EUROPE

Photo Credit:AFP

Arash took his first steps on English soil on a cloudy, drizzly day in May, after attempting a perilous crossing of the Channel from northern France.

UK border police intercepted the inflatable dinghy on which he and others spent five hours dodging waves and traffic on one of the world's busiest shipping lanes, and brought them ashore.

Arash, 28, who is now seeking asylum in Britain, is one of more than 27 000 people who attempted the perilous journey in 2021 – a record.

In 2020, just 8 400 individuals crossed the Channel in small boats. As the numbers have soared, so too have fatalities, with 36 this year, including 27 who died in single incident in November.

But Arash, who asked for his real name not to be used because he fears persecution for his religious beliefs in his native Iran, said the risks were worth it.

"When you don't have any hope in your country and your life is in danger, you will take your chance and you will risk doing this dangerous thing," the former engineering student told AFP.

Arash left his home in southwest Iran in 2018, making his way to northern France via Serbia, Greece and Germany.

En route, he paid thousands of euros to people smugglers and used two fake passports.

For the final leg of his journey, he paid 2 500 euros (2 130, $2 817) for a place on a crowded boat with 27 others, including two young children.

Most were from Eritrea, Iran and Afghanistan, he said.

Huge delays 

The UK authorities have drawn a link between the increase in arrivals to the use of larger inflatable boats, but the rickety vessels are still often crammed with passengers.

"For sure it (the dinghy) was overloaded," Arash said of his own journey. "We didn't have any space to move around the boat."

As they put to sea from France, he said he was filled with a "feeling that was a mixture of fear and hope".

The high number of migrants crossing to Britain from mainland Europe has become a political headache for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Home Secretary Priti Patel.

The 2016 campaign to leave the European Union, on which Johnson staked his political career, promised to "take back control" of Britain's borders.

But officials have since admitted that the number of asylum seekers sent back to the EU has fallen sharply, with Britain now left out of a returns deal between member states.

The flow of migrants has also soured Britain's relations with France, prompting an unseemly blame game even as both sides try to disrupt people trafficking networks.

The chief executive of Refugee Action, Tim Naor Hilton, said Britain – which has promised France 54 million ($72 million, 64 million euros) to try to stop the crossings – was "wasting money" by trying to tighten its borders.

He said: 

"The Home Office is taking longer than ever to decide people's claims. These unacceptable delays mean refugees are staying longer in the asylum system and leaves the department struggling to find accommodation."

Borders bill 

The government's Nationality and Borders Bill is currently before parliament, promising tougher action against people smugglers and, controversially, migrants themselves.

A Home Office spokesperson said the bill will "fix our broken asylum system, creating a fair but firm immigration system that protects the most vulnerable and cracks down on illegal immigration and the criminal gangs that facilitate it".

If passed, the bill will allow the return of asylum seekers like Arash who have passed through so-called "safe third countries".

Human rights groups are incensed and nearly eight months since his arrival, Arash said he "expected better" from life in Britain.

He was taken for processing at a squat, red-brick building at the foot of the chalk cliffs that loom over the south coast port of Dover, and from there to London.

But he has been in a hotel on the fringes of Heathrow Airport ever since, waiting to hear about a decision on his refugee status.

Like the number of crossings, statistics indicate a mushrooming in the number of asylum seekers receiving emergency assistance while in such "initial accommodation" before getting a flat or shared house elsewhere.

Some 2 738 were recorded in December 2019. In September 2021, the figure was 16 794.

"Why are we in the same place, without any plan and it's more or less like a prison?" asked Arash.

Photo Credit:Reuters

Among the new rules are limiting private gatherings to 10 people, closing nightclubs nationwide and having large events like soccer matches held without an in-person audience.

Germany announced new restrictions Tuesday that will begin after Christmas to slow the spread of the new omicron variant, rules that will fall short of a full lockdown but will include contact restrictions even for vaccinated people.

“I can understand anyone who doesn’t want to hear about the coronavirus, mutations and new virus variants,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said at a press conference Tuesday evening. “But we cannot and must not turn a blind eye to this next wave.”

Among the new rules are limiting private gatherings to 10 people, closing nightclubs nationwide and having large events like soccer matches held without an in-person audience. The restrictions will go into effect nationwide on Dec. 28, although states can implement the measures sooner.

Scholz said the government decided to wait until after Christmas to implement new national restrictions because family-focused holidays such as Christmas and Easter “have not proven to be major drivers of the pandemic." But he said restrictions on New Year's celebrations are necessary to keep Germany's health system from being overwhelmed by COVID-19 cases.

“This is no longer the time for parties and social evenings in big groups,” Scholz said.

Scholz and Germany's 16 state governors agreed on the new restrictions at a meeting Tuesday, after the government's new panel of experts called for action to be taken within days nationwide because the omicron variant is racing across Europe.

Photo Credit:Rafael Yaghobzadeh, AP

For much of Macron’s term France expected – and did not want – a replay of the 2017 Macron vs. Marine Le Pen duel in the 2022 presidential election second round.  

In this landscape, traditional conservatives Les Républicains (LR) looked trapped in a constricted political space between President Macron and the Rassemblement National's Le Pen, then unassailable as the far-right’s standard-bearer.  

But new developments have changed the dynamic.  

As political scientist Jérôme Jaffré put it, just like Eric Zemmour “shook” Le Pen by outflanking her on the extreme right, Pécresse is “shaking” Macron as she encroaches on his territory – the far more vote-rich centre ground. 

Photo Credit:AP

BOSTON -- The nation’s second-largest city called off its New Year’s Eve celebration Monday, and its smallest state re-imposed an indoor mask mandate as the omicron variant leaped ahead of other variants to become the dominant version of the coronavirus in the U.S.

The moves in Los Angeles and Rhode Island reflected widening fears of a potentially devastating winter COVID-19 surge. Much of the concern is being driven by omicron, which federal health officials announced accounted for 73% of new infections last week, a nearly sixfold increase in only seven days.

Omicron’s prevalence is even higher in some parts of the U.S. It’s responsible for an estimated 90% of new infections in the New York area, the Southeast, the industrial Midwest and the Pacific Northwest, federal officials said.

The announcement underscored the variant’s remarkable ability to race across oceans and continents. It was first reported in southern Africa less than a month ago.

Scientists say omicron spreads more easily than other coronavirus strains, including delta, though many details about it remain unknown, including whether it causes more or less severe illness. But even if it is milder, the new variant could still overwhelm health systems because of the sheer number of infections.

Photo Credit: AFP

More than 10,000 new Omicron cases have been reported in the U.K. in the highest daily surge so far, as the number of overall COVID-19 infections stood well above 90,000 cases.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has confirmed an additional 10,059 cases of the new variant on Saturday, more than three times as many as reported on Friday (3,201), taking the total number of cases to 24,968.

A total of 90,418 infections have also been reported, as the U.K.’s COVID-19 daily deaths tally stood at 125, up on Friday’s count of 111, but down on the 132 reported last Saturday.

The death toll from the Omicron variant jumped from one to seven. “We’ve shown in the past as government in dealing with this pandemic that we will do what is necessary, but it’s got to be backed up by data,” U.K. Health Secretary Sajid Javid said in reference to reports that the government is planning tighter lockdown restrictions due to the Omicron surge.