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Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/why-croatia-sees-joining-the-euro-as-path-to-security/2022/12/30/faf50b4a-8833-11ed-b5ac-411280b122ef_story.html

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The post Why Croatia Sees Joining the Euro as Path to Security first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The post Earthquake of magnitude 6.4 strikes near Zagreb, Croatia first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

A destroyed car in Zagreb, Croatia is seen following the earthquake [Darko Bandic/AP Photo]

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GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences said the earthquake, which was felt across the Western Balkans, struck at a depth of 10km (six miles). It downgraded the magnitude to 5.3 from an initial reading of 6.0.

The quake struck at a depth of 10km and was felt across the Western Balkans [ Antonio Bronic/Reuters]

“It lasted over 10 seconds. By far the strongest I have ever felt,” one witness said, adding that it was followed by several aftershocks.

The US Geological Survey said the earthquake measured 5.4, while the European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) also reported a magnitude 5.3, followed by another magnitude 5.1 earthquake.

Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said the earthquake was the biggest in Zagreb in the last 140 years.

It caused widespread damage including to the city’s iconic cathedral, with the top of one of its two spires collapsing – all amid a partial coronavirus lockdown.

Downtown streets were littered with debris. Concrete slabs fell on cars and chimneys landed in front of entrances.

The earthquake damaged buildings, buried vehicles in rubble and caused several fires [Filip Horvat/AP]

Footage from the scene showed mothers dressed in nightgowns hugging their newborn babies in a car park as they evacuated a damaged maternity hospital amid freezing temperatures.

The women, newborn babies, and incubators were being moved to a new location with the help of the army.

In Zagreb, people fled apartments and took to the streets while parts of the capital experienced electricity cuts. A church bell tower was damaged and some buildings collapsed, Reuters news agency reported.

Several fires were also reported. Residents shared photos of belongings falling off shelves, broken bottles, and glass inside homes.

Officials first said a 15-year-old was killed, but doctors later said she was in critical condition and they were fighting to save her life. They gave no immediate details on the extent of other injuries.

A man looks at damages at the Basilica of the Heart of Jesus, following an earthquake in Zagreb [Antonio Bronic/Reuters]

‘Complex situation’

Croatia’s Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic issued an appeal on Twitter for people in the streets to keep a social distance from each other as the country struggles to contain the spread of the coronavirus. So far, Croatia has confirmed 206 cases of the virus and one death.

Up to five people are allowed to be together while keeping distance.

The prime minister urged the citizens to remain calm and stay outside their homes in the central parts of Zagreb, which sustained the most damage.

Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/croatia-zagreb-rocked-powerful-earthquake-200322080421838.html

The post Croatia’s Zagreb rocked by powerful earthquake first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The post Europe’s Border Crisis: Volunteers on lookout for undocumented migrants first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

He was commenting on a Swiss Radio Television report the day before which showed Croatian police allegedly using force to return illegal migrants to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Over two days in late April, Swiss reporters allegedly documented, from concealed positions, four pushbacks in which 70 migrants, mainly from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Algeria, were transferred against their will to BiH.

Responding to the footage, Croatia’s Interior Ministry said it showed “official action in line with the Schengen code, aimed at preventing illegal entry into the EU.”

Speaking to reporters, Božinović said the TV report “was conceived so as to show that Croatian police use violence, and it’s not the first time.” He said the footage showed “everything but violence,” and called it “another futile attempt to accuse the Croatian police which, I repeat, are enforcing national and European legislation.”

For some time now, the Croatian police are faced with accusations of unlawfully returning migrants to BiH, instead of giving them a chance to apply for asylum in Croatia, and of beating them and stealing their property. The Interior Ministry has rejected the accusations, saying it “discourages” migrants from attempting to illegally enter the country.

Božinović said Croatia, as a sovereign country, did not and would not allow illegal entry. He said parts of the border regions, notably in Sisak-Moslavina County, were believed to contain leftover mines and that migrants risked being killed. “Croatia is enforcing the Schengen legislation by enabling people to seek asylum,” he said, adding that 80% of those who applied for asylum left before their applications were processed.

