Investigation shows companies making millions housing migrants in UK

H&H Hotels, which was set up last year and is run by 32-year-old Egyptian Hassan Arif (L), currently runs or subcontracts out hotels for migrants. (Screenshot/Social Media/Wikimedia Commons)
H&H Hotels, which was set up last year and is run by 32-year-old Egyptian Hassan Arif (L), currently runs or subcontracts out hotels for migrants. (Screenshot/Social Media/Wikimedia Commons)
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Updated 10 December 2022

Investigation shows companies making millions housing migrants in UK

Investigation shows companies making millions housing migrants in UK
  • Mail finds two companies have bought hard-up hotels across country to put migrants in, as UK struggles with numbers, asylum backlog
  • Current figures suggest £6.8m of taxpayers’ money spent on housing people per day

LONDON: An investigation has discovered investors in the UK are buying up hotels to transform them into migrant shelters, with some making millions of pounds in profit.

The investigation, launched by the Mail, discovered one firm, Payman Club, run by a man named Na’im Anis Payman, had bought 12 properties for this purpose in under two years, and another, H&H Hotels, was set to make £11 million ($13.48 million) per year in profit from housing migrants.

The companies are thought to have taken advantage of the collapse of the tourism industry in the UK prompted by government lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic to pick up large commercial properties on the cheap.

The hotels are then passed on to be used by a company called Serco, responsible for housing migrants in the UK, which receives £150 per migrant per day from the Home Office.

It is thought that this year will see around 50,000 people reach the UK illegally via small boats crossing the English Channel. The country also faces a backlog of around 150,000 unresolved asylum applications.

The vast majority of those 50,000 are currently being housed at 140 hotels across the country, costing the UK taxpayer £6.8 million per day.

H&H Hotels, which was set up last year and is run by 32-year-old Egyptian Hassan Arif, currently runs or subcontracts out hotels for migrants in Skegness, Wisbech, Brighton, Eastbourne, Blackpool, Great Yarmouth and London, according to the Mail.

Despite being legal, local efforts have been brought to prevent the practice, all of which have failed. The companies have done nothing illegal, but that has not allayed fears that the government is failing to properly house migrants, that the taxpayer is losing out as a result and that local communities are being adversely affected by the practice.

Craig Leyland, leader of East Lindsey District Council, which covers Skegness and which brought legal action to the High Court, told the paper: “The company H&H have been buying up these hotels across the country. It’s opportunistic. 

“They have sniffed out that the government is throwing a lot of money at this and for a year or twos’ investment they can make a very good return — they have done their sums.

“The issue is that the Home Office is throwing quite considerable money at this, so it is an attractive business model. 

“As leader of the council, I fully understand that the Home Office is under tremendous pressure to solve this. My issue is the processing of asylum seekers is taking too long.”

Payman, 28, is of German Iranian origin and grew up in Albania, with strong business ties to the country where as many as half of all migrants crossing the Channel are thought to originate from, facilitated by Albanian organized criminal gangs, the Mail said.

After 40 migrants moved to one of Payman’s facilities in the town of Kettering in Northamptonshire in November, local MP Philip Hollobone called on Home Office Minister Robert Jenrick to resign.

A Home Office spokesman said: “The asylum accommodation system is under enormous pressure.

“Decisions on members of the public who are temporarily residing at hotels and staffing are a matter for the hoteliers, and the Home Office instructs providers to carry out thorough diligence checks before any site is used.”


NATO presses Turkiye to drop objections to Sweden’s membership as summit looms

NATO presses Turkiye to drop objections to Sweden’s membership as summit looms
Updated 01 June 2023

NATO presses Turkiye to drop objections to Sweden’s membership as summit looms

NATO presses Turkiye to drop objections to Sweden’s membership as summit looms
  • The military organization wants to bring Sweden into the fold in time for the summit in Lithuania next month
  • Turkiye’s government accuses Sweden of being too lenient on terrorist organizations and security threats, including militant Kurdish groups and people associated with a 2016 coup attempt

