So far, only 34,000 refugees, which means Two percent have found jobs in Germany.

So far, only 34,000 refugees, which means Two percent have found jobs in Germany. (TheLocal).

In the last two years 1.2 million people have arrived in Germany seeking asylum. New government figures show that getting into work takes time.

A total of 34,000 refugees have found work in Germany over the past 12 months, the figures released on Monday by the government’s Institute for Labour Research (IAB) showed.

Almost quarter (22 percent) of those who have found work are on temporary contracts.

The numbers are for refugees out of the eight most important countries of origin, including Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Eritrea.

“If we manage to get 50 percent of them into work which pays for their lives in five years, that’d certainly be a success,” said Joachim Möller, director of the IAB.

But he cautioned that “it would be an illusion to believe that we will manage to find jobs for a decent proportion of refugees in well-paid industry jobs like car manufacturing.”

Möller added that temporary jobs were important to help refugees get a foot in the door.

“Many companies are sceptical, so temporary work can help them get a feel for someone.”

The refugee influx has also created between 50,000 and 60,000 jobs for Germans, with extra jobs in professions such as teacher and social worker likely to be needed for years to come, according to Möller.

Bulgarian Interior Ministry chief: profile of migrants crossing illegally into Bulgaria has changed to ‘Aggressive’ migrants.

Bulgarian Interior Ministry chief: profile of migrants crossing illegally into Bulgaria has changed to ‘Aggressive’ migrants. (SofiaGlobe).

The profile of migrants crossing illegally into Bulgaria has changed, to men who are “aggressive”, the country’s Interior Ministry chief secretary Georgi Kostov said on August 19.

Kostov was speaking in the town of Malko Turnovo, at the Turkish border, after holding a meeting with local officials in the town about migration situation and additional security measures in Bulgaria’s border regions.

The profile of migrants was shifting from people fleeing war to people who come from countries where there is no war, Kostov said.

He called on residents of the area not to attempt to intercept migrants.

Bulgaria made headlines abroad when self-styled “civil patrols” illegally detained migrants in what they described as “citizens’ arrests”. A particularly notorious case, in which migrants were bound with plastic pigtails, led Bulgarian authorities to issue a reminder that the concept of a “citizen’s arrest” does not exist in Bulgarian law.

Regarding aggressive behaviour, he cited an incident on August 18 in a State Agency for Refugees accommodation centre in the town of Karlovo, in which Afghans got involved in a knife fight. One of the Afghans remains in critical condition.

People who see migrants should alert the Border Police and should not attempt to take matters into their own hands, Kostov said.

He said that in the past day, there had been attempts by 130 people to cross the border from Turkey illegally. All had been intercepted.


Kostov said that already there were 85 staff from EU border agency Frontex to assist Border Police and the military at the Bulgarian-Turkish border.

He said that it would be unfair towards Bulgaria’s European partners not to further tighten the country’s border control. Bulgaria’s borders were traditionally perceived by its European partners as extremely secure and now was the time to reinforce this opinion, Kostov said.


Malko Turnovo mayor Ivan Yanchev said that no one in his municipality had been caught smuggling or people trafficking: “Malko Turnovo people are people with dignity,” Yanchev said.

Morocco - Important Islamic state cell dismantled, 52 terrorists were arrested.

Morocco - Important Islamic state cell dismantled, 52 terrorists were arrested. (Aawsat).

Morocco said on Wednesday that it had arrested 52 suspected militants inspired by ISIS and that it had foiled several attacks in the North African country by seizing arms and bomb-making materials.

It is the largest group arrested in years and the latest of a series of cells that the authorities say they have found plotting attacks inside and outside Morocco.

The North African kingdom, an ally of the West against militancy, has been on high alert since 2014, when ISIS took control of large swathes of northern Iraq and Syria.

The 52 arrested were among 143 people investigated in many Moroccan cities and towns, the interior ministry said in a statement.

Many members of the group were planning to create an ISIS province (Wilayat) in Morocco, the statement said.

They intended to assassinate Moroccan security and military officers and tourists, as well as targeting prisons and festivals and other institutions in the country.

Morocco’s Central Bureau of Judicial Investigation, the judicial part of the Moroccan domestic intelligence service, has tracked suspected militants since ISIS established itself as a global threat.

Morocco has dismantled 38 suspected militant cells with ISIS ties since 2013, the statement said, adding 159 cells had been found since 2002.

Hundreds of militants from Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria have joined jihadists in Syria. Some are threatening to return and create new militant wings in their home countries, security experts have said.

Nearby Libya has become a major draw for jihadists from North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. ISIS has taken advantage of the security chaos there to build a base, operate training camps and take over the city of Sirte.

There are between 2,000 and 5,000 ISIS fighters from Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Mali,Morocco and Mauritania deployed in Sirte, Tripoli and Derna, according to a report drafted by U.N. chief Bank Ki-moon.

Jean-Paul Laborde, U.N. assistant secretary general and head of its Counter-Terrorism Committee, has also said that nearly 30,000 “foreign terrorist fighters” are currently in Syria and Iraq.

“There are nearly 30,000, and now that the territory held by ISIS is shrinking in Iraq, we are seeing them return, not only to Europe but to all of their countries of origin, like Tunisia, Morocco,” Laborde said recently.

Also Wednesday, Italian police said they have arrested two Moroccan residents on suspicion of distributing pro-ISIS propaganda.Police said the two men living in the Liguria region bordering France have previous arrests for dealing drugs and other offenses. A third Moroccan is under investigation.

The investigation was launched when a young woman reported receiving a photo on WhatsApp showing a woman posing with a machine gun in position to fire. The photo originated from a number in Morocco that was not in the phone’s address book.

The woman told police she had lent the phone to a Moroccan resident of a refugee home several months earlier. From there, investigators traced a network of “possible activism of the three suspects involving proselytizing for the self-proclaimed Islamic State.” More here.