Immigration is not helping Australia's skills shortage

The Immigration Department has admitted tertiary enrolments are failing to meet state and territory demands for graduates in mining, construction and nursing, despite an overhaul of the skilled migration system to meet the labor shortage. The surge in vocational education and training and intensive English-language courses for overseas students was in areas "which appear to be outside those demanded", senior Immigration official Peter Speldewinde told a Brisbane conference. The skilled immigration category was revamped in 2007 to give greater emphasis to speaking English and developing skills among the tens of thousands of overseas students who now go on to form a key plank of the permanent skilled migration program every year. Registered nurses, dentists, engineers, radiographers, urban planners, occupational therapists, electricians, bakers, bricklayers, mechanics, carpenters and chefs are among the top 20 occupational shortage areas identified by the states and territories. But Immigration Department data shows overseas students under the skilled immigration category are flocking instead into hospitality management, welfare studies, hairdressing, accounting, cookery and computing. There were almost 11,000 course commencements in hospitality, almost 2000 in welfare studies and almost 1500 in hairdressing, all winning valuable points towards permanent residency.

Britain is going to restrict immigration to preserve jobs for its citizens, Immigration Minister Phil Woolas has said

“If people are being made unemployed, the question of immigration becomes extremely thorny … It’s been too easy to get into this country in the past and it’s going to get harder,” the Labor government minister told the Times of London. Britain's unemployment rate rose sharply, to 5.7%, in the last quarter. Britain, which admits about 200,000 immigrants a year, adopted a tougher points-based immigration system in February. "Only those with skills the country needs can come," Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said at the time. Woolas said the government should train British citizens for those jobs. The opposition Conservatives have been pushing to cut immigration substantially below the 200,000 figure. Labor MP and former minister Frank Field welcomed the policy change. "We shouldn't grow the population by immigration," he said.

Racial conflict at Madison's Memorial High School

Madison's Memorial High School was on edge the day after a racially tinged fight and amid rumors of a possible gun at school. Students were sent home just before 1 p.m. Police set up a command post and five detectives were brought in to help more than 10 officers determine if a safety threat existed. The police intervention — which also included officers who followed school buses and monitored West Towne Mall and Metro Transit transfer points — came after a fight between black and Latino students at the school. Several students were arrested, and the fight sparked rumors of retaliation, including reports that a gun might have been brought to school the next day, police and school district officials said. No gun was found, said Luis Yudice, the district's security coordinator, but officials decided that closing the school "was simply the safest thing to do." One student was arrested for possessing a sharp, pointed homemade object. Officer Shannon Blackamore, Memorial's educational resource officer, said the student, who is Latino, had not been involved in the previous racial incident.

Somalia is the world's most utterly failed state

The United Nations reckons that 3.2 million Somalis now survive on food aid.

A fast food shop owner was found preparing food while an employee's corpse lay nearby

Police called to the Pappu Sweet Centre in Wolverhampton in August discovered the man's body on a sofa near the kitchen, magistrates in the city heard. The business, owned by Jaswinder Singh, 45, was shut down immediately. The council said it was one of the worst cases environmental health officers had seen. Singh has been banned from running any food business.

Twelve Indian states have alarming levels of hunger while the situation is extremely alarming in the state of Madhya Pradesh, says a new report

Madhya Pradesh's nutrition problems are comparable to the African countries of Ethiopia and Chad. India has more people suffering hunger - a figure above 200 million - than any other country in the world. The report, released as part of the 2008 Global Hunger Index, ranks India at 66 out 88 countries.

Latino education and failed social policies

Heather Mac Donald reviews a new book showing the problems that Latino immigration is causing for the future of the United States.

Hat tip, Randall Parker!

The Bailout bill and Jewish lobbyists

Patrick Cleburne has some interesting news on the large quantities of pork to be found in the Bailout bill.

