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The country that once welcomed the tired, poor, huddled masses is now asking for a little reciprocation. And Canada,Germany and Australia are heeding the call.

They top a list of the countries most welcoming to expats. There, relocators have a relatively easy time befriending locals, joining a local community group and learning the local language.

Canada is the most welcoming; almost 95% of respondents to HSBC Bank International's Expat Exploreer Survey, released today, said they have made friends with locals. In Germany, 92% were so lucky and in Australia 91% befriended those living there. The United Arab Emirates was found to be the most difficult for expats; only 54% of those surveyed said they'd made friends with locals.

In Depth: World's Friendliest Countries

Behind The Numbers
The study surveyed 2,155 expats in 48 countries, spanning four continents, between February and April 2008. Respondents rated their country in four categories: ability to befriend locals, number that joined a community group, number that learned the language and percentage that bought property.

"We conducted this survey to better understand expatriate needs and get insight into the emotions of expats. The banking business is all about trust, especially with the recent credit crisis," says Martin Spurling, CEO of HSBC Bank International and Head of HSBC Global Offshore. "We want them to build a relationship with their wealth manager regardless of where they travel."

For Americans, traveling abroad to start over is becoming increasingly common. America used to have it all: good jobs, booming economy, skyrocketing stock market and plentiful housing. What a difference a year can make. The boom has gone bust and people are now heading for the exits en masse--with an eye abroad.

It's no wonder they likely find Canada so welcoming. It has an accessible language, diverse culture and low levels of government corruption, says Patricia Linderman, editor of Tales from a Small Planet, an online newsletter for expats.

It also has other expats. This is important, Linderman says, since even the most gracious locals already have busy, established lives and can be unwilling to put in the effort to befriend someone they know could leave within several years.

"I'm not suggesting that it's good to live in an 'expat ghetto'. It's immensely rewarding to live among local people and make friends with them," she says.

Linderman says other expats are important because they share similar needs like making friends and adjusting to life in a new country. They also understand the frustrations daily life brings.

BERLIN, Germany (AP) -- Germans and Israelis on Sunday marked the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Nazi-incited riots that began their campaign to destroy European Jewry, with ceremonies, concerts and vows to honor the victims with renewed vigilance.

Chancellor Angela Merkel recalled the Nov. 9, 1938 riots in which more than 91 German Jews were killed and more than 1,000 synagogues damaged, telling Germans that the lessons of the nation's past were crucial in confronting a current increase of xenophobia and racism.

The riots are seen by many as the first step leading to the Nazis' systematic murder of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust.

"We must not be silent," Merkel told the nation at a ceremony in Germany's newly renovated largest synagogue. "Anti-Semitism and racism are a threat to our basic values -- those of democracy and respect for diversity and human rights."

At Israel's weekly Cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Kristallnacht, or Night of the Broken Glass, was "the turning point toward the inevitable destruction of a greater portion of the Jewish people in Europe between 1939-1945," adding that Israel "will never forgive or forget" the crimes of the Nazi regime.

Israeli President Shimon Peres issued a statement on Sunday calling the Holocaust the "worst disaster that ever happened to us."

Some 30,000 Jewish men and boys were arrested and sent to concentration camps during the pogrom that left the streets littered with shards of glass -- giving it the pogrom its name.

Germany's southern neighbor Austria -- where Kristallnacht claimed 30 Jewish lives -- also commemorated the day, while German-born Pope Benedict XVI called for prayers for Kristallnacht's victims in "profound solidarity with the Jewish world."

Benedict served briefly in the Hitler Youth corps, as a young man in Germany called Joseph Ratzinger.

At Yad Vashem, Israel's official Holocaust memorial, survivors, their descendants, academics and the German and Austrian ambassadors to Israel took part in a ceremony that also included a rare musical rendition of a work of the German-Jewish composer Robert Kahn, whose music was outlawed by the Nazis.

Yad Vashem also presented a new online exhibit, "It Came From Within ... 70 Years Since Kristallnacht," marking the event with images, historical information, and pages of testimony about some of the Jews who died during Kristallnacht.

Charlotte Knobloch, head of Germany's Central Council of Jews, who survived Kristallnacht as a girl in Munich, Germany, told the gathering in Berlin's Rykestrasse Synagogue that Germans must fight against far-right extremism in all its forms.

"One must be sensitive to the quiet and less quiet signals of anti-democratic developments in our country," said Knobloch, who lived through Kristallnacht as a girl in Munich.

The synagogue, a red brick temple built in 1904, also survived Kristallnacht because of its location nestled in an inner courtyard of a densely populated neighborhood. It reopened last year after two years of painstaking renovation.

A memorial concert in Berlin later Sunday and events in other communities across the country were also being held to mark the anniversary.

MUNICH, Germany

Industrial conglomerate Siemens AG is poised to sell its 50-percent stake in the joint venture Fujitsu Siemens Computers to Japan's Fujitsu Group, two people familiar with the deal told The Associated Press on Monday.

Siemens has been contemplating a sale of its half in the joint venture at least since August. Chief Executive Peter Loescher said then that the company was in talks with Fujitsu about the fate of the unit, which makes personal computers and laptops and posted sales of 6.6 billion euros but a pretax profit of just 105 million euros last year.

While no price for the stake has been disclosed, German media have valued it at about 500 million euros ($640 million).

The Associated Press spoke to two people involved in the talks who could not be identified because they were not authorized to speak to the media about the negotiations. They said an announcement of the deal could come within days but declined to provide more specific details.

Siemens did not comment. A call seeking comment from Fujitsu was not immediately returned.

Last week, Fujitsu said its profits dropped 21 percent to 4.29 billion yen ($44.2 million) in the most recent quarter as sluggish sales of personal computers and other gadgets offset growth in technology services.

The Tokyo-based company lowered its profit projection for the fiscal year, blaming an expected fall in consumer electronics purchases as the global economy slows. Like other Japanese exporters, Fujitsu's earnings have been hurt by the rising yen.

Siemens reports its third-quarter earnings later this month.

The venture employs more than 10,000 workers worldwide, among them 6,200 in Germany with plants in Augsburg, Munich, Paderborn and Soemmerda.

Dieter Scheitor, a representative for the union IG Metall on Siemen's supervisory board said that in the event of a change of owners, the union would insist that the 2,000 jobs in Augsburg and 500 jobs in Soemmerda be kept.

Shares of Siemens closed up 2.7 percent at 47.70 euros ($60.58) in Frankfurt.