Poland has massed troops at the border, the European Union’s eastern frontier, to keep migrants camped there from crossing into the country.

By Anton Troianovski, Monika Pronczuk and Anatol Magdziarz

NY Times

Poland has massed thousands of troops on its border with Belarus to keep out Middle Eastern migrants who have set up camp there, as Western officials accuse Belarus’s leader of intentionally trying to create a new migrant crisis in Europe.

The standoff along the razor-wire fence separating the two countries has intensified a long-simmering confrontation between Belarus, a repressive former Soviet republic, and the European Union, which includes Poland.

Western officials say that President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus is allowing asylum seekers from the Middle East into his country by the thousands and then funneling them westward toward Poland and the E.U., and has escalated that strategy this week. They say he is retaliating against sanctions imposed after his disputed 2020 election victory.

The sharp increase in tensions has rattled European officials, with images of desperate migrants evoking the refugee crisis of 2015. The confrontation with Belarus, a close Russian ally, also raises new security concerns.

E.U. leaders are scrambling to strike a balance between protecting the bloc’s external borders and preventing a worsening humanitarian crisis among the migrants camped along the edge of a forest in freezing weather.

On Tuesday, Polish authorities said, at least 3,000 people who hoped to enter the European Union were gathered near the Kuznica border crossing, near the Belarusian city of Grodno. Hundreds could be seen camped just feet away from the border fence in video footage provided by both sides. In response to the growing numbers, Poland increased its forces in the area to more than 17,000 soldiers, border guards and police, Polish officials said.

Rising tension at the border with Belarus.

“This is a hybrid action carried out by the Belarusian regime against Poland and the E.U.,” said President Andrzej Duda of Poland, describing an operation that he said was orchestrated by Belarusian security forces to bring thousands of migrants into the forest near the border. “These are just aggressive actions that we have to resist.”

Poland has prevented journalists, aid organizations and E.U. officials from traveling to the border area, making reports from the scene difficult to verify. Polish authorities said eight people have died so far trying to cross the border.

Human rights groups, including Amnesty International and the Helsinki Foundation of Human Rights, have accused Poland of illegally pushing migrants who had crossed the border back into Belarusian territory.

Poland’s government recently passed legislation legalizing pushbacks, which has been criticized by human rights groups and is being analyzed by the European Commission. For years, the nationalist governing party has cast migration from the Middle East as a threat to Polish culture and sovereignty.

Still, a show of support for Poland from E.U. countries and top officials suggested that Europe’s security concerns were trumping human rights.

Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary general of NATO, said he spoke with Mr. Duda and pledged the alliance’s “solidarity.” Peter Stano, a spokesman for the E.U.’s executive arm, said Mr. Lukashenko was behaving like “a gangster” and that unspecified additional sanctions against Belarus were on their way.

But it did not appear that Mr. Lukashenko, an autocrat who has ruled his country since 1994, was prepared to change course. His government denies creating a refugee crisis, but he has hinted for months that he could do just that. In May, he warned the West: “We stopped drugs and migrants for you — now you’ll have to eat them and catch them yourselves.”

Until recently, migrants were scattered the length of the border, but now Belarusian authorities are collecting them at the Kuznica crossing, said Anna Alboth of the Minority Rights Group in Poland.

On Tuesday, Belarus’s border service released a video showing a tent camp squeezed into a narrow strip of land just a few yards from a line of Polish security forces in white helmets. The video showed a low-flying helicopter, military vehicles and a water cannon truck on the Polish side, and a thicket of tents and smoky bonfires on the Belarusian side.

“We have not seen any violations of the law by the migrants,” said Ivan Kubrakov, the interior minister of Belarus. “As a hospitable country, we are always ready to welcome everyone.”

A video posted by the Polish Ministry of Defense on Monday showed a crowd of people trying to break down the razor wire border fence with long sticks.

