Tunisian Revolution and the Middle East--And Now, The Withdrawal From Afghanistan (M.E.T.)

[visionary]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/28/us-europe-migrants-austria-idUSKCN0QX0H020150828?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews

Austria raises refugee truck death toll to above 70

 

A truck full of refugees discovered abandoned on an Austrian motorway on Thursday contains more than 70 bodies, the interior ministry said on Friday, announcing an updated death toll.

 

Austrian police had originally put the toll at up to 50 and are due to announce the exact number within hours. The vehicle had come to Austria from Hungary.

 

The refrigerated truck was found by an Austrian motorway patrol near the Hungarian border just before lunchtime on Thursday, with fluids from the decomposing bodies seeping from its back door.

 

It had been left abandoned on the roadside of the highway, which leads from Hungary to the Austrian capital Vienna.

 

"Work continued throughout the night, but I expect all the bodies have been removed now," said Helmut Marban, a police spokesman for the Burgenland province. "Forensic investigators are still at the lorry and trying to establish all the facts."

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/28/us-europe-migrants-libya-idUSKCN0QW27E20150828?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews

Boat packed with migrants sinks off Libya; up to 200 feared dead

 

A boat packed with mainly African migrants bound for Italy sank off the Libyan coast on Thursday and officials said up to 200 might have died.

 

A security official in the western town of Zuwara, from where the overcrowded boat had set off, said there had been around 400 people on board. Many appeared to have been trapped in the hold when it capsized.

 

By late in the evening, the Libyan coast guard rescued around 201, of which 147 were brought to a detention facility for illegal migrants in Sabratha, west of Tripoli, the official said, asking not to be named.

 

Another local official and a journalist based in Zuwara confirmed the sinking but also had no information on casualties.

 

The migrants on board had been from sub-Saharan Africa, Pakistan, Syria, Morocco and Bangladesh, the security official said.

 

https://twitter.com/arwaCNN

Refugees in hungary holding area.Been waiting for 7hrs, 1 family got 1 bottle of water. Inhumane treatment.
3:08 AM

Edited August 28, 2015 by visionary

[visionary]

Egypt sentences journalists to three years in prison.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/egypt-court-sentences-al-jazeera-journalists-three-years-jail-n418171

[visionary]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/30/us-egypt-election-idUSKCN0QZ0UQ20150830?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews

Egypt sets Oct election date, after three years without parliament

 

Egypt will hold a long-awaited parliamentary election, starting on Oct. 18-19, the election commission said on Sunday, the final step in a process to bring back democracy that critics say has been tainted by widespread repression.

 

Egypt has been without a parliament since June 2012 when a court dissolved the democratically elected main chamber, dominated by the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood, reversing a major accomplishment of the 2011 uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

 

The election had been due to begin in March but was delayed after a court ruled part of the election law unconstitutional.

 

A second round of voting in the two-phase election will take place on Nov. 22-23, the election commission told a news conference. Voting for Egyptians abroad will take place on Oct. 17-18.

 

The then military chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who went on to become president, toppled Egypt's first freely elected president, Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood, in 2013 after mass protests against his rule.

 

The army then announced a 'roadmap' to democracy in Egypt, the most populous Arab state and ally of Western powers.

 

That announcement was followed by the toughest crackdown on Islamists in Egypt's history. Security forces killed hundreds at street protests and thousands were arrested.

 

Secular activists were later rounded up mostly for protesting without permission from the police.

 

The government says the election is proof of Egypt's commitment to democracy.

 

In the absence of parliament, Sisi has wielded legislative authority to curtail political freedoms but also introduced economic reforms.

 

"The question will remain: will this parliament be an effective check and balance against the executive? There are some signs it may, due to the likely prevalence of big-business interests within it, be argumentative on issues pertaining to economic policy," said H.A. Hellyer, nonresident fellow at the Brookings Center for Middle East Policy in Washington.

 

"But on issues of political reform, legislative reform, or security sector reform, there probably won’t be much appetite to affect much change from within this forthcoming parliament."

 

The House of Representatives is made up of 568 seats, with 448 elected as individuals and 120 through winner-takes-all lists, with quotas for women, Christians and youth. The president may appoint a number of people to the house, not exceeding 5 percent of its makeup.

 

Some political parties criticize the emphasis on individuals as a throwback to Mubarak-era politics, which often favored candidates with wealth and family connections.

Edited August 30, 2015 by visionary

[visionary]

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/08/france-hungary-refugee-fence-fit-animals-150831062042118.html

France: Hungary refugee fence not even fit for animals

 

Deep divisions persist within the European Union as thousands of distraught refugees arriving from war-torn countries, mainly Syria, continued to head towards Western Europe via the continent's southern frontiers.

 

The French foreign minister on Monday criticised Hungary for its move to erect a fence on its border to stop people as Germany and Britain joined in to call for action to defend the "dignity" of refugees ahead of fresh emergency talks on September 14.

 

The three Western European nations have pressed for better processing of refugees arriving in southern Europe, as countries such as Greece, Italy, and Hungary have struggled to cope with the influx of refugees. Some 300,000 people have crossed this year alone.

 

Hungary is part of Europe, which has values, and we do not respect those values by putting up fences that we wouldn't even use for animals.

Laurent Fabius, French foreign minister

 

In an interview with French radio on Sunday, Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister, said the measure was "extremely harsh. Hungary is part of Europe, which has values, and we do not respect those values by putting up fences that we wouldn't even use for animals".

 

Fabius also called the attitude of "a certain number of European countries, particularly in the east" who oppose a quota scheme for the distribution of refugees across EU member states "scandalous". He did not name the countries targeted by that remark.

 

EU member states have differed on ways to tackle the escalating refugee crisis in previous meetings.

 

"Europe needs to stop being moved and start moving," Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said, calling again for a fairer distribution of refugees among the 28 member states.

[visionary]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/01/trains-of-refugees-reach-germany-as-eu-asylum-checks-collapse?CMP=share_btn_tw

Trains carrying refugees reach Germany as EU asylum checks collapse

 

Packed trains arrived in Austria and Germany from Hungary on Monday, as European Union asylum rules collapsed under the strain of an unprecedented migration crisis.

