severe climate impacts more likely. 11th December 2007 Both UK born and non–UK born women have contributed to the consistent rise in fertility rates in the UK between 2001 and 2006, according to the National Statistician's first annual report on the UK population published today. The Total Fertility Rate for the UK has increased from 1.6 children per woman in 2001 to 1.8 children per woman in 2006, the highest level since 1980. In England and Wales, the estimated total fertility rate for UK born women has risen from 1.5 to 1.7 since 2002, while for women born outside of the UK the estimated rate rose from 2.3 to 2.5. Analyses based upon birth registration data and the Labour Force Survey indicate that both UK born and non–UK born women have contributed to the overall increases in the fertility of women in their late twenties and thirties. However, the recent small rise in the fertility of women in their early twenties appears to have been driven by UK born women only. Women born outside the UK have higher intended family sizes at each age than UK born women. For example, 18 per cent of women aged 30–34 born overseas stated that they intended to have four or more children, compared with 11 per cent of UK born women. In 2006, there were 154,000 births to non–UK born women, almost 21 per cent of total births in the UK. The number of births to mothers born in EU countries other than the UK and Republic of Ireland increased by 87 per cent between 2001 and 2006 to 27,000, almost 4 per cent of all UK births in 2006. The National Statistician's report also finds that the UK population has recently grown at its fastest rate since the 1960s. It increased by one and a half million to over 60 million between mid-2001 and mid-2006 and is projected to rise to 65 million by 2016. In addition to increases in size, the demographic structure of the UK population is changing. In particular: • The UK population is ageing. In the year to mid–2006, the estimated population aged 85 and over increased by six per cent to 1.2 million. By 2031 it is projected that this number will more than double to 2.9 million, having major implications for future service provision in the UK; The National Statistician's report describes how ONS and the devolved administrations are responding to the challenge to improve further the quality and coherence of population statistics across the UK. Crown copyright material reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland. 7th December 2007 Vast sums of money are being spent on translation of documents from English into other languages to help immigrants who have not learnt English. According to the Telegraph newspaper, an estimated £100 million a year is being spent by local authorities (annual reports alone may be translated in up to 10 different languages). In most public libraries some information is translated into many languages and in some parts of the country road signs are in Polish. All this at a time when local councils need more money to provide essential services to all citizens. The government recognises the problem and today Communities Secretary Hazel Blears has published new guidance on translation. This is what the Department for Communites and Local Governemt says: “Communities Secretary Hazel Blears has today published new guidance on translation for local councils as part of efforts to bring about a fundamental rebalancing with greater emphasis on learning English and ensuring a commonsense approach is applied to translation. Hazel Blears warns that too much translation of public information is reinforcing the language barrier, acting as a brake on opportunity and undermining efforts to integrate non-English speaking residents in the UK. The guidance calls for councils to only translate documents into other languages in a targeted way, where it is necessary (such as information relating to emergency medical treatment or vital public safety) and set out several key tests in order to refocus and reduce the information translated alongside strategies to promote English. It will also be made available to all public bodies including the NHS, the Police, the courts and Government departments. Research has shown that 60 per cent of people believe not speaking the language is the biggest barrier to integration. Not speaking English also reduces opportunities in the labour market by 20 per cent. Many local authorities are already working hard to strike the right balance between ensuring that non–English speakers are able to access the information they need without becoming reliant on translation services. There is however a wide disparity in the amounts that councils and public bodies spend on translation and interpretation. Clearly there are differences in need across the country but this disparity suggests that in some cases public bodies are sending out the wrong messages in terms of integration, equality of opportunity and cohesion. Ministers are concerned this is acting as a disincentive to learn English and also reducing the employment opportunities of those UK residents who can't speak the language. This guidance is intended to further support the excellent work already underway in some areas and help those councils who are perhaps dealing with these issues for the first time. The guidance implements one of the recommendations of the Commission on Integration and Cohesion. The CiC in their report Our Shared Future said; “Local Authorities and their partners should consider moving from a position of automatic translation of all documents into community languages, towards a more selective approach — driven by need”. The Commission also recommended a review of elements of the provision of English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). The Department for Communities and the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) are jointly running two citizens' juries looking specifically at this issue and DIUS is leading on a response to this recommendation. The guidance will challenge the belief held by some public bodies and councils that the Race Relations Amendment Act 2000 requires them to translate material. There is no legal reason for all materials to be translated”. 