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New rules announced by health minister Lord Warner last month state that any doctor trained in a non-European Union country will now need a medical graduate work permit. The new legislation will take effect from July 1, 2006.

"International medical graduates are shocked and appalled by the new ruling by the National Health System to end work permit free training for doctors from outside the EU," said Peter Trewby the chairman of the Royal College of Physicians.

This week, the ongoing battle in the US Senate over immigration continued to top the news. On Friday April 7, the US Senate failed to reach an agreement on a compromise that would allow the millions of illegal immigrants currently in the US to apply for US citizenship. Demonstrators poured onto the streets April 9 and 10 to rally for immigrant rights as Democrats and Republicans continued to quarrel over the government's overhaul of immigration laws.

An IBM study is predicting that the city of London will become an even more important global centre for commerce and finance by the year 2015. Talent will be lured away from the US due to its restrictive regulations. US executives will leave the US to escape financial disclosure rules.

UK doctors disgruntled with new postgraduate immigration policy. 

April 21, mainly overseas doctors demonstrated their displeasure at the new immigration rules that will make it difficult for doctors who qualified from outside the EU to remain for postgraduate training. Denis C Wilkins President of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland has said that the new rules move away from selection based on merit.