The Mexican ambassador to Canada says his country is “really mad” at the Harper government for the continued imposition of a visa on its travellers here. Ambassador Francisco Suarez told The Canadian Press in an exclusive interview that Mexico is so upset that if the issue isn’t resolved by next year, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto might have to postpone a planned visit to Canada.

When Barack Obama welcomes Manmohan Singh to the White House on Sept. 27, the Indian prime minister will voice his concerns over the US immigration bill. In its present form, the bill makes it much more difficult for Indian tech companies to get the visas they need to bring workers into the United States. Obama will listen. But if Singh wants his way, India might also try ceding some ground. It explicitly prohibits foreign direct investment (FDI) in e-commerce, though it’s opening up the market to foreign companies operating brick-and-mortar stores.

Australia's new government-elect prepared for a tranfer of power Sunday, with policies to cut foreign aid and roll back greenhouse gas reduction measures in moves the new leaders say will help balance the nation's books. Prime Minister-elect Tony Abbott also plans to visit Indonesia soon in part to discuss controversial plans to curb the number of asylum seekers reaching Australian shores in Indonesian fishing boats.

Yet Mr Carney’s more serious point was that UK productivity, which has been trailing other major advanced economies for decades, is no higher today than it was in 2005, when Mr Bugg got his first guitar. This appears to be the longest period of stagnation in UK productivity growth on record. Economists have widely described this phenomenon as a “puzzle”, a word they tend to use for any trend that breaks with past norms.

Dumitru Condrea has big plans, but an even bigger problem. After six years working in civil society, the affable 25-year-old activist says his hope for change has eroded. He says he loves his country, but has run out of options. “If you want to change something, you need money. And I can’t make money here in Moldova.”

Once, Adil Ibrahim worked as a translator with American soldiers, introducing them to Iraqi culture and the streets of Baghdad and trying to bridge gaps of understanding. Now, he’s one of them. Ibrahim, an Iraqi who came to the United States on a media scholarship in 2008 and then sought asylum, is now a U.S. citizen and member of the U.S. military. He’s even been deployed to Afghanistan.

Dan Matthews is a rapper. He was adopted from Korea when he was 8 months old and grew up in Southern California as an American kid. But he was curious about his birth parents. So after many years of being on the fence about finding them…he wrote a letter to his adoption agency. He just never thought he’d get this response: "Dear Dan Matthews. I’m writing to share the information of your birth family. As you may be aware your birth parents were married and are still married. they have one son and a daughter.

Why are the immigration debates in the United Kingdom and the United States going in opposite directions? Part of the answer is in the chart above: During a time of economic trouble, Britain saw a surge in foreign workers that the US did not. How did the US and UK part ways in the way they think about immigration? You can blame the difference on the European Union. Between 1995 and 2005, the US and the UK increased the foreign-born share of their population at about the same rate.