The Governments plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda has drawn three major criticisms. First, that its inhumane. Second, that it will be eye-wateringly expensive. And third, that it still wont deter large numbers of desperate migrants from risking their lives in the attempt to sail from France to England.

Still, theres no need for Boris Johnson to fret. Salvation is at hand. Because a reader of this column Mr Tony Monks of Chichester has emailed me to suggest an alternative policy that, in his view, avoids all three of these pitfalls.

Mr Monks argues that the main reason so many asylum seekers try to reach Britain is that they can speak at least some English. After all, its the most widely spoken language in the world far more widely spoken than any other European tongue.

Therefore, he says, the solution is simple. We should spend our international aid budget teaching everyone in the Middle East and other volatile parts of the world to speak fluent French. Then, if the inhabitants ever end up fleeing their homelands, theyll all settle happily in France, rather than risk the perilous journey across the Channel.

Priti Patel has said that this crisis requires a bold and innovative solution, and Mr Monkss suggestion certainly satisfies those criteria. All the same, I think its important to bear in mind the biggest reason why English is so widely spoken.

Its not simply because, hundreds of years ago, Britain colonised so many countries. After all, the Empire is now a distant memory. No, the main reason that people all over the world learn English these days is because thats the language America speaks. And no country on Earth has greater cultural influence than America.

To prevent so many desperate asylum seekers from trying to sail to Britain, therefore, we need to stop America speaking English. And the only way to do that is for Britain to conquer America, so that we can force all its inhabitants to speak French instead.

Conquering the US may not sound an easy task, but in recent years the American public seems to have developed an almost neurotic terror of getting involved in military conflict, so our prospects of success may be greater than we think. I suggest we invade sometime in the afternoon, while President Biden is having his nap.

At the age of 49, Liam Gallagher has admitted that he suffers from arthritis and that nurses have advised him to have a double hip replacement. The former Oasis frontman, however, has refused because he believes that, for a rocknroll star like him, a hip op carries too much stigma. In other words: hes worried that it would make people think hes old and past-it.

Nonsense. Once upon a time, a rock singer might well have been mocked for having a hip op. But not these days. We now live in a world where Sir Paul McCartney has been booked to headline Glastonbury the week after his 80th birthday. Clearly, ageism in rock is a thing of the past.

Go back to the 1980s, when Mr Gallagher was growing up, and it was a very different picture. In those days, rock was a young mans game with anyone over 35 viewed as a drooling geriatric. When George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty formed The Traveling Wilburys in 1988, journalists referred to them as elder statesmen, veterans, grand old men of rock. Yet Petty was only 37 and all the other members, bar Orbison, were years younger than Liam Gallagher is now.

The following year, 1989, the rock magazine Q ran a cover feature on the Rolling Stones, satirically headlined: Lock Up Your Grandmothers! At the time, Mick Jagger was only 46.

The Stones singer was a common target of age-related ridicule. In 1990, when Morrissey was a fresh-faced young man of 31, he wrote a song that began: Oh you silly old man, you silly old man, youre making a fool of yourself, so get off the stage. Rock journalists were certain that he was singing about Jagger.

At any rate, it seems Morrissey no longer believes that older performers should step aside. This summer hes been booked to play a series of concerts in Las Vegas, at the age of 63.

Even Jagger himself used to shudder at the concept of the ageing rock star. In June 1975, when he was 31, he told People magazine: Id rather be dead than sing Satisfaction when Im 45.

On July 27 this year, however, hell sing it at a 62,000-capacity stadium in Germany the day after he turns 79.

Jeremy Corbyns views on the Russian invasion of Ukraine remain a subject of intrigue. In an interview this week, the former Labour leader was asked whether he admires Ukraines president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

I dont know, replied Mr Corbyn curtly. Ive never met him.

It seems a curious rule to live by: that you can only decide whether you admire someone after youve met them. What makes it all the more curious is that, in 2018, Mr Corbyn told the BBC that the person he most admired was the proto-feminist writer and thinker Mary Wollstonecraft. Who, as historians will confirm, was born on April 27, 1759.

Since Mr Corbyn is only able to decide whether he admires someone after he has met them, this suggests that, rather than dying in the year 1797 as scholars have always believed, Mrs Wollstonecraft is alive and well today.

If so, on Wednesday next week she will be celebrating her 263rd birthday. I do hope she has invited her old friend and admirer Mr Corbyn to the party.

'Way of the World' is a twice-weekly satirical look at the headlines while aiming to mock the absurdities of the modern world. It is published at 7am every Tuesday and Saturday

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Forget Rwanda. Here's an ingenious new solution to the migrant crisis - The Telegraph

The crema of the art-industry crop descended on the Most Serene Republic of Venice last week after three tumultuous years away. Suffice to say, the world has transformed dramatically since Cecilia Alemani was named curator of this most prestigious art show, and the vibe shift left many wondering how the Biennale would meet our collective moment.

But isnt this the eternal Biennale quandary? How much should the real world penetrate the ivy-covered walls of the Giardini? And why, for that matter, are we still dealing with nation-state pavilions at all? What about countries with dismal human-rights recordsshould they be here toasting with us? Should we acknowledge the migrant crisis playing out in the same waters that pass through these opulent little canals?

These are urgent questions that are not easily answered. Yet this year, the national pavilions seemed to be somewhat united in a desire to tear themselves downor, at least, to create some new conceptual ground zero to work from. In the Giardini, the cunning German artist Maria Eichhorn literally chipped away at her countrys Nazi-built architecture to reveal the smaller bones of a pavilion that had been covered up and revamped by Hitlers government. She had previously attempted to slice the building into pieces and relocate it somewhere elseto the surprise of no one, this was not permitted by Biennale brass.

Maria Eichhorn, Relocating a Structure, the German pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale 2022. Maria Eichhorn / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2022, photo: Jens Ziehe.

If dismantling the very foundation of the Biennale was on one artists agenda, others looked to partially raze or improve things. Spaniard Ignasi Aballs subtle pavilion, called Correccin (Correction), saw the entire buildings walls shift by an angle of exactly 10 degrees in a sly critique of its squished, off-kilter placement in relation to its neighbors, Belgium and the Netherlands. (Though it did not seem entirely politicaland some found it parodical of contemporary artit was nevertheless a disorienting, punk gesture). And at Latifa Echakhchs Swiss pavilion, the place looked like there had been a house fire before anyone got there, leaving VIPs crunching around on and ash in the dark. Meanwhile, Tomo Savic-Gecans Croatia pavilion rejected the confines of a physical space entirely, staging many so-subtle-as-to-be-almost-invisible performances in other countries pavilions three to five times a day instead.

Very clearly, one can sense artists frustration with being containedby worn definitions, old structures, and dusty categories. In Alemanis central exhibition The Milk of Dreams, there was a similar desire to break freeand the New York-based curator buttoned each section with historical proof that artists have been pushing this agenda for decades, despite many of them being excluded from the canon or choosing to operate outside the mainstream.

In contrast to Alemanis expansive vision, the national pavilions, by way of their very structure, inevitably have to reflect a more old-fashioned, inflexible view of the world. To critique this, Estonia took over the Dutch pavilion with a gentler kind of destruction, planting greenery in a Jumanji-esque re-wilding. Ukraine, one of the many nations that dont fit into the Giardinis world map, was urgently given a special show in a pop-uppiazzaby the main food and drink station; it was still being installed as Met director Max Hollein, Castellos Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, and globe-trotting curator Hans Ulrich Obrist darted around on Tuesday.

The Romania Pavilion. Adina Pintilie, You Are Another MeA Cathedral of the Body (2022). Courtesy the artist. Exhibition photographer: Clelia Cadamuro.

Just out of sight from the Piazza Ucraina stands the Russian pavilion, shuttered after its team withdrew in light of the recent attack on Ukraine. (They rightlysaid there is no place for art when civilians are dying under the fire of missiles, hiding in shelters, and when Russian protesters are getting silenced.)It inevitably became the backdrop for artistic interventions, and these were, unsettlingly and ironically, swiftly silenced: artists who staged anti-Putin performances there were quickly stopped by Italian riot police.

At the other end of the spectrum, one saw a smattering of celebrities in attendance, from Vincent Cassel andJulianne Moore to Catherine Deneuve in a vibe that was more Cannes than Coachella (all those people are understandably at that event, which overlaps).At least a few fewer parties were held, with Pinaults major palazzo bash and Victor Pinchuks Future Generation Art Prize soire swapped, respectively, for a lush dinner and somber press conference with a video message from Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Yet one could hardly call this Biennale austerefashion labels like Gucci and Chanel swooped in to hold their own splashy events instead. There was a bit of joy, too, with a rumored wedding of two Ukrainian artists exhibiting in Venice officiated by none other than Nan Goldin, who was showing in the main exhibition.

Even for the glitterati, Ukraine remained a preeiminent issue: In another bejeweled evening celebration, auctioneer Simon de Pury presided over an auction and dinner to benefit Ukraine relief, which raised over one million. The early 20th century folk artistMaria Prymachenko, whose work came under threat in the ongoing war, achieved a new record with a 110,000 ($118,000) sale. A work donated by Ukrainian artist Alina Zamanova, Day 31 of War(2022),fetched 35,000 ($37,500).

Mikolaj Sekutowicz speaks during the Charity Gala for Ukraine at Scuola Grande Di San Rocco on April 21, 2022 in Venice, Italy. (Photo by Daniele Venturelli/Getty Images)

Where the topic of land war was not being dealt with, the body was the battleground. Austria and Brazil were among the countries that opted in for Instagram-ready installations featuring goofily large body parts, while melanie bonajos Dutch pavilion celebrated the naked form and asked viewers to snuggle up on cushions. (I guess one could say we needed that closeness after so much remoteness and alienationthough the urgency probably depends on whether or not you had to get a COVID test for your return trip.)

The body as a theme appeared with more rigor at the Romanian pavilion, where film director Adina Pintilie offered an unabashed look at intimacy, grappling with how we connect to each other and our own bodies viaa multi-channel installation called You Are Another Me A Cathedral of the Body.

Despite all this, overspaghetti al nero during the unseasonably chilly evenings, discussions ofthe national pavilions were frequently eclipsed by excitement over megadealer-produced palazzo shows. It is the worlds longest art fair, quipped one art critic as we sipped wine during Paula Regos presentation at Victoria Miros Venetian outpost, perfectly timed to the artists inclusion in the main exhibition.

Installation view Gallerie dellAccademia Anish Kapoor. Photo: Attilio Maranzano.

Despite the Biennales decision to remove gallery namesfrom the main exhibition wall labels in a bid to push back on the market, every heavyweight was present with its biggest star elsewhere (and those galleries that contributed cash to Alemanis show had their names listed online as a consolation prize).

Some of these shows were indeed worth the hype: Marlene Dumass poignant exhibition at Franois Pinaults Palazzo Grassi squeezed the spirit in a way those national pavilions did not. In the bustling tourist checkpoint of Piazza San Marco, an encyclopedic Louise Nevelson survey provided an authoritative look at her storied art practice, whichfitting to the mood of the yearinvolved breaking things apart and putting them back together again. The show marked 60 years since the late artist represented the U.S. at the Venice Biennale.

Inside, Pace founder Arne Glimcher leaned against a window chatting with a friend; outside, a group of Venetian teenagers wearing T-shirts with the letters of Nevelsons name staged a delightfully odd promotional campaign in the rain. (I watched as they tried, giggling, to get into formationthey seemed happy about the paid gig despite being wet.)

Venetian teenagers promoting the Louise Nevelson show. Photo: Artnet News

While the official Venice Biennale was majority female, the collateral events were a far more conservative lineup of blue-chip male favorites. Seemingly every big gallery was rushing to make up for lost time with collectors over the past two-plus years.

