5,000 refugees finally make it to Germany and Austria on Saturday

Shawn Pogatchnik and Pablo Gorondi, The Associated Press | September 5, 2015 10:31 AM ET, Source

 

BUDAPEST, Hungary — Thousands of exhausted, elated migrants reached their dream destinations of Germany and Austria on Saturday, completing epic journeys by boat, bus, train and foot to escape war and poverty.

 

Before dawn, they clambered off a fleet of Hungarian buses at the Austrian border to find a warm welcome from charity workers offering beds and hot tea. Within a few more hours of rapid-fire aid, many found themselves whisked by train to the Austrian capital, Vienna, and the southern German city of Munich.

 

The surprise overnight effort eased immediate pressure on Hungary, which has struggled to manage the flow of thousands of migrants arriving daily from non-EU member Serbia. But officials warned that the human tide south of Hungary still was rising, and more westward-bound travelers arrived in Budapest within hours of the mass evacuation of the capital’s central rail station.

 

The apparent futility of stopping the migrants’ progress west was underscored when Hungary announced Saturday that its bus service to the border had finished and would not be repeated. Almost immediately two groups of migrants hit the pavement to start walking to the border: about 200 who walked out of an open-door refugee camp near the city of Gyor, and about 300 who left Budapest’s central Keleti train station, the epicenter of Hungary’s recent migrant crisis.

 

About 4,000 migrants crossed into Austria from Hungary by mid-morning, according to Austrian police spokesman Helmut Marban. Vienna city official Roman Hahslinger said 2,300 had arrived in Vienna by midday. And officials in both Austria and Germany said the unregulated flow of migrants Saturday from Hungary meant that up to 10,000 might cross by nightfall.

 

Hungary’s nationalist government had spent most of the week trying to force migrants to report to government-run refugee centers, but thousands refused and demanded free passage chiefly to Germany.

 

After a three-day standoff with police, thousands marched west Friday from the Keleti train station along Hungary’s major motorway and camped overnight in the rain by the roadside. Hundreds more broke through police lines at a train station in the western town of Bicske, where police were trying to take them to a refugee camp, and blocked the main rail line as they, too, marched west.

 

Austria and Germany made the breakthrough possible by announcing they would take responsibility for the mass of humanity that was already on the move west or camped out in their thousands at Keleti. Hungary on Tuesday had suspended train services from that station to Austria and Germany, compounding the build-up there in a futile bid to try to make the visitors file asylum papers in Hungary.

 

Austrian Federal Railways said the arrivals, once they passed through hastily assembled border shelters and enjoyed refreshments, were being placed on trains to both Vienna and the western city of Salzburg and, for those who requested it, links onward to German cities.

 

The human rights watchdog Amnesty International welcomed the initiative to clear Hungary’s humanitarian traffic jam.

 

“After endless examples of shameful treatment by governments of refugees and migrants in Europe, it is a relief to finally see a sliver of humanity. But this is far from over, both in Hungary and in Europe as a whole,” said Gauri van Gulik, Amnesty’s deputy director for Europe. “The pragmatic and humane approach finally applied here should become the rule, not the exception.”

 

When the first 400 migrants and refugees arrived in Vienna, charity workers offered a wide choice of supplies displayed in separately labeled shopping carts containing food, water and packages of hygiene products for men and women. A mixed crowd of friends and Austrian onlookers cheered their arrival, with many shouting “Welcome!” in both German and Arabic. One Austrian woman pulled from her handbag a pair of children’s rubber rain boots and handed them to a Middle Eastern woman carrying a small boy.

 

“Austria is very good,” said Merhan Harshiri, a 23-year-old Iraqi who smiled broadly as he walked toward the supply line, where newcomers munched on fresh fruit. “We have been treated very well by Austrian police.”

 

“I am very happy,” said Firas Al Tahan, 38, a laundry worker from the Syrian capital, Damascus. Seated beside him on the train station’s concrete pavement were his 33-year-old wife, Baneaa, in her lap 1-month-old daughter Dahab, and beside them four other children aged 5 to 12, all smiling beside a cart containing green and red apples.

 

Earlier in jubilant scenes on the border, about 100 busloads of migrants and refugees disembarked on the Hungarian side of the border and walked a short distance into Austria, where volunteers at a roadside Red Cross shelter welcomed them with tea and handshakes. Many of the travelers slumped in exhaustion on the floor, evident relief etched on their faces.

