Poland has threatened Belarus with further economic sanctions and the closure of its border to all freight and rail traffic, as thousands of migrants continue to try to cross the frontier. The European Union accuses Belarus of creating a humanitarian crisis by ferrying migrants to the border, in retaliation for EU sanctions imposed over last year’s rigged election.

Facing off across the frontier, Polish border guards filmed this footage Tuesday night, purportedly showing Belarusian security forces next to a section of broken border fence. 

Poland’s prime minister said Wednesday he was ready to escalate the response to what he called a political crisis triggered by Belarus — using innocent people as “human shields.”

“We want to relieve this tension, but if there is an escalation by the other side, the Belarusian side, we are ready to go, unfortunately, up on this ‘escalation ladder.’ For example, [imposing] economic sanctions, border closure, closing border crossings for freight and rail traffic,” he said.

 

The EU said Tuesday it is preparing emergency legal measures on migrant asylum and return procedures. 

“The aim is to support member states to set up the right processes, to manage irregular arrivals in a swift and orderly way, in line with fundamental rights,” she said. 

Tensions have eased in recent days after Belarus moved some migrants away from the border. Still, hundreds remain stuck in camps in freezing conditions. Several migrants have already died attempting the crossing. 

“To Poland, no have way. To Belarus, no have a way. We can’t go anywhere. We stay here until Europe accepts us,” says Diyar, a migrant from Iraq.

A report from Human Rights Watch, based on interviews with dozens of migrants, details how Belarusian forces cut the razor wire fence to help the migrants cross into Poland,  where they are usually picked up by Polish border guards. 

“They pleaded with the Polish border guards for asylum, for international protection. And if a person does that then it is the responsibility of state authorities to process these claims. Now what the people told me is that none of this happens. Rather, they are being put in vans or cars and then Polish border guards are driving them to specific locations at the border with Belarus where they force them to cross through the fence and go back to the Belarusian side,” says Lydia Gall from Human Rights Watch.

The migrants say they are then held in open air camps on the Belarusian side of the border. 

“They are not provided with food or water, they are quite often violently abused by the border guards, they are extorted for money. They will then march larger groups of people back towards the Polish fence where they will coerce them to go back into Poland. And so that’s when you have these so-called ‘ping-pong’ pushbacks,” says Lydia Gall. 

Poland denies breaking any asylum laws. Belarus also denies its border guards have committed abuses.

Among the latest casualties of the crisis — an unborn child — miscarried by his mother as the family crossed the border. His tiny coffin was buried Tuesday in a Muslim Tatar cemetery close to the border in Poland. 
…

Poland has threatened Belarus with further economic sanctions and the closure of its border to all freight and rail traffic, as thousands of migrants continue to try to cross the frontier. The European Union accuses Belarus of creating a humanitarian crisis by ferrying migrants to the border, in retaliation for EU sanctions imposed over last year’s rigged election. Henry Ridgwell reports.
…

The United States and its European allies are planning for “a number of contingencies,” fearing that Moscow’s saber-rattling may be more than tough talk. 

Multiple U.S. officials cited serious concerns Tuesday about what they consistently described as Russia’s “unusual military activity” along its border with Ukraine, as well as Moscow’s harsh rhetoric, insisting that no matter what happens next, Washington’s support for Kyiv is “rock solid.” 

“We have demonstrated that the United States is willing to use a number of tools to address harmful Russian actions, and we will not hesitate from making use of those and other tools in the future,” a senior administration official told VOA on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss the sensitive subject.

“[We] call on Moscow to de-escalate tensions,” the official added. “A crucial first step is to restore the cease-fire to the low levels of violence reached in July 2020.” 

At the State Department on Tuesday, spokesperson Ned Price told reporters Washington’s consultations with its European partners, and with Ukraine, are ongoing. 

“We are sharing information, we are sharing intelligence,” he said, describing the talks as in-depth. “We are prepared and preparing for a number of contingencies.” 

The comments from the White House and the State Department came just hours after the senior-most U.S. general, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, spoke with his Russian counterpart by phone. 

The two generals “discussed several security-related issues of concern,” the Pentagon said in a statement, adding the call was “a continuation of communication between both leaders to ensure risk reduction and operational de-confliction.”   

The Pentagon said, per prior agreement, additional details of the call would be kept private. 

Tuesday’s call between the U.S. and Russia comes after the senior-most U.S. and Ukrainian generals spoke twice within a four-day span to “share perspectives and assessments of the evolving security environment in Eastern Europe.”  

Ukrainian intelligence estimates have put the number of Russian troops along the border at about 90,000.  

U.S. officials have refused to address that figure publicly but called the Russian military buildup along its border with Ukraine worrisome.

“We don’t know what Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin might be planning,” the State Department’s Price told reporters.

“We do know the history and that history is not at all reassuring,” he added, pointing to Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014. 

Price also rebuffed recent Russian criticism of U.S. military drills in the region, saying the U.S. and its allies would continue to stand up the “rules-based international order.” 

Russian TASS news agency quoted Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu as saying Moscow was “witnessing a considerable increase in the U.S. strategic bombers’ activity near the Russian borders.” 

Shoigu also alleged U.S. strategic bombers “practiced employing nuclear weapons against Russia actually simultaneously from the western and eastern directions.” 

A day earlier, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, the SVR, likewise criticized the U.S., posting on its website that the current situation with Ukraine is comparable to tensions with Georgia prior to the 2008 Russian invasion, noting Georgia paid a high price.  