Gagosian may have had nary an artist in Alemanis main show, but no matter: Georg Baselitz, Anselm Kiefer, and Katharina Grosse all had solo projects around town. Outside the Giardini and Arsenale, everything felt very much business as usual, with Anish Kapoors neoliberal patented color show and an Ugo Rondinone exhibition organized by a consortium of galleries. There was also a major presentation Hermann Nitschwhose death last week did not halt his dinner partyand shows of Joseph Beuys and Bruce Nauman, among other long-ago-anointed boldface names.

So, while the Biennale itself succeeded in offering an erudite alternative to the male-dominated art world, the exhibitions everywhere else tipped the scale right back to the status quo. Can the Biennale really change without being put through the chopper? I certainly hope so, because I want to come backand I dont want anything to be burned down. But I recognize that, in any case, it is incumbent upon the best artists to try.

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Venice Biennale Artists Want to Blow Up the Art System. But for Power-Brokers Around Town, That System Was in Full Flower - artnet News

Russias ongoing invasion of Ukraine and the resulting humanitarian crisis has seen an unprecedented movement of nearly four million refugees beyond the borders to neighbouring countries. What has also been unprecedented has been the show of solidarity in Europe towards the unfolding refugee crisis. For instance, the European Council unanimously activated the Temporary Protection Directive, invoked for the first time since the 1990s, that provides for three years of residency in European Union (EU) countries, complete with rights to the labour market, housing, medical assistance and education for children.

The European Commission also announced 3.4 billion in recovery funds in late March to help host countries meet the costs of the influx of refugees. The Polish parliament passed a Special Law in March that granted refugees from Ukraine the right to legally stay in Poland for 18 months. Ukraines neighbours in eastern Europe have taken in hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers. The numbers speak for themselves with Poland hosting 2,337,000 refugees followed by Romania (609,000), Slovakia (281,000), Hungary (365,000) and Moldova (387,000) by the end of March.

On the face of it, this appears to be a shot in the arm for EUs dysfunctional refugee policy, giving it a sense of purpose and solidarity. For sure, it ticks several political boxes for Europe: From presenting a unified front against Russia and seeking to strengthen regional stability to salvaging its own image as a normative actor with influence to shape the discourse on rights and responsibilities. But this seemingly golden moment of solidarity has a dark side to it. What has been problematic is that this show of solidarity is based on an implicit notion of the Ukrainian as the good refugee. The feel good narrative of Europes response to the Ukrainian refugee crisis conceals entrenched hierarchies of protection that are aimed at keeping out the outsider (read non-European).

Cultural and economic considerations have dovetailed to produce a highly opaque process of separating the good refugee from the bad ones. For instance, Bulgarian prime minister Kiril Petkov offered refuge to 25,000 Ukrainian refugees by noting that These people are intelligent, they are educated people...This is not the refugee wave we have been used to, people we were not sure about their identity, people with unclear pasts, who could have been even terrorists...

Media reports have also replayed many racist stereotypes uncritically. The facetious tone of many of these comments have been unapologetically partisan. For instance, one senior journalist noted, Ukraine is a European country. Its people watch Netflix and have Instagram accounts, vote in free election and read uncensored newspapers.

Similarly, a senior war correspondent commented that Ukraine isnt a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan, that has seen conflict raging for decades. This is relatively civilised, relatively European. The open welcome extended to the Ukrainian refugee is a far cry from the Syrian refugee crisis of 2011 that had seen bitter divisions within the EU over the issue of burden-sharing. Fortress Europe appears to be experiencing a we are all in this together moment in the face of the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine with an unprecedented show of solidarity towards asylum seekers. For sure, it ticks several political boxes for Europe: From presenting a unified front against Russia and seeking to strengthen regional stability to salvaging its own image as a normative actor with an incentive to shape the discourse on rights and responsibilities. But this seemingly golden moment of solidarity has a dark side to it. It paradoxically speaks of Europes abdication of, and not adherence to, universal refugee protection norms. The feel good narrative also conceals entrenched hierarchies of protection that are aimed at keeping out the outsider (read non-European).

Justifying its decision to deny protection to those coming from Syria, Polands deputy prime minister, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, noted that it would completely change our culture and radically lower the level of safety in our country.

Similarly, Hungary refused to accept refugees from non-EU countries referring to them as Muslim invaders. In such hyper-securitised narratives, the figure of the migrant stands at the centre of a white Eurocentric discourse reduced to being an enduring racialised caricature.

These biases also came to the fore during the current crisis, when non-white refugees trying to cross over into neighbouring countries were subjected to racial discrimination. As scholar Andrew Geddes notes, these serve also to accentuate a participatory deficit that is especially marked for people from immigrant and ethnic minority groups in Union Member States.

What is also worrying is that the polarising rhetoric is being matched by measures on the ground that are resulting in stricter migration and border controls. For instance, 12 member-States have demanded that the EU should finance the construction of border walls, calling it an effective border measure that serves the interest of the whole EU, not just member-States of first arrival.

The rising anti-immigrant sentiment also speaks of the increasing influence conservative groups such as the European Peoples Party wield within the European Parliament, which have lobbied hard for prioritising stringent border protection measures. The EU Parliament also approved in 2021 two funds, namely the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund and the Integrated Border Management Fund at a cost of Euro 16 billion aimed at boosting national capacities to manage migration flows. Besides this, the EU also tripled border management funds to Latvia, Poland and Lithuania in November 2021 to over $200 million to deter illegal border crossings. It has also been severely critiqued for being complicit in several illegal pushback operations have been carried out across its external borders. For instance, Croatias pushback operation codenamed Koridor was partially funded by the EU.

These pushback operations escalated during the pandemic with EU states reportedly pushing back at least 40,000 asylum seekers from Europes borders. Similarly, Europes infamous hotspot system involves protracted periods of confinement of asylum seekers. These agreements are turning neighbouring countries into Europes new border guards.

Many of these far-reaching changes are changing the notion of the border in fundamental ways, with enormous consequences for the rights of the vulnerable. The border no longer remains a mere location but becomes delocalised, resulting in a spatially expansive notion that extends far beyond Europes physical frontiers. This can be seen in Europes moves towards externalisation of border controls to third countries, which are aimed at ensuring that asylum seekers do not get a chance to reach Europes borders. To operationalise this, the EU has provided millions of euros to third countries towards ramping up border management, training law enforcement and border officials and expanded surveillance measures. For instance, the EU has fully funded the construction of five refugee camps on the Aegean islands with motion-detection algorithms, drones and thermal cameras.

It has also entered into controversial externalisation deals with Libya, Sudan, Chad, Niger, Rwanda, Belarus and Turkey. These raise troubling ethical choices for the EU, converting pariahs into migration partners Its 2016 deportation deal with Turkey was decried as a stain on EUs rights record for its total disregard of norms of local integration and voluntary return. Similarly, Denmarks 2021 agreement with Rwanda seeks neither consent nor ensures required guarantees for the asylum seekers. In a hardening of its asylum policy, Denmark also withdrew refugee protection status to Syrian refugees being hosted in the country. There are grave concerns over how migrants will be treated in Turkey, which already hosts more than four million refugees. Cultural bordering, once yoked to the idea of the nation, can end up becoming a DIY calibrator of social rankings and labels. The recent Przemysl incident which saw the violent targeting of non-white refugees in Poland is a case in point of a growing incidence of hate crimes that tap into histories of prejudice along racial, religious, caste, class and gender lines. The securitisation of the refugee also has grave gendered implications. Scholar Victoria Cannings study shows of how violence has become part and parcel of the British asylum system contributing to the re-traumatisation of women. If Europe chooses to peddle the good refugee/bad refugee categorisation, it will only end up swelling the ranks of the stateless in the region. Reducing the refugee narrative to a single-issue debate fixated only on the security dimension would ironically end up creating an even more intractable security nightmare for Europe.

Europes response to the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Ukraine in fact exemplifies the crisis at the heart of its refugee policy. Europe may be experiencing we are all in this together moment in the face of Russias actions in Ukraine. But as cultural bordering continues to corrode and wipe out valuable social capital, we all fall down could well be the lived reality that awaits Europe. The allegorical warning that Edgar Allan Poe sounded in The Masque of the Red Death may be closer to the bone than many in Europe may care to acknowledge. Set against the grim backdrop of the black plague, it warns of the futility of trying to keep social worlds apart.

(The piece has been authored by Nimmi Kurian, Centre for Policy Research)

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Ukraines Refugee Crisis and the (B)ordering of Europe - Hindustan Times

Some 10 years ago, the world was momentarily transfixed by a 30-minute film soundtracked by a heady mix of Nine Inch Nails and EDM, featuring shots of Adolf Hitler, crying children, and bodies lying in the road. It was called Kony 2012 and it was meant to save a country that had not asked to be saved.

The inspiration for the film had come a decade earlier, when an all-white group of US filmmakers had met a teenager called Jacob while travelling in northern Uganda. Jacob was on the run from a rebel group, the Lords Resistance Army (LRA), headed by a man called Joseph Kony. Jacob told the filmmakers how he had been brutalised by Konys rebels, and they were understandably so moved that they set out to do something about it. They created the charity Invisible Children to highlight the plight of kids such as Jacob whose suffering they considered invisible because Americans knew nothing about it.

You can almost forgive the filmmakers naivety about the African continent. A decade earlier, Tony Blair had declared the state of Africa to be a scar on the conscience of the world. Before that, in the 1980s, a whole genre of celebrity-fronted campaigns had emerged that saw famous faces sent to Africa to fix something. The most infamous was Bob Geldofs Live Aid and the earlier Band Aid song Do They Know Its Christmas?, which can still be heard in Britain every December. The song claimed that across the totality of Africa the only water flowing / is the bitter sting of tears and that the greatest gift theyll get this year is life.

The Kony 2012 filmmakers had spent years trying to get the west to intervene in Uganda to capture Kony. They were failing in the task and urgently needed a new tactic. Kony 2012 was their solution they would use public guilt to spur the US government into action. The result was a film packed with many of the tropes we had come to expect from African aid films: images of ubiquitous suffering, warlords in military uniform, starved children hopelessly wandering the night. Darkness was a heavy theme throughout the film: where light appeared, it was not in Uganda, but in the US.

The aim of the film, as narrated by filmmaker Jason Russell, was remarkably simple: to make Kony a household name in America and around the world. To do that, the charity proposed we all buy $30 action kits, each one filled with posters, bracelets and stickers, which the organisers hoped would blanket the planet in Konys likeness, leading to his inevitable arrest. In just over a week, 30 million people had watched Kony 2012; #StopKony trended on social media for three days. At the time it was the most viral video in YouTube history.

Why was it so widely shared? Perhaps because it played to the simple narrative of a failed Africa that the world had come to know and embrace. Successfully convincing viewers across the world to act required leaning heavily on peoples existing biases about the continent. It was easy to trust that a man had walked freely through this chaotic jungle for 20 years, murdering young children, because that was just the sort of thing that happened in Africa.

But for all the inspiration and horror Kony 2012 caused, it was also met by fury from critics. The white saviour supports brutal policies in the morning, founds charities in the afternoon, and receives awards in the evening, the Nigerian essayist Teju Cole tweeted in the days following the films release.

Much of the film was criticised for being misleading for instance, Joseph Kony wasnt actually in Uganda at the time and, in the words of Ugandan journalist Rosebell Kagumire, for furthering a narrative of Africans being totally unable to help themselves. The analysis was also judged to be several years out of date, grossly overstating the then size and reach of the LRA, which had dwindled in the years leading up to the films release.

