A large settlement of migrants in the suburbs of Dunkirk in northern France has been dismantled, in the wake of yet another wave of tensions with the UK over the growing number of illegal crossings.
“At my instruction, the security forces are evacuating the illegal migrant camp in Grande-Synthe this morning,” French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on Twitter on Tuesday. He added that state services in the region would provide shelter for the group.
Government spokesman Gabriel Attal said the decision to dismantle the camp was primarily based on the intention to put people into shelters ahead of the winter season.
Around 1,500 migrants were evacuated from the site via buses and their tents removed. According to Utopia 56, one of the charities monitoring the process of dismantling the camp, people “were forced to board buses, without being informed of their destination, and some of their personal belongings have been destroyed.”
Évacuation forcée et sans annonce du campement de Grande-Synthe depuis ce matin : plus de 500 personnes sont contraintes de monter dans des bus, sans être informées de leur destination : “police ou hôtel”. Une partie de leurs effets personnels est en cours de destruction. pic.twitter.com/EwFPR2yl2j
Tides changing on Channel crossings? French police began moving some 1,500 migrants on from a camp near Dunkirk amid talks yesterday between Priti Patel and her French counterpart agreeing to stop ‘100 percent’ of Channel crossings after record numbers reached the UK in 2021. pic.twitter.com/PUE9YDCTAY
In a separate tweet, Darmanin announced the arrest of 13 alleged migrant smugglers, “bringing the total to 1,308 since January.”
“These smugglers are criminals who exploit human misery, responsible for irregular immigration,” the minister wrote.
Tuesday’s actions by French authorities came in the wake of a phone call between Darmanin and his British counterpart Priti Patel. The two discussed the increasing number of illegal migrants attempting to cross the English Channel, and reiterated the importance of cooperation in making this route “unviable,” Patel said afterwards.
At Grande-Synthe, near Dunkirk, where demolition work has already begun on the migrant camp. Around 1,500 people, many of them Iraqi Kurds, have been moved out of the site@SkyNewspic.twitter.com/rHFDHHcxmf
The UK and France have a history of mutual accusations when it comes to illegal migration. While British officials have claimed that French authorities do not do enough to prevent migrants from embarking for the dangerous trip, France’s government has said that the UK should reform its labor market rules in order to become less attractive to migrants.
More than 23,000 people have crossed the Channel by boat this year, compared to 8,404 in 2020, according to Press Association figures.
Israeli and UAE defense suppliers have agreed to jointly develop unmanned vessels that can be tailored for a range of military roles, including anti-sub warfare. The move comes after the two countries held naval drills last week.
Emirati state-owned weapons maker EDGE group and the government-run Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) announced the partnership in Dubai on Thursday. In a joint statement, the firms said they would design the 170 m-USV (modular-unmanned surface vessels) series for both military and commercial applications.
The vessels, which can apparently operate remotely or with partial and complete autonomy, are expected to be used for “maritime security operations,” intelligence-gathering, surveillance, detecting and countering submarines and mines, and as a deployment platform for vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft such as helicopters and certain types of drones.
For commercial use, the manufacturers noted that they can be customized to serve in a variety of roles, including oceanography, pollution monitoring, oil and gas exploration, transportation, search and rescue, firefighting, and first interventions.
While not specifying the sources and amount of the project’s funding, or when production would begin, EDGE Chief Executive Faisal Al Bannai described the deal as an “important milestone” that would “open many doors” for the company in “local and global markets, military and commercial alike.”
According to the statement, the EDGE-owned Abu Dhabi Ship Building (ADSB) will design the vessel and integrate the platform’s control systems and payload. IAI will develop the autonomous control systems and provide various mission-requirement payloads to the control system units.
In March, the two companies had partnered up to develop an autonomous drone defense system to “detect, identify and intercept a broad range of threats.”
Last week, the UAE and Bahrain conducted their first-ever joint maritime drill with Israel’s navy. The US Fifth Fleet also participated in the five-day show of force in the Red Sea, which was reported by Israeli media outlets as sending a message to Iran.
The naval exercises came a little more than a year after Israel and the UAE established diplomatic ties in normalization agreements brokered by the Trump administration. The Abraham Accords broke decades of Arab consensus to not formally recognize Israel until the issue of a Palestinian state was settled.
New research has found that legalizing the sale and use of recreational cannabis could bring a €5 billion ($5.67 billion) boost to the German economy via annual tax revenues and cost savings within the police.
Should Germany proceed with legalization, the research estimates that it could bring in tax revenues of €3.4 billion ($3.86 billion) per year and save some €1.3 billion ($1.48 billion) in costs within the police and judicial system, alongside creating 27,000 new jobs.
The report, carried out by the Institute for Competition Economics (DICE) at the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf and commissioned by the German Cannabis Association, comes amid ongoing discussions for the formation of a coalition federal government.
One of the areas under consideration in the three-way talks between the Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens, and the Free Democrats (FDP) is the potential regulation of the sale and use of recreational cannabis.
Using cannabis for medicinal purposes has been legal in Germany since 2017. However, its possession or distribution for recreational use remains illegal and can result in fines as well as time behind bars.
Earlier this year, research on the legalization of cannabis across Europe by market intel firm Prohibition Partners said that if Germany legalized its use by adults, the move would see that country alone constituting “over half of the European market until 2024.” It would also help propel the European cannabis market from its 2021 valuation of €400 million ($454 million) to some €3 billion ($3.4 billion) by 2025.
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Rotterdam Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb has described an anti-lockdown protest in his city as an “orgy of violence.” The Dutch demonstration devolved into a violent riot that saw police open fire on protesters.