The U.S. has provided Ukraine with $2.5 billion in security assistance since 2014, including $400 million in 2021 alone. 

Recent deliveries include patrol boats for the Ukrainian navy and 80,000 kilos of ammunition for Ukrainian forces. 

 
…

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said Tuesday diplomatic efforts with Turkey, middle eastern nations and others have helped ease the situation at the Polish border with Belarus, but he said there are also signs the crisis “will not come to swift end.” 

For weeks, Poland and the European Union have accused the government of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of “weaponizing” migrants, largely from Africa, the Middle East and Afghanistan, by inviting them to enter Belarus and taking them to the Polish border, sometimes by force.

Polish and Euro ((pean Union leaders believe the action is “pay back” by Lukashenko for sanctions the bloc imposed over human rights violations during last year’s Belarus presidential elections. The leader denies the allegations.

But Morawiecki, speaking in Hungary following a meeting with three central European leaders, said discussions he and his government have had with leaders in Turkey, the Middle East and Uzebekistan have reduced the numbers of migrants at the Polish-Belarusian border. 

The Polish prime minister said the migrant numbers are “a lot smaller than at the peak of migrant arrivals around a month ago, or two or three weeks ago. It is very important because it is the first step toward mitigating the crisis started by Belarus.” 

Morawiecki was in Hungary for a meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis, representing, along with Slovakia, the central European Visegrad Four countries.

Morawiecki said he and his Czech and Hungarian counterparts discussed the situation with Belarus and the two leaders expressed their solidarity with Poland.

The Polish prime minister said, despite the drop in migrant numbers, there are many signs indicating the crisis with Belarus “will not come to a swift end.”

He said that is why Poland and his EU partners have initiated a widespread diplomatic and political campaign within Europe and in the Middle East and Central Asia “to ensure that this crisis does not escalate.”

Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, and Reuters, and Agence France-Presse. 

 

 
…

The top U.S. and Russian generals spoke by phone Tuesday, as tensions along the Russian-Ukrainian border appeared to reach new highs. 

 

Both Washington and Moscow quickly issued readouts of the call between U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, and chief of Russian General Staff, General Valery Gerasimov. 

According to the U.S. statement, the two generals “discussed several security-related issues of concern.” It further said the call was “a continuation of communication between both leaders to ensure risk reduction and operational de-confliction.”

 

The U.S. statement also said both sides had agreed to keep details of Tuesday’s call private. 

The conversation follows heightened concern about what the U.S. and NATO repeatedly have described as “unusual activity” by Russian forces along Russia’s border with Ukraine and Crimea. 

Ukrainian intelligence estimates have put the number of Russian troops along the border at about 90,000. 

U.S. officials have declined to comment publicly on the intelligence assessments, but a senior administration official told VOA there are “serious concerns about Russian military activities and harsh rhetoric toward Ukraine.” 

Speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the situation, the official said there have been ongoing discussions with Washington’s European partners, with Ukraine and also with Russia. 

“We have demonstrated that the United States is willing to use a number of tools to address harmful Russian actions, and we will not hesitate from making use of those and other tools in the future,” the official added. 

On Monday, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, the SVR, criticized the U.S. on its website and compared the situation with Ukraine to tensions with Georgia prior to the 2008 Russian invasion, noting Georgia paid a high price. 

Other Russian officials also have complained about recent U.S. military exercises with NATO allies. 

Tuesday’s call between the U.S. and Russia comes after the senior-most U.S. and Ukrainian generals spoke twice within a four-day span to “share perspectives and assessments of the evolving security environment in Eastern Europe.” 

 
…

North Macedonia’s chief prosecutor says that 12 children were among the some 45 people who died in a fiery bus crash in Bulgaria early Tuesday morning.

Lubomir Jovevski spoke to reporters as he visited the scene of the accident on a highway in the west of the country.

The cause of the crash was not immediately confirmed, but it appeared that the bus hit a highway guard rail, crashed and caught fire.

The bus was one of four carrying Macedonian tourists home from a trip to the Turkish city of Istanbul. The crash happened at 2 a.m.

Seven survivors were taken to hospitals for treatment.

The bus was one of four traveling together. Officials said an investigation will be launched.

Photos taken shortly after the crash showed the bus engulfed in flames with plumes of thick, black smoke rising from the scene.

Daylight revealed the burned-out bus, its windows all broken, charred and gutted, sitting upright against the median barrier.

Interior Minister Boyko Rashkov told reporters at the crash site that he had “never in my life seen something more horrifying.”

“The picture is horrifying, the people who were on the bus are turned to charcoal,” Rashkov said. “It is impossible to say how many they were. There were four buses that traveled together, and it is possible that passengers changed buses during the stops.”

Media in North Macedonia, a country of about 2 million people, reported that police were outside the Skopje offices of a travel company that is believed to have organized the trip to Turkey.

Bulgarian Caretaker Prime Minister Stefan Yanev, who also visited the site of the crash, told reporters it was “a huge tragedy.”

“I take this opportunity to send my condolences to the relatives of the victims,” Yanev said. “Let’s hope we learn lessons from this tragic incident and we can prevent such incidents in the future.”

Bulgarian news agency Novinite said representatives from North Macedonia’s embassy visited a hospital where some of the victims were taken.

Albanian Foreign Minister Olta Xhacka wrote online that almost all of those who died in the crash were ethnic Albanians.

North Macedonia’s prime minister, Zoran Zaev, told Bulgarian television channel bTV that he had spoken to one of the bus survivors.