A laboratory for refugee politics: inside Passau, the 'German Lampedusa'
Read more

 

As men, women and children – many fleeing Syria’s civil war – continued to arrive from the east, authorities let thousands of undocumented people travel on towards Germany, the favoured destination for many.

 

The influx is a crisis for the European Union, which has eliminated border controls between 26 Schengen area states but requires asylum seekers to apply in the first EU country they reach.

 

In line with EU rules, an Austrian police spokesman said only those who had not already requested asylum in Hungary would be allowed through, but the sheer pressure of numbers prevailed, and trains were allowed to move on.

 

“Thank God nobody asked for a passport … No police, no problem,” said Khalil, 33, an English teacher from Kobani in Syria. His wife held their sick baby daughter, coughing and crying in her arms, at the Vienna station where police stood by as hundred of people raced to board trains for Germany.

Edited September 1, 2015 by visionary

[visionary]

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/09/al-shabab-claims-scores-killed-attack-au-troops-150901041528125.html

Al-Shabab claims 'scores' killed in attack on AU troops

 

Al-Shabab fighters in Somalia have killed "scores" of African Union troops in an attack south of capital, Mogadishu, a spokesman for the armed group told Al Jazeera.

 

The attack in Janaale, in the country's Lower Shabelle province, early on Tuesday was confirmed by residents, but an exact casualty figure was not immediately available.

 

The assault involved the use of a car bomb, which breached the defences at an African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) base in Janaale, residents told Al Jazeera.

 

Heavily armed fighters then stormed the base.

 

In July, al-Shabab claimed to have killed "dozens" of AMISOM troops at an outpost in Lego, about 100km northwest of the capital.

The assault involved the use of a car bomb, which breached the defences at an African Union Mission in Somalia  (AMISOM) base in Janaale, residents told Al Jazeera.

 

Heavily armed fighters then stormed the base killing about 50 soldiers, mainly from Uganda, according to al-Shabab's spokesman.

There was no word from the African Union or Somalia's government on the attack.

 

In July, al-Shabab claimed to have killed "dozens" of AMISOM troops at an outpost in Lego, about 100km northwest of the capital.

 

The attack on Lego also began with a suicide car bomb, followed by an assault by members of the armed group.

Edited September 1, 2015 by visionary

[visionary]

http://news.yahoo.com/eu-must-defend-migrants-dignity-leaders-ahead-talks-032719758.html

Migrant trains arrive in Austria as crisis deepens

 

Trains packed with migrants arrived in Austria's capital where 20,000 people turned out to show their support for the new arrivals, as Europe struggled to cope with the biggest movement of people since World War II.

 

Police looked on as hundreds of migrants -- many of them without visas -- pulled into Vienna's Westbahnhof station late in the evening before boarding trains to the Austrian city of Salzburg or on to Munich in southern Germany.

 

A total of 3,650 migrants reached Vienna by train, this year's biggest daily number, Austrian police said.

 

"We are still in the process of verifying how many of them are actually asylum-seekers," Austrian police spokesman Patrick Maierhofer told AFP.

Authorities in Budapest have allowed the migrants, who had been stuck for days in makeshift refugee camps at the city's stations, to board trains for their ultimate destinations in northern Europe.

 

The trains were stopped at the Austrian border for several hours as part of a security crackdown after the decomposing bodies of 71 migrants, four of them children, were discovered in an abandoned lorry near the Hungarian border last week.

 

 

https://twitter.com/SkyNewsBreak

Hungary has closed Budapest's main eastern Keleti railway station - no trains departing or arriving and hundreds of migrants are waiting
3:42 AM

 

 

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/39b590950e6c4a8aae8ee0cca49cc564/hungary-shuts-down-rail-traffic-westward-bound-migrants

Hungary shuts down rail traffic for westward-bound migrants

 

Hungarian authorities are stopping all trains from leaving Budapest's main train terminal in an effort to prevent migrants from using it to leave for Austria and Germany.

 

An announcement over the station's loudspeakers Tuesday said the measure would be in effect for an undetermined length of time.

 

Scuffles broke out earlier in the morning among some of the hundreds of migrants as they pushed toward metal gates at the platform where a train was scheduled to leave for Vienna and Munich, and were blocked by police.

 

Several say they spent hundreds of euros for tickets after police told them they would be allowed free passage.

 

Police in Vienna say 3,650 migrants arrived from Hungary Monday at the city's Westbahnhof station. They say most continued on toward Germany.

 

 

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/sep/01/mentally-ill-iranian-asylum-seeker-girl-17-begs-not-to-be-sent-back-to-nauru?CMP=share_btn_tw

Mentally ill Iranian asylum seeker girl, 17, begs not to be sent back to Nauru

 

A 17-year-old girl and her family who sought asylum in Australia expect to be returned to the offshore detention centre on Nauru, despite a psychiatrist’s recommendation against it because of the girl’s severe mental health problems.

 

The teenager has written to the immigration minister, Peter Dutton, pleading that she and her family not be sent back to the processing centre.

 

The Iranian girl and her family were detained on Christmas Island after seeking asylum by boat. After six months they were sent to Nauru for seven months, then Brisbane for 11 months when the younger son needed medical care. The family was transferred to Darwin’s Wickham Point detention centre three weeks ago.

A psychiatrist’s report, written upon the girl’s release from hospital in Brisbane and seen by Guardian Australia, describes self-harm and attempted suicide.

 

“[she] also reported being at the receiving end of inappropriate sexual comments and propositions by security staff while at Nauru detention centre and was, understandably, very, very distressed about this,” the report said.

 

Multiple reviews and inquiries have revealed high levels of abuse and mistreatment at the Nauru centre. On Monday a Senate inquiry called for all children to be removed from detention on the island.

