Poland and Czech Republic send troops to Hungary to help protect its border
Poland has sent a helicopter and crew to Hungary to help patrol the border with Croatia. The mission is part of effort by Frontex, the EU's border agency, to beef up borders in face of the pressure from immigrants.
Joanna Rokicka, spokeswoman for Poland's Border Guards, said Monday that a Border Guard chopper with eight crew members and one liaison officer was sent to Hungary on Sunday. The mission continues through Friday.
Separate talks on more aid to help protect Hungarian border are being held ahead of Oct. 8 meeting of interior ministers from the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland.
The Czech Republic is sending a unit of 25 soldiers to Hungary to help protect the external border of Europe's passport-free Schengen zone.
Defense Minister Martin Stropnicky says the unit will be deployed for two months starting October 15. Stropnicky said Monday he was going to consult his Hungarian counterpart in Brussels on Thursday about further possible support for Hungary.
Interior ministers of the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland will discuss further possible ways of helping Hungary, where about 300,000 migrants have arrived this year.
301 African Muslim migrants lend in Spain over the past 3 days
Spanish rescue services say they have intercepted 301 migrants trying to reach Spain from Morocco in 12 boats over the past three days.
The service said 84 migrants were brought ashore Monday from three boats spotted off southwestern Spain.
The rest were intercepted Saturday and Sunday at points further east along the southern coast.
The service said that between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31 it helped rescue some 4,188 migrants, 2,307 of whom were taken to Morocco by marine services from that country.
African migrants seeking a better life in Europe often try to reach Spain by crossing the Mediterranean Sea from Morocco.
Tens of thousands of migrants also try to make it to Italy and Greece from north Africa and the Middle East each year.
Germany needs to limit refugee influx, close borders - Merkel allies
Germany needs to limit the number of refugees it takes in or even close its borders, conservative allies of German Chancellor Angela Merkel said at the weekend, as the country deals with record inflows of people fleeing from war and poverty.
Around 800,000 migrants are expected to arrive in Germany, Europe's largest and richest economy, this year and complaints from politicians, the federal states and the municipalities that they cannot cope are growing.
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Europe needed to restrict the refugee intake, and members of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the sister party to Merkel's conservatives in Bavaria, said Germany should shut its borders. Bavaria shares a border with Austria and has borne the brunt of the influx.
"If as many asylum seekers continue to come to Germany as in recent weeks, we won't have any choice but to temporarily stop taking people in and to close the borders to them," CSU politician Stephan Mayer told newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (FAS).
Thousands of people are streaming into Germany every day, attracted by relatively liberal asylum laws and generous benefits. Some 6,750 people arrived in Bavaria alone on Friday and another 6,000 piled in on Saturday, a police spokesman said.
Fighting for bananas
When volunteers hand out apples and bananas, scuffles break out.
"I wish I'd stayed in Syria and not come here," Hesham said through an interpreter. "I dreamed Germany would be better but it's so bad. We've been sleeping in the cold. Now my baby is sick."
Vice President of the Bundestag warns of popular uprising (German)
Police Chief: Delinquent Muslim Migrants Don’t Integrate, Disrespect Western Cultures http://t.co/YObINwDr29 pic.twitter.com/s1UruTCSfB
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) October 5, 2015
A German police commissioner has told an audience of how “delinquent”, mainly Muslim migrants refuse to accommodate to their host nations, adding: “We have an increasing number of migrants in Germany, and many have not learned to have respect for women and the state. They live in parallel societies, where different rules apply.”
Tania Kambouri, who has written of her experiences in her role as a police chief in a new book, said that there is a “taboo” around multiculturalism and those coming from Islamic countries, though she was keen to stress that her comments were not racially motivated, according to Die Welt.
She writes in her book: “It’s not a blanket condemnation, and certainly not racially prejudiced, on grounds of origin or of faith, but it is simply a fact that some populations are over-represented in certain behavioural characteristics and crimes” and says there is a “general disrespect” and “disrespect of fundamental law and human rights” as well as “autonomous parallel structures”. Her comments have been confirmed by other officers.
And Kambouri criticised the lenient justice system and cultural Marxism, though she didn’t refer to the latter in as many words.
“It hasn’t changed”, she writes, accusing those responsible of being “romantic followers, uncritical of multiculturalism” whose primary concerns are “Islamophobia and xenophobia”.
“Multiculturalism harbours too many risks,” she writes: “Cultural influences, religious beliefs, inherited traditions are sometimes simply incompatible. This is not a right-wing populism, but common sense”.
She singled out young, Muslim men, which make up the majority of those migrating from the Middle East and North Africa into Europe.
“People from this culture, whether they are Turks, Kurds, Lebanese, Tunisians and other nationalities, [find it] remarkably difficult to integrate into Germany.”
Asylum applications up across the Nordics
Immigration officials in Sweden say that the number of migrants who arrived last month more than doubled over the previous month to 24,000, bringing this year's number at the end of September to more than 73,000.
In neighboring Finland, officials said some 11,000 asylum-seekers arrived last month, bringing this year's figure to more than 19,600 so far, up from a 2014 total of 3,650.
In Norway, the number of migrants grew fourfold last month to 4,900 compared with September 2014, with 13,250 so far this year — 4,500 more than at the same time last year.
The Norwegian Directorate of Immigration says the 2015 total could reach 25,000
Romania say it's open to receive migrants. Be careful what you wish for...
Romania's prime minister says his country has not been confronted by a large influx of asylum-seekers and should be open to receiving more.
Victor Ponta said Monday Romania has received 944 asylum requests this year, of which 18 were in August. He called it "an insignificant" increase compared to the previous year.
Speaking to lawmakers in Parliament, Ponta said it was easier to support the efforts of countries who are willing to accept migrants "than to build walls, fences."
He said Romania should increase its allowance to refugees which is currently 3 lei (70 eurocents, 80 U.S. cents) a day and migrants and refugees should have access to health care, education and jobs.
Muslim extortion gangs prey on newly arrived migrants
Greek authorities say they have freed 34 men, women and children who allegedly had been locked up in a cramped central Athens flat by a mostly Afghan gang of extortionists that preyed on newly arrived immigrants.
Greece is the main arrival point for hundreds of thousands of refugees and economic migrants seeking a better life in wealthy European countries. Most pay smugglers to bring them in frail boats from Turkey to the Greek islands, and then converge on Athens before heading off overland through the Balkans.
Police say they arrested one suspect in the weekend operation, and are seeking five others, including an Egyptian man.
Police said Monday that the suspect offered Afghan migrants accommodation, bus tickets and forged documents. But once in the flat, migrants faced imprisonment and beatings unless they paid the gang.
Denmark tightens citizenship requirements
Copenhagen (AFP) - Denmark, which earlier this year slashed benefits for asylum seekers, said Monday it is making it more difficult to acquire citizenship in the Scandinavian country.
"Acquiring Danish citizenship is something very special, and therefore it also reasonable that we now raise the bar for when a person can call themselves a Danish citizen," Integration Minister Inger Stojberg said in a statement.
