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Katrin Jakobsdottir, a popular and fervent feminist who has become a unifying force after years of political upheaval, on Sunday kicked off her second term as prime minister of Iceland.

The country’s three coalition parties agreed that the 45-year-old former journalist would remain premier, a post she has held since 2017, despite her Left-Green Movement’s weak showing in September’s legislative election.

That mere fact illustrates Jakobsdottir’s pivotal role in the unusually broad coalition, made up of her Left-Greens, the conservative Independence Party and the center-right Progressive Party.

The unlikely alliance has been hard for some in her party to accept.

“I know I’ve been criticized for it, but when I look back, I think this government has done a good job and I think it has really shown what is possible in politics,” she told AFP in a recent interview.

Jakobsdottir has won over Icelanders with her integrity, sincerity and consensual management style.

Almost 60% said they wanted her to stay on as prime minister, in a poll published in October, even though her party won only 12.6% of votes at the ballot box.

A former education minister, from 2009 to 2013, she has remained down-to-Earth and avoided scandal during her years in power, earning the people’s trust, according to analysts.

“Katrin Jakobsdottir is a very skilled politician (who) has more of a consensus style than confrontational style,” notes University of Iceland political science professor Olafur Hardarson.

This is only the second time since 2008 that a government made it to the end of its four-year mandate on the sprawling island of 370,000 people.

Deep public distrust of politicians amid repeated scandals sent Icelanders to the polls five times from 2007 to 2017.

However, holding onto power has come at a high price, with Jakobsdottir forced to make concessions on key issues like immigration and the environment during her first term.

She had to back down from a promise to create a national park in the center of the country, to protest a natural national treasure, after her two allies refused to support the legislation.

Born into a family of academics and lawmakers, Jakobsdottir is the second woman to head Iceland’s government.

Her concern for the environment was awakened in the 2000s by a controversial project to build a hydroelectric dam in eastern Iceland.

“I wouldn’t say I was the most radical activist in town, but, yes, I began my political participation through demonstrations,” she told U.S. magazine The Nation in 2018.

She joined the youth wing of the Left Green Movement in 2002, before becoming deputy leader a year later. She has been the head of the party since 2013.

The slender, athletic politician has been a member of parliament for 14 years.

A huge football fan, she has rooted for Liverpool FC since she was a child.

That makes for a sometimes-tense atmosphere in her Reykjavik apartment, where her husband and three sons are all Manchester United supporters.

“I clearly didn’t raise my children well enough,” she joked on a radio show earlier this year, blaming her husband who has spent more time with their children due to her hectic schedule.

In a country that champions gender equality, she has made women’s causes a priority. Among other things, she has extended parental leave.

Her friends are meanwhile quick to point out her funny side. 

“With her sense of humor and jokes she can put a room at ease,” says former party member Rosa Bjork Brynjolfsdottir, who studied with her at university.

With a degree in Icelandic and French studies and a Masters in Icelandic literature, Jakobsdottir is a fan of crime novels and fiction, finding time to read almost every day. 
…

Czech President Milos Zeman appointed the leader of a center-right alliance Petr Fiala as prime minister on Sunday in a ceremony he performed from a plexiglass cubicle after testing positive for COVID-19.

Fiala leads a bloc of five center and center-right opposition parties that won an election in October, ousting the incumbent premier Andrej Babis and his allies.

The new government will have to tackle a new wave of coronavirus infections that is threatening to overwhelm hospitals and an energy crisis, after the collapse of a large electricity provider. The coalition has also said it plans to rework the 2022 state budget to reduce a large deficit.

“The new government has a very complicated time ahead and many challenges… I want it to be a government of change for the future,” Fiala said at a news conference.

He expected his cabinet to be appointed in mid-December.

The new prime minister also called on people to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and praised medical staff as cases are on the rise.

Opponents of vaccination and government’s anti-coronavirus measures such as a ban on Christmas markets gathered in their thousands in Prague later on Sunday for a protest rally.

Only 58.5% of Czechs are vaccinated against the coronavirus. This compares to a European Union average of 65.8%, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

Zeman performed the inauguration ceremony from a plexiglass cubicle after testing positive for coronavirus. Zeman, who arrived in a wheelchair escorted by a medic in full protective gear, contracted the virus after a six-week stay in hospital for an unrelated illness.
…

Swiss voters on Sunday gave clear backing to legislation that introduced a system with special COVID-19 certificates under which only people who have been vaccinated, recovered or tested negative can attend public events and gatherings.

Final results showed 62% of voters supporting the legislation, which is already in force. The referendum offered a rare bellwether of public opinion on the issue of government policy to fight the spread of coronavirus in Europe, which is currently the global epicenter of the pandemic.

The vote on the country’s “COVID-19 law,” which also has unlocked billions of Swiss francs (dollars) in aid for workers and businesses hit by the pandemic, came as Switzerland — like many other nations in Europe — faces a steep rise in coronavirus cases.

The Swiss federal government, unlike others, hasn’t responded with new restrictions. Analysts said it didn’t want to stir up more opposition to its anti-COVID-19 policies before they faced Sunday’s test at the ballot box — but that if Swiss voters gave a thumbs-up, the government may well ratchet up its anti-COVID efforts.

Of the country’s 26 cantons (states), only two — Schwyz and Appenzell Innerrhoden, both conservative rural regions in eastern Switzerland — voted against the legislation.

Josef Ender, a spokesman for one of the groups that opposed it, told SRF public radio “it was important that the Swiss population could form an opinion on the tightening of the COVID law.” He maintained that “even if there is a ‘yes'” to the legislation, it violates parts of the country’s constitution.

Turnout on Sunday was 65.7%, an unusually high figure in a country that holds referendums several times a year.

On Tuesday, Swiss health authorities warned of a rising “fifth wave” on infections in the rich Alpine country, where vaccination rates are roughly in line with those in hard-hit neighbors Austria and Germany at about two-thirds of the population. Infection rates have soared in recent weeks.

The seven-day average case count in Switzerland shot up to more than 5,200 per day from mid-October to mid-November, a more than five-fold increase. Austria, meanwhile, has imposed a national lockdown to fight the rising infections.
…

France hosts a meeting of European ministers on Sunday to discuss ways to stop migrants crossing the Channel in dinghies, but without Britain, which has been excluded following a row last week.

Ministers responsible for immigration from France, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium will meet in the northern French port of Calais on Sunday afternoon to discuss how to tackle people-smuggling gangs that provide boats to migrants seeking to cross the narrow waterway.

The talks were called following the shocking deaths of 27 people last Wednesday as they attempted to cross from France to England in a dinghy that began losing air while at sea in cold winter temperatures.

The aim of the meeting is “improving operational cooperation in the fight against people-smuggling because these are international networks which operate in different European countries,” an aide to French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told AFP.

The main focus had been set to be talks between Darmanin and his British counterpart Priti Patel after both countries vowed in the immediate aftermath of the mass drownings to cooperate more.

But within 48 hours of the accident, French President Emmanuel Macron had accused British Prime Minister Boris Johnson of being “not serious” in unusually personal criticism that pushed relations to fresh lows.

France was irked by Johnson’s initial reaction, which was seen as deflecting blame onto France, and then by his decision to write a letter to Macron which he published in full on his Twitter account before the French leader had received it.

