All for slowing migrant influx

Sweden to deport 80k refugees
Kabul: Sweden has said that nearly 80,000 asylum seekers whose applications for refuge have been rejected will be deported, including Afghans.

Italian navy ship crewmembers rescue migrants from three dinghies off the Libyan coast in the Mediterranean Sea. Pic/AFP

Gholam Farooq Majroh, a lawmaker from Herat, said the government should work on trust building and should create jobs. The Minister of Refugees and Repatriation Affairs, said they have discussed the issue with embassies of European countries in Afghanistan to allow Afghan refugees to stay in Europe.

Germany tightens asylum rules
Berlin: Germany moved to tighten its asylum laws to slow a record migrant influx as Chancellor Angela Merkel sought to bridge deep European rifts over the crisis in talks with Italy's Matteo Renzi Friday.

Migrants and refugees wait for security check after crossing the Macedonian border into Serbia. Pic/AFP

Late Thursday, Merkel's coalition government, after months of wrangling, hammered out a deal to limit numbers by blocking some migrant family reunifications and declaring three North African nations "safe countries of origin."

The agreement means citizens of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia will have little chance of gaining political asylum, echoing steps Germany took for several Balkans countries last year. Germany will also block family reunifications for two years for rejected asylum seekers who can't be deported because they face the threat of torture or the death penalty in their own country.

Merkel's cabinet should sign off on the measures next week before parliament passes them into law, Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said yesterday. After a decade in power, Merkel has come under fierce pressure to reverse her open-arms migrant policy.

Dutch suggest returning migrants to Turkey
Amsterdam: The Netherlands has floated an idea to ferry migrants reaching Greece straight back to Turkey to stop a relentless influx into the European Union as EU officials cited a rise in the numbers of those who would not qualify for asylum.

The 28-nation bloc has all but failed to curb or control the influx of asylum seekers from the Middle East and Africa, more than one million of whom arrived in Europe last year, mainly via Greece and heading towards the EU's biggest economy, Germany. More than 54,500 people have already reached Europe by sea this year, including 50,668 through Greece, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency.

They keep flowing in despite stormy winter weather making the journey ever more perilous. Around 235 migrants were dead or missing already in 2016. On Thursday, 24 drowned when their boat sank off a Greek island close to the Turkish coast.