In a recent poll, one in five agreed that states have the right to peacefully secede from the Union

According to a Zogby poll conducted in July 2008, more than 20% of U.S. adults - one in five, about the same number of American Colonists who supported revolt against England in 1775 - agreed that "any state or region has the right to peaceably secede from the United States and become an independent republic." Some 18% "would support a secessionist effort in my state." The motivation of these quiet revolutionaries? As many as 44% of those polled agreed that "the United States' system is broken and cannot be fixed by traditional two-party politics and elections." Put this in stark terms: In a scientific, random sample poll of all Americans, almost half considered the current political system to be in terminal disorder. One-fifth would countenance a dissolution of the bond. This is not a hiccup of opinion. In an October 2006 poll conducted by the Opinion Research Corp. and broadcast on CNN, 71% of Americans agreed that "our system of government is broken and cannot be fixed." No surprise that the disquiet finds a voice in popular movements. In 2007, a small group of delegates to the second North American secessionist convention - the first was in Burlington, Vt., in 2006 - met in Chattanooga, Tenn., to discuss how to foment the collapse and destruction of the United States of America. They came representing 11 rebel groups in 36 states, under banners such as the Republic of Cascadia (wedding Oregon and Washington), Independent California (forging the world's fifth-largest economy), the United Republic of Texas (returning the Lone Star State to its aloneness), the League of the South (uniting the secesh states of old Dixie) and the Second Vermont Republic (separating the Green Mountain State from the United States). The dominant idea among the delegates was that the U.S. experiment had failed; it had become impractical, tragically ridiculous, its leaders and institutions bought off, whored out, unaccountable and unanswerable to the needs of citizens. The United States would have to be reborn smaller - our loyalties realigned to the needs of localities - if the American dream was to survive. The convention presented, in effect, a marriage of progressives, paleo-conservatives, libertarians, Christian separatists, Southern nationalists, all united "to put an end to the American empire and reestablish freedom and democracy on the state and regional level," as organizer Kirkpatrick Sale put it. The delegates settled on a list of principles they called the Chattanooga Declaration. "The deepest questions of human liberty and government facing our time go beyond right and left, and in fact have made the old left-right split meaningless and dead," the declaration read. "The privileges, monopolies and powers that private corporations have won from government threaten ... health, prosperity and liberty, and have already killed American self-government by the people." The answer, it went on, was that the American states "ought to be free and self-governing." The Declaration of Independence 250 years earlier asked for a similar dedication to self-governance: "[W]henever any form of government becomes destructive ... " wrote Thomas Jefferson, "it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government.... " It could be argued that secession is the primal American act, as old as the concept of the states themselves. What else did our founders accomplish in 1776 but secession from the tyranny of England? In other words, what the secessionists would argue is that although they are anti-United States, they are most certainly pro-American.

Most Japanese inns and hotels that didn’t have foreign guests last year don’t want any in the future, according to a government survey

While the majority of such establishments do accept foreigners, the survey showed the country’s more traditional inns are not as hospitable, even as the government mounts a major campaign to draw more tourists from abroad. Japan’s countryside is dotted with thousands of small, old-fashioned lodgings called “ryokans.” Many are family run and offer only traditional Japanese food and board, such as raw seafood delicacies, simple straw-mat floors and communal hot spring baths. Some such establishments have barred foreign guests in the past, leading to lawsuits and government fines for discrimination. The survey carried out by the Ministry of Internal Affairs shows that 72% of establishments that didn’t have foreign customers in 2007 don’t want any, and the majority are ryokans and hotels with fewer than 30 rooms. Such businesses said they are unable to support foreign languages and that their facilities are not suited to foreigners. While more than 60% of the country’s inns and hotels hosted foreign guests last year, the results indicate it may be hard to expand this number.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is investigating allegations involving a Cobb County commissioner and voodoo

A woman who practices voodoo in South Carolina claims commissioner Annette Kesting wanted her to put a curse on the opponent who defeated Kesting in August 2008. The voodoo priestess, George Ann Mills of Blythewood, S.C., filed a report with Cobb County police claiming Kesting's checks for the ceremony bounced. Kesting was soundly defeated in mid-August, and according to the voodoo priestess she wanted challenger Woody Thompson to either develop cancer or be involved in a car wreck. The woman claims Kesting gave her pictures of Thompson and wrote her $3,000 worth of checks, but those checks bounced. The voodoo rituals were apparently never performed. Kesting said her bank book had been stolen and that she had never visited a voodoo high priestess in South Carolina. Thompson won the August primary with 69% of the vote.