 

 

Police manning a checkpoint on the road leading to the Polish-Belarusian border crossing in Kuznica, in eastern Poland.Credit…Artur Reszko/EPA, via Shutterstock

“There is not enough water and food,” the Belarus border service said in a statement, describing the people in the camp as mainly Kurds. “The situation is complicated by a significant number of pregnant women and infants among the refugees.”

E.U. officials said they were analyzing air traffic to Minsk, the Belarusian capital, as potential evidence that Mr. Lukashenko was effectively orchestrating a flow of migrants toward E.U. countries. The timetable for the Minsk airport, effective Oct. 31, shows at least 47 scheduled flights per week from Middle Eastern locations, compared with no more than 23 flights per week on its previous schedule. The additional flights include a new daily route from Damascus on an Airbus A320 operated by the Syrian airline Cham Wings.

Travel agencies in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, where many of the migrants come from, have been offering packages that include visas to Belarus and airfare either through Turkey or the United Arab Emirates for about $3,000.

Mr. Stano, the E.U. spokesman, said officials were monitoring flights from around two dozen countries that were ferrying migrants into Minsk — including Morocco, Syria, South Africa, Somalia, India, Sri Lanka, Algeria, Libya and Yemen. The European commissioner for home affairs, Ylva Johansson, said the E.U. was stepping up “outreach with partner countries” to prevent migrants from coming to Belarus in the first place.

“Our urgent priority is to turn off the supply coming into Minsk airport,” she said in a tweet.

The E.U.’s standoff with Mr. Lukashenko has been intensifying ever since he crushed street protests against election fraud last year. Mr. Lukashenko claims the West is trying to topple him by supporting the opposition, and has imprisoned thousands of dissidents and journalists, while many others have left the country.

In May, Belarus diverted a RyanAir flight from Greece to Lithuania as it flew through Belarusian airspace, forcing it to land in Minsk, and arrested a passenger, Roman Protasevich, a dissident Belarusian journalist living in exile.

European leaders decried the move as an act of piracy, and it provoked a new round of Western sanctions against Belarus.President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has emerged as Mr. Lukashenko’s most important backer. The two spoke by phone on Tuesday, the Kremlin said, and discussed the situation at the Polish border. Mr. Putin’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, blamed the West for stoking the migration crisis and said the E.U. should pay Belarus to help contain it — just as the bloc sent financial aid to Turkey to do so in 2016“We see that the Belarusian specialists are working very responsibly,” Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, told reporters.

Polish officials said that in addition to those at the border, more than 10,000 migrants were elsewhere in Belarus, also hoping to get to the E.U. On Monday, Piotr Müller, a Polish government spokesman, said the country’s borders were “under attack in an organized manner.” A top security official, Maciej Wasik,         said a “real battle” had taken place against people trying to enter Poland illegally near Kuznica.

The standoff comes at a particularly difficult moment in Poland’s relations with the E.U., and in the country’s domestic politics. The conservative Polish government’s longstanding feud with the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, over the independence of Poland’s judiciary escalated in recent weeks, and the commission has been withholding the payment of the country’s $41 billion share of the E.U. coronavirus fund.

At home, the Polish governing party, Law and Justice, has seized on the image of a nation besieged by migrants to parade its nationalist credentials and brand its critics as unpatriotic at a time of national crisis. Both the opposition and nationalist groups that support the government are scheduled to rally in the center of the capital on Thursday, Poland’s Independence Day.

Anton Troianovski reported from Moscow, Monika Pronczuk from Brussels, and Tolek Magdziarz from Warsaw. Oleg Matsnev contributed reporting from Moscow, Jane Arraf from Suleimaniya, Iraq, and Andrew Higgins from Cluj, Romania.

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Dozens of Jamaican nationals have been taken off a removal flight in the days and hours before it was due to set off, raising renewed questions around the legality and efficacy of the Home Office’s deportation policy.

Campaigners say just four deportees were on board the charter plane, which left Birmingham Airport in the early hours of Tuesday morning and is said to have had capacity to seat 350 people. Around 50 people were originally due to fly.

