The number of Albanians illegally crossing on small boats into Britain has dropped by more than a half in the last two months, it has been reported.
The plummet in numbers crossing the English Channel since the end of last year has come after British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak promised to swiftly return “thousands” of Albanians back to their home country.
The drowning of four Albanians last month is also understood to have led to fewer crossings, as well as worsening weather making the journey harder and talks between the two countries.
“We’ve seen a marked drop in the number of Albanians coming across the Channel in small boats in recent months,” a government source told The Sunday Times. “It’s not clear exactly why, but nobody’s counting their chickens that they won’t try again, particularly as we move into the new year and spring.”
In the 12 months to September 2022, 85 per cent of the 11,000 Albanians who arrived by small boats submitted asylum applications.
More than 50 per cent of the claims made by Albanians were granted with most going to women and children.
But Britain’s National Crime Agency has stated that some Albanian migrants falsely claim to be victims of trafficking.
Mr Sunak is planning to introduce legislation to make it easier to deport Albanian migrants on flights in a bid to tackle the backlog of asylum seeker applications.
A record 11,000 Albanians arrived in the UK in small boats after they illegally crossed the Channel last year, compared with 815 in the whole of 2021.
The Home Office said men represented 95 per cent of Albanian small boat arrivals between 2018 and June 2022.
During the four months from May, Albanians accounted for 42 per cent of crossings, according to official data, but this peaked at 60 per cent on some of the busiest days last summer.
But now the proportion has dropped to below 10 per cent of illegal migrants, Whitehall sources said.
Dr Andi Hoxhaj, a lecturer in law at University College London who specialises in migration from the Balkans, said the majority of the arrivals were economic migrants.
“In some cases, what you could earn in one day here — say £200 on a construction site — is what someone might earn in one month in Albania,” he said.
Previously migrants had paid up to £20,000 to travel in the back of a lorry whereas a small boat crossing costs £2,500, he added.
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
Difference between fractional ownership and timeshare
Although similar in its appearance, the concept of a fractional title deed is unlike that of a timeshare, which usually involves multiple investors buying “time” in a property whereby the owner has the right to occupation for a specified period of time in any year, as opposed to the actual real estate, said John Peacock, Head of Indirect Tax and Conveyancing, BSA Ahmad Bin Hezeem & Associates, a law firm.
How to invest in gold
Investors can tap into the gold price by purchasing physical jewellery, coins and even gold bars, but these need to be stored safely and possibly insured.
A cheaper and more straightforward way to benefit from gold price growth is to buy an exchange-traded fund (ETF).
Most advisers suggest sticking to “physical” ETFs. These hold actual gold bullion, bars and coins in a vault on investors’ behalf. Others do not hold gold but use derivatives to track the price instead, adding an extra layer of risk. The two biggest physical gold ETFs are SPDR Gold Trust and iShares Gold Trust.
Another way to invest in gold’s success is to buy gold mining stocks, but Mr Gravier says this brings added risks and can be more volatile. “They have a serious downside potential should the price consolidate.”
Mr Kyprianou says gold and gold miners are two different asset classes. “One is a commodity and the other is a company stock, which means they behave differently.”
Mining companies are a business, susceptible to other market forces, such as worker availability, health and safety, strikes, debt levels, and so on. “These have nothing to do with gold at all. It means that some companies will survive, others won’t.”
By contrast, when gold is mined, it just sits in a vault. “It doesn’t even rust, which means it retains its value,” Mr Kyprianou says.
You may already have exposure to gold miners in your portfolio, say, through an international ETF or actively managed mutual fund.
You could spread this risk with an actively managed fund that invests in a spread of gold miners, with the best known being BlackRock Gold & General. It is up an incredible 55 per cent over the past year, and 240 per cent over five years. As always, past performance is no guide to the future.
Sholto Byrnes on Myanmar politics