Patel’s invitation to Sunday’s talks was promptly withdrawn over the breach of diplomatic protocol, with an aide to Darmanin calling Johnson’s letter “unacceptable.”

Britain’s departure from the European Union has caused years of ill-will between Paris and London, with relations seen as at their lowest point in at least two decades.

Cross-border crime

Without the participation of Britain — the destination country for the thousands of migrants massed in northern France — there are limits to what can be achieved at the meeting.

The invitation to France’s other northern neighbors reflects concern about how people-smuggling gangs are able to use Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany as bases to organize their operations.

Representatives from the European Commission, as well as the EU’s border force Frontex and police agency Europol will also attend.

Many migrants are believed to travel to launch sites in northern France from Belgium, while inflatables and life jackets can be bought in other countries such as the Netherlands and Germany without raising suspicion.

One of the five men arrested in connection with the accident last Wednesday was driving a car with German registration, according to French officials.

Solutions?

While France and Britain agree on the need to tackle people-smugglers more effectively, they remain at odds over how to prevent people taking to the water.

In his public letter to Macron, Johnson again pressed for British police and border agents to patrol alongside their French counterparts along the coast — something rejected in the past as infringing on French sovereignty.

More controversially, he also proposed sending back all migrants who land in England, which he claimed would save “thousands of lives by fundamentally breaking the business model of the criminal gangs.”

“Those are exactly the kinds of things we need to do,” British Health Secretary Sajid Javid told Sky News on Sunday, while denying that Johnson had made a mistake by publishing his letter to Macron.

“Our policy is very clear: these boats must stop. We can’t just do it on our own. We do need the cooperation of the French,” he added.

The European Commission’s vice president on Saturday bluntly told Britain it needed to sort out its own problems after its decision to leave the EU following a 2016 referendum.

“I recall well the main slogan of the referendum campaign is ‘we take back control’,” Margaritis Schinas told reporters during a trip to Greece.

France, which received 80,000 asylum requests in 2020 compared with 27,000 in the UK, has suggested Britain should enable migrants to lodge their demands in northern France.

Activist groups have also called for safe routes for asylum seekers to arrive in Britain.

Investigations into last week’s accident continue, with French police giving no details officially about the circumstances or the identities of the victims.

A total of 17 men, seven women and three minors died, with migrants living along the coast telling AFP that the deceased were mostly Iraqis, Iranians and Afghans.
…

Portugal’s new law on working from home makes the European Union country sound like a workers’ paradise.

Companies can’t attempt to contact their staff outside working hours. They must help staff pay for their home gas, electric and internet bills. Bosses are forbidden from using digital software to track what their teleworkers are doing.

There’s just one problem: The law might not work. Critics say the new rules are half-baked, short on detail and unfeasible. And they may backfire by making companies reluctant to allow working from home at all.

In many places around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated a trend toward the digitalization of work and more flexible work arrangements. Amid such a sudden and massive shift in the employment landscape, governments are scrambling to accommodate working from home in their employment laws. Those efforts are largely still in their infancy.

Many Europeans stopped going into the office regularly in March 2020 to help curb the spread of COVID-19.

In Europe, unlike in the United States, worker protections are widely regarded as entitlements. Laying off a staff member, for instance, can entail substantial severance pay.

Without a promised European Commission directive on how to legally frame the shift to more extensive working from home, governments’ legislative responses have been patchy and piecemeal.

During the pandemic some countries have recommended teleworking. Others — like Portugal — have demanded it. Most EU countries have specific legislation on teleworking, though with different approaches, and others are considering it through amendments, extensions or conventions.

As home working grew in recent years, workers’ right to disconnect — allowing staff to ignore work matters outside formal working hours — was adopted before the pandemic in countries such as Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Belgium. It is now becoming the standard.

But Portugal is putting the onus on companies.

“The employer has a duty to refrain from contacting the employee outside working hours, except in situations of force majeure,” meaning an unanticipated or uncontrollable event, the new law says.

Also, parents or caregivers with children up to 8 years old have the right to work from home if they choose, as long as the type of work they do is compatible with teleworking.

Fines for companies breaking the law go up to almost 10,000 euros ($11,200) for each infringement.

The Portuguese rules are meant to address the downside of what has become known as WFH.

The technology that enables working from home has also opened the door to abuses, such as drawn-out workdays as staff remain reachable outside their normal eight-hour shift. The consequences may include attrition between work and private life and a sense of isolation.

 

But the new law has met with skepticism from those it is intended to protect.

Andreia Sampaio, 37, works in communications in Lisbon, the Portuguese capital. She agrees with the law’s purpose but thinks it is too general and will be very hard to enforce.

“We have to have common sense,” she said, adding that she doesn’t mind being contacted out of hours if it’s an urgent matter. “We have to judge each case by its merits.”

Prompted by the pandemic but designed to apply in the post-pandemic future, the law could come into force as soon as Dec. 1.

It is largely the brainchild of the center-left Socialist Party, which has governed Portugal since 2015. Ahead of an election for a new government on Jan. 30, it is keen to burnish its progressive credentials and hoist a banner about workers’ rights.

Nevertheless, practical questions abound: Must staff be taken off company email lists when their shift finishes and then put back on when they start work again? What about Europeans who work in financial markets and need to know what’s going on in, say, Hong Kong, and have colleagues working in different time zones?

What if an industrial machine that can’t be stopped requires the attention of an engineer who’s off? Who is it that can’t contact the employee — the department supervisor? The company CEO? What constitutes contact — a phone call, a text message, an email?

“The devil is always in the details … but also in the implementation,” said Jon Messenger, a specialist on working conditions at the International Labor Organization, a United Nations agency based in Geneva.

The Portuguese Business Confederation, the country’s largest grouping of companies, wasn’t involved in drawing up the new law and thinks it is full of holes.

Teleworking rules need to be flexible, tailored to each sector and negotiated between employers and staff, says Luís Henrique of the confederation’s legal department.

“We’re treating situations that are completely different as if they were all the same. That’s not realistic,” Henrique said. “(The law) can’t be one-size-fits-all.”

Policing and enforcing the new rules may also be challenging in what is one of the EU’s economically poorest countries. In Portugal, which is notorious for red tape and slow justice and poorly resourced public services, how long will it take to resolve a complaint?

Across Europe over the past decade the number of labor inspections has collapsed, according to data analyzed by the Brussels-based European Trade Union Confederation, which represents 45 million members in 39 European countries. 

The country with the biggest drop in the number of inspections since 2010? Portugal, with 55% fewer checks up to 2018. 

“Ambitious, progressive laws … run up against the reality that ways of policing them aren’t in place yet,” said Henrique of Portugal’s business confederation. 
…

The price to cross the English Channel varies according to the network of smugglers, between 3,000 and 7,000 euros ($3,380 and $8,000) though there are rumors of discounts. 

Often, the fee also includes a very short-term tent rental in the windy dunes of northern France and food cooked over fires that sputter in the rain that falls for more than half the month of November in the Calais region. Sometimes, but not always, it includes a life vest and fuel for the outboard motor. 

And the people who collect the money — up to 300,000 euros ($432,000) per boat that makes it across the narrows of the channel — are not the ones arrested in the periodic raids along the coastline. They are just what French police call “the little hands.” 

