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Moscow is hoping for the speedier signing of a border deal with Poland on simpler border passage for citizens of the neighboring Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.

The issue is among the highlights during Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s current visit to Warsaw. European laws allow visa-free travel for people living within 30 km from the EU border.

Mr. Lavrov and his Polish counterpart Radoslaw Sikorski are considering expanding the future agreement to include the whole of the Kaliningrad region and the adjoining Polish provinces

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Taiwan moved another step closer to obtaining visa exemption treatment from Schengen countries after the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) passed a visa liberalization motion for Taiwan yesterday, sending the proposal to a vote at the parliament’s plenary session late next month.

James Lee, Director-general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, said progress in the review of the proposal was going according to plan and the ministry remained cautiously optimistic about securing the privilege by the end of this year.

The European Parliament said in a press release that the LIBE had nearly unanimously adopted the proposal, with only one vote against, in favor of placing Taiwan on the list of countries exempt from EU visa controls. “The liberalization of visas for Taiwan will enable trade ties to develop,” rapporteur Agustin Diaz de Mera, a member of the European Parliament, said in the press release.

Diaz de Mera added that the EU had “already granted this exemption to other countries and entities in the same geographical area and at a similar level of economic development, such as Hong Kong, Macau, Japan, South Korea and Singapore,” the press release said.

If parliament passes the proposal, it will proceed to the Justice and Home Affairs Council of the Council of the EU for approval, expected in early December, the ministry said. Taiwan does not require visas for nationals from most EU member states, with the exception of Cyprus, Romania and Bulgaria. The ministry said that under the principle of reciprocity, Taiwan would add the three countries to its exemption list by the end of this year if Taiwan were granted visa exemption for Schengen nations.

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Mauritius and Switzerland on Wednesday signed an agreement on short-stay visa waiver under which Mauritians could stay in the European country without visa for a maximum of three months in a six-month period.

Mauritius and the European Community (EC) signed a similar agreement on 28 May, 2009, allowing Mauritians to enter and stay without visa in the territory of the European Union (EU) member States within the Schengen Area for the same period.

Mauritian Secretary for Foreign Affairs Anun Neewoor, said that under the combined effect of both agreements Mauritians could travel without a visa to the 25 EU member States and Switzerland and stay for a maximum period of three months with multiple-entry facilities within a six-month period.

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The Swedish National Migration Board will allow visiting students to apply online for their entry visas and residence permits, as well as pay their fees on its website. The goal of the move is to offer better service, as well as reduce the waiting time to process applications. The service will be initially introduced on a small scale, then gradually be introduced to Swedish embassies and consulates.

Two groups of applicants can now make use of the electronic services. Those who do not need an entry visa to visit Sweden can apply for a residence permit for visiting students on the agency’s website. The application will then be processed in Sweden and the permit issued by the embassy or consulate indicated by the applicant.

For Chinese residents, those who must apply for a visa for any kind of visit to Sweden, or a residence permit for visiting students can do so online for applications handled by the Swedish embassy in Beijing.

Applicants can submit all their information online and pay the application fee electronically before the mandatory embassy visit, making the application process more efficient.The Swedish consulate in Shanghai will also offer these services next month. They will be rolled out at other Swedish missions next year.

According to the agency, in 2009, Sweden’s embassy and consulate received nearly 2,500 applications for visiting student permits out of about 16,900 in various other countries around the world.

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U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) today announced it has begun issuing a redesigned, more secure Certificate of Naturalization (Form N-550) as part of its ongoing efforts to enhance the integrity of the immigration system. The agency anticipates that over 600,000 new citizens will receive the enhanced certificate over the next year.

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The British High Commission in Nigeria said yesterday that it issued about 100,000 visas to Nigerians wishing to travel to the United Kingdom, out of the 170,000 that applied.

The commission stated this in a statement signed by its press secretary, Hooman Nouruzi in Abuja. The statement said: “The British High Commission would like to note that the UK is committed to providing a top class visa service. The UK Border Agency works to strict customer service standards which have been maintained during a busy summer in Nigeria that has seen demand exceed expectations.” “Last year we received over 170,000 visa applications from Nigerians wishing to travel to the UK, of which approximately 100,000 were successful.”

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In an attempt to prevent foreigners from getting non-technical jobs, the government has made it clear that citizens of other countries will be taken only for highly-skilled assignments in India and should draw an annual salary of over USD 25,000.

In an order, the Home Ministry nullified a Labour Ministry circular which allows one percent foreigners among the total work force in any project with a minimum of five and maximum of 20 people.

“An employment visa is granted to a foreigner if the applicant is a highly skilled and/or qualified professional, who is being engaged or appointed by a company/organization/industry/undertaking in India on contract or employment basis,” according to the Home Ministry guidelines. Besides, the ministry made it clear that employment visa shall not be granted for jobs for which qualified Indian are available and also for routine, ordinary or secretarial/clerical jobs.

“The foreign national being sponsored for an employment visa in any sector should draw a salary in excess of USD 25,000 per annum,” it says.

However, this condition of annual floor limit on income will not apply to ethnic cooks, language teachers (other than English), staff working for the Embassy/High Commission concerned in India.

