BAJRAM CURRI, Albania: Monika Mulaj’s son was in his second year of college in Albania, studying to become a mechanical engineer, when he resolved to make a daring change: He told his parents he would leave his lifelong home for a new future in Britain.
“We had tried to fulfil all his requests, for books and clothing, food and a bit of entertaining. But he was still dissatisfied,” said Mulaj, a high school teacher in the northeastern town of Bajram Curri, which is in one of the country’s poorest regions.
Five years later, her now 25-year-old son is working two jobs in Britain and hardly thinks of returning to his homeland. “Albania is in regress,” he complains to his mother.
His path has been shared in recent years by thousands of young Albanians who have crossed the English Channel in small boats or inflatable dinghies to seek work in the UK. Their odyssey reflects the country’s anemic economy and a younger generation’s longing for fresh opportunities.
In 2018, only 300 people reached Britain by crossing the channel in small boats. The number rose to 45,000 in 2022, in part because of arrivals from Albania, a country in southern Europe that is negotiating for membership in the European Union.
Other migrants were from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Syria. Unlike many countries that fuel migration, Albania is considered safe by UK officials.
Britain is attractive to Albanians because it has a better economy and higher-paying jobs than neighboring countries such as Greece or Italy. Many Albanians also have family ties in the UK. Birmingham, for instance, has a large immigrant population from the Albanian town of Kukes, on the border with Kosovo.
The deputy mayor of Bajram Curri, Abedin Kernaja, said young people leave because of low wages and the difficulty of building “a comfortable family life.” His two sons are in the UK
Xhemile Tafaj, who owns a restaurant on a scenic plateau outside town, said “young people have no money to follow school, no job to work, no revenue at all.”
In such an environment, “only old men have remained and soon there will be empty houses,” Tafaj said.
Northeastern Albania is known for its natural Alpine beauty and green sloping landscape. The region is also famous for chestnuts, blueberries, blackberries and medicinal plants, as well as wool carpets and other handmade goods.
But those products offer scant job opportunities. The only jobs are at town halls, schools and hospitals, plus a few more at cafes and restaurants.
Petrit Lleshi, who owns a motel in Kukes, has struggled to find waiters for two years.
“I would not blame a 25-year-old leaving because of the low salaries here,” Lleshi said. “What our country offers is not enough to build a proper life.”
Few migrants seek a visa. They generally pay smugglers 5,000 to 20,000 euros ($5,300 to $21,200) for the dangerous, illegal crossing.
Many migrants undertake the trip with the expectation of a secure job, only to find after arriving in the UK that they must work in cannabis-growing houses for up to two years to pay back the trafficking money, according to reports by Albanian news outlets.
The steady stream of migrants has provoked clashes between British and Albanian leaders in recent months.
UK interior minister Suella Braverman has described the arrivals as an “invasion on our southern coast” — words that Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama blasted as a “crazy narrative” and an attempt to cover up for the UK’s failed border policies.
Albania also publicly protested what it called a “verbal lynching” by another UK official who made comments about Albanian immigrants. Rama accused the new UK Cabinet of scapegoating Albanians because it “has gone down a blind alley with its new policy resulting from Brexit.”
Rama was is in London Thursday for talks on immigration with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and accused UK officials of “singling out” Albanians for political purposes. “It has been a very, very disgraceful moment for British politics,” he told the BBC.
Sunak’s spokesman has said the UK welcomes and values Albanian migrants who come to the country legally, but that large numbers making illegal boat journeys to the UK are straining the asylum system.
In a statement after the meeting, Sunak and Rama welcomed progress to date following a taskforce action on organized crime and new UK guidance designating Albania a safe country, with around 800 migrants returning to Albania since December.
They also decided to create a joint team to assess Albania’s prison capacity until the end of April “with a view to returning all eligible Albanian nationals in the UK prison system.”
Rama has argued that easing visa requirements would help reduce the number of people arriving illegally.
In response to the spike in migration, some agencies are investing in programs that aim to offer opportunities to both countries — jobs for eager Albanians and a supply of remote workers for businesses in the UK
Elias Mazloum of Albania’s Social Development Investment group said that immigration is “a cancer.”
“We are offering chemotherapy after a lot of morphine used so far only has delayed immigration,” he said.
Under his project, 10 companies in Ireland will employ 10 young Albanians to work remotely in an apprenticeship paying 500 euros ($530) per month in the first year. Participants get a certificate from Ireland’s Digital Marketing Institute and then are hired remotely for 1,000 euros ($1,060) per month.
The vision is for the project to help establish a remote-work ecosystem in the region.
“Albania, and in particular the northeast region, has the advantage of working from a blank canvas” to attract digital nomads and encourage its young people to stay, said Declan Droney, a business trainer and consultant in Galway, in the west of Ireland.
A British project in Kukes supports small and midsize businesses in tourism and agriculture and will open a school teaching different professions.