Now, French authorities are hoping to move up the chain of command. The French judicial investigation into Wednesday’s sinking that killed 27 people has been turned over to Paris-based prosecutors who specialize in organized crime. 

To cross the 33-kilometer (20-mile) Dover Strait, the narrowest point of the channel, the rubber dinghies must navigate frigid waters and passing cargo ships. As of November 17, 23,000 people crossed successfully, according to Britain’s Home Office. France intercepted about 19,000 people.

At a minimum, smuggling organizations this year have netted 69 million euros ($77.7 million) for the crossing, or 2 million euros per kilometer. 

“This has become so profitable for criminals that it’s going to take a phenomenal amount of effort to shift it,” the U.K. Home Office’s Dan O’Mahoney told Parliament on November 17.

Golden age for smugglers 

Between coronavirus and Brexit, “this is a golden age for the smugglers and organized crime because the countries are in disarray,” said Mimi Vu, an expert on Vietnamese migration who regularly spends time in the camps of northern France.

“Think of it like a shipping and logistics company,” Vu said.

The leg through central Europe can cost around 4,000 euros ($4,500), according to Austrian authorities who on Saturday announced the arrest of 15 people suspected of smuggling Syrian, Lebanese and Egyptian migrants into the country in vanloads of 12 to 15 people. The suspects transported more than 700 people at a total cost of more than 2.5 million euros ($2.8 million), police said. In this network, the migrants were bound for Germany. 

The alleged smugglers — from Moldova, Ukraine and Uzbekistan — were recruited in their home countries via ads on social media offering work as drivers for 2,000-3,000 euros ($2,250-3,380) a month. 

The men handling the last leg are essentially just making the final delivery. If arrested, they are replaceable, Vu said.

Frontex, the European border agency, echoed that in a 2021 risk report that describes the operational leaders as managers who “are able to orchestrate the criminal business from a distance, while mostly exposing low-level criminals involved in transport and logistics to law enforcement detection.”

The chain starts in the home country, usually with an agreed-upon price, arranged over social media. That fee tends to shift over the journey, but most willingly pay extra as their destination grows closer, she said. That’s precisely when the logistics grow more complicated. 

More channel crossings 

Channel crossings by sea were relatively rare until a few years ago, when French and British authorities locked down the area around the Eurotunnel entrance. The deaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants in the back of a container truck may also have contributed to a new reluctance to use that route.

But the first attempts were disorganized, using small inflatables and even kayaks bought at the local Decathlon sports store. 

“At the beginning, it’s always the pioneers,” said Nando Sigona, professor of international migration and forced displacement at the University of Birmingham. “But once it started to seem that it was working for a number of people, you could see the bigger players came to be involved.” 

One migrant from Sudan, who would only give his name as Yasir, had been trying for three years to get to the U.K. 

While shaking his head about the tragedy, he pointed out that other methods of smuggling, such as hiding on a truck, were also dangerous.

“You could break a leg,” he said. “You can die.” 

And as dangerous as the sea voyage might prove, it seemed to many migrants to be safer than other options. The only thing preventing it is the cost, which he had heard was 1,200 euros ($1,350).

“We don’t have any money,” Yasir said. “If I had money, I’d go to the boat.” 

Police cracked down on local boat purchases, and the larger inflatables started to show up, hauled by the dozens inside cars and vans with German and Belgian license plates, police said. France’s interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, said a car with German license plates was seized in connection with the investigation. 

Police raids on the camps to pull down tents and disrupt operations have given smugglers yet another chance to make money, said Nikolai Posner, of the aid group Utopia 56. Now, the fee includes a short-term tent rental and access to basic food, usually cooked over an open fire. 

“There is one solution to stop all this, the deaths, the smugglers, the camps. Make a humanitarian corridor,” said Posner. He said asylum requests should be easier on both sides of the channel. 

Work in Britain 

In part because of Brexit and coronavirus, expulsions from the U.K. this year dropped to just five people, according to the Home Office. Vu said people who are intercepted at sea or land by British border forces end up in migrant centers, but usually get back in touch with the smuggling networks and end up working black market jobs.

That’s the complaint in France, where the interior minister said British employers appear more than happy to hire under the table, providing yet another financial incentive.

“If they’re in Calais, it’s to get to Britain, and the only people who can guarantee them passage are these networks of smugglers,” said Ludovic Hochart, a Calais-based police officer with the Alliance union. “The motivation to get to England is stronger than the dangers that await.” 

On Sunday ministers from France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and EU officials will meet to search for solutions. But, with France and Britain at sharp odds over migration, fishing and how to rebuild a working relationship after Brexit, there is one notable absence: a British delegation. 

For Vu, that’s a missed opportunity: “This is transnational crime. It spans many borders and it’s not up to only one country to solve it.”
…

Skirmishes on Saturday erupted in Serbia between police and anti-government demonstrators who blocked roads and bridges in the Balkan country in protest over new laws they say favor interests of foreign investors devastating the environment. 

Hundreds of people on Saturday appeared simultaneously in the capital Belgrade, the northern city of Novi Sad and other locations to block main bridges and roads for one hour in what organizers described as a warning blockade. They pledged further protests if the laws on property expropriation and referendum weren’t withdrawn. 

Police officers blocked the demonstrators from reaching the bridges, which led to skirmishes as police helicopters flew overhead. The protesters then marched around while managing to stop traffic at a key bridge in Belgrade and in various central streets. 

Organizers said a number of people have been detained. Police earlier have warned that any blockade of bridges is illegal.

Environmental concerns

A number of environmental groups and civil society organizations are angry that the authorities have lowered the referendum threshold and allowed for swift expropriation of private property if deemed to be in the public interest. Activists argue this will pave the way for foreign companies to circumvent popular discontent over projects such as the bid by the Rio Tinto company to launch a lithium mine in western Serbia.

Serbia’s authorities have rejected the accusations, saying the new laws are needed because of infrastructure projects. The country’s autocratic president, Aleksandar Vucic, said a referendum will be organized on the Rio Tinto mine. 

Environmental issues recently have drawn public attention as local activists accuse the populist government of allowing for the devastation of nature for profit. Experts have warned that the planned lithium mine in western Serbia would destroy farmland and pollute the waters.

Following decades of neglect, Serbia has faced major environmental problems such as air and water pollution, poor waste management and other issues. Serbia is a candidate nation for European Union entry, but little so far has been achieved with regards to improving the country’s environmental situation.

Show of support

Protesters on Saturday blew whistles during the blockade and chanted “We won’t give up Serbia.” Huge columns of cars and other vehicles formed at several locations as the demonstrators allowed only the emergency services to pass. 

The protest coincided with a convention of Vucic’s populist Serbian Progressive Party as thousands of his supporters were bused into the capital for the gathering that was designed as a show of support for his policies. 

Although formally seeking EU membership, Vucic has refused to align the country’s foreign policies with the 27-nation bloc and has instead strengthened the Balkan country’s alliance with Russia and China. 
…

Ukraine’s military is ready and able to repel any attack, says Ukrainian soldier Oleksander, standing in a trench just a few hundred meters from pro-Russian separatists.

Ukraine’s military intelligence said last week that Russia had more than 92,000 troops massed around Ukraine’s borders and was preparing for an attack by the end of January or beginning of February.