3rd December 2007 A study suggests Indian women in the UK are aborting unborn daughters so they can have more boys, the BBC's Asian Network has learned. The Oxford University study suggests 1,500 girls are “missing” from the birth statistics in England and Wales from 1990 to 2005. It shows the proportion of boys compared with girls born to Indian–born mothers has increased since the 1970s. Dr Sylvie Dubuc said this could be due to “sex selective abortion”. See sex–ratio of births to Indian born women in table below Dr Dubuc, who studied birth rates of different ethnic groups in England and Wales, found that in the 1970s 103 boys were born for every 100 girls. Between 2000 and 2005, the proportion of boys over girls had increased abnormally to 114 boys for every 100 girls, she said. Figures showed 26,662 babies were born to Indian–born women in England and Wales from 1990 to 2005, excluding the first or second child. “According to my calculation around 1,500 girls are missing... it's significant compared to the total number of births”, Dr Dubuc said. She said the most probable explanation seemed to be sex selective abortion by a minority of mothers born in India. One British woman, who spoke to the BBC anonymously, said she had an abortion after a doctor in India found she was to have a fourth daughter. “Unfortunately it was another girl. My husband and I thought the burden would probably be too much and the pressure when I got back home. So we decided to terminate”, she said. In Indian culture, the preference for boys over girls is well known. Getting rid of baby girls is a practice that is so widespread in some parts of India that it has skewed dramatically the ratio of males to females. Female foeticide, as it is known, has been illegal in India since the early 1980s. It is also illegal to offer scans to find out the sex of a baby — but the law is regularly flouted. Undercover filming To see how difficult it is to find a doctor willing to carry out the service, the BBC sent a British couple to one of Delhi's top gynaecologists, Dr Mangala Telang — a doctor recommended by the British High Commission. Dr Telang, an IVF treatment specialist, has practised in some of Delhi's top hospitals and has actually campaigned against female foeticide calling it an “evil” crime. The BBC had heard that her clinic would offer ultrasound scans to determine the sex of a baby — even though a sign in the waiting room clearly said it was illegal.
Secret filming shows that within minutes Dr Telang agreed to perform the scan. She warns the couple not to tell anyone about what they were doing as it is illegal. The couple also ask whether, if the unborn child is a girl and they decide to abort the baby, she could recommend someone to carry out a termination. Dr Telang says: “Yes, I can recommend someone”. In the ultrasound room, another doctor tells the couple the “good” news that it is a boy. Both doctors had broken several laws. When the BBC told the doctors about the evidence, they denied doing anything wrong. Dr Telang said she was not in the room when the scan was carried out. But she is clearly seen in the room congratulating the couple. Cultural pressures An estimated seven million girls have gone missing from India's population over the last 25 years. Some of them will have been killed after they were born, or allowed to die within their first few days. But most of them will have been aborted. Selective abortion is happening all over India as ultrasound machines — which carry out the scan — have become cheaper, but it has always been worst in Punjab and Gujarat. It is impossible to say how many British women are travelling to India for terminations. But the UK has a substantial community with strong links to, and often the same pressures as, families in India. SEX RATIO OF BIRTHS TO INDIAN–BORN WOMEN IN ENGLAND AND WALES, 1969–2005Birth of first or second child is excluded from these figures
Source: An Increase in the Sex Ratio of Births to India–born Mothers in England and Wales: Evidence for Sex–Selective Abortion by Dubuc and Coleman. Return to beginning of article 27th November 2007 The UK population could almost double over the coming 75 years, according to official government projections. The previously unpublished figures suggest the British population could hit almost 110m in 2081, if immigration fertility and longevity rates are high. The figures are higher than those released just a month ago by the Office for National Statistics. In October, the ONS projected the population could go from around 60m today to as high as 77m in 2051. The new projections are supplementary figures to help policy makers plan for spending on pensions and the welfare state. The ONS comes up with different models of how the population could change, based on variations in migration, birth rate and life expectancy. According to the ONS, if all of these factors were on the high side over the coming decades, the population across the UK would hit 91,053,000 by the middle of the century — and 108,723,000 by 2081. If migration alone proved to be high, then the population would top 75m by 2031 and rise to 92m by 2081. At the other end of the scale, the ONS suggests that low fertility, migration and life expectancy would see population rise by just four million over the next 75 years. The principal projection — the scenario it thinks to be most likely — puts the population at 71m in 2031 and 85m in 2081. Experts draw up such wide variations because they say it is extremely difficult to accurately predict how the population will change beyond the next few years. Migration impact But critics of the government's migration policies have previously questioned how these calculations are presented, suggesting they underplay the impact of current rates of migration. Background data relied upon by government suggests the birth rate could be pushed up by relatively young migrant workers. This could mean 69% of Britain's predicted population growth could be associated directly, or indirectly, to immigration — although the figures are tentative. The new figures project that the net population growth from immigration to be probably just short of 200,000 a year until 2021 — but adds it could peak in the near future at 300,000 a year. Separate statistics released earlier in November show that the UK is experiencing record levels of migration both into and out of the country. The figures from the Office for National Statistics suggest 591,000 people migrated to the UK in 2006 while some 400,000 people moved overseas. Sir Andrew Green of Migrationwatch UK said that the projections were a warning that should be heeded. “These projections are a sharp reminder of what could happen to our population, indeed our country, if the government fails to take firm and effective action”, said Sir Andrew. “They have consistently underestimated the scale of immigration. They have had to raise their assumptions about future immigration six times since 1997. We simply cannot afford any more misjudgements of this kind”. 