(Reuters) The European Union’s chief executive, set to unveil contentious new asylum policies for the bloc next week, described immigration on Wednesday as a normal fact of life and said the continent should learn to manage it. In a major policy speech […]
(Reuters) Interior Minister Horst Seehofer on Wednesday defended Germany’s decision to take a further 1,553 refugees from camps in Greece, saying the country could be proud of its role in Europe’s migration crisis. On Tuesday, Germany announced it would take in 408 […]
(Reuters) Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis called on Tuesday for “tangible solidarity” from the European Union in tackling the migrant crisis and tensions with Turkey in the east Mediterranean region. A fire destroyed Greece’s biggest refugee camp last week on the island […]
(Reuters) Swiss federal prosecutors took charge of a homicide investigation, saying on Monday they could not exclude a terrorist motive for the fatal stabbing of a Portuguese man in the western town of Morges at the weekend. Police in Vaud canton had […]
(Reuters) Plans by European countries to take some 400 unaccompanied children from the burned-down Moria refugee camp in Greece should mark just the beginning of their efforts, German Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Saturday. Fires destroyed Greece’s biggest refugee camp on […]
(Reuters) Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz on Saturday reiterated his opposition to taking in asylum seekers from the destroyed Moria refugee camp in Greece, prompting criticism from his government coalition partner the Greens and from the opposition. The fires at Europe’s largest refugee […]
(Reuters) A man dubbed the “Emir of Winterthur” by Swiss media, described by prosecutors as a leading figure among Islamist militants in Switzerland, was sentenced to 50 months in prison on Friday for supporting and recruiting for Islamic State. Prosecutors said the […]
(Reuters) For asylum-seekers trapped in the overcrowded facility on Greece’s island of Lesbos, Moria was hell most days. But a coronavirus quarantine was the final straw. It was just before midnight on Tuesday when eight migrants who tested positive for COVID-19 were […]
(Reuters) U.S. officials are weighing whether to postpone or further cut refugee admissions in the coming year amid legal fights over President Donald Trump’s refugee policy and uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, a senior official said. The possible postponement — one […]
(Reuters) A survivor of the 2015 attack on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo told a French court on Wednesday how the gunmen said “Allahu akbar” (“God is greatest”), then shot him with their Kalashnikov rifles. Simon Fieschi was the first employee the two […]
(Reuters) A group of migrants being held at a dockside camp on the Spanish island of Gran Canaria chanted “freedom” on Tuesday as they tried to force open a police fence and the coast guard brought in more people rescued from boats […]
(Reuters) Coronavirus infections in Greece’s overcrowded migrant camp Moria on the island of Lesbos nearly doubled since Monday to 35 confirmed cases, the migration ministry said on Tuesday. The facility was placed under quarantine last week after authorities confirmed that a 40-year-old […]
(Reuters) Greece has registered at least 17 cases of coronavirus in the overcrowded migrant camp of Moria on the island of Lesbos so far, a migration ministry official said on Monday. Last week, the facility was placed under quarantine after authorities confirmed […]
(Reuters) More than five years after Islamist militants killed 12 of their colleagues, staff at French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo say they re-published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad to tell the world they are “still standing” — albeit with a security detail. […]
(Reuters) Europe must improve migration procedures on its external borders, seal more deals with foreign countries and synchronise asylum policies in the bloc before it tackles the thorny issue of hosting asylum seekers, a top EU official said on Friday. European Council […]
(Reuters) The Islamist gunmen who attacked the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo five years ago, killing 12 people, sought to avenge the Prophet Mohammad, a French court heard on Wednesday on the first day of the trial of more than a dozen alleged […]
(Reuters) A migrant woman who tested positive to coronavirus has given birth to a baby on board a helicopter as she was flying to Sicily from the small southern Italian island of Lampedusa, the Sicilian regional government said on Tuesday. The woman […]
(Reuters) French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday it was not his place to pass judgment on the decision by satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo to re-publish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, saying France has freedom of expression. But Macron, speaking on a […]
(Reuters) A riot broke out on Friday in the southern Swedish town of Malmo, where at least 300 people had gathered to protest against anti-Islam activities, police said. Protesters were throwing objects at police officers and car tyres had been set on […]
(Reuters) Austria has arrested a 31-year-old Syrian refugee suspected of carrying out attacks last week on a Jewish community leader and a synagogue in Austria’s second city Graz, Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said on Monday. The leader of Graz’s Jewish community association, […]
(Reuters) Greece will proceed with plans to extend a cement and barbed-wire fence that it set up in 2012 along its northern border with Turkey to prevent migrants from entering the country, the government said on Monday. The conservative government made the […]
(Reuters) Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and other senior government politicians said they were shocked over an attack on a Jewish community leader in the southern city of Graz on Saturday, and ordered tighter security at Jewish institutions around Austria. An unknown assailant […]
(Reuters) Standing in front of the remains of dozens of inflatable craft in the backyard of a police station, Captain Eric Binet has a message for migrants considering the sea crossing to Britain: don’t risk your lives. Warm weather and a deceptively […]
(Reuters) The European Union has so far rebuffed British calls for talks on a deal to allow London to send unwanted migrants back to Europe from 2021, and could use the issue as potential leverage in wider Brexit negotiations, diplomats and officials […]
(Reuters) Britain’s Royal Air Force has sent a maritime patrol aircraft to help support border control operations in the English Channel after an increase in migrants seeking to cross from France. Taking advantage of hot weather and calm sea conditions, hundreds of […]
