Category: Business

“In Senegal, it’s all over the streets — everyone’s talking about Nicaragua, Nicaragua, Nicaragua,” said Ba, who paid about 6 million CFA francs ($10,000) to get to Nicaragua in July with stops in Morocco, Spain and El Salvador. “It’s not something hidden.”

Ba, 40, was deported from the U.S. with 131 compatriots in September after two months in detention, but thousands of other Senegalese have gained a foothold in America. Many turn to savvy travel agents who know the route — touted on social media by those who’ve successfully settled in the U.S.

They are part of a surge in migration to the United States that is extraordinary for its size and scope, with more people from far-flung countries accounting for crossings at the border. And as with this route used by the Senegalese, more are figuring out plans, making payments, and seeking help via social networks, and apps like WhatsApp and TikTok.

Arrests for illegal crossings on the U.S. border with Mexico reached record highs in December. January saw a drop for the month, but arrests have topped 6.4 million since January 2021. And Mexicans account for only about 1 of 4 arrests, with the others coming from more than 100 countries.

U.S. authorities arrested Senegalese migrants 20,231 times for crossing the border illegally from July to December. That’s a 10-fold increase from 2,049 arrests during the same period of 2022, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Many cross in remote deserts of western Arizona, like Ba, and California.

Word of the Nicaragua route began spreading early last year in Dakar and took hold in May, said Abdoulaye Doucouré, who owns a travel agency that sold about 1,200 tickets from Dakar to Nicaragua in the last three months of 2023, for the equivalent of several thousand dollars each.

“People didn’t know about this route, but with social networks and the first migrants who took this route, the information quickly circulated among migrants,” he said.

Some are motivated by Senegal’s political turmoil — authorities delayed February’s presidential elections by 10 months — but the sudden draw seemed to hinge largely on social media posts and the spread of the route there.

Spikes attributed to social media have occurred in other West African nations, whose people have historically turned first to Europe to flee. Mauritanians have arrived at the U.S. border with Mexico in similarly large numbers, and migrants from Ghana and Gambia have come, too.

Many are eventually released in the U.S. to pursue asylum in immigrant courts that are backlogged for years with more than 3 million cases.

Passports from many African countries carry little weight in the Western Hemisphere, making the journey by land to the United States difficult to even begin. Senegalese can fly visa-free to only two countries in the Americas: Nicaragua and Bolivia, according to The Henley Passport Index. Nicaragua is much closer than Bolivia and avoids the notoriously dangerous Darien Gap in Panama.

As U.S. sanctions against Nicaragua’s repressive government have increased, the government of President Daniel Ortega has used migration to push back.

The Nicaraguan government went so far as to hire a Dubai-based firm to train Nicaraguan civil aviation to manage national immigration procedures for charter flight passengers. More than 500 charter flights landed from June to November, mostly from Haiti and Cuba, according to Manuel Orozco, director of the migration, remittances and development program at the Inter-American Dialogue.

But migrants from farther afield, like Ba, also made their way to Nicaragua on a series of connecting commercial flights from Africa. In African capitals, migrants typically buy multileg tickets from travel agents connecting through Istanbul or Madrid, followed by stops in Bogota, Colombia, or San Salvador, El Salvador, before ultimately arriving in Managua, Nicaragua. From there, they meet smugglers offering to take them to the Honduran border, or arrange the trip all the way to the U.S.

The U.S. State Department has called on Nicaragua to “play a responsible role” in managing hemispheric migration, but that has yet to be seen. Nicaraguan first lady and Vice President Rosario Murillo did not respond to a request for comment on the surge in extra-continental migration through her country.

In October, El Salvador began charging $1,130 for citizens of 57 largely African countries and India transiting the country’s airport. Authorities said most of those charged were on their way to Nicaragua aboard Avianca, a Colombian commercial carrier.

