#paying migrants to leave eu

[lyesander]

Not crazy about people writing off the Titan submersible incident as some schadenfreudic buzzstory they can rag on for a handful of internet funny points. I get the frustration, I really do. At least three of the passengers had to shell out $250,000 a ticket for a glorified deep sea Disney ride. The CEO of OceanGate is a capitalist wackjob who has been complaining about and bypassing safety regulations for years, despite multiple warnings, and now the retrieval is taking up time and resources from multiple countries that could have been put to better use. But one of the crew members on board was also the nineteen year old son of another passenger. I doubt his involvement extended much beyond “I’m going on a fun trip with my dad.” Another was an unaffiliated researcher who joined the expedition to collect environmental samples for DNA analysis. Not everyone on board was a high-rolling corporate yuppie. (And even if they were, it’s still a pretty objectively horrific way to die.) Instead of memes, I’d rather see this prompt a discussion on the ethics and potential regulation of scientific tourism.

The above also doesn’t change the fact that this is dragging media attention away from more pressing issues, such as the sinking of the Andriana. I guess “THE TITANIC CLAIMS ANOTHER FIVE VICTIMS” is a more colorful headline than “the EU’s xenophobic migration policies have led to the deaths of hundreds of migrants seeking asylum in Italy, and an active cover up is now taking place, headed by Greek authorities.” Seeing all this energy be funneled towards dragging this tiny capsule out of the Atlantic when up to five hundred refugees - mostly women and children - were locked in the hull of a ship and left to suffer the exact same fate, while Coast Guard vessels looked on and did nothing (or even had an active role in the capsize after a botched attempt to tow it, according to some testimonies), illustrates the sway money and race have in what we pay attention to. It’s a gruesome example of inequity in action.

I had compared what happened to the Titan to the Kursk incident, but the Andriana doesn’t have the luxury of being a freak accident. Over 25,000 migrants have disappeared or drowned trying to cross the Mediterranean since 2014, with over 2,000 deaths taking place in 2022 alone. Those are staggering numbers. Protests have broken out across Greece over the past week in the wake of the tragedy, advocating for migration reform.

While these sorts of mass casualty events tend to leave us feeling disheartened and helpless, there are ways to help. Below is a link to SOS Humanity’s donation page. Reputable search and rescue organizations such as SOS Humanity or SOS Mediterranée built their mission statements around helping migrants like the ones on board the Andriana. Donate if you can, spread the word if you can’t.

[probablyasocialecologist]

In Almería lies the world's largest concentration of commercial greenhouses, often referred to as ‘the sea of plastic’. This vast expanse of polytunnels, housing millions of kilos of fruits and vegetables mainly destined for export, stretches for hundreds of kilometers, a white panorama until the horizon. Also within this sea of plastic dwell the migrant workers who work to ensure Europe's supermarkets are stocked year-round. While they perform the vital task of ensuring Europe's all-season access to fresh produce, these workers often live in a state of physical and institutional vulnerability. This state of affairs remained largely hidden, until recent shocks like the Covid-19 pandemic and armed conflicts exposed the fragility of our food supply chains. Spain issues approximately 150,000 permits annually for seasonal laborers (European Parliament 2021). However, within just the province of Almería, there are more than 100,000 migrants working in greenhouses, 80% of them holding undocumented status in the country. This lack of legal recognition leaves the workers off official records, denying them universal rights such as labour rights and access to formal rental contracts. It is a dire situation that forces many to call the shanty towns surrounding the greenhouses their homes. During my research, I often heard how some workers pay up to 6,000 euros annually to greenhouse managers for the working contracts necessary to seek legal status in the country, turning the quest for legalization into a profitable business.  Almería serves as a primary entry point for migrants traveling from West and North African countries to Europe. For those who cross the Mediterranean without visas - the majority of greenhouse laborers - this work is virtually the only option for income generation on arrival. While informal greenhouse jobs provide financial support to workers and their families back in their home countries, they also perpetuate vulnerability in livelihoods and employment, highlighting and embedding a stark contrast between EU citizens enjoying affordable food and the undocumented migrant workers compelled to work in precarious conditions to provide it.

[humanrightsupdates]

Lebanon/Cyprus: Refugees Pulled Back, Expelled, Then Forced Back to Syria

EU Needs to Review Border Control Funding, Increase Human Rights Monitoring

(Beirut) – The Lebanese Armed Forces and Cypriot authorities work together to keep refugees from reaching Europe, then deport them to danger in Syria, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

The 90-page report, “‘I Can’t Go Home, Stay Here, or Leave’: Pushbacks and Pullbacks of Syrian Refugees from Cyprus and Lebanon,” documents why Syrian refugees in Lebanon are desperate to leave and try to reach Europe; and how the Lebanese army has intercepted, pulled them back, and summarily expelled them to Syria. In tandem, the Cypriot Coast Guard and other Cypriot security forces have sent Syrians whose boats reached Cyprus back to Lebanon, without regard to their refugee status or risk of being expelled to Syria. Many of those sent back to Lebanon by Cyprus were immediately expelled to Syria by the Lebanese army.

Human Rights watch interviewed 16 Syrian refugees who had tried to leave Lebanon irregularly by boat between August 2021 and September 2023. Human Rights Watch also reviewed and verified photographs and videos sent directly from interviewees, accessed aircraft and boat tracking data to corroborate interviewee accounts, and submitted freedom of information requests to obtain European Union funding documents. Human Rights Watch documented cases of people sent back between August 2021 and September 2023, but Lebanon confirmed to Human Rights Watch that it expelled Cyprus-returned Syrians in April 2024, and publicly announced new pullbacks in August 2024.