 

Many had been awoken by friends at Keleti around midnight with news many didn’t believe after days of deadlock: Hungary was granting their demand to be allowed to reach Austria and, for many, onward travel to Germany. Many feared that the scores of buses assembling at the terminal instead would take them to Hungarian camps for asylum-seekers, as the government previously insisted must happen. At times, it took extended negotiation at the bus doors to persuade people to climb aboard.

 

Keleti appeared transformed Saturday as cleaners used power washers to clear what had become a squalid urban refugee camp of approximately 3,000 residents sprawled about every courtyard and tunnel leading to Budapest’s subway system. Only about 10 police remained to supervise a much-thinned presence of approximately 500 campers sleeping in pup tents or on blankets and carpets.

 

Keleti’s transient population dwindled further in the afternoon as about 300 headed west through the city on foot. One marcher displayed a handwritten cardboard banner reading “Walking on foot to Austria.” Unlike Friday, when police tried to block marchers initially, officers this time offered practical assistance in controlling traffic and providing directions to the marchers. They quickly crossed a major bridge spanning the Danube River as police in two vans and on two motorcycles stopped traffic to ease the trekkers’ safe passage.

 

Many travelers have spent months in Turkish refugee camps, taken long and risky journeys by boat, train and foot through Greece and the Balkans, and crawled under barbed wire on Hungary’s southern frontier to a generally frosty welcome in this country with strong anti-immigrant sentiments.

 

Since Tuesday morning, Hungarian authorities had refused to let them board trains to the west, and the migrants balked at going to processing centers, fearing they would face deportation or indefinite detention in Hungary. Government officials said they changed course because Hungary’s systems were becoming overwhelmed by the sheer numbers.

 

In Berlin, German officials said they felt it was necessary to take responsibility given Hungary’s apparent inability to manage the challenge. But they emphasized that Hungary, as an EU member and first port of call for many migrants, needed to do more to ensure that new arrivals filed for asylum there rather than travel deeper into Europe.

 

“Because of the emergency situation on the Hungarian border, Austria and Germany have agreed to allow the refugees to travel onward in this case,” German government spokesman Georg Streiter told The Associated Press. “It’s an attempt to help solve an emergency situation. But we continue to expect Hungary to meet its European obligations.”

 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has led calls for other EU members to shelter migrants as potential refugees, particularly those fleeing civil war in Syria, said in comments published Saturday that her country would observe no legal limit on the number of asylum seekers it might take.

 

Merkel told the Funke consortium of newspapers that “the right to political asylum has no limits on the number of asylum seekers.”

 

“As a strong, economically healthy country we have the strength to do what is necessary” and ensure that every asylum seeker gets a fair hearing, she was quoted as saying.

 

Associated Press reporters Marko Drobnjakovic and Alexander Kuli in Budapest; Bela Szandelszky and Frank Augstein in Hegyeshalom, Hungary; Balint Szlanko and Petr Josek in Nickelsdorf, Austria; George Jahn in Vienna and Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed to this report.

A migrant boy during his arrival from Austria at Munich Hauptbahnhof main railway station on September 5, 2015 in Munich, Germany.

MUNICH, GERMANY - SEPTEMBER 05: Migrants arrive from Austia at Munich Hauptbahnhof main railway station on September 5, 2015 in Munich, Germany. Thousands of migrants are traveling to Germany following an arduous ordeal in Hungary that resulted in thousands walking on foot and then being bussed by Hungarian authorities from Budapest to the Austrian-Hungarian border

 

Changes to immigration rules in Canada mean Newfoundland and Labrador can welcome an unlimited number of Syrian refugees, but the Association for New Canadians (ANC) says it's not an easy process.

 

Ongoing conflict in Syria has displaced millions of refugees to neighbouring countries.

 

Less than two dozen Syrian refugees have made it to the province so far, all sponsored by family members already in Canada.

 

The association became the official agent for arranging private sponsorships of refugees less than a year ago. Initially it was given a cap of 16 cases over two years.

 

Program co-ordinator Ken Walsh said that restriction has since been lifted.

 

"There's no cap on the number of Syrian refugees, the government of Canada has actually allowed us to sponsor as many Syrians as we see fit, as we can," said Walsh.