El Salvador’s fee caused airfares from Dakar to rise toward the end of 2023, said Serigne Faye, an agent at the Touba Express travel agency in Senegal’s capital. Some passengers instead fly through Bogota. Stopovers in Turkey are the most expensive.

While most asylum claims fail, the immigration court backlog means that people can remain in the U.S. for years, with eligibility for work permits. The asylum grant rate for Senegalese was 26% in the U.S. government’s budget year ended Sept. 30, compared with 14% for all nationalities, according to Justice Department figures.

Ousmane Anne, 34, left Senegal on Sept. 25 with a plane ticket to Nicaragua, purchased from a travel agency. His journey took a month — longer and costlier than anticipated. Mexico was treacherous, he said, describing his traveling group as frequently harassed, threatened and robbed by gangs.

Despite the enthusiasm back home, he said, he’d be hard-pressed to recommend the trip to anyone who doesn’t understand the risks. But he made it to New York, which has the largest Senegalese population of any U.S. metropolitan area, according to census data.

“I knew it would not be very easy to come here to the States, but the hope that I had was higher than all the obstacles and problems,” Anne said. “I knew the opportunities would be greater here.”

He recently attended a forum in Harlem, hosted by the Senegalese Association of America. He learned basics of U.S. law, heard some do’s and don’ts from police officers about the e-bikes and mopeds that are popular with migrants, and got tips on navigating the health care system.

Even if he came away with more questions than answers, Anne said, he remains hopeful.

Associated Press writers Philip Marcelo in New York, Elliot Spagat in San Diego, and Christopher Sherman and Maria Verza in Mexico City contributed.

For several decades received wisdom has told us that property investment is the best way to watch your wealth grow.

There’s something powerful about investing in a tangible asset you can touch, see and control. Contrast this with purchasing shares in a conglomerate that is intangible, but can – entrusted to a financial expert – earn an exciting return for you.

If you decided to fund a property portfolio 25 or so years ago, you’re probably mortgage-free by now. In addition, Schroders has calculated your investment might have more than “quadrupled”.

The quotation marks matter. Property investors often fail to consider the ‘cost of liquidity’. This wouldn’t be a problem if your bricks and mortar were legal tender; you could buy your weekly shopping with a brick.

Sadly, you can’t. Rather you must sell your property, and the gain could be subject to Capital Gains Tax (CGT) up to a whopping 28%. You’ll also need to pay brokerage and legal fees before you receive the cash in your bank account ready to be spent.

Property investment now comes with a warning

Property investors do so not just for growth but also consistent monthly rental income with the expectation it will continue into retirement. Due to the low cost of borrowing for the past 20 years, which has given strong net yields, it has been a reasonable expectation – until now.
Many people are becoming saddled with bigger mortgages – and unhappy tenants – alongside the current dip in property prices. Analysis by The Telegraph stated an average landlord paying the higher rate of tax face losses when the bank rate reached 2.75%. In an uncertain economy the dream of property ownership can fast become a nightmare.

Alongside the low-interest rate era coming to a crashing end, we are in an environment of high inflation and low wage growth, with the cost-of-living crisis resulting in a 98% increase in rental evictions according to Property Reporter.

Meanwhile, the buy-to-let industry continues to plagued by government intervention – most recently the policy paper A fairer private rented sector. Ministers are often perceived as being ‘anti-landlord’; whether restricting the amount of mortgage interest deductible as a business expense; the 3% stamp duty surcharge; meeting new energy-efficiency standards; or other areas of governance and compliance.

In a nutshell, landlords must professionalise and see their property investments more as a business than an investment. Which begs the question, have they got time to manage a business alongside their day job? Probably not.

It’s fair to say those once-popular property investment weekend diplomas may be suffering from a dearth of delegates today.

Spread risk to cement financial growth without property

Highly successful families who have built generational wealth do not merely invest in physical property. It’s among the worst asset classes you can pick, if it’s the only thing you invest in.

