Emigration visualized

Peoplemovin, an experimental project in data visualization by Carlo Zapponi, that shows the flows of 215,738,321 migrants as of 2010. The migration data provided by The World Bank is plotted as a flow chart that connects emigration and destination countries. The chart is split in two columns, the emigration countries on the left and the destination countries on the right. The thickness of the lines connecting the countries represents the amount of immigrated people and the color code from blue to red puts the countries in comparison to the rest of the world.

Immigration, debts and black swans..

Image via Wikipedia

The immigration crisis in Italy is getting nastier by the day and involving more actors, Germany has entered into the brawl and the lunacy of the Italian government is reaching new critical levels.





What started as a French-Italian brawl is widening fast to all the major players on the Europan arena and today Germany came to rescue of France on the immigration issue.
Undoubtedly Germany has a lot of weight at the moment in the European Union being the only sizable county able to rescue the bankrupt European periphery and also being the only country who is mantaining a minimum of leadership in the void of the European institutions.
Germany's stance against Italian policies is a sign that Italy is losing bargaining power in asking for assistance on a issue which can send the Italian government home.
Berlusconi's government has built its consensus upon tough anti-immigration policies and an articulated mediatic scaremongering of the immigrants , unfortunately for them the recent events and flooding of immigrants on the Italian coasts can create more damage to the the Italian government than all the trials for corruption and underage prostitution that see involved the Italian prime minister.
Immigration is for Italy what taxation is for the United States, it is an holy cow created ad hoc by the Italian media under instructions from Berlusconi to raise fears among the Italian population and to create consensus toward neo-fascist policies.
Now all this is at risk since the Italian government is clearly unable to manage 20000 immigrants and let alone managing the next waves approaching.
The Italian government failed policies have for sure reached success in encouraging further waves of immigration, after all who would not be tempted to fly to a country that is offering a free temporary residence permit regardless of any screening and that is showing an utter incapacity to even simply identify and process the immigrants reaching its shores.
While in the first phase immigration flows were targetting the island of Lampedusa, recently they spreaded to other location from Sardinia to Calabria making effectively impossible for the stretched coast guard forces to patrol the coasts of Southern Italy. Furthermore emboldened by the lack of effectivness and resolution of the Italian government, thousands are getting ready to follow.
The Italian answer to the crisis has not been efficiency but rather dumping the problem to their neighbours.
Now that the rift with the EU is open, we can expect more mayhem in the Italian government which is already by any standard a bomb ready to explode.
The racist Lega Nord is threatening to move the Italian soldiers out from international peace missions such as Lebanon to patrol the southern border, the Justice Minister is accusing the EU of dumping the issue to the Italian government, the rest of the political forces are in a frantic state of hysteria more related to their eroding image on being tough on immigration rather than being aware of the mess they are creating.
All this is coming into a context of economical and social turmoil. Italy is accellerating its economical,social and democratic implosion. Public debt is exploding and although given the size of the economy and the amount of foreign liabilities there has been plenty of latitude from rating agencies and international media toward the country this could change quickly.
The reality is the following, Italy is bankrupt but other European countries have recklessly invested too much in Italian bonds, the most incredible case is France with over 20% of their GDP invested in Italian sovereign, everyone is aware that if crisis reach Italy is the end of the game, this alone explains the quiet attitude toward Berlusconi and his many scandals and the latitude given to the Italian government from the EU on so many serious issues.
Berlusconi has been using this fear at his advantage doing whatever he pleased and receiving only occasionally a mild slap on the hand from the European Union. Furthermore whenever in the past Berlusconi was under attack on the international media he was able to wisely defer attacks by giving concessions to his enemies in exchange for a temporary truce. Unless a dramatic escalation of the economical crisis or other black swan will happen it is quite probable that after international pressure Berlusconi and its government to save themselves again will bow to Germany's pressure and will transform Italy in a big chaotic refugee center. If all this can teach us a lesson is that France and Germany have certainly the upper hand with the Italian government for holding its debts and for keeping them afloat but when the debt you hold is so much that if you lose it you are bankrupt as in the French case well You have to make deals with the devil itself and you are out of control just as much as the Italian government.

Italian immigration crisis solved (at least officialy)

In my recent post on the Italian Immigration crisis I criticized the Italian prime minister Berlusconi for being too busy with his many trials to deal with the dramatic immigration problem of Lampedusa.Well I stand corrected, today the Italian Prime Minister has practically guaranteed to solve the problem in 60 hours, for all those politicians who aspire to have the same decisive qualities of Mr. Berlusconi below is the recipe for a 60 hours fix of the immigration issue:





During a lightning visit to Lampedusa, Berlusconi told cheering locals the following:

He will offer tax breaks to island's resident. He will empty the island of immigrants within 60 hours with six ferries to pick up the remaining 6000 migrants.
He will nominate locals for a Nobel peace prize (to award their patience).
He will buy a holiday home there (perfect setting for his bunga bunga parties).
He will push for the construction of a casino and a golf course.
He is buying fishing boats from smugglers so they cannot be used for immigration crossings adding and I quote: "That way when I am out of politics I will use them to set up a fresh fish business."
He will use his private TV channels to promote the relaunch of tourism in Lampedusa, while surfing the internet before his visit, he added, he had purchased a beach house on Lampedusa, which he visited before leaving the island.
He also asked the mayor to plant a few more trees on the island and paint the houses with brighter colours.


So far this year 18,000 north African migrants have sailed to the island, which has only 5,000 native inhabitants.
Berlusconi is now seeking to convince Italy's regional governors to put up the migrants he will bring from Lampedusa to the Italian mainland for the cheering of not only the people of Lampedusa but also for the immigrants who can save hitch a ride to their next destination.
Over 3,000 who have already escaped from the mainland makeshift camps have travelled to Ventimiglia seeking to cross into France, where many have relatives.
In order to repatriate them as stated by Interior Minister Maroni, Italy will need to identify each migrant (they will not have any documents on them) and serve an expulsion order, which can be appealed against ( an appeal in Italy can take years and they will not be able to be expelled until a verdict is reached).
Maroni has warned that the Tunisians may be just a warm up for 50,000 migrants fleeing the war in Libya.