“After being identified by the authorities of Austria, Germany or any other EU member state, they are returned to Croatia. They don’t want to stay in Croatia but go to third countries which don’t want to receive them and return them to Croatia, which should care for those who don’t want to stay in Croatia.”

“This return of secondary migrants to Croatia and the fact that Croatia keeps detailed records of all such asylum seekers, notably in the last 18 months, discourages them from seeking asylum in Croatia because they know they will be returned sooner or later,” he said.

This year through May 1, there were 4,309 illegal attempts to enter Croatia and the police arrested and tried 251 perpetrators for people smuggling.

Božinović said that in every county there were enough police to deal with migrants, reiterating that migrations were not a local issue. “Migrations are managed at national level, from the national task force formed within the Police Directorate,” he said, adding that “we can respond to any challenge.”

Police Director Nikola Milina, too, said the Croatian police acted in line with the law when dealing with migrants. “Last year alone there were more than 1,000 asylum applications. It’s not true at all that people are being prevented from seeking asylum.”

He said the police were first and foremost focused on preventing people smuggling, and that they were also saving lives. He urged NGOs not to encourage migrants to expose themselves to danger, notably in potential mine fields.

More news about the migrant crisis can be found in the Politics section.

Source:  https://www.total-croatia-news.com/politics/35949-illegal-migrants

The post Croatia Will Not Let Illegal Migrants In, Says Interior Minister first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Populists seize chance to put favorite issue on agenda ahead of EU vote, causing ructions among governments.

A previously obscure 34-page, jargon-filled document is causing political convulsions across Europe — even though it’s not even legally binding.

Italy this week became the latest in a string of European countries to say it would not sign the U.N.’s Global Compact on Migration at a ceremony in Marrakech in just under two weeks. From the Netherlands through Belgium and Germany to Slovakia, the pact has triggered infighting in ruling parties and governments, with at least one administration close to breaking point.

The fight over the pact illuminates how migration remains a combustible issue across the Continent, three years after the 2015 refugee crisis and with next May’s European Parliament election on the horizon. Far-right parties keen to make migration the key campaign issue have seized on the pact while some mainstream parties have sought to steal their thunder by turning against the agreement. Liberals and centrists, meanwhile, have found themselves on the defensive — arguing that the agreement poses no harm and migration is best handled through international cooperation.

Louise Arbour, the senior U.N. official overseeing the pact, said she is surprised by the controversy, as diplomats from 180 countries — including many that have now pulled out — signed off on the text last summer after two years of negotiations.

The initiative was launched at the request of Europe after the migration surge of 2015, Arbour said. The countries now having “second thoughts or misgivings” were very active during the negotiations and “extracted compromises from the others,” she told POLITICO in an interview.

Arbour, a former Canadian judge and U.N. human rights commissioner, said the recent backtracking illustrates a clear “disconnect” between some countries’ foreign policies “and domestic pressures or national concerns that were not included into the process.”

She stressed the compact is not binding and, after its formal adoption next month, “there is not a single member state that is obligated to do anything that it doesn’t want to.”

The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, to give it its full name, sets out a “cooperative framework” for dealing with international migration. Signatories agree, for example, to limit the pressure on countries with many migrants and to promote the self-reliance of newcomers. The document states that no country can address migration alone, while also upholding “the sovereignty of States and their obligations under international law.”

That assurance has not been enough to placate many in Europe. Hungary, whose Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has made anti-migrant policies his signature issue, pulled out while the pact was being negotiated. But the recent wave of European withdrawals was triggered by conservative Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, who renounced the pact at the end of October.

German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (left), Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (center) and his coalition partner Heinz-Christian Strache (right) meet in Vienna to discuss immigration, July 2018 | Michael Gruber/Getty Images

Heinz-Christian Strache, the leader of the far-right Freedom Party, Kurz’s coalition partner, declared that “Austria must remain sovereign on migration” and said the country is “playing a leading role in Europe.” At least in terms of the pact, that turned out to be true with Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Poland, Estonia, Croatia and Switzerland all following Vienna’s lead.