There were other questions raised about the charitys funding and expenditure most of which was at the time spent in the US, as opposed to funding projects on the ground. The criticisms from the continent were so intense that it derailed the entire campaign, and Invisible Children was moved to release an FAQ going into so much more detail about Konys whereabouts and the wider civil war. Yet the damage was done: in the same spring that Kony 2012 was released, Lonely Planet declared Uganda its top country to visit that year, a recognition that was quickly drowned out; its surely not just coincidence that Uganda suffered its biggest drop in tourism revenue for more than 10 years in 2012.

The question now, 10 years later, is has anything really changed since Kony 2012 to challenge the way the west sees Africa?

Just look at the newsreader who declared, shocked, that the victims of the appalling migrant crisis in Ukraine were prosperous, middle-class people. These are not obviously refugees trying to get away from the Middle East or north Africa. They look like any European family that youd live next door to. Look also to the past two years in which articles warning that the pandemic would lead to mass fatalities in Africa were followed by pieces questioning with a sense of bemusement as to why that hadnt happened. And look, too, at news stories and reports talking about vaccine uptake in Africa when the picture is very different in specific countries. As with every other region in the world, the responses across the continent varied; in fact, South Africa has been a world leader in the detection of Covid-19 variants.

As I tour my book, Africa Is Not a Country, Im consistently asked how the west should approach how to fix Africas problems, and my response is always to first stop looking at Africa as a problem. If we fail to do so, we are in danger of another decade passing without having shifted the worlds perception of the second-largest continent on the planet.

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Remember #Kony2012? Were still living in its offensive, outdated view of Africa - The Guardian

If theyre found guilty, private vessels will be less likely to help stranded people at sea for fear of being prosecuted themselves.

The case of the El Hiblu 3, as the young men are now known, could have far-reaching effects on other migrants, advocates and researchers say: If theyre found guilty, private vessels will be less likely to help stranded people at sea for fear of being prosecuted themselvesas in the case of Claus-Peter Reisch, the captain of a Dutch vessel with Mission Lifeline, a nongovernmental organization active in migrant rescues. In 2018, the boat was held at sea for a week after rescuing 234 migrants. Malta eventually allowed its entry into port, only to confiscate the boat and charge the captain.

Although the norms are sometimes clear, its not clear who they apply to, said Erik Rsg, who teaches at the Department of Private Law at the University of Oslo. I think the new thing is that the same acts that were thought earlier as being acts of passion and helping migrants in need, they are now criminalized.

Meanwhile, migrants in Malta, which has come to rely on them for labor, can face brutal work conditions. During my visit, the name Jaiteh Lamin often came up. A 32-year-old migrant from Gambia, Jaiteh fell two stories from a construction site where he was working without a permit. He was seriously injured. In an attempt to cover up the accident, Jaitehs boss, a local contractor, took him to a rural road and left him. A passerby found him crying for help and saying that he thought he was going to die.

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These Three Migrants Were Rescued at Sea. Then They Were Charged With Terrorism. - The New Republic

Ukraines main cybersecurity incident response team released a list on Friday of the five most persistent hacking groups and malware families attacking Ukraines critical infrastructure.

According to the Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA), the country has recorded 802 cyberattacks since Russia invaded the country earlier this year. That compares to just 362 documented attacks during the same time last year, CERT-UA said. Here are the groups and malware behind some of the biggest attacks:

Who: A threat actor notorious for targeting Ukraine since 2014 and backed by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). Prior to 2022, the Security Service of Ukraine attributed around 5,000 cyberattacks to Armageddon and were able to identify five members of the group and trace the malware to Russian hacking platforms. The group has used a number of tactics over the years including Outlook macros, EvilGnome backdoor, planted malware, and exposed vulnerabilities. Despite Ukrainian efforts to thwart the group over the years, Armageddon has remained aggressive.

What: In April, CERT-UA attributed a number of phishing emails to Armageddon which were sent to Ukrainian organizations and other European government agencies. The emails lured recipients by using the subject line, Information on war criminals of the Russian Federation, which provided a downloadable file. When the file was opened, a PowerShell script would run and infect the device.

In March a similar phishing email was sent to Latvian government officials with a file containing war information which allowed the malware to download. Most recently, on April 20, the group was linked to new variants of the Backdoor.Pterodo malware payload. Armageddon has used this payload in the past, however, by constantly creating new variants they are able to quickly shift to a new one after the previous one is detected and blocked. Although their tactics are not the most complex, their ability to remain persistent in efforts against Ukraine has made them a notable threat.

Who: According to research published by Mandiant, UNC1151 is a Belarus-aligned hacking group who has been active since 2016. The group has previously targeted government agencies and private organizations in Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, and Germany also attacking Belarusian dissidents and journalists. Historically, UNC1151 has stolen victim credentials through registered credential theft domains that spoof legitimate websites. UNC1151 has also been linked to the Ghostwriter campaign based on research that suggests UNC1151 provided them with technical support and findings that show similarities in their narratives. Due to the fact that the group has never targeted Russia and based on the relationship between Belarus and Russia, UNC1151 has been tied to Russian operations.

What: Since Russia invaded Ukraine the group has remained aggressive through a variety of attacks. In January the group was linked to the defacement of multiple Ukrainian government websites which displayed a message claiming that personal data was made public. On February 25, CERT-UA warned the public of spearphishing campaigns targeting the email and facebook accounts of Ukrainian military personnel. The group was able to gain access to messages and were able to use the contacts of the accounts to send out more emails. On March 7, CERT-UA found the state organizations of Ukraine had devices infected with MicroBackdoor a malicious program executed by UNC1151.

Who: APT28 (also referred to as Fancy Bear) is backed by Russias military intelligence service (GRU). According to Mandiant research, the group has conducted cyberespionage operations that align with the interests of the Russian government since 2007, however, the government ties were not confirmed until December, 2016 after an analysis by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the FBI. ATP28 has been involved in a number of cyberattacks in which they have stolen highly sensitive information including; the conflict in Syria, NATO-Ukraine relations, the European Union refugee and migrant crisis, the 2016 Olympics and Paralympics Russian athlete doping scandal, public accusations regarding Russian state-sponsored hacking, and the 2016 U.S. presidential election, according to a report by Mandiant.

What: ATP28 was linked to the cyberattack on US satellite communications provider Viasat. The attackers gained access to Viasats KA-SAT network in Ukraine on February 24, leaving many Ukrainians without internet access. Although ATP28s involvement in the attack has not been confirmed, SentinelOne has alluded to their involvement based on the similarities between the AcidRain malware used in the Viasat attack and a VPNFilter malware used in the 2018 disruption of hundreds of thousands of routers which the FBI confirmed. On April 6, Microsoft obtained a court order granting the company permission to take control of seven domains used by APT28 to conduct their attacks.

Who: Russian hacktivists and threat actors everywhere have been using the AgentTesla and XLoader malwares for some time, according to Check Point Research. AgentTesla has been around since 2014, according to security firm TitanHQ, and is used as a program to steal passwords. It has grown in popularity as customers can pay subscription fees ranging from $15 to $69. XLoader is another malware that was rebranded in 2020 from the previous name, Formbook. XLoader targets Windows and Mac devices through phishing emails and can collect passwords and screenshots, log keystrokes, and plant malicious files for a fee of $49 on the dark web.

What: On March 9, CERT-UA released findings showing a mass-distributed malicious email thread that used the topic line, letter of approval of cash security, which was sent to a variety of Ukrainian state organizations. The email contained a file attachment which downloaded and ran the XLoader malware. Once infected, authentication data from the device was collected and sent back to the hackers. Other phishing campaigns have been linked to AgentTesla including emails sent to Ukrainian citizens containing files with the IcedID malware which operates as a banking trojan to steal credentials.

Who: Russian hacktivists and cyber spies use GrimPlant and GraphSteel which function as downloaders and droppers and fall under the umbrella term Elephant Framework tools that are written in the same language and are used to target government organizations through phishing attacks. Threat analysis firm, Intezer, details this framework and provides an in-depth analysis of the malwares. GrimPlant is not overly sophisticated and grants attackers remote control of PowerShell commands, while GraphSteel is used to exfiltrate sensitive data.

What: On March 11, CERT-UA revealed that coordinating entities had received emails regarding instructions to increase security protocol. The email contained a link which provided a critical updates download through a 60MB file. After further investigation, they found that the file prompted a chain of other downloads including the GrimPlant and GraphSteel backdoors. Hackers were then able to steal sensitive information.

On March 28, CERT-UA disclosed another phishing campaign that planted GrimPlant and GraphSteel on the devices of government officials using the subject Wage arrears. The attached document contained accurate information, however, the file also downloaded a program that ran both GrimPlant and GraphSteel. CERT-UA released a statement earlier this month alerting the public of the latest phishing email which downloaded GrimPlant and GraphSteel through an attachment labeled, Aid request COVID-19-04_5_22.xls.

Emma Vail is an editorial intern for The Record. She is currently studying anthropology and women, gender, and sexuality at Northeastern University. After creating her own blog in 2018, she decided to pursue journalism and further her experience by joining the team.

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A deeper look at hacking groups and malware targeting Ukraine - The Record by Recorded Future

A Texas National Guard soldier was feared dead Friday after attempting to rescue illegal migrants from a river along the border of Mexico.

A Texas Army National Guard Soldier assigned to Operation Lone Star has gone missing along the river during a mission related incident, Friday April 22, 2022 in Eagle Pass, Texas. The Soldier has not been found, a statement from the department read.

We are aware of reports of a fatality, although those reports are inaccurate. The Texas Military Department, Texas DPS and Border Patrol are working rapidly to find the Soldier. More details will be released as they become available.

Sources have toldFox Newsthat a body of a migrant was recovered and that officials are treating the search for the soldier as a drowning using dive teams in the river.Fox reported that his radio and body armor removed before he went into the water were found nearby.

Theguardsmanhad jumped into the river to save a migrant woman.

Maverick County Sheriff Tom Schmerbertold theWashingtonExaminerthat the incident happened at around 8:30amCentral Time.

The National Guard soldiers saw a group of immigrants crossing, and one of them, a lady it appeared that she was drowning, Schmerber said. The National Guardsman jumped into the river and tried to rescue,andhe never came out. So they called us and said, Were still looking for him.'

The sheriff added that the migrant woman is safe and in custody.

Video footage shared by the Daily Caller last week showed several of them being swept away by the Rio Grande, reportedly calling out for help.

The incident comes as migration levels along the southern border soar, having reached more than 221,000 in March the most in a single month since Biden took office, during which there has been an increasing surge.

Last months encounters along the border marked a huge spike from February, which only reported 164,973 stops.

Previously, the highest number of encounters in a single month under President Biden was last July, when 213,593 encounters were reported.

Local and state officials are worried illegal migrant levels will continue to get worse in the coming weeks, as border states brace for the administration to officially spike the Trump-era Title 42 policy which has allowed border officials to quickly expel migrants without hearing asylum claims due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

On April 1, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced the order would be lifted on May 23.

With the order only in place for just four more weeks, groups made up of dozens of migrants are already attempting to cross the border.

Earlier this month, border agents rounded up four separate large groups totaling 754 people including 356 adults and 123 unaccompanied children.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are urging the Biden administration to keep Title 42 in place, citing the anticipated surge of migrants as well as the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.

Democratic Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar indicated on Thursday that lifting the policy will not only hurt the local communities, but the Democratic party as a whole headed into the fall midterm elections.

This is not good for Democrats in November. You know, in talking with some of my Republican colleagues, theyre saying We cant believe the White House is giving us this narrative. We cant believe that theyre hurting Democrat candidates for the November election, he told Fox News digital.

And you know this, you look at the polls. The Republican voters are not happy by whats happening at the border. The Democratic voters are not happy. And if you look at the independent voters, theyre not happy about this decision. So who are we trying to please?

To combat the expected surge and protest the administrations immigration policies, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has begun to bus dozens of migrants from his state to Washington D.C.

