By Roberto Savio*

August 1, 2018

• According to the latest statistics, the total flow of immigrants so far in 2018 is 50.000 people, compared with 186,768 last year, 1,259,955 in 2016 and 1,327,825 in 2015. The difference between reality and perceptions is so astonishing, we are clearly witnessing one of the most brilliant manipulations in history.

The latest survey carried out of 23,000 citizens of France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States shows an enormous level of disinformation. In five of those countries, people believe that immigrants are three times higher than they actually are.

Italians believe they account for 30% of the population when the figure is actually 10%, an average which is lower than the media of the European Union. Swedes are those closest to reality: they believe immigrants account for 30%, when in fact the figure is 20%.

Italians also believe that 50% of the immigrants are Muslim, when in fact it is 30%; conversely, 60% of the immigrants are Christian, and Italians think they are 30%.

In all six countries, citizens think that immigrants are poorer and without education or knowledge, and therefore a heavy financial burden. Italians think that 40% of immigrants are jobless, when the figure is close to 10%, no different from the general rate of unemployment.

Originally published at other-news.info

Meanwhile, the 7th report on the economic impact of immigration in Italy from the Leone Moressa Foundation, which based its research on Italian Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) data, has presented some totally ignored facts.

The 2.4 million immigrants in Italy have produced 130 billion euros, or 8.9% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) – an amount larger than the GDP of Hungary, Slovakia and Croatia. In the last five years, out of a total of nearly 6 million Italian companies, 570.000 – or 9.4% of the total – were started by immigrants. Tito Boeri, president of Italy’s national pension agency INPS, has told Parliament that immigrants give 11.5 billion euro to the system, more than what they cost. He also stressed that Italy is going through a demographic crisis, with only seven births for every eleven deaths.

Well, Matteo Salvini, the emerging Italian leader, who has based all his political success on making immigrants the greatest threat facing Italy, answered on Twitter: Boeri lives on Mars. And that was the end of the story. For more than 50% of Italians, Salvini’s tweet was more conclusive than real statistics.

The same happened with the outgoing Director General of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), William Swing, who quoted a study conducted by the IOM and McKinsey Global Institute which “determined that although only 3.5% of the world’s population are migrants, they are producing nine percent of the global wealth measured in GDP terms, which is more than four percent than if they stayed at home”. This made no impact on Trump electors, white rural and red collars, who are convinced that immigration is a threat to the country, even though they all have immigrant roots.

In other words, facts are irrelevant. Perceptions count more…

Continue reading here

 

Photo credit: breitbart.com

 

Roberto Savio
– is an Italian-Argentine journalist. He is the publisher of OtherNews, adviser to INPS-IDN and to the Global Cooperation Council. He is also co-founder of Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency and its President Emeritus.

 

 

One Response

  1. In Italy, contrary to what Savio tells, immigrants are the majority of the people in prison (about 75%), so means that security from immigrants arrived in Italy (about in 1990 they started to arrive in measure of many thousandt). Immigrants receive all sanitarian assistance even pay nothing, so INPS boss tell us a great quantity of lies. there are millions of italians of people under level of poverty but immigrants received one house before italians. this is inacceptable. WE HAVEN’T POSSIBILITY TO MANTAIN IMMIGRANTS from 90’s when the first crisis started to arrive in Italy, one fter the other, one more bad than precedent………. so, what Savio tell us con’t be the real truth, whatever he thinks we are in so bad situation that we can’t have millions of desperados that for the majority goes to became criminals

Related Posts

This is the third appeal from TFF. The first and the second here. On August 22, 2025, the UN officially declared famine in Gaza. The world’s top authority on food security called for help and said starvation will spread further within the Strip unless fighting stops and much more aid is allowed in. More than half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic hunger conditions, while more than a million more are in a food emergency phase, the report states. This man-made catastrophic famine could have been prevented by a steady flow of humanitarian aid into the enclave, relief chief Tom Fletcher pointed out. “Yet food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel,” Mr. Fletcher said. “It is a famine within a few 100 meters of food in a fertile land.” The UN’s top aid official underscored that the famine in Gaza is “caused by cruelty, justified...
Farhang Jahanpour TFF Associate and former Board member September 8, 2025 On 28 August 2025, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom (the EU Troika) decided to trigger the so-called “snapback mechanism” and reimpose stringent sanctions on Iran after 30 days for its alleged violation of the terms of the Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), if Iran did not give in to their demands within 30 days. In the lawless world in which we are living at the moment, discussing the principles of international law is futile and irrelevant. We have reverted to the age of imperial dictatorship and big power dominance. This state of affairs is dangerous for the whole world, especially the Global South, which is at the mercy of the dictates of the superpowers. However, a return to the rivalry between powerful empires outside the scope of international law, which led...
February 28, 2025 Every few days, I was on TV in Russia and China – Russia TV1 and CCTV – the latter as part of a much longer studio discussion and documentary about Ukraine, Russa and the EU. February 14, 2025 – about half an hour on Russia’s leading TV Channel – 1TV – a kind of portrait with lots of views on current affairs. February 24, 2025, at China’s CCTV Channel 13, appearing about 43 minutes into the documentary. Hundreds of other videos with Jan Oberg are at TFF Substack, where TFF now has its video library after being thrown out by censoring Google-owned YouTube. And many more videos with other TFF Associates and a series of world issues. It’s a great way to learn new angles from some of the most experienced people of our time. And the best part – new videos are selected and uploaded almost...