Russia’s foreign intelligence chief said Saturday that such suggestions were “malicious U.S. propaganda.” But Ukrainian forces who control the borders are prepared for any escalation between the two sides.

“If there is an attack, we have means for defense. We are well-prepared. We’re getting ready, better day by day, considering different options. We can repel an attack without big problems and we’re not afraid of it,” said Oleksander.

Ukraine, which wants to join the NATO military alliance, has blamed Moscow for supporting separatists in a conflict in its east since 2014.

Russia has said it suspects Ukraine of wanting to recapture separatist-controlled territory by force. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Friday that Kyiv had no such plans and Russia’s rhetoric opposing Ukraine’s bid to join NATO was worrying.

Ukraine received a large consignment of U.S. ammunition and Javelin missiles earlier this year, and soldiers say they also have mortars and Turkish attack drones.

“It’s a bad idea to be afraid when someone comes to your house, and you hide in your basement. It won’t work. One should get up and go to fight,” another soldier Vlad said.

“We’re fighting here to not let them come, and then it’s luck of a draw.”
…

Britain, Germany and Italy detected cases of the new omicron coronavirus variant Saturday, and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced new steps to contain the virus, while more nations imposed restrictions on travel from southern Africa.

 

The discovery of the variant has sparked global concern, a wave of travel bans or curbs and a sell-off on financial markets on Friday as investors worried that omicron could stall a global recovery from the nearly two-year pandemic.  

 

The two linked cases of the new variant detected in Britain were connected to travel to southern Africa, British Health Minister Sajid Javid said.

 

Speaking later, Johnson laid out measures that included stricter testing rules for people arriving in the country but that stopped short of curbs on social activity other than requiring mask wearing in some settings.

 

“We will require anyone who enters the UK to take a PCR test by the end of the second day after their arrival and to self-isolate until they have a negative result,” Johnson told a news conference.

People who had come into contact with people testing positive for a suspected case of omicron would have to self-isolate for 10 days and the government would tighten up the rules on wearing face coverings, Johnson said, adding the steps would be reviewed in three weeks.

 

The health ministry in the German state of Bavaria also announced two confirmed cases of the variant. The two people entered Germany at Munich airport on November 24, before Germany designated South Africa as a virus-variant area, and were now isolating, said the ministry, indicating without stating explicitly that the people had traveled from South Africa.  

 

In Italy, the National Health Institute said a case of the new variant had been detected in Milan in a person coming from Mozambique.

 

Czech health authorities also said they were examining a suspected case of the variant in a person who spent time in Namibia.

 

Omicron, dubbed a “variant of concern” by the World Health Organization, is potentially more contagious than previous variants of the disease, although experts do not know yet if it will cause more or less severe COVID-19 compared to other strains.

 

England’s Chief Medical Officer, Chris Witty, said at the same news conference as Johnson that there was still much uncertainty around omicron, but “there is a reasonable chance that at least there will be some degree of vaccine escape with this variant.”

 

The variant was first discovered in South Africa and had also since been detected in Belgium, Botswana, Israel and Hong Kong.

 

Flights to Amsterdam

 

Dutch authorities said that 61 out of about 600 people who arrived in Amsterdam on two flights Friday from South Africa had tested positive  for the coronavirus. Health authorities were carrying out further tests to see if those cases involved the new variant.

One passenger who arrived Friday from South Africa, Dutch photographer Paula Zimmerman, said she tested negative but was anxious for the days to come.

 

“I’ve been told that they expect that a lot more people will test positive after five days. It’s a little scary the idea that you’ve been in a plane with a lot of people who tested positive,” she said.

 

Financial markets plunged on Friday, especially stocks of airlines and others in the travel sector, as investors worried the variant could cause another surge in the pandemic. Oil prices tumbled by about $10 a barrel.

 

It could take weeks for scientists to fully understand the variant’s mutations and whether existing vaccines and treatments are effective against it.

 

 Travel Curbs

 

Although epidemiologists say travel curbs may be too late to stop omicron from circulating globally, many countries around the world – including the United States, Brazil, Canada and European Union nations – announced travel bans or restrictions Friday on southern Africa.

 

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and State Department added Saturday to Washington’s previously announced travel restrictions, advising against travel to eight southern African countries.

 

Also Saturday, Australia said it would ban non-citizens who have been in nine southern African countries from entering and will require supervised 14-day quarantines for Australian citizens returning from there.

 

Japan said it would extend its tightened border controls to three more African countries after imposing curbs Friday on travel from South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Lesotho.

 

Britain also said it was expanding its “red list” to put travel curbs on more southern Africa countries, while South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Oman, Kuwait and Hungary announced travel restrictions on southern African nations.

 

South Africa is worried that the curbs will hurt tourism and other sectors of its economy, the foreign ministry said on Saturday, adding the government is engaging with countries that have imposed travel bans to persuade them to reconsider.

 

Omicron has emerged as many countries in Europe are already battling a surge in COVID-19 infections, and some have re-introduced restrictions on social activity to try to stop the spread. Austria and Slovakia have entered lockdowns.

 

Vaccinations

 

The new variant has also thrown a spotlight on disparities in how far the world’s population is vaccinated. Even as many developed countries are giving third-dose boosters, less than 7% of people in low-income countries have received their first COVID-19 shot, according to medical and human rights groups.  

 

Seth Berkley, CEO of the GAVI Vaccine Alliance that with the WHO co-leads the COVAX initiative to push for equitable distribution of vaccines, said this was essential to ward off the emergence of more coronavirus variants.

 

While we still need to know more about omicron, we do know that as long as large portions of the world’s population are unvaccinated, variants will continue to appear, and the pandemic will continue to be prolonged,” he said in a statement to Reuters.

 

“We will only prevent variants from emerging if we are able to protect all of the world’s population, not just the wealthy parts.”

 
…

Protesters in Niger blocked a French military convoy  Saturday shortly after it crossed the border from Burkina Faso, where it had been stuck for a week due to demonstrations against the former colonial ruler there, France’s army said.

 

French soldiers and Nigerien military police fired warning shots to prevent protesters from approaching their vehicles, before the convoy was able to continue on its way toward the capital Niamey, said army spokesperson Colonel Pascal Ianni.  

 

Anger about France’s military presence in its former colonies has been rising in Niger, Burkina Faso and other countries in West Africa’s Sahel region, where France has thousands of troops to fight local affiliates of al-Qaida and Islamic State.

 

Last weekend, hundreds of people in the Burkinabe city of Kaya blocked French armored vehicles and logistics trucks, protesting against the failure of French troops to stop escalating violence by Islamist militants.

 

The convoy, which is on its way from Ivory Coast to northern Mali, was finally able to leave Burkina Faso on Friday. It ran into new protests less than 30 kilometers across the border in western Niger town of Tera, where it had stopped to spend the night, Ianni told Reuters.

 

“Protesters tried to pillage and seize the trucks,” Ianni said. “There were warning shots by the Nigerien gendarmes and French soldiers.”

 

Video shared by a local official showed the protesters, mostly young men, shouting “Down with France!” as black smoke rose from a burning barricade.

 

France intervened in Mali in 2013 to beat back militants who had seized the desert north, before deploying soldiers across the Sahel. While it has killed many top jihadist leaders, violence has continued to intensify and spread in the region.