27th November 2007 Teachers' leaders have called for extra resources to cope with the sudden arrival of young immigrants in schools. Giving evidence to a House of Lords inquiry, teachers and heads called for more language support for non–English speaking pupils in England. Heads' leader Mick Brookes warned that the problem was most acute in rural areas and smaller towns, which lacked the support available in cities. He also called for more accurate data about the number of migrant pupils. The leader of the National Union of Teachers, Steve Sinnott, said that teachers had reported greater pressure on schools from an increase in pupils who did not speak English. “Teachers want support, both in terms of knowledge and immediate support in terms of teaching materials”, said Mr Sinnott. Mr Brookes, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said that some members had complained they were at “breaking point”. He highlighted particular difficulties in Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and parts of south-west England. “In London, where there have been large numbers of pupils arriving from overseas, schools are already set up to support children”, said Mr Brookes. “But the real difficulty can be in more rural areas where there can be large numbers of transient workers and schools are unlikely to have that kind of language support”. There is also a question of “critical mass” he said. While schools could absorb and accommodate the needs of a few new arrivals, it could be much more difficult when small schools were expected to admit disproportionate numbers of overseas pupils. A spokesperson for the Department for Children, Schools and Families, said that extra funding was available. 25th November 2007 So says Oxfam, in a new report. Climatic disasters are on the increase as the Earth warms up — in line with scientific observations and computer simulations that model future climate. 2007 has been a year of climatic crises, especially floods, often of an unprecedented nature. They included Africa's worst floods in three decades, unprecedented flooding in Mexico, massive floods in South Asia and heat waves and forest fires in Europe, Australia, and California. By mid November the United Nations had launched 15 'flash appeals', the greatest ever number in one year. All but one were in response to climatic disasters. At the same time as climate hazards are growing in number, more people are being affected by them because of poverty, powerlessness, population growth, and the movement and displacement of people to marginal areas. The total number of natural disasters has quadrupled in the last two decades — most of them floods, cyclones, and storms. Over the same period the number of people affected by disasters has increased from around 174 million to an average of over 250 million a year. Small– and medium–scale disasters are occurring more frequently than the kind of large–scale disasters that hit the headlines. However, dramatic weather events do not in themselves necessarily constitute disasters; that depends on the level of human vulnerability — the capacity to resist impacts. Poor people and countries are far more vulnerable because of their poverty. Disasters, in turn, undermine development that can provide greater resilience. One shock after another, even if each is fairly small, can push poor people and communities into a downward spiral of destitution and further vulnerability from which they struggle to recover. Such shocks can be weather–related, due to economic downturns, or occur because of conflict or the spread of diseases like HIV and AIDS. Such shocks hit women hardest; they are the main collectors of water and depend most directly on access to natural resources to feed their families; they have fewer assets than men to fall back on, and often less power to demand their rights to protection and assistance. Now, accelerating climate change is bringing more floods, droughts, extreme weather and unpredictable seasons. Climate change has the potential to massively increase global poverty and inequality, punishing first, and most, the very people least responsible for greenhouse-gas emissions — and increasing their vulnerability to disaster. There is hope. The global humanitarian system has been getting better at reducing death rates from public–health crises following on from major shocks like floods or droughts. But humanitarian response is still skewed, for example to high–profile disasters, and it will certainly be woefully inadequate as global temperatures continue to rise, unless action is taken quickly. New approaches to humanitarian action are needed as well as new money. Political efforts aimed at reducing poverty and inequality, which provide people with essential services like health and education, and offer social protection (a regular basic income, or insurance), constitute a firm foundation for effective disaster risk reduction (DRR), preparedness, and response. More work needs to be done to understand the linkages between development, DRR and climate change adaptation, and therefore to more accurately assess the financial costs climate change will impose. Fundamentally, the world has an immediate responsibility to stem the increase in climate–related hazards. Above all, that means tackling climate change by drastically reducing greenhouse–gas emissions. Download the report at 15th and 16th November 2007 The number of people leaving the UK for 12 months or more reached a record high in 2006. An estimated 400,000 people emigrated last year, up from 359,000 in 2005. This was the highest estimate since ONS introduced the method to calculate Total International Migration (TIM) in 1991. Continuing the pattern of recent years, just over half of long-term emigrants (207,000) were British citizens. The majority of Britons went to one of five countries — Australia, New Zealand, France, Spain or the United States. The remainder of emigrants (194,000) were non–British citizens, who left the UK in 2006 having lived here for at least a year. An estimated 591,000 people arrived to live in the UK for at least a year in 2006. This was slightly more than the previous highest estimate of long–term immigration of 586,000 recorded in 2004. Of all immigrants, 510,000 (86 per cent) were non–British citizens in 2006. Of the 510,000, 167,000 were from the European Union, 62,000 from the Old Commonwealth, 139,000 from the New Commonwealth, and 142,000 were classed as 'other foreign'. The difference between immigration and emigration, net migration, was 191,000. This was 53,000 lower than the record estimate of 244,000 in 2004. This decline in net migration was due to emigration increasing more than immigration. Net migration also shows an additional 316,000 non–British citizens and 126,000 fewer British citizens in the UK in 2006. 