 

He said while there are programs and supports in place to assist refugees coming to Canada, the number of Syrians able to immigrate depends a lot on the local community.

 

"There is no public funding for this program so it relies on the financial assistance from groups, individuals in the community that kind of want to partner with the ANC to help sponsor these individuals and families," he said.

 

Still, the process isn't simple. There's a financial commitment on the part of the sponsor, and there may be a backlog of visa applications depending on the number of refugees in the system.

 

Walsh said this past week he's seen a significant increase in the number of people and groups interested in becoming sponsors.

 

"I've gotten probably a dozen emails and phone calls just in the past 24 hours with respect to kind of trying to sponsor refugees — Syrian refugees — to come here," he said.

 

"We'd like to see more. In terms of the Syrians, there is no cap so we can help as many people as the community is open to assisting us with, but yes we are poised and ready to help more people if they arrive."

 

The association is putting out a call to any group or private citizen with the will and resources to support a refugee or a family of refugees for at least one year. Walsh said anyone interested should contact his office.

 

Two public information sessions will be held at the association's office in St. John's next week for anyone interested in learning more.

Ken Walsh, program co-ordinator at the Association for New Canadians, says there's no cap limiting the number of Syrian refugees who can come to Canada and Newfoundland and Labrador. (CBC)

A number of programs and supports, including English classes, are available to immigrants at the Association for New Canadians in St. John's. (CBC)

NDP urges government to settle 10,000 refugees by end of 2015

CTVNews.ca Staff,  Published Saturday, September 5, 2015 7:12AM EDT, Last Updated Saturday, September 5, 2015 12:30PM EDT, Source

 

The refugee crisis is dominating the weekend campaign trail, as the NDP urged the government to settle 10,000 refugees in Canada by the end of the year.

 

At a news conference Saturday, NDP Foreign Affairs Critic Paul Dewar said it's time for all of the federal parties to put campaign politics aside and focus on helping those desperately fleeing Syria and Iraq.

 

"We have reached out to the government now, because we don't need to wait until October to start this work," he said.

 

Dewar said the parties should work together to immediately establish a Syrian refugee coordinator, who would oversee a multi-departmental effort to fast-track the government-sponsored refugees.

 

He also said that while fast-tracking refugees would be a good start, it is not enough.

 

According to Dewar, an NDP government would also do the following to address the crisis:

• Settle 9,000 government-sponsored refugees each year starting in 2016 for four years;
• Fast-track private sponsorship, with no limits or caps;
• Provide health care to the refugees.

Dewar said NDP Leader Tom Mulcair has consulted with experts and refugee advocacy groups in crafting the plan.

 

"We want to see the government work with all parties to do this," he said. "We'll be asking to government to take a look at (the plan) and adopt it."

 

He noted that the NDP plan is keeping in line with the numbers set by the UN, which has set Canada’s share of the global refugee total at 9,000 per year. Francois Crepeau, the UN special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, has called on the West to settle a million Syrian refugees over the next five years.

 

The proposed NDP plan would cost about $74 million for this year, he said. The costs would include expenses for visas, resettlement money, and health-care services. If elected, the plan to settle an additional 9,000 annually for the next four years would cost about $63.8 million per year, he said.

 

The proposed plan comes as thousands of migrants continue to stream across European borders, hoping to escape the violence in Syria and Iraq.

 

It also comes days after a photo of a dead Syrian boy who drowned off the coast of Turkey caught the world's attention. The photo of Alan Kurdi, 3, quickly spread across Canada, and it was later discovered that the Kurdi family had hoped to settle here.

 

Earlier this week, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau called on Ottawa to immediately accept 25,000 Syrian refugees, something he says the Liberals would do if they form the next government.

 

Immigration Minister Chris Alexander said in a statement Thursday that Canada has already resettled 22,000 refugees from Iraq, and 2,300 from Syria, after promising to bring 23,000 Iraqis and 11,300 Syrians over here over several years.

 

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper has said that if re-elected, the Tories would bring in 10,000 more refugees from the Middle East over the next four years.

