Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe land seizures ‘cost $12bn’

The seizure of most of Zimbabwe’s white-owned land has cost nearly $12bn (£7bn) in lost production since 2000, the Commercial Farmers’ Union says.

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Source: BBC News

Call to remove regulations preventing asylum seekers from volunteering

By Kaye Wiggins

Volunteering England chief Justin Davis Smith says the existing regulations ‘highlight the stupidity around some of these issues’

Justin Davis Smith, chief executive of Volunteering England, will ask government officials to remove regulations that prevent asylum seekers from volunteering in the public sector.

Speaking at a fringe meeting at the Liberal Democrat party conference earlier this week, Davis Smith said asylum seekers were permitted to volunteer for charities but could not volunteer in the public sector.

In a discussion about barriers to volunteering, he said: “This anomaly highlights the stupidity around some of these issues.

“Asylum seekers can volunteer to help run a tea service in a hospital, but only if that service is being provided by a charity rather than by staff at the hospital itself. We need to simplify the system a bit.”

Davis Smith said the issue was on a list of barriers to volunteering that he would urge the government to address. Others included “overenthusiastic” Criminal Records Bureau checks and jobseekers being told they would lose their benefits if they volunteered, he said.

Source: Third Sector

EU migrants forced into homelessness

By Randeep Ramesh

Almost a quarter of London’s rough sleepers are from new EU states, a trend exacerbated by rising unemployment that is reversing a decline in homelessness in the capital, a report says .

Most of those sleeping on the streets come for a better life but many find limited opportunities, and, in some cases, become destitute. While the number of homeless British nationals in the capital has stabilised at about 2,500, citizens of the 10 central and eastern European states account for hundreds more added to the most authoritative tally of rough sleepers. The database Chain, or Combined Homeless and Information Network, which is maintained by Broadway, a homeless charity, tomorrow publishes figures showing that London ‑ the location of more than half of the country’s rough sleepers ‑ has almost 4,000 homeless people, a figure up from the 2,500 listed three years ago.

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The off-pitch World Cup competition

(IRIN) – Off the pitch, the FIFA World Cup has seen a tense standoff between South Africa’s formal and informal economies as they compete for their share of the spinoffs, but declaring a winner may be hard.

Cities like Cape Town and Johannesburg have struggled to balance the concerns of street traders, whose livelihoods depend on selling sweets, foodstuff and other goods at transportation hubs and intersections, with the demands of hosting the international competition.

As early as 2008, city officials started relocating traders away from traditional vending areas that would be near stadiums and fan parks; the traders mobilised in response, with varying success.

South Africa’s official unemployment rate is around 25 percent but independent economists put it as high as high as 40 percent, so the informal sector has been a refuge for those unable to get a steady job. The Human Sciences Research Council has estimated that the informal economy accounts for about 7 percent of gross domestic product.

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Life is just not getting any better

(IRIN) – The death of Zimbabwe’s secretary for agriculture, Renson Gasela, and two other senior officials from the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in a car accident recently has highlighted the country’s inability to respond to accidents, emergencies or disasters.

It took more than eight hours for the men to receive assistance after the accident because police in the nearby southeastern mining town of Zvishavane had no transport, and fire brigade units had no fuel to make the 25km journey. Emergency services only arrived after the MDC secretary general, Welshman Ncube, provided fuel.

“That incident alone is a small representation of how the coalition government has dismally failed the people of Zimbabwe,” political analyst John Makumbe told IRIN, because the response time probably would have been quicker if senior officials from ZANU-PF – the other party in Zimbabwe’s unity government – had been involved in an accident.

“The truth of the matter is that the inclusive government is failing to deliver, or to improve the lives of Zimbabweans. When schools opened recently, a majority of students were turned away because their parents or guardians could not afford to pay school fees; supermarket shelves are full of goods and food, but a visit to many households will reveal that people are starving in their homes.”

The unity government – a fragile coalition between President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC, and an MDC breakaway faction led by Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara – has failed to inspire since its formation in February 2009.

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Debate on migration should include ways of attracting key professionals: Brown

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Migrants vital for success of UK companies

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Jobless Migrants Offered free Flights Home

The Guardian – Homeless east European migrants are being offered free flights back to their home country by a government-funded scheme set up to combat the rise of shanty towns in rural Britain.

The scheme, known as the National Reconnection Service, is expected to cost about £150,000 and is being trialled in Boston, Lincolnshire, and Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, two towns that have experienced a large influx of migrants seeking work.

In 2008, the government said that a quarter of Boston’s population was made up of migrants and that 65 languages could be heard in the streets and fields of the county. Workers came to the Lincolnshire town to pick fruit and vegetables, but the jobs dried up during the recession and many migrants returned home.

However, a significant number have remained, hoping that things would get better. As the economy faltered, some found themselves without work or any entitlement to social security benefits. Ultimately, a number became homeless. As a result, some of Boston’s residents now speak of a new phenomenon – shanty towns.