OSLO: NATO on Thursday ramped up pressure on its member Turkiye to drop its objections to Sweden’s membership as the military organization seeks to deal with the issue by the time US President Joe Biden and his counterparts meet next month.
Fearing that they might be targeted after Russia invaded Ukraine last year, Sweden and Finland abandoned their traditional positions of military nonalignment to seek protection under NATO’s security umbrella. Finland became NATO’s 31st member country in April.
NATO must agree unanimously for countries to join. Turkiye’s government accuses Sweden of being too lenient on terrorist organizations and security threats, including militant Kurdish groups and people associated with a 2016 coup attempt.
Hungary has also delayed its approval, but the reasons why have not been made publicly clear.
“It’s time for Sweden to join now,” Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt told reporters in Oslo, where she was hosting a meeting with her counterparts to prepare for NATO’s July 11-12 summit in Lithuania.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that he would travel to Ankara “in the near future to continue to address how we can ensure the fastest possible accession of Sweden.” He was unable to provide a precise date for his trip.
“I’m confident that also Hungary will ratify the accession protocol,” Stoltenberg said.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said that “it is essential that we can finally welcome Sweden as the 32nd member.” She stressed that the Swedish government has Berlin’s “full support.”
Sweden’s foreign minister, Tobias Billström, said that “it is time for Turkiye and Hungary to start the ratification of the Swedish membership to NATO.” He said that “everything (that) bars Sweden joining NATO will be seen as wine for (Russian president Vladimir) Putin.”
For months Sweden, Finland and Turkiye have been holding talks to try to address Ankara’s concerns. Billström said that he expects things to be made clear at a new meeting of this “permanent joint mechanism” in coming weeks.
He noted that as of Thursday Sweden had tightened its antiterrorism laws. It is now it illegal to finance, recruit for or publicly encourage “a terrorist organization,” or to travel abroad with the intention of joining such groups.
The time may be ripe for movement. Sweden’s membership became embroiled in campaigning for elections in Turkiye, which President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won on Sunday. Erdogan has also been seeking upgraded US fighter jets, and Washington signaled this week that they might be delivered.
“I spoke to Erdogan and he still wants to work on something on the F-16s. I told him we wanted a deal with Sweden. So let’s get that done,” Biden said Monday.
On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken insisted that the issues of Sweden’s membership and the fighter jets were distinct. However, he stressed that the completion of both would dramatically strengthen European security.
“Both of these are vital, in our judgment, to European security,” Blinken told reporters. “We believe that both should go forward as quickly as possible; that is to say Sweden’s accession and moving forward on the F-16 package more broadly.”


NATO’s Stoltenberg: Russia cannot veto Ukraine’s accession in military alliance

NATO’s Stoltenberg: Russia cannot veto Ukraine’s accession in military alliance
Updated 01 June 2023

NATO’s Stoltenberg: Russia cannot veto Ukraine’s accession in military alliance

NATO’s Stoltenberg: Russia cannot veto Ukraine’s accession in military alliance
  • NATO secretary general: All allies agree that Moscow does not have a veto against NATO enlargement

OSLO: All NATO allies agree that Ukraine will become a member of the alliance, NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday.
“All allies agree that Moscow does not have a veto against NATO enlargement,” Stoltenberg told reporters ahead of an informal meeting of NATO Foreign Affairs ministers.
“We are moving, allies agree that Ukraine will become a member.”


Former Australian SAS veteran loses defamation case over media reports of execution in Afghanistan

Former Australian SAS veteran loses defamation case over media reports of execution in Afghanistan
Updated 01 June 2023

Former Australian SAS veteran loses defamation case over media reports of execution in Afghanistan

Former Australian SAS veteran loses defamation case over media reports of execution in Afghanistan
  • Newspapers successfully established that their reports that former SAS corporal Ben Roberts-Smith was involved in execution and murder in Afghanistan were true

