BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union moved Monday to suppress the spread of the coronavirus by restricting foreign travelers while also proposing fast-track traffic lanes to make sure vital medical equipment reaches EU citizens.
The plan was announced almost a week after a nationwide lockdown took effect in Italy, the country with the most reported virus cases in the world except for China. Spain followed suit over the weekend, while other EU nations have adopted ad hoc national measures, including partial border closures.
EU officials fear that countries acting alone and without coordination might make things more difficult for neighbors whose health-care systems are already creaking. The virus has infected more than 50,000 people across Europe and caused 2,000 deaths.
“The less travel, the more we can contain the virus," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, as she unveiled the plan that Brussels will put to to the bloc's 27 leaders at a summit to be held via video-conference on Tuesday.
She said travel restrictions into Europe should be put in place for an initial period of 30 days. Exemptions could be given to long-term residents in the EU, border area workers, family members of European nationals and diplomats.
British citizens would not be included in the ban, even though the country officially withdrew from the EU on Jan. 31
“Essential staff such as doctors, nurses, care workers, researchers and experts that help address the coronavirus should continue to be allowed in the EU," von der Leyen said.
Transport workers also could receive exemptions to ensure supplies of “essential items such as medicine, but also food and components that our factories need," she said.
On the borders inside the 26-country area of Europe that is visa- and passport-free for citizens and authorized residents, fast lanes would be set up for transporting medical supplies and essential goods. EU officials said the goal is to help cut down on traffic jams in border areas and to keep EU economies working as the disease chips away at world markets.
The overall idea is “to reduce unnecessary movement, but at the same time to ensure the movement of merchandise, of goods, so that we can guarantee as much as possible the integrity of the single market, guarantee the deliveries that are needed.” EU Council President Charles Michel said.
In recent days, the EU has been urging its members to put common health screening procedures in place at internal borders but not to block the transport of important medical equipment.
In a series of border management guidelines, the European Commission said countries should help ease the movement of workers and goods like medicines or perishable food products and livestock within Europe but refrain from imposing any other restrictions that are not science-based.
Jon Worth, a visiting lecturer at the College of Europe in Bruges, said he was not surprised that countries decided to restrict the movement of people at their borders given that health care is a matter of national responsibility, not in the hands of Brussels.
“But the single market is definitely the EU’s responsibility and they have to make sure the chain of supply does not break down," he told The Associated Press on Monday. “That will be the short-term challenge to come.”
For most people, the virus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia.
To ensure they get the help they need, “essential goods and medicines must be able to cross borders as smoothly as possible. This is a time for solidarity and cooperation,” EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides tweeted, after hosting a separate virtual meeting of the bloc’s health ministers.
EU finance ministers also held coronavirus talks by computer Monday, as the disease and the efforts to combat it take their toll on the bloc’s economy.
Worth noted that the EU's limited financial means were a major obstacle in the response to the crisis and that deploying the medical aid needed across the bloc with a very restricted budget was a tall order.
“The total British NHS budget is larger than the EU's total budget for everything per year,” he said. “At EU level, you don’t have the means to sort out this problem.”
EU proposes Schengen travel ban, fast-track lanes to beat back coronavirus
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EU proposes Schengen travel ban, fast-track lanes to beat back coronavirus
- Brussels has struggled to keep up with unilateral measures by EU members to restrict travel
- Non-Schengen EU members will be invited to apply the measures
North Korea troops not in combat in Russia’s Kursk since mid-Jan: Seoul
- “Since mid-January, it appears that the North Korean troops deployed to the Kursk region of Russia have not engaged in combat,” South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said
- “One reason for this may be the occurrence of many casualties, but the exact details are still being monitored“
SEOUL: North Korean soldiers previously fighting alongside Russia’s army on the Kursk front line appear not to have been engaged in combat since mid-January, South Korea’s spy agency told AFP Tuesday, after Ukraine claimed they had been withdrawn following heavy losses.