The Labour Ministry had ordered that visa applications could be cleared by the Indian missions abroad at their level if the foreign national is skilled and qualified professional, technical experts, senior executives or in managerial positions and those kinds of skills which are not available in India.

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The EU will decide whether to scrap visa requirements for Bosnian and Albanian citizens on November 8th, Sarajevo-based daily Nezavisne Novine reported on Monday (October 18th) ,quoting diplomatic sources in Brussels. The source also said that visas will be lifted by the end of the year.

Several countries — including France and Germany — reportedly have requested additional security guarantees in order to back visa-free regimes for BiH and Albania. On October 7th, the European Parliament green-lighted lifting visa requirements for both countries. The final decision is up to the Council of Ministers.

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Tourism in Russia has seen rapid growth since the late Soviet times, first inner tourism and then international tourism as well. Rich cultural heritage and great natural variety place Russia among the most popular tourist destinations in the world. The country contains 23 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, while many more are on UNESCO’s tentative lists. Major tourist routes in Russia include a travel around the Golden Ring of ancient cities, cruises on the big rivers like Volga, and long journeys on the famous Trans-Siberian Railway. Diverse regions and ethnic cultures of Russia offer many different food and souvenirs, and show a great variety of traditions, like Russian banya, Tatar Sabantuy, or Siberian shamanist rituals.Despite being home to some of the world’s great attractions – from Red Square and the Kremlin in Moscow to the famed Hermitage museum in Saint Petersburg – Russia has struggled to attract tourists.

The major hurdle towards attracting less tourism is it is epicenter of some of the most expensive hotels in the world, inadequate tourism infrastructure, a reputation for surly service and bureaucratic headaches for visitors and the absence of English. To tackle this, the Russian government is hoping to change all that and is planning to launch an ambitious programm to make the country a tourist paradise by 2016 and thrust it into the ranks of major tourism destinations. The deputy minister for tourism and sport, Nadezhda Nazina said “We are going to do everything possible so that a foreign visitor feels comfortable in Russia.”
The Russian government will soon be considering a 352-billion-ruble (11.7-billion-dollar, 8.5-billion-euro) plan to improve infrastructure, train specialists and launch a major advertising campaign, she said. If the plan is successful “in five years up to 40 million foreign tourists could visit Russia every year,” Nazina said.

Russia last year attracted only 2.3 million foreign visitors, according to the federal tourism agency, placing it far below the top destinations for international tourists. The top two destinations, France and the United States, attracted 74 million and 55 million visitors respectively in 2009, according to the World Tourism Organization. To reach its target, Russia would need to attract about as many tourists every year as Italy, which last year hosted 43 million foreign visitors.

Industry experts in Russia said they would love to see the plan succeed but were highly skeptical. The figure of 40 million tourists “is a prediction that is in the realm of science fiction,” said Maya Lomidze, the executive director of the Association of Tour Operators of Russia.

“Too many conditions would have to be met for this plan to be realized. The main necessity is that we have hotels at affordable prices. Russia is a very expensive country,” she said.

According to a recent study by travel consultancy the Hogg Robinson Group, the average price of a hotel room in Moscow is 402 dollars (288 euros), the most expensive in the world. In Paris the average price was 318 dollars (227 euros) and in New York 297 dollars (213 euros).

“In Moscow there are almost no economy-class hotels or they are very bad. The prices are exorbitant,” said Irina Tyurina, the spokeswoman for the Russian Tourism Industry Union.She said Moscow and Russia’s Tsarist-era capital Saint Petersburg, famed for their luxury hotels, continue to host most visitors to Russia, accounting for 95-98 percent of foreign guests.

The next most-popular destinations are the so-called Golden Ring of ancient cities near Moscow including Vladimir and Rostov, the Kamchatka peninsula in Russia’s Far East and the Lake Baikal region in Siberia. Industry experts said Russia will also have to overcome the bureaucratic red-tape that is the bane of visits to the country.

Foreign visitors are not only required to indicate the cities they plan to visit when applying for a Russian visa, they are also required to register with local migration authorities every time they visit a new city, a process Tyurina described as “humiliating.” Russia is also country “that has not yet adapted to the needs of foreign tourists,” Lomidze said. For example, there are no signs in English in the Moscow Metro except for small plans posted in the underground transportation network.

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Immigration New Zealand has begun trials of biometric technology that uses facial recognition to verify the identity of people coming through New Zealand customs.The trialled technology from biometrics technology firm Daon takes a photo of the person applying for a visa, and then uses this photo to verify the identity of the applicant when they attempt to gain entry to the country.

Over the next few years plans to use biometrics to confirm the identity of visa applicants and travelers at the border. Any technologies adopted will have substantial privacy safeguards, in accordance with New Zealand privacy laws. The trial is not currently being deployed in regular border control operations and a decision on whether the technology will be employed by Immigration New Zealand is not expected to be made for at least 12 months, the department said.

“The evaluation is a short-term trial that is not being deployed operationally,” Immigration New Zealand said. “It is separate from the Immigration Global Management System (IGMS) replacement of the current Application Management System (AMS). IGMS, once approved, will provide future operational identity management capabilities for INZ.”