Europe is being pulled towards some inevitable tragedy-but what? Like Yogi said "It's tough to make predictions-especially about the future"
— BigPictureGuy (@mjohnsonx15) November 4, 2015
Slovenia steps up army's role in managing the influx of Muslim migrants
Slovenian lawmakers have blocked a bid for a referendum on granting the army more powers in managing the influx of migrants coming into the country from Croatia.
Parliament voted 71-6 Wednesday to block the initiative by Radio Student which had started collecting the 40,000 signatures needed to call the popular vote.
Lawmakers have cited a constitutional provision which prohibits votes on any urgent measures for the country's defense and security.
Slovenia has stepped up the army's role saying its police have been overwhelmed by the tens of thousands of refugees streaming into the country on their way toward Western Europe.
Supporters of the referendum have said the move was unnecessary and has led to a militarization of society. More than 140,000 refugees so far have entered the country.
Sweden wants EU help to relocate unwanted Muslim migrants elsewhere
Sweden says it will request to transfer some migrants to other European countries under an EU relocation plan.
In a joint news conference Wednesday with EU president Donald Tusk, Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said the country's migration authorities are overstretched by the large influx.
With about 160,000 asylum-seekers expected this year, he noted that "Sweden has taken by far the highest number of asylum-seekers per capita" in the 28-member bloc.
"Sweden is not able to receive people in the way that we want to," he added. "That is why tomorrow (Thursday) my government will decide to request the relocation of migrants from Sweden to other EU member states."
Austria rethinks asylum rules as migrants to relocate from Greece
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| Austrian soldiers erect fences to improve the procedure for arriving refugees at the border between Slovenian and Austria in Spielfeld, Austria, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2015. Tens of thousands of people are trying to reach central and northern Europe via the Balkans but often have to wait for days in mud and rain at the Serbian, Croatian and Slovenian borders. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak) |
Vienna (AFP) - Austria sought to tighten asylum rules in the face of a record influx of migrants, hours before the first refugees are set to be relocated from Greece Wednesday under a faltering EU plan to ease the burden on southern countries.
Facing a record influx of migrants and a surge in support for the anti-immigration far-right, Austrian lawmakers have put forward a bill that would mean anyone granted asylum would be reassessed after three years and sent back if their country of origin is deemed safe.
Those under "subsidiary protection" -- a kind of asylum-lite status awarded in particular to Afghans -- will meanwhile only be allowed to be joined by family members after three years, one year more than currently.
Chancellor Werner Faymann said the controversial legislation, due to go before parliament in December, is a "signal that asylum is something which is temporary" and is aimed at deterring people from coming to Austria.
Greece/Luxembourg
The first group of refugees to be relocated from Greece has boarded a plane in Athens bound for Luxembourg.... and EU officials promote EU's borderless suicide
They include six families from Syria and Iraq. They form the start of a program to relocate refugees who have arrived in Greece from nearby Turkey to other European Union countries without them having to make the arduous and often dangerous journey across the Balkans on foot.
Luxembourg's Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn says the symbolic gesture of Wednesday's relocation of the first 30 refugees from Greece to his country is "only a start, but a very, very important start."
He and other EU officials say the practice of some EU countries to erect barbed wire fences at their borders in an effort to keep refugees out was not in line with European values.
Asselborn says "walls, fences and barbed wire cannot be part of the European Union."
He said that if Europe fails to change such images as well as bouts of xenophobia, "then the values of the European Union are destroyed in some way."
Germany, France, Cyprus crackdown on human traffickers
Germany's federal police are conducting raids against international human trafficking networks across Germany. More than 500 officers were conducting searches of 24 homes in the states of North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony and Baden-Wuerttemberg.
A federal police spokesman said Wednesday they were targeting "criminal, internationally operating trafficking groups." The spokesman, who did not give his name in line with department policy, said the raids were still ongoing.
Hundreds of thousands of migrants have flooded to Germany in recent months seeking to escape war and poverty and start a new life. Many of them pay smugglers to take them across the border into the country.
France says authorities have detained eight people accused of being involved in a smuggling ring that brings migrants to Britain by rubber boat from the northern French city of Dunkirk.
Thousands fleeing war and poverty have gathered around the French port cities of Calais, Dunkirk and others in hopes of sneaking across the English Channel in ferries or undersea trains to Britain. More than a dozen have died this year attempting the dangerous journey.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Wednesday that smugglers were charging up to 12,000 euros ($13,100) for the trip across the Channel.
Cazeneuve said French authorities have dismantled 200 smuggling networks and detained more than 3,000 people so far this year in investigating human trafficking networks.
He said French-British cooperation against illegal migration has been reinforced since he met Monday with British Home Secretary Theresa May.
Cyprus police say a court has ordered three men held for eight days on suspicion of people smuggling after crews rescued 26 people on a boat in trouble off the Mediterranean island's southeastern tip.
Police spokesman Andreas Angelides told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the men — aged 30, 48 and 35 — are being investigated on charges of helping migrants enter Cyprus illegally and of conspiracy to commit a crime.
Angelides said each of 26 people — including 13 children — had paid $1,000 to board the boat, which is believed to have left Friday from Tripoli, Lebanon.
Norway
Norwegian police say a record number of 196 asylum-seekers in one day have crossed into Norway from Russia at a remote Arctic border post.
Police said Wednesday the migrants arrived Tuesday, mostly by riding across on newly bought bicycles because pedestrian crossings are not allowed at the border in Storskog.
Norwegian NTB news agency said 174 refugees had arrived Monday from Russia and more than 3,000 people have used that route to enter northern Norway.
British army base on Cyprus
An official says calm has returned at a camp on a British army base in Cyprus where 114 migrants are currently housed following some "isolated incidents of disorder" that included the torching of a couple of tents.
Sean Tully, a spokesman for Britain's two military bases Cyprus told the AP that authorities "understand that the migrants are frustrated" after their two boats landed on the shores of RAF Akrotiri last month instead of reaching their intended destination Greece.
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Migrants rush to catch a dinghy travelling to the Greek …
Migrants rush to catch a dinghy travelling to the Greek island of Chios, background, from the Turkis …
Tully says that none of the 114 who hail from "several Middle Eastern nations" will be allowed to reach the U.K. He said Cyprus is now processing asylum applications from "a handful" of migrants.
Tully said those who don't claim asylum remain the responsibility of the bases and may be returned to their "point of origin."