NDP candidate Paul Dewar speaks to the media in Ottawa on Saturday, Sept. 5, 2015

Cheering German crowds greet refugees after long trek from Budapest to Munich

 

Emma Graham-Harrison in Budapest and Munich, Patrick Kingsley in Nickelsdorf, Rosie Waites in Vienna and Tracy McVeigh in London, Saturday 5 September 2015 20.05 BST, Source

 

In pouring rain, they crossed the last few metres into Austria in the early hours of Saturday morning. The waiting Austrian police in their heavy waterproofs were taken aback by the refusal of the Hungarian bus drivers to take their passengers the last two kilometres, over the border and on to the Nickelsdorf train station where they were expected, and where a Vienna-bound train was waiting.

 

Instead, the officers had to guide the way with torches, helpless to offer shelter to the tired clusters of men, women and children coming through the puddles at the side of the motorway in the darkness.

 

From 3am until early afternoon, some 120 blue buses had been and gone, disgorging an estimated 4,000 refugees. Some residents of the small border town of Nickelsdorf were at their windows, others out on the streets with blankets and umbrellas, offering hot drinks.

 

A Red Cross tent offered a respite from the rain, with medics and volunteers working shifts while people waiting their turn to board special half-hourly bus and train services, laid on by the Austrian Federal Railway, to Vienna and Salzburg, and from there to Munich.

 

“We have treated a two-day-old gunshot wound. We’ve seen eye injuries caused by stun grenades. We’ve seen children with severe bruises,” Red Cross spokesman Andreas Zenker said.

 

Several people were sent on to nearby hospitals, but Zenker said that most were “gritting their teeth” to continue their journey, despite some walking for almost eight hours through the night.

 

By midday on Saturday, said Colin Turner, volunteers’ spokesman at Munich railway station, a total of 3,000 people had arrived. German officials expected up to 7,000 to arrive through the city by the end of the day.

 

This, said the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, was a “defining moment” for the 28-nation European Union. Already the heroes and villains of the piece were being laid out – with condemnation of the response of the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, and praise for Germany’s Angela Merkel and the Austrian chancellor, Werner Faymann, who announced they were opening their doors to refugees in the early hours of Saturday.

 

Around the same time, Hungary unexpectedly decided to provide buses for those who had simply walked out of Budapest on foot, heading for the Austrian border, after being prevented for several days from catching trains out of the capital. Some had been taken to a refugee camp.

 

In what the Hungarian media called a “day of uprisings”, 350 people had broken through a police cordon on Friday and begun heading to Austria, 137km away, on tracks leading away from the railway station. By late afternoon on Friday, a day after Orbán had warned of a “Muslim threat” to a Christian culture, up to 2,000 people – most from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan – were walking towards the border in chaotic scenes.

 

The sudden appearance of blue public buses was a staggering about-turn – and an unexpected rejection of the Dublin convention, which says refugees should be kept in the first EU country they enter, and which Hungary had insisted on upholding. The country is already under fire for its plans to close and wire-fence its borders, saying it will effectively seal the frontier to migrants as of next week, in the face of EU Schengen rules. The European Council president, Donald Tusk, warned that divisions between western member states and their newer eastern partners were complicating efforts to solve the deepening refugee crisis. “There is a divide … between the east and the west of the EU. Some member states are thinking about containing the wave of migration, symbolised by the Hungarian [border] fence,” Tusk said.

 

The buses triggered alarm. Many refugees distrusted the Hungarian authorities after some of those camped at Budapest railway station had earlier boarded buses that they were told were heading for the Austrian border, only to end up in a refugee camp in Hungary. Many feared a similar ploy this time. “Who’s organising it, the Hungarians?” asked Ali, a Syrian on the march, after seeing the buses were coming. “Forget it, I’m walking.”

 

But by the time the last buses arrived at 4.45am, almost everyone was too sodden and tired to worry about politicians’ motives. They squeezed on to the buses, standing in the aisles, sitting on the steps crushed against the doors. Within minutes, most were asleep.

 

In Budapest, a handful of those who remained were reluctant to be processed in Germany because they wanted to join family members elsewhere. “I’m going to London on my own, my brother lives there and you can get a good job,” said Khan Mohammad, who comes from northern Baghlan province. Others had simply missed the convoy to the border.

 

On Saturday a column of several hundred new arrivals stormed through the station and on to the metro, saying they were heading for Germany. They piled back up the escalators when it emerged they had the wrong train system and on to the mainline platforms where warnings that international trains were not running had now been removed, although without any signs of the trains themselves.