There are better solutions – and they require sensible investment. That means keeping pace with inflation at the very least, and maximising your returns relative to your risk appetite, while also ensuring tax efficiency.

It’s fundamentally important to diversify your wealth across asset classes, sectors, geography, and even company size. Globalised investment funds spread risk in such a way that your wealth wouldn’t be totally undermined by economic shockwaves, as it might be with a single asset class approach – which could happen in a property price crash.

It’s just as important to make use of the plethora of tax wrappers to hold your investments: see my earlier comment about the ‘cost of liquidity’. 

Consider this: you invested £500,000 into mainstream securities – stocks, bonds, commodities – then markets dropped 35% in a single year; your investment is now worth £325,000. Should you panic and decide to cash in, attracted by high 5% interest rates, you would have materialised the 35% paper loss. It’s only a loss if you sell.

Some time later, the markets recover. The number of shares you originally owned are now worth £500,000, but you only have £325,000 plus some interest to buy back in.

The key lesson to long-term investment is, “Don’t panic”; acknowledging that’s easier said than done, especially if you’re reaching a point when you need to extract capital.

Wealth management changes to suit the modern world

The longer you invest the greater the chance you have to ride economic volatility and maximise your investment. Ongoing private client advice matters greatly as it can prevent rash decisions, such as selling your investments during a downturn.

The traditional model of financial advice, revolving solely around financial instruments and overlook legal issues, is changing. The market is also being successfully automated: we’re working on assisting in this space with the My Finances app.

Yet with greater levels of wealth comes more financial complexity, so private client advice continues to matter. It will be some time before AI and other technology obsoletes it.

Sound financial and legal planning is key, focused not on returns but instead optimising the preservation of wealth, while maximising opportunities for tax-efficient liquidity.

In an environment increasingly devoid of face-to-face human interaction, many wealthy people and their potential beneficiaries still need help with their financial affairs, and empathetic, technically robust, tailored solutions matter more than ever.

To paraphrase a popular school song it’s always wise to build your personal fortune on rock, but using that firm foundation to then spread your risk is how you’ll reap the greatest rewards.

“Globes” report on Monday about the damage caused to submarine communications cables in the Red Sea by the Iranian-backed Houthi terrorists has caused a stormy and mixed response worldwide. This was the first time ever that deliberate damage by a terrorist organization has been reported against international communications cables, which are responsible for major internet traffic between continents, in this case between Europe, Africa and Asia.

The damage was to four submarine communications cables – AAE-1, Seacom, EIG and TGN – out of the 17 that pass beneath the narrow waters separating Saudi Arabia and Djibouti in East Africa. The damage highlights the ability of a terrorist organization to disrupt international communications, after having already disrupted international merchant shipping.

The Houthis have not taken official responsibility for the damage to the cables and the Yemeni government has even issued a denial but the main damage has been sustained by the west and its allies – to telecom companies in the UAE and India, as well as Egypt. About 60% of the world’s Internet traffic passes through underwater cables laid in Egypt, from the Mediterranean along the bed of the Suez Canal, and onto the Red Sea near the town of Ras Zafarana.

Seacom, one of the submarine cable companies hit,, even issued a statement confirming that its cable was damaged, adding that this had also happened to “additional cables.” The revelations about the damage by “Globes” was also covered by prominent media outlets including “Bloomberg” and “The New York Post. However, the companies involved, as well as the US government, tried to ignore the story as much as possible and lower the tensions, so as not to endanger the ships due to arrive in the area to repair the submarine cables.

Insurance payments could reach $150,000 per day

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has already taken advantage of the exceptional event to score points. A top advisor at the Saudi Ministry of Communications, Rian Al-Sa’adi wrote on social media, “Continued deployment of the submarine cables in the existing situation leads to points of communication failure all over the world. We must act to establish a more durable network through the creation of additional digital centers of gravity.”

Al-Sa’adi is essentially saying that Saudi Arabia wants to establish a land bridge of communications cables that would bypass the Red Sea and would also link up the UAE, Bahrain and Qatar before continuing to India and East Asia.

