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.
Palestinian Islamist group Hamas has called on Canadian singer Justin Bieber to cancel his upcoming concert in what it calls the “Zionist occupation state” of Israel.
Bieber announced his 2022 world tour dates this week, with a concert in Tel Aviv planned for next October. On Thursday, Hamas’ Artistic Production Department issued a statement, cited by the Palestinian Sawa news outlet, “condemning and denouncing” the performer. It called on the star to cancel the show and “boycott the Zionist occupation state in protest at its repeated crimes against the Palestinian people.”
Bieber has performed in Israel multiple times, his last performance there having been in 2017 at Park HaYarkon – the same venue slated for next year. Since the announcement of the ‘Justice’ tour dates, calls for him to cancel the Tel Aviv show have gained momentum across social media, with many posters condemning the singer for supporting what one called an “apartheid state.”
Some noted that Bieber was set to arrive in Israel after performing in South Africa. “Justin Bieber is really going straight from SA to Israel. From a country that fought apartheid to a country that’s practicing apartheid,” one Twitter user complained.
A petition asking the singer to boycott Israel and exclude it from his tour has been launched online, and had garnered some 3,700 signatures by Friday.
In 2018, the New Zealand singer Lorde canceled a concert in Israel, subsequently thanking fans for “educating” her on the issue, and, the same year, US artist Lana Del Rey at first defended her decision to perform in the country, saying her appearance would not be a “political statement,” before backtracking and canceling the gig.
Hamas has been designated a terrorist group by the US, the EU, and, as of Friday, the UK. In April 2021, international non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch concluded in a report that Israel had committed “crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.”
Covid-battered global supply chains are being threatened by organized criminals, including drug cartels and con artists posing as legit suppliers, a new study has found, warning that the situation is set to get worse.
The international supply chain woes amid the Covid-19 pandemic are highlighted in a new annual report, released this week by the British Standards Institution (BSI).
The document, titled the ‘Supply Chain Risk Insights Report’, highlights Covid’s impact on supply chains, with the experts also warning that organized crime has increasingly preyed on this crucial area during the pandemic. On multiple instances, criminals were posing as legitimate logistics providers, stealing goods during shipment.
“I’m seeing a significant number of false suppliers acting as genuine potential suppliers in supply chain logistics provision – warehousing distribution, distribution centres, transportation companies – and actually, they are criminal groups trying to infiltrate the logistics supply chain,” said David Fairnie, BSI’s principal consultant in supply chain security. He urged producers to “continuously monitor” the supply chain and to not immediately trust new logistics providers – especially those contacted only remotely.
So, arguably today more than ever, you do need to know your suppliers. So far in 2021, BSI has noted this issue of fake carriers in an increasing number of countries in both the Americas and Europe.
Criminals have apparently been trying to steal goods in various ways, with phony truck drivers loading up items and taking off with them, while conmen “posing as legitimate employees” have reportedly been observed lurking around delivery destinations to steal cargo.
At the same time, the report found that trade in illicit goods has also been on the rise lately, with the illegal drug industry in particular appearing to flourish. While the supply chain for drug cartels, which require large amounts of assorted chemicals to produce narcotics, was disrupted due to the pandemic lockdowns and border closures impacted trafficking routes, organized crime quickly overcame these problems, the BSI noted.
“Drug cartels around the world did not miss a beat,” Chris Tomas, BSI lead intelligence analyst, said.
While many cartels shifted their production towards synthetic drugs, namely amphetamine, amid the pandemic, the apparent “lack of eradication of coca crops in Latin American countries” also remains an issue, the BSI said. The flow of cocaine has grown over the past year and is expected to increase even further, the organization warned.
“The numbers and quantities of cocaine seizures in Europe increased steadily in 2020 and 2021 and are expected to continue to rise in 2022,” the report reads.
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