 

In the demonstrations in Burkina Faso and elsewhere, protesters have cited conspiracy theories that France is secretly supporting the militants to justify its continued military presence in its former colonies.

 
…

A Kurdish woman from northern Iraq, who was among 27 migrants who died trying to cross the Channel between France and Britain this week, has become the first victim to be named by British media.

 

Their dinghy deflated as they made a perilous crossing Wednesday of the English Channel, the worst tragedy on record in one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

 

Maryam Nuri Mohamed Amin, 24, made the journey in order to see her fiance, the BBC reported, citing family members and a close friend.

 

“When she left Kurdistan, she was very happy, she couldn’t believe that she was going to meet [him],” the woman’s friend Imann Hassan was quoted as saying by the British broadcaster, which said her fiance already lived in Britain.

 

“She tried to live a better life, she chose the UK, but she died,” Hassan added.

 

Reuters was not immediately able to verify the information. The tragedy has further strained ties between France and Britain, with French President Emmanuel Macron telling Britain Friday it needed to “get serious” or remain locked out of discussions over how to curb the flow of migrants across the Channel.

 
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The smuggler had said the car would come in 10 minutes, but Zaid Ramadan had been waiting in the dense forest straddling the Poland-Belarus border for three hours, desperate for signs of headlights in the mist – and a new life in Europe.

His pregnant wife Delin shivered under a blanket. She had been against leaving their life in Dohuk, a mountainous province in the northern Kurdish-run region of Iraq. The journey was perilous, expensive and the change too drastic, she told him.

“But I convinced her to leave. In Dohuk, we can’t live a real life; there is corruption, no work, repression,” the 23-year-old said.

The couple were among a disproportionate number of Iraqi migrants, most of them from Iraq’s Kurdish region, who chose to sell their homes, cars and other belongings to pay off smugglers with the hope of reaching the European Union from the Belarusian capital of Minsk — a curious statistic for an oil-rich region seen as the most stable in all of Iraq. But rising unemployment, endemic corruption and a recent economic crisis that slashed state salaries have undermined faith in a decent future for their autonomous region and kindled the desire in many to leave.

Iraqi Kurdistan is co-ruled by a two-party duopoly under two families that carved the region into zones of control – the Barzanis in Irbil and Dohuk, and the Talabanis in Sulaymaniyah. This arrangement created relative security and prosperity, compared with the rest of Iraq, but it has been accompanied by nepotism and growing repression. Those downsides prompted would-be migrants to leave. Many were school dropouts, certain an education would not guarantee them work. Others were government employees and their families, no longer able to survive amid salary cuts.

Of the 430 Iraqis who returned from Minsk on a repatriation flight last week, 390 disembarked in the Kurdish region. Among them were Zaid and Delin Ramadan, now back living with Zaid’s parents in Dohuk.

Like thousands of others, they had been lured to the European Union’s doorstep by easy visas offered by Belarus. The EU has accused Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko of using asylum-seekers to retaliate for sanctions imposed after he claimed victory in a disputed 2020 election.

The migrants flocked to Belarus in hopes of getting into the EU. Most were from war-scarred Iraq and Syria. Smuggling networks appeared to be particularly efficient in Iraq’s Kurdish area, where an economic crisis triggered by a crash in oil prices rendered the regional government insolvent.

Oil prices have rebounded but the region relies on budget transfers from Iraq’s federal government to pay public sector salaries. The payments have been intermittent because of disputes over the Kurdish region’s independent oil export policy.

Thousands of students in Irbil and Sulaymaniyah have taken to the streets this week to protest lack of funding from the Kurdistan government. Dozens gathered in front of the KRG Ministry of Higher Education to demand stipend payments frozen for eight years.

Kurdish officials said Iraqi Kurds were lured to Belarus by traffickers with false promises of an easy journey. “This isn’t a migrant issue but a criminal human trafficking issue,” tweeted Masrour Barzani, prime minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government.

Migrants said they left by their own accord, desperate for a life with the dignity they couldn’t find at home, and were not coerced by smugglers.

No work

Ramadan had dropped out of school in the 9th grade. At first his father, a teacher, and mother, a nurse, were against it. But they relented when Ramadan countered that his two older sisters were trained dentists in Dohuk and still unemployed.

He was never able to secure steady work. Since 2013, Ramadan has been a valet, waiter, construction worker and taxi driver. He never made more than $200 a month, barely enough for rent. In 2019 he volunteered as an ambulance driver, hoping in vain it would turn into a paid job.

The government is the main employer in the Kurdish region. Last year’s austerity measures, including salary cuts of up to 21%, spurred protests and deepened disenchantment with the ruling class. The cutbacks were reversed in July, but the impact is still felt.

Young men often look to the peshmerga, the Kurdish branch of the Iraqi armed forces, for work. Ramadan tried but said he didn’t have the right connections.

Iraqi Kurds say repressive policies of the ruling Kurdish elite are also driving their departure.

Over the last year, journalists, human rights activists and protesters who questioned or criticized actions by Kurdish authorities have faced intimidation, threats and harassment as well as arbitrary arrest, according to reports by the UN and Human Rights Watch. The Kurdish government has rejected allegations of systematic stifling of dissent. KRG officials say nepotism is a product of individuals abusing their power.

Ramadan said in the current repressive environment, he was too scared to speak up.

In October, after hearing about the Belarus route, Ramadan deposited $10,000 at a local money exchange office in Dohuk that had connections with a smuggler.

He and his wife were expecting their first baby and he was determined to start over in Germany.

Back where he started

As dawn broke, the car that would supposedly take them to Germany hadn’t arrived, and Ramadan grew concerned.

He and his wife had walked along with 12 others through the soggy woods, crossing into Poland in search of a GPS point marked by the smuggler. Hours passed.

When the vehicle finally arrived, it was a minibus, not the small car they expected. Ramadan knew a larger vehicle would raise the suspicion of Polish authorities but the migrants got in anyway, unable to withstand another day of cold.

A few kilometers down the road, they heard sirens. The minibus and his dreams came to a halt.

Ramadan and his wife, now five months pregnant, returned to Dohuk on last week’s repatriation flight, his dream of an escape dashed.

“What can I say? My heart is broken. I am back where I started,” he said.

‘ How can I live in Kurdistan?’

Many other Iraqi asylum-seekers have decided to remain in Belarus, hoping they can somehow still cross into Poland. About 2,000 people are currently staying at a warehouse facility near the border.

Miran Abbas, 23, once a day laborer and former barbershop assistant, is among them.

His father, Abbas Abdulrahman, spoke to him via video call this week from the family home in Sulaymaniyah province. “How’s it going?” he asked the hollow-eyed face on the screen.

Abbas said food was running low and that Belarusian authorities had poured cold water over them to push them to cross into Poland.

But he won’t return.

“How can I live in Kurdistan? I prefer to stay here even if they disrespect me thousands of times,” he said.

He could not secure work in Kurdistan, his mother Shukriyeh Qadir said.

“It was the time for him to get married, but he couldn’t afford it. He wanted to buy a car, but he couldn’t afford that either. He wanted to build a family and settle down in a house, but that was not possible,” she said.

