Under the headline “Asylum Falling Around The World”, The Beeb reports the United Nations reporting that:

“The number of asylum seekers coming to the industrialised world fell by a fifth in 2004 to its lowest level in 16 years, according to the United Nations.”
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“…the number of asylum seekers from Afghanistan and Iraq continued to fall – the two nations formerly having produced some of the largest movements of people into Europe in recent years.

“The number of Afghans seeking asylum has dropped by 83% since 2001 while Iraqi asylum applications have fallen by 80% since 2002. These falls have coincided with regime changes in both countries.

I hope that the impartial British Broadcasting Corporation isn’t trying to imply that regime change led to people wanting to remain in their own countries. More of that kind of talk and the British National Party will be changing its policy on military intervention overseas.

[I had trouble tracking down that little bit of text on the BNP’s Website. The link they themselves give points to a URL containing the phrase “policies/policies/policies”, but leading nowhere. They have more in common with the Tories than I thought.]