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Musings From Abroad

Britain to spend $215,035 per head in migrant deal with Rwanda

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Britain has announced that its plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda will cost 169,000 pounds ($215,035) per person.

The cost of deporting each person to Rwanda would include an average payment to Rwanda of 105,000 pounds for holding each asylum seeker, 22,000 pounds for travel and accompanying, and 18,000 pounds for processing and legal charges.

According to Home Secretary (interior minister), Suella Braverman, if nothing is done, the annual expense of hosting asylum seekers will increase from its current level of roughly 3.6 billion pounds to 11 billion pounds.

Suella Braverman said these costs must be considered alongside the impact of deterring others from trying to reach Britain and the rising cost of housing asylum seekers.

“The economic impact assessment clearly shows that doing nothing is not an option,” she said.

In an effort to discourage asylum seekers from trying to cross the English Channel from France in small boats, the British government disclosed plans to deport thousands of refugees to the East African nation last year. The programme is part of a £148 million contract.

The UK government has admitted that while the savings through the migration deal might be “highly uncertain”, the deal is capable of deterring almost two in five people from arriving on small boats.

Nonetheless, the migrant agreement has drawn criticism from Britons. The Scottish National Party charged that the government was deporting desperate people for an “astronomical” sum of money while doing nothing to assist British citizens struggling to pay rising rent and food prices.

The British Labour Party said the economic assessment was a “complete joke” and failed to accurately say what the overall cost of the plan would be.

The High Court in London decided the programme was legal in December, but some human rights organizations and asylum seekers from countries like Syria, Sudan, Iraq, Iran, and Vietnam are challenging that ruling. A fresh court decision about the deal’s legality is anticipated on Thursday.

A record 45,000 people crossed the English Channel in small boats last year, mostly from France. More than 11,000 people have come this year so far.

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Musings From Abroad

Prince Harry, Meghan treated to street-style dances in Nigeria as their trip winds down

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On Sunday, Prince Harry and his wife Meghan were treated to street-style dances in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, where they announced a partnership between their Archewell Foundation and the non-profit Giants of Africa, which utilizes sports to empower young people.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are making their first visit to Nigeria, where they were welcomed by the country’s chief of defence staff. The couple watched basketball practice at Ilupeju Senior Grammar School on Lagos Mainland, where Harry participated in ball-bouncing drills and shot a hoop.

“What you guys are doing here at Giants of Africa is truly amazing,” he said. “The power of sport can change lives. It brings people together and creates community and there are no barriers, which is the most important thing.”

The couple watched basketball practice at Ilupeju Senior Grammar School on Lagos Mainland, and Harry stepped on the court for some ball-bouncing drills and to shoot a hoop.

Former Toronto Raptors star Masai Ujiri, president of Giants of Africa, wished Meghan a happy Mother’s Day and said his organization was uniting communities and uplifting young people through sport, especially. Archewell Foundation and Giants of Africa will construct a basketball court in Nigeria’s capital Abuja.

“Talk about full circle again – never did I think we would be able to be here all those years later supporting the expansion of this incredible organization,” she said.
Harry and Meghan were set to round off their Lagos trip by attending a reception for a local charity. The couple live in the United States with their two children after Harry gave up working as a member of the royal family in 2020.

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Musings From Abroad

Binance accuses Nigeria of setting dangerous precedent with detention of its executives

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After its executives were invited to Nigeria and subsequently arrested as part of a crackdown on cryptocurrencies, the CEO of cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, warned that the African nation was creating a dangerous precedent.

The largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, Binance, and two of its executives are being tried separately for tax evasion and money laundering, charges that the business is contesting.

CEO Richard Teng declared in a statement that it was time to voice opposition to the imprisonment of a US citizen and head of financial crime compliance at Binance, Tigran Gambaryan.

Former executive, Nadeem Anjarwalla, a British Kenyan who works as a regional manager for Africa, escaped detention in Nigeria last month. While in Nigeria, Anjarwalla and Gambaryan were arrested by the country’s anti-corruption body, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), after arriving on February 26, after which the country banned several websites that traded cryptocurrencies.

In a follow-up meeting on February 26, he stated that the authorities had declared the Binance concerns to be matters of national security and that they wanted the exchange to remove the naira from its site and disclose “granular-level” information on every Nigerian user. After that, Gambaryan and Anjarwalla were taken into custody.

“To invite a company’s mid-level employees for collaborative policy meetings, only to detain them, has set a dangerous new precedent for all companies worldwide,” Teng said, in his strongest comments yet since the case started in February.

“For spurious reasons,” Teng said that Gambaryan had been detained in Nigeria for almost two months. Early in March, Binance declared that it will no longer be accepting any new naira transactions.

“Our hope when we took this drastic step was that our colleagues would be released and Binance could continue to work with the Nigerian government to resolve any further concerns. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen,” said Ten.

He stated that Gambaryan ought to be permitted to return home while Binance and the Nigerian government work out any kinks. “We will continue engagement with Nigeria’s Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) on resolving potential historic tax liabilities,” he said.

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