“So, he left because of his sufferings.”
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Russian authorities on Friday released the names of 51 people presumed dead after a devastating methane explosion in a coal mine in Siberia, believed to be the deadliest since 2010.

The list with the names of 46 miners and five rescuers was published online by the government of the Kemerovo region in southwestern Siberia, where the mine is located. Authorities had initially reported 52 possible fatalities, but search teams on Friday found a survivor in what officials described as a miracle. 

A total of 285 miners were in the Listvyazhnaya mine at the time of an explosion on Thursday morning that quickly filled the mine with toxic smoke. A total 239 people were rescued shortly after the blast, and more than 60 sought medical assistance for an assortment of injuries.

Officials on Thursday confirmed 14 fatalities — 11 miners and three rescuers who perished while searching for others trapped in a remote section of the mine. Rescuers were forced to halt several hours into their search because of a buildup of methane and carbon monoxide gas.

Rescuer Alexander Zakovryashin was pulled out of the rubble Friday morning still conscious. He was hospitalized with moderate carbon monoxide poisoning, according to emergency officials.

“I can consider it a miracle,” acting Emergency Minister Alexander Chupriyan said.

Kemerovo Governor Sergei Tsivilyov admitted on Friday morning that finding other survivors was highly unlikely.

It was the deadliest mine accident in Russia since 2010, when two methane explosions and a fire killed 91 people at the Raspadskaya mine in the same Kemerovo region.

In 2016, 36 miners were killed in a series of methane explosions in a coal mine in Russia’s far north. In the wake of the incident, authorities analyzed the safety of the country’s 58 coal mines and declared 20 of them potentially unsafe. Media reports say the Listvyazhnaya mine wasn’t among them, however in 2004 a methane explosion in the mine killed 13 people.

Russia’s top independent news site, Meduza, reported that this year authorities suspended work in certain sections of the mine nine times and fined the mine more than 4 million rubles (roughly $53,000) for safety violations. 

Law enforcement officials also said Friday that miners had complained about the high level of methane in the mine. 

Regional officials have declared three days of mourning while Russia’s Investigative Committee has launched a criminal probe into potential safety violations. The director of the mine and two senior managers were detained. 

A separate criminal probe was launched Friday into allegations that state officials who inspected the mine earlier this month were negligent. 
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European Union states have agreed to suspend travel from southern Africa after the detection of a new COVID-19 variant, the presidency of the EU said Friday.

A committee of health experts from all 27 EU states “agreed on the need to activate the emergency break & impose temporary restriction on all travel into EU from southern Africa,” the Slovenian presidency of the EU said on Twitter. 

 

Restrictions will apply to Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe, European Commission spokesperson Eric Mamer said on Twitter.

An EU official said that EU governments have also been asked to discourage travel to those countries.

Each of the 27 EU countries is free to apply the new measures when it prefers. Some are already applying restrictions.

EU officials said that no decision had yet been made on other countries in other parts of the world where cases were detected, which include Hong Kong, Israel and Belgium, an EU country.

Global alarm

The new coronavirus variant, first detected in South Africa, has caused global alarm as researchers seek to find out if it is vaccine-resistant.

Marc Van Ranst, the virologist who detected the new variant in Belgium, told Reuters it was more likely the infected woman had contracted the variant in Belgium rather than while traveling outside Europe.

She had been in Egypt earlier in November but developed symptoms only 11 days after her return to Belgium. She is not vaccinated.

Switzerland imposed on Friday a requirement of 10-day quarantine and a negative test for travelers from Belgium, Israel and Hong Kong, in addition to travel bans on southern African countries.
…

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday classified the B.1.1.529 variant detected in South Africa as a SARS-CoV-2 “variant of concern,” saying it may spread more quickly than other forms.

Preliminary evidence suggested there is an increased risk of reinfection and there had been a “detrimental change in COVID-19 epidemiology,” it said in a statement after a closed meeting of independent experts who reviewed the data.

Infections in South Africa had risen steeply in recent weeks, coinciding with detection of the variant now designated as omicron, WHO said.

“This variant has a large number of mutations, some of which are concerning. Preliminary evidence suggests an increased risk of reinfection with this variant, as compared to other (variants of concern),” it said.

Omicron is the fifth variant to carry such a designation. “This variant has been detected at faster rates than previous surges in infection, suggesting that this variant may have a growth advantage,” the WHO said.

Current PCR tests continue to successfully detect the variant, it said.

Earlier, the WHO cautioned countries against hastily imposing travel restrictions linked to the variant of COVID-19, saying they should take a “risk-based and scientific approach.”

Global authorities reacted with alarm to the new variant detected in South Africa, with the EU and Britain among those tightening border controls as scientists sought to find out if the mutation was vaccine-resistant.

“At this point, implementing travel measures is being cautioned against,” WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier told a U.N. briefing in Geneva. “The WHO recommends that countries continue to apply a risk-based and scientific approach when implementing travel measures.”

It would take several weeks to determine the variant’s transmissibility and the effectiveness of vaccines and therapeutics against it, he said, noting that 100 sequences of the variant have been reported so far.

People should continue to wear masks whenever possible, avoid large gatherings, ventilate rooms and maintain hand hygiene, Lindmeier added.

Mike Ryan, WHO’s emergency director, praised South African public health institutions for picking up the signal of the new variant.

But he warned that while some countries had systems in place to do this, the situation elsewhere was often unclear.

“So, it’s really important that there are no knee-jerk responses here. Especially with relation to South Africa,” he said. “Because we’ve seen in the past, the minute that there is any mention of any kind of variation, then everyone is closing borders and restricting travel.”

 
…

It is likely that the new coronavirus variant B.1.1.529 that is spreading in South Africa will end up in Britain, the head of the COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium said Friday, but efforts to buy time and reduce transmission would help.

“I think buying time is important and it’s worthwhile, because we can find out what we need to know about that particular variant,” Sharon Peacock told reporters, saying that the health service might need to make preparations.

“This is part of important planning and preparation for something that I would guess is likely to be transmitted into the UK at some point, but it buys that time.”
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Spain’s cabinet will restrict flights from South Africa and Botswana over concerns about a highly contagious new COVID-19 variant there, Health Minister Carolina Darias said Friday, following similar decisions by other European nations.

“We will see about other countries but for now those two,” she told state broadcaster TVE.

Darias did not give details on when the restrictions would come into force, but a cabinet meeting, at which such measures would be approved, is scheduled for Tuesday.

“We will also imminently adopt a resolution … to require passengers from high-risk countries to provide, in addition to vaccination [proof], either an antigen test or a PCR,” she added.

The announcement came shortly after the European Commision recommended an EU-wide travel ban to and from southern Africa due to the rapid rise of the B.1.1.529 variant in South Africa, which scientists fear could evade vaccines.
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Like many others in Europe, Switzerland is facing a steep rise in coronavirus cases. But its federal government, unlike others, hasn’t responded with new restrictive measures. Analysts say it doesn’t want to stir up more opposition to its anti-COVID-19 policies, which face a crucial test at the ballot box this weekend as critics have grown increasingly loud.

On Sunday, as part of the country’s regular referendums, Swiss voters will cast ballots about the so-called “COVID-19 law” that has unlocked billions of Swiss francs (dollars) in aid for workers and businesses hit by the pandemic. The law has also imposed the use of a special COVID certificate that lets only people who have been vaccinated, recovered, or tested negative attend public events and gatherings.