Hours before the flight, activists calling themselves Stop The Plane locked themselves to metal pipes outside Brook House immigration removal centre near Gatw

The Home Office removed an unknown number of deportees from the flight list due to the fact that there has been a Covid outbreak at Colnbrook, an immigration removal centre near Heathrow, where they were being held.

At least five also had their removal deferred because they have been identified as potential victims of trafficking, with indicators that they have been groomed by county lines gangs and that this played a role in crimes they have committed.

Among those taken off the flight list include a man, 23, who has lived in the UK since he was three-months-old and another, 29, who has been in the country since he was a year old. Neither have any memory of Jamaica and both have been identified as potential county lines victims.

The Home Office also took a man with HIV off the flight list. The department was threatened with legal action over the failure to provide him with life-saving treatment in the detention centre, as reported by The Independent.

A judge halted the removal of another detainee on Tuesday, raising concerns about the fact that people who have been in the UK since they were under 12 were being deported, despite the fact the Home Office appeared to have a policy of not removing these people last year.

Judge Blundell said: “The conclusion at ‘ministerial level’ less than 12 months ago was that there were very compelling circumstances such that the Applicant could not be deported; there have been no relevant factual or legal developments in the last 12 months that could account for a departure from the previous position.”

Last week, it emerged that the Home Office was planning to deport non-criminals to Jamaica for the first time since the Windrush scandal broke, in what was described as an “affront to the Windrush generation”.

Among them was a 20-year-old woman with no criminal convictions who has been in the country since she was 13 and has no relatives in Jamaica. She was due to be deported with her mother, 56, who also has no convictions. Both were taken off the flight list within hours of The Independent publishing an article about the situation

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By Matt McGrath
Environment correspondent

BBC

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SANTIAGO, Nov 9 (Reuters) – Latin America’s largest airline, LATAM Airlines (LTM.SN), reported losses of some $692 million in the third quarter on Tuesday, as the indebted company said it was still battling challenges from the coronavirus pandemic.

LATAM’s total revenue climbed to $1.31 billion in the July-September quarter, an increase of 156% compared with the same period last year, but only around half the level compared with before the pandemic struck in early 2020.

“Despite the pandemic, which is not over yet and that is still having an impact, we have managed to close a third quarter with better operational performance in all businesses,” Finance Vice President Ramiro Alfonsín told reporters.

The result was supported by a better performance in the domestic travel market and solid cargo business, balancing weaker performance on international routes hit by global travel restrictions that are still in flux.

The operating capacity for the quarter averaged close to half the pre-pandemic level and the airline said it expected to reach around 65% of that level by the end of the year. Alfonsín said he expected the airline’s key Brazilian operation to recover to pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2021 or early 2022.

In May 2020, LATAM filed for bankruptcy protection in the United States, due to the impact of the restrictions related to the pandemic. Alfonsín said on Tuesday that the airline would present the reorganization plan this month.

“Now we are finalizing the last details of our reorganization plan, for that we are meeting with stakeholders and we hope to present by November 26,” he said.

The airline, born from the merger of Chile’s LAN with Brazilian rival TAM in 2012, has operating units in Chile, Brazil, Colombia and Peru.

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NOGALES, Mexico, Nov 9 (Reuters) – Leo fled his hometown in southern Mexico after his uncle was murdered by gang members and he received death threats. Earlier this year, he, his wife and their two children headed to the U.S.-Mexico border hoping to claim asylum.

After months of waiting, he hoped he would finally get his chance on Monday. But even as U.S. borders opened for travelers vaccinated against COVID-19, they remained closed to asylum seekers.

When Leo, 23, and his family approached the port of entry in Nogales, Mexico with his and his wife’s vaccination cards in hand, they were told by a border official they could not enter and seek asylum.

“I feel dispirited and sad,” said Leo, who asked his last name not be published for fear of reprisals from the gang he fled. President Joe Biden “is just continuing the same policies of Donald Trump.”

Biden has kept in place a controversial U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) order, first implemented by his Republican predecessor Trump in March 2020, that allows migrants to be immediately expelled without an opportunity to seek asylum.