 

“We must get to Germany,” said Suleiman, 23 from Gaza.

 

On the road to the border, there were tailbacks for eight kilometres, but many, like Marwan, didn’t mind. His view through the bus window was mainly of drizzle. He had walked for much of Friday in the rain, and he hadn’t slept all night. But by the time dawn rose on Saturday, he had cause to be cheerful. “Finally I’m getting out of Hungary,” he smiled. “I’m happy.”

 

In Austria, the mood was one of pride – for the way the government responded to the crisis and for the overwhelming response from people ferrying donations of food, water and clothes to train stations in Vienna and Salzburg.

 

As in Britain, people have been horrified by stories such as the discovery of 71 decomposing bodies in a truck near Nickelsdorf last month and the tragedy of Aylan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian boy whose body was washed up on the Turkish coast on Wednesday along with his five-year-old brother and his mother.

 

By Saturday afternoon, officials in Vienna had to ask people to stay away from the station, which was heavily overcrowded with well-wishers bearing donations.

 

Hundreds of Austrian rail workers pledged to work overtime for free, to drive special refugee trains. Their boss, Christian Kern, called the situation “a huge challenge, a state of emergency”. He said that the refugees’ train tickets would not be checked but that the goal was to take them as quickly as possible to their desired destination.

 

Some Austrians have been driving to the border in private cars and buses with the aim of giving refugees a lift to Vienna, but have been warned by the police not to cross into Hungary as they could be prosecuted there for people-smuggling.

 

Austria’s foreign minister, Sebastian Kurz, said this weekend was a wake-up call for Europe. “This has to be an eye-opener as to how messed up the situation in Europe is now. I hope this serves as a wake-up call that it cannot continue.”

 

Hungary became the focus of the refugee crisis with the arrival of about 50,000 migrants last month via the western Balkans, with a record 3,300 arriving on Thursday, according to UN figures. Hungary responded with tough anti-immigration measures, including its controversial three-metre razor-wire fence. Poor camp conditions and slow registration for asylum seekers have contributed to rising tensions at Hungary’s refugee facilities, but the country blames Germany, which expects to receive 800,000 asylum seekers this year, for declaring it would accept Syrian requests regardless of where they enter the EU.

 

“What happened is the consequence of the failed migration policy of the European Union and the irresponsible statements made by European politician,” Hungarian foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, saidSaturday.

 

Hungary has also insisted that there would be no more bus transports. On Saturday morning, in a park near Keleti station, a group of young men fretted about their next move. “We were sent to sleep in a hotel for one night after four nights on the street. I had no idea the government would send buses,” said Rahman, a 26-year-old Syrian from Aleppo, travelling with his wife, sister-in-law and two nephews. “We just wanted a break. Do you know if there will be another coach?” he asked anxiously.

A young Iraqi who had just arrived had not even heard about the coaches. “I just arrived a couple of hours ago. I have no idea about buses” said Sajad al-Azawi, from Baghdad, who wants to be a computer scientist and is heading to Germany.

 

On Saturday night at Munich’s main station, dozens of Germans lined up behind police barriers to clap, cheer and distribute sweets to welcome refugees to their new home. A sophisticated official operation provided food and transport to temporary lodging.

 

“We just wanted them to know that the torture is over,” said Hedy Gupta, a grandmother handing out slabs of chocolate amid welcoming cheers. “I have children and a five-year-old grandchild and when I think what they have been through, these children, it leaves me on the ground.”

 

Beside her on the barricades of welcome was Waltraud Volger, a legal assistant who lives nearby: “I heard about it on the radio around 1pm today and just gathered what food and clothes I had and came over to donate it and offer to help,” she said. “They have so many volunteers that they haven’t needed me, so I’m just standing here welcoming them with clapping. I’ve never done anything like this before, but when you hear their stories and see the pictures, you can’t just stand by.”

 

After four hours, she had no plans to leave while the trains were still rolling in.

