Immigration news

A government plan to help refugee doctors who come to Wales work in the UK health care system (called NHS) has been called a success by Social Justice Minister Edwina Hart.

The Welsh Assembly Government WARD (Wales Asylum Seeking and Refugee Doctors Group) scheme was set up to help refugee doctors pass the language tests required to work in the NHS.

It also provides a drop-in centre, in partnership with the charity Displaced People in Action, which gives refugee doctors access to medical journals, the internet and other facilities.

UK trade unions announced that they do not support the EU's new rules that allow firms to pay migrant workers poverty wages.

The TUC opposed the EU services directive that will enable migrant workers to be paid in their country of origin. This would allow companies to pay workers from Eastern Europe average wages in their own countries, far less than the British minimum wage. Unions fear this will trigger a "race to the bottom" for pay and conditions.

Flawed paperwork has forced the Australian Immigration Department to give back 8000 visas to foreign students who had lost the right to study because of poor grades or low class attendance. The department must search diplomatic posts overseas to offer the students their visas back.

The move comes after Immigration lost a court case in the Federal Magistrates Court in June, in which Mohammad Ahsan Uddin had his student visa to study cookery cancelled for attending only 47 percent of his classes in term four last year.

Sally Santiago could never have imagined that her arranged marriage to a Filipino husband would leave her bruised and beaten. She says that Citizenship and Immigration Canada forced her to continue to financially support the man who battered her.

Santiago is a 42-year-old Vancouver receptionist. Eight years ago, through relatives, she met and married Erwin Mabolo on a visit to her native land.

VISA BULLETIN FOR OCTOBER 2005

IMMIGRANT NUMBERS FOR OCTOBER 2005

A. STATUTORY NUMBERS

Britons applying for a passport from 12 September will be ordered not to smile and pose with a neutral expression so new biometric scanners can accurately read their facial features.

Britain's Home Office has introduced new regulations on passport photographs to bring British passports in line with internationally agreed standards that enable biometric facial recognition technology to work properly.

Facial recognition systems match key features on the holder's face and work best when the face has a neutral expression with the mouth closed.