“One of the passengers told me that he was asleep and woke up from an explosion,” Zaev told bTV, adding that the authorities will gather information that is “important for the families of the dead and the survivors.”

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen expressed her condolences to the families and friends of those who died in the “tragic bus accident” and said that “in these terrible times, Europe stands in solidarity with you.”

In 2019, Bulgaria, an EU nation of 7 million, had the second-highest road fatality rate in the 27-nation bloc with 89 people killed per million population, according to European Commission data.
…

A flight carrying more than 100 Afghans arrived Monday in northern Greece. 

According to Greek officials, the group of 119 people included Mohibullah Samim, Afghanistan’s former minister of border and tribal affairs, as well as a lawyer who prosecuted Taliban fighters, women’s rights activists and a female judge. 

The evacuees are expected to remain in Greece until arrangements are made for them to travel on to other countries, including the United States and Canada. 

Since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August, Greece has flown in about 700 Afghans. 

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press.
…

Amid concerns about the unusual buildup of Russian troops near the Russia-Ukraine border, the Ukrainian minister of defense came to Washington to talk about defense and strategic issues. Ostap Yarysh reports.

Camera: Oleksii Osyka
…

Germany’s Health Minister Jens Spahn said Monday the current surge of COVID-19 cases in the country likely means that over the next three months – by the end of winter – everyone in the country will be “vaccinated, recovered or dead.”

Spahn made the stark comment to reporters in Berlin as he discussed efforts to slow the surging COVID-19 situation in the country. The Robert Koch Institute for Infectious Diseases (RKI) on Monday reported more than 30,000 newly confirmed cases in Germany over the past 24 hours, an increase of about 50% compared with a week ago.

RKI reports the national infection rate is just more than 386 per 100,000 people.

Spahn said that is why the government is so urgently telling people to get vaccinated. “Because whoever is not vaccinated will get infected, without protection, in the next months, unless you really take very, very, very good care in every situation.”

Spahn said Germany has as many as 50 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines on hand, available for first and second shots as well as booster shots, which he said was enough for any adult who wants one.

The health minister said he expects the European Union to approve the children’s doses of COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5-11 at the end of the week. He said he expects Germany will receive an initial 2.4 million doses of the children’s doses when the EU begins shipping them December 20, with more doses due after the first of the year.

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
…

Russia’s troop buildup along the Ukrainian border is drawing alarm from U.S. officials who are warning of a potential new invasion. Ukrainian officials estimate 90,000 Russian troops are now positioned along the border and in Russian-controlled parts of eastern Ukraine.

The issue topped the agenda earlier this month when Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, that Washington was monitoring the situation “very closely.”  

“We’re concerned by reports of unusual Russian military activity,” Blinken said at the State Department.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said Ukraine is prepared. He met at the Pentagon last week with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

“Our intelligence, American intelligence, United Kingdom intelligence, they do their job. We’ve compared the search and we see the same picture. We’ve been living in this hybrid war with Russia for eight years. So for us, it’s not a surprise,” said Reznikov in an interview with VOA.  

During his meeting with Secretary Austin, Reznikov asked for American support.   

“I want to reassure you, as President (Joe) Biden said to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy: our support for Ukraine’s self-defense, sovereignty and territorial integrity is unwavering,” said Austin. He also stressed the need to deepen U.S.-Ukrainian cooperation in such areas as Black Sea security, cyber defense, and intelligence sharing.

An attack on Ukraine would likely involve airstrikes, artillery and armor

attacks followed by airborne assaults in the east, amphibious assaults

in Odessa and Mariupul and a smaller incursion through neighboring

Belarus, Ukraine Brig. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov told the Military Times newspaper Saturday morning in an exclusive interview.

On Monday, Russia’s spy agency released a statement dismissing allegations that Moscow is planning an invasion.  

Russian news agencies carried the statement accusing Washington of spreading “absolutely false information on the concentration of forces on the territory of our country for the military invasion of Ukraine.”  

Troop movements   

Security analysts are studying satellite images, social media posts and other open sources for information about where the troops are located and what they are planning.   

“A few additional Russian units have deployed closer to the Ukrainian border, most notably about a battalion of what we believe is Russia’s fourth tank division, which is normally based around Moscow,” said Mason Clark, lead Russia analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, in an interview with VOA.

Clark says that according to this data, the current movement of the military equipment is smaller than in spring 2020 but that it is possible U.S. intelligence has more information.  

“U.S. intelligence briefings and warnings to its allies may be based on Russian movements that we are not able to see in the open sources,” says Clark. At the same time, he doesn’t assess that a new Russian offensive would serve Putin’s goal.  

“A major offensive operation would likely impose significant costs,” explains Clark, “… delaying the certification of Nord Stream 2, sparking increased deployments by NATO or other European forces into Ukraine. And it likely would be a fairly high-cost operation. The Ukrainian military of 2021 is not the Ukrainian military of 2014.”

Nord Stream 2 is a pipeline that will link Russia and Germany. Ukraine opposes the project, saying it will increase Europe’s energy reliance on Russia.

Meanwhile, Alexander Vershbow, who served as a NATO deputy secretary-general and U.S. ambassador to Russia, argues that no one can be sure that Putin will act rationally when it comes to Ukraine.

“Putin may feel that he has to take greater risks to prevent Ukraine from succeeding in its efforts to join the West. And so because this is about Mr. Putin, his legacy, and his self-image as the gatherer of Russian lands, he may take action that doesn’t seem entirely logical from our point of view,” Vershbow said in an interview with VOA.