Edited September 1, 2015 by visionary

[visionary]

https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/NewsReports/565830-youstink-protesters-storm-environment-ministry

Security forces end #YouStink occupation of Environment Ministry

 

#YouStink activists infiltrated the Environment Ministry early Tuesday afternoon to hold a sit-in, sparking a protracted standoff that saw riot police storm the building to remove protesters by force.

The activists entered the ministry’s offices in Downtown Beirut shortly after midday, announcing their announcing their refusal to leave the premises until Environment Minister Mohammad Machnouk steps down from his post.
 
Lebanese Interior Minister Nohad Machnouk at 3:30 p.m. issued a 30-minute deadline for the activists to end their sit-in, however the protesters refused to leave and rejected attempts to negotiate with the environment minister as well as Green Party chief Nada Zaarour, who they heckled.

As demonstrators continued to gather outside the Environment Ministry building, security forces blocked off its entrances while riot police prepared to go into action, cutting off news transmissions from inside the building while forcing journalists out of the sit-in.

Shortly before 7 p.m., riot police officers began marching activists, many of them wounded and beaten, out of the building. Red Cross emergency responders also carried a number of injured activists out.

However, Environment Minister Mohammad Machnouk remained holed-up inside his office on the eight floor of the Azariyeh Building, while #YouStink activist Imad Bazzi said he and thirteen other protesters were keeping up their sit-in.

At around 9:30 p.m. the remaining #YouStink protesters conducting the sit-in were forced out of the building, while Bazzi claimed they had been "beaten," and detained on the third floor the building before being released.

Mohammad Machnouk, for his part, fled the building from a back door amid the chaos gripping the area as angry protesters faced off against riot police guarding the entrances of the ministry.

Edited September 1, 2015 by visionary

[visionary]

 

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/reporters-notebook/migrants/budapest-s-keleti-train-station-has-become-a-de-facto-refugee-camp?smid=tw-nytimesworld&smtyp=cur

Traveling in Europe’s River of Migrants

 

Budapest's Keleti Train Station Has Become a de Facto Refugee Camp

 

The scene at the Keleti train station in Budapest was a shock. The grand depot built in the late 19th century has become a de facto modern refugee camp, with migrants stretched out around the station and along its underground passageways.

 

Auxiliary water pipes have been set up to allow the migrants to cool off and bathe. Mothers strip their children naked and scrub them down with soap under the gushing water. For many, it was their first bath in weeks.

 

When Ahmad Majid saw the cool running water, he walked over and dunked his head under the stream, then drank deeply.

 

It was the first day since leaving Macedonia about five days before that he had not put on a clean shirt. In Belgrade, he managed to find a pristine white shirt with the logo of the Serbian humanitarian organization that was handing out clothes. For this proud and fastidious man from Syria, not having a clean shirt to wear seemed a small sign of how arduous his trip here had been.

 

Keleti station is a place of joyful reunion for many migrants, despite the chaos and squalor. Migrants who made friends along the difficult route through the Balkans and were then separated by roadblocks along the way all convene here.

 

As Mr. Majid and his family rested on some benches outside the station, a skinny, oddly elegant-looking man sauntered over wearing a wide grin on his face. The man, Mohammad Qassem, and his son, Abdallah, had shared seats with the Majid family aboard the blue antique train from Macedonia to Serbia.

 

Mr. Qassem, 51, with a tuft of graying hair and a mustache, was still wearing the woven leather flip-flops he collected on a beach in Bodrum, Turkey, earlier in his journey. The sandals had been discarded by their previous owner, who had to dump his possessions as he got into a dinghy to cross the Aegean. The sandals fit Mr. Qassem perfectly. His son showed off his own new pair of yellow soccer shoes, given to him by aid workers. The migrants often run through several pairs of shoes along their route.

 

Mr. Majid and Mr. Qassem shook hands and exchanged news about their journeys before Mr. Majid had to procure tickets for another passage.

He decided that a train from Budapest straight to Berlin – a 12-hour ride – would get his family closer to Sweden than other routes through Munich. He spent his last 770 euros on tickets for his family of 14.

 

After paying the fares, Mr. Majid had no money left to buy Betadine, a disinfectant, for his 4-year-old son, whose leg was sliced open by razor wire when the family went over the barrier along the Serbia-Hungary border. Still, the wound had scabbed over nicely without the antiseptic; Mr. Majid had been washing it repeatedly with soap and water.

 

That night, the Majid family would sleep in their sleeping bags on the pavement outside the station before their early morning departures.

 

 

 

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/d1a87624f02a437dbc7ac3333f971b9c/hungary-railway-station-remains-closed-migrants

Migrants defiant as Hungary blocks train links for 2nd day

 

Hundreds of migrants chanted defiant slogans outside Budapest's main international railway station Wednesday as Hungarian police blocked them for a second day from seeking asylum in Germany and other European Union countries to the west.

 

"What we want? Peace! What we need? Peace!" a few hundred migrants chanted outside Keleti station, the new focal point for continent-wide tensions over the unrelenting flow of migrants from the Middle East, Asia and Africa fleeing war, persecution and poverty.

 

Hungary's police said in a statement they intend to reinforce their positions outside the Keleti terminal as the volume of migrants arriving from Serbia continues to grow by the hour, with an estimated 3,000 already encamped near the station. They said officers working jointly with colleagues from Austria, Germany and Slovakia also were searching for migrants traveling illegally on other Hungarian trains and described the security push as compatible with the EU's policy of passport-free travel.

 

Efforts to control, curtail and protect migrants continued unabated elsewhere across Europe. French authorities said services on the cross-Channel Eurostar trains were returning to normal Wednesday after serious overnight disruptions triggered by reports of migrants running on the tracks and trying to climb atop trains.

 

Passengers aboard one Paris-to-London train said their service was suspended because migrants trying to climb aboard the train damaged fire safety equipment. In tweets, passengers also described seeing migrants running along the roofs of another train near the migrant-besieged French port of Calais.

 

Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orban, is scheduled to meet EU chiefs Thursday to discuss his country's handling of its unprecedented flow this year of more than 150,000 migrants, chiefly from Syria and other conflict zones. While Germany says it expects to receive 800,000 migrants this year, quadruple last year's figure, many EU members face criticism for failing to commit to housing more asylum seekers.