SYDNEY: One of Australia’s most decorated living soldiers on Thursday lost a defamation lawsuit against three newspapers which accused him of involvement in the murder of six Afghans during deployment to Afghanistan.
The newspapers successfully established that their reports that former SAS corporal Ben Roberts-Smith was involved in execution and murder in Afghanistan were true, said Federal Court judge Anthony Besanko in Sydney.
The case against Roberts-Smith, a Victoria Cross recipient, has put a spotlight on the secretive wartime conduct of Australia’s elite SAS troops.
The papers proved their allegations in relation to four of the murders they accused Roberts-Smith of, but “in light of my conclusions, each (defamation) proceeding must be dismissed,” Besanko said in a summary of his findings.
Publication of his full reasons was delayed until Monday due to national security concerns.
Former special forces corporal Roberts-Smith, 44, had sued the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age and the Canberra Times for portraying him as someone who “broke the moral and legal rules of military engagement” in Afghanistan where he served from 2006 to 2012.
Roberts-Smith won several top Australian military honors, including the Victoria Cross, for his actions during six tours of Afghanistan before carving out a post-military career as an in-demand public speaker and media executive.
But articles by the newspapers from 2018 suggested he went beyond the bounds of acceptable military engagement.
The articles, citing other soldiers who said they were there, said Roberts-Smith had shot dead an unarmed Afghan teenage spotter, and kicked a handcuffed man off a cliff before ordering him to be shot dead.
Roberts-Smith’s lawsuit called the media reports false and based on the claims of failed soldiers who were jealous of his accolades, and sought unspecified damages.
The newspapers sought to defend their reports by proving the claims were true, and presented other soldiers and former soldiers as witnesses in court who corroborated them.
The judgment comes at a time of heightened sensitivity around Australia’s military after a 2020 report said there was credible evidence members of the special forces killed dozens of unarmed prisoners in Afghanistan.
No soldiers were named in the redacted report but about two dozen current and former Australian soldiers were referred for potential criminal prosecution.
Judge Besanko said he would give reasons for his decision on Monday after the federal government applied to delay the proceedings to give government lawyers time to check for national security information being inadvertently divulged.


Three killed in Russian strike on Kyiv

Three killed in Russian strike on Kyiv
Updated 01 June 2023

Three killed in Russian strike on Kyiv

Three killed in Russian strike on Kyiv
  • Moscow’s forces have recently launched a series of aerial assaults on the Ukrainian capital, including an unusual daytime attack on Monday

KYIV: Russia launched an air attack on Kyiv early Thursday, killing at least three people including a child and bringing fresh terror to the city after a week of strikes.
Moscow’s forces have recently launched a series of aerial assaults on the Ukrainian capital, including an unusual daytime attack on Monday that sent residents running for shelter.
Thursday’s attack began around 3:00 a.m. local time (0000 GMT) when cruise and ballistic missiles were fired on the city, killing three people and injuring 12 others, officials said.
“In the Desnyanskyi district: three people died, including one child (born in 2012) and 10 people were injured, including one child,” the Kyiv City Military Administration wrote on Telegram.
“In the Dniprovskyi district: two people were injured.”
Previous official reports had said two children were killed in the strikes.
In Russia’s western Belgorod region, at least two people were wounded Thursday morning in an attack on the town of Shebekino blamed on Ukrainian troops, governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram.
“This night is tense for Shebekino again. Ukrainian troops were shelling the city for an hour,” he said.
Gladkov previously reported shelling in the same town that injured four people.
On Tuesday, one person was killed and two others were wounded in a strike on a center for displaced people in the region. Several oil depots have also been hit in recent weeks.
The attacks have come as Kyiv says it is preparing for a major offensive against Moscow’s forces.
More than a year since its Ukraine invasion, Russia has suffered stepped-up attacks on its soil, including a drone attack on Moscow Tuesday.
“The situation is quite alarming,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Russia said Wednesday it was evacuating hundreds of children from villages due to the intensifying attacks.
The first 300 evacuated children would be taken to Voronezh, a city about 250 kilometers further into Russia, Governor Gladkov said. Over 1,000 more children would be moved to other provinces in the coming days, he added.
A correspondent for state-run agency RIA Novosti working near Voronezh said buses had arrived with about 150 people on board.
The Kremlin has accused Ukraine — and its Western backers — of being behind the increasing number of reported attacks.
On Tuesday, the foreign ministry said the West was “pushing the Ukrainian leadership toward increasingly reckless acts” after a drone attack on residential areas of Moscow.
At least three buildings were lightly damaged, including two high-rise residential buildings in Moscow’s affluent southwest.
Ukraine, which has seen almost nightly attacks on its capital, denied any “direct involvement.”
Tensions between Russia and the West escalated further Wednesday, when Germany announced it would drastically reduce Moscow’s diplomatic presence on its soil in reply to a similar move from the Kremlin.
Berlin said it had ordered four of Russia’s five consulates in Germany to close.
The move comes after Moscow put a limit of 350 on the number of German government personnel allowed in Russia, a decision that Berlin says would force hundreds of civil servants and local employees to leave the country.
Moscow called Germany’s decision “ill-thought-out” and vowed a response.
And in the United States, the Pentagon announced a new $300 million arms package for Ukraine, including air defense systems and tens of millions of rounds of ammunition.
The United States said it did not support any attack inside Russia, instead providing Kyiv with equipment and training to reclaim its territory.
The fresh aid shipments would bring the total value of US security assistance to Ukraine to $37.6 billion since Russia’s February 2022 invasion, the Defense Department said.
Last week saw the biggest armed incursion into Russia from Ukraine since the offensive began, with two days of fighting in the Belgorod region.
AFP journalists went to the regional capital city, which is also called Belgorod, over the weekend.
Residents confessed a certain amount of worry, but a sense of fatalism prevailed.
“What can we do? We just shout ‘Oh! and ‘Ah!’. What will that change?” said 84-year-old Rimma Malieva, a retired teacher.
Most people AFP spoke to said they trusted the authorities to fix the weaknesses laid bare by the latest raid.
Evgeny Sheikin, a 41-year-old builder, still said “it should not have happened.”
At least five people were killed and 19 wounded in a nighttime bombardment in Ukraine’s Lugansk region, Russia-installed officials said Wednesday.
The Russian army also said it destroyed a Ukrainian navy warship, the Yuri Olefirenko, in Odesa, a claim AFP could not independently confirm.