“By preventing Syrian refugees from leaving to seek protection elsewhere, and then forcibly returning them to Syria, Lebanon violates the fundamental prohibition on returning a refugee to face persecution, while the European Union helps pay the bills,” said Nadia Hardman, refugee and migrant rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Cyprus also violates this prohibition by pushing refugees back to Lebanon where they risk being sent to danger in Syria.”

The EU and its member states have provided various Lebanese security authorities with as much as €16.7 million in funding from 2020 to 2023 to implement border management projects mainly aimed at enhancing Lebanon’s ability to curb irregular migration. As recently as May 2024, it allotted a broader €1 billion package to Lebanon through 2027, including money to the “Lebanese Armed Forces and other security forces with equipment and training for border management and to fight against smuggling.”

[thessalian]

Thess vs A Global Laughingstock

So for those of you who aren't aware, this bloody country is still going around in circles about the Rwanda Bill. Catch-up and updates follow:

What the fuck is the Rwanda Bill? Well, y'see, the current Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, has decided to really appeal to the racist right-wing asshole voter - the kind of nitwit that voted for Brexit because of "those damned foreigners" - by dealing with "illegal migrants" once and for all. For a definition of "illegal migrants", see also "refugees" - people who are fleeing from their country of origin because their country is unsafe. The UK Nitwit Brigade keep bitching about, "They really should stop in the first safe country they find!" and ignore anyone who explains that people are only willing to pay literal people-smugglers to cross the English Channel in very small unsafe boats for very good reasons - like, they have family here, or can speak the language, or all of the above. The whole problem is that there aren't enough safe legal routes for refugees to take to get here, so they take what they can get. Anyway, the three-word slogan currently dominating the noise from 10 Downing Street is "Stop The Boats", and after discussions about things like "literally shoving the small boats back towards France with fucking gunships, inevitably causing them to capsize and drown in the process" were shut down by "lefty lawyers" who care about human rights and, y'know, not drowning innocent people. So then came the next step: "Deport them all to Rwanda".

Why Rwanda? Fuck only knows. I'm assuming it's to do with an awful lot of money. Though weirdly, we seem to have paid them more than they've paid us.

What's the problem with Rwanda? Well, it's been deemed an unsafe country by the European Commission of Human Rights, to which we still belong - it's not an EU thing, it's a European continent thing. The only two countries in Europe-the-continent that aren't a part of the ECHR are Russia (yes, it's classified by the UN as a European country) and Belarus. Neither of which have ever struck me as all that interested in human rights on the whole, honestly. Anyway, Rwanda's run by a despot, and whatever Sunak meebles about how "It's totally safe now!", the ECHR - and our own Supreme Court - have been calling that bullshit out for awhile.

So your Supreme Court said the Bill is illegal. Why are they still talking about it? Because Sunak, apparently having glommed onto this as the thing that will save his arse at the next general election (coming at the end of this year), is trying to write amendments into this fucking thing that will somehow circumvent any and all human rights law, and somehow ignore any human rights law it can't circumvent (like, all of them). This Bill is full of things like, "Oh, our civil servants will just ignore ECHR law and process things like we tell them to!" and "We'll get 150 new justices to rubber-stamp the deportation papers like good little puppets!" and holy fuck, it's kind of disgusting.

So ... and I realise you've answered half the question, but... How is this making the UK even more of a laughingstock than it already was to begin with? Well. Currently the Conservative party that came up with this bullshit is tearing itself apart. Some want the bill as it is. There's a whole cluster of rebels who want to vote it down because it's "not hardline enough and not punitive enough" when it comes to stripping human rights from refugees (and they're also the ones insisting that we have to leave the ECHR, which is part of the laughingstock thing because I don't think we want to be in the same boat as Russia and Belarus). There are a very few moderates who are actually accepting that this is never going to work and saying "enough is enough; drop this already". Meanwhile, one of Sunak's people is going, "If you don't vote for this, start looking for another job". I am only very slightly paraphrasing. So in the run-up to an election, the Tories are fighting like rats in a sack. Add to that the fact that if this thing manages to pass the Commons, it still has to pass the Lords, who have no horse in the election race (they're appointed, not elected) ... and a lot of them are lawyers. Lawyers know very well what will happen if we keep attempting to violate (or actually succeed in violating) international law. They probably won't like that idea very much. So once again, the absolute fucking irony of the "lazy unelected shit-lumps in the Lords" maybe saving our international reputation is beyond compare. ...But that's nothing compared to what Rwanda's doing.

...I am afraid to ask. Well, apparently Rwanda has been offering us (us as a country, that is) our money back. See, we've already paid Rwanda scads of money for even setting up for this doomed-to-failure bit of bullshit, as previously stated. And apparently this is getting so ridiculous and so very obviously blatantly violating international law that the president of Rwanda of all places has offered to give back a significant amount of money just to get his name and that of his country out of the whole mess. I have to wonder at what point Rwanda just goes, "You know what, no - if you don't want the money back, fine, but we're out of this shit".

I'm still terrified for refugees. I don't know what happens with this because seriously, there's no fucking way to tell what anyone in this government is going to do from one minute to the next. But I can still hope that we don't end up leaving the ECHR, because I don't really know what happens if we do that just to be able to send poor miserable people to fucking Rwanda. I mean, beyond the UN also giving up on this whole country because the UN doesn't like the idea of deporting people to Rwanda either. I mean, given the anti-trans sentiment in this country, and the fact that they're already being assholes to the disabled by cutting their benefits if they don't work from home to "do their duty" (yes, that is exactly how the government put that) ... I'm foreign, disabled, and not cishet (though I pass, and I guess that's something but I HATE IT SO MUCH THAT I HAVE TO), and this country already hates me. Take away basic human rights, and whatever replaces it is going to fuck me over very, very hard.