A boy who had arrived on a train from Hungary gets a kiss from a volunteer worker in Munich. Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Refugee children play at the Austrian-Hungarian border near the village of Nickelsdorf. Photograph: Joe Klamar/AFP/Getty Images

Refugees wait for the train to Munich at the western railway station in Vienna. Photograph: Jörg Dieckmann/dpa/Corbis

Refugees during heavy rain. Photograph: Frank Augstein/AP

A boy reacts as the train departs from Keleti railway station in Budapest. Photograph: Marko Drobnjakovic/AP

A refugee looks out of a train window at the central station in Munich. Photograph: Nicolas Armer/dpa/Corbis

DG, it's great to see smiling faces and happier time after an uncertain and dangerous journey.

Indeed, Cobra.

 

They all will have a new start in life, and perhaps in about 25 years from now when the little children graduate from schooling, they will become prominent in their respective work environment.

 

Among many places in Europe, Canada, US_of_A, England, people with similar experiences have become influential in society.

 

One of the numerous examples is that an immigrant from Africa now a citizen, is elected about a year ago, as the mayor of a major city in Russia.

Another thought came to mind. I am sure the president of Syria is aware of what's going on with his country and people for so many years. Why cant he just step down and save his people from suffering? He is already a wealthy man and can live a comfortable life as long as he live.

Why Jagdeo returned to politics?

Chief, that was uncalled for. This is not the appropriate thread for nonsense. The board is big enough to pose your question somewhere else. Thank you.

People like the Pres of SYria enjoy seeing people die....

Thousands of migrants keep flooding into Germany

Georgina Prodhan and Balazs Koranyi, Reuters, First posted: Friday, September 04, 2015 04:00 PM EDT | Updated: Sunday, September 06, 2015 12:08 PM EDT, Source

 

MUNICH/BUDAPEST  - Thousands of refugees and migrants streamed into Germany on Sunday, many travelling through Austria from Hungary where they had been stranded against their will for days, while European Union governments argue over how to respond.

 

A convoy of around 140 cars and vans filled with food and water left Vienna to collect exhausted migrants, many from Syria, who had set out to walk the 170 km stretch through the rain from Hungary's capital Budapest to the Austrian border, from where many would continue onto Germany.

 

Onlookers clapped and chanted: "Say it loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here," as volunteers loaded their vehicles with food, water and soft toys.

 

However, the EU is deeply divided over how to cope with the influx of people from the Middle East, Africa and Asia, making the 28-nation bloc look ineffective and heartless as member states blame each other, fuelling political populism and anti-Muslim sentiment.

 

Germany has said it expects 800,000 refugees and migrants this year and urged other EU members to open their doors. But others say the focus should be on tackling the violence in the Middle East that has caused them to flee their homes.

 

"When rich Europe argues and tears itself apart over whether to accept 1000, 10,000, 42,000 or 100,000 refugees, when Turkey already has 2 million, it is clear that we have a problem of perspective and identity," EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.

 

"This crisis can help us come out with a stronger vision of what it means to be the European Union."

 

Austria and Germany have thrown open their borders to the wave of refugees making their way north and west from the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere. Hungary has been letting the human tide move on after holding it up for days.

 

A total of 6,800 entered Germany on Saturday with another 5,000 expected on Sunday, Bavarian state officials said.

 

A dozen or so well-wishers offering chocolate and bananas greeted between 600 and 700 people, mostly from Syria, arriving on two early morning trains in Munich, the state capital of Bavaria.

 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's decision to allow the influx caused a rift in her conservative bloc on Sunday with her Bavarian allies accusing her of having pushed forward without asking the federal states dealing with the influx.

 

The numbers in Europe are small compared to several million refugees in Syria's neighbours Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan and Pope Francis called on Sunday for every European parish and religious community to take in one migrant family each.

 

But a poll in French newspaper Aujourd 'hui en France showed 55 percent of French people opposed to softening rules on granting refugee status.

 

OFF TO GERMANY

In Hungary, migrants freely boarded trains at Keleti station in Budapest, following handwritten signs in Arabic directing people to trains to Hegyeshalom on the border with Austria. Volunteers handed out food and clothing to hundreds of people at the station.

 

Austrian police said the flow of people crossing the border from Hungary slowed on Sunday. More than 10,000 have left Hungary since the border was opened on Saturday after thousands spent days camping outside the station amid confrontations with police and chaotic handling by authorities.