The Albanian government has also offered incentives. Young couples who launch a small business will be exempt from taxes for up to three years, and couples who return from the UK will receive 5,000 euros ($5,300).
Mazloum’s organization has negotiated with Vodafone Albania to offer free high-speed Internet to remote workers.
“The eyes cannot get enough from the beauty of this place — the food, the fresh air. This added to very hospitable people, ambitious youth who like to work hard,” Mazloum said. “Imagine if you give a little hope to the people here, what they could make this place.”
Eager young Albanians risk everything for new future in UK
https://arab.news/jywmk
Eager young Albanians risk everything for new future in UK
- UK interior minister Suella Braverman has described the arrivals as an ‘invasion on our southern coast’ — words that Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama blasted as a ‘crazy narrative’
- Britain is attractive to Albanians because it has a better economy and higher-paying jobs than neighboring countries such as Greece or Italy
Undocumented immigrants in US ‘terrified’ as Trump returns
- Trump repeatedly rail against illegal immigrants during the election campaign
The 22-year-old, a graduate student in biomedical engineering who lives in Phoenix, Arizona, is haunted by the incoming president’s promises of mass deportations.
“I was terrified,” said Palazuelos, reflecting on the moment he heard the news.
“I am in fear of being deported, of losing everything that I’ve worked so hard for, and, most importantly, being separated from my family.”
Born in Mexico, he has lived in the United States since he was four years old. He is one of the country’s so-called “Dreamers,” a term for migrants who were brought into the country as children and never obtained US citizenship.
Throughout the election campaign, Palazuelos heard Trump repeatedly rail against illegal immigrants, employing violent rhetoric about those who “poison the blood” of the United States.
Trump has never specified how he intends to go about his plan for mass deportation, which experts warn would be extremely complicated and expensive.
“What do mass deportations mean? Who does that include?” Palazuelos asked.
“Does it include people like me, Dreamers, people that came here from a very young age, that had no say?“
Compounding the stress, the southwestern state of Arizona has just approved by referendum a law allowing state police to arrest illegal immigrants. That power was previously reserved for federal border police.
If the proposition is deemed constitutional by courts, Palazuelos fears becoming the target of heightened racial profiling.
“What makes someone a suspect of being here illegally, whether they don’t speak English?” he asked.
“My grandma, she’s a United States citizen, however, she doesn’t speak English very well. Meanwhile, I speak English, but is it because of the color of my skin that I would possibly be suspected or detained?“
Jose Patino, 35, also feels a sense of “dread” and “sadness.” His situation feels more fragile than ever.
Born in Mexico and brought to the United States aged six, he now works for Aliento, a community organization helping undocumented immigrants.
He personally benefited from the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) immigrant policy brought in by Barack Obama, offering protections and work permits for those in his situation.
But for Patino, those safeguards will expire next year, and Trump has promised to end the DACA program.
Indeed, Trump already tried to dismantle it during his previous term, but his decree was scuppered by a US Supreme Court decision, largely on procedural grounds.
Faced with this uncertainty, Patino is considering moving to a state that would refuse to report him to federal authorities, such as Colorado or California.
He remembers well the struggle of being undocumented in his twenties — a time when he could not obtain a basic job like flipping burgers in McDonald’s, and could not apply for a driver’s license or travel for fear of being deported.
“I don’t personally want to go back to that kind of life,” Patino said.
For him, Trump’s electoral win is not just scary, but an insult.
“We’re contributing to this country. So that’s the hard part: me following the rules, working, paying my taxes, helping this country grow, that’s not enough,” he said.
“So it’s frustrating, and it’s hurtful.”
Patino understands why so many Hispanic voters, often faced with economic difficulties, ended up voting for Trump.
Those who are here legally “believe that they’re not going to be targeted,” he said.
“A lot of Latinos associate wealth and success with whiteness, and they want to be part of that group and to be included, rather than be outside of it and be marginalized and be considered ‘the other,’” he said.
Still, he is angry with his own uncles and cousins who, having once been undocumented themselves, voted for Trump.
“We cannot have a conversation together, because it’s going to get into argument and probably into a fight,” he said.
Putin says Ukraine must remain neutral for there to be peace
- “If there is no neutrality, it is difficult to imagine the existence of any good-neighborly relations between Russia and Ukraine,” Putin said
- Putin said Russia had recognized Ukraine’s post-Soviet borders based on the understanding that it would be neutral
SOCHI, Russia: President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Ukraine should remain neutral for there to be a chance for peace, adding that the borders of Ukraine should be in accordance with the wishes of the people living in Russian-claimed territory.
“If there is no neutrality, it is difficult to imagine the existence of any good-neighborly relations between Russia and Ukraine,” Putin said.
Putin said Russia had recognized Ukraine’s post-Soviet borders based on the understanding that it would be neutral. The US-led NATO military alliance has repeatedly said that Ukraine would one day join.
If Ukraine was not neutral, it would be “constantly used as a tool in the wrong hands and to the detriment of the interests of the Russian Federation,” Putin said.
