BERLIN: Germany on Sunday implemented tighter border controls on its frontiers with the Czech Republic and Austria’s Tyrol province in an effort to stem the spread of more contagious coronavirus variants.
The new restrictions that took effect at midnight limit entry from those areas to German citizens and residents, truck drivers, transport and health service staff and a few others, who have to register online and show a negative coronavirus test.
Interior Minister Horst Seehofer told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper that the new checks may cause some delays at the border and German police “will not just wave traffic through.”
Infection rates in Germany have been declining steadily in recent weeks but officials are concerned about the possible impact of variants first discovered in Britain and South Africa. Both variants have been reported in Germany but so far appear to account for just a small proportion of cases.
Significant numbers of cases of the latter have been discovered in Tyrol, whose residents have needed to show a recent negative coronavirus test to travel to the rest of Austria since Friday. The spread of the British variant has prompted a complete lockdown of some Czech districts on the border with Germany and Poland.
To prevent a pile-up of trucks inside Austria, regional officials in Tyrol planned to check trucks headed for Germany at the Brenner pass crossing with Italy to ensure that drivers have the necessary paperwork to enter Germany.
Chancellor Angela Merkel and Germany’s 16 state governors agreed on Wednesday to extend most of the country’s lockdown restrictions until March 7, though schools and hairdressers can open sooner.
They set a new target of 35 new cases per 100,000 inhabitants per week before letting small stores, museums and other businesses reopen. That figure stood at 57.4 on Sunday, down from a peak of nearly 200 just before Christmas.
The eastern state of Saxony’s governor cautioned Germans against expecting too much too soon.
“Unfortunately, there can’t be Easter vacations in Germany this year,” Michael Kretschmer was quoted as telling Bild am Sonntag. “Too much mobility as a result of travel and tourism already in April would be poison. We would destroy everything we have achieved since mid-December.”
Hotels and restaurants in Saxony, which was hard hit in the fall and winter, will have to remain shut over Easter, and the reopening of theaters and operas will have to wait until after Easter, he said.
Germany tightens border checks to keep out virus variants
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Germany tightens border checks to keep out virus variants
- The new restrictions limit entry from Czech Republic to specific groups of people
- Infection rates in Germany have been declining steadily in recent weeks
Floods, landslides kill at least 11 in India’s Jammu region
- An intense monsoon rainstorm in the Indian-administered territory since Tuesday has caused widespread chaos
- Floods and landslides are common during the June-September monsoon season
An intense monsoon rainstorm in the Indian-administered territory since Tuesday has caused widespread chaos, with raging water smashing into bridges and swamping homes.
A local disaster official said that Ramban and Reasi districts were hit by heavy rainfall and landslides on Friday night, killing 11 people.
One child aged five was trapped in the debris and still missing, he added.
On Wednesday, a landslide slammed the pilgrimage route to the Hindu shrine of Vaishno Devi in Jammu, killing 41 people.
India’s Meteorological Department said the torrential rain had smashed records at two locations in the region.
Jammu and Udhampur recorded their highest 24-hour rainfall on Wednesday, with 296 millimeters (11.6 inches) in Jammu, nine percent higher than the 1973 record, and 629.4 mm (24.8 inches) in Udhampur – a staggering 84 percent surge over the 2019 mark.
Floods and landslides are common during the June-September monsoon season, but experts say climate change, coupled with poorly planned development, is increasing their frequency, severity and impact.
Climate experts from the Himalayan-focused International Center for Integrated Mountain Development warn that a spate of disasters illustrates the dangers when extreme rain combines with mountain slopes weakened by melting permafrost, as well as building developments in flood-prone valleys.
Powerful torrents driven by intense rain smashed into Chisoti village in Indian-administered Kashmir on August 14, killing at least 65 people and leaving another 33 missing.
Floods on August 5 overwhelmed the Himalayan town of Dharali in India’s Uttarakhand state and buried it in mud. The likely death toll from that disaster is more than 70 but has not been confirmed.