Vershbow said that in addition to seizing new Ukrainian territories, the Kremlin could prepare other scenarios like annexing the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk republics in occupied eastern Ukraine.

“For example, Putin could declare the Ukrainians as having brought the Minsk negotiations to a dead end and announce that Russia has no choice but to protect the poor Russian citizens in the occupied territories,” says Vershbow.   

The Minsk accord was designed to stop the bloodshed between Russian-backed rebels  and Ukrainian government forces in eastern Ukraine. Since 2014, the war has led to the deaths of around 14,000 people.  

Clark believes that the movement of Russian troops could also create a basis for military operations in the future.

“A lot of Russian troops that should be based near Kazakhstan are now in western Russia, and may pose a longer term threat to either Belarus, Ukraine or any of NATO’s eastern flank at the same time,” he said.  

Experts agree that support from both the United States and Europe at this moment is vital for Ukraine. Defense Minister Reznikov is confident about that support for his country.

“We’re ready”, said Reznikov. “Our military is ready, but we need united help from all [of the] civilized world. We have no time to fear. We need time to be prepared for resilience.”
…

Human rights groups and Western lawmakers are warning that Interpol’s powerful network of global police officers could end up under the sway of authoritarian governments, as the world police agency meets in Istanbul this week to elect new leadership.

Representatives of countries like China and the United Arab Emirates are bidding for top posts in the France-based policing body when its general assembly convenes in Turkey on Tuesday.

Interpol says it refuses to be used for political ends. Critics contend that if these candidates win, instead of hunting down drug smugglers, human traffickers, war crimes suspects and alleged extremists, their countries would use Interpol’s global reach to apprehend exiled dissidents and even political opponents at home.

Two candidates have drawn special criticism: Maj. Gen. Ahmed Naser al-Raisi, inspector general at the UAE’s interior ministry, who is seeking to be elected Interpol’s president for a four-year term; and Hu Binchen, an official at China’s ministry of public security, expected to be up for a vacant spot on Interpol’s executive committee.

A vote is expected Thursday. Interpol’s president and executive committee set policy and direction. They also supervise the body’s secretary-general who handles the day-to-day operations and is its public face. That post is filled by German official Juergen Stock.

Al-Raisi is accused of torture and has criminal complaints against him in five countries, including in France, where Interpol has its headquarters, and in Turkey, where the election is taking place.

And Hu is backed by China’s government, which is suspected to have used the global police agency to hunt down exiled dissidents and of disappearing its citizens.

Appointing Hu could be fraught with peril — including, possibly, for himself. Meng Hongwei of China was elected Interpol president in 2016, only to vanish on a return trip to China two years later. He is now serving a 13½-year jail sentence for corruption, charges that his wife Grace Meng, now living in France with her children under police protection, insisted in an interview with The Associated Press were trumped up and politically motivated.

Al-Raisi, already a member of Interpol’s executive committee, contended in a LinkedIn post Saturday that the UAE prioritizes “the protection of human rights at home and abroad.”

But a recent report by the MENA Rights Group describes routine rights violations by the UAE security system, in which lawyers, journalists and activists have been forcibly disappeared, tortured, arbitrarily detained, and intimidated for peacefully asking for basic rights and freedoms.

Matthew Hedges, a British doctoral student who was imprisoned in the UAE for nearly seven months in 2018 on spying charges, visibly struggled at a news conference in Paris as he described torture and months of being held in solitary confinement with no access to a lawyer.

“I was given a cocktail of medication … to alter my mental state,” Hedges said. “I am still dependent on most of this medication now. I would hear screams coming from other rooms, and there was evidence on the floor of torture, physical torture, beatings.”

Hedges was pardoned by UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, but Emirati officials still insist Hedges was spying for Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency, without offering definitive proof to support their claims. He, his family and British diplomats have repeatedly denied the charges.

“There is no way that a country’s police force that is willing to do this to foreign citizens, let alone their own, should be given the honor of holding one of the highest positions at Interpol,” Hedges said.

“Electing al-Raisi, the man responsible for what was happening to me, would be a slap in the face of justice and an embarrassment to other police forces who believe in upholding the rule of law.”

He and fellow Briton Ali Issa Ahmad, a soccer fan who says he was tortured by UAE security agents during the 2019 Asia Cup soccer tournament, have filed a lawsuit against al-Raisi and other Emirati security officials in the U.K. They also filed criminal complaints in Norway, Sweden and in France.

If French prosecutors decide to pursue the case, al-Raisi could be detained and questioned about alleged crimes committed in another country if he enters France or French territory.

Ahmad said he was attacked by plainclothes UAE security agents at a match between Iraq and Qatar in Abu Dhabi. He was wearing a fan T-Shirt with a Qatari flag at a time of bitter diplomatic dispute between Qatar and other Gulf countries.

He said the agents attacked him on the beach, threw him in a car, handcuffed him and put a plastic bag over his head. Using pocketknives, they carved the outlines of the Qatari flag on his chest as they cut out the emblem from his T-shirt, he said. Ahmad was jailed for two weeks and was released only after pleading guilty to the charge of “wasting police time.” Police say he already was hurt when he presented himself to a police station in Sharjah.

Another torture complaint under the principle of universal jurisdiction is pending in France against al-Raisi, filed in June over the alleged torture of prominent Emirati human rights defender and blogger Ahmed Mansoor, currently serving a 10-year sentence for charges of insulting the “status and prestige of the UAE” and its leaders in social media posts.