Russia controls about a fifth of Ukraine after more than two and a half years of war. Putin on
June 14
set out his terms for an end to the conflict: Ukraine would have to drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw all of its troops from all of the territory of the regions claimed by Russia.
Ukraine rejects those conditions as tantamount to surrender and President Volodymyr Zelensky has presented a “victory plan” for which he has requested additional Western support.
“We are determined to create conditions for a long-term settlement so that Ukraine is an independent, sovereign state, and not an instrument in the hands of third countries, and not used in their interests,” Putin said.
Asked about the future borders of Ukraine, Putin said: “The borders of Ukraine should be in accordance with the sovereign decisions of people who live in certain territories and which we call our historical territories.”
Ukraine says that it will not rest until every last Russian soldier is ejected from its territory though even US generals say that such an aim would take massive resources that Ukraine currently does not have.
Russian attack on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia kills four, wounds 40
- Russian forces have stepped up their attacks in Zaporizhzhia in recent days
- “The death toll as a result of Russia’s strikes on Zaporizhzhia has risen to four,” the emergency services said
KYIV: Russian aerial attacks on the frontline city of Zaporizhzhia on Thursday killed at least four people and wounded another 40, including children, officials said.
Another two were killed in a separate attack on the eastern Donetsk region, strikes that followed a wave of overnight drone attacks, including on the capital Kyiv.
Russian forces have stepped up their attacks in Zaporizhzhia in recent days and are making rapid advances in the industrial territory of Donetsk, both of which the Kremlin says are Russian territory.
“The death toll as a result of Russia’s strikes on Zaporizhzhia has risen to four,” the emergency services said in a statement on social media.
“Forty were wounded, including four children,” governor Ivan Fedorov said in a separate statement.
Officials said earlier that a hospital had been damaged in Zaporizhzhia, which had a pre-war population of more than 700,000 people and lies around 35 kilometers (22 miles) from the nearest Russian positions.
A four-month old girl and boys aged one, five and 15 were wounded in the attacks, Fedorov said.
Officials posted images showing rescue workers pulling victims from the rubble and holding back distressed locals from getting to the destroyed buildings.
The strikes later in the Donetsk region killed two people and wounded five more in the village of Mykolaivka, the region’s governor Vadym Filashkin announced on social media.
“One of the shells hit a five-story building and four buildings nearby were damaged,” he wrote on social media.
He posted a photo of a Soviet-era residential building on fire, dozens of its windows blown out with debris littering the ground beneath it.
Grenade attack targeted Israeli embassy in Denmark: report
- The grenades landed on the terrace of a house adjacent to the embassy
- Two Swedes aged 17 and 19 have been detained
COPENHAGEN: Israel’s embassy in Denmark was likely the target of grenades thrown nearby last month, Danish media reported Thursday, citing the pre-indictment of two teenage suspects detained in the case.
Two Swedes aged 17 and 19 went before a judge in Copenhagen who remanded them for another 20 days.
Their pre-indictment, citing investigations, said they were suspected of violating terrorism laws by “throwing hand grenades at the Israeli embassy in Denmark on October 2,” the Ritzau news agency reported.
The grenades landed on the terrace of a house adjacent to the embassy, where they exploded, causing no injuries.
The two suspects were arrested at a Copenhagen railway station hours later initially on suspicion of violating gun laws.
They have since been accused of a terror offense and police, who have arrested a man in his fifties in connection with the incident, are also looking for other accomplices.
“It makes no sense to imagine this is an act they committed alone. There must be accomplices,” Ritzau quoted prosecutor Soren Harbo as saying at the start of the hearing.
The teens deny the accusations.
The case comes against a backdrop of severe tensions in the Middle East, with conflict in Gaza and Lebanon, as well as increasing gang violence with Danish criminal gangs suspected of recruiting underage Swedes to settle scores.
Renowned Indian scholar, philanthropist Dr. Syed Shah Khusro Hussaini dies aged 80
Funeral prayers were held on Thursday evening at the Sharif Mosque. He is survived by his wife, two sons and three daughters.
He completed a Master of Arts in Islamic Studies at McGill University in Canada and was awarded a Ph.D. from Belford University, US, for his research work.
Since 2007 he brought significant changes to the Khaja Education Society on the organizational, administrative and functional levels. He also expanded existing institutions and was instrumental in establishing Khaja Bandanawaz Institute of Medical Sciences at Kalaburagi in 2000.
Through perseverance, he established Khaja Bandanawaz University in August 2018. As vice-president of the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board and chancellor of Khaja Banda Nawaz University, he played a vital role in promoting modern and Islamic education in India.
In addition to his administrative skills, Hussaini was known for his deep and scholarly understanding of Sufism. He was awarded the prestigious Karnataka Rajyotsava Award for excellence in education by the government of Karnataka in 2017.
Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar and other political leaders expressed their condolences over his death.