Aboutaleb described the events of Friday night as an “orgy of violence,” after protesters packed Rotterdam’s central Coolsingel shopping street to voice their opposition to an ongoing partial lockdown, a ban on New Year’s Eve fireworks displays, and the possibility of a two-tiered system of freedom in the Netherlands, one of liberty for the vaccinated and restrictions for those without the jab.
The protest soon got out of hand, and police said on Saturday that 57 people were arrested. Protesters were seen torching police vehicles and launching fireworks at police, who shot at them in response.
Aboutaleb said that the cops had been “forced” to use their weapons. “On a number of occasions the police felt it necessary to draw their weapons to defend themselves,” he told reporters. “They shot at protesters, people were injured.”
Police say at least seven people were injured. Two of these injuries were caused by police bullets, and the victims are still in hospital. One officer was hospitalized, while several others were treated at the scene for minor injuries.
“Catastrophic and famine-like conditions” hang over Afghanistan’s farmers and herders, whose needs continue to worsen with the onset of winter, UN humanitarians said on Friday.
Slovakia has become the latest European country to implement lockdown restrictions on people who haven’t had the Covid vaccine, as it seeks to prevent a resurgence in infections and hospital admissions over the winter.
Slovakian Prime Minister Eduard Heger announced the new measures in a press conference on Thursday, declaring a “lockdown for the unvaccinated” after the country reported a record number of new cases.
The new restrictions in Slovakia, which come into effect on Monday, will require people to have been vaccinated or have recovered from Covid in the past six months to enter restaurants, non-essential shops, or public events.
In the past few days, the European nation has seen record numbers of new infections, including over 8,000 on Tuesday, with hospitals running out of space to treat Covid patients.
Slovakia has one of the lowest rates of vaccination in the European Union, with over 50% of individuals still not jabbed. The country of around 5.5 million has so far only inoculated 2.5 million people against the virus.
Earlier this week, Austria became the first nation to impose restrictions on unvaccinated individuals, as it sought to limit pressure on hospitals and emergency care units. The move came into effect at midnight on Monday for anyone aged 12 and older who has not received their Covid vaccine or recently recovered from the virus.
The German state of Bavaria and the Czech Republic followed Austria in restricting access for unvaccinated individuals. Only people who can show proof of vaccination or that they have recently recovered from Covid will be allowed to enter public spaces, such as restaurants and shops.
The French government has kicked off a €14 million national campaign to tackle underage prostitution and pimping. It comes months after a report found as many as 10,000 youngsters, mostly teen girls, are involved in the sex trade.
The campaign, launched by the Ministry for Solidarity and Health on Monday, is expected to be fully rolled out in 2022. The ministry described the problem as a “growing phenomenon that society can no longer ignore” and about which “too little is known.”
The government programme is expected to “increase awareness” while helping to “inform and provide a better understanding of the phenomenon.” It also aims to help “identify the young people involved” and “prosecute clients and pimps more effectively.”
According to RFI, the prevalence of underage prostitution has increased by as much as 70% over the past five years, with social media believed to be compounding the problem. The public broadcaster noted that the situation had worsened during the Covid-19 pandemic when young people spent more time online.
In July, a working group produced a damning report that found between 7,000 and 10,000 young people were involved in prostitution across the country. The majority are young girls aged between 15 and 17, but a ministry statement noted that the “entry point” into prostitution was increasingly becoming younger at around 14-15 years.
“There’s really a normalisation of prostitution of young people because girls say that selling sex is a way of making lots of money easily and that it can help them reach their dream life,” deputy public prosecutor Raphaelle Wach told the news outlet France 24.
In its statement, the ministry noted that many minors did not consider themselves victims and valued the “financial autonomy” and feelings of “belonging to a group” and “regaining control” over their lives.
“These minors are however in danger, both physically and psychologically,” the ministry warned.
“Covid played a considerable role because social networking provided new ways of being able to hook in underage girls very easily,” Geneviève Collas, who runs an NGO fighting human trafficking, told RFI. She added that recruiting minors has been made “easier” with short-term apartment rental apps like Airbnb helping mask the scale of the problem on the streets.
For the first time since the start of the pandemic, the number of new daily Covid cases in Germany has exceeded 60,000, according to the country’s disease control and prevention agency, the Robert Koch Institute.
Authorities fear that in reality the figure is even higher, as not all cases are immediately reported or detected. Just a week ago, the number of daily infections across Germany surpassed the 50,000 mark.
Among the country’s Covid hotspots are Thuringia, Saxony and Bavaria. In the latter region, hospitals are so overwhelmed with Covid patients that they have had to put off any non-emergency surgery.
Against this grim backdrop, lawmakers in the Bundestag on Thursday backed a new set of measures aimed at containing the spread of the disease. The package was proposed by Germany’s Social Democrats, the Green and Free Democratic parties, which are expected to form a new coalition government as early as next week.
If passed by the upper house, the rules would include mandatory daily Covid testing for employees of, and visitors to, care homes, regardless of vaccination status. Germans would also be required to show proof of full vaccination, recovery or a fresh negative Covid test in order to enter their workplace or use public transport.
On top of that, those caught selling and forging fake certificates and tests could face up to five years behind bars. Just like the Covid regulations currently in place, the new plan gives some leeway to regional authorities in terms of restrictions so that, for instance, the banning of recreational, cultural, and sporting events will be at their discretion. However, things like travel bans, curfews and massive closures of businesses would now be off-limits to local government.
With about 2.3 million people already suffering with serious water, food and pasture shortages in Somalia, a rapidly worsening drought could lead to an “extreme situation” by April next year.