“Since mid-January, it appears that the North Korean troops deployed to the Kursk region of Russia have not engaged in combat,” South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said.
“One reason for this may be the occurrence of many casualties, but the exact details are still being monitored,” it added in a statement.
Ukraine’s military said Friday it believed North Korean soldiers deployed to the front line in Kursk had been “withdrawn” after suffering heavy losses.
Western, South Korean and Ukrainian intelligence agencies say Pyongyang deployed more than 10,000 troops to support Russian forces fighting in its western Kursk region, where Ukraine launched a shock cross-border offensive in August.
Neither Pyongyang nor Moscow have officially confirmed the troop deployment, but the two countries signed an agreement, including a mutual defense element, when Russian President Vladimir Putin made a rare visit to the nuclear-armed North last year.
Kyiv captured dozens of border settlements in the operation — the first time a foreign army had crossed into Russian territory since the Second World War — in an embarrassing setback for the Kremlin.
The North Korean deployment was supposed to reinforce Russia’s army and help it expel Ukraine’s troops — but nearly six months on Ukraine still holds swathes of Russian territory.
Ukraine previously said it had captured or killed several North Korean soldiers in Kursk.
President Volodymyr Zelensky has published footage of interrogations with what he said were North Korean prisoners captured by his army on the Kursk front.
Ukrainian officials have said wounded North Korean troops were blowing themselves up with grenades rather than being taken alive.
Kyiv and the West had denounced their deployment as a major escalation in the three-year conflict.
Seoul has previously said that due to losses among its forces, North Korea is preparing for additional deployment to Ukraine.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in December that Pyongyang is “preparing for the rotation or additional deployment of soldiers” to aid Russia’s war effort.
Pyongyang and Moscow have deepened political, military and cultural ties since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
In a New Year’s letter, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un hailed Putin and made a possible reference to the war in Ukraine.
He said 2025 would be the year “when the Russian army and people defeat neo-Nazism and achieve a great victory.”
Ukraine says it hit Russian command post in Kursk region
- Ukraine’s military has reported numerous strikes on Russian military and energy facilities
KYIV: Ukraine’s military said on Tuesday its air force had struck a Russian military command post in Russia’s Kursk region the previous day.
“The facility sustained significant damage, leading to substantial casualties among enemy personnel,” the general staff said on Telegram.
Reuters could not independently verify the statement.
Ukraine’s military has reported numerous strikes on Russian military and energy facilities in recent weeks. Ukrainian forces have been battling Russian troops in the Kursk region since Ukraine mounted a cross border operation there last year.
UN warns maternal deaths in Afghanistan may rise after US funding pause
- Pio Smith, regional director for Asia and the Pacific at UNFPA said that over 9 million people in Afghanistan would lose access to services
- “If I just take the example of Afghanistan, between 2025 and 2028 we estimate that the absence of US support will result in 1,200 additional maternal deaths”
GENEVA: A UN aid official said on Tuesday that a US funding pause would cut off millions of Afghans from sexual and reproductive health services, and the continued absence of this support could cause over 1,000 maternal deaths in Afghanistan from 2025 to 2028.
US President Donald Trump last month ordered a 90-day pause in foreign development assistance, pending assessment of efficiencies and consistency with his foreign policy, setting alarm bells ringing among aid groups around the world that depend on US largesse.
Trump has also restored US participation in international anti-abortion pacts, cutting off US family planning funds for foreign organizations providing or promoting abortion.
Pio Smith, regional director for Asia and the Pacific at the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency (UNFPA), said that over 9 million people in Afghanistan would lose access to services and over 1.2 million Afghan refugees living in Pakistan due to the closure of health facilities.
Afghanistan has one of the highest death rates in the world for pregnant women, with a mother dying of preventable pregnancy complications every two hours, he said.
“What happens when our work is not funded? Women give birth alone, in unsanitary conditions...Newborns die from preventable causes,” he told a Geneva press briefing. “These are literally the world’s most vulnerable people.”