 

Hungary deployed more than 100 buses overnight on Saturday to take the migrants, who had arrived through the Balkans from Greece, to Austria which said it had agreed with Germany to allow access, waiving asylum rules requiring refugees to register in the first EU country they reach.

 

Wrapped in blankets and sleeping bags, long lines of people, many carrying sleeping children, got off buses on the Hungarian side of the border and walked through the rain into Austria.

 

"We're happy. We'll go to Germany," said a Syrian man who gave his name as Mohammed; Europe's biggest and most affluent economy was the favoured destination of most.

 

But on Hungary's border with Serbia there were reports that refugees had spent the night in the rain without food or shelter.

 

"While Europe rejoiced in happy images from Austria and Germany yesterday, refugees crossing into Hungary right now see a very different picture: riot police and a cold hard ground to sleep on," Amnesty International researcher Barbora Cernusakova said in a statement.

 

Hungary, the main entry point into Europe's borderless Schengen zone for migrants, has taken a hard line, vowing to seal its southern frontier with a new, high fence by Sept. 15.

 

Hungarian officials have portrayed the crisis as a defence of Europe's prosperity, identity and "Christian values" against an influx of mainly Muslim migrants.

 

SHIPS TO ATHENS

German Interior Ministry spokesman Harald Neymanns said Berlin's decision to open its borders to Syrians was an exceptional case for humanitarian reasons. He said Europe's so-called Dublin rules, which require people to apply for asylum in the first EU country they enter, had not been suspended.

 

At an EU foreign ministers' meeting in Luxembourg on Saturday, the usual diplomatic conviviality unravelled as they failed to agree on any practical steps out of the crisis. Ministers are especially at odds over proposals for country-by-country quotas to take in asylum seekers.

 

The flow of people risking the dangerous journey on flimsy boats across the Mediterranean shows no sign of abating, as they flee a four-year-old civil war in Syria that has killed about 250,000 civilians, and wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and in Africa.

 

On the Greek Island of Lesbos, about 500 Afghans protesting at lengthy identification procedures scuffled with Greek police in the main port. A Greek ferry took 1,744 migrants and refugees to Athens from Lesbos on Sunday and another one with 2,500 migrants was expected later in the day, the coastguard said.

 

A record 50,000 people hit Greek shores in July alone, and were ferried from islands unable to cope to the mainland by a government in financial crisis and keen to dispatch them into Macedonia, from where they enter Serbia and then Hungary.

 

More than 2,000 have died at sea so far this year. The Cypriot coastguard picked up 114 Syrian refugees from a fishing boat on Sunday.

 

The conflict the refugees left behind shows no signs of stopping either.

 

British Prime Minister David Cameron wants to hold a vote in parliament in early October to allow air strikes on Islamic State in Syria, London's Sunday Times said, and Le Monde reported that France was also considering air strikes, joining a U.S.-led coalition.

 

The Australian government is due to make a decision within a week on whether to join the coalition.

ANSWER THE QUESTION!

These politicians including ASSAD AND jAGDEO ARE CUT from the same cloth.

Let Jagdeo answer how come he got that land to build his mansion and futher more where did he get the money from.

 

tHE PROBLEM WITH MANY COUNTRIES IS POWER. gOD BLESS aMERICA!

Four ways Canadians can help refugees

David Bateman - Staff Reporter, Toronto Star, 3 days ago, 06 September, 2015, Source

 

“You don’t have to feel helpless,” says Ratna Omidvar, the chair of Lifeline Syria, an organization aiming to bring at least 1000 Syrian refugees to Canada.

 

Thousands of kilometers away from the Turkish beach where the lifeless bodies of young migrant children washed up on Wednesday, Canadians can still make a profound impact on the global refugee crisis.

 

There are several things ordinary Canadians can do to help people fleeing war-torn countries.

 

1. Pressure your local MP and the federal government

 

In early August, Conservative leader Stephen Harper pledged to accept 10,000 refugees from Iraq and Syria, if re-elected.

 

Considering the drastic situation, Omidvar believes that promise should be fulfilled in the short term.

 

“Individuals can make things happen,” she said. “The first thing people should do is speak to your MP and help make the federal government accountable.”

 

Public pressure has brought results in Iceland, where the government was forced into creating a refugee action committee after a massive online outcry at the country only accepting approximately 50 refugees from Syria.