 

In non-EU member Iceland, a populist movement is challenging the government's pledge to host just 50 Syrians. The newly launched "Syria's Calling" pressure group said thousands of island residents had gone online over the past 48 hours to commit to opening their homes to a war refugee. Others called on Iceland to open a disused army base for migrant housing.

 

Naval vessels from several nations continued to patrol Mediterranean waters off the coast of Libya in hopes of preventing more mass drownings of migrants. A Norwegian vessel said it was carrying about 800 rescued migrants, including 11 pregnant women and more than 30 children, to Cagliari on Italy's island of Sardinia.

Edited September 2, 2015 by visionary

[visionary]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/03/world/europe/germany-migrant-crisis.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

Migrant Crisis Gives Germany Familiar Role in Another European Drama

 

 

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/britain-takes-in-so-few-refugees-from-syria-they-would-fit-on-a-subway-train/2015/09/01/af427190-4b34-11e5-80c2-106ea7fb80d4_story.html

Britain takes in so few refugees from Syria they would fit on a subway train

 

Of the 4 million Syrians who have fled their country since the war began, including hundreds of thousands who have poured into Europe, the number who have been resettled in Britain could fit on a single London Underground train — with plenty of seats to spare.

 

Just 216 Syrian refugees have qualified for the government’s official relocation program, according to data released last week. (Tube trains seat about 300.) British Prime Minister David Cameron has reassured his anxious public that the total number won’t rise above 1,000.

 

As Germany prepares for an expected onslaught of 800,000 asylum applications just this year, the contrast between the two biggest powers in Europe couldn’t be sharper. On a continent that is supposed to be bound together by a common set of rules and values, the impact of this summer’s migrant crisis is being felt disproportionately by a handful of countries while others, such as Britain, have resisted efforts to more equitably share the burden.

 

Britain’s approach helps explain why efforts to forge a unified European asylum policy have failed, and it could become a major obstacle to agreement when top officials gather for an emergency meeting later this month.

[visionary]

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/reporters-notebook/migrants/hungary-treatment-refugees?smid=tw-nytimesworld&smtyp=cur

Traveling in Europe’s River of Migrants

 

https://twitter.com/karaszpalko

Thousands marched on Hungary's parliament to show their disagreement with Hungary's migration policy.

2:52 PM

 

 

http://www.wsj.com/articles/austria-struggles-with-grisly-task-of-identifying-truck-victims-1441221521

Austria Struggles With Grisly Task of Identifying Truck Victims

 

Veteran police investigators say they have never faced a task like identifying the 71 bodies unloaded from the back of a truck found abandoned along a nearby highway last week.

Edited September 2, 2015 by visionary

[visionary]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/03/us-europe-migrants-idUSKCN0R30FR20150903

Migrants leave Budapest for Austrian frontier; pressure builds for EU action

 

Hundreds of migrants left Budapest aboard a packed train bound for a town near the Austrian border on Thursday after two days of chaos symbolic of a European asylum system brought to breaking point.

 

Exhausted and confused, migrants crammed onto a train to the Hungarian border town of Sopron, clinging to doors and squeezing their children through open carriage windows.

 

Trains to Vienna and beyond to Germany were cancelled, making it unclear what would be the next stop for the migrants - many of them refugees from wars in the Middle East.

 

Thousands have died at sea and scores have perished on land in Europe's worst migration crisis since the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s.

 

Images of a drowned three-year-old face down in the surf on Turkish beach, one of at least 12 who died there the previous day while trying to sail for a Greek island, appeared in newspapers across the continent, increasing public pressure on politicians to take action.

 

"He had a name: Alyan Kurdi. Urgent action required - A Europe-wide mobilization is urgent," French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said on Twitter. The images appeared days after 71 bodies were found in an abandoned truck in Austria last week.

 

The influx has strained the European Union’s asylum system to breaking point, sowing division among its 28 nations and feeding the rise of right-wing populists.

 

The major EU countries have taken sharply opposing positions on whether to offer welcome. Germany plans to accept 800,000 refugees this year, while Britain has set up a program to allow in Syrians that has accepted just 216.

 

 

https://twitter.com/kristenchick

Seems Hungarian police essentially tricked refugees & migrants into boarding trains headed for camps, thinking they were going to Germany
6:52 AM

Edited September 3, 2015 by visionary

[visionary]

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/09/refugees-hungary-train-station-150903064140564.html

Hungary PM tells refugees: Please don't come

 

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said those fleeing conflict in countries such as Syria should not try to cross into Hungary, as he defended the country's decision to erect a fence along its border.

 

His comments at the EU headquarters in Brussels came as thousands of refugees flooded into a train station in Budapest hoping to board trains taking them to Germany or Austria.

 

"Please don't come ... It's risky to come. We can't guarantee that you will be accepted," Orban said at a newsconference in Brussels with European Parliament President Martin Schulz, adding that it would not be humane or morally right to "falsify" people's dreams.

 

A fence on the border with Serbia is one of several measures planned to make it more difficult for refugees to enter and stay in Hungary. The government is also tightening asylum laws, introducing penalties for illegal border-crossing, and planning to close permanent refugee camps. 

 

"We Hungarians are full of fear, people in Europe are full of fear because they see that the European leaders, among them the prime ministers, are not able to control the situation," Orban said.

 

 

https://twitter.com/jamesmatesitv

Train full of refugees departs Budapest station. Most on board think it's going to Austria. Strongly suspect it isn't.  
Things could get interesting when those on board this train realise they're being taken somewhere else in Hungary.

5:19 AM

 

Train has stopped at small town 30 miles down the line. Reception party of dozens of police. This may be end of line.  All Europeans taken off train. Refugees realising they're not going to Austria. Riot police stop anyone getting off.  Refugees now being cleared from train one carriage at a time. Being corralled through an underpass. V unhappy.  Behind the riot police 100+ refugees have been corralled. Say the won't be taken to camps. Rest held on train.  Man and wife with tiny baby throw themselves onto track demanding not to be taken to camps. Getting c distressing.  Hungarian police failed to control those they wanted to take to the camp. Forced to let them back onto train.  