US consultancy firm OpenCables CEO Sunil Tagare is one of the founders of the international submarine communications cable FLAG, which was laid at a cost of $1.6 billion between Europe and Japan over 17,000 kilometers via the Middle East and Asia. He tells “Globes” that he hopes the Yemeni government will allow the vessels to reach the region to assist in repairing the damage.

For insurance companies, Yemeni denials are of no interest. They have signed agreements with communication cable companies, and the daily insurance costs of a repair ship could reach $150,000. Repairs that may take an average of eight weeks could be very costly for insurance companies.

Tagare says, “As of today, all data traffic between Asia and Europe passes through Egypt, which makes the Suez Canal a real failure point. If all the cables were cut, it will lead to a serious economic and communications disaster. That is why it is important to create an alternative that will pass through Saudi Arabia to Oman and the UAE – not only to create an alternative route for transmitting data in the event of a crisis, but to cut the prices charged by Egypt for this traffic.”

Egypt does not publish figures, but estimates are that a telecom provider that lays a cable through the Suez Canal must pay $200-250 million over the life of the cable, which ranges from 15-20 years.

Only three cables link up Israel

Israel is currently connected to the world by just three submarine Internet cables, which are close to their peak capacity. There is Telecom Italia’s MedNautilus, which carries 50% of data transmission, while cables laid by Tamares Telecom and Bezeq International carry 30% and 20% of data transmission respectively.

Telecom and media consultancy company TASC managing partner Ilan Schory tells “Globes,” “Israel is not exposed to cables that continue to the Red Sea but is connected via the Mediterranean to end stations in Cyprus, Greece and Italy. But this is not sufficient. Transmissions have grown by 30% annually and are close to maximum capacity.

In terms of the security threat, cutting a communications cable leading to Israel would be no easy matter as it would involve an operation at great sea depth but on the coast communication cables can be easily damaged, since the only protection is against sharks.

Bezeq International has protected its communication cable by installing security cameras at its docking stations abroad. In Israel, the main communication cables are anchored at secure sites in Haifa, Tel Aviv and near Netanya.

Israeli telecoms Cellcom, Partner, Bezeq and Hot are connected to Jordan at the Sheikh Hussein, Allenby and Aqaba border crossings, but these cables work mainly to connect Jordanian telecommunications companies such as Orange Jordan as well as Paltel to the global Internet network, so the connection does not provide significant Israeli traffic from Jordan to Asia.

Tagare explains that Israel is at a global disadvantage due to dependence on a limited number of means of communication. “It is very important to build new routes that will carry communications overland through Saudi Arabia,” he says. “One such line could connect Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia and from there to Oman and UAE, and until that happens, Israel will suffer a significant disadvantage.”

The dangerous point at the Bab al-Mandab Strait

Google and Telecom Italia’s Blue Raman submarine Internet cable, which was due to begin operations this year, could help provide capacity for Israel, but its launch has been postponed until 2025, due to protracted procedures in Saudi Arabia, not related to Israel.

This cable will pass along the seabed at the Bab al-Mandab Strait, which has been a security flashpoint in attacks by the Houthis and won’t help Israel in coping with the security threat.

At least two new submarine communications cables are due to be laid and will help Israel diversify its dependence on the existing underwater cables. These cables are supposed to link the communications corridor between Ashkelon and Eilat of the Eilat Ashkelon Pipeline Co., which received a permit from the Israeli government last June.

However, eight months after the ceremonial announcement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Communications Shlomo Karhi, the project has not yet been built, following a problematic plan approved by the Ministry of Finance and the Government Companies Authority, which fears that if the terms of the outline plan are not changed, the project will have difficulty being implemented.

The advantage of the Eilat Ashkelon corridor is that it passes through desert far from roads and populated areas, and organizations in the Persian Gulf and Saudi Arabia have previously expressed interest and a desire to cooperate on this route.