As of Wednesday, the Republican had sent more than 150 volunteer migrants to the nations capital.

Excerpt from:

Texas National Guard soldier feared dead after trying to save migrant - New York Post

Prague The Governor of the Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB), Carlo Monticelli, and Vt Rakuan, First Deputy Prime Minister of the Czech Republic and Minister of the Interior, today signed a 399,899 grant agreement to assist early integration of refugees from Ukraine.

Coming from CEBs Migrant and Refugee Fund (MRF), the grant will help the Refugee Facilities Administration of the Czech Ministry of the Interior to finance the provision of accommodation, information, employment, health, legal and social services. It will also fund Czech language text books for Ukrainian refugees as part of a programme financed by the Czech Republic and by the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) of the European Union.

The ongoing influx of displaced persons from Ukraine is causing an unprecedented burden on the social systems of receiving countries, said CEB Governor Carlo Monticelli. The grant agreement we signed today with the Czech Republic confirms our continued support to our member states to allow a swift response to urgent needs emerging on the ground.

The Czech Republic has so far granted temporary protection status to more than 300,000 Ukrainian citizens, most of them children, women and the elderly. In case of prolonged conflict in Ukraine, it is estimated that this number could reach 500,000, or about 5% of the total population of the country.

The increasing refugee flow is putting a strain on the Czech social system, which currently has to rely on its own resources to deal with this unprecedented situation. The existing integration centres no longer have spare capacity.

The grant from the Council of Europe Development Bank is an important signal that the situation in the Czech Republic and the assistance we provide is seen and appreciated abroad, said Vt Rakuan, First Deputy Prime Minister of the Czech Republic and Minister of the Interior. We are thankful for the help received from the Bank. We are providing accommodation and access to social welfare for all, so the Refugee Facilities Administration of the Ministry of the Interior will utilise this help to the maximum extent.

The CEB and the Czech Ministry of Finance are currently working to finalise a 200 million loan, as well as potentially additional 200 million, to co-finance the costs defined in the Czech governments strategic priorities to deal with the refugee crisis caused by the war in Ukraine.

CEBs response to Ukraine refugee crisis

The CEB was the first MDB to disburse grants to provide immediate assistance to refugees from Ukraine. It has so far approved almost 2.8 million in grants from its Migrant and Refugee Fund (MRF) to the offices of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in CEB member countries that are recording substantial refugee inflows from Ukraine Hungary, Republic of Moldova, Poland, Romania and Slovak Republic. This funding is used to provide safe transport, shelter, medical care, counselling, and data collection/registration of refugees.

In addition, the CEB has recently issued a 1 billion seven-year Social Inclusion Bond (SIB), whose proceeds could be used, in part or in full, by the CEB member countries to support long-term needs of refugees and their host communities.

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Czech Republic and CEB sign a grant of almost 400000 to facilitate early integration of refugees from Ukraine - Czechia - ReliefWeb

Analysis

Refugees from Myanmar carry food boxes donated by well-wishers in Thailand to share at a camp on the Moei River on the Thai border in January 2022. / The Irrawaddy

By Tom Fawthrop 27 April 2022

Since lasts years military coup, Myanmars campaign against COVID-19 has been in disarray.

The health system has all but collapsed with thousands of medical staff in hiding and others languishing behind bars for their involvement in the civil disobedience movement.

Thai epidemiologist Dr Vit Suwanvanichkij, who has long experience of regional health problems, is deeply worried by the chronic lack of information coming out of Myanmar. There is little or no reporting of the COVID-19 virus and its variants. Given the collapse of Burmas health system and its very limited capacity to test or do genomic surveillance, we have no idea and neither does anyone else know what is going on.

What we do know is that the uncontrolled spread of COVID-19 inside the country has even worse implications for thousands huddled in displacement camps.

Half of Kayah State has been displaced since the coup with little or no access to official health services. Around 800,000 have been displaced nationwide.

The conditions for the displaced create a serious danger of viral replication on a massive scale and that means evolution and virus mutation, according to Dr Vit, who says there is an ongoing danger of Myanmar becoming a super-spreader.

The case for cross-border intervention

As long as the military regime remains in power, the enfeebled state-controlled health sector, now increasingly staffed by military personnel, will always lack the capacity and neutrality to carry out an effective vaccination and COVID-19 surveillance.

However, most western aid and vaccines are still dispatched to Yangon where distribution is at the mercy of military authorization and distribution permits.

The need for the international aid community to make a serious effort to diversify humanitarian aid corridors with alternative routes from Thailand and India is surely beyond dispute, whatever the practical and political constraints.

The predominant response from Thai military authorities to the war in Myanmar has been to tighten border controls and deny all NGOs and the UNHCR access to refugees. Officially there is no Thai approval of cross-border aid and thousands fleeing have been pushed back across the river.

The Thai government is so immersed in orthodox measures in tackling border security that it has failed to grasp that no amount of conventional security can stop a virus spreading across an international frontier.

UN rapporteur Tom Andrews said: Covid does not respect nationalities or borders or ideologies or political parties. Covid is an equal opportunities killer.

Beyond Myanmars borders, Thailand, China, India and Bangladesh could all be exposed to a super-spreader state unless there is decisive UN-endorsed cross-border humanitarian intervention.

So far Thailand has not made any specific preparation for a spillover from Myanmar. According to Dr Thira Wora Woratanarat, an epidemiologist at Chulalongkorn Universitys Faculty of Medicine: I do not think there is any focus from the Thai authorities to care about the lack of vaccination inside Myanmar.

If it is obvious the disease is going to be uncontrollable in the area, cross-border medical aid is essential. This may be a good opportunity for the Thai government if it decides to use this channel to provide benefits for both countries in respect of pandemic control. Education, as well as medical services and supplies, could be a good intervention.

China, which has a 2,000km border with Myanmar, has been proactive, dispatching Chinese Red Cross teams to administer free vaccinations in Kachin and Shan states.

The Kachin Independence Organisation said 10,000 people were vaccinated at its Laiza headquarters last year. China has also promised to supply half a million doses to the Taang National Liberation Army during 2022.

Would Thailand back cross-border vaccine distribution routes?

Thailands refusal to allow cross-border aid and restrictions on humanitarian aid distribution by NGOs is partly based on sovereignty and national security concerns.

However, Relief International, a US-based NGO, says international humanitarian law, which normally requires a countrys consent for cross-border assistance, does not apply in cases of humanitarian emergency.

The NGO said countries cannot arbitrarily withhold consent for aid where it is clearly necessary and where efforts are clearly humanitarian in nature.

The UN General Assembly has refused to recognize the junta as Myanmars legitimate government. Hence the Thai authorities have no legal obligation to seek consent from the military regime.

This indicates that the real obstacles and objections coming from the Thai side are not based on law but rather belong to the domain of diplomacy and politics.

Aseans abysmal failure to engage with the National Unity Government (NUG) and Thailands fears of further waves of refugees are the main factors governing current border governance.

International NGOs have stressed many times since the coup the need to upscale cross-border aid using mechanisms already in place which date back to previous refugee influxes in the 1990s.

There is already a credible aid partner inside Karen State. The Karen National Union (KNU) and NUGs task force is a joint effort between the civilian health ministry and the ethnic armed organizations health agency, formed in July 2021.

Padoh Mahn Mahn, a KNU spokesman, said: We have asked the Thai authorities for cross-border permission [for vaccinations]. But we still have to overcome many challenges.

The NUGs shadow health minister, Dr Zaw Wai Soe, led the ousted democratic governments coronavirus efforts and is doing the same job underground.

What needs to be done?

In the middle of a pandemic, advocates of cross-border aid argue health security should take priority over normal border-control regulations and sovereignty concerns for the sake of common good and mutual medical benefit.

Humanitarian aid worker Johny Adhikari of the charity Metta asked: If China can so easily deliver enough vaccines to Shan State, what is stopping Thailand facilitating a similar cross-border vaccination drive into vaccine-starved Karen State? His charity is a major aid distribution agency for migrant workers and refugees.

The KNUs Padah Mahn Mahn told The Irrawaddy: We carried out 1,500 vaccinations in March this year [of] over 100,000 people in Hpapun district of Karen State. We need many more vaccine donations. But many donors like the Gavi vaccine alliance have declined the NUGs request for help.

Covax and Gavi are linked to World Health Organization initiatives designed to support access to vaccines for the poorer countries and have miserably failed to provide equal access to COVID-19 vaccines. Western governments hoarded most of the vaccines produced in the US and Europe during 2021.

Phil Robertson from Human Rights Watch Asia is not surprised about donor reticence.

Without some willingness by Thailand to change its policy on cross-border assistance, its not surprising that both donor governments and INGOs are pessimistic about providing such assistance, he said.

There have been private talks between the Thai foreign minister and the UNHCR about preparing for a deepening crisis in Myanmar and a major influx of refugees in 2022 but there has been no information shared with NGOs on the border.

The clear pathway for a breakthrough with the Thai authorities is for Thai NGOs, medics and UN agencies to convince Thailand that a major shift in border policy is hugely in the interests of Thai society and an essential step in relieving the humanitarian disaster in Myanmar.

Adhikari said: The Thai government could help contain the COVID-19 threat and migrant problems by setting up one-stop offices at the border crossings. These multifunction offices could provide health checks and vaccinations and process visa renewals for migrant workers, helping to eliminate brokers and traffickers. This would benefit all sides and help the Thai economy.

The proposal offers the potential of a win-win humanitarian solution for Thailand and Myanmar. But it will require a huge amount of lobbying to make any kind of breakthrough and transform the frontier into a zone of international COVID-19 prevention and cooperation.

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Myanmars Covid Crisis Needs Thai Cooperation for Cross-Border Vaccine Aid - The Irrawaddy

Listen: The concept of mercenaries, hired soldiers and specialists working privately to fight a nations battles, is nearly as old as war itself.

In our fourth episode of Patching the System, were discussing the threat cyber mercenaries pose to individuals, governments, and the private sector. Well examine how spyware used to track criminal and terrorist activity around the world has been abused by bad actors in cyber space who are hacking and spying activists, journalists, and even government officials. And well talk about whats being done to stop it.

Our participants are:

GZEROs special podcast series Patching the System, produced in partnership with Microsoft as part of the award-winning Global Stage series, highlights the work of the Cybersecurity Tech Accord, a public commitment from over 150 global technology companies dedicated to creating a safer cyber world for all of us.

Subscribe to the GZERO World Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published.

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Podcast: Cyber Mercenaries and the digital wild west" - GZERO Media

Migrant crisis has been worsening in different parts of the world. Be it the US-Mexico border, English Channel or Mediterranean Sea, many migrants belonging to different countries travel dangerously to reach their destination every year.

Several people have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea, English Channel and other waterways after their boat capsized while many have been sent back after reaching the border.

Many countries like Greece have also build walls to stop the movement of the migrants. The United States have also built several camps to keep a check on migrant crisis.

Also Read:Fresh violence in Darfur adds to Sudans crises

In the Americas, people from various poor countries like El Savador, Colombia, Mexico, etc travel on foot, buses, etc to reach US border while in Africa, many of the migrants, who have been fighting hunger, common coups, violent conflicts and others, make attempts to reach the Mediterranean Sea through various land routes and then hitch a ride on a boat to reach Europe.

Many people also try to reach Australia or Canada from various regions.

But not everybody is lucky. Some people drown while others are caught. The people, who somehow reach these countries, live in fear of getting caught and deported someday. Many are forced to take up petty jobs or end up getting exploited.

At the end, very few of these people get to live their dream or even get a fair outcome of the trouble undertaken to travel long distances in inhumane conditions.

The million-dollar question is what drives them to do this and why the so-called wealthy nations not doing anything to solve this crisis.