Gods, this place is a fucked-up mess.

[head-post]

Hungary seeks to abandon EU rules on asylum and migration

Hungary officially requested an exemption from EU rules on asylum and migration, Minister for European Union Affairs János Boka said, according to bne IntelliNews.

In a letter addressed to European Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson, he said that Hungary, like the Netherlands, was seeking to withdraw from EU rules on asylum and migration in the event of future amendments to the treaty.

We believe that restoring stronger national control over migration is currently the only way to achieve our goals and effectively halt illegal migration.

Boka also said Hungary remained committed to the Schengen area, which “has unfortunately become fragmented” due to illegal migration and the widespread introduction of internal border controls.

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government ignored a summer CJEU ruling on the implementation of EU asylum procedures. In June, the EU’s highest court ordered Hungary to pay €200m and a fine of €1m per day. However, the amount has already exceeded €300m and continues to grow.

In response, the European Commission said it would initiate a “compensation procedure” to deduct the fine from Hungary’s next payment of EU funds, prompting an angry reaction from Orbán.

If they continue to punish us, we will transport the migrants from Budapest to Brussels and leave them at the Brussels offices.

Read more HERE

[sa7abnews]

EU state could pay its own citizens to leave

New Post has been published on Sa7ab News

EU state could pay its own citizens to leave

Stockholm may reform and expand a program under which migrants struggling to integrate into society are encouraged to leave the country

... read more !

[news247worldpressposts]

#Breaking: Paying Migrants to Leave the EU Is Equivalent to Funding #Terrorism, Warns #ECIPS President Ricardo #Baretzky

The European Union (EU) faces an increasingly complex challenge: balancing its humanitarian responsibilities with its internal security concerns. Amidst this challenge, Sweden has implemented a controversial “voluntary repatriation” scheme, which offers financial incentives to migrants and refugees to return to their countries of origin. While proponents argue that this policy alleviates the…

[journeyjottings]

Migration: How Many People Come To the UK and How Are the Salary Rules Changing?

The salary requirements for UK visas have risen sharply under government plans to reduce migration, after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the record number of people who came to the UK in 2022 was "far too high". Home Secretary James Cleverly said the new rules would mean 300,000 fewer people would be able to come to the UK.

How many migrants come to the UK?

In the year ending June 2023, 1,180,000 people came to the UK expecting to stay for at least a year, and an estimated 508,000 departed. That means net migration - the difference between the number of people arriving and leaving - stood at 672,000. Across the 2022 calendar year - the last full year for which figures are available - net migration reached a record 745,000.

Of the 1,180,000 who came to the UK, the vast majority (968,000) came from outside the EU.

Of those, 39% came to study, 33% to work, and 9% for humanitarian reasons, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

The top five non-EU nationalities were:

Indian - 253,000

Nigerian - 141,000

Chinese - 89,000

Pakistani - 55,000

Ukrainian - 35,000

Say one thing, do another? The government’s record net migration rise

How are the minimum salary rules for UK visa applicants changing?

Most people wanting to work in the UK still have to apply for a visa through the points-based system (PBS).

But since 11 April 2024, they have needed a job offer with a higher salary.

Applicants have to earn at least £38,700 - an increase of nearly 50% from the previous £26,200 minimum.

The threshold does not apply to some jobs - such as in health and social care, and teachers on national pay scales. But overseas care workers can no longer bring family dependants with them.

When the plans were announced, groups including the CBI and the Royal College of Nursing criticised the government for failing to address the UK's labour shortages.

Source: BBC

[beardedmrbean]

The discussion will come two weeks after a boat believed to have been carrying hundreds of migrants capsized off Greece in one of the worst such tragedies in years.

At least 82 people died and many more remain missing in the sinking, which occurred in unclear circumstances.

Amnesty International and other rights groups say the tragedy resulted from Brussels' "Fortress Europe" policy implemented over the past seven years, since experiencing a huge inflow of Syrian war refugees.

"The recent tragic shipwreck in the Mediterranean, and the many lives lost, is a stark reminder of our need to continue working relentlessly on our European migratory challenge," European Council chief Charles Michel said in his letter inviting leaders to the Brussels summit.

"We will review the migratory situation and progress in the implementation" of decisions made in a previous summit in February, he said.

EU asylum rules

In early June, European Union countries reached agreement on a long-stalled revision of the bloc's asylum rules.

It aims to share the burden of hosting asylum seekers across EU countries, with those refusing to do so having to pay money to the ones that do.

Poland and Hungary, which were outvoted on the plan, have come out strongly against it and intend to have it discussed at Thursday's summit, EU diplomats said. It also needs buy-in from the European Parliament.

Poland's European affairs minister, Szymon Szynkowski vel Sek said on Tuesday that being forced to pay other EU countries to host migrants was a violation of his country's "sovereign rights".

"A fee of 20,000 euros (per migrant) is de facto punishment," he said.

Frontex, the EU's border patrol agency, says boat crossings across the central Mediterranean constitute the principal route for irregular migrant entries to Europe.

Crossings leaving North African countries including Tunisia and going to EU nations Italy and Malta "more than doubled" between January and May this year, compared with the same period in 2022, it says.

EU money

Brussels is seeking to extend a tactic it used with Turkey in 2016, which worked to greatly reduce irregular migration flows to Europe in exchange for six billion euros in assistance.

The EU money would largely go to improving economic prospects for people in Tunisia. An extra 100 million euros this year is also to go to boosting Tunisia's border patrols, search and rescue and accepting back denied asylum seekers.

But Tunis, though indebted, has balked at what Tunisian President Kais Saied called IMF "diktats".

The US government has strongly urged Tunisia to undertake the IMF reforms. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned two weeks ago that Tunisia risked falling off an "economic cliff".

