Charles Leclerc won Formula One’s season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix in a Ferrari one-two finish with team mate Carlos Sainz on Sunday.
Mercedes’s seven-times world champion Lewis Hamilton took a surprise third place after a nightmare for Red Bull and reigning champion Max Verstappen who failed to score.
Ferrari’s last win before Sunday was with Sebastian Vettel in Singapore in September 2019.
Read our full analysis of the race on Monday…
Photo credit: Scuderia Ferrari Press Office
Around three million people, mostly women and children, have fled Ukraine across international borders since the war began. The latest estimates from UN agencies predicts that four million people will be displaced from the country as the conflict continues.
Poland, which shares a 500-kilometre border with Ukraine, has taken in the majority, with effectively two Ukrainian refugees entering Poland every three seconds. According to reports, around 250,000 refugees have also crossed the border into Moldova.
With Ukrainian men aged 18 to 60 required to stay and support the war effort, it is women and children who make up 90% of refugees.
The exodus from Ukraine is the fastest-growing refugee crisis in Europe since WW2, and right now, attention is rightfully focussed on their entry and reception. Volunteers are serving up soup and sandwiches, handing out clothes and sleeping bags, and offering temporary places to stay.
But soon the EU will need to consider how to best help the refugees settle in. Activation of the Temporary Protection Directive gives Ukrainians the right to access key integration-related services and employment, but national administrations now face an enormous challenge to make such access a reality.
Meanwhile, fears are growing that among the refugees who have arrived in Poland, Moldova, and other European countries, many now face much greater risks of being exploited, trafficked and forced into prostitution.
German police recently confirmed rumours that some of the refugees crossing the border had been approached by people and offered money to come and “stay” with them. As well as women, young people traveling alone are being targeted. The social media network Telegram is being flooded with reports that traffickers are trying to pick up children and women traveling by themselves.
In some countries, specialist anti-trafficking NGOs are disseminating leaflets to refugees, warning them of the risks of accepting transportation and accommodation from strangers, and informing them how to seek help and report suspicious cases to national helplines for trafficking victims.
Once the refugees have safely crossed the Ukrainian border, it is vital, therefore, that attention shifts to their protection and the provision of safe and legitimate job opportunities so they are not lured or tricked into human trafficking.
This is the focus of Jon Purizhansky. He is CEO of Joblio, a technology-based platform that connects potential labour migrants with employers via a transparent digital process that mitigates employer fraud and human rights violations. He is also a New York lawyer and a former refugee from Belarus.
“I relate to these people because I used to be a refugee. I was a teenager when my family and I went through the same thing,” Jon Purizhansky tells Monaco Life. “What is different about this refugee wave from the last in 2015/2016, is that was a group of men from the Middle East and this is women and children from Ukraine, so it is a completely different community from a demographic perspective but also from a vulnerability perspective.”
Joblio has been established for around two years now, primarily connecting male labourers in countries like Africa, South East Asia and Latin America with jobs in Europe.
Since 24th February, it’s operations in Poland and Moldova have kicked into hypergear and, with Joblio staff positioned at refugee centres in Moldova and on the border with Ukraine, the company is now helping female refugees find work in Germany, home to one of the largest Ukrainian communities in Europe.
“Being a refugee means that you don’t know what will happen tomorrow because you are on the run. So, Joblio turns the unknown into the known by securing employers in Germany who are willing to provide these refugees with jobs. Germany has a strong economy and a very severe shortage of labour, particularly within the fields of hospitality, care giving, and office cleaning. These sectors do not require formal qualifications, which is why they are a perfect temporary solution for the refugee community. Some used to work in agriculture, others were professors of French literature just two weeks ago. Now they are all the same.”
Purizhansky says that Joblio is using its existing corporate infrastructure in Europe to hire citizens of Ukraine, in compliance with a government-to-government agreement that existed between Poland and Ukraine prior to the refugee crisis that allows Polish companies to bring Ukrainian citizens on staff immediately. “This allows us to then place them with clients in Germany, thereby creating a secure and safe environment for the refugees while providing the German corporates with the staff that they need.”
Monaco Life met with Jon Purizhansky while he was in Monaco in September 2021. He told us then that his aim was for Joblio to become the global standard and platform for cross-border employment, utilised by corporates and governments throughout the world.
Joblio is not an NGO, says Purizhansky, it is a business, so it is geared towards efficiency and benefits everyone involved.
Backed by legal expertise in the fields of immigration law, tax law and labour law, Joblio is also an inspiring social impact project.
“We are sending the first bus of refugees to Germany, where Joblio Germany staff are going to meet them on the ground. We are doing this Elon Musk style, creating impact by operating a business. We are delivering staff that the German companies are advertising desperately for,” says Purizhansky, adding that half of the refugees on the bus are children.