The Biden administration has said the CDC’s order, known as Title 42, remains necessary to prevent the spread of COVID-19, as asylum seekers are processed in crowded settings at the border.

Any foreign national attempting to enter the United States without proper documentation will be subject to expulsion regardless of vaccination status, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Advocates have criticized the Biden administration’s continuation of the expulsion policy as borders reopen.

The idea that a vaccinated asylum seeker is more of a risk than a vaccinated tourist is laughable, said Noah Gottschalk, global policy lead with Oxfam America, one of the advocacy groups suing the Biden administration to overturn the Title 42 order. Gottschalk said the exclusion of vaccinated asylum seekers strengthens the group’s argument that the policy isn’t about public health.

In September, a federal judge ordered the Biden administration to stop expelling family units – parents or legal guardians arriving with their children – under the Title 42 order. The administration appealed, and a higher court put the judge’s ruling on hold as the case moves forward.

Last month, more than 1,300 medical professionals signed letters to the CDC urging it to end the border expulsions order, saying it lacked epidemiological evidence to justify it and put migrants at risk.

New York-based nonprofit Human Rights First has documented more than 7,600 kidnappings and other attacks on migrants stuck in Mexico who were blocked from entering the United States since Biden took office in January.

Leo has been working in construction to pay rent in Nogales, but he says his earnings are not enough to support his family. “They abuse you because they know you are not from here, they pay you what they want,” he said.

He is also worried about his children getting hit by a stray bullet when gunshots ring out at night. The U.S. State Department recommends Americans reconsider travel to the Mexican state of Sonora, where Nogales is located, due to crime and kidnapping.

“We were fleeing a place that was dangerous,” said Leo. “And here it is the same.”

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Pfizer to FDA: Authorize booster shots

 

© Getty Images

Pfizer and BioNTech on Tuesday said they had asked the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to authorize booster shots of their COVID-19 vaccine for all adults 18 and over, seeking to broaden who is eligible for a third shot.

The move comes as part of a long-running debate among experts over who should be eligible for booster shots. An FDA advisory panel voted against a request for all adults to have a booster in September, in what was a blow to the Biden administration’s earlier announcement of widespread shots.

But the eligibility has been gradually widening as experts point to concerns that the vaccines’ efficacy wanes over time.

The debate: Part of the discussion over boosters for younger adults has centered on whether the goal is to prevent people from being hospitalized with COVID-19 or whether the goal is to prevent them from getting sick at all, even if it is milder.

Some experts have said given that the initial doses of the vaccine have still been holding up very well against hospitalization or death, there is no need for widespread boosters for younger adults.

Anthony Fauci is one of the experts who has argued that preventing any illness from COVID-19 should be the goal, an argument that speaks more in favor of widespread booster shots.

“I think we should be preventing people from getting sick from COVID even if they don’t wind up in the hospital,” Fauci told The Atlantic Festival in September.

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PFIZER CEO CALLS PEOPLE WHO SPREAD VACCINE MISINFORMATION ‘CRIMINALS’

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla on Tuesday described people who spread false information about the coronavirus vaccines as “criminals.”

“Those people are criminals,” Bourla said to Atlantic Council CEO Frederick Kempe, CNBC reported. “They’re not bad people. They’re criminals because they have literally cost millions of lives.”

Bourla said a “very small” group of people has been spreading misinformation about the vaccines.

Millions in the United States have yet to be vaccinated despite the fact the COVID-19 vaccines have been available to people above the age of 12 for months.

“The only thing that stands between the new way of life and the current way of life is, frankly, hesitancy to vaccinations,” Bourla said.

Bourla’s comments come after a Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that eight in 10 Americans believe or are unsure of at least one false statement about COVID-19.

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More than 360,000 children under 12 have gotten at least one vaccine dose

 

© Getty Images

More than 360,000 children under age 12 have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data, as the country scales up pediatric vaccinations.