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on Monday that it was important for Europe "to try to address and resolve the financial problem" of Tunisia, "to ensure the country's stability".

At a time when Europe is experiencing fall-out from Russia's war in Ukraine, "we shouldn't forget the importance of the southern front," the Mediterranean, he said.

French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, also on Monday, said Paris wanted to see the IMF deal sealed with Tunisia "because it's in the interest of that country, which is a close country and a friendly one".

France has separately announced 26 million euros in aid to Tunisia to help curb departures by irregular migrants across the Mediterranean.

Many of the migrants coming from Tunisia originate from sub-Saharan Africa. The country is also in the grip of a worsening economic crisis that has pushed many of its citizens to take desperate measures in search of better lives abroad.

The International Organization for Migration says 2,406 migrants died or disappeared in the Mediterranean in 2022, while 1,166 deaths or disappearance were recorded since the start of 2023.

[queerautism]

The last time before i got covid i was begging social services and my GP for help with my ADHD. The full assesment was taking over a year and meanwhile it was destroying my life. I was studying photography, which i adore and miss so badly, but the parents were fucking me around with financial support so i was trying to work part time and apply for working EU migrant student loan that would include not only course fees but maintenance costs (for rent / food etc)

I was starving. Going on my bike over an hour travel to the food bank and waiting for my turn in sensory hell for hours to be given some basic foods. Trying to ignore all the uncomfortable christian talk. Watching free food apps like a hawk because otherwise i wouldn't have dinner. On my bike again for 40 minutes to be given two sandwiches. I went through SSRI withdrawal cold turkey more times than i can remember when i didnt have the £10 to pay for the prescription for weeks.

Still, for a bit, i was making it work. But it was too much and i knew my brain wasn't working and i couldn't keep it up without serious help. I begged my doctor to talk to the adhd clinic about timelines. When that didnt work, i found a private ADHD service that accepted NHS referrals. She saw me sobbing in front of her and refused to even consider it. I told her i didnt want to give up my studies, my passion, but I'd be forced to if she didn't help me.

She told me my 10 minutes were up and i had to leave.

I had to drop out of university due to medical reasons, for the second time in my life. I had a part time job and managed to get a little universal credit, but i wasnt a student anymore and had no idea what i was going to do when the lease on my current student house ended. Social services had for months done nothing but force me into useless meetings and paperwork. I don't doubt being so exhausted and burnt out and barely eating lowered my immune system enough that in March 2020 I was the only one in the house to get Covid.

It was so bad I really thought i was going to die. Social services completely abandoned me at this point, just ghosted. I barely remember the entire month i was sick because it was incredibly traumatic and terrifying. I had to quit my job, of course.

My health has been in a heavy decline ever since, but since there werent any covid tests available at the time, i couldnt confirm it in paper or my health records. Even though it was a textbook case. I am now being denied care by Long Covid clinics. A GP heard my symptoms and diagnosed me with fibromyalgia over the phone, without any physical examination, even though it is a diagnosis of exclusion.

Trying to walk unassisted for 5 minutes makes my legs fail and so in pain and nauseous I'll throw up. I was throwing up every day until i was hospitalised with 'gastritis' and started being prescribed Lansoprazole. I can keep a little more food down now, but my digestive system is still a mess, and i have been waiting for a gastroenterology referral for over a year. I'm starting to doubt i got a referral at all.

This whole situation with the costochondritis and hospital and this useless social worker is reminding me too much of this era and it's so triggering and upsetting. I know the UK medical system and the government both want me dead.

I'm trying to keep fighting but it is so hard, and i am so tired.

Anyway. Mostly just wanted to get all that off my chest, and know that perhaps people who understand might read it.

Might as well leave a reminder that if you want to help me survive this hell, my paypal is here and anything you can spare is greatly appreciated. If you've enjoyed my blog over the years, chucking a couple quid in there is a great way to show appreciation.

[narrowtriangle33-blog]

Please don't ignore this post Slavery in Libya.

This is a great evil going on in this country for years now. Innocent people have been killed, enslaved and more.

Many of these migrants are from other countries in Africa and the slaves from anywhere are captured by people smugglers or militia groups.

Source: Wikipedia.

"Migrants who have gone through Libyan detention centres have shown signs of many human rights abuses such as severe abuse, including electric shocks, burns, lashes and even skinning, stated the director of health services on the Italian island of Lampedusa to Euronews.[24]"

Source: Wikipedia.

The red quotation marks are mine.

""Slavery is thriving in Libya, where thousands of black Africans hoping to get to Europe instead find themselves bought and sold, forced to work for nothing, and facing torture at the hands of their owners. The story of Ikuenobe documented by BuzzFeed News shows the nature of this menace.

Ikuenobe was captured by men who brutally assaulted him, and called his sister to give them 600,000 naira ($1,650) for his "freedom". They wanted his mother's number but he gave them his sister's, so that his mother would not know what was actually happening. He had told his mother that he was working in a "shipyard" job and that they would soon drink to this new job.

Ikuenobe's family paid over 2 million naira ($5,500) before being set free. However, the person who Ikuenobe thought had come to rescue him had actually bought him. Extortion is so widespread that captives even have a market value depending on which country they’re from.

Eritreans, who have a large, well-organized diaspora, command the highest prices, while West Africans fetch the smallest ransoms and are the most likely to be ill-treated, Libya experts say.EU officials, who have denounced the inhumane conditions in detention centers, nevertheless say that they have no alternatives.

“Libya is a sovereign country and we need to be working in close partnership with the Libyan authorities,” an EU spokesperson told BuzzFeed News.

“We’re not turning a blind eye to the situation. We’re trying to do our best in the situation that is not easy.” In 2017, the African Union began to take a bigger role, which has helped.

