Headline

Germany Opens Doors To 250,000 Kenyan Workers

Published

9 months ago

September 15, 2024

Germany has signed an agreement to allow 250,000 skilled and semi-skilled workers from Kenya to migrate under a new labour migration deal aimed at addressing workforce shortages in Europe’s largest economy.

The agreement, which focuses on controlled and targeted migration, was signed by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Kenyan President William Ruto in Berlin.

As Kenya faces increasing challenges in providing employment and adequate income for its young professionals, Germany is experiencing a shortage of skilled labour.

The deal offers a solution to both countries’ issues, creating opportunities for Kenyans to work in Germany while addressing the country’s labour demands.

In a pilot phase of the program, five Kenyan bus drivers have already arrived in Flensburg, northern Germany, as part of the larger plan.

Migration agreements like this one have become a key element of Germany’s broader efforts to manage immigration and labour shortages effectively.

The deal will also simplify the repatriation process for Kenyans who are currently in Germany without legal status.

This comes as immigration remains a contentious issue in Germany, following a rise in the popularity of the far-right anti-immigration party, Alternative for Germany (AfD).

In recent years, Germany has taken in large numbers of asylum seekers, including over one million people fleeing conflicts, such as the Syrian civil war during the 2015-2016 migrant crisis.

Since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, the country has also received 1.2 million Ukrainian refugees.

Under the labour agreement, Germany has pledged to ease certain immigration laws to enable Kenyans to secure employment.

The deal includes provisions for long-term visas for Kenyans seeking to study or pursue vocational training in Germany.

Kenyan workers who have obtained approved jobs may also have their temporary residence permits extended.

“On the expiry of the long-stay visa, Kenyans may receive a temporary residence permit for study purposes in Germany for up to two years,” the agreement states.

The temporary residence permit may be extended if the purpose of residence has not yet been achieved but is achievable within a “reasonable” period, it adds.

According to the deal, IT specialists from Kenya will be allowed to enter and work in Germany, even if they do not have formal qualifications.

Both governments will support the immigration of skilled workers who have finished vocational training or earned a university degree, as long as their qualifications are recognised by the relevant authorities of the other party

The deal also includes provisions for the readmission and return of citizens between the two nations.

It spells out guidelines to prevent and fight against labour exploitation, forced labour and human trafficking.

While welcoming five Kenyan drivers in Flensburg on Thursday, Schleswig-Holstein’s Transport Minister Claus Ruhe Madsen said Germany was in need of hard-working hands and clever minds.

“We simply have to position ourselves in Germany in such a way that it is attractive to come here,” Mr Madsen added.

The drivers are the first batch of Kenyan workers, who will be trained by the Aktiv bus company in a pilot project, hoping to get a job in Germany.

Doctors, nurses and teachers are among those expected to take part in the programme.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) said the deal was expected to significantly increase access to decent foreign jobs for Kenyan workers in Germany and address labour shortages in Germany.

“It includes mechanisms to protect the rights and welfare of Kenyan migrant workers in Germany, ensuring safe, orderly, and productive migration,” ILO added in a statement.

But there are concerns about a brain-drain in Kenya with professionals like doctors and nurses going abroad for jobs, leaving local hospitals with a huge shortage of medical workers.

“It is sad that we are going to service other countries at the expense of our own country,” Ekuru Aukot, a Kenyan lawyer and politician, told the BBC’s Newsday programme.

But Roseline Njogu, a senior foreign affairs official, said Kenya was simply responding to the global labour market demands.

“We have a youth bulge in Kenya and every year we have a million people joining the local labour market. It takes time and resources to create job opportunities at home,” she added.

Headline

Trouble Looms As Trump Gives Iran Two Weeks To Avoid US Airstrikes

Published

4 hours ago

June 21, 2025

Editor

President Donald Trump said Friday that Iran had a “maximum” of two weeks to avoid possible US air strikes, indicating he could make a decision before the fortnight deadline he set a day earlier.

Trump added that he was not inclined to stop Israel attacking Iran because it was “winning,” and was dismissive of European efforts to mediate an end to the conflict.

“I’m giving them a period of time, and I would say two weeks would be the maximum,” Trump told reporters when asked if he could decide to strike Iran before that.

He added that the aim was to “see whether or not people come to their senses.”

Trump had said in a statement on Thursday that he would “make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks” because there was a “substantial chance of negotiations” with Iran.