Bratislava, Berlin and beyond

Slovakia is among the most recent countries to withdraw its support for the pact. After an EU summit on Sunday, Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini said Bratislava would not support the pact “under any circumstances and will not agree with it.”

Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajčák on Thursday said he would resign after parliament decided to reject the pact. Lajčák was president of the U.N. General Assembly when the migration pact was adopted.

Populist parties in other countries have forced the pact to the top of the political agenda. The Dutch government under Prime Minister Mark Rutte has come under pressure from far-right leaders, including Geert Wilders and Thierry Baudet, who refers to the agreement as the “U.N. Immigration Pact.” The government ordered a legal analysis of the text last week to ensure that signing it will not entail any legal consequences. The Cabinet finally decided on Thursday that it would support the pact, but would add an extra declaration, a so-called explanation of position, to prevent unintended legal consequences.

In Germany, the pact has become an issue in the battle to succeed Angela Merkel — the EU politician most associated with a more liberal approach to migration — as leader of the ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Two of the leading contenders for the post, Jens Spahn and Friedrich Merz, have both criticized the agreement and called for it to be amended.

The German chancellor mounted a spirited defense of the pact, telling the Bundestag last week that the agreement is in Germany’s national interest as it will encourage better conditions for refugees and migrants elsewhere in the world.

Arbour argued that although the pact is not legally binding, it is still worthwhile. “The pact is a major cooperation project … a political initiative to align initiatives for the common benefit,” she said.

But such arguments cut little ice with the WerteUnion (“Union of Values”), a group of thousands of conservative members of the CDU and its Bavarian sister party. It takes issue with multiple sections of the pact, such as a declaration that migrants “regardless of their status, can exercise their human rights through safe access to basic services.” The group argues that as German social benefits are high, such a commitment would encourage migrants to come to Germany.

Michel has been consulting with a handful of European countries to produce a joint statement to be attached to the pact | Leon Neal/Getty Images

In Belgium, the pact has put liberal Prime Minister Charles Michel’s coalition government at risk. The Flemish nationalist N-VA, the biggest party in government, has demanded Belgium withdraw from the agreement. Michel is caught between his commitment to the pact and his coalition partner’s rejection of it — while seeking to fend off a Francophone opposition that will take any opportunity to portray him as a puppet of the Flemish nationalists ahead of federal, regional and European elections next May.

Searching for a way to keep his government afloat, Michel has been consulting with a handful of European countries including Denmark, Estonia, the U.K. and Norway, to produce a joint statement to be attached to the pact, according to Belgian media. Another idea is for several of those countries to join the Netherlands in signing a common “explanation of position,” Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant reported.

Arbour said it’s too late to start making changes to the pact itself. Renegotiating the text or attaching an extra statement is “not what other [countries] have signed up to,” she said.

Source: https://www.politico.eu/article/migration-un-viktor-orban-sebastian-kurz-far-right-pressure-europe-retreats-from-pact/

The post Under far-right pressure, Europe retreats from UN migration pact first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

It was almost lunchtime at a dormitory on the outskirts of Bihac in northwestern Bosnia and Herzegovina and an Afghan woman sheltered from the rain in a tent before joining the queue for food.

The dormitory was unfinished. Its windows had no glass, the water pipes leaked and there were holes in the upper floors. The stench of smoke and urine hung in the air.

“This is not a camp, and that is not food,” said the woman, who did not give her name.

Bihac is no stranger to crisis.

Twenty-five years ago this city was under siege, its mainly Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) residents trapped on all sides by Bosnian Serb forces for whom control of Bihac would strengthen supply lines between themselves and their ethnic kin fighting a rebel war just over the border in Croatia.

Yugoslavia was collapsing in bloodshed, and Bihac’s proximity to road and rail communications made it a strategic prize. Today, that location means it is a magnet for migrants and refugees from Asia, Africa and the Middle East carving out a new route through the Balkan peninsula to Western Europe.