Another planned cable is the Andromeda cable of Tamares Telecom and Grid Telecom, which is expected to be launched at the end of this year and pass between Cyprus and Greece, and reach Israel at Tirat Hacarmel and continue overland to Eilat, and from there to Aqaba in Jordan and the city of Haql in northwestern Saudi Arabia.

“Globes” has learned that in addition to these two cables at least four more submarine cables are to be laid to Israel, and from here to Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf. But as long as the war rages, and the peace agreement with Saudi Arabia continues to be delayed, the projects are still only a dream.

Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on February 29, 2024.

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2024.

In Sao Teotonio, a small country town in southwest Portugal, there are more Indian and Nepalese restaurants than Portuguese ones.

Which makes sense when you discover South Asian workers keep the fruit farms that are the mainstay of the region going.

Nepalese immigrant Mesch Khatri, 36, picks raspberries and strawberries in the greenhouses around Sao Teotonio while his wife Ritu, 28, runs their cafe, called the Nepali, in the town.

Their seven-year-old son speaks Portuguese, a little English, but no Nepali at all.

Khatri moved to Portugal in December 2012 after working in Belgium. “I came here because it was hard to get a resident’s permit in Belgium. It’s easier to get papers here.”

Five years after arriving in Portugal he had residency, and two years after that a Portuguese passport.

While migrants in most other European countries face a deliberately dissuasive obstacle course to get papers, resulting in many working illegally, in Portugal it is the other way around.

Immigrants are quickly absorbed into the legal economy, paying taxes and social charges straight away.

While the agricultural Alentejo region has been losing its people for decades, the population of the municipality that includes Sao Teotonio has gone up 13 percent in the last decade.

Migrant farm workers have brought life back to an area badly hit by the flight from the land.

With one of Europe’s most open immigration regimes, Portugal has seen its foreign-born population double in five years, partially due to South Asians who have come to work in farming, fishing and restaurants.

The influx has been encouraged by the socialist government, which has been in power since the end of 2015, but all this could change if the country shifts to the right after the March 10 general election.

Fewer than half a million in 2018, last year a million foreigners were living in Portugal — one in 10 of the population, according to provisional figures given to AFP by AIMA, the state agency for integration, migration and asylum.

Brazilians, with their long historical links to the country, remain the biggest contingent — some 400,000-strong — followed by the British and other Europeans.

But the 58,000 Indians and 40,000 Nepalis are already more numerous than people from Portugal’s former African colonies like Angola and Cape Verde.

Bangladeshis and Pakistanis now also figure in the top 10 of new arrivals.

“The main reason Portugal has seen the number of immigrants rise is because it needs them,” said Luis Goes Pinheiro, the head of AIMA, saying the country has Europe’s most ageing population after Italy.

Far from the “sea of plastic” of greenhouses around Sao Teotonio, Luis Carlos Vila also depends on foreign workers to pick his apples in an isolated corner of the northeast.

“I have no other choice,” he told AFP. “We have an elderly population and there are no more agricultural labourers.”

Six Indians were hard at work in his orchards in Carrazeda de Ansiaes. “I love Portugal,” said Happy Singh, a Punjabi Sikh in halting English. “The money is good, the work is good and the future is good. In India there is no future.”

Vila hires his foreign workers completely legally through employment agencies and sees in them a little of his own family history. “My father also had to emigrate (to France) to earn a living,” he said.

Even among the most traditional of Portuguese fishing communities like Caxinas near Porto — the living embodiment of the country’s strong maritime heritage — half of the crews are made up of Indonesians.

At the helm of his 20-metre trawler the Fugitive, Jose Luis Gomes — a skipper like his father and grandfather — is resigned to the fact that his compatriots no longer want to do this tough job when there are better salaries elsewhere.

Javanese fisher Saeful Ardani was working his fourth 18-month contract for Gomes.