15th November 2007 One of Western Europe's earliest known urban societies may have sown the seeds of its own downfall, a study suggests. Mystery surrounded the fall of the Bronze Age Argaric people in south–east Spain — Europe's driest area. Data suggests the early civilisation exhausted precious natural resources, helping bring about its own ruin. The study provides early evidence for cultural collapse caused — at least in part — by humans meddling with the environment, say researchers. The findings were based on pollen preserved in a peat deposit located in the mountains of eastern Andalucia, Spain. The researchers drilled a sediment core from the Canada del Gitano basin high up in Andalucia's Sierra de Baza region. By studying the abundances of different pollen types — along with other indicators — preserved in sedimentary deposits, researchers can reconstruct what kind of vegetation covered the area in ancient times. They can compile a pollen sequence, which shows how vegetation changed over thousands of years. This can give them clues to how human settlement and climate affected ecosystems. The Argaric culture emerged in south–eastern Spain 4,300 years ago. This civilisation, which inhabited small fortified towns, was one of the first in Western Europe to adopt bronze working. But about 3,600 years ago, the culture mysteriously vanished from the archaeological record. “Archaeologists are convinced that something happened in the ecological structure of the area just prior to the collapse of the Argaric culture”, said Jose Carrion, from the University of Murcia, Spain. “But we previously lacked a high–resolution record to support this”. Environmental change Before the appearance of the Argaric civilisation, the slopes of Sierra de Baza were covered with a diverse forest dominated by deciduous oaks and other broad–leaved trees. But about 4,200 years ago — just after this civilisation emerges — significant amounts of charcoal appear in the pollen sequence. According to the study's authors, this is a sign Bronze Age people were setting fires to clear the forests for mining activities and grazing. Not long afterwards, about 3,900 years ago, the diverse forest ecosystem disappears, to be replaced by monotonous and fire–prone Mediterranean scrub. What astonished the researchers was the speed of this change. This ecological transformation is very abrupt, appearing to have taken place in little more than a decade. About 300 years after this ecological transformation, the Argaric civilisation disappeared. Climatic effect Professor Carrion said the term “ecocide” was too strong to apply in this case. Climate must also have played a part, he explained. There is evidence conditions were becoming progressively more arid from about 5,500 years ago onwards. This is indicated by a broad reduction in forest cover, the appearance of plants adapted to dry conditions and a drop in lake levels. But Jose Carrion added: “the climatic influence began millennia prior to the appearance of the Argaric culture. It's not critical to the change in the landscape we see about 3,900–3,800 years ago. What appears to be critical is the evidence of burning, which in our opinion is man–made”. The degradation of soils and vegetation could have caused the collapse of agriculture and pastoralism, the foundation of the Argaric economy. This would have led to massive depopulation of the area. The findings were outlined at the recent Climate and Humans conference in Murcia, Spain, and appear in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews. 11th to 14th November 2007 Now this problem of illegal immigrants working in security jobs was apparently known to the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith back in July, indeed the Home Office was warned back in April that an illegal immigrant had been allowed to guard the Prime Minister's car. But the Home Secretary chose to keep quiet about the matter, not informing parliament, or even the Prime Minister. She argued that her priority had been to establish the full nature and scale of the problem and take action to deal with it, rather than immediately to publish incomplete and potentially misleading information into the public domain. But critics argued that she was covering up the situation to avoid embarrassing the government and herself (see for example, the Daily Mail print edition for 13th November). And the Home Office press office advised her that no public statement should be made because an announcement would not be presented by the media as a positive story. Here are some of the on–line media reports: 10th November 2007 The government's approach to terrorism is creating an atmosphere of suspicion and unease, the head of the Muslim Council of Britain has said. Muhammad Abdul Bari told the Daily Telegraph the amount of debate relating to Muslims was disproportionate. He cited Nazi Germany in the 1930s as an example of how people's minds could be poisoned against a community. “There is a disproportionate amount of discussion surrounding us. The air is thick with suspicion and unease. It is not good for the Muslim community, it is not good for society. Every society has to be really careful so that situation does not lead us to a time when people's minds can be poisoned as they were in the 1930s”. He added: “I think it is creating a scare in the community and wider society. It probably helps some people who try to recruit the young to terrorism”. Inayat Bunglawala, the council's assistant general secretary, agreed — telling BBC Radio 4's Today programme there was a danger of the terror threat being magnified “out of all proportion. What you had in the 1930s was all sorts of popular fictions were spread about the Jewish community that they were responsible for all ills that were occurring to Germany. They were made into folk–devils, and I think there is a danger that the word Muslim in the UK is becoming synonymous with bad news”. Farmida Bi from the Progressive British Muslims organisation agreed that British society as a whole could benefit from adopting some of the teachings of Islam. “A lot of what it says is relevant and important to our society today, but at the same time Muslims have to acknowledge that the West has an awful lot to teach the Muslim community as well”, she said. “The importance of democracy, the importance of the individual, I think it's very much a two way street”. In a wide–ranging interview with the Telegraph, Dr Bari also spoke of how he wanted to integrate British and Muslim cultures, but said this must work both ways. “Everybody can learn from everyone. Some of the Muslim principles can help social cohesion — family, marriage, raising children with boundaries, giving