“They started paying attention to the fact it’s their own people suffering,” an IOM (International Organization for Migration) official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. It became easier, for example, for trapped people to obtain papers to allow them to leave the country. That helped some 20,000 people return to their country of origin aboard IOM-run flights from Libya.""

https://600wrec.iheart.com/content/2019-03-29-slavery-in-libya-where-you-can-buy-a-black-man-for-400/

Imagine that? Selling a person for 400 dollars???? The horror that these people face must be unreal.

https://worldiscrazyblog.wordpress.com/2017/11/28/stop-modern-day-slave-trade-in-libya/

Take action against Slavery in Libya.

United States.

Contact your federal representative or senator.

https://www.cop.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm

https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative

Britain.

Contact the House of Commons or the House of Lords

https://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/offices/commons/house-of-commons-enquiries-service/contact-us/

Canada.

Contact your Senator or your representative in the House of Commons.

https://sencanada.ca/en/contactus

Australia.

Contact your Senator or your representative in the House of Parliament

https://www.aph.gov.au/Help/Contact

France.

Contactez votre sénateur

https://www.senat.fr/lng/en/index.html

Deutschland

Kontakt Ihr der bundestag

https://www.bundestag.de/en/service/contactform

If live in any other country, please contact whoever represents or some other member of your nations government.

Petitions.

https://www.change.org/p/u-s-govt-put-pressure-on-libya-to-end-slavery

https://www.change.org/p/unicef-i-want-all-eritrean-refugees-in-libya-stay-safe-and-secure-stop-killing-eritrean-refugees-in-libya-stop-slave-trade-in-21st-century-in-libya-un-unicef-wvn-human-rights-commission-open-you-re-eye-s-to-eritrean-refugees-in-libya?signed=true

5 ways to help them. Please visit this website.

https://borgenproject.org/slave-labor-in-libya/

[libertariantaoist]

News Roundup 4/15/21

by Kyle Anzalone

US News

The cop who murdered Ashli Babbitt will not face charges. [Link]

More than a dozen states are looking to nullify unconstitutional gun laws. [Link]

Russia

Biden announced a large new round of sanctions against Russia. Biden will not permit US firms from buying Russian bonds and sanctioned dozens of Russian entities. Biden also expelled Russian diplomats and authorized the further sanctioning of any sector of the Russian economy. The US, UK, EU, and Canada also sanctioned eight Russians over Crimea. [Link]

Russia held war games in the Black Sea while Ukraine held tank-based war games near Russia’s border. [Link]

The US will not be deploying two warships to the Black Sea. The US received permission from Turkey to deploy ships to the sea but says it never planned to deploy them. [Link]

Belarus warns about a NATO troop build-up near its border. [Link]

India

India and Pakistan engaged in secret talks hosted by the UAE. [Link]

Afghanistan

Secretary of Defense Austin confirms that the US will continue to fund the Afgan Air Force and pay the salaries of Afghan security forces. [Link]

The NYT reports the US will continue counterterror operations with airstrikes after troops exit Afghanistan. The US is working to redeploy the troops leaving Afghanistan to a central Asian country. Turkey will leave soldiers in Afghanistan. The US could leave Afghanistan as quickly as three months from now, however, the withdrawal date will depend on Taliban attacks. [Link]

The CIA Director Bill Burns says the ability to collect intelligence in Afghanistan will decline once US troops withdraw. [Link]

The Taliban plan to create a “nightmare” for the US as Biden announced the US will miss the May 1 withdrawal date. [Link]

Middle East

Biden has decided to move forward with a $23 billion weapon sale to the UAE. Trump pushed the sale at the end of his administration when Biden took office he paused the sale for review. The sale includes F-35s and Reaper Drones. [Link]

An explosive drone targeted US soldiers in Iraqi Kurdistan. A Turkish soldier was killed in a rocket attack at a nearby base. [Link]

Four people were killed by a car bomb in Iraq. [Link]

The State Department claims Yemen isn’t under a blockade. [Link]

Some migrants from the Horn of Africa are returning home after traveling to Yemen in hopes of reaching Saudi Arabia. [Link]

Read More

[eaglesnick]

All Our Yesterdays: Day 179

 18.01.20. Mail Online:

“UK PM Johnson to impose new restrictions on low-skilled migrants post-Brexit…”

The majority of the British public voted for Brexit, the curbing of immigration being a major factor behind their support for leaving the EU. Now we begin to pay the price.

13.8% of all NHS staff are non-British – 170,000 individuals. In November 2020 the NHS was facing a shortage of 40,000 nurses. The Nuffield Trust, in an updated report in February 2020, drew attention to the 100,000 full-time vacancies in hospital and community care.

We all know that during the pandemic, especially this latest lockdown, it has been the shortage of qualified staff that has led to the near-collapse of the NHS. Yet from January 1st 2021, new immigration laws have come into effect.

The fact is the NHS and care sectors cannot operate without overseas workers. Consequently, Johnson has introduced a Health and Care Visa to fast track migrants wanting to work in these sectors, waiving many of his new rules.  But, even if the job is on the government's occupation code list for which such visas are available, migrants will still need a job offer and the employer will have to possess a sponsor licence before they can work here.

These provisions and exemptions are all dependent upon workers from overseas wanting to come to Britain to work in the first instance. Given this, and previous Conservative administrations, officially sanctioned “hostile environment” policy towards immigrants, there is a very good chance many will not want to come to this country. This will negatively impact on all of us.

17.12.20. The Conversation:

“COVID has exposed a long-running shortage of nurses that is putting NHS patients at risk.”

Let’s hope the Johnson’s weakening of his own immigration rules will go some way to alleviating this potentially lethal problem.  

