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2:50 p.m.
Authorities in the
Polish capital, Warsaw ,
have banned a protest against Muslim refugees that was planned for the city
center on Saturday, saying it is driven by out-of-place hatred.
The decision
follows a government announcement that Poland will be able to accept more
refugees that the 2,000 originally declared and a declaration from Catholic
leaders that the church will do its best to help immigrants.
Predominantly
Catholic Poland appears to be gradually opening to the need of helping the
plight of Muslims fleeing for their lives. But fears also remain.
Warsaw Deputy Mayor
Jaroslaw Jozwiak said Wednesday that the organizers of the protest had used the
"language of hatred" to justify it.
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2:10 p.m.
The U.N. High
Commissioner for Refugees has appealed for an extra $30.5 million to help deal
with Europe 's refugee crisis. Meanwhile,
funding shortfalls have forced the U.N. to cut food aid to refugees in
countries neighboring Syria
over recent months.
Foreign Minister
Frank-Walter Steinmeier, whose country holds the Group of Seven presidency,
said Wednesday he will organize a meeting of G-7 countries and Syria 's Arab
neighbors when the U.N. General Assembly meets later this month.
He told lawmakers
his message would be: "If the fate of these people is really close to our
hearts, then at least ensure UNHCR gets the necessary money to give them their
daily rations."
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2:05 p.m.
The United Arab Emirates has defended its response
to the Syrian refugee crisis in the face of criticism that oil-rich Gulf states should be
doing more to address the issue.
In a statement
provided to The Associated Press, the Emirati government said it has provided
residency permits to more than 100,000 Syrians who have entered the country
since 2011, and that more than 242,000 Syrian nationals currently live in the
country. It did not provide details on the terms.
Residency visas in
the Emirates — where foreigners outnumber citizens more than four to one — are
typically tied to an employing sponsor or a resident family member, and do not
allow for an indefinite stay in the country or an opportunity to acquire
Emirati citizenship.
In addition to the
visa extensions, the Emirates said it has provided more than $530 million in
humanitarian aid and development assistance since 2012 in response to the
Syrian crisis.
Part of that aid
goes to fund a camp in Jordan
that houses more than 4,000 refugees.
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2 p.m.
People make their way on the railway track at the border
line between
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Police in southern
Denmark have shut down a section of highway after a large group of migrants
left the place where they were staying after entering Denmark by train from
Germany, and started walking on the highway north of Padborg on the
Danish-German border. According to Denmark 's
TV2, they are chanting "Sweden ,
Sweden "
Also in southern Denmark , police stopped three trains with
migrants who had crossed the strait separating northern Germany and the Danish island of Lolland .
A group of up to 35 who fled earlier in the day from the ferry terminal is
Roedby have now returned, they said.
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1:45 p.m.
Czech Prime
Minister Bohuslav Sobotka says his government's opposition to mandatory quotas
for accepting migrants in the EU member states has not changed.
"The
compulsory quotas are not a good solution," Sobotka said in a statement.
"To continue with a discussion about their establishment all across Europe only prevents us from taking really important and
necessary steps."
State Secretary for
European Affairs Tomas Prouza told the Czech public television Wednesday:
"We consider the quotas nonsensical. They don't solve the problem."
The Czechs argue
most of the migrants have been heading for Germany
and don't want to stay in the Czech
Republic .
Last Friday, the
prime ministers of the Czech Republic , Hungary ,
Slovakia and Poland rejected calls by Germany and
some other EU members for compulsory sharing of refugees.
___
12:10 p.m.
A Hungarian
camerawoman has been fired after she was caught on video kicking and tripping
migrants entering Hungary
across the border with Serbia .
The N1TV Internet
channel said their employee, widely identified in Hungarian media as Petra
Laszlo, has been dismissed because she "behaved unacceptably" at a
makeshift gathering point where police take migrants immediately after they
enter Hungary near the village of Roszke .
In videos posted
online, Laszlo can be seen kicking at least one migrant in a group trying to
break through police lines and tripping a man carrying a small child while also
running from police.
N1TV
editor-in-chief Szabolcs Kisberk said in a statement late Tuesday that the
dismissal was immediate. Much of the channel's content centers on the activities
of the far-right Jobbik party
___
11:45 a.m.
Two German
newspapers have published a special supplement in Arabic, welcoming refugees
and giving them advice on where to go for services.
The top-selling
Bild newspaper and Berlin's BZ, both produced by the same publisher, put out
the four-page insert in Wednesday's editions, headlined "Welcome to
Berlin; You have finally reached Berlin, what do you need to do now?"
