According to statistics provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics or ABS, migration to South Australia continues to grow over the years. Looking at the figures for the year 2007, there was a recorded increase of 12,600 people due to net overseas migration to the Australian state. About one third of that figure, 4,800 migrants, entered South Australia in the first quarter of 2007. This has been the largest quarterly gain that the Australian government has ever experienced in the last 25 years.

As they closely monitor the growth of immigration and population of the country, they have noted that every quarter increase they have recorded since 1986, has greatly contributed to the resident population of South Australia. There was an exception during between June 1993 and June 1994.

This increase in immigrants and growth in the population is being enjoyed by the state as South Australia has been actively hiring international talents to increase their population. By 2050, the target population of South Australia is 2 million. With that in mind, this continuous growth has proven that they have been doing an excellent job. This was stated by the Australian Population Institute Chairman, Michael Hickinbotham.

South Australia has revised its immigration policies corresponding to revisions made to the Australia’s General Skilled Migration program. South Australia offers migration sponsorships for skilled professionals under the visas such as Offshore Skilled Sponsored (subclass 176) visa, Onshore Skilled Sponsored (subclass 886) visa, Onshore Skilled Regional Sponsored (subclass 487) visa, and Offshore Skilled Regional Sponsored (subclass 475) visa.

The Country of Russia, specifically the City Government of Moscow is planning to decrease the quota of migrant workers in the year 2008. The original quota figure is 750,000. However, the government is planning to reduce that to a mere 250,000. That is a substantial reduction that has caused a controversy in the Federal Migration Service of Russia.

The deputy head of the FMS’s migrant labour department, Sergey Boldyrev, has stated that it is most likely not to be approved because it may affect the country negatively in two ways. Firstly, it could result in a labour shortage, and secondly, it may increase the never-ending problem of illegal immigration in the country. At the same time, even if they reduce the quota for 2008, it will definitely force employers to complain and request for an increase in 2009.

Alexey Alexandrov, the chairman of the committee on inter-regional ties and ethnic policy of Moscow announced the reduction in quota. Not only would the migrant workers quota be cut to a third, but the citizens from countries that require visa to enter the country will be decreased from 80,000 to 50,000. It was Yury Luzhkov, the Mayor of Moscow who approved of the plan. The reason for such a drastic move is that in the current year, Moscow has approved and granted about 426,000 work permits to migrant workers. However, there were only 111,000 foreign workers for whom employers have filed papers for. Thus, if the plan is approved, there will be thousands of workers who will not be able to renew their permits next year.

In any kind of law and in any country that you reside, shoplifting or theft is an offense that has certain grave consequences. Some countries may be less rigorous when dealing with shoplifting but there are other countries that have stricter laws and rules pertaining to this case. Shoplifting also has immigration consequences. In some cases, your visa may be revoked, whether immigrant or non-immigrant. Below are some of the consequences that can cause you a lot of problems.

Immigration takes shoplifting very seriously. Even if for a small amount, if you are caught in the act of shoplifting, it can greatly affect your status in certain countries. Take for example in the United States, the Immigration Law sees shoplifting as a “crime involving moral turpitude”. It is considered defraud and can bring about serious immigration consequences.

According to the United States Immigration Law, an alien can be deported if the alien is convicted of a crime that involves moral turpitude within five years of having legally entered the country or having been issued a legal permanent resident status. Shoplifting, as mentioned earlier is a moral turpitude. Therefore if you have only been in the US for less than five years, or it has not been 10 years since the approval of your permanent residence status, then you can be deported. However, if the maximum period of imprisonment is less than a year, then this should have no bearing. However, there are some states that treat theft more seriously, with the minimum term of incarceration of at least a year.

New Zealand is introducing a new investor immigration policy to replace what they had been implementing over the past few years. In November 2007, the country replaced the previous investor immigration scheme with the “Active Investor Migrant Policy.”

The Active Investor Migrant policy will be categorized into three groups. Each category will have varying requirements depending on the description of each. The three groups are as follows: General (Active) investors, Professional investors, and the Global investors. Below are the requirements for each of the category.

For the General or Active Investors category, the main applicant must have a score of 5 in two out of four bands in the IELTS. This must also apply for the family members of the applicant. If their English ability does not pass the standards of this policy, then they will have to pre-purchase English course tuition. Age also matters for this category and the applicant must be 54 years of age or younger. The investor must have NZD $2.5 million. They must be able to pay settlement funds of NZD $1 million.

For the Professional Investor category, one must score at least 4 in two out of four bands of the IELTS. Same goes for the family members of the applicant. The age must be 64 years of age or younger. Investment funds must total NZD$10 million. There is an active investment of NZD $2 million needed but no settlement funds is required.

As for the global investor category, only the investment funds of NZD$20 million is required as well as a NZD$5 million active investment. All categories are required to have a minimum of 4 years business experience. At the same time, all must present medical and security clearance.

The new UK immigration system requires that all sponsors of non-EU workers must be licensed if they want to bring a worker to the UK. The Border and Immigration Agency (BIA) regulates and issues PBS sponsorship licences, and conducts regular visits and audits on the companies to ensure that the immigration regulations are being followed.

All migrants, excluding those who are seeking family based immigration need to have a UK sponsor to be able to apply to live and work in the UK. A UK sponsor can be a company, a university or college or another establishment, but in all cases gaining sponsorship is the first step in applying for a PBS UK Visa.