Recent Articles

Below are TFF-related media mentions, comments, videos and social media posts published elsewhere but not on this homepage. We happen to catch and list only a fraction. Regarding video comments and debates, we recommend that you go to the TFF Video Channel on Substack where many of them are reproduced. Jan Oberg is a contributor to China Daily – 52 million daily clicks – and Global Times, CGTN and CCTV (the national television), China Investment, Xinhua News Agency and several others. Articles and videos on these media very often multiply into countless Chinese (and Western media) that re-post them from these main media. Thanks to The China Academy, his analyses, interviews and comments are frequently posted on YouTube channels such as Thinkers Forum and Wave Media. These videos are often re-posted on Bilibili (China’s YouTube), the China Content Center on TikTok, and on the Chinese edition of TikTok, Douyin.com. This means reaching hundreds of millions of viewers worldwide over a year. While there are too many to catch on all these...
Jan Oberg TFF director October 13, 2026 According to Alfred Nobel’s will, the Nobel Peace Prize shall be awarded: ”to the person who has done the most or best to advance fellowship among nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and the establishment and promotion of peace congresses.” Further down, he also expresses how the prize for the “champions of peace” shall be decided: “that for champions of peace by a committee of five persons to be selected by the Norwegian Storting. Alfred Nobel’s will is remarkably short and clear. But few seem to have read it. Nobel did not say that the committee itself should consist of members of parliament. He entrusted the Storting with appointing five persons. In principle, it could have selected diplomats, mediators, peace researchers, conflict-resolution specialists, or other individuals with recognised expertise in matters of peace from around the world. Instead, the Storting gradually...
The Quest for Humane Survival Richard Falk Professor emeritus, Princeton UniversityTFF Associate since 1986October 12, 2026 After decades of teaching and writing about international law in academic frameworks that were not institutionally situated within law school environments—at Princeton and the University of California, Santa Barbara—I found myself most receptive to the TWAIL outlook. It has been especially illuminating in clarifying the extent to which international law evolved as a dialogical critique of Europe’s efforts to legitimize its colonial undertakings. In particular, TWAIL has exposed how international law has functioned to legalize the subjugation of Third World peoples, securing conditions for exploitative investment and trade relations, the coercive enforcement of public debts, and an ideology of cultural superiority. TWAIL’s exposure of these economic legacies of colonialism has influenced my understanding of the history and development of international law, broadly conceived, as an ideological project of the Western sub-system of the world...

