OLD CONTENT contd.
news.yahoo.com/least-13-dead-migrant-boat-143813658.html
MILAN (AP) — The deaths of at least 13 people early Monday on an overloaded migrant boat that capsized near the Italian island of Lampedusa have galvanized calls to shut down smuggler routes and revamp search-and-rescue efforts in the deadly central Mediterranean Sea.
The Italian coast guard said one of its vessels was about to begin the rescue about six nautical miles Italy's southernmost island when the boat capsized. Survivors told the U.N. refugee agency that the migrants moved to one side of their unseaworthy vessel when they saw the rescue ship, capsizing it.
Twenty-two people were plucked from the sea and brought to safety. But 13, all women, were pulled dead from the water, and the search was continuing for 15 still missing, including an unknown number of children.
The boat had departed Tunisia, with about 50 people on board, mostly west Africans and Tunisians.
The incident brings to more than 1,000 the number of people who have died in the Mediterranean Sea this year.
"Enough massacres in the sea," Lampedusa Mayor Toto Martello said. "We cannot continue to watch bodies being unloaded of poor people who are following a dream to better their lives. Politicians must react."
...
The U.N. refugee agency said that Monday's deadly shipwreck "highlights once again that urgent action is needed to address the situation on the Mediterranean." It called for the European Union to resume its search and rescue operation in the Mediterranean Sea, especially along the dangerous route from Libya.
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In the absence of an EU search and rescue operation, the job of patrolling the Mediterranean has largely been left to humanitarian rescue ships.
But there are fewer of those than a year ago because of sanctions they face under measures adopted when hard-liner Matteo Salvini was interior minister. And once a rescue has been carried out, both Italy and Malta have closed their ports to the NGO ships, leading to days or weeks of haggling with the EU to find a safe harbor.
One of those, Spanish NGO Open Arms, said Monday it rescued 44 people, including one toddler and a months-old baby, on a wooden boat trying to reach European shores.
Gerard Canals, chief of mission of the Open Arms rescue boat, said the boat was found late Sunday in Malta's rescue zone, about 50 nautical miles from Lampedusa.
Canals said that Malta's rescue coordination center told the group not to offer the migrants any assistance, saying that Italy would probably send a patrol boat from Lampedusa, about an hour away. But Open Arms decided to rescue them anyway after waiting five hours because the boat wouldn't have made it to land without fuel and faced adverse weather.
All 44 rescued — 38 men, four women, a 4-year-old boy, and a baby around 6 to 9 months old — were in good condition.
"The surprise was to hear Malta's instructions -- who told us to let them continue to sail. We are evidently talking about a vessel in distress, an overcrowded boat without any type of guarantee that it can reach anywhere, and evidently without enough fuel to reach the island of Lampedusa," Open Arms Founder Oscar Camps told a news conference near Barcelona.
Malta's government declined to comment.
Camps said that had the Open Arms been cleared to rescue the 44 earlier -- instead of waiting five hours -- the ship could have been available to sail to Lampedusa and aid in that rescue -- perhaps saving lives. But he said they were not called in any case, an indication of authorities' reluctance to coordinate with them.
"Once again we denounce that these boats are in distress. They are by themselves, vessels in danger, because of the dimensions, the overweight (overcrowded) and the lack of navigation capacity and little security guarantees they can offer," Camps said. "They must be intervened immediately they cannot be left to their own luck."
Which is what I have been saying.
(Also, people like Martello and Camps are examples of authentic populism. Unfortunately almost no one these days remembers the correct definition of populism.)
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townhall.com/tipsheet/timothymeads/2019/10/08/dc-city-council-votes-unanimously-to-end-working-with-ice-n2554377
Yesterday, Townhall reported that the Washington D.C. City Council would be considering "emergency" legislation on Tuesday that would order all D.C. government agencies and facilities from cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as other federal immigration authorities unless given an explicit court order. On Tuesday, the D.C. City Council voted unanimously to pass this bill, officially known as the "Sanctuary Values Act."
Good but not good enough. ICE can and will work effectively even without third-party cooperation. Only when ICE is too afraid to even enter a given territory in the first place can that territory truly call itself a sanctuary. This requires willingness by locals to use firearms to shoot ICE agents on sight RoboCop 3 style:
https://swordofelysium.wordpress.com/2017/09/22/robocop-3-duty-vs-power/---
news.yahoo.com/italy-lets-french-migrant-ship-131850952.html
ROME, Oct 15 (Reuters) - Charity rescue ship Ocean Viking headed towards the southern Italian port of Taranto on Tuesday after the government gave it authorisation to bring 176 migrants ashore in a decision that angered the far-right League.
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Salvini denounced on Tuesday the decision to let the Ocean Viking dock immediately.
"The Ocean Viking is a French NGO and is Norwegian-flagged. Can you tell me why it has to come to Italy?? Either go to France, or go to Norway," he wrote on Twitter.
