23-02-2012 19:05 Bangladeshi expatriates living in Germany have demanded swift trial of the killers of journalist couple Sagar Sarowar and Meherun Runi. At a condolence meeting in Bonn on Sunday, Bangladeshis were joined by the Germans in urging the Bangladesh government to ensure a full investigation and justice.
See original here:
Sagar, Runi Murder: Expats, Germans demand fast trial - Video
24-02-2012 09:41 Lynn Paine, Harvard Business School professor, offers five rules for western managers operating in the Chinese market.
See original here:
How Expats Should Lead in China - Video
A TV documentary has revealed the extent to which expats in Spain are struggling during the eurozone crisis, with social services and local charities overwhelmed with demand for help
Andrew Sinclair, the BBC political correspondent for East Anglia, spoke to expats living on the Costa Blanca for BBC One's Sunday Politics show, and found that locals are struggling to cope in the recession, due to the pound's depressed value against the euro.
“It struck me there has been a lot of reporting in the UK about the impact ongoing euro crisis is having on holiday businesses and British businesses in general,” Mr Sinclair said. “We have found there is some real hardship out there.”
He told Roundtown News, a local freesheet newspaper, that expats were keen to point out they were not “stinking rich”, a common misconception of Brits living in Spain.
"A lot of people we spoke to were very much working class they didn’t have large fortunes to bring to Spain but felt they could do better for themselves than just living on a council estate," Mr Sinclair said.
While the continued eurozone crisis raises the possibility of an expat exodus from certain areas of Spain, many Brits plan to stay in the area. Property sales are sluggish, as a glut of new build properties in some areas is keeping demand and prices low, while others are unable to return for health reasons. Many are determined to stick it out and hope for an improvement in the economic situation, rather than trade Spanish sunshine for a return to the UK.
"The overall feeling is everyone is having to tighten their belts, mainly because Spain has long ceased to be a cheap place to live," said Jack Troughton of Roundtown News. "Utilities (Santiago: UTILITIES.SN - news) , particularly electricity and gas, continue to rise while extra tax has been put on petrol and diesel, the price already rising because of the fall in the value of the euro."
Some people with money in Spanish banks have started to repatriate their money while younger expats are looking for cash-in-hand work to bridge the gap. Older Britons are relying on an over-stretched social services or charity handouts.
"The British community is doing wonderful work through charities and the charity shops that are found along the whole of the coast," Mr Troughton said. "These help not only British expats but immigrants from across Europe (Chicago Options: ^REURUSD - news) and Latin America who hoped to build a new life here.
"The British consulates are also actively campaigning to help integrate expats and ensure they have access to the town hall facilities and social services they are entitled to receive."
The Sunday Politics Show East is on BBC One, Sundays from 11am.
See the article here:
Financial hardship taking its toll on Britons in Spain
Kuwaitis and Syrians protest the Syrian bloodshed February 4 outside the Syrian embassy in Kuwait City.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Syrian expatriates across the world are uniting against the regime of Bashar al-Assad Their mission is cutting across ethnic and religious lines Many Syrians are raising money in the U.S. and speaking about the crisis
(CNN) -- It has been five years since Mohammad Z. left Syria to train as a doctor in Detroit.
He works long hours. He's big on hockey. He's devoted to the Red Wings.
He's immersed in America, yet his heart is with Syria and the Syrian people.
It's hell inside Syria. But for Mohammed and other Syrian expatriates who want to end the regime of Bashar al-Assad, this is a kind of golden moment. Ethnic and religious and political divisions are melting away to serve one shimmering goal.
"I can't tell you how many wonderful Syrians I have met here who've devoted their money and time to see a democratic, free Syria," said Mohammed, whose last name is being withheld by CNN to protect his brother and parents in Syria. "You see the Christians, the Muslims, the nonreligious people; you see people from different ethnic backgrounds: Arabic, Assyrian and Kurds."
An underground newspaper in Syria recently published an essay of Mohammad's. In it, he wrote, "The revolution has brought us together, and we had scattered in loneliness."
For Mohammad and many other Syrian expatriates, there is no going back to the old Syria. For them, Syria has to change.
"These are people who've been exposed to the American culture and brought up in an environment -- even in Syria -- where there was Internet and dishes and satellites and they can see how the rest of the world lives," said Naser Danan, a Cleveland-based doctor with the Syrian Expatriates Organization.
While the expat group has members in other Arab countries and in Europe, Danan estimated that a majority of the 600 or so members are young doctors in the United States -- ironic, because al-Assad himself has a medical degree.
The group supports an end to al-Assad's regime, though it doesn't act as a political opposition entity. Members raise money to buy food and medicine for Syrians caught in the violence, and they speak in public about what's going on in Syria.
Cancer researcher Hazem Hallak recently spoke to a group of high-school students in Ardmore, Pennsylvania. When one of the students asked how he reacts to the latest videos coming out of Syria, Hallak said he doesn't watch anymore.