For around 1,000, the squalid dormitory and the sodden tents out front are a temporary home, their way forward into European Union member Croatia blocked by police whom rights groups accuse of using heavy-handed tactics to keep them out.

The numbers heading north from Greece via Albania, Montenegro and Bosnia have doubled since last year, with Bosnia now struggling to provide accommodation and food to around 5,000, 3,000 of whom are in Bihac.

The numbers do not compare with 2015, when hundreds of thousands streamed north from Greece through Macedonia and Serbia. But with that route largely shut down, smugglers are hemming closer to the Adriatic.

It has put a particular strain on Bosnia, still in the long process of recovery from a 1992-95 war that killed 100,000 people and left the country divided along ethnic lines.

Memories of suffering:

Improvised shelter in the suburb of Bihac, Borici settlement. Photo: Anja Vladisavljevic

When BIRN visited Bihac, on July 23, the rain did not stop. Clothes and blankets were soaked.

Residents stood in line for their meals, eating in shifts as the dining room, which doubles as sleeping quarters at night, is too small for all of them. That day, the Red Cross served breakfast for 900 and 1,150 hot meals for lunch and dinner. There are just six toilet and shower cabins.

Children played near the road with stray dogs. When the sun comes out, they swim in the emerald waters of the nearby River Una, though even this escape was blighted by tragedy on July 5 when one person drowned.

Their own memories of war and deprivation still fresh, some residents of Bihac and elsewhere in Bosnia and Herzegovina have been quick to help, organising volunteers and donating food and clothes. But the situation has stirred fear and prejudice in others.

“In the consciousness and narratives of the local population, there are strong associations and comparisons with their own suffering in the war of the 1990s, the experience of being besieged, dying and want,” said culturologist Hajrudin Hromadzic, born in Bihac and now an associate professor at the University of Rijeka in Croatia.

The region, he said, had been thrust into a situation of “spontaneuous coping and experimentation”.

Some 200 were originally housed in a retirement home in the city centre, but were moved to the dormitory on the edge of Bihac on July 17 when mayor Suhret Fazlic said the retirement home was unsafe.

Bosnia has only two official asylum centres. The EU, trying to keep down the flow over its own borders, has pledged to help create another, but Bosnian officials have struggled to agree a location.

Bihac city centre. Photo: Anja Vladisavljevic

Dozens of local councillors and mayors from northwestern Bosnia staged a protest on Thursday in Sarajevo over the state’s handling of the situation.

“They sleep in parks, on benches; they turned our stadium into a toilet, our children have nowhere to play,” said Fazlic.

“We are not against migrants, we understand their problems, but we ask the Council of Ministers to find adequate accommodation and to get them off the streets,” he was quoted as saying by local media.

Hromadzic blamed the country’s “chronic state dysfunction”.

The peace deal that ended the war in Bosnia bestowed a complicated and unwieldy system of ethnic power-sharing that critics say has left government often ineffective and sometimes prone to paralysis.

Whether addressed at the local, cantonal, federal or state level, said Hromadzic, “none of them can find solutions to this delicate challenge.”

Police violence:

Improvised shelter in the suburb of Bihac, Borici settlement. Photo: Anja Vladisavljevic
One thing is for sure. None of the dormitory’s residents want to stay in Bosnia and Herzegovina. There are regular attempts to cross the border into Croatia, but the obstacles are formidable, from forests and rivers, to uncleared landmines and an unwelcoming Croatian police force.

Amnesty International, as well as a number of Croatian non-governmental organisations and media, have documented cases of police using disproportionate force.

BIRN heard similar stories from the refugees and migrants it spoke to. Refusing to be named, they spoke of physical violence, of possessions being confiscated or destroyed and money and cell phones seized.

“My son and I have tried to cross the border several times, but the police are pushing us back,” said an Afghan man, father of a four-year-old boy. During the last such ‘push-back’ they escaped with “only” a broken smartphone, he said.

A Pakistani man, who said he was a student of computer science and architecture, said he had crossed the border five times, even reaching Croatia’s northern neighbour Slovenia. But each time he and his friends were sent back.