Yes, I can tell you why, Salvini. Because Italy is (*gasp*)
closer. If the Ocean Viking drops off refugees in Italy, it can return to the Libyan coast sooner and hence pick up the next round of refugees sooner, while the refugees it has just dropped off can (if they wish) travel to France or Norway more efficiently overland. On the other hand, if the Ocean Viking has to sail all the way to France or especially Norway, it will have to take considerably longer getting back to the Libyan coast, during which time the refugees it could have saved might be drowned.
Can you tell me what it says about your supporters that you are so popular while being such an utter moron?
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This would not have happened if no one has to fear being deported:
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7606715/How-39-desperate-stowaway-migrants-locked-metal-coffin-left-die.htmlThe 39 migrants, locked inside a bitterly cold and airless shipping container, never stood a chance – their cries for help fading away with no one to hear them.
The stowaways – 38 adults and one teenager – slowly froze to death in 'absolutely horrendous' conditions after they tried to reach the UK on a cargo ferry from Belgium, it is feared.
Experts yesterday said the temperature inside the refrigerated trailer unit, which is said to usually carry biscuits, might have been as low as -25C (-13F).
The migrants were huddled inside for at least 15 hours by the time the door was opened on an industrial estate in Essex at 1.40am yesterday.
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Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn also reflected on the tragedy, branding it 'unbelievable'.
He said: 'Can we just think for a moment of what it must have been like for those 39 people, obviously in a desperate and dangerous situation, for their lives to end, suffocated to death in a container?'
...
the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants has already blamed the British government.
The charity's chief executive Satbir Singh said: 'Nobody should be in any doubt that the ultimate responsibility for these deaths lies with government policy which has deliberately closed down safe and legal routes into Britain.'
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www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7642387/Smugglers-Mexico-SAWING-sections-Trumps-virtually-impenetrable-border-wall.htmlSmugglers in Mexico are SAWING through sections of Trump's 'virtually impenetrable' border wall using popular power tools that cost less than $100
Well done! Next, our side needs to
shoot through CBP/ICE agents. Practically effective firearms can cost only a few times as much as power tools:
www.cheaperthandirt.com/firearms/rifles/Whereas the cost of rehiring CBP/ICE agents to replace the dead will go up far faster than the cost of repairing the wall. Again, much of strategy is just elementary number-crunching.
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Support Scott Warren:
news.yahoo.com/second-trial-against-activist-helped-044814624.html
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — Jury selection started Tuesday in the second trial against an Arizona border activist accused of harboring migrants who sneaked across the U.S.-Mexico border.
Scott Warren, 37, contends he was fulfilling his mission as a humanitarian when he helped two Central American men at a camp run by the border group No More Deaths, which also drops off water jugs in the desert. But prosecutors have said the men were not injured and that Warren conspired to help them evade authorities.
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While Warren has said he was performing a humanitarian mission to help migrants in need, prosecutors contend they were never in distress. They say Warren gave them directions on how to avoid a Border Patrol checkpoint when they left the No More Deaths camp in Ajo in January 2018.
Warren is one of nine No More Deaths members who have been charged with crimes related to their work, although he's the only facing felony charges.
Warren's arrest came months after Border Patrol agents began an investigation into the No More Deaths camp, according to documents released after news organizations sued to get them.
The documents show that in April 2017, an anonymous Ajo resident told Border Patrol officials that he suspected members of the group were harboring immigrants in their building, known as "The Barn."
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Thousands of immigrants have died crossing the border since the mid-1990s, when increased enforcement pushed many to Arizona's scorching desert.
nomoredeaths.org/
Water jugs are not enough, though. Will the water jug protect refugee from being captured by CBP/ICE? What they need most now are firearms.
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I warned long ago that any country stupid enough to accept deportees would be rapidly overloaded (why do you think those people left in the first place?):
qz.com/africa/1751948/returning-migrants-from-europe-cause-problems-for-the-gambia/
Roughly 38,500 Gambians left the country through ‘irregular’ means between 2013 and 2017.
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As a result, a large number of citizens, mostly young men, sought asylum in Europe. But very few have been allowed to stay. Even more were turned away when Jammeh was toppled after elections in 2017 and the country returned to democracy. More recently, there has been a big push from European Union (EU) member states to return failed asylum seekers back home to The Gambia.
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Despite initial cooperation with the EU on returns, in March 2019 Barrow’s government imposed a moratorium on any further deportations of its nationals from the EU. After a standoff of several months, the moratorium has now been lifted.
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Before the moratorium was imposed in March 2019, the government had started to tentatively cooperate with the EU on return matters. For example, it sent regular missions to Europe to issue nationals with identification documents to facilitate their return.
Relations began to sour when European governments increased returns in a way that authorities in The Gambia viewed as inconsistent with the ‘good practice’ agreement. The agreement stipulates that return numbers should not overstretch the country’s capacity to receive returnees. It also states that adequate notice must be given before asylum seekers are returned. Both of these provisions were allegedly breached.
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The moratorium can be linked to diplomatic and technical inefficiencies, but it is also based on a more fundamental problem for Barrow’s government. By cooperating with the EU on returns, they risk their domestic legitimacy because by and large, most Gambians in Europe do not want to return home.