He explained why by describing the last video he watched from Syria. Someone recorded Syrian soldiers invading a house looking for the husband of the household. When they didn't find him, Hallak said, they cut off the head of his young son, hung it in the doorway and told his wife, "This is what will happen to your husband if he doesn't turn himself in."
The revolution has brought us together, and we had scattered in loneliness.
Syrian expatriate Mohammed Z.
Last May, Hallak's brother, a doctor in Syria, was arrested and killed -- his body mutilated -- after he returned from a trip to the United States.
A few expatriates in the United States are part of the Syrian National Council, the group that many Syrians consider to be the official political opposition.
One of them is George Netto, a cancer specialist who teaches and practices at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Netto, who is Christian by birth, said he joined the opposition group "to show it's really the entire spectrum of the Syrian people fighting the regime: Christian, Sunnis, poor, rich, educated and noneducated ... we wanted to burst that bubble they're trying to depict that it's only armed radicals or armed gangs."
In Detroit, Mohammad said he was going to anti-al-Assad rallies even before the Syrian secret police, the Mukhabarhat, arrested his brother who was protesting in Syria.
Mohammad said the police kept his brother locked up for three months. He said they interrogated him and tortured him from day one. (Listen to Mohammed read his brother's essay about that time)
After three months, the police let Mohammed's brother go to make room for a wave of new prisoners. But as soon as he was freed, he returned to protesting.
Mohammad said he would not tell his brother to stop protesting. If he were in Syria now, he said, he would do the same thing.
"This is not only an uprising," he said. "It's an epic, a human epic that's being written by the Syrian people."
Go here to read the rest:
Expats uniting for common cause
Increasingly high electricity rates on Cyprus are causing serious financial difficulties for expats
Statistics released earlier this month revealed that medium-sized households in Cyprus paid an average electricity price of 0.1731 euros per kilowatt-hour in 2011 the highest rate in the European Union, and around 26 per cent more than the EU average.
That price, however, is believed to have been calculated before an additional 6.96 per cent levy which was introduced to compensate for the effects of an explosion which destroyed the island's main power station at Vasiliko in July, and further increases including a two per cent hike in VAT to 17 per cent in March have been announced this year.
Expats who moved to the island in search of a cheaper life under the sun say they are increasingly struggling to pay their bills, a situation made worse by the worldwide economic slowdown. Although Cyprus has weathered the storm better than many European economies, the island's unemployment rate is at around 9.3 per cent, with those expats who depend on a sterling income, such as pensioners, having been severely hit by poor exchange rates over the past few years.
Two Facebook groups set up against the growing tariffs have attracted over 7,000 members, and are filled with expats and locals alike sharing stories of how they have been forced to stop using virtually all their appliances to avoid going into the red.
Briton Penelope Hearns, who works for the news portal CyprusExpat , says she knows of several couples, living in one-bedroom apartments, who have been handed bills of €560-plus for just one month and bad feeling, she says, she is mounting.
“Expats and local Cypriots are coming together, and exchanging information via Facebook, and have asked the EU to look into the matter. Soon protests will be staged. Consumers feel they are being ripped off, and have had enough,” she said.
Anger is being chiefly directed towards main electricity provider the Electricity Authority of Cyprus (EAC), which is accused by many of essentially operating a monopoly.
“The semi-government owned EAC is the sole supplier of electricity to the people of Cyprus, and as such are in a position to effectively hold the people to ransom,” said Jas James, who set up the Facebook group One Voice Facebook Group Against the Electricity Authority of Cyprus with two fellow expats. "The EAC can charge whatever they want, they can apply any extra charges they want to without fear of losing business, so the people must either pay what is dictated to them or simply get cut off. This is not acceptable.”
Another Briton with a home in Cyprus, who did not want to be named, said that it was time for action to be taken. “In my view electricity is not a luxury but a basic commodity for everyday life. I think the current levy issued after the Vasiliko disaster should be removed immediately, since the problem was not caused by consumers…and the government should immediately remove VAT altogether from electricity bills, or at least reduce VAT charges to the lowest possible band, which is currently five per cent.
"Finally the Cypriot government should investigate and deal with the many different ways in which consumers' money is being wasted by the EAC, and commence a competitive tendering process to open up the electricity supply market.”
The EAC claims that electric power generation on Cyprus is more expensive due to the island's small size (meaning a lack of economies of sale) geographical isolation from other grids, and because it is dependent on petroleum rather than alternatives like natural gas.
Petroleum is not only more expensive but, because it is less environmentally-friendly, can result in large fines being imposed from the EU which are then passed onto consumers.
In an explanatory leaflet which it provided for Telegraph Expat when asked for a comment, the EAC said that describing it as a monopoly was unfair, because "the fact that EAC has no competition is most likely due to the fact that natural gas is not yet available for power" something which, it added, was "not the fault of EAC, but the state".
Read the original post:
Expats struggle with high cost of electricity in Cyprus