Interesting Facts

Ports in the UK are on alert for the Asian tiger mosquito. (This species of mosquito can transmit up to 23 infections - including West Nile virus and dengue fever. It is not native to the UK, and is believed to have stowed away in used tyres being shipped from the Far East to the UK for retreading. It is slightly bigger than a native mosquito, and has distinctive black and white stripes.  With another report that there are 800,000 illegal immigrants currently living in the UK, I don't think the port authorities will have much luck stopping illegal mosquitoes.)

On my trip to the UK recently I was dismayed to read and hear all the negative press about the opening up of borders to new countries in the EU. It really made me ashamed to be British. Now the figures have started to come in and so far the millions of Eastern Europeans anticipated by the tabloid press and other people who should know better has turned out to be 24. (Yup 2 dozen, and they are probably wondering what they let themselves in for. On New Year's Day, politicians, including Keith Vaz, and journalists gathered at Luton airport desperately waiting for the arrival of millions of unemployed Romanians, only to be greeted by two new entrants, both of whom already had jobs. Of course people will travel to look for work.  That's how I ended up in Germany.) "Britain's an island; it's always had a constant ebb and flow of immigration - it makes it a better place." John Lydon

According to the German Federal Statistical Office in 2008 56,000 more people left Germany than arrived. (The number of immigrants was almost constant compared to 2007 at 682,000, but the number of emigrants rose by 100,000 to 738,000.)

In 2000 first generation immigrants to the USA earned 20 percent less than the typical non-immigrant worker. (In 1970, recent arrivals earned around 1.4 percent more than their non-immigrant counterparts, and 1940, new immigrants were earning almost 6 percent more than non-immigrant workers.) Source: PEW Economic Mobility Report