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Tsvangirai calls on global Zimbabwe community to help rebuild their country

Source:Sokwanele

Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, at a press conference in Cape Town yesterday (Thursday, December 3), said that he, together with number of senior representatives from parties that constitute the country’s Inclusive Government, is visiting South Africa to hold a series of meetings with leading figures from the Zimbabwean Diaspora to discuss ways to fast-track sustainable economic growth in that country.

Tsvangirai, leading a government delegation, is meeting with prominent figures in Zimbabwe’s Diaspora coming from 14 countries. The meeting entitled, “The challenges of Economic Reconstruction” began in Franschhoek earlier today.

The meeting is aimed at facilitating dialogue between the Inclusive Government and Zimbabweans in the Diaspora.

The meeting is hosted by the Institute of Justice and Reconciliation (IJR), a South African non-governmental organization that promotes transitional justice initiatives across the African continent.

Tsvangirai noted that he “recognizes and values Zimbabweans in the Diaspora and the critical role they can and should play in bolstering sustainable economic growth in Zimbabwe.” The Prime Minister stated that he “wanted to achieve a closer working relationship with all Zimbabweans in the Diaspora, many of whom are nfluential Zimbabweans working in leading international intergovernmental-, business-, and finance institutions.”

Dr. Fanie du Toit, executive director of the IJR said that these sessions were a means to facilitate dialogue amongst Zimbabweans and create conditions for sustainable economic growth, which is a deliverable of the Inclusive Government under the GPA.

“The IJR is regularly requested to facilitate these kinds of conversations across political and social fault-lines. As South Africans, we experienced the value of conversations such as these which paved the way for our democracy.

“We have facilitated this engagement at the request of Zimbabweans both within the country and those outside. The GPA, despite its difficulties, continues to provide us with a window of opportunity to get certain basic building blocks of a democratic transition in place. Economic success, for one, will be vital, not only for democracy, but also for social cohesion.” Du Toit added.

Press Release issued on behalf of the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation by HWB Communications ( Pty) Ltd.

Gordon Brown pledges new migrant limits

By Patrick Wintour

Migrant workers will only fill jobs temporarily in parts of the economy where there are labour shortages, says PM

Gordon Brown will intervene in the critical issue of immigration, using a major speech tomorrow to promise that migrant workers will only be used to fill jobs temporarily in parts of the economy where there are labour shortages.

He will make it a requirement that government-sanctioned training schemes are created to ensure that unskilled British workers can ultimately take on the jobs in sectors where there are genuine skills shortages, such as catering, supply teaching or some skilled medical and engineering jobs.

The speech will be seen as an effort to give meaning to his promise of “British jobs for British workers”. His intervention follows private polling conducted during the summer by the Unite trade union showing that immigration is the single biggest issue leading natural Labour voters to defect either to the more extreme parties, such as the British National party, or into refusing to vote at all.

Ministers have acknowledged that they have ceded ground to the BNP either by not talking about immigration or by not confronting the BNP’s true politics.

The issue is likely to become more potent as unemployment increases and the Conservatives claim the number of migrants in the UK is the result of a deliberate government strategy to create a multicultural Britain.

Brown has not made a significant speech on immigration since he became prime minister and tomorrow’s speech is seen by some ministers close to the issue as belated, if welcome. Brown has also been accused of coming late to the issue of antisocial behaviour.

Earlier this week Alan Johnson, the home secretary, said: “People think we have shied away from a debate on immigration. They may well be right.

“The public deserves a rational debate on this, rather than what they sometimes get, which is at the extreme end of the scale.”

The prime minister, in his speech, will again reject Tory proposals for an annual cap on immigrants, arguing that the policy is unworkable and cannot be implemented due to the free movement of workers inside the EU.

Ministers also claim the flexibility inherent in the government’s points system introduced in 2008 allows the government to raise or lower the bar on who can be allowed into the UK, in effect having the same impact as an annual quota.

Brown will also propose a tightening of the “labour market test” that allows employers to recruit migrants from outside the settled workforce for a skilled job only if they can show no suitably qualified settled worker can fill the job.

Under the test, a job vacancy must also be advertised for two weeks before a migrant can be recruited. The prime minister will say that in future the job will have to be advertised for a month. Brown will also highlight the government’s decision to require employers to set up accredited skills training schemes in any areas of the economy where there is a shortage of skills requiring employers to recruit from abroad. In an effort to take the heat out of the argument, he will say there has been a 44% fall in net immigration over the last year, and as a result of the points system the number of people who can enter Britain for work without skills has been reduced.

The Migration Advisory Committee, a government advisory body, said in a report last week that the number of people in the government’s skills shortage list had fallen in a year from 700,000 to 500,000. That represented less than 2% of all employees. The committee also found: “Net immigration for work-related reasons has fallen throughout 2008, and a net outflow of all nationalities migrating for work reasons was recorded in the year to December 2008.”

The controversy has deepened in recent weeks owing to the Office of National Statistics projecting a population increase of 10.4 million to 71.6 million by 2033. Of this 10.4 million, the contribution of immigration, directly or in the form of new births, would be 7 million.

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