Lifeline Syria wants the GTA to initially accept 1000 refugees, but for that to happen, Omidvar says “the government needs to play ball.”

 

“They should assign more visa officers in camps in Egypt, Syria and Lebanon. They could do that immediately,” she said.

 

“It’s happened before during the Indochinese crisis. We brought roughly 60,000 people here because of that. It was a very successful and very Canadian response.

 

“They could also suspend some of the regulations that prevent us from processing refugees that are now in Europe. The system says they are safe there, but we know what’s happening in train stations in Budapest.

 

“Third, Syrians in Canada with family in camps should be able to arrange an interim family unification.

 

“At least let’s start with imagination as opposed to process.”

 

2. Become a private sponsor

 

Canadians can volunteer to support an individual or a family for one year, and they don’t have to do it alone.

 

You can collaborate with friends, neighbours, colleagues, professional organizations and social clubs to provide the time and money commitment necessary.

 

In 1979, after the Vietnam War, 7,000 Canadian groups sponsored 29,269 refugees, thanks to a grassroots Toronto-based operation known as Operation Lifeline

 

Government estimates place the cost of settling an individual refugee around $12,000. A family of four costs approximately $25,000.

 

Although Omidvar thinks those estimates are conservative considering the cost of living in the GTA, the money is rarely the issue.

 

“People fixate on the money,” she said.

 

“Yes, you have to raise it, but that’s not difficult. You have to commit the time. That is the real commitment from private sponsors.”

 

Although it’s a considerable obligation to adopt, the Lifeline Syria website perhaps puts it best when it says: “Sponsoring a refugee family from Syria will probably be something you will be proud of for your whole life.”

 

3. Donate to groups dedicated to bringing refugees to Canada

Groups like Lifeline Syria need the financial means to continue their work.

If you can’t afford to donate, pledging your time and effort is equally as powerful.

 

The first step is contacting the organization, or attending a Lifeline Syria information session, which you can find details about here when they are posted.

 

4. Donate directly to an aid organization working on the ground

 

Humanitarian non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) are often at the front line of the crisis.

 

The United Nations Refugee Agency, the UNHCR, is one of the most effective agencies, although far from the only one.

 

The Canadian Red Cross, Oxfam Canada, Care Canada, the Migrant Offshore Aid Station, Migration Aid and World Vision are all equally meritorious and in need of financial help.

JULIEN ARSENAULT THE CANADIAN PRESS, Published September 7, 2015 - 8:37pm, Source

 

MONTREAL — The Quebec government announced a series of measures to take in more Syrian refugees Monday, while acknowledging it needs a green light from the federal government before they can go ahead.

 

As a result of the Syrian refugee crisis, the province announced it was ready to take in 3,650 refugees before the end of 2015 — 2,450 more than originally planned.

 

“To be able do that we need the collaboration of the federal government,” said Kathleen Weil, Quebec’s immigration minister, in a press conference.

 

Accompanied by International Relations Minister Christine St-Pierre, Weil explained that since the federal government is in charge of border security and refugee policy, it would have to approve Quebec’s plan to bring in refugees on an accelerated timeline.

 

Quebec’s new target would include 1,800 privately sponsored refugees and 650 state-sponsored. Since the beginning of 2015, 651 refugees have arrived in Quebec from Syria.

 

The measures announced by the Quebec government would cost $29 million, the bulk of which would go towards language training, job aid, education and health care.

 

The announcement came days after the shocking photo of a drowned three-year-old Syrian boy with family connections to Canada caused a global outcry and thrust the refugee crisis to the top of international headlines.

 

Last week, both Quebec City and Montreal indicated their willingness to take in more refugees.

 

Weil told reporters the federal government had been informed of Quebec’s intentions and said she was hoping to hear back quickly.

 

“We’re going forward to the federal government with our hand out saying, ‘We can help, we want to help, this is our objective and we need you to collaborate with us,’” she said.

 

The federal Department of Citizenship and Immigration was not immediately available for comment.

 

Weil said she would like to see Ottawa allow Quebec’s Immigration Department to send personnel to Beirut, Lebanon, in order to accelerate the refugee selection process.

Kathleen Weil, Quebec’s immigration minister, says Ottawa had been informed of Quebec’s intentions on Syrian refugees and said she was hoping to hear back quickly. (THE CANADIAN PRESS)