Recommended:

recent articles we have come across that you might have missed.

Public rage against Tamil refugees has a nasty, xenophobic odour - an article from the Vancouver sun that is summed up in its subtitle "Why this mean-spirited furore over a few Tamils? Perhaps it's because they aren't white".

Xenophobia illogical in Canada - a similar story for this Calgary herald article on the MV Sun Sea.

Europe's union riven by government attacks on minorities - comment piece by James A Goldston in the Law section of the Guardian on the "wave of governmental hostility towards ethnic and religious minorities [that] risks undermining the common values of "human dignity, freedom, equality and solidarity", in the words of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, upon which the European Union is founded."

French crackdown on Gypsies raises concern - an American view on the French Roma deportations from the Las Vegas Sun that shows that this is not a recent phenomenon.

Foreign workers abusing their children - an interview with Israel's Interior Minister, Eli Yishai from the right-wing Shas party, who is responsible for implementing the latest and controversial policy on the deportation of the children of 'illegal' foreign workers. It is a long and highly illuminating interview, not just in his use of language about 'them' but also in his obvious pious paranoia about being labelled a racist whilst claiming that everybody else's attitude to him is based on racism.