Hired through a boat owners’ group, the 28-year-old told AFP that the “Indonesian fishermen who work here have no problems. And our families back home are reassured because we are not illegal.”

A country of emigrants throughout the 20th century, Portugal has become a destination for immigrants since the turn of the 21st.

“Whatever indicator you take, it is one of the most generous” countries in Europe when it comes to immigration, said Jorge Malheiros, a migration specialist at Lisbon University.

Since 2007, Portugal has been granting papers to all those who declare their earnings.

In 2018 the socialist government extended this to those who had entered the country illegally.

A new amendment in 2022 allowed foreigners looking for work a temporary six-month visa.

“Portugal’s laws are not perfect but they are better than a lot of countries with regressive policies,” said Timoteo Macedo, of the Immigrant Solidarity group.

While these laws have prevented the people smuggling tragedies that have happened elsewhere, and migrants living under constant fear of expulsion, it hasn’t stopped “people making money on the back of human misery”, Macedo added.

The authorities have dismantled trafficking networks in the Alentejo region, where farm workers were forced to live in unacceptable conditions.

Leaning on the counter of his cafe in Sao Teotonio, Mesch Khatri acknowledged that the influx of foreigners had brought new challenges.

“Before it was easier to earn your living, now there is more racism. The Portuguese don’t like it when there are 10 or 15 people living in a house and if they don’t speak Portuguese,” added his wife Ritu.

Julia Duarte volunteers in a charity shop right next to a centre where around 20 children are helped with their homework, only one of whom has a Portuguese name.

Originally from Alentejo, the 78-year-old worked in Lisbon before retiring back to Sao Teotonio. “I thought I would be able to enjoy my retirement in peace — then there was just an avalanche” of migrant workers, she said.

“Lots of people and lots of hustle, everyone looking for a job, for a place to stay…

“Then I realised that these were gentle people.”

Such is the demand that the anti-poverty NGO Taipa has changed its focus to help to integrate migrants.

“Ten or 15 years ago we were not ready for this,” admitted its head Teresa Barradas. “It is quite a big thing for a community that was more closed in on itself and not used to such big cultural differences.”

But the biggest problem for immigrants is the lack of homes, “particularly for families”, she added.

Portuguese law allows for family reunification, and “that plays a big role in tackling prejudice because you see that your neighbours are a family who have children at school with your own,” Barradas said.

Pinheiro, the head of the state integration agency, agrees. “Family reunification is extraordinarily important to guarantee the full integration and rooting of migrants, particularly in rural areas.”

Created late last year after the border police agency was wound up, AIMA inherited 350,000 outstanding regularisation applications.

In the capital Lisbon, there are noticeably more South Asian bicycle delivery riders than before.

During Friday prayers hundreds of Muslims queue to get into one of the two mosques in the narrow streets of Mouraria, the medieval Moorish quarter.

Its central street, the Rua do Benformoso, now has so many Bengali shops and restaurants that it is nicknamed “Bangladesh Street”, said Yasir Anwar, a 43-year-old Pakistani.

He arrived in 2010 without a visa after brief stays in Denmark and Norway. He lived under threat of expulsion until he managed to get his papers thanks to the change in the law in 2018.

After criss-crossing the city selling flowers in bars and restaurants, Anwar got a job with a restaurateur who taught him both the language and how to cook Portuguese food.

He is now waiting for Portuguese nationality — which he should normally get after five years of legal residency — and hopes one day to bring his wife and two children to join him.

“When I arrived there was nothing for us,” said Anwar, who now volunteers for Immigrant Solidarity. Since then “Portugal has become a good country for immigrants and welcomes them with open arms.”

Despite the recent rise of the far-right Chega party, polls show that “immigration is not regarded as a pressing issue in Portugal, and unlike the rest of Europe, the reaction to migration remains positive,” Pinheiro said.

Even if Chega, which was only formed in 2019, is polling close to 20 percent ahead of the election, immigration is for now only seventh in its list of manifesto priorities.