Also Read:France, Britain agree to step up efforts to limit channel crossings

The answer to the first question is simple, in several nations in the South America and Africa, there is poverty, violence, hunger and less opportunities to live a life with dignity.

The wealthy nations are just the opposite. They have everything one can dream of. But just lack the will to help.

Instead of making the world a better place to live, several countries have been making concerted efforts to ensure there is turmoil in different parts of many continents so that they are pursuing their agenda or fulfill their vested interests.

In 2015, Europe was moved after immense criticism over the migrant issue after a dead body of a three-year-old Syrian child washed ashore. The images of the dead body of Alan Kurdi on the beach forced Europe to open its doors for the refugees of the Syrian war.

Are the wealthy nations or the world as a whole waiting for more such bodies or will take action before its too late. Only time can solve this riddle.

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What has led to migrant crisis around world? - WION

BRUZGI, Belarus Thousands of freezing, desperate migrants retreated last week from a sprawling encampment along Belaruss border with Poland but Polish security forces are still mobilized for battle along the frontier, backed by a water cannon, its turret aimed at a threat that has mostly vanished, at least from view.

Polands readiness to repel attack highlights the political calculations of a government in Warsaw that, with its support threatened by rising inflation, a lethal new surge in Covid infections and a host of other problems, is reluctant to let go of a border crisis that has boosted the nationalist governing party, Law and Justice.

This crisis suits Law and Justice and allows it to consolidate citizens around the government, as is usually the case in times of danger, said Antoni Dudek, a political science professor at Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw. Letting the crisis calm, he added, would reverse this because voters would begin to remember all the bad things Law and Justice would like them to forget.

Scenes of migrants trying to storm the border and being repelled by blasts of icy water from Poland, as happened early last week here at Bruzgi, reinforced the Polish governing partys message that only it can defend the country against what it portrays as invading foreign hordes, and they also help it to defuse a crisis with the European Union. Poland joined the bloc in 2004 but has been at loggerheads with it for months over issues like the treatment of the L.G.B.T.Q. community, womens rights and the rule of law.

Last week, Belarus shut down the huge and increasingly squalid migrant settlement flush against the Polish border, removing a key flash point and shifting the main focus of the crisis to the repatriation of asylum seekers. The European Commission estimated on Tuesday that there were up to 15,000 migrants still in Belarus, with about 2,000 near the borders with Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.

Instead of declaring victory, Warsaw is insisting that the struggle rages on, with Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki declaring on Sunday that at this very moment, a hybrid war is taking place on the Polish-Belarusian border.

ReadMore onthe Belarus-Poland Border Crisis

After months of denouncing the European Union as a bully whose insistence on L.G.B.T.Q. rights and judicial independence posed a threat to Polish sovereignty and Christian values, Poland now presents itself as the blocs indispensable guardian, promoting a new government slogan with its own hashtag: #WeDefendEurope.

This message, embraced by fellow members of the European Union, has largely eclipsed Polands previous image as an inveterate troublemaker whose hostility to sexual minorities and refusal to abide by the rulings of Europes top court raised questions about the countrys future E.U. membership.

At home, the Law and Justice party has used the rhetoric of war to bolster its waning popularity, with headlines like Attack on Poland and Another mass assault on the Polish border appearing in the state media. And the national bank plans to issue commemorative coins and notes to honor the defense of the Polish eastern border.

Those efforts appear to have gained traction among many Poles.

The situation of migrants makes me sad, but it is not Polands fault, said Elzbieta Kabac, 57, who owns a guesthouse in Narewka, near the border. We should praise the soldiers and the police for protecting our borders, because we are not ready to take those migrants in. She added: The European Union doesnt need any more migrants.

In one recent opinion poll, 54 percent of Poles surveyed said that the governments response to the crisis was very good or fairly good, with 34 percent saying it was very bad or fairly bad.

Opinion polls also indicate that the border crisis has slowed what had been a steady decline in the governing partys popularity, but that it could still lose power in an election. An opinion poll published Monday in Gazeta Wyborcza, a liberal newspaper, showed Law and Justice as Polands most popular party, with around 30 percent of those surveyed supporting it, but gave opposition parties a good chance of winning a majority in Parliament if they formed a united front. The next parliamentary elections are scheduled for 2023.

Until the border crisis hit with full force this fall, Law and Justice was stumbling badly, shaken by internal quarrels and the withholding of tens of billions of euros from the European Union in aid that the party was relying on to deliver its Polish deal, a package of handouts to the poor and tax hikes for the rich.

With economic and other problems blunting the power of its promise to defend family values, the governing party seized on the border crisis to consolidate support, denouncing as traitors critics of its hard-line policy of pushing back all migrants, even legitimate asylum seekers, pregnant women and the gravely ill.

Many Poles have rallied behind the government. Soldiers of Christ, a group that supports the governments tough line on migrants, organized a mass prayer in the town of Koden on Sunday, saying they intended to defend the nearby border. And in Bialystok, the capital of the region near the Belarus border, a far-right youth organization, Mlodziez Wszechpolska, marched in support of the policy.

There have also been ugly scenes near the border in recent weeks with right-wing vigilantes attacking Polish aid workers trying to help migrants who have made it across.

Poles opposed to the hard-line policy on migrants have also taken to the streets, however, and some have been helping the few who make it into Poland. In the border town of Hajnowka on Saturday, protesters called for the opening of a humanitarian corridor for migrants, and accused border guards of having blood on their hands.

There have been numerous reports of Polish armed services pushing asylum seekers back into Belarus, most recently by Human Rights Watch. The Polish government passed a special law last month to authorize pushbacks, which are against international law.

On Thursday, The Times saw a group of asylum seekers being loaded on a military truck and being driven to the border guards office.

When asked about the group, Katarzyna Zdanowicz, the spokeswoman for the Polish border guards, responded: Eleven people did not seek asylum in Poland. They wanted to go to France or Ireland. They received an order to leave Poland. They were escorted to the border line.

Polish aid groups working in the forests that straddle the frontier have reported a sharp drop in the number of migrants crossing the border in recent days. But Polish authorities say that Belarus has merely changed its tactics and is now sending small groups to try and breach the border at night. With the Polish side of the border off limits to all news media, however, this claim is impossible to verify.

Even as European figures show the crisis peaked months ago, the Polish government has insisted it is only getting worse. The European bloc border agency, Frontex, reported this week that the number of migrants entering the bloc through Belarus rose to an all-time high of 3,200 in July but has fallen steadily since, dropping to around only 600 in October.

While the Polish governments tough stance has clearly energized its base, it is unclear whether the tactic will conjure up new support.

The jury is still out on what lies ahead for Law and Justice, said Piotr Buras, the head of the Warsaw office of the European Council on Foreign Relations. The migration crisis helped to consolidate the core electorate, but not necessarily boost its popularity outside it. And there are other problems that Poles care about, mainly inflation and the worsening Covid-19 situation.

The European Commission has held up the disbursement to Poland of $42 billion from a coronavirus recovery fund over rule-of-law violations. But if the commission freed up the funds, Mr. Buras said, it would re-establish trust of those that were drifting away from the government in recent months.

He added: In the end, it is a trap. The party is getting more and more radicalized in their policies. They are becoming hostage to their most radical voters.

Andrew Higgins reported from Bruzgi, Belarus, and Monika Pronczuk from Hajnowka, Poland. Anatol Magdziarz contributed reporting from Warsaw and James Hill from Bruzgi.

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Migrant Crisis at Polands Border Eases Pressure on Its Government - The New York Times

The issue of people crossing the channel in small boats is back in the headlines.

Dozens of people died on Wednesday making the perilous journey across the sea, following UK government attempts to make the crossings more difficult.

So far this year more than 25,700 people have managed to complete the perilous crossing.

The government says it wants to make the journey unviable to deter people from making it but is refusing to create safe alternative routes for people trying to claim asylum.

While dangerous, making the journey appears to pay off for the vast majority who complete it.

Of the 25,700 to have made it safely to the UK, just five have been returned to Europe, ministers say.

What is less realised is that this is partly down to Britain's departure from the European Union.

Despite rhetoric about borders and immigration playing a major role in the Leave vote, EU cooperation played a significant role in border policing before Brexit.

The figure of five returnees is significantly down on the 294 people who were returned last year in 2020. In that year, the UK was still covered by EU rules because of the transition period.

In 2020 the UK was still party to the EU's "Dublin" regulations. These rules allowed the government to ask other European countries to take people back if it could be proved they passed through safe European countries on their way to the UK.

The government has failed to negotiate direct replacements for the Dublin regulations.

Migrants are helped ashore from a RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) lifeboat at a beach in Dungeness, on the south-east coast of England, on November 24, 2021, after being rescued while crossing the English Channel.

AFP via Getty Images

The coffin of Sir David Amess is carried past politicians, including former Prime Ministers Sir John Major, David Cameron and Theresa May, Speaker of the House of Commons Sir Lindsay Hoyle, Home Secretary Priti Patel and Prime Minister Boris Johnson during the requiem mass for the MP at Westminster Cathedral, central London

PA

The scene in Dragon Rise, Norton Fitzwarren, Somerset where police have launched a murder probe after two people were found dead

Tom Wren/SWNS

London-based midwife Sarah Muggleton, 27, takes part in a 'March with Midwives' in central London to highlight the crisis in maternity services

PA

Police officers monitor as climate change activists sit down and block traffic during a protest action in solidarity with activists from the Insulate Britain group who received prison terms for blocking roads, on Lambeth Bridge in central London

AFP via Getty Images

A giant installation of Prime Minister Boris Johnson made from recycled clothing goes on display at Manchester Central, as part of Manchester Art Fair, in a 'wake-up call for the Prime Minister to tackle textile waste'

PA

The scene at a recycling centre in Stert, near Devizes in Wiltshire after a large blaze was brought under control. The fire broke out on Wednesday night the fire service has said and local residents were advised to keep windows and doors shut due to large amounts of smoke

PA

The sun rises over South Shields Lighthouse, on the North East coast of England

PA

ancer Maithili Vijayakumar at the launch of 2021 Diwali celebrations at St Andrew Square in Edinburgh

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Forensic officers work outside Liverpool Women's Hospital, following a car blast, in Liverpool

Reuters

Wreaths by the Cenotaph after the Remembrance Sunday service in Whitehall, London

PA

Richard Ratcliffe, the husband of detainee Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, is ending his hunger strike in central London after almost three weeks. Ratcliffe has spent 21 days camped outside the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in London without food. He began his demonstration on 24 October after his wife lost her latest appeal in Iran, saying his family was caught in a dispute between two states

PA

Peter Green protesting outside the Cop26 gates during the official final day of the Cop26 summit in Glasgow.

