The Londoner

In the eleven years since the American invasion of Afghanistan, Abdul Nasir has become a modern and prosperous professional. A worldly man in his late thirties, he smokes Marlboros, drives a Toyota, and follows Spanish soccer, rooting for Barcelona. He works in Kabul as a producer for Khurshid TV, one of the many private channels that have sprung up since 2004. He makes news and entertainment shows and sometimes recruiting commercials for the Afghan National Army, one of the country’s biggest advertisers. On weekends, he leaves the dust of the city and tends an apple orchard that he bought in his family’s village. We met for tea recently in a restaurant called Afghan International Pizza Express. Nasir wore jeans and a black T-shirt and blazer. His beard is closely trimmed, in the contemporary style. Nasir recalled that when Afghanistan’s civil war broke out, in April, 1992, he was an agricultural student at Kabul University. He was from the sort of secular family t...

Barack Obama is ultra popular in Canada, easily one of the most popular presidents in history. A recent Angus Reid poll found that 65 per cent of Canadian voters would vote for him, only 9 per cent for Republican Mitt Romney. Sixty per cent of Canadians think the Obama administration has been good for this country, only 13 per cent bad. These are staggering numbers. By contrast, Obama predecessor president George W. Bush was reviled north of the border. In opinion surveys, he consistently ranked as low as a sea urchin. So when an analysis gets published by two Canadian heavyweights titled How Obama Lost Canada, people can be forgiven for thinking how the nameplates got mixed up. The analysis, injecting a sour bilateral note at the time of the countries’ birthday celebrations, was written by Derek Burney, a former ambassador to the United States, and Carleton University academic Fen Hampson in the American periodical Foreign Affairs. It has been roundly criticized by bi...

Fourteen arrests were made following an operation to crack down on illegal working in the heart of London's Chinatown on Wednesday 27 June. Acting on intelligence, officers targeted New World Restaurant, Gerrard Place at around 16:30. Immigration checks were carried out on individuals to see if they were entitled to live and work in the UK. Fourteen Chinese nationals including 6 men, aged between 20 and 44, and 8 women, aged between 23 and 44, were arrested. They were all detained for a variety of immigration offences, including overstaying their visas and leave to entering the UK without leave to do so. Three of the men and 1 woman remain in immigration detention awaiting removal from the country whilst the others have been released on immigration bail. Steve Fisher, from the UK Border Agency, said: 'We carry out hundreds of operations like this every year across London, and where we find people who are in the UK illegally we will seek to remove them. ...

If you would like to assess your own chances of gaining a permanent residency visa for Australi a, based on the General Skilled Migration points system for offshore visas, then please complete the form below and your points score will be calculated for you! Afterwards, if you have further questions that you wish to ask an Australian immigration consultant regarding the points test, please fill out our enquiry form or set up a face-to-face consultation by calling +44 (0)344 991 9222. For further information on the points system and the basic requirements for migrating to Australia , please see the section on Australia on our website. Please note that the current pass mark as of July 1st, 2011 is 65 points. To check your score, click here. HOME

Britain could restrict the immigration of Greeks and other citizens of euro zone countries affected by Europe's sovereign debt crisis in the event of "extraordinary stresses and strains", Prime Minister David Cameron said on Tuesday. "The legal position is that if there are extraordinary stresses and strains it is possible to take action to restrict migratory flows, but obviously we hope that doesn't happen," he told a parliamentary committee. "I would be prepared to do whatever it takes to keep our country safe, to keep our banking system strong, to keep our economy robust," he added. European Union rules allow the free flow of people to live and work around the group's 27 member states, but fears have mounted in Britain of a wave of migrants from struggling states such as Greece and Spain if their economies continue to worsen. Read the full story here. 

Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond has resigned a week after the bank was fined a record amount for trying to manipulate inter-bank lending rates. BBC business editor Robert Peston said he was encouraged to go by the heads of the Bank of England and the FSA. Mr Diamond said he was stepping down because the external pressure on the bank risked "damaging the franchise". Chief operating officer Jerry del Missier has also resigned, the third top executive in two days to do so. Barclays chairman Marcus Agius, who had announced his own resignation on Monday, will now take over the running of Barclays until a new chief executive is appointed. 'Cynical greed' BBC business editor Robert Peston said the heads of the City's two main regulators had been unable to force Mr Diamond out "because the recent FSA investigation into how Barclays attempted to rig the important Libor interest rates did not find him personally culpable". "How...