If the Swiss give a thumbs-up, the government may well ratchet up its anti-COVID efforts.

The vote offers a relatively rare bellwether of public opinion specifically on the issue of government policy to fight the coronavirus in Europe, the global epicenter of the pandemic. The continent enjoys relatively high rates of vaccination compared with countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, but has been nearly alone in facing a surge in cases in recent weeks.

Polls suggest a solid majority of Swiss will approve the measure, which is already in effect and the rejection of which would end the restrictions — as well as the payouts. But in recent weeks, opponents have raised heaps of cash for their campaign and drawn support from abroad, including a visit from American anti-vaccination campaigner Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to a rally in the capital, Bern, this month.

Swiss weekly NZZ am Sonntag reported that campaigners have sent hundreds of petitions to government offices around the country alleging that the language in the referendum question is vague and makes no mention of the “COVID certificate” that affords access to places like restaurants and sporting events.

On Tuesday, Swiss health authorities warned of a rising “fifth wave” in the rich Alpine country, where vaccination rates are roughly in line with those in hard-hit Austria and Germany — at about two-thirds of the population. Infection rates have soared in recent weeks. The seven-day average case count in Switzerland shot up to more than 5,200 per day from mid-October to mid-November, a more than five-fold increase — with an upward curve like those in neighboring Germany and Austria.

Austria has responded with a much-ballyhooed lockdown, and Germany — which is forming a new government as Chancellor Angela Merkel’s tenure nears its end — has taken some steps like requiring workers to provide their employers with proof of vaccination, recovery or a negative test set to take effect next week.

The Swiss Federal Council, the seven-member executive branch, went out of its way on Wednesday to say: “It’s not the time to decree a tightening of measures nationwide,” while opting for a region-by-region approach and calling on citizens to act responsibly through mask-wearing, physical distancing, and proper airing of indoor areas.

That’s even though the council admitted in a statement that cases — particularly among the young — are rising and “the number of daily infections has reached a record for the year and the exponential rise is continuing.” Hospitalizations — notably among the elderly — are rising too, it said, but not as fast.

Swiss Health Minister Alain Berset has insisted his government hasn’t tightened restrictions because COVID-19 patients still make up only a small percentage of people in intensive-care units.

“But we also know that the number of hospitalizations lags behind the number of infections,” said Pascal Sciarini, a political scientist at the University of Geneva. “One can imagine that if Switzerland didn’t have this particular event — the vote on Sunday — we’d already be preparing (the) next steps.”

The Swiss council may simply be holding its breath through the weekend, he suggested.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if as early as next week, the tone changes,” Scarini said. “It’s starting to budge … the Federal Council is surely going to wait until after the referendum.” 

 
…

Germany will have a new government next month after three parties agreed this week to form a coalition, ousting the ruling Christian Democrats, the party of outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel. The new government faces an early test of foreign policy, as Russia has deployed tens of thousands of troops on Europe’s eastern borders.

Members of the Social Democratic Pary, or SDP, which narrowly won the highest vote share in September’s election, agreed to lead a coalition alongside the Green party and the Free Democrats. SDP leader Olaf Scholz, who will be Germany’s next chancellor, pledged to strengthen Germany’s existing alliances in a speech Wednesday.

“Our friendship with France, our partnership with the United States, and a commitment to peace and prosperity in the world are the pillars on which our foreign policy is based,” Scholz said in Berlin.

That peace appears increasingly fragile on Europe’s eastern borders. Russia has deployed around 90,000 troops alongside military hardware close to its border with Ukraine and continues to support separatist rebels in Ukraine’s Donbass region.

On Thursday, Merkel warned of tougher sanctions.

“Any further aggression against the sovereignty of Ukraine would carry a high price. That’s totally clear,” she told reporters.

Support for Belarus

Russia is also supporting Belarus, which Europe accuses of manufacturing a migrant crisis on its border with Poland. So how will Germany’s new government deal with these immediate security challenges?

Scholz has yet to detail his policy toward Russia. The 177-page coalition agreement restates strong German support for NATO as the basis of European security, noted Liana Fix, the program director for international affairs at the Körber-Stiftung analyst group in Berlin.

“Broadly, there’s continuity, but what is interesting is that there’s also quite a strong rhetoric when it comes to supporting civil society in Russia, and also quite a strong rhetoric when it comes to countering the autocratic challenge that is coming from Russia. And here you definitely see the footprint of the Green party which has entered the coalition,” Fix told VOA.

Green party leader Annalena Baerbock will be Germany’s next foreign minister. A first major decision will be to approve the opening of the completed Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline connecting Russia and Germany, which critics fear could be used by the Kremlin to blackmail Europe. The U.S. recently tightened sanctions on Russian companies involved in its construction.

“The Greens, that were at the beginning actually opposed to Nord Stream 2, did not want to use their political capital to enforce a stop of Nord Stream 2 in the coalition treaty,” Fix said.

What of the personal relationships? Merkel was raised in East Germany under communism and speaks fluent Russian. “This gave her special access to the Russian president,” Fix told VOA. “Olaf Scholz doesn’t have this background, but he’s very much aware of the situation, where he always argued that ‘might does not make right’ and that this is one of the bases for his understanding of foreign policy and also of policy towards Russia.”

‘The world will change’

In his speech Wednesday after striking the coalition agreement, Scholz said Germany must be ready for a new world order.

“The world will change,” he said. “It will become multipolar, which means there will be many strong countries and powers across the globe which will have influence on what happens in the future.”

For now, much of the new government’s focus will be on the soaring coronavirus infection rate at home. In Germany this week, COVID-19-related deaths surpassed 100,000 since the start of the pandemic, a grim milestone as the coalition prepares to take the reins of power in December.
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Germany will have a new government next month after three parties agreed to form a coalition, ousting the ruling Christian Democrats of outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel. The new government under Olaf Scholz faces an early test of foreign policy, as Russia has deployed tens of thousands of troops on Europe’s eastern borders. Henry Ridgwell considers Berlin’s future relationship with Moscow.
Camera: Henry Ridgwell
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France and Britain appealed Thursday for European assistance, promised stepped-up efforts to combat people-smuggling networks, and traded blame and barbs in the wake of this week’s tragedy in the English Channel that again shone a light on the scale and complexity of Europe’s migration problems.

At least 27 migrants drowned Wednesday after their inflatable dinghy capsized as they tried to cross the channel. It was the deadliest migration accident to date on the dangerous stretch of sea, a busy shipping lane crisscrossed by hulking freighters and frequently beset by treacherous weather, waves and currents.

French President Emmanuel Macron appealed to neighboring European countries to do more to stop illegal migration into France, saying that when migrants reach French shores with hopes of heading on to Britain, “it is already too late.”

Macron said France was deploying army drones as part of new efforts to patrol its northern coastline and help rescue migrants at sea. But he also said that a greater collective effort was needed, referring to France as a “transit country” for Britain-bound migrants.

“We need to strengthen cooperation with Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, but also the British and the [European] Commission,” he said on a visit to Croatia. “We need stronger European cooperation.”

Ministers from France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Britain and EU officials will meet Sunday to discuss increasing efforts to crack down on migrant-smuggling networks, Macron’s government announced.