The BIA rates sponsors in two grades, A or B and is based on its risk assessment of the company or establishment. Most of the sponsors will be rated A, but they can be demote to a B rating if the BIA feels that regulations aren’t being followed or that there is a risk to UK immigration. Sponsors that are downgraded to a B rating will be given the opportunity to appeal and be given a limited time plan to regain the A rating.

In previous years, foreign students who graduate and study in Taiwan are not allowed to work in the country unless they apply for the respective work permit or work visa. However, Taiwan’s labour officials are now looking into changing that. Taiwan is planning to allow foreign graduate students to work in the country while they are studying. They will be allowed to work from the moment they begin their studies.

This is the action being reviewed by the Taiwan government after receiving a lot of complaints for their local schools and universities that their existing rules prevented their foreign students to work on necessary research projects. According to the existing rules, foreign students may not be allowed to work in the country in the first year of their studies. As a result, the Taiwan government will be implementing new rules to allow these foreign graduate students to work right away the moment they start their studies in the country. However, the work must be related to their studies and must be backed up by the university.

It was the Council of Labour Affairs’ Senior Executive Officer, Chen Jui-chia, who announced that the new rule is in lieu of the many complaints that they have received. Foreign students were shut out on projects that would help them with their academic advancement. It is common practice in graduate studies that professors ask graduate students to work for research during the first year. It would be unfair to exclude these foreign graduates experience in these academically inclined projects. Note however that according to Chen, the old rules will remain for the non-graduate foreign students.

Swedish Immigration hit a record in the year 2007 when the number of immigrants reached about 73,953. The immigration number continues to rise over the following months and it is expected to grow in the succeeding years. The Northern European Union country of Sweden will continue to increase its immigrants in the future.

The nationals who express their interest in migrating to Sweden includes returning Swedish citizens, Iraq nationals, and nationals from the new European Union members joining between 2004 and 2007. This record high was recorded in September of 2007. It has matched the total amount of immigrants in 2006. However, the 2007 number has still not included the number for the months of October to December.

The largest group that makes up the list of immigrants belongs to the returning Swedish citizens. In 2007 of September, there were about 12,281 returning Swedish citizens. On the other hand, there were about 9,203 Iraqi citizens moving to the country. Immigration has risen by 30 percent in just one year, with the conflict in Iraq given as the reason for this increasing number. Aside from those two, there are also the nationals from the newer European Union member states. Sweden has been a favourable choice for nationals of Bulgaria, Poland, and Romania. Bulgaria and Romania only joined on January 1st of 2007.

What is great about being part of the EU Union is the arrangement that enables you to go through the immigration process in a much easier way.

The European parliament has set out its plans for a new ticketing system for travel agents, which could cut air fares by up to 10 percent. The plan targets the travel agents booking system that it sees as being outdated and is looking to modernise it.

The proposed change would make the booking system more efficient and could reduce the price of air travel by up to 10 percent over the coming year. The new system is expected to be implemented from November this year and could lead to price cuts as early as December.

This new plan will be a bonus for air travellers, who have seen the price of air fares raise significantly over the past few years, due to the price of fuel increasing. The new system will also give the customers greater choice when booking their tickets.

It may come as a surprise but the majority of foreign students studying in the US are comprised of Indian nationals. Statistics show that India takes the number one spot in terms of foreign students in the US. At the same time, India is actually the top country worldwide that sends out students to international grounds for studies.

In the year 2006, there were more than 123,000 Indian students who have studied outside of their home country. An estimate of 80,000 from that figure has all come to the United States to study in the top educational institutions recognized around the globe. During the 2000 to 2001 academic year, the number of Indian Students who have come to the US to study was estimated at 55,000. That is a 25,000 increase according to the US government.

In the year 2006, about 74 percent of the Indian students were studying Graduate courses while 16.6 percent of those were undergraduate students. The 9.6 percent were allotted to certain programs like English language training and other vocational or additional educational programs. Over $13 billion was raised and earned by the US economy from international students in the year 2006.

Previously, China was the leading source of international students to the US. In the year 2000, China topped the list of foreign students until Indian students came and exceeded this. This only goes to show that the population of India is also rapidly increasing in number. Statistics are looking at India’s working age population to increase and exceed that of China’s.

Canada Immigration authorities are glad to announce that citizens of the countries Poland, Slovakia, Lithuania, and Hungary do not need a visit or tourist visa to enter the country. Starting March 1, 2008, citizens from the said countries can freely go in and out of Canada. These countries have strong ties with Canada. By lifting the visa requirement for such countries, Canada contributes in building great relationships with the countries mentioned above.

Effective immediately, citizens of Poland, Slovakia, Lithuania and Hungary can enjoy a visa-free status into Canada. At the same time, Canada continues to review its visa requirements for the new member states joining the European Union. This was their reaction from the EU’s criticism about not providing visa-free travel to the nations included in the union. Back in 2006, Canada lifted visa requirements for citizens of Estonia. In 2007, the Latvia and Czech Republic citizens were provided a visa-free entry to Canada.

Canada is a committed EU nation and is dedicated to the European Union’s objective of providing visa-exempt status to the other EU members. Only the two latest newest countries that have joined the EU have not yet been provided with visa free travel to Canada.

Other citizens who may travel to Canada without a visa include citizens of Andorra, Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Barbados, Belgium, Botswana, Brunei, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, Monaco, Namibia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Papua New Guinea, Poland, Portugal, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, San Marino, Singapore, Slovakia, Solomon Islands, Spain, Swaziland, Sweden, Slovenia, Switzerland, United States, and Western Samoa.