A map of the
capital, labeled in Arabic, points out refugee housing centers, health care
clinics, playgrounds, language schools offering free courses and other places
of importance.
It also includes a
short list of Arabic-German phrases, and details on the regulations for asylum
seekers.
A group of refugees waits after an overnight bus trip from
Wednesday.
|
Berlin Mayor
Michael Mueller's message greeting the refugees, also in Arabic, says they will
find that "the German capital is an open, tolerant and international
metropolis."
___
11:30 a.m.
Greek authorities
say they have completed screening more than 17,000 refugees and migrants
stranded in miserable conditions on the island of Lesbos ,
and most have boarded ferries for the mainland.
A football stadium
has been enlisted as a screening center, and police sent more staff and
fingerprinting equipment to accelerate the process. Nearly half the migrants
reaching Greece in small
boats from Turkey arrive on Lesbos , and sleep rough there until they can be
registered.
Police said
Wednesday the screening center will continue to handle some 3,000-4,000 people
who arrive every day.
About 10,000 people
left Lesbos this week in ferries for the
mainland.
___
11:30 a.m.
In a letter
Wednesday to all 47 member states, Council of Europe Secretary General
Thorbjorn Jagland said it was "self-defeating to mistreat or demean any
future members of our societies."
He notes that
collective expulsions are banned, there must be no discrimination on basis of
religion or race, and there should be equal access to food, shelter and health
care.
Europe has
struggled, in part, because front-line nations such as Hungary and Greece
have not put enough facilities in place to house a human flow averaging 2,000
to 3,000 a day while the vast majority of people try to push deeper into Europe
and seek refuge in Germany .
___
10:50 a.m.
The Norwegian
Directorate of Immigration is scrambling to find housing for a growing stream
of asylum-seekers coming to the wealthy Nordic country.
But agency
spokesman John Olav Kroken says the offer from the Islamic Cultural Center,
Norway's first mosque, was turned down because housing migrants in a place of
worship would be against the rules.
"It cannot be
a mosque or a church," he said. "I think they were disappointed
because they wanted to help."
The Islamic
Cultural Center said it respected the agency's decision and that it would make
its premises and staff available to help should the need arise in the future.
___
10:50 a.m.
German Chancellor
Angela Merkel says integrating successful asylum applicants into German society
will be a priority and authorities must learn from the past.
Merkel told
lawmakers Thursday that a country welcoming many people from other cultures
"also must make clear what rules apply here."
Merkel said the
government must learn from the experiences of the 1960s, when West Germany allowed in "guest
workers" from Turkey
and other nations but paid scant attention to integrating them. She says key
steps include ensuring that new arrivals learn German and trying to get them
into jobs.
She added: "We
must not look away if environments solidify in which integration is rejected or
if parallel societies develop — there can be no tolerance there."
___
10:40 a.m.
A group of refugees
has arrived in France after
an overnight bus trip from Germany ,
the first among around 1,000 that French President Francois Hollande pledged to
receive from the neighboring country.
Hollande committed
to accepting 24,000 refugees over two years — approximately the amount that Germany took in
over just the past weekend.
French television
in Champagne-sur-Seine showed the migrants, including families with young
children, leaving a bus and entering a Red Cross tent for coffee. French public
opinion is split on how to handle the influx of people fleeing war and poverty
in the Middle East and Africa .
___
10:25 a.m.
German Chancellor
Angela Merkel has renewed her demand for compulsory sharing of refugees among
European Union countries and insisted that the migrant crisis is a challenge
for every nation in the 28-member bloc.
Merkel addressed
the German parliament's annual budget debate on Wednesday just as the head of
the European Union's executive, Jean-Claude Juncker, called for the compulsory
relocation among EU countries of another 120,000 refugees.
Merkel said
"it would be a step if we achieved what Jean-Claude Juncker is proposing
today" but that the challenge is deeper than just sharing refugees.
___
9:00 a.m.
The head of the
European Union's executive says 22 of the member states should be forced to
accept another 120,000 people in need of international protection who have come
toward the continent at high risk through Greece ,
Italy and Hungary .
With the new call
to the European Parliament, EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said
Wednesday that his additional plan would bring the total for emergency
relocation to 160,000.
Recalling the
lengthy haggling among member states over the spread of the initial 40,000,
Juncker said that this time "this has to be done in a compulsory
way."
Juncker said he
wants his plan endorsed by the member states at a special meeting in Brussels on Monday.
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