TFF on Substack

Discover and subscribe to more peace materials on TFF Substack

Most Popular

Below are TFF-related media mentions, comments, videos and social media posts published elsewhere but not on this homepage. We happen to catch and list only a fraction. Regarding video comments and debates, we recommend that you go to the TFF Video Channel on Substack where many of them are reproduced. Jan Oberg is a contributor to China Daily – 52 million daily clicks – and Global Times, CGTN and CCTV (the national television), China Investment, Xinhua News Agency and several others. Articles and videos on these media very often multiply into countless Chinese (and Western media) that re-post them from these main media. Thanks to The China Academy, his analyses, interviews and comments are frequently posted on YouTube channels such as Thinkers Forum and Wave Media. These videos are often re-posted on Bilibili (China’s YouTube), the China Content Center on TikTok, and on the Chinese edition of TikTok, Douyin.com. This means reaching hundreds of millions of viewers worldwide over a year. While there are too many to catch on all these...
Jan Oberg TFF director October 13, 2026 According to Alfred Nobel’s will, the Nobel Peace Prize shall be awarded: ”to the person who has done the most or best to advance fellowship among nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and the establishment and promotion of peace congresses.” Further down, he also expresses how the prize for the “champions of peace” shall be decided: “that for champions of peace by a committee of five persons to be selected by the Norwegian Storting. Alfred Nobel’s will is remarkably short and clear. But few seem to have read it. Nobel did not say that the committee itself should consist of members of parliament. He entrusted the Storting with appointing five persons. In principle, it could have selected diplomats, mediators, peace researchers, conflict-resolution specialists, or other individuals with recognised expertise in matters of peace from around the world. Instead, the Storting gradually...
The Quest for Humane Survival Richard Falk Professor emeritus, Princeton UniversityTFF Associate since 1986October 12, 2026 After decades of teaching and writing about international law in academic frameworks that were not institutionally situated within law school environments—at Princeton and the University of California, Santa Barbara—I found myself most receptive to the TWAIL outlook. It has been especially illuminating in clarifying the extent to which international law evolved as a dialogical critique of Europe’s efforts to legitimize its colonial undertakings. In particular, TWAIL has exposed how international law has functioned to legalize the subjugation of Third World peoples, securing conditions for exploitative investment and trade relations, the coercive enforcement of public debts, and an ideology of cultural superiority. TWAIL’s exposure of these economic legacies of colonialism has influenced my understanding of the history and development of international law, broadly conceived, as an ideological project of the Western sub-system of the world...
Read More
girl-5894831_1280
Below are TFF-related media mentions, comments, videos and social media posts published elsewhere but not on this homepage. We happen to catch and list only a fraction. Regarding video comments and debates, we recommend that you go to the TFF Video Channel on Substack where many of them are reproduced. Jan Oberg is a contributor to China Daily – 52 million daily clicks – and Global Times, CGTN and CCTV (the national television), China Investment, Xinhua News Agency and several others. Articles and videos on these media very often multiply into countless Chinese (and Western media) that re-post them from these main media. Thanks to The China Academy, his analyses, interviews and comments are frequently posted on YouTube channels such as Thinkers Forum and Wave Media. These videos are often re-posted on Bilibili (China’s YouTube), the China Content Center on TikTok, and on the Chinese edition of TikTok, Douyin.com. This means reaching hundreds of millions of viewers worldwide over a year. While there are too many to catch on all these...
Nobel-Prize-Plaque
Jan Oberg TFF director October 13, 2026 According to Alfred Nobel’s will, the Nobel Peace Prize shall be awarded: ”to the person who has done the most or best to advance fellowship among nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and the establishment and promotion of peace congresses.” Further down, he also expresses how the prize for the “champions of peace” shall be decided: “that for champions of peace by a committee of five persons to be selected by the Norwegian Storting. Alfred Nobel’s will is remarkably short and clear. But few seem to have read it. Nobel did not say that the committee itself should consist of members of parliament. He entrusted the Storting with appointing five persons. In principle, it could have selected diplomats, mediators, peace researchers, conflict-resolution specialists, or other individuals with recognised expertise in matters of peace from around the world. Instead, the Storting gradually...
law-419057_1280
The Quest for Humane Survival Richard Falk Professor emeritus, Princeton UniversityTFF Associate since 1986October 12, 2026 After decades of teaching and writing about international law in academic frameworks that were not institutionally situated within law school environments—at Princeton and the University of California, Santa Barbara—I found myself most receptive to the TWAIL outlook. It has been especially illuminating in clarifying the extent to which international law evolved as a dialogical critique of Europe’s efforts to legitimize its colonial undertakings. In particular, TWAIL has exposed how international law has functioned to legalize the subjugation of Third World peoples, securing conditions for exploitative investment and trade relations, the coercive enforcement of public debts, and an ideology of cultural superiority. TWAIL’s exposure of these economic legacies of colonialism has influenced my understanding of the history and development of international law, broadly conceived, as an ideological project of the Western sub-system of the world...
images-2
Advocates of nuclear disarmament are regularly dismissed by the champions of nuclear deterrence as naïve and unrealistic, utopian or even irresponsible. Yet this ‘doctrine’ of deterrence, regarded by France as the ‘cornerstone’ of its national security, is based on quasi-religious beliefs, a theory that cannot be proven, risky gambles and fragile assumptions. So much so that one might legitimately ask which side the ‘Care Bears’ are on. Marc FinaudVice-President of Initiatives for Nuclear Disarmament (IDN) October 9, 2026 This article was originally published on Pressenza When it comes to these things being treated as religious concepts, look here. Idealists and realists It was Hubert Védrine, François Mitterrand’s former Foreign Minister, who repeatedly coined the phrase: ‘Europeans are a sort of Care Bears who don’t realise they’re living in Jurassic Park’. He applies this reference to the cartoon for well-behaved children not only to what he regards as weakness or idealism...
8824b09f-33a5-43f9-9fd0-550f28cda24d_1536x1024
What the West Borrowed from Asia and What It Left Behind Jan Krikke October 8, 2026 The article was originally published here In the late 1960s, the musical Hair announced that the Age of Aquarius was dawning. Its opening anthem promised a transformation of human consciousness: an era of peace, harmony and understanding. Half a century later, a familiar echo of that promise is a meditation app offered by your employer. You can find it in the same list of benefits as the pension plan and the gym discount. How did a spiritual revolution become an employee benefit? The answer lies in the history of the movement known as New Age: where it came from, what it borrowed from Asia, and why the meaning of what it borrowed changed in the process. Two definitions will help. New Age is a loose label for a wide range of spiritual practices and...
Screenshot 2026-10-04 210142
Small and different + among the 10% most active + 9,000 texts + 150 Associates + 60 000 a day — and a stubborn belief that peace is smarter and must be secured by peaceful means. In 2026, the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research (TFF) turns 40. On Monday, October 5, 2026, a new TFF homepage will go live — a new gateway to more than 9,000 articles, analyses, research papers and other contributions produced over four decades of independent peace research. But this is not simply a new website. For four decades, TFF has worked from a simple conviction: peace is smarter than militarism and can be brought about by peaceful means. This is not merely an aspiration. It is the principle expressed in the UN Charter and the Gandhian tradition that has guided our work from the beginning. TFF is a research-based, independent and people-financed foundation....