to the poor, and not being too greedy”, he said. What the BBC account leaves out, is the statement in the Telegraph article that Dr Bari also said British people could benefit from arranged marriages (he prefers the term 'assisted marriages'), because - we paraphrase - older people are more experienced and less swayed by emotion than young people. Dr Bari also said that while there was no justification for suicide bombing, suicide bombers were victims as well as aggressors. “Children come to hate when they don't get enough care and love. They are probably bullied, it makes a young person angry and vulnerable... the people who become suicide bombers are really vulnerable”. Dr Bari's remarks follow recent comments from MI5 chief Jonathan Evans that there are 2,000 people living in Britain who pose a terrorism–related danger, and that youngsters aged 15 are being groomed to be suicide bombers. Sir Paul Lever, former chairman of the joint intelligence committee, told Today that Jonathan Evans had a duty to warn the public. “One can't deny the facts, and the facts are that al–Qaeda–inspired Islamist terrorism — and I use the term Islamist, not Muslim or Islamic — is the biggest threat that our country faces today”. He added: “We mustn't demonise the whole Muslim community. It is a very, very tiny minority who are involved. But though 2,000 people may be a tiny proportion, it is still, in absolute terms, an alarming threat”. A Home Office spokesman said anti-terror laws were not aimed at a particular race, religion, or group: “They are aimed at terrorists, whatever background or section of society they may come from”. He added: “We must continue to work with the Muslim communities to increase their sense of inclusion”. The Muslim Council of Britain is an umbrella group representing over 500 Muslim organisations in the UK. It has been close to government in the past, but relations between the two appeared to cool last year.
6th November 2007 MI5's director general, Jonathan Evans, has spoken to the Society of Editors in Manchester. We now give the opening part of his speech. “It is fairly unusual for the head of MI5 to speak at a media-focused event. But the issue of trust is highly relevant to the world of intelligence. All the more so as we tackle the most immediate and acute peacetime threat in the 98-year history of my service. “Public trust is becoming an increasingly important issue for many organisations, both private and public. My service is no exception, and we need to ensure that our work is sufficiently understood. “Although our operations must remain secret for them to be successful, we have a responsibility to keep the public informed about the threats they face and what we are doing to counter them. “So, today, I would like to talk to you about the threat to our national security as we see it; about the challenges which this poses to MI5 and the UK; and about how, with the help and trust of the public, we can counter it. “As I am sure you are aware, the main national security threat that we face today is from al-Qaida and its associated groups. But before we look at the violent manifestation of that threat in the UK, we need to remember where this comes from. The violence directed against us is the product of a much wider extremist ideology, whose basic tenets are inimical to the tolerance and liberty which form the basis of our democracy. “So although the most visible manifestations of this problem are the attacks and attempted attacks we have suffered in recent years, the root of the problem is ideological. “Why? Because the ideology underlying al-Qaida and other violent groups is extreme. It does not accept the legitimacy of other viewpoints. It is intolerant, and it believes in a form of government which is explicitly anti-democratic. “And the more that this ideology spreads in our communities, the harder it will be to maintain the kind of society that the vast majority of us wish to live in. “You may recall that in her speech this time last year, my predecessor, Eliza Manningham-Buller, pointed out that this country was facing an increasing threat from al-Qaida-inspired terrorism. “When she spoke, MI5 had identified around 1,600 individuals who we believed posed a direct threat to national security and public safety, because of their support for terrorism. That figure today would be at least 2,000. “This growth, which has driven the increasingly strong and co-ordinated government response, is partly because our coverage of the extremist networks is now more thorough. But it is also because there remains a steady flow of new recruits to the extremist cause. “And it is important that we recognise an uncomfortable truth: terrorist attacks we have seen against the UK are not simply random plots by disparate and fragmented groups. “The majority of these attacks, successful or otherwise, have taken place because al-Qaida has a clear determination to mount terrorist attacks against the United Kingdom. “This remains the case today, and there is no sign of it reducing. So although MI5 and the police are investigating plots, and thwarting them, on a continuing basis, we do not view them in isolation. “Al-Qaida is conducting a deliberate campaign against us. It is the expression of a hostility towards the UK which existed long before September 11 2001. It is evident in the wills and letters left behind by actual and would-be bombers. And it regularly forms part of al-Qaida's broadcast messages. This campaign is dynamic and, since my predecessor spoke last year, we have seen it evolve even further. “As a country, we are rightly concerned to protect children from exploitation in other areas. We need to do the same in relation to violent extremism. “As I speak, terrorists are methodically and intentionally targeting young people and children in this country. They are radicalising, indoctrinating and grooming young, vulnerable people to carry out acts of terrorism. “This year, we have seen individuals as young as 15 and 16 implicated in terrorist-related activity. “Another development in the last 12 months has been the extent to which the conspiracies here are being driven from an increasing range of overseas countries. “Over the last five years much of the command, control and inspiration for attack planning in the UK has derived from al-Qaida's remaining core leadership in the tribal areas of Pakistan - often using young British citizens to mount the actual attack. But, worryingly, we have more recently seen similar processes emerging elsewhere. “For instance, there is no doubt now that al-Qaida in Iraq aspires to promote terrorist attacks outside Iraq. “There is no doubt that there is training