[newstfionline]

Tuesday, April 20, 2021

Minneapolis Braces for Verdict in Floyd’s Death (NYT) MINNEAPOLIS—Around midday last Monday, Samir Patel received a phone call from his friend, a dentist: Gunshots had rung out, his friend told him, and the contractors who were rebuilding the office he lost in last year’s unrest had fled. He was boarding up, and he told Mr. Patel he should move quickly to protect his own business, a dry cleaning shop. Elite Cleaners, Mr. Patel’s shop, is on a side street, not far from the shell of the Minneapolis Police Department’s Third Precinct station house, which burned last year in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death. The surrounding community of Lake Street, a corridor of immigrant-owned businesses—taquerias, furniture shops, liquor stores and cafes—was devastated by looting in the days of protests and the riots that followed. The city has said that the unrest led to $350 million in losses, with more than a thousand buildings either destroyed or damaged. As the trial of Derek Chauvin, the white former police officer charged with murder in the death of Mr. Floyd, a Black man, draws to a close, the city is on edge, fearing that a not-guilty verdict would bring anger, chaos and destruction once again.

New migrant facilities crop up to ease crowding, again (AP) For the third time in seven years, U.S. officials are scrambling to handle a dramatic spike in children crossing the U.S.-Mexico border alone, leading to a massive expansion in emergency facilities to house them as more kids arrive than are being released to close relatives in the United States. More than 22,000 migrant children were in government custody as of Thursday, with 10,500 sleeping on cots at convention centers, military bases and other large venues likened to hurricane evacuation shelters with little space to play and no privacy. More than 2,500 are being held by border authorities in substandard facilities. So many children are coming that there’s little room in long-term care facilities, where capacity shrank significantly during the coronavirus pandemic. As a result, minors are packed into Border Patrol facilities not meant to hold them longer than three days or they’re staying for weeks in the mass housing sites that often lack the services they need. Lawyers say some have not seen social workers who can reunite them with family in the U.S. Both Donald Trump and Barack Obama faced similar upticks in Central American children crossing the border alone in 2019 and 2014. The numbers have now reached historic highs amid economic fallout from the pandemic, storms in Central America and the feeling among migrants that Biden is more welcoming than his predecessor.

Students’ struggles pushed Peru teacher to run for president (AP) As schools across Peru closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, Pedro Castillo tried to find a way to keep classes going for his 20 fifth- and sixth-grade students. But in his impoverished rural community deep in the Andes, his efforts were futile. Seventeen of the students didn’t even have access to a cellphone. Tablets promised by the government never arrived. “Where is the state?” Castillo, 51, told The Associated Press after a day of planting sweet potatoes on his own land. It was the last straw for Castillo, who over 25 years had seen his students struggle in crumbling schools where teachers also cook, sweep floors and file paperwork. He’d already dabbled in activism with the local teachers’ union and helped lead a national strike in 2017. But now he went further, tossing his name into a crowd of 18 candidates in Peru’s presidential election. Defying the polls, the elementary school teacher came first in the April 11 voting, albeit with less than 20% of the overall vote. The stunning result gave him a place in June’s presidential runoff against Keiko Fujimori, one of Peru’s most established political figures and the daughter of former president Alberto Fujimori. It is her third attempt to become president. Castillo’s unlikely campaign comes at a turbulent time for the South American nation that has suffered like few others from the COVID-19 pandemic. It recently ran through three presidents in a week after one was removed by congress over corruption allegations. Every president of the past 36 years has been ensnared in corruption allegations, some imprisoned. One died by suicide before police could arrest him.

New direction needed: EU launches website for citizens to discuss its future (Reuters) The European Union launched on Monday a website for citizens to debate the future of the 27-nation bloc as the exit of Britain, climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of nationalism force the EU to reflect on how it wants to develop. The website, available for contributions in the EU’s 24 official languages, is part of what EU institutions call the Conference on the Future of Europe—a forum for debate to help identify issues the EU needs to address in the changing global context. “The conclusions of the conference could be the backbone for reforms in the Union in the future,” one of the leaders of the initiative, member of European Parliament and former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt told a news conference. The website prompts debates on subjects including climate change, the environment, health, the economy, social justice and jobs, the role of the EU in the world, values and rights, the rule of law, security, digital transformation, democracy and migration. Citizens can also launch their own topics.

Cheating at Greek universities (Foreign Policy) Greek universities are experiencing a crisis of confidence in their students as remote learning takes the place of traditional education. Professors have noted surprisingly high marks from previously poor students, raising suspicions that the students may be using underhanded tactics. “Result averages are up, and people we haven’t seen in years are showing up for exams because the system makes it easy to cheat,” Kostas Kosmatos, an assistant professor of criminology at Thrace’s Democritus University told AFP. Sofia, a psychology student, admitted to have taken two exams “on behalf of two of my friends and nobody realized.” Resourceful students have created technological workarounds to boost their chances during exams, crowdsourcing answers in live chats with students at the University of Crete even enlisting a linguistic expert to help them during exams. “But even he got a verse wrong,” Angela Kastrinaki, dean of the University of Crete’s literature department, told AFP. “So I got 50 papers with the same mistake. It was funny.”

Russia Expels 20 Czech Diplomats as Tensions Escalate (NYT) A day after the government of the Czech Republic blamed operatives from Russia’s military intelligence agency for a series of mysterious explosions at an ammunition depot in 2014 and expelled 18 Russian diplomats, the Russian government announced on Sunday that 20 Czech diplomats would be ejected in response. The expulsions signal further escalation of tensions between the Kremlin and western governments, reaching an intensity not seen since the Cold War. The spat between the Czech Republic and Russia comes just days after the United States imposed heavy sanctions on Russian government officials and businesses in response to a large-scale hacking of American government computer systems. In a statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry called the Czech accusations “absurd” and accused the government of being an American puppet. “In an effort to please the U.S.A. following recent American sanctions against Russia, the Czech government in this instance even exceeded its overseas masters,” the Russian Foreign Ministry statement said.