The preliminary data as of Monday evening shows at least 156,000 children younger than 12 have started their vaccination regimen within the past two weeks, as doses first began to become available to those within that younger age group.

Children under 12 represented 5.2 percent of those who got their first dose within the past 14 days.

Despite making up 14 percent of the American population, those younger than 12 currently make up 0.2 percent of Americans who received at least one dose, since the vaccines have only been available for days.

Follows: The CDC officially recommended the Pfizer vaccine for 5- to 11-year-olds last week, marking the first time Americans younger than 12 became eligible for a COVID-19 vaccination.

The move, following the Food and Drug Administration’s emergency authorization for the age group late last month, opened up vaccinations to 28 million children across the U.S.

Caveat: The CDC noted that the vaccination data was available by age for about 205 million recipients, cautioning that the numbers ”only represent the geographic areas that contributed data” and therefore are “not generalizable to the entire US population.”

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Chinese city says it tested 30,000 for COVID-19

The Chinese city of Chengdu said on Wednesday it had conducted 30,000 COVID-19 tests on visitors at a big entertainment centre, and rounded up those who tried to flee the site, in the second mass screening in days. All COVID-19 tests were negative, the official China Central Television (CCTV) reported.

It was not clear how many visitors were at the New Century Global Center, which houses numerous shops, offices, a water park, and a university. At 1.7 million square metres, the floor area is equivalent to four Vatican Cities. Some people left the temporarily controlled area without authorisation, said CCTV, but were located via tracking services and tested. read more

India could ship vaccines to COVAX in a few weeks

India could resume deliveries of COVID-19 shots to global vaccine-sharing platform COVAX in a few weeks for the first time since April, two health industry sources said, ending a suspension of supplies that has hurt poor countries. read more

The World Health Organization (WHO), which co-leads COVAX, has been urging India to restart supplies for the programme, especially after it sent about 4 million doses to its neighbours and partners in October. Adar Poonawalla, CEO of the Serum Institute of India (SII), the world’s biggest vaccine maker, told Reuters last month that the company could send 20 million to 30 million doses a month to COVAX in November and December, which would increase to “large volumes” from January once India’s own needs were met.

Aucklanders return to malls as New Zealand eases lockdown

Shops and malls in New Zealand’s biggest city of Auckland opened their doors for the first time in three months on Wednesday as the epicentre of the country’s coronavirus outbreak gradually reopened. Shops filled up due to pent-up demand while some shoppers reportedly queued up overnight to take advantage of early bird offers at some stores. Libraries, museums and zoos were also allowed to open. The hospitality sector, however, remained shut.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has said the city will move into a new “traffic-light” system to manage outbreaks rather than lockdowns once 90% of Aucklanders have been fully vaccinated. About 84% of Aucklanders have had a second doses. read more

French health authority advises against Moderna COVID-19 vaccine for under 30s

France’s public health authority has recommended people under 30 be given Pfizer’s Comirnaty COVID-19 vaccine when available instead of Moderna Inc’s Spikevax shot, which carried comparatively higher risks of heart-related problems.

The Haute Autorite de Sante (HAS), which does not have legal power to ban or licence drugs but acts as an adviser to the French health sector, cited “very rare” risks linked to myocarditis, a heart disease, that had shown up in recent data on the Moderna vaccine and in a French study published on Monday. For people over 30, however, the authority explicitly recommended the use of the Moderna vaccine, saying its effectiveness was slightly superior. read more

Russia says it has turned tide on COVID-19 cases, deaths hit record high

Russia said last week’s nationwide workplace shutdown had helped turn the tide of surging COVID-19 cases, even as officials on Tuesday reported the largest one-day death toll of the pandemic. read more

St Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city by population, has ordered mandatory

vaccination for people over 60 and those with chronic illnesses, a regional consumer health watchdog said. The step was significant because authorities have generally held back from forcing people to get inoculated, fearing it could entrench resistance to the domestically produced Sputnik V vaccine, which is already distrusted by many Russians. read more

WORLD STATS

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