 

This turning into a PR disaster for the Hungarian authorities. Hard to see what they do now except take these people back to Budapest

So all refugees back on train. Broiling hot sun. No water, no food. Refugees defiant after forcing police to back down. What on earth now?
7:00 AM

 

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/09/02/a-dead-baby-becomes-the-most-tragic-symbol-yet-of-the-mediterranean-refugee-crisis/?tid=pm_world_pop_b

A dead baby becomes the most tragic symbol yet of the Mediterranean refugee crisis

 

Twelve migrants thought to be Syrian refugees were feared to have drowned off the coast of the Greek island of Kos on Wednesday after the boats carrying them sank. A number of bodies washed ashore on a beach in the Turkish resort town of Bodrum, probably connected to the disaster.

 

The images of the dead, captured by Dogan News Agency, soon circulated on social media. They included, most hideously, photographs of children.

 

The images, some of which appear above, show a tiny toddler lying lifeless on the sand. In others, we see a police officer picking up the corpse of a baby. The most heart-breaking one is a close-up of a drowned infant, his body so still and doll-like that he could be sleeping. It's not pictured above, but you can see it here and elsewhere on social media, where it has become a tragic meme.

 

According to Reuters, Turkish media reported that the boy was 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi, a child from a largely Kurdish-dominated region in northern Syria. His 5-year-old brother also reportedly died on the same boat.

 

The scale of the Syrian refugee crisis is hard to grasp: About 11 million people (half of Syria's population) have either died or fled their homes since the Syrian conflict began in 2011. About 4 million of that number have been forced out of the country.

 

This summer alone, tens of thousands of desperate Syrian refugees made the dangerous eastern Mediterranean passage, motoring on boats from Turkey to nearby islands in Greece — the first beachhead of the European Union — and, from there, embarking on a sometimes-perilous land journey toward Western Europe.

 

Aid agencies estimate that, in August, around 2,000 people attempted the tricky crossing to Greece’s eastern islands every day. On Tuesday, Turkish officials said their coastguard had rescued more than 2,160 migrants from the Aegean Sea in the week prior, and more than 42,000 over the course of the year.

Edited September 3, 2015 by visionary

[visionary]

https://twitter.com/jamesmatesitv

International media being shepherded away from the train. Whatever happens next, Hungarians don't want world to see
8:46 AM

 

Refugees shouting 'don't leave us' as media pushed away from train
8:50 AM

 

We are asking what will happen next to these people? Whatever it is, there'll be no cameras to record it.
8:53 AM

 

https://twitter.com/SkyNewsBreak

Update - Reuters: Hungarian police have declared Bicske railway station an "operation zone" and have told all media to leave
8:51 AM

 

https://twitter.com/AFP

BREAKING EU's Juncker proposes taking extra 120,000 refugees: European source
9:17 AM

 

https://twitter.com/SkyNewsBreak

David Cameron says he is "deeply moved" by pictures of Syrian boy Aylan Kurdi and promised Britain would fulfil "moral responsibilities"
9:19 AM

 

https://twitter.com/simmjazeera

Hungary police forcibly removed us from platform in Bicske. Refugees pleaded us to stay. Still in station though.
9:21 AM

Edited September 3, 2015 by visionary

[visionary]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/03/migration-crisis-hungary-pm-victor-orban-europe-response-madness

Migration crisis: Hungary PM claims Europe is in grip of 'madness'

 

Hungary’s nationalist prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has claimed that Europe is in the grip of madness over immigration and refugees, and argued that he was defending European Christianity against a Muslim influx.

 

Orbán’s incendiary remarks came as he arrived in Brussels for a confrontation with EU leaders over his hardline policies in Europe’s biggest migration emergency since the second world war.

 

“Everything which is now taking place before our eyes threatens to have explosive consequences for the whole of Europe,” Orbán wrote in Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “Europe’s response is madness. We must acknowledge that the European Union’s misguided immigration policy is responsible for this situation.

 

“Irresponsibility is the mark of every European politician who holds out the promise of a better life to immigrants and encourages them to leave everything behind and risk their lives in setting out for Europe. If Europe does not return to the path of common sense, it will find itself laid low in a battle for its fate.”

 

Germany, France, and Italy are demanding an overhaul of European asylum procedures as attempts to get to grips with the crisis leave Europe floundering in incoherence while the Schengen passport-free travel zone across 26 countries threatens to unravel.

Orbán said the razor-wire fence erected on Hungary’s southern border with Serbia was essential to defending the Schengen zone’s external borders. He denied that the emergency was a refugee crisis, but one of mass migration.

 

“Those arriving have been raised in another religion, and represent a radically different culture. Most of them are not Christians, but Muslims,” he said. “This is an important question, because Europe and European identity is rooted in Christianity. Is it not worrying in itself that European Christianity is now barely able to keep Europe Christian? There is no alternative, and we have no option but to defend our borders.”

 

EU foreign ministers are to meet in Luxembourg on Friday, divided over their responses and seeking what Tusk called “a common and ambitious denominator”.

 

The German, French, and Italian foreign ministers wrote to the chair of the meeting, Federica Mogherini of Italy, the EU’s foreign policy coordinator, demanding more concerted EU policies.

 

“The current refugee crisis is putting the European Union and all of its member states to a historic test,” they wrote, urging a more equitable distribution of bona fide refugees across the union as well as swifter deportations of those whose asylum claims are rejected.

 

 

In more uplifting news...hopefully:

 

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/09/people-power-guatemalan-spring-150903075327898.html

People-power and the 'Guatemalan Spring'

 

An extraordinary groundswell of people-power driving historic political and social changes in Guatemala is making the "Guatemalan Spring" look increasingly irresistible.

 

The audacious theft of millions of dollars of public money by politicians and businessmen while poor patients died in public hospitals has triggered an unprecedented collective political awakening among Guatemala's historically divided society.