activity and terrorist planning in east Africa - particularly in Somalia - which is focused on the UK. And there is no doubt that the extension of what one might call the 'al-Qaida franchise' to other groups in other countries - notably in Algeria - has created a significant upsurge in terrorist violence in these countries. “It is no coincidence that the first suicide bombing in Algeria followed the creation of the new 'Al-Qaida in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb'. “This sort of extension of the al-Qaida brand to new parts of the Middle East and beyond poses a further threat to us in this country because it provides al-Qaida with access to new centres of support which it can motivate and exploit, including in its campaign against the UK. “Since 9/11, there have been a number of examples of serious al-Qaida-related terrorist activity in Europe. But in the last 12 months we have seen an increase in attack planning across the continent. “This summer alone we saw many terrorist arrests, including those in Germany, Denmark and Austria. It is too early to assess with confidence what all this means, but certainly we can see that the threat from al-Qaida-related terrorism goes well beyond the UK. Looking at the plots themselves, we now see different levels of sophistication. Yes, we have seen unsophisticated attempts to kill and injure, but we have also seen complex, logistically effective plots, which require a high degree of expertise and accurate targeting. “We have to pay equal attention to both the crude and the complex. Because the primitive can be just as deadly as the sophisticated. “And the prognosis for the medium term? I do not think that this problem has yet reached its peak”. The full text of the speech is given by the Guardian newspaper:Guardian The brief take on this in BBC news may be accessed here: 1st November 2007 Here is the first part of a press release by the Local Government Association. “Extra funding should be given to areas that experience rapid population change and the system for measuring migration must be radically overhauled, a report commissioned by council leaders will say today. The report 'Estimating the Scale and Impacts of Migration at the local level', has been commissioned by the Local Government Association, a cross party organisation that represents over 400 councils in England and Wales, and carried out by the Institute of Community Cohesion. It recognises the significant benefits migrants bring to the economy but highlights the serious shortcomings in official population figures in England and Wales. Analysis indicates that the number of migrants in many areas has been significantly underestimated. Public services in some parts of the country are coming under strain without sufficient funding to deal with a significant influx of migrants. The main services which have come under pressure in certain areas are:
The report calls for:
The full Press release may be read at: 31th October 2007 The number of jobs being snapped up by migrants has been greatly underestimated, Ministers had to admit yesterday. And Work and Pensions Secretary Peter Hain revised his original figures. An official figure was virtually doubled — but critics said the true total was higher still. In a day of confusion, Whitehall departments contradicted each other as the issue threatened to become a full scale Government crisis. The chaos appeared to undermine Gordon Brown's pledge of “British jobs for British workers”. The row followed a claim by Work and Pensions Secretary Peter Hain that 2.7 million jobs had been created under Labour, of which only 800,000 had gone to people from overseas. Challenged by former Labour Minister Frank Field, however, Mr Hain revised the figure to 1,100,000. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said later that this still meant the majority of new jobs had gone to Britons. But the Department of Work and Pensions had already quietly issued a “clarification” admitting that foreigners had taken a majority, 52 per cent. And yet another official figure, this time from the Government's own Office for National Statistics, put the total of migrant workers at 1.5million. Ministers are painfully aware that public concern over immigration is running high, following greatly–increased official population projections last week and the decision of Tory leader David Cameron to call for migration quotas and limits. At least 40 local councils have complained to the Government that an influx of migrants means their populations have been underestimated and they cannot afford to pay for school places, social services or everyday activities like waste collection. And a senior Bank of England expert, Professor David Blanchflower, warned yesterday that immigration was creating a fear of unemployment and as a result wages were being pushed down. Opposition MPs were scathing about the everchanging figures. Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: “It is not good enough for the home secretary to apologise.The government should be open about telling the truth before they are pressurised into it. Immigration policy has been out of control for a decade and, if you can't count migration, you certainly can't control it”. Tory Work and Pensions spokesman Chris Grayling, said: “This just gets worse. It is clear we simply can't trust the figures or statements put out by the Government on migrant workers in the UK. Ministers need to carry out an urgent review of how they handle this data and need to clear up once and for all how many people come to work in Britain”. Labour MPs also mounted attacks. Mr Field — Tony Blair's original welfare reform minister — said even the figure of 1.5 million was too low. He said it had been based on a projection of the employment situation in 2003. That meant it took no account of the tide of workers arriving from Poland and the other new EU members in Eastern Europe. The Birkenhead MP said: “This would suggest that the original figure they gave me of 800,000 needs to be revised upwards to the 1.6 million level”. Another former Labour minister, Keith Vaz, said that getting the figures wrong had been “pretty astonishing”. He accused ministers of doing too little to produce accurate accounts of “a very tough and emotive area such as immigration”. Mr Vaz, now chairman of the Home Affairs Select committee, told the BBC's Today programme: “One of the things we all expect governments to be able to do is to give accurate figures to the public. I don't think it is enough for ministers to shrug their shoulders”. Mr Hain's climb down from the 800,000 level was the culmination of weeks of growing concern over the impact of rising immigration. Last