A major concern for dissidents is potential abuse of the Interpol red notice — the equivalent of putting someone on a global “most-wanted” list, meaning a suspect could be arrested anywhere they travel.

Interpol insists that any country’s request for a red notice is verified for compliance with its constitution, “under which it is strictly forbidden for the organization to undertake any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character.” But critics say Interpol has been used in the past by its member governments for political ends, and that this could get worse under new leadership.

Al-Raisi has run a slick campaign for the presidential post, traveling the world to meet lawmakers and government officials and boasting academic degrees from the U.K. and the U.S. and years of experience of policing.

In a opinion piece for the government-run newspaper in Abu Dhabi, al-Raisi said he wants to “modernize and transform” Interpol, drawing on “the UAE’s role as a leader in tech-driven policing and a bridge builder in the international community.”

The UAE, particularly the skyscraper-studded city-state of Dubai, long have been identified as a major money-laundering hub for both criminals and rogue nations. But in recent months, the Emirati police have announced a series of busts targeting suspected international drug dealers and gangsters living there. Residents also note low reported levels of street crime and harassment, likely an effect of residency visas all being tied to employment.

Prominent French human rights lawyer William Bourdon said UAE officials can’t hide behind a facade of modernity and progress.

“Behind the beaches and the palm trees,” he said, “there are people, and they are screaming because they are being tortured.”
…

Belarus does not want confrontation with Poland but wants the European Union to take in 2,000 migrants stranded on its border, President Alexander Lukashenko said on Monday, after Warsaw warned that tensions over the trapped people could flare up.

The EU accuses Belarus of flying in thousands of people from the Middle East and pushing them to cross into the EU via Poland, Lithuania and Latvia in response to European sanctions.

Minsk denies fomenting the crisis.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki warned on Sunday that the migrant crisis on the Belarus border may be a prelude to “something much worse”, and Poland’s border guard said Belarusian forces were still ferrying migrants to the frontier.

Lukashenko, as quoted by the state-owned Belta news agency, said he did not want things to escalate.

“We need to get through to the Poles, to every Pole, and show them that we’re not barbarians, that we don’t want confrontation. We don’t need it. Because we understand that if we go too far, war is unavoidable,” he said.

“And that will be a catastrophe. We understand this perfectly well. We don’t want any kind of flare-up.”

Poland has threatened to cut a train link between the two countries if the situation does not improve, and Lukashenko was quoted as saying that threat could backfire.

Rail traffic could be diverted to run through a conflict zone in eastern Ukraine in such a scenario, he said.

Last Thursday, the European Commission and Germany publicly rejected a Belarus proposal made that same day that EU countries take in 2,000 of the migrants currently on its territory.

But Lukashenko, according to Belta, said on Monday he must insist Germany take in some migrants, and complained that the EU was not making contact with Minsk on the issue.

“I’m waiting for the EU to answer,” he said. “They don’t even look at it (the problem). And even what she (German Chancellor Angela Merkel) promised me – contacts. They are not even getting in touch.”

Belarus’ plan would also include Minsk sending some 5,000 migrants back home, and Lukashenko said Belarus was preparing a second flight to send migrants home at the end of the month.

Over 400 Iraqis were sent back to Iraq last week, in the first such repatriation flight since August.

Poland says Belarusian forces were still ferrying migrants to the frontier, despite clearing the main migrant camps by the border last week.

A group of around 150 migrants tried to break through the border fence near the village of Dubicze Cerkiewne on Sunday, the Polish Border Guard said on Monday.

“Groups are making such attempts and Belarusian officials are becoming more and more aggressive,” Stanislaw Zaryn, spokesman for Poland’s security services, wrote on Twitter.

Lithuanian border guard says 70 migrants were prevented from entering on Sunday. Two Ukrainian citizens were arrested on Sunday, in two separate but similar incidents, as they arrived at the border to pick up the migrants, presumably for further Transportation.
…

When the Taliban took Kabul in August, Zakia was six months pregnant and in her first year of university while her husband, Hamid, was working as an auditor. They decided to flee, and along with five relatives, began a two-month odyssey that took them through Iran and Turkey.

When it was time to cross the Mediterranean, they did so on an expensive sailboat that came ashore this month on a beach in the southern Italian region of Calabria.

They were dehydrated, but relieved to have survived a lesser-known migration route to Europe that is increasingly being used by wealthier Afghans, Iraqis, Iranians and Kurds.

 

Entire families are paying top price for passage from Turkey aboard new or nearly new sailboats that can more easily avoid detection by authorities. Investigators say they are captained by smugglers, often Ukrainians, who may be in cahoots with Turkish mobsters and Italian ’ndrangheta clans on shore.

While aid workers call these “1st class” crossings, there is nothing elite about them. Hamid and Zakia were packed with 100 people below deck for a week as food supplies dwindled. After two days without fresh water, Zakia couldn’t feel the baby moving inside her anymore.

“It was the worst experience of my life,” Hamid said in an Italian gym as he and his wife waited to be processed for COVID-19 quarantine locations after their sailboat, “Passion Dalaware,” came ashore Nov. 10.

For years, most political, humanitarian and media attention has focused on the hundreds of thousands of migrants, most of them Africans, who cross the central Mediterranean aboard unseaworthy vessels launched by smugglers from Libya and Tunisia.