 

Communities have united for the first time in the country's 194-year modern history to demand sweeping reforms amid a wave of jaw-dropping corruption scandals implicating the country's political elites.

 

In a few short months, President Otto Perez Molina resigned after being stripped of his immunity and an arrest warrant issued. The vice president is among dozens jailed, and the widespread infiltration of organised crime in party politics and election campaigns has been exposed.

 

The once impossible has become possible, and people want more. The decades of rampant impunity and political status quo appear to be over.

 

Gabriel Wer, 33, is one of five young men with no experience in activism, who inadvertently initiated this heady new popular movement, which has seen record numbers of Guatemalans partake in peaceful protests since the corruption scandal first broke on April 16.

Edited September 3, 2015 by visionary

[visionary]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/03/cameron-bows-to-pressure-to-allow-more-syrian-refugees-into-britain?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Cameron bows to pressure to allow more Syrian refugees into Britain

 

David Cameron has bowed to growing international and domestic demands that Britain take in more refugees fleeing the Syrian civil war by indicating that the UK would accept thousands more refugees.

 

Final details of the numbers, funding and planned location of the refugees, were being urgently sorted out in Whitehall, with local councils insisting the programme had to be fully funded by central government.

 

People selected to come to the UK are likely to be drawn from the UNHCR camps on the border of Syria and not from Calais or other locations near the country. But the final number of refugees allowed in to the UK will amount to fewer than tens of thousands, well short of the numbers likely to be taken by Germany.

Downing Street officials acknowledged that Cameron had been moved to act by the scale of the gathering crisis as well as the change in the public mood brought to a head by the publication of heartbreaking pictures showing a Syrian boy drowned and washed up on a beach in Turkey.

 

Ministers insist the levels of British financial aid to fund the UNHCR-run camps has been as generous as any other country. But with a steady build-up of politicians, church leaders, council leaders and community groups urging the government to show greater humanity, Cameron signalled a change of tone on Thursday, saying: “Britain is a moral nation and we will fulfil our moral responsibilities.”

 

Before details of the refugee plan emerged, Cameron, speaking at a Hitachi train plant in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, said: “Anyone who saw those pictures overnight could not help but be moved and, as a father, I felt deeply moved by the sight of that young boy on a beach in Turkey.”

 

Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, branded the refugee emergency a “wicked crisis” and said his heart was “broken” by the harrowing images of men, women and children fleeing persecution. He added: “We cannot turn our backs on this crisis. We must respond with compassion, but we must also not be naive in claiming to have the answers to end it.

 

Cameron faced pressure from some of his own backbenchers, including many Christians, to offer to do more. The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, also called for him to change tack. “We should take people fleeing persecution and those plainly in fear for their lives. London will, of course, face up to its moral responsibilities,” he said.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/04/world/europe/hungarian-leader-rebuked-for-saying-muslim-migrants-must-be-blocked-to-keep-europe-christian.html?_r=0

Hungarian Leader Rebuked for Saying Muslim Migrants Must Be Blocked ‘to Keep Europe Christian’

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34132308

Migrant crisis: Why Syrians do not flee to Gulf states

 

As the crisis brews over Syrian refugees trying to enter European countries, questions have been raised over why they are not heading to wealthy Gulf states closer to home.

Although those fleeing the Syrian crisis have for several years been crossing into Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey in huge numbers, entering other Arab states - especially in the Gulf - is far less straightforward.

 

Officially, Syrians can apply for a tourist visa or work permit in order to enter a Gulf state.

But the process is costly, and there is a widespread perception that many Gulf states have unwritten restrictions in place that make it hard for Syrians to be granted a visa in practice.

 

Most successful cases are Syrians already in Gulf states extending their stays, or those entering because they have family there.
For those with limited means, there is the added matter of the sheer physical distance between Syria and the Gulf.

 

This comes as part of wider obstacles facing Syrians, who are required to obtain rarely granted visas to enter almost all Arab countries.
Without a visa, Syrians are not currently allowed to enter Arab countries except for Algeria, Mauritania, Sudan and Yemen.

Edited September 3, 2015 by visionary

[visionary]

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/9/12/egypts-government-resigns-amid-corruption-probe.html?utm_content=nobylines&utm_campaign=ajam&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=SocialFlow

Egypt's government resigns amid corruption probe

 

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has asked oil minister Sherif Ismail to form a new cabinet within one week, a statement from the presidency said. The move comes after the country's Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb and his cabinet resigned on Saturday amid a corruption investigation that led to the arrest of the agriculture minister last week.

 

Sisi's office said that the president had accepted the resignation, but that the ministers would continue to serve until a new body is appointed.

 

Prior to handing in his resignation, Mehleb gave a report detailing the performance of the government, which two officials from the president's office said Sisi found "unsatisfying."

 

Ismail — an engineer who held senior posts at several state-run energy firms — will likely be appointed the new prime minister. As oil minister, Ismail oversaw politically sensitive reforms, slashing energy subsidies, and also paid back some arrears to foreign energy companies to improve Egypt's image among investors.

 

The developments come after agriculture minister Salah el-Din Helal was detained Monday after tendering his resignation amid an investigation into allegations that he and others received over $1 million in bribes.

 

http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/141312.aspx

Meet Egypt's new Prime Minister Sherif Ismail

 

As President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi instructs Sherif Ismail, minister of petroleum in the outgoing cabinet of Ibrahim Mahlab, to form a new cabinet as prime minister within a week, questions arise over the background and the identity of Egypt's third premier after the removal of the Muslim Brotherhood’s President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.

 

Looking at the 60-year-old's resume, one might get the sense that he is a technocrat and pragmatic, with zero political activity in terms of joining any political party, or high profile or controversial comments or statements, unlike some other minsters in Mahlab’s outgoing cabinet.

 

Ismail is a mechanical engineer by trade, who was born in July 1955, is married, and has two children.

 

Ismail graduated from the faculty of engineering at Ain Shams University in 1978, and started his career at the multinational oil company Mobil.