Thailand power vacuum will ‘not affect’ border security: defense ministry
- Constitutional Court sacked prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra over her handling of a border row with Cambodia
BANGKOK: Thailand’s lack of a formal government will not affect border security with Cambodia, the defense ministry said Saturday, as the kingdom scrambles to fill a power vacuum following the dismissal of the prime minister by the Constitutional Court.
The Southeast Asian nation was thrown into political turmoil on Friday when the court sacked prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra over her handling of a border row with Cambodia, saying she had “not upheld the ethical code of conduct.”
The ruling has left Thailand with an acting prime minister, Phumtham Wechayachai, and a caretaker cabinet which will stay on until a new government is formed as early as next week.
On Saturday morning the acting cabinet held a special meeting confirming the arrangement, with no new major announcements.
Deputy Defense Minister Natthapon Nakpanich said having an acting government would “not affect” the country’s ability to safeguard its sovereignty amid a fragile ceasefire at the border with Cambodia.
“It’s not a problem. The army chief has already assigned responsibilities to handle specific situations,” he told reporters.
Paetongtarn, daughter of billionaire ex-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, was suspended from office last month after being accused of failing to stand up for Thailand in a June call with powerful former Cambodian leader Hun Sen, which was leaked online.
In July, tensions between Thailand and Cambodia spiralled into the two sides’ deadliest military clashes in decades, with more than 40 people killed and 300,000 forced to flee their homes along the border.
Thailand and Cambodia’s leaders agreed to an “unconditional” ceasefire at the end of July, after five days of combat along their jungle-clad frontier.
A nine-judge panel in the Constitutional Court ruled by six to three on Friday that Paetongtarn had not upheld the ethical standards required of a prime minister and removed her from office.
The ruling, which also dissolved her cabinet, came a year after the same court ousted her predecessor as prime minister, Srettha Thavisin, in an unrelated ethics case.
Paetongtarn was the sixth prime minister from the political movement founded by her father to face judgment by the Constitutional Court.
Parliament will vote on a new prime minister perhaps as early as next week, but there is no obvious replacement for Paetongtarn waiting to take over.
Parties have been eager to meet and strategise ways to secure a majority vote in parliament for their own candidates.
Under the constitution, only candidates nominated for prime minister at the last general election in 2023 are eligible.
Four of those names are out of the running, three of whom are banned by court order and one whose party failed to get enough MPs elected to qualify.
The remaining four include Prayut Chan-O-Cha, an ex-general who led a 2014 coup and served as prime minister until 2023, and Anutin Charnvirakul, leader of the Bhumjaithai party which was a former partner in Paetongtarn’s coalition government.
EU’s Kallas says Russia won’t get frozen assets back without paying reparations
- Some $245.85 billion of Russian assets are frozen in the bloc under sanctions imposed on Moscow
- Members have called for the EU to confiscate the assets and use them to support Kyiv
COPENHAGEN: European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Saturday it was not possible to imagine giving back Russian assets frozen inside the bloc due to the war in Ukraine unless Moscow has paid reparations.
“We can’t possibly imagine that ... if ... there is a ceasefire or peace deal that these assets are given back to Russia if they haven’t paid for the reparations,” she told reporters before a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Copenhagen.
The EU says some 210 billion euros ($245.85 billion) of Russian assets are frozen in the bloc under sanctions imposed on Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine.
Ukraine and some EU countries, including Poland and the Baltic states, have called for the EU to confiscate the assets and use them to support Kyiv.
But EU heavyweights France and Germany – along with Belgium, which holds most of the assets – have rebuffed such calls.
They have pointed out that the EU has earmarked future profits from the assets to repay support for Ukraine and questioned whether there is a legal basis to confiscate them.
Diplomats say the debate is now turning to how the funds might be used, after the war in Ukraine comes to a halt.