week the Office of National Statistics pushed up its estimates of future population and said that there will be 71 million people in the country by 2031, ten million more than now, largely as a result of immigration. Whitehall advisors have told the Prime Minister that he must revise upwards his target of three million new homes to be built by 2020, mainly because of increased immigration. Mr Brown is being told that he should concrete over the green belts around cities to achieve the numbers. Official estimates of the numbers of workers born outside Britain are even higher than those for numbers of foreign nationals which are at the centre of the latest row. The ONS says there are now 3,269,000 people working in Britain who were born abroad, although these include the children of British passport holders. ONS chief Karen Dunnell told MPs in July that 1.5 million people who were born abroad have come to Britain over the last 10 years and are now working. The figures appear to support the claim that the Government's 1.1 million latest number for foreign citizens who have taken jobs since 1997 is still too low. The Bank of England's Professor Blanchflower warned last night that the influx from Eastern Europe is suppressing British wages, especially among low–skilled workers. He said Eastern Europeans have flocked here because the UK is one of the few EU countries whose borders are fully open to them. But he said Britain had the capacity to absorb “reasonably large” number of immigrants “without too many undesirable consequences” because population growth over the past three decades had been slower than in most advanced economies. Migrant quotas to remain to avoid “free-for-all”. Limits must be imposed on mass immigration from Eastern Europe because of “pressure on public services”, Labour said yesterday. The Home Office has ruled out a free–for–all for migrants from Romania and Bulgaria, which joined the EU in January, and said a 20,000 cap on the number of unskilled workers would stay. 30th October 2007 Among the reports findings are: Shocking statements Pamphlets, books and leaflets obtained from mosques and Islamic centres contain an assortment of shocking statements including: Although some of the hate literature is in English, a proportion is written in Arabic. The translations commissioned by Policy Exchange have been independently verified. Many of the publications encourage British Muslims to segregate themselves from non–Muslims. So–called unbelievers are to be treated as second–class and avoided wherever possible. There are also repeated calls for gays to be thrown from mountains and tall buildings and for women to be subjugated. Among the literature available are extracts from the notorious anti–Semitic forgery, The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion (published by the Saudi Ministry of Education), and other publications peddling bizarre conspiracy theories alleging that birth control is a plot against Muslims and Arabs, and that pornography is spread as part of a Jewish plot to corrupt Muslims. The report has been authored by Dr Denis MacEoin, the Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Newcastle University who received his doctorate in Persian (Islamic) Studies from Cambridge University and has taught Arabic and Islamic Studies at Durham, Newcastle and Fez universities. Speaking about the findings of the report, Anthony Browne, Director of Policy Exchange said, “It is clearly intolerable that hate literature is peddled at some British mosques. I am sure the majority of moderate Muslims will be as horrified as everyone else that pamphlets advocating jihad by force, hatred for insufficiently observant Muslims, Christians and Jews, and segregation have found their way into the UK's mosques”. Mr Browne went on to say, “The fact that the Saudi regime is producing extremist propaganda and targeting it at British Muslims must also be challenged by our own government. It is reassuring that the majority of mosques investigated do not propagate hate literature — but much work needs to be done to ensure that a large number of leading Islamic institutions remove this sectarianism from their midst”. The Telegraph newspaper, reporting on this matter, quotes a leader at the London Central Mosque as saying that literature found in the mosque reflects the authors views and not the views of the mosque, and that the book shop at the mosque was not run by the mosque. The newspaper also reports that Igbal Sacranie, former secretary general of the Muslim Council of Great Britain, was critical of the report, which he alleged had an agenda to denigrate the mainstream of Islam in this country. And while the law should take its course with any literature that flouted the law, it was irresponsible to target religious texts and take them out of context, and they can anyway be found in ordinary bookshops, something which the report, he claims, does not mention. The Policy exchange report may be accessed at: Policy Exchange. And the Telegraph article at: Telegraph 23rd October 2007 The Office of National Statistics (ONS) has now released new projections (2006–based) that show the UK population increasing from 61 million in 2007 to 65 million in 2016, passing 70 million in 2028, reaching 71 million by 2031, and a staggering 82 million in 2071 and 85 million in 2081. Compare this with the previous (2004-based) projections that had the population reaching 63 million in 2016, 67 million in 2031 and only 70.5 million in 2071. So at 2071, there is a difference of over 11 million between the two sets of projections! Naturally, these new projections have been highlighted in the media, immediately after (and before!) the official release of the information. Now it should be pointed out that we are dealing here with projections, not forecasts. Projections tell us what things may be like in the future if we make certain assumptions about the relevant causal factors, which in the present case are fertility, mortality and international migration. Nevertheless, organisations and the general public will regard these projections as showing what the government thinks about how the population will change, or how the government wishes us to think how the population will change. These projections have very serious implications, as the media organisations have been quick to point out. For example, the BBC noted that the increase just to 2051 would be the equivalent of two new London-sized cities. The Telegraph had a similar comment. And the Guardian reported that R. G. Goodwin, the Head of Demography at ONS noted that the increase would be equivalent to adding the entire population