Trying to evade police, many swim across rivers. On July 2, Croatia’s interior ministry said that over the last 18 months, 12 had died trying to cross the border into Croatia. Some NGOs give a higher figure of 16, but say they fear the real number is even greater.

On July 19, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Cresecent Societies said that dozens of people were being treated daily for injuries sustained while trying to cross from Bosnia and Herzegovina into Croatia.

Improvised shelter in the suburb of Bihac, Borici settlement. Photo: Anja Vladisavljevic

A Red Cross spokesperson in Bihac, Nicole Robicheau, said conditions near the border were “grossly inadequate”.

“People don’t want to stay here but they are effectively stranded,” Robicheau said in a press release. “Each day, people try to move onwards to Croatia but many return with injuries.”

On Tuesday, Croatian Defence Minister Davor Bozinovic dismissed allegations of police brutality, saying authorities acted only in accordance with Croatian and EU law.

But Julija Kranjec, of the Croatian rights organisations Center for Peace Studies, said a simple denial was not enough in the face of multiple eye-witness accounts given to reputable international organisations.

“If there’s the good technical equipment they go on about so much – drones, thermographic cameras – why not show what’s really going on?” said Kranjec.

Read more:

Bosnians Keep Arguing Over New Migrant Centre

Bosnian Mayors to Protest Against Refugee Centres

Croatia to Release Relative of Killed Refugee Child

Source: http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/migrants-and-refugees-find-squalor-in-bosnia-croatia-closed-07-30-2018

The post Migrants and Refugees Find Squalor in Bosnia, Croatia closed first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Security and human rights ministers from the Balkans and neighbouring countries agreed at a meeting in Sarajevo on Thursday to create a database which will be compatible with similar systems in Europe in order to track migrants.

“We must be able to see if those people [migrants] previously stayed in Europe,” Bosnian security minister Dragan Mektic told media after the meeting.

“We will see if it is possible for us from the Western Balkans to become part of FRONTEX [the European Border and Coast Guard Agency],” he added.

Mektic explained that migrant readmission agreements between countries must be respected and said it was important to strengthen of state services like the border police.

“We also have to think about the joint return of migrants to third countries or countries of origin, so that each state strengthens the border service and the guards,” he said.

The meeting was attended by representatives of most countries on the so-called Balkan Route – Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, Greece, Austria and Slovenia.

It involved two panels, one dedicated to security and the other to the humanitarian aspects of the crisis.

Bosnian minister of refugees and displaced persons Semiha Borovac told media that Bosnia has managed to respond adequately to the recent influx of migrants entering the country.

“The priority is the creation of accommodation capacity. We have shown that migrants can get all the necessary assistance,” Borovac said.

Bostjan Sefic, state secretary at Slovenia’s interior ministry, told media that since November 2017, the number of illegal immigrants has been constantly increasing.

“The situation is under control, but it is time for joint activities to ensure that everything is under control. The trend is negative and we must immediately approach the realisation of concrete measures of protection,” Sefic said.

He argued that it would not be good if EU members are forced to adopt unilateral measures and therefore it was essential that countries in the region cooperate to ensure stability.

Bosnia has faced a migrant crisis that peaked in late May after almost 5,000 illegal entries were registered since the beginning of the year.

The International Organisation for Migration, the UN migration agency, also warned on June 1 that migration flows through the Western Balkans are still on the rise.

From January to the end of May, authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Albania registered more than 6,700 new migrants and asylum-seekers, a more than two-fold increase on the 2,600 migrants and asylum-seekers registered in the three countries over the whole of 2017.

Read more:

‘New Balkan Route’ for Migrants, Refugees Causes Alarm

Bosnia Deploys Police to Border to Stop Migrants

Arctic Weather Freezes Migrant Flow Across Bosnia

Source: http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/countries-of-the-region-to-work-jointly-on-migrant-crisis-06-07-2018

The post Balkan States Vow Joint Action to Tackle Migrant Crisis first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.