BRICS ministers meet in push to establish group as counterweight to West

BRICS ministers meet in push to establish group as counterweight to West
Updated 01 June 2023

BRICS ministers meet in push to establish group as counterweight to West

BRICS ministers meet in push to establish group as counterweight to West
  • Talks a prelude to an August summit in Johannesburg that has already created controversy
  • BRICS has in recent years taken more concrete shape, driven initially by Beijing

CAPE TOWN: Foreign ministers from the BRICS countries are meeting in South Africa from Thursday as the five-nation bloc seeks to forge itself into a counterweight to Western geopolitical dominance in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The talks are a prelude to an August summit in Johannesburg that has already created controversy because of the possible attendance of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the target of an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant.
It accused him in March of the war crime of forcibly deporting children from Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine. Moscow denies the allegations. South Africa had already invited Putin in January.
South African authorities confirmed that foreign ministers from Brazil, Russia, India, and South Africa are attending Thursday’s meeting in Cape Town. A deputy minister is representing China.
No agenda has been made public, but analysts said discussions would aim to deepen ties among existing members and consider an expansion of the group.
“BRICS is positioning itself as an alternative to the West and as a way to make space for emerging powers,” said Cobus van Staden of the South African Institute of International Affairs.
Once viewed as a loose, largely symbolic association of disparate emerging economies, BRICS has in recent years taken more concrete shape, driven initially by Beijing and, since the start of the Ukraine war in February 2022, with added impetus from Moscow.
Discussions of BRICS’ New Development Bank, which stopped funding projects in Russia to comply with sanctions, were expected on Thursday, a South African foreign ministry source said.
Amid the growing geopolitical polarization resulting from the war in Ukraine, BRICS leaders have said they are open to admitting new members, including oil producing countries.
Venezuela, Argentina, Iran, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are on a list of those who have either formally applied to join or expressed interest, officials said.
“If they can bring in the oil producer countries that will be key, given the petrodollar system,” said William Gumede, a South African political analyst who has written extensively on BRICS.
South Africa, though the bloc’s smallest member, is among its biggest champions.
Its preparations for the Aug. 22-24 summit, however, have been complicated by the ICC announcement on Putin.
As an ICC member South Africa would face pressure to arrest Putin, were he to attend the meeting in Johannesburg.
Putin has not confirmed his plans, with the Kremlin only saying Russia would take part at the “proper level.”
South Africa’s position is unclear. Pretoria has said it will honor its obligations under its ICC membership, but the government is still weighing the possibility of hosting Putin or even moving the summit to China.
Independent political analyst Nic Borain said the government was caught between its support for BRICS and friendship with Russia on one side and the looming backlash from vital Western economic partners on the other.
“Obviously, the best solution for South Africa is if Putin decided not to come.”