Why is The Russia-Ukraine Conflict Occurring?

Anti-Russia protesters take to the
streets to voice their opinion

As Russia gain militarised control of Crimea, and the Crimean Provence set to become part of Russia, I want to explore why these set of events ever occurred, and whether the Second Cold War is upon us. Russia continues to move troops over the boarder, despite Russian Predident Vladmir Putin denying this.
     
Crimean MP's have voted to join Russia, with a 78-0 vote in favour, causing outrage with Crimean residents, and to further frustrate the locals, deputy prime minister Rustam Temirgaliev has said the upcoming referendum is only to confirm the split from Ukraine, and already considers Crimea

to be part of Russia. However, acting prime minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk has come forward, stating 'This is an illegitimate decision. There are no legal grounds to this referendum, and Crimea was, is and always will be part of Ukraine', and also went on to say the Ukrainian military will act within the law but will take action if there is any further Russian military penetrating into Ukraine.

SO WHAT CAUSED THE CONFLICT?


Into the tail end of last year, the Ukraine were set for a big economic agreement with the EU, the association agreement, but then president Viktor Yanukovyc said the Ukraine could not afford to cut off trade with Russia in favour of stronger EU ties, and later defended his decision by saying the offer did not involve enough financial aid. Russia also were against the agreement, but the EU ignored their 'veto'. Just a few days later, Ukraine had signed a new deal with Russia, worth around $15 billion in aid and included other economic benefits. This led to protests on the streets, which led to the government taking aggressive action, with riot squads and armed guards descending onto the streets. However, this only fuelled the conflict, with protesters filmed throwing Molotov's and boulders at police lines. Tension grew and soon, the death toll began to rise, and the encounters between protesters and government personnel grew sour, eventually leading to the protesters taking over the presidential accommodation, leaving their ousted leader to flee to Moscow, facing charges of the killing of protesters.

This alerted Russia that their ties with the Ukraine were diminishing, being quashed, by the fact that if the protesters rose to power, they would inevitably sign the deal with the EU, cutting ties to the Soviets all together. Russia, who have strong links with Crimea and many military bases there quickly sent over troops to seize the area, which is about the same size as Massachusetts.

WHAT WILL FOLLOW?

This is s strong vibe from Putin showing Russia are prepared to go to war, a scenario which would mean Russia would be kicked out of G8, in which they are supposed to be holding the next summit. Economic sanctions would also follow, but this would surely cut off the oil stream coming  from Russia, hurting most of Western Europe.

 However, the Kremlin has issued a statement saying that an invasion of Ukraine would not be against international law as they have permission from Yanukovyc.  But Obama has issued strict warnings to Russia, urging them to pull out the 100,000 troops now stationed in Ukraine, and also wants the Ukraine to form a new government and agree the the EU's offer.



Sources:

John Curran's Ukraine Conflict
BBC News

Is Immigration Really All That Bad?

This week, figures released show that there was a big increase in net migration. The numbers grew to 212,000, meaning that after the number of emigrants (people who leave the country) is subtracted from the number of immigrants (people who enter the country), the UK now has 212,000 fresh foreigners roaming it's streets.  This is a damaging blow to the Conservatives target of reducing net migration to under 100,000. The number is now double that.

There is a split view on immigrants, most of whom are from other EU countries,  mostly from Eastern Europe. Are they a burden, which taxpayers are supporting? Or are they hard workers, who pay their taxes and add to our economy?

The facts are that immigration will add close to 7 million to our population, making England the most crowded country in Europe and 4th most crowded major country in terms of people per square km. In 2007, 1 in 3 London residents were born outside of the UK,  with 1 in 9 of the total population born overseas. There are currently 4.2 million households in the UK where English is not the primary language, however, compare this to the 0.3% who speak no or poor English, just 134,000, it paints a different picture. Pupils studying in London who didn't speak English as a primary language outperformed the national average at GCSE level.

Many people complain about the amount on immigrants who come over here, don't bother to learn our language, take all of the jobs available, then sponge of the British government for any benefits they are eligible for before sending most of it home to family.

But, as Jonathan Portes says, pretty much all the evidence about the impact of this decision is positive: the new migrants get jobs, contribute to the economy, pay taxes, don't use many public services, and don't take jobs from natives.  These migrants increase the work force, meaning there is a higher proportion of the population working. This means there is a higher rate of economically active people than dependant people (people who are under 19, over the ever increasing retirement age, or unemplosyed), meaning there are less people depending on the economically active to support them. 

Whilst there are more people to support and use the services provided, there is a greater demand for food and other necessities such as clothing. This means that there is a lot more people pumping money into the UK economy, and although a higher demand usually means higher prices, inflation fell last month to under the government set target of 2%. 

Migrants are taking the jobs that we refuse to do, such as fruit picking on farms and other poorly paid, laborious jobs. They are also taking the relatively lower skill jobs such as builders, plumbers and bus drivers. As immigration has again grown this past, year, so has employment, with unemployment rates diminishing over the last few years to just 7.2% now, that is 2.34  million. 

So going back to the original questions, immigrants do indeed support our economy. They are 45% less likely to receive benefits than natives, and boost our economy by increasing demand and also the amount of economically active people their are in the UK. 

Sources:

BBC News
Impacts of Immigration
Immigrants who Speak English