BritCits

Sunday links

S and J's story.

http://familyimmigrationalliance.wordpress.com/2013/02/10/s-js-story/

Like a lot of people my husband and I have been affected by the new financial rules for spouse visas. I met my husband in Australia (I was working, he was studying) in 2008 – I am British he is Brazilian. In 2009 we got married and moved to the UK – I wanted to be closer to my family. He was granted his indefinite leave to remain visa and from 2009 until 2011 we lived in the UK. My husband had been apart from his family for over 4 years and was missing them terribly so we decided to move to Brazil and therefore did not proceed with the second part of his residency visa because (a) we were not intending to return and (b) we thought if we did we’d be able to apply for the same visa as they had granted it once and we were now even further into our committed relationship so we never dreamed it would be refused...

Via http://familyimmigrationalliance.wordpress.com

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http://twitter.com/freemvntblog tweets :
Messing with people's lives: Border agency backlog keeps Britons and their foreign spouses in limbo via @guardian gu.com/p/3dkt5

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We are preparing for the realilty that we may not get to be able to be together in my own country, the UK. So we are wondering, we have been told we can live together in any EU Country ie France, Belgium etc as a married couple, me as the EU Citizen and her as a None EU Citizens without any restrictions and after a certain time move to the UK together without any restrictions. However, does that include Ireland as my FIance is from Albania and Ireland like the UK is not part of the Schengen Free Travel Zone...

http://www.immigrationboards.com/viewtopic.php?t=102312&sid=91dd8a48dfe54a23e91e4d455be537a6

Via Facebook.

Family unity - the European way :
http://www.jcwi.org.uk/blog/2013/02/07/family-unity-european-way

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https://twitter.com/MigrantVoiceUK tweets :
Top 5 migrant stories of the week 10/2/13 http://londonmigranthub.wordpress.com/2013/02/10/top-5-migrant-stories-of-the-week-10213/ via https://twitter.com/LondonMigrants

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https://twitter.com/bengidley tweets :
hIs there apartheid in today's Europe? Paul Polansky, says there is, for Roma: http://roma.idebate.org/news-articles/apartheid-roma-europe

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https://twitter.com/richmondbridge tweets :
'Children of different ethnic backgrounds building a snowman', and other images considered for Canadian banknotes : http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/02/10/gays-blacks-nixed-as-images-on-canadas-new-plastic-bank-notes-report/

From last year : 'Bank of Canada bans image of Asian-looking woman from new $100 bills over ethnicity criticism' http://www.metafilter.com/119052/Bank-of-Canada-bans-image-of-Asianlooking-woman-from-new-100-bills-over-ethnicity-criticism
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https://twitter.com/OzodaM tweets :
Headline in Sunday Express this morning - "Drugged Immigrant Horses vote to enter our food chain"

(Note: satire).
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International Agency for Source Country Information says preventing Romanians and Bulgarians from working forces them into black market and leads them to stay longer.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/feb/10/immigration-restrictions-encourage-longer-stay

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Chinese authorities have ordered retailers to stop selling fireworks named “Tokyo Big Bang” because they could damage relations with Japan

http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/china-orders-vendors-to-stop-selling-tokyo-big-bang-fireworks

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Church vs. nukes: The dilemma of a secret Russian town.

http://rbth.ru/travel/2013/02/10/church_vs_nukes_the_dilemma_of_a_decret_russian_town_22653.html

Andrei Zolotov reports from the city of Sarov, one of the most secretive places in the former Soviet Union – the birthplace of its atomic bomb and still a center of the Russian nuclear industry.

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Russia's Internet censorship 'experiment'.

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2013/02/03/russian-internet-censorship-imitates-satire/

A Russian federal region is about to embark on an “experimental” project aimed at censoring the internet. A joint effort by the Kostroma regional government and an NGO called the League of Safe Internet, it is similar in spirit to Russia's new internet blacklist [GV] and other censorship measures championed by the League in the name of protecting children. (The governor of Kostroma region, Sergey Sitnikov, also happens to be the former head of Roskomnadzor, which runs the blacklist.)

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'Hands up! This is a robbery!' : Protests continue in Spain.

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2013/02/05/hands-up-this-is-a-robbery-protests-continue-in-spain/

This past weekend Madrileños took to the streets in droves to show their fury with Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy over new corruption allegations. On Thursay, the national newspaper El País published [es] images of ledgers in which Rajoy and other top Partido Popular members appear as receiving illegal payments (#lospapelesdebarcenas [es]). Protests concentrated outside the Party's headquarters lasted all weekend.

Europe in crisis : http://globalvoicesonline.org/specialcoverage/europe-in-crisis/

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Iran: Will thieving officials also have their hands cut off?

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2013/02/05/iran-will-thieving-officials-also-have-their-hands-chopped-off/

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad once again proved his talent for making surprising headlines when he played a video for the parliament on February 3, 2013 implicating his political rivals, some of the country's leading officials, in a corruption scandal.

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Secular politician shot dead, protests erupt across Tunisia.

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2013/02/07/secular-politician-shot-dead-protests-erupt-across-tunisia/

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Greetings to the Universe in 55 different languages.

http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/languages/languages.html

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Chinese 'pingpong diplomacy' player dies.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/02/10/171628480/chinese-pingpong-diplomacy-player-dies

The Chinese table tennis player who was instrumental in the pingpong diplomacy that paved the way for President Nixon's groundbreaking visit to China has died. Zhuang Zedong was 73.
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A Point of View: Grand Central, the world's loveliest station.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21353825

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