The Calabrian route, which brings the migrants from Turkey to the “toe” of boot-shaped Italy rather than Sicily and its islands further south, has seen a nearly four-fold increase in arrivals in 2021 and now accounts for 16% of the sea arrivals in Italy this year. 

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees is monitoring the situation closely, though the increase in Calabrian arrivals is mirrored by a similarly sharp increase in migrants arriving in Sicilian ports. Overall, sea arrivals in Italy this year are up to 59,000 compared with 32,000 at this point last year. The Calabrian route has seen 9,687 arrivals as of Nov. 14, compared with 2,507 last year. 

“We are seeing Afghans. We are seeing Iraqis. We are seeing Iranians, Kurds,” said Chiara Cardoletti, the UNHCR representative in Italy. Whereas single men used to account for most migrants, “right now on all the routes what you are seeing is an increase in the number of families arriving with lots of children. And that is true also for the route to Calabria.” 

The Calabrian route is just one of the myriad ways that would-be refugees from the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Africa try to reach Europe, a steady crisis that has fueled anti-immigrant sentiment on the continent and strained European Union solidarity. 

Hamid and Zakia had a fraught odyssey that cost far more than most: After escaping Kabul with Hamid’s sister, her husband and their three children, the family arrived in Turkey and paid 8,500 euros ($9,600) for each adult and 4,000 euros ($4,500) for each child to get to Calabria. Hamid’s parents in Sweden helped finance the trip.

Hamid’s 29-year-old sister, Tooba, who speaks good English, said the family decided to risk their lives on the journey because life in Afghanistan under Taliban rule was no longer safe, especially given her work as a lawyer.

“I cannot live in Kabul, and because of them I must leave Afghanistan,” Tooba said, as she cradled a sleeping child. 

Like Hamid and Zakia, she asked that her last name not be used for safety reasons. 

Hamid said the smugglers provided enough water for the first four or five days, but that after it ran out, the passengers drank seawater with sugar for the final two days.

When the sailboat approached shore, the passengers came up on deck only to see the two smugglers who had captained the ship, both wearing ski masks, fleeing the scene in a black boat.

“The traffickers, who obviously have no concept of human scruples, are now even squashing 100 people in each sailboat,” said Vittorio Zito, the mayor of Roccella Jonica, a small town on the Calabrian coast that has been a prime destination for smugglers.

The sailboats are difficult to intercept since even to aerial patrols, they look like normal pleasure boats. The “Passion Dalaware” was even flying a plastic American flag from its sail.

Zito said smugglers can make about 500,000 euros ($565,000) per trip on a stolen sailboat that costs around 100,000 euros ($113,000). Red Cross officials counted 101 people on Hamid’s boat, whose smugglers stood to pocket 858,500 euros ($969,000).

There have been so many of these deserted sailboats recently that their carcasses line the Calabrian coast. Others are piled up in a boat cemetery near the port in Roccella Jonica.

The route is also being used by smugglers bringing fishing boats from Libya. On Nov. 14, 550 migrants arrived in Roccella Jonica, the highest number in one day. The migrants, including at least 100 Egyptian minors, were rescued from two fishing boats off the coast that had departed from Tobruk, a town in Libya near the Egyptian border.

Italian police have arrested several Ukrainian smugglers who have been sentenced for aiding and abetting illegal migration, but they are just small cogs in the wheel of a larger criminal operation. 

“We have to go beyond the individual boats and arrests of smugglers to understand the reason behind the exponential increase,” said Giovanni Bombardieri, chief prosecutor in the Calabrian capital of Reggio Calabria, who is leading the migration investigation.

“It is clear that our work requires an evaluation of the possible involvement of clans of the ’ndrangheta,” the Calabrian-based organized crime syndicate, he told the AP.

Hamid and Zakia’s odyssey isn’t over. The extended family has been put in different locations in Calabria to complete two weeks of virus quarantine. After that they can begin the process of requesting asylum or can try to reach relatives in Sweden.

There is also some good news. 

“I am very happy,” said Zakia. “The Italian doctors checked and my baby is OK.” 
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Charging points for electric vehicles will be required to be installed in new buildings in Britain from next year under new legislation to be announced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, his office said in a statement on Sunday.

It said the regulations would lead to up to 145,000 extra charge points being installed in England each year in the run-up to 2030, when the sale of new petrol and diesel cars will end in Britain.

The requirement will apply to new homes and to non-residential buildings such as offices and supermarkets. It will also apply to buildings undergoing large-scale renovations which leave them with more than 10 parking spaces.

Johnson was due to announce the new legislation in a speech to the Confederation of British Industry’s annual conference on Monday.

Accelerating investment in infrastructure to facilitate a transition to electric vehicles was one of the elements in a wide-ranging national Net Zero Strategy document published by the British government last month.
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Riots broke out in cities across the Netherlands on Sunday, the third night in a row that police clashed with mobs of angry youths who set fires and threw rocks to protest COVID-19 restrictions.

Unrest was reported in locations including Leeuwarden and Groningen in the north, the eastern town of Enschede and Tilburg in the south. In Enschede, where an emergency ordinance was issued, police used batons to try to disperse a crowd, according to video on social media. In Leeuwarden, police vans were pelted with rocks and black-clad groups chanted and set off flares.

Responding to the worst disturbances since a full lockdown led to widespread disorder and more than 500 arrests in January, police said five officers had been injured overnight Saturday and at least 64 people detained in three provinces, including dozens who threw fireworks and fences during a soccer match at Feyenoord Rotterdam’s stadium.