 

In 1979 he moved to the Egyptian company engineering for the Petroleum and Process Industries (Enppi), before joining its board of directors till he became the deputy minister of petroleum in charge of oil and gas operations from 2000 to 2005.

 

In 2005 he became the chairman of the Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS) till year 2007 in which he was appointed as the chairman of the Ganoub El-Wadi Petroleum Holding Company (GANOPE).

 

Ismail had served as petroleum minister since July 2013, first under Prime Minister Hazem El-Beblawi, and then under Ibrahim Mahlab, who was appointed prime minister in February 2014.

Edited September 12, 2015 by visionary

[visionary]

http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/141421.aspx

Egypt's 2014 constitution was written with good intentions but is not enough: Sisi

 

Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi said on Sunday that the 2014 constitution gave the parliament wider powers than the president out of "good will" but that this is not good enough to govern a state.

 

Experts have suggested that the 2014 constitution gave wider powers to the parliament comparable to that of the president as the two will share the duty of naming the prime minster and assigning top state officials.

 

According to Article 146 of the 2014 constitution, while the president has the right to appoint a prime minister, parliament must approve any new cabinet through a vote of confidence on its proposed programme.

 

The article stipulates that "if the president's government does not win the confidence of the majority of the members of the House of Representatives within thirty days at most, the president shall appoint a prime minister who is nominated by the party or the coalition that holds the majority or the highest number of seats in the House of Representatives."

Edited September 13, 2015 by visionary

[visionary]

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/09/libya-rival-governments-reach-consensus-150913125124101.html

Libya rival governments reach "consensus"

 

Libya's rival governments have reached a "consensus" on the main elements of a political agreement, a UN special envoy has told reporters.

 

Bernardino Leon said in Skhirat, Morocco, on Sunday that the two sides were able to "overcome their differences" on major outstanding issues, increasing the likelihood of signing a long-awaited agreement to form a unity government this month.

 

Leon said it was the first time "that we have the possibility to make it and to have this agreement with all the parties, all the key parties in Libya onboard," adding that both sides have made compromises.

 

"We know that it is going to require a lot of work, but we believe that it will be possible to reach this deadline of the 20th of September with an agreement that will be signed," said Leon.

 

The most recent text of the draft agreement was not immediately available but outstanding issues had related to military and state appointments during an interim period and how to appoint members of the High Council of State.

Leon has been trying to get the parties to present candidates for prime minister and two deputies to lead a national unity government to bring the war-torn country out of its crisis.

 

He said the Tripoli government has been given 48 hours to submit names for leadership positions in a unity government, adding that the Tobruk-based government has already provided names.

Edited September 13, 2015 by visionary

[visionary]

https://twitter.com/AFP

BREAKING Egyptian forces chasing jihadists kill Mexican tourists in error: interior ministry
8:10 PM

 

https://twitter.com/BreakingNews

Egyptian security forces accidentally shot at Mexican tourist convoy, killing 12 people and injuring 10, statement says - @Reuters
8:12 PM

[visionary]

http://www.aljazeera.com/blogs/middleeast/2015/09/horror-fear-gaza-egypt-floods-tunnels-150919231056825.html

Horror and fear in Gaza after Egypt floods tunnels

 

Seventy-three year old Mansura Abu Sha’ar was more than happy to talk to strangers. People rarely came this far, she told us… and it seemed to her that very few of those that did, cared enough to ask how they were doing.

 

“Not well at all,” she said needing little prodding. “Not well at all."

 

Mansura was clearly exhausted from having stayed up the night before. Fearful for her family, she sat outside her make-shift house just a few hundred metres from the border between Gaza and Egypt, on guard until dawn.

 

“We’re used to the guns and the rockets and the explosions,” she said. "But now – water ?”

Her voice trembled, and tears began to pool in her eyes.

 

“This is our life,” she said hopelessly. "We are so, so tired.”

 

Mansura lives in Rafah, the town divided between Gaza and Egypt by international political agreements in the 1980s. With Israel the only other way in or out, Gazans saw the border with fellow-Arab Egypt as the “friendly” alternative.

“These tunnels were harmful for both us and the Egyptians,” Subhi Radwan, Rafah’s mayor, said. “We wanted the relationship between us to be …normal… above-ground exchanges…”

 

Now, the mayor says, they just feel “betrayed by brothers”. The Egyptians say they’re building fish farms along the border and sea water is flooding the tunnels.

 

“This will damage the aquifer,” Mayor Radwan explained. “Rafah’s underground water. Which means no potable water. It will also deprive the farmers from using the water for irrigation and growing their plants. It will cause landslides, and could lead to the collapse of houses along the borders. Foundations here are already weak from all the shelling…”

 

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/egypts-president-swears-government-33876547

Egypt's President Swears in New Government

 

President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has sworn in a new government, Egypt's state news agency reported Saturday, one week after the previous Cabinet resigned amid a corruption probe.

 

The new government, headed by former Petroleum Minister Sherif Ismail, came after state-friendly media slammed the performance of his predecessor Ibrahim Mehleb and prosecutors began investigating several officials for allegedly receiving over $1 million in bribes.

 

Local media accused Mehleb and his ministers of incompetence and being out of touch with the public.

 

The accusations stood in contrast to coverage of El-Sissi, the former general and defense minister who led the overthrow of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in 2013. He has cultivated an image as a leader who is above the political fray and is routinely praised by Egyptian media.

 

Egypt, whose governments have long been plagued by corruption allegations, has been in turmoil since the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

 

Following the ceremony, el-Sissi told the new government to "double the pace of work and finish national projects on time." El-Sissi is overseeing a series of ambitious projects to revive Egypt's battered economy, including developing roads, building a million housing units and the recent expansion of the Suez Canal.

El-Sissi also restructured the Cabinet, merging several ministries and forming a new body responsible for immigration, according to the Middle East News Agency.

 

Prime Minister Ismail was among the most celebrated ministers in the former Cabinet, especially after Italy's Eni SpA revealed late last month their discovery of the "largest-ever" oil field in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Egypt.