“If I just take the example of Afghanistan, between 2025 and 2028 we estimate that the absence of US support will result in 1,200 additional maternal deaths and 109,000 additional unintended pregnancies,” he said.
Across the Asia-Pacific region, UNFPA receives about $77 million in US funding, he added.
Riva Eskinazi, director of donor relations at the International Planned Parenthood Federation told Reuters it, too, would have to halt family planning and sexual and reproductive health services in West Africa as a result of the pause.
“We can foresee an increase in unintended pregnancies and maternal deaths. There is going to be a problem sending contraceptives to our members. It’s devastating,” she said.
IPPF, a federation of national organizations that advocates for sexual and reproductive health, calculates that it would have to forego at least $61 million in US funding over four years in 13 countries, most of which are in Africa.
Trial of man in Salman Rushdie stabbing begins with jury selection
- Matar has pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree attempted murder and second-degree assault
- Matar’s trial has been delayed twice, most recently after his defense lawyer unsuccessfully tried to move it to a different venue
NEW YORK: The trial of the man charged with attempting to murder the novelist Salman Rushdie at a New York lecture is due to begin on Tuesday with jury selection.
Hadi Matar, 26, can be seen in cellphone videos rushing the stage at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York in August, 2022, as Rushdie was being introduced to the audience. Rushdie, 77, was stabbed with a knife multiple times in an attack that led to the loss of his right eye and damaged his liver.
Matar has pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree attempted murder and second-degree assault. Rushdie, who has faced death threats since the 1988 publication of his novel “The Satanic Verses,” is due to be among the first witnesses to testify at the trial.
Rushdie has published a memoir about the attack, and said in interviews he believed he was going to die on the Chautauqua Institution’s stage.
Rushdie, who was raised in a Muslim Kashmiri family, went into hiding under the protection of British police in 1989 after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then Iran’s supreme leader, pronounced “The Satanic Verses” to be blasphemous. Khomeini’s fatwa, or religious edict, called upon Muslims to kill the novelist and anyone involved in the book’s publication, leading to a multi-million-dollar bounty.
The Iranian government said in 1998 it would no longer back the fatwa, and Rushdie ended his years as a recluse, becoming a fixture of literary parties in New York City, where he lives.
After the attack, Matar told the New York Post that he traveled from his home in New Jersey after seeing the Rushdie event advertised because he disliked the novelist, saying Rushdie had attacked Islam. Matar, a dual citizen of his native US and Lebanon, said in the interview that he was surprised that Rushdie survived, the Post reported.
Matar’s trial has been delayed twice, most recently after his defense lawyer unsuccessfully tried to move it to a different venue, saying Matar could not get a fair trial in Chautauqua. The trial is being held at the Chautauqua County Court in Mayfield, a town of about 1,500 people near the Canadian border. If convicted of attempted murder, Matar faces a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison.
Matar is also facing federal charges in which prosecutors in the US attorney’s office in western New York accused him of attempting to murder Rushdie as an act of terrorism and of providing material support to the armed group Hezbollah in Lebanon, which the US has designated as a terrorist organization.
Rubio says El Salvador offers to accept deportees from US of any nationality, including Americans
- President Nayib Bukele “has agreed to the most unprecedented, extraordinary, extraordinary migratory agreement anywhere in the world,” Rubio said
- Rubio was visiting El Salvador to press a friendly government to do more to meet President Donald Trump’s demands for a major crackdown on immigration
SAN SALVADOR: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio left El Salvador on Tuesday with an agreement from that country’s president to accept deportees from the US of any nationality, including violent American criminals now imprisoned in the United States.
President Nayib Bukele “has agreed to the most unprecedented, extraordinary, extraordinary migratory agreement anywhere in the world,” Rubio said after meeting with Bukele at his lakeside country house outside San Salvador for several hours late Monday.
“We can send them, and he will put them in his jails,” Rubio said of migrants of all nationalities detained in the United States. “And, he’s also offered to do the same for dangerous criminals currently in custody and serving their sentences in the United States even though they’re US citizens or legal residents.”