The latest unrest began on Friday night in Rotterdam, where police opened fire on a crowd that had swelled to hundreds during a protest that the city’s mayor said had turned into “an orgy of violence.”

Four people believed to have been hit by police bullets remained in hospital on Sunday, a statement by the authorities said.

The protests were sparked by opposition to government plans to restrict use of a national corona pass to people who have either recovered from COVID-19 or have been vaccinated, excluding those with a negative test result.

The Netherlands reimposed some lockdown measures on its 17.5 million population last weekend for an initial three weeks in an effort to slow a resurgence of the virus, but daily infections have remained at their highest levels since the start of the pandemic.

Some youths were also angered by a New Year’s Eve firework ban to avoid added pressure on hospitals that have already been forced to scale back care due to a surge in COVID-19 patients.

Among the most serious confrontations on Saturday night were those in The Hague, where the five officers were hurt, one of them seriously, a police statement said. Police carried out charges on horseback and arrested 19 people, one of them for throwing a rock through the window of a passing ambulance. 
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Violence broke out at a protest against anti-covid measures in Brussels on Sunday, where police said tens of thousands of people were participating.

The march began peacefully but police later fired water cannon and tear gas in response to a group of participants throwing projectiles, an AFP photographer witnessed.

Several of the demonstrators caught up in the clash wore hoods and carried Flemish nationalist flags.

The stand-off with riot police took place near the Belgian capital’s EU and government district.

Police said 35,000 protesters marched from the North Station in Brussels against a fresh round of COVID measures announced by the government on Wednesday.

The demonstration, called “Together for Freedom”, largely focused on a ban on the unvaccinated from venues such as restaurants and bars.

Europe is battling another wave of infections and several countries have tightened curbs despite high levels of vaccination, especially in the west of the continent.

Belgium, one of the countries hit the hardest by the latest wave, on Wednesday expanded its work-from-home rules and strengthened curbs against the unvaccinated. 
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China reduced the level of its diplomatic relations with Lithuania to below ambassador level Sunday in retaliation for the Baltic nation allowing Taiwan, the island democracy claimed by Beijing as part of its territory, to open a representative office.

China earlier expelled the Lithuanian ambassador, reflecting its intense sensitivity over the status of Taiwan, which Beijing says has no right to conduct foreign affairs. China also withdrew its own ambassador from Lithuania.

The Foreign Ministry said relations would be downgraded to the level of charge d’affaires, an embassy’s No. 2 official.

Lithuania’s move reflects growing interest among governments in expanding ties with Taiwan, a major trader and center for high-tech industry, at a time when Beijing has irritated its neighbors and Western governments with an increasingly assertive foreign and military policy.

Taiwan and the mainland have been ruled separately since 1949 following a civil war.

The Foreign Ministry accused Lithuania of “undermining Chinese sovereignty and territorial integrity.” It called on the Lithuanian government to “correct the mistakes immediately.”

Beijing refuses to have official relations with governments that recognize Taiwan as a sovereign country. It has persuaded all but 15 countries, most of them small and poor in Africa and Latin America, to switch recognition to the mainland.

Many governments, including the United States and Japan, have official diplomatic ties with Beijing while maintaining extensive commercial ties with Taiwan. Many maintain relations with the island’s democratically elected government through trade offices that serve as informal embassies.

Lithuania broke with diplomatic custom by agreeing that the Taiwanese office in Vilnius would bear the name Taiwan instead of Chinese Taipei, a term used by other countries to avoid offending Beijing.

Lithuania said earlier it plans to open its own representative office in Taiwan.
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Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on Sunday called the migrant crisis on the Belarusian-Polish border, the EU’s eastern frontier, the “greatest attempt to destabilize Europe” since the Cold War.

The premier issued his strong remarks as he prepared to meet with EU leaders at a time when Warsaw is facing not only a border crisis but heightened tensions with Brussels over allegations it is breaching its commitment to the bloc’s democratic principles.

The West accuses Belarus of artificially creating the crisis by bringing in would-be migrants — mostly from the Middle East — and taking them to the border with promises of an easy crossing into the European Union.

Belarus has denied the claim, instead criticizing the EU for not taking in the migrants.

Caught in the middle, migrants often report being forced to cross the border by Belarusian officials, then being pushed back into Belarusian territory by Polish authorities.

Belarusian President Alexander “Lukashenko launched a hybrid war against the EU. This is [the] greatest attempt to destabilize Europe in 30 years,” Morawiecki said on Twitter.

“Poland will not yield to blackmail and will do everything to defend the EU’s borders.”

He linked to a video statement in which he cautioned that “today the target is Poland, but tomorrow it will be Germany, Belgium, France or Spain.”

He also claimed that Lukashenko had the “back-room support of Vladimir Putin,” the Russian president and an ally of the Belarusian regime.

Lukashenko told the BBC earlier that it was “absolutely possible” his forces had helped people cross into the EU but denied orchestrating the operation.

Divert attention

Brussels and NATO have previously also described the migrant crisis as a “hybrid tactic.”

Morawiecki is visiting the Baltic states — two of which also share a border with Belarus — on Sunday to discuss the conflict and has announced he will visit other EU capitals this week.

Some observers believe Poland is using its rhetoric on the border issue to try to distract from controversial reforms that the EU believes limit the independence of the judiciary.

The European Commission wrote to Poland on Friday to launch a process that could lead to it being deprived of funds over threats to the EU legal order. 