They will convene in Calais, one of the French coastal towns where migrants gather, looking for ways to cross to the British coast, which is visible from France on clear days.

Macron described the dead in Wednesday’s sinking as “victims of the worst system, that of smugglers and human traffickers.”

Ever-increasing numbers of people fleeing conflict or poverty in Afghanistan, Sudan, Iraq, Eritrea or elsewhere are risking the perilous journey from France, hoping to win asylum or find better opportunities in Britain. The crossings have tripled this year, compared with 2020.

The French prosecutors office tasked with investigating the sinking said the dead included 17 men, seven women, and two boys and one girl thought to be teenagers. Magistrates were investigating potential charges of homicide, unintentional wounding, assisting illegal migration and criminal conspiracy, the prosecutors office said.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said two survivors were treated for hypothermia; one is Iraqi and the other is Somali. He said authorities were working to determine the victims’ nationalities.

Macron’s government vowed to bring those responsible for the tragedy to justice, piling pressure on investigators. Darmanin announced the arrests of five alleged smugglers who he said were suspected of being linked to the sinking. The prosecutors office investigating the deaths confirmed five arrests since Wednesday but said they didn’t appear to be linked to its probe.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Macron spoke after the tragedy and agreed “to keep all options on the table to stop these lethal crossings and break the business model of the criminal gangs behind them,” Johnson’s office said.

Macron advocated an immediate funding boost for the European Union’s border agency, Frontex, according to his office.
…

The sinking of a boat with more than 30 people on board this week was the deadliest migration tragedy to date in the English Channel. 

Migrant shipwrecks of that scale, however, are not uncommon in the waters surrounding Europe’s southern borders. 

This year alone, U.N. officials estimate that 1,600 people have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean Sea, the main gateway to Europe for migrants trying to enter the continent with the help of human smugglers. 

The death toll is higher than last year, but by no means unique. The International Organization for Migration estimates that 23,000 people have perished since 2014 while trying to cross the Mediterranean in rickety boats or rubber dinghies, peaking at more than 5,000 in 2016. In the same seven-year period, about 166 people have died in the English Channel. 

Just last week, 85 people died in two separate incidents while trying to reach Italy from Libya, said Flavio di Giacomo, the IOM’s spokesman in Italy. Those tragedies were barely noticed in Europe. 

“I think it’s a question of proximity,” di Giacomo said. “I think the media attention of what happened between U.K. and France is also because this is new. Europe is not used to have that inside the continent; usually it’s on the external borders.” 

Deadliest route

This year the busiest and deadliest migrant route to Europe is the central Mediterranean where people travel in crowded boats from Libya and Tunisia — and in some cases all the way from Turkey — toward Italy. About 60,000 people have arrived in Italy by sea this year, and 1,200 have died or disappeared on the journey, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. 

The number of missing is an estimate partly based on information from survivors of shipwrecks. 

Migrant rescue activists on Thursday said a boat in the central Mediterranean with 430 people on board was taking on water and called on European authorities to assist. Another boat operated by charity Sea-Watch was looking for a safe port to disembark 463 rescued migrants. 

Canaries route

Meanwhile, since last year, traffic has increased on an even more dangerous route in the Atlantic Ocean where migrants set out from Senegal, Mauritania or Morocco in simple wooden boats with the hope of reaching Spain’s Canary Islands. Some boats sink not far from the coast of Africa and others disappear farther out, in some cases missing the Canaries and drifting deep into the Atlantic. 

“The route from western Africa is very long and very dangerous,” di Giacomo said. 

IOM has registered 900 deaths on the Canaries route this year, he said, but the true number could be double “and no one is paying a lot of attention.” 

More than 400 people were rescued this week while trying to reach the island group. 

Human rights groups often criticize European governments for not doing more to rescue migrants trying to reach the continent on unseaworthy vessels. European rescue efforts led by Italy in the central Mediterranean were scaled back a few years ago and more emphasis was placed on training and equipping the Libyan coast guard to intercept migrant boats before they can reach European waters. Critics say Europe is turning a blind eye to human rights abuses in Libyan detention centers for migrants. 

Noting that nine out of 10 refugees have fled to neighboring countries, Carlotta Sami of UNCHR in Italy said the agency is pushing for EU governments to provide “safe passageways” for refugees “to diminish the number of those who attempt to make the extremely risky journey.” 
…

Italy has given safe haven to Sharbat Gula, the green-eyed “Afghan Girl” whose 1985 photo in National Geographic became a symbol of her country’s wars, Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s office said Thursday.

The government intervened after Gula asked for help to leave Afghanistan following the Taliban takeover of the country in August, a statement said, adding that her arrival was part of a broader program to evacuate and integrate Afghan citizens.

 

U.S. photographer Steve McCurry took the picture of Gula when she was a youngster, living in a refugee camp on the Pakistan-Afghan border.

 

Her startling green eyes, peering out from a headscarf with a mixture of ferocity and pain, made her known internationally, but her identity was only discovered in 2002 when McCurry returned to the region and tracked her down.

 

An FBI analyst, forensic sculptor and the inventor of iris recognition all verified her identity, National Geographic said at the time.

 

In 2016, Pakistan arrested Gula for forging a national identity card in an effort to live in the country.

 

The then Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, welcomed her back and promised to give her an apartment to ensure she “lives with dignity and security in her homeland.”

 

Since seizing power, Taliban leaders have said they would respect women’s rights in accordance with Sharia, or Islamic law. But under Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001, women could not work, and girls were banned from school. Women had to cover their faces and be accompanied by a male relative when they left home.  

 
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Pope Francis, meeting the prime minister of Lebanon Thursday, compared the country to a dying person and promised to do everything in his power to help it “rise again.” 

 

Francis and Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who took office in September after a year-long government vacuum, met privately for about 20 minutes and discussed the country’s devastating economic and social crisis, the Vatican said in a statement. 

 

The fallout from Lebanon’s financial collapse in 2019 has left swathes of the nation in poverty and foreign donors are demanding an audit of the central bank and financial reforms before they release funds. 

 

U.N. agencies have warned of social catastrophes, with one report saying that more than half of families in Lebanon had at least one child who skipped a meal amid a dramatic deterioration of living conditions. 

 

“Lebanon is a country, a message and even a promise worth fighting for,” Francis told the extended Lebanese delegation after the private meeting. 

 

He then referred to the Gospel story of Jairus in which Jesus raises up the man’s 12-year-old daughter, who was believed to be dead. Jesus told the parents she was only sleeping and the girl rose up when Jesus commanded. 

 

“I pray that the Lord will take Lebanon by the hand and say ‘arise’,” the pope said, adding that the country was going through a “very difficult, ugly period” of its history. “I assure you of my prayers, my closeness and promise to work diplomatically with countries so that they unite with Lebanon to help it rise again.” 

 

The seemingly never-ending crisis has sunk Lebanon’s currency by more than 90%, caused poverty to skyrocket and led many Lebanese to emigrate. Mikati’s government was finally formed after a year of political conflict over cabinet seats that only worsened the crisis. 

 

In August, on the first anniversary of the huge chemical blast at Beirut port that killed 200 people and caused billions of dollars of damage, Francis promised to visit Lebanon as soon as the situation permitted. 

 

 
…