Rubio was visiting El Salvador to press a friendly government to do more to meet President Donald Trump’s demands for a major crackdown on immigration.
Bukele confirmed the offer in a post on X, saying El Salvador has “offered the United States of America the opportunity to outsource part of its prison system.” He said his country would accept only “convicted criminals” and would charge a fee that “would be relatively low for the US but significant for us, making our entire prison system sustainable.”
Elon Musk, the billionaire working with Trump to remake the federal government, responded on his X platform, “Great idea!!”
After Rubio spoke, a US official said Trump’s Republican administration had no current plans to try to deport American citizens but called Bukele’s offer significant. The US government cannot deport American citizens, and such a move would be met with significant legal challenges.
The State Department describes El Salvador’s overcrowded prisons as “harsh and dangerous.” On its current country information webpage it says, “In many facilities, provisions for sanitation, potable water, ventilation, temperature control, and lighting are inadequate or nonexistent.”
El Salvador has lived under a state of emergency since March 2022, when the country’s powerful street gangs went on a killing rampage. Bukele responded by suspending fundamental rights like access to lawyers, and authorities have arrested more than 83,000 people with little to no due process.
In 2023, Bukele opened a massive new prison with capacity for 40,000 gang members and boasted about serving only one meal per day. Prisoners there do not receive visits, and there are no programs preparing them for reinsertion into society after their sentences and no workshops or educational programs.
El Salvador, once one of the most dangerous countries in the world, closed last year with a record low 114 homicides, a newfound security that has propelled Bukele’s soaring popularity in the country of about 6 million residents.
Rubio arrived in San Salvador shortly after watching a US-funded deportation flight with 43 migrants leave from Panama for Colombia. That came a day after Rubio delivered a warning to Panama that unless the government moved immediately to eliminate China’s presence at the Panama Canal, the US would act to do so.
Migration, though, was the main issue of the day, as it will be for the next stops on Rubio’s five-nation Central American tour of Costa Rica, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic after Panama and El Salvador.
His tour is taking place at a time of turmoil in Washington over the status of the government’s main foreign development agency.
Trump’s administration prioritizes stopping people from making the journey to the United States and has worked with regional countries to boost immigration enforcement on their borders as well as to accept deportees from the United States.
The agreement Rubio described for El Salvador to accept foreign nationals arrested in the United States for violating US immigration laws is known as a “safe third country” agreement. Officials have suggested this might be an option for Venezuelan gang members convicted of crimes in the United States should Venezuela refuse to accept them, but Rubio said Bukele’s offer was for detainees of any nationality.
Rubio said Bukele then went further and said his country was willing to accept and to jail US citizens or legal residents convicted of and imprisoned for violent crimes.
Human rights activists have warned that El Salvador lacks a consistent policy for the treatment of asylum seekers and refugees and that such an agreement might not be limited to violent criminals.
Manuel Flores, the secretary general of the leftist opposition party Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, criticized the “safe third country” plan, saying it would signal that the region is Washington’s “backyard to dump the garbage.”
After meeting with Bukele, Rubio signed a memorandum of understanding with his Salvadoran counterpart to advance US-El Salvador civil nuclear cooperation. The document could lead to a more formal deal on cooperation in nuclear power and medicine that the US has with numerous countries.
While Rubio was out of the US, staffers of the US Agency for International Development were instructed Monday to stay out of the agency’s Washington headquarters after Musk announced Trump had agreed with him to shut the agency.
Thousands of USAID employees already had been laid off and programs shut down. Rubio told reporters in San Salvador that he was now the acting administrator of USAID but had delegated that authority so he would not be running its day-to-day operations.
The change means that USAID is no longer an independent government agency as it had been for decades — although its new status will likely be challenged in court — and will be run out of the State Department by department officials.
In his remarks, Rubio stressed that some and perhaps many USAID programs would continue in the new configuration but that the switch was necessary because the agency had become unaccountable to the executive branch and Congress.