Do 31% of Greeks have Celtic roots?

Today’s Macedonians are descendants of the Antic Macedonians, says research results from the Swiss Genealogy Institute iGENEA. For a second time an independent research institution confirms what Oxford and Madrid University confirmed a decade ago. iGENEA is the most famous global Genealogy institute who once again frustrated the Greek government by confirming the direct connection between the Macedonians today and in Antic times. The question came from a Greek citizen who asked iGENEA the following question: "What are the roots of today SlavMacedonians". The Institute responded: "Before all, they are Macedonians, not slavMacedonias as you referred to them for political reasons. The largest part of the Macedonians are direct descendants of the Antic Macedonians. Only a minor portion have a Slavic connection". iGENEA backed up their findings with hard numbers. However, tying the today's Macedonians with Antic Macedonians is not the only disappointing information for Greece. According to iGENEA, only 32% of Greek citizens have Macedonian, Hellenic and even Arab origin. iGENEA further explains that 31% of Greek citizens have Celtic roots, 12% Germanic and Slavic origin, while 11% have Illyrian roots. iGENEA also negated the Illyrians roots of the Albanians. In stark contrast to Albanian beliefs, IGENEA says the Albanians have the least Illyrian roots. Only 20% of the Albanians have Illyrian roots, while 40% of today’s Bosnians have Illyrian roots. In the past several months, the iGENEA Genealogy Institute had been flooded with requests by Greek Citizens who, ironically, did not care for their own origin, but all questions were aimed at the Macedonians' origin. iGENEA in its research uses DNA analysis, historical, archeological, and anthropological sources.

An estranged couple in Cambodia have sawed their house in half to avoid the country's convoluted divorce process

Moeun Rim and his wife, Nhanh, who have been married nearly 40 years, split the building following an argument, local officials said. Mr Rim has removed his share of the property and the couple have also divided their land into four parts; two for their children, and two for them. Divorce cases in Cambodia can be costly and may take a long time to settle. The house - or one half of the house - is located in Prey Veng province, about 90km (56 miles) from the capital, Phnom Penh.

When a group is without a leader, you can often count on a narcissist to take charge, a new study suggests

Researchers found that people who score high in narcissism tend to take control of leaderless groups. Narcissism is a trait in which people are self-centered, exaggerate their talents and abilities, and lack empathy for others. “Not only did narcissists rate themselves as leaders, which you would expect, but other group members also saw them as the people who really run the group,” said Amy Brunell, lead author of the study and assistant professor of psychology at Ohio State University at Newark.

Hat tip, Randall Parker!

Zimbabwe's annual inflation rate - already the world's highest - has soared to 231,000,000%, official figures for July 2008 show

The rise - from 11,200,000% in June - was largely due to increases in the prices of bread and cereals. A landmark power-sharing deal between President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has failed to ease the country's economic crisis.

Obama and racial identity

Why Barack Obama is not the comforting multiracial or post-racial figure that his supporters want him to be.

Hat tip, Steve Sailer!