PA

Seagulls fly around the statue entitled 'Tommy', a first World War soldier by artist Ray Lonsdale at dawn in Seaham, Britain

Reuters

Climate activists dressed as characters inspired by the Netflix series Squid Game protest as they ask Samsung to go 100% renewable energy, outside the venue for COP26 in Glasgow

Reuters

A deer statue silhouetted at Loch Faskally in Pitlochry, Scotland

Reuters

Sunrise over St Mary's Lighthouse at Whitley Bay on the North East coast of England

PA

Activists from Friends of the Earth during a demonstration calling for an end to all new oil and gas projects in the North Sea outside the UK Government's Cop26 hub during the Cop26 summit in Glasgow

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Protesters take part in a rally organised by the Cop26 Coalition in Glasgow demanding global climate justice

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Final touches are made to a life sized Sir David Attenborough cake surrounded by animals as part of a display created by a group of cake artists during Cake International at NEC Birmingham

PA

A spectacular display of the Northern Lights seen over Derwentwater, near Keswick in the Lake District

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Police and demonstrators at a Extinction Rebellion protest on Buchanan Street, during the Cop26 summit in Glasgow

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A person walks along the Basingstoke canal near to Dogmersfield in Hampshire

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Sir David Attenborough delivers a speech during Cop26 in Glasgow

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Extinction Rebellion activists protest in Edinburgh as the Cop26 conference begins in Glasgow

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First Minister Nicola Sturgeon with Mapuche leader and Minga Indigena Lead Coordinator Claflin Lafkenche (right) alongside indigenous delegates at a ceremonial gathering at the Tramway in Glasgow in a symbolic gesture to mark a unified demand for climate justice

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Ocean Rebellion put on a display of puking oil heads ahead of climate change conference COP26 in Glasgow

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A man dressed as Santa Claus outside Selfridges in London as the department store unveils its Christmas windows on Oxford Street

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Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak during a visit to Fourpure Brewery in Bermondsey, London, after the chancellor announced a cut to beer taxes in his budget

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Activist Steve Bray demonstrates with a toilet outside the gates of Downing Street, after MPs voted in Parliament against the Environment Bill, allowing companies to pump raw sewage into UK rivers and seas, in London

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Second World War veteran James White, 96, at the opening of the Edinburgh Garden of Remembrance, marking the start of the remembrance period

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Richard Ratcliffe holds up a photo of his wife Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe as he protests outside the Foreign Office while on hunger strike, part of an effort to lobby the UK foreign secretary to bring his wife home from detention in Iran

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Partner of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Stella Morris and Editor in Chief of WikiLeaks Kristinn Hrafnsson attend a protest ahead of the appeal hearing over Assange's extradition, in London

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Palace Gardener Justine Howlett adds the finishing touches to pumpkins bearing the face of Henry VIII and his wives, at Hampton Court Palace.

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Flooded fields near Lingfield in Surrey, after southern England was hit overnight by heavy rain and strong winds from Storm Aurore moving in from France

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A wing surfer enjoys the strong winds as they surf in the sea off of Hayling Island in Hampshire

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Actor Jude Law holds hands with Little Amal, a 3.5-metre-tall puppet of a nine-year-old Syrian girl, as it arrives in Folkestone, Kent, as part of the Handspring Puppet Company's 'The Walk'

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A view over Southend-on-Sea in Essex, which is set to become a city in tribute to Sir David Amess MP, who spent years campaigning for the change

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Members of the Essex Bangladeshi Welfare Association pay their respects by floral tributes laid at the scene where Sir David Amess MP was killed at Belfairs Methodist Church, in Leigh-on-Sea

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Boris Johnson, Sir Keir Starmer, Priti Patel and Lindsay Hoyle pay respects to Sir David Amess at Belfairs Methodist Church, in Leigh-on-Sea, the site of his death

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A person lays flowers at the scene near the Belfairs Methodist Church in Eastwood Road North, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, where Conservative MP Sir David Amess has died after he was stabbed several times at a constituency surgery. A man has been arrested and officers are not looking for anyone else

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A red deer stag during rutting season in Bushy Park, Richmond, south west London, which is home to over 300 red and fallow deer

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Police officers detain a man as Insulate Britain activists block a roundabout at a junction on the M25 motorway during a protest in Thurrock

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The aerial climate installation by Swiss artivist Dan Acher 'We Are Watching' is unveiled at Our Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh

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A young girl is helped by a Border Force officer as a group of people thought to be migrants are brought in to Dover, Kent, following a small boat incident in the Channel.

Originally posted here:

How has Brexit affected the migrant crisis? - independent.co.uk

Acting German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss the situation in eastern Ukraine.

German government spokesperson Steffen Seibert said this at a press conference on Thursday, November 25, Ukrinform reports.

"The Chancellor and the President of Ukraine discussed the security situation on the Ukrainian-Russian border and in eastern Ukraine. Chancellor Merkel underlined her support for Ukraine's independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity and stressed that undermining them would not be left without consequences," Seibert said.

Merkel and Zelensky agreed to advance efforts in the Normandy format to implement the Minsk agreements to reach a peaceful solution to the conflict.

The politicians also exchanged their views on the situation on the border between Belarus and the European Union and between Belarus and Ukraine, Seibert added.

Earlier on November 25, Merkel said at a press conference with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki that Berlin saw it as its task to do everything possible to prevent a new wave of Russian aggression against Ukraine.

Kyrylo Budanov, head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, predicted on November 21 that Russia could resort to a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in January or February next year.

op

Read more here:

Merkel, Zelensky discuss situation in eastern Ukraine, migrant crisis - Ukrinform. Ukraine and world news

To see how far we have come and, spoiler, it is not far at all in the way we talk about refugees, one only has to play a fun game of: who said it, Tory leader or Edwardian priest?

You have got a swarm of people coming across the Mediterranean, seeking a better life, wanting to come to Britain People are really rather afraid that this country might be swamped by people with a different culture In some districts every vestige of comfort had been absolutely wiped out, the foreigners coming in like an army of locusts

The first, of course, was David Camerons controversial comment to ITV News at the height of the refugee crisis in July 2015 (comments from which even Nigel Farage attempted to distance himself). The second isMargaret Thatcher speaking in 1978. The third is courtesy ofCosmo Gordon Lang, the bishop of Stepney, writing about the Jewish diaspora in 1902.

Langs choice of (slightly mixed) metaphors army and locusts continue to be the most common way refugees are written about today: either asmilitary invasion (theNew York Timescarried a picture caption, for example, that described Greek authorities using tear gas, batons, stun grenades and rubber bullets to repel the hordes, and last year the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, appointed a Clandestine Channel Threat Commander to tackle crossings); or as a natural force a flood, an influx, a tsunami, a swarm. Both are, obviously, negative images, but they are problematic for different reasons. The first suggests not only that migration happens in some strategised, organised way, but that refugees have a choice about leaving; it is active and deliberate. The second suggests that migration is uncontrollable; it removes the agency of governments to do anything about it for good or ill.

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[See also: How much does the UK government really care about fixing the migrant crisis?]

The word migrant (often used interchangeably with immigrant, though they mean subtly different things) encompasses refugees, but also those who leave their countries of birth for other reasons, such as economic opportunities or education. Refugees, by contrast, are those who flee because of war, persecution or natural disaster. The former indicates choice, which those risking their lives to cross the English Channel in desperation do not have. Moreover, both migrant and immigrant are examples of nominalisation, or nouns that are formed from verbs. This shift implies identity rather than action; people who migrate are no longer people, but migrants.

Such language conveniently helps shift the responsibility from governments, as it implies that citizens are moving of their own volition, rather than because the circumstances in their home countries leave them no alternative. Using the word refugee, by contrast, acknowledges and calls out conflict, human rights abuses and corruption.

The word illegal is often found alongside immigrant, but this is also wrong as was Boris Johnsons assertion last yearthat crossing the Channel is always criminal, much as he might like it to be. For a start, a person cannot be illegal, even if their actions are. For refugees, the action of crossing borders is not illegal: the 1951 Refugee Convention affords them a legal status and states that host governments are responsible for their protection.

[See also: Twenty-seven people have drowned in the English Channel. This is a predictable and ongoing tragedy]

There is also something distinctly racist about the double standards with which we apply the word migrant. Consider, for example, theTelegraphheadline: Angela Merkel says nein to Theresa Mays calls for early deal on rights of EU migrants and British ex-pats. When British people migrate (and they do in 2019 there were994,000 British nationalsliving in other EU countries alone), they are described as expats, but those who seek refuge or a better life in Britain are migrants. The word expat, an abbreviation of expatriate, originates in the Latin ex meaning out of and patria meaning country or homeland. An expat is literally anyone who has temporarily or permanently left the place they were born, regardless of ethnicity or class. And yet those moving from Africa or Asia are classified as immigrants.

These observations are not academic: the way we talk about the refugee crisis matters. There is a clear link between humanising language and empathy. A study by the University of Sheffield found that after the image of Alan Kurdi, a three-year-old Syrian boy, lying dead on a beach went viral in 2015, refugee became more commonly used on social media than migrant. And it is surely no coincidence that the greatly exaggerated language in the media and politicians speeches is mirrored by a greatly exaggerated public belief of the scale of the problem. Most Britonsoverestimatethe number of non-British nationals in the UK, believing that around a third of the population are migrants; the real figure is more like14 per cent.

We should take care to avoid the easy metaphors of war or disaster, the stigmatising (and incorrect) descriptor illegal, and the generic use of migrant when what we really mean is refugee. Better yet, call them people.

[See also: Leader: A fractured continent]

Go here to see the original:

Why the language we use to talk about the refugee crisis matters - New Statesman

At 3 a.m. on February 5, 2021, Aliou Cand, a sturdy, shy twenty-eight-year-old migrant from Guinea-Bissau, arrived at the prison. He had left home a year and a half earlier, because his familys farm was failing, and had set out to join two brothers in Europe. But, as he attempted to cross the Mediterranean Sea on a rubber dinghy, with more than a hundred other migrants, the Libyan Coast Guard intercepted them and took them to Al Mabani. They were pushed inside Cell No. 4, where some two hundred others were being held. There was hardly anywhere to sit in the crush of bodies, and those on the floor slid over to avoid being trampled. Overhead were fluorescent lights that stayed on all night. A small grille in the door, about a foot wide, was the only source of natural light. Birds nested in the rafters, their feathers and droppings falling from above. On the walls, migrants had scrawled notes of determination: A soldier never retreats, and With our eyes closed, we advance. Cand crowded into a far corner and began to panic. What should we do? he asked a cellmate.

No one in the world beyond Al Mabanis walls knew that Cand had been captured. He hadnt been charged with a crime or allowed to speak to a lawyer, and he was given no indication of how long hed be detained. In his first days there, he kept mostly to himself, submitting to the grim routines of the place. The prison is controlled by a militia that euphemistically calls itself the Public Security Agency, and its gunmen patrolled the hallways. About fifteen hundred migrants were held there, in eight cells, segregated by gender. There was only one toilet for every hundred people, and Cand often had to urinate in a water bottle or defecate in the shower. Migrants slept on thin floor pads; there werent enough to go around, so people took turnsone lay down during the day, the other at night. Detainees fought over who got to sleep in the shower, which had better ventilation. Twice a day, they were marched, single file, into the courtyard, where they were forbidden to look up at the sky or talk. Guards, like zookeepers, put communal bowls of food on the ground, and migrants gathered in circles to eat.

The guards struck prisoners who disobeyed orders with whatever was handy: a shovel, a hose, a cable, a tree branch. They would beat anyone for no reason at all, Tokam Martin Luther, an older Cameroonian man who slept on a mat next to Cands, told me. Detainees speculated that, when someone died, the body was dumped behind one of the compounds outer walls, near a pile of brick and plaster rubble. The guards offered migrants their freedom for a fee of twenty-five hundred Libyan dinarsabout five hundred dollars. During meals, the guards walked around with cell phones, allowing detainees to call relatives who could pay. But Cands family couldnt afford such a ransom. Luther told me, If you dont have anybody to call, you just sit down.

In the past six years, the European Union, weary of the financial and political costs of receiving migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, has created a shadow immigration system that stops them before they reach Europe. It has equipped and trained the Libyan Coast Guard, a quasi-military organization linked to militias in the country, to patrol the Mediterranean, sabotaging humanitarian rescue operations and capturing migrants. The migrants are then detained indefinitely in a network of profit-making prisons run by the militias. In September of this year, around six thousand migrants were being held, many of them in Al Mabani. International aid agencies have documented an array of abuses: detainees tortured with electric shocks, children raped by guards, families extorted for ransom, men and women sold into forced labor. The E.U. did something they carefully considered and planned for many years, Salah Marghani, Libyas Minister of Justice from 2012 to 2014, told me. Create a hellhole in Libya, with the idea of deterring people from heading to Europe.

