"I have never welcomed the weakening of family ties by politics or pressure" - Nelson Mandela.
"He who travels for love finds a thousand miles no longer than one" - Japanese proverb.
"Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence." - Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
"When people's love is divided by law, it is the law that needs to change". -
David Cameron.

Saturday 2 February 2013

Saturday links

Curious repeating headlines in the Daily Express.

http://newsframes.wordpress.com/2013/01/24/curious-repeated-headlines/

Jan 24, 2013 – You’ve probably noticed the Daily Express headlines which feature the weather or some health-related story. It seems that most Express headlines fall into one of these categories:Daily_Express_24_1_2013

1. Weather/floods
2. Health/illness
3. The EU/Euro
4. Pensions
5. “Migrants”, benefits, “skivers”

Exceptions seem uncommon. Okay, you get the occasional “royals” story, and there was a time when house-price rises/falls could have been added to the list. See for yourself, using the compilations of front pages, below (which I’ve colour-coded to match the above categories).


See also: http://tabloid-watch.blogspot.co.uk 's posts on 'immigration' :

http://tabloid-watch.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/immigration
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Bulgarians react with dismay to British anti-immigration campaign.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/feb/01/bulgarians-british-anti-immigration-campaign
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Claudiu Pandaru, the editor of Gandul, accepted me as a Facebook friend. Excellent man.


"Why don't you come over?", a campaign by gandul.info in response to the British one called "Don't come to England" :
http://www.gandul.info/english/why-don-t-you-come-over-a-campaign-by-gandul-info-in-response-to-the-british-one-called-don-t-come-to-england-10536418
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The British ambassador to Romania was asked to attend a meeting on Friday in Bucharest with the minister for Romanians abroad, Cristian David, at which the importance of discussing immigration in a "balanced and rational way" was debated.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/02/romania-uk-immigrants-diplomatic-row
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'Do share: This article points up just why political statements about 'making 'them' learn English' are facile, rude, and just plain thick. Grow up people . . . learn lessons from the experience of the USA.'


The magic words "make them learn English"  :
http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2013/01/immigration
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Above link via the lovely Facebook page, 'I Love Immigrants' :
https://www.facebook.com/ILoveImmigrants?ref=ts&fref=ts

'In May 2010, a couple of internet savvy people initiated what was to become one of the most consistently refreshing facebook groups around, I Love Immigrants. Since then there have been around 800 Immigrants of the Day, each one chosen to spotlight further the positive role played by immigrants in the UK. The Immigrant of the Day is always someone in the public eye, avoiding the need to produce copy each day, providing a link to either the lucky person’s Wikipedia page or some other official website.' :
http://www.jcwi.org.uk/blog/2013/02/01/i-love-immigrants-facebook-gold

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Migrant Rights Network - upcoming events - a good source of who is doing what :
http://www.migrantsrights.org.uk/news-events

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The Migration Museum : http://www.migrationmuseum.org/
On Twitter : https://twitter.com/migrationuk

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Another museum, 19 Princelet Street in Spitalfields, is a really fascinating place. It's in London's East End, a stone's throw from the City of London and Brick Lane.

http://www.19princeletstreet.org.uk/

19 Princelet Street in Spitalfields is a unique cultural institution, in one of London’s smallest and most beautiful historic buildings.  Its shabby front doors are rarely open to the public: beyond are secrets and suitcases, poems and potatoes, threads of history linking to today’s debates over migration, minorities and multiculturalism.

Founded as the first museum of immigration and diversity in Europe, 19 Princelet Street attracts visitors from around the globe to discover stories of the centuries of newcomers who have shaped Spitalfields, London and Britain. 

It was a Huguenot master silk weaver's house ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fournier_Street , nearby, takes its name from this heritage). Later, as the East End became a centre for Jews fleeing persecution in Russia, it became a synagogue: http://www.jewisheastend.com/princelet.html .

Still later, a reclusive scholar called David Rodinsky lived there - he disappeared in the late 1960s, 'entering the mythology of the East End as surely as Jack the Ripper or the Kray twins'  - Iain Sinclair and Rachel Lichtenstein co-wrote 'Rodinsky's Room' about this strange story, and the folklore of the area :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/1999/may/22/books.guardianreview9

Nowadays the area is a centre for the Bengali community - 'it is the heart of the city's Bangladeshi-Sylheti community and is known to some as Banglatown' :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brick_Lane

19 Princelet Street on Twitter : https://twitter.com/19pst

The excellent local blog, Spitalfields Life, is well worth following.

Return of the Hamburgs and the Mekelburgs : http://spitalfieldslife.com/2012/05/30/return-of-the-hamburgs-the-mekelburgs/ - 'For centuries the histories of the Hamburg and Mekelburg families were intertwined, living in parallel streets in the Jewish quarter of Amsterdam – even before coming as economic migrants to Spitalfields in the second half of the nineteenth century, where they intermarried, lived, and worked for three generations.'
 At Sandys Row Synagogue : http://spitalfieldslife.com/2010/07/09/at-sandys-row-synagogue/

At the Lahore One Kebab Restaurant : http://spitalfieldslife.com/2013/01/10/at-the-lahore-one-kebab-restaurant/
Curry chefs of Brick Lane : http://spitalfieldslife.com/2010/12/03/the-curry-chefs-of-brick-lane/ ; part two : http://spitalfieldslife.com/2011/12/29/more-curry-chefs-of-brick-lane/
Chinese East Enders : http://spitalfieldslife.com/2012/10/26/mike-tsangs-chinese-eastenders/
“We’re all human beings, we all live and die, whether we’re Jewish, Muslim or Christian.” : http://spitalfieldslife.com/2013/01/08/gulam-taslim-funeral-director/
East End shopfronts, 1988 - the Jewish East End : http://spitalfieldslife.com/2010/06/28/alan-dein-east-end-shopfronts-1988/

Max Levitas became an East End hero when he was arrested in 1934, at the age of nineteen years old, for writing anti-Fascist slogans on Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square. “There were two of us, we did it at midnight and we wrote ‘All out on September 9th to fight Fascism,’ ‘Down with Fascism’ and ‘Fight Fascism,’ on Nelson’s Column in whitewash,” he told me, his eyes shining with pleasure, still fired up with ebullience at ninety-seven years of age : http://spitalfieldslife.com/2011/09/04/max-levitas-anti-fascist-campaigner/
When Max Levitas stormed the Savoy : http://spitalfieldslife.com/2011/11/03/when-max-levitas-stormed-the-savoy/

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Benjamin Zephaniah : London Breed http://vimeo.com/9726755

(only 200 languages? http://spatialanalysis.co.uk/2012/10/londons-twitter-languages/ )
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Kyrgyzstan: Labor Migrants Grapple with Russian-Language Requirement.

http://www.eurasianet.org/node/66491
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'Being a refugee bloody drives you on', says Salford City Reds' saviour.

http://www.britishfuture.org/articles/being-a-refugee-bloody-drives-you-on-says-salford-city-red-saviour/
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Rural England slow to accept Polish migrants. (Deutsche Welle)

http://www.dw.de/rural-england-slow-to-accept-polish-migrants/a-16569045
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4% of migrant workers in China suffer wage default.

http://www.china.org.cn/china/2013-02/01/content_27868410.htm
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Mali refugee flood threatens to destabilise region.

http://www.dw.de/mali-refugee-flood-threatens-to-destabilize-region/a-16571150
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Rohingya baby born in refugee boat near Phuket.

http://www.thephuketnews.com/rohingya-baby-born-in-refugee-boat-near-phuket-36777.php
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