Montenegro’s billion-dollar dilemma (NYT) Few Europeans thought it was a good idea for Montenegro to take a mammoth loan from China to build a highway. Now the tiny, mountainous country is asking the European Union for help to repay the debt—and the answer, so far, has been no. The situation in Montenegro is the latest skirmish in an escalating global push for influence by China, which has made inroads in economically weak countries by offering loans that demand loyalty to Beijing but otherwise have few strings attached. Montenegro’s first debt payments are due this summer. The $1 billion loan is nearly a fifth the size of the country’s entire economy. Montenegrin leaders say they won’t miss their loan payment this summer even if no E.U. aid is forthcoming. European officials said they wanted to help Montenegro but were searching for a palatable way to do so. Linking the aid to the loan too directly could be politically difficult, since many E.U. officials do not want to be in the position of effectively paying down a Chinese loan that E.U. leaders warned against in the first place. “China has been filling any opening it felt it could,” said Vuk Vuksanovic, a researcher at the Belgrade Center for Security Policy, a Serbian think tank. “Local capitals were hungry for cash, particularly on big development issues like infrastructure. And the Chinese were willing to go places where Western institutions were not.”

Afghan Women Fear the Worst, Whether War or Peace Lies Ahead (NYT) Farzana Ahmadi watched as a neighbor in her village in northern Afghanistan was flogged by Taliban fighters last month. The crime: Her face was uncovered. People silently watched as the beating dragged on. Fear—even more potent than in years past—is gripping Afghans now that U.S. and NATO forces will depart the country in the coming months. They will leave behind a publicly triumphant Taliban, who many expect will seize more territory and reinstitute many of the same oppressive rules they enforced under their regime in the 1990s. The New York Times spoke to many Afghan women about what comes next in their country, and they all said the same thing: Whatever happens will not bode well for them. Whether the Taliban take back power by force or through a political agreement with the Afghan government, their influence will almost inevitably grow. In a country in which an end to nearly 40 years of conflict is nowhere in sight, many Afghans talk of an approaching civil war. “All the time, women are the victims of men’s wars,” said Raihana Azad, a member of Afghanistan’s Parliament. “But they will be the victims of their peace, too.”

Hard-line Islamists take 6 Pakistani security personnel hostage amid deadly clashes (Washington Post) A hard-line Islamist group on Sunday took six Pakistani security personnel hostage after days of deadly clashes in the northeastern city of Lahore over a French satirical newspaper’s publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad and the arrest of the group’s leader by Pakistani authorities. A senior police officer and two paramilitary fighters were among those taken after protesters surrounded a police station and stormed the compound, according to Lahore police spokesman Arif Rana. A week of violence across the country has left at least four dead, according to the protesters. Police officials say thousands have been arrested. The tensions driving the protests, led by the Islamist party Tehrik-e-Labbaik Pakistan, have been simmering for months after French President Emmanuel Macron honored a teacher who was beheaded last year in France after he showed a class the cartoons depicting Muhammad. For many Muslims, depictions of the prophet are blasphemous and deeply insulting. Macron’s comments sparked protests across the Muslim world last year.

India’s capital to lock down as nation’s virus cases top 15M (AP) New Delhi was being put under a weeklong lockdown Monday night as an explosive surge in coronavirus cases pushed the India’s capital’s health system to its limit. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said in a news conference the national capital was facing shortages of oxygen and some medicine. “I do not say that the system has collapsed, but it has reached its limits,” Kejriwal said, adding that harsh measures were necessary to “prevent a collapse of the health system.” Similar virus curbs already have been imposed in the worst-hit state of Maharashtra, home to India’s financial capital, Mumbai. The closure of most industries, businesses and public places Wednesday night is to last 15 days.

Pacific Ocean storm intensifies into year’s first super typhoon (Reuters) Strong winds and high waves lashed the eastern Philippines on Monday as the strongest typhoon ever recorded in April barrelled past in the Pacific Ocean, killing one man and triggering flooding in lower-lying communities, disaster officials said. More than 100,000 people were evacuated from coastal areas, according to provincial disaster agencies. The core of Surigae, or Bising as the storm is known locally, is not expected to hit land. But with a diameter of 500 km and winds reaching 195 km per hour, parts of the eastern islands of Samar experienced flooding, while several communities lost power. The first super typhoon of 2021 foreshadows a busy storm season for the region in the year ahead, experts say.

Lebanon’s crumbling capital (AFP) Beirut’s roads are riddled with potholes, many walls are covered in anti-government graffiti and countless street lamps have long since gone dark. At night, car drivers creep cautiously past broken traffic lights and strain their eyes for missing manhole covers, stolen for the value of their metal. Many parking metres have been disabled in protest over an alleged corruption scandal, while cars are parked randomly on sidewalks. To many, the dysfunctional capital has become emblematic of a country mired in its worst crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war after decades of mismanagement and corruption. Much of Beirut’s infrastructure started falling apart long before last August’s massive portside explosion killed more than 200 people, levelled the waterfront and damaged countless buildings. Amid the crisis, the Lebanese currency has collapsed and continues its downward slide at a sickening rate that in itself is deepening the problem. As the currency has dived by more than 85 percent on the black market, wary contractors are steering clear of any municipal repairs that are paid for in Lebanese pounds.