Three weeks after Cand arrived at Al Mabani, a group of detainees devised an escape plan. Moussa Karouma, a migrant from Ivory Coast, and several others defecated into a waste bin and left it in their cell for two days, until the stench became overpowering. It was my first time in prison, Karouma told me. I was terrified. When guards opened the cell door, nineteen migrants burst past them. They climbed on top of a bathroom roof, dropped fifteen feet over an outer wall, and disappeared into a warren of alleys near the prison. For those who remained, the consequences were bloody. The guards called in reinforcements, who sprayed bullets into the cells, then beat the inmates. There was one guy in my ward that they beat with a gun on his head, until he fainted and started shaking, a migrant later told Amnesty International. They didnt call an ambulance to come get him that night.... He was still breathing but he was not able to talk.... I dont know what happened to him.... I dont knowwhat he had done.

In the weeks that followed, Cand tried to stay out of trouble and clung to a hopeful rumor: the guards planned to release the migrants in his cell in honor of Ramadan, two months away. The lord is miraculous, Luther wrote in a journal he kept. May his grace continue to protect all migrants around the world and especially those in Libya.

See the article here:

The Secretive Prisons That Keep Migrants Out of Europe - The New Yorker

Our law is a main cause of the crisis in the Channel. It makes preventing further crossings effectively impossible. Attempting to resolve the crisis without changing the law is likely to prove futile. The Nationality and Borders Bill now before Parliament will not do what is needed.

The Refugee Convention 1951 is not the central problem. It obliges states to protect refugees in their territory, which requires our authorities to consider whether those within the UK who claim asylum are refugees under the meaning of the convention. That is, are they fleeing persecution? Not everyone fleeing hard times at home is a refugee in this strict legal sense.

The convention does not require the UK, or any other member state, to permit asylum seekers to enter its territory. It carefully preserves the states right to deny entry to asylum seekers and even to expel refugees from its territory if they pose a danger. In any case, no refugee has a legal right to reside in a safe country of his choice. The UK would be entirely free, so far as the Refugee Convention is concerned, to refuse entry from France.

The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is a much more serious problem, not because of what the UK and other states actually agreed in 1950, but because of how the European Court of Human Rights has remade it over time. As John Finnis QC (Hon) and Simon Murray explain in a recent Policy Exchange paper, the Strasbourg court has deployed the idea that the ECHR is a living instrument to invent a new European law of immigration, frustrating states from effective border control or from removing unlawful migrants, including failed asylum seekers.

The small boats will not stop coming until it is clear that one cannot enter and remain in the UK by crossing the Channel. If small boats were intercepted at sea and returned to France before they entered the UK, the people smugglers business model would collapse. But returning boats, and their passengers, to French waters or French soil requires French agreement. The moral case for such an agreement is obvious, but, alas, that does not make it likely.

What about simply denying entry to UK waters? The UK would be within its rights, in international law, to do exactly this. Mugged by reality, the Strasbourg court last year upheld the lawfulness of Spanish pushback operations in conditions of mass entry (across land borders), conditions in which the UK now surely finds itself (though with maritime borders). In any case, nothing in the ECHR, properly interpreted, prevents the UK, or any other member state, denying entry at the border of its land territory to a person who seeks to enter. The UK should categorically maintain that it retains this legal right.

However, turning boats around in the Channel is not straightforward. It is likely that they would be scuttled within sight of British craft, forcing a rescue operation to take place. And the risks of fatal accidents in this exceptionally busy shipping strait are all too obvious. In addition, the UK does not enjoy Australias relative advantage in terms of distance from neighbouring countries: small boats turned back into French waters might well turn around and try again.

The solution is legislation specifying that anyone crossing the Channel without permission to enter the UK will not be allowed to remain in the country or even to enter the UK and there argue in court for a right to remain. Without an agreement with the French, this means interception at sea and processing of asylum claims at a location offshore, seeking agreements with some countries to accept genuine refugees and with other countries to accept return of failed asylum seekers.

Without legislative change, each and every step in such an operation would be challenged in the courts. The Human Rights Act 1998 would be deployed to prevent removal of many of those intercepted, or rescued, at sea to an offshore location and to require some to be admitted into the UK, whether to join family or, in line with recent decisions of the Strasbourg court, to prevent removal to a location that lacks first-world medical care or has a high crime rate.

Intercepting boats and processing asylum claims offshore promises to wreck the people traffickers business model and end the crisis, saving lives and restoring the UKs borders.

But unless legislation addresses the Human Rights Act, this solution will rapidly become mired in litigation and is highly unlikely to succeed. The UK will also have to be willing to face down the Strasbourg court. Until then, the traffickers will continue to ply their deadly trade.

Richard Ekins is the Head of Policy Exchanges Judicial Power Project and Professor of Law and Constitutional Government at the University of Oxford

Continued here:

Without reform of the Human Rights Act, the migrant crisis will continue - Telegraph.co.uk

More than 150 people have died crossing the English Channel in the last five years according to recorded data but charities warn the true numbers could be far higher.

The number of desperate people who died trying to make it to the UK in 2021 makes up more than 25 per cent of all migrant deaths since records began.

People crossing the English Channel in boats or in the back of lorries surged this year, with over 23,000 making the treacherous crossing so far, according to the International Organisation for Migrations (IOM) Missing Migrants Project.

The organisation warned that figures must be considered to be a low count of the true number of missing migrants, due to the challenges of collecting data as well as the large number of invisibleshipwrecks that happen without witness or record.

It comes as efforts continue to identify the 27 people whose lives were lost in the Channel on Wednesday in one of the darkest days of the migrant crisis. A source at the French prosecutors office told i they included three children, seven women and 17 men. One of the women is understood to have been pregnant.

IOM confirmed the tragedy was the largest loss of life in the Channel since it began collecting data in 2014.

What makes people cross the Channel are there are no other routes to get here to claim asylum. You must be on UK soil to claim asylum here, a Refugee Action spokesman told i.

When there is no other option, people put their lives in the hands of criminal gangs and step into flimsy boats and hope for the best.

Of those who cross the Channel, 98 per cent claim asylum, according to Refugee Council.

Charities have condemned the Government for not ensuring there are safer routes for people seeking asylum that dont see people forced to put their lives and the lives of their families in danger.

Minnie Rahman, interim chief executive of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI), told i: What happened yesterday was a devastating but avoidable tragedy. At least 27 people with hopes, dreams, families and futures died in a cold stretch of sea because this government has been playing politics with peoples lives.

She argued that over the course of the pandemic many safe routes to people seeking asylum have been closed down, leaving no way for people to get to the UK safely.

The Government has repeatedly prioritised, cruel, unworkable and dangerous border measures like pushbacks in the Channel, which will only lead to more deaths, she said.

Experts have also pointed out that while applications for asylum have increased, the number of people resettled has dramatically fallen from the year before.

The number of people granted protection through resettlement schemes has fallen by 46 per cent in the year ending September 2021 and now stands at just over 1,000, said Marley Morris, Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) associate director.

The figures also show an overall 18 per cent year-on-year increase in asylum applications, but with total numbers still far lower than the peak in the early 2000s. Moreover, the number of asylum applications with an initial decision pending has continued to rise, in part as a result of extensive delays in asylum processing.

He added the number of asylum applications still pending an initial decision stands at around 68,000, with around two thirds taking more than six months to process.

The Refugee Council is calling on the Government to:

Meanwhile in Calais, a makeshift graveyard has been set up to remember each of the refugees who have died trying to reach Europe. One of the wooden crosses has been placed for newborn Samir Khalida, who was killed when her mother, who left Eritrea for a better life in Europe, fell from a truck, triggering her premature birth.

The graveyard is expected to grow as more and more people attempt to come to the UK over the coming months.

Home Secretary Priti Patel said Wednesdays tragedy serves as the starkest possible reminder of the dangers of these Channel crossings organised by ruthless criminal gangs.

She said the Governments new plan for immigration will overhaul our broken asylum system and address many of the long-standing pull factors encouraging migrants to make the perilous journey from France.

The Home Office said there are other safer and legal routes for people to use to come to the UK such as work and study routes, as well as family resettlement.

It added the new Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme will give 20,000 Afghans fleeing persecution a new life in the UK through a safe and legal route.

i revealed on Thursday that the Afghan Resettlement Scheme still has not opened three months after the Government announced it.

Read this article:

Migrant crisis: More than 150 people died crossing Channel in last 5 years and the total could be far higher - iNews

Which will come as a surprise to the other 15 signatories - national leaders all - of the public letter he signed and published in June, basically warning Hungary's own national leader Viktor Orban to stop being a homophobic idiot. Don't get me wrong, it was a fine letter and an unusually swift European reaction to some particularly nasty and antediluvian anti-gay legislation passed a week earlier by the Hungarian parliament.

But it speaks volumes about our favourite diminutive Gaul that, faced with the awful reality that 27 souls had been lost because of his inability to stop criminal gangs running riot on his beaches, his chief concern seemed to be Britain's Prime Minister hadn't made the necessary diplomatic curtsies before addressing him.

And the inherent rampant hypocrisy and double-standards? We sort of take that on the nod these days when dealing with Macron.

There are a multitude of problems here which stand in the way of achieving an effective Anglo-European solution to the so-called "migrant crisis" and stemming the growing tide of death.

There's Britain and the EU's famously generous benefits systems for a start, then there's the EU's disastrous Schengen scheme for a no-borders Europe, Vladimir Putin's asymmetric warfare plan to flood the EU and UK with as many drains on their economy as possible, France's historic annoyance at being bailed out of not one but two world wars, the fortunes to be made from near zero-risk (to the gangs) people trafficking, the enthusiasm for simply passing migrants on to the next country in the chain, the seeming inability to return a single illegal migrant to their home country... and on, and on.

DON'T MISS

So good luck with today's meeting guys. And of course I'm talking about the Channel migrant crisis meeting Britain's Home Secretary Priti Patel has been banned from because poor little Emmanuel Macron felt Boris had been a bit rude to him.

I mean, what chance have you got?

It is playground stuff but it is not going away. Indeed now Michel Barnier - a man who during Brexit negotiations even managed to make the word "friends" sound like an immediate threat to life - has joined in the Gallic Brit-bashing free-for-all.

In a genuine call-the-men-in-white-coats moment Barnier has demanded France tear up its migrant treaty with Britain and actively aid the sending of asylum-seekers across the Channel.

And this remember is the man the EU deemed its most slick and highly-skilled diplomat.

Barnier, who has leadership potential in roughly the same way Screaming Lord Sutch had leadership potential, has vowed to scrap the one bilateral treaty we have (the 2003 Le Touquet Agreement) which makes even the slightest bit of sense.

But we are no longer surprised. Modern politics is not about getting things done it's about getting elected. And creating a fake foreign enemy to distract from real issues and real failings at home is politics 101. Just ask Vladimir Putin.

And so, roughly 96 hours after the bodies were picked out of the Channel, we await the outcome of another pointless meeting which cannot possibly achieve anything because Macron can't possibly lose face and meet Britain half way.

Libert, galit, and fraternit indeed.

Go here to see the original:

Macron's hatred of Britain will guarantee the migrants keep coming, says PAUL BALDWIN - Daily Express

By Nasrat Sayed, Fahim Sadat, and Hamayun Khan

The decision to withdraw U.S. and NATO troops from Afghanistan and the subsequent abrupt takeover by the Taliban have triggered profound concerns among Afghans, who fear for the future under the Talibans rule. Internationally, one key concern is that a major refugee crisis may be imminent, which could swell the numbers of Afghans previously displaced within and beyond the countrys borders during prior decades of war. Already this year, more than 558,000 Afghans have been displaced internally. Under a worst-case scenario, an estimated 515,000 refugees could be forced out of the country by the end of this year. Future flight would add to the existing 2.8 million Afghan refugees and asylum seekers around the world, who have long been among the planets largest humanitarian populations.