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Allowing more deportations from the EU is perceived as betrayal by many migrants and their families.
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In these politically tense times, pressing a pause button on returns fulfilled a symbolic function by defending Gambians against foreign national interests. The recent lifting of the moratorium is politically very risky. It paves the way for more of the deeply unpopular chartered return operations.
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In the alternative, the EU could take a more cooperative stance by working on more holistic, development-oriented solutions. A starting point would be to move away from plans to return high numbers of failed asylum seekers. Sending back large numbers of migrants has never been feasible.
The Gambian government will be more honest about its migration dealings with the EU if the agreements are fair and practical. Most importantly, if Gambians had access to fair and practical migration pathways this would lessen cases of irregular migration, which continue to remain high.
If any of the refugees themselves wanted to return to Gambia, they would do so on their own initiative. Therefore deportees are victims of initiated violence. To accept deportees is to be complicit in the violence initiated against them. Another way to look at it is: if another country can make you accept their deportees, you have been reduced to a colony of that country in practice.
On the contrary, all transport crew carrying deportees should be arrested as human traffickers (which is exactly what they are) and executed. Only this will send the message that deportation will not be tolerated.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/angela-merkel-welcomed-refugees-to-germany-theyre-starting-to-help-the-economy/2019/05/03/4bafa36e-6b60-11e9-bbe7-1c798fb80536_story.html---
Brussels still delusionally thinks it can use
pieces of paper to persuade V4:
www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15245/eu-migrants-relocation-quotaGerman Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has unveiled a new plan to reform the European asylum system. A draft of the proposal leaked to the media shows that all member states of the European Union would be required to take in illegal migrants.
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The new plan is aimed at replacing the European Union's Dublin Regulation, a law that requires people seeking asylum in the EU to do so in the first European country they reach.
Southern European countries — especially Greece and Italy — have complained that, in the context of mass migration from Africa, Asia and the Middle East, the current system places an unfair and disproportionate burden on them. They say that all EU member states should take equal responsibility for migrants reaching European shores.
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The key part of the document calls for asylum applications to be assessed immediately upon arrival at the EU's external border. From there, a newly created European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA) would "determine" which member state is responsible for taking in the applicant and processing his or her application.
Seehofer's plan is intended to be permanent and not limited to crisis situations. Notably, the plan does not address the issue of returning illegal migrants back to their countries of origin.
The plan studiously avoids using the politically explosive term "quota" and replaces it with "fair share" (gerechter Anteil). The document also omits the term "mandatory," although it is assumed throughout that the migrant relocation scheme will be compulsory for all EU member states.
If everything goes according to plan, the draft legislation would be adopted by the European Parliament in the second half of 2020 when Germany holds the presidency of the EU. It would then be ratified by the European Council, made up of the leaders of the EU member states.
The new European Commissioner for the Promotion of the European Way of Life, Margaritis Schinas, expressed support for the scheme:
"Migration Commissioner Ylva Johansson and I met Horst Seehofer. We completely agree with Germany. We need this consensus from all Member States, and we are working hard to achieve it."
Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, however, voiced his opposition to the German plan. In an interview with the Czech news agency ČTK, he said that he saw through Seehofer's semantics:
"We fundamentally reject illegal migration. We also reject allowing smuggling gangs to decide who will live in Europe. We reject quotas and I am surprised that this issue has once again returned to the negotiating table. I hope that the new European Commission will put a stop to this."
Czech Interior Minister Jan Hamáček said that the Czech Republic would "coordinate our position" with the other members of the Visegrád Four (V4), a cultural and political alliance of four Central European states — the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said that the V4 would not bow to EU pressure to accept migrants:
"The V4's position is clear. We are not willing to admit any illegal migrants into central Europe. The success and security of central Europe is thanks to our pursuit of a firm anti-migration policy, and this will endure.
"This is why central Europe is one of the most successful regions of the European Union today, and its engine of growth. We do not tolerate any kind of pressure and we Hungarians insist on our right to decide whom to allow into our country and with whom we wish to live."
OK, so imagine the new plan passes but then V4 simply refuses to abide by it on ground level by physically shutting out refugees sent to them. Then what? As I have said over and over again, the only question of practical importance is how the EU intends to enforce cooperation, specifically whether or not it is willing to militarily destroy V4. Read the last two paragraphs again:
"The V4's position is clear. We are not willing to admit any illegal migrants into central Europe. The success and security of central Europe is thanks to our pursuit of a firm anti-migration policy, and this will endure.
"This is why central Europe is one of the most successful regions of the European Union today, and its engine of growth. We do not tolerate any kind of pressure and we Hungarians insist on our right to decide whom to allow into our country and with whom we wish to live."
You think mere economic penalties (let alone verbal condemnations) will change their minds? No, they will only change their minds when WMDs are raining down on them every day. If you are not willing to do this to them, then V4 has already won.
What makes it most annoying is how easy it would be if only the major EU powers were willing to use their military strength:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Defence_Forces
Active personnel
27,800 (2018)[8]
Reserve personnel
20,000 (2018)[8]
Deployed personnel
895 (2018)[9]