At least 70 killed in capsize of migrant boat off West Africa, Gambia says
- Another 30 people are feared dead after the vessel sank off the coast of Mauritania early on Wednesday
- Gambia’s foreign affairs ministry implored its nationals to ‘refrain from embarking on such perilous journeys’
At least 70 people were killed when a boat carrying migrants capsized off the coast of West Africa, Gambia’s foreign affairs ministry said late on Friday, in one of the deadliest accidents in recent years along a popular migration route to Europe.
Another 30 people are feared dead after the vessel, believed to have departed from Gambia and carrying mostly Gambian and Senegalese nationals, sank off the coast of Mauritania early on Wednesday, the ministry said in a statement.
It was carrying an estimated 150 passengers, 16 of whom had been rescued. Mauritanian authorities recovered 70 bodies on Wednesday and Thursday, and witness accounts suggest over 100 may have died, the statement said.
The Atlantic migration route from the coast of West Africa to the Canary Islands, typically used by African migrants trying to reach Spain, is one of the world’s deadliest.
More than 46,000 irregular migrants reached the Canary Islands last year, a record, according to the European Union. More than 10,000 died attempting the journey, a 58 percent increase over 2023, according to the rights group Caminando Fronteras.
Gambia’s foreign affairs ministry implored its nationals to “refrain from embarking on such perilous journeys, which continue to claim the lives of many.”
Federal judge issues order blocking Trump effort to expand speedy deportations of migrants
- Setback for the Republican administration’s efforts to expand the use of the federal expedited removal statute
- The effort has triggered lawsuits by the American Civil Liberties Union and immigrant rights groups
WASHINGTON: A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from carrying out speedy deportations of undocumented migrants detained in the interior of the United States.
The move is a setback for the Republican administration’s efforts to expand the use of the federal expedited removal statute to quickly remove some migrants in the country illegally without appearing before a judge first.
President Donald Trump promised to engineer a massive deportation operation during his 2024 campaign if voters returned him to the White House. And he set a goal of carrying out 1 million deportations a year in his second term.
But US District Judge Jia Cobb in Washington, D.C., suggested the Trump administration’s expanded use of the expedited removal of migrants is trampling on individuals’ due process rights.
“In defending this skimpy process, the Government makes a truly startling argument: that those who entered the country illegally are entitled to no process under the Fifth Amendment, but instead must accept whatever grace Congress affords them,” Cobb wrote in a 48-page opinion issued Friday night. “Were that right, not only noncitizens, but everyone would be at risk.”
The Department of Homeland Security announced shortly after Trump came to office in January that it was expanding the use of expedited removal, the fast-track deportation of undocumented migrants who have been in the US less than two years.
The effort has triggered lawsuits by the American Civil Liberties Union and immigrant rights groups.
Before the Trump administration’s push to expand such speedy deportations, expedited removal was only used for migrants who were stopped within 100 miles of the border and who had been in the US for less than 14 days.
Cobb, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, didn’t question the constitutionality of the expedited removal statute, or its application at the border.
“It merely holds that in applying the statute to a huge group of people living in the interior of the country who have not previously been subject to expedited removal, the Government must afford them due process,” she writes.
Cobb earlier this month agreed to temporarily block the Trump administration’s efforts to expand fast-track deportations of immigrants who legally entered the US under a process known as humanitarian parole — a ruling that could benefit hundreds of thousands of people.
In that case the judge said Homeland Security exceeded its statutory authority in its effort to expand expedited removal for many immigrants. The judge said those immigrants are facing perils that outweigh any harm from “pressing pause” on the administration’s plans.
Since May, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have positioned themselves in hallways to arrest people after judges accept government requests to dismiss deportation cases. After the arrests, the government renews deportation proceedings but under fast-track authority.
Although fast-track deportations can be put on hold by filing an asylum claim, people may be unaware of that right and, even if they are, can be swiftly removed if they fail an initial screening.