 

The new 33-member Cabinet contains three women and 16 new members. Two of the newcomers, Education Minister Zaki Badr and Tourism Minister Hisham Zaazou, served in similar posts under Mubarak. The country's interior, justice, defense, finance and investment ministers, however, kept their posts.

 

Bound by the constitution, Egypt's new government must submit its resignation once the new parliament convenes in December, following upcoming parliamentary elections. According to local media reports, the inherently short-term nature of the current Cabinet prompted some ministerial candidates to decline offers to join.

Edited September 20, 2015 by visionary

[visionary]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/20/us-libya-security-idUSKCN0RK0TA20150920

Fighting in Libya's Benghazi raises U.N. talks tensions

 

Heavy fighting erupted over the weekend between forces from Libya's recognized government and Islamist militants in Benghazi, killing at least six and heightening tensions in U.N. peace negotiations.

 

Benghazi is just one front in a wider conflict in Libya, where a battle between two rival governments and their armed allies is pushing the North African state to economic collapse four years after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi.

 

At least six people were killed and ten wounded when fighting broke out on Saturday west of Benghazi between General Khalifa Haftar's Libyan National Army forces and fighters allied to Islamic State, a medical source and local residents said.

 

The fighting involved artillery shelling and air strikes, they said.

 

Mohamed Hejazi, spokesman for Haftar's forces, said they had launched a campaign against positions in Benghazi, which has been caught up in fighting for more than year.

 

Western governments see the best solution in a United Nations-backed peace deal to bring the two sides together in a united power-sharing agreement. But fighting and pressure from hardliners on both sides have complicated negotiations.

 

The United Nations and U.S and European envoys criticized the increase in hostilities just before the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, and urged the two factions to finish the U.N.-backed deal. U.N. envoy Bernardino Leon had set Sunday as a deadline for negotiations to conclude.

 

"This escalation of violence underscores the urgent need to complete the political dialogue process as soon as possible," a U.S.-EU joint statement said.

[visionary]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/23/us-egypt-pardon-idUSKCN0RN1AH20150923?utm_source=twitter

Egypt's Sisi pardons 100 prisoners, including Jazeera journalists

 

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi pardoned 100 prisoners including three Al Jazeera television journalists, on Wednesday, a day before he plans to head to the annual United Nations summit of world leaders.

 

The Al Jazeera journalists, Canadian Mohamed Fahmy, Egyptian Baher Mohamed and Australian Peter Greste, were sentenced to three years in prison in a retrial last month for operating without a press license and broadcasting material harmful to Egypt. Greste had already been deported in February.

 

A spokesperson for the Canadian government said that Canada was pleased with the pardon and it would help arrange Fahmy's departure from Egypt.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/23/europe/france-egypt-warship-sale/index.html

France to sell Egypt two warships previously contracted to Russia

 

The previous $1.3 billion contract with Moscow was signed in 2011 by the French government under Nicolas Sarkozy's presidency, but was suspended last year in the midst of violent unrest in eastern Ukraine.

 

The warships are powerful amphibious assault vessels equipped with six helicopter landing zones. Each of them can carry up to 16 heavy helicopters, along with tanks and about 500 troops.

 

A source close to French Minister of Defense Jean-Yves Le Drian said that the two warships were to be sold to Egypt for 950 million euros ($1.06 billion) and delivered around March 2016.

Edited September 23, 2015 by visionary

[visionary]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/28/taliban-attempt-to-invade-key-afghan-city-kunduz?CMP=share_btn_tw

Taliban capture key Afghan provincial capital Kunduz

 

After months of besieging the northern Afghan provincial capital of Kunduz, Taliban fighters took over the city on Monday just hours after advancing, officials said, as government security forces fully retreated to the city’s outlying airport.

 

The Taliban victory, coming suddenly after what had appeared to be a stalemate through the summer, gave the insurgents a military and political prize — the capture of a major Afghan city — that has eluded them since 2001. And it presented the government of President Ashraf Ghani, which has been alarmed about insurgent advances in the surrounding province for a year, with a demoralizing setback less than a year after the formal end of the NATO combat mission in Afghanistan.

 

Afghan officials vowed that a counterattack was coming, as commando forces were said to be flowing north to Kunduz. But by Monday night, only dozens of fighters were reported to have linked up with security forces who had gathered at the airport.

 

The white Taliban flag was flying over several public areas of the city, residents said, and by nightfall the insurgents had set fire to police facilities and were looting jewelry shops.

 

The city’s loss represented not so much an overwhelming offensive by the Taliban as a gradual collapse under pressure by the country’s besieged security forces. For a year, local officials had been sounding the alarm about the insurgents’ advance toward the capital, even as some Afghan and Western officials had sought to describe the Taliban’s gains in Afghanistan as marginal and largely confined to rural areas, far from population centers.

 

Now, the fall of Kunduz has posed a dire challenge to the assertion that the Afghan security forces can hold the country’s most vital cities. Kunduz is an important northern hub of just over 300,000 residents, according to one Afghan government population estimate from 2013, although there has been a large outflow of refugees this past year and the population is most likely lower now.

 

Despite the city’s encirclement over the past few months, there appears to have been little effort by the NATO-trained Afghan security forces to dislodge insurgents from the city’s outskirts over the past six months.

 

Mohammad Yousuf Ayoubi, the head of the Kunduz provincial council, said that no major government offensive or reinforcement of the city had been taken up recently, even though it was clear the Taliban had been amassing at the city’s gates for months. He said 70 percent of the province outside of the city also remained under Taliban control.

Edited September 28, 2015 by visionary

[PeterMP]

Realistically, I'm not sure the central government in Afghanistan should be fight the Taliban in population centers if they also can't control much of the surrounding country side.

 

It might hard to do politically, but if I was running the country, I'd essentially cede some areas to the Taliban if I couldn't get robust support in the area to resist them.

 

You do a good job of staying on top of this visionary, and I ask this of you periodically, where would you consider the out come of the Arab Spring going best from our perspective?