of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to the English total. So the question immediately arises - where will all these people be housed? How does ONS explain this massive projection change? The Press Release says: The long-term assumptions regarding fertility, mortality and net The ONS Press release may be accessed at ONS. And the long–term projections (to 2081) at 2006–based National Population Projections then go to table 01. It should be noted that projections become increasingly uncertain the further they are carried forward. The BBC article also notes the opinion of David Coleman, Professor of Demography at Oxford University: But the BBC report also notes: “...Danny Sriskandarajah, a migration expert with the Institute for Public Policy Research thinktank, said the assumption that the current rates of immigration would continue seemed 'rather simplistic'. Prof Coleman's methodology is based on what's happened in the past few years”, he said. “Immigration in recent years has been at very high levels because of the enlargement of the EU and strong labour market conditions”. He added that 20 years ago, the UK was losing more people than it was gaining and projections from then, using a similar methodology, would have shown depopulation. 17th October 2007 Almost every UK region has difficulties in housing, health, education and crime because of increased migration, according to an official report. The findings are contained in a report drawn up to advise ministers on the social impact of immigration. The Home Office's Migration Impacts Forum is meeting to discuss the effect of eastern European workers. On Tuesday, ministers published a review of research showing “clear benefits” to the British economy. The forum, which sits alongside a separate economist–led body, gathers reports on challenges raised by immigration across the country. The reports were compiled by regional groups including police, health and education officials. Five out of eight regions told Whitehall they had seen “difficulties” relating to crime and education. Six of the eight said they were concerned about health service issues. Immigration Minister Liam Byrne said it was important to “strike a new balance” in immigration policy. “That means looking at the wider benefits to the British economy on the one hand, but it means we have to take into account the wider impact on British public services and life as well. Over the past year an increasing number of local authorities have raised concerns over immigration. However, reports passed back to government suggested ways of minimising problems, including briefing packs on British society and laws, encouraging employers to provide English lessons and basic local council help with integrating into communities. Damian Green, shadow minister for immigration, told the BBC that quotas were needed to balance economic benefits against social impact. “We say of course you should look at the economics, at the effects on public services, on demand for housing, school places and so on, and that then the government should set an explicit limit every year”, he said. Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah of the Insitute of Public Policy Research said it was time for government to move from anecdotal evidence to hard facts. “It is clear that migration brings huge economic benefits to the UK”, said Dr Sriskandarajah. On Tueday the Home Office published a detailed report setting out the economic case for migration, saying all evidence pointed towards a “clear benefit” to the UK. It said claims that eastern European workers had taken jobs from British people were unsubstantiated — instead they had contributed towards an expanding of the economy. However, it added that some of the lowest paid workers can lose out in the face of cheaper foreign workers, even with the minimum wage in place. But Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migrationwatch UK, said migration on the scale Britain was currently facing was having a “huge impact” with “little economic justification” (we at Gaia Watch add that in a radio interview he made the point that the economic benefits in terms of additional government revenue generated was minute compared with total government revenue). He said the government must look at cutting the numbers of migrants from non–EU countries. 11th October 2007 The latest issue of the government publication Population Trends, shows, in an article entitled “Migrants from central and eastern Europe: local geographies”, that migrant workers from the eight central and east European countries acceding to the EU in May 2004 (the A8 countries) are more broadly spread across the UK than traditional migrant groups. The analysis is based on 508,487 registrations with an accurate employer's address between EU accession in May 2004 and December 2006 (Worker Registration Scheme). The registration figures are given as the numbers of A8 nationals registering per thousand of the total population. Map 1 in the article clearly shows the situation. Here the per thousand numbers are divided into five categories, the highest being 11.90 to 293.48 per thousand, shown as dark red on the map. And dark red covers most of northern Scotland, part of Northern Ireland, several areas in the Midlands, large areas round the Wash, and a scattering of areas across the south of the country from South Wales and South West England to South East England. The article also gives figures for local authorities, and the highest ratios of A8 migrant worker registrations to population are spread between London, the East and West Midlands, the East of England and Northern Ireland. By comparison, long-term immigration has traditionally been highest in London and other conurbations, the South East and a relatively small number of large towns and cities. The City of London tops the list with 293.5 per thousand. Distribution by nationality. Poles are the largest group registering, and account for 64.4 per cent (327,538 people) of the A8 total. They represent 90 per cent or more of the A8 populations in all of the top ten local authorities. For example, 98 per cent of the A8 population in Gedling is Polish (2,356 people). Five of the top ten are in the North West. ONS news release on the article 28th September 2007 Projections of future population change make use of assumptions about fertility, mortality and net migration. Now new assumptions have been published by the Office of National Statistics as a release in advance of the publication of the projections in the journal 'Population Trends' in October. These are 2006–based and may be compared with the previous 2004–based assump | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||