Wednesday 2 September 2015

Syrians...and Kosovans and Albanians



Amidst all the outpouring of praise for Germany on the BBC at the moment for inviting in vast numbers of refugees and asylum seekers from Syria and Afghanistan, it would be remiss of me not to mention a counter-point made by Newsnight reporter Secunder Kermani on last night's programme (whilst reporting from a refugee centre in Düsseldorf): 

Yes, much of his report focused (visually) on images of women and children (as so much of the BBC's coverage seems to be doing at the moment), but along the way we got this startling passage:
But as well as those fleeing war zones, there are many from the Balkans. 
Kosovans and Albanians are together responsible for more asylum claims so far this year than even Syrians.
Well, that's the first I'd heard of that.

Have you heard about that before on the BBC? 

From everything else I've been hearing and seeing on the BBC, I've been led to believe that those travelling to Germany and Scandanavia through Austria, Hungary and Serbia, have been pretty much exclusively Syrian refugees.

From what Secunder Kermani said, it appears there might also be a huge number of economic migrants from Kosovo and Albania moving northwards through Europe too.

10 comments:

  1. With the BBC, I sometimes wonder whether apparent bias is, in reality, just sheer ignorance and incompetence. Maybe they really do not know about the Kosovans and Albanians.
    But I do know that their claims that all "migrants" are refugees are not true. The Gambian Government ( not necessarily to be believed on anything) claim that about 10000 Gambians have gone the "back way". They are definitely economic migrants.

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    1. Hanlon's Law: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

      Except with the BBC, in which case it's often their bias which led to their ignorance. E.g., Mardell refusing to look into reports that Obama and Hillary knew Benghazi was a planned terrorist attack because he saw the wrong sort of people blogging about it, or Katty Kay openly dismissing a meteorologist's professional statement of facts because they didn't jibe with her Warmist beliefs, or Bowen and Dennison's claims that Hamas never store weapons in hospitals or launch rockets from residential areas.

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  2. Amusingly, in some ways, Al Jazeera ( much more reliable than the BBC ) have a report on their website about a Gambian illegal in Italy. He was complaining that he had to work 10 hours a day picking fruit in Italy for 3 euro a day. In Gambia, an unskilled labourer gets about 5 euro a day ! Assuming he is telling the truth, he would have been better to stay at home.

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    1. PS For about 6/7 hours work !

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    2. Don't tell the BBC or they'll start encouraging Italians to seek asylum from such cruel conditions.

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  3. Useful background on Wikipedia: "The number of people with Albanian origin living in Germany is approximately 350,000. Most of them originate from Kosovo, 300,000 are from Macedonia and 50,000 from Albania. Currently, the cities with the largest population of Germans of Albanian descent are the metropolitan regions of Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Stuttgart. In Berlin in 1999, there were about 25,000 Albanians, the number dropped because of remigration and Germany's general population decline. It is quite hard to know the true number of Albanians in Germany, as they were defined as Yugoslavs or Macedonians when they came to Germany. There is also a significant number of Albanians from Kosovo and Macedonia living in Germany illegally. It is estimated that the country is home to anywhere between 500,000 and 1,000,000 Albanians. Germany is the most popular destination for Kosovar Albanians seeking to emigrate to Western Europe."

    Sounds like there will soon be 1-2 million Albanians living in Germany.

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  4. And some further useful info on Wikipedia:

    "Albanian mafia families are active in some of the German urban centres, in particular Hamburg. They play an important role in the drug trade and the red light districts of the country. Although this is well-known to German security authorities, such as the (Bundesnachrichtendienst), they are unwilling to undertake an investigation against the Albanian criminal structures in Germany.

    "Ethnic Albanians" (as the German police officially calls them), who come into Germany typically from Albania or the Republic of Macedonia or Kosovo, have created for a very short time in the last decade of the century, a very powerful criminal network, says Manfred Quedzuweit, director of the Police Department for Fighting the Organized Crime in Hamburg. "Here, it could be heard that they are even more dangerous than Cosa Nostra.[18] Albanian "banks" in Germany are a special story. They are used for the transfer of money from Germany, which amounts to a billion of D-marks a year.

    One of these banks was discovered by accident by the Düsseldorf police while checking a travel agency "Eulinda" owned by the Albanians. "We haven't found a single travel related catalogue or brochure at the agency. The computers were nonfunctional, the printer had never been used. We found that "Eulinda" was a coverup for some other business", said high criminal counselor from Düsseldorf Rainer Bruckert. "Eventually we found out that "Eulinda" had already transferred $150 million to Kosovo—for 'humanitarian purposes'", says Bruckert. "Money was being transferred by the couriers in special waist belts with multiple pockets. So, in a single one-way trip, it was possible to carry up to six million D-marks."

    BND reports state that Albanian Mafia activities are thoroughly spread throughout Germany. One mafia family in Hamburg, for instance, according to BND reports, has over "300 million euros in real estate portfolios". Further, the clan has considerable ties to police, judges and prosecutors in Hamburg.[4]

    According to British criminal Colin Blaney in his autobiography 'Undesirables', Albanian criminals in Germany also frequently come to blows with British criminals who operate in the nation. Albanian people traffickers have been involved in confrontations with an English organized crime group known as the Wide Awake Firm, including an incident in which a member of the English group was stabbed through the hand.[5]"

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  5. A very interesting table to that everyone should study -

    http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/File:Activity_rates_by_broad_groups_of_citizenship_and_age_groups_in_EU-28,_2013.png

    Look at the figures for economic activity in the old age group for non EU citizens in Germany - a paltry 47% compared with 68% for German citizens (and that figure is probably suppressed by those naturalised citizens from places like Albania).

    The pattern is similar for the UK.

    The idea that importing migrants is going to solve Europe's economic problems is ridiculous. It is clearly adding to the tax burden.

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  6. The sweet Albanians. What have they been doing to enrich Germany in recent times? Let's see:

    Aug 8 '15 A group of Albanian asylum seekers have been arrested in the city of Lingen in Germany, for robbing 40 houses. http://english.albeu.com/news/news/22-albanian-asylum-seekers-arrested-in-germany/208961/

    Apr. '15 Albanians and Africans brawl in refugee shelter in Germany, 16 injured http://www.welt.de/regionales/hamburg/article139470694/Streit-unter-Fluechtlingen-in-Hamburg-eskaliert.html

    Mar 16 '15 Albanian shoots Bulgarian in Germany in gang rivalry over prostitution http://www.kosova-sot.info/te_tjera/kronika_e_zeze/rivalitet-mes-bandave-ne-gjermani-shqiptari-vret-bullgarin

    Dec 18 '14 (Albania) Nearly 500 people from villages of Vlora have bought travel tickets to Germany w/ the promise that they will receive a pension after arriving. http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/xinhua-news-agency/141218/albanian-asylum-seekers-stopped-vlora

    Apr 2014 K-Albanian stabbed Balkan Muslim to death in Frankfurt, Germany bar http://www.vesti-online.com/Vesti/Hronika/397106/Sandzakliju-Nevzada-iskasapio-Albanac-s-Kosova

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