Blacks and asthma

Asthma patients who are black tend to have more severe disease than asthma patients who are white, leading to more asthma control problems, higher rates of emergency department visits, and overall worse quality of life. These findings point to genetic differences that lead to poor responses to drug therapy as the source of these racial disparities. Based data obtained from The Epidemiology and Natural History of Asthma: Outcomes and Treatment Regimens (TENOR) study, Dr. Tmirah Haselkorn and colleagues undertook an in-depth analysis in an attempt to explain the differences between black and white adults with severe or difficult-to-treat asthma. Their analysis included 1,885 white patients and 243 black patients who were treated by more than 400 specialists in lung diseases and allergies at 283 study sites across the United States. Blacks were more likely to have asthma that was classified as severe by their physicians and to be treated with three or more long-term controller drugs, Haselkorn, of Genentech Inc., in South San Francisco, California, and her associates report in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. However, the researchers found no differences in access to treatment between the two racial groups and no evidence of differences in asthma-related knowledge or behavior in the patients. Socioeconomic status, adherence to drug therapy, treatment setting, the presence of other diseases and various allergy measures also did not explain the differences in asthma-related illness and severity between the two races. The researchers conclude that the TENOR study data support the idea of a genetic component that causes a poor response to asthma treatment in blacks. The investigators urge that these findings be used to develop more effective asthma treatments and educational strategies for black patients who are having problems controlling their disease. In addition, future clinical trials evaluating new therapies should be designed to also examine the potential impact of race and ethnicity on treatment response.

Immigration has brought Latino gang crime to Spain

The Latin Kings are the best-known among the Hispanic youth gangs that have formed in Spain among the immigrants from its former colonies. Gradually, Spanish police experts are beginning to understand the mentality of the street gangs born or based on models in poor and crime-infested neighbourhoods in the Americas. The Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation was initially formed to help and defend Latin American immigrants in the Chicago area of the United States in the 1940s. Its members later became involved in violent crimes. The Spanish branch of the Latin Kings was launched in 2000 by the young Ecuadorian Eric Velastegui, known as King Wolverine, who is now serving a prison sentence for rape. The Latin Kings' big rival in Spain are the Netas, a gang founded in the prisons of Puerto Rico in the 1970s. Other gangs include Dominican Don't Play (DDP), many of whose members come from the Dominican Republic. The Madrid DDP has begun to sell drugs and acquired firearms, according to the daily El Pais. Recently, evidence has even emerged of the presence in Catalonia of the Mara Salvatrucha and the Mara 18, Central American groups known for their extreme violence. In the Madrid region alone, the number of gang members tripled in three years to about 1,300 by 2007, police estimated. Nearly 300 of them were regarded as violent. The main gangs, which are present in several cities across Spain, are hierarchically structured, tribe-like organizations. The gangs tend to place women in a secondary role, with the Latin Kings as the only one to have a female section. Many of the gangs have a double nature, with leisure activities such as football alternating with robberies or extortion which new members can be ordered to commit as a kind of initiation rite. Dozens of gang members have been detained on charges ranging from kidnappings and threats to attacks and killings. Most of the violence takes place between rival gangs, but former members have also told courts about the beatings faced by those who break the internal rules. 'We were told to pay 1,200 euros (1,700 dollars), or we'd be burned alive,' two girls who had tried to leave the Latin Kings told a Madrid judge. The growth of the gangs is based on the rapid increase of Latin American immigration to Spain. The overall number of immigrants has soared from 1.8% of the Spanish population in 1990 to more than 10%. The largest groups include 420,000 Ecuadorians and 260,000 Colombians.

African wars cause knife crime in Britain

Knife crime is being partly fuelled by a brutalized generation of refugee children who have come to Britain from vicious war-torn regions of Africa. Recent figures revealed that one person is the victim of knife crime every four minutes. In 2007, teenage Angolan refugee Roberto Malasi was jailed for 30 years after he admitted stabbing to death an 18-year-old student and shooting dead a woman cradling a baby at a christening in a two week period. The Old Bailey heard that the killings were the culmination of his horrific upbringing of pitiless persecution in Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Sir John Nutting QC, his defense lawyer, said that Malasi was influenced by witnessing scenes of daily violence in his early teens, including people being hanged, shot and burned to death. Sir Andrew Green, chairman of MigrationWatch, pointed out: "The black African community now numbers 694,000 and has overtaken the black Caribbean group as a result of high net migration in recent years. This is a further consequence of our failure to control immigration."

There are both genetic and moral reasons that children of the professional classes come out on top academically

Charles Murray writes about how many children are just not gifted enough to learn to do academic tasks at more than a rudimentary level, and schools can tweak their performance only at the margins.