Eleven dead, 98 injured after train derails in Egypt (Reuters) Eleven people were killed and 98 injured on Sunday in a train accident in Egypt’s Qalioubia province north of Cairo, the health ministry said in a statement. The train was heading from Cairo to the Nile Delta city of Mansoura when four carriages derailed at 1:54 p.m. (1154 GMT), about 40 kms (25 miles) north of Cairo. More than 50 ambulances took the injured to three hospitals in the province, the health ministry said. The derailing is the latest of several recent railway crashes in Egypt. At least 20 people were killed and nearly 200 were injured in March when two trains collided near Tahta, about 440 kms (275 miles) south of Cairo.

South Africa wildfire (Washington Post) Cape Town ordered precautionary evacuations of communities living along the edges of city landmark Table Mountain on Monday as firefighters struggled to contain a fire that gutted historical landmarks, including the oldest working windmill in South Africa and a library housing African antiquities at the University of Cape Town. The fire started Sunday morning near the memorial to colonial leader Cecil Rhodes and quickly spread uncontrolled beneath Devil’s Peak in Table Mountain National Park in an area popular with weekend hikers and cyclists. By Monday morning, strong southeasterly winds, which were expected to reach more than 30 miles per hour (50 km/h) later in the day, had pushed the fire toward densely-populated areas above Cape Town city. Well-known tourist sites, such as the Table Mountain aerial cableway, were temporarily closed. Heavy smoke engulfed the city forcing the closure of a major highway and other nearby roads. Hikers, park visitors, visitors to the nearby Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden and hundreds of students from the university campus were evacuated on Sunday.

NASA’s Ingenuity Makes First Powered Flight On Mars (NPR) “Orville and Wilbur would be proud. NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter has made the first-ever powered flight on another planet, 117 years after the Wright Brothers’ historic flight on this planet. The flight itself was modest. The 4-pound helicopter rose 10 feet in the air, hovered briefly, and returned to the Martian surface.

[bustedbernie]

I cannot speak for Corbyn but Mélenchon's eurospecticism has never been motivated by not wanting to pay for central and eastern Europe. It is motivated by the fact the EU (especially the court of justice whose legitimacy as a political force is dubious) imposes a liberal/ultraliberal economy on its members (especially in regards to privatisation Vs public monopolies) which would hinder the implementation of his economic program. And considering the US extreme patriotic values and nationalism 1/2

(pledge of allegiance at school, thinking the US is the BEST country on earth (a though not limited to trump supporters) , etc) combined with the remnants of the red scare I'm not surprised that American sociology is promoting this concept to delegitimize leftists and their ideas. No country on earth should be idealised, not the US and no European one, but comparisons are going to occurre on specific point and this looks like the academic version of 'you don't love your country enough, traitor'.

Yes, partly on your first point that is true. But when pointed out that his euroskepticism would in turn be bad for France and the economy, he didn’t care. As for the lack of care for Eastern Europe, this is simply a talking point I encountered among Mélenchon’s supporters I talked with in the 2017 election (young anarchocommunists/uni students lol) - who had (have) a lot in common with the American stereotype of the Bernie Bro (champagne socialists, etc). 

The critique of the EU in that capacity is at times valid, but it’s also a critique I think France has a lot of weight in shifting. For all his faults (and his somewhat ultra liberalism), Macron has demonstrated that France can use that weight to create a big shift in EU policy - fiscal and otherwise. I think Mélenchon and the left in France would be better served to use that weight and the positive power it could create. I think similarly to Corbyn and Sanders, Mélenchon has a vision of the world/France that is a bit outdated. I’ve found Hamon to have the most forward-thinking agenda of the main French candidates and also like his focus on ecology (and hope his polls can continue improving, I’d prefer the next election be Macron vs Hamon than Le Pen...). With Merkel’s term soon coming to an end, I hope France can choose a leader that can leverage that power to benefit a better economic model. It’s clear that the current model was shaken by 2008 and I hope the response to COVID and the softening of the German stance leads to a more elastic, empathetic system that doesn’t employ models of austerity which just don’t seem to work. I think this is part of what is hard, the frustrations channeled by Mélenchon (and Sanders/Corbyn) are often valid and important, but I fear that they are so reactive and destructive that they would in fact worsen conditions. Reforming the EU seems tough and it is tough, but it is likely to be a more beneficial thing long-term than bringing back the Franc and doing a Frexit. Maybe you might say his “EU - change it or leave it” is just that, but I think it’s a dangerous form of brinkmanship that would be a destabilizing force through the world. 

To your second point, I still find it hard to separate a certain nativist streak in Mélenchon’s platform or from the other leftists on this topic. PM Frederiksen in Denmark might be another example. Compared to other leftists, I think Mélenchon actually speaks so much more nicely about migrants and immigration - but - he still channels the idea that immigrants are a capitalist mechanism used to suppress wages of the homeland while increasing bourgeois gains and he continues to enforce the myth that the EU and France are incapable of supporting immigration. He speaks of the sécurité-sociale being ruined by immigrants, the need of immigrants to love France (as if they don’t), so idk. 

I also don’t know that your point about American patriotism being an instrument against progressive/leftist ideologies is totally apt. In fact, many of the most successful progressives underline the idea that due to America’s greatness, it MUST provide better for its people. This is even seen often in the progressive refrain of “the wealthiest nation should provide the best healthcare” - “the USA must be the world leader in green energy” - “the USA must lead the world on human rights and individual freedom.” If anything, the patriotic organ of American social life is used on the left as well in my opinion. But I also don’t think this is unique to the USA, in fact it is present in France, Canada and the UK in my personal experience. It may not be routine to sing La Marseillaise but French exceptionalism still manifests in its own ways as well. But you are right with your central point that no nation ought to be idealized though I think when comparisons are appropriate, they can be good for cultural exchange, sharing and education. I tend to think the more societies share, the better.