Comment by Riaz Haq on June 23, 2023 at 1:43pm

Former US President Obama slams Western hypocrisy over migrants

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/former-us-president-obama-slams-w...

That more attention is being paid to Titanic submersible than migrant boat sinking off Greece is ‘rotten,’ he says
Ahmet Gencturk |

Former US President Barack Obama on Thursday slammed the hypocrisy of Western media concerning migrants and particularly in reference to the recent sinking of a migrant boat off southwestern Greece in which at least 82 people died and hundreds more are feared to have drowned.

The fact that more attention is being paid to a submersible carrying five people that vanished off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada while on a tour of the Titanic’s wreckage than the migrant boat sinking off Greece with up to 700 people on board is “rotten,” he said during an appearance in the Greek capital Athens. He came to participate in the Stavros Niarchos Foundation’s Nostos 2023 conference.

“That's an untenable situation. And, you know, the notion that we can't do something about that is simply not true. We know we can do things for these people," Obama said in reference to the migrant flow to developed countries.

Comment by Riaz Haq on July 1, 2023 at 8:48pm

Everyone Knew the Migrant Ship Was Doomed. No One Helped. - The New York Times


https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/01/world/europe/greece-migrant-ship...

Greek authorities claim the doomed migrant ship "was sailing to Italy, and that the migrants did not want to be rescued. But satellite imagery and tracking data" show it "was drifting in a loop for its last 6-1/2 half hours" as passengers called for help.


Satellite imagery, sealed court documents and interviews with survivors suggest that hundreds of deaths were preventable.

Collectively paying as much as $3.5 million to be smuggled to Italy, migrants crammed into the Adriana in what survivors recalled was a hellish class system: Pakistanis at the bottom; women and children in the middle; and Syrians, Palestinians and Egyptians at the top.

An extra $50 or so could earn someone a spot on the deck. For some, that turned out to be the difference between life and death.

Many of the passengers, at least 350, came from Pakistan, the Pakistani government said. Most were in the lower decks and the ship’s hold. Of them, 12 survived.

The women and young children went down with the ship.


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Haseeb ur-Rehman, 20, a motorcycle mechanic from the Pakistan-administrated Kashmir, felt he had to leave home to help his family survive. Together with three friends, he paid $8,000 and left for Libya.

He was one of the few Pakistanis who managed to snatch a spot on deck.

The journey, if all went well, would take three days.

As early as the second day, survivors recalled, the engine started breaking down.


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Unrest spread as it became clear that the captain, who was spending most of his time on a satellite phone, had lost his way.

When Pakistanis pushed toward the upper deck, Egyptian men working with the captain beat them, often with a belt, according to testimony. Those men, some of whom are among the nine arrested in Greece, emerged as enforcers of discipline.



Ahmed Ezzat, 26, from the Nile Delta, was among them. He is accused of smuggling people and causing the shipwreck. In an interview, his brother, Islam Ezzat, said that Ahmed disappeared from their village in mid-May and re-emerged in Libya weeks later. He said a smuggler had sent someone to the family home to collect 140,000 Egyptian pounds, or $4,500, the standard fee for a spot on the Adriana.

Islam said he did not believe Ahmed had been involved in the smuggling because he had paid the fee. He said the family was cooperating with the Egyptian authorities. Ahmed, like the others who have been charged, has pleaded not guilty.

Comment by Riaz Haq on July 5, 2023 at 8:49pm

Migrant workers in Asia approach pre-pandemic levels
Remittances to home countries in Asia-Pacific region hit record high in 2022

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Work/Migrant-workers-in-Asia-appr...

In 2022, Saudi Arabia accepted a record 1.5 million workers from Asian countries and regions, according to the ADBI. This included more than 600,000 and 500,000 from Bangladesh and Pakistan, respectively. The UAE and Oman also accepted many workers from the two countries.


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For emerging and developing countries, remittances from migrant workers are now valuable sources of foreign currency apart from foreign direct investment and official development assistance. The remittances shore up personal consumption and capital spending.

India received the largest amount of remittances, followed by China and the Philippines. Tonga and Samoa in the South Pacific and Kyrgyz and Tajikistan in Central Asia received remittances equal to more than 30% of each country's gross domestic product. As Central Asian diaspora often work in Russia, they may continue to be affected by developments in the war between Russia and Ukraine.


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Bangladesh surpassed the Philippines as Asia's biggest supply of migrant workers in 2022 at 1.13 million. The number of laborers from the Philippines exceeded 1.6 million in 2016 and 2019 but declined in 2020. Despite a recovery to 820,000 in 2022, the Philippines fell behind Bangladesh.

Of Asian migrant workers who went to the U.S. and Europe, Indians outnumber others. U.S. work visas -- such as the H1B issued to IT workers and other professionals -- were obtained by 200,000 Indians in 2022, up 34% from 2019. In contrast, there were only 8,000 Chinese workers who headed to the U.S., reflecting U.S.-China tensions.

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TOKYO/MANILA -- Cross-border traffic of migrant workers in Asia is on the rise as the effect of the pandemic fades. In 2022, the number of new migrant workers totaled 4.6 million, close to the figure before the COVID-19 outbreak, after countries eased or eliminated restrictions imposed to stop the spread of infections.

While Bangladesh became the biggest origin of migrant laborers, remittances by overseas workers in general hit an all-time high, helping the economies of home countries.

In late June, the Philippines' Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) in Manila was crowded with people looking for jobs overseas. "I easily found a high-paying job," said Juviline Llenado, who will work as a domestic helper in Saudi Arabia. To support her family, she plans to leave for the oil-rich kingdom in July.

Merchant sailors, who are treated as migrant workers in the Philippines, are also swelling the ranks. There were around 500,000 Filipino merchant sailors in 2019 but this number plunged during the COVID crisis. However, in the first three months of this year, the number stood at around 150,000. Susan Ople, secretary of the DMW, said, "You can see that the road to recovery is very clear".

There were 4.6 million new migrant workers in Asia in 2022, marking a sharp rebound from 1.8 million in 2020 and 2.2 million in 2021, according to the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the International Labor Organization. With China having ended its zero-COVID policy, the number is forecast to continue growing this year and could hit the pre-pandemic level of 5 million workers.

Demand for foreign workers has rebounded sharply because of the global economic recovery spurred by the easing of border controls. In particular, oil-producing countries in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, are accepting large numbers of workers from Bangladesh and other South Asian countries.

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