“These are women with kids, so we also securing housing for them as well as childcare, daycare and schooling. We are going to create an ecosystem for them that allows them to safely move to Germany very fast, and have their kids in childcare or school. Our entire team is on it so they can start going to work and supporting themselves. This is also very helpful to the government of course, because they don’t have to subsidise them.”
Purizhansky is now calling on the corporate sector and the largest companies in Europe to join Joblio in its quest to create a safe and secure environment for the refugees.
“It is very important that we get help from the corporate sector and that it does not meet this initiative with cynicism. But even if we do face cynicism, the trump card is the business sense that it makes to the corporate world. It’s a win, win.”
See also:
Passing through Monaco: Joblio Founder Jon Purizhansky
Photo by Derek Thomson on Unsplash
Against a backdrop of mass fan discontent, an imploding season and rumours of a mass staff clearout, AS Monaco pulled out a seasons-best performance on Sunday to glide past champions-elect PSG (3-0).
As fans flocked to the Stade Louis II on Sunday to see the PSG circus arrive in town, a banner appeared in the Ultras stand, which reminded attendees that the circus never leaves the Principality. “Welcome to the 45th Monte-Carlo circus festival,” the banner read in front of lines of unoccupied seats. The absence of the Ultras was explained soon after with another banner, which read “Like you, we’re on holiday.”
Time was called on the strike 15 minutes into the fixture, their return to the stadium audible within the stadium as an atmosphere fitting such an event broke out. Their protest wasn’t finished there, however. Throughout the encounter, seven different banners were unfurled, criticising the players and the hierarchy of the club. Only owner Dmitry Rybolovlev was exempt from their anger.
If the Ultras had been present from the beginning, they would have witnessed a Monaco team that was unrecognisable to the limp side that has taken to the field in recent weeks. Having only secured one win in the past eight matches, the player’s confidence clearly hadn’t been extinguished, as Monaco pressed a highly-talented PSG unit.
Although Lionel Messi was absent through illness, PSG still boasted a frighteningly strong line-up including former Monaco man Kylian Mbappe, who was roundly booed throughout the match.
For PSG, the issue was getting the ball up to their world class attacking unit, as Wissam Ben Yedder, Gelson Martins and co. pressed effectively in the opposition third. It was his diligent work that almost opened the scoring, his interception and subsequent pass to Jean Lucas wasn’t finished by the latter with the goal at his mercy. A last-ditch tackle from the recovering Leandro Paredes was enough to steer the ball just wide.
Another half-chance fell to Jean Lucas and then to Youssouf Fofana, and one had the impression that if they had fallen to the prolific Ben Yedder, that the match could already have been settled as a contest.
When the Monaco captain did get his chance, he took it in typical clinical fashion. Fofana’s cross was met with a nonchalant front-post flick befitting of a player who is Ligue 1’s top scorer. PSG mustered a relatively tepid response to going behind, and although the away side went on to dominate possession and territory for the remainder of the half, a Marco Verratti shot that sailed wide of the far post was the most notable chance from a side that looked creatively defunct.
PSG’s second-half showing wasn’t much better, and although the home side accused their own players of being “on holiday” in recent weeks, it was the visitors who looked like they had come down for a vacation on the Cote d’Azur.
For a team wielding their level of talent, PSG didn’t look the sum of their parts, and although they looked dangerous on the break, they didn’t sustain any pressure on Alexander Nubel’s goal. The German goalkeeper was nonetheless grateful for Benoit Badiashile’s assistance as he cleared off the line from a scuffed Mbappe shot, with Nubel already rounded.
Monaco were happy to sit back and hit PSG on the break in the second-half, just as their opponents had done in the first period. Their fluidity and energy in transition eventually reaped its reward as Ben Yedder exploited the space vacated by the marauding Nuno Mendes. His cut-back found Ruben Aguilar, whose tame affront was diverted by a sprawling Kevin Volland, who tipped it around an already-committed Gianluigi Donnarumma.
The cherry on the cake came in the dying moments as some more energetic pressing allowed Volland to steal the ball and charge into the PSG penalty area before being felled. Ben Yedder stepped forward and made no mistake as he doubled his tally for the day.
Whereas the game started with a chorus of boos as the players (and the manager Philippe Clement) names were announced, the full-time whistle was greeted with deafening cheers. The emphatic, unexpected victory has, for now at least, changed the atmosphere around the club.
With the reports from L’Equipe on Saturday stating that Clement, Sporting Director Paul Mitchell and Vice-President Oleg Petrov are all set to be replaced in the coming days in what would be a mass clear-out of the club, there is still a cloud of uncertainty lingering over ASM.
Clement, however, continues to give his full focus to what he told Monaco Life were another nine finals (remaining number of Ligue 1 matches). “We must always look forward. All our concentration is now on the domestic championship,” he said.
As Clement admitted post-match, the only disappointment is that Monaco can’t back up this huge victory straight away, as the international break means the Principality side won’t play again until the beginning of April.
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