(Reuters) Polish border guards have detained 34 people from the Middle East, including four women and four children, who were traveling in a trailer of the lorry that came from Turkey via Slovakia, authorities said on Saturday. They were detained on Friday […]
(Reuters) The armed man who seized six hostages in a French bank on Thursday spoke to negotiators of hardships facing Palestinians and called himself a mujahid but made no reference to Islamist groups, a police source involved in the operation said. The […]
(Reuters) A gunman who took six people hostage in a bank in northern France on Thursday surrendered to elite police after a six-hour operation to free his captives. The hostage-taker, a 34-year-old with a history of mental illness, emerged slowly from the […]
(Reuters) Greece has seen fewer migrants and refugees arriving from Turkey, numbering in the hundreds in the last four months, mainly due to increased border checks and partly due to the coronavirus pandemic, a government minister said on Tuesday. But Turkey is […]
(Reuters) Nigerian Iyke Anakua had been working for 14 months as a welder, a job he got through a recruitment agency in Berlin, when he received news in mid-March that he would be made redundant. “I waited so long for a job […]
(Reuters) Sixty-five migrants who were in a group of 94 people rescued at sea and taken to Malta on Monday have tested positive for COVID-19, Malta’s health ministry said on Tuesday. It was the single largest cluster of positive cases detected on […]
(Reuters) About 100 migrants who crossed the Mediterranean in small boats landed on the southern island of Lampedusa during the night, the latest in a wave of arrivals straining an already overcrowded holding centre. Officials said the migrants, arriving from Libya, were […]
(Reuters) A Dutch politician whose “verified” Twitter account was among those taken over by hackers this month told Reuters on Thursday the company believes his private messages had been accessed, potentially exposing dissidents in other countries. Lawmaker Geert Wilders, whose anti-Islam Freedom […]
(Reuters) Two Algerian men were detained in an anti-terrorism raid in Spain’s second largest city Barcelona on Tuesday morning, police said. The two Algerians were part of a cell, under investigation since 2017, which was planning an attack with explosives in Barcelona, […]
(Reuters) Greece moved 25 unaccompanied minors from overcrowded migrant camps to Portugal on Tuesday as part of a relocation programme to EU countries. The boys, all aged between 15 and 17, had lived in refugee camps on outlying Greek islands. They have […]
(Reuters) A Frenchman who converted to Islam and went abroad to fight for Islamic State was sentenced by a Paris court on Friday to 30 years in prison in France’s first successful prosecution of an Islamist militant for crimes committed in Syria. […]
(Reuters) The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) has called on Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government to repeal a tightening of the Hungarian asylum system, provisions of which it says could violate international laws. Hungary shut so-called migrant transit zones on its borders […]
(Reuters) Austria and Turkey accused each other on Monday of responding inappropriately to clashes between Kurdish and Turkish protesters in Vienna last week, further straining relations. On Wednesday, a brawl broke out after Turks heckled a Kurdish gathering in Vienna, police said. […]
(Reuters) A Danish court on Friday sentenced a Norwegian citizen to seven years in jail after convicting him of spying for an Iranian intelligence service and complicity in a suspected plot to kill an Iranian Arab opposition figure in Denmark. Mohammad Davoudzadeh […]
(Reuters) The leader of Danish far-right party Stram Kurs, lawyer Rasmus Paludan, was disbarred from the legal profession and sentenced to three months in jail on Thursday after being found guilty of racism. Stram Kurs (Hard Line) was close to getting into […]
(Reuters) The European Union wants to rebuild trust with Turkey, its top diplomat said on Wednesday, after a standoff in March in which thousands of migrants attempted to force their way into Greece, triggering clashes on their border. Before the coronavirus pandemic […]
(Reuters) An Iranian dissident was seriously injured in a knife attack in the northern Dutch city of Leeuwarden, a local newspaper reported on Saturday, citing the victim’s family. The man, who was named by the Leeuwarden Courant newspaper as Sadegh Zarza, fled […]
(Reuters) Asylum applications in Europe fell to the lowest level in April for over a decade as borders closed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, European Union figures show, compounding the challenges of people fleeing conflict and persecution. The number of […]
(Reuters) Europe’s leading human rights body urged Malta on Thursday to allow disembarkation of more than 400 migrants being held on four former tour group boats just outside the Mediterranean island’s territorial waters. Some of the migrants have been held at sea […]
(Reuters) An Italian Senate committee on Tuesday rejected a request by magistrates to investigate Matteo Salvini, head of the rightwing League party, for refusing a migrant rescue boat permission to land last year when he was interior minister. Salvini refused to allow […]
(Reuters) About 80 African migrants packed aboard two fishing boats landed on the Spanish island of Gran Canaria on Tuesday, adding to the hundreds of new arrivals now stuck there while the coronavirus lockdown prevents transfers to the mainland. The first boat […]
(Reuters) Libya’s coastguard has stopped nearly 400 migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean in five boats in the past two days, the United Nations migration agency said on Monday. That brings to more than 1,000 the number of people who have attempted […]
(Reuters) A Berlin church is hosting Muslims who are unable to fit into their mosque for Friday prayers because of social distancing guidelines. The Dar Assalam mosque in the Neukölln district normally welcomes hundreds of Muslims to its Friday services. But it […]
(Reuters) Malta on Friday rescued a group of 140 migrants from a sinking dinghy but refused to bring them to land, holding them instead on a chartered tourist harbour cruise boat just outside territorial waters. The rescue was conducted by a Maltese […]
(Reuters) Hungary shut so-called migrant transit zones on its borders on Thursday, freeing some 300 refugees from prison-like conditions while at the same time hardening rules which will effectively bar future asylum applicants. During the peak of Europe’s 2015 migration crisis, Prime […]
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