Those comments had been widely seen as opening a two-week window for negotiations to end the war between Israel and Iran, with the European powers rushing to talks with Tehran.

But his latest remarks indicated Trump could still make his decision before that if he feels that there has been no progress towards dismantling Iran’s nuclear program.

Trump meanwhile dismissed talks that European powers Britain, France, Germany and the EU had with Iran’s foreign minister in Geneva on Friday.

Europe ‘didn’t help’

“They didn’t help,” he said as he arrived in Morristown, New Jersey, ahead of a fundraising dinner at his nearby golf club.

“Iran doesn’t want to speak to Europe. They want to speak to us. Europe is not going to be able to help in this.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said after the talks in Geneva that Tehran would not resume negotiations with the United States until Israel stopped its attacks.

But Trump was reluctant.

“It’s very hard to make that request right now,” Trump said.

“If somebody’s winning, it’s a little bit harder to do than if somebody’s losing, but we’re ready, willing and able, and we’ve been speaking to Iran, and we’ll see what happens.”

Trump meanwhile doubled down on his claims that Iran is weeks away from being able to produce a nuclear bomb, despite divisions in his own administration about the intelligence behind his assessment.

Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s director of national intelligence, said in a report in March that Iran was not close to having enough enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon.

“She’s wrong,” Trump said of Gabbard, a longtime opponent of US foreign intervention whom Trump tapped to coordinate the sprawling US spy community.

Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

AFP

Headline

Trump Orders Mass Layoffs At Voice Of America, Other US-funded Media

Published

4 hours ago

June 21, 2025

Editor

President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday ordered mass layoffs at Voice of America and other government-funded media, moving ahead with gutting the outlets despite legal disputes and criticism that US adversaries will benefit.

Kari Lake, a fervent Trump supporter named to a senior role at the US Agency for Global Media, said the notices were a “long-overdue effort to dismantle a bloated, unaccountable bureaucracy.”

Lake said in a statement that she would work with the State Department and Congress to “make sure the telling of America’s story is modernized, effective and aligned with America’s foreign policy.”

Trump issued an order in March that froze Voice of America (VOA) for the first time since it was founded in 1942.

Termination notices were sent to 639 employees on Friday, after previous offers of voluntary departures and dismissals of contractors.

Some 1,400 positions have been eliminated, with only 250 remaining, Lake said.

Voice of America layoffs included journalists from its Persian service who had briefly been brought back to work after Israel attacked Iran a week ago.

Employees have filed a lawsuit challenging Lake’s actions, which come even though Congress had already appropriated funding.

The mass firing decision “spells the death of 83 years of independent journalism that upholds the US ideals of democracy and freedom around the world,” the three plaintiffs wrote in a statement.

“Moscow, Beijing, Tehran and extremist groups are flooding the information space with anti-American propaganda. Do not cede this ground by silencing America’s voice,” said the three complainants, Patsy Widakuswara, Jessica Jerreat and Kate Neeper.

Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that the “decimation of US broadcasting leaves authoritarian propaganda unchecked by US backed independent media and is a perversion of the law and congressional intent.”

“It is a dark day for the truth,” she wrote on X.

Trump frequently attacks media outlets and has scoffed at the so-called editorial firewall at VOA which prevents the government from intervening in its coverage, something he at times has considered too critical of his administration.

One outlet preserved by the mass cuts has been Radio Marti, which broadcasts into Cuba and enjoys support from anti-communist Cuban-American Republican lawmakers.

Other outlets funded by the US government have included Radio Free Asia, which was set up to provide news to Asian countries without a free press and is now operating in a limited capacity.

Radio Free Europe, formed with a similar mission for Soviet bloc nations during the Cold War, has survived thanks to support from the Czech government.

AFP

Headline

Thousands Protest In Tehran Against Israel

Published

9 hours ago

June 20, 2025

Editor

Thousands of people joined a protest against Israel in the Iranian capital on Friday after weekly prayers, chanting slogans in support of their leaders, images on state television showed.

“This is the Friday of the Iranian nation’s solidarity and resistance across the country,” the news anchor said.

Footage showed protesters in Tehran holding up photographs of commanders killed since the start of the war with Israel, while others waved the flags of Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

“I will sacrifice my life for my leader,” read a protester’s banner, a reference to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

According to state television, protests took place in other cities around the country, including in Tabriz in northwestern Iran and Shiraz in the south.

AFP