“While the problem on Poland’s border is serious and requires Western solidarity — for example by sanctioning Belarus — Morawiecki blows it out of proportion to divert attention from Poland’s violation of the rule of law,” political expert Marcin Zaborowski told AFP.

The policy director at the Globsec think tank argued that the Belarus action “pales in comparison with the war in Ukraine, cyber attack in Estonia in 2007 and Russian support for far-right extremism in Europe.”

On Sunday, Poland’s border guards reported new attempted crossings, including by a “very aggressive group of around 100” migrants.

Poland’s Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said Saturday that Belarus has now changed tactics by directing smaller groups of migrants to multiple points along the border.

He added that he expected the border showdown to last months.

Migrant deaths

The migrants have spent thousands of dollars to fly into Belarus on tourist visas, determined to reach the European Union.

Many are desperately fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East.

Once at the border, they are faced with squalid, freezing conditions.

Polish media say at least 11 migrants have died since the crisis began over the summer.

A Yemeni migrant who died in Poland in September will be laid to rest on Sunday in the eastern village of Bohoniki, with his brother in attendance.

Yemen’s foreign ministry said he “died on the border between Poland and Belarus as a result of the severe drop in temperatures.”

On Saturday, the Belarusian Health Ministry said that a World Health Organization (WHO) mission had arrived in Belarus to help organize medical support for the migrants.
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Seven Turkish citizens who were being held in eastern Libya have been brought back safely to Turkey, the country’s foreign ministry said on Sunday.

The seven people were mostly restaurant employees and had been held in Libya’s east for two years, according to state-owned Anadolu news agency.

Qatari intelligence cooperated with Turkey’s National Intelligence Agency (MIT) in their efforts to secure the safe release of the seven Turks, Anadolu said.

“We thank the Libyan and Qatari governments, especially the related institutions that contributed to the process of the release of our citizens,” Turkey’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

Turkey deployed troops to Libya under a 2019 accord on military cooperation signed with the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA), helping it repel an assault by General Khalifa Haftar’s forces based in eastern Libya.
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Police arrested seven rioters in The Hague on Saturday night after youths set fires in the streets and threw fireworks at officers. The unrest came a day after police opened fire on protesters in Rotterdam amid what the port city’s mayor called “an orgy of violence” that broke out at a protest against coronavirus restrictions.

Elsewhere in the Netherlands, two soccer matches in the top professional league had to be briefly halted after fans — banned from matches under a partial lockdown in force in the Netherlands for a week — broke into stadiums in the towns of Alkmaar and Almelo.

Police said via Twitter that seven people were arrested in The Hague and five officers were injured. One needed treatment in a hospital.

Local media outlet Regio 15 reported that rioters threw bicycles, wooden pallets and motorized scooters on one of the fires.

The rioting in The Hague was on a smaller scale than the pitched battles on the streets of Rotterdam on Friday night, when police said three rioters were hit by bullets and investigations were underway to establish if they were shot by police. Earlier police said two people were hit. The condition of the injured rioters was not disclosed.

Officers in Rotterdam arrested 51 people, about half of them minors, police said Saturday afternoon. One police officer was hospitalized with a leg injury suffered in the rioting, another was treated by ambulance staff and countless others suffered minor injuries.

Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb told reporters in the early hours of Saturday that “on a number of occasions the police felt it necessary to draw their weapons to defend themselves” as rioters rampaged through the port city’s central shopping district, setting fires and throwing rocks and fireworks at officers.

“They shot at protesters, people were injured,” Aboutaleb said. He did not have details on the injuries. Police also fired warning shots.

Police combing through video footage from security cameras expect to make more arrests.

Photos from the scene showed at least one police car in flames and another with a bicycle slammed through its windshield.

Riot police and a water cannon restored calm after midnight.

It was one of the worst outbreaks of violence in the Netherlands since coronavirus restrictions were first imposed last year. In January, rioters also attacked police and set fires on the streets of Rotterdam after a curfew came into force.

Justice Minister Ferd Grapperhaus condemned the events.

“The riots and extreme violence against police officers, riot police and firefighters last night in Rotterdam are disgusting to see,” he said in a statement.

“Protesting is a great right in our society, but what we saw last night is simply criminal behavior. It has nothing to do with demonstrating,” he added.

Police units from around the country raced to Rotterdam to help bring Friday night’s situation under control. Aboutaleb said that gangs of soccer hooligans were involved in the rioting.

An independent investigation into the shootings by police was opened, as is the case whenever Dutch police use their weapons.

The government has said it wants to introduce a law that would allow businesses to restrict the country’s coronavirus pass system to only people who are fully vaccinated or have recovered from COVID-19 — that would exclude people who test negative.

Earlier Saturday, two protests against COVID-19 measures went off peacefully in Amsterdam and the southern city of Breda.

Thousands gathered on Amsterdam’s central Dam Square, despite organizers calling off the protest. They walked peacefully through the streets, closely monitored by police. A few hundred people also marched through the southern Dutch city of Breda. One organizer, Joost Eras, told broadcaster NOS he didn’t expect violence after consulting with police.

“We certainly don’t support what happened in Rotterdam. We were shocked by it,” he said.

The country has seen record numbers of infections in recent days and a new partial lockdown came into force a week ago.

Local political party Leefbaar Rotterdam condemned the violence in a tweet.

“The center of our beautiful city has this evening transformed into a war zone,” it said. “Rotterdam is a city where you can disagree with things that happen but violence is never, never, the solution.” 

 
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