Immigration news

The number of people who migrated to the UK was 512,600 in 2003, compared with 328,400 in 1991. The 2003 figure is nearly double the 1993 figure of 265,100.

The UK's Office of National Statistics figures are based mainly on data from the international passenger survey and 2003 is the latest date available. They show migrancy briefly dropping off in the early 1990s.

Foreign nationals are using Zambia as a gateway to the United Kingdom and South Africa.

Zambia's Immigration Department deputy public relations officer Greenwell Lyempe said the department has noticed with concern that several nationals were using Zambia to get to the two countries.

New Zealand's unemployment rate could rise as much as 0.5 percentage points in the next couple of years due to an expected decrease in new immigrants, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The US Office of Citizenship and Immigration Services has unveiled a guide aimed at recently arrived legal immigrants to the US. The guide provides basic civic education and practical tips for living in the United States. It is the first major effort in nearly a century to provide such comprehensive materials for permanent residents. The guide, which was released on 7 June, is part of a larger effort to assimilate immigrants into American culture sooner rather than waiting until they become citizens.

Lin Homer has been appointed the new Director General of the UK's Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND), Home Office Permanent Secretary John Gieve announced on June 6.Homer was selected following an open competition. She is expected to take up her post in August. Currently Homer is Chief Executive of Birmingham City Council where she has been responsible for 57,000 staff.

Mohammed Afzal Khan, who arrived in the UK in the 1970's as a bewildered 12-year-old who spoke no English, has become the first Asian lord mayor of the British city of Manchester.

Twenty percent of Manchester's 400,000 citizens are nonwhite. Now they have a role model in city hall. Khan agrees that his achievement could well inspire Britain's 2 million-plus individuals of south Asian origin, who often feel underrepresented in the upper echelons of British society.

"Here I am from a humble background, uprooted from one culture to another culture and still able to progress," he says.