Afghanistans neighborsparticularly Pakistan and Iran, which already host more than 2.2 million registered Afghan refugees and more than 3 million others with varying statuswould be the most affected by any large-scale migration. However, refugees could also seek refuge in Europe, in a possible echo of the more than 1 million asylum seekers and others from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere who reached EU borders in 2015 and 2016. Fearing such a repetition, European policymakers initially pressed for continued returns to Afghanistan of irregular Afghan migrants and failed asylum seekers; however, several countries leading the charge for a stiff returns policy, among them Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden, quickly reversed course as the Taliban gained ground.

The likelihood of a new Afghan refugee crisis primarily depends on the formation and structure of a government by the Taliban, its rules (such as regarding rights for women and girls to an education and work), and the countrys economic situation. The inability of the Taliban to form an inclusive government that is acceptable to all Afghans may cause turbulence. This, along with continued drought that has compounded the humanitarian situation, may increase the number of people who are willing to flee, especially to neighboring countries where leaders have worried openly about a new refugee crisis. More broadly, global powers have fretted that a fragmented Afghanistan could again play host to extremist groups as it did ahead of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

However, these outcomes are not inevitable. Taliban leaders have suggested they will behave differently than the last time the group was in power, with more tolerance and respect for women and minority rights. The international communitys ongoing relationship with Afghanistan and Afghan organizations can affect the new governments performance and ability to maintain control. External pressures, particularly from Afghanistans neighbors, may limit civilians ability to flee. Negotiations between the Taliban and opposition forces could lead to an inclusive government. While there remains the prospect that renewed fighting, economic disaster, or reduced freedom will prompt a large-scale refugee crisis, the countries that are most likely to be affected will be those located in Afghanistans immediate neighborhood, many of which have invested diplomatic and other resources to prevent huge displacement.

This article reviews the prospects for a new refugee crisis from Afghanistan following the Talibans takeover. It tracks the history of forced migration from Afghanistan, including in the two decades since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, and examines the factors that could be crucial in seeding a new refugee crisis.

Four Decades of Refugees

After Syrians and Venezuelans, Afghans already account for the third largest population of forced migrants worldwide. A portion of this migration has been going on for more than four decades, as the country has been engulfed by a series of wars and invasions including by the Soviet Union and, more recently, a U.S.-led coalition.

Historically, Pakistan and Iran have hosted most of these refugees; as of December 2020, Pakistan hosted 1.4 million registered Afghan refugees and Iran hosted 780,000. Many more Afghans live in those countries without registration; estimates suggest that 1 million unregistered Afghans live in Pakistan and more than 2 million Afghans live in Iran in irregular status.

The years between the Soviet Unions invasion in 1979 and the end of the Talibans previous regime in 2001 saw intense refugee movements to Pakistan, Iran, and the West. Initially, both Iran and Pakistan welcomed influxes of Afghan refugees, with financial support from the international community. However, in the 1990s both countries changed their policies and in 1997 stopped registering new Afghan refugees.

These two countries have had different policies in terms of refugees access to education, right to work, and freedom of movement. For example, Pakistan permits freedom of movement for registered Afghans, whereas Iran imposes restrictions. In Pakistan, approximately one-third of refugees lived in refugee villages as of 2018, while the vast majority of Afghan refugees in Iran lived in urban areas. However, both countries have been host to many cases of mistreatment and alleged violations of Afghan refugees human rights, including forced deportation, detention, and physical abuse.

Europe also has been a significant destination for Afghans, dating to the 1980s. Within Europe, Germany hosts the largest number of Afghan nationals (nearly 272,000 as of 2020, according to the German Federal Statistical Office). Turkey has been a typical host and transit country for irregular migration of Afghans to Europe. But since 2002, due to the engagement of the international community in Afghanistan and the 2015-16 refugee crisis, Afghans seeking protection in Europe have seen lower rates of approval for their asylum claimsat times significantly lower than rates for asylum seekers from Syria and other conflict zones.

Uneven Returns

Between 2002 and 2014, during which time Afghanistan saw large numbers of international forces on its soil, refugee movements not only slowed but millions of Afghans returned. Since 2002, nearly 5.3 million refugees have returned to Afghanistan under a program facilitated by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). However, this programs pace has slowed dramatically. More than 1.8 million refugees returned to the country through this program in 2002, but fewer than 2,150 returned in 2020 (see Figure 1 in the PDF).

Unregistered Afghans in Iran have been returning at a much greater rate. In 2020, more than 859,000 Afghans with irregular status in Iran returned to Afghanistan, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM)more than ever before. Many of these migrants were deported or forcibly returned by Iranian authorities. In May 2020, the harsh conditions for Iran-bound Afghans attracted international news when 45 migrant workers reportedly drowned in the Harirud River after being forced into the water at gunpoint by Iranian border guards.

Some Afghans have also been forcibly returned from Pakistan, their treatment usually depending on Pakistans political relations with Afghanistan at the time. For example, due to the deteriorating security situation in Pakistan, nearly 365,000 refugees and more than 200,000 irregular migrants were forced to return to Afghanistan in just the second half of 2016, in what Human Rights Watch called the worlds largest unlawful mass forced return of refugees in recent times.

Outside the region, the European Union and Afghanistan signed a Joint Way Forward (JWF) agreement in 2016, with the aim to return failed Afghan asylum seekers. This April, the JWF was replaced with Joint Declaration on Migration Cooperation (JDMC). Nearly 30,000 Afghan citizens were returned from the 27 EU Member States between 2016 and 2020, according to EU statistics. Elsewhere, Turkey has also deported irregular Afghans, including some 6,000 people deported to Afghanistan in 2020.

Returned Afghans often face unemployment and precarious socioeconomic conditions in their native country. This situation has become more extreme in recent weeks, with the economy slowing down drastically following the Talibans resurgence. COVID-19 also remains a perilous issue, having a negative impact on the livelihoods of all Afghans, especially returnees. The pandemic significantly limited returnees access to work, and they have also faced barriers accessing health-care facilities, financial sources, and information on where to obtain basic services.

A New Crisis?

Fears of a new refugee crisis have mounted since February 2020, when the United States signed a peace agreement with the Taliban and pledged to withdraw troops in 2021. President Joe Biden confirmed the U.S. commitment to withdraw troops by September, and the final U.S. forces left the country at the end of August. Ahead of their departure, the Taliban laid claim to large swaths of Afghanistan and, on August 15, took over the capital of Kabul, likely presaging new limitations on civil liberties and a rollback of the countrys embryonic democracy.

In coming months, a few key factors may determine the countrys future and whether many civilians will flee their homes. One will be the nature of the Talibans leadership, and whether it respects human rights or follows a strict interpretation of Sharia law. New leaders also face the task of bringing political and economic stability to their country and preventing the growth of the Islamic State.

A second issue is whether the withdrawal of international troops leads the international community to abandon Afghanistan as a whole and for the long term. Financial aid and other humanitarian assistance could be more crucial than ever in coming months and years. The United States and NATO had previously pledged continuing support to Afghanistan post-withdrawal, but Western powers and multilateral institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank have frozen the countrys access to money in recent weeks. The Talibans lip service to rights for women and girls and slow formation of a new government may indicate leaders hopes to gain international recognition and avoid diplomatic and financial isolation. Doing so might make possible the flow of international assistance. The European Union, for instance, has said that the billions of dollars it has pledged in development aid depend on conditions such as the Talibans respect for human rights.

Another outstanding question is whether there will be a resumption of full-scale civil war, which would be unlikely to benefit any single group or the country as a whole. The emergence of a group of resistance fighters based in Panjshir province, called the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, is sure to add a new chapter to the situation, as will tensions with a regional affiliate of the Islamic State that was behind the August attack outside Hamid Karzai International Airport, which killed more than 180 people. Renewed war would imperil the formation of a new Taliban government and could make further remote the opportunity for international organizations to implement developmental projects and provide support for good governance.

If large-scale refugee flows do occur, they would be most likely to affect Pakistan and Iran in the short term, followed by central Asian countries, some of which have previously bristled at hosting Afghan refugees. Under a worst-case scenario, UNHCR estimated that up to 515,000 refugees could cross into these neighboring countries by the end of the year, although the agency had not observed large numbers of border crossings as of late August, perhaps partly due to frequent border closures. In many of these neighboring countries, anxieties about Afghanistans uncertain situation have been exacerbated by the economic fallout due to the COVID-19 pandemic and, for Iran, from ongoing crippling U.S. economic sanctions. Iran and Pakistan also are dealing with significant water scarcity, which may affect their attitudes towards regional stability.

High Obstacles to Reach Europe

At present, the prospects appear slim that a major refugee crisis will spread significantly beyond the region and ultimately to Europe, at least in the near term. One barrier is the high cost that smugglers charge asylum seekers, which averaged U.S. $7,500 in 2015, Afghanistans Ministry of Refugees and Repatriations said at the time. Given the abysmal poverty in Afghanistan, where more than one-third of the population lives below the international poverty line of U.S. $1.90 per day, this cost is far beyond the capacity of most Afghans. Individuals financial situations have been even more constrained since the outbreak of the pandemic.

Additionally, many Afghans are already aware of the dangers of irregular migration and strict border-control measures that have been imposed by several European countries since the 2015-16 period. In 2016, the European Union and Turkey agreed on a deal to prevent irregular migration from Turkey to Greece, involving the return of irregular migrants reaching the Greek islands. The EU-Turkey deal contributed to decreasing numbers of irregular migrants arriving in Europe: there were nearly 862,000 irregular arrivals in Greece in 2015, but fewer than 16,000 in 2020.

Some of these border measures have been bolstered in recent weeks: Turkey, which is already hosting more than 3.6 million Syrian refugees and is a main transit hub for Europe-bound Afghan asylum seekers and other migrants, has started to reinforce its border with Iran with a three-meter high wall, ditches, and barbed wire. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoan has said his country will not be "Europe's refugee warehouse. Greece, meanwhile, has completed a 25-mile (40-kilometer) fence barrier along its border with Turkey. These border measures show that the path to Europe will be difficult for Afghans.

Tough Choices Ahead

Serious talks for a political settlement between the Taliban and resistance forces could avoid a situation in which large numbers of civilians feel the need to flee the country for their own safety. Partners such as the European Union and the United States could contribute to this end by providing economic and humanitarian support to Afghan organizations operating on the ground. The U.S. Treasury Department recently took a step in this direction by allowing humanitarian organizations to provide aid in the country, despite antiterrorism sanctions against the Taliban.

The Talibans ability to gain recognition as a government could hinge on a political settlement with resistance fighters, which might grant it a degree of trust and legitimacy both within and outside the country. Decades of war have shown that peace is not easily won. Both the Taliban and resistance leaders have called for negotiations and an inclusive government; if achieved, this might prove the surest way of bringing peace to the country and allow Afghans to feel safe in their communities.

Finally, Taliban leaders have a crucial role to play in carrying out the duties of governing. Tolerance for human rights, including rights for women and girls, will win it respect internationally and from the Afghan people. Furthermore, corruption has been a serious issue which eroded the previous governments legitimacy in the eyes of the public. Good governance and effective delivery of basic services could therefore instil trust in the new government and reinforce its mandate. This includes the governments attention to former refugees and other returned migrants, whose reintegration will be critical for Afghanistans future. Diplomatic and other efforts that support reforms along these lines would pay dividends.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not reflect their affiliated institutions.

CONTACTSource@MigrationPolicy.org

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Will the Taliban's takeover lead to a new refugee crisis from Afghanistan? - Afghanistan - ReliefWeb